About work, and no work

Ben recently had a chance to apply for a promotion at a fine dining restaurant in one of the company's hotels. His Chef de Cuisine (CDC) and Executive Sous Chefs at his current hotel were all very encouraging and said they supported him. The Big Guy (the one right at the top) also said he supported him 100% and would help him sign the necessary paperwork and vouch for him. After staying up till the wee hours of the morning to print out a super-swee-swee cover letter, CV n portfolio, he submitted it to HR thru The Big Guy.

Three days later, he finds out from the CDC that The Big Guy said Ben's not gonna get the job 'cos he'd rather have him work at the Asian restaurant, and that Ben's CV did not even reach the other hotel. Like kena sabo big time man. Firstly, the Asian restaurant was supposed to open last June. Then they said, August, then end 2006, then April 2007...mid 2007... still indefinite. More than half of the employees who were brought in for this restaurant more than a year ago have already resigned. Some were promised a higher position at the "new restaurant" to entice them to stay on... Empty promises... like what The Big Guy is trying to offer Ben now.

Ben doesn't NEED the promotion. He just wants to head a restaurant so that he can create his own special menu n not have others say they created it. There was one occasion when The Big Guy wanted a special menu, so Ben created one, and the CDC submitted it, saying Ben did it. The Big Guy rejected it without even looking at it, so the CDC said, "Actually, Ben n I worked on this together", and so the Big Guy accepted it!!

The blatant racial discrimination here is really getting more obvious by the day. Not just for Ben, but me. After trying for months and applying for more than 80 jobs, I received about 6 replies. And these 6 who called me in for an interview probably did so only for fun. Like "Hey! A Malaysian... Where is Malaysia? I wonder what a Malaysian looks like.... Hmm... Let's call her in for an interview and see if she swings from tree to tree".

At one interview, 30 over candidates were called in at the same time, and I had to wait about an hour till I was interviewed by some "big shot" for 5 minutes. At another interview, 5 people were called to attend it at the same time, and we waited 1 hour and 45 minutes to be interviewed by this cold and expressionless lady for 2 seconds. Another time, this Indian guy called me, asking me all about Singapore & Malaysia. "Oh, you're Catholic? There are Catholics in Singapore?" Then he praised my portfolio till high heaven n offered me the world - high pay, a driver to pick me up, send me to work n back, blah blah blah n then never called me back. Full of crap gurrganeh...

I have a European friend who earns AED10,000 (S$4,500) a month as a PA. When I found out, it motivated me to go out there n earn big bucks too. That moment of motivated thought and "counting chickens" lasted for about 2 minutes till I realised I wasn't white. So the feeling afterwards was one of frustration and utter de-motivation. Now I've made up my mind to stop applying for jobs 'cos I do not want to be de-valued and treated like cheap labour. At least, as a full-time "ministress of home affairs", I "work" for Ben n myself, and there's no corruption, politics or discrimination. The hours are long, but the reward is priceless :o)

Little red dot among the white

Funny how it is when you watch movies like The Last of the Mohicans, or The Mission, you think this kinda stuff only happened back then, or happens only in the furthest and most remote part of the Amazon or whatever. You know, like, white man come, take everything. Or even in movies like Braveheart or 300, where a bigger or more developed nation tries to conquer a smaller one. You know, like, they can take our lives, but they can never take away, our FREEDOM...

This kinda shit still happens now man. Right before our eyes. I guess that's why movies like these, of legends or folklore, are still so relevant today. Call it what you want - the representation of masculinity re-presented, hegemony at its sneakiest, or simply, escapism for the man of today (and perhaps a little voyeurism for us girls!).

We watched 300 at the cinema again last week. Guess it's one of the only movies we'd be willing to pay 30 Dirhams to go watch.

If Ben's life in Dubai was a movie, he'd be the victim, left to fend for himself among all the angmoh aggressors. Poor dude from the tiny island country in the Far East has no chance against this army of white dudes sitting high up on their pedestals. So we always root for the underdog right? I would of course... he's my husband.

Many find it extremely difficult to accept that a 28-year old "Asian" is a Sous Chef at such a fine establishment. Especially the mat sallehs. Ben has a mat salleh colleague who's terribly threatened by Ben's presence, and goes beyond what can be deemed "healthy competition" to get ahead. He takes credit for Ben's work all the time. I told my parents once that Ben cooked for Michael Schumacher, Tiger Woods, Laurence Fishburne, etc. They asked me excitedly, so did he get to meet them? Well, if you have someone famous dining in your restaurant, would you get the coloured guy to go out and speak to them, or one of your own white guys?

