Cyrix’s Codex

Okie dokies! Now a little bit of history on my mum’s side of the family

My mum-side grandparents are great. Grandpa is the old fashioned British-mannerism type of Chinese. Unlike my dad’s side, my mum’s side of the family is of the English-educated type of Chinese-Malaysians from Alor Setar, Kedah. My grandfather is a Hokkien, and my grandma’s a Teowchew. They eventually moved to Bukit Mertajam, Penang. Their families are quite interesting.

My grandfather’s parents can be considered the upper-middle class of Chinese-Malaysians of the 1950’s. His dad was the headmaster of an English school. During those times, that means that his parent’s social circle includes other professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and prominent community leaders. It also means that he earns a lot, and commands a great deal of respect. Unfortunately for my granddad, his father passed away young. This was a terrible event then, as his dad was the only breadwinner in the family. It’s safe to say that my granddad was on his way towards quite a privilleged life, but his father’s death changed all that. He had to work early, and he became a Telekom technician after high school. Life’s unpredictable.

My grandma’s family is even more unique. Her mum’s a Peranakan. For those of you who don’t know what that is, Peranakans are the earliest Chinese to come to Malaysia. They were the entourage of the Chinese Princess Hang Li Po, which married the Sultan of Malacca. Most Peranakan these days can be found in Malacca, Penang and Singapore. They’re quite an affluence bunch during the 20’s and 30’s. They’re also unique because they took a lot of the Malay culture and incorporated them into their Chinese culture, resulting in a delightful mix of cultures, cuisine, fashion and mannerisms. They have cool dishes and wear sarongs, for one thing

Anyway, so my grandma wears a sarong and makes the most delicious sambal udangs, sambal ikans, sambal sotongs, chicken curries, green chicken curries, weird petai things, and a whole lot of kuihs. Many aren’t traditional Chinese dishes, which I think explains my fondness for Malay dishes

And so my mum was born. She got a Christian-Convent education (even though we were all Buddhists), and finally also went to teacher’s colleage, where she meet my dad. She speaks only English and Hokkien, and no Mandarin. And unfortunately, I took on that trait as well (even though I do know how to speak Mandarin, but not write or read it)

So that’s that! My half-arsed family tree summary thingy!

During dinner last night, my family had a very interesting conversation on my family’s history while munching down my mum’s delicious sambal prawns. *Yum….* :)

Anyway, it’s pretty cool learning about your roots and all. So basically, since my dad’s family’s Cantonese, he said that my ancestors were probably some half-starved peasants from Canton, in Southern China. After realising that his potatoes aren’t gonna grow no matter how much cow dung he chucked on them, I’m guessing he started thinking what the hell was he gonna do now to avoid starving his family and himself. Then one day, he saw this ad in the papers telling about a funky far-away land called Malaya, where there’s heaps of gold and potatoes. He promptly packed his bags, gave the middle finger to the crappy Chiang Kai-Shek’s government, and took the first boat to Malaya.

Upon arriving there, he started working in the rich tin (close enough to gold laa) mines there. While there, he and his wife gave birth to my grandfather and his siblings. Not all of them survived. During that time, the Chinese people like my great-grandfather viewed Malaya only as a place to get some moolah, so that he could go back to Canton and build a cool wooden house, to show off to his neighbours. Unfortunately, during his stay there, the Communists came into power, thanks to that round-faced, molely Mao Zedong. So that was that. He couldn’t go back anymore.

Anyway, my grandfather then grew up in Kepala Batas, Penang and called Malaysia his home. I guess it was a pretty cool life there, running around paddy fields, playing marbles to impress the chicks, etc. His idillyc life was interrupted when those cruel bastard Japanese soldiers started invading Malaya. My great-grandpa must have hidden in the paddy fields frequently to avoid meeting God too soon. Thankfully, the cool British came in and finally kicked the Japs out. My great-grandpa then got married. He became a blacksmith, and I guess he earned enough to be able to have my grandfather.

