Celebrate Malaysia!

Pengerang, Sg Rengit, Batu Layar, or Riding, Roti and Sunburn.

2012-01-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

Time to catch up on some old tasks namely writing about trips done some time ago. This one was a bicycle ride much like the one Mei, Wei Yen, Jeff and I did in July, but this time it was 4 guys and the ride was to Batu Layar, about double the distance of the previous ride.

Johann had of course cycled halfway around the world and was now my business partner. Joe is an old friend who had introduced me to Johann when I was planning Celebrate Malaysia! and who had also once cycled around Malaysia in his teenage years then accompanied Johann from Cambodia down to Singapore when Johann did that leg. Brian is a friend of both and was also their housemate until recently.

The idea was to cycle to Batu Layar, stay one night then make the trip back the next day. It’s about 50 70km both ways and is doable as a day trip except for one thing - the bumboats that ferry you and your bikes from Changi to Pengerang don’t operate at night so you have until evening to get to the ferry terminal and it thus becomes less enjoyable an experience. Unless all you want to do is to ride of course. But we had other ideas…

We were at Changi Ferry Terminal bright and early and got on one of the first few bumboats out. The sun was still low on the horizon and cast a beautiful warm glow on the sea around us. It didn’t last that long though and by the time we rounded Pulau Tekong was beginning to sizzle us just that little bit. We saw again the land reclamation works going on around Tekong and the amount of effort going into increasing Singapore’s land mass is still astonishing.

The morning sun looking quite pretty.

Johann looking much less so. Even in the morning light.

Land reclamation going on around Pulau Tekong.

We got to Pengerang, disembarked, set up the bikes outside the ferry terminal then got on and rode off on our guys’ riding weekend! We’d ridden 40 metres, 35 of which were in the carpark, and had just cleared the gateposts of the ferry terminal when we looked right, spied a gerai selling Roti and Kopi, shouted almost in unison ‘Roti!’ and screeched to a halt, jumped off our bikes and sat right down to a breakfast of Roti Chanai (we’re in Malaysia now, so it’s no longer called ‘Prata’) and Kopi or Teh-O for me.

This turned out to be our ‘other ideas’ and was repeated another 4 times during the 40km ride to Batu Layar. I’m not complaining, mind. In fact I rather think this is the way rides should go. Hey, I’ve always said enjoy the journey, right? What better way to do this than to breathe in fresh air, drink in Teh O and munch on good Roti Chanai? Or Ais Kacang as it turned out…

We sat around chatting, and marvelling at a little cat that hung around the stall and which impersonated a monkey by doing the most astonishing acts of acrobatics climbing up the mangosteen trunk pillar like its simian counterpart in its pursuit of bird prey. Finally we figured we really needed to be getting on, got back on our bikes and set off once again. It was a beautiful day turning a little hot but still great cycling weather.

Yes we did stop again not too long after for lunch and Ais Kacang… Now I just noticed I’ve spelt it this way here but have previously spelt it Ice Kacang. Same same… In all I think we stopped 4 or 5 times though only once for a rest. OK I guess having stopped for breakfast, tea, lunch and dessert we probably weren’t much in need of a rest halt for errr resting…

The place we stayed at was quite empty and we got a double-storey chalet with one squat toilet-equipped bathroom with cold water - no shower, just a tap with a bucket. The whole place was in a state of some neglect and if your needs are modest would do the job of providing shelter and a place to clean up. A walk along the short beach revealed that if you were expecting any more than that you’d probably be a trifle disappointed. The beach was filthy and I saw discarded drink and food containers and even disposable nappies. Not a place you’d walk barefoot about.

The place did have a small restaurant which served, if I remember correctly, a grand total of two types of fried noodles. So I had that for afternoon tea, then again at night for dinner. The guys fished out a pack of Monopoly Deal or something and I joined in for one game then proceeded to play the role of anti-social bastard by choosing to write instead. It was a great cathartic weekend as far as writing was concerned as there were many things going through my mind at that time, but which were seemingly locked in by writer’s block. A friend’s suggestion to use a journal unpicked the lock and in the space of an evening I filled 15 pages of my little notebook with thoughts and scribblings.

Later that night a bunch of young people moved in next door and one joined in for a game of cards. I’ve found most Malaysians are approachable and friendly and so it proved again. We stayed up a bit then decided to share the place Johann with Brian upstairs and Joe and me in the downstairs bedroom. Joe’s snoring is legendary but I was bothered by it at all. What did wake me up was the sound of rustling.

I stayed in bed but kept my eyes trained on the little bit of hall I could see through the open bedroom door. The windows were all shut though and I could hardly see anything in the near-total darkness. There was a bit more rustling and a light thump which I eventually worked out wasn’t human in origin so I clicked on my bike lamp which I’d kept by the bed. The sounds stopped for a moment then were followed by a light scratchy scurrying noise.

Rats. I got up, looked around the hall where we’d parked our bikes for the night and kept our stuff and that was when I discovered a roll of Oreos on the floor. A rat - with a sweet-tooth apparently - had tried to drag this unopened packet away but the packet had proven to be too unwieldy and my light had scared it away whilst in the midst of its exertions. I placed the packet back on the chair and went back to bed.

Only to be awakened a few minutes later by the same darned rat trying the same darned thing again. This time he didn’t return which meant that in the morning we did have Oreos for breakfast…

The steel wall which is part of the reclamation works.

On the way back we passed a number of other chalets and places to stay at that looked quite a bit more presentable than the one we had just shared the night with rats with. Maybe next time… We had Roti at Sg Rengit and when we finally reached the ferry terminal again I realised we also had sunburn. Well, I did anyhow. I’ll never learn…

We haven’t been to Batu Layar again though have talked about it a few times. Johann is expecting kid #2 soon so I’m not sure when we’ll get to go again. One things for certain: I will suggest a different place to stay the next time.

View Pengerang & Batu Layar in a larger map

Melaka Dec 2011 Pt 3

2011-12-28T07:51:00.000-08:00

Looking at the Moon

This was the night of the lunar eclipse and Mei and I had a grand view of it from our room balcony that night. The pics are not so good at all but I was glad for a relatively clear sky, giving us a nice starry-night view we can’t get anymore in Singapore.

We can't see so many stars in Singapore anymore due to light pollution. Here you can clearly see Orion's Belt - the 3 stars across. And errr that's the moon in the upper left.

Just that wee bit left of the moon.

A longer exposure brought up the reddish glow of the moon with only that tiny sliver left in full sunlight.

Nothing beats Roti in the morning... except perhaps Roti with friends.

The next morning I had an early start meeting up with two old friends, Singam and Amaran. I think I last met Amaran when I cycled through Melaka in 2007 so it was a very welcome meet up for breakfast at the Saravana near the hospital Amaran is a gynae at. It was great catching up although for just a short while. Amaran was on call and was actually inducing a patient when we met up. I made a comment about smelling of roti chanai and dhalchar in the delivery room and he said he’d rather it be the other way around. Uhm his opinion anyway…

I had a small breakfast - fortunately, for the Lams went on a gastronomic rampage today. We met in town, had some dish which vaguely resembled Bak Kut Teh with Yam Rice but it wasn’t very satisfying. Even my Teh O was a little dull.

A 70-year old list

Mei’s Dad had last been in Melaka as a teenager during the war. He accompanied a relative’s truck up from Singapore. They owned a tea business and the young man had ridden up on the goods truck then spent a short while around Melaka. It may have been a short trip but he took notes and wanted to take his wife back to explore one day. Alas they never did, but he kept his notes and came to Meleka with a small piece of paper bearing the names of various landmarks he’d noted down.

One of those was Jalan Bunga Raya which was just around the corner from where we were and as we wandered off in that direction I asked him what was significant about the road. He said ‘Char Siew’ so not knowing what to expect, we strolled along what seemed to be an old but relatively nondescript street. Despite the fact that many things in this part of town have been there years, the pace of change in Melaka has picked up quite a bit and I didn’t figure we’d have much chance finding this ‘char siew’ place.

But we did. In an alleyway between two rows of shops was a little food street. A curved metal roof between the two corner shops transformed the lane into a sheltered oasis with 3 pork shops and a fourth stall which had tables and chairs laid out before it. The 3 pork stalls sold a mix of roast and barbecued pork, dried sausages and even dried sliced meat. I noticed some duck meat in one too. The meat all look extremely yummy and but only one stall had a few stools in front of it for patrons to eat. Then we discovered that we could buy what we wanted and sit in the coffeeshop next door to eat it, provided we bought some drinks as well. So Jeff bought us RM10 worth of Siew Yoke (roast pork) and we nipped over to the coffeeshop next door… which we discovered had yet another pork stall!

Looks OK and tasted so-so. It certainly whet our apettite for more though!

Jeff hadn’t bought any Char Siew (barbecued pork), but with my prompting bought some from the stall in the coffeeshop and more roast pork. The Char Siew had some fat which made it very delicious indeed and both batches of Siew Yoke were still warm and tasty too. I’m glad my father in law kept notes and now I have two places to go in Melaka for good, but probably unhealthy, food.

