I attended the Proton Exora VIP Test-Drive Session held in Full House, Sunway Giza Mall on Saturday (21st).

Participants were selected based on the registration at their website : http://www.allaboutexora.com/, and the session that I attended was held for the Chinese community and had about 20 couples attending (well, it wasn’t all couples, there was a pair who’s a mother and son team).

After registration, we were ushered in to have breakfast.

And when it was time, everyone proceeded to the Event Hall in Full House for the start of the event.

Melvin Wong, Head of Marketing Communication from Proton Edar, made the opening speech.

This is a session to let the couples selected to experience Proton Exora as never before. It’s not just a test drive session; various speakers were invited to cover topics of interest, and then games will be played which actually allow you to get to know the car better.

Kenneth Chiew, Driving Instructor for Proton Exora covered the Product Safety of Proton Exora, i.e. airbags available, advance seat belts for all passengers, protective frame of the car etc.; and we were shown how the car was designed to handle various accidents (front collision, roll over) as well.

For those couples who have children, Ms Loh Sit Fong, Clinical Psychologist from UKM Medical Center, talked about child development, and how to keep children safe in a car ride.

She definitely caught the attention of this little girl, who came with her parents for the event.

It was then the start of the test drive session. First we were all brought outside for a group photo (I didn’t get in, because I prefer to be the photographer than to be photographed).

Or maybe I should have joined in, because see the number of photographers available?

We were then assigned our cars. 2 couples to a car and I got this red one, the last car of the lot and my partners were Mr Ong from Sin Chiew Jit Poh, Izaton from Proton Edaran, and Sam from the media company.

Mr Ong, since he’s going to be our drive, got briefed.

Look at the number of Proton Exoras assigned to the Proton Exora VIP Test-Drive Session.

Couples started boarding their cars, ready for the take off.

Each car were given a walkie-talkie, and the organiser had the walkie-talkies tested out. He gave the last of the instructions, and then of we went.

The convoy of cars driving towards Desa Park City.

Somewhere in Sri Damansara, we stopped to swap drivers, so that everyone get a chance to test drive the car.

The parking lot next to Waterfront in Desa Park City has been set up for the outdoor event, with driving circuits and all.

3 different games were held concurrently. All were eligible for points collection, which will qualify couples for various placing, and gifts were then given later based on this placing.

Game number 1 was the blind fold challenge. Each couple decided on the driver, which was blind folded, and the navigator, which was to give instructions to the driver. The challenge is to have the blind folded driver do a parallel park with instructions given to him/her by the partner.

This is to see how a couple trusted one another, for if there was no trust, it’s difficult to give the instructions as well as well as to receive it. Of course having a car that’s easy to maneuver with power steering, like the Proton Exora, helped a lot as well.

Some navigators really did a terrific job, getting the driver to park the car in slightly more than a minute.

Game number 2 was piling challenge. Each couple was timed, they had to get some suitcases, a golf bag and a pram into the car boot, usher in their 3 passengers, get themselves into the car and buckled up as quickly as possible.
From this challenge, you can see how much luggage the Proton Exora can take, and how easy it is to turn the seats on the last row to provide bigger boot space.

On the driving circuit, game number 3 was held, to test out the ride handling of the Proton Exora. Kenneth, the Proton Exora driving instructor were giving instructions to cars via the walkie-talkie on when to accelerate, when to step on the brakes on the circuit, or when to do a steep turn.

This is the sort of things you won’t get to try out in a normal test-drive session. Here, you get to actually try out the ABS & EBD brake, and the Proton Lotus Ride and Handling on a circuit.

Lots of brakes screeching were heard. This must be fun for those who get adrenalin rush from speeding. I get dizzy just seeing the cars zoomed by.

Kenneth took the excitement 1 step further, he took the wheels and drove a couple of people in the Proton Exora, and of course being the driving instructor, he was driving faster, and tested the ABS and EBD brake, and Proton Lotus Ride and Handling to its fullest. I didn’t want to be his passenger (or anybody doing the ride handling) in case I threw up.

That was the end of the outdoor fun, and we then went back to Full House in our respective car. The convoy again stopped in Sri Damansara for another driver swapped.

Back in Full House, the cool aircon and lunch welcomed us.

We were famished!

While lunch was going on, some couples were brought to a corner to be interviewed about their Proton Exora test drive experience.

After lunch, we all got ushered back to the event hall.

Ms Loh Sit Fong went back on stage to talk about relationships. Couples were asked to rank things important to them in a relationship, and then checked if the female and the male have similar priorities.

Cherrise Tan, an image consultant from Adamaya Image Consultancy, came on next, and did a make over of one of the participants.

Kenneth came on again to answer any questions we had after test driving the car. I guess people were really impressed with the Proton Exora, its ride handling after they have driven the car on the circuit, its ease of maneuvering, and its space available.

