I used to pretend to read newspaper when I was in kindergarten. One time I was trying to figure out the short comic on the newspaper during an afternoon dim sum with my father, a BEAUTIFUL waitress (you will know why I consider her beautiful later…) walked pass and told my father that I was a smart cookie who managed…
What is “Rojak”? Rojak is a dish served in Malaysia and Singapore. It is essentially a local salad. The ingredients in a typical rojak dish include turnips, cucumbers, pineapples, bean sprouts, peanuts, fried tofus, banana flowers, green mangos and a delicious dressing that consists of lime juice and prawn. However, there is really no specific…
Compared with many Asians a generation ahead of me, my generation was the lucky one. We had a minimum of 9 years of compulsory school education in Hong Kong. It was ‘compulsory’ because parents could go behind bars if they failed to send their kids to school. I was born in the 1960s. The generation…
I grew up with three elder sisters. They went to a girls school and I went to boys school. During our early years, we all went to schools that were close to our home. The two schools were only about two kilometers away and it took a very short time to reach our destination on…
We are officially in 2015. “Officially” because as of this time, schools have re-opened, people are back at work and life is pretty much back to normal after the year end celebrations. Quoting my little one at home, “The 12 days of Christmas are over.” She is right – now is back to life and…
As of September, 2014, the National University of Singapore (NUS) was ranked 22nd among all the universities in this world – this places NUS as the number one university in Asia. My alma mater, the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has been moved down a bit to 28th ranking, making it the number 3 university…
Monday afternoons are my teaching time. In addition to my Monday afternoon schedule, I occasionally receive some minor teaching assignments on other days of the week. I would say that on average, I spend approximately three quarters of a day every week at the National University of Singapore (NUS). When I first moved to Singapore,…
Time is something no one can work against. As far as we know, there is no time traveler in the history of mankind yet. On more than one occasion, I have dreamed of the good times I enjoyed when I was running with my high school cross-country team. That mixture of mental suffering and physical…
2013 marked the 30th year since I graduated from my high school, St Louis School, in Hong Kong. In the early 70s, TV was the best channel to distribute information in Hong Kong. One of the major TV highlights, at least to my family, was the inter-school quiz competition. We witnessed the St Louis school…
It has been over 20 years since I first set foot in the US. I went to the US for the first time to visit a few dental schools. I was in the process of searching for a post-graduate program in dentistry right after I graduated with my Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) from the…
Bits and Bites from Dr Ansgar Cheng 