Always forgetful

When I was still working with Acer Inc Taiwan, I had a superb memory. Whenever I had a meeting with a client, I did not need to take along any pen or papers to record the details. Upon finishing the meeting, the meeting minutes or the report findings would be out within a short period of time, without leaving any important details. My boss Eugene Cheng always marveled at the way I could memorize and remember all the details to such extent.

I really had a good memory! Remember during the higher secondary school days when I first switched to 100% English medium of instruction from a Pei Yuan Chinese school to a pure ACS English school. I was able to re-generate my answers in examination papers strictly according to the same format as the teacher's notes, even to the extent of maintaining its active or passive voices. Was this not something incredible? This was because I did not have a good enough command of English then, I had no choice but to memorize them sentence by sentence in order not to make any mistake with the language.

Nowadays and I could not really understand the reason why I always become so forgetful. Sometimes I think of a subject to write on the blog, and I had told myself repeatedly that this is going to be the topic for the day! But when I finally sat down and thought about what to write in front of the computer, no matter how hard I tried to recall, and I had no inkling as to which topic I supposed to write! This had happened too many times!

I have the habit of washing my face and to leave my spectacles on a place which I could remember. Most of the time I ended up in searching for it all over the house! I took out my mountain bike ready for a ride, and then I forget my helmet! I warmed up the car in the morning ready to go to work, after putting on my socks and wearing my shoes, I forgot to bring along my bag and computer.

I used to remember the names and faces very well of old friends and acquaintances even after getting to know them for a brief period of time. I could call out the names of all my coursemates in Engineering faculty in Universtiy Malaya just after meeting them for about a week or so, but nowadays I could hardly recognize or remember any person just after one week of meeting them. After my transfer back from China operation to Malaysia just about 8 months, I always have to try very hard to refresh the names of some of my Chinese colleagues!

It is clearly a sign of getting old and I think I have to carry a note book around anywhere I go and immediately jot down everything before I forget. Look like this is the only way for me to overcome this problem!

You could exercise or even to dress up yourself to appear younger but the effect of aging takes a toll on the other aspects of your life, memory is just one of them. Sigh!

End of the CNY

Today is the 15th of 1st month of the Chinese lunar calender and that marks the finishing of this much elaborated celebration of Chinese New Year or Spring Festival. Celebrating over a period of 15 days was common in older days and a lot of projects or business activities would only start moving again after this 15 days period. As the country progresses and economic activities dominate the scene, life becomes competitive and tougher, most people now celebrates only until the 3rd day and the 4th day onwards will be work and business as usual!

The Chinese New Year has a great significance for all the Chinese worldwide because it is the beginning of a brand new year, signifying the wiping out all old records and misfortunes, and everything is reset and to start fresh all over again. It always gives the anticipation of hope and better prospect ahead. For that reason, they paint and decorate the house new to usher in the new year, wear new clothings, new shoes or even spot a new hair style to kick-start the coming of a brand new year! Spring is a much anticipated and looking forward season where in China the snow starts to thaw and all flowers will go into full blossom! How splendid and magnificient it is as the earth is going through a period of bustling activities; plants sprouting out new leaves, new shoots, all kinds of flowers with bright colors brightening up the gardens, birds and bees, animals are running around, spring is in the air and the joy is apparent. Life again becomes active after going through a long cold winter which is like an incubation period where life has become dormant, boring and gloomy. All pent up and anxiously waiting Spring to come and suddenly everything breaks loose and bursts into life!

When comes the time of the spring rain, it is also the right time to sow seeds with a new hope of abundant harvest. There is a popular saying by the Chinese - " The happenings of the entire year start with the planning in the spring" . Indeed it is very true!

The 15th night of the Chinese New Year or "Chap Goh Meh" is celebrated in a grand way by the Hokkien, the migrants or descendants from the Fujian province. In northern China, lanterns are in display in a big way for the day and events are organized to solve the puzzles written on the lanterns and prizes are given away for that. But for us with our ancestry that came from the other southern provinces, we only carry the lanterns around during the mid-autumn festival and we do not know why there is such a odd difference.

The first full moon on the 15th night marks the end of the CNY celebration somehow gives me more of a melancholy instead of a celebration mood!

Church going on New Year days

Family photo taken in Methodist Church Kampar, Perak

during CNY 2010

It is hard to imagine to change an age-old habit. Our age-old practice of ancestor worshipping was based partly on Taoism and partly on Buddhism. Such practice was passed down from generations, while some rituals are just seeing and learning what your fellow folks are doing and following suit. Sometimes it is hard to draw a demarcation as to what is regarded as religious or just cultural. To me if a practice is based on the teachings of a particular specific religion then I would term that religious, all other copy cat practices without knowing the background or the actual implication of it I would term it as more towards cultural, something being passed down for generations from a particular ethnic group. For many, such practices are being carried out for ages without obvious reasons, and we never question why we have to do it and also why not to discontinue doing it. Eventually it has become a habit and routine for all of us in our daily life!

If you are the descendant of a particular ethnic group and attend a certain school, the language that you used as a medium of instruction tends to exert certain influence on the kind of religion that you become more familiar with. For example if you are from the Chinese school, many a time Buddhism becomes an element that is embedded in some of the literatures and readings. The Chinese literature is very much associated with Buddhism since the days of the Tang dynasty.

For a traditional Chinese family to become Christian, Muslim or convert to any other religions, it is not an easy task and it needs a spiritual breakthrough! With the blessings from God, my family is almost 100% conversion to Christianity except one of my sister. Even my father who was once a hard core Taoist priest for funeral ceremony was baptized about 2-3 years back, what a miracle to our family if it is not the direct interference from God!

Could one ever imagine a family celebrate and go to the church during the 1st day of Chinese New Year? It was something beyond my imagination years ago but this happened to my family now. It has become a top priority to remember God for all the goodness received through the year and get the continuous blessings from Him for such a special day and occasion. Before that, going to church on Chinese New Year days was deemed something boring and had no better things to do!

No one from one particular religion has gone to heaven and come back to earth to tell us what is the true story. Believing based on faith and also looking at the good examples of some of the believers tend to reveal some characteristics of the God that they are worshipping, though we humans are not perfect and tend to err. Fearing God is the beginning of wisdom, this is true. Every effort in life is vain and empty without God! Having a deep spiritual contact or encounter with God is another experience which words could not describe!

Go and search God, believe in God, what have you got to lose if it is not true? If it is a true God that promised peace and eternal life, how much we would have lost for not believing in Him.

My wife

My wife married me when I was still a poor young engineer. Though I was a graduate with a steady income but did not have a lot of money to afford things. We used to envy other families who could drive bigger cars and stay in better houses. We had gone through the thick and thin of life, hardship, making ends meet and tough time without a job etc. We built a family based on trust, staying together in whatever circumstances, going to church and pray for our children and family members etc. That was how we have gone through life together for so many years.

My wife and I are of totally different characters and even have different sleeping times. She sleeps very few hours but can be very active the next day without any problem; I for one need to sleep 8 full hours in order to energize myself to take on the activities of the day. When our young children were sick, my wife was always half asleep or stayed awake most of the time and took good care of them, monitored their body temperatures, administered to them cooling gel and medicine at the right intervals. I would always try to sleep a bit early so as to take on my turn of vigilance on the children at the later part of the night so that she could catch some sleep. It was such a wonderful combination despite our differences!

She is well versed in Malay language because she was from Sri Kampar Kebangsaan school after her primary English education in ACS. We were from different school background and have totally different hobbies and likings. Sometimes we wonder how we could ever get married in this way! Sometimes it is God's will that we become husband and wife, she tutored my children most of the Malay language lessons while I tackled mainly their Chinese or mathematical unresolved questions in the school. Again it is such a good combination!