VIPs and special guests have the liberty of requesting a special menu instead of ordering from the ala carte menu. So it usually has to be something that really wows them. This gives the Chef de Cuisine and Sous Chefs a chance to get creative. The boys in the kitchen are all too familiar with what happens when a special VIP menu is requested. When I say "boys", I mean the junior chefs and cooks. One of them says to Ben, "What's new? You - work, work, work, plan special menu, do special menu... Then white guy goes out, nods his head and says, Yes thank you, I did it."

On one occasion when Ben planned this really 'power' menu for some VIPs, the CDC insisted that Ben must go out and meet them before the meal was over. After the CDC left, and while Ben was busy with other orders, etc, guess who went out to take credit for Ben's work, as usual. Yup, there he was, the "green-eyed gwailo", nodding his head, Yes thank you, yes thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the meal...

One of the boys now calls "green eyes" by another name, "Tekele". He told Ben of the legend of King Tekele from Sri Lanka. King Tekele would walk about his country, see a statue or sculpture that he liked, and ask who the sculptor was. The sculptor would then be thrown in jail, his name erased from his creation, replaced with Tekele's name. So now, Sri Lankan boy constantly warns Ben, "Don't let Tekele see this" or "Don't let Tekele learn how you created that".

After a rather lengthy discussion with me (Ben would call it a "lecture"), Ben has been a bit more assertive when it's time to meet guests or take credit for his work. Of course it doesn't help that the restaurant managers are angmoh and racist too. So they usually just go straight to the angmoh chef and tell him that the customers wanna meet the Chef. But Ben has had more opportunities to meet guests recently, which makes Tekele feel even more threatened.

Guests are usually surprised when they meet Ben. Oh, you're so young! Where are you from? Etc etc. But at least at the end of each conversation, they would usually say something like, "I'll remember this. I'll remember the young chef from Singapore who cooked this amazing meal for us".

Perhaps this is what happens to all underdogs. They don't go to war with victory as their goal, but because it's the right thing to do. They don't always win the battle, but will always be remembered for what they stand for.

The Doha-Dubai Derrama

Ben n I took a Qatar Airways flight back to Dubai from Singapore, via Doha on 12th March. We left Singapore at 6.35am (GMT +8) and arrived in Doha at 10.15am (GMT +3). We discovered that our connecting flight to Dubai was delayed, from 1.30pm to 8.00pm.

The guy at the Transfer Counter said that the delay was due to airport closure in Dubai because of a “crash landing” on the runway. Eerie images of the SQ6 wreckage flashed through my mind, but we found out later that the accident wasn’t as serious as the ground staff portrayed it to be.

I asked if Qatar Airways would divert the flight to Sharjah Airport, which is just a 30-minute drive from Dubai, ‘cos it didn’t make sense that we had to wait 10 hours for a 45 minute flight. However, the ground staff could only say “No, it’s not possible” or “I don’t know”.

I worried about all the frozen homemade kaya and sambal haybee left in cargo in some hangar or worse, the tarmac…

So Qatar Airways put the stranded passengers up in a nearby hotel, and lunch at the hotel was paid for too. We managed to get a nice afternoon nap, then took the shuttle bus back to Doha airport. The bus from the hotel to the airport was delayed for 20 minutes because one of the passengers made a call from his hotel room and didn’t have Qatari Riyal to pay for it. He needed 82 Riyal, so a few people from the bus helped to chip in to expedite his check out.

Airports in the Middle East are quite a mess with not just long queues at Immigration, but Immigration staff who take forever to clear each passenger. And bags are scanned at 3 to 4 different points, passport and boarding passes checked about 3 or 4 times too. Very ‘leceh’.

At the Immigration counter in Doha Airport, I was in the “Ladies’ Inspection” queue and noticed that a few angmoh men and an Arab man with his family were also in the queue. Because it was a shorter queue, I asked Ben to join me. However, the guy who was behind me in the line got aggressive when Ben came over.

He was like “Hey! There’s a queue here and I have a flight to catch!” and I said, “My husband and I are travelling together” and he was like, "So?!! You can bloody well move to the back then!" Ben was not in the mood to argue ‘cos he felt we were in the wrong, so I moved back behind this angmoh a**hole. Just ONE spot behind him. Duh…

Wa lau… wtf… Do you know who he was? He was the same guy that delayed the bus! He made 19 people wait 20 minutes for him, and strangers helped him pay 82 Riyal for his bloody phonecall (that’s about 80 Ringgit!). And now, just moving one place behind in a queue was a big deal? We’re all on the same flight, you bloody ungrateful moron!

I just kept silent and didn’t argue with him. “Budi baik dikenang baik. Budi jahat dibalas jahat.” What goes around, comes around.

Here’s a picture of him, rushing to join the crowd at the flight gate.


