Heston Blumenthal and Liu-lau-lau

Lucky Diners well fed in ‘once a lifetime experience’ at The Fat Duck…

So one of the tabloids in Melbourne recently screamed!


I remember this guy; his “trophy” food also looks very familiar. Yes; he came to cook specially for us. That was in 2012, when London was hosting the Olympics. My benefactor host flew us all the way to experience all these once-in-a-lifetime events! The whole Hampton Court was hired for the night-long joy of his friends – finest wines and cigars, the top entertainers in London and Heston Blumenthal! I was like the ‘Liu-lau-lau’ in that Chinese classic ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ [紅樓夢 ] – a country bumpkin in a Fantasy land, musically deaf and devoid of any appreciation of fine food and great wines.

Who is this Blumenthal? I didn’t even bother to find out, save to know that he was already then a celebrated chef in town. Everyone even got a copy of his book, duly autographed by the chef himself.

Now I know how much I have missed! One has to pay A$525 per fax to enjoy his food, excluding the cost of wines! Notwithstanding, the bookings are in thousands. But honestly, I just can’t recall what I have eaten, let alone how did the three candle-like meal taste that night.


What do you expect from a Liu-lau-lau?

The Roots of Prejudices

There were outcries from not only the Chinese community but also people who have moved beyond race and religion to condemn a minister who asked his community to boycott Chinese businesses. He says Chinese businessmen are behind the high prices of goods and services that we are seeing in Malaysia today. Of course, we know this is a load of rubbish; but politicians are politicians, they simply have to be more radical than others to crane their heads higher just to stay ahead of the peck, when Chinese bashing is now the fashion of the day. He has refused to apologise, except to say that he has been quoted out of context.


He is not alone, there are so many out there who have spoken, or are prepared to say, the same. Strange enough, though, is that the leader of the women's wing in MIC also decided to chip in to defend the minister.

 

I read somewhere earlier in an article written by a fellow Malaysian of Indian origin; he argues that everyone of us, whether we are conscious or not, is a racist. The examples that he has come up with to illustrate his contention are quite true. Every race has its behavioural patterns for one to generalise or stereo-type. But it doesn't mean one has to beat the hell out of the person who highlights them. Every culture has its strength and weaknesses. We pick them up during our formative years. But as we grow and mix with others, we discard our bad ones and absorb the good ones - if we are open-minded. Before I had the opportunity of going and staying overseas, I was oblivious to much of the etiquette that is expected of civil societies - on roads, in dining, and on public and personal hygiene. Basically many of these are behaviours or lack of courtesies that many of us condemn or laugh at about mainland Chinese today. But what is important is you learn and move on. If you don't, these stay on and became prejudices of others.

 

I repeat, this minister is not an exception; there are so many of these stereotype singers in our part of the world. One man who has retired from the highest office in the judiciary is now particularly vocal about his anti-Chinese rhetoric. Only people of his religious belief are not capable of lying, so he once wrote in his judgement. I am pretty sure his anti-Chineseness was anchored on something he had personally experienced during his formative years. Ditto that women's wing leader of MIC.

 

I was once introduced to Anwar Ibrahim's sister, who still couldn't get over a humiliation she suffered when young. Apparently, the village fishmonger had the arrogance and stupidity to tell her mom that certain fish he was selling were too expensive for the Malay community's pockets. So don't bother to look or ask! This scar remains for life in her! I believe this top judge and the MIC women's wing leader must have suffered wounds when they were young. Maybe they were academically weak or financially poor when they were young, which made them vulnerable to ridicules by some thoughtless Chinese.

 

Dr M apparently was also snubbed by a taxi driver when he was studying for his medical degree in Singapore. This is said to be the reason behind his life-long unhappiness with Singapore and Chinese. But he moved on. He knows how to manage Chinese - not by vilifying them, but by making the best use of their strengths and weaknesses.

 

My wife and I make it a point to go out to see the world as often as we can. There is so much one can learn from these visits, even from the most backward places and their people. I see that most of my fellow tour group members are still Chinese; few are are from the other communities. If you don't read or travel to see, you don't know what you have missed. And prejudices and old habits die hard!


Demanding apologies from bigots is not the solution. Exemplariness is. Leave the bigots alone; they will know the price of their folly in no time.

