Satwa

This is Satwa, where our friend Andrew lives. Satwa is located just behind the Trade Centre stretch of Sheikh Zayed Road.

The Air Up Here

Summer ended in early September, with little brats getting sent back to school after such a long n shiok summer break. There was a marked difference in the weather n it started with a dark day. I woke up, around noon as usual, when I received an SMS from Ben advising me to cover up if I planned to go out cos there was a sandstorm. I looked out the window, and yea man… It wasn’t the usual blazing afternoon sun that greeted me, but a grey day. The wilting palm trees were swaying about in the wind, and it looked like a cloudy day that promised rain! Ya, I thought it was gonna storm. Ben n I didn’t realise how much we missed the rain until we were watching a movie one day, and it was a regular scene from made-in-Hollywood American home… kitchen, little windows above kitchen sink, it was night… And it was raining heavily outside. Ben n I were like, “Wah… rain…”.

So anyway, back to the day of the “sandstorm”. It wasn’t really a sandstorm lah. I guess if you were living or working by the beach like Ben then it would have been like a real sandstorm with the wind lifting up half the shore. But here in Ewan, it was just grey. I walked to the bus stop to take the shuttle to the nearby shops and it was quite strange but cool. Here’s a picture on a normal day, and one on the day of the mini sandstorm.


I wore my sunglasses but there was sand flying everywhere, so it got in my eyes and my black shirt was covered with fine sand. But don’t start conjuring scenes from ‘The Mummy Returns’. It really wasn’t like that. You don’t really see sand flying about in the air cos it’s too fine. It’s just like a really windy, hazy n dusty day. You could however see sand swirling about on the roads as the wind lifted it up from all around. It was really cool… The sand seemed alive. It didn’t form into a ‘mummy’s head lah, but it looked like there were sand-coloured snakes slithering n floating just inches from the ground. Very magical in a creepy David Copperfield-ish way.

However, in the ‘winter’ months ahead there may be more sandstorms, maybe ‘real’ ones. Ben’s ex-colleague Samuel said it rained last December too, and there was once it rained all day, and most places were flooded since you don’t have monsoon drains here. Wait a minute, you don’t have any drains here. I guess with just about 90mm of rainfall a year, why bother making drains. Even the little drain ‘hole’ on our kitchen balcony is clogged up with sand n has become home to black ants.

It gets dark by 5.45pm here, as compared to the summer months when the sun sets only at around 7.45pm. It’s still hot in the daytime, but just like a hot n sunny day in Singapore. It’s bearable, and sometimes even what residents call “great weather”, partly cos our bodies have adapted to the weather after the torturing heat in August. In August I’d stand outdoors at 11pm and break into a sweat, make-up melting all over my face. Nights now bring a cool evening breeze, with people opting to dine alfresco, kids playing outside in the dark… . Lovely weather, by Dubai standards.

A Walk Around Ewan

Over the next few weeks I’ll be uploading pictures of different parts of Dubai, starting with where I live in Dubai Investments Park (near Green Community) in Jebel Ali.


On the other side of the road from Ewan Residences is a ‘desert’. Oh ya, the sun is HUGE on this side of the world!

Ok, it’s not like the open desert but a big piece of land being developed into buildings, complexes, factories, Dubai Motor City, and such. Walking away from Ewan and towards Courtyard@Marriott, there’s a dirt road next to Ewan that leads to more ‘desert’ and a camel farm.


For someone like Ben who grew up in a country that has all its power cables, phone lines or whatever hidden underground, these tall electrical tower thingies all over Dubai freak him out a lot. He says there’s just something about it that’s really eerie.

I dunno about eerie, but walking past them, with all the cables hanging above, you hear this buzzing sound. It’s quite loud actually. I’m not sure if it’s just the sound of the cables vibrating against the cool evening breeze, or if it’s really the sound of millions of volts of electricity passing through those lines. I kept my fingers crossed that the signal from my cellphone didn’t make me some sort of human electromagnet n fry me black.

Anyway, past these cable tower thingies behind Ewan, is more desert. Ben and I agree that this area looks really “Tatooine”. What with the desert, bizzare sunsets, reversed moon, odd-looking creatures…

There are actually many holes in the sand, caused by small burrowing creatures that were too fast for me to identify. Maybe bringing my diving booties and torchlights here wasn’t a dumb idea after all. Anyway, the small camel farm is further down this dirt road.


