How a vegan restaurant in Singapore tries to fight cancer


Along the tourist-flocked Chinatown Food Street in Singapore, a long-established restaurant hails potential customers to get inside with its free spiritual books in English and Chinese, old tapes and CDs with Chinese labels.

Nothing in its facade is delicious. A menu of three dishes handwritten in Chinese and English on a chalk board: BROWN RICE WITH FOUR VEGETABLES, SOUP AND PASTA.

If not with the stickers of positive ratings from popular travel companies or the book that you take for free, you wouldn’t get in.

Unless, you’re vegan.

What is veganism? According to The Vegan Society, it is “a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.”

What is common among vegans is the plant-based diet, avoiding animal meat and by-products such as dairy, eggs and honey. Vegetarians also avoid animal meat but still eat some animal by-products.

Inside the restaurant, there are more shelves of tapes, CDs, books and pamphlets about Buddhism, spirituality, meditation, the story of underworld, and the Dhamma, and symbolic instruments. And another chalk board of the menu.

At the edge of the counter, a bunch of chopsticks, spoons and some bottles of condiments. About 10 small wooden square tables each with four stools are arranged neatly. Posters of meaningful sayings, an altar of a Buddha figure the one with multiple arms adorn the walls.

Is this really a restaurant? Despite the absence of burning incense, nothing smells like food in this place. But, before a customer could imagine the menu or choose a table, a tall skinny man asks from his chair, “What’s your order?”

Adrian Seow relays the order in Chinese to his father, who will then go to the kitchen and comes out with a plate or bowl of a dish. The rest is self-service, such as getting a glass of water from a dispenser or cold drinks in the fridge, utensils, and even putting them all to a basin for washing after eating.

The chef, his mother Wong, is leisurely watching television, sitting on an elevated platform at the corner also surrounded with packed bookshelves.

“She is the owner, not me,” Adrian says and takes a spoonful of his soup while surfing the internet on his tablet.

Wong, a petite woman with shoulder length hair and humble smile in lieu of her limited English, conquered leukemia 22 years ago and at the same time opened up the Ci Yan Organic Vegetarian Health Food.

Upon learning that she had Stage 3 cancer, Wong swore to survive and dedicate the rest of her life serving other people. Nobody convinced her to be vegan, neither her friends nor religion, as she adheres with the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. It was after her bone marrow transplant that Wong could only eat certain foods and she realized that vegetables are actually much better for her health.

When she decided to be vegan, it was hard to look for organic vegetables and fruits during that time, so opened up a vegan restaurant to provide healthy meals for other people.

“What you eat is important”, says Wong, advocating that being vegan or vegetarian does not mean healthy. “At the end of the day, a healthy mind is more important.”

“It’s not just about changing your diet, but having a reason to live,” Andrew says, who was vegan for three years long before his mother’s diagnosis. “I’m not a vegan anymore, but I always make sure to have a balanced diet.” In the last 11 years, Andrew has helped Wong manage the restaurant, where he had most of his meals. “The question is not about why you got cancer but how are you gonna fight it. Perfect balance is having good nutritional food with a healthy mind,” he says.

Outside Wong’s place, the Chinatown Food Street is teeming with food stalls and restaurants, cooking Singapore’s best traditional dishes. The air is redolent with barbecue smoke.



Hong Kong domestic workers want to junk excessive fees


 

This article is first published by The Diplomat.

Feliza Guy Benitez, 58, first came to Hong Kong in 1993 as a domestic worker. She was to be paid a monthly salary at 3,200 Hong Kong dollars ($413). She thought a contract of two years would be enough to help her family back home. But the family faced a series of financial problems, coaxing her to sign a new contract after another. READ MORE


Dreaming for others

 


A Filipino domestic worker in Hong Kong once dreamed to improve her family's house. After over two decades of working and getting involved in political activities, she dreamed something greater than for herself. Watch it HERE.

