the relish dish

2009-07-11T07:58:00.007+08:00

A TALE OF TWO ROYALTIES

Recently when I asked somenone what he thought of the Kelantan royalty issue, he remarked: "Oh, she's gone home to huru-hara in Indonesia."

He was joking, of course - a rare trait in a lawyer - as he knew I was referring to the other royalty issue: the oil money allegedly owed by PETRONAS to Kelantan.

But I suppose one has to maintain a certain level of lightheartedness to see the two issues with a degree of levelheadedness.

The Kelantan Prince's alleged abuse of his estranged Indonesian wife Manohara, initially sensationalised by the media, is slowly losing its appeal even in her home country, especially when bits and pieces of what look like legitimate and credible information about her mother and her possible motives keep surfacing.

Personally, I have always maintained that no one would really know about what goes on behind closed doors, be it of a palace boudoir or of an ordinary folks' bedroom. And there are always, always, always two sides to a story, any story.

One should hope that given due time and appropriate perspective, a clearer picture would emerge to cast away doubts and unhappiness so that the Prince and his bride could re-build their life (if they choose to) and live happily ever after.

The same degree of levelheadedness should apply when it comes to the Kelantan oil royalty claims. One needs to question the basis of the claims. Are they based on sound legal ground, or are they politically manipulated?

The lawyer with the sense of humour said the claims do not hold water, much less oil. He said it has been legally established that all states in Malaysia are only entitled to royalty payments if oil and gas are found and produced within their land and water territories. Their water territories are only up to three nautical miles from their respective shoreline. The areas beyond the three nautical miles from the shoreline are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government.

Now, it is also factually known that there's no producing oil and gas fields within the three nautical miles from the country's shoreline. The producing fields offshore Kelantan are in the waters jointly claimed and owned by the Thai and Malaysian governments. Another area is jointly claimed and owned by the Malaysian and Vietnamese governments.

But what about Terengganu, and Sabah and Sarawak, which are enjoying the oil and gas royalty? Terengganu, it seems, received some sort of ex-gratia payments until these were disputed a few years ago. This dispute is still being resolved in the courts of law. Sabah and Sarawak are another story, I was made to understand, as they had long receivid the oil benefits even before the country came into being.

To those who are quick to say that Kelantan has been robbed of what is rightfully hers, I would suggest that they should do a bit of research. Learning about the history of your own country would also help.

And those listening to these people should take the claims with a cupful of salt.

Sea salt.

2008-06-24T23:57:00.005+08:00

PHILISTINE LEADERS VS FIFTH GRADERS

A friend sent me this quote today, which I think aptly describes part of our country's state of affairs today. Well, at least when it comes to the way some of our elected leaders think and behave.

"Welcome to our land of philistines. Here we devalue the intellect, engage in trivial pursuits, encourage dumbing down and embrace a culture of flattery. We treat people like children.”

Case in point? Some MPs are bent on making themselves sound very stupid and uninformed just to play to certain audience, not unlike contestants on Fox's "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader".

Why do they keep doing that is beyond me. I mean, I do understand the concept of taking populist positions to advance political careers. But to what extent?

If by making uninformed statements only make them look and sound stupid, I don't mind so much. That's after all their decision.

But what about the rakyat that voted for them and hang on to their every word? In what way would stupid and uninformed statements help the rakyat?

None! They will continue to be misled, and their children will grow up misinformed. Life is after all a cycle. Good begets good, and vice versa.

So grow up. Be the leaders you promised to be. The rakyat are your paying audience. Give them what they truly deserve.

2008-06-24T17:43:00.006+08:00

CONSPIRACY BUBBLE HAS BEEN BURST

I came across this article in the Singapore Business Times, written by its KL Correspondent S. Jayasankaran (formerly of The Far Eastern Economic Review).

MALAYSIA INSIGHT

Bursting conspiracy bubbles
Petronas is neither hiding accounts nor squandering assets; central bank chief quit Khazanah board to head off conflict

HERE seems to be an increasing trend towards conspiracy theories and finding scapegoats in Kuala Lumpur these days.

And the latest, going by remarks uttered over television, relates to Petroliam Nasional, or Petronas.

There are two distinct themes here. The first, echoed by First Son-in-Law and Umno deputy youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin is that the oil corporation isn't transparent because it allegedly does not publish its annual accounts. In short, by being deliberately obtuse, Petronas could be playing fast and loose with the people's money.

The other alleges that the national oil company is making obscene profits at a time when the ordinary people are reeling from a 41 per cent hike in fuel prices.

Both themes are incorrect, although the first could have been true back in the 1980s when Petronas seemed very secretive. Not any more.

The national oil corporation is an international borrower, having raised money through both Yankee and Samurai bonds and international bondholders expect nothing less than complete transparency from issuers.

Petronas bonds have always been snapped up and generally held until maturity. Its accounts are also lodged with the Companies Commission and can even be downloaded from its website. As a former investment banker, Mr Khairy should have checked before shooting from the hip.

There is no denying that Petronas is making record profits - which have risen to RM46.4 billion (S$19.4 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2007 from 2003's RM15 billion.

Out of that amount, however, it gave RM20 billion back to the government in dividends. It has over RM102 billion cash and investments and it will probably make net profits of over RM70 billion for 2008.

But the company should not be attacked for using some of that money to forage for new supplies here and abroad. New investment is the key to its survival so it should be commended for doing so, not pilloried.

On another matter, we might want to consider the sudden resignation last week of Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz from the board of federal government investment agency Khazanah Nasional, an event that set tongues a-wagging in the capital because the central bank governor has traditionally sat on the agency's board and, indeed, chaired its audit committee.

Actually, Ms Zeti resigned from the audit committee more than a year ago and her resignation from the board was always just a matter of time given the potential conflict of interest following Khazanah's increasing investments in the banking sector, both locally and abroad.

Ever since Azman Mokhtar took over as the agency's head in 2004, Khazanah has expressed its intentions to increase its exposure to the financial sector.

Indeed, it immediately went about this by increasing its interest in the Bank of Commerce to over 25 per cent from 8 per cent and then engineering the consolidation of that bank with Bank Bumiputra to form CIMB, Malaysia's second largest bank.

One can only imagine Ms Zeti's discomfort when CIMB set about its hostile takeover of Southern Bank almost two years ago. The latter had even appealed to the central bank for help at one stage.

And now that Khazanah is beginning to eye foreign takeovers, it is best that Ms Zeti leaves lest her foreign counterparts in central banking look askance at her position.

2008-06-18T22:08:00.003+08:00

I LOVE MY COUNTRY. I LOVE PETRONAS.

I guess a lot of Malaysians caught PETRONAS’ Chief Tan Sri Hassan Marican on RTM1 last night, doing his bit to help explain where the national oil company fits in the complex jigsaw puzzle that led to the steep rise in global crude oil and fuel prices.

All in all, it was quite a good effort. A lot of things were explained and made quite clear -- its role and responsibility, its contributions to the Government as part of this responsibility and its commitment not only towards its own growth and sustainability, but also towards the future of the industry so that PETRONAS and the industry could continue to generate optimized income for the country. If you happened to watch Bernama TV's Helo Malaysia immediately after the show, the two panel members – the ex-KLSE chief and the FOMCA Sec-Gen –- who discussed the same issue made good arguments for PETRONAS.

Now that we know that PETRONAS had contributed RM336 billion of its accumulated profit to the Government over the past 33 years, logically we should now be questioning how this money was spent and allocated by the Government. I mean, this is a huge sum by any standard. PETRONAS says the amount is 65% of its accumulated profit. That means, for every RM1 profit that PETRONAS made, it gave back 65 sen to the Government. How this money is spent by the Government is not PETRONAS' responsibility.

What touched me the most was Tan Sri Hassan’s last word on the show, where he conveyed the message from his 30,000 or so employees who don’t understand why they are being attacked left, right, front and centre, when they work so hard for the country. I feel sorry for PETRONAS’ staff because I know they work their behinds off for the company, especially in the current scenario where all oil companies are competing for access to oil reserves that are increasingly limited and harder to find.

As for their personal performance, I was told that each of the PETRONAS’ employees has to sign an individual performance contract at the beginning of the company’s financial cycle stating his or her performance target for the year and what he or she has to deliver. If by the end of the year he or she doesn’t deliver, there’ll be no salary increase or bonus.

I would think this is rather stressful. On top of that, they are required to cut operational costs in their own areas of responsibility by at least 30% a year. I guess this is one of the reasons why when other oil companies record minimal rise in profits, PETRONAS continue to perform excellently, because staff helped keep operational cost down while the costs for equipment, drilling etc rose exponentially.

Now that PETRONAS has explained, I guess it’s the Government’s turn now to do its bit. It has been doing a poor job at trying to educate the public on why fuel subsidies have to be reduced so much and so drastically. But judging from what I have read and heard, I’m not sure how many of our so-called elected leaders (both from the BN and Opposition camps) understand enough about the industry to accurately explain the situation to their constituents.

The past few days, we also heard and read allegations made by the Penang Chief Minister YAB Lim Guan Eng about PETRONAS. Personally, I feel most of these allegations are incitement or “hasutan” in nature. He claims that PETRONAS has private jets and helicopters, and PETRONAS’ officials live lavishly like kings in huge mansions.

I don’t know which PETRONAS’ officials he is talking about. A lot of people know that Tan Sri Hassan and his family stay in a modest house in a not-so-posh area in Ampang. Even some taxi drivers who have had to drive staff to his house expressed their disbelief that he actually lives there.

Yes, he does travel for business by a leased jet. But I guess I wouldn’t expect him to fly commercial – with various flight connections, potential delays or cancellations – when he has meetings, negotiations and billion-dollar deals to make. Time is of the essence, so is safety.

Looking at Mr. Lim’s continuous attacks, I’m led to believe that he might have a personal agenda against Tan Sri Hassan. A little bird told me that the two of them used to work together in an accountancy firm long ago. Could there be old grouses at play here? I don’t know.

Like I said in my previous posts, I expect a lot from my elected political leaders. When they promise they would bring about change, I thought they would behave differently from their counterparts, they would be fair, they would tell the truth to the rakyat and so on. I forgot politicians are politicians -- they are not accountable for anything.

Naïve me.

2008-04-08T19:01:00.012+08:00

A MONTH OF HOPE AND HOPELESSNESS

It's been exactly a month since the masses spoke and elected their leaders: the men and women they believe would effect change and create some kind of impact on their lives -- at least for the next five years or so.

Yet, what have the leaders done? Not much.

Unhappy campers and gang are not done pointing fingers at each other, instead of really looking deep inside themselves, drawing strength -- and perhaps finding solutions -- from comments and criticism to heal and start delivering what the masses really deserve.

After all, the mandate is theirs again to lead (yes, lead). So, please start leading.

The newly empowered opposition coalition is faring better, if only slightly. At least the component parties are showing some conciliatory efforts towards meeting the expectations of their respective constituents. Although some of the stuff they said and the statements made left me quite disappointed.

In this new order of things I am hoping for a much better deal -- more informed, learned and honest leaders way above those whose BS we were so used to having.

If you a Chief Minister and want some company to come finance a project, let's say a bridge, in your state you'd better spell out a proper commercial mechanism of how this company could come in, because in the end, the company (like any other profit-oriented entity) would only enter into something on a commercial basis. After all, it is a company.

You just don't go and say, "Hey, I know you have loads of cash, so you should use some of it to finance my bridge."

And if you're a newly elected MP and want to show that you know stuff, you'd better make sure you do know stuff. Making claims that the cost of producing oil has not changed much from donkey years before does not make much sense, especially when operating expenditures have skyrocketed to the heavens above. So you'd better make sure you have your calculations right when you speak.

I find it really frustrating when people in the position of power position themselves as experts in something they don't know crap about. And the sad part is, what they say -- how political or politicised -- becomes gospel among the misguided masses.

Please, the masses deserve better.

2008-03-13T23:32:00.002+08:00

I LOVE MY COUNTRY

I am so very happy nowadays. In fact, I have never been happier. And yes, the results of the recently concluded general elections have a lot to do with my current state of happiness. They were exactly what I had wished and hoped for.

Some of the candidates who won really deserve the votes, including the MP of my constituency, who was re-elected with a "thumping" majority. Yes, she has been doing a good job. I am happy for her, for me, for everyone in the constituency.

Yes, I am happy. Blissful? Not really. Euphoric? Far from it. It's only been a few days since the votes were cast and counted, but there are already some disturbing developments. Not that these were totally unexpected.

Statements and suggestions have been made by our newly elected leaders. Some are really misinformed, some irresponsible, and some presented as the absolute truths without any corroboration. Which makes one wonder over the wisdom of one's choice for one's leader.

When we vote for a leader, we vote for his ability, his aspiration, his wisdom, his foresight, his vision, his passion, his compassion and his honesty, humility and sincerity in wanting to lead us to a better place, to better things.

We don't want a leader who promises us the moon and the stars but never tells us how he would bring down the moon and the stars to us. We don't want a leader who makes bold demands and claims but doesn't really understand the rules and reality of things.

Leaders must lead, not mislead. They must be informed, not misinformed. We've had enough of those.

It's time we changed. For real.

Note: Wetbenang had been temporarily indisposed, which explains why this site was dormant for a while. He apologises for his long absence, but promises a gradual comeback.

2007-08-13T23:32:00.001+08:00

LIFE, DEATH -- PART IV

So glory to Him in Whose hands is the dominion of all things, and to Him you will all be brought back. -- Surah Yaasin: 83

The mobile rang. It was 1.45pm, Saturday, August 4. “Salaam, Abang. Are you still on the way? Oh, that’s about 45 minutes to here already. I just wanted to tell you that Uncu has passed away. Ten minutes ago. Drive safely, and see you here soon.”

Ayong, ever so polite, ever so calm, hung up. Many more people to call, many things to arrange for.

My heart sank, and sank, and sank. I had so wanted to visit Uncu again, but duty and travel had not permitted. And that Saturday, I resolved to go see him.

The three-hour ride to the hospital felt like forever. It's always like that, isn't it? Time seems like an eternity when you want less of it, but flies by in a blink when you desperately need more of it.

Three years ago, I promised myself that I wouldn’t turn into this person who’d put work and everything else before family and loved ones.

I kept that promise for two years. This year, the promise was broken. And with that, several hearts as well.

Sorry I am. Shame I bear. Regrets I live with.

There is a time for everything

And a season for every activity under heaven

A time to be born and a time to die

A time to plant and a time to uproot

And a time to kill and a time to heal

A time to weep and a time to laugh

A time to mourn and a time to dance

A time to embrace and a time to refrain

A time to search and a time to give up

A time to keep and a time to throw away

A time to love and a time to hate

A time for war and a time for peace

– From the film "Two Brothers" by Richard Bell

2007-07-11T17:26:00.000+08:00

CAR THEFTS: TERRORISTS CONNECTION?

According to the police, luxury vehicles stolen in Malaysia are smuggled overseas for sale to fund terrorist and criminal organisations.

Between January and May of this year, close to 5,000 luxury vehicles were reported stolen in this country for this purpose, an increase of 11.5 per cent compared to the same period last year, says a Bernama report. That's 1,000 vehicles a month.

These vehicles make up part of the three million units stolen from Asia, Europe and North America annually, worth an estimated US$21 billion.

Describing the theft and smuggling of vehicles as a worldwide phenomenon, Federal CID director Datuk Christopher Wan said: “Such proceeds from ill-gotten gains might be used to supply and strengthen criminal or terrorist organisations."

Trafficking and smuggling of stolen vehicles, says Wan, are mainly the work of structured and sophisticated global criminal groups.

No rocket science theory, here. Otherwise they'd have been completely busted by now, kan, despite repeated newspaper headlines claiming they've been at least crippled.

OK, if luxury vehicles are stolen to fund terrorist and criminal organisations, what about the not so luxury makes? What organisations are being funded by the proceeds from their thefts?

A friend of mine lost his car from a parking lot at the Bukit Jalil stadium a couple of days ago.

When we went to lodge a report, the police said car thefts in that particular area were now a regular occurrence.

Assuming that the police can't really do much about the problem -- after all car theft rings are extremely sophisticated and organised -- the parking lot operator at the stadium should at least do something about this.

Install some measures to make it slightly more difficult for car thiefs to drive away from the lot. Think of the interest and peace of mind of the hundreds of your customers who park there on a daily basis.

This is not too much to ask, if you ask me.

2007-06-29T17:34:00.000+08:00

WE ARE FAMOUS

When it comes to getting bad press, Malaysia is an over-achiever. The country and its people seem to always be in the limelight for all the wrong reasons, one after another.

The focus du jour is a certain murder intrigue, last week was the maid escape, and a few weeks before were the bocor brouhaha. So depressing, so embarrassing, so exasperating.

I was in Indonesia last week, and Ceriyati the poor maid made news everywhere. Her plight received the attention of all major newspapers and TV stations. There were demonstrations in the city, particularly near the Malaysian embassy, where her family members rightly demanded justice.

(I wish Malaysians were as spirited as their Indonesian brethrens, so that every time a Malaysian citizen is robbed, raped or murdered by Indonesians living here, we would all be motivated to hold demonstrations. And at the rate crimes are committed nowadays, we could hold demonstrations every day).

Anyway, a few years ago, domestic help abuse was rather unheard of in Malaysia. Often times, cases of abuse happened only in our southern neighbour. I worked in that tiny republic then, and almost every week you’d read of people somewhere hurting their maid. Now, it’s happening more in Malaysia.

According to a report by Foreign Correspondent, Malaysia has become Asia’s largest importer of labour, most of whom come from neighbouring Indonesia. Across the country Indonesian maids are keeping house and minding children, freeing up the country’s middle class to make money. Ninety five per cent of the maids are from Indonesia. Coming here to work is well within their comfort zone because they speak almost a similar language and most are Muslim.

But once they are here, the story take a different turn for some unfortunate few. Some are sexually abused, some physically harmed, while some others don’t get paid.

Officials at the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which has sheltered thousands of allegedly abused maids, say they have a pattern along employers’ racial make-up.

The Ambassador was quoted as saying: “If sexual harassment, it must be done by Indian ethnics. And for torture, slapping and so on, it’s by Chinese employer, while payment problems are from Malays."

Whatever it is, something must be done, and quickly too, to stop the abuse. There has been a lot of talk, but little action, taken. The onus must be on the government – both Indonesian and Malaysian – to work on the solution. Change the legislation. Introduce minimum wage. Give the maids off days.

And those who abuse their maids? Give them maximum punishment. Teach them a very expensive (and painful) lesson that they have no right whatsoever to hurt another human being. The miserable few hundred ringgit they pay a month (if they do pay) do not earn them a slave who’d be on their beck and call 24/7.

If all fails, perhaps we can all devise a way to let them taste their own medicine.

2007-06-14T15:43:00.000+08:00

WHEN YOU FACE DEATH, DIRECT ACCESS IS BEST

(Telekom Malaysia today clarifies a few things in the NST over its 999 number. Please see my additional text.)

From next year, only 999 will, again, be used as the common number for all emergency calls. This, says Internal Security, is “in line with efforts to coordinate all emergency calls made to the police, health and fire and rescue departments as well as other security agencies”, which currently use different numbers. The move is also made to “overcome the problem of ‘missed’ and crank calls, it says. And Telekom Malaysia has been tasked to handle the new system.

Under the current system, the 999 number is for police and ambulance, 991 for Civil Defence Department and 994 for Fire & Rescue. The latter two numbers were introduced in 1991, ironically to address the problem of missed and unanswered 999 calls back then.

I guess a single number is a good idea, as there would be less confusion on the part of the public over which number to call during emergency situations. What’s not such a good idea, in my humble (and maybe ill-informed) opinion, is to let Telekom Malaysia operate the number, when the police has been requesting that all distress calls be directly routed to its command centres to reduce the time it would take to respond to emergencies.

According to NST, the police have contended for years that emergency response times could be drastically reduced if 999 calls are patched through directly to its dispatchers. The police also believe that emergency response times would continue to be slow while Telekom Malaysia operators take emergency calls because 999 is a "hunting" line. At present, emergency calls are handled by the same operators who usually handle enquiries on telephone number listings. (Telekom Malaysia says 999 is not a hunting line, and calls to this line are not put on queue. The calls are also handled by emergency service centre staff, and not the operators who also handle regualr enquiries).

This means a call put through from Kuala Lumpur to 999 could be picked up by an operator in Kuala Terengganu or Kuching if the operators in the city are busy, for example. Delays arise when operators unfamiliar with streets and addresses in the city spend valuable seconds or minutes determining the exact location of a caller who may well be facing a life and death situation. (Telekom Malaysia says it takes six seconds to verify emergency calls, and another 10 seconds to hand over the call to the relevant parties such as the police or ambulance.)

The Telekom operator would also have to spend time locating the correct police station or command centre to relay the information. Such delays appear to have driven the police to set up their own hotline service, Rakan Cop, in 2004. The service has helped speed up police response times tremendously. But this could be even quicker if 999 calls are patched through directly to police command centres, according to NST’s sources. (See above paragraph).

According to NST also, Telekom Malaysia refuses to hand over control of the 999 number to police unless it is paid between RM500 million and RM1 billion for its user database, to which the police need access to facilitate faster response time.(Telekom Malaysia denies ever asking for money for its subscriber database. It says 999 is a free service as part of its social obligation, and caller information is given free on a call-to-call basis)

Like millions of other Malaysians, I am extremely anxious over this. When you are faced with a life and death emergency situation, you’d want to receive assistance within the fastest possible time. In my opinion, unless Telekom Malaysia has something brilliant up its sleeve to improve the current situation, it would be best to leave the handling of 999 calls directly in the hands of the police.

(Telekom Malaysia says it has been working with the police for the past 30 years, and from its experience, only one per cent of the more than 40,000 emergency calls it receives daily are genuine. The rest are crank calls. Telekom says it sees its role as a filter service provider to ensure only genuine calls get to the police or other emergency response bodies.)

But then, what do I know?

2007-06-05T19:04:00.000+08:00

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY
Today the whole world observes Environment Day. Across the globe, new initiatives, campaigns and pledges are launched, implemented or promised, some costing millions and millions of dollars.