We waited another 3 hours till we finally left Doha. When we arrived in Dubai, clearance at Immigration took over an hour!

Dubai may boast that it has a huge airport, but it’s just that. Huge. Passengers have to walk for miles to get from their gates to Immigration, but the airport is chaotic at Immigration and at the departure & arrival areas.

You find you have to walk from one end of the airport to the other, only to be told that your gate has been changed, so you proceed to the new gate, rush to get in queue, for a bus that will bring you to a remote parking bay far, far away. Size doesn’t matter if you have only ONE runway and no aerobridges! Duh…

At the Immigration counters in Dubai airport, the ugliness of a few Caucasian men showed. First, there was of course the same guy who told me off. He was probably really ticked off that this little insignificant ‘oriental girl’ spoke back. And there he was in Dubai, pushing his way around, cutting queues to get ahead at Immigration.

When an Immigration officer opened up a new queue, all these lemming-like morons ran for it. Among them was another Caucasian man, who bumped into an Indian man. He started swearing at the Indian man, who let him get ahead of him. But ugly angmoh man was not happy and continued pushing and swearing, swinging his luggage at the Indian man. The Indian guy asked him to relax, and another Indian guy tried to break it up between them.

Later, in another queue, another Caucasian man started cussing the Pakistani guy in front of him. Apparently, when it was the Pakistani guy’s turn to proceed to the counter, someone from another line jumped the queue. So the Caucasian man got pissed off, “Hey! What the @#$%!! You’re just gonna let that guy get ahead? So we’re all just gonna stand here all night? Why the %$#@ are you just standing there? Aren’t you gonna move… blah blah blah”. The Pakistani dude just ignored him.

In a region where Caucasian expats are so highly paid and ‘kow-tow-ed’ and Asians are treated as lower class, you can really see how ugly class-conscious people can become. It’s more subtle in Singapore, where you sometimes see customers ordering waiters or service staff around like they owe them a living. Be nice lah. Waiters may wait on you ‘cos they need to earn a living, but they’re not inferior, and not slaves. Good manners usually begets good service… unless the waitress is having PMS or something.

Ben n I get home at around 1.00am (5.00am Singapore/KL time), more than 24 hours after checking-in for our flight the morning before. So much for hoping that our return to Dubai would be a smooth transition after such a nice break back home. But NO… The Middle East once again had to prove how different they are from the rest of the world. At least I’ve learnt a lesson or two...

1. To be civilised doesn’t depend on where you come from. You may come from the most developed or richest nation in the world, but you’re uncivilised once you think that you’re the biggest fish in the sea.

2. We all have the same fate at the end of the road, so why turn ugly just to get ahead? Life is beautiful if only we took the time to appreciate the little things that really matter.

3. And next time, we’re flying Singapore Airlines.

Gulfood 2007

Gulfood 2007 took place in Dubai from 18th – 22nd Feb at the Dubai World Trade Centre Convention Halls. The highlight of this five-day event was Salon Culinaire, a culinary competition featuring chefs of all levels from hotels throughout Dubai, judged by a panel of ‘internationally acclaimed’ chefs.

This exhibition is also an avenue for suppliers and others in the F&B and Hospitality industry to promote their products and services at the Food & Equipment halls. Gulfood is open only to trade visitors, and persons below 21 years are also not allowed to visit the exhibition. I managed to get visitor passes for myself as well as Jeremy & Hui Chin by applying online.

I made my way to the World Trade Centre on 19th Feb, wandered through the Food Halls cramped with stalls from all over the world, including Singapore and Malaysia. I met our friend Andrew there and we walked about looking at Salon Culinaire contestants’ creations. Apart from hot cooking, Salon Culinaire also consists of other segments such as Cold Display (5-course menu), Ice Carving, Pastry, Butchery, etc.

Finally, a wedding cake that beats ours!

We had just moved from Ewan Residence to our new apartment at Gardens a few days before, and Ben had a busy week with Valentine’s Day and other special VIP menus, plus staff appraisals to conduct, so having to take part in the competition and still work throughout really stressed him out. But he seemed cool enough as he prepared his dish within the one-hour time limit.

Japanese-influenced Trilogy of Dover Sole - shallow fried dover sole and wakame roll, slow poached dover sole with miso, and baked sole fillets with yuzu fondant. It’s a wonder how he managed to make all this in under an hour. Contestants have to present 4 portions (plates) of their creations – one for show, one for tasting, and the other two are just thrown away.

Sadly, the judges were old-fashioned, their taste buds and eyes only accustomed to traditional, boring and purely European food, clearly seen by how they awarded these "prize-winning" dishes:

This dish won a Bronze medal

This one got a Silver, and the fish was not properly cooked

The next day, I met Jeremy & Hui Chin at the airport and brought them over to Gulfood. The Security Guard stopped us as we entered the exhibition hall, and we panicked, thinking it was our bogus passes. But it turned out the idiotic guard stopped us ‘cos we looked like kids, and he kept insisting I wasn’t 21.

