Roots

On the 27th of October, a few of my family members went back to where we originated from (or rather, where my ancestors originated from), China. My family tree started from Pheng Hu, Xiamen and when my great grandfather was a young man, he took his wife and sons (my grandpa and his siblings) to Malaysia to escape from the communists. My grandpa was only 7 back then. My great grand uncles stayed back in the village.

My grandpa's house.

The altar. 

A room in the house, I don't know what room though.

My dad promised to bring me to visit my ancestor home but unfortunately, I wasn't on sem break. So instead, I only get to look at photos and listen to their stories. In the olden days, it took 7 days for my ancestors to walk from Pheng Hu to Xiamen city but now, it only took several hours by modern transport.

Ancestor's home.

The ancestor tablets are arranged according to the generation.

I heard that my grandpa shifted out from the main house and live on his own. Maybe with his parents and siblings and typically, they were farmers. The tradition carried on. Some of my cousins are still farmers but some of them are craftsmen.

The farm. Used to be a big farm but a big portion of the farm were used as land for houses.

Cousins and relatives crafting Buddha statues.

Since I didn't experience that place myself, I have nothing much to tell. So I'll have more photos instead.

The best part of the story was getting to know my cousins and other relatives. My cousins and nephews/nieces are way older than me. Have a look at these photos and prepare to be shocked!

As labeled. Be shocked!! My cousins are even older than my uncle!

From left, my 6th aunt, 3rd cousin sis-in-law, 5th aunt, 2nd cousin sis-in-law,

 eldest cousin sis-in-law, 4th aunt, my mom and the small boy is my great grandnephew. 

My niece and her husband. Guess what, that guy is 23 and he's a grandfather already!

Shock! SHOCK!!

Apparently, I am already a great grand aunt! And I'm only 20!

Besides this family tree story, my parents told me about a Hakka village they visited. It's a remote area, high up in the mountains and it took about 4-5 hours by modern transport to get there from the Hok'kien village (my family village) which means up to 8 hours from the city. It's a really old village. They built it hundreds of years ago and as you can see from the photo, it's rounded. The reason for this is to prevent robbery. There's only one entrance to this village and no windows on the lower floors. The walls are 3 feet thick, thick enough to prevent the robbers from making a hole to enter the village. Only the higher floors have windows because the thieves couldn't climb up that high. Inside this huge circle, there's another smaller circle of rooms and then another circle inside this circle until there is no space left. There are about 400 rooms in this village and occupied by 600+ villagers but in the modern days, only 200+ are left.

Hakka village architecture.

Beautiful, isn't it? I love it.

My dad said that there are couple of Ph.D holders from that village and they donated money to build a better village. And due to exposure to the outside world, they no longer build circular houses but square ones and not that high.

Modern Hakka houses.

I really enjoy listening to these kind of stories, stories about ancient world but at the same time, it made me a little sad knowing that these kind of lives do not exist anymore due to modernization.

The tree my grandpa planted before he came to Malaysia.

This tree is a hundred years old.

But anyway, I'm proud to know the roots of my family, especially when one of the great warrior Lu Bu (from Romance of the Three Kingdom) share the same surname as me. Lol! Isn't it just so interesting and exciting to know where you originated from? :)

12 Hours ManjungTrip

A week ago, on the 23rd which fell on a Saturday, Guat Shan, Sito and I went for a 12-hours trip together with the EE group guys to Manjung!

This was actually so-called planned long time ago since sem break. Guat Shan told me about go-cart in Sitiawan and I was very eager to try it out, which led us to this plan. We mentioned that we would visit Sitiawan during sem break but since there was nothing much there (according to the fish), we went for just a one-day trip on week 1, since we were all still free.

So, after my replacement class on Saturday, I came back home to rest for an hour or so before the 3 cars drove down to Sitiawan at 3.30 p.m.. Well, I wouldn't say we went to visit Sitiawan because we actually went a couple of places so it would be more accurate to say we went to Manjung :D

The first destination after Sardin's house was Teluk Batik, the beach.