My wife is very good in his handwork and hand made crafts such as flowers crochet etc, and she did such crafts so well that I believe she could even open a shop to sell them. Only thing is if she does too much of those handwork, her eyes would be too strained that she could fall sick or even have vertigo. Even better is her cooking and she is always willing to learn from TV programs or even from my mum on all the skill of cooking. She inherited most of the secret recipes of my favorite dishes from my mum. She used to cook every meal for us in earlier days, but later part I found that it is too strenuous for her and we decided to eat out most of the time when I am home. Nowadays it is even more economical to eat outside than to cook on your own although sometimes outside food with excessive Ajinomoto is our main concern. She washes our clothings shoes and cleans the sofas, and the whole house spotless so that we could have a very comfortable environment to live in. I am very much influenced by her near to fanatic cleanliness, and because of that now I become very sensitive to cleanliness and tidiness compared to before when I was still a bachelor.

Because of my job nature and I have to be always away from home especially at the later part of my career, if not for her constant presence and help in the house, I would not be able even to earn a living. She stopped work and stays a full time house wife while our first son was born. She likes to nag a lot especially to the children, and most of the time is out of concern for them. Sometimes it is understandable of her nagging behaviour because she is confined within this narrow circle of life with the children and the husband as her only friends. And of course sometimes our behavior is also too unbearable for her and she needs to vent out her anger. Children and we adults are not perfect beings and this has become part and parcel of life.

In my heart, I appreciate all the hard work, love and care she renders for the family and also the sacrifice that she made for being a wife and mother 24 hours a day staying at home taking care of all of us. I have unspoken words, love and appreciation for her though I do not always express that to her. Through this blog, I want to say love and a big thank you to her!

Marathon Runner

I was not born a sport man because of my skinny and smaller frame stature while I was in primary and secondary schools. I always sat the second row in the class otherwise some of my taller classmates would have blocked my view of the blackboard. The only sport that I had taken part in while we were having sport day in the primary school was tying one of my legs with the other of my classmates using a handkefchief, doing something similar to the telematch kind of running! What a shame!

I did not realize my sport potential only until when I was in higher secondary school that I could run cross country well. Subsequently I had developed a liking for sport, though I had played basket ball for many years since primary school days. I went into squash and occasional running or jogging to keep fit! Sometimes sport is a question of practice, perserverance and self confidence. I was very much inspired by my brother-in-law at the age of about 58, yet he could be a good marathon runner. Another younger relative, my wife's cousin Choi CC, probably 48 is another good runner. Imagine the gruesome journey of 42KM, is something to me insurmountable! I take my hat off for these 2 guys!

I have not given up on running long distance. Therefore now I am training hard to increase my laps of running. Every morning I woke up early and try to train my stamina by jogging along the path leading to the sea side. The air in the morning is fresh and the vehicles are few. It is an ideal place to train and exercise and I had chosen this place precisely for this reason.

My aim is hopefully one day I could be fit enough to participate in the marathon run!

Catching fighting fish

My brothers and I were trying to catch some of those fighting fishes. We went to search around the spots where we used to catch them. Around the village, those areas had been developed into housing projects and their habitat is gone forever. We drove to SMTD near to Air Kuning, and we went into the pond we used to catch quite a few before many years ago but there was no more fighting fish. Suddently I remember some of my childhood friends of Kampar, they are children of a far relative living near the railway track in Wah Loong area. They caught fighting fishes in the puddles of water near the railway track. We drove through the old railway flyover, the new sport complex and Kampong Batu Putih to reach our destination. Again we tried in vain with no fighting fish. While passing by and on the road side near a stream, we found some water plants and I brought them back all the way to Terengganu, but they all rotted upon arrival here after keeping them 2 days in the house in a container, perhaps the plants could not withstand the long journey

The family members suddenly proposed to drive all the way to Tualang to eat "Ice Kacang" and jelly drinks. And I took the opportunity to contact Arshad of Kampong Gajah since the place is on the way to Tualang as we took the road passing through Tronoh Mines and Kampong Timah. He advertised in internet on wild fighting fish for sale. We met him near the Agro bank and then he led us to his home just across the Perak river after a bridge. He kept quite a quantity of wild fighting fishes. We bought Rm100 for 4 pairs, my brother and I shared each 2 pairs (male and female), though it is a bit expensive. Anyway, it is Chinese New Year fun, Arshad and us are happy over this because we got what we wanted eventually!

On my way of transporting those fishes to my Cukai home, one of the male fishes jumped out of the container and died, what a pity!

Obsolescence

A friend of mine whose father ran a photo studio in the 70s. It was thriving business for his shop then and they lived in big bungalow house in high class residential area, bought new car compared to his contemporaries who could barely afford owning only second hand used vehicles. With the advent of digitial cameras, the business of his photo shop dropped drastically and nowadays consumers simply do not buy films, develop photos in the shops anymore. They just point and shoot, store them in memory cards, upload the photos in digital frames or web albums etc. So this traditional photo shop of my friend's father became the thing of the past!

I remember those days in the village, where there were only a handful of legally licensed taxis; they belonged to the richer and more well-to-do villagers. It was expensive because one has to own a vehicle, usually a Mercedes Benz 190D and also the licence from the government was expensive, limited and controlled. Buses were commuting only once every hour to and fro Kampar town. At that time, there were needs for more transportation, therefore illegal taxis or what we called "Kereta Sapu" came into existence and they were doing a thriving business. My dad was amongst one of those earliest folks to start this "Kereta Sapu" after he quitted from his fish monger job near Tapah Road and Langkap areas. Before this, he was cycling and later part bought a BSA motorbike to sell fishes to those Malay kampung folks with credit given to them. It was common then for debts to be recorded in a small booklet with brand 555 or more popularly known as the triple 5 booklet. Debts were settled at the end of the month based on the accounts in these booklets, even sundry shops did the same with the village folks. I suppose it was not an easy task to collect back those debts, therefore later part my grandmother from my mum side bought a Vauxhall vehicle bearing the number plate AB 3122 for my dad. The income from this taxi business then was lucrative despite sometimes the Department of Transport or JPJ came into action, drivers had to stop driving for weeks or risked paying hefty fine for operating taxis illegally. This infamous "Kerata sapu" vehicle also served as a means of transport for the entire family, it was really something extraordinary for a village home in the early 60s to own a car. These "Kereta Sapu" vehicles were used to fetch children to schools to Kampar and also "Dulang" washers to the tin mines. With some special arrangement of the seating and the addition of stools, 8-10 adults were packed inside the vehicle. Back then, vehicles were not many on the roads, and therefore vehicles packed with passengers were common, less dangerous and accidents were practically unheard of!

Whenever a good business became obvious, all the others jumped into the bandwagon. Naturally the village after sometime was saturated with such illegal taxis, plying the roads, side lanes and all over the place. Now they were no more such "Kereta Sapu" because every family in the village owns at least one car!

Time, government policies and world economy changed the landscape of life-styles and habits. We must always take this into consideration whenver we venture into something old or new. No good things last forever. Remember how our tin-mining, rubber tapping, timber logging etc became a thing of the past for the country? They were once our pillars of economy that built the nation and propelled the country to what it is today. Very soon, our oil and gas would be the things of the past for Malaysia too. Our leaders have to lead us and move forward with new things and new ideas to generate new revenue for our country in order to achieve our vision 2020.

Cricket catching and photos

As written in my earlier article on my favorite insect, this time back home I chanced upon this old friend of mine who used to be the best cricket digger or catcher in the village because he caught the most crickets during my time. He was catching crickets to feed his Magpie Robin birds, and I took the opportunity to take these precious photos.

He told me that the habitat of those crickets was destroyed and fenced off by owners of palm oil trees planted in self-owned illegal plots in the ex-mining land. He resorted to dig and catch those crickets around the housing area. I told him to spare those young crickets otherwise the insect one day will become extinct in the village, and I worry that I will miss their callings at nights!

Baya Weaver Bird Nests

These are the photos which I had taken while I was traveling to the mining land near to Tronoh Mines side of the Mambang Diawan village. We used to pluck those nests home for decoration. Notice the nests for female birds are with pouches for laying eggs.