Now THIS is eerie, after the sun set, the camels started to bleat. Like oversized goats going b-e-h-h—b-e-h-h—b-e-h-h… except that it sounded like they were crying out to me. I decided not to go closer or stray further down the road as I wasn’t in the mood to get chased by camels, or worse, the bored n lonely camel ‘jaga’s.

Dubai Map

Here’s a simplified map of Dubai, showing areas that I mention now n then in my postings, for a better idea of where I live, how far from the city, airport, Burj Al Arab, etc.


Ewan Residences is located in the “pink” spot in Jebel Ali. The Gardens is also in Jebel Ali, about 15 minutes away from Ewan by car/shuttle bus. Burj Al Arab, the little “yellow” man-made island, is about 25 minutes away from Ewan by car/shuttle bus. It’s located in Umm Suqeim, not Jumeira, although the stretch of beach from Umm Suqeim right up to Jumeira is Jumeira Beach, along Jumeira Road.

The bolder “orange” line is Sheikh Zayed Road, the main expressway that runs right across Dubai. As we’re located near the Jebel Ali Port and Free Zone, you get lots of huge trucks, trailers, tankers travelling along the expressway around this area. At certain times during the day, the Jebel Ali Interchange/Roundabout gets jam-packed with all these big trucks. I’m sure at least 10 accidents occur at this roundabout every day. One taxi driver told me his friend died there just a week back.

That’s the scary thing about traffic in Dubai. It’s not just how the average speed on roads is 120km/h, with most drivers going at 140 (the speed limit is 120). Drivers are really, REALLY reckless – swerving, switching lanes without signalling, drifting... Dubai has the third highest road accident rate in the world, with one person killed in a traffic related accident every 48 hours, and one injury every four hours.

Other than the truck pile up, Jebel Ali is a much quieter area in terms of road traffic and human traffic. Mainly an industrial area, and with a few camel farms scattered around too. A bit ulu, but the residences here are newer, mostly less than 2 years old, with many vast areas of land (desert) fenced up and marked for future development, or already undergoing the intial phases of construction of residential, retail and industrial complexes.

The “green” spot on the map makes up the Al Wasl, Safa, Jumeira district, which is older, but because of its beachfront location, it’s one of the most expensive areas to rent or buy a property.

The One & Only Royal Mirage and Le Meridien Mina Seyahi is located just to the left of the entrance to the Palm Jumeirah, and the areas opposite the Palm Jumeirah make up the newly developed Dubai Media City, Internet City n Knowledge Village. Nearby is Dubai Marina, another new area with more expat-targetted apartments and such.

Distance by cabfare:
Burj Al Arab – Mall of the Emirates, Dhs.10
Mall of the Emirates – Ewan, Dhs.55
Ibn Battuta Mall – Ewan, Dhs.30
Burj Al Arab – Airport Area/Deira, about Dhs.50-60
Don’t ask me distance in km or even metres, I really can’t tell. Even 100m back in school days was considered a very long distance to run (notice how I say run, not sprint).

Al Quoz is another huge industrial area, and Jumeirah has its own staff accommodation built there for lower grade employees. This is the place I had to go to to get my medical (blood test from hell) done.

The stretch of Sheikh Zayed Road from around Al Wasl to Satwa is the business district of Dubai, lined with hotels and office buildings. Emirates Towers is located here and is 15 – 20 minutes away from Burj Al Arab.

The “purple” zone is the oldest part of Dubai, Bur Dubai on the left, and Deira on the right. Our friend Andrew rents a small studio in Satwa for about Dhs.3,000 a month (he used to rent one in Deira for Dhs.3,500 a month!), and he works at Madinat Jumeirah.

Most of the old souks are located in Deira, and a few in Bur Dubai. The other bulk of hotels are located in Deira, either along Dubai Creek or near the airport. So far, I’ve received most invitations for job interviews with companies located in Deira, one in Karama, and even one all the way in Al Qusais. It’s not just the distance that puts me off, it’s the traffic! The whole “purple” area is crazy, congested, and not very safe for women to be walking about alone.

Lamcy Plaza is located in Oud Metha, and the Singapore Consulate is in a building nextdoor. There are quite a few Chinese restaurants around this area, but we have yet to try any of them.

