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So deadly and sexy, it's funny

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So there I was, talking to Hong Kong actor/film director Mr Michael Wong in the Salvatore Ferragamo boutique at the Paragon on Orchard Road. He was wearing a Merlion tie and I was wearing a sarung kebaya. To clarify, Wong was modelling Ferragamo’s latest tie and I was just erm, a nyonya fan basking in the star's light.

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Keenly aware of the controversy surrounding its Palme d’Or win at Cannes this year, I went to watch Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives with a big question mark in my head. “'Uncle Boonmee', Palm of Boredom" was the headline in French daily Le Figaro, which described the film as  “dull, incomprehensible and hallucinatory”. The UK Telegraph, on the other hand, was bowled over, calling it “a film to inspire… a fabulous weave of magic”.

Will I, then, love or hate it?

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Christian Lacroix has Baba taste. (Exhibition set design by Christian Lacroix ©Centre National du Costume de Scène, France and Christian Lacroix.)

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Back in the middle of the last century my great grand uncles ran a food business called Ban Bee which had the slogan “We Search the World for Good Things to Eat” emblazoned on the side of their van.

It is typical that Babas like them would have something good to eat growing in their own backyards.

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My great-grand aunt Evelyn had a belimbing (averrhoa bilimbi) tree in her backyard which I admired. I noticed how closely it resembled the starfruit tree in my eldest aunt’s garden, down to the little bunches of pink flowers on the trunk.

My mum sometimes received a small bag of belimbing at the end of a weekend visit to my great-grand aunt’s house in Stevens Road. She added the sour fruit to a roast pork dish with bean paste and chilli which she taught the house help to cook. Other Straits Chinese families I know use it in curries.

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A blockbuster adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon animated series, “The Last Airbender”, has, since its release, been panned by US critics and moviegoers alike. Financially, the movie did not reap its benefits, either; it grossed a mere US$16 million during its opening weekend, a meagre fraction of its US$150 million budget, which does not include its US$130 million marketing cost.

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“Sandcastle” debuted at the 49th International Critic's Week at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2010. The film is a co-production by Zhao Wei Films, Akanga Film Asia and Infinite Frameworks, and has also been picked up for international distribution by Fortissimo films.

Basically, without spoiling the movie – what is “Sandcastle” all about in your opinion?

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Director Boo Junfeng may not have said it, but his debut feature film “Sandcastle” is, in a way, itself a parallel to the coming-of-age story that it seeks to portray. Already the winner of a number of awards*, including Best Film (2005, 2007) and Best Director (2007) at the Singapore International Film Festival, and nomination to the Asian Film Academy (2005) and the Berlin Film Festival (2009), Boo has been on the list of young Asian filmmakers to watch out for, for a while.

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Set in the heart of Tondo, a rough neighbourhood in Manila, “Sanglaan” is an uncomplicated story about four individuals losing and redeeming parts of their identities in a pawnshop.

Directed by Milo Sogueco, “Sanglaan” is a film about what people will give up to get some semblance of happiness and satisfaction in life.

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Two of my close friends were getting married. “There will be dancing,” the bride said. At that point, of course, I didn’t know she meant dancing. As in, no general, aimless hip-shaking. More like hired performers doing acrobatic stunts in the middle of the street, as I later discovered.

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My impending nuptials – to an ethnic Singaporean Chinese - includes a brideprice.

An interesting nugget: While the practice has taken on a token significance across us diasporic Chinese in Asia, biased gender ratios in rural China have instead produced an upward spiral in values - fetching up to 40,000 yuan a bride, or several years’ worth of farming income.

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Visitors to largely Hindu Bali will find it in towering flower arrangements, its pungent perfume permeating the atmosphere. I most often found armfuls of tuberose stalks in the grand foyers of hotels. In Singapore, the part owner of PS Cafe Philip Chin, who is instrumental in assembling the cafes' stunning floral arrangements, has been known to surprise washroom visitors by placing huge tuberose arrangements by the sink. It obviously does a great job perfuming the air.

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Food on the Malabar Coast is a product of its fertile soils. Along its roads and waterways coconut palms, mango trees, banana trees and rice paddies announce this fertility. Pepper, cinnamon, and cloves grow in abundance. A visit to roadside markets yields all manner of gourds and vegetables and even cartloads of grapes from Gujerat! Yet this alone does not account for the complexity of the cuisine.

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Amidst the repetitious and tedious meanderings of the Middle East peace process, once in a while, you get a story like this that should impress even the best of the spy novelists.

This week, headlines all over the world screamed out the alleged murder of Hamas' top military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh by the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, in Dubai. Things haven't developed this fast since the Dubai bubble collapsed with the economy crisis.

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My family calls it jokingly, “Going to Glory.” Death by pineapple tart anyone? In the centre of the Peranakan area in Katong, Glory is a great place to have nasi padang. The chicken is delish. During the build up to the biggest thing on the Chinese calendar, the Spring Festival, it is festooned with plastic jars of what I call “shower head” cookies, semolina or sugee biscuits, and kara-kara, a crispy tidbit made from rice flour. Their best seller: Pineapple tarts. And fish, rabbit and lobster shaped jellies.

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Fireworks over the national museum in Prague on New Year's day 2010

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The buffet served at the Colonnade in Bangkok’s Sukhothai Hotel includes an authentic smorgasbord, and you hear the Executive Chef is a Dane. Another clue is that the new café is called Timian which means thyme in Danish. Directed by the ever-polite staff, you catch a glimpse of him, arms akimbo, a dashing figure at the Colonnade, but decidedly Asian.