Deserted Mining Land

During the Chinese New year period, my uncle and I explored the portion of the deserted mining land by riding on a 70cc Honda Cub motorbike. Went through the winding paths surrounding the outskirt of the western side of the village and passed through many duck rearing ponds and also palm oil trees planted on this wasteland. We lamented at how the tin mines had benefited many of the villagers by helping them to raise up children and families, but now the land is left there with the most fertile top layer soil been washed away and left with sand dunes as white as snow. What a wasteful effect and ecological impact on the land, I would consider this a wasteland if it does not generate any revenue for the country and left idling undeveloped. Many years ago, this place was dotted with Palongs! (This word of "Palong" might be lost forever without any sign of tin mining activity for the past 2 decades or so and we learned this word from our geography lessons in secondary school days on tin mining in Kinta valley and now this Palong is no where to be seen) If not because of some vegetation, and peat swamps around, the landscape is simply too plain and ugly. We did pay a price for the wealth that we gained through those early mining years. The landscape was changed every time a new mine was in operation or a dredge passed through that area. So much so that we all could not paint an original image as to how the original landscape looked like, only bits and pieces from the very far recess of our memories reminded us of a very faint picture!

Now this place which is adjacent to Tronoh mines, Kampong Timah, Tualang and Kampong Gajah areas are thriving with water birds, ponds and palm trees illegally planted all over. Perhaps now the more sophiscated villagers are hoping the opposition party will eventually win and rule the Perak state in the next general election, and hopefully land titles or who knows even compensation could be granted if the new government wants to utilize the land again and at the same time to win the hearts of the voters to stay in power!

Chinese New Year traffic Jam

Every year during the Chinese New Year period, all roads and highways will be jammed up. It is an exodus of big crowd that destines themselves to go home before the grand day. The most important for all the haste and urgency is to attend the reunion dinner on the new year eve with the presence of everyone in the family. Because of this, everyone is rushing home at almost the same time after work or after the last school session of their children. A country like Malaysia, with only 26 millions population and about 5 millions Chinese, the jam is so bad, so one could imagine how bad it could be in China with 1.3 billion people.

Before the North South highway was ready, traffic was equally bad and I used to cut across the opposite side of the road, drove on the road shoulder on the other side, just to beat the jam! I remember very well my triple S, twin caburettors Datsun 160J, it was simply a fantastic sport vehicle for me. During one annual dinner company trip to Penang, I overtook all the cars on the way from KL to Penang, of course I lost to one BMW and we stopped to look at each other only at the Penang ferry terminal! When I get older, I drive more slowly and gently because I am aware of the dangerous consequences of driving fast on roads!

We tried all means to avoid traffic jams during the festive season, woke up and drove early to beat the crowd and even tried to use the old trunk road via Kuala Selangor and Teluk Anson etc. Somehow the jam was inevitable! Nowadays with the highways, things are better but when 3 lanes merge into 2 lanes, that is where the jam starts again!

For many years I had been traveling against the traffic jams because I was working in Penang and also overseas. This year I am against the flow of the traffic from east coast to KL. But from KL onwards then I will join the crowd this Friday. I hope the traffic congestion is mild so that we could have a slow and steady drive home after fetching my daughter from school.

God bless everyone and have a safe journey home and a wonderful Chinese New Year of the tiger!

Malaysia Inc needs to be overhauled and revamped!

Many years ago when I was a kid, I always heard about someone else sons studied in Taiwan and their parents sent a monthly allowance of RM300 and they lived there comfortably like kings. Very often they would marry and bring back Taiwanese wives. Malaysia was a place where many people aspires to "migrate" or find a reason to come here to stay. It is never easy to migrate to Malaysia because of our government policy; I would say it is easier to get a green card in USA then to get a staying visa for foreign spouse to live and work in Malaysia. Nowadays we rarely hear about Taiwanese women willing to marry Malaysian men! Partly because Taiwan has emerged as a more affluent nation than us!

Not so many years ago, Malaysians felt extremely proud of being Malaysians during the time when we had an economic boom in late 80's and early 90's. I still remember the glorious day where a lot of Malaysians displayed our "Jalur Gemilang", our national flag on their vehicles on parade during our national day celebration. Those were the days where we attracted a lot of FDI and economy was simply vibrant, with progress and GDP growth well above other developing nations!

We did not progress thereafter and a lot of issues cropped up especially on our economic policies. Policy and decision making were such that, as though Malaysians of different ethnic origins are competing amongst each other for their own rice bowls, that was the biggest misconception and mistake we ever made! In actual fact we all Malaysians regardless of races, are in the same boat, supposedly to unite together and compete with other countries in Asean, India, and China etc to become a better nation! Our policy makers never realized this, politicians dragged their feet just to stay popular to be in power, all at the expense of our progress and welfare of the country and 'Rakyat" as a whole. Brain drain and migration of Malaysians are never taken seriously until it is just too late to reverse the trend!

We are now very much lag behind other countries in the same region in terms of economy and development. It was a trend then that Malaysian males were going abroad especially to neighboring countries to have fun. It would come a time when this land will run out of oil, and it would not be a surprise to us that foreigners from neighboring countries will start swarming here as a popular destination in the region for "recreation".

Malaysians please wake up to reality and if we are not determined to restructure and revamp ourselves for a radical change in all our economic policies to face the future challenge, we could end up to become a country without jobs but thriving with flesh trade of our own women as an attraction to foreign tourists, let alone to achieve our vision 2020. What a mockery, butt of the joke for other nations to look at who we Malaysians are!

Killing of tigers - A despiscable act!

I detest anyone who killed such beast for whatever good reasons they gave. Tiger population is already less than 500 in the entire peninsular Malaysia; and we want to preserve these otherwise extinct animals for our future generations, at least they would be able to know how a tiger looks like. Tigers rarely attack human beings unless they are confronted or hunted, snared or injured! We humans had encroached their territories, destroyed their habitat through development and broken their food chains. They are driven away and marginalized to live only in limited forest reserves land in the country.

I enjoy reading news that tigers could still be found in the Perak state in areas around Chenderiang, Bukit Tapah Sungkai, Botak Kiri or even near the forest of Kuala Dipang etc. Occasional sighting of such animals are not common; it might be easier to strike a lottery than to see a tiger nowadays. It always makes me feel very sad when tigers were normally killed whenever the sighting incident of such rare and precious animals was reported in the local newspapers.

The price of a dead tiger could fetch a price of USD20,000 and that is something too attractive for some to resist. Even the aborigines are hunting the tigers for money sake on the pretext of collecting "Petai" in the forest reserves and I am totally disgusted with such greedy act. Malaysia is a country that could earn a living easily and our aborigines should not be in that dire strait or poverty level , to the extent of depending on killing such precious wild beasts for a living.

We must protect our Malaysian tigers by whatever means and they are our pride!

Anticipating the coming of Chinese New Year

When was the last time we had the big cleaning up of the house? It used to be always the main activity of the family when the Chinese New Year was approaching. It would be normally 1 to 2 weeks before the actual new year days that every home in the village would gather all their family members to clean up or even paint the house new to get ready for the big days. Now this good culture is rarely practised anymore!

During the period of big cleaning, bamboo tree became a convenient and useful tool for the villagers. They would cut down the stem and tie the leaves as the broom or brush. Using that, far and hard to reach spots and corners of the house, and all the spider webs were swept clean.

Chinese are particular about the dates which such cleaning activity is being carried out. Only on certain dates are to be seen as viable and good based on the ancient guidance of a book, which is published and printed in Hongkong annually. This book is commonly known as "Tong Seng" the content of which notifies and indicates the date, time period and direction for certain rituals to be performed so as to avoid bad omen but invite blessings or good luck.

As a small boy, I was particulary interested in participating in this house cleaning up job with my mum. The changing and pasting of new year bright red posters and decoration were my favorites. Amidst the popular Chinese New Year songs by the various radio stations, the excitement could be felt in the air when the new year mood was slowly built up in this manner. We even as kids knew very well that the actual new year day would be at its peak of celebration and very soon this once a year event would be considered as over. For that reason, I specially enjoyed the waiting and the anticipating moment for the coming of the new year.

Those were the bygone days in my memory. But with every approach of the Chinese New Year, my heart could not stop anticipate its coming and thrilled with excitement. Though the new year will never mean the same to me now as an adult compared to the time when I was a kid, but the whole episode of events always links me back to the past and reminisces the good old days that I once enjoyed very much.

