When Two Sanguines Got Connected VI: Nyonya Dinner And Night Stroll Before Saying Bye-bye

During the Melaka river cruise, Ray who had only eaten three-quarter stick of potato snack at the Jonker Street was already concerned about where to taste the best Nyonya food in town. We could not find the name of the one Ps Richard had mentioned to him. So he picked Nyonya Makko restaurant at Melaka Raya which was described by online reviews as one serving homemade cuisine. It happened to be owned by Sis Maureen's family, a Calvarite with whom I often deal at the church cafeteria to get breakfast for Uncle Seelan. Even though I had never stepped into this restaurant, I was quite familiar with their famous pontay chicken and cendol which they had catered to Calvary Life Assembly during fundraising events.

Having a dining companion one of whose favorite activities is also eating, I once again happily abandoned my "munching-rabbit-food-for-dinner-at-home-when-alone" programme. We ordered specialities recommended by Sis Maureen. There were few customers left as the restaurant was going to close in half an hour. So our pontay chicken, lady fingers with cincaluk and steam tofu were served quite fast to fill our stomachs. These dishes were not only appetising in appearance but also yummy in taste!

After the meal, we went to the Portuguese Settlement for a walk to help digestion. We passed by the restaurants which were still crowded with people and headed towards the end of the jetty to continue our sharing session. It was rather tranquil with the Straits of Malacca around us.

Our 11-hour tour in Melaka that day finally came to an end when we left Ujong Pasir to return to Ayer Keroh and said bye-bye to each other.

Ray, thanks again for your visit and your tolerance towards my driving which sometimes must have caused you into a cold sweat. When we two sanguines meet again next time, there will be more bubbling stories to tell!

When Two Sanguines Got Connected V: Taking The Melaka River Cruise

During the cell meeting on the eve of Ray's trip to Melaka, I asked Phebe about the Melaka river cruise which I myself had not yet experienced. She strongly recommended me to take it at night because of the beautiful illumination and gave me advice on the seating for the better view. Since my guest was not in a hurry to go back to Kuala Lumpur last Saturday, we reserved this activity for early evening.

We boarded the boat at the jetty in front of the Quayside Heritage Centre.

The sky was getting darker.

I was relaxed as a tourist

like my senior who was here on vacation.

I temporarily forgot that I had been living in Melaka for almost eight years! I was very glad to rediscover this favorite region of mine from another angle.

Last October, I had seen this same scenery from the riverside while hanging out near the old bus station and sometimes I waved at the boats that passed by. Sitting in the boat this time, I was the one waving at people standing on the bridges watching us.

Houses of Kampung Morten

and restaurants stood out with the lighting.

This bridge looked like a tunnel.

Another corner with mangroves reminded me of my river boat tour to watch fireflies in Kuala Selangor several years ago. And I also remembered those days when I took a stroll along the Doubs river in Besançon. I suddenly became a bit nostalgic.

The 45-minute cruise was definitely an enchanting experience for me to capture a different charm of Melaka with my eyes. I almost wished that the time would just freeze there and then...

When Two Sanguines Got Connected IV: Snapshots In Melaka Town

Whether it is a bent tree,

a tombstone,

a street musician,

slippers with fancy designs,

a park

or beautiful bamboos,

as long as it arouses your interest to snap a picture, it is called an attraction!

When Two Sanguines Got Connected III: Visiting The Melaka Christianity And Cultural Research Centre

Our next destination was the Melaka Christianity and Cultural Research Centre (MCCRC) which held a "Malacca Christianity & Culture" exhibition. I had been aware of its existence since the Lisbon Chambor Choir in 2009. Ray had also heard about it from Ps Richard who would like to organise a trip to the centre for those in Kuala Lumpur.

We had no idea of its exact location. After Ray searched the information on the Internet and asked a nearby hotel reception, we found the place. It was on the second floor of the Cheng Ho Cultural Museum at 51 Lorong Hang Jebat opposite the Stadthuys across the Melaka river.

