It's about presentation

French cuisine enjoys an admirable status among the world cuisines, and one of the main strong points is their efforts in presenting the foods and setting the table. The picture above was taken from our recent trip to a restaurant. I would have never thought of using anise for table decoration.

The presentation spirit is even present in the household. Below are some of the art works from my FIL.

President's automatic email reply

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is having vacation from now on until 21 August. How nice, he gets to go like everyone else. I thought president will work 7/7 the whole year. Even if they take a short break, it will be just for a couple of days, but he is taking always a month off. I presume he has set up the automatic email reply function?

From: Nicolas.Sarkozy@gouv.fr

I'm out of the office from 29 July to 21 August. I will be traveling around with my stunning wife. During this period, please contact the below persons or follow my wise advices:

1. For issue related to Europe - my close friend Angela Merkel
2. Issues related to Israel, Palestine, North Korea, Iran, Iraq - my new buddy Barack Obama
3. Strike - there will be no strike since everyone is on vacation in France
4. Shrinking purchasing power - Eat less and work more
5. Striking oil prices - practice health life style: use public transport, bicycle, work to your desire destinations
6. Retirement reform - it's done, retirement age will be increased to 65
7. Medical care reform - take good care of yourself, don't get sick
8. Youth alcohol and drug abuse - let them do it, they will grow up one day
9. Anti-France sentiment in China - Don't worry, I will handle it during my present for the Olympics opening ceremony, worst come to worst, I will charm the Chinese with my wife's songs
10. Others - refer to those still slaving in the government agencies

Sincerely, each time I send out an email to a group, there will have tons of automatic reply like this. I have never worked in an environment that around half of the workforce are on vacation. Vive la France!

Tour de France

Tour de France is an annual cycling tour event that holds the heart of the French. It starts usually in July and last for 3 weeks. Cyclists from all over the world come to France to bike around the whole France. It is the moment to witness the magnificent sceneries in France while the cyclists bike through mountains, villages and towns. It ended today in Paris.

Source

Here is the map showing the routes for Tour de France.

Source

My first encounter with Tour de France was when I visited France in 2002 and the family brought me to the Alpes mountains. Before the tour starts, there will be some parade from different companies who give up sample of their products. With the Malaysian "kiasu" spirit, I managed to collect many cheeses in cube form. I didn't eat cheese at that time so I gave all of them to my brother in law. He still remembered how strong I was when fighting with the crowd to get free gifts. :-)


While chatting about Tour de France, my carpool buddy asked whether there is "vélo" = bicycle in Malaysia. My first impression was that he was making fun of me. Of course Malaysia has bicycle, what was he thinking? He then explained to me that when people ask about vélo, they could be referring to the cycling tour, which was his case. Sincerely I know nothing about bicycle tour in Malaysia. Later one my FIL told me that there is Tour de Langkawi, he saw it on a brochure when he was visiting Langkawi. One thing is sure that Tour de Langkawi is not as big scale and as popular like Tour de France.

You might find treasure in you spam folder

A recruiter called me in the office while I was busying with my work. I told her to send me an email and we will set up an interview from there.

I waited for the email but nothing arrived in my mailbox. I thought she must be offended that I didn't have time to talk to her when she called.

I tried to contact her for the next three days. She was either in a meeting or was interviewing someone. Basically, she didn't call me back even though I left a message.

And then, she was on leave for a week.

While I thought I had lost this opportunity, I found her email in my spam folder, two weeks after she sent it. I replied. She finally called and we set up an interview.

An efficient spam guard, still long way to go.

My favorite dessert

Raspberry and strawberry tart
Prepared by my MIL
Ingredients fresh out from the garden

I have a darling MIL who pampers me with my favorite desserts each time we go visit the in-laws. This is one of them. I don't have a sweet tooth so this sourly and sweet combination suits me well.

Weekend activities

End of Friday, I decided to "faire du lard", meaning sitting and do nothing for the weekend. For some people, I might had wasted the time staying at home since the sun was shining outside, but one of my hobbies is to just lay down and read the whole day. Ended up I was doing the "menage", housework the whole Saturday while hubby took care of the cooking. Hubby laughed at me and said:"wow you are like a working Bee!"

Unlike me, hubby loves to do stuff during the weekend. He started his decoration project, and the result is very satisfying.

