We organized our first ever book exchange and I had to fly down to KL for this event. It was fantastic meeting the women who were big fans of i-asianwomen.com and who loved books. My idea was to kickstart this book exchange and then let them KL girls run this monthly on their own. It ran for a while but soon fizzled out! What a pity. Bringing together women and books was a brilliant idea.
Kick yourself if you did not make it for the first Book Exchange on 7 July for it was a riot! Excitement, peals of laughter, spontaneous jibes, women at their best. A stranger walking in would think that we were long lost friends. Little did they know that everyone who attended the book exchange that day had just exchanged hellos and how-are-yous 10 minutes before.
The Little Cafe in Damansara Uptown was as cosy as cosy could be - think Central Perk cafe from the sitcom Friends! Only thing missing were the huge sofas.
What do you get when you put a couple of women together for an afternoon of scrumptious tuna sandwiches (courtesy of Lisa and Poh Lin who thought nothing of rolling up their sleeves, getting hot and sweaty in the kitchen to feed us ravenous ones), yummy apple pie (sponsored by dear Rina) and nonstop flow of tea and coffee?
Throw in the many, many books that were brought out for the exchange - "Memoirs of a Geisha" seemed to be the hottest book that day - and stir in the ideas (which were "flying like stray bullets" according to Li Jin) and you would have found yourself enjoying a girls-only chat session, punctuated by wicked laughter and rascally grins!
We laughed till we cried! We dissected men, we learnt about other authors (Erma Bombeck rated the highest - I presume everyone would have scooted to the nearest bookstore to get Bombeck's books!) and it dawned on us that it didn't matter if we were married, with kids, without kids, single - if we had the surging oestrogen, we shared the same worries, experiences and my god, it was completely liberating to find that other women were just like us.
It was heartwarming to come together to share ideas and discuss what we wanted to accomplish as a group. No wonder we yakked till we were hoarse and one of us even missed an important meeting with a client 'cause we were so caught up with the exciting ideas, plans and what to do for the book meet.
Come by this Saturday to exchange books. Poh Lin has not set any hard and fast rules, but one thing's for sure - you must bring your books to exchange with others (hey, it should be fair to all) and get a chum to tag along. Everyone is allowed to take home a maximum of five books and you have one month to read it from cover to cover before we meet again for the next one.
Errr.... what if you are not a bookworm? Besides books, plenty more is in store. Talks, outings (going to Ipoh for 'hor fan' or Batu Caves for a guano-filled cave climb), sharing with women, community work, movies... because we've realised that women, with or without a ring on their fourth finger, should have a firm network of girl pals. It keeps us healthier and wiser.
Don't let the men be your sole reason for living. Don't get us wrong, we love our husbands and boyfriends - but we also need space to breathe and to revel in other women's companionship. To get out of coupledom once in a while and be an individual. And exult in the joy of being a woman. Be today's Asian woman. Not yesterday's woman, or someone's wife, someone's fiancee or someone's daughter. Just be ourselves.
I hope I've tickled your palate and made you ravenous for the gathering. Here are the details.
Date: 18 August 2001(Saturday)
Time: 1pm-3pm
Venue: National Art Gallery Cafe, 2, Jalan Temerloh, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 4025 4989/90
The book exchange is open to i-asianwomen.com members only. Membership is free, so you don't have to pay any fees. Activity fees and 'makan' fees, if any, would be kept to a minimum so our pockets won't run dry but we're not in it for the money. Should we make a profit, we had the unanimous vote to channel the money back to the community. Told you we were happenin'!
So, if you want to open up your life, and have an accessible group of likeminded friends who adore books, think yakking is as good a pastime as chowing down yummy food with wild abandon, then keep 18 August free.
by Krista
16th August 2001
Kick yourself if you did not make it for the first Book Exchange on 7 July for it was a riot! Excitement, peals of laughter, spontaneous jibes, women at their best. A stranger walking in would think that we were long lost friends. Little did they know that everyone who attended the book exchange that day had just exchanged hellos and how-are-yous 10 minutes before.
The Little Cafe in Damansara Uptown was as cosy as cosy could be - think Central Perk cafe from the sitcom Friends! Only thing missing were the huge sofas.
What do you get when you put a couple of women together for an afternoon of scrumptious tuna sandwiches (courtesy of Lisa and Poh Lin who thought nothing of rolling up their sleeves, getting hot and sweaty in the kitchen to feed us ravenous ones), yummy apple pie (sponsored by dear Rina) and nonstop flow of tea and coffee?
Throw in the many, many books that were brought out for the exchange - "Memoirs of a Geisha" seemed to be the hottest book that day - and stir in the ideas (which were "flying like stray bullets" according to Li Jin) and you would have found yourself enjoying a girls-only chat session, punctuated by wicked laughter and rascally grins!
We laughed till we cried! We dissected men, we learnt about other authors (Erma Bombeck rated the highest - I presume everyone would have scooted to the nearest bookstore to get Bombeck's books!) and it dawned on us that it didn't matter if we were married, with kids, without kids, single - if we had the surging oestrogen, we shared the same worries, experiences and my god, it was completely liberating to find that other women were just like us.
It was heartwarming to come together to share ideas and discuss what we wanted to accomplish as a group. No wonder we yakked till we were hoarse and one of us even missed an important meeting with a client 'cause we were so caught up with the exciting ideas, plans and what to do for the book meet.
Come by this Saturday to exchange books. Poh Lin has not set any hard and fast rules, but one thing's for sure - you must bring your books to exchange with others (hey, it should be fair to all) and get a chum to tag along. Everyone is allowed to take home a maximum of five books and you have one month to read it from cover to cover before we meet again for the next one.
Errr.... what if you are not a bookworm? Besides books, plenty more is in store. Talks, outings (going to Ipoh for 'hor fan' or Batu Caves for a guano-filled cave climb), sharing with women, community work, movies... because we've realised that women, with or without a ring on their fourth finger, should have a firm network of girl pals. It keeps us healthier and wiser.
Don't let the men be your sole reason for living. Don't get us wrong, we love our husbands and boyfriends - but we also need space to breathe and to revel in other women's companionship. To get out of coupledom once in a while and be an individual. And exult in the joy of being a woman. Be today's Asian woman. Not yesterday's woman, or someone's wife, someone's fiancee or someone's daughter. Just be ourselves.
I hope I've tickled your palate and made you ravenous for the gathering. Here are the details.
Date: 18 August 2001(Saturday)
Time: 1pm-3pm
Venue: National Art Gallery Cafe, 2, Jalan Temerloh, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 4025 4989/90
The book exchange is open to i-asianwomen.com members only. Membership is free, so you don't have to pay any fees. Activity fees and 'makan' fees, if any, would be kept to a minimum so our pockets won't run dry but we're not in it for the money. Should we make a profit, we had the unanimous vote to channel the money back to the community. Told you we were happenin'!
So, if you want to open up your life, and have an accessible group of likeminded friends who adore books, think yakking is as good a pastime as chowing down yummy food with wild abandon, then keep 18 August free.
by Krista
16th August 2001
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