Haw Par Villa

When I was a small boy, Singapore to me was synonymous with my eldest brother Seng and Har Par Villa. Seng headed for Singapore after his junior high school. He was my hero then. There would always be goodies each time he returned home. Holidays meant spending a few days with him at his flat in Singapore.

Without fail he would take me to visit Har Par Villa each time I went to Singapore. It was in Har Par Villa that I learned the ‘ultimate price’ one had to pay if he did bad things in life. There was Heaven and there was Hell; we mortals were in between. Bad fellow would be sent to Hell for punishment and good fellows, a ride on the cloud to Heaven.

There were many levels of punishment in hell. If you told lies, your tongue would be cut off; if you did something evil, you got boiled in oil or your heart got dug off, so on and so forth. And of course, you could expect to be rewarded richly – the next life, of course – if you were filial, honest, charitable, righteous, etc.

I still remember I used to have nightmares each time I lied. I don’t believe in any of this stuff now, but the Dos and the Don’ts that I now practise actually began to take roots in me during these formative years of mine.

So when I saw the divine laws that were being zealously advocated by some quarters, I couldn’t help recalling the images I saw in Haw Par Villa. Transgressors of these laws would have to face the consequences in their next life, don’t they? So why are we bent on applying these laws to mortals now? Isn’t losing an arm or a hand or, for that matter, any body part in this life tantamount to – in my rudimentary understanding of fundamental justice and fairness – “double jeopardy”, since you have to be punished another time when you go to the next world? Shouldn’t we be judged by secular laws when we are alive and leave to the Higher Being up there to mete out divine punishments – if you have committed a divine sin?

But as AKK once said to me, “your brain is too small.”

Jumping Ship

Those who have visited Australia would know that the country is very sticky on “border protection” even if you are not coming in by people smugglers’ boats. There is a programme on one of the TV channels about people failing to declare food and trying to come in to work. And embarrassing really, most of those caught have been Asians, and of East and South-east Asian backgrounds. The excuses they gave were so pathetic; I suppose few would be inclined to sympathise these “victims”. Maybe that’s the intention?

So a couple of weeks ago when a mechanic acquaintance asked if some of his folk could come with me when I returned to Melbourne, my instinct was that they were going to ‘jump ships’. I cautioned him that it was illegal for one to use a tourist visa to enter Australia to seek work. He said his folk – a couple and a younger brother of one of them – were being sponsored, and the fee was something like MYR4K per person. He brought the three of them to see me a few days later. They were decent enough, but only the wife could speak some English. I knew what they were up to. I cautioned them of the price they might to pay if they were refused entry.

It is virtually impossible to obtain permanent resident status in Australia nowadays – unless you have skills that fall under the country’s desired category, or you have money to qualify as a business immigrant, even then, I understand you have to prove that they money you intend to bring in is “clean”. As for the others, Australia still welcomes you – but only as a tourist for three months. If you don’t have return tickets and demonstrate that you have sufficient money to spend, sorry folks, you might be refused entry and barred from entering Australia for many years!

I nevertheless gave them my contact number just in case they ran into difficulty.

I was having lunch at a restaurant in Box Hill when my telephone rang.

“Are you expecting visitors from Malaysia?” asked the lady who had identified herself as a border protection officer at Tullamarine.

True enough, they were unable to convince the officer of their bona fides. I did say they got acquainted with me recently and had expressed their desire to visit the vineyard that I am now involved in.

At about midnight that day, my mechanic acquaintance called all the way from Kuala Lumpur: “Alvin and his party had been detained and would be deported tomorrow. Can you help?” I was firm in saying no. They knew the score.

I later came to know that these three had actually overstayed for three solid years in Australia. They were trying to re-enter to join their employer!

It is not right for me to give my value judgement on their plights, suffice to say that everyone has his or her own reasons to take risks. In the Chinatowns and Asian-dominated suburbs of Australia, anyone can see that probably 90% of the people providing working in restaurants and service industries could not have entered Australia if they had not declared their intention under false pretext. But these people are not parasites of society. They earn their keep, as compared to many other immigrants who are there to enjoy the “dole”. Few businesses in Chinatowns and Asian-dominated suburbs can survive if they employers have to pay Aussie work place rates, which is about A$17 an hour, not to mention the double and triple rates during holidays and what-have-you. These people actually help make Australia affordable in many places.

 

But policy is policy!