Pre-order EPN

Price : RM 32.90
Now : RM 26.32 (20% discount for pre-orders)

Book description

This is a collection of anecdotes about the everyday life of Eh Poh Nim, a loquacious woman who launches into explanations of words and phrases at the drop of a hat.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the English language will find this book appealing and amusing. Phrases like “bake a tit,” “Mrs. Malaprop’s nipples,” “pie in the sky,” “bananas and fruitcakes” and “satay mushrooms” may sound deliciously naughty or vulgar, but none of them are what they seem.

Eh Poh Nim, a punctilious wordsmith, enlightens readers on idioms, hyperboles, metaphors and other figures of speech with delightful humour and an insight into Malaysian life and its complexities and peculiarities.

Do You Wear Suspenders will hit the bookstores in mid February but if you want to nab a 20% discount, you should head over to mphonline to pre-order it now. The discount is only applicable for online orders.

I’m in the midst of producing a book trailer to promote this book. Watch this space. It will be something fun and different.

Out of the mouth of babes

At the red lights, I stopped beside a van carrying Malay school children. The boys were in songkoks and the girls wore the tudung. They looked so angelic. The boy sitting by the window was very cute. I wound down my window to talk to him.

“Tahun 1?” I asked.

“Dua,” he replied.

“Dari sekolah agama ke?”

He nodded. Then another boy from the rear said something as I was winding up my window. At first I thought it was “Goodbye” but it wasn’t. Down came my window and I asked the cute boy, “Dia cakap apa?”

“Dia kata C*b**” That’s a vulgar Hokkien word for the female organ.

I don’t know if they knew it was a bad word, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and chose to enlighten them about it.

“Itu perkataan tak baik. Nanti Tuhan marah,” I said. I figured that since they’re from a religious school, the idea that God isn’t pleased with such words would get through to them.

One of the other boys said something which I didn’t hear. The cute boy said, “Dia kata kelakar saja.”

A vulgar word is a joke? But then these are just kids, and they may not understand every word which escapes their lips. They probably heard the word bandied around and decided it would be fun to add it to their own vocabulary.

Maybe I was just being a kaypoh but I feel it is my duty to correct them. If my children have done something wrong and I’m not there to admonish them, I hope that a responsible adult would do so.

I wonder if the boys would get nightmares and wake up sweating, “Oh Tuhan, jangan marah, ya? Kelakar saja.”

EPN’s Cover

This is the cover for my latest book DO YOU WEAR SUSPENDERS, out in bookstores in February.  The illustrator is Hassan Bahri who illustrated my other books.  The concept is by Michelle Ng.

A few words for my readers :

1. EPN is nothing like Honk! If You’re Malaysian and Life’s Like That.  So don’t buy it with the expectation that you’ll read more about the idiosyncracies of  Malaysian life and such or you’ll be disappointed.  (Let me know if you’re interested in more stories like Honk! and perhaps I’ll work on another collection later.)

2. EPN’s focus is on English : vocabulary, idioms, figures of speech and such.  If you want to learn more about the usage of English words, then DO YOU WEAR SUSPENDERS  belongs on your shelf.

3. EPN is not dry like the Sahara.  It contains a touch of humour and you’ll get to know more about this woman called Eh Poh Nim.

4. Most of the pieces in this book have been published in The Star’s Mind our English section over the last few years.  But there are some new stories which will reveal more of Eh Poh Nim’s love life.

Watch this blog for more updates.

Homework blues

Two nights ago, no. 4 woke up crying in the middle of the night.  I asked her why.

“Bad dream?”  Shake of the head.

“Stomach ache?”  No.

“Then why?”

“Sob… I cannot finish my homework.”  Fat tear drops rolled down her cheeks.

Her Maths teacher had given the class a humongous assignment.  Write 1000 to 800 backwards in number and Chinese format.  Most of the class didn’t finish it by the second day.  By the third day, all but three had handed in their work.  She was one of the three.  Finally, she completed the homework today.

She has to learn to speed up her work.  Year 2 comes with more homework compared with honeymoon Year 1.

No. 3 is in Year 6.  Today he has only one homework – Maths but there are 28 sums to be tackled.

“It’s all because of that fella-lah.  He  said so little and asked teacher to give more.  Urrrggg!  We all feel like cursing him and crushing him,” he complained.

Turned out that the fella who begged for more homework (hey boy, is there something wrong with you?)  is super fast in completing his homework but his handwriting is horrendous.   One eager beaver in class is enough to land the whole class into hot soup.

Twenty and more

I like to read. It’s a habit picked up since my primary school days and continued through secondary school and college. It was only after I joined the work force and later became a mother, that reading was put on the back burner.

Occasionally when I did manage to pick up the odd book or two, I got into trouble. If the book is unputdownable, I’m done for. I have got to finish the book NOW. Even if it means serving Maggi Mee to the kids or letting the laundry languish in the washing machine.

So I read sparingly, fearful that the lack of discipline will rear its ugly head and mess up priorities. Then someone reminded me that as a writer, I must read and voraciously too. That woke me up. Since then I’ve returned to my first love.

In 2007, I set a target of reading 20 books a year. I ended up reading 25 books plus another three which I couldn’t finish. Last year, I didn’t manage such a good haul but I met the target of 20 books.

These included The Gift of Rain and Evening is the Whole Day. Both books have snared rave reviews in the press and The Gift of Rain was long-listed for The Booker. I enjoyed Tan Twan Eng’s debut novel and could see it being turned into a movie, a tear jerker at that. I cried four times while reading the book. My only grouse is that the first part of the book had too many references to Aikido, the martial art practised by the protagonist. It slowed down the pace considerably. My daughter couldn’t get through the first part. Though I told her to persevere and that she’ll be rewarded when she comes to the second part, she’s still not convinced to give it another shot.

Evening is the Whole Day is too literary for my taste. Preeta Samarasan really has a way with words but after a while the wonderful descriptions couldn’t compensate for the plodding turn of events.

I also read three of Cecilia Ahern’s books, taken from my daughter’s collection : If You Could See Me Now, PS I Love You and Rosie Dunne. Rosie Who? For the life of me I couldn’t remember a thing of what I read in this book. That’s how forgettable it is. The other two are slightly better.

I only read one classic in 2008 : Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. It was a yellow, warped copy I picked up from the second-hand book bin and worth more than the money I paid for. It deserves its classic tag. Go read it if you haven’t. Janet Tay wrote about it and other little books with a big punch in The Star.

Here’s to another 20 books this year, maybe more.