Zen Hoflich

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!

Here is a picture of me with my new glasses, and some of my paintings.

I can’t believe it, February is over. Here is a picture of my new glasses, and some paintings I did recently.

Last year, Santa Claus gave me lots of Tintin books.  Also, my father gave me lots of other Tintin books. Now I have almost all of the Tintin books, except two.  This is what I think about those books:

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets – This is a very crazy story. There’s one part where Snowy says “I’ve been told that they have fleas there. Ah, I’m sleepy. So what – when I’m sleepy I take a nap. ZZZZZZ.” There is also a very interesting part, one man says “By Lenin’s beard, this time I’m going in.  Here he comes, full steam ahead. Take care Tintin, no good will come of this. Nothin but a brick wall can stop me. Do come in my dear sir. Help, Tintin’s gone mad.” I don’t quite understand the story, but I like the ghost part. There is actually a very cheeky part: one man is giving bread away, but he won’t give it to the boy who is not a Communist, he said “That’s what you get, dog.”

Tintin in the Congo – There’s actually a lot of sad things about Tintin in the Congo because a lot of animals died, and some people died too. The antelope part was very interesting because he shot a lot of times and they kept coming, but he didn’t know that he actually shot 15 antelope. Snowy said “I don’t understand, is this for supper tonight or tomorrow?” Tintin said “At last, but why on earth did I need 15 shots to kill one antelope?” The African people made a passenger train and he knocked out the train and it fell, that was so crazy. One of the African people said “wicked white man, see what you’ve done to my poor little balck boy.” Tintin said “I’m so very sorry.” Tintin again said “Quiet, we will mend your old chuff-chuff,” and one of the Africans said “Old chuff-chuff, that’s one very fine locomotive.”

Tintin in America – Tintin went to Chicago, USA in North America because he had some business to do with gangsters in 1931. Al Capone the leader of the gansters said to his men that Tintin, the world reporter number one is coming to clean up (to bring the gangsters to justice). When he took a train to Chicago, he went inside a taxi, but the taxi driver was one of Al Capone’s men. When he got out of the taxi he saw a motorcycle with a side-car with two police officers in it. Tintin told the police officer to arrest the taxi driver. When Tintin came out of the hospital a few days later, he wanted to take a taxi, but there was a trap door and men of Al Capone knocked him out with a club. When Tintin told a police officer, he said that he captured Al Capone and a couple of his men but the policeman refused to listen and he knocked Tintin out with a club. When he was in the hotel the next day at 11:55 PM, one of Al Capone’s men came in to his room and tried to capture Tintin, but Tintin went to the next window and he said “At your service, hands up!” The bad guy dropped his gun and when the police arrived, Tintin thought that they were real police detectives, but actually they were “Gangster’s Syndicate of Chicago” men. Then Tintin went to the West of the USA, where there were lots of native Americans. There he got captured by the native Americans, and they wanted to kill him with a tomahawk. So Tintin escaped while the native Americans were fighting each other. When Bobby Smiles heard that the fight was over, he went out to see what happened, but Tintin escaped and knocked out the whole tribe. He thought that he knocked out the whole tribe. Tintin ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. Finally, Tintin captured Bobby Smiles, but that wasn’t the end. There was still another boss of the gangsters, and they captured TIntin’s dog Snowy. A detective said that an hour later he would bring Tintin’s dog, but actually it was a false dog. He was a bad detective, Tintin was a much better detective. He went to jail once, but when the head detective asked him to say his name and occupation, he told the real truth, his name was Tintin and his occupation was reporter, and they let him go. He managed to rescue Snowy, but their troubles weren’t over yet. After the boss of the gangsters killed Maurice, Tintin went in and he took his gun. But the gun didn’t have any bullets, and the king of the gangsters had a sword in his hands as a stick. Tintin was invited for a dinner, but he was kidnapped by the gangsters and the detective took his dog, but he got kidnapped also and pulled Snowy by the neck. He found Tintin tied with ropes, and he got dropped in the river. After he got dropped in the river, he got rescued by the police, but actually it wasn’t a police boat it was a gangster officer. After Tintin had knocked him out, he tried to do bowling with the gangsters. He told them that he had to go to the nearest police station to take those crooks. After that, they celebrated Tintin for freedom, and he went back to Europe by boat.

