After nearly 3 years of writing the last blog (which I'm ashamed of!!), I thought you may want to know that we are still very much alive and very very happening as a group of Chung Ling Alumni in the UK. The group is active but I'm the one who is the lazy blogger hahaa! :)
If you dont believe me, check out the Fans Page or the Facebook group here. There were the Horse Racing event, the many steamboat dinners, karaoke sessions, dim sums lunches, city-hopping groups (going to different cities to catch up with new alumni's you've never met..and maybe ask them if they can be your tour guide) etc.
We have also met many many alumni from other parts of Europe who came to UK to 'makan' with us..how honoured!!
I am also very happy to have met many many alumni who have came and left the UK for greener pastures elsewhere or returned home to Malaysia. It's been a pleasure knowing all of you and thank you for sharing with us your life stories while living in the UK.
A few more days towards the Chinese New Year - hey! hey! happy Dragon Year everyone!!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Some thoughts when in Penang...
ok so I thought I should share some thoughts here for a change by writing whilst holidaying in Penang...
so what would your average trip back to Penang be like? For me, I generally avoid Western restaurants (my rule#1 of going back to Penang when you have been living in the UK or Australia for a while) although some local friends love to bring me to a fully air-conditioned fancy restaurants to catch up etc.. Whilst I appreciate the air-conditioned environment, my mind is often drifted to the cheap hawker food that I longed for! (pangi kot tuah-teh) :p Keen to meet up with old friends but they would be busy working during weekdays while you would struggle to tell yourself that your holiday has really started! Well for the best of Penang you will expect to find me, a frequent flyer overseas-Penangite sitting next to a dusty road side eating hawker food, often un-recognisable because I would be so shabby looking, wearing a pair of eh-tuah, cheap round neck t-shirt, no handbags, credit card or even earrings, ordering a dozen of Penang hawker food to the table (without thinking about the African children if I cant finish them) and slurping away on the assam laksa, char koay teow, mi tao bak t'ng, cucur udang, otak-otak, rojak with lots of kacang, chee cheong fun.. so on, like nobody cares! and I will try to eat my best without worrying about my weight problems by drinking the noodle soup up to the last drop, until you can find grainy bits of sand (probably from the road side dust) at the bottom of the soup from your last few scoups haha! To have posted the Penang food photos here would be somewhat of a tortune for many Chung Ling kias living in the UK.. so I'll spare you the emotional reminder and cravings for good Penang food!
But here is what I encountered when flying back to Penang two weeks ago.. the SQ Airbus A380 has finally landed into Penang at 4+pm on a Sunday.. I would then do the usual praying..one, praying that my checked-in luggage from London will come out un-damaged; two, praying that I can escape the Penang customs officer from digging through my luggage contents and finding the colourful bikini that I've just purchased from sale in London. No, not that I had something to hide..but I just disliked any further time spent at the airport after 4 movies, 1 game and 2 attempted sleep on the plane so I couldn't wait to get out of the airport scenes quickly! :) then of course, teary emotions took over me when I saw my old parents waiting at the arrival hall..with my mum joyfully waiting to give me a good hug. Many kisses from me until mum said 'eh, cannot kiss so much..got people staring when you are in Penang lah..' I finally listened to her and reluctantly withdrew myself from expressing the homesick vulnerability after so many months being away from home.. :)
Then the next thing I heard was mum suggesting that there is this makan function by the chinese community for some chinese temple festival and if I would like to tag along..you can imagined when I heard the word 'makan!' - eh, bring it on lah! So for my first round of Penang makan I went.. with an event of 300+ chinese tables and I still cannot figure what the occasion is about, I was only eagerly waiting for the servings of the first dish..and was expecting a Chinese-wedding-style 8 course dinner LOL.. so the first dish came and went, I was busy filling up my appetite with serious Penang food..then the second dish.. then the announcement that the VIP has arrived.. everybody stood up to clap hands so I couldnt see who it was. And because the background was also noisy I worked out my strategy that the best way is to continue enjoying the Penang food in front of me and wait till everybody has sat down to figure out who the VIP is. Because I sat on the side table that was part of the VIP path, I found a pair of hands shown before me ready for a hand shake. You can imagine what happened next - my mouth is filled with food, I had to put down the chopsticks to return the hand shake, looked up and saw our Penang Chief Minister YAB Lim Guan Eng smiling at me. So of course I would return the smile but he wouldnt have the chance to see what I was going to do after - deep down I'd like to dig a hole and bury my face into the sand once he has walked a few feet away from my table. It's absolutely hilarious and embarassing to be caught in the 'tam-chiak' moment eating like you've never seen Penang food before but it's definitely a moment to remember! So next time if anybody is going to ask me how our new Penang Chief Minister is like - I will say that he is younger than as seen in the photos, very charismatic in his speeches and very forgiving when someone has food in the mouth while returning a hand-shake! :p
