True-Blue Gganu

Once a blue moon, I received comments that click.. somehow I like that words 'true-blue east-coaster'.. that is a good enough inspiration for me to share a true-blue Gganu personal experience .. an inspiration from Kama At-Tarawis .

I stayed in a dominantly Chinese area with Chinese neighbours on the four fronts. There are so few Malay neighbours, lesser still good Malay neighbour that we can exchange/share family banters/matters. One of the few family friends happened to have a son about the same age as my son. He have many cousins that studied at Sri Inai Primary School, Ulu Klang..

That was how my son(and later my daughter) got enrolled to join Sri Inai Primary school in 1999.

Back then I have two younger sisters in-law staying in our home. Four Trengganu adults with a boy of pre-schooling age and his sister, some four years younger .

A week after my son enrolled to study in Sekolah Kebangsaan Sri Inai, I got a surprise telephone call from the headmistress at my office.

“Can I speak to Encik Wan Mohd Sharif, please! ” came a sweet but rather commanding voice.

My heart went dub dub.. who in this neck of wood can be so polite and commanding at the same time..

“Yes, this is Wan Mohd Sharif speaking, can I know who is on the line please!”.

“ I am Cikgu Xxxxxx , the Headmistress for Sekolah Sri Inai” came a reply.

“ OH! has my son been up to no good “ I blurted my innermost fear..

“No! not that bad!.. his behaviour has been exemplary”

“Ah good! that was a relief of sort. May I know if I can be of help” I braved myself thinking that the worst was definitely over..

“You see, Encik Wan, this is an English school, we encourage pupils to speak English”.

‘Oh, oh!.. I think I am guilty there as I do not spend too much time speaking English at home, since nobody else is too comfortable to speak English there”.

“We do not mind if new pupil speak bahasa at time” the Headmistress continued, brushing aside my “I am guilty comment”.

“You mean my son spoke bahasa all the time!” I was pretending to be at loss then ;)

“That would not be too bad.. HE SPOKE IN TRENGGANU DIALECT ALL THE TIME!.. and no body can understand much of what he said ” came an astounding reply.

“Oops!” I blurted out. “Maybe exposure to four Trengganu adults do not augur well for my son’s English” I said in resigning mode.

The conversations that followed was the normal counselling of me by the headmistress.. ;((

As a continuation of buka puasa food, we have fried cempedak and fried poh pia.. (oily oily food to satisfy our non-Trengganu daughter’s taste ;)) for iftar last evening. Not much to show just to add a not so good photo to the posting ;).


Have a nice day..

Ramadhan Kareem and Eid Mubarak..

Pukat buruk, serawa durian dan gulai ayam

Ayoh Wang bbuke kue pende petang ning..? yohteh asked in his comment in my last posting. So one can say that this post has been inspired by yohteh

On Saturday we have nasi Dagang and serikaya(made of chicken or duck eggs, brown sugar from coconut and santan) for iftar and sahur as well. Weekends are the time when Mok Wang applies most of her culinary skill.. trying to appease her two children who will be at home then... on weekdays the son went to MMU in Cyberjaya to study and stayed at his cousin's place.

On Sunday we still have the left over serikaya and nasi Dagang.. but on the table we do have pukat buruk ("old fishing net" made of rice flour... I think) accompanied by serawa durian ( made of santan, sugar, water and durian flesh)for our son who has acquired more Trengganu taste and chicken curry for our daughter who has acquired less Trengganu taste.

Our son was born in Dungun, Trengganu while his younger sister was delivered in Ampang Puteri. At times I do wonder if there is any correlation of the food they prefer and their place of birth.

Anyone care to share their observation?

May Ramadhan brings (this blog's readers that performed fast) Allah's pleasure and His Maghfirah.

Have a nice day.

WHEN TO DRINK MORE WATER

Semasa semua dok ghairah menikmati ramadhan dan yang sewaktu dengannya suka lah saya mengalihkan sedikit pandangan ke arah yang tak kurang penting. supaya kesihatan kalian terpelihara.

