About me
Born in Malaysia, I now live in Japan and have a job that I enjoy working in publishing line.
Due to the environment that I was brought up, I speak Chinese dialects (Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew) besides Mandarin, additionally Malay, English and now Japanese. Always people ask me what is my mother tongue, I basically tell them I don't have one. My family speaks Hokkien though. When I speak I sometimes find myself having a lot of vocabulary that is, may be in Cantonese and sometimes in Mandarin. English and Malay come in occasionally as well.
It was after I came to Japan that I realised the Chinese from mainland China and Taiwan sometimes couldn't understand what I said. The word mother tongue paralysed me. I have vocabulary for particular things in a language but not the others. "What's that called in Malay/Hokkien/Cantonese/Mandarin/Japanese or English?" is the most common tongue I speak daily. I am tantalized everyday by languages that I don't speak as one mother tongue.
Nowadays I read mostly in Japanese, sometimes in English but basically weblogs on the net. I always want to write. Writing reminds me that there are things I need to figure it out before it fades out from my memory. So, the reason I write is I want to know more about myself.
What do you want to know about me?
(4th May, 2005)
Update: 9th September, 2005
I quit my job at publishing line, am freelancing based in Tokyo. I will be doing more linguistic-related job, research, writing articles, doing interpretation, etc. with Japanese, English, and Chinese. If you need me, try write to me at ken at kenloo dot com. Possibilities are infinite.
Update: 5th February, 2006
I am working for other people again. Don't think I have time to freelancing at the moment. But, you insist to do so, I will have to see what can I do.
Update: 20th January, 2007
Quit my job at IT firm, gone back to recruiting industry. Not being able to freelancing, so got to work for other people. I have made up my mind, somehow. The most important thing I want is to meet people, and with recruitment, the purpose is satisfied, I guess. Besides work, my family has moved to a new apartment. It's double the size of the last one. Now, the next thing on the list is to get a car.