Ras Al Khor is another huge industrial area and the Bird & Wildlife Sanctuary is situated at the mangrove area here where the creek ends. There are also camel farms and the enormous Dragonmart that we visited here. Nad al Sheba, the Dubai camel racing “circuit” is somewhere around this area too. So Hatta is somewhere south of Ras Al Khor, Sharjah is to the right, and Abu Dhabi to the left. And yes, there’s more than one “Palm”. Three altogether, plus “The World”, all under construction. Dubai’s total coastline is aapproximately 60km, but these new offshore projects will add over 1,000km! Palm Deira is about three times the size of Palm Jumeirah. Palms in the ocean… What next? Coral lagoons in the Empty Quarter?

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…

Power Root

I bought Ben this bottle of Valerian Root pills the other day. No, it’s not Tongkat Ali. On the contrary, it’s to put you into a DEEP SLEEP. Ya, Ben has insomnia and it’s worse when he sometimes he has to work for 7-8 days in a row, from 9am till midnight or 1–2am. So he asked me to go to the Nutrition Zone shop to look for something to help him sleep, something “herbal” instead of sleeping pills. The pharmacist there recommended this bottle of Super Snooze, containing valerian root and melatonin, and he insisted that one would wake up refreshed after taking it, even if one had just 2 hours of sleep.

So Ben tried it and it really works. Within half an hour he’s like all groggy and falls into a deep sleep, “real POW-wer” is how he described it. But too power. You don’t wake up rejuvenated, you just wanna continue sleeping cos it feels so good. The first day after Ben took it, he said he could hardly stay awake at work. There was one day, he was sleeping until so shiok that he didn’t wanna wake up and when I told him he just missed his 8am bus, he said “Nevermind, I can take the next one”. Then he overslept some more and missed the 9am bus! Now he takes it only when he’s off the next day.

Ben’s created a monster. Guess who’s listening to Jay Chou regularly now...

Someone’s turned my world upside down!

I found it quite strange that the crescent on some logos and displays here were inverted. I mean, I know Arabic is read from right to left, but I guess it hits you that you’re really in a foreign country when you start seeing stuff that you’re used to seeing in mirror image. I mean, back home, you have the crescent on the Jalur Gemilang, Red Crescent Society logo, atop mosques, and even on cans of abalone.


So on the third day of Eid (pronounced “eed”, for Eid al Fitr, what we know as Hari Raya Aidilfitri), I decided to look to the sky for answers. Yup, you see the moon upside down or front to back or whatever here.


I guess I never thought about it. I mean, I know you have different constellation maps for the Northern and Southern hemisphere, but it never struck me that even the moon would be inverted. So that means as I stand on the balcony some evenings to watch the sun set, you could be standing somewhere else in the world at a really funny angle, watching the sun rise. Amazing.

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?

Recent Pics

Here are a few recent pictures, taken early this month. My brother Andrew had a four day stopover here and since it was still Ramadhan, we didn’t really go anywhere. With summer over and the high 40-degree days over, Ben n I find the weather SO much better, especially by evening, it’s really cool. But that’s also cos our bodies have adapted to the weather.

So when Drew was here, he kept saying it was really hot n humid n probably thought Ben n I were crazy when we said the weather was lovely. Drew stayed with us at Ewan for 3 nights (when Budak Busuk was still around). I only brought him to the places nearby, like Ibn Battuta Mall and of course, Burj Al Arab, Madinat Jumeirah and the beach by Jumeirah Beach Hotel.
It was really nice having him here, and Ben was really excited about seeing a familiar face from home. Unfortunately we got Andrew’s detailed roster only a week before so Ben couldn’t schedule his off days to coincide with Drew’s visit. We managed to have drinks at Bahri Bar the first night, and Drew had a nice time taking a million photos and pictures of the hotel from the balcony seating area at the bar.

The night before Andrew flew off, Ben n I met him when he was back in his hotel, and we had dinner at the Chicken Tikka Inn nearby. Really good stuff… Yummy crispy prata with cucumber/tomato raita, and really nice chicken tikka of course.

Here’s the most recent pic of Ben n I, taken during dinner at The Rib Room in Emirates Tower Hotel on Ben’s birthday. As you can see, I’m quite a ‘well-rounded’ person now.

And here’s Chef Ben, after one of his usual 12-14 hour work days.

He's Out!

Yup… Budak Busuk has moved out! We’re not exactly sure if he requested to move out or if he was asked to leave cos we have different parties giving us a different story each. Here’s what happened, according to our side of the story.

First there were his China gang “parties” where he’d invite his noisy mates over and have a big cook-out and makan. So Ben told him nicely, “You can have your friends over but keep the noise down”.