Yes, I think there's a duck mixed in with all that pork.

Now you know where to go, eh?

We’d had our fill and decided to wander around Jonker Street again whereupon we were promptly tempted by another round of Chendol. We succumbed of course.

Shredding (at least that's what I think it's called) coconut. Or is it 'Shaving'?

The trip back was easy and despite a detour to Lima Kedai to pick some stuff up from my brother’s place, and subsequently turning up at immigration just about when we expected the crowds to arrive, the traffic was smooth and quick at both sides of the second link and we were home in Singapore in good time. A very nice weekend trip indeed.

Melaka Dec 2011 Pt 2

2011-12-28T07:24:00.000-08:00

We wandered around Heeren and Jonker Streets for awhile and managed to sneak in some Chendol at one of the shops. The more popular one next door had too long a queue so we opted for seats and the risk of an inferior dessert but as it turned out it wasn’t bad at all. And the interior of this typical deep Peranakan shop was cool and interesting. Most have one airwell and inner courtyard and a fresh water well too but this one was so deep there were two airwells.

It was a warm day and the Chendol and the short rest was very welcome. We walked around a bit more after then made our way back to the hotel (which Mei and I had passed but still not checked into yet!) and had a clean up and rest before heading back into town for dinner. A quick word about the hotel - they call themselves a boutique hotel but are really a mid-sized one with a not so successful mix of old and new. The hotel is well maintained and very pleasant indeed though we could tell it was designed very much for SIngaporeans - the lifts had ‘1’ marked for the ground floor instead of the more typical ‘G’. It was a comfortable, generally friendly place whose only drawback (besides the suspect interior design) is the location. Not far as the crow flies, but cars in Melaka do not go in straight lines for long and the short (by distance) trip out to the hotel took quite a few minutes by road.

In Melaka the one-way streets are a mess to navigate but it turned out there was an easy way back into town via the coastal flyover so we were back in the old part of town much quicker than it had taken us in the opposite direction. On one of the little streets, we came across a row of eateries including the famous Nancy’s Restaurant which had a long queue. We opted to try our luck instead at a place called Eleven which was part-bistro and part Eurasian Restaurant. To be honest I wasn’t expecting much but as it turned out we had a lovely meal. There’s an Eurasian restaurant in Singapore, Casa Bom Vento, right near my office which we’ve tried and bitterly disappointed with. So we could be forgiven our scepticism… and were grateful to be proven so wrong.

Here are some shots of what we did before, during and after dinner.

Sitting down to Chendol...

Going through the menu at Eleven.

After dinner we took in the sights and sounds of Jonker Walk.

Selling things the old fashioned way.

Melaka Dec 2011 Pt 1

2011-12-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

When Mei’s Mum was ill with cancer, her Dad curtailed his regular holidaying to be by her side. After she passed away he began going on holidays again, though as a nod to his advancing years, he went on packaged group tours rather than on his own. In recent times he’s been to Hanoi, parts of China, Hong Kong and Macau. As we’d never been anywhere much with him, we brought up the idea of a holiday in Ipoh and he initially agreed then decided he’d rather not.

I thought perhaps he’d become used to holidays on his own (well, without his family in tow) and was surprised when he agreed instead to a weekend trip to Melaka with Mei’s sister, Wei Yen, her husband, Jeff and Mei & I. Mei and I had been thinking of a trip to PJ to see my Mum as well as we had not been up in some time so in double quick time we planned a Melaka overnighter with them after a quick one-night trip to PJ for Mei and me.

PJ to see Mum

After trying various hotels in PJ, I opted to try the horribly named PJ De Inn this time and the experience, though not excruciating, will certainly not be repeated. Rooms were clean enough but the overall feel was of slight seediness. Still, we did get to see my Mum and spend some time with her on one of her better days - she even remembered some details of her holidays in Europe when Mei and I showed her the pictures of our recent Switzerland and Italy holiday.

My Mum has lost weight and she has many poor days now from what I gather. When we were there however, she was relatively alert and had her wits about her. Some time ago I had let her play a piano app on the iPad which was entertaining for her, and this time the intuitive interface meant she could attempt to navigate the photo albums - though her hands weren’t always as cooperative as was ideal. Still we had a pleasant time looking at pictures and she even remembered the time my niece was with her and they met the Pope at St Peter’s Square.

Here's a picture of Mum some months ago playing with a piano app on my iPad.

While up in PJ we did our usual swing by Taman Selera for a dinner of Chinese Satay, Yong Tau Foo, Braised Pork Trotters and Ice Kacang. Yes, all that for dinner! For the two of us! And as if that was not enough, for breakfast next morning we headed to one of our favourite coffeeshops in New Town for Prawn Mee and more Yong Tau Foo for me… Malaysia is always a gastronomic excursion!

Here's Mei enjoying her breakfast at one of our favourite eating places in PJ.

Then Melaka for food and traffic jams

I had anticipated a quick run down to Melaka to meet the others who were coming up from Singapore but traffic had other ideas. We were caught in bad jam near Nilai then again near Seremban. Worse was to come though - the road off the highway leading into Melaka was bumper to bumper and crawling. Weekend and school holidays in both Malaysia and Singapore all converged on this one road and thousands were invading Melaka like the Portugese did 500 years before. What was hoped to be a one-and-a-half hour drive stretched to well over 2 hours.

The others had reached the hotel, the Arenaa Deluxe Hotel along Ujong Pasir, despite it proving to be elusive no thanks to the maze of one-way streets that is Melaka. We eventually found our own way there and went to pick up the others who had wandered off, in true Singaporean tradition, to the nearest shopping mall after checking in. Everyone in our car, I took them to my favourite food place in Melaka. Remarkably, I don’t know any good Peranakan food places. But ask me about Satay Babi and I head out to Kota Laksamana and the Sun May Hiong shop.

From what I understand, the old couple who started the shop in or around Jonker Street ran it for years until the business was split among two of the sons who set up separate shops. The parents joined one - the one at Kota Laksamana - while the other shop is somewhere around apparently. OK this isn’t a food blog so I’m not going to do any investigative journalism.

The way it works at Sun May Hiong is you sit down and they set up your table with a metal container of satay sauce (with the pineapple puree stirred in), your plates and your drinks, then they bring the satay to you. The regular pork satay is delicious and the liver as well. They’d run out of intestines which I love and we were all a little disappointed at that. I had no idea there was chicken as well and we ordered some but we all thought it wasn’t half as nice as the pork. When the supply of satay falls, just ask for more and before you know it another 20 or so sticks land on your plate.

Here we are enjoying our satay babi.

The liver has bits of fat stuck in between to give it extra flavour. It must have worked!

Been doing it for years. And am I ever so glad he's still making it just right!

And so it went on. Mei’s Dad is the eat and run type but we stayed here for some time. I gathered he really liked the Satay and there was even talk of another trip there the next day just to get a taste of the intestines…

I do like food establishments run the old-fashioned way - eat first and pay later being one example of this - and this particular setup is run according to the very oldest of satay shop traditions I.e. they count the sticks when you ask for the bill. In this age when the implication is that the customer is not to be trusted, this quaint tradition is a warmly appreciated throwback to a different age. And very much in keeping with the ancient image of this part of Melaka at least.

Mei's Dad with a look of quiet satisfaction on his face.

Mei and Jeff likewise.

Counting satay sticks. Just like before.

How long more though is a worrying thought. The area around Kota Laksamana now has a huge hotel and a lot of work is going on around the river bank so I expect the next time I’m back in Melaka there’ll be quite a few changes to get used to. I just hope the Sun May Hiong satay is as good as it has been and that they still count the sticks when you’re done.

Here Lies Greatness

2011-08-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

What makes a man great? And what makes a great man?

I guess we could say the answer to the first would be his words, his thoughts, his deeds, the effect he had on the people around him and more. The answer to the second could encompass background, education, mentors, faith… the list goes on.

I could think and write a little about all these but I would prefer to write a little instead about a great man I knew. One whose life embraced all of the above. And then some.

He would understand too that I now choose not so much to write investigatively, but to write anecdotally instead. For here was a man whose life was a rich tapestry of stories. And if the measure of a man were the stories he left behind on the lips, in the minds and in the hearts of those whose paths crossed his own, then Mr Sebastian Vincent would be a giant among men.

Indeed to us, he seemed that way - a towering personality who struck terror and humour into our souls at the very same moment. A no-nonsense Physics teacher who took his work seriously and would just as readily take the mickey out of his students. There were those who made fun of him just as he made fun of us. In either direction the gentle mocking remained just that - good humour that never even so much as glanced in the direction of aggression, vitriol, or anger.

In the great play of life that was the lot of the Physics student in La Salle PJ, Mr Vincent was the murder prop - a glinting shining axe that looked menacing and added an edge of fear while being just that little bit incongruously comical. An axe that bound the play together, gave it direction and purpose.