 

  

  

Teluk Batik park, just adjacent to the beach.

 

  

  

  

Then we went for dinner in this place with lots of hawker stalls. I love hawker center! I had popiah but well, the best popiah award still belongs to Tong Ku Teng (Mushroom Center), Ipoh. After dinner, and since it was still too early to go for go-cart and since Eric wanted to get a few pieces of clothings, we stopped by at the biggest shopping centre in Manjung, The Store. Well, actually Giant hypermarket is the largest but hey, shopping for clothes in Giant? *swt*

 

 

Turn out, the guys did not get anything but each girl got something for themselves. I got that two triangular boxes for only RM2.40 each! Then at about 9.30 p.m., we went for go-carting, the main objective for visiting Manjung in the first place.

 

  

  

After a round of 7 laps (which cost RM 10) and an hour later, we headed down to Lumut- Esplanade Wing. Main reason is to have ais kacang which only cost RM 2.00!! Psst! I finished first place. Nyahahaha!!!

 

  

  

  

And finally, maybe it's a part of their tradition to go McDonald's so we went to McD for supper and to watch how Manchester United won 4-0 against Hull City :D We also played 2 rounds of scissors-paper-stone where the losers need to finish a sauce plate of chili sauce. But of course, for the case of Sito, Jing Wei and I, it's tomato sauce. Lol.

 

Then finally we went back to Kampar and reached home at about 3.30 a.m.. A complete 12 hours trip. It was really fun, very memorable and absolutely unforgettable. I enjoyed myself and I'm sure the others did too.

Photographers of the day...

 

Ms. Loo for Olympus camera.

  

Mr. Beh promoting for Canon compact camera.

  

And Ms. Sito for Canon SLR.

Some group photos as a closing :)

 

  

  

Looking forward for more trips to come! ^^

First Day In IMR

I woke up 6 a.m. this morning, get prepared and headed for work at 7 a.m.. There was a little jam but nothing massive. I reached IMR, my working place at 7.25 a.m.. I called Sian Siu to meet up with her but she was only on her way. She thought we were supposed to register at 9 a.m. instead of 8 a.m.. I lingered around until about 7.45 a.m. and decided that I should just register alone. When I went up to the Biotechnology Unit (it was located on the second floor), I saw Victor :)

One of the blocks in IMR. They all look alike and I was lost ><

So anyway, it was written on the letter that registration is at 8 a.m.. Sian Siu rushed and managed to arrive at 8 a.m. sharp but as soon as we get there (I went down to lead Sian Siu to the office), Victor said that the officer-in-charge will only come in at 8.30 a.m.. Great. So, the 3 of us, along with another 5 Biomed students from UTAR waited and waited.. and waited.. Until 9 a.m., an Indian lady walked in and told us to wait for another 3 students from other university, then she will send us to our respective divisions then we can go home and only return at 2.30 p.m..

Not long after that, the 3 aforementioned students (from INTI, I think) came and then as said, we were sent to our divisions. There were variety of divisions such as Immunology, Virulogy, Bacterialogy, Entomology and etc.. Sian Siu were went to Center for Herbs Research and Victor to Bioassay. Guess which division I was sent to... guess, guess ^^

HEAMATOLOGY!!

Not familiar? Okay, in Bahasa Melayu, it's called Hematologi.

LOL!! Okay, okay. It's a study on blood. In other words, I'm in the blood research centre.

Blood = Bone Marrow

So when I got there, the officer in charged, Dr. Chin, went to attend a workshop or she went to give a workshop or something. I'm not very sure. All I'm sure of is that I was asked to wait again. And so, I did. For another 2 hours! I then decided to go home and only return after lunch at 2.30p.m.. I even got the permission to do so. As I exit the room, Dr. Chin came in. She told me she wasn't free today and sent me to the Molecular Genetics Lab II (I was initially in Genetics Lab I).