Poems, some used in songs

 


Poetry usually arrives before a perfect wave to surf.

I wrote poems before discovering that I could use them as lyrics to my songs.

This is a collection of the poems I've written from the time I tried to describe my first crush poetically until I attempted to capture special moments with words, Pablo Neruda style.



Worn-out Levi's jeans

Your dusty tattered Mojo
Beneath your worn-out Levi's jeans
Topped with your white, unpressed Hanes
Perfect for your untangled silky
Pony-tailed hair
Enticing me

To listen to your stories
Not found on cable TV
Might be found on tabloid
And local news
But not as convincing as a fact
As how you reveal

Had it been on your rugged
But explicitly neat appearance
On your strict articulation
That impressed me much

Or on how your eyes revel your sight
As you speak of your punto de vista
That amused me and gave interest
In this naive, but confident mind


Perhaps my last poetry

Sometimes, a river is not

enough

to water the seed we planted;
Sometimes, the sun is not

enough

to burn the fire we started;
Sometimes, the mountains are not

enough

to add weight to the "thing" we chose to carry,
which oftentimes we call relationship;
Sometimes, poetry is not

enough

to make a good love story;
Sometimes, I can never be

enough

for the one I chose to

love

and always end up

sorry;

But, I want you to know my

love

that you were always

enough

for me to live each day

happy.



The ocean and the shore

The ocean ceases to be
what it had been for
the waiting shore---
A light years gap between
her and the hazy terrain
from afar, where
an unlaunched boat lingered,
like her, waiting;
Indifferent to her longing
that one day, its waves
will not just come and go...

The ocean ceases to be
what it had been for the cynical shore;
Now, it cradles the boat
that unleashed itself from
its deep anchor.
And, the waves still
come to the shore,
but, only to bring her
when they go with the boat...

In a journey to the abyss
where everything is unknown
except love.


Maggots in my minds

Leave as much as you want to stay
Eat up all my preoccupation until nothing's left
As you take my brain, include my heart.
Race through my lungs until I stop breathing.
Seep through my veins until every strand is blue.
Clog my heart until it stops beating.

Leave as much as I want you to stay
Take away all of you that's left
in my heart, in my mind.

As you decide to leave, leave me a scar
like the tattoo on my calf.
Leave it black, black as my lungs.
As you leave, leave at once.
Never leave a couple of squirming worms
in my veins...

Because it doesn't matter now
If nothing's left as you leave.
A single memory that you've been here
is enough souvenir
like the tattoo on my calf
forever embedded in my skin.


Alon at dalampasigan

Alon kang dumampi
sa pisngi ng dalampasigan ko.
Ang dagat na naghatid sa'yo
Ay s'ya ring susundo
sa paglisan mo.

Kasing saglit nang isang nakaw na halik
ang iyong pagdating at pag-alis...

Hinding-hindi kita sisisihin
sa pagguho ng kastilyong buhangin,
sa pagbulahaw sa tahimik na sa kaibuturan
ko'y humihimbing...
nang ika'y dumating.

Huwag mo rin sana akong sisisihin
kung sa paglisan mo'y iyong tatangayin
mumunting bato, sabay sa kumpas ng hangin.
Tila mga kamay na ayaw nang bumitaw
habang ikaw nama'y sa malayo nakatanaw.

Ganunpaman,
ikaw pa rin ay lilisan.
Subalit, hindi kita sisisihin dahil ika'y alon
at ako'y dalampasigan...

Sisisihin ko ang buwan
Tanging ang buwan lamang.


Reclusion

If your shadow is not cast
on my doorstep tonight,
If your eyes do not meet
mine tonight,
if your palms do not touch
mine tonight,
if your breathing is not
near my ear tonight...

then, tonight is not ours.

As the light slowly envelops the night,
and so our mystery ends...


