Goodbye, Ben

How does one cope with the loss of a loved one?

My heart aches for the loss of my young friend, Benjamin Tee Chee Keong, 15. He had just lost the fight for his life at a hospital in Melaka after they pulled him out from the swimming pool two days ago. Our church youths were having a camp at a resort there.

Benjamin was a good-looking boy, quiet, smart and a voracious bookworm with an awesome vocabulary. He loved to read. His mother, Jenny asked me to pre-order the latest Harry Potter book for him. When he got it, he devoured it in a day. He was always looking at my collection of books when he came to my house for our home zone meeting.

Recently he asked me if I had any suitable book to lend him. “Do you like chic lit?” I asked as my daughter had lots of those. “Er… no,.Obviously.” So I lent him We need to talk about Kevin. He said he liked the book.

Last Saturday night when we had our home zone meeting, Western food was on the menu. Jenny had cooked mushroom soup. I was waiting for Ben to scoop his second helping, and his mother admonished him to leave some for me. I wished I had let him take the soup to his heart’s content.

Ben is no more. I’ll miss him. I won’t see him walking around the sports complex where we play badminton every Sunday. He won’t be there to ask for money from his mother to buy soft drinks from the vending machine. He won’t be at our home zone meeting anymore. I won’t see him in church, leading songs in that big voice of his. He won’t need a room in the new house they’re about to move in. He won’t ever be borrowing books from me again or asking me “When is your next book coming out?” He won’t be flashing that sweet, shy smile of his anymore. Ever.

Goodbye, Ben. You’re safe in the arms of God. We’ll be there for your family, to help them weather this bereavement.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” Psalms 23:4

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38,39

Honking at Times Pavilion

This will be my last book talk for the year. In celebration of 11,000 copies of Honk! If You’re Malaysian (in print), I’ll be giving out greeting cards to those who attend. If you’ll like to get your hands on these lovely cards with colourful Chinese painting, please make sure you come on over. The cards make good frameables too. You’ll be getting a pack or two, maybe more. (The cards come in sets of 3 and 4).

The cards are courtesy of a friend of mine, Antonio Lopez. He is the only Indian student in the Ink Painting Research Class of Top-Art School of Art & Design. He is also an outstanding student among the non-Chinese students. He has his own style in the concepts as well as in the handling of ink painting techniques. He has successfully created a language of Vision truly his own. Antonio Lopez is a member of the Association of Artists, Klang.

Honk! is popular at acmamall

How Hady Mirza won the 1st Asian Idol

Six contestants from six countries participated in the recent Asian Idol contest held in Jakarta :
Indonesia – Mike Mohede

Malaysia – Jaclyn Victor

Philippines – Mao Marcelo

Vietnam – Phuong Vy

India – Abhijeet Sawant

Singapore – Hady Mirza

Most of the judges predicted that either Jac, Mike or Mao will win it. Mao is also a vocal powerhouse like Jac and I had thought that either one of them would nail the title. But surprise, surprise, the winner was Singapore’s Hady Mirza. He was so shocked by the announcement that he sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands for a good minute. He hadn’t expected to win, he was after all an underdog like Phuong Vy who according to Singapore’s Ken Lim, has the best “commercial value” but in terms of talent, was quite ordinary.

I had entertained the thought that India’s Abhijeet would have a good chance of winning the title due to his country’s humongous population which would work in his favour. But then, would viewers have access to mobile phones for voting? Wouldn’t the most affluent country with the means to send in massive votes be one leg up instead?

Is this flawed thinking? From Wikipedia :

There are several differences in voting and tabulation between Asian Idol and other Idol shows. Unlike the latter wherein the viewers get to vote for one contestant, the voting procedure for Asian Idol requires viewers to send sms votes for two favorite Idols, thus allowing contestants to receive votes aside from their respective countries.

As consideration on population size among the participating countries, tabulation of votes are done through an “Equal and Even Cumulative Method”, wherein the total votes of each country are converted into percentages. The winner was determined through 50% viewers’ votes and 50% judges’ scores.

There are, however, concerns about the accuracy of this voting procedure. As most if not all voters would have attempted to pair their own favorite with another contestant who in their view was the most unlikely winner so as to give their own singular favorite the most advantage possible (i.e. negative pairing). Under that circumstance, an undesirable effect may be that the unintended negative votes would actually accumulate to a large number if the majority decided on the same contestant as the candidate for negative pairing. In that event the result could be interpreted as voting for not the most popular idol but for a contestant that viewers believe to be the weakest candidate to become Asian Idol.