At the entrance of the exhibition hall, welcoming us was a banner with the verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14.

Grafic panels were tracing Melaka's link to the spread of Christianity in China. The first portrait we saw was Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China and who had translated the Bible into Chinese.

Most of the displayed documents, originally in Chinese, were accompanied by the English explanation.

At the reception, we were told that the guided visit was only in English and we were introduced to Bro Jimmy, the only Christian employee there, who was in charge of both the Cheng Ho Museum and the Christianity exhibition. We could sense that he was passionate about his job to present the history of the Christianity in Malaysia to visitors from all over the world.

This was no doubt one of the oldest copies of the Bible in Chinese published in Melaka.

The exhibition highlighted several great men of God who had faithfully served in the Chinese community.

Watchman Nee was one of them. To make his presentation lively, Bro Jimmy pulled out a piece of paper from behind the picture of this great Chinese preacher. It was a statement discovered under Watchman Nee's deathbed after his passing--"Christ is The Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and was resurrected after 3 days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my Belief in Christ."

The exhibition also showed various contributions the Christian religion has been playing in the social development among the Chinese in areas like schools, hospitals, children's welfare homes, etc.

I was attracted by a painting of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The characters and the background looked so Chinese that had I not known about the story, I would have thought that it was an illustration from a Chinese classical literature!

After the detailed visit, we were led to another room to watch a short video.

Bro Jimmy who was filled with evangelical fervour invited us to have a seat at the cafe downstairs. He gave us each a very interesting article about how the Bible was related to China and proof of the worship of the Creator God in ancient China. Despite his English education background, he was interested to learn from some Christian publications about how the Genesis story was hidden within the ancient Chinese written symbols.

We spent another hour to continue our fellowship. Ray and I took it as a coffee and iced lemon tea break as well.

When we left the museum, our stamina was high again to explore the town!

When Two Sanguines Got Connected II: Interesting Encounter and Seating

Before Ray came to Melaka, he had already mentioned the local speciality chicken rice balls. So it did not take me a long time to plan where to bring him for lunch. As tourists, our place of interest was of course the famous Jonker Street. While driving, I told him about the story of my two parking spaces in front of Dataran Pahlawan on the day I helped with the voters registration. Again, we easily got an empty slot after prayer. Hallelujah!

At first, we stopped at Hoe Kee chicken rice ball restaurant where I had last eaten with my family members two years ago. There was a long queue outside. I remembered my brother Seng preferred Chung Wah. So we walked further up and joined the smaller waiting crowd outside the dowdy kopitiam-like restaurant.

In less than ten minutes, we were assigned to a table to share with another customer who was alone. Very soon, my sanguine senior engaged the diner in conversation by asking her in Mandarin where she was from. As soon as I heard the pretty lady's accent, I knew she came from China. She had seized a ticket during AirAsia promotions to travel to Malaysia last weekend. As she would stay only two days, she had decided to choose Melaka as her only city of destination. Her reason was simple and related to the history--because Cheng Ho had been to Melaka many times!

Unlike other restaurants, Chung Wah sells exclusively one type of dish. Both Ray and I had tasted their food in the past. The rice balls were still delicious but to our disappointment, the chicken that day was overcooked and soggy. Nevertheless, we were very glad to meet an independent traveller like Wang Yi.

I could have included her in my "tour guiding" programme but we had to leave the Jonker Street immediately after the meal. When we were back again, it was time to look for the second must-eat in our list--cendol at Jonker 88. The restaurant long in size was so fully occupied that we were not able to find two available seats at any tables after we had paid and were holding the two bowls of shaved ice. Thank God Ray noticed a corner where we could place two plastic stools and finally settled down.

The cold dessert refreshed us under the hot weather. And instead of antique household items displayed everywhere in the restaurant, we had a special view of banknotes of ancient times from different countries.

Now we were going to do visit a place that typical tourists would not think of. Guess where was it...