May God bless us always young at hearts to enjoy every day and moment of the coming new year.

Air Putih Kemaman

My brother came to stay with me for the month as he has an instrumentation project in Gebeng Kuantan area. He mentioned to me about our uncle who came to build a bridge at the entrance of the Kampung Air Putih in the late 70's. He was then the sub-contractor working under a French company for the bridge projects that lasted for almost a year. That bridge spanned over a river and linked towards the Cheneh direction. The source of the river water comes from a distant mountainous region further to the West and I was told the river used to have green Arowana or Kelisa fish.

Air Putih is about 28 km from Cukai and driven by curiosity on seeing how does the bridge look like, my brother and I took a slow drive and finally reached there before the sunset and took some photos as posted above. We would like to show our uncle these photos during the Chinese New Year home trip to remind him of his work done almost 30 years ago.

During those earlier years, there were only narrow jungle roads or paths that could lead to the bridge building site before the current tarmac roads were built many years later. Basically it was an area used to be covered with thick primary jungles filled with vibrant wild lives. And now because of housing development projects and land clearing for palm oil estates, the landscape was changed entirely and their natural habitat had been destroyed by the encroachment of humans and the boundary was shifted further in towards Taman Negara direction. My brother related to me a story about a group of wild boars was chased all the way by a tiger and found their refuge in the company warehouse despite the presence of humans. They were trembling inside the warehouse but managed to keep the fiery beast at bay, perhaps because it was a place dwelled by the humans. And its natural instinct might have forbidded the beast to trespass that boundary despite hunger and reluctance; it had to give up the chase, and thus forego its meal for the day. The big footprints of a tiger probably in the region of 200Kg were found near the warehouse the next morning.

We took a look at the surrounding area by driving through the Kampung Air Putih, it was a nice and quiet place with good scenery and river. Some of the old shop lots, wooden houses and one particular Chinese shop along the main road reminded my brother of the good old early years of this village.

My favorite insect - Cricket

Cricket is a fascinating insect. The chirping sound in a serene night was something that had accompanied me for years before I moved to the big cities. Strange enough, I remember certain period of time that I really missed the sound so much that a night without hearing this soothing noise from this creature is never a night for me. Whenever a night was filled with such chirping sound that originates from far and near colonies, coupled with the distant calls from the night jar bird, I would always have a very deep and sound sleep. It functioned like a time machine and my sub-conscious mind then brought me back to my childhood good old days, peaceful and without worries! Perhaps because of this, my entire being was totally relaxed by this background sound effect, I was able to sleep very well for the night!

One of those moon lit nights, my father had brought my younger brother and I to the sweet potatoes field right in front of my grandpa's house. He used a torch to shine on one of the chirping male cricket. All I could remember was seeing a big cricket for the very first time, undeterred by the torch light, crouching at the entrance of a small hole in a little pit, with its wings flared up and flipped in high speed motion, where one of the wings rubbed against the teeth like structure of another wing that created the loud and jarring sound. I had the earlier misconception that the sound was created by the rubbing of its hind legs.

My village is within the Kinta valley where it owes its existence to tin ore mining. Kinta valley was once the biggest and richest tin ore producing region in the world. The ex-mining land with its fine white sand and desert like vegetation formed a good habitat for such crickets. This big brown cricket is a different species compared to the black type, which makes a more gentle chirping sound and used to be the favorite fighting species in ancient China. If you watch the movie on the "Last Emperor of China", you would be able to remember how the last emperor had placed that black cricket under his throne seat. And after many years when he suddenly remembered it and then retrieved the container again, the cricket inside it was amazingly still alive but the color had turned grey!

I used to gather all my brothers and friends from the village and went for cricket digging in the ex-mining land. We brought along a little short handle "changkul" digging tool and a wooden container with wire mesh that allowed ventilation for the caught insects to be kept inside, started out early in the morning and came back just shortly before lunch time. Catching the insect needs some skillful digging; just before reaching the end of its nest, one has to dig more carefully so as not to snap the insect into half. One has to use finger to dig the last portion of the nest, and you could even feel the kicking of its hind legs upon reaching the furthest end of the hole and that was the greatest excitement and joy of cricket catching! Sometimes centipede was inside the hole because it had eaten the cricket, therefore extra care has to be exercised. It was really enjoyable and also money earning pass time for the kids.

This big brown cricket fetched a high price of roughly 5 cents each many years ago. This is because raising Magpie Robin was a trend and this insect is the favorite and most nutritious food for these birds. The cricket collector would come to the village around 11pm under a big tree and we sold him our crickets. We could easily earn 3-5 dollars per digging trip.

Cricket is still my favorite insect and if ever I have a chance again, I would want to go for such cricket digging trip just for the fun of it!

My father's traditional medicine

My father is a person of all trades. When he was younger, he learned the trick of Chinese Sinseh of curing sprains or dislocation of joints, application of herbal medicine with the formula of which passed down from his distant uncle. The herbal medicine was a combination of the Chinese traditional medical herbs plus one kind of leaves from the tropical forest. We went to the forest once to locate some of those leaves from a creeper plant and he taught us to tear apart those leaves and learn to distingush by the tissue structure of the specie.

Many village folks came to our home for that magical cure and my father is well known in the village then. To me the herbal medicine was a very good formulation that relieved pain of most of the patients. So much so that one of my father's buddies had learned that formula and built a name of his own as sinseh of bones and marketed the medication under his own brand. The news about him was that his house in Kampar was burnt down by a fire and subsequently he and his family moved to Kuala Lumpur. Other than some occasional visits to my fathers in those earlier years, heard that he passed away and never to be seen anymore. That brand of medication is forever lost!

My father's interest in medicine had driven him to learn from some qualified Chinese medical hall practitioner on traditional medicine. One of the guys he always liked to talk to was from this so-called "Dongfong or Oriental" medical hall in the village. This guy had a lot of medical books written both for traditional Chinese and western medicine related to topics such as vitamins etc. This person subsequently migrated to USA and I have also never seen him anymore.

That time there was no photocopy machines and my father diligently hand copied many of those manuels for his studying. Later part he was so particular and fussy about the handwriting that he paid someone living on the western side of the village by the name of Wong Ngen to copy on his behalf. I still remember the look of that man, he wore a square dark spectacle, riding on a big ancient bicycle, passing many of the handcopied medical notes to my father. His handwriting was good and it also happened that his son of my age was from the same primary school.

Time flies and that herbal medicine was never used anymore and at one time I asked my father for the formula and he said it is no more useful with the advances of modern day western medicine. Anyway I am still curious on the formula of this good old traditional medicine, it is very effective and useful. I personally feel that this medicine did a lot of goods for the patients compared to the actual skill of my father in twisting and making good of those dislocated joints!

Dragon Boat Tragedy

After the Kampar waterfall incident, now I read about the news on the dragon boat strategy in George town Penang, and I really feel very sad because of the loss of young lives and also my empathy on their grieving parents. Just imagine the pain of losing a child after all the time, effort and love of raising from toddler to become a teenager. How much hope, joy and future days we want to anticipate from them as we see them grow, and this is all suddenly dashed by the mishap. As parents, we wanted our sons and daughters to be healthy, safe and happy, all the rest is simply immaterial! May God's consoling spirit move over these grieving parents, only God one day will be able to tell them the answer why this should ever happen to their beloved children!

There is always a Chinese saying which could be translated as: "You many want to adventure freely in the mountains, but never and never underestimate the danger of the water". Indeed this is very true! I had heard many stories and incidents in my village that ex-mining ponds had drown and taken away lives of many young kids when their parents were busy engaging themselves to earn a living outside and are not around at home to keep a watchful eye over them. I myself had, in numerous occasions, sneaked out of the house for such swimming trips without the knowledge of my parents. Come to think of it, it is simply too dangerous, and I am really glad that I am still alive till this day!

