So, two years back it coincided with Valentine's Day, and I recounted the whole thing about Khar Loo. Last year Sam organized a Chinese New Year drinking session and I ended up drinking a sick mixture of Thai Song and red wine, making out with Kai Ying an completely losing my memory. This year, not so interesting and dramatic, but pretty eventful, in its own way.

On Saturday, I went to 17 Saloon with Justin, James and Wern Hsiang aka Steve. Initially it was just to chill out, but eventually we decided to share a few beers among us. Sherene, the previous bar girl who worked there, has resigned, so a new, prettier, but more timid girl has taken over. Redzuan and Justin have been doing magic tricks there to impress the general public drinking there. So I decided to try my own magic tricks as well. One for a group of people sitting near us, to test my showmanship, and the second on the new bar girl. I said that if I could guess her card, she'd have to give me her number and email. Naturally, I succeeded, and ended up exchanging contacts with Nicole. Although Justin and I had been talking about important religious matters before drinking, somehow we turned the conversations to the sexual fantasies we had. So while drinking beer, we all shared our deepest, darkest, most disturbing or interesting fantasies we've ever had. LMAO. What a disturbing night! Discovered a lot of things of one another. Of the things I shared, miniskirts, Tiffany, Poison Ivy. Haha... take a guess.

Sunday night was Chinese New Year's eve, so it was the typical gathering for relatives. As has been for the last two years, we joined my grandaunt's side of the family, and ate at some fancy restaurant seconds away from Redzuan's family residence in Damansara. Went back home and later ended up agreeing to meet up with Andrew Joel and Redzuan at Red's area, since he was most likely lonely and bored at his family residence. I knew the vicinity of Redzuan's place, but I didn't actually know the place itself, so Andrew and I stopped at the nearest place I remembered. We called Red and realized we were actually really near, so we just waited. While waiting, some drunk guy walked over from across the street. He reeked of alcohol. The guy said he was from Nepal. Okay, fine. Then he asked me whether I was Chinese, to which I said yes. Then he said he loved the Chinese in Malaysia, 'cause only they treated him nice, and were hardworking in an environment that made things difficult for them. Ha. Thanks. Then he asked me whether I was his friend. I said yes, 'cause who knows what would he do if I said no. Then he said thank you and began to cry, saying he missed his mom, he missed Nepal and he was failing at school. Lmao. Geez. I asked if he was okay and he ignored the question, asking me again if I was going to help him. Yeah, I agreed again. Then he shook my hand and said he loved the Chinese. I really didn't know what the hell was his problem. The guy ignored practically every question I asked him, and only responded when I said favourable things to him. Redzuan finally arrived, and thought we had brought a new friend, since I was still shaking hands with the guy and then he began crying on me (oh brother). Redzuan walked up to him, said hello, which distracted the Nepalese guy. I quickly ran up a flight up stairs to escape the guy. Andrew and Redzuan followed, but that drunk Nepalese followed us! We walked into a guardhouse into another block and the moron followed as well. We ran into the carpark to escape and like idiots, we crouched and hid behind the cars, while Mr Drunk Nepalese found another victim and while annoying him, walked past us. Once the coast was clear we got up from the cars and ran off back to the guardhouse. Whew!

Hilarious start to a new year. Lol. We chilled at a mamak and shared about stuff, and Red made a remark that made me remember about the fantasy sharing with Justin, James and Steve the previous day. I laughed, remembering the whole thing, although forgetting a few specific details here and there. They asked what I was laughing about, and told them. Then they laughed and suggested we repeat the topic. Lmao, they asked for it! We all shared our fantasies once again, and it was just as epic as the previous day. I repeated the ones I mentioned, while learning about theirs. Funny as hell. Around 4am, we left and I went to pick up my mom, who had gone to this really famous Buddhist temple beside the MCA building. I stopped by the place and entered. It's my first time entering a temple in many years. Before I became a Christian, I only went to temples once a year or so when my parents brought me. After being a Christian, they were more or less a place I went for Buddhist funerals. There was this huge, gigantic gold statue of the smiling Buddha there, and two smaller rooms, one for this guy who claimed he would not enter Nirvana, or something along those lines, till everyone in hell was freed. The other had a room for the founder of the temple, who's also a very active missionary, especially in the US. They were holding a 24 hour prayer vigil, and anyone could come and go as they liked. I saw some female monks with shaved heads, one chanting out of a sutra, and another leading a few people making rounds around the temple. There was a lady there who had chatted with my mother earlier, and asked me how come I hadn't offered incense to the Buddha(s). My mom told her I was a Christian, and she gave this slightly embarrassed look and a slight twinkling of her fingers to apologize. Then I walked over to a section where they gave out free Buddhist books. I had a few short sutras as a kid, but I never really read them, just a few pages here and there. This was the first time I saw English Buddhist books with texts that looked substantial and perhaps what I was looking for in my thirst for knowledge. Then that lady from before walked over, chatted with my mom a bit and exclaimed something along the lines of "Eh, Christian can also pray to Buddha what." Ha, please. I have respect towards your religion and beliefs in the sense I do not mock or desecrate for intentionally hurtful reasons. But I do not find it necessary to offer nor bow to a statue that I do not believe is a representation of the actual Buddha, which, according to my beliefs is not a deity anyway. Not to mention it'd be doing something the Bible outright forbids anyway, unlike some of its other, more subjective laws. So, no, "Christian cannot also pray to Buddha what".

I took two books, The Shurangama Sutra, along with an outline and supplements. Apparently this is the most important sutra to Chan Buddhism, and a sign of the Dharmic age ending will be this sutra being the first to become extinct. Secondly is Words of Wisdom: Beginning Buddhism, by Hsuan Hua, the founder of the temple. I flipped through a few pages, and it seems like it may offer better explanations of Buddhism than all the other texts I've read online, or from every single Buddhist who tries to explain their beliefs. I have no intention of converting back to Buddhism (and I wasn't much of a Buddhist as a kid anyway, mainly following parents to the temple), but Buddhism is perhaps the religion I see the least evidence of, after Hinduism, and I would like to learn more about it, since most material I read relates to Christian, Jewish, Islamic and atheistic topics. Also, it'd be interesting to know more about Buddhism than the thousands of Buddhists I've met over the years who never knew what they believed.

Monday and Tuesday I visited my grandaunt's place and spent time with my relatives, collecting a few angpaos, and chatting with my cousins, two who are growing older, and thus have more topics in common with me than before. Zhu Xin, my cute cousin, and her brother Zhia Zhen (who's also become damn cute) were entertaining with their kiddy antics. They're a lot more violent in their play-fights, but also cry less, which is a good thing. Lol. I was not hungry at all the entire time I spent there. Arrive in the morning. Eat! Breakfast. Eat! Pre-lunch. Eat! Lunch. Eat! Tea time. Eat! Dinner. Eat! Dessert and more. Eat! HECK, I was bloody full! Tuesday night I went to chill out with Symposium (along with Bruce and Eddie) by having a symposium at Redzuan's house, where we all drank a lot, and instead of playing drinking games as usual, we ended up sharing fantasies (again?!), and learning a lot more! Mostly just drinking and chatting, but had a great time.

Plus, my mom told me that since I'm working, now I have to give angpaos to her. I've never heard of this, and I've asked around; neither have any of my friends or their parents. But heck, I give money to her every month anyway, and it's not like the angpao money she gives will make much of a difference now that I'm working, so I don't mind giving her one. It feels awfully strange, funny, odd but satisfying to give your own mom a red packet.