Cactus

Water plant

I like this purple color plant.

Crazy holiday session

These days the office is half empty as people are leaving for holidays. From 14 July onwards to 15 Aug, the peak summer session in France starts. My co-worker told me that usually they have to take at least 10 days off during summer. Thus, less traffic jams, more parking spots, but also less collaborators available at work.

I read on newspaper that around 40% of French could not afford to go for holidays this year, one main reasons being the infamous inflation. They have to stay at home or just visit around their family. Some choose to stay in camp sites instead of hotels to save some cost. Still, there are 60$ of French traveling around.

People like me who are doing internship or only started to work in a company do not have this kind of compulsory vacations. So, it is very hard to see people going and us staying. :-(

Prostitutes pay taxes too

Me and my carpool buddies were talking about how can some illegal immigrants managed to pay income taxes, and one of them told us this:

"What so amazing? Even prostitutes pay taxes!"

We looked at him like he was crazy.

He insisted that it was true. To prove that, he immediately called his wife to have the confirmation about this issue. His wife confirmed this as a fact, and he will research more and tell us what he found.

While waiting for his research finding, I found this article. It seems that prostitution is not illegal in France and they do pay taxes.

French national day

14 July was France national day to mark the commencement of the French revolution. Since France was never colonized, they don't celebrate Independence Day.

On 13 July, we went to watch a parade. It was a very small scale parade, with armies, marines and firefighters dressed up in their uniform. I was very surprised that the parade was not accompanied by any "pancaragam" or musical band performed by high school students. In Malaysia it would be the time for those bands to shine and show up on TV after countless rehearsal.

During the night we went to watch the firework show at a port. It was the best firework show I have seen so far. In France the show comes with musics. This year the theme was cinema music, so we got to watch the firework danced and played along dynamically with songs like "Pretty Woman", "Mission Impossible", "Big Blue", "Pulp Fiction"...The show lasted for 20 minutes. I saw on news that the one in Paris lasted for 35 minutes and it was so beautiful with the Eiffel Tower as background.

Firework show in Brittany

Firework show in Paris. Source

Primary school reunion: After 20 years

This afternoon we went to hubby's primary school, where he met his teachers and classmates, first time for some of them after 20 years.


I was very impressed. The teachers were aging and students had grown, but they greeted each other with blissfulness and warmness. Most teachers said they still recognize the faces of their students despite the fact that they have not seen each other for the longest time. They air kissed, shaked hands, dug out old memories, enjoyed lunch and caught up with each other.

Amazingly, some people didn't change at all. Even though I was not there when they were in the primary school, I could still recognize them from the photo. Some look older some look extremely young. Most importantly, there were at least 5 or 6 babies, strongly imply that these people are not young anymore.

I wonder how I would react if I was going to bump into some primary schoolmates. These days I found some high school and Uni mates on Facebook, and many have either wedding or baby as their profile photo. With the power of Facebook, I'm sure some old school mates will pop up.

French first lady renounced her Italian citizenship

Source


French first lady Carla Bruni renounced her Italian citizenship in order to obtain the French citizenship. Wow. As a citizen of Europe she could have keep it and still be able to live in France.

A little backgroup:
French first lady, Carla Bruni, is an Italian singer and composer and she used to be a supermodel. She got married to the French president in February 2008 after only 3 months of courting.

Apparently her artist life continues as she will release her new album "Comme si de rien n'etait" (As if nothing had happened) on 11 July. Fans can login to her website to listen to the 14 tracks for free.

Well I don't know which country has a first lady who used to a supermodel, and I'm curious as how well she sings. I asked my carpool buddies whether they are going to support their first lady, as all the sales will go to the charity. Their answers were a plain "no" as they have no interest on their first lady's affair. Maybe she will gain some support from the die hard supporters of the president.

Horror movie: Rec

We watched this movie two days ago and it was scary to dead. It is in Spanish. I would recommend it to anyone who love horror movie.

Abalone bah kut teh

Photo source
My siblings treated my parents abalone bah kut teh for Fathers' day celebration. Well, several years ago this is unheard of but recently all kind of innovative ingredients have been added to bah kut teh especially in the Klang area. Apparently one bowl of this could be sold at RM40.