Water is a place, even if you are a good swimmer and equipped with proper life jacket, the undercurrent could be so strong that one could easily be sucked and drawn in, carried by the current, splashed and in the process knock against some rocks underneath the water that you could be injured and lose your consciousness. This is how life is lost even in a seemingly calm sea around Penang island in this dragon boat tragedy! And I always caution people who wanted to swim or fish in the East coast of Peninsula Malaysia especially near Cherating and Terengganu beaches. Those beaches are facing the open and much rougher South China sea compared to the strait of Malacca, where somehow Indonesia has cushioned off the strong waves from the Indian ocean.

Therefore all water sport events must be well planned and thoughtfully anticipate all these possible consequences. If possible, have all your swimming and water sport of young children done in artificial pools or water theme parks!

Sea is always dangerous whether for young and old! Just be very careful when you opt to plan your recreation there!

My Mountain Bike - Scott Aspen

This is the mountain bike that I use it to cycle every morning and evening near the beach. It is a good form of exercise and I need that to improve my overall health condition.

Hope to do more with the machine after more training is done. The road condition along the beach line is asphalt paved and is simply too good for a mountain bike. The tire thread pattern is some sort of hybrid type, with the central portion of fine pattern while the edge is more knobby.

Life in Terengganu

After moving into my Geliga house, I started real living in Terengganu. I feel like I am just one of the Terengganu folks and even bought some small stickers with the sea turtle logo of the state to stick on my vehicles; this indeed made me feel very Terengganu!

The bungalow house rented by the company is simply good; what I mean is location wise, convenience and is also walking distance away from the Monica Bay beach. During this monsoon season, sea is rough and the wind is strong, but it is airy and fresh to live in this area. The Samajaya mini-market is nearby and I could just take a stroll to buy my groceries there without having to drive all the way to town. My family and my brother visited me in this new home, and I just told them to watch out for the very 1st traffic after they entered the Terengganu state, turned on the left and waited for me at the Esso gas station. It is so easy to locate. The only complaint about this place is the black striped mosquitos, likely to be Aedes and they are simply abundant and hungry. When you walk out to lock the gate, you would be bitten at least once or twice! I burn some mosquito coils outside the house, just to deter these creatures from getting near to the entrance of the house.

After settling in for about 2 weeks, I had brought in my Scott Aspen mountain bike, wiped and greased it clean with WD40 and some bicycle lubricant, put the rear wheel on a RM30 stand as it does not have a kickstand. Every evening and morning, I take the bike for a ride as a form of exercise along the seaside beach area. I fixed up some of the lights, reflectors and blinkers, lubricated the key components etc. And it is fun to put up some of the accessories onto the bike. In the process of biking, it also taught me the different kinds of Schrader and Presta valves for the tires, and also the nomenclature of those bicycle components.

I put up two aquarium tanks, one medium and one small size tanks in the hall. Tried on the old pump brought from my KL home, tested and it is still working fine. Cleaning up the tanks and setting up the stand for the the tanks in place kept me busy a few evenings. Now the tanks are well aerated, perhaps after installing the filters bought from aquarium shops, then it is ready for me to start the new phase of my aquarium fish rearing hobby!

Looking forward to do more in this Geliga home!

What kind of bank?

I had taken an overdraft facility with one of the local banks many years ago in early 90s. I tested what an overdraft facility was all about and it was useful. Subsequently when I purchased one of the houses in Kulim of Kedah state, I applied through another bank, instead of giving me a term loan, they suggested me some sort of an overdraft housing loan. With my prior experience of an overdraft facility, I thought it was a good idea because if I have sufficient fund later on, then I could settle the borrowing much earlier. Only problem was that, EPF at that time would not allow anyone to withdraw and settle an overdraft housing loan, EPF will only permit settling of housing term loan only. That was the disadvantage!

One fine day, someone in the bank from the earlier overdraft facility account had given me a "windfall", they had by mistake credited my account in the region of RM10-11K, and I happily consumed most of the extra fund to furnish my new Kulim home. Then they later found out and admitted that they had made a mistake and charged me exorbitant interest rate for over the pre-set limit. How unreasonable banks could be!

My old school mate happened to be a EON bank manager, and I wanted to refinance my Kulim house to get cheaper interest rate at that time when the banks were engaging in this low interest financing war. When I took up the matter to the officer, and this lady oficer Ms Ho was very professional and she had convincingly persuaded me to stay on with the same bank and gave me an additional house renovation loan of RM30K instead. It happened that the overdraft housing loan bank and my earlier overdraft facility bank merged, and this RM30K was used to settle the mistakenly deposited money given to me and also there was some extra cash left for me to spend on. That seemed to be a good deal and I therefore decided to stay with the same bank without swapping the loan to EON bank.

Since it was an additional renovation loan through the same bank, therefore every month the instalment is settled through the account of the original overdraft housing loan by a standing instruction. That is to say, I deposit my money into one account, and the account will auto-debit to settle both the original housing loan and also the renovation loan at the same time. Was it not a brilliant idea?

Over the years, I had faithfully serviced all my loans regardless of good time or recession. And at the later part, when I worked overseas I managed to deposit a lot of cash into the housing loan account, and the outstanding was set to zero prior to its maturity date with positive balance.

The trouble started when the auto-debit action stopped, re-started and stopped again. And also my overdraft housing loan LIMIT suddenly became zero pre-maturely without any reason. It was before the expiry date of the housing loan agreement! How could a principal loan account finished off earlier before the renovation loan is fully settled, which is an additional and integral part of the package? The collection centers called me and I explained the matter many times to them, telling them it is their computer system problem that the auto-debit stopped. And the calls came from Prai and then KL offices etc over and over again for a few years. The bank utilized my extra fund from my overdraft and regularized the account in 2007 for all the mistake that they had made. Unfortuntely the trouble started again with their computerized auto-debit system even after that.

Because of their incompetency in this, they are going to charge me an accumulative interest of RM15K instead of the total amount of RM12K as stated in the agreement for a principal sum of RM30K to be settled over a period of 10 years. Adding to my anger is that, this is none of my problem. How could a bank did this at their whim and mercy? Nobody knows why a computerized standing instruction could start and stop, as a consumer we could probably guess or suspicious of some insider siphoning out the money to somewhere else without our knowledge!

Now I have to trace back all the old transactions to find out the truth by writing to the bank! If things do not turn out well after all that I had done, I might have no choice but to refer the matter to Bank Negara or the Bureau of Complaint.

The name of the bank is intentionally withheld to give them time to settle the matter.

When Malaysia runs out of petroleum and gas

It was at least almost 10 years ago that my friend from Shell had told us that the reserve of oil and gas in Malaysia will run out within the next 15-20 years. I did not take it seriously as at that time it was still quite early for us to think about the problem. But right now, it means to say for the next 5-10 years to come, we will be depleted with this non-recoverable resource that Malaysia is so much dependent on all this while. My insider friends from Petronas also confirm this threat subtlely!

Our government really has to think hard on how to generate the kind of revenue that could fund our country in terms of policies as well as our future plans on how to run this country more efficiently. We could not afford to blunder as before that much money was wasted and dumped to the drain because of corruption and poor governance.

Petronas has to work extra hard to find alternative ways to survive and they could not enjoy the same high growth and profit as before, top management could not sit on laurels and wait for things to happen while the odds are obviously against them. They have to diversify and also to explore oil somewhere else within a very short time frame. If Kelantan or Terengganu state was to get oil royalty money, then they have to get it fast before there is no more oil left.

Malaysia and its "rakyat" at large will be at a cross road, as we are no more competitive in manufacturing compared to China, we have almost given up agriculture and we even have to import rice from Thailand. We are also no good at IT and the Multimedia Super Corridor does not seem to score any mark to make any real progress. The time will come very soon, we all will have to pay a high price for gasoline because we will have to import petroleum, few would be able to afford to drive any vehicle bigger than 1500cc!

My God, what are we going to do with Malaysia if we do not start to think hard and work hard now? How could we ever achieve our vision 2020?

