!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.

Ice Cream

Ice cream is and has always been one of my favorite dessert. When I was in secondary school, I used to walk home from school with a bunch of friends - Zul, Shahidi, Livin etc. And almost daily, we stopped by at a grocery store in Section 2 and bought each of us an ice cream. Not a very healthy lifestyle! But hey, the weather is bloody hot in this country. Surely a bit of indulgence is not too much to ask for. Anyway, I'm not blogging about ice creams today, rather I've here a song called 'Ice Cream' which was featured in the TVB drama Moonlight Resonance. Although it's such a lovely song, I've never heard of it before this show. The singer is such an unknown and it took me some time to find out. Anyone heard of Ciara Newell? All I know is she's an Irish singer from the group Bellefire (some say DNR and some say the Flip).

Here's the lyrics of the song:

ICE CREAM (BY CIARA NEWELL)
You talk to me
You speak with me
Don't sink before you rise baby
Don't fade away
You hesitate
You seem to wait
For all the time we had
Feels like a world away
Who's to say, we'll be ok
We will make it through the night
Don't wanna wake up in this state
I just want us both to smile
Cause we're the same
And i know that we'll never change
Look i bought your favourite ice cream
I dont wanna see it melt away

If you walk out now
I don't know if we could be the same
Baby just talk with me
Cause i want you to stay here with me

The memories
The things we did
I locked inside my heart
Where i know i won't forget
And now, who's to say, we'll be ok
We will make it through the night
Don't wanna wake up in this state
I just want us both to smile
Cause we're the same
And I know that we'll never change
Look I bought your favorite ice cream
I don't want to see it melt away
If you walk out now
I don't know if we could be the same
Baby just talk with me
Cause I want you to stay here with me
I want you to stay here with me



And I know this is totally irrelevant to the topic of 'ice cream' but I suddenly recalled a phrase in MR... "要割禾就要先彎低腰" which literally means you need to bend down to tuai padi, i.e. we need to work hard to get what we want. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Of Cows, Garbage and a Beach

I wrote this crap when I was bored to death in Dungun way back in 2001. Reflecting on those days which were so calm and peaceful, I kinda miss it in a way. Wonder how life would have been if I've stayed on in the east coast. But there are simply too many 'if' in life. So while I ponder this 'if' here's the reproduction of a short bull-crap called 'Of Cows, Garbage and a Beach':

I decided to take a short stroll down the beach near my house. The scene of the road leading to it is that of a typical kampung. Malay cottages and coconut trees are to be found all the way. Coconut husks are strewn all over the compounds of these cottages. Sometimes you will see chickens running about. Some Malay kids were chattering and reading aloud from a book. A makcik was standing at the door looking at the kids. An old pakcik was trying to ply open a coconut. They stared at me with suspicion as I walked pass. I was a stranger to them. This is only the second time I’ve actually walked that path.

Further down the road, not less than 10 mountains of cow dung have been deposited by traveling cows overnight. Its odor was unbearable. It stinks but surprisingly I didn’t find any flies circling around them. Maybe they are too busy tending to dung elsewhere. Dung is such a common sight in rural Terengganu, for that matter the whole of Terengganu is rural. I find the habit of letting cows and goats loose a nuisance. I wonder why the authorities never did anything about it. The problem is when an accident happens the whole kampung comes out and blame the poor driver. Surely the only person to blame is the one who owns the cattle? He didn’t take good care of them, did he? The cows leave their belongings everywhere they go causing so much inconvenience to pedestrians. Once a stray cow entered my house compound and spent an evening there. Thank God no deposit was left though I was startled when I heard it moo. There was another time when I was walking in my neighborhood when I almost knocked down a cow, or rather the other way round. The cow was just as startled as I was but he didn’t seem to care about my presence. He just walked on to God knows where. One evening, a car I was traveling in had to halt a full five minutes to allow a big herd of cows cross our path. For sure in this land they are Lord of Terengganu. Only yesterday after dinner at a restaurant, my housemates and I found our car surrounded by cows. It took us sometime to get our car out of that mess.

