Cooking Diary: Vegetarian Dishes

My first go at this. The idea was to make three vegetarian dishes with different flavours and textures. It ended up ok, but the flavour balance could be better...

Cooking Diary: Sweet and Sour Fish

I tried making my own version of the sweet and sour a few weeks ago, which didn't turn out well. This time I followed a recipe and changed it (as I like to) and it came out really yummy!

When the impossible becomes possible...

Two things happened tonight.

(1) I unlocked my door with my house key, took off my shoes, walked up to my room, and my key was gone. I've just spent a good fifteen minutes looking for it and no luck yet....

[Spoiler below]

(2) I watched ice sink. In the sea. With so much momentum that it crushed metal whilst sinking.

Now I'm generally pretty good at suspending disbelief when watching films. You want me to believe that in a few years we'll have this amazing technology that'll allow us to do all this amazing stuff, fine. But sinking ice went a bit too far.

Having said that, G.I. Joe was a pretty damn good action flick. It has all the good hallmarks of a great action movie: gunfire, explosions, missiles, fighter jets, martial arts, futuristic technology, a car chase, stolen warheads, great ideas that just mysteriously find their way into people's heads at the perfect time, an ugly evil mad scientist, a foxy villainess, and a ridiculously hot male lead.

Ok so it was clichéd, with an unoriginal plot and nonexistent subplots, cheesy script-writing that made me flinch (including the mandatory love story brutally inserted where it didn't belong), and the aforementioned sinking ice kinda killed the last twenty minutes of the movie for me whilst I was inwardly rofl-ing. But hey, I'm almost 26 now and I've seen my fair share of action movies in my time; and there's only so many ways you can make gunfire and explosions entertaining. I can forgive an action film for giving up some artistic qualities for more bangs and booms.

Let's be honest here, we go to see action flicks for the visual effects, and this movie certainly has enough of those to make it worthwhile seeing on the big screen. My recommendation? See it if you're in the mood for mindless destruction.

Edit: I see people argue that there was metal in the ice which made it sink. All fine and well, except that the ice exploded into a thousand pieces not all of which had metal in it. They all readily sank to the bottom.

Ideally multicultural

Multiculturalism. Embracing different cultures, a melting-pot of peoples from varied backgrounds living together in harmony, sharing traditions and identities. It's great, isn't it?

Well I'm not so sure.

In my perfect world, we would all be respectful of our fellow humans, irrespective of whatever social groupings they may belong to; irrespective of their ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, spirituality. The underlying belief would be social liberalism and upon that foundation we are free to be whoever we wish to be. Multiculturalism is inherent and ubiquitous in this ideal society, and because it is so commonplace, it would not exist as the political concept it currently is.

The very fact that our government feels the need to promote multiculturalism highlights a weakness in the fabric of our society. It seems to me that this word was invented because we are afraid that, should without it, we would find ourselves assimilating with popular culture. That we would degenerate into monoculturalism, the monoculturalism which breeds intolerance and grows into discrimination.

And let's be honest, there's a basis to this belief. The story from New Zealand that I posted last week highlights the reluctance of society to accept new cultures or practices.

Even I baulked at the thought of cooking and eating dog, and here I am sitting at my computer pretending that I'm open-minded!

Truth is, our perceptions are shaped by the dominant culture with which we spend our childhood and formative years. It is then that we learn what is "socially acceptable" or otherwise, and often we carry these restrictive etiquettes with us as we grow older.

I believe that as a society, we will never break free of these moulds if we continue to educate our children to follow the same social norms. Surely the better alternative should be to teach them to embrace and respect alternative cultures? Perhaps then they would be able to teach that to their children, and multiculturalism as a policy would no longer be necessary.

Cooking Diary: Prawn Wontons and Steamed Fish Fillets

Wow... my blog's turned into just a cooking diary! Will promise to return to posting more relevant stuff soon!

Cooking Diary: Seafood Paella

Here's my second attempt at a paella.



It wasn't too bad actually!

Cooking Diary: Tong Yuen

I'm gonna start taking some pictures of my food! Today I tried making tong yuen (glutinous rice balls in sweet soup) - it was alright but making them into nice round balls that don't burst is actually quite tough. Could definitely be improved! Nevertheless, here's a pic :)

New toy!

I went to Japan earlier this year, but I only came back with one picture:That's because I didn't have one of these......but now I do! So no more having to take pictures using this!

link: This Is Oz

Just discovered this website, This Is Oz. While the concept isn't new, it's still a joy to see all these people who take a stance against homophobia.

Interesting to see the submissions from politicians, especially so many from the Australian Labor Party. If only they could convince their own party that equality is the way rather than homophobia.

link: cultural protectionism

A bit tired to write up a long post today, so I'll be lazy and link to an interesting post on another blog.

This post from Kiwipolitico caught my eye:

Resentful reactionary ethnocentric cultural protectionism

Whilst not the point of the post, it does make me think about the role that assimilation plays in our society as a counter to multiculturalism, and whether cultural tradition equates to cultural protectionism.

Smacking Referendum

"Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"

Wow, is this a terribly ambiguous question or what? No, you think it's straightforward? Well I guess I'd better give a bit of background info for non-Kiwi readers.

New Zealand's Crimes Act 1961 Section 59 previously allowed a legal defence of "reasonable force" for parents prosecuted for assaulting their children. Intended to protect parents' rights to use reasonable force to discipline their children, this law was ultimately interpreted by a NZ jury to allow violent parents to beat their children with metal pipes and other large objects.

In 2005 a member's bill was introduced (by Sue Bradford, a NZ Greens MP) which was to amend Section 59 to disallow this legal defence. This bill was passed on 16 May 2007 at its third reading, but not without great controversy as "family-friendly" groups such as Family First NZ were concerned that they would no longer be able to harshly beat their children in order to discipline them without threat of prosecution.

