Kuala Dipang Kampar Tragedy

It saddens me to read the incident on the collapse of a hanging bridge in Kuala Dipang that caused the drowning of 1 and the missing of 2 young school children. The missing 2 were from Mambang Diawan Tamil school, the village that I come from. The place of the incident is only a short distance up north from my home town Kampar near to the Malim Nawar junction. Kuala Dipang is famous for durian and also its crystal clear river. Used to be a place where we collected sands and small stones for aquariums and also a source of fresh water when the drinking of mineral water from nature became popular as a health tonic.

It was supposed to be a well intented "One Malaysia" education camp for selected children from school of different streams and ethnic groups. And it turned out to be a tragedy for the town and the country! Parents of the victims are heart broken. The public is angry and wandering why a brand new hanging bridge just built about a month ago could just collapse so easily! I had just returned from a China trip of Dujiangyan in Sichuan province, there are a few hanging bridges that swing and sway by the multitude of Chinese tourists that visited the place and yet they could withstand the load without any problem. Why this could happen in country like Malaysia, which is supposed to be a more well developed country?

I am glad to see Tan Sri Muhyiddeen, our deputy PM had quickly moved in and inspected the site to show his concern. His concern will definitely touch the hearts of many Malaysians. From this small incident, and also how he had dealt with the Sultan of Johore state in the past, he is destined to be one of the PMs of Malaysia for sure. There were incidents of disaster happened all over the world when a country leader did not react in time and caused great outcry from the public. If we could remember, that happened to President Bush and President Ma Ying Jiu of Taiwan, it was such a strong contrast when compared with how Premier Wen Jia Bao of China had done and handled the Sichuan earthquake. All leaders must put well beings of "rakyat" or citizens and not their self interest as their top priority, in that way they will get support in return.

I pray that God has mercy on the families of those victims, let your spirit move and console them and heal the pains in their hearts. Also bless our leaders so that they could have the wisdom to govern this country well!

Contemporary VIPs

Some of the famous people in Malaysia that we crossed path with, during certain part of our lives worth mentioning here just for the record.

During university days, I met briefly with some of these very ordinary guys but today they are the very successful people in the country:

Datuk Ong Tee Keat, President MCA and Transport minister - UM Engineering faculty

Datuk Mohamed Zaini Amran, Founder and CEO of BumiHiway - UM Engineering faculty. He was the senior doing the orientation in the 2nd college

Tan Sri Dr. Lim Wee Chai, Founder and CEO of Top Gloves - UM Science faculty and he told me about his MBA program in the US long long time ago

Mr. Voon Seng Chuan, CEO of IBM - UM Science faculty and we have common friends

At one time in 2nd college of University Malaya, I happened to get acquaintance with a Sains Asasi student, perhaps he was my room mate just for a couple of days during the orientatio week that I could not remember him so well. It was after many years while I tried to apply for a permit to run a small factory in a shop-lot that I bumped into him again. It is not easy to get the approval for even a few months as it was near to the residential area. He is a medical doctor and is also the Director of the environmental department of Majlis Perbandaran(City Council). I went to his office and he recognized me right away and gave me the approval for 2 years. From this we learned a good lesson that we have to be friendly to everyone and we would not know how in future certain people somehow does us a favor with just a stroke of his pen.

PMR examination for my daughter

Today the PMR examination is finally over for my daughter! I am happy for her because whenever she takes examination, my wife and I feel the pressure as well because she always takes examination seriously. Whether it is just a trial examination in school, or piano, violin and ballet examination, looking at the way she studies and practises, the pressure imposes on herself seems to be contagious and passes onto us! We all are so relieved that today all the examinations for year 2009 were finally over for her. Hurray! she would be able to enjoy a wonderful long holidays playing computer games, watching TV programs, reading her favorite magazines, and sleep late and wake up late!

On the other hand, my son is a very relaxing person and he does not seem to worry about examinations that much! In the same way, because of his attitude towards examination, in return we do not feel the pressure that much. Only my wife pushes him to study more and grumbles on him for being too relax, it is such a strong contrast to my daughter!

To me, I think my son and daughter are at two extreme ends, and their opposing attitudes toward examinations should be "mixed" thoroughly and then divided by two, and that would be the ideal, if this is something mathematically possible!

Examinations were night mares for me for many years. Even when I graduated and started to work for quite some time, the dark shadow of examination haunted me for years. I used to wake up at mid-night, still thinking that I had not studied enough and finished covering all the syllabus for a coming examination! In this respect, I admire my son, and he could sleep equally well with or without examination!