Then there was the big get-together with almost 10 of them here, making damn a lot of noise, messing up the whole kitchen till they cooked the pot black, drinking, eating like pigs (they really eat like there’s no tomorrow, stuffing their mouths while talking at the same time with bits of food flying about)… So Ben was stern but nice when he told him, “You’re earning good money, a lot more than what your friends are earning, so be wise about the kind of friends you keep”. The aftermath of that party… a blackened Tefal pan and a melted spatula.


So after that, he had fewer friends over at a time, but even with just 2 girls or guys, it was still really annoying cos they’re just so loud, and of course they made themselves at home, switching channels while I was watching TV, cooking almost every night using rice, sauces, etc that I bought.

Ben wasn’t happy about these fellas coming over and watching TV as I hid away in the bedroom. There was one time when Ben came home early and The Housemate’s friend (we shall call him Freeloader) was in the hall watching TV. When Ben brought his dinner out to the hall, Freeloader asked “Eating dinner?” and Ben said, “Ya, do you mind?” and the fella buggered off.

I started keeping cooking stuff in the bedroom – rice, olive oil, vinegar, kitchen towels… Ya paper kitchen rolls. Each time they had one of they’re cookouts, they’d use up an ENTIRE roll of my paper kitchen towels!

I even asked Ben if he wanted to keep away his expensive Global knives, cos you know about chefs and their knives. No one touches a chef’s knife right, so I say to Ben, “The Housemate had broken a few glasses, melted the spatula, scratched my rice pot… do you wanna hide your knives in case he spoils them too?” Ben wanted to, but then he decided against it cos he said it may be “pantang” to keep knives in the bedroom.

And whadya know… Just a few days later, he MUTILATED Ben’s Global chef knife! Useless dumbass used it as a hammer! I heard a lot of hammering one afternoon and knew that he put up a small mirror opposite the mirror in his bathroom, cos he wanted to cut his hair on his own instead of going to the salon. But that night as I was preparing dinner, I picked up Ben’s knife and realised something was wrong with it. The Housemate used the butt of the knife to hammer in the nail. So now the stainless steel surface is pock-marked all over with rough and slightly sharp dents/scratches.


I sms-ed Ben immediately, and the other Sous Chef insisted Ben leave work early when he heard what happened. So Ben came back earlier that night and came into the kitchen to inspect the knife. The knife itself is still ok, it’s just that the handle bit is like crap now. So Ben purposely screamed out “Wahlaneh!!” and went out to the hall where The Housemate was watching TV. He asked him if he used the knife to hammer something and the fella said yes and apologised. Ben didn’t raise his voice at all, but just started grumbling on and on… “This is my personal item… brought all the way from Singapore… expensive and personal… I’ve had it for so many years…now it’s destroyed…” and about how he didn’t say anything when the fool broke glasses and all cos it’s company property, but this knife was HIS.

After that incident, the tension between Ben and The Housemate was obvious. Ben showed his disapproval when The Housemates friends were over by mumbling stuff like “Ya get out of the way” and “Useless!” if he had to walk past The Housemate’s friend in the apartment. One night we came home really late and found Freeloader sleeping on the couch without his shirt. Ben gave him a pissed off look so Freeloader ran into The Housemate's bedroom to sleep.

Then one evening, Ben said “The Housemate has moved out!” And I thought how could that be when he just asked me that same afternoon if we wanted to apply for an internet connection and cable tv service for the apartment. So Ben n I checked the apartment. His shoes which usually lay astrew near the front door… gone. Most of his stuff from the kitchen… gone.

The next afternoon, The Housemate came back and took a few more of his things and I asked him if he was moving out. And he said he met a friend of his who studied with him in Switzerland, and the guy just arrived in Dubai and is a Management Trainee with Jumeirah too. Since he just moved in to his apartment here at Ewan, The Housemate requested to move in with him too, and it was approved immediately.

Now all this time, Ben had already put in a request to move to a single-bedroom apartment which is his entitlement. After the big “China party”, Ben went to HR again to complain about The Housemate and his noisy gatherings. Then after the knife and other smelly incidents, Ben and the other Sous Chef made a couple more complaints to HR to expedite Ben’s move to a better apartment, or get The Housemate to move out.

So the day The Housemate moved out, he and Freeloader came over to get the last of his stuff, and Ben came back that night saying that HR told him that The Housemate was asked to move out. So I don’t know if he was really asked to move out or if he requested to move in with his friend. Ben said he could hear the usual noisy gathering going on in The Housemate’s new apartment cos it turned out he moved to the unit just diagonally across from us, and I wonder why he didn’t dare tell me that when I asked him where he was moving to. So that night, Ben n I celebrated the fact that the Budak Busuk was out.

