What's in a Name

Today I received a wedding card that had me thinking hard.

Perhaps it's a remnant of British colonialism. Or maybe even something much older to begin with - a throwback to ancient Malay feudalism mixed with complex Indian social hierachy perhaps?

Who knows the exact reasons behind them all - but I find a number of my slavish countrymen far too enamoured with social rank and titles! Just whisper the prefix Datuk ( our national equivalent of a Sir though they act far from knightly ) to this sycophantic lot and you'd have dozens of them literally falling to their knees ready to kowtow and obey their every bidding.

Nurse #1 : OMG. He's a datuk.
Nurse #2 : Oh yes, we must attend to their smallest whim.
Nurse #1 : And be ready to offer our bread, our wages and our first-born to them in slave-like homage.

Old-style feudalism at work?


Bow to me dammit! I am a Duke! You are my pawns!
And please don't forget to address them properly if not to incur their utmost displeasure. Whether it's a Datuk, a Professor or a Doctor. Such a social solecism in more liberal republics would probably earn an unconcerned shrug but over here, the offender would probably receive hysterical dramatics worthy of the indignant Queen of Hearts.

If not be on the receiving end of an immediate imperious order of Off with Her Head! After all, who hasn't heard this spoken in a huffy tone at least once?

I am not a Mr.
I am a Doctor.
Of Philosophy!

No doubt such correct social formality should be de rigueur in frou frou state ceremonies ( I blame it on the protocol-obsessed bureaucrats! ) but in an informal pot-luck gathering amongst friends? Firmly insisting on being called by an honorific simply smacks of ill breeding - if not shockingly low self esteem!

Maybe I have been largely influenced by my shockingly liberal ( and vaguely socialist ) parentage since very little of all this impresses me. Always believed that receiving such an honorary title for service to the community should confer humility and a touch of noblesse oblige rather than a dash of snotty arrogance. All men are created equal after all - and tacking a Lordship ( or whatever prefix ) to the name doesn't ennoble them in the least.

Sometimes quite the reverse actually.

Despite that fact, many are quite content to revel in their store-bought chivalry ( note the shocking proliferation of such seemingly distinguised titles in our country ). Puffed up in conceit, they find reasons to drop their titles in everything possible. Reason enough that it's starting to be quite common to see certain peculiar additions on wedding cards.

Dr Lassie Love-a-lot
MBBS ( Narnia ), PhD Lovin ( Telmarine )
Daughter of Datuk Lucky Love-a-lot PRK AMD JXN

Making it resemble her curriculum vitae rather than an invitation to a wedding. Thanks for telling me where she got her multiple degrees. So good to know for matrimonial purposes. No doubt I can purchase a worthy bride or two over there as well.

And I haven't even mentioned the string of degrees and titles listed behind the groom's. A merger of CVs perhaps?

Homo Panic

Talk of babies scare straight men away.

Well, at least the eligible bachelors. Quite obvious the reasons behind it - unwanted pregnancies, shotgun weddings and such prickly issues that would drive fear into the hearts of the insanely commitment-phobic.

Never occurred to me that gay men would feel the same way though. After all, unless we actively seek out alternative baby-making methods, such a question would never arise. Short of a drunken heterosexual experiment, I doubt many rabidly gay boys I know would ever have to wrestle with diapers, prams and baby formula.

Doesn't mean they can't be equally freaked by the frightening thought though.


Get that baby away!!
So you can imagine my gleeful amusement when I broached this subject with Lanky Lex who had a platonic friend teasingly approach him to be the father of her baby. Easy enough for him to squirt out some baby juice after all ( he's dropped more than a few offerings worshipping at the altar of Pavel Novotny porn star extraodinaire after all ).

Rather than laugh it off, our ultra-conservative fella seemed horrified. Gotta hand it to Lanky Lex. Sitting there trying to maintain his cool when I think he was trying his level best not to fall into screaming hysterics when I told him he could be having a baby.

No doubt if he were a cartoon character in a strip, he'd be up there desperately clutching the boughs of the highest tree refusing to come down till I'd retracted my statement. As it was, Lex actually hemmed and hawed for a while before stammering out his charmingly disjointed reply.