And so we have this referendum. And as I stated at the start, how ridiculously ambiguous is this. I respect that sometimes - not all the time - it is useful to give a child a light smack, like when there's a little arm reaching for the frying pan and it'll save a lot of tears. Sure, a light smack in order to prevent greater pain for the child should not be a legal offence.

But wait we're not talking about a "light smack" here. The word in question is simply - "smack". Not to mention "good parental correction" is open to interpretation also.

No, this isn't a fair question. My initial reaction (and I'm sure most people's) would be to vote "No", because that's the way it's intended to come across. In reality, we're looking at a current law which has removed the ability for parents to get away with physical abuse of their children.

I mailed my "Yes" vote in today - hopefully it gets to NZ in time.

Edit: Here are links to both sides to the argument - both make some excellent points (and some not-so-good points).

"Yes" vote - "No" vote

Journey Through Faith: Catholicism

I have a very traditional Catholic name.

When I was very young, every Sunday I would go to church with my family. We were often late, and as the church was a little too small for the local congregation, we would usually have to sit at the back on some makeshift chairs. The hymns were joyous and I remember them as the highlight of the services, though as I grew older I realised that they were only highlights because the rest of the service was so dull. It wasn't the pastor's fault - he was a kind gentleman who spoke the truth as he was taught it. Tradition demanded that he must each week remind his devout followers that rational thought does not lead to salvation.

In 1994 Pope John Paul II reaffirmed that Catholic women are not equal to Catholic men, and will never be ordained to the priesthood.

Earlier this year Pope Benedict XVI demonstrated the Catholic church's ignorance when he claimed that condoms increased the problem of AIDS.

I didn't learn much from the Catholic church. It's a shame considering it was my primary school's church, and those years were of great importance to me. It was where I first learned to speak English, and how English was to be used in good faith.

I didn't learn much from the Catholic church. In truth this is a blessing.

One memory of primary school remains with me. I was admiring a construction that I had built out of sticks for a class project. The teacher asked if I was proud of my work. Pride was an unfamiliar concept to me, but yes, it was a deadly sin. So I said "no". I remember my teacher being quite amused at my "modesty". Great education yeah?

I didn't learn much from the Catholic church. I'm probably being unfair now as it's not entirely accurate. These days I find myself with a strict moral code. They aren't Catholic morals (luckily), but I do believe that those years of being told that we are all sinners and need to seek salvation somehow taught me to have strength in my faith and hold true to my beliefs.

At the very least, my friends, that is hopefully a plus.

a slow start

Most of the blogs I read tend to be like open forums, where many people with varied backgrounds and opinions can read and discuss the latest news items.

I don't have the same stuff to offer. I'm not a journalist, an IT enthusiast, a political science student or an activist. I'm somewhat pessimistic. I don't look at the latest toy and think, "hmm that's so cool, I should paste that on my blog", but rather "hmm that looks terribly flimsy and inefficient".

No, all I have are my experiences to share, and to shed some light and darkness on various topics. And so to start, I intend to write a few posts to introduce myself, and make some posts about how I got to be who I am today.

Short link to blog

I'm not sure if this is more for me or for visitors, but here's the short link to the blog anyway:

http://bit.ly/ISuem

(useful for twitter)

Avenue Q and Stereotypes

Last week my good friend Dave from work asked if I wanted to go see Avenue Q with him. Me, having no idea what it was, said yes simply because I thought it would break up the monotony of my weekends.

So anyway, here I was today, without knowing exactly what to expect - I didn't even know where the theatre was - and bam! Wow the show was absolutely amazing; I'm very glad I went. The premise was exciting and novel, using a mix of performers and puppets on-stage. Well-written scripting, great set and band, puppets that brought back memories of childhood, and the performances were solid.

Mitchell Butel who plays Princeton/Rod has a resoundingly brilliant singing voice, and an uncanny ability to switch modes at will, giving his two puppets distinct voices and characters, sometimes in the same scene. Christina O'Neill also gets props for pairing her beautiful voice with an amusing attempt to sing in an asian-ised accent.

There is even much food for thought for those who enjoy thinking too deeply into things, like me. Right now though, I do want to address one issue: the use of stereotypes in the show.

In our modern-day politically correct society, "stereotype" has become a somewhat negative word. It is often associated with racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on. Most of the time I would have no problems with that association, as much of the time the stereotypes do reinforce negative representations of minorities, allowing vicious prejudices to fester and grow.

Having said that, Avenue Q isn't politically correct, and it's wonderfully so. The show uses a bunch of stereotypes, and gets away with it because it doesn't try to hide them. At first I found it a bit confronting, but as a plot device it was brilliant, as it sets up character profiles without actually doing the setting up work.

I'm not saying that it's ok to stereotype if you make it really funny. In fact if I sit here and theorise about the whole musical I'd say that, taken the wrong way, it could worsen social injustices. But I know I can read past that and enjoy Avenue Q for the great entertainment that it is, and I hope that other people who see it will be able to understand that for themselves too.

New Blog

I'm new to this whole blogging thing. Not to blogs, there are many that I read and subscribe to, but writing them is a whole new experience.

Why a blog? To be honest I'm not sure that I'll be a very good blogger. I've never kept a diary, or used a calendar, and I don't even have a camera. Instead I keep all my thoughts and memories in my mind.

But that's a pretty selfish way of living. As humans we live in societies, we need to interact and share our lives and experiences with others. And we should share ideas in the same way. This is what makes us human, it's what makes our lives fulfilling.

And thus I'm here to share these thoughts of mine. Mind you, I don't expect people to actually want to read this stuff, but at least it'll be here if they do!