Cigars of the Pharaoh – At the beginning of “Cigars of the Pharaoh”, Tintin is still in the same boat as the ending of “Tintin In America”, he is going back to Europe. While he was going to Europe, he met two detectives, Thomson and Thompson, who had to do some duties and Tintin was in trouble because some drug smugglers put the drugs in Tintin’s cabin, and Tintin had to go to jail. But when he saw a boat, he hopped onto it and went to Port Said. , Thomson and Thompson found out that Tintin had escaped, and Tintin found Professor Sarcophogus. When they found the tomb of a pharaoh, and it was a hide-out for drug smugglers – they hid the drug inside the tomb of the pharaoh. After that, then some drugs made them sleep and put him in a coffin. When they woke up, they were in the middle of the Red Sea, after some time a storm came but it was something like a nightmare and Tintin was resting in a ship. Tintin made a long journey in the Sahara desert and ended up in the army, but the soldiers thought that he betrayed the army, so a colonel put him to jail and ordered him shot to death the next day. Tintin was saved by Thomson and Thompson, what a surprise. After that, he found a plane and escaped to India, there he found an elephant and had a fever. Then he met other elephants and they had an elephant party. It was amazing that Elephants also care about humans. Then the elephant took Tintin and Sarcophagus to a bungalow, there were a few people and they stayed overnight. The next morning, Tintin went to the forest to discover a few things. When Sarcophagus followed Tintin, he found out that it wasn’t Sarcophagus was the one who was trying to kill him but someone else. Those people use something called rajajah juice, this makes the person go crazy all the time, and some bad people used it on many innocent. But Tintin saved the day by escaping and discovering the drug smugglers. He caught all of them by banging their heads with a bat. But the fakir who had the rajajah juice escaped. After a short while, the police arrived and Tintin chased the fakir and the mysterious leader, whose name we don’t know. In the very end, Tintin stayed with the king for a few days and went to China.

The Blue Lotus –

The Broken Ear –

The Black Island –

King Ottokar’s Sceptre –

The Crab With The Golden Claws –

The Shooting Star –

The Secret of the Unicorn –

Red Rackham’s Treasure –

The Seven Crystal Balls –

Prisoners of the Sun –

Land of Black Gold –

Destination Moon –

Explorers on the Moon –

The Calculus Affair –

The Red Sea Sharks –

Tintin in Tibet –

The Castafiore Emerald –

Flight 714 –

Tintin and the Picaros –

Tintin and Alph-Art –

I woke up with a start.  I didn’t even now that I was inside an airplane, so I said “hey, did we abort the plane already?” So I said to myself “Mama mia, papa pia, baby’s got a diarrhea.” Mama and I had breakfast on the airplane at 7:00 or 6:00, I forgot. We landed at 8:00 in Kansai International Airport. The date was Monday, November 23rd. From the airport, we went by bus to Himeji and there we saw my Japanese grandparents. On the first day I didn’t have to go to school, I could just rest. I saw Nanaka, my cousin, she is now nine years old (I am eight years old). Her birthday is May 9th.

The second day I went to school. Everyone was so happy because I was back.

From the third day I went to school as usual, studied math, Japanese, art, music, etc. One day we had a race, we all had to run about one kilometer around a sports field. I was 68th.

Japan is very beautiful, but they have to improve on the garbage and the dog poo and clean it up.

The weather in Japan was very cold.

In Japan the most important holiday is O-shogatsu, this is New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. All my cousins came, even some of their parents came. When everybody came at night, we had a very big party with lots of crabs, which actually my Canadian grandmother doesn’t like or else she will vomit or something like that. The people all said “let’s work hard even this year, 2010.” I went to sleep at 9:00 with mama. On New Year’s Day, I woke up with a start. I went to eat breakfast with my Japanese grandparents and I received more than Y10,000, I felt very happy because now I am richer than before.

We came back to Singapore on January 3rd, I was sweating a lot because it’s so hot in Singapore, although it was raining. We took a taxi and came back home. After supper, I opened my Christmas presents, most of them were Tintin books. One of them was actually a Star Wars toy, it was the Millenium Falcon Lego set. Actually, I really wanted one toy and the rest were books.

This hero is 18 metres tall. He has a rocket, he is a very old character from Japanese comic books, his name is Tetsujin Number 28. First of all, I climbed about one metre on the foot part, it was made of iron. I went there with my Japanese grandmother and my mother.

We went to Himeji castle one day to see a view, it was very beautiful. Can you believe that a castle could stand at least 400 years?! I went there with Edwin and Watanabe-san, our friends from living in Singapore.

One day we made sticky rice cakes (mochi), which Japanese make every winter. My five cousins helped, they were Yuuta, Nanaka, Haruka and Shiota. Yuuta is ten years old. Nanaka is nine years old, Haruka is 13 years old, and Shiota is three years old.

