What Goes Under the Sun

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Duan Wu Jie - the Chang Festival
2008-06-07 18:04:00
Today is Duan Wu Jie, the fifth day of the fifth month according to the lunar calendar. This day is set aside to commemorate the death of a famous Chinese patriotic poet and Prime Minister Qu Yuan who committed suicide at Milo River in China. Feeling very sad, he ended his life because his suggestions to improve the state economically, politically and defence-wise were rejected by the Emperor resulting in a war. On this day, the Chinese will prepare zhong zi or chang in Hokkien, a type of food made of glutinous rice with fillings such as mushrooms, meat, nuts and so on. Initially the aim was to throw this food into the river so that it would be eaten by the fish so that they would not eat the body of Qu Yuan. The photo below shows the traditional chang as prepared by my mother-in-law. We were given some to satisfy our palates. You should taste one of them as it is really delicious.Typical 'chang' (rice dumpling)
More About: Festival , Chang

You must be Mr Yeoh
2008-06-07 15:45:00
I went to enquire about bus route to my daughter’s place. She is studying outstation. What surprised me was the woman who handled the booking and sale of express bus ticket was one of my students whom I taught in Sungai Petani, Kedah in the late 70’s. Of course it was she who recognized me but I could not because a student’s appearance would have changed greatly from a teenager to a woman. According to her, I changed a little only and that was why she could addressed me as ‘Mr Yeoh’ correctly. When I asked for her name, she told me that she was Kang Hui Ming – a girl active in sports at that time. This is not the first time I failed to recognize my students after years of leaving them. Just a few months ago, I went to an eatery to have my lunch. The man who served me ‘Wan Tan Mee’ was one of my pupils. He told me that I taught him Science in Form 2 and that he was not a very smart boy and I most probably would not remember him. I asked about his classmates and from ...

Karma does play a part in our lives
2008-06-06 17:20:00
Believe it or not, no one can run away from the effect of good karma or bad one whether you are a Buddhist or not. If you have read all my posts you must have come across how karma ran after me to effect what was to be done. For example, I cut an ox's eye and took out the lens to show to my pupils in the Science lesson. A few years back, my left eye was operated upon and a few months later my eye lens was taken out and replaced with a plastic one. This is just an example of how we cannot escape from the effect of karma. When I was a child I liked to suffocate mice in water and now I have sinus problems. The karma in play here is if you suffocate others, you will experience something like suffocation. In my case, the mucous fluid that keeps appearing in my nasal cavity is very uncomfortable and sometimes suffocates me for a while. The moral is 'do good and abstain from doing bad things in your lives'.
More About: Play , Karma , Part , Lives

How to improve your English
2008-06-05 17:35:00
English is an international language. In this cyber age, a good knowledge of English is an advantage. In order to improve in your English, you must take a strong liking to this language. In the course of your reading, never miss looking up any word whose meaning you are not sure of in a good dictionary – one that illustrates the usage of words in sentences. Observe how other people construct their sentences and how they break the monotony to arrest our interest in reading their writing. Try to master the use of phrasal verbs as they come in handy when we write articles or essays. Above all, think of the apt words to use in describing anything we want.
More About: English , Improve

How to use 'lie' and 'lay' correctly
2008-06-04 17:40:00
To lie means to recline or not to tell the truth and to lay is to produce eggs as hens do or set the table for meals. The confusion occurs when the past tense of ‘lie’ is spelt ‘lay’. The past tense of ‘lie’ is ‘lay’ while the past tense of ‘lay’ is ‘laid’. Here is a way to remember the two words. Remember ‘pay paid paid’ to recall ‘lay laid laid’. Present tense Past tense Past participle pay paid paid lay laid laid lie lay lain lie lied lied 1 I pay her daily to clean the house. I paid for the lunch I had with my friend just now. I have paid my club subscription. 2 The hens lay eggs regularly. The hens laid 100 eggs yesterday. The hens have laid eggs since a week ago. 3 My parents always l...

My experience in translation
2008-06-03 17:12:00
When I was serving as a teacher in Jerantut, I had a lot of free time in the afternoon and at weekends. Hence I started to contribute Malay articles to the press. My writing mainly consisted of exam questions and answers to guide the then MCE and LCE students (now the exams are know as SPM and PMR) students. One national Chinese newspaper also published translated works. Hence, I did translation of Mahua short stories (short stories written in Chinese by Malaysian writers) into Malay with my friend, Chong Choong Yong. We used the context type of translation between Chinese grammar differs from the Malay one. Sometimes for one sentence, we had to discuss for quite some time before deciding on the most appropriate one. Cross-cultural translation is no easy job. We had 6 translations to our credits. I personally translated six Mahua short stories into Malay on my own. My works were exhibited to the public during my school’s centenary celebration. One direct sale agent asked me to ...
More About: Experience , Translation