Does that mean that Hady was the weakest contestant? In my opinion he’s on the lower rungs together with Phuong Vy and Abhijeet in terms of singing prowess. Like Phuong Vy and Abhijeet, Hady has a pleasant persona and attractive looks. But he speaks better English than the other two. He wins an international recording contract and a free trip around the world to watch international Idol shows.

Though I was rooting for Jac to win, I concur with Ken Lim that “she wasn’t having fun” on the stage, particularly when singing Gemilang. She must’ve sang that song so many times she could probably sing it with her lips closed. Her “been there, done that” expression at the end of the number was quite off-putting. Besides, I think she could’ve cut down on the “shouting” a bit. In her duet with Hady, it appeared as though she was trying to out-sing him.

I think Mike is only so-so and his appearance kinda reminds me of Ruben Studdard. Mao has powerful vocals but being plus-sized, she really doesn’t have the complete package.

Congratulations to Hady Mirza and Singapore.

More here.

Life is on top, finally

Life’s Like That – Scenes from Malaysian Life hit the bookstores in September 2004. A week after its release, I started scanning the best-seller list in the Sunday Star for MPH’s weekly statistics. With bated breath, I flipped to the page in Starmag. Did it sell enough copies to make it into the top ten? After a quick scan, it was evident that my title wasn’t there. Ah, well. Maybe next week…

Every Sunday for several weeks I went through the same routine. Invariably the anticipation would lead to disappointment. Life’s Like That was a ghost in the best-seller lists. In the end, I gave up searching for my title. It was never going to happen. When I got my first royalty cheque a year after the book’s publication, it was apparent why it never made it into the top ten, the sales figure wasn’t earth-shattering at all. On a Richter scale, it may register a 1.0 at best.

When Honk! If You’re Malaysian became a best-seller this year, I started hoping that Life’s Like That would ride on the coattails of Honk’s success. It did, because Life’s Like That went into second printing this July, with a new cover to associate it with Honk! (If it wasn’t for Honk!, Life’s Like that would have only gone into reprint end 2007 or early 2008 based on sales forecast.)

At last, Life’s Like That is moving at a faster rate than I had hoped for. The icing on the cake for me was discovering that it has moved into the top ten chart at Popular! For the month of November it came in at no. 9. (Honk has slipped to no. 8 from 7 the previous month.) Finally! Yahoo! Yipee! Yay!

Of all the best-seller charts in the country, Popular is the most meaningful of the lot as it compiles sales figures from all its 56 outlets. Being top at Popular means you’re top nation-wide.

The other best-seller lists only track sales at one outlet, for eg. Kinokuniya which only has one store at KLCC (chart published in The Sun every Wednesday), MPH Mid Valley (published in The Sunday Star), MPH One Utama (monthly charts put up near the entrance on Level 1) and Borders (they have a top-ten bookshelf where the best-sellers are displayed). The last time I checked, Times does not have a best-seller list but apparently they’re working on it.

In case you’re wondering, yes, it’s a fact of life that authors get an adrenaline high at seeing their titles on the bestseller list. Life’s like that.

Postcript : This is to answer Kak Teh’s question on how to get her hands on the bestseller lists as she and her husband, Awang Goneng who wrote Growing Up In Trengganu are based in London. All the bestseller charts are displayed at the bookstores and the best way to get hold of the lists is to go to the store and take a picture of the chart or copy it down on a notebook.  This is not always possible of course.

As mentioned earlier, Kinokuniya and MPH Mid Valley’s charts are published in The Sun and Sunday Star respectively.  The good news is that Kinokuniya’s list is available online and they update it weekly.  The bad news is that MPH Mid Valley’s list isn’t available online.  In any case, the published chart tracks the overall store figures which includes both local and foreign titles.  In the store itself, they have a weekly chart just for local books, both fiction and non-fiction but these aren’t published.  If you want to obtain the top-ten charts for all MPH stores, get a copy of MPH’s quarterly magazine, Quill.  They publish two bestseller lists – one for foreign books and another for local and they cover a four month period.

In Popular, their bestseller lists are online but they haven’t updated for a long time (since March to be exact as the February chart which saw Honk! crawling in at no. 10  is still up.)

As for Borders and MPH One Utama, you’ll have to ask friends who go there to check out the charts for you.  Another alternative is to call up the bookstores and ask them if your title is on the latest list.   Once I got the bookstore manager at Borders to take a picture of the top-ten shelf and email it to me.  He kindly obliged but I wouldn’t want to impose on him more than once.  On another occasion when Honk! made it to no. 1 at MPH Mid Valley and I was there to see the chart for myself, I asked a stranger to take a picture of the chart with his camera phone and email it to me.  Desperate measures?  You bet.  An author has to do what she’s got to do.