My mother, who made up for lacking the better judgement not to stop at 6 children in the first place, decided that I needed to attend tuition at Mr Vincent’s in preparation for my Form 5 exams. One bad decision balanced out by one brilliant one and so I found myself cramped into this rickety add-on room in No 1 Jalan 5/9B. A room we all thought was partly a stubborn personal DIY project at best (for certainly a qualified carpenter/builder worth his salt would dare not leave this job in this parlous state!), and a physics experiment gone seriously awry at worst.

Still, we trusted the man and figured if the whole shebang collapsed, we would at least get some free Physics lessons while we awaited extrication.

And this would have been, despite the stories we can all tell, a pleasure and a great help.

I had, of course, known Mr Vincent for some years as our families were friends, his wife was my mother’s colleague, friend and church-mate (and my Standard 4 class teacher) and his children were part of my limited social circle every Sunday when we had the SFX Church Children’s Group gathering and mass.

He had never taught me, however, until that moment I stepped into that re-creation of a Black Hole. The immense gravitational pull of his knowledge, personality and sheer presence sucked us all helplessly in. Either that or we had paid good money and there was air-conditioning.

Mr Vincent was a teacher like no other I have ever met. He seemed always to be thinking of something else. A mathematics problem perhaps. Or the mystery of faster-than-light travel. Even maybe when my ancestors actually came down from the trees. This last one was quite likely as really, I sometimes displayed a particularly painful disinclination to comprehending Physics.

When talking to me, I noticed he often failed to make eye contact, preferring instead to look at a point just below my left knee, or a little off my right shoulder. I took this to be a result of being preoccupied with my ancestry of course and never once doubted that though his eyes may not have been fixed on mine, his mind was always probing my own severely lacking version of the same.

And when I opened my mouth to answer a question (usually rather badly) I think now his mind was in hyperdrive, thinking of ways to accelerate to light speed my evolution from chimp to Champ.

One day when the reason I was not making eye contact with him was simply because I was facing the wrong direction and clearly not paying attention in class, I heard my name being called ‘John Cheong’ with the chilling follow-through ‘answer the question’…

I turned to where the voice had emanated and mumbled ‘Me, Sir?’ I had of course just the tiniest idea what the question was, and probably an infinitesimally smaller idea of the correct answer. I think I felt at that moment like a moth caught in a flame… Still, I had to plunge headlong and so when he said ‘Yes - you’ I rattled off a 20-second answer ‘bla bla bla bla bla….’

At the end of which Mr Vincent went ‘Good.’ and I beamed a little crazily at all who had doubted me. Until I heard his voice go ‘More.’
‘More, Sir?’ I stammered amidst the chuckles of the others in class.
‘Yes, more.’
So I plunged further into the abyss… ‘bla bla bla bla…’ I went on for another 30 seconds.
‘Good!’ My relief must surely have been visible despite the almost maniacal edge to my smile then.
‘More.’
My relief fell to earth like a meteor in all its flaming glory, arcing across the night sky. Roarrrrr, boom, crash, pow….
I sucked in a deep breath and ‘bla bla bla bla bla…’ 20 more seconds of sheer agony, fear, imagination, make-believe, prayer, and utter undeniable plain-for-all-to-see complete nonsense and bullshit.
‘Ah.’ he went.
‘Ah? I thought.
‘Good!’ he went.
‘Good?’ I thought incredulously.
….
‘But all wrong’ he added as his final masterstroke, the last nail on my cross of suffering, hammered in with particular glee right smack OUCH! in the middle of my uhm… intellect. It had been wrong from the very first second and he knew it. He knew I would have no hope in hell of rescuing myself in the 3 opportunities he gave me. He was cunning, devious, wicked.

Wickedly funny that is. We laughed. I laughed.

And now, almost 30 years later, I still laugh.

And the funniest thing is that I did learn. And I actually did rather well. For a student not predisposed to the Sciences (well, OK to studies in general) and one who eventually only barely scraped through with passes in Chemistry and Biology, I got the highest Credit pass for Physics - a C3 - and I still wonder about the gravitational pull of Black Holes.

I did Arts in Form 6 and thus missed him. I didn’t miss the stories though and I’d like to recount another here which involves my cousin, Carol Rozario. She attended La Salle for Form 6 and did Physics and it seems Mr Vincent chose to widen his aim to include my extended family too for he wickedly (and deliciously) took the mickey out of her too.

It was just after the first Physics exams of Form 6 and he came in to class with the results. He declared that he would announce all the results out loud by calling each student’s name and their mark out of 100 and should any student not wish to have their marks revealed publicly, they should raise their hands, come up to him and he would whisper it in their ear instead.

Now, I do believe that Carol had her challenges when it came to Physics too - perhaps it had something to do with our common ancestors having only been recently enticed down from trees and introduced to walking upright. Whatever, Carol knew she had done badly so when her name was called out, she waved frantically and rushed up to have her mark quietly revealed in her ear.

Mr Vincent was true to his word and whispered her mark to her, then as she sheepishly made her way back to her seat, he turned to the class and announced in a booming voice ‘Carol Rozario got 29 upon 100 for Physics.’

I wasn’t there but I can just see and hear it in my mind. Utterly, completely, uncompromisingly devilish. And 100% Mr Vincent.

I recently reconnected with an old schoolmate whom I have not seen since 1982 nor communicated with since the late 80s. As early as our second email to each other we wrote about Mr Vincent. We had both attended his tuition class and both felt he had been such a big part of our 16-17 year old lives that now, three decades later, the memory lived on.

When he retired from teaching in our school, we organised a farewell like no other. He arrived in school flanked by schoolboy outriders, in a car with dragging cans and a sign that read ‘Just Retired’, rode in an open jeep through the school field trailed by pretty girls bearing Bunga Manggar and was even garlanded. It was a grand affair befitting of a grand man.

A little later in the year another much-loved teacher retired with much less of an event to which a younger student remarked it didn’t seem fair.

He didn’t know, you see. Didn’t know the enlightenment a truly inspired teacher can bring to even the dimmest minds. Didn’t know that sarcasm could be wielded so effectively and efficaciously. Didn’t know that love can take many forms including patient and dedicated nurturing. Didn’t know that when you’ve endured 2 years of tuition in a ramshackle construction that could also be your tomb, you’d be so glad to see the last of the man who taught there that you’d send him off in the grandest possible style.
He didn’t know.

And I didn’t really know something else too. I didn’t know what Mr Vincent’s life was like these last few years. Well, not directly at any rate.

Some years ago he suffered a stroke while returning from India and eventually came down to Singapore where I live. My brother, Tony, and I went to visit him at the hospital. Tony went up first to his former Physics teacher, now lying in a hospital bed flanked by some of his family. Tony looked down and said ‘Hello, Mr Vincent, it’s Anthony Cheong.’

And Mr Vincent reached out and grabbed Tony’s arm tight. He tried to pull himself up and to say something. The words didn’t come out. They couldn’t. The stroke had taken that from him. As he struggled to tell Tony something, it was instead tears that came. Tears of frustration and struggle.
This man who’d communicated so effortlessly, clearly, lovingly, effectively now couldn’t get a few words out. And cried not from the effort but the failure.

I’m ashamed to say I hung back. I couldn’t. This wasn’t the Mr Vincent I knew. I didn’t want him to struggle for words and to cry. I just couldn’t bring myself to cause him more tears. And I’m ashamed to say that in the following years I failed to make the gesture of a visit to No 1 Jalan 5/9B. I thought of him and asked after him often but at the end I didn’t want to see how he had changed. I wanted to remember him as he had been in the 80s.

I was stupid.

He hadn’t changed at all. Sure he couldn’t talk, or walk or swallow even. But that wasn’t the point you see. The measure of a great man is not just what he is in the present, but also what he was in the past, and more importantly, what he brings to the future. Above and beyond the wonderful stories we all have of him, we have something else too. A mark, a standard, a guide which says ‘Here lies the point at which we know we are on the right track. Here lies dedication and commitment beyond which we discover excellence. Here lies greatness.’

Thank you Mr Vincent for helping me understand Newton’s 3 laws of motion for which I received a C3 in Physics; and for so many other life lessons for which the rewards are far, far greater.

RIP Mr Sebastian Vincent (1929 - 2011)

cross-posted on http://amarajothy.blogspot.com

Being Positive in the face of Negativity.

2011-07-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

Let’s be positive about some things. Malaysia is a land of beautiful geography and generally very nice and hospitable people. When I cycled from south to north 4 years ago, I saw much of the former and of the latter, I met only unrestrained, sincere and warm hospitality and friendliness. Go through this blog’s archives if you want to read about that.

From the chap who came out to me at a bus stop where I was trying to fix a flat just to see if I needed help, to the bicycle shop owner in Teluk Intan who opened his shop for me just so I could change my tyres. And many more.

Yes, we are a great country with a proud tradition of being warm, friendly and hospitable. I truly believe that still exists - that the ordinary Malaysian will extend a welcoming hand when it is needed.