Portable Applications
2008-06-02 17:53:00
There are a number of portable applications which can be put in usb drive to be carried anywhere we go and insert into any computer to do our job. I know of one which I find useful. It is called Paint.NET 3.10. It helps me to reduce the pixels so that I can upload it to my blog easily. You can also do a number of other tasks with it. If you are interested, here is the link.
More About: Applications , Portable

Seven don'ts after meals
2008-06-01 16:48:00
I received an email from a friend about 7 things you must not do after a meal. Here are the don'ts that I would like to share with readers of this blog. 1 You should not smoke after a meal. Reason: You are more likely to suffer from cancer as smoking after consumption of food is equivalent to smoking ten cigarettes.[I personally am against smoking.] 2 Abstain from taking fruit immediately after meals. Reason: The fruit will bloat your tummy. Hence it is advisable to eat fruit one hour before or after food. 3 Drink no tea after a meal. Reason: The acid contained in tea leaves will harden the protein in your food, rendering it difficult to be digested. 4 You must not loosen your belt after having taken your meal. Reason: It will cause intestinal problems. 5 No bathing immediately after food. Reason: It will weaken the digestive system as bathing brings about the increased flow of blood to the limbs and body, thereby reduc...
More About: Meals

The uses of lemons
2008-05-31 17:22:00
The lemon is a citrus fruit. It contains a lot of vitamin C. a) Cut the fruit into half, then squeeze its juice into a glass. Add in honey. It becomes a drink that can help to cut down cholesterol and help us slim down. b) Lemon juice can be used to get rid of oil. Hence it can be used to clean dishes. c) Cut the fruit into halves and put one piece in the meat compartment and the other in the other compartment in the refrigerator. They serve to get rid of smell in the fridge.
More About: Lemons

Do you want to get a free software every day?
2008-05-30 11:03:00
Here is a site where you can get a free software, or game free of charge every day. It is called Giveaway of the Day. You must install the software on the day itself and get the licence too. You will not be entitled to upgrading or technical support. That is very fair since you get it free. Another thing to note is if you reformat your hard disk, you will not be able to reinstall the same software. Hence, you can use Norton Ghost to copy an image of your system and put it back after reformatting your hard disk, then the same program can be used again. Today’s software is worth downloading and installing. It is xilosoft-dvd-ripper-ultimate. Here is the link. In case the link does not take you there, here is the URL to the site above: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
More About: Software , Free , Free Software

How to use 'life' and 'live' correctly
2008-05-29 17:34:00
‘life’ means ‘the period between birth and death; the experience or state of being alive.’ ‘live’ as a verb, has the meaning of ‘remain alive or have life.’ However, as an adjective, it means ‘broadcast, recorded or seen while it is happening’ The following sentences will make it clear for readers. 1 As life is short we should make full use of it to serve others. 2 Consuming food and drinks is part of life. 3 Women can live longer than men. 4 I hope to be able to live to see my grandson succeed in life. 5 We had a chance to watch the live telecast of the World Cup football match yesterday.
More About: Life , Live

How to clear a clogged sink in the kitchen
2008-05-28 09:44:00
I am going to teach you a good method to clear a clogged sink in the kitchen. As housewives or homemakers cook, they use a lot of oil, especially Asians. This oil will go down the sink when dishes are washed. In time to come, they will harden and block the passage of water through the pipe leading out of the sink. When this happens, all you have to do is to boil a kettle of water and pour it down the sink hole. If it still gets stuck, boil any kettle of water and do the same. After some time you will find that water will down the sink easily because the hardened had been melted by the boiling water. After this incident, you must do some maintenance work, that is, pour boiling water into the sink hole every week or fortnightly to prevent blockage of water in the pipe below the sink anymore.
More About: Kitchen , Clear

How to save your energy while cycling up a slope
2008-05-27 09:04:00
When I was still studying, I used to visit my buddy, Yong who lived in Balik Pulau. There were many slopes we had to climb with our bicycles. Yong had a way of doing it easily. It is really quite simple. All you have to do is to cycle diagonally to the left and diagonally to the right alternately. The pull of gravity helps to move our bicycles and we need just a little bit of energy to move our two-wheelers forward. If you don’t believe me, you can always do the experiment yourself to prove my claim. At that time, traffic was not heavy as there was hardly any vehicle coming up the hilly road. Hence we cycled up slopes using the above method, saving a lot of our energy. We took our own sweet time to do an uphill job.
More About: Cycling , Energy , Save

