London Trip - 1

Those of you who follow Simon's blog must by now heard the full account of our trip to London and gay Paree. Here are the links if you haven't: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

So, just a few extra thoughts and pics from our end :)

Day 1, we headed out from Hounslow during rush hour, so it was a bit cramped during the journey. But as I pointed out to Mei Yan, in London folks have an unspoken understanding of how they need to behave, from letting people get out to moving to the centre of the carriage to accommodate more passengers to standing on the right on escalators (ok, that one is a written rule), so on the whole, it was still pleasant enough for us.

We had been praying hard for clear weather, as I pointed out to Simon that British weather is two third grey skies and one third sunny. I took everyone on the route I went myself back in 2005, i.e. from Waterloo station towards Westminster Bridge, then northwards to St James Park and Buckingham Palace. It was cloudy when we came out of Waterloo, but lo and behold, the sky became more blue!

Simon and Wai Yin relaxing by the Thames!

Our first dinner at a pub in central London

Crossing Westminster Bridge

Big Ben on a clear day

Cheeky squirrel at St James Park

En route to the changing of the guard

Sibu - Stand Up and Be Counted

Caution - long rambling post ahead :)


For as long as I can recall, the people I share a place called home with had always had an independent streak. Coming to Sibu out from the famine and poverty in China, the first generation of Sibu folks knew they had to rely on themselves to build new lives in a remote jungle in the middle of Borneo island.


And build they did. From barbers to tailors to farmers, each one toiled patiently and ceaselessly, was thrifty with their money and gradually accumulated wealth for their next generation. They ensured their children have the best education, and any old folk you meet in town today will probably have at least one child who went to university, some even to overseas.


Most of them were also God fearing, the pioneers of the town having been in contact with Christianity.

And so, they owed no one for their lives, and apparently someone forgot to tell BN that in the last few weeks. Gifts and grants are all well and fine, but to tell Sibu folks to be grateful (?!) and to return the favour was just laughable politics.

Sure, there were issues that needed the government's intervention, such as flooding and land lease renewal premiums, but they had been disappointed by the government so many times in the past few decades that when the goodies finally came, there was just a muted response.

In the recent vote, they had been given an opportunity to say something, and I have to say that unlike many of the Semenanjung folks, they did.

As I looked at the results streaming in on the Malaysiakini website last night, my thoughts turned to those hardworking folks of Sibu, recalling the faces that I saw whenever I wandered around town. In their wisdom, they had looked beyond the cynical and destructive politics of West Malaysia, and sent a loud and clear message - we are standing up to be counted.

Sponge

My three year old is a sponge.

The other day while watching tv, when the adverts came on, she casually rattled off the names of the tv series being promoted - "Pao Tai Yan" (Justice Pao), "Ah Sien", "Jiat Pa Pa".

That got my attention, and I began to notice what she's saying. It seems like she's been absorbing everything that she sees and hears. After my wife's car accident earlier this year, Cynthia gets scared whenever I do any sudden braking. "Daddy, 撞车“ (Daddy, car colliding), she would say.

She would pretend her toy's a handphone and repeat verbatim phone conversations that she overheard.

I now no longer watch violent or scary shows like CSI in front of her - she gets disturbed and starts asking awkward questions.

All these made me realize the heavy responsibilities that parents carry - who your kids become do depend, to a large extent, to what you fill them with.

Long Live The Empire

Early on in our friendship, Simon noticed an odd obsession I had with a British movie magazine called Empire. Despite earning barely enough to survive in the early years of my working life, I always bought the magazine every month without fail.


I bought my first copy of Empire in Belfast in December 1991, and was instantly hooked. It costs £1.85 then. In 1995, I shipped my 4 years worth of Empire back home in a tea chest, along with some of my uni books. I can't recall where my uni books are now, but my Empire collection now takes up 25% of shelf space in my study room. Yep, all the way from 1991 to 2010.


What prompted this post was the surprise I got when I purchased a copy recently. In 1996, Empire was RM 15 a copy. In 2000, it went up by a third to RM 20, and it peaked at RM32 a few years back. But on Saturday, I was surprised to see RM25 starring at me on the cover of the April 2010 edition.


Over the years, editors and writers came and went. Some writers like Kim Newman, Ian Nathan and Angie Errigo had been around for so long it felt like listening to an old friend talking when reading their movie reviews.