Then of course what else would you be doing in Penang apart from eating all you can eat? You'd be catching up with old friends. I have a usual small group of Chung Ling friends to catch up with when I do go back.. these days they talk about wedding packages and kids schooling as you can understand it so something new for me to learn about. Then of course new topics about what goes on and about in Penang to keep me updated.. what new shopping centre is built in Penang, what factory is doing retrenchment, and proudly, asking about how the Chung Ling UK alumni is doing since the start of the facebook evolution. I'm glad to hear that my CL classmates in Penang thinks that we are doing so well over here..and I could cheerfully say that 'yeah, we are having a game of football in Hydepark on Saturday 18/4'. (psst, if you havent decided to turn up for the football, come give Steve some 'heng dai' support lah..at least you meet a few more Penang friends along the way! He has really spent a good deal of time setting up this football event only once and doesnt deserve to be ppk). My ex-classmate said something quite true that day. She said that the tri-school Chung Ling kias in Penang may not even be as close as what we now have in the UK.. 出外靠朋友..so we should be glad that we have something like a Chung Ling alumni in the far far land of gloomy UK! We have a huge network to leverage from..eg. Steve is a lawyer himself (his charming young look can be deceiving :p) and you know, we will only have successful event turn outs if everybody do their bits to participate and get to know each other from the alumni. I also caught up with a Penang friend who is a member of the Penang Turf Club and was sending her horse for racing over the weekend.. when I mentioned the Royal Ascot event for the Chung Lings, she said 'wow! the Chung Ling kias are going to learn something about horse racing from where it all began (the original England horse racing tradition) so it would be so much fun and once a lifetime experience!' Let's hope we can keep the alumni alive this way by your participation :)
and before I go to bed tonight, I cant help myself by sharing with you some of the pictures taken while my family and I were on our way to cheng beng in Perak. If you think Penang is the greatest Asian heaven for good food..and we should have pretty much covered all the noodles of the Malaysian taste. Let me ask you if you have heard and tried the Ang Chow Mee Suah (Red Wine Mee Suah)? Have you ever seen this in Penang?
We had this in Sitiawan town along with the famous garlic chilli sauce of the Perak trademark.. 
Also last but not least, my favourite Satay fish and jiu-hu food that I gladly stormed into, at a shop in Pulau Pangkor.
Hope you have enjoyed my stories..good night and see you guys and girls on coming Saturday! :)
so what would your average trip back to Penang be like? For me, I generally avoid Western restaurants (my rule#1 of going back to Penang when you have been living in the UK or Australia for a while) although some local friends love to bring me to a fully air-conditioned fancy restaurants to catch up etc.. Whilst I appreciate the air-conditioned environment, my mind is often drifted to the cheap hawker food that I longed for! (pangi kot tuah-teh) :p Keen to meet up with old friends but they would be busy working during weekdays while you would struggle to tell yourself that your holiday has really started! Well for the best of Penang you will expect to find me, a frequent flyer overseas-Penangite sitting next to a dusty road side eating hawker food, often un-recognisable because I would be so shabby looking, wearing a pair of eh-tuah, cheap round neck t-shirt, no handbags, credit card or even earrings, ordering a dozen of Penang hawker food to the table (without thinking about the African children if I cant finish them) and slurping away on the assam laksa, char koay teow, mi tao bak t'ng, cucur udang, otak-otak, rojak with lots of kacang, chee cheong fun.. so on, like nobody cares! and I will try to eat my best without worrying about my weight problems by drinking the noodle soup up to the last drop, until you can find grainy bits of sand (probably from the road side dust) at the bottom of the soup from your last few scoups haha! To have posted the Penang food photos here would be somewhat of a tortune for many Chung Ling kias living in the UK.. so I'll spare you the emotional reminder and cravings for good Penang food!