Boys usually do not do too well in examinations before form 5 compared to girls in general. For higher secondary school syllabus, especially coming to science and math subjects, the boys start to catch up. I remember during my time, girls did their form 3 LCE examination quite well, but when came to form 5, the science stream boys fared better in the MCE examination.

I want to reiterate, it is important to choose the right subjects to study, and do not be misled into going into science stream just because your examination results qualify you for that. If a student is not cut to take on technical subjects, it is better to take on the art stream. This is just my personal advice!

Will stay in Kemaman Terengganu

Today I received an official letter from the headquarter of my company that I shall be officially based in Kemaman Terengganu after a 3 months trial period. God willing, I shall stay on to this place till my retirement and then call it a day for my working career. I do not like the idea of leaving the country for too long, somehow Malaysia is the place that I am so used to and I feel comfortable and cosy! It really does not matter whether I am in the east coast, Sabah or Sarawak, or Kuala Lumpur near to my family, as long as it is in Malaysia, it is just fine for me. Being Malaysian always a Malaysian!

I have been looking around places that I could rent a house. From Geliga Pantai, Geliga Baiduri, Taman Jakar, Taman Cukai Indah, Bukit Kuang, Samudera Timur, Kijal etc. If I opt to stay in Bukit Kuang area then I do not have to wake up early to beat the traffic jam on the Sungai Cukai bridge. But the 15 minutes traffic congestion is accceptable to me compared to that in Kuala Lumpur, because this Cukai bridge congestion is too minor a jam to be considered as serious. The short distance going to the Teluk Kalung factory could save me some gasoline though. Bukit Kuang is not so conducive an area, partly because it is near to the bitumen factory and also there seems to be a place of drug addicts in nearby Kampung, with occasional petty theft and breaking in. Furthermore one normally does not feel like seeing the same place after spending a whole day working in the same area. You just want to be away from the workplace as far as you could after work!

Near the town area would be convenient for me to get food especially at night after work but I do not like the busy traffic and noise. Samudera Timur going to Binjai area is a bit remote along the road leading to Air Putih. Look like a house near to the Pantai Mak Nik (Monica Beach) with open field, sea breeze and venue for outdoor exercise would be a more suitable and tranquil place for me. I have to make myself a choice and an alternative, first choice would be Geliga area and 2nd Choice is near the Police station or hospital area, close to the Cukai town.

I also consider that my family will come to visit me during the holidays. Convenience of getting food might be a main consideration, but going to beaches would be once a while thing for them. Since they are only coming here mainly for holidays occasionally, therefore the consideration would be either a choice of relaxation or a place where they could get food easily. Either one would be okay for them, I think.

I am at the same time looking at the option of buying a mountain bike. Recently I have acquired some knowledge about brands such as Santa Cruz, Kona, Trek, Scott, T-Bolts, Giant, Cannondale, Fuji, KHS, Specialized, Polygon etc. through the internet. Hope to acquire either one of these entry level or mid-level machines for my training and exercise.

Well, let us see how it goes!

Aging - A natural process

God had created human beings for a purpose then why must man has to go through the process of birth, aging, falling sick and finally die? Imagine what would happen if man never dies, the immediate problems I could think of are as follows though the list is not meant to be exhaustive:

1. The world would be over crowded, resources would be stressed by the consumption of food, waste disposal, housing , health care etc. Famine, environment and ecological problems, global warming, deforestation etc would drive the world crazy, nations against nations waging war to snatch the already thinned and limited resources.

2. Top positions of all organization, governments or private sectors would be held by the oldest guys around. Imagine what would be the political situation, if an immortal leader continues to over stay his welcome for another 100 -200 years or even longer!

3. There would be no fair and natural re-distribution of wealth because the smartest and the richest would continue to live and strive to keep their wealth for their clans and descendants.

4. All younger generations would not get a chance or a place, be it in career, social or even private life. All the pretty young women would go for the immortal, rich, experienced and elderly but healthy old men ( I am sure you young men would not like this idea!)

As we age, certain signs are obvious even though we could exercise, eat food supplements, dye our hairs, inject all kinds of hormones to slow down the aging process etc. We tend to feel we have lost the agility, forget things easily, and unexplainable pains or discomfort appear in different parts of our body, bones organs etc. A person could not hide his real age after some time, because the folds or wrinkles and contour of the face, shrinking of muscles, skin and the dulling of complexion plus greying of hairs betray us all. We have to accept the fact that God had created us to age and subsequently to make way for the younger generations to take over.

As we approach our retirement age, we have to change our plans and focus ourselves in the direction of educating the young, doing work that contributes to the well being of the country and serving the community. This kind of meaningful deeds could be made possible by virtue of our experience and knowledge that we gathered and learned over the years. We have to advise the younger generation on avoiding certain pitfalls that had taught us hard and painful lessons so that they would not repeat the same mistakes like us.