Home in Kemaman

After 5 months and 7 days stay in Homestay hotel of Jalan Jakar Cukai, finally the house rented by the company is in place for me to stay in. It is located at Taman Baiduri Geliga Besar, which is only walking distance from the Monica beach (Pantai Mak Nik). I find this place convenient as one could find Esso station and also mini market Samamaju nearby. It is away from the busy Cukai town and there is a lot of space that I could walk or cycle to the beach, exercise and jog. I think this is a great place to stay!

The place is easy to find, coming from Cherating direction, after reaching the border between the Pahang and Terengganu states, marked by an arch with "God bless the Sultan and Sultanah of Terengganu", upon reaching the 1st traffic light, turn right, where the Esso station is located, the house is stone throw distance away!

My wife and the children came for the visit, they cleaned and decorated the house for me. It looks more like a home for me now. There are 3 rooms and that could easily accomodate a number of friends and visitors who wanted accomodation for a stop-over, leisure or fishing trips.

How to come to Cukai Kemaman from KL

I attempt to write on how to get to Cukai if you do not have a GPS to guide you and I highlighted those dangerous stretches of roads and also those confusing cross roads in bold letters, where you have to exercise extra careful or make decision to make the right turn to get to your destiny:

If you are travelling along the Federal highway to KL city center direction, just at the end of the yellow lane specially reserved for taxi and buses, you have to turn immediately left up to Ipoh and Kuantan or KL Sentral direction, and this road will pass by the Muzium Negara. All the way keeping to the left on this road, you will cut in to Jalan Duta. If you miss this junction, drive straight on, you will go into Jalan Kuching instead. At the end of Jalan Kuching, there is also a side road where one could turn into DUKE again.

On the left of Jalan Duta, roughly in the direction opposite the Indian embassy, just after a traffic light for turning to the Damansara direction, there is a road leading to NKVE to Ipoh, that is the normal way whenever I head back home to Kampar; just follow that towards the NKVE toll direction. Just about reaching the NKVE toll but on the left hand side, there is a sign board on DUKE (Not very obvious as it always gives the impression that the road will only lead you to the NKVE toll and you get a little bit panic whether you are on the right direction to Kuantan).

Once you enter into the DUKE highway and I suppose you will travel along the Sri Hartamas and also the nearby Mont Kiara areas, and drive towards Kuantan direction. Just after Sentul along the way, you have to keep to the left to turn to Kuantan direction, if not that road will take you all the way to Zoo Negara. Pay Rm2 for the toll and go straight and you will pass by Batu Caves and then drive pass a flyover and join back into the normal road which lead you to Genting and Kuantan. You will see some petrol kiosks on your left hand side. Very soon you will be at the RM5 toll to Genting.

After that toll, you will head straight to Genting Sempah, after climbing a stretch of hill before reaching to the uphill road to Genting Highland. Just keep to the right to Kuantan (Do not go up the Genting road). After that you will pass by a tunnel, and then the Genting Sempah rest area with Petrol Kiosk and Mc Donald on your right hand side of the road, I normally do not stop there unless on the way back to KL. If you are not stopping over, before long you will be heading a downward slope, very steep and dangerous for 1st time driving to east coast. Just keep to the left and put on low gear to slow down the vehicle if you are driving a manuel vehicle.

You are about to pay another Rm3 toll before reaching Karak after passing Bentong. If there is no traffic jam, I normally reach this toll roughly within an hour or slightly more. This stretch of road is very winding especially after the 70.o Km milestone mark before reaching Kampung Sungai Dua. Be extra careful as this is an accident prone area especially on rainy days. Very soon after that you will be approaching the East Timur highway toll, and the road then is in much better condition to drive. Within 30 minutes of driving you will probably be reaching Temerloh rest area, where you could take a break or fill up your tank in the Shell station. And the next available gas station is Gambang, which is roughly about 60-70Km away from Temerloh. Gambang rest area is famous for its "nasi lemak" and in this place Petronas gas station is the last fueling station before you hit Jabor toll. From Gambang to Jabor toll, is roughly about 30 minutes and you have to pay RM21 for this east coast highway travel. Vehicles are few and it is nice to travel on this highway. This highway is supposed to connect all the way to Kuala Terengganu but is yet to be completed. Therefore there is a slight detour near to the toll but with clear direction indication for you to reach the Jabor toll, you will never miss!

Getting out from Jabor toll, short distance away, there will be a flyover, just go below the flyover and take the "Kuala Trengganu & Kemaman" direction on the right side of the lane. And you travel about 15 minutes after passing a small inverted U shape arch, and then climb onto a bridge and within 5 minutes, you will reach a direction pointing you to Kuantan or Kemaman. Just take the extreme left lane and turn slowly into the trunk road to Kemaman as this is almost a 90 degrees turn. From here, you will take 15 minutes to reach Cherating and also the famous Club Med. Another 15 minutes more you will reach Cukai town.


Have a safe journey and God bless.

Malaysians in common

Most of the Malaysians at large are not so keen on politics as they are just common citizens who would just like to feed and raise their families, earn a descent living and be happy with life. It really does not matter which party rules the country as long as their livelihood and basic needs or necessities are taken care of. Malaysia has a very small population of 26 millions and with rich natural resources, all of us should be well blessed enough to have a reasonable good life compared to other countries. Malaysians of different ethnic groups in general are friendly and nice people and we could mingle well with each other without much problem. Only some self interest unscrupulous politicians try to stir things up and inevitably polarize the situation and feeling towards other groups in order for them to gain their political ground. That is a very unfortunate thing that happens too rampant in this country.

Human beings always like to have something in common, they like to stick to people of same interest, same background, same language and same religion etc. It is a matter of convenience without having to go through the hassle of the process to learn, adjust and the necessity to explain at length to others of your peculiar hehavior and habits. And this is the common trait of all human beings. When I went into the university, most of my coursemates are speaking Hokkien dialect, and when I met someone from the Cantonese speaking group, I felt very much at ease and automatically joined them for more conversation and activities. It is not a discrimination of any sort, as we just want to choose the easier way out of doing things.

It is also important for Malaysians to live in this country to stress more on the common points rather than the differences. Differences always give the impression of unpredictable, exercise extra care to deal with someone you do not know thinking that you could unintentionally offend them. That has added to most of us the extra burden of having to put in the effort of getting to know the others, and unfortunately many of us are NOT that adventurous by nature!

In our daily life, we must always stress that we are all Malaysians regardless of our race, for any ill fate that befalls any of the ethnic groups, it will not do the others any good. We wish all of them to earn well, eat well and live well, then we will have a peaceful and harmonious society that we all enjoy together. We must even stress that the Muslims and the Christians are within the same category of Abrahamic faith, sharing a major portion of the common Holy Books. And they worship the same God of Abraham though with different interpretations! All the differences and interpretations should not deter us, instead that should further reinforce the fact that, such "rival" religious belief did not collaborate but rather collectively, and also not by mere coincidence that, they relate themselves to the same and common historical background and the God they worship.

May God bless us all!

Selection of DSLR

I had finally made a decision to purchase the Canon EOS 450D or XSi DSLR after reading much of the reviews in the internet. Basically it is a 12 mega pixels camera with superb photo quality at high ISO of 1600 without much noise. There are a lot of technical terms to describe the various parameters and characteristics of a camera and photos, which I am still trying to learn on them. Some of the salient selling points are the CMOS sensors, 3" live view, 3.5 fps, light weight and also the availability of a wide range of image stabilization lenses, 9 auto focus points etc. Basically the deal making deciding factor is because both my brother and sister own Canon brand DSLRs. It would be easier for us subsequently to swap lenses and exchange views. My younger brother KM Lee has been in this DSLR thing for a long long time, he is an avid photographer with great passion on nature and animals. I had chosen the convenient way of taking photos in the past without any thought that I will ever own one of these entry level DSLR; it was simply too bulky and also messy to play with those complicated parameters of light and optics.

For a long time, I had not been interested in knowing about the apertures, the ISO sensitivity, white balance, under exposure, shutter speed, raw files, focus lengths, dynamic range etc. Suddenly I started to dwell in reading this kind of details about those terms in the internet. Fortunately my mechanical engineering technical training background had given me much advantage in understanding those terms and their implication fast within a short period of time.