But here is what I encountered when flying back to Penang two weeks ago.. the SQ Airbus A380 has finally landed into Penang at 4+pm on a Sunday.. I would then do the usual praying..one, praying that my checked-in luggage from London will come out un-damaged; two, praying that I can escape the Penang customs officer from digging through my luggage contents and finding the colourful bikini that I've just purchased from sale in London. No, not that I had something to hide..but I just disliked any further time spent at the airport after 4 movies, 1 game and 2 attempted sleep on the plane so I couldn't wait to get out of the airport scenes quickly! :) then of course, teary emotions took over me when I saw my old parents waiting at the arrival hall..with my mum joyfully waiting to give me a good hug. Many kisses from me until mum said 'eh, cannot kiss so much..got people staring when you are in Penang lah..' I finally listened to her and reluctantly withdrew myself from expressing the homesick vulnerability after so many months being away from home.. :)
Then the next thing I heard was mum suggesting that there is this makan function by the chinese community for some chinese temple festival and if I would like to tag along..you can imagined when I heard the word 'makan!' - eh, bring it on lah! So for my first round of Penang makan I went.. with an event of 300+ chinese tables and I still cannot figure what the occasion is about, I was only eagerly waiting for the servings of the first dish..and was expecting a Chinese-wedding-style 8 course dinner LOL.. so the first dish came and went, I was busy filling up my appetite with serious Penang food..then the second dish.. then the announcement that the VIP has arrived.. everybody stood up to clap hands so I couldnt see who it was. And because the background was also noisy I worked out my strategy that the best way is to continue enjoying the Penang food in front of me and wait till everybody has sat down to figure out who the VIP is. Because I sat on the side table that was part of the VIP path, I found a pair of hands shown before me ready for a hand shake. You can imagine what happened next - my mouth is filled with food, I had to put down the chopsticks to return the hand shake, looked up and saw our Penang Chief Minister YAB Lim Guan Eng smiling at me. So of course I would return the smile but he wouldnt have the chance to see what I was going to do after - deep down I'd like to dig a hole and bury my face into the sand once he has walked a few feet away from my table. It's absolutely hilarious and embarassing to be caught in the 'tam-chiak' moment eating like you've never seen Penang food before but it's definitely a moment to remember! So next time if anybody is going to ask me how our new Penang Chief Minister is like - I will say that he is younger than as seen in the photos, very charismatic in his speeches and very forgiving when someone has food in the mouth while returning a hand-shake! :p
Then of course what else would you be doing in Penang apart from eating all you can eat? You'd be catching up with old friends. I have a usual small group of Chung Ling friends to catch up with when I do go back.. these days they talk about wedding packages and kids schooling as you can understand it so something new for me to learn about. Then of course new topics about what goes on and about in Penang to keep me updated.. what new shopping centre is built in Penang, what factory is doing retrenchment, and proudly, asking about how the Chung Ling UK alumni is doing since the start of the facebook evolution. I'm glad to hear that my CL classmates in Penang thinks that we are doing so well over here..and I could cheerfully say that 'yeah, we are having a game of football in Hydepark on Saturday 18/4'. (psst, if you havent decided to turn up for the football, come give Steve some 'heng dai' support lah..at least you meet a few more Penang friends along the way! He has really spent a good deal of time setting up this football event only once and doesnt deserve to be ppk). My ex-classmate said something quite true that day. She said that the tri-school Chung Ling kias in Penang may not even be as close as what we now have in the UK.. 出外靠朋友..so we should be glad that we have something like a Chung Ling alumni in the far far land of gloomy UK! We have a huge network to leverage from..eg. Steve is a lawyer himself (his charming young look can be deceiving :p) and you know, we will only have successful event turn outs if everybody do their bits to participate and get to know each other from the alumni. I also caught up with a Penang friend who is a member of the Penang Turf Club and was sending her horse for racing over the weekend.. when I mentioned the Royal Ascot event for the Chung Lings, she said 'wow! the Chung Ling kias are going to learn something about horse racing from where it all began (the original England horse racing tradition) so it would be so much fun and once a lifetime experience!' Let's hope we can keep the alumni alive this way by your participation :)
and before I go to bed tonight, I cant help myself by sharing with you some of the pictures taken while my family and I were on our way to cheng beng in Perak. If you think Penang is the greatest Asian heaven for good food..and we should have pretty much covered all the noodles of the Malaysian taste. Let me ask you if you have heard and tried the Ang Chow Mee Suah (Red Wine Mee Suah)? Have you ever seen this in Penang?