When Two Sanguines Got Connected I: Meeting Up In Melaka

I used to have visitors from outstation or overseas. Since the end of 2008, strangely almost none of my contacts, besides my family members, relatives and a few regulars, had paid me a visit in Melaka.

Recently I got to know Ray, my senior under the same MLM training in Kuala Lumpur. One of the first questions he asked me was "What kind of personality are you?" I had not done the test but based on my loud voice and laughs evey three minutes, he was convinced that "sanguine" was the most suitable term to describe me on the spot. When he revealed to me that he was also one, I was not surprised since he sounded like a friendly, chatty person and could talk as fast as I!

After a few telephone conversations, Ray grew more curious to find out more about his sanguine sister in Christ. When the two sanguines got connected, the result was a meet-up in Melaka last Saturday. He was asked to pass me three boxes of donated stationeries to give to Harap Learning Centre (HLC) Bukit Baru.

As our meeting point was at Ayer Keroh, I did not miss to introduce to Ray my church Calvary Life Assembly building and Calvary Care Home before we went to the centre, which was close, to have a look from outside. Then we dropped by at Dr Wong's clinic to say hello to the coordinator of HLC Bukit Baru.

We waited about fifteen minutes for our turn for the "consultation". Dr Wong did not recognize his "patient" immediately. After the "diagnosis", he finally remembered Ray who had talked to him over the phone and whom he had probably seen at the Men's Fraternity booth during the EFC Leadership Summit 2010.

We did not want to disturb Dr Wong too long. So we left after a short while and I brought Ray to a significant coconut juice stall which was about a hundred steps from the clinic to offer him a welcoming drink. It was run by Sajar's family! I had driven past their stall many times but had never stopped by. The couple and their lovely daughter were there. It was the first time I met Sajar's wife. At first I was not sure whether this lady who looked very young was Nurul's sister or mother until she confirmed her identity.

While sipping the fresh coconut juice and giving Ray a brief account of Sajar's story which he had already heard a little bit in KL, I myself was moved by the impact Sajar had brought to his household when he had begun to reject passivity.

Ray was taking a break in the midst of his busy month. I also took this occasion to have a change of my routine. During the hours that followed, both of us were going to become real tourists...

Celebrating Albert's Belated Birthday

After all the Calvary Care Home (CCH) boys' birthdays passed this year, I realised that we were coming back to the starting point of the circle where I got involved more actively with CCH activities and first organised a birthday celebration there last year.

When I was planning Albert P's birthday celebration in November 2009, I treated him as the "principal" of CCH. This year I regard him as a working partner and friend, so I did not feel too bad when I only sent him an SMS greeting on the day itself, gave him a present one week later and finally found a suitable date another ten days later to gather the gang together at my place to prepare for them a salad of tomatoes and celeries,

raw sengkuang,

baked potatoes accompanied by mayonnaise,

and hotdogs which Daniel helped to fry until burned.

It was amazing to see that my God-given family members loved the combination! The success was due to the fact that they were bored with curry, overcook vegetables or outside food, and thanks to my self-discovered golden rule that "feed a person when he/she is happy and hungry".

My theory did not work well when it came to taking photographs of them. Knowing that I was going to show the pictures in my blog, the teenagers hid their faces as if they were running away from shark loaners. Only the oldest and the youngest ones were always cooperative in front of the camera.

Albert almost forgot that the dinner "party" was for his belated birthday and that there was a cake to cut. Since early this year, the cakes I presented were downgraded each time. As a result, our birthday star seemed to pray that it would not be hard enough to break the plastic knife, crack his teeth or scratch his tongue.

Being merciful this time, I had actually decided to just buy a chiffon cake and spread cooking chocolate on it. Amazingly again, everybody was satisfied with this dessert.

Albert, I hope you enjoyed the simple celebration with our company. Keep up the good work in the CCH boys' lives. Your best years are ahead of you!

