She says.....

Hubby was asking Tian to answer something and Tian simply guessed and got the answer correctly.

Hubby: (Direct translation from Mandarin) Like this you also 'mao1 chong4' (Mao1 Chong4 is a Taiwanese way of expressing getting the answer by guessing blindly)

Tian: Mao (Cat) is not Chong (Heavy) because it is very small. Kou (Dog) is Chong (Heavy).

Kids are so cute.

P/S: I find it hard to express my kids humour in my blog because I can't write in Mandarin. As I was educated in Bahasa Malaysia since Primary School, I am only able to read little Mandarin. It makes me quite determined to send my kids to Chinese Primary School but I will be worried about their command in Bahasa Melayu and English. Is there any better way to decide?

Car accident

I have always considered myself as a cautious driver but I have had a few minor accidents before.

First accident I had was many years back when my hubby fetch me to visit their family plantation quite far away from main road (tar road). He was driving along bumpy red soil road and I asked him to let me try to navigate the 'jungle road'. We came across a puddle at a T-junction and my hubby told me to drive 'faster' past the puddle so that our car would not get stuck. I listened to him, pressed onto the accelerator hard and swerved right. However, I accelerated too hard and could not go straight in time and went straight into a ditch. My hubby did not know to laugh or call me stupid. Some farmers passed by and used their lorry to pull our car out.

Second accident happened when I was driving along a long stretch of road. When I came to a traffic light, I saw the light turning yellow and decided to stop instead of rushing pass. The car behind me could not stop in time. Luckily, I saw the car coming fast towards me and I released my brake and tried to go forward but the car still knocked my bumper. The lady was so scared that she was trembling as she wrote her phone number to me. I was quite calm at that time and asked her to see if her children were injured. I recognised her as she was a teller in a bank that I always go so I was not worried about compensation.

Today, I meet with car accident again! I went to fetch my daughter, Tian from her pre-school and went to petrol station to fill up petrol. It was raining when I drove back home. As I reached a junction, a van turned despite seeing my car going straight. I honked at him, pressed on the brake and made a slight turn to the right to avoid him but his van was not fast enough and I knocked the left rear of his van. I could not swerve in time as the wheels were locked when I braked due to no ABS function. The impact of my car hitting the van caused it to bump into another car stopping at the junction. It was a funny scene as the innocent driver told me she saw our car knocking and she had already stopped her car but did not expect she would be hit as well. The driver turned out to be a driver of a pre-school as I saw the pre-school logo on his shirt (I won't dare to let my kids to be fetched by 'bas sekolah' anymore).

I quickly called my hubby to come. The driver acted blur and told me to claim insurance. I said, 'Yes, claim insurance but YOUR insurance, not MINE.'

He said he wanted to leave first because he had to fetch the children back home. Luckily I was calm enough at that time and did not panic (Maybe due to past experience :p). I told him, 'To claim insurance, you need to make police report so you need to wait.' Luckily, I did not foolishly let him go after he gave me his name card. Without police report, I would not be able to claim compensation on my car repair which I think will be very expensive looking at the damage done.

The ever-ready 'Towing service' arrived and told me to make police report with him and they will settle the rest of the bills with the driver's insurance company. So my hubby called his dad to come to fetch Tian home and went to police station with me. I made my report and the person in charge of the towing company told me they will take a few days to settle the insurance issues and will repair my car like new!!

I honestly marvel at the efficiency of the towing service. In fact, there were two companies coming to us but the guy who reached first shooed away the second guy. I guess economy is bad and people have to stay competitive in order to survive. If only every organisations are as efficient (you should know which organisations I am referring to), we would have much better place to live in.

I remembered this morning when I went out with my hubby and parents-in-law for breakfast, I removed Tian's booster seat so that we could sit comfortably. When I wanted to fetch Tian in the afternoon, I was considering to take time to put the booster seat back on the passenger seat or not. So I thought, better be save than be sorry and went to my bonnet to get the booster seat. When we left the petrol station, I remembered to put the seat belt on Tian. Otherwise she would have been hurt from the impact. Sometimes we do take short cuts when we think the distance from her pre-school to our home is so near and do not bother with booster seat when we have placed it in bonnet. After this incident, I will ensure my kids are properly strapped in car seat (for Tao) and booster seat (for Tian) every time we go out.

* Photos will be uploaded soon.

Chemical Laden Vegetables and Fruits

My hubby's family are involved in plantation, so they are very familiar with how vegetables and fruits are grown and how farmers use pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. I never take much attention to this issue until recently my hubby told me how commercial farmers load their products with pesticides and chemical fertilisers.

Taking one example, most farmers will encounter red-mite which will cause red rusty dots on vegetables. This is very unappealing to ignorant customers (like most of us) and due to pressure to get a good selling price, farmers will spray pesticides on their farm every few days. When my hubby showed me pesticides that farmers normally use, I told him there is a note on the bottle warning farmers to pick the vegetables and fruits one week after applying pesticides.

My hubby says it is impossible because the life cycle of a red-mite is shorter than one week. Farmers have to apply pesticides every few days even before harvesting otherwise their vegetables start to have rusty dots.

So next time when you buy vegetables, remember the more perfect looking vegetables that you are selecting, the more pesticides have been applied just before they are harvested. Choosing slightly imperfect looking vegetables will be better for your health. We are not marrying the vegetables anyway!

The other option is to buy organic vegetables (which is not financially feasible for most people) or plant some vegetables on your own. I will be posting some vegatables that we plant on our vegetable patch in coming posts.