I already very ch'in ch'ai 
Why no char bor ai 
They say me kanna sai
But my heart buei p'ai
 

Saturday k'ee Mount Faber 
Kn'uah tio couple couple 
Cars liam newspaper 
Kuah liao lao ch'ui nua 
 

They say eh sai tio eh sai 
Bueh sai tio bueh sai 
Hang cheng although pn'ai 
Buei sai ngair ngair lai 
 

So I wait and wait
Wait for that thing call fate
Whole life bo lang date 
Don't know when can mate 

Saturday go Mount Faber
Saw many couples
Cars pasted with newspaper
See already drop saliva

They say can means can
Cannot means cannot
Although the situation is bad
Cannot force to come

.....
.....
Whole life nobody date
.....
 

I used to watch my mother combing her hair into a rope-like plait and then twisting it into a round cake on her pate and using gold pins, almost the size of tooth brushes and studded with diamonds, sticking them into the "cake" to keep the hair in place, the back of the structure looking like a duck's tail. All the while she was chewing "sireh" (betel nut)

She had a bowl into which she put some kind of wood shaving or tree bark which, with water added, turned into a colourless paste for the hair dressing

For the kebaya, she used a gold chain with gold buttons which started at the throat and ended at the stomach" 

from

HL Huat, Bangkok

As for the colourless (almost white) hair paste it was either a type of processed beeswax or fine wood shavings which had been coated with lacquer - a colourless treacly fluid obtained by cutting the bark of Rhus vernificera or Lacquer Tree. Many Thai and Burmese beetle-nut containers, bowls, screens, chests, furniture, boxes and many household items were mostly painted over with several layers of lacquer. After the application of each layer of lacquer, the item was allowed to dry. It was then polished and the shavings collected, bottled and sold.

 With water added, the paste was applied to the  hair  (the process was  described as 'buak lilin' (applying wax) The  paste  is called bunga ka toh. Some use bunga gi leng. In more modern times hair gel, readily accessible, replaced the old methods. More of  the fragant and shiny paste was added by hand after each tier of the sanggul or  sangguay was formed.  The last application of the paste would  be at what your correspondent calls the "duck's tail", or more properly, the "swallow's tail" or en boay. As each tier was  formed, a hair pin was inserted. 

would like to congratulate you that Penang File is doing a good job of keeping the Penang people in tune with what is happening around on the island, by having this web-site. I think the web-site has many interesting sections with fascinating articles.

however, may I also make a few comments about the functionality of the site? the reason being that I believe, to keep user coming back to the site it has to be improved from the navigational and aesthetical aspect. 

pardon me for my ignorance if I appear to  be making impractical comments for I do not know who the webmaster is, nor how big is the group behind this project. but as a Penangite, I would love to see this web-site grow to be an exuberant site.

I believe in simplicity and small image files to keep the web pages functional and robust. Comments below contributes to the usability of the site:

1. I found that the navigation of the site to different sections slightly dysfunctional. i.e. one can only access archives from the first page, there is no way of going into the archives when deep in an article of a certain issue.

2. Despite having to keep to minimal image files and making sure they are small in size for optimal uploading/downloading time, I think the scanning and quality of images can be improved for better viewing.

3. The overall Penang File pages do not look cohesive. Meaning it does not have a cohesive interface design. Users can't distinguish if they are still in Penang File if they went from one section to another/ from article to article.

I hope my comments are not too harsh, nor impractical. My intentions are purely to contribute to a better functioning Penang File. Encourage users to keep going back to it for reference, or leisure reading.

Looking forward to see improvements, and continuous fascinating articles.

keep up the good work

regards,
June Lim

.

We have been looking at the feasibility of a search engine on every page of the website, so readers can immediately go to the article of interest, but that may mean that readers with older browser versions may not be able to read the website as easily. 

In the meantime, we can always incorporate an "archive index page" button on each page of the current month and work our way backwards till all archived pages incorporate this feature. Hopefully this will alleviate some frustration in navigating our website.

Poinbt (2) The quality of the image files on the website is very much limited by the original photo and pictures that are used. While we have tried to scan in high resolution, in the end we need to make the images small enough to load quickly, thus loosing picture quality. However, rest assured that we are continually improving on our photographic and picture efforts. But we would like to stress that ours is not a picture magazine. 

Point (3) We have tried to avoid the use of frames to display The Penang File pages as a lot of readers and web browsers do not have frames enabled. However we can always improve on the cohesion of the pages (as per your suggestion) by perhaps making our LOGO bigger and by making the titles more consistent in font and size.#