Roses are smelly - where are they from?

Several weekends ago I went back to visit the family in kampung. It was already near maghrib time when mother and me decided to smell the roses just outside the living room downstairs. I asked mother about roses-sniffing-men.

Mother said,
Apo salah eii.... asalkan bungo tu haghum
Kalau bungo busuk, sapo pun tak hingin nak cium...

I ventured,
Tapi omak ponah nampak oghang lolaki cium rose?

Mother replied,
Ontah lah...itu tak ponah topikir dek sei nak poghati...

Mother is so complicated (read: infuriating) sometimes.

peasantry

Old houses and their compounds are good grounds for hunting ghosts! I have limited memories of this old house that I have renovated (and am still renovating) so I have few ghosts to capture but the house and the land on which it is standing has given me so much to learn from the past. For example, just two weeks ago while taking a student around the house I suddenly saw a small round object on the ground. Instinctively I knew it was an old coin – but my student said it was an old mirror. Of course the teacher was right. The reason why it was easy for me to know what it was is because that wasn’t the first time I’d found an old coin half-buried or fully exposed on the ground. Before this I’d found 2-3 old coins at the same house. Based on a better “specimen” this coin was from the Straits Settlement “period” and it’s made of copper and had a value 1 cent.

I’m sure one cent then was a lot so my forebears must have really been careless with their money to lose it like that. Maybe they had holes in their pockets? Poor peasants with holey pockets!!!

architected space

I asked an architect what architects do and she said, "sculpting space".

I think my house is changing space and time.

In Memoriam

Kak Mon (2007-2009)

cats have a way to get really close to us. Just last night when I was out exercising at the Taman in front of the house, a teenage cat just simply joined me and then followed me back until to the front gate. At home in kampung, Kak Mon had until earlier today, been keeping father company. Her presence will be sorely missed by him.

My first pet-cat was Bob. We had him a long time ago but he left me a scar, literally, and it's still visible on the back of my right hand. Our family never keeps a dog because mother is religiously allergic to them. But some day when I have to manage a large farm/ homegarden I may need to enlist the help of a rotweiler. god willing.

What I did today at work

I presented a poster just now at the university's annual research exhibition.

rumahku

For the past few months I have been spending time (and lotsa money) to "rehabilitate" the house that I never grew up in. It belonged to my mother and her mother and the mother before her.... but my mother has recently decided to pass it on to me. RUMAHKU. Actually I'm just a "guardian" as any rumah pusaka actually belongs to a paruik. The project manager is my sister, Nor Haslinda Hashim. Thank god she seems to know what she's doing (albeit at my expense) since she has architectural training from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Dr. Naziaty of Universiti Malaya has been very encouraging too. There's no ramp to get into the house yet but the new staircase is quite accessible and safe for some people. There's an accessible toilet on the ground level...yeay.

The view from the frontyard overlooking sawah padi. Just beyond the bamboo grove is Sungai Muar.

magical realism

I did it again - I bought a book by Italo Calvino last night.