In the last few years it’s not been easy keeping positive. At times I have felt more like ranting than writing and it is for that reason I set up the other blog. And since then, this one’s hardly seen any action.
And it won’t for a little while more maybe. It’s just been increasingly more difficult to find positive stuff to write about. And as I am less often in Malaysia now, any writing I will put up here will be overdue stuff sitting patiently in my various ‘Drafts’ folders.

Well, this blog is still about Celebrating Malaysia so if anyone reading this has some good stuff to share, let me know and I’ll let others know too. Meanwhile, see you at Amarajothy…

Of pedals, butter lobsters and heat.

2010-09-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been writing much about cycling so thought I’d better correct that, especially since the other topics have now been migrated to my other blog, Amarajothy.blogspot.com.
I’d seen the sign for ‘Pengerang’ at the Changi Ferry Terminal before but had no idea where it was until Johann enlightened us. A town on the south-eastern end of Johor, it is about an hour’s ferry ride from Changi and a nice place to cycle. Not to mention gorge on seafood…

View Celebrate Malaysia! in a larger map

Johann, Mei and I had tried to go once, but when we turned up at the Changi Ferry Terminal early one Saturday morning, we found the queue was a long one that was expected to take 3 hours to clear so we gave up and went cycling along the East Coast instead.
A few weeks later, Mei and I were joined by Mei’s sister, Wei Yen, and her husband, Jeff. We turned up very early and this time were told we could expect to leave SIngapore around 9:30 which wasn’t too bad. Mei was prepared with a long-sleeved top and Wei Yen had a big hat which, as we discovered later, gave good protection but had a huge propensity to be whipped off by the wind.
We’d arranged for two mountain bikes for Jeff and Wei Yen through Tristan Group (http://www.tristangroup.com/) and their guy in Johor said he’d pick us up from the Ferry Terminal and bring us to where the bikes were. Tristan Group runs Tristan Park which has a dirt biking course and you can presumably have a great time roaring around on dirt bikes, quads and so on.
The boat ride took the best part of 45 minutes I think and on the way we saw a set of huge steel walls. They’re for land reclamation works and perhaps one day we will see Pulau Tekong joined to the mainland, for these areas were very expansive indeed.

Pictures: Part 1

Pictures part 2

The ride to Sg Rengit town was flat and got increasingly hotter. We chose a restaurant that was not frequented by Singaporeans and I think we might just have made the wrong choice. The food was pretty good, but I suspect the prices were less so.

We had Butter Lobster, baby Squids and more. Quite yummy I must say.

We hung around a little, but were mindful of the ferry time - we had been told to get back by 4pm and as Jeff and Wei Yen were not quick cyclists, we needed to set off back early.

A few km out of Sg Rengit and poor Mei couldn’t take the heat nor her increasingly bad neck (she has a history of neck problems partly from her work) and she had to stop and gave up her lunch by the road side.

We called Tristan Park who sent someone along in a van which he struggled to put Mei’s and Wei Yen’s bikes in. Jeff opted to ride back with me. I had planned to do a very quick ride but eventually ended up going slow so as not to leave Jeff behind.

Considering their lack of cycling, they acquitted themselves rather well, and despite poor Mei being unwell, I think we will certainly consider the ride again.

Been awhile...

2010-09-22T08:45:00.001-07:00

I say I’m a thinker, talker, scriber guy and for the most part that is true. The last few months, for various reasons, have seen me doing much more of the first, a little less of the second and virtually none of the third.

I shan’t dwell on, nor get into here, the reasons why this has been so. Suffice to say I found a way to break through the wall that was preventing me from penning my thoughts. By keeping a private journal, I have allowed so much of what I’ve spent the last few months thinking about to be expressed on paper or screen and this has proven to be a cathartic process that is slowly but surely aiding my return to scribing.

I hope to publish more here soon. Thanks for waiting.

Don't wait too late! Five Regrets of the Dying

2010-09-22T08:27:00.001-07:00

[cross-posted on the Amarajothy blog]

These words weren't mine, but I find they just make so much sense, hence I'd like to share them with you.

Recently I've been contemplating the topics of childbirth and additions to the world with two good friends soon to be parents - one for the first time and one for the second, and another who became a parent for the first time some months ago.

It's made me reflect on my own fatherhood, my successes and my failings and it has also made me look hard at a philosophy I've espoused for years:

Forget about life after death. It's Life before death that we should all be focussed on.

I've tried to live this way, with varying degrees of success and some extremely painful consequences. The regrets I have in my life are all from not living true to these tenets.

I hope you never have to have those regrets.

Five Regrets of the Dying

By Bronnie Ware, Platinum Quality Author

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learned never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, but in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly.

Choose happiness.

The 'other' blog

2010-04-20T01:32:00.000-07:00

I’ve long struggled with sticking true to my objective of celebrating the good stuff in this blog.

As we all know only too well, there is stuff that happens or indeed, is happening right now which just isn’t too good. And it’s just so difficult finding the good side of stuff when all I want to do is rant and rave.

My solution is separating the ranting and raving entirely from Celebrate Malaysia and to this end I have set up www.Amarajothy.blogspot.com which will now allow me to scream and shout a little sometimes.

This blog will continue to be about the good stuff and there are times I may reference or cross-post stuff that happily sits between the two.

Go check out the ‘other’ blog and tell me what you think.

I am a what? Part 1

2010-04-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

Check this one out. It's really funny.

Have we lost our minds?

2010-01-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

Dave, who lives in the US and with whom I’ve been playing Backgammon online for some years now, asked me about the Allah issue and the subsequent church fire-bombings and I replied, in the little 1000-character space we have for messages every turn:

“It's a political issue dressed up as a religious one. It is also a spotlight on the divide between the west malaysian (or peninsular) states and the two states we have 500km away which we call East Malaysia. The East Malaysians have lived a much more peaceful pluralistic society, something we on the west could learn from. Unfortunately political power resides in the west and it serves the political masters here better to simply plunder the oil and timber resources of the east while suppressing their political ambitions. Very sad.”

I’m not going to say here how absurd some of the arguments are. Especially in the light of so many facts such as:

i. The world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, freely allows the use of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims. This is the same country we’ve been buying Bahasa Indonesia Bibles from.

ii. Middle-eastern Christians have been using the name ‘Allah’ for centuries.

iii. There are clear verses in the Quran saying the desecration of a Christian place of worship is a big no-no. Forget the forfeiture of 72 virgins or whatever, I mean this is serious don’t-even-think-of-it-sonny shit.

and so on…

However, it seems some people only want to see one side of the coin. Nevermind if it’s the side with no indication of any denomination or worth.

Now, I try to steer clear of overly-political opinions on this blog as I feel this platform should be for ‘making a difference’. I have made concessions, notably when the Perak State Assembly was dissolved some months ago.

I’m making some concessions here again but mainly because I do think this is indeed an opportunity to make a difference.

What opportunity, you ask? Well, just two simple things:

1. Speak up - make your voice heard in a peaceful, rational way. Write to your MPs or even to the PM, leave comments on major blogs and the alternative press like Malaysiakini or Malaysia Today. Make sure there is a clear signal sent that the dissenting voices protesting against the sheer stupidity of the Home Ministry’s actions are loud and numerous. Strange thing here is that it really isn’t about what you say - it’s about how many people are saying it.

2. Vote. It’s some time away yet, but when you have a chance (a by-election perhaps?) exercise your democratic right and vote against stupidity, bigotry, megalomania and corrupt hegemony. If you haven’t registered to vote, do so without delay. A visit to the post office should sort you out. Malaysia may have lost many things in the last 25 years, but we haven’t yet lost the value of a vote. If it’s the last thing we hold onto, let it count.

So, take these two opportunities and make something of them. Make them count. Make YOU count. And make a difference.

Stuff I’m into: The Secret Millionaire

2010-01-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

Secret Millionaire on BBC Knowledge

This is the third season of this wonderful show. It puts a successful person incognito into a volunteer worker environment so he or she can assess to who and how much of his own money to donate.

It’s so easy for people who have cash to simply write a cheque out to a charitable cause. We see these PR opportunities so very often in the newspapers or on TV. The Secret Millionaire instead immerses this millionaire in one or more organisations of their choice for 10 days. During this time they mop, wash dishes, peel potatoes, clean toilets, pick up horse manure and so on. It changes the people who receive the donation almost as much as it changes the millionaires who are taken out of their comfort zone.

My favourites so far:

Gary Eastwood, a scrap metal millionaire who started with a £100 loan and who during his 10 days had to deal with issues he’d buried deep within - the loss of his twin sisters to drug abuse and never having adequately thanked his grandfather, a WWII veteran who’d brought Gary up.

Nick Leslau, a property tycoon who had to face his own fears of blindness and who worked with the disabled. For someone who has so much - he’s worth over £200 million - he has such a personal touch.

This shows never fails to bring a tear to my eyes - it truly embodies what ‘Make a Difference’ is all about.

So this is Christmas... Part 2

2009-12-30T22:06:00.000-08:00

Continuing my series of people and places I celebrate during this season.