I do believe in the kind of peer influence after I had gone on a trip with some of my school mates and Singaporean friends to the Sichuan Jiuzhaigou resort; some had brought in the best in class equipment for the shooting and I envied at their expensive camera equipment. Also partly because in the past, thousand of photos were taken by the point & shoot cameras which I own and there seem to be no break through in the sharpness and quality after viewing them on the bigger LCD monitor screen. Perhaps it is time for me to go one step up for better and more professional photos quality.

I would also like to thank the Senheng store sales girl for telling me that I could redeem all my points gathered for years from the past usage of my Citibank credit cards and also Maybank credit card combined to get a total discount in the region of RM600. I am not in the habit of going through the messy procedure of redeeming points for those gifts. This time I had managed to clear all the points other than those forfeited because of expiry. This had quickened my decision and closed the deal in this particular store for the much desired and thought about DSLR !

Open the car door carefully!

Last week I went out together with Azman, the production executive of the factory to take a look at the new Alza MPV model. As there were many cars parked along the available space in front of the car show room, and I managed to squeeze in at a corner located at, after a slight bend from the service road. It was a rainy day and the road was muddy. When I got out from the car and opened the door to step out, suddently a motor cyclist carrying his wife and kid zoom passed me from behind and knocked on my door and he almost fell. He was screaming for pain because his eye hit the sharp part of the door and was bleeding. Azman and I quickly went over to check his condition, fortunately only his left eye corner was slightly scratched. And his motorbike plastic front panel and one of the front lights was broken. I had apologized to him and also because of our quick action to comfort him instead of looking at how badly damage my car door was, that had pacified him somehow. Azman was quick to use a tissue to rub off the blood from the side of his eye. And eventually we negotiated and compensated him by spending RM70 for the repair of the motorbike and RM30 for him to see a doctor in the clinic. That settled the whole accident amicably.

This accident had taught me good lesson that I must always be careful to look behind before opening any of the car doors. It is simply too dangerous just to open the door abruptly without watching behind whether there is any oncoming vehicle. In this particular case, it could cause severe injury to the oncoming motorist because the sharp part of the door could pierce his eye if not because of the protection of his helmet that had cushioned off part of the impact. Assuming that if this was not a motorbike but a lorry, one could imagine the entire door might just fly off by the knocking force. Was it not scary?

Another thing we have to remember is that if we are in the wrong, make sure to be humble, apologize and also show your concern to the opposite party instead of to your beloved vehicle.

I thank God for this and also the door of the car only suffered some slight dent and scratched paint work.

Pampeing Children is a bad idea

Parents always want to give the best to their children because children are God given asset and are usually few in number at this time compared to big families our parents used to have before. During my time, children of 6 was considered as few and most have 10 or a dozen especially in the village. Nowadays children are brought up in such a way that they are materialistically rich, pampered and living in great comfort zone. They are so used to spending money and also enjoying a lavish life style that does not seem to match with their potential future earning, I would say, at least the first few years when they graduate, come out to work and face the real world. This parental pampering act will not benefit them at all, but also to spoil them and reduce their competitivenss in the society. Young people nowadays yet to experience what real life is all about, already developed the bad habit to buy high end products and don on branded costumes and apparels, be selective on food and want to dine on reputable and high class restaurants. They do not realize how difficult it is to earn money in the real working world! Subsquently when they are so used to what they already have presently, they simply could not take a step backward to lead a more inferior and simple life. If there is any happening that turns against them in the future such as an economic recession, thus forcing them into a more humble and modest life style, they will suffer and will feel extremely miserable. Under such circumstances, they might attempt all kinds of method, both legal or illegal, just to satisfy their insatiable appetite on materialistic things that they are already so used to. How dangerous this could be, they could end up doing all kind of things in their pursuit of monetary gain or even go to jail!

When we were young, because of our parents had more children and therefore resources were thin, and every sibling was having only the bare minimum in order to make our ends meet. We started to grow and taste what poverty was all about, we appreciate life more as we work hard to achieve what we are today, earn and spend only what we can afford to spend. For that, we learned to be thrifty and respect our parents because they toiled for us so that we could have enough food and education. Just imagine how tough life was for our not so highly-educated parents in the setting of a village background to earn and support 6 children. Young people of this time tends to take thing for granted and they would not be able to appreciate how much their parents had done and sacrified for them.

The bible had taught us to "seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things shall be added unto you". We, as parents have not heeded this and done our part enough and set the right examples for them. We work hard for material gain so that our children can enjoy lot of things but do not emphasize enough to them on this spiritual aspect of biblical teaching. We are at fault and this is really our big mistake!

I pray that God to help us all to become better parents and give us the wisdom to teach our children to be better persons in the future. We want our children to have discipline and work hard to gain what is proper and not to take any short cut and easy way out for their life in the future to come. Life is not meaned to be easy, and God uses the process of going through life to train us to be tough and be dependent on Him instead of blindly seeking material gain. May God bless us all!

Old age predicament

I met a new friend and he is 62, he is a friendly and also a very well educated person as he was once an English language teacher and also an editor in a famous newspaper. He is well exposed and had raised good children who got scholarships to study in UK. He loves his family and he taught them well when the children were young and they exceled in their studies with strings of distinctions in public examination results. It is a pity that with his son as medical doctor, and daughter as some high flying investment company senior officer, he is left alone to stay in Malaysia for the past 8 years. The wife left him to UK to take care of the sick mother-in-law of his daughter. Money is never a problem for him as he owns properties all over.

He told me that it was a mistake for him to teach his children too well, otherwise they would have remained in Malaysia. One could imagine his frustration when he uttered such words! He wanted his doctor son to marry a local but the son married a British girl instead. And he wanted him to become a specialist doctor in Kuantan hospital, even to the extent of buying a house nearby the hospital just for him, but the son opted to be a British and resides in UK and never wanted to come back. It seems all odds are against him!

Maybe his wife was right, son and daughter should have their own lives, and it is their lives! And they have choosen their destiny the way they wanted it, and parents should not interfere at all. Whatever the wish of parents to remain as wish only. Now he is a frustrated old man living in solitude. Thinking that all his good friends and buddies are in Kuantan and he shifted from Kemaman to live there. Unfortunately at the later part, most of his friends moved to Kuala Lumpur, probably just to follow their sons and daughters now working and staying in the capital city. This old man simply just has no one in Kuala Lumpur to go to. Should there be any one of his family members staying there, he might have followed suit and shifted there as well to be with his buddies.

It is definitely not the wish of parents having their children far away from home when they grow up. It is hard for a man after living many years in Malaysia and then is forced by circumstances to uproot himself and settle in another country or place. They might feel proud to have children capable of residing in advanced countries like US and UK, but this proudness is short-lived, and the yearning to see their children by their side becomes a more dominating factor as they grow older each day. It is not a question of selfishness that parents want to keep their children around, it is the kind of "lost and emptiness" feeling that cripple them after they had strived for the most part of their life to raise children, and eventually they are too remote to be seen. It is a sadness but sometime it is a fact of life that we all probably have to accept it one day.

It is only when our sons and daughters, they themselves become parents at later part, reaching a stage some day when their own children grow up and they would be able to feel and taste the same bitter medicine. Probably then they will realize how bitter life could be at that age.

Come to think of it, could I come to the same predicament like this friend of mine when I reach that stage? Well, I do not think of such problem when I was just a few years younger, is this really a sign of getting old now?

New hobbies - Bicycle and DSLR

One has to continue to explore new interests especially when you are getting old and living alone. You really have to do something you find it interesting and also enjoy doing it. The good thing about engineer is that he or she could easily understand all the technical stuff that is written in books or from the internet. It is really wonderful at this modern age of IT that one could easily google a lot of articles regarding a certain topic with just one click of your mouse.

I recently read about bicycles and came to understand how different high quality and reputable components of bicycle could cost a lot more than one could ever imagine. It surprises many people how a good bicycle could cost somewhere in the region of RM3-4K as against the China made unknown brands at just RM100-200. The use of Shimano gears and other pricy components could cost one a fortune! I finally decided to buy a used Scott bike at RM1K, hardly used by previous owner and the original price was RM2700.