My grandfather first tried continuing his dad’s trade, but he didn’t have the work ethics for it. He quit that and decided to set up a Wanton Mee stall instead. Luckily, it was a success. People loved his home-made (they still have the noodle-making machine) noodles and wanton. Unfortunately, he loved drinking, and spent a lot of money on it. My dad once counted how much he earned, and how much was used to buy wine, and concluded that his father would have been a very rich man if he had kicked that habit. He passed away early, and the business was passed on to my grandmother. My granny, it was soon apparent, was a much better businesswoman, and together with not having many expensive habits, was soon earning quite an impressive sum for the whole family. Oh yeah, and my dad was then born some years after my grandpa started his noodles stall. My dad have always said that if my grandpa’s noodles stall didn’t take off, he and I wouldn’t be here right now. It was that crucial then, during those poor times.

My dad, I guess, was the smartest among his siblings. His brother took over the noodles stall. My dad took the ’school’ route and went to Technical Institute in Penang Island, where he meet my mum. After that, he went to teaching college, and finally graduated as a Maths teacher. His first compulsory posting, together with my mum, was in a God-forsaken tiny indigenous village near Miri in Sarawak. There, he wrote a dirtbike (my dad’s so cool ) to school, lived in a longhouse, and taught half-naked kids with spears. I was born there, incidentally. After 5 years, my dad then transferred to Penang, where he attended USM for a teaching degree. After about another 5 years, we moved to Johor Bahru down south.

We lived there for 7 years, until I was in the Lower 6th Form, where he saw an ad that Australia needed Maths teachers. He applied for it, and got it.

And that where we all are now, in Sydney, NSW

Got an interesting question here. How many of us have actually complimented the people we admire that they’re cute/attractive/nice before? Its funny how we seem to have no problems putting people down, insulting them, etc, but are so stingy when it comes to the compliment part Food for thought, ain’t it?

Extending this further, ummnn…. when exactly is it right to tell someone that you like her? If you suddenly developed feelings for the girl that you’ve been friends for for a long time now, is it appropriate to tell her that and risk the friendship? What if, on the other hand, you don’t really know the girl for long, but you just feel an instant attraction to her? Is that considered a crush? Would you actually tell her? Is is too weird to? Maybe in those instances, we should just say “To hell with conventions, and just seize the day?” There’s a reason why people talk about ‘love at first site’

When I really think about it, I came to this conclusion: I think we should just tell them. Why? Because if the feeling is mutual, then BAM! You’re all set! But if it’s not, what have you got to lose? *Okok, so maybe your dignity for a while, but I guess that’s a fair price to pay ;)* She could just take that as a sweet complement from you. Heck, you’ve also successfully barged into her thoughts after that bit of bravado, in case something changes in the future

So why someone gets attracted to someone else is actually quite a fascinating question, really. Sure, the majority of the kinda people who are fortunate enough to get this type of attraction from the opposite sex (or same even *PC*), are the ones that don’t look like that fat police in NYPD Blues , but heck is that all there is to it? Nah, I don’t think so. Some of the girls whom I’ve been attracted to aren’t knockout supermodels, but girls with very interesting and contagiously upbeat personalities. That’s so much more important than looks, in the end

It’s interesting how attraction works. Yesterday, while shopping for some groceries for my mum, I meet a cashier. She was a girl of 17-20, and I can’t say I’m 100% sure of this, but I think she flirted with me Being the flirtatiously-impared guy that I am, the best I could come up with was a lame comeback to her jokes… *acutely embarassing now that I think about it…*

After the initial suprise of suddenly being transported from thinking about what I would like to eat for lunch, to being rudely tossed into the ‘flirting game’, I started paying more attention to her. Found out that she wasn’t a bad-looking chick, actually. Quite cute, in fact And then an inexplicable thing happened: I actually began to feel attracted to her the more we talked. Weird how this happened, considering I know nothing about her at all!

Which got me thinking, isn’t it odd that we can know some girls for months, or even years, without ever developing a tinge of attraction to them, while you can instantly develop a kinda crush on a complete stranger!