This got me thinking, what is actually abalone? In Chinese it is called "bao yu" and "yu" = fish, so I thought it was one kind of fish. But I was wrong, according to wikipedia, abalone are a group of shellfish or marine snail.


Just like shark fin soup, abalone is considered one kind of delicacy or symbol of luxury and usually served during a banquet dinner.

Well I just hope that the increase consummation of abalone will be compensated by increase surprise (abalone farming) and will not endanger their existence. I sincerely hope it would not be the next victim of human ignorance just like what happened to the sharks.

They are the lucky one

Last Friday on TV, a bunch of high school students where excited over the fact that they got their "bac", an high school diploma in France equivalent to Malaysia's SPM or SAT in US. They called their parents and cried over the good news. All because they passed their "SPM".

I was like, why? Why is that a big deal to pass a high school diploma? I would jump all over if I got 10 A out of 10 subjects and would had called my family, but jumping up and down just because you "passed"? Unbelievable.

But later I discovered that it is indeed something to cheer about. In France when you get your bac, it symbolizes a big cornerstone in your life: You are finally an adult, you can choose the courses you like to study, you can move out and start your own life, and finally finishing the boring high school.

They are the lucky one. Once they got their bac, they can almost guarantee a seat in the University. Don't need to cry over not getting 10A, get yourself killed bcos you can't enter certain University, or feel ashame bcos your neighbor get more As than you.

Some students already got accepted to private school through these school entrance examinations with condition that they got their bac. Those who want to go to medical school, law school, engineering school, will have their place. The difference being, the system let a bunch of people get into the University, but only certain students will be able to pass through all the exams and graduate at bachelor or master level. It is a system that allow you to pursue your dream, if you are capable. So, if you want to be a doctor, you can get in first year medical school, but you need to fight with hundreds of others for a limited spot in the consequence years. Some go all the way to become a doctor, some drop out and choose something else.

Hearing the explanation, I was wondering why people bother to study hard for this high school exam if only "passed" will get them through their tertiary education? The answer being, for some prestiges private school, they do take into considerations the grades you got from bac. So for students who aim to go to these schools, they need to pay the price by studying harder than others.

I like this system. I don't aim high at prestige school, so I can study just be able to pass the bac, and choose courses I like and study for interest.

Of course this raises another question: If anyone can enter University, will the degree still as valuable after graduation? Another way of saying, what market value do you have compare to a bunch of other who have the same qualification?

Goodbye great aunt

On the right hand side: My great aunt


I called my mother Saturday to talk about the surprise birthday party my siblings threw her, Sunday I had to call her again as my sister informed me that our great aunt passed away, aged 85. How atmosphere could be changed so dramatically in such a short time.

My great aunt is actually my mother's cousin but she was very very closed to us. She bears 10 children and worked her whole life in a coffee plantation. Our childhood memory is fulled of happy moment with her, as she was a loving lady that treat everyone with warmest and kindness. We love to treasure in her fruits farm looking for rambutan, mango, pamelo, durian, star fruit and guava. Our family didn't have to buy any pamelo as she would kindly offer us some during any big Chinese festival.

In her old days, she traveled a lot to China and was bravely inviting my mother to visit me when I was living in USA. Unfortunately, before she had the chance, her health condition deteriorated, mostly she couldn't walk too far due to the legs pain. She left in peace yesterday without much struggle, which is considered "having lived a great life" in the Chinese believe. Her family grows to almost 100 members so I can foresee the conviviality in her funeral.

One of the hardness of living in overseas is that each time I go home, I could no longer see some people who used to be in my life. A childhood friend died a few months ago. A closed family member is laying on hospital, discovered on bed one morning and could never open his eyes. He got stroke and doctor diagnosed that he is just waiting for the end. Seeing people left and down one by one, I couldn't resist to think what if one day it was my parents turn? Would I be able to even say goodbye?

Highway Scenery

Since I'm carpooling, I don't have to drive everyday. In the morning I'm usually sleepy but in the evening, I got the chance to sightseeing around the country side.

This region has a lot of farming activities, so the landscape of both side of the highway are very green. I sometimes stick to the car window and quietly watching the cows resting in the field or a big scale of green plantation. When approaching the city I work, there is a breathtaking view: houses spread among hills and the surrounding is just natural green. Very refreshing.

