1st Posting from Home, Malaysia

The alley by the 譚公爺 Temple in Tapah, Aug 5th.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve been back home. Things seem to be settling fine with a few ‘oooh’s and ‘ahhhhh?’s and a few minor glitches. It’s nice to be with the family again until they suggested the prospects of introducing me to a "husband". I plan to ignore that for as long as I can. Meanwhile, here’re some pics that I took on our week-long Penang-Taiping-Cameron road trip.

Batang, Aug 5th.

Batang, Aug 5th.

Sunrise in Taiping, Aug 6th.

Before the rain at Cameron Highland, August 8th

Am Rolling it Down Now: See You at the Other Side

The crowd gathered at dusk for the fireworks spectacle on Canada Day.

Having to work 2 jobs can be a pain in the behind:

• You commute more often than the regular 9-to-5-ers. Your are always rushing from one location to the next. The only time you get to eat lunch is when you’re riding the subway.
• You have more bosses to answer to and therefore, by definition, more crap to deal with.
• Occasionally, you need to sacrifice your weekends to secure your wages.
• You have to sit through the annual performance evaluation twice.

But, the good parts of working 2 jobs are:

• You could take vacation-time off at one place to go work at the other place to earn extra wages.
• You get to have 2 farewell parties, 2 goodbye cards signed by everyone and 2 goodbye presents.
• You get to have 2 sources of professional references when you look for a new job.
• You leave with contacts of co-workers who have become your friends and/or your Facebook friends at both places.

Things I shall miss most in Toronto:

• It goes without saying, my friends.
• The year-long non-stop arts and cultural scenes.
• The Toronto Public Library.
• The convenience of the TTC even though heaps of people complain about its failing services.
• Spring and fall.
• Camping out at the deck during the summer nights when my room is smothering hot!
• The Canadian currency.
• And many more :)

Many thanks to Monica and Sylvia for inviting me out to join them for the event, Jul 1st :)

Mini Chapter with the Customer: Ticket Donation

A customer walked-in to our counter today and asked for a tax receipt for the tickets that he’d supposedly donated...

Customer: I wasn’t able to attend this show (on April 6th), I’ve donated the tickets back to you and would like to get a tax receipt for my donation.
Me: Alright, please hold on for a moment while I take a look at your account.

I logged into the his account and found a comment left by a co-worker who had previously helped him with his ticket donation. The comment stated that he had called on April 26th, 20 days after the performance, and had asked for his unused tickets to be donated for a tax receipt in return. Before I go on further, here’s a point-form explanation on how ticket donations work:

• You have to be a subscriber (this customer is one, so that’s a good sign).
• As all sales are final, your ticket(s) cannot be refunded. However, if you are unable to attend a performance, you have the option of donating your ticket(s) back to our organization. We would then release your seat(s) to be re-sold to the general public, by which you would be issued a tax receipt for regardless of the outcome of the re-sale.
• Ticket donations can be arranged up until 48 hours before the start of the performance (however, there have been cases where we allowed customers to donate their tickets up until minutes before the show starts. This just goes to show how accommodating and empathetic we are).
• Ticket donations cannot be arranged after the performance has ended (as this would be no different from giving someone an expired ‘all you can eat for free’ coupon at the Sheraton).
• All of the above information (except for the ones in parentheses) are written in a more formal and polite tone, printed in black and white under the Important Subscriber Information section located in the middle-page-spread of our Subscriber Handbook, which all subscribers receive in a package together with their season tickets and free gift coupons in their mail. These information are also posted on our website.

My co-worker’s comment also mentioned that the customer had made him called our manager to arrange for the ticket donation since he (my co-worker) did not have the authority to do so, BY WHICH our manager replied with an unshakable, definite ‘NO’ due to an obvious reason - he was donating us tickets to a performance that has ended 20 days ago. Our manager was kind enough to offer him missed-performance-replacement tickets to one of the remaining shows of the season, but he didn’t take the offer. Furthermore, he walked into our Customer Service Centre months after he made that call, lied to me that he’d donated his tickets and asked for a tax receipt as if it was all legitimated, which was clearly not the case.