Lex : A-a baby! But we won't be married! I-I can't m-marry her!
Paul : So? It's only a piece of paper. You don't have to marry her anyway.
Lex : But then the baby won't have a father!
Paul : That's the marriage cert not the birth certificate. Being unmarried doesn't make you any less of a father.
Lex : B-but the legal ramifications! The religious implications! The effects on my social life! What would people think? What would my parents say?
Paul : It's a grandchild. Your parents would be displeased with the illegitimacy but trust me, they'd grow to dote on the child anyway.
Lex : But I'm not ready!

Obviously the crux of the matter.

Okay. Maybe a rabid atheist like him wouldn't say religious implications. Rare to see him so discomfited with his ears turning pink though. Cute.

Despite the fact that I am already harbouring wistful daydreams about having a babe of my own, I guess not everyone's in the same boat :) Hell, evidently Lanky Lex isn't even in the same channel! Just have to whisper the word baby boom in Lex's ear to have him jump a mile into the air.

Brunch at Bangsar

Is there anything more wickedly satisfying than a light brunch followed by window shopping on a busy Monday morning?

Certainly nothing quite as fun. Everyone else we know is busy griping over their first day back at work after the weekend - and here we three are dining on lurid gossip and chocolate tarts at the Banquet patio. Joined the leisurely ladies who lunch ( right after their mani-pedis and salon appointments ) that is Statuesque Sarah, Fab Fiona - and of course, there's unglam me rounding up the trio.


You wouldn't believe what the girls have been up to!
Remember what I said about pious convent girls being secretly wicked behind cloistered walls? Certainly no trusting their innocent facades! Well, the same rings true for adventurous female physicians as well - no doubt the true inspiration behind the furious sexual shenanigans of Grey's Anatomy.

Dull clinical lives full of paperwork and casenotes? I think not.

Horrific tales ranged from nightmarish ex-boyfriends to sleek Porsches that double as modified Kancils. Hell, one of them ( not telling who! ) even managed to reprise the role of the bootylicious Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire. Not only landing a McBuff with a silver spoon, a silver Boxster and a sleek ass - but also getting him to propose four times.


Seems like there's more going on than simple brain surgery!
Count that. Four times. Four times the poor studly fella went down humbly on his knees figuratively. Though she also refused an equal number of times. Feminine indecisiveness?

Paul : You said no?
Faux Marilyn : Of course I said no! I barely know the guy! It's only three months.
Paul : But he had extenuating circumstances which he already explained to you. Honesty is nice in a man.
Faux Marilyn : Much too soon!
Paul : He's a millionaire! Think of the Vera Wang wedding gown. Think of the Manolo Blahniks. Think of the Van Cleef Arpel diamonds.
Faux Marilyn : Ooh.

She still said no to the earnest proposal though.

Which had me head-banging in patent disgust against the faux garden bushes surrounding the patio. To refuse the fella? Didn't Julia Roberts teach us anything in Pretty Woman? When a cute eligible millionaire asks for your hand, you grab the steel cuffs and chain him dammit! Any minor complications later can be easily dealt with.

First wives. Mother-in-laws. Grasping relatives. No worries. I am sure we can handle the lot in due time.

I know. I can be such a materialistic bitch. But when you're swanking in a posh place with thousand dollar shirts ( even got tempted by a pricey / stripey Ted Baker tee ) and 50-dollar sandwiches, you can't help but feel a little avaricious.

Paul : Fine. Think of licking chocolate off his drum-tight abs.
Faux Marilyn : Gulp.

Well that fantasy did leave her thinking.

Kung Fu Fighting

"Hey, stranger. Why don't you eat my knuckles instead?"

There is a hush as the other patrons in the restaurant huddle away.

Good grief. Here we go again. I take another bite of the wonton and signal to the sneering lout to wait. "A moment."

Another ignorant village bully flexing his muscle to pick on the itinerant wanderer. I blithely wonder whether his fingers of his eyeballs would taste better with my wonton soup. No doubt his spilt blood would ruin the taste.

Laying down my chopsticks, I sigh almost inaudibly. The bully tenses, the tattoo of a tiger on his biceps rippling along.

