Rebirth

'...human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.'

- Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

My granny's bakchang recipes

It's that time of the year again, and this year I thought I would blog about it for posterity. There are no quantities - just estimate. Glutinous rice will have some regular rice mixed in. For a better texture, pick out the grains of plain rice (they are translucent) if there are any. My mum has found Sheng Siong's Happy Family brand to be of good quality, with hardly any regular rice grains mixed in. Bamboo leaves have to be boiled and wiped down with a wet towel. Hemp string bundles should be washed. Keep leaves damp until you are done wrapping.

Savoury bakchang

1. Glutinous rice: rinse, drain well, and stirfry lightly with shallot oil, white pepper, five spice powder, salt, light and dark soya sauces. Do not overcook as the rice will get sticky.
2. Pork belly: remove skin and brown bite-sized pieces in shallot oil, white pepper, five spice powder, salt, light and dark soya sauces. Cover and let cook for awhile, but take care not to overcook.
3. Chestnuts: scald. soak, remove skin, and (optionally) brown in shallot oil.
4. Dried shiitake mushrooms: braise with juices from cooking pork belly. Cut into four.
5. Salted egg yolks: clean salted eggs, separate yolks and white and rinse yolks. Add a bit of oil to keep yolks from sticking together. Divide into thirds with thread.
6. Dried shrimp: pick out shell and brown in shallot oil.

Once ingredients are assembled, you are ready to start wrapping. Before cooking, tie a second knot in the bundle at the top, nearer to the dumplings. This is to prevent the excess string from getting tangled up in the pot. Excess string at the other end can be trimmed.

Finished dumplings should be boiled for 3 hours. After 1.5 hours, remove dumplings and replace them in the pot so that the ones at the bottom are on top and vice versa. Be ready to top water up with boiling water, so that it covers all the dumplings. After dumplings are cooked, allow them to cool down first if you intend to refrigerate them. They freeze well. Reheat before eating.


Sweet bakchang

1. Glutinous rice: rinse, drain well, and mix with alkaline water and cooking oil.
2. Red beans: cook in water till mushy in slow cooker, then cook again with sugar and oil till dry enough to form balls.

Procedure as above, but cooking time is a total of 2 hours (swap position of dumplings after an hour).

The wrapping
This seems to be the most intimidating part, but it really only takes patience and practice. Start small and slow. If your leaves are small, it's near impossible to make big dumplings and vice versa. We usually double leaves up for a more solid dumpling. Wrap string around twice before knotting.

Tokyo 2010 pictures

London/Paris 3-13 August 2010

A new start, in the land far, far away

I'm way overdue for an update, I know.

So, I started my new job last Thursday. I was pretty apprehensive, for various reasons. For one, this is the first time I've worked full-time in a university. The worst thing was really the transport arrangements. While it's nice to have a chartered bus taking you there directly, it doesn't give me any flexibility with regard to timing, especially since I realised I do have some flexibility.

A pleasant surprise was getting my own office. It does make for a rather lonely time at work, though. There's plenty of space for my books now, but I don't dare bring too much of my stuff to work, in case my contract doesn't get renewed next year. The thing I dislike most about this office isn't the lack of a real window, or having to manually lock the door whenever I leave, but the location, which is very far away from the main department office, not to mention the nearest toilet and pantry. My previous office had both just next door, and I'm spoilt by that.

The new semester starts in September (delayed due to YOG, which also has resulted in our spending August working from home). I have 5 classes lined up, plus facilitation of a community service project. Staggered start dates mean that I'll be teaching right up to Christmas, though. My students will be diploma and PGDE students training to teach in primary schools. Because I'll be working under coordinators, I don't have to do a great deal of prep, which is nice. I think I'll be learning a lot from the courses myself.

What with the new job and driving lessons (always painful, especially when executing turns), I haven't been very good with the other things I ought to be doing. I haven't been practising my forex trading, which probably means I'm not getting as much out of hands-on sessions as I could be. I haven't been working out daily. I was supposed to do 20min or so after work, but I'm just so tired it's hard. I hope to overcome that as I get used to the hours. I haven't restarted my Fast-5 diet either. I just couldn't quite bring myself to explain to new colleagues why I'm not eating lunch. Something maybe I can get around when classes start.

Mid-June update: forex trading and other money matters

I spent the past weekend on my forex intensive. It was incredibly draining and frankly I'm not sure how much of it I actually got. We were supposed to practise on our demo accounts till the first hands-on session today, but I only got my log-in info late Tuesday, and my experience so far has not been encouraging. I'm not sure if it's because I didn't really "get" it and am barking up the wrong tree as a result, or am just unlucky. I tell myself that I'd intended to practise for a good long time before I jump in for real, anyway. Will I earn my course fees back at least, as promised? Eventually, I hope. The bigger question may be whether this is something I enjoy enough to do for supplementary income, or if I should start looking for other avenues.


In other news, I've yet to settle the issue of my integrated shield insurance plan, which is annoying. I'm also not too happy with the life plan my parents got me years ago, which isn't due to even break even for a good long time, from what I can see. I think the hefty annual premium can be put to better use, and will most likely terminate the policy at a loss. I also plan to terminate the foundation policy my parents got me as a child. The premium is not substantial, but I feel that every dollar invested counts.

Not that I've been that virtuous, financially speaking. I've been lusting the new HTC Desire since I knew it existed, but my plan isn't up for renewal yet. I couldn't face the thought of paying full retail for the phone, and ended up trolling the internet for a good deal. In the end I paid cash for a 2-week old European import. I would have preferred a local set, but I saved over 20% on retail, money which could go towards a nice Noreve case. Will be really cash poor until UniSIM pays me the balance of what they owe me at the end of the month.

Re my fitness plan, I was doing 30 minutes on the crosstrainer until the forex intensive weekend basically knocked me out. As I'd feared, my self-discipline faltered. My strategy when the spirit is weak is to make a compromise with myself: any workout is better than none. 100 calories or even 15 minutes fulfils my obligation to myself on bad days. I have yet to motivate myself to resume yoga, though, which is bad.

Work begins on 1 July, and it occurred to me that since the semester doesn't begin till 30 August, I could actually take the holiday I'd wanted. I'm not sure what sort of budget I'd have to work with; even with the savings on accommodation it's $1.5k for a ticket to London. The plan right now is a week away in August, maybe in the first week, after the campus lockdown starts and before YOG opens. 

Saving and investing basics

The author of Saving and Investing has a great series of YouTube videos.