just minishorts.

I've almost resigned to the fact that some people are born insensitive and there's just no way to tell them that it's rude to be insensitive. Some of these would of course fight to the death for that oxymoron called 'freedom of speech', but I shall not talk about that issue for now.

After all, the things I share are usually very personal… because I want to remember them… some of these make me cringe, like the one I'm about to relate, but maybe somewhere along the way I've been quite rude to people of other faiths and beliefs as well, but pardon me. I've come to notice also that when confronted, people who're insensitive to other people's beliefs also get crazily anal when someone questions their own beliefs, so it becomes a neverending battle for the right to express an opinion.

But I've digressed and we shall talk about yee sang.

If you didn't know, the Chinese in South East Asia toss the raw fish salad during Chinese New Year for luck and prosperity. Some time along the years, it became a tradition for the yee sang to be served on the seventh day of Chinese New Year, a day that is generally recognized to be the day when Man was created by the goddess Nuwa. Hence, 'Yan Yat'.

That day, the group of us were of different ethnic groups. Some of them, surprise, surprise, did not know what Yee Sang was, not even after spending some 30 years in Malaysia. But never mind that, we thought it would be nice to bring our non-Chinese friends out to a restaurant to try the dish.

It wasn't that easy. The first, (let's call her K, for convenience's sake), was adverse to raw food–she'd never fancied sashimi or sushi, and when she heard the translation for yee sang to be 'Raw Fish Salad', she scowled.

I mean to say that she crunched her face up into an ugly mess, and went, 'Yuck. I hate raw fish. Blerk… disgusting. Yuck yuck yuck.'

My Malay friend raised a knowing eyebrow at me, and so I assured K, 'That's all right, we can go for vegetarian yee sang.'

K was still going on with the scowling and 'bleh-ing'. 'Disgusting lah, how can you eat things like that.'

You'd want to excuse people for being rude, you know, and I can't very well go and burn her house because she's rude, so we decided to persuade her the best we could… so after about 15 minutes of encouraging and assuring that the dish would not include any fish at all, she reluctantly agreed…

At the restaurant, we realized another friend (let's call her D), was did not know how to use chopsticks at all. When the Yee Sang came, she looked lost when we gave her a pair of chopsticks to use.

'But I've never used them in my life before.'

Her close friend said, 'D you must learn. Yee Sang must be tossed with chopsticks.'

'This is stupid. How can you use sticks to eat?' Then she sat there, refusing to take the chopsticks. Everyone was standing.

We told her she could use the fork, and then she went, 'Don't want lah. You guys have fun lah.'

We had to beg her to take the pair, and when finally she stood up, she looked so reluctant, I wished we didn't ask her out at all.

After tossing the salad, K said, 'Wow, it's amazing that something so ugly can taste so nice. Haha.'

I don't know what's worse, being ignorant, or being ignorant of being ignorant. You tell me.

So, it's been a week.

This year's angpau harvest hasn't been as good as the previous years… I was hoping to get myself a new camera with the money but on second thoughts, the cash would do better in a bank.

Oh wtf, I'm 25 and talking cash terms in angpau harvest? Stop stop stop.

This must seem so quirkily random to you right? I don't care. I'm still getting used to work.

CNY was good and bad at the same time. The makan times were all screwed up, we were eating like ALL THE TIME. So I gained fat (not weight, the weight remains the same, I just got flabby, because I haven't been to the gym in like, two weeks), and now I've got chunks of lard dribbling off the sides of my waist.

Just yesterday after dinner at Eric's, we were watching a show on Wah Lai Toi, and that bugger poked at the fats around my waist and said to his mom, 'Ma, ma you see this fei poh, hou sang yong hoh.'

Somebody please have the liberty of translating that line for me.

Oh goodness, I really like the new design, don't you? Muchas gracias to Ed for doing all this to me… I'm going to give him a little bit of my ang pau money… wait, I'll probably give him a good chunk of it. Whee…

Plus my host was so cool, the director came to my house personally to deliver a tin of Black Lychee Tea and chocolates!

I know, I know, I've got deadlines, but wait a minute. The sidebar, the original design had it on the left, and it was refreshing… then again, I thought it would be easier to navigate with it on the right. But really, I can't decide.

So, guys, right, or left?