If I’m going to buy my child war toys, I can’t really get hung up on the real-world parallels. Either it’s make-believe or it isn’t, right? Still, I swallowed hard when I looked at the sticker set for these green and gray soldiers. I wonder when it was exactly that little plastic army men went […]
Category Archives: Journal
City of Barking Dogs
In the city of Detroit, dogs may outnumber people. Packs of wild dogs roam and reproduce in the empty areas of the city. The block I grew up on had a dog or two in every yard except ours. I didn’t hold anything against dogs as a kid, except for the incessant barking. The dogs […]
Food Update
My adik biras, or younger brother-in-law, flew into Kuching for a day on business. That makes him the first relative to see my daughter, which is fitting, since I was the first relative to see his daughter who was born just last month when we were in Kuala Lumpur. Anyway, he took those of us […]
KakYang
KakYang entered the world on 20 February 2003, making me a father for the third time. She opened her eyes wide and stared right at me as I called the Iqama in her ears. Now she and Ibu are recuperating at home. Here in Malaysia it is customary for the mother to remain confined in […]
The Waters of the Sungai Maong
Two weeks ago, the Maong River jumped its banks and swallowed my entire neighborhood. We were not alone. The Kuching District received its worst flood in 40 years. The Great Kuching Flood It had been raining daily leading up to the Chinese New Year. But the day after that, it really began to pour. I […]
Wireless Dial-up
I have finally, finally established an internet connection from home. I’ll spare you the sordid details, but the end result is I’m using a Fixed Wireless Terminal as a telephone. It’s a glorified cell phone really; large and boxy enough to be non-portable. But it can connect to Telekom Malaysia at 115kbps. Not too shabby.
Fried Green Tomatoes?
We were walking through the night market last night when, amid all the other fruits and vegetables, I saw a guy hawking from the back of his van what appeared to be big green-beans, chopped and marinated. Pickled green-beans, I thought; just like Dad makes. I few steps closer and I see that those are […]
Taski
My son just finished his first month of school. It’s a nice little Islamic preschool with about thirty other kids. The curriculum is fairly light, as you would imagine for a bunch of 4-6 year-olds. But they manage to teach abc’s, prayer instruction, aliph ba ta’s, and so on, in between snacks, play breaks and […]