Little Buddha Belly

...is building up from more incredible food. Crispy peanut pancake, rice dumplings in peanut sauce, steamboat dinner, durian, mangosteens, fried bananas and sweet potatos, soy milk, black milk, etc. I need to post pictures of the baba nonya house, the night market, and most importantly my family - cousins, aunt, uncle and extended family. Laly's 2 daughters are adorable, but I haven't been able to break the ice with them since I can't speak Mandarin. One more reason for me to learn chinese!

The mix of 3 cultures and religions in one country is quite amazing and gives its people such a different experience and outlook on life than what I consider the typical American's experience - with the US being so secluded and homogeneous (in parts). There are the Muslim Malays, the Buddhist Chinese, and the Hindu Tamils. Despite the mix, it seems like school classes can still be quite segregated once you split by level. Even at work, Laly finds she is still mostly among chinese people.


Last night I got my chinese name engraved in a stamp (a goat stamp to represent my birth year) - the name turned out differently from normal because they translated it to the Qing dynasty style of writing. Laly also got a model boat for the house - and was sure to get the one that had good feng shui - no pointy sterns allowed! This limited the choice but I really like the red sails and it looks nice in the entrance.

It turns out Laly was a physics major, like my parents. My aunt is a mathematics teacher (!) and my uncle was in the oil palm industry. Laly's youngest brother went to the same school my mom got her master's at in the US (and during dinner I realized he must have suffered without the Malaysian food - but he learned to cook to make up for it).

ok, enough rambling - off to breakfast.