Well and good, I say. Let’s hope that these initiatives, campaigns and pledges are all long-term efforts geared towards achieving sustainable results and lasting difference in our life and the lives of our children.

But we cannot just leave this responsibility of taking care of our earth to the government, NGOs and other bodies alone.

We all know how “efficient” the government is at managing the environment, kan? And most NGOs -- bless them – while strong in will are lacking in resources.

So we all must do our part. Actually there are so many little things that we can do. And all these little things, when practiced collectively, will make a huge difference.

Today’s NST lists down some suggestions on Page 17. And part of its editorial says this:

“… there is every reason to nurture the small initiatives of individuals choosing to shun plastic bags or private transport, or learning to recycle household waste, switch off lights and conserve water in their lives.

It is in such baby steps that the true distance can be covered, perhaps not towards reversing the monumental forces of climate change now upon us, but slowing them down long enough to ensure humanity a chance to adapt and forestall environmental catastrophe, and survive on a planet so grievously changed by the rapacious activities of just one species — our own Homo sapiens.”

2007-05-30T20:00:00.000+08:00

UNDERUSED, OR INDIFFERENT MEDIA?

The Star reports today that during the discussion on global media strategies on HIV/AIDS, the 100-odd delegates who attended the Asia Media Summit 2007 in KL agree that the media is under-utilised when it comes to spreading awareness on the disease, and that coverage on HIV/AIDS is not done on a continuous basis.

A South African media chief concurs that while the media is a powerful tool, it is not doing enough to connect with young people – who are most susceptible -- and educate them.

How apt. How sad. But that’s a fact.

We don’t have to go far. Take a look at our beloved country. For a nation that has more than 81,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS (as per the same Star report), there ought to be more concerted educational efforts done by the authorities, NGOs and the media.

But I feel the media, on their own, ought to take more initiatives to continuously educate their young readers on the issue. Life, after all, does not revolve around AF winners or celebrity scandals alone!

The South African delegate further observes that many young people know about HIV/AIDS, but exactly how much they know or understand is a completely different story.

“The media has the responsibility to connect and speak the language of young people for they are the ones most susceptible,” he said.

Information on HIV/AIDS must, as the delegates say, spread faster than the disease.

A Case of Anak Rintik?

Talk about our young people, The Star also carries this report:

Rakan Muda show fans riled by rowdies throwing bottles and cans

Bottles and cans flew across an outdoor arena when several youths got restless during an open-air show at the Bukit Kiara sports complex here.

The commotion occurred while Akademi Fantasia 5 runner-up Ebi Kornelis was performing at the show, which was being held ahead of a Rakan Muda event.

The rowdiness subsided after Rela members rushed to calm the crowd before Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi arrived to launch the programme.

Ironically, another throwing match occurred during the reading of the Rakan Muda pledge.

More than 20,000 youths attended the event.

It turned ugly when a few overexcited spectators started to throw some bottles and cans to the other side.

Well, you could say that they were inspired by their elders who threw bottles and sticks at each other during the recent Ijok by-elections.

Yup. Kalau bapak borek, anak pun boleh jadi rintik lah.

2007-05-22T18:04:00.000+08:00

GLOBAL WARMING: A MEDIA SPIN?

Well, at least one Malaysian Cabinet Minister thinks so.

At a luncheon today during which he was supposed to deliver a talk, among several not-so-focused topics he touched on, the Minister seemed to question the validity of media reports on global warming, wondering whether they were not just some hoo-ha motivated by commercial considerations.

And he is the Information Minister.

I am appalled, to say the least. I could not believe my ears! No wonder Malaysians in general are ill-informed about global warming, and topics related to it are not widely covered or discussed in this country. I guess the Minister wants to wait until the catastrophic consequences of global warming hit us before he wants to seriously think of mitigation?

Wait, he’d be dead by then. How unbelievable!

Anyway, Bernama has this story generated from the same function.

One Earth to Call Home

Did you know that every person in the world consumes about 20 kg of plastics each year?

So, if you were to multiply that by six billion (that’s approximately the current world population), would you be able to visualise the amount of plastics used globally per year?

And because plastics are hardly degradable, can you also imagine the task of managing their disposal?

Nope, I don’t think you can. Yet, we are so in love with plastics we can’t live without them.

Did you know that a plastic milk jug takes one million years to decompose? That nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today? That if you lined up all polystyrene foam cups made in just one day, they would circle the earth?

It is however encouraging to see that a number of manufacturers have come up with degradable premix resins, including homegrown PETRONAS.

The company has started producing and marketing its first environment-friendly and degradable premix resin since last year. It says more grades are coming.

No to Roti Canai Hike

I guess roti canai lovers everywhere can heave a sigh of relief now that the authorities have said no its price hike recently proposed by a restaurant operators association.

I am relieved, too, as roti canai is my twin godsons’ favourite breakfast. They each can eat two pieces of roti canai, dipped into fish curry gravy, at any one go.

Let’s all see how much longer the price will stay as it is.

2007-05-17T18:48:00.000+08:00

HIKES HERE, HIKES EVERYWHERE

As expected, as soon as the 15 sen per kg price hike of flour took effect on Monday, roti canai sellers everywhere now want to increase the price of their ware by 10 sen.

So in the near future, your favourite Mamak restaurant or stall could be charging you 90 sen for a piece of this delicacy.

They say the 10 sen hike is justified, as not only has the price of flour gone up, the prices of other ingredients of roti canai, like cooking oil and margarine, have too, not to mention the rising costs of everything else.

Make sense? I don’t know. What I know is, it doesn’t take one kg of flour to make one piece of roti canai. So, you do the calculations lah.

An immediate random poll by a local tabloid found out that the majority of the public does not mind the hike, like they did not mind the new subscription fees Astro announced a few weeks ago.

I don’t know what income brackets these people interviewed by the tabloid belong to, but obviously their opinion could not possibly be a true representative of public sentiment.

Talk about Astro fees’ hike, I read this interesting commentary, buried deep in today’s NST’s Tech & U section.

Astronomical hike in paid TV
By Lim Yeh Ern

From unmarked squatter houses to the high-rise condos throughout the nation, it’s not uncommon to find that familiar Astro grey satellite dish pointing up at a cant angle to the heavens. It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that such high ratio of subscribers to the only paid channel service spells monopoly.

With the newly launched satellite, Astro also introduced several new channels, but just when you thought you were getting more value for your hard-earned cash, in comes a letter telling you that there’s going to be a price increase to your existing package next month and that the new channels will only be free until end of August 2007.
Astro’s excuse for the hike has ironically been live telecasts of football matches – isn’t that the biggest money spinner for Astro in the first place? And if that’s so, shouldn’t the price hike only affect the sports package?
With the US dollar pegged lower, shouldn’t we be getting cheaper movie packages instead? What really gets me are the advertisements, be they those corny Astro advertisements or annoying third-party advertisements. It's advertisements galore all the way. Isn’t this already a paid service?
Astro’s tagline should be Making Astro Richer. How is it making our life richer when we pay for the service and then have to watch advertisements which pay Astro again at the same time?
If the paying customer gets a ringgit for watching every advertisement, we would have paid the difference at the end of each month just to watch Astro.
The letter continues, “We remain committed to make significant investments to bring high quality and engaging local and international programmes to you”.
Define high-quality. Image quality is so poor Sony has to come up with an image enhancement technology for their LCD TVs specifically for Astro channels. And what about improved reception with that new frangled satellite? I’m still stuck at home without anything to watch whenever it pours!
Short of unsubscribing, I guess existing subscribers are just going to have to make do with less channels and make it obvious that they don't like being taken for a ride.

Exactly my sentiments...

2007-05-16T19:47:00.000+08:00

TEACHERS DAY, SPECIAL DAY

Today is Teachers Day. In schools across the country, thousands of teachers are being honoured, praised and feted for their great contributions and tireless efforts in imparting knowledge and in helping to shape the mind, perception, personality and character of this country’s future citizens and leaders. Indeed, today is not just a meaningful day for teachers alone, but also for their students and their parents.

I was with my twin godsons last night, on the occasion of their 11th birthday. After dinner, after the cake was cut and consumed, our conversation – as always – turned to school and related topics. In excited tones they related to me their parts in the activities planned by the school for Teachers Day. Azrie and his contemporaries would enact a special dedication to all the teachers at their school, while Edrie would perform solo his own version of a current popular tune.

Each of them has also bought a little something for their class teachers and could hardly wait for today to show their appreciation. “Cikgu banyak tolong Along belajar, Uncle, sebab tu Along nak bagi hadiah ni,” said Azrie. “Ha ah la Uncle, cikgu Angah pun sama. Angah suka sangat cikgu Angah,” Edrie chipped in.

I know both boys had put quite a lot of thought in choosing their little gifts for their teachers. The gifts, though quite practical, did not cost much as these had to be paid for by their own money. But the joy they’d feel in giving their little token of appreciation would be priceless. Of course, between their parents and me, we always remind the boys that there are a lot of other ways of appreciating their teachers: by paying attention to what they teach, by showing them respect, by doing the homework, by doing well in school, etc.

Come Teachers Day next year, I wonder whether they or thousands of their contemporaries would still have the opportunity to experience this joy, because some smart people from the Business Ethics Institute of Malaysia are calling for a ban on the culture of giving gifts to teachers by students on Teachers Day. This, they say, is tantamount to corruption and bribery. This culture, they say, is also not in line with the National Integrity Plan. I’d have thought and expected that an institute of such calibre would have much bigger ethics agenda or issue to pursue and champion.

But anyway, to argue their point, these smart people cited a couple of cases where a parent went overboard and gave personalised Teachers Day cards together with expensive pens to his son’s teachers, and another where teachers requested specific gifts from their students. Some schools, they say, sell gifts for students to buy.

So, they are urging the Education Ministry to issue a directive to all schools and learning institutions to stop teachers from accepting gifts from students on Teachers Day.

I’m not quite sure how true or widespread is this “trend”. If it is true or widespread, I’m sure it can be curbed. Instead of calling for a ban, the Business Ethics Institute – since their people are so smart and are so ethical -- may want to help the Ministry/schools come up with a set of guidelines for teachers on what is acceptable and what is not in terms of Teachers Day gifts. Something like what is practiced at certain companies I know, where employees are not allowed to accept certain types of gifts and/or gifts of certain monetary values.

And certainly not a ban directive! Please don’t take away the children’s joy in presenting their little gifts to their teachers, and their teachers’ in receiving them.

2007-05-07T14:14:00.000+08:00

TEARS IN LOJING

A lot of people have said a lot of things over the past few weeks about the Lojing issue, which isn’t too surprising, given the so many parties said to be involved in this huge environmental mess.

And a lot more fingers (and toes, too, I bet) have been pointed and wagged. They still are. This is, after all, a country where blame is still very much the game.

If it wasn’t for the seriousness of the issue, it’d have also been quite fun to read, and watch, the verbal ping pong between the Federal and Kelantan State governments and the rest of the other players.

Well, at least eight companies are facing legal action for their part in the fiasco.

However, Lojing’s environmental degradation is not about to stop while the culprits wait for their day in court. The thousands and thousands of hectares of forest and its sensitive ecosystem will not heal by itself. Neither would the bald hills and terrains re-vegetate by themselves overnight.

So, come on people. Stop pointing the fingers. Use them to poke at those fat asses to get moving instead!

I drove by Lojing last week, en route to KL via Cameron Highlands, my most favourite route to take when returning to the city from Kota Bharu.

From the highway, you wouldn’t be able to tell where exactly the location of this particular environmental rape is, but damage was everywhere I looked, all the way to the neigbouring Cameron Highlands. Hills are barren, red earth exposed. It was a sad, sad sight.

And yes, highland vegetable farming is in full swing.

Virtual Malaysia, the official portal of the Ministry of Tourism, says Lojing’s elevated location “makes it ideal for planting fruits like persimmon and honey oranges, as well as fresh vegetables”.

Something that the good people at KADA had long realised, I guess, before they decided to lease out more than 2,000 hectares of Lojing land to farmers from Cameron Highlands.

It would be interesting to see what both the Federal and the State governments’ next course of action is.

2007-05-03T19:20:00.000+08:00

GLOBAL WARMING : BE WARNED

Today, the NST front-paged my favourite topic: global warming and its dreary consequences. And as a bonus, it carried two full pages of reports, with a promise of more articles in its Friday edition.

And BBC World also ran its reports.

You'd be alarmed to know that by the year 2025 (that's 18 years from now), global temperatures would have risen by 1 degree Celcius.

What would that mean, you ask? Well, our children would have to endure heatwaves, floods (worse than anything we've ever witnessed), drought, tropical storms, surges in sea levels etc, all more intense, more frequently.

Coastal land could be submerged, arable land would turn into dust bowls, food and water shortage would happen, with malnutrition and diseases in tow.

All this, with only an increase of 1 degree Celcius? What about if the increases were higher? Well, these would happen:

if the temperature increases by 2.4 degree Celcius, coral reefs will become extinct
by 3.4 degree Celcius, rainforests turn into deserts
by 4.4 degree Celcius, ice caps melt and will displace millions of people
by 5.4 degree Celcius, sea levels rise by 5 metres
by 6.4 degree Celcius, life as we know it is exterminated

Bleak? Yes. Can we do something? You decide. All of us decide.

Today.

Meanwhile, the past week or so saw the following ...

A Ceiling Over Our Heads

Number One is hopping mad, and rightly so, over a series of ceiling collapses in new and relatively new government buildings. It does reflect very poorly on the maintenance culture, or the lack of it, in this country. What is it again -- first world facilities, third world mentality?

The Circus Left Town

Yup. The circus left Ijok. Everybody upped and left. All parties involved have to be congratulated and commended for putting up an entertaining show for a week or so. Now the circus has left, it’s up to the elected ADUN to pick up the pieces, and make good on his promises.

A Cry Over Spoilt Milk

I was on my way to work last week when a short news update was aired on a radio channel. The case of food poisoning at Sekolah Kebangsaan Kota Kuala Muda on Wednesday, April 25, said the announcer, was because of some “miscommunication” at the school.

I believe the radio announcer quoted Kedah Health Department Director Dr Hasnah Ismail, who was also quoted by The Star the following Friday as saying that the incident would not have happened had the school head followed the directive issued by the Education Ministry on April 18 asking all primary schools in Kedah and in the northern region to stop supplying milk to students pending investigations on two earlier similar cases.

The directive was Swarovski clear. “Do not distribute the milk pending investigations (agaknya)."

So, where did this “miscommunication” come in? Did the school head not read, nor understand?

People, we are moving towards smart schools.

Really.

2007-04-24T18:17:00.000+08:00

EARTH DAY, EVERY DAY

Last Sunday, 22 April was Earth Day 2007. It passed without any hoopla and with much apathy, in a truly typical Malaysian fashion.

I woke up that day expecting to find loads of thought-provoking editorials and earth-friendly articles in the pages of our newspapers. Again, I was greatly disappointed.

The silence from our leaders was also deafening – no quotes, no smart pesanan, no nothing.

Earth Day 2007 was of very little significance, I guess, when compared to let’s say, stories about which celebrities were being bomohed by which artistes, or the goings-on in Ijok.

Global warming – what’s that? Lambat lagi lah dia punya effect or impact, why worry?

OK. Perhaps it’s too much to ask our leaders to come up with a strong message on environmental protection and progress, especially when all their energy at this point seems to be channeled to that little Selangor constituency.

But the newspapers? I thought they could have done a bit more to educate the rakyat and their readers about what they could do, in their own little ways, to help preserve the planet for our children, their children and grandchildren.

Every little tip they publish would go a long way to help make every day the Earth Day.

In Sentul, the Myanmarese couple has been reunited with their children, I read from a small, single column article in a newspaper.

I bet it was a teary and emotional reunion, had the newspaper carried a picture. But hey, never mind, what’s important now is that parents and children are back together.

They have also asked to be left alone.

We’ll see.

2007-04-20T13:54:00.000+08:00

ANOTHER CIRCUS, AT A SLEEPY HOLLOW

"Undi anda rahsia."

That was the slogan widely broadcast (and popularly understood) in the run-up to elections when I was growing up as a child.

I remember when my late father, my mother and those in my family old enough to vote went to cast their ballot, they would be greeted by smiles and nods of encouragement -- from people of opposing sides -- on the way to and at the voting centre.

Activities leading to the election day -- from the nomination process to campaign ceramahs to the voting day -- were also relatively incident-free. No shouting, no jeering, no insults, and certainly no objects thrown at each other.

Gone were those days.

Elections today -- even by-elections in the remotest of areas -- are a full-blown circus. Thousands of supporters, would-be voters and leaders would descend to the sleepy hollow armed with slogans, flags and placards, with verbal vocabularies to match.

And in the case of Ijok, they also came armed with drinking water bottles. And the FRU, with its water cannon truck, was there too to complete the picture.

Yup. Only in Boleh-Land.

In the meantime, the Yin saga circus is still playing in Sentul. The Myanmar couple is out on police bail, courtesy of Suhakam. I hope and pray that the Press would cease hounding (and torturing) them with speculations. Let the police complete their investigations. Focus on other issues to sell your papers.

No ideas? Set camp in Ijok for the next eight days or so. I'm sure the circus there will give enough fodder for weeks to come.

2007-04-16T15:26:00.000+08:00

REUNIONS

This past weekend was a weekend of happy reunions, indeed.

The missing child Yin was reunited with his parents, at last, and the whole nation heaved a huge sigh of relief.

I got all choked up when I first heard the good news Saturday night. Tuhan Maha kaya, I thought. The prayers of Yin’s parents, and those of many others, had been answered. Alhamdulillah.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine how the parents must have felt, how they must have suffered during the 14-day ordeal.

When my twin godsons were Yin’s age, I took them shopping at a department store, and they decided to play hide and seek among the racks of clothes. I couldn’t find them for a couple of minutes, and I almost went crazy!

Now that Yin is back safe and sound, let’s not start passing judgment or making speculations about the Myanmarese couple who found and returned him to the arms of his parents.

Please let the authorities do their job. Let’s not allow this become another circus, although this morning I read the papers with a heavy heart that the couple’s neighbours were already bringing out the sandwiches.

And the photo ops for politicians and their wives are still in full swing.

Typical!

During the weekend, I was also “reunited” with Azrie and Edrie, my twin godsons. I had not seen them since December. We went shopping Saturday morning for shirts, shoes and pants. They are growing up so fast sometimes it’s almost hard to believe that they are already 11 years old!

In the afternoon, together with my colleague Ju, we went to an orphanage to visit and have tea with our “adopted” children. It was a reunion of sort for Ju, who last saw her “daughter” in October. Me, I visited Amar, my “son”, only last month when he turned 15.

Anyway, tea with the kids was a sobering experience, even for the twins, who got along quite well with their 23 newfound brothers and sisters. In fact, Amar, largely regarded as the orphans’ eldest brother, asked me to bring the twins along again for my next visit. Insya Allah.

This afternoon, out of the blue, a long-lost friend I went to college with called. I had not heard from her in more than a decade, I think. So, we are planning for a reunion. Soon, I hope.

Tuhan Maha kaya.

“The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.”
- Victor Hugo

2007-04-12T12:22:00.000+08:00

STUPID PEOPLE MAKE GOOD BUSINESS

Stupid A receives a text message on her phone. The message says: "Congratulations from AF4 / PETRONAS / Kosmo! / Harian Metro etc! Your SIM card has won a RM5,000 / RM10,000 / RM20,000. Please call 0062&*&*&&#@ for more details."

Stupid A gets all excited and calls. The person on the other end of the line gives her a set of instructions, as well as an account number for her to transfer some fees before her cash prize is deposited into her own account.

Trusting with all her heart the person whose face she doesn't even see, Stupid A gladly follows the instructions, and waits with bated breath for her windfall.

Yup. Stupid A is stupid.

Stupid B gets an email from some exotic African country. The sender is a wife/daughter/son/niece/banker of some important dead person who left millions in some bank account not accessible to the kin or the banker.

If Stupid B is kind enough to help the sender access the money, Stupid B will receive a handsome reward, a nice fracture of the millions.

So Stupid B responds to the email, and is asked to deposit some processing fees, and waits for the handsome reward.

Yup. Stupid B is stupid, too.

Stupid C is notified through email that her email address is the main prize winner of a special lottery draw, and now a huge sum of money is waiting to be claimed. Stupid C responds to the email and is asked to do almost the same thing her cousin Stupid B was asked to do.

And, ditto.

Yup. Stupid C is also stupid. She is after all related to Stupid B.

One fine day, Stupid C's aunt walks to the market. Two guys, claiming to be clairvoyant, approach and offer her some magic stones that would heal her many ailments. As magic comes with an expensive price tag, auntie is persuaded by the two guys to go to her bank and withdraw money to pay for the stones.

Yup. Auntie is not very bright either.

At the other side of town, auntie's husband is sipping coffee at his favourite kopi tiam when he is offered some cards. "Yes, uncle. You scratch, you sure will win something. So scratch!"

A couple of hours later, the uncle scratches his head wondering what has happened.

Wait till he gets home to hear auntie's story.

2007-04-06T15:15:00.000+08:00

DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST – PART III

When it comes to making stupid, asinine remarks, I would have to hand it down to our politicians.

The latest liability is the Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister, who in the spur of perhaps the dumbest moment of his life said that bloggers using Malaysia-hosted websites might now have to register with the authorities.

Aiyoh, stop embarrassing us already!

There have been enough unwise statements made by our so-called leaders lately on bloggers to make me want to go bury my head in the sand, for they reflect poorly on those in the government, and on those who put these clueless idiots there. And with my bum sticking out, I might just moon them at the same time.

Register? What, doesn’t the Deputy Minister understand how blogs work at all? You might be able impose this nonsense on Malaysia-hosted blogsites, but could you ensure Malaysian bloggers wouldn’t host their blogsites somewhere else? And why is this desperate need to control bloggers?

Datuk, get on the ship to cyberspace already! Take some of your counterparts with you.

And don’t come back.

2007-04-06T12:37:00.000+08:00

LIFE, DEATH – PART III

At the end of an extremely trying day Wednesday, I was rewarded with an absolutely pleasant surprise, in the form of Ma June.