I showed him my passport and he didn’t believe that I was 30, and then I kept saying that my husband was taking part in Salon Culinaire and he was wasting our time, but he also wouldn’t believe that a ‘kid’ like me was married. Finally, I just brushed him off and we went in. Jeremy had a good time tasting all the food samples at the Food Hall – roast beef, icecream, nachos, meatballs, fried chicken, waffles, frappes, pralines, sushi… They were pretty excited to check out Salon Culinaire as Jeremy wanted to catch the chefs in action, thinking it would be like watching Iron Chef, live.
Ben’s Reconstructed Australian Beef with Vanilla Marrow Crust, Leek ‘Cannelloni’ and Strawberry Balsamic Sauce.

One of the judges told Ben that beef with vanilla and strawberry balsamic sauce is “just NOT right”. Ben asked him what the judging was based on. He said, "creativity, something new, something we haven’t seen before", then proceeded to tell him how good this other dish was. This dish, pictured here, like something you get at Jack’s Place or even Han’s:

The judge said, a dish like this will definitely get a medal. And it did. A Silver! Ben then said, “So this is creative and something you’ve never seen before? Do you judge based on what’s creative or what you like?”

The judged wasn’t too happy and couldn’t retort. Then Ben asked him, “So you’ve been a chef for how many years now? Must be a very, very long time”. The judge seemed ticked off so Ben rubbed it in some more by sarcastically saying, Oh, one day I want to be like you.

These are the dishes that received medals:

I noticed that sometimes there were 4 judges judging a plate, and sometimes just 3. The fourth judge, Chef Otto Weibel, was too busy attending to award presentation ceremonies and others that he was not present to judge all the plates. So I wonder how they summed up the scores whenever Chef Otto was missing. Did they judge on his behalf? Makes you wonder......

Chef Invasion

Last week HR told Ben that they would get the Swedish guy to swap rooms with a Thai guy who lives in an apartment on the ground floor, cos the Thai guy is a Junior Sous Chef working with Ben so they think they might get along. It was a really stupid suggestion cos Budak Baru actually wants to move to some place closer to work, not to another room where he’ll have to share the flat with two other guys. I dunno if they did propose the idea to him and then realise how stupid they were.

But anyway, Budak Baru moved out on Friday to Jumeirah Village. Yup, to a tiny ratty studio like the one Ben viewed. At least he’s a little closer to work and the place has a gym, pool, pool room, internet access etc. So great, he’s here less than a month and he gets what he wants.

That’s what it’s like here. All hail the angmoh gods! If you’re not Arab or angmoh, you’re treated like pond scum. Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Filipino, Bangladeshi… all Asian, all bottom dwellers of the Dubai ‘caste’ system.

So we’ve got the apartment to ourselves again, till Wednesday when Tinnakorn moves in. Tinnakorn just started at the hotel about a month ago. He’s supposed to be working at the new restaurant too, but like Ben, he’s now at Al Mahara till the new restaurant opens next year (now they say June 2007). So I’ll be living with two chefs. In the words of wacky Form 2 Geog teacher, Mrs Nathan, “Tuhan selamatkan saya”.

Maybe more like “Tuhan selamatkan dia” cos at work, it’s like “Yes, Chef”, “No, Chef”, “Ok, Chef”. Then when he comes home he still has to see Chef and live with Chef. Poor guy. Ben already stresses him out at work, and now tells him, “So you can teach my wife to cook Thai food yeah”. I guess with him being South East Asian and a chef, he should hopefully be more “normal” – the “normal” Ben n I are used to. At least he won’t be put off by stuff like belachan and durian.

Hopefully it’s third time lucky and we all can live happily ever after. But Tinnakorn’s very unhappy at work cos he, like many others, specialise in Thai or Chinese or Japanese cuisine, and come here only to find out that the opening of the new restaurant has been delayed till mid next year. Then they’re thrown into any kitchen to do something almost alien to them.

So he may decide to up and leave. Like Ben’s first flatmate, Hiro-san. He stayed here at Ewan for less than a month cos he works at Emirates Towers and had to move somewhere closer to work too. He went back to Japan after two months cos he told Ben the standards here “cannot make it” and he couldn’t bear to watch the restaurant serve such sub-standard food and pass it off as some sort of Japanese fusion fine dining. Against his principles. A chef with pride.