I finally got my Google Page Rank
2008-05-26 17:33:00
When I started blogging, I used to check my Google Page Rank every now and then but it always returned a zero rank. It made me feel that my blog was worthless. After some time, I forgot about the whole thing and worked diligently. My daily post is up without fail. Yesterday, out of curiosity, I checked my Google Page Rank and it returned a four. How happy I was! At least my blog has readers and the rank shows that I should continue to blog to warrant the rank given.
More About: Finally

How to use 'hardly' correctly
2008-05-25 17:05:00
As 'hardly' has negative connotation, it is wrong to use it with modals in the negative. The following sentence is wrong: I can't hardly wait for him. Look at how 'hardly' is used in the following sentences with their meanings in brackets. 1 The asthmatic baby could hardly breathe. (The asthmatic baby could not breathe.) 2 I hardly have the time to read a book. (I don't have the time to read a book.)

Be warned of a destructive virus
2008-05-23 18:02:00
I received an e-mail warning me of a coming big virus which will open a postcard image and then it will start to burn your whole hard disc because it will destroy the Zero sector of your hard disc. Readers who read this blog must not open any email entitled ‘POSTCARD’ sent to you even by your friend. Just delete it, using SHIFT delete to be safe. Tell your friends about this virus so that they do not become victims of vicious people.
More About: Virus

When browser downloader fails to download ftp files
2008-05-23 05:05:00
Have you ever have the experience of not being able to download a file from ftp? Well, I have. The error message seems to be the same - ‘server not found’. A friend I met the other day told me to download a third party download manager. He suggested that I download a free download accelerator manager. Hence I searched through the Internet and found one. Now I am able to download any file, even though those from ftp. Here is the free download manager that works well as it supports resuming unfinished file downloading.
More About: Download , Browser , Files

English potatoes are nutritious
2008-05-21 18:07:00
According to my reading, English potatoes have 10 times more protein and vitamin B1 than apples. The food also contains three and a half times more vitamin C than the apple. As for vitamin B2 and iron, the contents in English potatoes are three times more than apples. Besides, the English potato has two times more phosphorus than the apple. It has the same amount of sugar and calcium as the apple. Sailors in the past took English potatoes to prevent scurvy because they contain a lot of vitamin C. 60 per cent of potassium is found on the skin of the food. Hence taking English potatoes with the skin intact will lower the blood pressure. However those with renal problems should not take English potatoes as the accumulation of potassium will worsen the condition of the disease.
More About: Potatoes

How to be a good Buddhist
2008-05-20 16:14:00
Buddhists believe that all beings are capable of attaining Buddhahood. Hence he will practise the teaching of Buddha as best as he can to get rid of three things that cause suffering. These are avarice, hatred and delusion. A good Buddhist will try not to be greedy and avoid taking things that do not belong to him or resorting to cheating others to gain more money. Donating things and money to the needy is another way of practising not to be greedy. As for cutting down on hatred, he will try to forgive others and treat others as if they are his close relatives in past lives. Getting rid of delusion needs the understanding of the true nature of things. If he can always remind himself that all things are in constant flux and nothing is constant and that every phenomenon involves cause and effect, he will have got rid of delusion. Meditation is one way of achieving peace of mind, leading to enlightenment. For those who have too many things to trouble their mind, chanting the name o...
More About: Good , Buddhist

The difference between 'water' and 'waters'
2008-05-18 18:22:00
Water is the liquid that forms the seas, rivers, and wells. We also drink it to quench our thirst.The following sentence shows the usage of this word.The travellers drank river water when he was very thirsty.On the other hand, waters is an area of sea regarded as under thr juristiction of a particular country.The sentence below shows how 'waters' is used.Our government cannot do anything when the pirates are in international waters.
More About: Water , Difference , Waters

Bad habist die hard
2008-05-18 04:24:00
Bad habits are difficult to be changed. Being late to functions isvery common because it has become a habit for most people. That explains why a wedding dinner which is scheduled to start at 7.30 p.m. can only begin at 8.30 p.m. because most of the guests only arrive five or ten minutes before the stipulated time. Most workers also have the bad habit of waiting for a day or two before dateline to complete what they have to do. Hence some do their job sloppily because of the rush to finish it. Paying of bills just on dateline is also a bad habit. The payment counter will be full of people who pay their bills on the last day allowed. If we change our bad habits, things will go smoother. Punctuality will avoid letting other people wait for us. There will also be no congestion at the payment counter if we pay our bills earlier.
More About: Hard , Die Hard

Mens' slippers?
2008-05-17 05:47:00
I went shopping at two supermarkets and coincidently noticed similar grammatical errors. In one supermarket, the display card reads 'Mens ' Slippers ' and in the other, 'Mens Pants' were written on a cardboard. Both are wrong grammatically. To show possession for plural nouns such as men, women, we just add apostrophe s. Hence the above two mistakes can be rectified as 'Men's Slippers' and 'Men's Pants'.