On January 17th, I woke up with a start. I got into my uniform, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, etc. So we called a taxi and we go to Turf City, where we had a softball tournament, at 6:45. Then we had a softball practice at 8:00 sharp. We then had a game, but we lost. After that, we had another game. This Coconuts got 10 points, and Little Stars got 13 points. But in this game, we were actually very strong. After the first inning we were winning 5:4, and after the second inning we were still winning, 7:6. We shouted “batter go, batter go,” and we got a lot of hits and points. But none of us hit a home run. Also, the pitcher was very good, and also we worked very well to get the Little Stars runners out at third base, or at the home plate. But then we had a problem – the Little Stars were still very strong in the third inning, and we didn’t get enough points to beat them. It’s too bad, but I felt quite excited in the first inning, but in the second inning I said “oh no.”
After that we ate lunch and I climbed up the hill with my friends, it was quite exciting, but two of my friends were pushing down one of my other friends, so they got into a fight, but my other friend who was knocked down, he said “stop that, stop that,” but they didn’t listen. No one was hurt in the end, and then we went back home and I watched some Arashi and went to the swimming pool with my dad.  We had dinner and some fruit and played Black Peter card game, then I went to sleep.  Good night.

Here is the picture of the score board that shows that we were winning in the second inning (yay).

Today, the 22nd of November, I watched Fantastic Mr Fox with my parents at West Mall at 10:40 AM.  My grandparents (my father’s mother and father) were here, but they went grocery shopping, so they didn’t come.  I read the Roald Dahl book before I saw Fantastic Mr Fox.  The movie is exciting.  The part where Kylie and Mr Fox had an electric shock by the fence of Boggis, Bunce and Bean (the ugly farmers) was so funny.  They said “aahh, eeeh, oooh, aahh, eeeh…”, something like that.

The three ugly farmers shot Mr Fox’s tail off his body.  One of his children got caught in a trap.  So one more of Mr Fox’s children went inside and freed the other one.  He learned how to chop the cage into half.

Tonight I am going to Japan.  I am sad because then I cannot see my grandparents (my fathers mother and father), but I can see my other grandparents (my mother’s mother and father).  My mother’s father and mother will be happy that I came to Japan.  When I am in Japan I will eat sushi, go to a Japanese local primary school.  After we go to the airplane I will be sleeping right away, because the flight will be at 1:00 AM in the morning!

Today was my baseball game. We had two matches with two other teams.

Today is my birthday. I am going to invite some of my classmates and from other classes to my birthday party. Two of the people I invited are Abrar and Kanaya, they are from the same family. I am looking forward to my party, and I can’t wait!

I got some nice birthday presents. From my Oma and Opa I got two Transformer toys. From my mom and dad I got three books: Roald Dahl’s “Matilda”, a book about the universe, and a book about the human body.

Every Saturday I have art class. Every time we will draw a different kind of picture. We usually draw people and buildings.  Once we even drew a bird standing on a plant, and below it there were three fish, and lots of flowers.  The bird has a red beak, yellow feathers, orange wings, and a pink tail.  I thought I could get A+ for this picture, but actually my teacher gave me an A.  My mother chose this picture as the best, and she put it into one of the frames and hung it on the wall in my room.

Three frogs are going to sing, and their children are cheering them on.   One of the frogs is singing, the second frog sat down there with a sad smile, and the third one laughed at the first frog who is singing.  I really like this picture a lot, it is one of my favourites.

There are two pupils sweeping the classroom.  There is a small chair and a desk for the pupils to study.  There is a window like a jail, and there is a fish tank that is shaped like Mount Fuji.

There is a cup, shampoo, a tissue box, and a treasure box.  The cup has a lot of bees and flowers, the bees are flying around to drink nectar to fill their stomachs, and after that they will be able to make honey from it.   The shampoo has some paper on it, its pump is brown and the bottle is red.  The paper is orange.  The treasure box has a lot of different things: there is a flower with zig zags and two circles beside it

I don’t really like this picture, because it is so ugly.  It is ugly because I drew a line and the blue paint was over it.

This painting is very interesting because there is seaweed around the six fish.  Two of them are sticking together, two of them are talking together, and one is swimming around the five fish.  This is my dad’s favourite picture because it is very difficult to draw fish in water, and he says it is very good – it really looks like the fish are in that water.

The people are watching a parade, there are three types of flags: Singapore, Japan and the USA.  I drew this picture by myself for Singapore’s birthday on August 8th, 2009.  There is a person with some parachutes, he is landing.  The Indian boy is talking to the Chinese girl.  They even drew some flowers for decoration.  A lot of people are watching them as they go onto the stage, it looks very scary.  The fighter jet is passing by the parade, and the pilot is just looking down.  I drew this because it was Singapore’s 44th birthday.

