However, what made my night was discovering the song Old Man Emu by John Wiliamson!! I had never heard this song before. I think this is a great song! Gabe thought I was funny. I told my brother about this song and he thought I was crazy and wanted his sister back lol.

Here’s the original video (I love the didgeridoo in the background and all the references to Australian animals):

And one in concert:

And one from the Wiggles and Steve Irwin!:

Enjoy

English is not my first language. Mandarin (and the Hakka dialect) was my first language when I lived in Malaysia. Since migrating to Australia, I pretty much left my Chinese behind. Sure, like many other Asian migrant kids I was put in Chinese School (Saturday morning classes). What I learnt there wasn’t much because it was easy to get by (learning by rote with very little retention) and school was more social than academic (ie mostly pointless). I knew my mum gave up bothering with Chinese School when, after only one semester, she pulled my youngest brother (Australian-born and 9 years my junior) out seeing as how useless it was for the elder two siblings. I speak to my parents now in a combination of English and Hakka. Even when I try to speak to mum in Mandarin, it just slowly reverts back to Hakka/English again because it became too difficult to express myself. I never had much interest in it back then, so why am I more interested now? I think it is becoming increasingly difficult for ethnic Chinese Australians to retain the language and culture that their parents and grandparents had. I believe to learn the language is synonymous with learning about the culture. And why should I care about that? I probably started caring more when I realised that if I don’t one day pass it on to my kids in the future, the language and culture would be lost on me. For someone who appreciates all the good (and some of the bad) things about being Chinese, I think that it’s a very important thing to lose.

Next up: ChinesePod Review

Book’s I’ve read since the start of this project:

Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole (1980)
Completed: Dec 11
My rating: 7/10

I read this at the recommendation of my boss. This book is a tragic comedy or satire about a 30-year-old man in New Orleans in the 1960′s who still lives with his mother and is forced to find work and has misadventures along the way.  It was published posthumously and won a Pulitzer Prize. I thought it was funny (both ha-ha and weirdo funny but mainly the latter) because the protagonist was so grossly caricatured that I couldn’t imagine such a personality could really exist. But all the more credit to the author for brilliantly creating such a character. Whilst reading I would often think ‘OMG this guy is a complete mental nutcase’ and tragically pathetic and ridiculous, yet funny enough to recount details of the book to my husband (who doesn’t read at all).

Animal Farm – George Orwell (1945)
Completed: Dec 11
My rating: 10/10

I read this at the recommendation of my collegue, who read it as part of his school’s curriculum. This book is a political satire that exposes the corruption of the Russian Revolution led by Joseph Stalin. Although making no direct references, it is a clear allegory of political figures and events.  This critique made it very difficult for Orwell to find someone willing to publish the novel and has been banned in communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe, including the Soviet Union. It is a story about a farm, where the humans have been driven out and the pigs rule. Easy to read (and can probably be read in a 2-hour sitting), though by no means simple (there exist a plethora of internet reviews and is worthy of study in Australian classrooms).  The sheer brilliance and genius of Orwell’s work led me to later read ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. I thought it was actually quite a frightening read. But loved it. Again, brilliant! You must read this because I couldn’t put it down.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (1979)
Completed: Dec 11
My rating: 6/10

A meeting at work led to my boss quoting from this book when things were looking a bit hairy: ‘Don’t Panic‘. I thought it was really funny and clever book. It is a sci-fi humour which starts of with Arthur Dent protesting against the demolition of his home to make way for a highway bypass. Ironically, he doesn’t realise his actions are futile because at that very moment, alien spaceships have come to eradicate Earth for a cosmic highway bypass. I really enjoyed this book and thought it very geniunely funny with sporadic LOL moments. It was an easy read, though I only read the first part of a six-part book series so I’m actually not sure whether I qualified to have finished it for the 1001 Books Project, but thought that life is too short and it was time to move on.

• 1001 Books to Read Before You Die (All Three Editions); and
• Time Magazine‘s Top 100 English-Speaking Novels Since 1923

The first 1001 in the list (sorted by latest publication date) comes from the latest edition of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. Books from #1002 to #1294 are in previous editions of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die that have since been taken out of the list. Books from #1295 to #1324 are from the Time Magazine’s Top 100 list, that are not already in the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. Another good book list I may attempt is 1001 Childrens Books to Read Before You Grow Up. It’s certainly not too late for me to go through that either, but maybe it’ll be something I tackle in future should I have kids of my own.

There are plenty of reviews out there for each book. In fact 1001 Books to Read Before You Die itself is a book of reviews. I may provide some details of what the book is about (spoiler free) and give my general opinion on each of them as I go through the list. But I will by no means attempt to write any detailed insight or analysis (my English Literature days at school are long gone).

TO SEE THE FULL LIST AND MY PROGRESS, CLICK HERE

This time I’ve decided to archive all my previous posts so I still have them saved in my WordPress database but they are no longer published. I just felt like having a clean slate just in time for the new year coming up. One of the reasons I’m back into it (my last post was in July – goodness…) is because I found a blog layout that suits me – it’s simple – and it’s mobile compatible too. Then I came up with a new tagline to reflect my being here in Port Hedland. Another reason is that I finally bothered to contact my hosting service and have them fix my malware issue which was driving me crazy.

Hope you keep reading!

Cindy