I think what made Empire last so long was the genuine love its staff had for movies. That, and a great sense of fun and humour.

Nowadays, I've made a fan of Simon, who shares my copy every month.

Help Yourself

Been having this song on repeat recently - Help Yourself, written and performed by a guy who called himself Sad Brad Smith specifically for the movie Up In The Air.

The movie was both about the personal devastation caused by layoffs all over the US, and the character played by George Clooney who chose to isolate himself in the cocoon of constant travel, distancing himself from both friends and family.

So, the song's lyrics, in a way, is directed towards the people who had been laid off, but is applicable to George Clooney's character, too.

Have a listen :)



I know you'll help us
When you're...
Feeling better and we realise
That it might not be for a long, long time...

But we're willing to wait on you
We believe in everything that you can do
If you could only lay down your mind

I want you to try to help yourself

Take the time to take apart
Each brick that sits outside your heart
And look around you
There's people everywhere
No they don't always show
They're just as scared
And we'd be more prepared
If we pulled on through...

I want you to try to help yourself

Oceans of water underneath our feet
Terrible design
Dusty rooms you cannot sweep
Clouding up your mind

I know you'll help us when you're...
Feeling better
And we realise that it might not be
For a long, long time...

But we, we lend the weight on you
We believe in everything that you can do
If you could only lay down your mind

I want you to try to help yourself...

J Plates

The other day as I was driving around my wife's hometown Kluang, I spotted a car with the number plate JFK, and suddenly realized how lucky Johoreans are with their number plates.

Apart from showing off that you are part of the Kennedy clan, you also get number plates like JET. My friend Simon used to own a car with that plate, and I relished those days when we could say "Let's take the JET" with a straight face in front of our friends.

Then there's JEW (??!!), JAN (for January babies?), JAL (Japan Airlines employee), JAM (for the masochistic). Add the number 5 to JAW and you get Steven Spielberg's classic summer blockbuster.

That Thing Called Running

Many friends and relatives ask me about my obsession with running in the last two years, and I often have a hard time trying to articulate what it really meant to me.

But a few months back, I stumbled upon Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running". A memoir of sorts, Murakami explained the role of running in his life as a novelist, and I found myself gobbling up half the book at a cafe within one hour of buying it.

A lot of people assumes that people run in order to think, but actually the opposite is true. Murakami described it as "running to create a void", which is exactly what happens to me when I run. There are barely any thoughts when I run - just the focus on moving forward, on the pace, on the breathing.

Running is also about finding yourself - how far you would go to get anything done, how much pain and suffering you are willing to endure. That sounds masochistic, but its actually quite enjoyable :)

Murakami captured all this and more in his little book. He also explained how running impacted the other aspects of his life, especially his writing career. He went so far as to say that he would have produced something very different if he had not been running.

Customer Service

Its been a while since I shared customer service encounters and well, what better story to tell than to share my encounter with the famous third player in the Malaysian Telco market :)

My brother gave me his old Blackberry recently, so after so many years of admiring them from afar, I finally became a Digi customer!

First, the good news. The registration was quite painless, just filling up a simple form at the dealer, and the line was active in 2 hours.

But this morning, my line stopped working. I've been noticing missed calls from the Digi Helpline, but gave them no heed as I usually kept the phone in silent mode. I mean, I use it ONLY for email, and no one has my new number, so it would be weird for anyone I know to be calling me on it.

Anyway, I called the Helpline. And was put on hold. Now, I usually have nothing against holding, but since I've been used to not holding whenever I call Celcom, I have to count it against Digi. Next, the nice Filipino lady (yes, her accent was obvious) asked for my line number, which I remembered wrongly. She told me the line is registered to another person, then stayed silent. My mind was racing by now - how to get the problem resolved?? Then I blurted, "Can't you just find the number by my IC?" Luckily, the lady obliged, and found my account.

Then it was explained that Digi was supposed to make a verification by calling me on the number. Since I never picked up their calls, my line had been barred. I guess that's fair enough, but wouldn't it have been great to also send me an sms as well? I would have called back pronto to do the verification. Secondly, the dealer never mentioned anything about the verification.

But I have to say the Filipino lady did her job well, and the verification was quickly done. My good impression of Digi was slightly dented, but overall, I have to say I'm impressed.

The Miracle of Alvin

On Sunday, someone shared the most powerful testimony I have ever heard in my life so far. It was a first hand testimony of someone whose life was literally saved by the Lord.