We had this in Sitiawan town along with the famous garlic chilli sauce of the Perak trademark.. 
Also last but not least, my favourite Satay fish and jiu-hu food that I gladly stormed into, at a shop in Pulau Pangkor.
Hope you have enjoyed my stories..good night and see you guys and girls on coming Saturday! :)
March 14 的日记
March 14 的日记：A dim sum afternoon with the Chung Lings，晴天I have been looking forward to the dim sum for weeks..wasnt sure who I am going to meet this time. I was late myself due to some last minute problems sending a friend off to the airport, hehee..paiseh :-p When I sampai, there were so many new faces! The young Chung Lings outnumbered the seniors but they were all very chatty and friendly. It feels like they know me somehow (because of the facebook group lah,what else?!) but I dont know which one to start getting to know first..
We were connected quickly and were the loudest group in the basement of the restaurant! To my surprise, majority of us are young working professionals who have been living and working in the UK for a while, rather than students. How come I never meet so many Penangites in the UK before?! The best of all, there were people from all 3 schools - CLHS, CLBW, CL Private who came to the gathering and some of them came all the way from Daventry, Bournemouth, Birmingham, Cambridge and Bath. This shows the unity of the Chung Lings, wow! (hats off!!)
Moving on from dim sum to dessert, we finally left the restaurant around evening time and continued our conversations at Costa Coffee, not surprisingly that once again, we were the loudest chirpy group speaking Hokkien, Mandarin and rojak English. Cant help it lah..we only meet once or twice a month yet so much to say and so much to share. There were managers, business man, accountants, analyst, student, soon-to-be parent etc from different industries and location..not only did we enjoy talking and sharing ideas about Penang, good food, UK job market, Malaysian politics, football, sharing kids’ photos, exchanging business contacts (ahdui, the list goes on..) and of course, discussing about how to host the very important Chung Ling Worldwide gathering event coming to Europe for the first time! We also get a lot of attention/ eye-staring from the other customers nearby who are curious about who we are ;-p So there you go, from afternoon dim sum lunch to evening dinner time, from Chinese restaurant to Costa Coffee, I’m sure everyone who came really enjoyed it!
Thanks for coming people; another good time with ‘kaki-lang’ from Penang is always nice in this gloomy recession UK! I hope the next event – the football game in April will also be as good as this one (hey, don’t you think that it’s good to release some tension during credit crunch time by kicking football in a big wide park?). No plans for another dim sum in April yet but hey at least, we try to meet up every few weeks yeah! So don’t forget to confirm and turn up lah..I was hoping to meet a few more Chung Ling girls but some confirmed, never come somehow..想到了就要做到，不要hesitate的。 I for one, am very happy to know new friends who can speak hokkien/rojak language and finally put a real face to the names that I have seen before on facebook! :-> 朋友们，再来一次好吗？
We were connected quickly and were the loudest group in the basement of the restaurant! To my surprise, majority of us are young working professionals who have been living and working in the UK for a while, rather than students. How come I never meet so many Penangites in the UK before?! The best of all, there were people from all 3 schools - CLHS, CLBW, CL Private who came to the gathering and some of them came all the way from Daventry, Bournemouth, Birmingham, Cambridge and Bath. This shows the unity of the Chung Lings, wow! (hats off!!)