I’m afraid this place is really killing the chef in Ben too. He says, everything he’s learnt, all his blood, sweat, tears, and the blood, sweat, tears of all the chefs who have been a mentor to him, all gone. Everything good they’ve taught him doesn’t apply here, and it kills him to watch how the so-called chefs and cooks here commit what a chef back home would consider sacrilegious. They have no pride in the work they do, even when they act so proud.

Of course they have the right to act all high and mighty. They’re angmoh. Chef Julien used to always tell Ben and the rest, “You can cheat the customer, but you can never cheat yourself”. Ben says now he really knows what Julien was talking about. And now it makes sense why lots of things here get by if you just close one eye. You know how they say, in the land of the blind…

Budak Baru Also Cannot Make It

Inilah Tragedi Oktober...

It was fun while it lasted – having the entire 2-bedroom apartment to ourselves after the Budak Busuk left. Two weeks ago, a new “Budak” moved in, a 23-year old Swede. I won’t mention his name except that it sounds like “swollen” when pronounced. Ben was having one of his sleepless nights when Budak moved in at 3-something one morning. So Ben sat him down to tell him the house rules, then showed him around the kitchen, pointing out what was ours and what belonged to the apartment that he could use. The next day I met Budak and showed him where the bus pick-up/drop off point was so he could take the shuttle to the “White House” (Jumeirah’s HR office). Ben’s colleague Paulina was at the bus stop waiting for the same bus so I introduced Budak to her and asked her to show him where to drop off when they took the bus later.

That night, Ben said Paulina was all dreamy-eyed when he met her and she gushed about how “handsome” our new housemate was. Budak isn’t the blonde and ‘pucat’ type of person you would picture when you think “Swede”, but a tall, dark-haired, well-built guy, with chiselled features and hazel eyes.

Within one day of Budak moving in, he managed to find time to send an email to his HR to complain that he wanted to move to Gardens cos he has to take two shuttle buses and it takes him an hour to get to work at Emirates Towers, and also that he didn’t want to live with us cos he was promised a place of his own. Like ya, get in line, buddy! Most people have to wait at least 3 months before HR finds them a “better” accommodation.

A few weeks back Ben n I viewed a one-bedroom apartment at Acacia Court, which is along Sheikh Zayed Road, next to Novotel and Emirates Towers. It has a really great location cos it’s about 15 minutes away from Burj Al Arab, the city, Deira, etc. Unfortunately, it was a really old apartment, with its kitchen cabinets falling apart, the sofa yellowish-brown with dirt or sweat or something really gross, and the bathtub had yucky brown glue all over, covering big cracks. It looked like someone had painted the cracks with gula melaka. What was worse was the smell in this fully carpeted apartment. The guy who showed us the place said the carpet could not be removed cos it was glued down. It’s a pity HR couldn’t bother to refurbish the place cos it seemed like a nice and cosy room.

Then two weeks ago, Ben was shown another place at Jumeirah Village, which is within walking distance from Burj Al Arab. This time, it was a studio, as tiny as our current living room, with one single bed. Ben was so fed up that these idiots wasted his time, what with the Accomodation Director herself saying that they usually don’t “pull strings” to offer places like these to staff, blah blah blah.

So I asked Ben if he’d rather moved to a cramp and crappy place for the sake of convenient location and privacy, or just finally settle in happily in our spacious, clean and quiet apartment here at Ewan, and hopefully get along with this new guy. I mean, Ben’s been here at Ewan for almost 5 months, and me 3 months, and we’ve gotten used to it. And even if we do finally get a one-bedroom apartment at Gardens (Ben’s like number 20-something on the waiting list), apartment blocks are much bigger at Gardens, meaning there are a lot more people living on each floor, so it’s not peaceful like it is here. So we decided to stay put and have been really nice to Budak too.

The plants and shrubs around Ewan Residence are thriving now that summer is over, so the place looks much greener, less barren and concrete-like.

And after taking these pictures at Ewan and Gardens, I just realised that Gardens doesn’t have any greenery… no trees, no shrubs and flowering plants, just a patch of grass… no gardens.

So Ben n I are happy, and Budak seems happy too and we’ve been getting along fine. But he still wants to move to somewhere closer to work cos he says the long bus ride gives him a headache. The idiot keeps reading the bus timetable wrongly and ends up waiting for the bus when there isn’t a scheduled bus, then has to wait an hour or two for the next one. So on Sunday, Budak waits for the bus to Gardens at 11.45am. But the schedule clearly shows: 7.45am, 9.45am, 12.45pm, 1.45pm... This is the third time he’s read the schedule wrongly. It’s not like they change it everyday, it’s a set schedule, I know it by heart, and even know which one my favourite driver works so that he can drop me off at the Mall.