Alvin was a young chap who was doing some renovation work for one of the church members when he suffered sickness that resulted in collapsed lungs.

Ending up with 2% lung function, he had to be put on a lung machine in the hospital to help him breathe. Pastors and church members alike prayed for him, but there was no improvement. Put on sedatives, he ended up in a 2 month coma instead, and became a shriveled 40 kg of skin and bones.

One night, the lung machine failed. He stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating.

Alvin found himself looking at his body on the hospital bed and the nurses rushing in to check on him.

The nurses called the doctors. They took a look and asked the nurses to wait another 30 minutes. Alvin tried desperately to go back into his body, but to no avail. He prayed to God to help him, but no answer came.

30 minutes passed. The doctors came in, and pronounced him officially dead, at 11.45 pm. They switched off the lights in the ICU room and left.

Alvin was left alone in the room with his body beside him. He prayed to God to take him to the better place, since his time has come. Suddenly, a bright light came out from the wall.

Alvin walked towards the light. And woke up.

The next morning, the doctors could not believe that he was alive.

Months later, they also could not believe that he had recovered 90% of his lung function.

Leadership & Obama

An article at the Huffington Post today caught my eye, and I think succinctly sums up Barack Obama's leadership of America so far.

I have never thought much of him during the campaign last year, when I was actually rooting for Hillary Clinton, who, despite labels of being a bookish technocrat, actually showed much more passion and conviction.

True, Obama often tend to speak more eloquently than Clinton, but does he have it inside? Is it in his bones? I have more than enough first hand experience of leaders who can speak really well but clearly is unable to follow them through with real, preserving action.

His actions thus far has been too data driven and too reality driven, not that data and realism are bad things, but if they are the only considerations, then he is not leader, just a mid-level manager.

Vision, passion and beliefs are all things that come from the gut, and not from dry data. Out of these things come courage, conviction and boldness to act. And most important of all, it is critical to get a sense, a feel, if you will, of the people that you are leading, otherwise leaders will end up barking up the wrong tree.

I really wish Obama well, but I am afraid he will end being remembered for being too cautious, too timid, in a turbulent time in the world where bold and courageous leadership were needed.

I end with a quote from the article:

"...a transformational president has to move the Congress -- and the public, if need be -- beyond the limits of where they thought they were prepared to go."

Misdiagnosed

I guess in this age of overcommercialization, my story is not really such a surprise after all.

It started innocently enough. On Sunday I had a slight sore throat, but was beginning to get the chills and body aches. Come Monday morning, I decided to see a GP at Pusat Bandar Puchong. The lady doctor I met seemed skeptical of my condition, it sounded like she thought I was just trying to get an MC to avoid work on a Monday morning :)


Nevertheless, she declared that I had a viral infection and gave me some Panadols and NSAIDS. Now for those of you who do not know the difference between viral and bacterial infections, in terms of treatments what it means for the case of bacterial is that you get to have antibiotics to help you, while for viral you basically have to rely on your body's immune system. She even checked my throat and declared it "nothing".

I was miserable the whole Monday despite the medication, and on Tuesday, decided to go back to the same clinic. This time it was a male doctor. Again. he took a look at my throat and didn't think it was serious. He thought the NSAID I was prescribed was not suitable and gave me another type.

So, again, I spent the whole of Tuesday with body aches and fever, cursing my immune system for not doing its job. Finally, at 6 pm, I decided to go to a hospital to do a blood test (just in case its dengue) and a second opinion.

The lady doctor took a very close look at my throat, and said "You have very bad tonsilitis, can already see pus coming out". I was like, huh? I told her my GP said it was viral infection. She just smiled and didn't say anything. The dengue blood test confirmed that I was fighting a bacterial infection.

So, finally armed with some antibiotics, I suffered for another 1 hour before it kicked in. Relief, at last!

So, lesson learned. Don't trust your GP 100%. If you have doubts, always get a second opinion, after all, its your body and your health.

But I still don't understand how two different doctors from the same clinic can get it wrong. Maybe they think alike? Maybe they were just too overloaded and had mentally formed certain opinions about people like me? Anyway, having lost my trust, I doubt I will be going there anymore.