There is a lemon, a pumpkin and a wax gourd.  This wasn’t so difficult for me to draw, but it took more than one hour, it took about one hour and fifteen minutes.  I drew tic-tac-toe because I really like tic-tac-toe.

I drew a jaguar, a rabbit and a snake.  The snake is very colourful, so it should be very poisonous.   I did not know how to draw the rabbit, so I drew it half black and half orange, it doesn’t look so good to me.  The jaguar is sitting on top of a branch, it must be searching for its prey.

In this picture, there is a boy and a dog running in the park.  I think they are running in West Coast Park in Singapore.  There are lots of buildings, so it should be near a city.

There are four rabbits and a boy.  The boy is giving a carrot to the rabbit.  The rabbit wants to get it.

There are two boys, they are exercising and their home is near them.  They have a radio with them.  There are high rise flats, and some people put some laundry on the sticks and hung them up outside of their windows.  I hope they will not fall into the bushes.

There is a boy going back home.  A girl doesn’t have her umbrella, so the boy shared his umbrella with the little girl.  There are four buildings near the boy and the girl.  “Fish ‘n’ Co” is the name of a restaurant in Singapore.  I think it is a good painting and drawing because they look handsome and neat and the pictures of the buildings are good.

This one I drew by myself, no teacher helped me so I drew a Singapore Airlines painting.  But it was no good.  I think I got a B- for this picture.  There is a sea under an airplane, the airplane is heading for Osaka Kansai International Airport.

I drew a Singapore Airlines airplane again because I like it.  The plane is going to take off, because it is going very fast.  This is a Boeing 747.  I did it all by myself, but not the colouring – my father did the colouring.

There is a papaya, a lotus root, some carrots and some radish and an ear of corn in a basket.  There are lines so there are many different colours, but I don’t know what you call this.  I like this painting because it has different colours.

There are three cats at the bus stop.  There is a bus driver coming to a bus stop.  I think this is Paris because there is an Eiffel Tower.  I like this painting because it’s in France.

There are some snakes in a zoo, those are poisonous snakes and some snake eggs.  Some of them are hatching.  The kids are looking at the snakes from outside of the enclosure because if they are in the cage they can’t escape easily.  One snake is going up the tree because it wants to catch a bird for its prey, and one of them is curling around, and there are baby snakes following a mother snake.  I like this painting because it has snakes and it is very wonderful.

There is two ways – one of them is the zoo, and the other is the beach.  The truck is going to the zoo with a giraffe, an elephant and a lion.  The lion is roaring loudly because it wants to escape and the elephant is yelling for help, and the giraffe is staying still because he doesn’t want to make any noise.  So the driver controlling the car cannot concentrate.  I like this picture because it’s the right size for me.  But the teacher thinks it’s too small.

It is now Mid-Autumn Festival in Singapore.  There is a table with a grandmother holding a stick, and a barbecue pit.   There are some lanterns hanging around the neighbourhood.  Some people are walking around the neighbourhood to show what they have in their hands.  There is a bench for people to sit down and pond for people to splash water at each other.  I like this picture because it is now Mid-Autumn Festival.

Today I woke up at 7:45 AM – I mean PM (just kidding).  I ate toast for breakfast, brushed my teeth, wore my clothes, studied, and got dressed in record time.  Then we went to the cinema.  The cinema was at West Mall, a part of Bukit Batok.  We watched Up, it was a United States movie about going up.  In the story, there was an old man, but his wife was dead.  He was very sad when his wife died and there were also a lot of balloons for the house to go up to Paradise Falls in South America.  The wife drew a picture of Paradise Falls when she was young, so they always wanted to go there.  And the husband had a very good idea, they put a lot of balloons and went up.  And the movie’s name is, of course, Up.  In Paradise Falls there were a lot of talking dogs, because they had a special collar that helped them talk.  One of those speaking dogs was good, and the other ones were bad.

I felt sad about the movie, because the wife died.  Lots of dogs fell into a river that was just next to the falls.  After that there were some dogs flying planes, driving, and there was one bone in front of them, so when they pressed it bullets shot out of the hole.  There were two holes, so the dogs, when they pressed once, two bullets came out.

The movie was very cool!

I am 嵐 Arashi’s fan. I like Arashi-sh-shi-shi… echo-echo-echo-echo… I love 嵐 Arashi, I love it so much I’ll have a heart attack.

Zen sings 嵐 Arashi’s “Truth”