Me: Thank you for waiting. I believe that you called us sometime in April after your performance has ended to arrange for the ticket donation?
Customer: That’s right.
Me: Thank you. You must have been informed then that ticket donations could not be arranged after the performance has ended because you would be donating tickets that could no longer be used.
Customer: No, nobody told me that.
Me: (Li-ar~) There is a note left in your account by my co-worker who helped you over the phone in April. He contacted our manager to see if we could find a way to arrange the ticket donation for you, but it wasn’t possible. As a result, we offered you the option of a missed-performance-replacement.
Customer: You can tell your co-worker, I told him that I didn’t want any replacement.
Me: Yes, he had written that down in the comment. Unfortunately, you had not donated your tickets. Ticket donations must be arranged in advance before the start of the show and we cannot process ticket donations for past performances. I regret to inform you that we cannot issue you a tax receipt for these tickets.
Customer: Tell me, how else could I have gotten the tax receipt since I didn’t attend the show.
Me: You would need to call us by latest, 48 hours prior to the performance, to arrange for the ticket donation. We do need a window period to re-sell the tickets.
Customer: But I was in Florida 2 days before the show and my wife and I didn’t know if we would be attending it. I thought I made that very clear over the phone.
Me: (Buddy, I’m not your mom. T’s your problem for double booking your vacation with your performance and, on top of that, being indecisive with your schedule and unwise with your money. Worst of all, you tried to make it look like this was my fault. I'd smack you at your behind and barred you from supper if I were your mom!) I regret to inform you that ticket donations can only be arranged before the start of the performance. After the performance, the tickets carry no value and therefore could not be accepted as a donation.
Customer: Are you giving me my tax receipt or not.
Me: (Dude, you cannot get a tax receipt without making a valid donation prior, that would be FRAUD-ulent) I'm afraid that it cannot be done.

He grabbed his tickets and charged right out of the door.

I hate to have customers leaving us in an unpleasant state, but in cases like this when the line is crossed, one has to be as firm and diplomatic as one can. Not all customers are ‘always right,’ some of them can be boldly unreasonable in order to get what they want.

The End of the Toronto Chapter

Christie Park, Jun 11th.


Submitted one of my resignations yesterday.
Submitted the other resignation today.

Leaving Toronto in 35 days.

Mini Chapter with the Customer: A Pretty Name!

I was helping a customer over the phone today with her tickets, trying my best to find her the best available seats in the hall which was challenging with a close to sold-out show. Towards the end of her phone call, she asked for my name...

Customer: What is your name?
Me: Siew Ling.
Customer: What?
Me: 'See-you-ling.'
Customer: I'm having a hard time hearing you, spell it!
Me: S-I-E-W-L...
Customer: No, I want you to spell me your name!
Me: S-I-E...
Customer: You're not understanding me here, I want you to SPELL me YOUR name!
Me: That is my name ma'am, but I never got to finish spelling it.
Customer: Oh. I meant your first name!
Me: That is my first name. Allow me to finish. It's S-I-E-W-L-I-N-G.
[Akward silence]
Customer: Well, you have a pretty name.
Me: (T's too late lady, too late.) Thanks.

"You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely."

- Ogden Nash

"Age is a very high price to pay for maturity."

- Tom Stoppard

Events that took place on this day in the previous years, give or take a couple of days
2011 - The world still wonders if Osama bin Laden is really dead
2010 - Vets flocked to the Guelf of Mexico to rescue animals endangered by the oil spill
2009 - South Africa's 'Bang Bang Club' in production for film
2008 - Burmese government responded indifferently towards foreignaid for Cyclone Nargis aftermath
2008 - Women's groups in Malaysia reacted angrily towards proposed government restrictions on women travelling abroad on their own.
2007 - National Party wins the Scottish general election and becomes the largest party in the Parliament for the first time.
2006 - Picasso's portrait of his lover, Dora Maar, was sold at an auction at Sotheby's in New York for 95.2 million dollars.
2006 - Vatican excommunicates 2 bishops from China
2005 - Bill C-38, the Legal Marriage Act to legalized same sex marriage, passes its second reading in the Canadian Parliament
2005 - Civil liberties groups attack the Malaysian government plan to obtain fingerprint, palm print and foot print of new born babies.
2004 - Taiwan passes a bill mandating that official documents in Chinese be written from left to right instead of right to left.
2003 - SARS epidemic - virus lifespan detected
2002 - An EAS Airlines BAC 1-11-500 crashes in a suburb of Kano, Nigeria shortly after takeoff killing more than 148 people.
2001 - Tom Cruise sues wrestler for gay 'slur'
2000 - Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London
1999 - The first known examples of writing may have been unearthed at an archaeological dig in Pakistan.
1998 - David Beckham changed his hairstyle and grew a beard.
1998 - Kenny Rogers launches 1st online casino
1997 - (Give or take a couple of days) The Comet Hale-Bopp spotted visible to the naked eye in the Western Sky
1996 - ACDC had a concert at Festhalle, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1995 - Tom Petty featured on the cover page of the Rolling Stone
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed a peace accord on Palestine's autonomy for granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
1993 - UNOSOM II assumes the Somalian duties of the dissolved UNITAF
1992 - LA Mayor Bradley signalled the official end of the Los Angeles Riots.
1991 - Baby Baby by Amy Grant was still the #1 hit song on the US charts
1990 - Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1989 - The Canadian Supreme Court declared that sexual harassment is a form of discrimination.
1988 - PEPCON disaster in Henderson, Nevada
1987 - South Africa featured at the front page of TIME Magazine.
1986 - President Babrak Karmal resigns as party leader of Afghanistan
1985 - The 19-year cycle lunar eclipse was sighted over the Philippine's night sky
1984 - I was born

Tim Burton Exhibit

Compliments to the curators and organizers:
A job well done with depicting the director's artistic progression in his film making career while keeping a strong emphasis on his idiosyncratic styles - the grin, frequent employment of Johnny Depp and stop motion animation techniques...etc.