So for fun, I’m now trying to see whether I can pin-point exactly why I suddenly felt compellingly attracted to that girl. Unless one’s a hypocrite, one can’t deny that looks have a lot to do with this. I don’t think I would get tongue-tied just trying to find a comeback to impress her if she looked like something the cat dragged in. That’s the painful truth, sadly. I feel that everyone has a certain ‘type’ of girl/guy that they’re naturally attracted to, and it so happened that she was kinda my ‘type’. A little too young, perhaps but still quite a good fit to the kind that I like. In fact, what I found peculiar about myself was that I probably wouldn’t be attracted to a girl, even though she’s a pretty lass, if she wasn’t my ‘type’. Odd…

The second thing which I feel strengthens the initial physical attraction phase has got to be the girl’s personality. It quickly became quite apparent to me that she had quite an endearing friendly, if a little naive, personality. I don’t think that looks are enough to sustain interest in a person, supermodel quality though they may be.

But alas, how much could I ask about her while purchasing 2 cartons of eggs? Had to say goodbye much too soon, IMO. Luckily, I’m due to get my mum a new bottle of orange juice soon. Yay!

Ole ole ole ole! Aussie Aussie Aussie, ooi ooi ooi!

We’re going to Germany, after 30 years!

What a game man… Australia - ranked 57, vs Uruguay - ranked 15. Coming back from a 0-1 deficit, we scored 1-0 in normal time at home, completely outclassed the 2 time World Cup champions, and finished them off on 5-3 penalties!!!

Uruguay, considering that they had so many players playing for top Spanish and Italian teams, were pretty pathetic on both legs. Recoba, Morales, Dario Silva, etc etc, piii rah mabuk! So what? For a supposedly ‘world class’ team, they could only managed a 1-0 win in their ’supposedly’ intimidating home stadium, and last night, they could hardly touch the ball!

Kudos to Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Tim Cahill, Mark Schwarzer, Mark Bresciano, and Tony Vidmar!!!

Lol, we humiliated Uruguay. And football isn’t even the national game here in Australia!

Boo hoo, go home Uruguay!

Greetings and salutations, my loyal believers of The Cyrixonic! I am Cyrix, and I am your pseudo-God

I am currently covertly helping mankind achieve salvation through the form of a 20 year old first year accountancy university student in Sydney. I also happen to be a defector from the God-forsaken Johor Bahru, Malaysia to sunny Sydney, Australia a few years back

Vital stats:

Constitution: 99% Human, 1% God
Age: 20 years old
Sex: 0 times. Oh, sorry, I mean ‘Male’
Ethnicity: Does it matter? (If it does, I’m Chinese)
Love-life status: Desperately single
Political beliefs: Social democracy, Third Way ala Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Kim Beazley, Lim Kit Siang, Dr Syed Husin Ali
Social beliefs: Multiculturalism, secularism (separation of church and state), medium-level welfare system, taxing those rich bastards, semi pro-choice, pro-gays, pro-free market, pro-subsidised schools, universities and hospitals, semi pro-privatisation of enterprises
Fav books: First Among Equals, Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer), Sphere (Michael Crichton), Deathgate Cycle (Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman), Isaac Assimov, Dune series (Frank Herbert)
Fav movies: Infernal Affairs Trilogy, LOTR Trilogy, The Shawshank Redemption, Dead Poet’s Society, Gladiator, Donnie Darko
Fav TV Series: Frasier, Friends, Lost, Desperate Housewives, The OC
Fav music: Texas, Savage Garden, Linkin Park, The Dissociatives, Mariah Carey
E-mail: xar987@gmail.com

And done! That’s all you need to know about me!

Greetings and salutations, my brethrens and loyal followers! May the powers of The Cyrixonic be with you always, and may it shine the Light of A Thousand Lux on you.

As you all should already know, I am Cyrix, the latest reincarnation of the pseudo-cybergod previously known as Cypher101. Why did I leave my previous manifestation? Unfortunately my previous shell has been besieged by an onslaught of blasphemous spam by our enemies, the corrupted heretics! Curse them, and may the purifying hellfire Amon-Du smite them to eternal damnnation! That, and that I wanted categories which Blogspot doesn’t provide.

So there it is, my loyal followers. May you forever uphold the honour and glory of The Cyrixonic!