T3

No, not promoting an old Terminator movie. but something that I have been involved in for the past one year :)

I think a lot of us grew up with more questions about the meaning of life, God and the hereafter than we could manage to cope. With the busyness of our lives, they tend to stay in a corner at the back of our minds, to be taken out and thought about once in a while.

I was in this same boat, until I encountered someone who decided to fearlessly take on these questions. If dinasours lived millions of years ago, how can we reconcile it with how God supposedly created us? Does science make belief in God irrelevant? Is there a God, and if there is, why should we believe and worship Him?

Dr. Ron Choong is one of a kind, someone who dared to face these questions head on and was able to gain clarity and understanding to them.

If you've ever been haunted by any of these questions, why not take the opportunity to hear what Dr. Ron has to say? He will be in PJ, Malaysia in January 2010 to do a series of seminars that covers these topics. You can get more details and register at the ACT Asia website.

Just in case you're wondering what T3 stands for - its Thinking Things Through. So be warned, the seminars are not the usual Christian talks, they will really make you rethink your ideas and presumptions :)

Singapore Marathon (Not)

For the first time since I took up running last year, I am going to miss a race I have registered for, and it was down to my own foolishness.

I injured my right foot at the end of August, and instead of immediately resting and letting it recover, I kept trying to run again every time I got slightly better. In the end I prolonged the injury to three months, and even as I write this I am still only 80% recovered.

Desperate at one stage, I even went to a sports clinic, where I found out I had something called posterior tibial tendonitis, which in layman's terms meant I have strained one of the tendons on my foot. After some treatments and custom orthotics (thanks, Dr Aston), I got slightly better, but foolishly, I kept trying to get back to my training, even trying to supplement it with some cross-training on a stationery bike.

Finally, I saw the light, and to date I have stopped running cold turkey for three weeks. Not being able to run is quite depressing, but I realized if I don't rest until it is 100%, I will just keep prolonging the issue.

Hopefully, there will be more discipline in managing my injuries in the future :)

Whitney Revisited

With the return of Whitney Houston to the music scene with her latest album, some music commentators took the occasion to revisit her finest hour - the 1992 soundtrack to the movie The Bodyguard, which even today remained the best selling soundtrack of all time.

The movie itself was so-so, but the theme song I'll Always Love You struck a chord with a lot of listeners, and lent the movie an extra level of poignancy which was lacking in both the script and the acting (Kevin Costner tried very hard to go for the stoic look but ended up looking wooden instead).

I remember the song well, for I had fallen hard for someone around the time it was released. The song had been playing for a few weeks on the local FM station at Belfast before the film's opening, so most people were already familiar with the song when they went to see the film.

As Whitney walked away after saying her goodbyes to Kevin at the end of the movie and the acapella first verse started, suddenly, the girls in the cinema started singing along! The guys in the cinema squirmed, but the girls grew bolder and louder. Of course, not everyone made it to the iconic chorus, but the whole incident was oddly moving. The song was about loving someone but not being able to be with him/her for some reason, and the girls were pouring out their own set of circumstances into their impromptu karaoke.

Even today, the opening verse still gives me the goosebumps, as I remember the voices of those girls in that dark cinema many years ago.

Eight Years On

Like the baby boomers who remembered where they were when they first heard about John Kennedy's assasination, I guess most of us Gen-X'ers remember where exactly we were when we heard about what happened eight years ago today.

I was having supper with some friends in Section 1, PJ Old Town. The whole group of us were just hanging out and gossiping about other friends. One of us got a call from her sister that CNN had reported that New York was "being attacked". A bit bewildered and somewhat worried, we quickly paid up and headed home. On our way to our cars, we passed by another mamak stall that had CNN on, but couldn't really make out what was going on.

When I got home, my cousin was watching her usual Cantonese serials on Astro. I asked her to switch over to CNN, and we watched silently in horror for about 20 minutes to what unfolded before our eyes.

I went to bed that night thinking that the world will never be the same again.

Fours year later I had a chance to experience it first hand as I was in London one week after the underground bombings, and there was a bomb scare.

A lot has happened as a result of that fateful day.

Libraries

I went to the Royal Lake Club, located within Lake Gardens, for a seminar last week. Just as I came up from the underground carpark, I caught sight of something which quickened my pulse and brought back a flood of memories.

Lake Club Library

Located on the ground of the club was a library. Not the modern type with metal shelves and bright lighting, but one with nice wooden shelves and a cosy atmosphere.