At one time when I was still having some grey hairs, I used to ask my wife and daughter to pull them out one by one. And now the greying is too rampant that I just have to accept for what thing is. Sometimes we have to be gladful because God has preserved us till this age and showered us with all His countless blessings big or small over the years. We hope to age gracefully before we meet Him face to face one day.

Wild Betta Imbellis

The first time I saw wild Betta Imbellis was in the house of one of my primary school mates who happened to live a walking distance across the tarmac road and then a path follows along a drain leading to his house in front of a pond. His mum then owned a piece of sweet potato land adjacent to our house. My grandma and mum used to talk to her while she toiled on the land and they were extremely friendly to each other. One of his eldest brother was notorious and got involved in gangsterism and always went in and out of the prison, that was the story told to me by my mum. But the rest of the brothers were friendly and gentle, they were very nice persons to get along with. At the later part, one of the other brothers lost the lower portion of his leg, did not remember exactly what had happened to him, perhaps due to an accident. And I still occasionally bumped into his brother whenever I return to my home village.

The house was displayed with many wild fighting fishes in Horlick bottles. And they were extremely attractive to look at, and I fell in love at first sight with them. One fine day I went to the house trying to locate this friend of mine for play just like any other kids, but nobody was at home except those fishes, being not able to withstand the temptation of owning one and I took the liberty to scoop up one of them and put inside my pocket and brought home. The wild Betta was a very tough and hardy fish, it survived the distance which was probably about 8-10 minutes walk in my dry pocket without water. Once placed into a bottle of fresh water drawn from the well, it started to swim as if nothing could hurt and disturb it at all. Only Bettas could survive in a very narrow and constricted space or area as they always pop up to blow a bubble at the water surface and have a fresh gulp of air in return, instead of dependent and breathe on the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Since that uncalled for illegal acquisition of my first fighting fish, I started my hobby of keeping this " ikan laga" without looking back. I had been going around drains and ponds infested with leeches catching those wild fighting fishes during my teenage years and also even after I had got married and started a family. We rubbed salts on our limbs and sprayed insecticide on boots just to deter those blood sucking eerie creatures from sticking onto our bodies.

That pilfered fish was raised by me and I diligently dug up worms from behind the house and fed it. I suppose the worms were nutritious enough and it grew healthily to a bigger size than the wild ones over time. It always gave a splended display of colors whenever I placed a mirror for the fish to simulate a fight. The colors of the body and its gill covers were shining in iridescent blueish green color, its scales and eyes sparkle like little blue diamonds. The caudal fin and the pectoral fins were bright red while the dorsal and anal fins are feather like and blue. It was just so incredible to look at especially when it was aroused and ready to fight with a splendid display of fins and tail flapping. God created such wonderful creature, I just could not believe it!

One of the newspaper vendor who used to send daily newspaper to our home, occasionally also sell illegal lottery (Empat ekor) to my grandparents, using newspaper vendoring as a disguise. He saw my well kept fighting fish and liked it so much and offered 50 cents for me to part with it. At that time, it was a real big sum of money for a kid of standard 1 or 2 in the 60's. I hesitated for a while but after some pestering by him, I eventually sold it to him.

At one stage when I was in the secondary school, I had bought a female white Siamese specie so as to cross breed with the wild Betta Imbellis, and the hybrid offsprings were so unique and beautiful, and I never had a chance to breed the same kind after that. In preparing for the breeding ground, I half squashed some "Kangkong" plants to be immersed in a vase, waited a week or so for the crushed leaves and stems to rot a little bit as food for the fishes. Some larvaes of mosquitos had also found their ways into the container before placing the pair inside for the mating to take place. The bigger size Siamese female laid a lot of eggs, fertilized and picked up by the male and were placed onto a pool of bubbles on the water surface. When the small fries were hatched, they were too small and sometimes were eaten by the mosquito larvaes. With leaves and weeds as hiding places for the fries, they grew up real fast and they started to devour on the larvaes as their favorite food in no time. They had eventually eaten up all the larvaes and I had to feed them with small earth worms as they grew bigger in size.

I still like very much to keep wild Bettas Imbellis and I am always on the look out for any aquarium shops that I could acquire them or to places that I could catch them in the drains or puddles in the wild.

An accident

My son drives a new Proton Saga which was bought 1 year ago for his college going from the house so as to save my wife the hassle of sending both him and my daughter to school.

The intrinsic value of buying a car for him serves multiple purposes. In my mind is that he should be trained and learns how to drive safely as early as possible. And he must shoulder the responsibility to fetch the sister and the mother to places while I am not close at home. The parents will feel more at ease if our son and daughter could gather the experience of driving a vehicle well and safely by virtue of their number of years of experience being on the road.