Moving on from dim sum to dessert, we finally left the restaurant around evening time and continued our conversations at Costa Coffee, not surprisingly that once again, we were the loudest chirpy group speaking Hokkien, Mandarin and rojak English. Cant help it lah..we only meet once or twice a month yet so much to say and so much to share. There were managers, business man, accountants, analyst, student, soon-to-be parent etc from different industries and location..not only did we enjoy talking and sharing ideas about Penang, good food, UK job market, Malaysian politics, football, sharing kids’ photos, exchanging business contacts (ahdui, the list goes on..) and of course, discussing about how to host the very important Chung Ling Worldwide gathering event coming to Europe for the first time! We also get a lot of attention/ eye-staring from the other customers nearby who are curious about who we are ;-p So there you go, from afternoon dim sum lunch to evening dinner time, from Chinese restaurant to Costa Coffee, I’m sure everyone who came really enjoyed it!
Thanks for coming people; another good time with ‘kaki-lang’ from Penang is always nice in this gloomy recession UK! I hope the next event – the football game in April will also be as good as this one (hey, don’t you think that it’s good to release some tension during credit crunch time by kicking football in a big wide park?). No plans for another dim sum in April yet but hey at least, we try to meet up every few weeks yeah! So don’t forget to confirm and turn up lah..I was hoping to meet a few more Chung Ling girls but some confirmed, never come somehow..想到了就要做到，不要hesitate的。 I for one, am very happy to know new friends who can speak hokkien/rojak language and finally put a real face to the names that I have seen before on facebook! :-> 朋友们，再来一次好吗？
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A Penang girl..from Chung Ling
Ok here is my chance to write finally, the plane was going through some turbulence as we were about to reach London and the passenger sitting next to me appeared to be praying hard that we will land safely while I was thinking about where to eat/shop this weekend.. Portobello Market? Satay at Islington?…oh no, I still havent written for the CL UK…
Thanks for the friend requests some 50+ of them on my facebook. Unfortunately, these days it becomes a huge task to recognise who’s who without any exchange of messages. I don’t know whether someone is adding me as friend just because they found me from the CL Alumni UK or from other past acquiantance. I wish I would get the pleasure of meeting you CL folks some day before adding new friends so I know more about you.
As I was thinking about what to write about myself, my head was humming 林琼珑的歌 - 多年以前，多年以后.. Well, my background is that I received tertiary education in Australia, was trained as a professional engineer in the USA and am now working in European projects as a Oracle consultant. On a personal note however, I’m just a simple Penang ‘lang’ like most of you. To talk about my journey will be 没完没了的故事 but for what it’s worth, maybe I should relate to how I came about knowing the Chung Ling Alumni..something we all share in common.
I was born in Georgetown, Penang and my first language is in fact English. I am the only one in my family/relatives who can read/write Chinese thanks to my parents who decided that I should learn Chinese at a young age. My primary school is 中华一校 and I went to CLBW 北海钟灵中学 （国中）from there on. During my time in Chung Ling, I was a Girl Guide and also part of the Chung Ling School Band. Those days, I have sometimes denied my identity as a Chung Ling student mainly because I was afraid that friends from other school will not mix with me (some of them think that Chung Lings are LCLY and it makes them feel inferior that we have such good exam results..but we all worked really hard for it, didn’t we?! LOL). From the Chung Ling School band, I was selected to play for the Penang Symphony Orchestra and also the Penang State Symphony. During one of the years playing music, the CL seniors sponsored us to perform for one of the CL Alumni Worldwide Gathering held in Genting Highlands. That was the first time I came about knowing that the CL Alumni really do exist “worldwide”. As a teenager, I truly had no sense of how big/far the world really is, except seeing it on the atlas book :-) but it was the first out-of-Penang school trip that I’ve had.