My love affair with libraries began when my dad first took me to the Sarikei public library when I was eight years old. Abridged Ladybird books were then the staple of my reading.

When we moved to Sibu, the SMC library became my regular haunt, and I read Tolkien's The Two Towers long before I realized it was a classic.

Sarawak was luckier than the other Peninsular states in Malaysia, because up till the 90's, the British Council was a significant donor of books to the public libraries there. Thus, I learnt BASIC programming without even touching a real computer, and had access to a wonderful collection of British magazines.

Sibu Library

When I came to KL to study in 1989, the National Library was at Jalan Raja Laut, and together with the British Council library at Bukit Aman, became my favourite weekend haunts.

Things got better when I got to Queen's in Belfast, for they had a 10 storey main library and a 3 storey science one, not to mention Linen Hall library at the centre of the city. I felt like a man trying to gulp down an ocean of water, borrowing books like crazy.

Back to KL in 1996, the British Council library became my regular again, together with the KL Memorial library at Dataran Merdeka, which I felt was the only decent government funded library in West Malaysia apart from the National Library.

It was also at the British Council library that I found the perfect excuse to "bump into" my future wife, as she was studying for her MAICSA then :)

Sadly, after shifting to Wisma Selangor Dredging, the British Council library is now closed down for good.

After witnessing the terrible collection at the MBPJ library in 2000, I gave up visiting local libraries, and nowadays prefer to haunt Kinokuniya and MPH instead.

However, I was glad to find out that Puchong is finally going to have its own library at Bandar Puteri, which I think will be open sometime this year. Here's hoping it will have a decent collection.

With the pervasiveness of the Internet, Wikipedia, etc nowadays, do libraries still have a place in our lives and our kids' lives? If we want to go beyond consuming snippets of info, plentiful though they may be, I believe physical books will still continue to have a future. Let's put it this way - consuming info from the Internet is akin to eating a McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, convenient, fast, but insubstantial. Reading a book, on the other hand, is akin to tucking in into a nice steak, something to be enjoyed slowly.

My little Cynthia has been observing her daddy always having a book in hand in the evenings, and my wife would sometime catch her intently studying a copy of the Reader's Digest, even though she can't really read yet. When she does, I look forward to share with her the wonderful world of libraries.

RIP, Yasmin

Tonight, as I sat starring at my monitor, I thought of Yasmin Ahmad's untimely demise, and decided to gorge myself on her works on Youtube.

Like Lat, she was one of a very few persons who really understood the essence of who we are, in this beloved country of ours, whatever our race may be.

My heart aches for the fact that we will never find out what else she had in store for us. But I guess we should also celebrate the fact that she also left us a lot - a legacy of reminders to us on what means to be, well, who we really are. I share some of my favorites below.

The Last of An Era

The retirement of Brother Paul Ho recently as principal of XXI in Penang marked the end of an era. For he was the last of the La Salle Brothers working as headmasters or principals in Malaysia, private schools aside.

I attended these Christian schools from the time I entered kindergarten till the day I left for college. I started at St. Clement's Kindergarten in Sarikei, which is still standing today! There's a fantastic write up about it here.



Half of my primary school years were then spent just a stone's throw away from St Clement's, and that's St Anne's primary school.

When my family moved to Sibu, SHS (Sacred Heart School) was my alma mater until Form 5.

Throughout all these schools, the same tenets remained - discipline, respect, strong work ethic, pride, love. All the Christian Brothers and Sisters that were there poured out their heart and soul to educate the children the best that they can.

And today, I dare to say many who have passed through the gates of those schools have continued to rely on those principles to make their lives a success.

As I write this, the songs that the Sisters at St Anne's used to make us sing during morning assembly echoes through my mind. Even after 30 years, they still remain vivid:

We Stand For God

We stand for God and for His glory
The Lord Supreme and God of all.
Against his foes, we raise His standard,
Around His cross, we hear His call.

Strengthen our faith, Redeemer,
Guard us when danger is neigh
To Thee we pledge our lives and service,
Strong in a trust that ne'er shall die.
To Thee we pledge our lives and service
Strong in a trust that ne'er shall die.


It's A Long Walk to Freedom
R- It's a long road to freedom,
A winding steep and high,
But when you walk in love
With the wind on your wing
And cover the earth with the songs you sing
The miles fly by.

