Chen Song Ping

What is asthma in Hainanese?

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Help, Chen!
We have a Hainanese patient here!

There are many Cantonese and Hokkien nurses around… but Hainanese is a rare species!

I was the only Hainanese nurse, then.
Even then, I struggled with the translation…

…now, ask him if he has asthma before.

Oh, no…
I was stuck!

Asthma?

er.. er… xiao chuan? (Mandarin)

er..er.. che ha? (Cantonese)
er…er.. hei ku ? ( hokkien)

You mean hu hea?
A neighbouring patient offered..
She was listening nearby.

And the patient nodded in agreement!

Even in Chinese alone, there are so many dialects!

I believe many countries

have multilingual communities.

This’s where AI may come in handy

in the absence of professional interpreters

to bridge the linguistic gap

for effective communication

in a multilingual community.

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To bring relevance to people, you have to be able to speak their language effectively.
– Sunday Adelaja –

What is more challenging in blogging?

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What is more challenging

Writing a post

Or writing a comment?

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I think it is the latter

cos it requires understanding

what others write

with critical thinking

to comment

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“Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.” – Andrew Sullivan

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein

The day I learnt to speak Tamil

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There was a bus accident.

ER was like a mad house. But nothing beat the howlings of a skinny eleven-year Indian boy.

We had to bring in an Indian lady from another department to talk to him.

So I learnt a few necessary words… enough to get me by communicating with him in Tamil.

Tani ? ( Drink water?)

Muterem? (Pass urine?)

Shapede? (Want to eat?)

Vali ke de? (Any pain?)

( Please correct me if I am wrong.🙏🙏🙏)

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That is the communication challenge for nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers in a multilingual society!

Kinabatangan ‘treasures’

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While visiting the hospitals in Sabah, we passed by Kinabatangan.

The Kinabatangan river is behind ( picture above).

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Poem: riding the waves of

uneven road to Kinabaangan.

Excited kids disembarking a plane,
supervised by their teacher
holding onto their passports
on the way to Kinabatangan

In a four-wheeler
we rode and floated on ‘waves’
of an uneven road to
Kinabatangan

Watching ‘orang utan‘, turtles

and small Borneo pygmy elephants
“Will we get to see a crocodile or two
in the yellow river of
Kinabatangan?

Will the ‘Dutchman of Borneo’
be swinging by, .. those proboscis monkeys of Kinabatangan ?

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Song- Help Me Make It Through the Night

American country artist Sammi Smith released Help Me Make It Through the Night as a debut studio album. (I am honoured to sing this song with a talented pioneer Wesing singer in this song. Do listen to the song!)

The album was originally produced by Jim Malloy. The album was originally named He’s Everywhere.

It was renamed Help Me Make It Through the Night due to the popularity of that track. The track reached number one on the Billboard country music chart and the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

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Songs are good accompaniments, especially during a long journey!

Singing- Those were the days

I used to be a bathroom singer.

I just started singing as a new hobby!

It is called life-long learning.

Listen to my song:- Those were the days.

For many fellow bloggers, this is probably the first time you are hearing my voice on this blog site… Happy listening!

Empowering versus enabling

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I was struck by

this giant portrait of world leaders

so empowered

but are they enabling

for a better climate change,

a better world?

Chen Song Ping, 2024

Duration to sing and post a song

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(a senyru poem)

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a familiar song

easy peasy one belts out

like breath in and out air!

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a difficult tune

top it with varied language

days and weeks, it takes!

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“Where words fail, music speaks.” — Hans Christian Andersen

Photographer and hiker’s delights and joy!

By my form master and physics teacher, Mr Toh H.L.

Many of us have been to the Moher Cliff in Ireland and the Uluwaktu Cliff in Bali.

However, few have visited the incredible and stunning cliffs in Port Dickson. These cliffs are a photographer and hiker’s delight and joy. We feast with our eyes, and we exercise our legs during our hikes and climbs.

Batu Putih is our favourite cliff for climbing. Its steepness of about 70 degrees, plus its relatively short distance of 200m, are the perfect ingredients to provide the thrills without overwhelming us. We reach the summit before we get exhausted.

Come hike with us to stay healthy and fit. At retirement age, a healthy body and mind is what we ought to treasure. It isn’t great to have millions in the bank, but to be confined and cooped up in the house. Feel the breeze in our face, hear the rustle of the leaves, the sounds of wave, and the laughter of fellow hikers.

Make life a many splendour thing.