2. Mum & Rose

My mother used to scare the hell out of people.
A fire-breathing school teacher, she was acknowledged as strict but fair and made an impression on many a student over her 30+ years of teaching. And when I say ‘impression’ do note I mean that in more ways than one, caning being a prerogative of all teachers until late in her career!

She came to Malaya from Hong Kong when she was just 3, brought over by her mother - an educated daughter of a court interpreter - who had been taken in by the charms of my maternal grandfather, Augustine Wong, a merchant seaman of indeterminate origin. If you look at Mum’s family, you will see a mix of the very fair, including Mum, and the very dark. Thick, curly hair was another dominant feature and I do sport some rather inconvenient curls as well. Mei often laughs at how my ends curl up like springs while I hate sitting in the path of a fan’s turbulence as my hair ultimately begins to uncoil itself, medusa-like, from the hold of my hairband.

Besides the coiffure-challenges, I have also often wondered at my own love of Indian food. I’d always thought Augustine had Portugese blood in him but the latest I heard from an uncle was that he probably had Indian blood. Ah… that explains some things!

Back to Mum… She was always a very strong character and after Augustine left his wife and children in KL to move to Melaka, she had to be even stronger to help support her mother and siblings. She worked in a Japanese bank during the war - this was when Augustine was still in KL - and one incident illustrates her feistiness succinctly.

The civilian manager of the bank had decreed that all staff had to stay back to learn how to sing patriotic songs. Mum refused and as a result, the manager wrote a letter to Augustine, saying his daughter was stubborn and requesting he do something about it. The manager sealed it and gave the letter to Mum, telling her to deliver it to her father. What did she do? She took the letter back to her desk, opened and read it - and that is why we know what the contents were - and threw it away in disgust.

When he’d not heard from Augustine in some time, the manager asked Mum about it: ‘Did you deliver the letter to your father?’

To which my mother replied ‘No. Why should I? It was all nonsense.’ which immediately implicated her not just in failure to comply, but also of prying into private correspondence.

Infuriated, the manager raised a hand to slap her and my mother instinctively reached out and grabbed his hand, stopping it in mid-flight. She glared at him and told him ‘You are nothing if not for the Japanese Army. And after the war you will be nothing again. And if ever I see you again after the war, watch out: I will spit in your face then!’

She never had to attend singing classes, and fortunately for us, he didn’t slap her, nor do anything worse. Well, we’re here today, right?

After the war, he settled in Singapore and so, Mr Sasaki (there was only one in Singapore ten years ago when we last checked), I would like to tell you you can probably relax now as it’s very unlikely she’ll make a trip down to carry out her threat!

Mum was a girl who endured the difficulties of childhood in the 1930s and 40s and who went through life, like almost all of her generation, more than a little scarred by her experiences. She played hopscotch with her youngest sister strapped in a cloth sling on her back one afternoon only to discover later that the little girl, who had been ill, had succumbed to her illness as my mother hopped from one square to another.

She saw the bank’s nightwatchman, in hungry desperation, trap rats to eat while she and her family just got by on the meagre rations they had.

And she saw a stranger who should have known better to keep his head down, cut to bits by shrapnel from exploding bombs dropped from high-flying American B-29s as they fought to liberate the Far East from the Japanese.

Her own mother, ashamed of her lot and for having fallen for someone who turned out not to be who she thought he was, cut all ties with her family so my mother never knew her cousins or aunts and uncles. This left an indelible impression on her and as we grew up and went overseas for our studies, she never stopped reminding us of the value of family and that we ‘must write!’ We always did.

In the 60s and 70s, she became a teacher and her fighting spirit remained. She once sat in the hot afternoon sun with some of her colleagues on the divider in the middle of Jalan Gasing outside the La Salle primary school where she taught, holding up placards seeking equal pay and benefits for women teachers. She endured the shouts from parents ‘Go back to your job!’, the burning heat and ultimately the loss of her job and many years of service. But they eventually got their equal pay.

Mum in the then-new La Salle school. 1961

In 1981 my father won an Award of Botanical Merit for one of his orchids which he subsequently dedicated to my mother: Phalaenopsis Violacea 'Pohchan'.

Mum in more recent times having a manicure courtesy of her granddaughter, Joanna

Some battles she didn’t win: she manned a desk seeking signatures for a petition to stop hillside developments in Gasing Hill. The development went ahead and stands till today. In the last decade or two, though, we’ve had a couple of hillside development disasters with loss of life and now the Selangor State government is reviewing hillside developments.

Another battle she isn’t winning is one she is fighting today. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s some years ago, she now deals with the effects of dementia. She has her good days and her not-so-good ones. I’ve seen her recount a story of something that happened years ago then, moments later, look at me and ask ‘who are you?’.

One Sunday evening many years ago in Randwick, a predominantly student suburb of Sydney where I was then living, I was walking down a wide sidewalk and headed towards me was an Asian male in his mid-20s who, despite the available width, seemed on a collision course with me. He came to a halt a few feet in front of me, stopped me, looked me in the eyes and asked ‘Are you Mrs Cheong’s son?’ I said yes, and he explained that he’d recognised me from when I used to sit in my mother’s class years ago. I remembered then that when I was 7, I attended the afternoon session of our school and I would often go a little early and sit in my mother’s morning-session class of older students. When that was dismissed, she’d make sure I had lunch and so on before I went for my classes. This stranger remembered me from that little routine 15 years before.

I like to think he remembered me because of my mother.

It’s appropriate that my sister’s name, Rosemary, contains my mother’s: Mary.
Rosemary embodies all the feistiness and selfless sacrifice my mother had stood for.

Born exactly a year after Merdeka Day, she studied locally and worked as a secretary for some years until she started a family. Shortly after her wedding in 1987, we found out my father had lung cancer. He died barely four months later.

Rosemary and her husband, Yap, had rented a place just minutes down the road but they soon moved back in with my mother and have been there ever since. Initially it was so my mother, who’d been married to my father for 38 years, would not have to deal with the loss on her own. Now, with Mum’s challenges, Rose is an indefatigable help, driver, nurse, companion.

And not just Mum - over the years Rose has been there and indeed continues to be there for a host of relatives and friends with challenges of their own. The list is a long one, and a testament to her generosity of spirit.

I’ve written about my cousin Pauline who passed away a couple of years ago. Rose was there, helping with her grocery shopping, taking her to and from her dialysis treatments, sending her to the hospital and was indeed there when Pauline breathed her last.

My eldest uncle, left alone after his wife passed away, relied on Rose for many things and she dutifully obliged even when she found out a few years ago that she had breast cancer. It took my other sister, Margaret, to tell all who’d come to rely on Rose that they would have to fend for themselves until Rose had dealt with her own battle. Which she thankfully did.

It is a wise person who measures not how a person dies but how he had lived. Rose has seen much of both death and life. Of the former, you would find Rose helping out at the Church she is so active in, making funeral arrangements, sorting out Mass books, flowers, food, and so on. In 2008 we had a torrid time with an uncle, two aunts, a cousin and a few others passing away. Rose was there for each one.
Of life, Rose may not have travelled extensively nor had the opportunity and experience of an overseas education or career, but it would be a fool who would say she has not lived. She has experienced ups and downs, seen the good in people and endured the less savoury. She continues to be a source of strength and indeed, inspiration to many who see in her steadfastness lessons that they themselves could benefit from.

Rosemary celebrating her 50th birthday recently - many came to put together a party for the person who is all things to all people.

At the end of 2009, I celebrate these two ladies. And the lessons I have personally learnt from them.

So this is Christmas... Part 1

2009-12-29T08:56:00.000-08:00

Another year ends. It’s been an eventful year for me with so many things occupying my thoughts that I have been less than diligent in writing. What better way to end the year then, than to rectify that?

So, as we look forward to a better 2010, I would like to cast a glance back at the people and things that I am grateful for that made a difference to me in 2009. This list is not presented in any particular order though without doubt, my wife, Mei, has been the most important person in my life in recent times and I have placed her first on this list.

So here it is: my celebration of 2009.

1. Mei

Mei and I just celebrated our third wedding anniversary. How time flies! We’ve had a wonderful 3 years with more ups than downs and I marvel at how she’s put up with some of the challenges that have come my way. She’s faced them all with equanimity, patience and unreserved support. In the last couple of years, I’ve made some pretty drastic course changes and consequently ridden some pretty hefty storms. Through it all, Mei’s stayed the course and that’s helped me navigate the waters better than if I hadn’t had her by my side.

At our wedding I talked about how there had been so many changes in my recent life and how all of it was good but the best of it was Mei. That opinion has not changed despite even more changes, and has in fact been more firmly planted.

In the last two weeks, courtesy of the La Sallian annual dinner and family Christmas gatherings, I’ve been thinking very much of old friendships. Being a bit of a packrat, I’ve kept some stuff from long ago and on a whim dug up an autograph book which contained the following Roy Croft poem. The words may not be mine, but the feelings most definitely are. So here they are, reproduced in tribute to the most wonderful person in my life - and top of my list of things and people I celebrate.