The initial lab I was sent to focuses on a type of white blood cell disease, leukemia. The second lab I was sent to focuses on a red blood cell dysfunction, alpha thalassemia. Basically what I did there was just reading through some journals and articles on this disease because Kak Edayat (my so-called mentor) said that I at least need some basic knowledge on this topic of focus. She handed me 2 thick files- one on the disease and another on the work procedure. She even asked me to go home and do some online research to further understand.

I haven't finish reading them ><

Lunch was from 1p.m. to 2p.m.. During lunch, all of us, the interns, met up and each and eveyone of us were complaining about what we did. One of the Biomed student (don't really remember her name ^^;), complained that how come she was sent to entomology (study on insects) when she's major in HUMAN Biomed? Lol. Nevertheless, the people in IMR are all very nice and helpful.

They talk on their latest research concerning leukemia.

After lunch, I was sent to a talk on MEC by 2 highly professional doctors from overseas. It was a 2 hours long talk and to be honest, I understand nothing and was trying so so hard (but failed) to no fall asleep in that auditorium hall. After the talk, I went back to the lab and read for another 30 minutes and to my joy, it's time to go back! :D

Yes, I only work from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. unlike my other fellow friends who work an additonal 1 hour.

Tomorrow is another day at work. I hope things get more interesting. I don't want to lose interest in my course of study ><

Those who went for training as well, how's yours?

Healthy Living

It's been a while since I last posted due to several reasons but the main reason is, nothing significant happened. So there's nothing for me to blog about. But anyway, just to let you know that I'm still on with this blog, I'm posting this.

I went to the gym today, as in the gym in my university. In order to use the gym, students are supposed to buy tickets which cost RM2 for a 2 hours session. I bought the tickets like quite some time ago but was too lazy and couldn't find the appropriate time to actually go to the gym.

But today, Sito's class was from 2-4 p.m. so we're able to attend the 4-6 p.m. session in the gym. I would say the gym was fairly equipped and clean. Of course, my two favourites equipments are the spinner (the stationary bike) and treadmill. I started warming up with about 15-20 mins of cycling then full 40 mins of walking on the treadmill. There were several options to choose from the modes for the type of exercise you want for the treadmill like, for instance, manual, hill, cardio, strength, fatburn or interval.

Walking is a good way to burn fat.

Just in case you don't know, ever since I came to Kampar, I've gain 4kgs! I've managed to put out 2kgs by controlling my diet. So, obviously during the exercise, I chose fatburn. Each session on the treadmill was 20 mins and I went for 2 session straight. I was quite, but not entirely, happy that I was able to burn 155.9 kilo calories :D

Plus another 101 kilo Cal for the first session
make the total of 155.9 kilo Cal!

After gym, it was 6 p.m. and Shiau Ping's test ends at 7 p.m.. So, Guat Shan, Sito and I walked around the area near Tesco and when we walked back, we talk to one of the guards (he's pretty close to me). And for the first time in my entire life, I was mistaken for being older.

Guat Shan and I, walking towards the new Tesco.

Guard : So, Eliza. How old are you?
Me : 18
Guard : Are you sure you're 18? I thought you're 20 or 21
Me : *shocked* O_O!!
Guard : 'Cuz you know, you looked mature. Not old but mature.

That was one. The second was, it was pretty normal for people to ask if I'm a mix and considering the fact that both my parents are Chinese (minus my ancestors), I would say I'm a pure Chinese. That guard, once again mistaken me for a mixture of race other people never mistaken me as.

Guard : You mix ah?
Me : No la.. I'm a pure Chinese.
Guard : Pure Chinese ah?
Me : Yep ^^
Guat Shan : She looks like mix what?
Guard : 'Cuz she's small and fair ah. Some more her face and eyes..
Guat Shan : Mix Japanese ah?
Guard : Like Chinese mix with Indian or Punjabi.
Me : *shocked* D:

Does this face looked 21 or Chinese mixed Indian/Punjabi?

I don't know if it's just the guard or I've changed. I do hope it's the former XD