Yes, I bumped into Ma June – well, it was she who first saw me – at KLCC. She was just about to have dinner with her lovely, lovely family – her husband, two of her three sons and her daughter. My, how the children have grown!!

I had not seen Ma June and her adorable children, had not been to visit her, in ages. We keep in touch via SMSs (although the exchanges have been few and far between of late) and I do keep tab on her through her sister JJ, who gives me updates on Ma June once in a while when we run into each other in the building. I know both her and JJ went through a lot these past couple of years.

Anyway, Ma June looked her usual radiant self that night. She was all poise, grace and charm, as always. We swapped news, briefly – in fact, too briefly, because I did not want to disturb her meal. Yet, that brief encounter kept me thinking about her and her family all the way home that night.

Ma June is indeed a remarkable lady. I admire and respect her many qualities – her honesty, her humility, her generosity, her love, devotion and sacrifices for her loved ones and for those around her, her strength of character, her impeccable manners. And who would forget her delightful Nasi Kerabu Siam?

I texted her the following night: “Ma June, it really was an absolute delight seeing you and your lovely family last night. Everyone has grown so much! It’s been too long, kan? We have to do something about this. Take care. Jumpa lagi.”

She texted back, almost immediately: “It was sooo nice to see you, too. NST days seem like a lifetime ago because I’ve hardly kept in touch with anyone. We are all so busy. Must make efforts for a reunion, yes? Take care.”

Yes, we must make the efforts. We must. Life is too short.

Last night, while still feeling elated from my brief encounter with Ma June, I was shaken by a text message from D.

“C is not mobile anymore. At Kulim Hospital.”

I sat down and offered a short doa.

2007-04-03T14:15:00.000+08:00

MY GREATEST FEAR

Some time ago a friend asked me what I feared the most in this whole wide world. My greatest fear, I told her then, was being misunderstood -- by peers, colleagues, friends, family, everyone.

As I grow older (and not necessarily wiser), friends and family become increasingly more important in relevance. They matter more to me than ever. Where I fit in their lives and who I am in their hearts is important to me.

Because family and friends are a key part of our identity, they partly define who we are.

And vice versa.

This comes with certain assumptions and expectations. You assume and expect your friends to know you, to understand you. Especially those to whom you really open up your heart, those with whom you share your life most, those in front of whom you can think aloud.

And you try to do the same with them. Because you simply have to. If they don’t understand you, who will? If no one understands you, who are you?

Reality check.

No one gets to really know and understand you. And you don’t get to really know and understand your friends.

No matter how close they are to you and you to them, there’s always a chance of you misunderstanding them, and them misunderstanding you.

And that, my friends, remains my greatest fear.

2007-04-02T12:20:00.000+08:00

PREACHY PREACHY

There was a fine piece of advice from the country’s Number 2 carried by the local dailies last week.

You know, about how Malay entrepreneurs should remain focused even when they had made profits, and not succumb to what he termed as the “4Bs” – bungalow, boat, Benz and Beemer (that’s BMW for you).

Some entrepreneurs, he said, “stepped on the brakes” after they had obtained these status symbols, or they started paying more attention to their wives, even though they could go on to become the country’s next billionaire.

I insist that the sermon also be addressed to another group of audience closer to Number 2 -- the Malay politicians (although the line of distinction between the politicians and enterpreneurs is really blurry).

I'd say the Malay politicians should also not succumb to the 4Bs, which seem to be the first on their agenda after gaining office.

And their wives should not attract too much attention by altering their appearance, or by imposing to constantly be in the eyes of the public, dressed in all their finery.

The wives themselves should not be tempted by the 4Bs as well – Bvlgari, Birkin, Blahnik and Botox.

And the politicians, they should also avoid the other under-rated B.

Bullshit.

2007-03-24T09:55:00.000+08:00

WASTAGE, AND MORE WASTAGE -- PART III

On Thursday, Bernama quoted retired senior civil servant Tan Sri Dr Arshad Ayub urging the government to stop excessive wastage in its spending so that the money saved could be spent on more useful and worthy causes.

"Evening feasts and huge celebrations are held and organised everywhere. And I see a lot of wastage and indulgence," the good Tan Sri was quoted.

He reminded the Treasury and implored the government to curb wastage, and suggested that Treasury officials be sent to audit courses so that they'd be aware that wastage really needed to be reduced.

Bravo, Tan Sri.

While we are at it, perhaps we ought to also point out a few other things we consider as wastage and indulgence:

a multi-million ringgit overseas athletes training complex
a multi-million ringgit bid to host a youth sports championship
a multi-million ringgit new leased government jet
overseas "study" trips for state municipal councils
newspaper ads placed by government-owned agencies/entities thanking or congratulating their political bossess
countless pompous parades to celebrate and/or observe almost anything

The list is not exhaustive, so I'd be exhausted if I were to write all. Perhaps my friends would assist?

2007-03-22T14:29:00.000+08:00

ISLAM. DULU, KINI DAN SELAMANYA

I came across this ad in the papers yesterday.

"Have something to say about public road users? Say it loud and clear at our forum where like-minded motorists and authorities will agree or debate your thoughts.
If you think the government has to do more, voice it out. And if you believe the problem lies in the mindset of the public, let’s hear your advice. But do it all in the only place that can make a difference. Get online and hit www.PanduCermat.org.my and let your thoughts be heard."

So I hit the website, expecting to see loads of inspiring ideas and thoughts from like-minded motorists and authorities on how to solve our traffic problem. Not much here. But, hey, you have to give the Road Safety Department and the Transport Ministry credit for trying.

But there are loads of other useful information, tips and advice for motorists which, if adhered to, would help save lives and avoid a host of other traffic inconveniences.

What I find most interesting about the website is its Hall of Shame and Hall of Merit, where they post images of vehicles whose owners/drivers have committed various traffic offences, as well as pictures of model-behaviour vehicles.

Offences include illegal parking, turning, overtaking, littering, what have you. All posted by members of the public. Bravo.

The website administrator says those images have been forwarded to relevant authorities for further action.

So, what does all this have to do with the title of my post?

I tailed a lady driver for a good kilometre in the morning traffic crawl to work yesterday. From her rear-view and side mirrors, she looked quite young, perhaps in her early 20s, and pretty attractive. Clad in a baby blue tudung, she looked (well, from the shoulder up, anyway) every inch a sweet, demure, graceful young lady.

Then she did the unthinkable. She rolled down her window. And spat. Twice, in that distance of one kilometer. I should have taken pictures. But as advised by the website, taking pictures while in control of a moving vehicle is an offence.

Needless to say, I was shocked. First, because it was totally unexpected. I mean, I have seen plenty of spit coming from uncouth drivers, mainly male truck and taxi drivers (sorry guys, but some of you really are guilty).

Secondly, because of what I thought she was supposed to be. A lady.

Third, because of what her windscreen sticker says.

ISLAM. Dulu, kini dan selamanya.

Something is definitely not right here.

You debate.

2007-03-21T13:01:00.000+08:00

WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?

I am still in a daze today. I guess M's passing is affecting me more than I thought it would.

Friends SMSed and called to find out. I told them to read the papers, particularly Berita Harian and Harian Metro. Or to visit Samantha.

I am in no mood to write. Nor do anything else.

Depressing. Depressing. Depressing.

Friends die. Or they simply drop out of your life. Sometimes by mutual choice. And when they go, they take away a chunk of you, your history.

My already small circle of friends is getting smaller. I have opened my heart to new friends, and with time, I hope the circle will never end up a dot. Because a dot denotes a period. And a period means an end.

Between thinking of the old friends whom I have lost and the new, newer ones I have made and will probably lose, I came across this article on friendship, written by Jenni Russell that appeared in The Guardian two years ago.

Check it out.

What are friends for?

Have a good day.

God Bless.

2007-03-20T16:29:00.000+08:00

LIFE, DEATH -- PART II

"M passed away at 3.00am today." The SMS was short (as it is meant to be) yet so final. Yes, he is gone. And I will never see him, talk to him, again. Ever.

Shocked, I sat down, and in a blur my mind went back to the last two phone conversations that I had with M. One in November, and the other in January. Not once did he mention that he was ill.

I had no idea. And the last time I saw him was way too long ago.

We ended each of the calls with a promise to catch up. But we never did. And the worst part is, I don't think I really meant my words. They were just empty promises, small talks, something to end the conversations with.

Horrible old me.

Al-Fatihah.

2007-03-16T17:15:00.000+08:00

DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST - PART II

Today The Star carried a clarification by Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor on the remarks he made last week on women bloggers, which is further proof that he is suffering from a "gone-case" bout of foot-in-the-mouth disease.

Read this excerpt:

Adnan: I didn't mean all women

'I was referring to Indon journalist'

KUALA LUMPUR: Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor has clarified that he did not label all women bloggers as liars.

He said his statement was specifically made in reference to an Indonesian journalist who wrote in her blog about the ministry's inefficiency.

Tengku Adnan said he loved "all women" and he was "here because of a woman."

"In fact, most of my supporters in my constituency are women," he said.

(For the uninitiated, you may want to check out Nila Tanzil to understand what this was all about in the first place.)

Ohhhh. Not all women bloggers are liars, he now says, only Nila Tanzil. What an insult to our intelligence! What an insult to all women, including the one who's responsible for his being "here". And what an insult to Nila Tanzil. If were her, I would be hopping mad by now. And then get even. You know, tit-for-tat.

I don't understand why the Minister couldn't be graceful about the whole thing and accept Nila's observation as constructive criticism, and try to do things differently (and better) in the future. That would have been a princely thing to do, kan? We all learn from our mistakes. We are not perfect. But no, he chose to shove his foot deeper into his mouth.

I liaise a lot with people representing his Ministry, and "efficient" is not the first thing that would come to my mind when dealing with them. If I were to tell, their tales alone would need at least 831 postings.

OK, I exaggerate. But I'm afraid if Nila Tanzil were to pursue the matter further, this could turn into an embarassing diplomatic row.

But then, it's not like we're not used to being mortified by the words and actions of our leaders, kan?

2007-03-14T12:48:00.000+08:00

LIFE, DEATH

Today, I saw in the obituary section of a local daily a picture of someone I used to know and occasionally work with. It's the ninth anniversary of his passing today. Good Lord, has it really been nine years?

My heart missed a beat, and my thoughts went back to the days when I would be sitting in meetings with him to hear his proposal, his vision for the motorcycle racing team he founded and managed.

He died relatively young, and truly unexpected.

Over these past few years, many more friends and colleagues (and members of my own family) left this world relatively young and unexpected. Was it work, lifestyle, or the food they ate, or what? I have no idea, only a feeling of loss and sadness.

Sadder still were the few senseless deaths in the past few days. Freak accidents, bus crashes, drownings, fires -- incidents that could be avoided with a bit of care and caution.

I mean, if you don't know how to swim, do not go into the water. If it's your child, don't let him or her near the water. Otherwise, teach him or her how to swim.

I watch my twin godsons -- who at 11 are relatively good swimmers -- like a hawk whenever they go swimming, be it in the swimming pool or at the beach. Like a hawk means my eyes would never leave them, not even once.

Quite an aggressive driver, I become the most sopan and berhemah motorist whenever they are with me in the car. They themselves are quite familiar with the road safety do's and don'ts.

They have also been taught not to play with matches, and to shun fire-crackers and mercun.

With what they already know and what I would keep on reminding them about, I hope and pray that the good graces of Allah would keep them safe and sound.

Amin.

2007-03-13T14:03:00.000+08:00

DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST

Last night, after dropping off a colleague at the Kg Baru LRT station, I took Jln TAR to go home. The plan was to turn right at the Jln TAR-Jln Sultan Ismail junction and then on to Jln Kuching to head south. This was close to midnight.

Alas, after Sogo, the traffic moved at a snail's pace. Apparently some resurfacing work was being done at the junction. And they never thought of giving us motorists advanced warning -- say 200-250 metres before the junction -- about this. They just simply blocked the junction and directed traffic to turn left to Jln Sultan Ismail through that small turning at the lights. No warning!

So you can imagine the congestion with four lanes of traffic converging to the left. What stupid idiots. In the end, because of the wonderful road system in KL, the detour made me end up where I started, near my office.

A couple of months ago, the same thing happened to me in PJ, and a few weeks before that on Jln Tun Abdul Razak, right smack at the entrance of the south-bound tunnel near the RHB building. They were doing some work in the tunnel, and just simply blocked the tunnel's entrance. Stupid, or what?

Well, if they weren't, you argue, would they be doing that kind of work in the first place? Point taken, I say, but what about their supervisors? Don't they possess some degree of common sense?

Whoa. Wait a minute, you say. Why pick on those road repair riff-raffs when some of our so-called elected leaders who are supposed to have a bit of brain to run this bloody country are as dumb, or even dumber?

A few days ago, a Cabinet Minister continued to display symptoms of the food-in-the-mouth disease that intermittently afflict many of his counterparts. Read this petikan from the March 8 edition of Sin Chew Jit Poh:

Tengku Adnan: Bloggers are Liars; 80% are Unemployed Women

The Tourism Minister Tunku Adnan lashed out today that all bloggers on the Internet are liars, out of which 80% are unemployed women.

“All bloggers are liars, they cheat people using all kinds of methods. From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.”

Tengku Adnan was addressing the media at the 2007 Malaysia GP Sales when he was asked about allegations made on a blog.

The guests were shocked at first, but burst into laughter. He said he may lose some female voters but did not retract his statement or indicate that he was just joking.

He said that bloggers spread rumours, disrupt social harmony and many bloggers are slanderous and are cheating people with their blogs.

“All bloggers are not in favour of national unity. Our country has been successful because we are very tolerant with each other, if not, there will be civil war, the Malays will kill the Chinese, the Chinese will take revenge and kill the Malays, and the Indian will kill everyone.”

He urged the rakyat not to simply trust bloggers, and gamble our future away because the achievement we gain in the 50 years of independence is not an easy task.

Stupid, or what?

Stupid.

2007-03-12T10:54:00.000+08:00

GLORIOUS GLORY

Heartiest congratulations are in order for shuttlers Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong for bringing back the All England men's doubles title to Malaysia over the weekend. A few months ago, they won gold medals at the Doha Asian Games.

The duo (and their coach Rexy Mainaky), which ended the country's quarter of a century wait for the title, deserves more than just our pat on the back. They deserve our respect and admiration for not just doing the country proud, but by doing it consistently and without much fuss.

Not a hardcore badminton fan, I wonder where they train. My instinct says it's just at some local badminton training centre, perhaps somewhere in Cheras. And not at some fancy-smancy training cum conditioning facility in a foreign land.

Syabas, Kien Keat and Boon Heong for your glorious glory. Keep doing your thing and continue to make us proud.

Talk about glorious, the Chinese Government has just started a campaign to teach its citizen basic manners and etiquette ahead of the Beijing Olympics next year. It seems that spitting, picking one's nose and ears and jumping queues are common among the Chinese, and the Government is intent of ridding these social faux pas of its populace.

Part of its nationwide campaign includes appointing public "monitors" to encourage, remind and persuade their countrymen and countrywomen to be polite and observe manners when boarding up buses and trains, for example. The tagline for the campaign is: "It's glorious to be polite."

I hope this campaign will continue well until after the Olympics. I've been to Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen (and to a couple of other smaller Chinese cities) and yes, the Chinese do need these campaign.

May be our Govenment should emulate its Chinese counterpart. God knows Malaysians could use a lesson or two on etiquette and manners.

2007-03-09T16:13:00.000+08:00

A GRIM WORD ON GLOBAL WARMING

The most inconvenient truth about global warming, says Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, is that we cannot stop it.

A recent report predicts that by the year 2100 (that's 93 years from now), temperatures will have risen by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees, and as a result, sea levels will rise by 18 to 59 centimetres.

This is largely thanks to the dramatic rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases have built up over hundreds of years, and they don't disappear or dissipate easily.

"Even if the world adopted the most far-reaching plans to combat climate change, most scientists agree that the concentration of greenhouse gases will continue to rise for the next decades. In other words, global warming is already baked into Earth's future," says Mr Zakaria.

Grim. So what can we do about it?

Apart from weaning the world off dirty fuels (this means fossil fuels) and adopting and perfecting new technologies (like clean coal and hybrid cars), another strategy that the world could do is to adapt, says Mr Zakaria.

What does this mean?

People need to already start discussing about policies that prepare for a hotter, drier world, particularly in poorer countries, experts say.

Like what? Developing new crops, constructing flood defenses, setting different building regulations or banning building close to sea level, for example. Because unlike plans to slow down global warming which require massive international efforts, adaptation strategies could be quickly pursued by individual countries.

And they are cheaper to implement now than to wait for another 20-30 years.

Now, do I dare think our elected leaders are aware or care enough to start thinking about this?

2007-03-08T13:28:00.000+08:00

THE RAIN IN THE PLAINS DOES NOT FALL ON THE BRAIN

For money, Malaysians would do stupid, irrational things. Whenever they see the RM or $ sign, people would just switch off their brains (or whatever little grey cells that they have) and let their greed take over.

Take the recent SMS fraud cases for example. I mean, what right-thinking individuals would part with thousands and thousands of ringgit of their money just because someone at the other end of the phone instructs them to?

The MO for the latest fraud is very simple. The con would SMS you with a message that you have just won some money in a lucky draw or some contest somewhere. To receive your entire winning, you must first deposit some money into a specified bank account.

This odd "rule" should trigger something in the mind of a normal, average Joe, kan? But not our poor, clueless, ignorant and gullible lot. They just happily follow the instruction, and these idiots and their money are soon parted ...

Why, you ask. Depa tak baca ka? Like, the fraud cases are highlighted in the news everyday -- TV, radio, newspapers. Mana depa pi, tak dengaq ka? Yet, people keep on getting duped.

The most recent involves PETRONAS. On 5 March, the national oil company issued the following announcement:

"NO PETRONAS’ SIM CARD LUCKY DRAW OR CONTEST
It has been brought to PETRONAS’ attention that certain parties have been sending text messages to mobile phone users informing them that their SIM cards have won a RM10,000 lucky draw prize from PETRONAS. Receivers of the text message have also been advised to call a number with an Indonesian country code.
PETRONAS wishes to inform that none of its companies has organised any such mobile phone SIM card lucky draws or contests and would like to advise members of the public not to respond to such text messages.
PETRONAS has also communicated with the authorities on this matter."

The following day, the police divulged that at least three people had been cheated after they received a SMS notifying them of their "big win". The SMS said: "Pengumuman dari PETRONAS Malaysia. TAHNIAH! SimCard Anda Memenangi Undian bertuah hadiah Cek Tunai RM 10.000. Sila hubungi: 00628881382736. Terima kasih."

When the "winners" (losers, they all are) called this Indonesian phone number, they were instructed to deposit some money in a bank account. According to the police, the first victim lost RM999, the second RM1,000 and the third parted with RM1,985.

I don't know lah. When are people going to realise that there's no such thing as easy money? You have to work to earn your keep and not expect the money to fall from the sky.

Like I always say, orang tamak selalu rugi.

2007-03-07T14:35:00.000+08:00

AN ILL-FITTING DRESS AND A WHOLE LOT OF PETTY MESS

A letter to the editor of today's issue of a tabloid caught my eye. It says:

"Dear Editor,

People tend to care more about themselves rather than worry about the bigger issues we are facing daily like climate change and the economic outlook.

What is the big fuss about ERA FM deejay Linda Onn, who did not attend an event because she claimed her dress was too revealing?

I was not aware that clothing could be a big issue and it's a joke to me.

We have more serious issues to tackle instead of focusing on this issue.

Please put a stop to this matter.

Kenneth Ho

Kuala Lumpur"

I'm not sure whether the good Mr Ho would receive a reply from the editor. I'm guessing not, so I'd like to say this to him, just in case he drops by my blog site.

First. Wake up and smell the crappy reality, Mr Ho, because the whole world over people care only for themselves. They don't give a hoot about climate change, the environment or the economic outlook. Malaysians not excluded.

Second. Yes, clothing is a big issue in this country. Where have you been? People can go on talking about clothes for weeks on end. Too sexy, too skimpy, too revealing. Why, people are often singled out because of what they wear. Sometimes they are even thrown out of certain government offices or some establishments.

And yes, clothes are a big business. And they could also become a national issue. Otherwise Linda Onn would have worn the dress by the Indonesia-born Malaysian designer she originally intended to wear at the event she was supposed to attend, instead of the replacement dress by the Malaysia-born Malaysian designer that had not been properly fitted. (Although I'm not sure whether it was really because of the dress she did not attend the event, or because she did not pass the dress rehearsal.)

Third. Yes. The whole thing is a joke. Only it is not funny. Right, Mr Ho? You and I are not laughing. Instead we are seething with anger.

Why? Because the whole nation is full of small-minded, pea-brained petty thinkers who never get their priorities right. From the small riff-raffs to the elected reps to those higher-ups we called leaders. None does.

And the sad thing is, they keep breeding, and their small-mindedness spawn more small-mindedness.

And Mr Ho, no one can seem to put a stop to this.

2007-03-05T18:42:00.000+08:00

NATIONAL PROBES

These are the headlines that screamed out of the main pages of the local dailies these past few days:

"Carry out full probe, says PM"

"ACA: Probe on"

"Johari: I welcome probe"

"Cops probe if more are freed"

"The denial. The Probe"

Who are being probed, you ask? The head honcho of the ACA and the Deputy Minister in charge of Internal Security, respectively for corrupt practices and graft allegations.

Well. There are so many probes going on these days that they could be our new national pastime. Apart from the current probes, there are a few other probes that have been going on for a while.

Yup, probes here, there and everywhere. Probes left, right, front, back and centre.

Yes, probe them. Fully. Get to the err, bottom, of the allegations.

And let the whole truth and nothing but the truth surface, smelling like roses ...

2007-03-02T16:37:00.000+08:00

WE ARE A BLESSED LOT ...

Last night, at a dinner organised at Hotel Istana's Urban Cafe to celebrate a friend's birthday, someone made a remark that our circle of friends is a truly blessed lot.