The not-so-great part:
The $35 admission fee is too steep for the size of the exhibit, which is divided into approximately 10 sections and has an average viewing time of 45 minutes/person. It is as compact as it could get. Granted that the Tim Burton name is a brand/pop-art cultural representation by itself, it is still very much overpriced for a glimpse at a few of Burton’s learning pieces, art works, scribbled notes, film props and synopsis as well as less than a dozen sculptures by Rick Heinrichs. A lot more could have been shown given the repertoire of Burton's works but the organizers probably ran out of space.

Top 4 Tim Burton’s film moments (none of which were illustrated in the exhibit):
(1) Nightmare before Christmas - Kidnap Mr. Sandy (Santa) Claus musical scene
(2) Big Fish - the concept of a fish that cannot be caught as it shows itself in other forms other than a fish
(3) Beatle Juice - dinner over Banana Boat song scene
(4) Batman Returns - Suicidal penguins strapped onto candy-cane coloured explosives scene

What's yours?

April is Daffodil Month

The Canadian Cancer Society is fundraising again during this time of the year. Instead of going full frontal with live daffodil sales, which had been the tradition for the past 50 over years, the organization has adopted the Remembrance Day poppies approach and are selling daffodil pins, which are more practical for outreach in terms of cost efficiency, easy transportation and flower longevity. These plastic flowers are more likely to last a month long without wilting.

Since we inhabit a somewhat conspicuous consumerist society, at least according to people like Bourdieu and Baudrillard, please conspicuously support the fight against cancer and help promote cancer awareness by wearing a daffodil pin for the people you know whose lives have been/were touched by cancer. Here's to my aunt whom I’ve never met who had lost her battle to leukemia while she was in her thirties and to my grandfather who died from metastasized colon cancer. The last but not least, to my grandmother who followed him a few years after.

Earthquake & Tsunami Survivors, 頑張って!

For the past week and a half, I’ve woken up to news updates, transmitted through my radio alarm clock, reporting on the aftermath of the 9.0 earthquake that hit Japan followed by the tsunami, followed by the nuclear plant meltdown. It felt bizarre and surreal when I looked at the 'before' and 'after' satellite images of the disaster zones that NY Times had juxtaposed/pieced together.

At times like these, I loathe myself for having forgotten to take with me the contacts of my Japanese home-stay family, the Sugayas, when I left home for school back in 2004. I visited home briefly in 2006 and 2007 and both times, I am ashamed to say, that I have forgotten yet again. I wasn’t able to locate their names on the ICRC website. However, since they reside in Tokyo, which was spared from the catastrophe that crashed the North Eastern coast of Japan, I hope that they are all safe and well. That being said, I’m keeping all fingers crossed that they did not relocate anywhere nearer to the disaster zones.

The closest that I could come to in delivering my concerns is through providing relief donation aid. Google has set up a CRISIS RESPONSE PAGE where you can make online donations. All received funds will be sent to the Japanese Red Cross Society which will then be distributed directly to the affected areas. Donate, if you can.

Mini Chapter with the Customer: Check Your Tickets

A customer arrived at a 7:30pm show half an hour late today. The chapter unfolds...

Customer: Your show started a half hour earlier. This is unacceptable.
Me: I'm pretty sure that it was scheduled at 7:30pm even before the tickets went on sale.
Customer: I don't believe you. Nobody told me that.
Me: The date and show time are printed on your ticket sir.
[Customer checks his ticket]
Customer: Listen, I'm a REGULAR, all your shows always start at 8pm. You expect me to check my tickets every time I buy them?
Me: (As a matter of fact, I ABSOLUTELY DO. It is a good consumer habit to check the product/service that you've purchased together with the receipt to make sure that you've bought the right thing for the consented price. I'm sure that most of the crowd who showed up on-time did. Furthermore, doesn't it makes perfect sense to check your lottery ticket when the winning combination is released, or your plane ticket before you head off to the airport, or your buy-1-get-1-free coupon to make sure that it's still valid before you go shopping for 2 items instead of 1?) For the past few years, we've played shows at 1:30pm, 2pm, 3pm, 3:30pm, 6:30pm, 7pm, 7:30pm, 8pm and 10:30pm. It is not something new that we've just implemented. I apologize for your distress.
Customer: Let me tell you how all this has spoilt the musical experience that I've been looking forward to tonight. GOODNIGHT!
Me: (Come back again with a blunder conjured up by your lack of common sense while trying to pin the blame on my donkey's tail and watch me kick your unicorn's behind by stating the obviously obvious.) Goodnight.