Last two weeks there were some road works on the highway so we had to make some detours. We drove past small villages with very cute Brittany style houses and most of the small towns are very flowery. I was just seeing extended postcard scenery, on live.

These photos here are just meant to give you some ideas on the highway scenery I pass by everyday but the effect is far from justified the actual beauty. Didn't have a chance to capture those lucky cows sunbathing and enjoying the summer atmosphere. :-)

Angelina Jolie will give birth in France

Source

So the famous Angelia Jolie is going to give birth of her twins in France. She, Brad Pitt and their 4 children are enjoying their time in Nice, in an area facing forest and vineyard. She has admitted to a local clinic until the due date in August.

I wonder why she chooses France to have the babies, and whether she is entitled to enjoy the free medical system. Of course she is rich enough that she won't mind paying, but just curious whether any foreigner who seeks medical services in France could enjoy the free system. Also, will her twins automatically become French citizen and subsequently European citizen?

Dog surfing

Saw this on Monday's newspaper in the "weird thing can happen" section. I found it so cute, these dogs can really surf! It is a competition in San Diego, where they had categories for small dog, big dog and dog and human for this exciting event. I wish I was there to witness this!

Speed camera

Warning sign board for speed camera


During my first year in France, hubby gradually introduced me some of the French traffic signs. Among them there are some quite specific to this country, for example "priority to right", where you need to give way to any vehicle coming out from your right hand side. Another one that I found weird is the warning signboard for speed camera. Isn't it just wonderful that they tell you where the speed camera is situated? You just have to slow down and respect the speed limit when you see the signboard and drive at your own speed limit after you pass the camera. Beside, you can check out the fixed radars (speed camera) and flexible radars (police with camera) on the local newspaper everyday.
Speed camera with ASDL connection

Apparently this system works well as the average speed limit of French driver has dropped significantly. The camera takes a photo of any vehicle that passes the speed limit, and send the photo through ADSL connection to the transportation center which eventually find out who is the owner of the vehicle and then send out the fine. The fine rate depends on the speed bypass. If you drive 50km/h more than the allowed speed, they can confiscated your car. Wow, now this is serious.

Since I drive quite frequently now, I started to jot down the location of these fixed radars and my carpoolers have marked down several favorite spots for flexible radars (police). However, sometime you could pass one without realizing it when big trucks are driving on the right hand side thus blocking the signboard. It happened to me several times when I was not familiar with the road, so I pray hard these days that I won't receive any saman (fine in Malay) or PV (fine in French).

Dessert

French dessert: chou = cabbage


This was the birthday cake we had yesterday. Before the party I heard that the dessert of the night would be something called "chou" = cabbage in English. I told myself that the French are so creative that they managed to make a dessert out of cabbage and was expecting to see something green. Then I discovered this is "chou", that has nothing to do with cabbage. I had it before but just couldn't recall the name. People told me that there is one kind of dessert that is named "religieuse" = religious but it has nothing to do with religion.

One of hubby favorite desserts: religieus = religious


I like fruit tarts but don't appreciate desserts that are coated with sugar or caramel or cream. For me, after eating a heavy meal, I prefer to eat something digestive so usually I take some fruits. Luckily hubby doesn't have sweet tooth too so I hardly have to prepare any dessert for him. :-)

Ha Ha Ha

I was reading a blog of a French lived in China and one of his remarks was just excellent. He observed that Chinese (in China) like to laugh and those laughs are actually quite fake. Here is an extract from his post:

"Au telephone en decrochant " ah c est toi Wang ? HA HA HA- tu vas bien ? AH HA HA , tu veux me voire aujourd hui HA HA HA je peux pas AH HA HA"

Translation: (In picking up the phone) Ah is it you Wong? HA HA HA - how are you doing? HA HA HA, you want to see me today? HA HA HA but I don't want AH HA HA

"Pendant le repas , accompagnes chacune de tes phrases par un "HA HA HA", n'hesite pas a etre tres tres bruyant."

Translation: During the meal, follow each of your sentence by a HA HA HA, do not hesitate to be very loud."

You can read his entire post here.

I found his observation funny but at the same time a bit shock. Of course I don't know a lot of Chinese from China, but out of the 10 that I know, only one laugh all the time but not as frequent as illustrated in his examples. And that just bcos this friend has a cheerful personality.