We then got a talk on managing investment as well from Eric Wong, from A.D. Financial Sdh Bhd.

A little boy named Ethan (Merryn’s son), patiently sat through the talk after talk (I salute him, not easy for a kid his age), but he did say, “Why this one always not yet finished one.”

(Zaria wanted to follow me, and good thing I didn’t bring her along. Getting a child sit through the whole thing can be really testing their patience).

What was the end message delivered by Melvin Wong? Proton Exora is a practical and economical family car(fuel consumption : RM0.13/km), now if any of us is considering a family car, this is a good option, however, “Do not buy a product if you have not tried it.” We should have at least done a thorough test drive before committing. And in deed, this session allowed the participant to thoroughly test out the car.

At the end of the session, there was prize giving (it was Cash prize, ok?); it was done in such a way that every couple got a prize, but of course the couples in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, got bigger envelopes.

Every couple got a goodie bag with spa vouchers as well.

Haisay, I sat at this table throughout.
So no spa vouchers nor cash prize for me.

I’m going to register myself for the next Proton Exora VIP Test-Drive Session, I want to go as a participant this time.

So what was the knowledge that I gained from this session? For me, with a family of four, to choose an MPV, I’ll choose one :
1) that gives me space (I sure love the space in Proton Exora),
2) that’s economical (RM0.13/KM for Proton Exora, half of my current car’s fuel consumption),
3) with all the necessary safety features included (2 airbags, ABS & EBS brake system, advance seat belt, protective frame).

Now, don’t believe what others say about the car, don’t even believe what I say here, test drive the Proton Exora and experience it for your own.

What are you waiting for?

Zaria loves her Yamaha JMC class. In fact, she’s saying, “I don’t want to go to school any more, I only want to go to music class.”

Everyday, without fail, she’ll play the songs she’s learnt in class without me asking her to, and she has great satisfaction if she could play the whole song right. To her, it’s not like a practice at all. And she likes Daddy calling her “Little Mozart”.

4 months after attending Yamaha JMC class, she’s started playing the 2 most difficult songs for this level, Happy Days, and The Cuckoo Clock, and she’s really happy to be able to do it.

See the grin after she’s completed the song?

She’s now asking me why she has to continue attending class for Book 1 when she can already play all the songs. She is impatient to move on to the next level!

Well, each JMC book takes 6 months to finish, so another 2 more months, and she’ll be moving to Book 2. But I’m wondering, since she wants to move on, if we should pull her out of JMC course and get a private tutor to teach her so that she can progress at her own pace instead of following the 6-month schedule.

Any piano players out there to advice?

Zara and Daddy falling asleep in the LRT

Here is a typical conversation you can hear when I’m doing revision with Zara.
“Are you paying attention or not Zara? Did you see what was the question?!”
“Can you write properly, they are different words, make sure there’s space, when it’s one word make sure the letters are together!”

Here is a typical conversation you can hear when Daddy is doing revision with Zara.
“Dad, don’t even say the ‘R’ word ok? I don’t want to hear it.”
“Dad, I’d done this so many times, did you pay attention to what revision you did last time or not?”

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When I ‘play’ with the girls, normally we do building blocks, cooking (I’m always the customer so I can just sit there with my book while the girls served me), or beading together.

When Daddy ‘plays’ with the girls, he’ll be the horse they ride on, he’ll be dancing ballet with them (imagine 6feet tall and tippy toe-ing with his girls), or he’ll run after them when they cycle.

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When I’m the one tucking in the girls, if we started reading at 10:15pm, I’ll rush through the book, and by 10:30pm, lights out, girls sleep.

When Daddy is the one tucking in the girls, at 11pm when I peeped in, he’ll still be reading.
I tell him, “Hello, lights out by 10:30pm. They have to go to school tomorrow ok?”
He’ll reply, “But they are enjoying the book.”
o.O”

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And this happen one day during breakfast.
Daddy having bread and jam and a cup of tea. He left his tea bag from his cup of tea on his plate.
When he wasn’t looking, Zara tore open the tea bag, sprinkled the wet tea dust on Daddy’s bread.
When Daddy bit into his bread, he spat everything out, and shouted for me to see what Zara did.
He then laughed and said, “You tricked me yeah?!!”
Then Zara, Zaria and him had a good laugh.
Imagine, if she did that on my bread….what’s going to happen?

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So besides not knowing what time the girls have to go to bed, what time their school starts or ends, what activities happen on what day, what medicine they should be eating (if they fell ill), whose cup is whose, or whose toothbrush is whose, and besides occasionally being his girls’ Knight in Shining Armour;

Daddy is more fun and Mummy is uptight.

(You’ll probably be able to relate to this more if you know Chinese)

After more than 4 months in a Chinese school, how is Zara doing in her Chinese? I would say she’s doing well, but her Chinese is probably at the level of a 5year old native speaker. I’ll quote some examples later.