Then I strike. I think his neural synapses barely register my Dragon Claw Strike before the lout is flying across the room to smash senseless against the empty tables at the back. The Deadly Scorpion Sting takes care of the rest of his brutish henchmen.

There's barely time for my soup to cool but I just stare silently at the carnage. Damn. Hope I'm not going to have to pay for the damage.

Obviously I'm not the only one with such dreams since even overweight pandas have such high-flying kungfu dreams!

Just ask Po in Kungfu Panda. Not everyone's as impressed with the easygoing panda's high-faluting ambitions though. His practical noodle-maker extraodinaire dad for one. Nor the other cynical villagers in the Valley of Peace who only sneer at his pie-in-the-sky dreams. And certainly not the likes of the Viper, the Mantis, the Monkey, the Crane, the Tigress otherwise known as the Furious Five.

Of course, Kungfu Panda plays homage to every martial arts movie out there where the hapless bullied underdog finally wins the day through sheer luck, mystical asian know-how and ten minutes worth of kung fu lessons. With the prerequisite wise master teaching ignorant student bit. Or otherwise known as How to Become an Unbeatable Kungfu Master in 10 Days.


Imagine the mayhem I could wreak!!
Wish I had that particular esoteric handbook. Would be really great to dropkick the mindless fellas who irritate me.

Idiot : Sir, you have to fill up this blue form and the pink form. Then you have to hand the blue form in to the department of mumbo jumbo to get the purple form. Then after that you have to take the pink form and go to the department of rubbish to get it signed. And then you have to -
Paul : Fuck this mindless bureaucracy. Take my Dragon Claw Fist of Death!
Idiot : Ack!
Paul : And that's your liver. Get that signed!

Have a sinking feeling that I'd turn into a kungfu villain though. Being a good guy - ekeing out a living, dressing in tattered hand-me-downs and travelling aimlessly around ( don't they have a regular place to stay? ) to save innocent lives?

Not for me. Usually empathize with the bad boys - even the macho snow leopard Tai Lung beating his chest in this movie. I'd be East Venom for sure. After all, I prefer the high life. And I doubt being all noble will achieve anything other than abject poverty. Probably do the usual villainous stuff - raze some villages, steal some loot and possibly ravish a hunky farmer or three.

Anyway... hell I can already do the wicked laugh really well.

Outrunning the Creditors

My vengeful creditors hate me.

I never spend beyond my credit limit. I pay exactly on time. I pay the full amount required in the statement. And the worst thing - I actually exchange my gift points for exorbitant purchases ( since the points regularly expire annually anyway! ). Definitely the nightmarish stuff that keeps their auditors awake at night. Certainly not the ideal shopaholic spendthrift that most avaricious credit companies would wish for.

You guys do know that the good folks in VISA and Mastercard would prefer that you live solely on revolving credit till breaching insolvency, right?

Of course, by rights it would make more sense to hand me a debit card instead. But since they tend to waive my subscription fees every year - and persistently raise my credit limit, I see no point in changing horses now.


Serious. I'd feel naked without it!
And yeah, I never leave home without it.

So today the previously bickering credit card companies finally banded together in a common diabolical pact to take their revenge - by swallowing my card when I charged it for petrol. Can already imagine the partners in the credit card firm cackling mercilessly away as the card's inexorably munched up by the machine.

You can imagine my consternation. I doubt the petrol station manager has seen such hysterical dramatics ever. After all I haven't lived without a credit card since... my shockingly emancipated 18th birthday.

How times have changed from starting with being a submissive supplementary to a full-fledged member of the freely spending ( on credit! ) public. Never realized how desperately attached I was to a lifeless lil piece of plastic till I saw it being gobbled up into the depths of the unforgiving petrol machine. Hell, that card has been with me - in its various guises - through summertime in London to autumn in Beijing! Seriously, no sale could be complete without it.

Think the first thing I ever charged with my card were return train tickets to Brighton. Which actually landed me a rather good time with a lanky Brit fellow but that's another tale.

No worries for me though. After sending out a desperate cry for help, the credit bad boys have promised me a new card in the space of one week. Time to inaugurate a new card with a swipe.