I had driven car before when I was younger and therefore could understand that certain skill of driving could not be taught or told, but only through experience that one could drive better. A lot of people could drive well in the sense that not hitting on some other people's vehicle, but the higher level of skillful driving demands a driver to anticipate and to avoid your vehicle being hit by other drivers proactively! My wife is one example, and she could drive really well, even she could handle a Rusa van without any difficulty!

I rode a scrambler motorbike during my varsity days and thought it was a brilliant idea to beat the traffic light was to start the acceleration and release the clutch when the light turns yellow. Thinking that by the time the bike moves out to its full speed, the traffic light would have turned green and stayed ahead of the other riders. Little did I realize that other drivers from the opposite side of the traffic light would think the same by beating the traffic light while the red light just turns red. How dangerous it could be, to assume and to rationalize our supposedly a smart move by theory! Now I told my son that do not trust even the signal light of the oncoming vehicles because sometimes the drivers simply forget to switch off their turning signals! I repeated this many times and he probably thought I was just long winded!

Yesterday my son and wife phoned me about an accident involving the car. To me, since it was called accident, nobody wanted it to happen. It is fairly common for us when we were young to get our cars dented here and there because we are all here to learn. Only through years of driving then such frequency of bumping into other vehicles or getting hit by others could be reduced.

My son really treasures his car and he cleans and wipes it almost everyday. And I could understand the heartache of getting his car hit. But in my mind, one must drive a used car first, get enough driving experience then only attempt on buying a new car. Anyway it was a good lesson to learn from a minor accident. When they called me for the advice, I told them that in such a case, firstly is to find out how much it costs to repair the damage in the workshop, if it costs not more than RM500, calculating the loss in NCB (No Claim Bonus) for insurance, the hassle of getting the police report etc, just compensate the other party if you are in the wrong and settle the case. It is simple mathematics!

Finally the repair cost is RM280 and that of my son's car is RM80. To me, the valuable lesson learned by him is worth more than the amount!

Happy driving son! Just drive safely!

Moon Cake Festival

Moon cake festival was a very important celebration during the earlier days especially when I was still a kid. There are a lot of fairy tales, myths or folklore stories told about this Mid-Autumn festival. My mum told me one of this, that was during the time around 1368 AD of the Yuan dynasty where China was conquered by the Mongolian, and the Ming dynasty founder emperor Chu organized his rebellion against the Mongolian regime by putting a piece of paper into the moon cake and informed all the Chinese to fight against them. And the date set on this particular day of rebellion was using this Mid-Autumn festival as a pretext for the attack. Since then, the moon cake tradition was passed on and even brought to Malaysia and south east Asia by the Chinese immigrants. Of course, there are many other versions on the origin of moon cake festival and nobody knows which is the most exact and true fact to trace the root of this particular tradition.

The mainland Chinese government had gazetted Chinese New Year, Qing Ming or Tomb sweeping festival, and Mid-Autumn moon cake festival as the 3 most important traditional holidays for Chinese as a whole. In Malaysia the Chinese do not observe moon cake festival in such a grand scale as before.

For this auspicious day, a full moon with clear sky in autumn signifies perfection, reunion, peace and harmony. Chinese from far away places would come home to meet up with their parents and friends, marking another day of reunion and celebration after the Chinese lunar new year passed about 8 months ago. Exchanging gifts and visiting were common in those days. We used to have pamelo, yam, water caltrops, water chestnut, ground nuts for the celebration. Those first 3 items were specially prepared just for the occasion besides moon cakes.

For the children, the "Tanglong" or lanterns are must have for the festival. My mum would always brought me and my siblings to the shops at least one or two weeks before the festival and picked for our lanterns. Lanterns come with all kinds of shapes, in the form of animals and other animated creatures. My favorites were always the dragon and "Kirin", and I chose on a few occasions the gold fish or fighting fish while my sisters preferred the rabbit, star, flower etc. We would gather ourselves as a group, holding the lighted lanterns and parading ourselves along the lanes and side roads of the village. It was really wonderful time we had, and I like it so much and remember it so well even until these days!

The tradition of having lanterns for celebration is a little different from China. As far as the mainland Chinese is concerned, the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration always goes with lanterns, and they hardly have any lanterns for the moon cake festival celebration. But in Malaysia, we will have lanterns only during moon cake festival. And I do not know why there is such difference!

Due to the distance and also we are having Friday off in Terengganu state, I did not go home to my family while I wrote this on the night of the Moon Cake Festival in the Homestay hotel in Cukai Kemaman.