“I love you,

Not only for what you are,

But for what I am

When I am with you.

I love you,

Not only for what

You have made of yourself,

But for what

You are making of me.

I love you

For the part of me

That you bring out;

I love you

For putting your hand

Into my heaped-up heart

And passing over

All the foolish, weak things

That you can’t help

Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out

Into the light

All the beautiful belongings

That no one else had looked

Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you

Are helping me to make

Of the lumber of my life

Not a tavern

But a temple;

Out of the works

Of my every day

Not a reproach

But a song.

I love you

Because you have done

More than any creed

Could have done

To make me good

And more than any fate

Could have done

To make me happy.

You have done it

Without a touch,

Without a word,

Without a sign.

You have done it

By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,

After all.”

Happy Malaysia Day!

2009-09-16T03:50:00.000-07:00

This was written by a dear friend, Singam, and very eloquently expresses a transformational idea that is long-overdue but not too late to make a crucial difference. The only thing I would change is to move into a position of ownership and intent: from 'We have to regain our independence' to 'We WILL regain our independence'. Let us all work towards that. Happy Malaysia Day!

"Happy Malaysia Day everyone.

In Melaka, it has just begun to rain. Throughout my life, whenever I was about to begin an important event, it has rained. I see the rain as a blessing. Ritual washing or cleansing is practiced in many cultures.

Today is an important turning point. Today, some part of the nation remembers again that day on which this nation was born. The date is not important in itself. But it is a powerful symbol of all that went into the forging of this nation. It is a reminder of the principles that were established, the promises that were made, the hopes that were ignited. It is a reminder of the future that we looked towards 46 years ago.

Ku Li will remember, perhaps with bitterness, the number 46. He will remember how the old was torn apart and replaced by a pretender. He will remember how promises were scattered willy-nilly and how untruth formed the basis of everything that followed.

Let this new 46 rewrite the meaning of that number. Let this be when the process of returning to those old promises begins. Let this become the symbol of hope.

The plight of Sabah and Sarawak is the clearest evidence of what ails this nation. We managed to get rid of the colonisers from Europe, but only to replace them with neo-colonisers from within. While we have all the trappings of a democracy, democratic principles continue to be sacrificed at the altar of expediency. We are led by a person appointed by one man and ruled by a clique that no longer enjoys majority support but remains in place due to control of the instruments of government.

We have to regain our independence. We have to restore the independence of the institutions of state. We have to revert to rule of law. We have to establish a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Today, we launch the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia initiative. Today, we formalise our efforts to tear down the walls that were put up to divide us and thereby conquer us. Today, we begin the process of healing the nation and making it whole again. Today, we join hands and say to the powers that be, "Enough! We will take no more of this. We want our nation back!"

Today, we fast, as we pray for peace. We pray for deliverance from this evil. We pray for the strength to uphold righteousness. We pray to become worthy of grace.

Let this fair nation of ours be blessed.

Happy Malaysia Day."

David Munusamy visits Singapore

2009-07-21T01:40:00.001-07:00

David Munusamy was in town for two nights recently. He had written to say he was on his around-Malaysia fund-raising tour and would drop by Singapore. Near the appointed date, I rang him only to find he was still in Teluk Intan. A week later found him in KL. Then Kajang.

I figured it would take him another week to get down and was reminded of David's sense of time and distance...

Then out of the blue a day later I got a call from him saying he was coming in… A bit of a mad scramble and I fixed up a place for him to stay at Johann’s as well as a simple programme for two days.

I arranged to meet him in Little India, parked the car in an open car park and settled down for a beer at the Broadway Hotel cafe. No sooner had I plonked my bag on the seat when my mobile rang and it was David - he’d missed the turning to Serangoon Rd and was sitting at a bus stop a short drive away. With thoughts of the Kingfisher Beer I could now not have, I got back in the car and eventually found him as he said, sitting at a bus stop outside the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes along Ophir Road.

It’s been almost two years since we met but he looked much the same - that same broad ageless smile, the same jocund manner. We put his bike in the car and set off to settle him in at Johann’s.

Later that evening we met for dinner and Mei finally got to meet this mad cyclist I have often mentioned. He was settling in nicely at Johann’s - and so he should as if ever there was a mad cyclist, it would be Johann.

We met again the next day for lunch when we also popped by my favourite bike shop, Song Seng Chan, then went with Johann for a night ride into Singapore’s Central Business District. Well, the outskirts of that to be more accurate - around the stadium then the Esplanade and the Merlion/Collyer Quay.

Amazingly I’d never done this and since that night have quite an interest in exploring at night. It’s so much cooler and traffics that much lighter. Although I would reckon good lights are a must have - Singapore drivers are not the most observant or tolerant in the world.

Here are some pictures of David’s too-short time in Singapore.

Me, David, Mei, Joe and friend at dinner at Sin Hoi Sai along East Coast Road

David and I on the Esplanade Bridge

David playing photographer for a couple of tourists

Johann and David with the Singapore Flyer in the background. There was some small National Day practice thing going on hence the bright lights.

David with the CBD in the background.

That's the new Integrated Resort (read: Casino) being built in the background.

Outside the Raffles Hotel - sorry didn't get it in the shot.

Black Day

2009-05-26T08:25:00.001-07:00

Troublemaker

2009-03-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

I’m a troublemaker. A bit of a shit-stirrer. The thing is I can’t stand the status quo if it’s obviously status no-go. If something’s broke, I feel compelled, driven, to fix it. Even if I can’t. If I see a cyclist going against traffic, I need to tell him. If a client is going to do something silly and waste money, even if the money is going straight into my pocket, I feel compelled to help them find a better way - even if no money comes into my pocket.

I just can’t stand things that don’t work the way they should.

This has gotten me into trouble before and doubtless will continue to do so. There are times, after all, when I butt my head against a system that is just too big, too arrogant or proud to accept criticism.
I’ve locked horns with one such system recently. No less than Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

As my Mum continues her battle with Dementia and Parkinson’s, I swapped Chinese New Year holidays with my ex-wife (we alternate Christmasses and Chinese New Years so the kids have a chance to be with both families) and Mei and I brought the kids up to PJ for the recent festivities. After all the bereavements and grieving of the last year, my family decided to host the annual Cheong gathering, and to even include my mother’s side, the Wongs, too. It was promising to be fun and everyone was going to turn up.

Well, it didn’t get off to a good start - we were stuck in an almighty jam on the Singapore side at Tuas. It took us 2 hours to get through and in comparison, the Johor side was a breeze - mere minutes. The thing is, the system on the Singapore side is poorly designed, with bottlenecks and time-consuming processes making things unnecessarily slow and cumbersome.

One check they do perplexed me - after the immigration booths, you have to go through a security check where the driver has to get out and open the car boot. The security officers hardly glance in before waving you on. What are they looking for? And what a waste of time. It doesn’t help that the officers move with the languid slowness of sloths more resembling a disinterested zoo animal inclining a nostril at a proffered tidbit than the sharp and vigilant officers the ads make them out to be.

As if the long jam on the way up was not bad enough, when we returned after a fabulous few days, we ended up waiting 3 hours on the Singapore side. At one point, we were stationary on the bridge for 45 excruciating, annoying, frustrating, vexing minutes. The arrogant and sullen manner of officers at the checkpoint didn’t help at all.

We weren’t alone of course and I wasn’t surprised to read a letter in the Singapore Straits Times a few days later.

Well, I added to it in my own faecal-agitatory manner. I wrote in to the Forum page, detailing a list of ills and recommending some fixes. I got a little bashing in the online forums by blinkered Singaporeans presumptuously baying for protectionist policies - ‘who ask you to go to Malaysia to fill petrol?’ and so on. But I also got a lot of support from people who agreed with my list of ills too. Most gratifying.
The Immigration authority replied in their usual high-handed manner and rightly got slammed in the online forums.

I wouldn’t let the matter rest of course and replied, expressing disappointment that they had completely ignored my suggestions, repeated those suggestions and for good measure, added a couple more.

Despite waiting weeks, we heard not a peep from them.

Imagine then my surprise when I headed up to PJ a couple of weeks back, rolled up at the Immigration booth and was greeted by a smiling Immigration Officer ‘Good Morning!’ I was shocked into momentary silence. Now don’t get me wrong - I’m usually extremely polite, even jovial, with service people. The ICA, however, had always dampened my enthusiasm, so after years of getting surliness in response to sunniness, I’d simply given up. This officer’s greeting stumped me and it was all I could to to mumble a reply.

As I drive towards the security check area, ready to get out, open my boot, and so on, what do I see? No queue of cars. In fact, I didn’t even have to get out - an officer reached out for that slip of paper which tells them how many passports were handled by the officer in the booth, and again, smiled and called out ‘Good Morning’ then ‘Thank you sir’.

The aliens can’t possibly have landed and taken over the bodies of these - until then - Sultans of Surl, so what was going on?

