Jun
9
2009
Hi Everyone,
I would like to tell you about my parents this time. Before I tell you about them. I would like to bring up my stock Bank Of Ireland (IRE $11.00). If you buy the day I wrote the Investing article (May 27). You would have made the profit of 30%. That is a very good profit indeed. I haven’t sell it yet. It is still having some leg to go. The government of Ireland injected 4 billion into the Bank Of Ireland to buy back bad debt. Also this stock was $97 on February 2007 before the recession hit around the globe. I keep this stock for awhile longer.
I am a lucky guy in the world,I got great parents. I learned a lot from both of them. They gave an unconditional love. I called my father-Papa’, it means Dad in Chinese. In Thai, it says Kun Paw. I called my mother-Mama’, it means Mom in Chinese. In Thai, it says Kun Mae. Papa’ was the one who did all the disciplines. Mama’ was the one who always gave love and care. Mama’ was the housewife, she got up real early every morning to cook breakfast. She woke all of us up when the breakfast was done. I got one sister and two brothers. My grandmother (my dad’s mother) was living with us also. Mama’ helped me get ready before the school bus showed up. After we finished eating our breakfast, she washed the dishes. Then she washed all our clothes. We washed every things by hands in Thailand at that time. I forgot to tell you that we used charcoal for cooking and boiling the water. We got three stoves, one for cooking the rice, one for stir fry and the other for boiling the water. Today living is so very convenient, you have rice cooker, you have dish washer and washing machine. Mama’ took me to the market a lot of time, especially on the week end and summer time. She taught me how to buy chickens, fishes and shrimps, which they were still alive in the open market. You can take the live chicken home and kill the chicken by yourself or you can pay the merchant an extra money to process for you. We bought enough for all three meals a day. Mama’ was a great cook, she could cook all kind of Chinese foods. She never let us bore with our meals. She always had different dishes on each meal, some was stir fry, some was deep fry and some was soup. Every dishes were delicious. I learned how to cook from her. I had been carried the baskets for her. One day, she tested me to see how much I know how to prepare a meal. She gave some money to buy grocery. She said “I gave you enough money to buy grocery for three meals. You have to think what the combination of meat and vegetables to make a dish. Whatever you want to eat buy it. If you like it, I’m sure everybody in the family will like it also.” Boye of boye, it was tough, I bought enough to make only two dishes. It took three or four dishes to make a meal. I didn’t even get enough for a meal. She smiled and said that it takes time to learn, just keep watching me every day and it will sink in. I had been help her to prepare the meal all the time, but never actually cooked by myself. The first trip back to visit from America, I cooked for my parents. My mama’ said to me you are a good cook. You develope to be a great chef, you have your own style. I told her that I learned from her and changed a little bit due to lack of ingredients where I lived.
I helped my mama’ doing shore around the house. I remember that the first time I learned how to iron the clothes with the old charcoal iron. You had to get the fire start first. You had to have a bucket of water so that you can splash it on your clothes. I swept and scrubbed the floor. I was on my knee to scrub and moped by hand. We didn’ t have the kind of mop that they use in U.S.A. My life growing up was a busy one. Mama’ said to me that you have to plan your daily life and then just do it. If you are just thinking about it, it will never get done. She is my inspiration.
It is quiet long article this time, I will continue the story next time.
Goodbye for now,
Mana
Jun
2
2009
Hi everyone,
When I came to America, I weighed only 95 lbs. After 6 months I gained to 170 lbs. It must the good food in U.S. or I ate too much. How can you blame me? When you can eat all you want for free all three meals. You work for Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA, they let you eat all you want, as long as you wear uniforms. Some of the staffs came on their time off to eat their free meals. I didn’t do that. But the master chef of the hotel like me a lot. He fed me all the great food, including the same dishes our President Nixon ate. My first job at the hotel was a dish washer. I tell you what I had been washing millions and millions of dishes. It was a hot and hard job. You had to keep up with those waiters and waitress. They served in the banquet room. They picked up their dirty dishes on the trays and threw them in the room windows. I had to scrape the food off the plates before you put them in the dish washing machine. It was a big machine, it was about 15 to 20 feet long. You put in one end and it came out another end. When the dishes came out, you had to wear gloves to pick them up. It was very hot and steamy. After you finished cleaning all your dishes, you have to sweep, mop the floor and emptied the trashes. That was one of my hard job. I never complained about it. I worked hard and did the best I could. Well the hard work paid off. The Executive Manager was noticed me. He called me to his office. He said to me that ” Mana, you are a hard worker, you never complained and you always Nice to everybody. I am going to put you to work at the swimming pool. With your nice personality, our guests will like to have you serving them.” I got a raise and promotion. The first Thai staff ever worked as a pool man. I loved this job a lot. Majority of the guests were rich and famous. They called me for reserving lounge chairs by the pool. When they showed up, I gave them towels and took them to their chairs. They tipped me sometimes 10 dollars, sometimes 20 dollars. I was also a server. The hotel served hamburgers, hot dogs, french fried and ice-cream. I made a lot of money on the tips. I also had so much fun with the guest’s children. When they show up to buy ice-cream, I gave to them for free, because they behaved and had nice manners. My supervisor approved to that. He said that if the guess enjoyed them self. They will come back again and again. Ice cream was a less expensive items. It is a great way to influence them to come back. I made and saved a lot of money with this job for my trip to Texas. This is the beginning.
Goodbye for now!
Mana