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(This billboard was seen on Pennant Hills Road, Thornleigh in Dec 09)

The Twelve Days of Christmas

We recently bought a Samsung side-by-side refrigerator from Bing Lee in Carlingford. It came with a special Christmas bonus. It was a huge 5.8-kg frozen turkey. This gave us a bit of a headache as we don't know what to do with it.
Luckily, my daughter Veronica will be back from Canberra for the Christmas holiday. We will give Veronica this big piece of meat. We will also give her some suggested recipes of turkey meals from Woolworths. This will keep Veronica busy during the holidays, making turkey meals every day, and we will hear Veronica sing with joy:

"On the first day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - turkey pie.
On the second day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - turkey soup.
On the third day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - turkey salad.
On the fourth day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - turkey sandwich.
On the fifth day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - roast turkey.
On the sixth day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - BBQ turkey.
On the seventh day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - stuffed turkey.
On the eighth day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - sweet and sour turkey.
On the ninth day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - deep fried turkey.
On the tenth day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - turkey pasta.
On the eleventh day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - turkey pudding.
On the twelfth day of X'mas, my true love sent to me - turkey cake."

We envisage, after the holiday, Veronica will be more like a turkey :) and we will have the big animal disappeared from our fridge.

Qianlong Emperor and the Widow

I apologize this article may cause difficulty to non-Chinese-reading readers. But there is no way I can write this story completely in English without losing its original charisma.

One day Qianlong Emperor travelled to River South in plain clothes. He was late to find hotel accommodation in the evening. He came to a house where a widow lived. He asked the lady if he could have an overnight stay before he moved on the next day. Being alone by herself, the widow felt it was inappropriate for her to share the house with a guest. Without knowing the visitor was the emperor, she said that there was a rule in the house whereby all guests had to complete a couplet successfully before being admitted into the house. The widow then started off the first half of the couplet as follows:

寂寞守寒窗 寡室寧容賓客寓

Qianlong Emperor scratched his head for hours. He could only complete half of the second half:

逌遙遊遠道 ????????????????

So regrettably, Qianlong Emperor had to leave reluctantly and seek accommodation elsewhere.

Notes:
1. '寓' is used as a verb, meaning 'to stay'; and is pronounced as '如'.
2. This Chinese couplet can be translated (to the best of my ability) as follows:
'Alone staying in a solitary unit, how can this tiny house accommodate guests to stay?
Blissfully travelled to the far land, ?????????????????????????????????'
3. A couplet is a pair of sentences where the second sentence must match the first one grammatically word by word, term by term, phrase by phrase and finally sentence by sentence.
4. In addition, a good couplet would have the sentences matched in texture, and convey meaningfully certain messages. This couplet is regarded as one of the hardest (if not the hardest) in the sense that every word in the first sentence starts with the same radical, and it describes the situation the widow was in. Qianlong Emperor could only do similarly for the first half of the second part. Even though he could match the second half grammatically, he would not be able to find so many words with the same radical. That's why he failed.
5. If you can complete the couplet on behalf of Qianlong Emperor, he will knight you as the Scholar of the Year and award you a million dollar in gold.

Different Wave-lengths?

It's been ten years since we moved to Australia, yet I still have difficulties interacting with the locals.
I went to the McDonald's in Gordon with Johnson the other day after picking him up from school in the afternoon. I went to the counter for our orders with a girl. Here were our conversations:

I, "Fruit fizz.". Girl, "Fillet-O-fish?"
I, "Hamburger." Girl, "Apple pie?"

My goodness. What a difference!