1- I walked, one morning by the sea
And all the waves reached out to me
I took their tears, then let them be…

2- I walked, one morning at the dawn
When bits of night still lingered on
I sought my star, but it was gone…

3- I walked, one morning with a friend
And prayed the day would never end
The years have flown, so why pretend…

4- I walked, one morning with my King
And all my winters turned to spring
Yet every moment, held it's sting…

KL Marathon 2009

When 2009 came, I wasn't too sure I will continue running anymore, after all the pain and injuries I went through.

But after some googling around, I decided that my shoes could be the culprit. So, shortly after Chinese New Year I got myself another pair of spanking new Nike shoes. Nike Air Structure Triax 11 maybe quite a mouthful, but it brought the joy back to my running again. According to the sales guy, you are supposed to buy one size bigger than your actual size, as your feet will expand as you run.

Thanks to a good friend who also took up running recently, I slowly got back into training again.

When the Standard Chartered KL Marathon was announced, I quickly registered for the full marathon, which I immediately regretted! But since commitment is made, I decided to try my best to train for it.

The hardest part of the training was waking up early on weekends to do the long runs - if you don't start by 5 am or 6 am, the sun will make the runs unbearable.

By the time the marathon came around, I had logged almost 300 km in 3 months, including 4 races.

Before the race, the question constantly eating on my mind was - will I be able to finish the race? The furthest I had ever done in training is 25 km, but according to marathon training theory, anything between 25 km to 32 km in training should be enough to guarantee that one can finish the full 42 km.

Then there's also the weather - the race starts at 5 am, meaning amateurs like me will finish in the hot sun between 10 am to 11 am. And last but not least, there's the feared "hitting the wall" phenomenon, the moment when your leg muscles finally run out of fuel.

The race started in drizzling rain, which I was very thankful to God for, as it meant that the first 30 km was very pleasant - the rain was later replaced with an overcast sky and a gentle breeze.

After running through Petaling Street (km 32) and up Jalan Istana (km 34), I finally found the fabled wall. I had imagined it was going to be fatigue, but it was not - it was sheer pain! Both my legs felt like they were going to fall apart. I managed to alleviate some of the pain by doing squats and rubbing Counterpain. From km 34 to km 40, I was alternating between running 1 km and walking 1 km. Km 40 to 42 was mostly walking, with short runs of 300 m in between. It was agony, but I also knew the finishing line was near!

My good friend who was running the half had stayed back to cheer me on in the last 200 m. Thanks, Liu! I owe you one :)

I finished in 5 hours 6 minutes, above my target time but I was just glad that I finished :)

I ran 42 km and all I got was this finisher medal :) (plus a finisher t-shirt)

Dating Blind

There was an article in The Star recently about where ladies could supposedly hang out to meet guys. They include the usual suspects like the local Starbucks, to the weekend flea market.

For the Chinese in Malaysia there is the MCA Cupid Club to look forward to. Judging by the number of weddings they had, I would that say it is more successful than trying to snag a guy while pretending to browse through some old antiques :)

Anyway, from the early 80's until 2003, the British had a tv show called Blind Date that supposedly did the job. It was hosted by the irrepressible Cilla Black, who always ended the show with "ta ra then!".

The show basically had a guy choosing between three ladies who he can hear but can't see, and vice versa, after which the show sponsors them on a blind date at a usually exotic location.


The fun comes in four parts - in the answers to the questions that the chooser asks (most participants try to give as suggestive as possible answers to even the most innocent questions), in the fact the guy who gave the most charming answers was usually a fat bloke who you usually won't even give a second look, in the speculation of whether they tried anything with each other during the trip, and finally, in the behind the scenes post mortem of the date by both sides.



While the show was great to watch, as far as making real matches was concerned it was quite miserable, scoring a measly three marriages in its 18 years of existence. The BBC has a great write up about the show here.

The Taiwanese had a much more effective tv show called 非常男女 which was somewhat modelled after traditional Chinese match making. A group of ladies would sit opposite a group of guys, and the hosts then throw up topics for discussion which then helps the participants decide who they like.

The parents of the participants usually come along to give moral support - some of them even point out to their kids who they should choose! As usual, there is the inevitable guy or lady that everyone wanted to date, but for the most part, at least half of them end up with someone by the end of the night. And some of them were so serious they looked they were going to get married on the spot! The show's been discontinued, but you can catch an old episode here.