Durian Season!

A date with the king of fruits.

A few months ago, Chinese premier Wen visited Malaysia and announced that China will import durians from Malaysia. Recently, high grade frozen (can last for 1 year) durians supposedly sourced from Raub is starting to be ship via ships to China but the prices are secrets! Many people believe durians will cost more but in this durian season at least, the prices are still reasonable... but in the future, it might increase if the Chinese take a liking to the king of fruits! The followings are photos of dad having a dinner comprised solely of durians recently...

A puppy named Google

It was morning as I went out to work and found a puppy in front of the shop on 8-8-2009; I decided to keep it and named it Tuesday (The day the puppy was found) as per the boy who was named Friday by Robinson Crusoe in the famous novel. But my wife and daughter did not thought much of the idea and I later proposed Google. I just came across this short video of Google which I had produced sometime ago and decided to share it here at Nanyang Narratives.

Making a move for the better...

Sis,

For your new home... an ever full basket of nourishing bread so that your home may never know hunger, a lifetime supply of salt so that life may always have flavor, and a whole cellar of wine so that joy and prosperity fill your home for a lifetime. Some people would add candles ... so that your house will always have light.... perhaps light means wisdom as in enlightenment? Anyway, I am also adding champagnes to this virtual set of housewarming gifts to you for good measure!

Let There be Light 2: Experimental DIY Solar bottle light

The solar bottle light was so interesting to me that I decided to make a model to see for myself the final result. The photos and videos on the internet are convincing but I just want to try the experiment for fun; after all, experiment is the hallmark of science in that a theory must work in practice every time under the same conditions and circumstances. So I finally decided to just make a model using a box along with the essential 1.5 liter soda bottle which should not have color to achieve the best result. However, as this not a real application- I just use common tap water (should use distilled water) and did not add the bleach into the water.

Just cut a hole that fit the "waist" of the bottle; then open the cap and slightly crush the bottle so as to squeeze it into the hole.

Note that when there is no water in the bottle; there is no prism effect to focus the light.

After water is added, we can see that the light is much brighter than before.

This is how it looked inside the box as I tried to achieve darkness by putting my hand with the camera inside the box and then tried to wrap the flaps around my hand but the result is not optimum.

So I figured out a way by opening a small hole for the lens of my camera to shoot inside from the outside of the box; this way, the box would be darker and the light should be more pronounced. By the way, I did closed the flaps/lid of the box when I shoot the photo.

Another problem come out in that by this time, the heavy bottle filled with water could not be held by the box as the hole had became larger and lost its grip. So I decided to use a thick slab of styrofoam as a neck which did the trick. There are often challenges and problems that crop up during experiments and one must try to overcome such problems to achieve our objectives.

Finally, this outstanding photo of a luminous solar bottle light inside the dark interior of the closed box which became very bright demonstrated the powerful effect of the solar power transmitted via the superb solar bottle light!

Let There be Light !

I chanced to see a news segment about the ingenious use of solar energy to light up the dim interiors of shacks in Philippines yesterday and was intrigued; luckily, the internet is just the place to find out more about this extraordinary idea. It seems that a social activist by the name of Illac Diaz use this invention (it was said to be a brainchild of a South American engineer who came up with this idea sometime ago when an electricity blackout triggered him to experiment with alternative illumination for his darken building) to give free lighting to masses of Filipinos. By doing so, he also helped to recycle discarded bottles into a most useful items that truly benefit poor people. This solar bottle light bulb can be easily made: you just need to fill it with distilled water and add two cap full of bleach to prevent growth of algae and its better to top the bottle with a plastic film container (such film containers might not be so easily obtainable now that the camera using film is almost extinct with the arrival of the digital camera) or other some other suitable containers as the bottle cap will not last under the hot sun and rain. The water filled bottle will then act simply as a prism to diffuse the light of the sun so this miracle solar bottle light bulb will not work at night! But its great to illuminate the small businesses as well as the dwellings and the bathrooms and toilets without incurring electricity bills; it is also great for places that do not have electricity connection.

Social activist-Illac Diaz in the center demonstrating the power of the solar bottle light.

This is how it looks on the roof. Each solar bottle light can last for about two years.

This amazingly ingenious invention is truly helping to make a huge difference to the lives of millions. I salute the inventor as well as the activists who help to bring this most affordable technology into thousands of humble dwellings.This is a form of social revolution that might help to generate more progress as people who are in awe over the creative possibilities of the minds will be inspired to come up with other powerful, useful and affordable inventions that can raise the quality of life especially for the poor.

Flowers in full bloom in the garden

The flowers in the garden are in full bloom.

Dad sitting out on the swing during the evening.

More photos of dad; this was taken over a month ago on Qing Ming day on 27th March 2011.

I bought him a packet of wantan noodle from a stall in Raub; the noodles were supposed to be made in the old way. The noodle are flour mixed only with many eggs and no water is added at all. Learned of this stall at Raub from a well known Malaysian Mandarin TV food show. The business of this noodle stall was good and we had to wait for a long time before being served and it was more expensive but its taste was just so-so; nothing special.

Father said he likes the swing which is very good for him to sit on to take in some fresh air.

Besides him is a pot of longan tree; grown from seed taken from his home village in Fujian, China.

Finally, today (4th May 2011) - there was a stretch of rainbow in the evening. Rain is supposed to follow the appearance of a rainbow but no rain fall this evening. Heavy rains did fall later in the night right this moment as I was finalizing this blog at 10:00PM; the photo was taken at around 6:30PM. Anyway, this photo is a good excuse for me to "burst into song"- featuring the classic song: Somewhere over the rainbow. This is something like a Hindi movie of a blog or perhaps a musical blog - The Sound of Nanyang Narratives!

Finally, I would like to say hi! to my dearest niece-Caitlyn who is learning a great deal of new things each and every day! I am sending a special greeting to you via a nice friendly puppy with a waggery tail! Caitlyn, you can take this doggie into your home (daddy's computer!) if you pat it with the mouse/cursor and then download (save) it. Wow! Wow! But please ask for daddy or mummy's permission first, okie-dokie?

What kind of bird was it? The answers...

Remember the little birdie with "coats of many colors" that was caught inside a jar recently? Sue Anne had posed the question to me: "Btw, did u find out what that colourful bird is?" I told her I had not bother to check. But today, I saw a news article in The Star (3th May 2011) with photo of some birds; one colorful bird in particular caught my attention. It was the same type of bird our maid had caught inside Jia Yin's room and it was indeed a kingfisher as I had guessed. After some research on the Internet, I realized that there are probably a few subspecies with different names: Black back kingfisher, Borneo dwarf kingfisher, Oriental dwarf kingfisher and the one caught by our maid was known as Rufous back of Peninsular Malaysia.

Its indeed wonderful to know that such exquisitely beautiful birds exist in this world. I wonder what Leonardo da Vinci will think or say if presented with this specie of bird? Its like a white color bird had flew across a rainbow and its body was impressed with vivid colors to different parts of its body. Another theory was that a little child had actually painted a bird and then released it to the sky!