By the time I have completed Form 5, the existence of the CL Alumni Worldwide has slipped my mind and I was feeling very uncertain about my future. I didn’t get into the course that I have applied for at UTM. My family was just a poor 小康之家 and I had to keep trying the local university by continuing to Form 6 (by then we no longer need to go to CLHS Penang for Form 6 because CLBW was able to provide that). To risk it all so that I can study in my chosen field, my parents have decided to mortgage our only home so that I can get a chance to study in Australia. Back then, the Australian currency was 3x so my parents can only afford part of the course fees and I still need to support myself on the living cost overseas. I still remember my mother’s words vividly, she said “Ah girl, I’ve never been on the plane out of Malaysia but go spread your wings and do your best!” I feel so empowered by her simple words that I accepted the one way ticket to Melbourne, Australia and took on the challenges without knowing what lies ahead for me.
When I first arrived in Melbourne, I didn’t know anyone to cope with the culture shock and found a job at a food court with a Malaysian owner. My first job was AUD4.50/hour paid fortnightly (well below the minimum pay threshold by law). By the 4th week (the 2nd pay cycle), the owner decided not to pay for my work because I was said to be slow in serving food and he was not making enough money so I left. Eventually I found 4 jobs sufficient to support myself by roasting chestnuts on the streets of Melbourne, working in the University Info Centre, computer data entry in a property company and working as a waitress in a Thai restaurant. I couldn’t afford to fly home but life was livable with good summer jobs and I was also doing well in my engineering studies. However by the 4th final year, I was really homesick being away from my family for so long and my studies were degrading. I didn’t think I would make it back to Penang with an honours degree. Then on one of the cold winter days while I was roasting chestnuts, I met one of the senior CL alumni who came to buy a packet of chestnuts. He reminded me of family, the Chung Ling Alumni and Penang when he spoke Mandarin/Hokkien..especially when the words '爱吾钟灵' were said so strongly and of course, invited me to one of their gathering.
With some company from the CL alumni network, life was so much better from there onwards…although there is an age gap with the CL seniors and their family, I no longer feel that homesick. Sometimes they invited me to makan assam laksa or bak-kut-teh that they cooked at home and I also helped out when they celebrated 中秋节 etc. When I needed a JP to certify-true-copy of my certificates to apply to the Institute of Engineers, there was someone in the Alumni who is a JP and helped me with that. Sooo.. I supposed you could guess the story ending by now.. yes I completed university and received my B.Eng with honours. My final year engineering project was published in the university Engenius Journal and the university retained copyrights to the project. I also managed to save up enough to buy plane tickets for my parents to attend my graduation in Melbourne that year (my mum was a bit paranoid when she took the plane for the first time in her life haha!). Also, Agilent Technologies offered me an engineer position before my final exams. After my graduation ceremony they relocated me back to Penang and subsequently to the USA.
Well, I hope you enjoyed reading my story. Wherever you are, stay connected lah..you’ll never know who you’ll cross-path with, in the Chung Ling Alumni network. There are a lot of talented alumni around…多年以前，多年以后 we will all become the Chung Ling seniors too..but for now, we are the Chung Ling ‘kia’ and we are the movers and shakers of the future!
cheers!
Adeline
Thanks for the friend requests some 50+ of them on my facebook. Unfortunately, these days it becomes a huge task to recognise who’s who without any exchange of messages. I don’t know whether someone is adding me as friend just because they found me from the CL Alumni UK or from other past acquiantance. I wish I would get the pleasure of meeting you CL folks some day before adding new friends so I know more about you.
As I was thinking about what to write about myself, my head was humming 林琼珑的歌 - 多年以前，多年以后.. Well, my background is that I received tertiary education in Australia, was trained as a professional engineer in the USA and am now working in European projects as a Oracle consultant. On a personal note however, I’m just a simple Penang ‘lang’ like most of you. To talk about my journey will be 没完没了的故事 but for what it’s worth, maybe I should relate to how I came about knowing the Chung Ling Alumni..something we all share in common.