And then it slowly dawned on me - the ICA had had a bit of a shakeup! Yes, that proud, arrogant, ‘We can do no wrong’ blue-garbed band of uhm… officers (hey, the alliteration would have been nice, but a bit harsh) had changed their disposition. And their system!

And I had caused it!

I. Me. Small, insignificant gnat in a grey authoritarian system. Saya. Had made change happen in that monolithic, humourless, authority that is the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore.
Wow… Damn, it feels good!

Hmmm… what next now? The Land Transport Authority looks like it needs a bit of a shakeup too… heh heh

Yes we can.

2009-03-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Let me borrow the words form that Harry Chapin song and say - ‘all my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown. The Moon rolls through the nightime and the daybreak comes around.’ It seems that the days are just rolling by these days and I just realised it’s been months since a post.

The fact is, after a year or so of committed writing, I lost many words. Well, they were there alright - in my head coming out my mouth… but every time I sat in front of my Mac and tried to tap them out, they dissolved… like sugar in tea, they left a sweetness of ideas, but no tangible mark, no substance of their own.

So, these few months of silence on this blog have not been for a lack of thoughts and ideas, but for that disconnect. Or was it an overflow? A torrent of thoughts, opinions, commentary, criticism that’s clogged the outlet pipe? Certainly there has been enough fodder for this Taurean…

After the euphoria of March the 8th and then August the 26th, we’ve stumbled form one crisis to another. And despite the best efforts of those desperately seeking power, to stay in power or to regain power, the gratifying thing that has emerged is the remarkable repudiation of all that has been vile and reprehensible. I speak of course of the corruption, the abuse of power, the marginalisation of various groups and more.

Malaysians of all races and creed have remained steadfast in their belief and commitment to a Malaysia for all Malaysians. And they’ve openly condemned the policies of the past and have repeatedly called out for change.

As I type this, there is a clip on TV of Barack Obama waving to a crowd and I am reminded of how he has transcended the racial barrier to get to the most powerful position on earth. Besides being a beacon of hope for Americans, he shines a light for Malaysians too. If he could ford racial storm waters, yes, we can, too.

One of the ideas that swam around in my head early in January - caught as I was in the whole American elections process - was Martin Luther King’s iconic ‘I have a Dream’ speech. I thought ‘I too, have some dreams. For Malaysia and for Malaysians.’

Almost a quarter of the way into the year, let me finally tap them out on my keyboard. In light of the recent happenings in Perak, perhaps it is the right time to look at what could be.

Dream 1: A Malaysia of Malaysians.
The time for race-based politics has passed. The time to recognise that the only way forward is for all of us to come together as one, is upon us. We can start by removing ‘race’ from all official documents. Then from all policies. Let our kids grow up simply as fellow Malaysians.

Dream 2: A Government for the people, not for itself
For too long we have lived with mismanagement, greed and self-serving leaders. It’s about time government was about the people, not leaders. It’s about time our government worked to improve our lot, not line their pockets. It’s about time our goverment became accountable for their actions. Or inaction. I like some of the stuff I’m hearing about Penang and Selangor. More of that please…

Dream 3: Opportunity aplenty
As a country we’ve grown enough that there should no longer be any among us who lack opportunity. To gain an education, to get a job, to contribute to the country. In a global economy, we can no longer afford to scramble and struggle amongst ourselves. We need, all of us and without exception, for the best among us to have the best opportunities to bring this country forward. And we need for the weakest among us, all and without exception, to be given every opportunity to raise themselves up.

Dream 4: Substance please, not facades
I’m tired of things made up to look good but are really rotten to the core. Let’s put money into things that truly work for the common good. And please let’s have professionally run companies, organisations, authorities, councils…

Dream 5: Safety, Security… Semua taruh.
Let me have this on my banana leaf ‘semua taruh’ - safety, security, peace of mind, the works. Let us all have the ability to get home safely from the night shift, or allow our children to go out and play with their neighbours, or to drive home and get back into our homes without fear, and more. I just watched a video on You Tube which showed a gang of ‘Mat Rempit’ attack a couple returning home. Let’s put an end to this!

Dream 6: Quality Education. Quality educators.
I come from a family of educators and indeed, Mei’s family is likewise. I even teach part-time in a local design college. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that education is important. It does, however, take education to create a rocket scientist though. Our future lies in the attitudes, decisions and actions of today’s young. And all that will be shaped by a top-quality education system. We don’t have one today.

Anyone got any other dreams?

The Importance of Being Educated

2008-10-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

I studied for 13 years in a pretty damn good school. La Salle PJ was (and in many ways remains) a modest educational institute that had some really good things going for it. For one thing, we had a damn good school spirit. All La Salle schools claim to have a strong spirit of course, and to some extent that is very true indeed. Still, I will say that in the time I was there, the La Sallians of LSPJ were a very special breed indeed.

I hear that in the 25 years since I left, the school has seen its ups and downs. More recently, with a very strong and active board and parents-teachers association, the school is on the rise again.

Old La Sallians have come together and invested their time and effort in bringing back past glories. And that’s a very good thing indeed. The general national trend seems to be the reverse and certainly when I’ve had the opportunity to meet young Malaysian graduates, I’ve on occasion been more than a little disappointed at their poor communication skills.

If there is one thing that should never be left behind in terms of governmental emphasis and investment, it is education. It is indeed the foundation of the future.

So you can understand how when I came across this YouTube clip, one of my thoughts was whether this could have been a Malaysian kid doing this interview. Are there any truly capable children of this age out there, who have gone through a regular local education, and been given - and taken full advantage of - the opportunity to interview the possible future Deputy Prime Minister.

We must of course also ask ourselves how that possible future Deputy Prime Minister would have conducted himself in the interview. Direct comparisons with Joe Biden’s modest, humble and un-patronising interview are most welcome.

Fiddling About

2008-10-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say I’ve fiddled with the layout - I realised the old design was a narrow design and with my verbosity, the page was getting very long indeed. Hope you like the new template I’ve chosen. Tell me what you think.

Lipstick

2008-10-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

Have you been following the American elections? Like I did in 2004, I’ve been keeping a close eye on developments. In fact I’ve been virtually glued to the tube: BBC, CNN, CNBC, all the talk shows and interviews I can find on TV; and on my Mac: Slate Magazine, Huffington Post, the New York Times, and even Youtube - all for the latest on Obama and McSame.

OK you can tell who I am supporting, right?

Even if everything else were discounted, the very fact that the septuagenerian warmonger who’s gone 4 rounds with cancer chose Sarah Palin as a running mate is good enough reason for me to disqualify him from the race to the White House on the grounds of severely impaired judgement.

Hang on a bit though - the idea of experience actually doesn’t figure too prominently in my reasoning. On that, Obama certainly would have some gaps in his resume too. What Obama has in sled-loads and which Palin clearly lacks though, is intellect. If her interview with Charlie Gibson were not enough, then surely the even more painful Katie Couric interview is enough to cast aside any lingering hope that the lipstick is Adornment on Ability rather than just Prettification of a Pi… uhm… let’s not go there.

But, I mean, look, I could name 6 media channels I get my news from in the very first paragraph above, and she couldn’t name ONE?…

I’ve remained optimistic about Malaysia despite the turmoil of the last few years and especially the last month or so. All this despite the fact Malaysia, in turn, has given me little to be optimistic about. Here, we get some people spouting some semblance of the right ideas and what do we do? Clap them in irons…

As for the US, I am, deep down, optimistic that Americans will do the right thing. And the right thing is not McSame. In their favour, at least the Americans don’t have a history of sticking their good politicians and commentators in cells too readily.

Even if I do take issue with the existence of a certain prison in Cuba… hmmm… we’ll talk about that another time, maybe.

The Dark Angel knocks thrice

2008-10-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

I’ve been pretty quiet on this blog for a few months now. A couple of reasons. Not the least of which was my family dealing with visits from the Dark Angel, who it seems, visits thrice. Twenty years ago, when my father gave up the battle against cancer, he joined his brother and another relative - all in the space of a few months.

This time around, the Dark Angel’s grim visits began with my Aunt Helene at the end of February.

Perhaps the suddenness of her passing was just too much to bear, but early in July, Helene was joined by her brother, and one of my favourite uncles, Pak Hing, who suffered a serious and ultimately fatal heart attack one afternoon.

Pak Hing was a teacher who, like me, was the 7th in his family - I called him 7 Sook (7th Uncle on my father’s side). Perhaps it was that similar seniority (or in my case, lack thereof) in the family that meant I felt a particular affinity for the man. More likely it was that we shared a devilish and childish sense of humour.

L-R: Pak Hing, Henry (Helene's husband), cousins Carol and Margie Rozario, Helene.

I recall having a wonderful time one school holidays when I stayed over at Uncle Pak Hing’s for a few days. One night we went out looking for durians and he bought a whole basket of over-ripe ones - to make jam. My cousins and I then began tearing gooey durian flesh off the seeds, helping to make durian jam. At breakfast the next morning, there I was spreading a thin layer of jam on my slice of bread when 7 Sook leaned over and said in that arresting yet friendly voice I shall never forget, 'Where got enough? Must be at least half an inch think lah'. So I slapped on more durian jam, and you know what? He was right - it had to be at least half an inch thick.