Siew Hong's Family At My Place

Siew Hong's family were among my guests who found my place very homely on their first visit last year. However, due to our respective busy schedule, I hardly had a chance to receive them this year. Last Friday, she finally made up her mind to spend the weekend at Paya Rumput. As she did not want her son to miss his tuition from 7pm to 9pm, she was thinking if they would come that night or the next morning. I told her, "You start packing your luggage in the afternoon. As soon as Johanan finishes, you all just shoot off to my house. I don't mind if you 'check in' late."

That evening after ten o'clock, the mother and the three excited children appeared at my door. Siew Hong often says that I am like the younger version of her. As soon as we meet up, we always have countless stories to share. That day was of no exception. As the clock in my dining room was not working anymore, both of us did not realise the time passing. When we decided to go to bed, it was already over 2am!

The next day after lunch, she was very sleepy. So while she was taking a nap, I went to the living room to be with her sons and daughter.

How do I usually judge whether my guests make themselves at home?

By looking at their position on the sofa and the floor,

and the way they play

with my gadgets.

Siew Hong told me that she sometimes insists to mop the host's floor which her children have dirtied before they leave the house. In my house, these lovely angels not only keep it clean, they also clear up the toys.

How do you judge if I am very glad with their presence?

By looking at the food I prepare for them.

Nadine only sought her mother's attention later in the afternoon, which had allowed Siew Hong to take a good rest.

Before they departed, Nathanael said to me, "Teacher Lee Sah, thank you very much for your hospitality."

At his age, I did not even know what "hospitality" meant because I had never learnt it from my family... I truly thank God for having first blessed me with people who opened their houses to me in the past, so that I in my turn was inspired to do likewise.

An Enjoyable Holiday I: Receiving Guests At Paya Rumput

Yesterday was a public holiday in Melaka. I had thought of either sending David, Paul and other Calvary Care Home (CCH) children for swimming early in the morning or inviting them to Paya Rumput Tuesday evening. Later I was informed that Sis Fei Gin had already planned to bring the siblings back to her house for a motivational programme. I was very glad that she was willing to mentor these two boys whom she had brought up. To give the workers ease up, I decided to receive the rest of the CCH gang including the home administrator Albert P who also wanted to have a change from his daily routine. Dragging along his foster son Matthew, he was fetching Daniel. John and Luke followed my car.

As soon as my guests reached my residential area, all of them immediately behaved more "Paya Rumputly" than I who had been living there for more than four and a half years--The junior ones played football with other children at the basketball court near my house

or rode on a borrowed bicycle

while the senior one changed into his sportive attire to walk to and fro nearby like some of my back-row neighbours.

I wished I could join them for exercise. But I had to stay in the kitchen to prepare dinner, which was actually a pleasure to me. An hour later, their faces and hair were wet with sweat whereas mine were covered with oil.

When the food was ready, most of us had bathed. This year, it was the second time my dining table was fully occupied since I had hosted one of the cell meetings several months ago.

My guests made themselves at home without I having to tell them. Luke who was eager to see his relatives as soon as possible did not play his Tamil music. Matthew took this opportunity to listen to his favorite Taiwanese singer's pop songs.

Previously I had never succeeded in inviting John to my house because he was always busy with the music practice in the church. Not only he is gifted in playing musical instruments, he is savvy in dealing with electronic gadgets too. I lent him my digital camera to snap pictures everywhere.

After awhile, he happily showed me a slide show of pictures with special effects.

At 9pm, Albert led our devotion in the living room before he sent Luke to his uncle's house at Rembia. Later as I was discussing the next day's activities with him, we realised that our "spirits" of travelling and picking up the tiniest rubbish from the floor had been revived as a result of our acquaintanceship. After the church camp two months ago, he was keen to go somewhere sightseeing again.

He smilingly announced to the children, "Tomorrow morning you'll have to get up by seven o'clock. I'll give you a surprise."

I added, "There are two types of surprise. It can be a good surprise or a bad surprise."