Now I know why we’re taught to read time the way we’re taught… not the stylo-milo angmoh way. 12.45 is twelve forty five, not quarter to one. 4.15 is four fifteen, not quarter past four. So when you see 12.45, you know it’s within the hour “twelve”, no dumbass way of getting it wrong, right? But when you use quarter to, quarter past, ten to, five past… what happens? You screw up. Cos if you read 12.45, your eyes tell your brain 12. Then when you’re not looking at the schedule, the number 12 comes to mind, and you think quarter to twelve.

And so, Budak comes back to the apartment all pissed of that there’s no bus, and instead of kicking himself for being so stupid, he calls HR to complain again about how inconvenient it is for him to get to work from Ewan. Now instead of telling them, “I’m angry cos I’m a dumbass and I dunno how to read time so please provide me lodging in the bus so that I won’t miss it”, he complains to HR about us, thinking it will expedite his move. He tells them that he’s not “comfortable” living with a married couple cos we need our privacy and he needs his privacy and whatever. So today some imbecile from HR tells Ben that we have to move out once they find us another place, whether it’s crappy or not, whether we like it OR NOT. Cos HR now thinks Ben n I are the problem since both Budak Baru and Budak Busuk complained about living with us. Budak Busuk said the same shit about how he’s not comfortable living with a married couple, AND, that our KIDS were noisy! And of course the people at HR are so lazy and stupid that they don’t care about whatever crap you say, they just wanna wash any problems off their hands.

The super bodoh thing about how they work is that they just “postpone” the problem until some sort of “deadline”. Like they knew by end-May that Ben would be arriving in mid-June, and that he is entitled to a one-bedroom apartment. But they just put him up in a two-bedroom one that he has to share with someone else. Then when he requests for a one-bedroom apartment in Gardens, they put him on the waiting list, and a month ago they say he’s still 27 on the list which is plain bullshit. And when there was the big hooha about Budak Busuk, they shoved the ratty Acacia Court and Jumeirah Village studio our way, thinking Ben would be desperate enough to take the place and settle our accommodation problem that they started in the first place.

So since Ben has rejected two places, and Budak has complained about not wanting to stay with us, they’re saying WE have to move out. Instead of moving Budak out when he’s the one who wants to go, these bloody bodoh memang takde otak people must be thinking, “This Benjamin Lim’s problem is reaching our 6 month deadline, must quickly settle. The Swedish fella’s problem is only two weeks old, can postpone for another 5 months. Insya-Allah they’ll give up complaining then we have more time to sip coffee and compare tudung styles.”

At first I convinced Ben not to get angry with Budak cos if we were in his shoes, we’d feel lousy too, about being promised a place of his own then arriving here to find out he has to share an apartment with someone else. I told Ben that if he wanted to be pissed off, he should be pissed off with the idiots at HR. He had a huge argument with the HR imbecile and when he realised the “discussion” was getting nowhere and that all they wanted was to get us out of Ewan, he told her, “You’re penalising me for being married?! I don’t know how the #@%* you do things in this country or this company, but from where I come from, we have proper values and we believe in strong family values. Now I know I’ve joined the wrong company.”

And NOW, now I dunno what to say about Budak. What’s up with these budaks complaining about “sharing an apartment with a married couple”? It’s not like Ben and I are all mushy lovey dovey and grossing them out. I hardly even see Ben. I probably see Budak more often than I see Ben. And when Budak’s already asleep when Ben comes home at 1 or 2 plus in the morning, we eat quietly in front of the TV, with the TV volume so low we can hardly hear what’s going on, while we whisper about how our day went. And we don’t even impose Ben’s OCD clean n neat rules on him. He’s not messy, but I know Ben likes the place clean and in order so I sweep the floor every day and mop it every 3 or 4 days, arrange the cushions, and shoes, and anything else in the neat-freakish way Ben likes them. So it’s not just Ben who comes home to a clean and neat home, Budak gets to enjoy it too, without having to lift a finger or touch the mop.

In fact, since Budak moved in, I hardly even fry stuff cos I figured these Europeans might not be used to the smell of Chinese/Malay food, so even if I cook rendang or something, I try to cook it earlier so that the air is cleared by the time Budak comes home, and when Ben’s on his way home then I re-heat the food or leave it in the oven for a while. The reason why I’ve been trying so hard to get Budak to like us is so that he stays put, and we all can live here happily without moving out. Cos if he moves out, we’d have to worry again about who’s gonna be the next craphead moving in. So now if we’re forced to move out first, I hope Budak gets a taste of what it’s like to live with people other than this “married couple”. Try living with Budak Busuk or one of his other smelly friends. Try living with the lifeguards who party all day and night, or just someone really lazy and dirty. (BTW, Budak showers before work but doesn’t when he comes home after a full day at work. Perhaps in angmoh-land it’s too cold to take a bath at night, but this is Dubai man, all 40-plus degrees of sun, sand and more sand)

