Eow siew tay mia hor lang tok..........

" U wait and see if it is S3 or CC or 44 (Fukien) when we meet la hor…."

No prize for guessing who is responsible for the terse response reproduced above.

I don't like the tone of that message - I assume that the "44" (Fukien) mentioned in that email denotes "death". Typical of her - issuing threats of violence. You think I am scared?

Before I proceed with my second posting, I must request MT to refrain from criticizing my Hanyu Pinyin. The title of this posting is in Fukien,  not Mandarin, so this is actually Fuking....oops, I mean Fukien...Pinyin so MT, HOLD YOUR HORSES!

Please don't ask me what "eow siew tay mia hor lang tok"  means. I am embarrassed just typing it out, and I am blushing. You should see the color of my face - not just red, it is crimson! Really! But I can give you a clue. It is a curse. And this was the very same curse which turned over 3,000 otherwise hot blooded Chinese men into Eunuchs, serving as minions to the Manchu Royals during the Ching Dynasty. It is this very curse which binds me to LT aka S3. You see, I was subservient to this woman because I was afraid she would use this wicked curse on me.

So let me tell you this story.

Right after my previous employer was acquired, and the two became one,  many of my new colleagues hinted that I must go and pay homage to the mountain. It took me the whole of 3 seconds to determine who that mountain was. And so, there I was, presenting myself to her, standing in front of her (she didn't invite me to take a seat), introducing myself, my voice quivering, legs jittery (some of the symptoms of "P" so looking back, I now believe that was the exact moment my "P" started). At the end of my  5 minutes self-introduction (which usually takes an entire hour, cut short by her intense gazing) she still had not spoken a word. That was when I realized that the intensity of her gaze was real, not imagined. I could almost feel the magnifying glass effect, as if she was gazing at me through a magnifying glass, burning a hole through my body. That was when I threw caution to the wind.  To hell with protocol. I have to save myself. I jumped to the left and that was when I heard a  noise behind me. I turned around and it turned out to be a  small cockroach (I learnt later that this means it is a male cockroach) scuttling across the wall. It dawned on me that this was the subject of LT's intense gazing, albeit through my body. As soon as her eyes landed directly on the poor thing, it stopped moving, frozen in its tracks. And that was when I heard the curse for the very first time, in a loud, clear voice "EOW SIEW TAY MIA HOR LANG TOK". The cockroach immediately, upon her uttering those few words, dropped to the ground. Fear overcame both of us - me and the cockroach. I almost wetted myself. I pointed to my new found buddy - not the mountain, the cockroach - and in a weak voice, reported as if it was my duty to do so " Madam LT, the cockroach died!"

In an eerily calm and collected manner, without any display of the emotions which was apparent when the curse was uttered, she replied "No, it is not dead. But it will not reproduce again."

I bent down to check on my friend, and sure enough, it was not dead. It turned over and flitted away, leaving a tiny part of its body behind. I took a good look at the part left behind and echoed her sentiments "It will not reproduce again."

The curse of the Forbidden City.  I mumbled "Goodbye", bowed to her lower than any Japanese could have done, and made a very solemn promise to myself. I will never cross sword with this mountain ever, not this lifetime.