From this side of the window

I can see the gloomy afternoon sky.
My toenails are gray because of the coldness
Coming from somewhere
seeping through my veins telling me
something...

The air envelops me,
touching my skin like nobody
I'm nobody...
Nobody's...
Nothing but a piece of cold shit.

If this cold wind could dissolve
this melancholy
I'd like to be holy...

From this side of the window
Bring me somewhere
Not here.


A Warning

The beach is not so calm and not so noisy...
The sand dances with the waves in
the rhythm of the leaves of coconut trees.
The feet slowly join the swaying of the
monsoon... Birds are not singing but
chanting, alarming the heaven to save
the soul once the body drowns...

 

The night when I talked

Only the gasoline lamp in a used liquor bottle
Showed to the stars that we existed on that
Night, in the middle of the darkness at
the border of the hills and ocean...

Accompanied by the chanting of the waves
A few steps from our shabby kiosk
And the snoring of the damn tired fellow,
My voice of inebriation was the only evidence of life
amidst those "dead to the world"
in that small village of fisherfolk.

You listened intently
To my awkward story
of the quarrels and the beatings,
the circle around my eye turning
black from purple,
guilty and remorseful.

My jaws and your eardrums working
fighting against the cold breeze piercing
while you were meta-cognitively thinking
just to wet my lips of yearning
longing to salvage
from my cynical reasoning ...

When we emptied the long bottle of rum and my smoking was done,
our bodies curled oppositely on both ends of the bench.
The warmth of your feet on mine was not enough
so inside my head I whined for you to just spare me your arms.

... and then I heard your breathing
that was the lullaby for my intermittent sleeping.


Hong Kong Muslims: Killing, terrorism not in Quran


A Muslim group here wanted to clear up negative notions about Islam, responding to earlier reports on potential Islamic State terrorism threats in Hong Kong.

Joseph Yusuf Bautista, president of the Helpers of Islam Group, on Monday said killing humans and doing acts of terrorism are all against the teachings of Quran.

“We also don’t know the truth about IS,” he said, noting that whether or not the IS is being used to discriminate Islam is yet to be known.

Some news agencies reported last week that Islamic State militants allegedly targeted Muslim workers here.

A local newspaper, South China Morning Post reported an alleged missing pregnant Indonesian worker believed to join the terrorist group.

Nearly 150,000 Indonesians worked in Hong Kong, according to its Census and Statistics Department in 2012.

The group released an open letter to Hong Kong people in response to the news SCMP and other news agencies. The letter aimed “to enlighten and portray the true teachings of Islam in relation to extremism, terrorism and corruption of any kind in any form of society.”

With some 60 active members, the Muslim group is composed of “rebirths” or those who converted their religion to Islam, he said. The group’s letter requested for everyone to judge the religion by its original scriptures, adding, “There are bad apples in every basket.”

Regarding the alleged missing Indonesian, Bautista said it is impossible for a pregnant woman to go to a battle.

The Hong Kong Police Force said Monday it has “no specific intelligence to suggest that the city is likely to be a target of terrorism,” adding that the terrorist threat level remains at moderate. The police will monitor terrorist trends to prevent terrorist activities in the city, its public relationS office said. It added that the police will conduct regular trainings and multi-agency exercises to ensure “high level of preparedness.”

Terrorism-related acts are criminalized in Hong Kong under existing laws, the police said. Asked to respond to the alleged IS recruitment, Leung Kwok-hung, member of the Panel on Security of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council stressed on Monday the need for reliable sources.

“How can journalists know about that,” he said, adding that he did not hear any official information from the police nor security bureau.

Some 270,000 Muslims live in Hong Kong, including 140,000 Indonesians and 30,000 Chinese, according to a government factsheet on November 2014. The rest are non-Chinese born in Hong Kong, and others from South Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries, it stated. The city has five principal masjids with the biggest, Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre in Nathan Road, that can accommodate up to 3,500 worshippers, as stated in the factsheet.
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