Chit Chat # 53

Bob Chen

The delay in writing this article is due to my MS internet explorer. Some how my Chinese reader therein does not work. I went back to Netscape and NJStar to open W. T. Pang's and C.C. Luke's articles. My comments are: the metaphor of "a storm in a tea cup" is a more than mild response. I didn't know that Peter Tong was crowned to be Emperor of Lighters after the '99 reunion or earlier. The people are doing very well in organizing the Nov. 2002 reunion. I have no doubt that their better halves are the unsung heroine in helping the husbands. Sometimes, the people living in America are changed to white American-like in believing paying lip-services to the spouses as de rigueur hallmark of a good husband! All lighters should live and let live, not imposing individual idiosyncrasies to the others. James Koo's correspondent-at-large job is very much appreciated by this writer too, although I won't have the fortune of a freebee on Jan. 2 (day after Chinese New Year). I hope this "Comments**3" will end all the Comments**n with n>3.

The ...etc. comes from eateries we remembered. Thanks to S.S. that red chicken means cock/rooster. Now I know it's the name of the restaurant near Hill Forest Rd., and St. Andrew's Anglican Church. Cherikov was the Russian restaurant with the borsch with a dab of sour cream. There was one after that called Rikki. They made a stuffed bun with ground beef and minced hard boiled egg. The TTM joint in Diamond Hills/Wong Dai Sim, I remembered well. I think they had a short menu, but with more items. One was a pancake with preserved greens and beef chopped up and mixed in. When Nov. 2002 reunion comes around, I hope there will be a bunch of us roaming the hard to find eateries to renew our long awaited mouths.