DVD Writer that writes only DVD-R
2008-05-15 18:26:00
I bought a Liteon 20x DVD Writer yesterday. I tried out various brands of DVD and found something strange about this writer. It failed to burn all DVD+R even Verbatim DVD+R. However, it had no problem burning DVD-R. I wonder whether other readers have encountered similar problems.

The difference between 'at once' and 'all at once'
2008-05-15 00:32:00
English is an interesting language. For one thing, the word need not be pronounced as it is spelt. For another, the same word can be used as different parts of speech. Sometimes the addition of one word in front of two existing words can mean different thing. For example, ‘at once’ means ‘immediately’ as used in the following sentence: The waiter came at once when I beckoned to him. If we add ‘all’ in front of ‘at once’ to form ‘all at once’ the meaning is totally different. ‘All at once’ means ‘Suddenly’. The following sentence carries this meaning: At at once, it rained and I was not able to find shelter in time and was drenched through.
More About: Difference

How to enable INCD in Nero Burning Software
2008-05-13 18:01:00
Usually when we buy a CD or DVD writer, the Nero Burning Software will be bundled with it. If you use ‘typical’ installation, the program will skip INCD and you won’t be able to do packet writing as you do with DLA discussed in my earlier post. However, if you choose ‘custom’ installation, you will be able to change the ‘X’ besideINCD 5 to disappear if you right click on INCD and choose install this feature with all its sub-features. Nero will then INCD for you. Even if you have DLA installed, INCD can still read and write the CD-RW or DVD-RW written earlier by DLA.

Luck was with me yesterday
2008-05-12 18:35:00
I went to my forum site, namely http://forum.andr.net yesterday to look for new software. I found one known as VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express. The member who posted the url told other members that the free download was for a little while only. I tried my luck and was able to download it with the serial number. It helped me optimize my system. Today I wanted to tell readers of my blog to get it but when I went to the site again to copy the exact url, the free promotion just expired. Hence I considered myself lucky because I managed to download it a day before the offer period expired.
More About: Yesterday , Luck

How to make CD-RW or DVD-RW behave like a hard disk
2008-05-11 18:09:00
Besides INCD, a packet writing software that comes with Nero Burning software, there is another way you can do so. The software to be used is DLA which stands for Drive Letter Access. You can download DLA software here. Ounce you have installed DLA, you need to format your CD-RW or DVD-RW for packet writing. This is how to do it. 1 Insert CD-RW or DVD-RW into CD-Writer. 2 Go to my Computer. 3 Right click the drive where you have inserted your CD-RW or DVD-RW. 4 Place cursor on format and click once to format it. Choose FULL format. To write to this disk just drag your file to this drive. You can also save your document to this drive too. It is just like another hard disk. The next time you want to use the CD-RW or DVD-RW for packet writing. Choose ‘Use with DLA’. Right click the file you want to copy to the above CD-RW or DVD-RW and choose ‘send to’ the DLA drive with the formatted CD-RW or DVD-RW.
More About: Disk , Hard , Hard Disk , Make

How to use 'eat' and 'take' involving food
2008-05-10 17:51:00
To use 'eat' and 'take' correctly, follow these guidelines: 1) Use 'take' for meals and medicines e.g. I take my breakfast at 7.00 a.m. Have you taken your medicine? 2) Use 'eat' for specific food. e.g. I eat an apple a day. I ate a cake all by myself.
More About: Food

Science is interesting
2008-05-09 18:11:00
Since young, I have been interested in science. Physics appeals to me more than Chemistry and Biology. I still remember that a convex lens will make parallel light converge. So I used a magnifying and placed it under the sun to ignite the match stick head and it worked. The study of Physics also satisfies my curiosity as to how rainbows are formed and how other phenomena occur. In the earlier days, the teacher did all the experiments and we just watched, hoping to be able to do them ourselves. Then came Integrated Science and the pupils had a chance to do all the experiments in the worksheets. I was trained as an Integrated Science teacher and it made me even more interested in Science because I had the chance to do all the experiments that I would ask my pupils to do. If you have read my earlier post, I did mention I had to teach Integrated Science in English and Malay and sometimes I used the wrong medium of instruction and my class roared with laughter. Science...
More About: Interesting

The former and the latter
2008-05-08 18:19:00
In English, we can use 'the former' to refer to an the first thing or person we have mentioned and' the latter' to refer to the second one stated earlier. The following are some examples of how to use these two. Azmi likes to play badminton. His brother takes a liking to volleyball. The former is actually my friend and the latter my brother’s. Monitors consist of two types, the CRT and LCD. The former emits more radiation than the latter. Susan went with his mother to market today. The former seldom goes there but the latter frequents the place almost every day.