If a French decides to follow this rule and laugh HA HA HA at the end of every sentence, people might think that he is xiao (crazy in Hokkien). Ha Ha Ha.

Meet Coco, a cock who just got his life saved

His name is Coco.

He is 6 months old.

His owner was ordered to kill him because he sang during the night, causing a neighbor filled complaint to the local court.

But he is saved now, as this neighbor didn't show up in the court, and the owner managed to get many other neighbors to sign a petition against the previous decision.

Congrats Coco! You should have the right to sing whenever you want. :-)

One year in our apartment

Time flies and it has been one year we live in this apartment. We are very with it especially the green surrounding.


We got to celebrate it with or new gadget: the induction stove. Thanks to all the friends and family who had contributed to our wedding fund which we used to finance this new purchase.

Summer activities

In France, almost every city and town would host a music festival marking the beginning of summer season. Artists or groups performed on the street and people got to enjoy a jubilant night out.

This festival coincided with the surprise fathers' day celebration we threw for my FIL. My MIL requested to have a tour for the music festival with him and there was a group playing just opposite to the restaurant we wanted to take him. While they were enjoying the jazz group, we popped up. He was so touched and was having a big smile the whole night. Everyone was very happy with the yummy food, and the highlight of the night was this group playing some nice Brittany musics.


In the west region, Hortensia could be seen in every corner during summer.


We can finally eating on the terrace and having some bbq.


Having a walk on the beach.


First time I saw this. The store is recommending 60 different erotic picks for summer. Almost every book has a nake body on the cover.


One colleague told me that May and June usually see a peak in birthrate in France. I won't be surprised after seeing this kind of stimulator.


Have a nice summer everyone!

Addicted to machine tomato soup

There is a vending machine on each floor in my company. It offers variety of coffee and tea choices, but there is one that I have never seen anyone trying: the tomato soup.

One day during the coffee break, I asked why nobody is taking it, and one of the responses was that people who took it already dead. :-) I built up the courage to try it once, and since then I'm hooked! It taste so good, the machine even manages to spread some herbs on it. I can have one in the morning as breakfast and it warms up the stomach. Some colleagues felt weird that I take soup in the morning, as soup is not very present in some French families and certain people only take soup during winter.

While some colleagues got addicted to their coffee, I'm addicted to the tomato soup.

Well, I didn't try to be different on purpose. :-)

You know your day started bad when

two cars parked in front of your garage and you can turn neither left or right. Yes you could go straight and hit the apartment in front of you.

Well that was what I discovered this morning.

The road in front of our garage is a fire lane. By laws nobody could park there.

Yet, people would park along the lane as parking spots are limited in this area.

We informed the guardian, we placed parking sticker, we put notices.

Situation improved but there are some stubborn regulars still decided to violate the laws when they couldn't find any convenience spot nearby.

Result: we couldn't got out of the garage, so we canceled our movie plan, parked the car some where else and keep checking back. Sometimes we honked and the whole neighborhood would throw us ugly glances, but at 7:35 in the morning we can simply do nothing.

I didn't believe we couldn't find a solution, even though the guardian said the police won't come and he can't do nothing.

So I wrote an email to the Town Hall. A week after a policeman called us and promise to interfere if this happens again. I got his number keyed into my cellphone.

So this morning we called the police and gave him the license plates. He checked through his database and called the car owners, but he couldn't reached any.

He came with his coworker, and they started to jot down the features of the cars before towing them away. Each owner will have a fine of 90 euros to pay.

The guardian arrived and commented that if the police do this this time, they would need to patrol the place everyday. If not, they will be complained and they will be the one that are guilty. I didn't quite get the logic, but apparently the guardian was not happy.

Eventually the guardian managed to identify one of the owners and asked her to move her car away. The second owner was not that lucky. Apparently he/she has to pay the fine plus the towing fees.

Hilarious, you should see the reaction of the owner. She came with a gloomy face, and the first thing she said was:"you know during the night spots are always taken." We were stunned at her reaction. No apologize, not feeling guilty.

I left immediately after as this has cost me one hour and I still have 80 minutes of roads ahead of me.

Later, I found out that the woman is planning to complaint to the Town Hall, logic being the police has no right to fine her.

