Customs Inspector Gan, the really expensive breakfast and revenge...

While we were over in Malaysia my SIL brought us out for breakfast at a favorite place of theirs called Raju's for breakfast. As a bit of history, one of the first meals I ever ate with Rita was at Raju's, about five years ago. My all time favorite picture of her is from there as well. Anyway, Rita, Ho Li & I went there and pigged out on Roti Canai , chicken curry, fried fish, teh tarek and teh halia (pulled tea and pulled tea with ginger). I left the fish to the Malaysians, fried fish for breakfast is something I wasn't really hankering for. Our waiter, Ivar, was desperate to either have his picture taken, or simply to see what the photos look like. I'm still amazed at how much interest a simple digital camera can garner at times. Anyway, we took several pictures with him, and let him take some of us as well. I wanted to see how the do they pulled tea, so we asked him if he could do it at the table. He went and asked and was told that I'd have to come into the shop to see it done. I followed him inside where the heat from the various giant woks kept the temperature hovering in the near sauna range. Apparently pulling tea is the job of the tea puller, and not Ivar as he wasn't allowed to pull the tea for me. I caught them on video arguing over it (film at 11 or whenever Rita gets home with the camera) till Ivar simply takes it from the tea puller and shows me that he can do it as well.

After breakfast Ho Li wanted to walk down the street to talk to her art dealer about some paintings she'd had taken back earlier in the week. As we walked around the shop, we found some art that we really liked, and started trying to work a deal with James, the owner. We found one that we particularly liked and I thought the buying session was over, but after more wandering around, we found a pile of paintings that were done in China that we both liked. By this time James was helping another customer so we dug through the pile seeing what we could see and chose a couple of pictures that we liked. Ho Li rounded up James and asked him what the paintings cost, I was expecting to hear maybe $1000 Ringgit (about $330 US), instead, he said they were $5000 MYR, each! I wasn't about to pay $1700 each for these, no matter how much I liked them. It turns out that the paintings were only there to be framed and really weren't for sale as they were going to an exhibit. James made a few phone calls and was given a price of $1500 MYR each, much more reasonable. Still more than I wanted to pay, but how often do you get a chance to buy original art that you really like? We made the deal for the three paintings which came to $4000 MYR with framing. After the deal was struck we asked James about shipping to the US and a confused look came over his face, he'd thought the paintings were for 'Datin Gan (Ho Li's formal title) so he'd given her his best price, not the gwai-lo price he'd have given me. In any case, this was far more than I'd expected to pay for breakfast...

Now we had to figure out how to get them home. Since Ho Li & Co. were headed for Singapore in a few days for Chinese New Year, she volunteered to bring them down in their SUV for us. After that I just had to get them on the plane to the US.

Skipping ahead a few days, it's the 2nd or 3rd day of CNY, and the Gan's are on their way down from Muas, which is where Gan's parents live.

A couple of side notes here. Ho Li's husband's name is Gan Ah Tee, but nobody calls him Ah Tee, everyone simply calls him Gan, which is the equivalent of everyone calling you by your last name. So when I say Gan, I mean him, and when I say "the Gans", I mean the family.

Also, tradition (as I understand it) is that you spend the first day of CNY with the mother of the husband (Gan), and you spend some of the subsequent days with the mother of the wife, in this case Rita's mom, who is a Wong. In Chinese culture, women don't take the last names of their husbands, so Rita's last name is still Ho, and her mom's last name is Wong. However, they would be known as "Madam [insert husband's last name]". I think...

Anyway, Ho Li's family was on it's way down to have dinner with us. I was looking forward to this as I like spending time with them. The day was dragging on, and I was to fly out the next morning at zero-dark-thirty, so I decided to take a nap. About an hour later, Rita comes in telling me that Singaporean Customs is on the phone and wants to talk to me about the paintings. I'm mostly asleep, so I'm trying to answer the questions from the customs inspector some of which strike me as odd. But, since I'm trying to be polite (and I'm half asleep), I don't ask any questions and keep trying to answer each question she asks me. Finally she asks me if there are any Singaporeans she can speak to, and my semi-functioning brain realizes that no, there really aren't, everyone in the house is either Malaysian, or American (me), which I tell her. This seems to fluster her which again seems odd to me, but then she asks to speak to Rita ("is your spouse still there?") again which seems even more odd, but I hand over the phone. Rita talks to her for about three seconds, and then just stops speaking for a while. Finally she says "do you want your notebooks or not?". I'm dumbfounded, I have no idea why she's asking a customs inspector about notebooks, and then I hear giggling on the phone. My niece Kris had pulled a fine joke on me, with not a little help and encouragement from her parents. Rita threatened to renege on her Ang Pao package and everyone had a good laugh at my expense. The notebooks that Rita had referred to was a bunch of ...notebooks... which Kris collects, that we'd brought from the US for her as presents.

Soon enough, the Gan family arrived at Sun's place. The younger kids were very contrite explaining that they'd had absolutely nothing to do with the joke so they'd make sure to get their red envelopes for CNY. As they walked up, I'd found a spare red envelope and as Kris walked up, I pulled it out as to give to her, then tore it up in her face. A weak attempt to turn the joke on her, but it made me feel better. Kris then explained that it hadn't been her idea (trying to be contrite as well, after all, there was cash in the offing), and that Ho Li & Gan had been the instigators. This was probably quite true, but it was more fun to torment Kris.

So, now the question is, what kind of revenge can I exact?