We've known each other for ages, and we've known each other so well. We may not see each other so often, but so often we are in each other's thought and prayers.

We get together may be once or twice a year, but our get-togethers are such memorable, wonderful and brilliant occasions that make us and our friendship so strong and special.

I thank God for all my friends. To all my friends, old and new, I thank you for you. Thank you for being my friends all these years and the years to come, for sharing all the moments great and not so great, and for being who you are to me and to all we love in our truly blessed circle of friends.

Through each of you, through each other, we have learnt that the art of making friends is simply to be a friend.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

2007-03-01T12:53:00.000+08:00

STEPPING BACKWARDS ... INTO THE BACKWOODS

A club in KL's recently trendy Jalan Doraisamy is barring tomboys (read lesbians), gays and tranvestites from its premises because these people "intimidate" its other patrons and because it has an image to keep.

And no, the club insists, this policy is not discriminatory, but is necessary as the patronage of these people is not good for the club and its image.

I guess if the image that the club wants to project is that of a bigoted, backward and prejudiced outlet, then all is well, it can continue snubbing these people (although I'm rather curious about how the club determines people's sexual preferences -- its staff must have got a pretty strong gaydar).

Anyway, to be totally bigoted, backward and prejudiced, the club shouldn't just stop there. Its list of persona non grata should also include the ugly, the stupid, the ignorant, the mats or minahs, or the ah bengs or ah liens, or your cousin-brothers or cousin-sisters.

Once these people are shut out of its premises, then it'd have its ideal set of patrons, right?

Perhaps we should remind the management of the club that ours is not an ideal existence, and it is precisely because of this our life is much more interesting, exciting and colourful.

And if the club has good business sense, or any sense at all, it should go the way another established club has to love all, serve all.

2007-02-27T13:25:00.000+08:00

FEWER DEATHS, SO OPS SIKAP A SUCCESS ...

The recently concluded Ops Sikap XII, carried out during the weeks to and after the 2007 CNY holidays, saw 207 road deaths compared to the 226 deaths during the previous year's CNY holidays. And this has been declared a "resounding success" by the federal traffic police.

I guess if the goal of all Ops Sikap is to reduce death toll, yeah, I suppose you could call this a success. But hey, take a look at the total number of road accidents. The 2007 CNY Ops Sikap recorded 14,930 road accidents, as compared to 13,153 in 2006. That's 1,777 more accidents than last year!

A "resounding success?" I think not. A marginally less number of people died in an astoundingly higher number of accidents hardly qualifies as a "success". To me a "success" (if you can call it a "success" when you talk about deaths) is when you have a lot less deaths in a lot less accidents.

I was also astounded by the news reports that say a lot of our motorists do not even have licences to drive or ride their vehicles. Out of the 16,493 traffic offences recorded during the Ops Sikap XII, 28 per cent were committed by those without driving licences.

I've known all along that most road accidents are caused by stupid people. Little did I know that they are caused by moronic idiots who are too stupid to pass their driving tests, or too stupid to know that they need to have a licence to operate their vehicles.

Speaking of Ops Sikap XII, I too am part of its statistics. During the drive from KL to Johor, I painfully adhered to the highway's speed limit, arriving at my relative's home more than one hour later than usual. It was when I hit the trunk road -- just a few kilometres away from my destination -- that I was flagged by a traffic policeman. Apparently I was doing 72 km/h on a 60 km/h stretch.

Yup, geram ke tak? RM300 gone, just because I was too busy having a nice conversation with my extremely curious twin godsons to notice the speed limit signage.

2007-02-21T17:33:00.000+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ... TO ME!!

Well, folks, today is my birthday. Although a year older, I'm much, much happier, and thankful for all of God's blessings, for my family, my close friends, my twin goodsons through whom I learnt the true meaning of unconditional love, my colleagues, and for all the people who have touched my life and heart in one way or another.

A dear friend posted this on her blog, and I'm touched beyond words (Che Man is the name she fondly calls me by):

HAPPY BESDAY CHE MAN DEARIE

By New Zealand's time and date, it is already February 21st, way past midnite. Therefore, HAPPY HAPPY BESDAY CHE MAN DEARIE AND MANY MORE AWESOME YEARS TO COME. LURRVEEE YOU MUCH.

I pray for your good mental and physical health, I wish you happiness and joy, I pray for your wealth and may life be generous with you - always, I wish good friends will always be with you, I pray for what your heart desires, I wish you never ending smiles and I pray that ALLAH will always take care of you ... Amen.

Che Man and me - we came a long way. We started more than 15 years ago and how we came about to be good friends, remains an enigma. We never count moments, days or years. We just sail through in and out of the relationships ... We had our good moments, sad moments, peculiar meoments, awkward moments, ha ha ha moments, tender moments and all sort of moments - the ups and downs. Through it all, we became closer and wiser in our relationships.

Che Man is not just a friend - but part of my family. Che Man was there when Tuya was bawling away when she was a baby. Che Man was at most of the family's celeberations - besdays, raya, just makan2, just gathering, just nothing ....

Just before I left for Christchurch, I was looking at some photos at mama's place and found Che Man's pictures with Kak Long and family at the zoo, a day after I left for London. Che Man was there, with or without me around ..... Just like most of my close friends (Kash is a splendid new addition - thank you Che Man for Kash).

Che Man is a man of few words but whenever he speaks up - it comes straight from the heart. I tried to fully understand him but I decided that it is best that we went with the flow and grow .... We flow in the relationships and grow within it. And we have grown into where we are today. Thank you God for Che Man. And thank you Che Man for having me in your life. It has been a pleasure and will always be.....

Che Man...whatever you do in your life, wherever you go and whichever way you decide...I will only pray the BEST for you. And I always believe that we are allowed to make many mistakes in our lives but not mistakes that destroy us (Paulo Coelho, 1998).

I am so sad for not able to be there on you birthday and the celeberation. I am sure that you're gonna have a blast just like the years before as you are especially loved and appreciated by your friends.

And thank you very much for the awesome celeberation for my birthday that you thoughtfully organized for me. I appreciate that very much. And you know that you will always have a special place in my heart, Insyallah.....

Lurvve Always, Che Wan - Christchurch, February 21st, 2007

Needless to say, I shed a couple of tears. I miss her, although she has only been gone 10 days....

And to those who have also extended your good wishes and kind thoughts, wherever you are, thank you very much. May God bless you and your loved ones, too.

2007-02-19T17:36:00.000+08:00

CELEBRITY VALENTINE'S FANTASY

I was at a relative's home in Johore for the recent CNY break and came across the latest issue of hot, tagged as Malaysia's favourite entertainment magazine. The publication carries a lot of stories and gossip on Hollywood/western celebrities, with a smattering of coverage on local artistes. And apparently the relative's eldest daughter is a fan and a subscriber.

Look-wise, hot tries a lot to be another Hollywood entertainment rag, or a copy cat, at least. Personally, I feel the editors/writers could do much better without the juvenile captions and quotes that accompany certain pictures on certain pages. These captions and quotes are immature, unprofessional and quite annoying. You have to read them to see what I mean.

I was drawn to a two-page spread where some celebrities, mostly foreign, were asked about their dream Valentine's Day date, or something to that effect. Decent and straightforward answers came from most of them.

Then I saw quite a familiar face. It belongs to a local Malay male TV host. His Valentine's Day dream is to ask "Angelina Jolie's left breast out" to dinner, if her breasts were detachable, that is.

Yezza. Quite daring, huh, this TV host. I'm just wondering whether his bravado was partly because he thought that his comment wouldn't be read by people who matter (read: his Malay/Muslim fans); or because he just plain didn't care what they'd think.

I remember not too long ago, some stupid sexual fantasy almost killed a local songstress' career. But I suppose time's changed, huh. And it helps if you are a man.

2007-02-16T16:00:00.000+08:00

YOU JUST CAN'T STOP TALKING...

"With Longevity Calls, you just can't stop talking", proclaims DiGi in its latest print and TV promos. Not even at the dinner table, during what looks like a reunion dinner, the most revered occasion during the Chinese New Year celebrations.

I don't know about you, but I want to take issue with DiGi on this one. I'm sure you have come across its CNY print and TV ads that show a family at a dinner table where all nine of the family members are on the phone, talking.

I find the ad extremely offensive. I mean, what kind of values DiGi is promoting? That it is OK to talk on the phone while having dinner with your family at this very auspicious occasion lest you miss out on its great promo?

All people with basic manners would agree with me that it is extremely rude to talk on the phone at a dinner table, especially when you have company. Let alone during a reunion dinner where you're supposed to reunite with your loved ones and cherish the moment, kan?

It's already bad enough when people with no manners talk on the phone everywhere -- in public transport, in crowded elevators, in movie theatres, and (believe me) in the toilet. Remind me to recount this one later.

And thanks to DiGi, it seems talking at the dinner table should now be encouraged. A lot this would do to our budi bahasa campaign, kan?

2007-02-15T12:50:00.000+08:00

FEBRUARY 14. WHAT A SPECIAL DAY!

Yesterday, February 14, was a very special day. The day saw the official launch of the Tan Sri Azizan Zainul Abidin Integrity Circles for Young Professionals, a networking programme to motivate and inspire young professionals to subscribe to and promote the basic values of honesty and integrity.

Tan Sri Azizan Zainul Abidin was the former Chairman of PETRONAS. The programme is the initiative of the Malaysian Institute of Integrity.

That the programme is named after the late Tan Sri Azizan is a further recognition and fitting tribute to a man who during his whole life-time epitomised strong values and ethics, a man highly and widely regarded as the beacon of integrity and moral fortitude.

In the words of Tan Sri Mohd Hassan Marican, President of PETRONAS, the late gentleman and true statesman "breathed life into the concept of integrity". He regarded values, particularly integrity, as a moral compass, guiding the choice of right over wrong. And without the firm foundation of values, all our efforts will be rudderless, a journey embarked without a purpose.

I had had the honour and privilege of participating in a few events and initiatives which required the involvement of the late Tan Sri, and my limited contact and discourse with him were real treasured pleasures. He truly was what everyone says he was and more.

"Make serving a desirable objective or we will succumb to greed which will undermine the fabric of society," he reportedly used to say.

I wish they were a lot more so-called leaders within our midst who would be guided by the example of the late Tan Sri. But I guess this would be too much to wish for. You can't really teach greedy old dogs new things.

Alas, all is not lost, I suppose. The onus and responsibility of propagating the culture of ethics and integrity now should fall on the shoulders of our young professionals who are members of the Integrity Circles.

To be nominated to the Circles' 2007 session, you must be below 35 years old, have 2 to 5 years' working experience, and demonstrate exemplary leadership and interpersonal qualities.

Interested? Please call 03-6209 2000/2065/66/68/69.

2007-02-09T17:04:00.000+08:00

BLOOD-BOILING STORIES, HEART-WARMING STORIES, HEART-WRENCHING STORIES

Oh my Gosh. It's been ages since I last posted. And yes, I might as well admit it, I was afflicted with a terrible disease: I was sick to my stomach! There were so many things going on in this country that made me not want to write. I thought to myself: What's the point of writing at all? What would I achieve? Who would read? Or take heed?

No one.

The stupid, the ignorant, the arrogant, the inconsiderate, they will remain as they are. Certain people can go on purchasing luxury yachts, leasing executive jets, building extravagant homes, raising fuel prices, hiking toll rates -- and not many would care. Certain other people can go on wasting public fund in certain other ways, and only a few would raise an eyebrow.

But, let anything happen to a favourite reality TV product, the whole nation would be in an uproar.

And this makes my blood boil. What's happened to our sense of responsibility? And as a people, where is our priority? Or have we, as a people, given up trying to influence those leaders we duly elected?

Amid all this, I came upon a story both heart-warming and heart-wrenching, and I suppose quite a few people have read this also.

In 1982, a Thai woman residing in Narathiwat took a wrong bus home after a shopping trip to Malaysia. The bus took her all the way to Bangkok, about 1,150 km north from her home. According to AFP, the woman only speaks Yawi, a Malay dialect spoken only in Narathiwat. So, unable to read nor speak Thai, she boarded another wrong bus that took her to Chiangmai, another 700km further north.

In Chiangmai, she ended up as a beggar for five years, before she was sent by the authorities to a shelter for the homeless. There she lived for 20 years, where no one understood her, until a group of students from Narathiwat came to the shelter to do their research on the problem of the homeless.

To cut the story short, the woman, Jaeyana Beurahing (her Muslim name -- I suspect -- is Zainab Ibrahim) was soon reunited with her family, after 25 years! And days after the reunion, her children and grandchildren were still kissing and hugging her.

What a story. What a detour!! And there are a few lessons to be learnt as well. Which I would leave to your imagination...

2006-12-06T13:22:00.000+08:00

TO SERVE OR NOT TO SERVE
I was in Singapore recently for work (yes, I'd only step foot in that tiny kiasu republic only for work), a short stay made bearable only by dear, dear friends who made the time to visit and catch up (thanks Kak Mush, Kak Ruzi, Zak and Ming).

Despite what the country is, I was very much impressed with the level of service I experienced this time around (my last trip there was in April). Not counting the grumpy Immigration lady at the passport control, everyone was courteous and polite, from the taxi driver, to the hotel's check-in clerk, to the hotel's waitress, and some shop assistants.

I stayed at M Hotel on Anson Road, right in the middle of Singapore's central business district. The check-in personnel (can't remember his name now) was extremely professional and efficient, the waitress at the hotel's cafe -- I think her name is Amelyn -- was extremely courteous and attentive. Her conduct made up for a not so pleasant prior reception Ming and I received at another outlet at the hotel.

I guess these people understand their role as service personnel, and they must love and are proud of their job. Unlike some people in KL. For example, some of the staff at a Malay kuih/delicacy outlet at KLCC are horrible -- they think they are doing you a favour when they serve you.

I have a breakfast meeting with my colleagues every Friday, a very informal affair to update each other on things. We take turns to pack breakfast, and this particular kuih shop is one of the most convenient places for us. But the attitude of the staff, ai yoh, they made me want to swear. In French. Now I have stopped patronising this shop completely.

Another place that I would never set my foot in again is a restaurant on an upper floor of the Amcorp Mall. A couple of friends and I ventured in there one night at about 8.15 for dinner, as we had heard many good things about the food. The restaurant was closing, although it was not so apparent to us. Instead of getting up and saying, "Maaf encik, kita dah nak tutup," a young lady (the term is too polite for her) who looked like a supervisor rudely gestured with her hand that the she was about to close shop.

At that point, I felt like making a hand gesture as well, but I checked myself, took a deep breath, thanked her and politely left. And I will never return, no matter how berselero its food is....

2006-11-24T15:00:00.000+08:00

BEFORE THE SONG IS OVER

I don’t know about you, but coming back to the office after a weekend is something that I always look forward to, especially if the weekend is particularly long.

I’d normally feel refreshed, re-charged, and raring to resume work -- although I’d have to admit that after certain weekends it’s hard to feel refreshed and re-charged, what with loads of chores and scores of screaming children.

And raring to resume work? Rarely, actually...

Anyway, I would always try to come in a little bit early to settle outstanding matters, and clear as much correspondence as possible before my day starts. It is quite amazing to see what your email box accumulates over the weekend – junk mail, business proposals, queries, as well as notes from friends and distant acquaintances.

I used to feel a bit uneasy when friends, family or acquaintances send personal correspondence to my work email box, especially when the correspondence contained nothing else but recycled Internet jokes.

And I did voice my concern to a couple of friends, who in turn advised me not to be “too uptight” about this. After all, they said, the correspondence – however nonsensical it may have looked or sounded – was the senders’ way of keeping in touch, of saying they were thinking of me.

Well, when they put it that way, my friends made a bit of sense, although I still make it a point to attend to these “you’re on my mind” notes after hours or through my personal computer at home.

My personal favourite email is a poem called “Slow Dance” (see my Sept 5 post) sent by a friend years ago, which I still keep. The gist of the poem is, slow down, set your priorities right – keep in touch, with your children, family, friends. “Hear the music, before the song is over.”

Come to think of it, it is true that some of us do not keep in touch enough with our family and friends. It’s not that we do not want to, but work schedule or things that happen around us somehow always manage to prevent us from sending that “I’m thinking of you, too” email, or making and/or returning that phone call, or making that trip home.

It’s only after when we lost our loved ones or friends that we start to regretfully reflect that we ought to have made more efforts, call more often and do all the other “could-haves” to keep in touch.
I lost a younger brother to a terminal illness a couple of years ago, just as we had just begun to get to know each other better as adults.

We sort of drifted apart, even when we were children, as I was always away from home – at school, university and on to work. When we were in school, would only see each other during term breaks, and after we both started work, only at family gatherings during Hari Raya or extended vacations. Even then, our encounters or conversations always seemed more like those between two strangers.

But after he got married and had his son, we started to warm up to each other, and he opened up to me more than to my other siblings.

I realise now how little I knew him and wish circumstances had been different. Alas, there’s always a lesson to learn. Now I go the extra mile to ensure that I don’t miss my weekly telephone calls to my mother, and the bimonthly calls to my other brother and sisters. And I try to visit as often as I can.

I also make the time to keep in touch with friends. It’s quite easy, actually, once you set your mind to it. I would call friends while driving home from work where I just go through the names listed on my phone and start dialing.

It feels good even if I could only talk to one friend per night. If you have 30 names, by the time you dial the last number, you’d have called everybody on that list once a month.

Now, if only my friends would reciprocate!

2006-11-23T15:54:00.000+08:00

OF NET SCARES AND SCAMS

A few weeks ago, I met up with a couple of old friends at a restaurant within the vicinity of Suria KLCC. Anna, who now resides in Switzerland, had briefly returned to Kuala Lumpur to solemnise her marriage to a German citizen. Magda, the other friend, and I attended the same university -- oh my God -- aeons ago.

After dinner and coffee, which was rather late, they began fidgeting. It turned out that they were both nervous about fetching their cars from the shopping centre’s underground car park.

They told me that they had read, and heard, many horror stories about the KLCC car park: from tales about riff raffs and rogues to rapes and robberies, all transmitted to as far as Geneva and Munich via the Internet.

I walked them to their cars and told them not to believe everything that they read, or heard, especially if the stories came via the Net. Most of them were the products of over-imaginative, and sometimes demented, minds.

Admittedly, the cyberspace has become the fastest and most efficient conduit for news and information, whether they are true or conjectured. Because people have this perverse habit of forwarding information or email -- the more horrible or exaggerated the content, the better -- something that originates in Kuala Lumpur on Monday may find its way to email boxes in Los Angeles on Tuesday, if not sooner.

It is not so bad if the information is valid and would actually benefit the recipient. However, it could be quite disastrous if the forwarded mail contains little else but lies, or if it is meant only for a limited circle of recipients.

I came across some newspaper reports about some guys who got fired from their jobs after the email they sent to trusted friends boasting about their sexual adventures made the rounds across the globe, tarnishing both their reputation as well as that of their employers’.

The first case involved an executive of a New York-based financial institution who had just been transferred to Hong Kong. Life -- especially the sexual part of it -- in that former colony was apparently so, well, satisfying, that he had to share it with his friends in the Big Apple.

And his friends thought the good news were just too good not to share with everyone else, on a world scale. Yes, we are living in a borderless global village, after all. After his bosses found out, they decided that they’d have no place in their employment for this potential liability.

The other two cases I read about happened in the UK; one had become a national sex triangle fiasco!
And there are those email from some exotic countries in Africa, soliciting for assistance in what would be the transfer of money – sometimes to the tune of hundreds of millions of US dollars – out of these destinations.

The stories are similar, whether the mail is sent from the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, or South Africa. The senders would claim that they are relatives – and sometimes lawyers – of some deceased, formerly high-powered persons who had during their service or tenure in these countries amassed a small fortune.

Somehow, this huge amount of money cannot be accessed unless it is transferred into a foreign bank account, and that’s where they would like the recipients of their mail to come in. If you help, a handsome percentage of the money would belong to you, they entice.

I would send a short, curt reply, something along this line: “Please stop sending unsolicited nonsense like this to us. We are not idiots.”

But you would be surprised that quite a few Malaysians have fallen for this scam. Some time ago, a local daily carried a story about a lady who became a victim. And she was a lawyer, no less, who ought to know better.

When she responded to the email sent to her, she was asked to electronically transfer a few thousand dollars, a few times, as certain fees before she would receive her share of the fortune.

The poor woman (well, she is, now) followed the instructions, blindly. In the end, she gained nothing, and lost tens of thousands of ringgit.

Hmm, a fool and her money are soon parted, you’d say? Me, I’d only say: “Orang tamak selalu rugi."

Note: A longer version of this post was previously published elsewhere.

2006-11-10T15:45:00.000+08:00

OUR DOOM LOOMS ...?

According to a local daily, our national crime rate has risen exponentially over the past year. This year's January to September period recorded a total of 170,481 cases, compared to 151,444 cases the whole of last year.

Year-on-year, the crime index rose 12.6%, and if you break this down, you'll see that violent crimes went up by 18.01%, property crimes 13.87%, commercial crimes 17.98%, while narcotic crimes went down by 8.07%.

The article says rape cases went up to 1,833 in the nine-month period this year, compared to 1,384 cases in the same period last year. Armed robbery: 13,537 cases against 9,548 cases; gang armed robbery: 54 cases against 27 cases; and murder cases rose to 473 cases compared to 475 cases last year.

And the crime rate has been on the uptrend the third year running. Who to blame? I don't know.

The article also says with the crime rate on the rise, so is the number of cases or incidents where peole/civilians take matters into their own hands -- and violently too -- when they encounter crime perpetrators.

A case in point: a foreign woman who was caught stealing was pounced upon and hit by a group of men, who then stripped her naked, all the while while cheering and jeering, for about 20 minutes before the police arrives.

What does this all say about us as a nation, as a people? I don't know.

What I know is that things are not looking good. The whole country is in a big freaking mess, and no one seems to be in charge.

Makes me wish that I could just go hibernate and wake up when some semblance of order has been restored...

2006-11-07T12:49:00.000+08:00

CREDIT, DISCREDIT ...