I was extremely surprised at people's reaction over this issue. They are the one at fault, yet they are complaining. Once this woman (or her husband) threw the parking sticky in front of our garage after parking illegally. Then a man was extremely unhappy on one Saturday afternoon that we woke him up (by honking) to move his car as he has to work during the midnight. And now this woman is complaining that the police has no right to fine her? Wow.

Induction stove, finally!

Beside gas and electrical stove, you can actually have induction stove.

I didn't know about this before coming to France. Hubby was so into it so we decided that our wedding fund contributed by family and friends would be used to upgrade our kitchen stove, from gas to induction.

As far as I understand, this kind of heating (flameless) uses magnetic power, where all pans and pots would need to have bottom equipped with magnet (another expenses to consider). It will only heat when it senses the magnet and will be off immediately the pan is off the stove. Therefore, if you put your hand there, nothing is going to happen, safe for children. Beside, it only consume half as much electricity compared to an electric stove. Most importantly, it could be cleaned easily.

The stove will only arrive in 2-3 weeks so we are crossing our fingers for the first induction cooking!

10 years old kids on strike against bad canteen food

Some parents discovered a notice tucked inside their children's exercise book:"We are organizing a strike to protest against the canteen. If you agree to let your child participate, please bring in your own lunch."

So, kids at 10 years old went on strike. Even though there was only 3 of them bringing in their own lunch, they managed to send an effective message to their canteen operator that they are not satisfied with the food and strongly requested some improvement.

Source

I'm not against strike and I think it is a nice to teach children to speak their mind. The strike was done in a peaceful way: they didn't stop students who still wanted to buy from canteen from doing it; they didn't destroy the canteen's properties and they let the canteen workers carried on with their job. These culture should be preserved.

I just hope that the adult protectors would do the same and won't go block public transport and want everyone to suffer with them, this for me is just pure egoism.

Time to read some French novels

I have yet to finish reading a French novel. I started some but they were not interesting enough or too difficult for me to finish. In fact, I only started reading English novel when I was in US, when I learnt enough vocabularies.

So, it's time to go through the pain again: read ten lines and have to check dictionary for at least 40% of the words. But no pain no gain right? Another reason that just keep pushing me away from French novel is the usage of past simple tense. While reading I like to analyze how a sentence is structured. Since I have never learnt past simple tense (some professors said it is seldom used in conversation), sentences become unfamiliar compared to those in newspapers.

Another channel is by reading blogs and forum, which usually have topics that interested me. I realized that I picked up some vocabularies here and there when reading someone's blog or forum (in English), but less effective when reading newspapers, as they sometimes use fancy words that you won't see them again.

I joined a forum in French a while back but was disappointed at the quality of written French. Some people just don't bother to put the French accent, respect the punctuation rules or simply use short form for a lot of words. Worst they included profanity which really turned me off. I read some French blogs from time to time but to find someone who write correctly as compared to some English blogs I read is just too difficult.

If you happen to know of French blogs who use quality written French please let me. :-)

Malaysian with 25 children granted by court to take his fourth wife

He is 49 years old.
He has 25 children.
He has three wives.
He earns RM20k (around 4k euros) a month as property negotiator.
All his wives agree on him taking a fourth wife.

Fact: Muslim men can take up to four wives in Malaysia if the Shariah court believes they can provide financial and emotional care for all their spouses and children. But it is uncommon for Malaysian men to take more than one or two wives.

For full article read here.

I don't know anyone who takes more than a wife legally. I wonder whether any rich man who could show the financial ability could get a permission to take 4 wives. I couldn't understand who his wives are willing to share him with another women. What would his children think? Are they going to do the same when they grow up?

Question to hubby: Would you take 4 wives if you were rich?
Answer: No, one is already required a lot of work. :-)

Good answer.

Viva Eurocup 2008!

While I'm not a fun of football, I really don't mind seeing people going home earlier to watch the games. Less traffic jam! How cool is it.

How I regret saying these...

We were in a house warming party and from time to time I managed to clip into the conversations. At some point I made a comment of the French people and I immediately regretted it, but the damage was done. For whatever reasons my friends here have never reproached me on my criticism towards this country. They have been extremely patient and tolerable with me.

I said something like that:"The French just like to wait for things dropping from the sky."

