Happy Zhu Year to one and all!

Yah yah, I know I'm a little late with my CNY wishes to all, but just got back from a quickie trip to Cambodia with my family, our annual CNY escape act. Went to see Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh...very hot and sunny! ouch, think my skin kenna burned till chao tar liao! Angkor Wat was amazing, testament to the ingenuity of humans to build communities and places of worship despite searing heat, just with human and elephant labour! The right is a pic of my mum and me among the ruins of Angkor Wat Phnom Penh was picturesque, with very nice and friendly people. But the poor were everywhere....tons of beggars and kids roaming the streets...wanna help but how? when they are so many? no wonder so many NGOs are operating in Cambodia.

Also went to see the Genocide Museum in PP. This was known as S21, apparently, and used to be a school before the Khmer Rouge turned it into an interrogation and detention institution... truly horrible crimes were committed by the Khmer Rouge against their own people, and what amazed me was to discover that the leaders NEVER faced any punishment for what they did, and only their minions went to jail for a couple of years here and there! My brother said that's because after the fall of the Khmer Rouge to the Vietnamese, the Vietnamese, being communist, was viewed as the bigger threat and so the Khmer Rouge were supported by the Americans and other powers against the Communists.... talk about stupid politicians! I think Pol Pot was one of the few dictators in the history of the world who committed atrocities against his own people. Historians estimate that about 14000 people were tortured and processed at S21 alone, and there were hundreds of such places throughout Cambodia. After being tortured and forced into confessing whatever crimes they were supposed to have committed, the detainees were then taken to a mass grave to be clubbed on the head (!!!) and buried. My God! It's bad enough that poor baby seals are clubbed to death, but Pol Pot did it to human beings! Shocking! BTW, in the pic to the left, I'm trying to show the barbed wires that were used to stop prisoners from jumping to their death after a woman managed to escape from her guards on the way to being interrogated and jumped to her death from the 3rd floor of the building.

My sis-in-law has posted the pix she and my bro took on the Web, so if you're interested to see us on holiday, check out this link

http://sg.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/delia_wee/album?.dir=/4674scd&.src=ph&.tok=phdk4XGB9gFf6AqA

Anyway, that was my CNY family holiday....holidays with my family are always interesting cos my brother and I share a life-long love-hate relationship, arguing every waking moment over anything. My mom gets pulled into one side or the other, and now Delia, my bro's wife, also has to be a peacemaker! Poor thing! Like I was telling them the other day, if Delia had met us and seen us together before my bro managed to fool her into becoming his wife, I'm sure she would have run a million miles in the opposite direction! But we are family, through thick and thin, and I guess what makes us argue and fight, and then make up the next second, is the strength and security that comes from knowing that we would stick up for each other against any foe. That's why I was so grieved to read TNP's Saturday article on a 66 year old widow who has a truly unfilial son and daughter in law. This poor widow apparently worked hard as a cleaner to put her son through medical school, and then just because the DIL didn't like the mom for insisting on carrying on working as a cleaner, there was disagreement and this ended in the son chasing out the mom after she had signed over the title deeds of her flat to the son and DIL! So "pak hao" of the son! Unfortunately, the mom refused to name her GP son, otherwise I'm sure no one would go to see him any more. This is not someone that I would like to be my GP! I hope he dies of shame!

OK, tomorrow is the start of Lent. I meant to blog about my Lenten sacrifices this year, but guess that will have to wait for another day.....