In My Hands Today…

The Feng Shui Detective’s Casebook (Feng Shui Detective #3) – Nury Vittachi

A murder in the Philippines, a kidnapping in Thailand, grand theft auto in Singapore: just another day at the office for CF Wong. No, he’s not a detective, he’s a feng shui master, and he’d much rather just get paid, go home, put his feet up, and leave solving crimes to someone who cares.

But that’s just not going to happen. CF and his assistant, Joyce, are on a business trip around the Asia Pacific and wherever they go, their unique way of getting to the bottom of the most perplexing cases seems to be needed.

Baffling crimes, ingenious schemes, exotic locations and bucket-loads of charm. The Feng Shui Detective’s Casebook is Vittachi at his witty, original best.

In My Hands Today…

The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (Feng Shui Detective #2) – Nury Vittachi

In their first full-length novel outing, the feng shui detective and his assistant get involved with a bizarre case: they find a young woman whose fortune predicts almost immediate death. CF Wong and his colleagues at the Union of Industrial Mystics have a curious problem to solve: the only way to keep her alive is to prove that the predictive skills they have developed over their lifetimes have got it all wrong. Set in Singapore and Australia.

In My Hands Today…

The Feng Shui Detective (Feng Shui Detective #1) – Nury Vittachi

Mr. Wong is a feng shui consultant, but his cases tend to involve a lot more than just interior decoration. You see, Wong specializes in a certain type of problem premises: crime scenes. He and his brash teenage Aussie-American ex-pat intern (think an Asian Sherlock Holmes paired up with Kelly Osbourne) travel around Singapore solving crimes while trying to decipher each other’s language and behavior. His latest case involves a mysterious young woman who, according to a psychic reading, is doomed to die. Wong’s desperate efforts to save her eventually lead him and his sidekick to Sydney where the story climaxes at the Opera House, a building known for its appalling feng shui. A delightful combination of crafty plotting, quirky humor, and Asian philosophy, the Feng Shui Detective is an investigator like no other!

Massages and reflexology: Painful, but oh, so worth it!

Wearing heels almost the whole day means that at the end of the day, you have aching feet!

I started doing foot reflexology on a whim some time last year when I used to take GG to ballet. I used to have an hour to kill and in the mall next to her class, I chanced upon this chain which did foot reflexology and massages. I did foot reflexology a couple of times and was hooked – I paid up for a package and since then have been enjoying it on and off!

After GG stopped ballet, I also stopped going to the shop, till one day a couple of months back, my foot was paining so badly, I decided to see if there was a store nearby which does this – I lucked out and found the same chain close to my workplace and since then almost once a week (sometimes twice a week), either after work or during my lunch hour, I go and get either a foot massage or a shoulder massage.

So what is foot reflexology? I am not sure if this form of alternative medicine is popular out of Southeast Asia, but here, you see them everywhere! Foot Reflexology involves application of pressure to the feet with specific thumb, finger and hand techniques with the oil of a lotion. This technique claim that various areas of the feet correspond to the different organs in the body and by pressing and kneading these points in the feet, remove blockages in the different parts of the body.

The massages for the back and neck do not involve lotions, but only kneading, pressing and massaging on your neck/back using a towel as a shield. These also tend to be quite painful, but given that pretty much everyone is on a computer at work, muscles become rather stiff. I try to do a neck massage once a week to remove the kincks in my shoulder

The masseuse, even the old aunty-type masseuses have such strong hands, that at times it’s even painful, but oh, so good once it’s done…

While having my massages, I have the most random thoughts. Here are some of them….

Yesterday while having a shoulder massage, I was wondering if I should write a book set in Southeast Asia, where the murderer is this old auntyish lady who is a masseuse and who murders people who have wronged her by giving them massages so strong that it triggers some parts of their body to malfunctions and so some hours later they die and the police and detectives are baffled at these murders and no one comes close to finding it out until this old sinseh (a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner) figures it all out! Now that the plot is here, if anyone writes the book, you know where to find me to send me the share of the royalty 🙂

Another time, I felt I was having an out-of-body experience, something akin to floating around till I came crashing down when the massage ended 😦

In My Hands Today…

Sarong Secrets: Of Love, Loss and Longing – Su Kim Lee

A delightful collection of 12 short stories that brings the reader into the world of the Peranakans, or the Straits Chinese, a colourful community still in existence today in Malacca, Penang and Singapore. Through the stories, the reader gains a fascinating insight into the culture, beliefs and way of life of the Babas and Nyonyas who make up the people. All the stories are based on or are inspired by real-life events which the author has collected from her nyonya mother, grandmother, relatives and friends.