A lot of things have happened in the past few weeks. A four-eye meeting took place, a helicopter crashed, a mansion mentioned, an editor copied, a body blown to bits. All fodder for mamak stall and boardroom conversations for weeks on end, I suppose, until something else comes along.

Me, I took particular interest in three other recent topics, which I think were relatively more obscure but needed to be put in perspective.

One. The swiftness of some newspapers in giving credit to the police over what they (the newspapers) thought was the success of the most recent Ops Sikap. Remember the police reduced the speed limit on federal roads to 80 km/h from the usual 90 km/h during the past Deepavali/Hari Raya festive season?

According to some newspapers, the move was proven to be successful as the rate of road deaths went down by, get this, entirely five people compared to the previous year's campaign. During the 2005 Ops Sikap, there were a total of 233 road deaths, compared to 228 in 2006. Wow. But, get this also. The total number of road accidents increased by more than 2,000. If during the 2005 Ops Sikap there were 13,659 accidents, the number for 2006 was 15,716. So what success crap were these newspapers talking about?

Two. A certain former/sacked Deputy Prime Minister who is now advisor to a certain political party issued a Press Statement questioning the wisdom of a "half billion-ringgit contribution" to Cambridge University. The statement was issued through the party's information bureau.

According to him, the Malaysian government had agreed to allocate more than RM500 million to the said university, with Petronas and Khazanah Nasional each agreeing to cough up RM190 million. The rest would be obtained from foreign banks based in Malaysia.

Excerpts of his Press Statement:

"The amount of more than RM500 million is too excessive to be donated to any foreign university or institution for education or research.

Do the government leaders have no confidence in the capability of our universities, specialists or research centres to increase the quality of their research and performance?

And is the proposal intended to satisfy the extravagant desires of any personalities to be associated with prestigious foreign universities?

It is regretted that the government are not at all sensitive to the problems of the country and lack the ability to deal with education and research issues of the country. Furthermore, what is more worrying is that this irresponsible decision is made at a time when our economy is sluggish."

Needless to say, the statement was picked up by a couple of Opposition publications, which, like the issuer, had not bothered to verify the accuracy of its contents.

A simple check/internet surf with would have informed him and his party's so-called information bureau the following:

there was a proposal by the government to set up a Malaysian branch of Cambridge University, mooted some time last year by a certain minister who was then a Special Envoy of Education.
the proposal was in line with the government's aspiration towards making the country a centre for educational excellence (whatever that is).
the money was supposed to have meant to cover the cost of setting up the branch university.
the proposal is still at a proposal stage, and no money has been "contributed".

But I suppose the search would have been too much work and would not have served his agenda. This I find "worrying" and "irresponsible".

Three. Then there is this Cabinet Minister who called on the rakyat to congratulate the current administration, particularly his boss, for successfully concluding two deals in China recently. Which almost made me puke. Good thing I was still fasting.

Just because his boss was there to "witness" a signing ceremony does not mean that credit should go to him. In clinching deals, particularly in countries like China, negotiations would have to start a few months, if not years, beforehand, and not during a one- or two-day official visit.

Which makes me wonder -- why the desperate (and lowly) need to credit his boss for everything in the first place?

2006-10-19T13:07:00.000+08:00

SELAMAT BERCUTI. MOHON MAAF DARIPADA SEMUA

Well, Deepavali and the Eid are less than a week away. A lot of people are finalising their travel and holiday plans. A lot more are still spending lots and lots of money in preparation.

Personally, I always feel good about the season. Spiritually I feel somewhat elated and blessed. Emotionally, I look very much forward to reuniting with family and relatives, to catching up with them, to see which cousin is doing what and to meeting new additions to the clan.

Everybody seems to have new stories to tell. Everybody but me, that is. The only thing they would want to know about me is when am I settling down. Yup, that one million-ringgit question. Last year, when a relative asked, “Balik sorang je?” I retorted “Yes, and that’s the answer for next year, the year after and the year after that.” Apart from that, Hari Raya is always a joyful occasion, which is more than worth the long drive home.

Another thing that I look forward to is celebrating the season, kampung-style, where an open house literally means an open house. Your doors remain open to a steady stream of visitors – whether known and not so known to you. My siblings and I would normally draw a schedule for us to go visiting so that at least one person would remain home at all times to receive visitors.

Back in Kuala Lumpur, or in any other big city, the concept of open house takes on a totally different meaning and dimension. Attending one is more like a chore than a pleasure, if you ask me. You have to have an invitation, and some hosts even allot a certain time window for you to come to avoid having too many guests at any one time. A wise move, this, as we all know what would happen when there are too many guests. We have witnessed, heard or read tales of certain corporate and public open house disasters where people behaved in total disregard for basic human courtesy, let alone the spirit of the season.

Which is why I would normally decline open house invitations, unless the host and the guests are fairly known to me, and the events are fairly small scale. I have long made it a point to as much as possible avoid situations where I have to stand in line for food. It would be quite tolerable and not so degrading if the guests were well behaved. But more often than not, they would have no shame and act like they have been starving for months.

Anyway, I would like to wish for a really Happy Deepavali and truly Selamat Hari Raya. I pray that this year's festivities would be the most enjoyable, memorable, wonderful occasions for everyone and his or her loved ones.

2006-10-17T16:29:00.000+08:00

REVAMPING THE NATIONAL MUSEUM

A RM20 million facelift for the tired, lack-lustre Muzium Negara is in the pipeline, with the hope of making it more attractive to local and foreign tourists. Apparently, a recent survey among KL folks shows that the museum is definitely not their choice visit destination. About 11 per cent of the respondents in the survey say they only visited the museum once in the past decade.

The revamp, says the Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister, will be in time for the Visit Malaysia Year 2007, and will give the museum a fresh look to excite visitors.

"There will be a new style of exhibition, better presentation, more artifacts and attractive lighting display," he was quoted by a local daily. He also said city folks bypass the museum as they take things for granted. "They assume that if they don't visit the museum, they won't miss anything."

I fall into that 11 per cent category of people, I guess, as the last time I visited the museum was about seven years ago. Not because I take things for granted. I love our history, because it is an integral part of what we are today and where we should be heading as a nation. When I travel to foreign countries, I always make it a point to visit their museums. And I always come out of these museums feeling that I have learnt something.

In all honesty, I cannot say the same about our national museum. The exhibits are poorly displayed or documented. Description of the artifacts is inadequate or non-existent in some cases. At the end of the visit, you feel you learn almost nothing. So is it surprising to see the number of visitors to the museum has dwindled?

I hope the people overseeing the RM20 million revamp will also look at the museum's official website. I visited the website recently and was appalled at the horrendous standard of English used in the homepage. Grammar mistakes, spelling errors, poor sentence construction and choice of words are in every single sentence! No one seems to care! If I were the museum's authorities, I would send the website's writer(s) back to grammar school -- that is if I was in a good mood. Otherwise, I'd just fire their sorry arses. Memalukan!

If you're not convinced, please visit the website (www.museum.gov.my), and you'll know what I mean. You don't have to read every single page, if you don't have the time. Just sample the Director's Message, which I reproduced verbatim below:

A Message from the National Museum Director

Welcome to the National Museum Homepage. Similar to other museums, the establishment of the National Museum is as; " a non profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to public which acquires, consignee, researches, communicates and exhibitions for proposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their enviroment."
Efforts to realize this definition and concept of a museum is a continous effort which has become an upholding priciple for those responsible for maintaining the National Museum. Numerous approaches undergone is a small attempt by the National Museum to communicate with the society regarding the knowledge found In reply the context of the intrinsic values of elements in cultural and historical heritage. There are more approaches and techniques still to be applied by the National Museum in its endeavor to be an institution based on unique brand of general education that can adapt to the changing needs of time. However, all efforts and approaches requiere support and cooperation from everyone as it involves a high level of cost and expertise in an assortment of fields.
We appreciate all constructing reviews from every level of society to together help ensure that the National Museum become a sign of the dignity for all of us."

And this is among the not-so-bad write-ups in the homepage. Sad, isn't it.....?

2006-10-10T13:32:00.000+08:00

SNUBBED BY SNAPPY, SNOOTY SNOBS

A few weeks ago, I saw an old friend at a reception. As we had not been in touch for more than four years, I was naturally quite excited to see him.

I went up to his table, which was just next to mine, said my greeting and shook hands with him. He gave me a perfunctory smile and turned back to his companions.

Surprised by this social faux pas, I asked him whether he remembered me. He said yes, and resumed his conversation with his friends at the table.

I felt a bit humiliated, but my face was saved a few minutes later when the reception came to an end and everybody left the room.

On the way home that night, I tried to remember what I might have had said or done four years ago that could have offended him so, but I couldn’t think of any. As far as I know, we were always on good terms. In fact, our last conversation had been over a very, very happy subject. A lady had found his lost wallet and called me (my business card was among the wallet’s contents) to find out how to return it to him.

So I got in touch with him with the good news and asked him to make arrangements to get his wallet back. It certainly was a happy occasion. No sour note, no harsh words, and he was very grateful.

And I had always made it a point not to make any comment about his then receding hairline.

So what was his problem that evening? I don’t normally speculate, but perhaps now that he is some corporate hot shot he has become such a snooty snob that he doesn’t associate with the little people like me.

Disappointed as I was, I did not lose any sleep over it. People change, I suppose, and life does go on.

And I took comfort in the fact that I still have a headful of healthy, shiny black hair while the only thing that shines about him now is his chrome dome.

Note: A longer version of this post appeared elsewhere some time ago.

2006-09-22T19:39:00.000+08:00

AND THIS IS ROCKET SCIENCE?

The New Straits Times quoted duly elected Science, Technology and Innovation Minister recently as saying that the country's bid which started 11 years ago to woo home Malaysian scientists who resided overseas has failed. He said, in 10 years, only 23 scientists came back, only to return to their adopted countries.

And the Prime Minister, said the Minister, was now expected to announce a new scheme soon to woo such talents again -- with new and better perks.

And what would these perks be, you ask?

The Minister said the scientists would not need relocate completely but would just need to spend three to six months a year here. It would be as if they were enjoying the "Malaysia My Second Home" programme, he said.

Other perks would include better pay.

"We understand the problem. For example, a Malaysian professor in an Ivy League university in the US, whose wife is also an American and receiving a high salary, may not want to return to Malaysia", he was quoted.

That was really rich, almost rocket science, coming from a Minister in charge of Science, AND Technology, AND Innovation. And 11 years later!

Now tell me that I should not be worried.

Earlier this month, the Government proposed next year's budget that would appropriate about RM159.4 billion, which is 16.5% higher than the 2006 budget. This is highly expansionary, as public spending rose by only around 5-9% a year in each of the previous five years. (And if I'm not mistaken, the Government's annual spending used to be capped at RM100 billion).

One reason why the Government believes it can afford such largesse is that income from the petroleum sector has been strong and is expected to remain so in 2007. The budget assumes an oil price of US$70 a barrel, and the Government expects nearly 40% of its income next year to be oil-related, boosted by dividends from PETRONAS and from petroleum income tax.

Total revenue is expected to rise 11.8% to RM134.8 billion in 2007, with oil-related revenue accounting for 40% (about RM54 billion) of the total. In 2006, oil-related revenue is said to account to RM45 billion (37% of total revenue); in 2005 it was RM30.0 billion (29% of total revenue).

Taxes account for more than 70% of the Malaysian Government's total revenue.

Now, tell me again why I should not get worried.

I said before that I'm not an expert in the economy, but it sure looks like the Government is overly reliant on oil-related revenue for its income. Oil prices will not remain at US$70 per barrel forever. Last week, it touched about US$60.

It is also a known fact that the pool of taxpayers in the country has gotten smaller.

If no one is not doing something, and quickly too, about expanding this pool again or diversifying the sources of revenue, I would imagine we are heading for disastrous times.

So, tell me again why I should not be worried.

2006-09-08T13:20:00.000+08:00

TSUNAMI. TWO YEARS ON ...

I read with much, much sadness, distress and dismay recent newspaper articles based on the latest Auditor-General Annual report on the poor management of funds and relief programmes for the 2004 tsunami victims.

Apparently, two years on since the tragedy, many of the victims are still not completely "relieved". The emotional trauma will always remain with them for as long as they live, but one would think that the millions of ringgit collected on their behalf from so many caring and generous Malaysians should have already assisted all of them to get them on their feet towards a (physically) better life.

Alas, this hasn't really happened. Based on the A-G report, some of the funds --administered by the National Disaster Relief Fund -- were misused and were inefficiently managed. The relief programmes were poorly implemented. The construction of houses for the victims, as well as the repair jobs on surviving homes, were poor and shoddy at best.

Repair and purchase of equipment for affected fishermen were mismanaged, and much of the repair jobs were not to specifications. There was even a payment for the construction of a repair workshop which was in fact never built. New boats supplied to the victims were of poor quality and had to be constantly fixed.

The A-G report also said the Fund was slow in disbursing aid to the victims, with delays of between 24 and up to 527 days. Bloody hell, 527 days? That's close to one and a half years!!

As in other fiascos in Malaysia, a Minister in the government now proposes an investigation. And, if the investigation is approved (although I'm not quite sure how useful would this be), it would take months before we get to know the reasons.

I don't know what to say. Really. I am shocked, sad, and disgusted.

I was in Langkawi when the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami struck. I missed the giant waves by mere minutes, as I had decided to have breakfast away from the beaches. But I saw the destruction first hand, both on the island and in Kuala Muda, Kedah two days later when I had to cut short my vacation to be in a team mobilised by my company to extend immediate assistance to the victims.

Our mission was simple: to distribute monetary aid to the victims as soon as possible, as we knew the money pledged to the Fund by all those corporate and other bodies would take a long, long time to reach the victims. And we wanted to do it quietly, unlike many of those "generous" Malaysians who smiled and posed with their mock cheques for the newspapers. Our intention had received the endorsement from the highest powers that be in the government.

So we identified a number of relief centres where we would disburse the money to the victims. Little did we know that we would encounter so many obstacles. The powers that be in Kedah were not very happy with what we wanted to do, but they reluctantly furnished us with the list of the families occupying one of the smaller centres. However, as we were in the process distributing the money, a top police brass came and stopped us.

The reason he gave -- no party was to give money or aid directly to the victims. Donors needed to channel aid and contributions through a central committee. Stumped, we tried for the next couple of days to accomplish our mission, as we had about RM1.5 million in cash with us. We were stopped at every turn.

Noticing that one of the centres had ran out of cooking gas one morning, we thought it would be nice to buy breakfast for the victims. So we quickly ordered 1,000 packets of breakfast and delivered the packets to the centre. And, yup, you guessed it, we were not allowed to. It would have to go through the central committee.

Next, we proposed to distribute personal hygiene packages (soap, shampoo, the likes), as we saw the victims bathing/taking shower without these necessary items. Again, we were not allowed to.

So, after three days of trying, we gave up, packed our bags and cash and headed back to KL, mentally and physically exhausted. The money eventually found its way into the account of a highly-reputable and very professional NGO that has an active role in the tsunami and other disaster relief efforts here and overseas.

Kita serik. Even in a tragic situation like this, personal glory (and gain) to a bunch of (rather useless) people and ineffective/inefficient bodies always takes precedent over the real and immediate need of the victims.

So, the lesson we learnt was: it's always smarter and more meaningful to partner with parties that know what they are and should be doing, with the passion and commitment to match.

2006-09-05T18:38:00.000+08:00

SLOW DANCE

(I'm feeling a bit melancholic, and thought of a poem that someone sent a long time ago....)

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,
or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight,
or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You'd better slow down, don't dance so fast.
Time is short, the music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask "how are you?", do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,
with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You'd better slow down, don't dance so fast.
Time is short, the music won't last.

Ever told your child, "we'll do it tomorrow",
and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, or let a good friendship die,
because you never had the time to call and say "hi"?

You'd better slow down, don't dance so fast.
Time is short, the music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half teh fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
it's like an unopened gift, thrown away.

Life is not a race, do take it slower.
Hear the music before the song is over...

2006-08-25T19:56:00.000+08:00

FIVE-PRONG CLEAN TOILET PLAN

Finally, our elected leaders are doing something useful, about something that I passionately care about -- clean public toilets. Yes! Number Two (no less) on Thursday revealed a five-prong plan towards promoting and achieving a quality toilet culture in the country.

The multi-prong approach includes enhancing public awareness, developing more model toilets, tightening laws against those who fail to provide clean public toilets, improving maintenance and starting a campaign in schools.

Number Two said the Government realised Malaysia's need for a toilet revolution -- similar to what had taken place in Japan and Korea -- in the country's race to be a fully developed nation by 2020.

"The Government sees the provision of quality public toilets as a high priority and recognises the vital contribution this well-managed service can make to foreign visitors," he was quoted by The Star.

I will pretend that I didn't read the "foreign visitors" bit, although this bizarre need to impress foreigners is symptomatic of the way things are done here. It's always about saving face, isn't it?

Anyway, based on the current state of affairs of Malaysian toilet manners, I foresee the implementors of the plan would have a long and bumpy road in front of them.

Convincing the Malaysian riff-raffs about what a clean toilet should look like is itself a tough job. I'm sure a majority of them would prefer those wet, squat types, while others -- myself included -- wish that these were beamed out of existence. Wet does not equal clean. Wet equals germs and bacteria.

Changing the mindset of the riff-raffs is another issue. Face it, Malaysians are a dirty, inconsiderate lot. A lot still litter. Some spit in public. Some don't flush. And a lot of time a lot of people don't think a lot of other people. Nak senangkan diri sendiri aje.

Even when you install the most sophisticated of toilets, if people don't change their attitude, these would be filthy in no time, no matter how vigorous their maintenance is.

One easy example is the toilets in an aircraft, especially on domestic routes. Despite the notices that request passengers to at least wipe the surfaces clean after use for the comfort of the next user, how many would really heed to the request?

I work in what I believe the most sophisticated building in the city, with toilets that match the building's reputation. Yet, some of my colleagues, whom I consider are more worldly and more sophisticated than the average riff-raff, still do not observe good toilet manners.

So, good luck to Number Two and the relevant Ministry. A lot of awareness needs to be enhanced. A lot of attitude needs to be changed. A lot of money needs to be spent.

2006-08-24T21:30:00.000+08:00

LURING TOURISTS, THE MALAYSIAN WAY...

Malaysian taxi drivers and operators yesterday received the most useful of advice on how to contribute towards making the country a tourist destination of choice.

They have been told to be courteous, communicate effectively, ensure their passengers enjoy the ride, keep their taxis clean and tidy, and send their vehicles for regular service. In essence, treat their foreign passengers like gold.

This way, when the tourists go back to their own countries, they would remember the good service provided by Malaysian taxi drivers, and would spread the word to their friends who would come to Malaysia in droves.

This sound advice came from no less than the Prime Minister -- himself a true Malaysian gentleman (from what I read) -- as reported by the New Straits Times.

It wasn't made very clear in the report, but I would assume that the PM did not mean the reformed Malaysian taxi drivers would be the attraction of the country, and that the potential new tourists would come all the way to Malaysia just to sample the hospitality and courtesy of our taxi drivers.

The same message was preached by the Tourism Minister not too long ago, only he included those in the service and retail industries as well.

Puhleeeez!!!

I don't know about you, but the advice makes me woosy in the stomach. It seems it's always the foreigners that we have to be nice and courteous to. Forget about the local folks.

Taxi drivers can continue cheating and overcharging us, or refusing us their service altogether, but they have to be nice to tourists. And hotel receptionists, waiters and shop assistants can go on and layan these foreigners like they were kings, but continue to be rude and indifferent to their local customers.

So what we have is the perpetual double service standards. Tourists and foreigners, no matter how poor or how little they actually spend in the country, get the best of service.

Local Malaysians, who are the real potential repeat passengers and customers, always get the crappy end of the deal.

2006-08-22T18:25:00.000+08:00

COME HOME, IN YOUR JIMMY CHOOS...

The Government wants Malaysians who've made a name internationally in designing, modelling, singing and acting to return as the country would benefit by having them back here.

"We should attract them back because they bring a good name to Malaysia," the Human Resource Minister was quoted in a local daily.

Hmm. Dare I picture hordes of Malaysian-born supermodels, Broadway/West End stars, Hollywood/Hong Kong actors and Paris/Milan/New York/London-based fashion designers drop their wares and catch the next available flight to KL?

I guess not.

I mean, why would a successful catwalk model want to ditch a lucrative and glamorous life on the runways of Paris, Milan, New York or London and come back to KL? To witness a slow and natural death of her career? And the fashion designers, what would they do here, when the market, the customers, and the potential for them to be more successful are where they are now? Same thing with actors and singers.

Unless, of course, the Minister has some brilliant plans up his sleeve for them.

Yes. We can be proud of fashion luminaries like Zang Toi and Jimmy Choo, and actor Michelle Yeoh, for having their roots in Malaysia. But to ask them to come back here doesn't make much sense. (Unless of course they are the likes of Jimmy Choo, who sold his interest in the company he founded, pocketed the money, and still enjoys the recognition).

If I were the Minister, I would encourage these people to continue bringing good name to Malaysia by being more successful, more well-known, more sought after where they are.

But then, what do I know...

2006-08-22T13:16:00.000+08:00

A MELAYU COMMENTS, THANK YOU....

A Malay friend of mine sent me this email after he saw my previous posting. Pheww, berapi-api dia. Katanya dia baru je balik dari upacara pelancaran Kembara Merdeka di RTM, so masih dalam mood bersemangat la agaknya.

"Would bashing other Malays differentiate ourselves in any way? Are we any better? Or are we bashing them to make ourselves feel better, that we are not like them?

Fikir-fikirkanlah...we might not do those things in the puisi but are we any better just because of that?

The problem with some Malays is that by bashing other Malays they somehow feel superior than the people they're bashing. But would that contribute to improving the Malays as a whole? Please lah tengok diri sendiri dulu. Kutuk mengutuk won't improve anything.

Improve our own self and everthing else will fall in place."

OK lah, point taken. I suppose I should have explained my objective of posting that poem. It's not untuk kutuk-mengutuk or to bash my own people, but more sekadar untuk berkongsi pandangan penulis poem tersebut. Penulis mengatakan yang dia menulis untuk ingat-mengingati sesama kita.