Recently I also read more about DSLR. This comes to my mind after the trip to Jiuzhaigou because most of my friends are carrying along DSLR as they could shoot better pictures compared to my point-and-shoot Nikon Coolpix camera. It is hard to discern the quality of pictures taken by using a normal camera and DSLR at the first glance, but the experts would be able to tell. There are a lot more one could do and play with a DSLR compared to the normal digital camera.

I read through the top brands such as Nikon and Canon, their market share and also the availability of their lenses, support etc. Also learn about ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 etc which are to be used in low light condition without using a flash. And how the various sizes of CMOS or CCD sensors affect the quality of photos at high ISO. Understood the term "noise" is used to describe the grainy effect of those photos taken at high ISO numbers. There are other factors such as image stabilization built-in in the camera or lens so that one will not get blurr image without a tripod. Plus the so called Four-third size form factor which reduces weight and size of lenses used so that the camera could be easily carried to anywhere without feeling its bulkiness and weight.

I always have a budget in my mind as I could not afford the luxury that I had before when I worked overseas. I also anticipate the possibility of a new hobby could die of natural death or fade over time after investing a lot of money on the gears. For those reasons, choosing the entry level models and to read about all the reviews seem to be the right move. Currently for these entry level DSLR, Sony Alpha A230, Olympus E-450 or even a Pentax Kx are the choices in my mind. Sony is not so established in the DSLR business compared to Nikon and Canon, but they have Minolta/Konica as their backing and it is also easy for me to review photos taken in the Sony 40" Bravia LCD TV at my Kuala Lumpur home. As for Olympus, the lightest camera available in the market, its weight factor is something that intrigued me, nobody other than the professionals would like to carry a heavy camera with its protruding lens hanging on the neck for sightseeing and touring. Pentax is also very well known brand but Pentax Kx model is using AA batteries, heard that battery draining out problem is a big issue though AA batteries are supposed to be for convenience and they readily available everywhere.

Sometimes I just immerse myself in the quest of such new hobbies without actually making a decision to own them or going into it. Perhaps the fun of it is to go through the process of finding out. A typical example would be buying and reading the Motor Trader magazines, looking at some of the favorite Volvo and Mercedes cars which I intended to buy, but eventually ended up buying a Proton Exora.

Jiuzhaigou - Paradise on earth, a place not to be missed

Recently a group of my classmates and schoolmates organized a trekking trip all the way to the snow mountains of the Sichuan province in China this late autumn season. They had planned the trip about 3 months ahead. They bought all the gears and the necessary apparels and did some tall building climbing training before they embarked on the challenge. While I was taking on a new assignment here in Kemaman, I hesitated quite a while on whether to join them because it is a new job for me here and also the days to be away was about 15 days, a bit too long. It was really a "not to be missed" opportunity that after so many years we left school and we were able to gather so many of them and to do sight-seeing in a foreign land and have fun together.

Coincidently Air Asia airline announced the inaugural flight on 20th October 2009 to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. And the online booking of Air Asia was easy and quick, and most of all, to and fro air ticket was only Rm559. That was really a good deal and I finally made a compromise and firmed up my mind to join them only for the last 3 days of their trekking journey at the renowned resort of Jiuzhaigou.

Their trekking trip included camping in snowing mountains and also the need to go very natural as there are no amenities, toilets and hotels whatsoever along the most part of the track. They had to climb hills and wade through snow covered track, scaled up and down above 4000 m of high altitude snow mountains, experienced mountain sickness etc. The only consolation they had, should there be any emergency, was the presence of a medical specialist doctor as one of the team members. They probably entered the Jiuzhaigou resort through trekking in from the back entrance while I flew in and went in from the main entrance by taxi. One of our classmates opted to give up the trip and went home alone as the journey was proven to be just too much for him to endure. Surprisingly there were 3 Singaporean women and 1 Malaysian lady participated in the adventure. They managed to persevere through the entire gruesome journey, though the team had actually decided to deviate and cut short the last trekking portion and went straight in to the resort one day earlier than scheduled. I arrived at the right timing to catch up with them otherwise I would have to wait one whole day alone in the hotel for their arrival if they sticked on to the original schedule. This made the trip more interesting and we had more time to tour Jiuzhaigou more thoroughly.

Jiuzhaigou is almost a paradise on earth and is beyond words to describe its beauty. Photographs taken are so beautiful that one could think that they are just paintings, a place too good to be true. I had posed in some of the photos just to convince myself and others to look at those shots taken are real, and not some manipulation of the digital images.

This was really a wonderful trip and I enjoyed it very much!

Pictures paint a thousand words, these are the web albums for your viewing:

http://picasaweb.google.com/martinleefh/mltvTE02#

http://picasaweb.google.com/martinleefh/mltvTE#

Dangerous places and fire in the village

While I was staying in the village as small kid, there were some dangerous zones that our parents would never allow us to venture any nearer to those places. Kampar and Mambang Diawan, being in the Kinta valley where we were having one of the richest tin ore resources in the world, were filled with used tin mines, once discarded and started to form natural ponds of various sizes and depths. Those ponds were usually deep and blue in color, therefore they were enticing to the kids as most of us were attracted to the water, either to cool ourselves by taking a dip or try to catch some fishes. There was one place near to the northern entrance of the village, a place by the name of "Lingutik" and it means "the tip of the breast" because of its dome shape that became a favorite spot for children taking a jump from that high tip portion and splash into the crystal clear deep part of the pond. There was another pond near to the Indian settlement on the eastern side of the village, we called that the "shorty pond" because of its smaller in size, shallower water and also a big tree truck near to the middle of it that swimmers could swim all the way and then cling on to it to take a break or a rest and chat with the other swimmers. A few of us always told our tuition teacher that we went to see the Chinese opera but actually sneaked out for a dip and headed to the shorty pond! Thinking of it, if any one of us get drown, I wonder how the tuition teacher could ever answer to the parents. How dangerous it could be when children are not properly supervised!

Malaysia does not have any kind of mines buried in war zone ground in countries such as Cambodia or the former Yugoslavakia states etc., but the used mining ponds are equally dangerous that stole the lives of many young children.

There were many incidents that young children were drown that caused so much sorrow to the village folks and parents would not hesitate to mete our severe caning if children were found to swim in any of the ponds or rivers. Children being children, always like to sneak out of the house and take a dip in those rivers or ponds. One of the tricks was to quickly clean our bodies in the running tap water so as to clear any muddy mark on the skin in order to avoid detection. In those days, tap water was not tapped directly into the house but rather at public places where young and old were to carry pails of water back home for consumption or even taking their bath. Those public taps became convenient places for us to erase those traces of mud.

Waterfalls and those natural ponds right after the falling water were another dangerous places. Even many adults were drown by the under current of these pools. There was one famous Chinese opera singer that came to perform in the area and was drown in the Bidor waterfall while he visited the place when taking a break during his performance. Expert swimmers were sometimes stucked in the roots or rocks that they were strangled and could not surface and therefore drowned. A few times in the Kampar waterfall, the heavy rain at the upper stream of the waterfall, somewhere deep inside the tropical jungle near the source or from the remote area of Kampar hill had caused the sudden accumulation of strong current that swept away picnickers and swimmers down stream. All Utar students not familiar with the background and the danger of waterfalls should be fore-warned of such danger. The slippery rock is another dangerous part, I got my forehead stitches in the Kampar hospital done because of my hand slipped while swiming from one end of the pool to the other when trying to cling and pull myself up onto a rock.

One fire that I observed that destroyed a house and killed a baby, that was the greatest tragedy that I knew of while I was still a young kid. That happened to the house next to my grandpa's cousin brother's home some 20 minutes walking distance away. The mother of that killed baby was one of the friends of my mum, I remember visited her together with my mum and saw the big egg of a long stick insect, which was kept as a pet in a glass tank, supposed to be German breed. I still remember this very vividly as I was really fascinated by the insect. It was a tragic ending for this woman, after losing her baby and after some time the husband took a second wife and she left the village and since then I have never seen her anymore.