What language do they speak in school? She told me when she’s in her class, she and her friends speak in Mandarin; but once outside the class, they will start conversing in English. Her school has many English speaking kids, so this is good, as she still gets to speak English while improving her Chinese. However, the down side is, she started mixing 2 languages in her speech, unconciously.

She told the teacher, an Indian, from the maths centre, “Teacher, I got 一百分for my maths in school.” She repeated a few times and couldn’t comprehends why the teacher didn’t understand her, not knowing she said, 一百分 instead of one hundred.

So to make her concious of only speaking 1 language at a time, I implemented a system for her and her (carpool) friend, James, in the car. Each day, they are to speak only 1 language, either English or Chinese, fully, on our journey home. On an English day, should they or even myself accidentally use any Chinese words, we’ll have to pay a RM0.10 fine, and vice versa.

Initially, we collected a lot of fines, but after a while, I saw them making a concious effort to speak only 1 language. This helps to improve their Chinese proficiency too, because on Chinese day, they’ll try very hard to find the word they need to describe something.

Here are some “Chinese Day” conversation taken on our journey home.

Zara : 今天，有个男孩子…err.. muak muak 我的朋友Ohana. [Today, there’s a boy who muak muak my friend Ohana] (obviously she doesn’t know how to say kiss in Chinese)
Me : 今天, 有个男孩子吻我的朋友 [Today, there’s a boy who kissed my friend] (corrected her)
Zara : (repeated) 吻我的朋友 [Kissed my friend]
Me : Ohana是马来人吗?[Is Ohana a Malay?]
Zara : 不是, 她是中文. [No, she’s Chinese language] o.O” (She’s supposed to say 华人or中国人the words for Chinese people)

She was playing this hand game with James.
Zara : 公鸡, 母鸡, 小鸡, kay-poh-jee [rooster, hen, chick, kay poh jee]
Me : kay-poh-jee 不是中文来的，kay-poh-jee中文是八卦 [kay poh jee (nosy) is not Mandarin, kay poh jee in Mandarin is 八卦]
James : 啊我知道, Bak-gua [Oh, I know, Bak-gua (BBQ pork slices in Hokkien)] o.O”

I asked James if he likes Chocolate cake.
James : 我不喜欢, 因为那个蛋糕很….我不会讲那个字, 我可以讲英文吗? [I don’t like, because the cake is very …. I don’t know how to say the word, can I speak English?]
Me : OK
James : Very strong (concentrated)
Zara : 哦我知道那个字, “很有力”. [oh, I know the word, it’s very strong (in strength).] o.O” She doesn’t know how to say the word 浓 (the Chinese word for concentrated).

Some of these I’d had put up on Facebook, but here is to put everything on 1 page.

Now although I’m a born Catholic, I rarely go to church, which means the girls too don’t go to church except the 2 times we went to attend my grandfather’s funeral service, and his memorial service.
One Sunday, I just felt like going to church, and I brought the girls along.
After a few minutes in the church, Zaria asked, “Nobody’s dead. So why are we here?” o.O”

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Most churches nowadays do have some sort of band, so the one that we went to is no exception. After attending that mass, we drove passed the mosque on a Friday and Zaria asked why there were so many cars parked along the road.
I explained to her that people are going to the mosque to play.
She asked, “Do they have a band in the mosque?” o.O”

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The was a particular week that she was extremely naughty.
I said to her, “these few days you very naughty huh?”
Zaria was quiet for a moment, then added, “Yeah yeah yeah, if you want to go to another country (remembering my Hong Kong trip), just go then. I still need you but if you don’t need me, you just go ahead and do it.” o.O”

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Over dinner, Zaria licked pieces of food fr the common dish, so I threatened to smack her if she did it again. She frowned and said You have a beautiful child and you want smack her?” o.O”

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Zaria kept asking for a chick as a pet after her visit to the Bird’s Park.
I told her, “Do you know chicks will grow up to be chickens? And what will you do when they are no longer cute and become chickens?”
She replied, “Then I fry it and eat it.” o.O” Talk about loyalty.

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We had a casual talk about growing old.
Zaria : “I don’t want you to grow old mom.”
Me : “But I’m going to grow old…. So what will you do when I grow old?”
Zaria : “I’ll push you into the river.” o.O”
Zara who over heard this chipped in : “You cannot push mommy into the river. You have to take care of her when she’s old.”
Zaria : “Ok then, I won’t push you into the river, I’ll bring you to jiejie’s house and she can take care of you.” o.O”
A couple of days later, I asked her if she really meant to put me in jiejie’s house, and she won’t look after me when I was old.
Zaria replied “I can always go and visit you, ok?” o.O”
Talk about filial peity.