I have an impression that in France, when a person or a group is having problems, they expect the government to do something. Isn't it too familiar with certain society in Malaysia? I remember vividly how Dr Mahathir (former Malaysia Prime Minister) was crying over certain bumiputeras (certain ethnic groups who enjoy privileges over others) who kept asking him for more governmental contracts even though he told them to look out for business themselves. He wanted to lift the crutches which have handicapped some citizens and was causing them to rely too much on the government. I felt sad for this kind of mentality. Certainly government can't solve everyone's problem.

But who am I to judge this country who has thousand years of history compared to a mere 50 years old Malaysia? It might sound absurd to me but a culture is formed overtime and over many generations. At least the French have the right to express themselves and go on strike. This is definitely an area where we Malaysians have to fight for and learn from France.

I will try not to bitch about France in the future but more into discover the positive side of this romantic country. Please bear with me.

3 years in France!

3 years ago we moved from Austin to France. It had been three very important years with many milestone in my life:

- Pick up French and can now get things done without hubby. Sure there are still rooms for improvement and long way to go before I can speak and write eloquently, but if I continue to live in this country it will come along I presume.

- Got married to someone who likes me as I'm.

- Finally set one foot in the working world.

- Traveled with my family in France and part of Europe

- Received and shared the Malaysian cultures with some of the friends

- Learnt to drive with a manual car on the left hand side. Overcame the fear of driving in France.

- eventually set up a website and several blogs and met friends in the cyber space.

- gradually seeing the good sides of socialism

- discovered plenty of good foods!

I would say the hardest years had gone and it is just a matter of time I will see France as my second home. Good luck to me!

Missing lunch buddies

Two months into my internship, I have yet found a lunch buddy. You know, someone you eat with everyday. I got so used to lunch buddies that I felt so bad eating alone. Now I gradually getting it and actually enjoy eating alone.

My lunch buddies during University time.


I have never faced this kind of awkward situation before. First day into the job, my manager couldn't have lunch with me so I had to go buy my own lunch. One week into the job, nobody invited me to join them for lunch. I didn't know what was wrong, and was very glad to share some lunch moment once a week with a group of friends. But still, eating with co-workers is very different compared to eating with friends.

I waited a while to build up the courage to actually invite some interns to go for lunch. I got rejected over reasons: already had lunch appointment with friends, eat at home, skip lunch, prefer to eat alone ... I decided to bring my own food as I couldn't stand eating sandwich everyday (for me a sandwich is not a meal) and I certainly do not like to eat in a restaurant alone.

A typical French baguette sandwich: sometimes I have to chew so much that my mouth turn sore.


While eating in the company kitchen, I met some people who like me do not have lunch buddies. We got known to eat other and finally made a trip to a restaurant. It turned out ok but it was hard to make a second appointment. One of the them do not want to spend money in restaurant.

Why doesn't France have economy rice store or hawker center? They don't even have a food court!


Slowly these people disappear from the cafeteria, I was found alone again. I used the time to read French newspaper to catch up with some reading and jotted down some vocabularies. The routine got broken as I was making friends with some Indians, but they have gone back to Indian so I'm all by myself.

This week, out of no way, the girl sitting in front of me invited me and my manager to join her for lunch. It didn't work as I had lunch plan already. Still, it is a good start.

I discussed this phenomenon with some friends and I realized that not all French are like that. Hubby was invited over lunch since the first day, and he always eat with his lunch buddies. From my observation, some French enjoy their privacy. One of my managers told me that she enjoys having lunch at home as she can just sit in the patio overlooking her garden. They can effort to eat at home as it is tolerated to spend one and a half hours over lunch.

So now, I eat once or twice with friends during the week, and eat in the company kitchen for the remaining afternoons. I met some people in the kitchen and we struck some nice conversations. In summer, I will probably picnic in the park across the street overlooking a tranquil lake.

Enjoy lunch at the patio, the French really know how to enjoy their life.


Living in France always teaches me different ways of doing things. Eating alone and catching up with some reading, why not?

French cuisine: Mouillettes & tartiflette

Bread dipped into half boiled egg. I love this but it was weird eating it during dinner. I would eat it as breakfast. But hell it is weird for the French that we eat noddles and rice for breakfast!

Tartiflette, lots of cheese and potatoes.