When I reached the beach I walked directly to the garbage bin. That was my reason for taking the stroll. No, I am not about to run through the precious contents of it to find a lost diamond. I was there simply to dump my garbage like what a garbage bin is for. It seems that the local council does not collect garbage from house to house. Instead we had to bring them out to designated spots along main roads and dump them there. The council will then carry out the easy task of keeping our households clean.

After finishing off my duty I decided to hang on a moment at the beach. It was a sunny day and the sun was furious. The sea looked calm enough but all will be changed in a month or two when the monsoon rages. Out in the sea, a few trawlers were out fishing. I wonder whether there will be a bountiful catch today. I have been here so many times but never once had I ventured into the sea for a swim. I read in the papers that the Dungun coast is deadly. Many people have drowned there. I remember seeing a notice board somewhere forbidding anyone from swimming in the sea. According to the locals, the beach takes a steep fall at some parts and swimmers caught unaware may drown. Therefore, I’ve only dipped my feet in the water. Might as well take heed of what the experts say.

Out in the horizon, I could see two islands. The bigger one is called Pulau Tenggol. The smaller one, I have no idea. Tenggol is reputedly a diver’s heaven. As a matter of fact that is the only reason anyone would visit the island. There are no resorts, no water sports and not much of a beach there. The water is too deep to swim in because it is only meant for diving. There’s no ferry or shuttle service to the island. To get there one has to rent a speedboat from the fisherman jetty in Kuala Dungun. Maybe one day I’ll make a visit, but then what will I do when I’m there? I can’t dive. I am afraid of depths.

After staring out into the sea for some time I decided that it’s too hot to stay any longer. Thus I began my short journey back home again, retracing the same scene. Then I remembered there is another garbage bin nearer and I need not have taken the long stroll.

By the way, the above story is a true story of myself on Nov 1, 2001. The location was between Jalan Kenanga, Dungun and Jalan Pantai (where the beach is, duh!).

Reading fever

I have been in a reading frenzy for the past few weeks or so. That is ever since I became member of the newly-opened Johor State Library located at Jalan Yahya Awal. The library is not to say very well-stocked up with books but it is quite a good effort on the part of the Johor government. The ambience and atmosphere are superb. It is very comfortable to spend some hours in on my free time. It's not those kinds of libraries where you must shut up. In fact, the whole library is quite relaxed and lively. There is not stupid dress code like most government agencies require. There is also a small cafe to take a cup of coffee while reading a book.

Come to think of it, I have always been a library-person. When I was small, I frequented the Shah Alam library which at that time was the biggest in Malaysia. Those days, I had a family card which allowed me to borrow about 8 books at one time. Later on when I shifted to KL, my visits to libraries dropped dramatically (despite the fact that I was a librarian in school). The KL national library was not so far from my house but the public bus service in that direction was horrible. For that matter of fact, public transportation in KL was and still is shameful. But the KL library really had a huge collection of reading materials. I remembered the days when I had to research old newspaper articles while working on some school projects. Was able to find papers even till pre-war days in KL's library. I also remembered there was a room with a 'Koleksi Bahan-Bahan Haram' or something like that. Would really like to sieve through these bahan-bahan haram! But for that I need to get the Home Ministry's approval! Fat chance of that.

Later on I moved to Dungun which also had a library which to my surprise was sufficiently stocked with good English reading materials. Those days I worked shift and had quite a lof of free time in the day. I did most of my John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon books during that 1 year I was in Dungun. And after a visit to the library on Thursday evenings, I can even visit the biggest Pasar Malam in the east coast, which is virtually next door.

Coming to Pasir Gudang, there was a library runned by the Pasir Gudang municipality. However, I rarely visited it. But somehow, ever since the new JB library opened I had reinvigorated in me a new Library fever. I've been reading 2 books every fortnight, borrowed from this spanking new library. My latest 'reading in progress' are Daniel Goleman's "Working with Emotional Intelligence" and Penn's "Microtrends".

The reading culture in Malaysia is still quite weak. Unlike Singapore which has themed-libraries even in shopping malls, here libraries are sparsely located with lousy collection of books. Well perhaps, that may change for the better in the future. Meanwhile, I really congratulate JB for a nice library which has helped me nourish my brain with new knowledge! For more info on this new state library, visit http://ppaj.johordt.gov.my/.