That same night at about 3am, I heard a sound in the apartment. Ben was really tired and fell right to sleep, so I didn’t wake him and just said a decade of the Rosary for safety. Then in the morning when Ben’s alarm went off at 7.30, I heard The Housemate’s bedroom door open and his bathroom door close. So I got out of bed and sat on the couch, waiting to see who was gonna come out of the bathroom. Ben woke up and asked what I was doing in the hall, and when I explained what I heard and that someone was in the bathroom, Ben got real mad.

He must have literally scared THE SHIT out of the guy in the bathroom. It was Freeloader who was in the bathroom. Ben hammered on the door really hard and shouted, “Who’s in there?” No answer, so he hammered some more. “Who the @#%* is in there?!!”

A shit-scared Freeloader answered “It’s The Housemate’s friend” and Ben continued, “Come out NOW!! @##$$%^%$!!#!!

Freeloader sounded like he was almost crying, “Wait wait… I in toilet”

“COME OUT NOW! @#*%^KNN#*^%#!! What’s your staff number? Give me your staff number?!! Get the #*^%# out!!!”

“Wait wait…”

Freeloader finally came out of the toilet and Ben demanded for his staff number and the apartment keys, warning him that he was actually “breaking and entering” and Freeloader said he didn’t have the keys cos they were with The Housemate who was sleeping peacefully in his new apartment. So Freeloader ran out saying he’d go get The Housemate. From the hall I could hear Freeloader wailing to The Housemate in Mandarin like really kau-peh really really loudly and it really sounded like he was crying. Of course, The Housemate was too scared to come over and hand the keys to Ben, even though they actually took the same bus to work that morning.

Ben of course went straight to HR to report what happened, and this time it wasn’t just the other Sous Chef with him, but one of the Exec Sous Chefs, who then went straight to the HR Director. The HR Director then got the Accomodation Manager in charge of Ewan Residence to get the keys back from The Housemate by that evening. The manager Habib came by the apartment that afternoon to get a full report of what happened, so I told him, and also showed him the melted spatula and told him about the broken glasses.

We’re guessing The Housemate must have gotten a warning or something cos Ben saw him the other day and he of course wasn’t happy to see Ben. So now we actually have someone living just across from our apartment who hates Ben. We don’t think he’ll dare try anything funny, and Ben’s pretty sure he’s gonna piss off his new flat-mate soon enough too. His new flatmate, although a “friend” of his, isn’t a Chinese national but an African, so with all the regular “Chinese-nationals-unite-and-make-some-noise” get togethers, the flatmate may either request to move out, or if he’s just as immature and irresponsible, he may piss The Housemate off with his own gatherings and stuff.

On the other hand, I guess it must be pretty hard for people to live with chefs, unless they too are chefs and have that same obsessive compulsive standard of cleanliness, hygiene and order. So here’s hoping the next flatmate we have is more mature and responsible, and maybe even from Singapore or Malaysia, cos we now know how the Chinese here live. The Filipinos here are just as noisy cos they make friends with everyone and sing all the time. And the angmohs here think Dubai is just one big night club where you can party and pick up girls all day and night.

Busuk, Bising n Bodoh

Yup, BUSUK! BISING! BODOH! These 3 words best describe The Housemate n his other smelly, noisy n dumbass friends from the same country. I’ve never been racist or one who really groups people into stereotypes… but seriously!! This is too much!

There were two occasions when Ben n I were on the shuttle bus, and when one or two people of That nationality got up the bus, the whole bus would REEK of this awful smell. It’s really bad… especially since we ourselves are Chinese, just not from the same country. So it worries us that we might be mistaken for them, thus labelled as smelly, noisy n stupid too.

The smell is like… ayo… just really smelly lah. I said to Ben it’s like maybe they didn’t shower for a few days or something. But he said, even back in his army days when the guys were out in the jungle for days, they never smelled as bad. So we guessed maybe it’s their diet… but to smell that bad, one would have to be on a diet of pork ass and goat fart man.

So I was thinking, luckily The Housemate is one of ‘em “clean ones”. THEN, one evening, I was watching TV in the hall when The Housemate came back from work, and Damn! The whole hall started to smell! And to make things worse, he didn’t go and shower right away. He sat in the hall for a while, walked in and out of his room, cooked and ate dinner, lingered around some more, and only went to shower at around midnight. I felt I had to disinfect and Lysol the whole couch if I were to dare to sit on it again.

