時間

如果一秒鐘可以讓我向前走兩步
我能不能用後退很多步來換回昨日的晨光？

你走得太快了
我跟不上

The sweet hearts of bitter gourd

When the sweetness comes from the bitterness, 

The toughest means the worthiest. 

The porridge of life

Some grey mushrooms, a tomato, a chilli, a bitter gourd, some pucuk manis leaves, some green onions. The last four are homegrown. 

Leftover rice, sea salt, black sesame oil. 

Water. 

Sweet, sour, spicy, bitter.

Salty, oily, clear. 

May I be blessed with a colourful and wonderful life. May I be blessed. 

The Calamansi (Limau Kasturi)

These are two very healthy and tough Calamansi (Limau Kasturi) plants, proved by their strong stems and lush green leaves. One is unseen due to the capturing angle. 

I started to take Calamansi juice everyday to increase the intake of Vitamin C since the past man-made pandemic period. More exactly, I cut Calamansi fruit into four portions and put them into my water bottle. Honestly, compared to the plain water, this superb sweet and sour taste also motivates me to drink more water. I have done this till now and I am fine. There are no any side effects that occurred after natural Vitamin C overdose. 

I ate the seed together with the water as the seed will become softer to bite, much better compared to the Pulasan seed indeed. One day, I thought, "This is a seed. Why not plant it? Then I can have the fruit everyday, instead of buying the chemical fertilized grown fruit from the wholesale market." This idea fastened my falling speed into the rabbit hole of planting. 

Long story short, these two plants were born during that time. They were the survivors from the seeds planted in a pot. When I moved into my own place, I transferred them into a thick packaging bag for temporary handling, and was looking for a good location to make sure they will have a nice ground to develop. However, I was busy then and unable to enhance the constructor-destroyed soil quality. The worst thing is they were near to death when I left them for months. I put them under the sun but it was seldom raining during that time. When I was back there and saw their look, I decided to bring them along wherever I went. So they keep staying in the packaging beg till today. The touching point is that they start to grow more and more leaves after I keep watering them at least once a day. 

The temporary handling always becomes the permanent treatment for passive and reactive people - Am I one of them?

Hello, sunlight!

A morning in the sunlight.

May everyone have a blessed day to conduct true, kind and beautiful works! 

Dawn blessing

A dawn prettier than what I have captured.

A feel blesser than what I have grasped. 

Share them out here. 

The plants and a country walk (19 Oct 2023)

Today (19 Oct 2023) is a day full of plants - but which day is not?! While my younger sister introduces her name means the fragrance of plants at dawn - as what I remind her - I should not forget that I am the Rosa family at dawn.  

The first plant I notice is a half ripen papaya. Normally people will pick it down from the tree if it is seen like this or it will be eaten by the birds. However I want to have a full ripe one because it would be more delicious. So I will pick it tomorrow. See whether Nature will side with me!

"You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." - I understand. It will be more delicious.

Taiwanese call the status of "ripen on tree" as 在欉熟(zài cóng shú). 在 means "on", 欉 is "tree" in the Hokkien dialect, and 熟 is "ripen". I remember the Taiwanese farmers always mentioned their fruits were picked when ripening on trees, especially in the summer season. But could you differentiate between those picked ripening on trees and those picked unripe but produced with certain artificial ripening agents?   

Later I found the bitter gourd seeds sprouting, after their one week of underground striving efforts.

Another sprouting seed looks like a baby bird's head - or maybe dinosaur's head? (https://shorturl.at/lAV49)

There are some lily-like wild plants nearby. Honestly, I always keep them alive when conducting the bush and grass massacre action because the flowers really look nice. This world is full of unfair issues as human practice discrimination based on their preference.    

Two roses are blooming. They look stunning in real life but plasticky in the picture. Sigh, not photogenic indeed.  

Another three-leaved clover with purple flowers. The shamrocks on the other side are the species with yellow flowers. Would a bold visual contrast of purple mixing yellow be created if I plant them together? I know the combination of bitter gourd's yellow flowers and butterfly pea's blue flowers is superb.       

After I sent my car for repair because it had been crashed by someone (well, the driver will pay) weeks ago, I have a precious time to do a country walk in the noon. The repair garage, my primary school and my home are all located besides the main road. I once walked to the school so many years ago. Yet I almost didn't do so after leaving primary school. The buildings and the wild plants are the most capturable objects when walking along the roadside. Did the staff of Jabatan Penerangan do this too? I should ask Mr Ng then.

So, on the way, I can easily recognize the Malay houses simply by their surrounding of the trees, flowers, grass or any plants.

It is a PU-LA-SAN tree near a river!

It is a Chinese house that does not keep the plants.

A ruin covered by the morning glory.

A gated Malay house with two big trees in front of the yard.

"Where should we go? Will He protect us?" The oil palm fruits ask, at the crossroad. 

Arriving at the kampung (village) where my primary school is located.

There are many cars in and out as it is the after school time. During my days, the main transportation vehicle was motorbike.

The Feng-Shui masters will say the view-blocking of main building front side by the pillar should not happen. The photographers will definitely agree on this.  

I remember that the basketball shooting boards were wooden made during my time.  

Spotted another wild plant with three-leaves but I am not sure whether they are from the family of shamrocks too... 

花徑不曾緣客掃，蓬門今始爲君開 - That is the poem comes across my mind when I see this abandoned government building. It was either the hostel or the office of Jabatan Pengaliran dan Saliran before. There are many abandoned old government buildings around. This is really a severe waste. These buildings should be reassigned for other purposes, such as becoming the community centres. But unluckily this does not happen here. People tend to build new concrete giants and call this a development. They create and develop concrete ruins actually.  