My few days over, he took me home in the Mini he had at the time. I recall Aunty Nellie was in the front passenger seat and I was in the back with one or two of my cousins. As we tootled along the main road coming down from Overseas Union Garden, 7 Sook spied a lady waiting by the roadside and without missing a beat, he swung the Mini closer, tooted the horn at her, then stepped on the accelerator and zoomed guiltily away. Aunty Nellie turned to me with a long-suffering expression on her face and said 'You see your Uncle?' and 7 Sook turned back and just grinned cheekily.

I've never forgotten that grin. And the many more times he flashed that playful smile over the next 30+ years. His childlike innocence and playfulness was, in many ways a reminder of my own father who could do the most hilarious things sometimes. And also, as I said, perhaps a little of me.

RIP Cheong Pak Hing. Your warmth, kindness and just plain fun-ness was an inspiration to us.

After her mother, Aunt Helene, passed away, my cousin Pauline continued her battle with kidney failure and diabetes. She’d battled bravely and gamely but in the end, it seemed the worries and difficulties of this world were simply too much.

Her passing was a shock - she had seemed to be getting back on her feet after a round of bacterial infection. Looking back on it now, I realise that Pauline, like many others at death’s door, had simply thrown us a dummy - the little perkiness and extra vigour she showed while recovering in hospital were simply her last feint before the knockout punch and blessed sleep.

She will be missed not just for her strength in the face of adversity but also for her weakness - she readily admitted sometimes that things were tough and that she could be better. That honesty and her ability to always pick herself up the next day, regardless, are qualities that have touched me.

Pauline with very dear relation Beth Rozario

RIP Pauline Lin Wen Ling. Your strength, and fragility, are a reminder of the very best values in a person.

In the last few months, much has occupied my thoughts. The Gordian Knot of ideas, thoughts, emotions, words has taken awhile to untangle. If I only had a sword to slash through the mess - alas, I’ve had to patiently sift through the tangle and I think, now, I am finally making some sense of things again. Expect more soon.

A letter to PM YAB Dato Seri Abdullah Badawi

2008-10-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

Dear YAB,

Re: Making the right choices

I have lived outside of Malaysia for almost 20 years now but still have a deep and strong love for my country. Late last year, I became very disillusioned because of the news I was reading about how corrupt, unsafe and disunited my country had become. As I said, I have a deep and strong love for my country and although I could easily have decided to leave it all behind and cement my economic move to another country with that country’s citizenship, I chose another path.

I chose to find out for myself if the country I was born and lived 21 years in had really changed that much. I had grown up surrounded by friends of all races. We never paid much attention to our differences, mind. Instead, we reveled in what we shared in common.

We flew kites we’d built, shot at targets - live or inanimate - with catapaults we’d made: mine was a steel-framed lorry-inner-tubed wonder that could punch holes in an evaporated milk can from 20 yards. We caught fish in the longkangs, cycled, fell off our bikes, slapped on some TCP and Handyplasts and cycled again. We went for walks in the jungle behind our house where we fished in the stream, climbed the trees and once - and I am sorry now that I did this for nothing more than teenage machismo - even chopped down a tree with my father’s parang.

At school, I passed my SRP and SPM Bahasa Malaysia (I was one of the 3 top SPM Bahasa Malaysia students in my school) papers because my Malay friends let me practice daily with them. I was a member of the Hindu Society - well OK, a fringe member as I was really just hanging out with my Indian friends. I still have a soft spot for Shaw’s Pygmalion simply because I was Henry Higgins in our little excerpt from the play which we put up as our class effort in our annual English Drama Competition. Oh, we won the finals you know.

When I worked in advertising in Malaysia, my mentor was Zul, our studio manager who took this young designer who couldn’t keep his mouth shut under his wing. I learnt much from him and sometimes when I teach at a local design college here, I find myself repeating some of Zul’s stories.

So you see, when I grew up, right up until the time I started work, Malaysia was an amalgam of the new and the old, all races and cultures, rural and urban folk. Malaysia then wasn’t any ONE of those things - she was ALL of them.

So, in 2007, when the news seem to be filled with so much doom and gloom, so much about the racial and religious divides, so much about vested interests and corruption and abuse, I could have turned my back but I chose not to.

Instead I turned wheels. Bicycle wheels, to be precise. I rode from the southernmost tip of Johor to near the northernmost point of Perlis. I rode through kampungs and villages. I met a lady with astounding business acumen who ran a small food shop on the edge of padi fields. A young man who owned a bicycle shop and was committed to making it work. A bankrupt who was making good once again with a modest motorcycle repair shop. Security guards coming off a shift who bought me my dinner of Nasi Lemak and Teh-O and sat down and listened to my travel tales. A retired teacher who ran a medicine shop, who shared my name and when we realised that, took my arm, looked me in the eye and said ‘You’re meant to do this ride’. A Tenaga employee nearing retirement who hosts travelers from all over the world and who brings them to see the sights and sounds of rural Malaysia. An ex-footballer who now helps at his father’s gerai under some trees - and who told me how he walked away from sports corruption. And, would you believe it, I met a DAP and an UMNO member enjoying breakfast like they had done for years, just because they were friends?

Over the course of 5 weeks and 1200 cycled kilometres, I met normal, everyday, typical Malaysians. They were not Chinese, or Malay, or Indian Malaysians. They were simply Malaysians.

And more importantly, I was simply a Malaysian to them too.

Now it is a year on from my ride. The ride I returned from and declared ‘Malaysia as we knew it, is still there’. My euphoria may be diminished but my conviction remains.

You see, although I recognise that Malaysia has changed in many ways in the last two decades - new highways, tall iconic skyscrapers, grand cities, mega development projects and so on - in many other ways, I sense that Malaysia has not changed at all.

The Barisan government may claim credit for much of the infrastructural development, but it surely cannot ignore the fact that alongside the shiny and the new and the mega, there is also rising crime, corruption, abuse of power, disenfranchisement of indigenuous peoples, rising poverty, greater disparity in the extremes of many demographic criteria and so on. If the government was not directly responsible for these, then it is culpable for not having dealt with them.

As I mentioned earlier, for some time, I’d begun to think there was no turning back time and the wheels of progress - if indeed we can call it that. For someone who has always been passionately Malaysian even while living away from home, hearing or reading of things like threats to bathe a keris in the blood of the Chinese, or more recently, being referred to as squatters, brought a sense of dread - that the Malaysia we had all grown up in was now on an irreversible path of segregation, polarisation and self-destruction.

What I eventually found out though is that things like national pride, friendship and loyalty don’t change overnight. Despite all the doom and gloom I had been hearing and reading, the reality as I discovered is that the spirit of Muhibbah remains, perhaps not so much in the towns, in the mainstream media, in government even. But it remains in the heart and soul of most everyday Malaysians.

And that is why I write to you, Prime Minister.

The last couple of decades have been like Malaysia’s national puberty. We’ve grown prosperous - more quickly than many others, we’ve flexed our muscles on the world stage, achieved many firsts and experienced ups and downs.

And now, we’re finally reaching maturity and adulthood in our 6th decade. And like any human adult, we’re more independent - both in thought and in action. We saw that for the first time on March 8th and again on August 26th. And now we’re seeing it again - in our blogs, on our streets, in political discourse, and alas, in Kamunting as well.

For far too long we’ve been fed a diet of fear - fear that some of us - the ‘pendatang’ - will take what is the right of the others who have been here longer; that if those who have been here longer don’t protect ourselves, those who came and made their home here later will turn out to be no better than the former colonial masters, bent on plunder and subjugation. We’ve been taught to look at each other and to categorise and distinguish between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Well, we’ve grown tired of what’s been put on our plates and we’re making choices for ourselves.

We know what’s best for us now, or at least we know what is better. We’ve chosen to remember those values we had at the very birth of our nation - those same values that still remain in everyday Malaysians. We’ve chosen to reject the policies and politics of division and corruption. We’ve chosen to take our chance with a new government because we recognise that the very things we have been told to fear are indeed right there in the hearts of those who have been telling us to fear.

And we’re choosing now no longer to fear. Not the things we have been told to, nor the ones who have been telling us.

So YAB, may I be so bold as to suggest this be a time for some reflection? This letter is all about choices that have been made. And in some way, all these choices lead back to you, and the choices you now have to make too.

On the one hand, some choices will lead to more of the same. The same fear-mongering, the same corruption, the same social problems. In making these choice consider that the young adult will ultimately find his own way to where he needs to go, despite the best efforts of those who would deny him his dreams.

On the other hand, there is another set of choices which would bring about a return - a return to values, ideals and standards that we believed in at our birth. A return to the dreams and aspirations our nation was founded on. A return to the example we were setting for the rest of the world.

The everyday Malaysian has made his choice - now what will yours be?

An everyday Malaysian at heart, I remain
Yours patriotically,