I remember back when I was renting an apartment at Pasir Ris Block 210 with Shan, Cherie and some other girls. I got along well with the landlord but when we moved out, he turned against me and said I betrayed his trust. Because of money. He wanted us to pay for polishing of the parquet floors, for re-painting the bandung pink walls, for a new gate lock that was already rosak… He was like “Why Bernie? Why?!! I treated you like family tau…” Of course it didn’t help that Shan’s ex threatened to call the police when the landlord said he wasn’t going to return the deposit, and there was a lot of shouting between those two outside the flat while the kaypoh neighbours suddenly decided to take time to smell the roses. Very drama. Sungguh tra-ge-di... Maybe I should try my Sandiwara skills with Budak huh. Why Budak, why?

Dunwannabe

I just realised I'm a dunwannabe. Never wannabe this or that, always dunwanna be this and that.

I’m turning 29 tomorrow! Ben managed to get this Sunday & Monday off, so it’s our first birthday together. A HSBC rep who handled Ben’s banking stuff insisted that Ben must cook for me… Don’t you think that’s so expected? Like, “oh, your husband’s a chef so you probably get to eat really nice food huh” or “oh, your husband’s a chef so you don’t need to worry about cooking huh”…

If that’s the case, then I wonder what people say to Ben? Like, “oh, your wife’s a housewife who was a graphic designer and who’s in limbo between graphic design, early childhood education and 'tai-tai-hood' so you probably get really creative lectures about how to wipe your nose while keeping the kitchen clean?”

We've realised that time, or the day, passes real quickly here. We figured it’s cos since you get more hours of daylight here (it’s bright n sunny from 6am till 7.30pm), your body automatically works on “daytime mode” right up till sunset. Ok, firstly I wake up rather late lah… Say about 11.30am or sometimes even later in the afternoon! Then I either prepare cover letters to fax or email out, get something to eat, do laundry or house cleaning when necessary… By 5-6pm I may go out to the nearby shops for grocery shopping, faxing or internet surfing till 7-9pm… Then by 10-11pm it’s time to prepare dinner, read the papers or Dubai guide books, wait for Ben to get home, have dinner at 1-2am, sleep.

I’m still looking n applying for graphic design jobs, cos the teaching jobs require you to be British, American or “western educated” – their way of saying “we only hire angmohs”. Like out of 5, I get a call back from 1, and find out that the company is located far from our Timbuktu home. So what I do now is go for the interview anyway and ask them if I can do freelance work for them… which is usually no cos most employers of course want someone whose neck they can breathe down all day.

Ben n I have sorted out our monthly budget and hope we can stick to it cos based on how much we have to send back to Singapore to settle bills, etc, and the amount we spend here, it’s quite alarming that Ben doesn’t get to save much. That’s why I’m still hoping I’ll get a job soon so we can at least have a bit more to save (and splurge…). But it’s a good thing I was jobless last month or the Summer Sales would have killed me! So tempting… It’s like 80% of the stuff goes on sale at 50% discount, and the last week of the sale (that was last week), it gets slashed another 50% so it’s 75% off the original price.

So back to our monthly budget… We spent like about Dhs.800 on groceries (foodstuff only) last month! I guess it’s hard to calculate how much we actually spend/need cos The Housemate and I take turns to buy stuff like rice, oil, eggs, etc, and even though I use it more regularly than he does, when he has his “China Parties” he uses up a lot of stuff at one go, so I’m not sure exactly how much foodstuff Ben n I need a month. Right now I’ve set the budget at Dhs.500 and hope I can keep it to that or less.

We also spent damn a lot on cabfare, so now I’ve downloaded all the routes, maps n timetables for the public bus service so that we can budget our travelling expenses a little. But Ben doesn’t really like the idea of me travelling by public bus here. I guess I’ll try it out at least a couple of times first to see how “convenient and efficient” it is and whether it’s considered “safe” by Ben’s standards.

There’s a restaurant/café in Ibn Battuta Mall that is equipped with wi-fi whatever-you-call-it and I tried it out a few weeks back. In the end, it’s still better to pay Dhs.10 an hour at the nearby shops, cos connection at that wi-fi place was really slow, and to take a cab back from there costs me Dhs.30, plus another Dhs.10 to buy a drink and sit there… So even if I sit my butt there for 5 hours, I can’t get much done due to the slow connection.

