In nineteen ninety eight we live in Boston, USA, The whole family was there and because of that it was just like home. It is a great city and we love it, the scenery in the fall was really beyond our imagination, the foliage were so colorful with various shades of colour, it was vibrant and indeed a sight to see, someone say that the new England's states are just like a part of haven during the fall. I believe it is so. It is really beautiful and pleasing to eyes. It is indeed a God's blessing to all that had the opportunity to be there during the fall. When winter come, it is another story, the first day of winter is the best sight, it is so white and so clean that one thence to forget of the dirt and the misery of everyday life, it is as though God cleansed everything at this time of the year, so that we could start a fresh, come spring. I am indeed glad that I had this opportunity to live there and feel at home in a foreign land. Although we live in America, we continue to live as Malaysian, like cooking our own food and do the daily ritual just like home. One day our rice cooker, one of the most important utensil that we regularlly use was out of order, and it is not easy to find a replacement in Boston, the only place we could find one is at China Town or at the Chinese Supermarket and it was not easy. So what do we do, and my wife say that we have to cook rice manually, what.. everyone asked, cooking rice manually?, it is a thing that we never thought would reappear, we have taken for granted that cooking rice now is an automatic process by using the rice cooker and now that the rice cooker is not working, what to do. Well before the coming of the rice cooker we all cook rice the traditional way and it was easy for our parents, for that is what they did all their lives and they never heard of the rice cooker but the present generation have lost touch of how to cook rice without a rice cooker, it look like to be a simple problem, but it is actually not that simple, for cooking rice the old way is not that easy, the rice after being washed and then put in a pot with a lid, water had to be added and this is the difficult part [in the rice cooker there is a marking of the much of water one had to add to a ratio of rice to be cooked] but in an ordinary pot one had to find a formula of the ratio of water to the amount of rice using the traditional way, luckily my wife and me still know the old way and using our way to determine the amount of water we manage to get the rice cooked manually. It look to be a simple thing, cooking rice but when your rice cooker do not work, that what make thing suddenly became a problem, so my friend do not take for granted in the old way,now that we have every gadgets to do the work for us. Remember when there are no electricity or the gadgets do not work, we had to resort to the old way of our ancestor do.....cook manually....ever think of cooking rice manually, if you have not then it is time that you take some time or once a while to do it the old way..... and perhaps this old way could save the day....