Now I’m so conscious that I might start smelling like them if I sit on the couch, and so conscious not to lean back in case my hair absorbs any smelly stuff from the sofa. Now this fella, he showers every night, but doesn’t in the morning before going off to work. Yes, Aunty Bernie has been doing her “homework” and studying this smelly character. But even then, he has a regular 9-6 office job, and eats at the hotel’s staff canteen where everyone else eats. What gets him reeking of maggot eaten dead rat by the time he gets home at 7.30? What gets all of ‘em smelling like that?

Of course I’ve never been to China, and I have relatives there so I’m trying my best not to be rude, but the kind of Chinese nationals that you get here are a real embarrassment to the rest of the Chinese anywhere else in the world I’m sure. So first is how they’re “busuk”. Now we go on to “bising”.

They’re so noisy, I have to use a whole lot of Hokkien n Cantonese vulgarities if I wanna complain about it to Ben ‘cos it’s really getting to me. But I can’t complain to Ben ‘cos he’s already disliked them even before I came here, and he can’t live without his iPod cos the noise drives him bloody mad. They’re LOUD! Especially the Chinese girls. Bloody loud and absolutely “hiao”. Stupid bimbotic noisy skanky @#$%*&! Think Zhang Zhi Yi, who on her own is already bloody irritating, multiply that by 10, with all of them talking in this really high pitch “nyeh nyeh” kinda voice, and squealing n screaming every now n then. You get this noise on the bus, and even worse, at home when The Housemate has his smelly friends over.

Sometimes he has a whole bunch of them. They come, stink up the place, cook in the kitchen and leave it in a dreadful mess, use my stuff like no tomorrow… From the start we were nice, share rice, oil, salt, pepper, eggs… Bought a rice cooker n electric kettle and let The Housemate use it too. But the @##$%* had a “party” quite soon after we bought our rice cooker. The aftermath of this Fellowship of the Smellies was awful. I found a DEEP scratch in the rice pot. Our NEW rice pot. And the stupid smelly bimbos also found a way to burn a Tefal non-stick spatula. What’s worse was that after the party, The Housemate didn’t bother to replace it with a new one, but simply washed this and kept it back in the kitchen drawer.

Now I have to resort to being some sort of spy or Scrooge, counting every egg and how much rice and stuff he uses, and waiting to see if he’ll take turns to buy this stuff when it’s finished. Damn smelly Housemate and his smelly, noisy freeloader friends. Ben already told him nicely twice, that if he has friends over, they have to keep the noise level down, and clean up after.

Ya he cleans up all right. By using up half a bloody roll of my kitchen towels. Now I even have to keep my kitchen towels safely in the bedroom wardrobe, and sneak out a sheet at a time when I wanna use it. And keeping the noise down? That’s like asking Paris Hilton to say no to sex, drugs n alcohol.

Sometimes The Housemate has just one girl over. If I thought the The Housemate was “bodoh” she’s worse. The Housemate sits in front of the TV even when there’s no reception and just a message on the blank screen saying “Service Disrupted”. The Housemate squats in front of the washing machine watching the laundry spin. And of course you know the one about him trying to grow taugeh in a tin. But this girl, she’s even dumber than him! And they’re both Management Trainees! Now when this girl is over, it sounds like there are 5 girls in the apartment. She’s @#$%* loud. And she just talks and talks and talks. No, she bellows. And this bimbo doesn’t know nuts. Not only does she not understand what I say when I try to speak as slowly as possible, she speaks in a bimbotic American accent thinking it’ll make her sound like she actually can speak English, and after I say anything, she gets The Housemate to translate it for her. She says she loves watching TV, but only watches MTV. And she doesn’t even know how to cook or clean.

So little miss epitome of busuk, bising n bodoh just comes over to the apartment almost every night, makes a HELL of a noise while The Housemate cooks, and he even has to clean up cos she’s so stupid she doesn’t know how to either. Sometimes if I’m watching TV, she or The Housemate will just pick up the remote and start flipping channels. And most of the time they end up watching MTV cos they say Grey’s Anatomy or Criminal Minds has too much “talking”.

The other night there were two bimbos. This same one, and another. I was watching Suddenly Susan, and they were discussing with each other that this show was Friends, and Brooke Shields was Monica... Duh!

Anyway, now that I've finally found time to publish this post, a big event has taken place... Budak Busuk just moved out a couple of days ago! Big drama... Will have a different post about that up soon.