Tapi itulah. Most of the time, the truth hurts, kan?

2006-08-17T10:59:00.000+08:00

SO MELAYU, THANK YOU!

I received this in the email today, and thought that it perfectly encapsulates some of the issues I rant about in my postings. I hope the person who penned this "poem" wouldn't mind me sharing it here.

Please read on. How apt. How sad....

Di mana boleh cari ramai Melayu?
Pastinya di Kelantan dan Trengganu,
dan juga di pasar malam dan pasar minggu,
di Akademi Fantasia dan Pesta Lagu,
di Jom Heboh orang Melayu berpusu-pusu,
di Sungai Buloh dan sebelum ini di Pudu,
dan di jalan, lumba haram tak buka lampu,
dan di selekoh duit rasuah depa sapu,
di pusat serenti akibat ketagih dadah dan candu,
di malam kemerdekaan dan malam tahun baru,
terkinja-kinja best giler menari macam hantu.

Apa hobi orang Melayu?
Terkenal dengan budaya malas dan lesu,
berlepak buang masa tak jemu-jemu,
atau baca majalah Mastika cerita hantu,
tengok telenovela dari Filipina dan Peru,
sambil makan junk food, kacang dan muruku,
mana tak gendut berpenyakit selalu,
kalau nak berlagak Melayu nombor satu,
asal bergaya sanggup makan nasi dengan toyu.

Boleh tak jumpa mereka di kedai buku?
Atau di perpustakaan dan majlis ilmu?
Atau ambil kelas kemahiran di hujung minggu?
Ada, tapi kurang sangat ke situ.

Kenapa Melayu jadi begitu?

Nak salahkan sapa, ibubapa atau guru?
Pemimpin negara, atau raja dulu-dulu?

Ayat lazim di mulut ialah malas selalu,
nak harap kerajaan saja bantu,
terutama sekali kontraktor kelas satu,
tak habis-habis gaduh nak jatuh sapa dulu,
dan suka sangat dengan budaya mengampu.

Sampai bila kita nak tunggu,
bangsa Melayu jadi bangsa termaju?
Boleh, dengan beberapa syarat tertentu.
Pertama, dengan banyak menguasai ilmu.
Kata Nabi, ikutlah al-Quran dan sunnahku.

Al-Quran yang diturunkan 1,400 tahun dulu.
Tapi apakah yang kita tahu?

Cuma baca nak halau hantu.

2006-08-16T17:34:00.000+08:00

CUTI-CUTI MALAYSIA TAK BOLEH

Malaysians, it seems, are not a travelling lot when it comes to domestic destinations, and this worries the Tourism Minister. He thinks this is because Malaysians are not aware that there are lots of places to visit in the country.

"We want our people to spend their vacations in Malaysia as we are worried that there may be more Malaysians visiting other countries than foreign tourists coming to Malaysia," he was quoted by a local daily. He also said his Ministry would re-examine plans to encourage Malaysians to travel domestically.

Well, his planners should not have to go far to come up with a least one good suggestion on how to encourage Cuti-Cuti Malaysia. Just flip the pages of the same daily and they would see that while one travel agency is offering a 3D2N tour package to Langkawi for RM1,389.00, another agency is charging RM759.00 for a 4D3N package to Medan/Lake Toba, and RM859 for a 3D2N tour to Bali. And another agency boasts that its 5D4N package to Hong Kong costs only RM1,199.00, while its 6D Korean package is only RM1,799.00.

Turn to another page, a 4D Hong Kong/Shenzhen package costs only RM788.00, while 6-to-8 day China packages would set one back only by RM1,388.00 to RM1,499.00. So please do the maths, and see why there are more Malaysians travelling overseas.

Another thing the Ministry's planners may want to look at is the tourist-friendliness of Malaysia's destinations. Are these places and their attractions well-maintained? Are people there friendly? What about service?

I travel quite often, within the country as well as overseas. Some of these places I return to repeatedly because I like what I experience there. And I wish I had not stepped my foot at some other places because they are dirty, lack amenities, and the service people are rude or inconsiderate. You pay for your vacation through your nose, and you end up smelling and getting crap.

And that's really the sad part of Cuti-Cuti Malaysia.

2006-08-15T14:45:00.000+08:00

A LOT OF PEOPLE SOUND STUPID. REALLY.

Ah, yes. Another mindless controversy has cropped up, brought about by people who have nothing better to do.

I had expected this, the moment the Best Actress winner at the recent Malaysian Film Festival opened her mouth when accepting her award.

"I sound stupid when I speak in Malay, so I will make my speech in English," she said that night. Then she went on to say: "If making films 'mencemarkan budaya' let's do it more often!"

I have no issue with the statements. Because I see and understand them within the context they were uttered. And I didn't have to be there either.

A lot of people are not comfortable when asked to speak or write in Bahasa Melayu, because the language is so refined, so beautiful, so rich. People are easily intimidated by these qualities of the language, more so if they are to address an audience.

Personally, I have often declined invitiations to speak in Bahasa Melayu, for fear that I'd butcher the language. Although I love the language -- I envy my truly "bi-lingual" colleagues -- I'm more comfortable expressing myself in English.

My spoken Bahasa Melayu is so bahasa pasar, or so directly translated, that I'd rather not offend my audience. Colleagues used to laugh at expressions like: "Mesin kopi tu tak bekerja (that coffee machine does not work)", or "Saya rehatkan kes saya! (I rest my case!)".

So I understand the actress' predicament.

A lot of people also took offence at her other statement. I don't understand this either. Obviously she was referring to the hoo-haa made over her film a while ago by certain quarters, who went about town saying the film eroded and tarnished the Malay culture. Remember the stupid episode of Fenomena Seni on RTM1 where the film (and its director) was endlessly and mindlessly bashed?

Yet, the film won accolades, not just elsewhere, but at the Festival as well. So it was within this context that the statement was made.

Itulah, orang Melayu kita suka melatah, without looking at or understanding the bigger picture, the context. And melatah selectively, too, while overlooking a more offensive incident that happened that night.

What more offensive incident, you ask?

Well, the lewd leer and sexist remarks made by a has-been comedian (although personally I never subscribe to his brand of humour) to his female co-presenter that night, for one.

He kept ogling his co-presenter's derrière (among her other body parts) and made offensive and suggestive "ass"essments.

And then he went on to pass another offensive statement to a person accepting the award, saying that the person has finally repented (bertaubat) because she was now wearing a tudung.

Yet, no one has picked this up. Not the press, not even the Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister.

Is this type of behaviour allowed and tolerated because it's in our culture? Are we going to let this sexist, small-minded attitude continue to fester in our society? Is this going to be part of our culture and heritage?

Someone answer me, please.

2006-08-11T17:13:00.000+08:00

THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS OF HOPE

An old friend rang last week to catch up. It was quite a surprise, as we had not been in touch for almost a year, ever since he had gotten himself yet another wonderful job.

New, exciting career responsibilities and schedule kept him so constantly challenged and fired up that he had not had much time to touch base with friends and family. Until last week, that is. It seemed that the fire was fizzling out and our friend was now extending his feelers sniffing at greener fodder, again.

Ever so superficially attentive, I asked him what went wrong. Not that I did not know the answer already.

Like with his previous five other "wonderful" career moves, the current job no longer suited him -- the bosses were getting too bossy, the office too crammy, the hours too crappy, and the colleagues too geeky. Not to mention the pay which, as usual, was getting too lousy. All in the span of less than 12 months.

Hiding my dismay, I feigned shock and outrage at the gall of his bosses who did not know how to appreciate a gem like him. Well, it would be their loss, I said, and not his. He’d be better off somewhere else where he’d be appreciated, and commensurated, accordingly, I counseled. And not wanting to be his less-than-willing Agony Uncle, I hung up. Besides, my precious lunch hour was ticking away.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the guy. He is, after all, a friend, although at a time like this, I do dread his phone calls. I would have been more sympathetic had he been a bit wiser, and kinder, to himself.

The guy changes jobs like he changes clothes. If he does this smartly, I would not mind so much. But he rushes into things, accepting job offers without really looking at what they in turn could offer him.

Now, I do understand that it is not easy to land a career that you can really like, that fits you or your personality like a glove. But if you know what you want out of a job, if you are clear on your goals, if you take a broader view of things, you would benefit, grow and draw some level of satisfaction from the job, no matter what it is.

There would always be bossy bosses, geeky colleagues, crammy office or crappy hours. It’s how you take these within your stride that is important.

I have been trying to drum this two sen’s worth of whatever to the job-seeking friend without any success. "But I want a better life, and I can only have it with more money, and the grass is greener there, that’s why I’m going over," he’d always say.

Well, perhaps the next time he calls for advice, I’ll tell him that that the grass is also always greener over the septic tank.

(Note: a longer version of this posting appeared elsewhere before)

2006-08-09T18:39:00.000+08:00

HO HO, THE DEMIGOD HAS SPOKEN....

More on the slopes issue.

According to the Works Minister (he works, meh? I thought he left everything to God), there are over 100,000 hill slopes in the country, and 1,000 of which are classified as dangerous.

He therefore implores the cooperation of other agencies like municipal councils and local authorities (yup, we all know how helpful, cooperative and efficient they are in handling this issue) to work together with his Ministry/Public Works Department in the management of hill slopes.

If these agencies approve plans for development on hill slopes without referring to the PWD, "even God cannot help us", he says.

Plans must be referred to the department, which could provide input on how the development can be undertaken, he adds.

Interesting, this. The PWD can provide input? Since when, huh? Since zaman Tok Kadok, or since the development of yet-to-be-completed National Slope Master Plan?

I would guess the latter, as we know that God did not "help us" in so many hill slope disasters that have happened in the country, and many of the disasters took place along the NSE, whose construction, I believe, was overseen by the PWD at one point or another.

Who would forget the boulder the size of a two-storey (or was it four-storey) house that landed on the NKVE a few years ago? And the highway's many land/mud slides? Tu lah, kenape tak tanya input from the PWD?

Well, I suppose we can give a bit of credit to the Minister. At least he seems to be doing something to address the issue, although at a snail's pace.

I mean, the Master Plan will only be completed in 2008, and only then he could start proposing amendments to relevant Acts to "ensure" that all developments on hills and slopes comply with the Plan's provisions.

Till then, let's all pray directly to God to save us all. Don't trust the PWD to be our middle man.

2006-08-08T17:57:00.000+08:00

A NEW ROLE MODEL IS BORN ... NOT!

The people of Terengganu can heave a huge sigh of relief now that the State Government has found for its youths a new role model in the newly voted AF4 champion. "Yeay! A ray of hope for our languid, lazy, lackadaisical lads and lasses is finally here!!"

Yup, the MB of Terengganu wants the winner of the just-concluded reality TV talent programme to lead the State's languishing young laggards and show them the way to success.

And the State's Pemuda UMNO, which played a key role in garnering support for the winner, sees the boy as an icon for the people of Terengganu for realising the three main slogan of the State: "Bukan Halangan, Hanya Peluang; "Impian Menjadi Realiti"; and "Memahat Sejarah, Mencipta Tamadun." Whatever these mean.

The Pemuda head is suitably proud that efforts by various parties "membuahkan hasil apabila anak jati Marang itu berjaya merangkul tempat pertama pada pertandingan itu."

If I were a Terengganu constituent, I would be duly worried.

First and foremost, the boy is not exactly a role model material. I'm not quite sure what his academic performance/education qualification is like, but if he can't even pronounce simple English words (let alone understand the language), then I'm assuming it's not something that the Terengganu people can write home about, not even to Marang. Before AF4, the 22-year-old was helping out at his aunt's jewelry shop.

Secondly, I'm not quite sure I'd be proud of his "win". I mean, AF is not like other competitions where contestants really have to work hard at winning. Here, if you have fanatical fans or fan clubs -- and it helps to be well-connected -- you'd be almost guaranteed of winning. I would also like to point out that winning this contest has nothing to do with luck or doa, as the boy tries to have us believe. I should think God does not play a role here.

BERNAMA reported a week before the final AF4 concert that RM10,000 was collected by the good people of Terengganu to buy pre-paid cell phone cards so that fans of the boy could send SMS votes to ensure his win. Of the amount, RM5,000 came from the Majlis Kebudayaan Negeri, RM1,000 from a royal philanthropist, and the rest came from other private donors. And the boy's parents also spent thousands of ringgit (on credit) on their campaign to secure votes for their beloved son.

(Hmm. I wonder how much money they had spent on tuition fees or on English classes for the boy while he was still schooling; how much efforts they had made to ensure the boy did well in school.)

So, a fine role model he would make. I imagine all those lepakking Terengganu boys and girls would now be inspired not to do well in school, because they could always depend on their State Government and related agencies and connections to buy votes to ensure they win singing/talent competitions. So no need to work hard in school, no need to learn English, no need to learn the universal language. Yalah, when one becomes AF champion, the only language one needs is body language.

What a very fine message the State Government and its kuncus are sending to the good people of Terengganu. (I guess they learnt this from Johor, which produced the previous AF season's winner.)

And RM10,000 is a lot of money to be wasted, if you ask me. A lot of schools in Terengganu lack so many things -- computers, books, etc. There are also a lot of children from poor families in the State who are not getting the education that they deserve.

They would make a more worthy cause for the State's Pemuda UMNO to champion, I should think.

PS. Since this posting, reports have it that the good people of Terengganu would also make the boy the State's road safety icon. A fine choice, since the boy is a self-confessed traffic violator. Prior to AF, he drove around without a licence.

2006-08-02T17:41:00.000+08:00

CHOPPER RIDES OVER CHOPPED FORESTS

Today, Natural Resources and Environmental Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid (aka Mr Normala Samsuddin -- oopps, couldn't resist) was quoted in the papers lamenting his frustrations over the failure of three States to follow the guidelines developed by the Federal Government on hillside and hilltop development.

He named Penang, Selangor and the FT of Kuala Lumpur as the three culprits which are still approving projects on hilltops above 300 metres and slopes with a gradient of more than 35 degrees. The guidelines were issued in 2002 and revised last year.

The Minister said he found out about this when he took a helicopter flight over Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. (I wonder whether his was the same helicopter used by the Selangor Menteri Besar when he was forced to pantau the Bukit Cerakah area not too long ago after it was discovered that some unscrupulous developers, with the approval of his officials no doubt, had been sesuka hati flattening hills and felling trees adjacent to the forest reserve. Seems like helicopters are the transport of choice among Ministers. Donno lah, I mean I notice rampant rape of hilltops and slopes while just driving my car!)

Anyway, he went on to say that while all Menteris Besar/Chief Ministers are aware of and have in principle agreed to adhere to the guidelines, there have been occasions when they were left with no choice but to approve a particular project.

Hello.

I don't understand this part. They were left with no choice? Hello? Life is all about making choices. You have to make choices, and when you do, you aim to make the right ones. It's the same in politics. Politicians must make choices, and the choices they make must be in the best interest of their constituents, in the best interest of the nation. And not just taking into account of what the developers want (although what the developers want might often involve something going into someone's banking account).

Like the Minister said, the guidelines were designed to protect the environment and prevent natural disasters and (this is an understatement) ignoring the guidelines could have serious consequences.

So what "left with no choice" was he talking about?

To me the choice is simple. You can't flatten hills and slopes. Besides the obvious disastrous consequences, hills and slopes don't grow back. Don't people understand that? People in other countries go to great lengths to preserve their natural heritage. Here in this country no one is doing anything, at least anything meaningful.

I mean, guidelines? Double hello? Make these an Act of Parliament, then you can decisively act against the offenders and those in power who could be in cahoots with them. Go after the CM of Penang, the MB of Selangor, the powers that be in KL. Make them pay.

Especially the MB of Selangor. I can't believe the guy. So many disasters have happened in his State, so many environmental wrongs higlighted, yet he doesn't seem to care.

In other States, there are also a lot of questionable projects that to me do not make any sense. Like a shopping complex on Perhentian. Or a dual carriage highway on Langkawi. People holiday on these islands to experience their natural beauty, to sample the idyllic island life. To get away from the trappings of city life. They don't go to Perhentian to shop! And, who really are always in a rush and need a highway on Langkawi?

I understand a lot of people make a lot of money from development projects, but to embark on these projects without any regard to the environment, to our natural heritage that one day will be passed on to our children and their children and their children, is beyond comprehension.

I hope Datuk Azmi will do more. Shape and develop the guidelines into an Act. For all of our sakes.

2006-08-01T18:45:00.000+08:00

“YANG KURIK KUNDI, YANG MERAH SAGA....”

(Note: I wrote and published this article elsewhere some time back, but thought it would be OK to recycle it here.)

A few weeks ago, my colleagues and I attended a three-day course to improve on our understanding, command and usage of Bahasa Melayu so that we could communicate more effectively and efficiently in the national language. For me, it was certainly a process of re-discovering and re-appreciating the strength, beauty and adaptability of the language, which has been the lingua franca of the Malay Archipelago since centuries ago. After all, the last formal training I had -- if you could call that “training” – on my mother tongue was in secondary school. And you would agree with me that we were not taught much then. Whatever little we had learnt, I’m pretty sure we have forgotten, anyway.

During the three-day course, we were exposed to many different aspects of the language, including the national policy on Bahasa Melayu and the policy’s implementation, the language’s functions, its evolution, as well as aspects on grammar and spelling. There was also a module on kesantunan berbahasa, or the gracefulness of and correctness in using the language, in our day-to-day communication and interaction. In fact, the course facilitator dedicated one whole day to discussions on this aspect of the language, and how it builds, forms and shapes our social system, our values, our social etiquette, our character and so forth. I always have a particularly keen interest in this subject and its relation to the Malay kesopanan dan kesusilaan as well as to the universal code of etiquette.

In the Malay community, the norms and messages of the Malay etiquette are manifested in thousands of pantun, proverbs, adages and idioms. But sometimes, the deeper meaning of a pantun or a proverb is lost on us because we do not really understand how or why that particular pantun or proverb was coined, and why certain words or phrases were used. In a pantun, for example, each of the words and phrases, even those in the first two lines of the quatrain, is carefully chosen and carries a significant meaning. Yes, the words and phrases are there not just to rhyme. And most traditional pantun contain much wisdom to guide us in almost all aspects of our life. Just like the concept behind kesantunan berbahasa reminds us of who we are, where we come from, where we are (or should be) going, and how we should get there. Such is the beauty, the richness and the refinement of Bahasa Melayu.

Yang kurik kundi,
Yang merah saga;
Yang baik budi,
Yang indah bahasa.

Of course, as we evolve and change with the time, as does the language, we do not pay much attention to its beauty, richness and refinement. Heck, we don’t even understand certain words or phrases, let alone try to fathom their deeper meaning or significance. And we wonder why there are so many individuals out there in the society who lack budi bahasa or budi pekerti, or both.

Which reminds me of a little conversation I had the other day with a couple of instructors at my fitness club. Apparently they were – they still are -- at their wits’ end on how to handle this particular member who seems to have ditched all tenets of kesopanan dan kesusilaan in her interaction with staff of the club. According to the instructors, they have also received verbal complaints about her from other members of the club. “Rude”, “loud”, “sarcastic”, and “caustic” are just some of the favourite adjectives they closely associated with her. I, too, had had the displeasure of interacting with her, when she decided to bulldoze her way into a conversation that she was never a part of in the first place. And the remark that she passed was downright rude and uncalled for. Her incessant chatter, and always about herself, drive some members of the gym up the wall. Nowadays, I steer away from her whenever I see her in the club. I am also considering wearing a pair of really effective earplugs.

Tingkap papan kayu bersegi,
Sampan sakat di Pulau Angsa;
Indah tampan kerana budi,
Tinggi bangsa kerana bahasa.

I suppose we can never stress enough on the importance of budi bahasa and budi pekerti as they say a lot about a person. I’m not sure whether people still do this, but when I was growing up, my parents and relatives were always reminding me to “bawa diri baik-baik” whenever I returned to school after term breaks, or before I left home for extended visits somewhere. Even when I was in university, letters I received from home always ended with the phrase, or its variations. Although short, it went a long way in reminding me of how I should behave and carry myself wherever I was. It still works for me, and it has become my own favourite piece of advice.

Now, I wonder whether anyone has ever told our good friend at the gym to “bawa diri baik-baik”, but the next time she steps on my toe, I’m just going to look squarely at her in the face and say, “Yang kurik kundi, yang merah saga….”, and hope that she’d get it. If that fails, I’d go the whole hog with this lightly veiled threat:

Ubi keledek dibuat pengat,
Mari dimakan di bulan puasa;
Wahai cik adik hendaklah ingat,
Kerana mulut badan binasa.

2006-07-25T18:10:00.000+08:00

ESCAPING CLUELESSNESS

I read with with interest recent news reports about Malaysians' reading habit, which is virtually non-existent. According to the reports, a survey found that 98% of Malaysian children read only two books a year. I guess it was this very shameful fact that had led the authorities to launch the annual National Reading Campaign, with plans to spend a whopping RM10 million a year for the next five years.

Yup. Yet another noble (debatable) effort by our government. I just can't wait to see the campaign's outcome. If it turns out to be a success, well and good. If not, the government can always say: Well, we tried.

Personally, I'm not quite sure how this habit could be cultivated. It's either you love reading, or you don't. Plus, there are so many distractions nowadays.

When I was a child in primary school, books were my only source of pleasure. We were so poor we did not have a TV, and the radio made its debut in our home when I was nearly 12 years old! My mother bought our first TV (she said she wanted to wait for colour TV) when I was 16 or 17.

So, I buried myself in books. My favourites were those Enid Blyton novels -- the Famous Five series -- I found in the school library. I remember finishing all the books in the series in less than a month.

My eldest sister was a bit worried, because she felt Ms Blyton's books had no real literary value. So to please her, I started reading all those novels by the late Hamka, arguably one of the most prolific of Indonesian writers, and books by Malaysian novelists like A. Samad Said, Shahnon Ahmad and the like. My sister also introduced me to the (translated) works of Rabindranath Tagore, India's Nobel laureate poet and writer. And all this while I was still in primary school!