Before I left Singapore, I applied online for a cabin crew position with Emirates Airlines. When I got here, I got in touch with my bro’s friend, Juline who flies with Emirates to ask her whatever I wanted to know about the job. She used to fly with SQ too, and comparing working with both airlines, with Emirates, much better pay, but shorter layovers and horrible passengers. Apparently the economy class cabin is converted into a dump after each meal service as the pax are really messy and demanding. It’s like an SQ Madras turn, but on almost every flight! And she said to be able to make it and enjoy the job, you have to be very “garang” and get your way with the rest, no need for the SQ “please go ahead cos you’re senior n I love your hair n nails” culture. It’s a dog eat dog world for Emirates crew.

So this kinda got me worried cos I totally cannot be “garang” lah so for sure kena bully by the big angmoh “girls”. And on top of that, Drew’s friend said that Emirates wasn’t hiring married girls anymore because of some maternity leave and benefits thing. So I decided to forget about “a rewarding career with Emirates”.

Then one day I get a call from them asking me to attend a group interview. Ben said I should just go, see-see, get free makan… So I went even though I wasn’t looking forward to working with “garang” people, but only cos they pay really well (like ten thousand dirhams a month including allowances, plus lodging, transport, etc) … It was supposed to be a whole day affair, from 7.30am onwards. Of course, it would be a whole day affair if you were lucky to get through the various rounds of “elimination”. My “whole day affair” ended by 10.30am!

There were about 23 of us “candidates”, about 4 guys, the rest girls. 80% Filipino and the rest a mixture of Kenyan, angmoh, and the “lain-lain” like me. So first off, they make you wait in the bloody cold reception area for an hour till your fingernails turn blue. Then in a room, two ex-crew tell you all about the airline, the job, life in Dubai, etc. Then each “candidate” goes into a room for the “Reach” test, where they test if you can reach a certain mark on the wall with your arm/hand, which is the minimum height requirement to access onboard safety equipment. I managed to reach it on tiptoes lah.

Then, we’re divided into two groups, do some icebreaking intro thing and given a topic to discuss in 10 minutes. The topic for my group of 12 was, imagine you have to create a new world. You have to name this new world and come up with 10 professionals who will belong to this new world. Professionals must be creative, not the usual engineer, doctor, etc.

So my group starts discussing, and waste probably 8 minutes with one guy giving a detailed bio of Lance Armstrong and why he should be in this new world, and the next girl stating why that Princess Di, Prince Charle’s “wife” (didn’t she mean late ex-wife?) should be part of this new world… only to be interrupted by the facilitator that we don’t have to name specific individuals.

So finally, based on one of the facilitators' suggestions and because we had only 2 minutes left, we came up with an imaginary underwater world called Sea World (oh wow, sungguh kreatif), and we have a king, queen, doctor, driver, etc, etc. I didn’t really come up with anything except stupid smart ass remarks which was probably the cause of my “elimination”! Like someone said that Sea World needed someone to keep the water clean, like a filter, so I was like…

Bernie: Ya, a sea sponge! We can name him Bob.

SOUND: WEAK LAUGHTER FROM A FEW PEOPLE JUXTAPOSED WITH THE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.

Then there was this girl from Lebanon, who at the start of the day had already told the room about how sad a state her country is in, oh war, war… I’m really not being a bitch, and we all feel sad about Lebanon and war-torn countries, but she just kept this sad and pathetic look on her face all day, and all her remarks were like, “oh my country war…” So when someone mentioned that our Sea World should have a warrior, she said “oh, no war, our world must have no war”. Which is of course utopically true, but smart ass Bernie then said…

Bernie: The only way you can have a world without war is if everyone was identical so that no one will envy each other…

SOUND: MORE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.

So of course, those who didn’t say a word during the discussion, and the insensitive smart ass one didn’t get through to the next round lah. And those who came up with creative suggestions like King, Queen, Warrior, Doctor, Driver, Consultant, etc, as well as Miss Lebanon got through. Some more, no free makan, man!

So now I wonder, if they don’t want smart asses as cabin crew, why does SQ now prefer to hire degree holders, and offer early promotion to cabin crew with degrees? I mean, all an airline needs is a stewardess who wants world peace. Now with SQ dropping in ranking for Best Airline, Best Cabin Crew, etc, I've come up with a solution for SIA to boost their image and re-invent the Singapore Girl - a Singapore Girl Search reality show.

An intense regionwide competition to see who can suck up to the seniors the best while eating humble pie till she pukes without messing up her super wayang make-up, and she should puke whatever she eats cos she has to make sure she's skinny enough for SQ standards, so stick thin that she can squeeze through two carts parked side by side but can hardly lift a fire extinguisher. Then she has to hold a degree in any discipline but ensure she entertains passengers with really intelligent conversation like how she wants to study 'law', and ponder before n after each flight why she's called a Singapore Girl when she's from Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China, Japan or Korea, and why people say she's "a great way to fly".