!عام سعيد Chúc Mừng Năm Mới! 新年快乐! Selamat Tahun Baru! Happy New Year! Ein gutes neues Jahr ! Bonne année!

I would like to wish everyone a very happy new year 2009! May the dawn of a new year brings more happiness to everyone. Have fun and have a wonderful year ahead!

TNB Bill Waived

Guess what? I actually have my TNB bill this month waived as it was subsidized by the Government of Malaysia!!! And this must be the least electricity bill I have incurred in my life! Only RM13.73.

The Little Nyonya

The biggest year-end production of Mediacorp - The Little Nyonya (小娘惹) is now showing on Channel 8. A slice of history and culture of the Peranakans, a unique community found in the Straits Settlements of Malaya. This is what Mediacorp is best at - dramas depicting olden days Singapore - it does give a bit of feeling of nostalgia, doesn't it? They are also good at dramas depicting lifestyle of modern Singapore. However, they have to stop those crap shows on God of Gambler or attempted action-packed shows, coz they are simply hopeless at those.

Talking about Singapore, they are pretty down now with the ongoing recession. Retrenchments seem the order of the day with us expecting JB to be the receiving end of retrenched Malaysians. As usual, Malaysians will be among the first to go! We can't blame them. The same with Malaysia - the Indons, Banglas and Indians will most likely be the first to be sent packing in a downturn. That's just life. But JB is already crime-packed as it is, with more jobless returning from across the Causeway there could be 2 scenarios. The better one would be more selection of hawkers as returning ones may take open stalls selling char kuey teow and laksa. The second scenario which is more likely - rising crime rate. Tak boleh cari makan? Well just go and mug and rob! Or maybe the NFOs will have a field day. Don't you realize there are more special draws nowadays at Toto?

Keeping meetings short

They always say that we should keep meetings straight-forward and short. But everyone knows that this is rarely the case. Meetings tend to be long-winded, boring affairs deliberating over peanuts and arguing over ego-nonsense. Not to mention if you have an asshole or two sitting in! But that's a fact of life and we have to somehow learn to manage it.

However, there is one way to keep meetings short! An experiment was conducted where decisions were compared between a group meeting without chairs (and thus have to stand) and another group meeting the conventional way which is to sit down. It was found that stand-up meetings took 34% less time to make the assigned decision. The good thing was the quality of the decisions was just as good as those made by the sit-down group. So such meetings can not only save time it also saves some money on chairs!

Maybe we can do the same in the parliament since our MPs are wasting lots of time and our taxpayer's money debating crap and producing crap. Garbage in, garbage out - hallmark of our political system. Get rid of all the chairs and let our MPs stand. Maybe then we can squeeze some sense out of their mouths.

It's a pet's world

Do you know that...

• In America, the top 1% of pets live better than 99% of the world's population.
• In the past 15 years, the drop of percentage of households with children and the rise in percentage of househols with pets have been practically the same. - Seems like people nowadays prefer pets to children!
• In 2006, Americans spend $40b on pets, more than double what they spent in 1990.
• New pet luxuries: teeth-witheners, breath fresheners, fur glisteners, designer sweaters, jewelry, animal car seats, acne cream, nail polish, anti-aging creams, pet contact lenses, paw-fumes
• There's actually a "The Hound of Music" package. For $1600 you can let your dog have ride on a limousine to a recording studio and have his barking accompanied and digitally mastered onto a holiday CD. Massage included - for the dog.
• Doggie dating services, wedding, animal retirement homes, pet funerals

Life as a pet is definitely getting better in most places. But turn to the other side of the world to Vietnam or Korea and dogs are savored as a delicacy. Yiieerr..... But that's the sad truth. Vietnamese eat dogs to rid off bad luck. Apparently they only eat dogs towards the end of the month to rid off all the bad luck in hope of brighter new month. Dogs are never eaten in the beginning of the lunar month. In Vietnam, there are 7 ways to cook dogs:

• Thit cho hap - steamed dog meat
• Rua man - steamed dog in shrimp paste, rice flour and lemon grass
• Doi cho - dog sausage
• Gieng Me Mam Tom - Steamed dog in shrimp paste, ginger, spices and rice vinegar
• Thit cho nuong - grilled dog meat
• Canh Xao Mang Cho - Bamboo shoots and dog bone marrow
• Cho Xao Sa Ot - Fried dog in lemon grass and chili

Feeling sick already? Vietnamese eat cats too.... Someone told me cats taste better dogs.

Perhaps it may seem sick to foreigners, but it's just a culture and custom. What seems right to us may not seem right to them anyway. Disclaimer: they don't pet dogs or cats. The eaten ones are reared for that purpose pretty much the way we rear chickens and ducks.

How to lower performance

Wonder why your organization is not performing up to the mark? Feeling exhausted from work? You may have become a subject of an 'organizational malpractice'. This is according to Daniel Goleman's Working with Emotional Intelligence. Here is an edited excerpt from one of the chapters in the book:

There are 6 ways in which organizations or companies demoralize and demotivate employees, or so says Daniel Goleman:

• Work overload - Too much work to dor, with too little time and support.
• Lack of autonomy - Being accountable for work but having little say in how to go about it. Micromanagement by superior.
• Skimpy rewards - Getting too little pay for more work.
• Loss of connection - Increasing isolation on the job. Lack the 'human glue' that makes team excel.
• Unfairness - Inequities in how people are treated.
• Value conflicts - A mismatch between a person's principles and the demands of their job.

The net result of these organizational malpractices is to breed chronic exhaustion, cynicism, and a loss of motivation, enthusiasm and productivity.

The Four 'Slims' of Vietnam

Việt Nam has the famous four slims (miao tiao). Sorry, I don't know how to write miao tiao in Chinese characters!

Firstly, the country is slim. Look at the map of Việt Nam and you'll notice the country runs narrowly along a long coast line of more than 2,000km.













Then by the time you land in any of the major cities of Việt Nam like Hồ Chí Minh City and Hà Nội, you'll find that their roads are very narrow. Not to mention the chaotic traffic scene with motorcyles, cyclos, humans, cars, buses all cramming into the limited space.













Next are the slim houses and shops. All houses in Việt Nam are usually built with a narrow front but the houses could be quite deep inside. This is because traditionally, the houses and lands are taxed based on the width of the land and not the area!













And of course, the fourth 'miaotiao' would be the slim Vietnamese ladies. This must be something to do with their food intake which is quite healthy and not oily.









Việt Nam is in itself a beautiful country. Vietnamese are quite soft-spoken, friendly and nice people. And for all its years of suffering and war, it has grown to become a charming and beautiful country. I've so far covered Hồ Chí Minh City and Hà Nội. In due time, I hope I can also visit the historical city of Huế, Đà Nẵng and Hội An in central Việt Nam.

For more of my travels to Việt Nam so far, pls visit my Virtual Tourist Travel Page.