When I got to secondary school, my staple read included classic works of Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Melville, du Maurier, de Maupassant etc. My all time favourites were Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird (I think I must have read it 36 times, or more!!) and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (I finished it in three days during a term break -- my mom threatened to consult a bomoh as I refused to put down the book even at meal times), and I read it again and again for a total of not less than 15 times.

But that was just me. I just loved reading. I still do, except that now I don't have the luxury of time to read a lot. But I still make it a habit to buy at least one book every time I go to the book store with my twin godsons, who just love book stores! Now, if only I could get them to love reading as much....

I'm not sure what the government wants to do with the proposed annual budget of RM10 million for the reading campaign. My suggestion is to stock school libraries, especially primary and secondary schools, with really good books, and not just those meant to help students pass their exams.

Which brings me to another point I'm trying to make. It seems that nowadays reading is only for passing exams, for finishing class assignments.

It's no longer for pleasure, no longer for discovery purposes, no longer for opening of the mind and imagination, no longer for moulding character and values. Especially among my Malay brethrens.

Opps. They do read for pleasure, but their top choice reading materials would be those gossip rags, and gossip rags only (how would you explain the staying power of URTV, and the sister rag Mangga?).

So, how to mould character and values like that? How to get them to discover knowledge, how to open up their minds and imagination, how to get them get over their ignorance and cluelessness?

On any weekend, if you go to the book stores, you'd hardly see any Malay people with their kids there. You go to Malay homes, how many would have a library or at least reading corner? Macamana nak terus maju?

So, rajin-rajinlah membaca, jangan terus hanyut dalam kejahilan minda. Ewahh.

2006-07-11T17:56:00.000+08:00

MALAYSIANS ARE NOT RUDE

Like the majority of Malaysians, I totally disagree with the recent findings of a survey published by the Reader's Digest that placed Kuala Lumpur the third rudest city in the world.

Why do I disagree, you ask? Well, I disagree because I have proof that Malaysians are not like that at all. We are all such refined ladies and gentlemen. Kita kaya dengan budi bahasa, kita bangsa bertimbang rasa. We are all very considerate. The following observation proves my point:

Malaysians ALWAYS say "Thank you" and "You are welcome" when other people do something nice for them. The most excellent examples are the sales people in our shopping malls. They are SO polite and DO NOT snigger at you even when you do not buy anything at their shops. Same thing goes to our toll booth operators. They smile and thank you ALL the time after collecting your money. And those waiters and waitresses, they are ALL gems, our little ambassadors of politeness and good manners.
Malaysian drivers NEVER cut queues, especially during horrendous traffic congestion. Everyone will wait patiently for his/her turn. They NEVER, EVER use emergency lanes to cilok.They ALWAYS give way to other drivers who signal to change lanes. And they ALWAYS use their indicators when they want to turn. Their indicators are NOT for decoration only. They ALWAYS give way to pedestrians at zebra crossings. Slow drivers NEVER hog the fast lanes. Malaysian drivers ALWAYS adhere to speed limit, and they ALWAYS pay their speeding tickets or fines on time.
Malaysians ALWAYS open doors, or hold open the doors for other people, especially for ladies and old people, or people with babies or small children, or people with lots of things in their arms/hands. They NEVER let the doors slam into these people's faces.
Malaysians NEVER spit in public, in the elevators, or on the road while stuck in traffic jam. They also NEVER pick their noses or ears in the car while stuck in traffic jam.
Malaysians ALWAYS dispose of their rubbish properly. They NEVER while driving wind down their car window and chuck out fruit peels, plastic wraps, tissue paper, drink cans, cigarette butts, empty mineral bottles etc. And these things NEVER hit the car or cars behind them. And if they live in high-rises, they will NEVER, EVER throw garbage out of their windows, especially things that could potentially hurt somebody down below.
Malaysians also ALWAYS pick up things they drop, especially if these are the things that should go in the trash bin. And when they knock into something in a shop, they will ALWAYS pick that something up and put it back in its proper place.
Malaysians ALWAYS smile back and ALWAYS warmly respond to greetings from airline crew when they fly. When people smile or greet them, Malaysians NEVER think that they are being hit upon.
Malaysians NEVER rush into elevators. They ALWAYS wait for those passengers already in the elevators to come out first before they enter. And when using escalators, they NEVER stand side by side with their friend(s) on the escalator, but will ALWAYS let other people who are in a hurry to pass.
Malaysian taxi drivers are ALWAYS honest. They ALWAYS use their metres and NEVER try to cheat or over charge their passengers, especially if the passengers are foreigners.
Malaysians ALWAYS have impeccable table manners. They NEVER overstuff their plates at the buffet line. They NEVER speak with their mouths full. They NEVER spit out chicken bones onto the dining table, and they NEVER drink their soup with a straw. Eh, no, I'm confused. It's Singaporeans who NEVER drink their soup with a straw.
Malaysian Muslims ALWAYS think of their Hindu brethrens when they invite them to their parties and NEVER serve beef at the parties, much like the non-Muslims who NEVER serve pork at parties they invite their Muslim friends to.
Malaysian traders at China Town or Chow Kit are ALL so very, very polite, they NEVER curse at you or call you horrible names if you don't buy their imitation goods.
Malaysians NEVER talk in the cinema during a movie. They ALWAYS switch off their cellphones and NEVER take calls. And if they accidentally do, they ALWAYS stop when fellow cinema-goers ask them to. They also NEVER leave behind garbage -- popcorn tubs, paper cups, etc -- after a movie.
Malaysians NEVER bring their domestic help or maids to parties at friends', especially when they know that the parties are meant for, well, friends. And ALL Malaysians who have maids treat their maids very well. They NEVER abuse them, pour hot water on them, and NEVER, EVER hit them with hot iron.
Malaysians NEVER bring durians into hotels or into any other buildings, for fear that other guests or their colleagues would suffer migraines or nausea upon smelling the fruit's wonderful and universally loved aroma. They ALWAYS adhere to signs at buildings that prohibit the fruit.
Malaysians ALWAYS queue up properly at train stations or bus stops. They NEVER fight for seats and ALWAYS give up the seats to the elderly, pregnant ladies, handicapped OKUs, especially if these seats ARE already meant and marked for these people.

Well, these are some of the proof (and the list does not end here), mainly from personal observation, that I could think of. So, they prove that Malaysians are NOT rude.

Right.

2006-07-09T00:38:00.000+08:00

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. REALLY.

Well, it's now officially splitsville between a certain SMS King and his (ex-) would-be Queen. What a sad end to perhaps the most scrutinised relationship in Malaya's recent history.

And bravo to the mainstream and tabloid reporters who relentlessly sought the couple (or any one of them), chewed them and spat them out like yesterday's entree. I'm sure they're now very happy their mission is accomplished. Shameless vultures!

I feel so sad and sorry for the former lovebirds. They have been used and abused by the vultures to no end. When the SMS King was just crowned, the vultures had the cheek to reprimand, via scathing articles, CD pirates and finger-happy aspiring scribes who "used" and "exploited" the poor, ignorant boy.

Yet, day after day their own newspapers and tabloids ran pages after pages of stories about him, his likes, his dislikes, what he would eat, what he wouldn't eat, how many times he would fart, etc, no matter how silly or nonsensical the stories sounded.

Ironic.

Then, as they began to run out of things to write about the boy, they tracked those close to him. His family members became instant, reluctant celebrities. So did his fiancee. They hunted her down for interviews, photo shoots, comments, what-have-you.

When these too became stale news, they created new ones, linking the boy to other celebrities. Pages after pages of fishy business. All in the name of public interest, I'm sure.

So the poor girl in the kampung naturally got worried. The bastards who called themselves managers of the boy also did not help matters. The two did not communicate for five months due to the boy's busy schedule. So she came to see him, but was stood up a few times.

So, the vultures got a drift of this, too, and pursued and pecked, pursued and pecked, until what was very private became very public. And then the boy, not so bright to begin with, retaliated, after he himself was pursued and pecked. The rest, like they always say, is history.

So, I guess the girl, now labeled gila glamour by the very vultures who had sought her, would be dropped like a sack of potatoes. She's no longer somebody, she's yesterday's news. She's stale toast.

And the vultures? They will continue pursuing other busuk things to peck and pick on. It's what they do.

2006-07-07T13:39:00.000+08:00

TO KONGSI, OR NOT TO KONGSI

A lot of people have said a lot of things over the statement made by the Perak Mufti a while ago that the Muslim Hari Raya ought not be jointly celebrated with people of other faiths as this could erode the faith of Muslims and lead to blasphemy.

In a truly Malaysian fashion, as soon as this was reported, hundreds of Som, Nik and Mary came forward to voice their two-sen opinion on the topic. It doesn't matter that most of them are quite clueless (read not quite an authority on Islam), but thanks to the equally clueless reporters, their misinformed views get air time and column inch, and contribute further to the confusion.

Granted that the Perak Mufti is not actually a person known for making PC statements (remember not too long ago he suggested that all HIV/AIDS patients be banished to some island?), I think that this particular topic needs to be looked at within the context within which it was made/meant to be discussed.

A lot of people (including me) do not really understand the concept of Hari Raya, and why Muslims celebrate it. Who can blame them? Hari Raya today has degenerated into a highly commercialised affair of excessive consumption, wastage and stupid TV entertainment. It has been almost totally stripped off its religious meaning.

Hari Raya Aidil Fitri is to mark the end of puasa, where Muslims must also pay the zakat fitrah. These two ibadah, part of the five rukun Islam, when performed correctly and with utmost sincerity, would "purify" the Muslims. The other Hari Raya, the Aidil Adha, is part of the haj ritual, another one of the rukun Islam, and has a lot to do with the concept of one-ness of Allah, often reminded through the story of sacrifice made by Nabi Ibrahim of his son Nabi Ismail.

So, basically, the two Hari Raya have a lot to do with the doctrine and rituals of Islam and the Muslim worship. Therefore, it doesn't make any sense to kongsi them with people of other faiths. It's the same with festivities of other religions, which should be respected but not neccesarily shared by every Malaysian.

I think it was in this context that the Perak Mufti was talking about. But then again, I could be wrong, sebab saya pun tak berapa arif bab ni.

As for kongsi makan during Hari Raya (and during all other festivities)? I'm all for it, as it has become what Malaysia Truly Asia is known for.

Right.

2006-06-26T13:20:00.000+08:00

WE ARE A SENSITIVE LOT ... NOT

OK, more of the AF saga. Sorry, folks, I just have to do this, and get it out of my chest, otherwise I tak tidur lena (over!).

So, apologies over the dadah comment incident were asked and accepted -- well, it looked like they were accepted -- and we hope everyone will now bury the hatchet, along with other things that need burying, doping habits included.

I guess Astro now can take the credit for bringing the episode to a close, and hope that no one else would make any more controversial incendiary remarks, especially those that would offend the students, their parents, critics, guest artistes, etc. Right?

Wrong! I am still reeling from shock over the word "n_gg_r" uttered by the host when describing the different style or image adopted by each of the students during last weekend's concert. I almost fell off my sofa when I heard it. I couldn't believe my ears!

Yet no one has said anything. No one has screamed murder, no one has demanded a public apology, unlike over the dadah episode. Which goes to show that typical Melayu are only sensitive to criticisms yang kena batang hidung sendiri, no matter how true they are. Those that are sensitive and extremely offensive to people of other cultures, go to hell, we don't care. It also goes to show how ignorant we are as a bangsa.

I hope someone will make noise about this, louder than that made over the dadah comment. And demand that Astro and the AF host apologise to the whole world, or face a multi-million ringgit suit.

2006-06-20T17:28:00.000+08:00

PROGRESS AND THE POLITE SOCIETY

Last Sunday, like millions of other (Malay) Malaysians, I parked myself in front of the telly to watch the weekly Akademi Fantasia 4 concert. Not so much by choice, but by default. Because when it comes to AF4 and the programme's twice-daily updates, my adik Wan rules. He takes over the house and conquers the remote control. So, macam rela terpaksa la ni.

As much as I want to be nonchalant about AF4, I have to admit that there are a couple of good talents in there -- particularly Farhan and Velvet. The rest is rather forgettable.

Anyway, what I'm about to rant next is already being discussed by satu Malaya. Yup, critic Adlin Aman Ramli and his frank and cutting comments, which spare no one. Not the "students", nor the "faculty members" of AF4. Not even the guest artistes.

Adlin has received a lot of flak it seems for his "stay away from drugs" advice given to one of AF4 favourites Faizal, after the latter finished his performance, which was accompanied by Saleem, once a great singer beleaguered with dadah problem. Some people think the "advice" was so un-called for as it was basically nothing more than a cheap shot meant for Saleem.

Now, no one knows for sure what Adlin's intention was. For all we know, he was just, well, giving advice to someone who he felt could have a future in the industry.

Me, the moment I heard Adlin, I went, "Yes!! Finally! Someone is saying something about this, and so strongly, too!" That's progress, I thought. I mean, sampai bila should we continue to be polite about the subject? Sampai bila are we to continue to give multiple second chances to dadah abusers?

Astro pun satu hal. What kind of signal is it giving to its mostly young viewers when it continues to give face/exposure to repeat dadah offenders? It's OK to take drugs, kids, if you're a pop star? No matter how many times you erred, we would always welcome you back because you're such a great singer? Tolonglah!

How many dadah abusers are there in the entertainment industry still idolised by millions? I can name a few. Ni yang saya tak paham ni. And why we are encouraging our youngsters to root for them, I also don't understand...

And then, when someone somewhere has enough guts/balls to say something, dia pulak yang kena marah. Tak sopan la, kurang ajar la, tak kena tempat la. Semuanya nak kena berlapik.

To me, it was so tak kena tempat on the part of Astro to have invited that particular dadah junkie, or any other drug offenders/addicts, to be on the show. Millions of ringgit is being spent by the government, NGOs, corporate sponsors and other bodies in the national fight against dadah. Yet, orang-orang yang hisap ganja, yang keluar masuk pusat serenti, yang keluar masuk mahkamah disebabkan dadah, these are the ones yang masih disanjung dan diusung ke sana ke sini. Nak kasi diorang peluang/ruang kedua.

Now, I'm not an incompassionate (is there such an adjective?) person. I am. If you do wrong, I'll give you a second chance to correct the wrong. But if keep repeating the offence macam ulang-tayang drama Melayu kat Astro, sori la beb, out you go, finish, bye bye.

2006-06-14T19:07:00.000+08:00

MORE WASTAGE...

Anyone flipping through local newspapers today and yesterday would have noticed the full-page colour ad ran by "the Government and the People of the State of Selangor Darul Ehsan" thanking with "utmost sincerity" the Prime Minister for his working visit to the State on June 13.

The ad was carried by the English publications on June 13, and the Malay publications today, by what I saw. And today also, a Selangor State-owned company ran another ad thanking the Prime Minister for officially opening its herbatorium.

It looks like the State of Selangor has a lot of money. Those full-page colour ads cost anywhere from RM22,000.00 to RM41,000.00 each, depending on which paper carried it. The Star normally charges RM34,500.00, NST RM22,560.00, Berita Harian RM33,600.00 and Utusan Malaysia RM32,600. So, you do the Maths. (FYI, the most expensive rate is offered by Sin Chew Daily at RM40,800.00, although I don't think the State rented a page).

I remember not so long ago everybody (and by this I meant UMNO politicians) rallied around the move mooted by their higher-ups against this type of wastage, against unnecessary ass-kissing spending. So what happened?

I guess everyone now wants to show support to the PM, in many ways -- guided or otherwise -- following the recent developments between him and his predecessor. To me, the support could be given in so many other ways, some of which do not cost anything. Save the people's money for something more useful and constructive. I wonder how many of "the people of the State of Selangor Darul Ehsan" consented to have their money wasted that way.

While I'm on the subject, I know that a few days prior to the recent NAM meeting, DBKL spruced up a few of the city streets with flowering bunga tahi ayam and bunga balung ayam, and several other species not hardy enough for our sweltering climate. Now, three weeks later, they look so pathetic and I suppose DBKL has already directed its nurseries to replace these plants, again. More money wasted.

Kalau lah ada orang DBKL yang tersesat to this blog, I would like to suggest that you tell your higher-ups or your landscape "con"sultants to start considering hardier species, like pokok ati-ati, or any other hardy plants with those coloured or pigmented leaves. They are not only nice, but can withstand our weather better. They are also low-maintenance.

You might also tell them that whatever they had learned on their study visits to four-season countries might not work in our tropical setting.

2006-06-12T17:22:00.000+08:00

STILL A NATIONAL AGENDA

Before anyone starts screaming murder, let me qualify that what follows is not a criticism against my own kaum. Instead, it is just an observation from an average Malaysian not quite familiar or learned about how certain agendas are supposed to work in his beloved country.

A few days ago, UMNO launched a one-stop agency set up to lend a helping hand to budding Malay entrepreneurs. It was named Gagasan Badan Ekonomi Melayu, or Gabem, for short.

The Prime Minister, who officiated the launch, was quoted by a local paper to have said: "Malays should help Malays and start a migration of the mind for a better life and to be more advanced. The struggle to strengthen the economy of the Malays is an economic mission that has to become a national mission and only after the (Malay) economy has been strengthened would the pride and honour of the Malays be more meaningful." He also said Malays must change their mindset and attitude to raise themselves to a higher level. "This can only be done when Malays adopt the approach of helping other Malays such as the rich helping the poor."

Right.

I looked up the word gagasan (which sounds like a big word to me) in a dictionary, which lists it to mean idea, plan, scheme, thought, reflection. So I did some reflecting of my own, wondering whether Gabem would really become a meaningful, implementable scheme or whether it would forever remain just an idea.

I don't know about you, but observation of past and current events tell me to place my bet on the latter. I live in a country where many ideas, policies, schemes etc have been put forward and implemented in the name of helping the less economically endowed ethnic majority. And Gabem is the latest.

The way I see it, such a gagasan would only serve a few people, and not the Malay masses and the riff raffs it is implied to assist. It would certainly make popular those young, impatient, power-hungry political leader-wannabes trying to endear and ingratiate themselves among the Malay masses. And if it does help, such a scheme would assist those few budding entrepreneurs to be more and more successful (ie make more money) only to lupa daratan and forget to be generous and share their wisdom, let alone their wealth, for the purpose of inspiring aspiring fellow entrepreneurs.

Let's face it. There has been, there is, a lot of those greedy kacang lupakan kulit types among our midst who are looking out only for themselves. Remember pre-1997/98 glory days? A handful of Malays were handpicked to run well-connected companies, in the name of helping the Malays. They made obscene amount of money. They shamelessly paraded their wealth, their lavish lifestyle, their (foreign) trophy wives. It seemed that this was all they did. The rich Malays helping the poor Malays? Na ah, no way. And their companies? Oh yeah, they ran them -- to the ground. And then they disappeared. In the end, there was no payback to no one.

As long as there are Malays with very narrow, self-serving agenda, no gagasan would ever work. So the dream of making the pride and honour of the Malays more meaningful (whatever that means) would just remain a dream.

I am a Malay. I come from very, very poor background. Our whole family -- particularly my mother -- worked hard, and honest, to get ourselves out of the poverty rut. We are not filthy rich now nor will we ever be. But the pride and honour we earned along the way mean more to us than any material wealth on earth.

2006-06-09T13:57:00.000+08:00

NATIONAL TOILET SUMMIT? REALLY...

A couple of days ago a local newspaper published a report on the plan by the Housing & Local Government Ministry to add a whimsical touch when it revamps KL's notoriously nasty public urinals.

The report also carried pictures of some of the possible urinal designs, which include ones in the shape of musical instruments and others with an open mouth replete with painted red lips and a pink tongue. Another design features a clown's mouth. These urinals, the Ministry hopes, would help or teach Malaysians to keep their public pee and poo depositories clean.

Personally, I don't see how these so-called "quirky" urinals would help. I for one would feel so uncomfortable aiming into one of these I may just miss my target!

To me, the key to maintaining clean public toilets is in proper maintenance. So, the public funds could be better spent on user-friendly toilet features, like working built-in bidet sprays and auto flush systems. Add in a box of sanitiser, uninterrupted supply of toilet paper, liquid soap and paper towels, and you'll have a lot of happy campers in the loo.

And oh, don't forget to train the cleaners on proper toilet care. I mean, wet does not equal clean. Really.

It would also be a good idea to get rid of the archaic squat-type toilets once and for all. Do people use them anymore?

The newspaper report also mentioned that a National Toilet Summit is being planned for August at which Malaysians will be taught toilet etiquette and how to establish a clean toilet culture.

Wow. Do we really need a national summit for this? Well, on hindsight, I guess so. As embarassing as it may sound, a majority of our members of the public need to be toilet-trained. Some do not even understand the concept of flushing. What, they think once they deposited their poo, it'll just go away just like that?

But I suppose let's forgive their parents for not teaching them proper toilet manners. Now, equipped with what they'd learn at the Summit, let them redeem themselves by imparting toilet etiquette to their children.

And some day, we can all pee and poo in peace, happily ever after.

2006-06-05T14:09:00.000+08:00

WHAT'S IN THE NAME, YOU SAY?

Call me ignorant, but I have just come across a series of electronic display products (stuff like plasma screen) manufactured locally and marketed under the brand name of MAL. It must have been around for a while. I guess the name was chosen by the brains behind it to reflect the country origin of the products, Malaysia.

In a way, I suppose I should feel proud that there are a lot of locally manufactured consumer products making their way to the export markets, brands like Elba, Khind, MEC, Pensonic etc. Some of these brands are positioning themselves as global brands (Khind's tagline is "A World Brand").

So, what is my problem, you ask. No, no problem. Not really. I have faith in these brands. I used to own a locally made cordless iron. It lasted more than four years until I dropped it too many times. Now I don't use it although it still functions. All three of my electrical fans are also local. Some of my other products carry foreign names, but are manufactured locally.

Jadi, apa dia? What is it, then? Well, I have an issue with the brand name MAL. "Mal" in French means "bad", or "not good", or "sick", or "evil" or "harm", or "wrong", or "pain". You get the picture. When a French person asks me how I am, I might say, "pas mal" (not bad), or "j'ai mal à la tête" (I have a headache).