I was born in Georgetown, Penang and my first language is in fact English. I am the only one in my family/relatives who can read/write Chinese thanks to my parents who decided that I should learn Chinese at a young age. My primary school is 中华一校 and I went to CLBW 北海钟灵中学 （国中）from there on. During my time in Chung Ling, I was a Girl Guide and also part of the Chung Ling School Band. Those days, I have sometimes denied my identity as a Chung Ling student mainly because I was afraid that friends from other school will not mix with me (some of them think that Chung Lings are LCLY and it makes them feel inferior that we have such good exam results..but we all worked really hard for it, didn’t we?! LOL). From the Chung Ling School band, I was selected to play for the Penang Symphony Orchestra and also the Penang State Symphony. During one of the years playing music, the CL seniors sponsored us to perform for one of the CL Alumni Worldwide Gathering held in Genting Highlands. That was the first time I came about knowing that the CL Alumni really do exist “worldwide”. As a teenager, I truly had no sense of how big/far the world really is, except seeing it on the atlas book :-) but it was the first out-of-Penang school trip that I’ve had.
By the time I have completed Form 5, the existence of the CL Alumni Worldwide has slipped my mind and I was feeling very uncertain about my future. I didn’t get into the course that I have applied for at UTM. My family was just a poor 小康之家 and I had to keep trying the local university by continuing to Form 6 (by then we no longer need to go to CLHS Penang for Form 6 because CLBW was able to provide that). To risk it all so that I can study in my chosen field, my parents have decided to mortgage our only home so that I can get a chance to study in Australia. Back then, the Australian currency was 3x so my parents can only afford part of the course fees and I still need to support myself on the living cost overseas. I still remember my mother’s words vividly, she said “Ah girl, I’ve never been on the plane out of Malaysia but go spread your wings and do your best!” I feel so empowered by her simple words that I accepted the one way ticket to Melbourne, Australia and took on the challenges without knowing what lies ahead for me.
When I first arrived in Melbourne, I didn’t know anyone to cope with the culture shock and found a job at a food court with a Malaysian owner. My first job was AUD4.50/hour paid fortnightly (well below the minimum pay threshold by law). By the 4th week (the 2nd pay cycle), the owner decided not to pay for my work because I was said to be slow in serving food and he was not making enough money so I left. Eventually I found 4 jobs sufficient to support myself by roasting chestnuts on the streets of Melbourne, working in the University Info Centre, computer data entry in a property company and working as a waitress in a Thai restaurant. I couldn’t afford to fly home but life was livable with good summer jobs and I was also doing well in my engineering studies. However by the 4th final year, I was really homesick being away from my family for so long and my studies were degrading. I didn’t think I would make it back to Penang with an honours degree. Then on one of the cold winter days while I was roasting chestnuts, I met one of the senior CL alumni who came to buy a packet of chestnuts. He reminded me of family, the Chung Ling Alumni and Penang when he spoke Mandarin/Hokkien..especially when the words '爱吾钟灵' were said so strongly and of course, invited me to one of their gathering.
With some company from the CL alumni network, life was so much better from there onwards…although there is an age gap with the CL seniors and their family, I no longer feel that homesick. Sometimes they invited me to makan assam laksa or bak-kut-teh that they cooked at home and I also helped out when they celebrated 中秋节 etc. When I needed a JP to certify-true-copy of my certificates to apply to the Institute of Engineers, there was someone in the Alumni who is a JP and helped me with that. Sooo.. I supposed you could guess the story ending by now.. yes I completed university and received my B.Eng with honours. My final year engineering project was published in the university Engenius Journal and the university retained copyrights to the project. I also managed to save up enough to buy plane tickets for my parents to attend my graduation in Melbourne that year (my mum was a bit paranoid when she took the plane for the first time in her life haha!). Also, Agilent Technologies offered me an engineer position before my final exams. After my graduation ceremony they relocated me back to Penang and subsequently to the USA.
Well, I hope you enjoyed reading my story. Wherever you are, stay connected lah..you’ll never know who you’ll cross-path with, in the Chung Ling Alumni network. There are a lot of talented alumni around…多年以前，多年以后 we will all become the Chung Ling seniors too..but for now, we are the Chung Ling ‘kia’ and we are the movers and shakers of the future!
cheers!
Adeline
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Welcome note to start off!
Hello..hello..welcome to the group..How did we grow to have over 80 members in 4 days is an astounding figure! :) I am sooo happy to see everyone here. It makes me feel like I’m not that far away from home after all :) Now who dares to say that there arent many Chung Ling kias in the UK..I will 'wahlup' them with this site haha! Even if we assume 25% of the number of members here to be physically living in the UK, that is already a great reason to make a good gathering!