I have upload a posting from my egroup mail friend Hamdan Idris who forwarded this article..

I knew water is important but I never knew about the special times to drink it. Did you?? Drinking water at the correct time maximizes its effectiveness on the Human body : 2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs 1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal (not after!) - helps digestion 1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure 1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack

Hope it is of benefit to you

Selamat Hari Raya ..Kullu am bikhair

Ustazs stories

The picture above is from flickr.

At last after so many presentations, many “burn a midnight oil” nights.. yours truly get to start that much–awaited operation.. drilling two wells (back to back) to determine the presence of oil leg.. hoping to turn two proven gas fields to two proven oil fields, InsyaALLAH… I am so excited about all this that I am going to show you a part of the digital copy of the approval that allow the drilling rig at the location..

Psst ..in all my 30+years in this business.. this is the first time I see this kind of approval ;)

I have not been updating this blog since first Ramadhan and thought I would like to share with readers some of the not so good stories gathered at the surau tazkirahs.. I am not putting these stories to ridicule anybody, they are recorded here just to remind us the condition of some of our brothers-in-religion.

The ustaz(teacher) was going to a mosque about 40 km from his place in Penang. He started at 6 p.m. hoping to reach the mosque in time for Maghrib (sunset) prayer. Somehow there was a massive jam on the Penang Bridge - a car has turned turtle and he only managed to reach the mainland at about half past 7 p.m. After travelling for sometime, he told his friend that they have to stop for Maghrib prayer. They finally stopped at a small madrasah, a small building used by Muslim to conduct their Jumaah (congregational) prayer.

There seemed to be some confusion as there were men who have completed their prayer, some who were in the middle of doing it and others who are talking (rather unhappily) about it. Somebody in the group came to ustaz and said “you are wearing a headgear that is rather tall.. may be you can solve our problem” The ustaz said he do not know much.. but the man said “you see.. our imam (the one who lead congregational prayer) stopped his prayer in the middle of sujud (prostration) and we waited and waited until somebody raised his head from sujud and quipped - the imam has ran away!”. They stopped their prayer and searched for the imam and found him to be sitting on madrasah’s verandah smoking his cigarette.

The man (who is supposed to be imam) said “I told you all that I do not know how to lead the prayer (be an imam).. I could not control my fart in the middle of my sujud.. so after I farted.. I did not know what to do.. so I jumped out of the window that was two feet away from the imam's place of prayer and sit on the verandah to cool off..

The ustaz told the crowd that they have no other choice other than to do the congregational prayer again.

This story was related by Chairman of surau committee after a very futile effort of getting ustaz to give a tazkirah at our surau.

Then there was a young man who has fallen for imam’s beautiful daughter.. he came to the mosque for most of prayers wearing nice dress with a piece of cloth (normally used as turban) on his shoulder. After months of befriending the imam, he managed to get the permission to bring his parent to ask for the hand of the imam’s daughter. A marriage quickly followed and on one fine day, the imam told all his children and spouses that they will perform congregational Maghrib prayer at the Imam’s house that day.

The young man brought out his newly married wife to go somewhere and managed to come back to the imam’s house some 10 minute after the Azan (call) for Maghrib prayer.. when he reached the house he noticed that the Imam was leading the prayer.. he joined them and stopped when the Imam finished his prayer..

Somehow his brother in law noticed that the young man prayed only two rakaah instead of the obligatory three rakaah for maghrib prayer.. this fact was relayed to his wife and the wife went to their room to tell her husband..

On hearing that his in-laws were concerned about his two rakaat maghrib prayer .. the young man said “ all of you are the same.. so petty.. I performed a prayer with one rakaat less and you all were making so much noise” ;(

Have a nice search for the night of power.. Lailatul Qadr and Selamat berpuasa to all who fast.

Have a nice weekend to all.