I see unknown wild purple flowers. The buds look like the geniuses in cartoons.  

When I arrive at home, I notice that there is a pair of ripe guavas on the tree. This is because I have cleared the yellowish dead leaves from the tree. When there are only green leaves, the yellowish ripened guavas could be seen easily.

A bitter gourd flower fades on the shamrocks. 

Some Brazilian spinach and Ceylon spinach were picked as part of my dinner.

Indescribable

I can't describe it but really feeling happy - for some (un)known feels/facts?

王菲《我愿意》

炎热的午后，突然想起王菲，也许是因为她的声音够冷够凉？

她和谢霆锋都是有独特个性的人。我常常从 “王” 和“谢”这两个姓想起“旧时王谢堂前燕”这句诗，王谢二人的缘分，是久远前世带来的羁绊吗？

这首歌的出现，原来有故事：作词人黄国伦，在经历事业低潮而祷告后得到灵感，用十分钟写出了这歌词。后来，这首歌大受欢迎，让黄国伦迎来事业上的春天。

加长版的《我愿意》，代表双倍的真心诚意吗？Ta，一定会听见吗？

Chili and papaya (Rojak Chiya)

At the first sight, I may say the chili is small and the papaya is big. At the next second, I could say the chili should be spicy and the papaya should be sweet. As the third description, I would say usually people don't eat the chili directly but have the papaya directly as a fruit. All these are based on my experience and preference. I can talk about the colour and the smell too. If I skip these, that means I care less about (or even ignore) these aspects. But no matter how, I like both of them because of their natural spicy and sweet flavours - but of course I never mix them together - however this is a new idea to develop although I can't imagine what would they turn to!

- Oh, they are ingredients of the Rujak Terasi Lombok, Indonesia - So I will try to make Rojak Chiya then! 

Breakfast

A quick-prepared nutritious delicious breakfast. 

Make a wish

I settled the full bucket of pulasan at noon. During the previous class, Sister Josephine said that we may talk to Him for wishes, but should not expect for the instant realization. Well, here is my wish: May everyone's days be filled with natural sweetness!

The Pulasan

It is the season of the fruits for me to take them down from the tree. Unluckily a short me simply can complete the mission halfway as I cannot achieve the fruits at the higher part. But even so, those cut down Pulasans are still considered as too plentiful for me. My Malay neighbour once told me she liked the flavour of sweetness. She bought the tinned condensed milks in the volume of big cartons, which one carton contains one or two dozens of tins inside. I replied to her "Be aware of the ants coming into your house." I like sweetness too, but always prefer real food such as honey, red dates, sugar cane etc. I believe that one may definitely differentiate the natural sweetness from the artificial one if s/he has a clean tongue, and will prefer the earlier. The Pulasans' inner seeds have an almond-like flavour. So just bite and grind them. To be honest, one or two is enough. You will feel bored at the third cracking - as same as the reaction of certain people to the almond.

Land ownership inequality

There is no issue of food shortage but land ownership inequality.

.

Three-leaved clover（三葉草）(06 Oct 2023)

德不孤，必有鄰。

I planted the purple heart-shaped sweet potato leaves a few years ago. They grew fast and covered the area very soon. Later they had been destroyed but some survivors keep striving. Then I found the three-leaved clover（三葉草） grew by themselves beside the survivors. Peoples say the three-leaved clovers are common so you are lucky if you found a four-leaved one. I don't try to find out the four-leaved one but (or, because?) I feel I am lucky to have the thought of finding out more knowledge about the clover (and everything, as usual). So, after doing some simple researches, I found the formal name of three-leaved clover is shamrock（酢漿草）, and Saint Patrick once used it to represent the Trinity and the three theological virtues during his missionary work conducted in Ireland. Um, the school syllabus during my time definitely was too emphasized on the local history.

Lei Cha Veggie Rice (05 Oct 2023)

I never thought that I would cook for the house guard for a certain period, but it happens to be so. Yesterday the meal was Lei Cha（擂茶） Veggie Rice (Hakka Pounded Tea Rice). It simply included Lei Cha paste, organic sweet potato leaves, ginger, onion and white rice, besides cooking oil and salt. I was using a gas stove. I always recall the Spanish paella when cooking a one-pot meal like this, because I once cooked the tomato rice in this way before I knew the term "paella" - not taught by anyone but I found the way by myself.

Ice-cream freezer cleaning (04 Oct 2023)

冰凍三尺，非一日之寒。

Ice-cream freezer cleaning is one of the routine works for a sundry shop child labour since long long ago. The tropical children normally do not reject this work as they can touch the ice ​to enjoy feeling ​cold while fulfilling the requirements and completing the task. The time spent to clean this block was eight minutes and twenty seconds.

 

Unknown

For an unknown reason, I surrendered. 

In an unknown war, I conquered.

Have a good day

Freshly picked basil in the morning sunlight and bird songs. Have a good day. 

Mid-Autumn Festival (29 Sept 2023)

People were celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival last night.

I was driving for 120 kilometres (back and forth) to send out the organic fruits and vegetables, including Malabar spinach木耳菜, curry leaves (Murraya koenigii)咖喱葉, Pucuk Manis/Katuk樹仔菜, mugwort艾草, sweet potato leaves番薯葉 and Pulasan fruits (in clockwise order). Of course and the mooncakes too. Oh, and the papaya which is not included in the photo.