There are two main reasons why the group grow so quickly. Firstly, if you have been receiving a message from me directly, then it’s because (honestly) I have been working very hard using my ‘computer skills’ (I’m an computer engineer btw) to track down you guys using the Chung Ling Worldwide database that you once registered. Speaking of which, if you haven’t got yourself registered on the CL database, please register on 钟灵全球网络 http://www.clglobal.net.my/ The database is now maintained by CLHS’ past principal, Mr. Sim Jin Tang （沈仁东） who is now a retiree but still dedicate his time to work for CL Global Networks which was started to establish a central network for alumni from the 3 schools. If you happen to be in Penang, then do spare some time to visit him at CLHS (国民型), Penang. He has a small office at the Chung Ling Alumni Association activity centre right at the back of the school, next to the 6th Form Block (槟城钟灵校友会的会所已经返回“娘家”). Well, I can tell you one thing lah..Mr. Sim maybe our senior alumni but he is absolutely keen to hear new ideas from younger alumni like us on how to keep the ex-Chung Lings united and also always happy to hear stories from our young alumni / his ex-students how they make it in life after high-school.
Secondly, I have some folks to thank.. mainly the administrators of the other Chung Ling fb groups outside UK for their great support to promote this group! (Angel, Xuxu, Sky, Chin Ghee, Shi P’ng and Alex Ewe, thankyou!) Without them, you probably wouldn’t know about us so quickly and be able to join us for any UK Alumni gathering. Well..in terms of gathering, we just had one about 1.5 weeks ago for the cny 'Yee Sang' dinner as you can see from the photos. Will keep you all posted when there is another gathering in the upcoming months!
Lastly, I have also received many messages from members here. Some asked about the upcoming 2010/2011 CL Alumni Worldwide event that was posted and some are curious about me hehee... Ok, maybe I’ll start by briefly introducing myself next week. For now, goodnight ya, I am late for my ‘tidur’ time. Feel free to write on the fb wall and have fun finding your ex-classmates / old friends from the facebook group!
爱吾钟灵!
Adeline
There are two main reasons why the group grow so quickly. Firstly, if you have been receiving a message from me directly, then it’s because (honestly) I have been working very hard using my ‘computer skills’ (I’m an computer engineer btw) to track down you guys using the Chung Ling Worldwide database that you once registered. Speaking of which, if you haven’t got yourself registered on the CL database, please register on 钟灵全球网络 http://www.clglobal.net.my/ The database is now maintained by CLHS’ past principal, Mr. Sim Jin Tang （沈仁东） who is now a retiree but still dedicate his time to work for CL Global Networks which was started to establish a central network for alumni from the 3 schools. If you happen to be in Penang, then do spare some time to visit him at CLHS (国民型), Penang. He has a small office at the Chung Ling Alumni Association activity centre right at the back of the school, next to the 6th Form Block (槟城钟灵校友会的会所已经返回“娘家”). Well, I can tell you one thing lah..Mr. Sim maybe our senior alumni but he is absolutely keen to hear new ideas from younger alumni like us on how to keep the ex-Chung Lings united and also always happy to hear stories from our young alumni / his ex-students how they make it in life after high-school.
Secondly, I have some folks to thank.. mainly the administrators of the other Chung Ling fb groups outside UK for their great support to promote this group! (Angel, Xuxu, Sky, Chin Ghee, Shi P’ng and Alex Ewe, thankyou!) Without them, you probably wouldn’t know about us so quickly and be able to join us for any UK Alumni gathering. Well..in terms of gathering, we just had one about 1.5 weeks ago for the cny 'Yee Sang' dinner as you can see from the photos. Will keep you all posted when there is another gathering in the upcoming months!
Lastly, I have also received many messages from members here. Some asked about the upcoming 2010/2011 CL Alumni Worldwide event that was posted and some are curious about me hehee... Ok, maybe I’ll start by briefly introducing myself next week. For now, goodnight ya, I am late for my ‘tidur’ time. Feel free to write on the fb wall and have fun finding your ex-classmates / old friends from the facebook group!
爱吾钟灵!
Adeline
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