In English, "mal" is a prefix meaning "bad" or "wrongful", as in "maltreatmeant" or "malfunction". Hardly something you'd want to associate with your brand, isn't it?

But then again, may be the brains behind MAL branded their products as such to prove a point. OK, let our products carry a brand name that means "bad", which could in itself attract customers, and when they buy and try out, they would discover that our products are in fact "good" and then they come back for more? Erm, now it is I who sound mal.

Other Malaysians butcher their products or brands using the French language in other ways. For example, the French preposition "de" has been misused and abused for as long as I could remember. You'd come across "De Bicycle Shoppe", or "De Village Resort", or its variation of "D'Village Resort", and a lot more. My all-time favourite is "Doris de Florist". I swear.

In French, "de" does not mean "the". Instead, it means "of" or "from". As in, le toit de la maison (the roof of the house), or il vient de Kuala Lumpur (he comes from Kuala Lumpur). It is also used to charaterise or measure something, as in un bébé de 10 mois (a 10-month-old baby), or 12 mois de travail (12 months' work). Also in questions or negative phrases, like, a-t-il de pommes? (does he have any apples?), or il n'a pas de pommes (he doesn't have any apples). Eh, I'm giving French lessons now, huh?

No, the point is, we should not embarass ourselves unnecessarily. Check first before we decide to come up with fancy names. The same goes for the authorities that approve the registration of these names. Jangan main OK aje.

2006-05-24T17:52:00.000+08:00

PROPAGATING SUBSIDY/WELFARE MENTALITY

Recently, a politician (who else would it be) from an opposition party made noise via several newspaper reports announcing that he would take up to the government to approve in principle a motion that Petronas' profits "be distributed to the people, especially the needy".

This scares me a bit. Because there a lot (and I mean a lot) of people out there who are needy. Some are needy because they are really needy. A lot more are needy simply because they are greedy. Then there are those shameless, lazy lot who are always on the look-out for free hand-outs as their main source of income.

I'm also scared because after Petronas, which GLCs and other companies are going to be next? What kind of message are we sending to them? Don't do well because you will be punished for your success? What kind of message are we sending to investors?

More importantly, what kind of message are we sending to the masses and the riff raffs? That it's all right if you don't work hard in life because there are always companies like Petronas to help you out? That it's OK to waste time and resources on Akademi Fantasia, konsert-konsert hiburan and other lepak sessions? That it's OK to always depend on others to fill up your periuk nasi?

And I thought we wanted to do away with subsidy and welfare mentality, which, as long as it is propagated and sanctioned, will not help us move forward. There's no room for this in 2020's Malaysia.

I'm not an expert in economy (no kidding...) and I know very little about how the country is run (is it being run, really...?), but I think I would want to ask this particular politician to ask the government how it has been spending billions of ringgit companies like Petronas and other GLCs pay in taxes, dividends, royalties, etc.

Perhaps this particular politician should suggest to the government that hey, please set aside some money for programmes that will really help the needy and the riff raffs to develop their capability to help themselves and their brood better their miserable lives. Ajar diorang macamana nak memancing, jangan asyik dok kasi ikan kat diorang. Kita bukannya bangsa peminta sedekah...

2006-05-18T17:11:00.000+08:00

REALITY FANTASISED

The good people at ASTRO recently introduced the 20 candidates shortlisted to try out as the 12 finalists for Akademi Fantasia 4. A lot of newspapers wrote about this, and carried the pictures of the kids. That means the reality programme will start soon.

Yippee. I'm sure AF's die-hard fools can't wait to watch and part with their money to vote for their favourite candidates. A lot of poor fools will get poorer by the end of the season. And the sad part is, they don't realise that they are fools.

During the last season, I know of someone who spent as much as RM500 on SMS votes. Another person allocated about RM200 for each of her three children. And countless others I talked to were heavy voters as well. OKlah, if they have the money, why not, kan. People get satisfaction their own way.

Personally, though, I think this is extremely wasteful, not to mention stupid. What do you get in the end? Nothing. The only parties that gain would be the TV station, the SMS provider, and the candidates. And their hangers-on and users.

Yang memalukan most ialah, kebanyakan yang suka buang duit dan buang masa ni adalah orang-orang Melayu. Let there be some hiburan events, yang datang meramaikan majlis ialah orang-orang Melayu. Siap berkemah dan berkampung lagi. Bawak anak-anak sampai malam buta. Buang masa, buang duit. Yang masalahnya, diorang ni bukannya kaya sangat in the first place.

Yet, when prices of goods, petrol etc go up, they would be the first to cry murder. School fees go up, they complain. Prices of school books go up, they complain. But when it comes to hiburan, or Mawi, sanggup berkorban wang, jiwa dan raga. Orang Melayu.

I also read with disgust a couple of articles in this particular Malay tabloid. One of the 20 candidates wears a tudung. So the reporters wrote to suggest that she might have been selected by ASTRO because of her choice of attire. She could be popular because she could well be the female version of Mawi. So I suppose the would-be fool voters are supposed to forget that she could actually sing. And in another article, the same writers went so far as to suggest that this particular candidate could also win many votes because Mawi likes girls who wear tudung, and that she also might have all the qualities of a woman that Mawi idealises.

Aiyo. I am disgusted at the stupidity of it all. Of the articles. What were the reporters thinking? And their editors?

Personally, I feel that it's high time someone re-looked at the quality of journalism in this country. If we really want to educate our masses, please stop printing rubbish like these. They may be popular among the masses and the riff raff. But what's popular among them isn't necessarily good for them.

2006-05-17T17:35:00.000+08:00

EDUCATING MALAYSIAN DRIVERS

Out of desperation to curb unnecessary ("unnecessary" is subjective here) road deaths, the government has come up with plans to educate would-be Malaysian drivers from young. Melentur buluh biarlah dari rebungnya.

I'm all for education. It's the most wonderful gift. It empowers people to aspire for something better, something higher. So, this move by the government ought to be received by all with open arms, and mind.

I hope in the proposed curriculum or module, they would be smart enough to include the following tips:

Emergency lanes are for people to stop their vehicles in real emergencies, not for ciloking other vehicles.
Hazard lights should be turned on only when vehicles are stationary, not when you're doing 60kmh during heavy rain.
Slow pokes should drive on the left lane, and not hog the fast lane.
Right/left indicators are not ornamental in purpose.
Zebra crossings are meant for people to cross the road, so please stop when you see people crossing. They are never meant for zebras.
Don't pack more than four (I've seen as many as seven) people in a Kancil.

Of course, like many other educational lessons, you tend to forget what you learn.

For this, I have a very simple solution. Stop selling cars to stupid people. Make them take a test or something, to prove that they're in fact have a bit of brain before they get to drive.

2006-05-16T13:28:00.000+08:00

GOODBYE RIFF RAFF, HELLO WELL-HEELED

The last of the occupants of Flat Pekeliling have yet to leave the buildings, but the developers appointed to redevelop this 15ha prime land have already dished out their plans. Yes. Projek hartanah gaya mewah, named Taman Sari Riverside Garden City, will replace the decrepit flats.

The developers have ingeniously divided the area into 20 parcels, named Parcels A through Y, where starting this month different buildings and facilities will be erected. Yes, a lot of people will be turned on by the ka-ching sound the project will bring. Construction alone will cost RM3 billion, an amount that will give considerable staying power for many, no doubt. Yup. We just love erections, don't we?

There will be condominiums, townhouses, hotels, shopping complexes, service apartments, offices -- all come with the adjective mewah. I suppose the demand for luxury living and lifestyle is ever on the rise. So, get rid of the riff raff. Let them go stay in the backwoods of Setapak Jaya for all DBKL cares. Bring in the well-heeled.

For the sake of the well-heeled, let's hope that the project will be completed. We don't want another eyesore in that area, like the all-suite office building that another developer started there almost a decade ago.

I hope DBKL has also included brilliant plans to ease traffic in that area, especially when construction starts. I can imagine the bottleneck that all rate and taxpayers like me have to go through everyday will get many times worse than it already is.

But hey, ka-ching rules, once again.

2006-05-15T13:44:00.000+08:00

WASTAGE WASTAGE

I was in Johore over the Wesak Day weekend to attend a friend's wedding. Finally, the guy got hitched, much to the delight of his family, no doubt. I wish him and the wife well.

As we were driving from Kluang to Mersing, where the wedding reception was held, I noticed an imposing house on a hill, with ornate fencing and well tended compound. "Oh, that's the DO's residence," my Johore-born and bred sister volunteered. Me, who was Kelantan-born and bred, thought the house was fit for at least a Menteri Besar. Definitely it was much, much better looking than the house of Kelantan's Menteri Besar.

"So much wastage we have in Johore," said my sister, gesturing now to a row of potted plants lining one of Kluang's thoroughfares. The money, she said, should have been spent elsewhere.

Uhmm, I agreed, as my thought raced back to KL, where DBKL has also been on a city beautification drive for some time now. A lot of streets in the city have been "beautified" with potted plants, flower beds and hanging baskets.

They do make the streets look pleasant. But the thing is, DBKL chooses to use plants that probably last three to four weeks on most of its flower beds. After that, they die and would be replaced. It looks like DBKL needs a lot of money to keep replacing these plants. Which translates into ... wastage, and oh, how could I forget ... lucrative income for the contracted nurseries.

Why can't DBKL use more lasting perennials? Those that require less maintenance? I'm sure there are lots of other species in the contractors' nurseries that its landscape consultants could choose. Yup. Landscape consultants. There's such a profession, you know.

Use the money on more relevant stuff, lah. Like fixing up those potholes, providing more pedestrian-friendly side-walks, upgrading and maintaining public toilets. These are just a few examples.

Talk about landscaping, I used to enjoy driving south. I thought the NSE was one of the better-landscaped highways. All those mature trees and flowering plants that served as the divider of the opposing lanes were so cantik and colourful.

Not anymore. The owner-operator of the NSE is upgrading some stretches of the highway into three-lane carriageway, and has been uprooting and destroying all those wonderful trees and plants. What a shame. In their place, I assume, would be the cold metal barrier.

Personally, I don't think the upgrading is quite necessary. OK. May be at busy stretches near Senawang. But at the rest of the highways? No need, lah. Having three lanes per way would further confuse the already confused Malaysian drivers. As of now, they think that the middle lane is the slow lane, so they overtake using both the left lane and the fast lane. Besides, the left lane is almost always empty.

Logically speaking, having three lanes per way is also not very safe. I think when driving, it would be easier to predict the reaction of other drivers on a two-lane carriageway if something happens on one of the lanes. After all, you only have two lanes to negotiate. Kalau ada tiga lanes, macam tak berape sure nak pegi to which lane if something happens.

But hey, someone needs to make money. The work was sanctioned by the government. Ka-ching for the builders. I read the owner-operator issued bonds to raise fund to use for the upgrading work. Ka-ching for the financial institutions involved. And if there's an increase in toll charges once the upgrading is complete, ka-ching for the owner-operator. After that, it can go chink-chink champagne glasses with its sister company the builders.

2006-05-11T17:43:00.000+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UMNO...OR NOT

UMNO celebrates its 60th anniversary today. I can image lots of my Malay brethren yippeeing about in Johore Baru. Yup, 100,000 or more people. That's a blessing. I'm not quite up to seeing that circus in KL.

Frankly, I think they should be reflecting more than celebrating. OK. So UMNO has done a lot for the Malay people. What it should be reflecting on now is how to move all the Melayus to the next century. And I'm not just talking physical here, but more on mental shift.

As a bangsa, as a nation, we somehow are moving. Backwards, that is. While others moved on to more important things in this globalised existence, we seem to be dealing more and more with issues that are so remeh-temeh they are laughable, if you're not a tax payer who expect value for my money like me.

People are becoming more narrow-minded, their views more myopic. Elected leaders are showing more and more of their moronic side that makes me wonder how and why they were elected in the first place. Ooops. I forgot. Money politics.

Personally, I would have loved to grow up and live during the days of my parents and their parents, when people were more tolerant, more open-minded, more intelligent, more honest, more real...

2006-05-08T16:41:00.000+08:00

PUBLIC TOILETS AND THE PUBLIC

Today a local tabloid carried an article on the lack rubber (spray) hoses in the toilets of a leading shopping complex for people to wash their behinds (and private parts) after they finished doing their business. Wah. Big issue.

The article, taking up half a page, came complete with quotes from alleged patrons, all parroting the writer's sentiments. I wished I had been interviewed as well, for I would have given the writer a piece of my mind.

I mean, hello, rubber hoses? Where has the writer been? How many shopping complexes, hotels, conference centres and other higher-end places boast rubber hoses in their public rest rooms anymore?

Instead, most of these toilets now come with hygienic, clean, state-of-the-art "cleansing" system that doesn't involve hoses. As a Muslim myself, I prefer NOT to use toilets that have hoses, because they're usually wet and filthy. The hoses are never placed properly, most of the time they'd be on the wet floor or in the toilet bowls. And I'm expected to USE them? I won't touch them with a ten-foot pole, thank you very much.

The particular shopping complex the writer was ranting about, its toilets are among the cleanest. Its toilet seats are clean, the floor mopped dry (and I mean dry, NOT damp) every few minutes, the flush works, and the built-in water spray is so easy to use. It's much more convenient than a rubber hose, or any other types of spray. They also almost never run out of tissue paper, and each stall is installed with a sanitiser box.

Tolonglah. We are not talking about some backwater rest-stops, here. It's time that the Press did their part to try bring our riff raff masses into the twenty-first century.

And the rubber hose? Leave it at home. Someone may need it to water the plants, or wash the porch, or both.

2006-05-05T11:07:00.000+08:00

Ours is becoming really a classless society. No, not the type advocated by Marx -- we all know what DID NOT happen with communism. I'm talking about a society whose members are ditching all social norms, values and etiquette, about people who have no manners and are just plain rude. People yang takde kelas....

And they could be anyone, anywhere. From the average riff-raff in the streets to elected politicians sitting in parliament. From sports figures on the courts to corporate hotshots in the boardrooms. They are everywhere. And this worries me, and should worry you, too. The moment the government started its budi bahasa budaya kita campaign, we should have had a collective seizure of massive, epileptic proportions.

What's happening? Weren't we supposed to be a people steeped in kesopananan and kesusilaan, so rich with budi bahasa and pekerti mulia? Whether we are Melayu, Cina, India, or Lain-Lain -- we all clung (or at least our parents and their parents, and the parents of their parents, did) to a set of values that shape and define who we are and how we interact with other people.

So kenape sekarang semua orang kurang ajar? People are rude on the road, people rude at the food stalls, people are rude in the office, people are rude, period.

I wonder what parents are teaching their kids nowadays. Not much, I suppose. Especially when the parents themselves are not the best of examples. Most are too busy or too ignorant to care. And they keep breeding. Rabbits after rude rabbits.

And leaders? Oh, come on. "Go to hell" with leaders. They are the ones who need the budi bahasa budaya kita campaign most.

2006-05-03T16:21:00.000+08:00

Over the Labour Day weekend, I went to Penang -- you know, the so-called Pearl of the Orient (although personally I think the lustre has long gone) -- for a wedding. The last time I toured the island (short nasi kandar-makan stops don't count) was 13 years ago, so I looked so much forward to the trip. Besides the makan-makan, which my traveling companion really relished in, there were lots of other things and places to do and see. All in all, it was rather enjoyable. Until I did a bit of post-trip accounting, that is.

Food and lodging aside, fuel and toll charges took a big bite out of my traveling budget. No wonder a lot of my friends say they can't really afford to cuti-cuti Malaysia. Especially now when petrol prices are what they are. Coupled that with the toll charges, my kocek is now so kosong I have to suppress those nasi kandar urges so that I won't go binge at any of the cut-throat, second-rate outlets we have in KL.

Talk about petrol, I wasted a lot of it when that fuel-guzzler of mine got stuck in traffic due to some demonstration over fuel price hike. OK la, to protest is good, I suppose, after all we should all root for the freedom of expression, and this is a free country, relatively speaking. So, I just parked my vehicle on the road side, and watched the demonstrators. One thing struck me, though. I wasn't clear whether they were protesting against the government or Petronas. To me, if protestors want to protest, they have to make sure that they're protesting against the right party. This way, they would get their issues and messages right. Otherwise, the issues and messages will bercampur-aduk and will confuse people more. I'm all for the freedom of expression, but I'm also for taking accountability for what you say. We can't all be like politicians. Some of us have to be responsible, so tak elok cakap sesuka hati without getting our basic facts right.

A lot of people marah-marah because fuel prices went up, and a lot were also angry at Petronas. Mana pegi keuntungan Petronas? What happens to Petronas' money? Why can't Petronas subsidise prices? Watching the protestors that day, I think a lot of people missed the point.

What people should be asking is: What is being done with the billions of ringgit Petronas has paid to the government in royalty, dividend, tax, and export duty? Kalau baca Press reports, last year alone Petronas paid RM31 billion to the government, more than half of its operating profit. Yang Petronas dah bayar sejak 1974, was close to RM250 billion. So apa yang telah dibuat with all the money?

To me, don't ask what happens to Petronas' profits, because the money the company makes is for the company to keep for its business expansion, for technology acquisition, for capacity/capability building etc. After all, Petronas IS a company, governed by all the rules and regulations, just like any other company, kan? The company already paid what is due to the government. What the government does with this money, this is what I want to know.

Hish, kalau betul la apa yang newspapers cakap, I wonder mana pegi RM31 billion tahun lepas? Mana pegi RM250 billion yang dah dibayar since 1974? Kalau la sebegini banyak, kenapa must I still pay income tax????

So, my suggestion is: leave Petronas alone, la. Kalau nak sangat tahu how much the company makes, check out its website. Ask for its annual report. It does publish annual reports, audited some more, so don't say the company is not transparent.

The not-so-transparent party, I feel, is the government. I also want to know what it does with all those billions...

2006-04-14T21:23:00.000+08:00

I am not a happy man. I've just finished filing my income tax (thanks to my tax consultant), and as usual, found out that I need to fork out a large sum of money to top up the amount already auto-deducted from my hard-earned salary. It just irks me knowing what I'm paying will go mostly towards subsidising and maintaining other people's life-styles, most of whom -- in absolute terms -- are much better off than me.

It is just so bloody unfair! What to do, says my consultant, it's the way the system works. People like me would just fall through the cracks where not a morsel of benefit from the government's scheme of things trickles through. This year, I will pay more zakat instead. At least I have an idea where the money will go to.

2006-04-10T17:46:00.000+08:00

April is always a stressful month for me, and I guess for a lot of other people, too. Macamana tak stressnya, your income tax returns are due the end of the month. If you are a person as disorganised as I am, inilah masanya you nak cari all those receipts that'll entitle you to exemptions -- you know, resit beli buku, resit keraian, your insurance covers, etc etc. And some of these receipts have their own way of disappearing, although through no fault of theirs. Normally you would put them in a safe place so that come March or April, you could just take them out, neatly bundled, for LHDN purposes. But usually your safe place is so safe not even you could find it.

The thing is, however, even if you could find all your receipts, would they really matter? How much would they really "contribute" towards your total exemption? Not much. This is where I get quite worked up, sometimes, with our income tax structure.

You see, I'm a middle income single professional. Of what I make each year, 27% or so (and that's almost one-third of my hard-earned salary) would go to LHDN, purportedly to contribute towards the running of the country and all the benefits or services the government of the day would provide for me and my fellow Malaysians. But in reality, career-driven single people like me always get the worst end of the deal. Who can tell me, really, what kind of benefits or services the government spoons out (and we are talking teeny-weeny tea spoons here) for people like me?

Yeah. Well. Not much, kan? I think it's time that the government appreciated and thought more of people like me. Those who make slightly more money than the average poor, yet not enough to be rich. We need tax breaks, too, just like the married average income earner with five kids. After all, we pay for almost everything else, at full prices. We pay for our (overpriced) cars because public transport is crappy, we pay to watch television because free-to-air (are they really free?) stations are lousy, we pay to use the roads and highways, we pay road tax yet the roads that I take to work remain ridden with potholes. Our public amenities are in horrible state or almost non-existent, our counter services are a nightmare. I mean, give me something in return for that 27% that I return to the government. Something that I can enjoy during whatever little free time I'm not slaving away to earn money to go into my pocket and LHDN's. Not too much to ask, I think.

2006-04-01T00:52:00.000+08:00

April 1. Well, today is as good as any, I suppose, to start a blog. The date itself doesn't mean anything (although a lot of fools are usually outed today), but 01.04.06 does look good, almost auspicious, don't you think? And I do feel good today, after spending the weekend with visiting family members who I had not seen for a while, playing catch up with them, to find out who's doing what (and with whom)and getting to know the latest addition to the clan, either by or through marriage. Well, you know, kalau dah lama tak jumpa tu, macam-macam ceritalah yang dapat dikongsi. Seronok jugak.

Family reunions are always a happy occasion for me, until family members start asking questions and poking their noses into business that's not theirs. Well, you know, the one million-dollar question: "When are you settling down?" The question is never asked by close family members. It's always those who don't really know you that ask a lot of questions -- your second cousins la, anak dua pupu la, pakcik sepupu la.... And if you're a guy past your thirties, they're going to wonder: "Kenape ek dia ni tak nak kawin-kawin lagi? Umor dah lanjut, kereta ada, keje OK, rumah OK, tapi wife takde..." And those with active and fertile imagination would speculate (although in a hush-hush, private kind of way): "Hmm, maybe he has been hurt before; or maybe he's got some secret girl-friend stashed away somewhere; maybe he's just not interested; or maybe he's (oh, God forbid, don't say it) gay...?"

It is rather amusing to see sometimes they make their own conclusion: "Oh, he is so busy with work he doesn't have the time to date! Let's match-make him!" Years ago, they would always have someone's anak dara who'd be perfect for you. After you've reached a certain age, they'd think of some young janda beranak satu to be your match...

But I suppose that's how it goes. Family members, no matter how far removed they are, would always have their concern, especially in matters relating to the survival of the clan. It's unthinkable to them that you can be happy and extremely contented on your own. That you can find your bliss and kebahagiaan in so many other ways and places...