No Calendar? Hello, It is 2009

In the past, I would have received plentiful of calendars and diaries before the year end. Worst still, I would normally find out that some of the past year dairies were still not being used when I was doing year-end cleaning work in my office. This year, I have yet to get one diary or calendar as at the last day of 2008. What exactly happen? I really don't know. Is it that bad coming into 2009?

I talked to some of my friends of late and there seemed to be too much of pessimism coming into 2009. Stock market is bad, business is bad, everything else seems to be bad. There is no one with optimism, everyone is saying that next year will only get worse.

Well, good or bad, life must go on. Worse come to worse, tie up your belt, cut your expenditure, save more money, and let see what will happen. Perhaps this is a good time to give us a wake up call. Look, maybe we have overspent in the past, or maybe we are over-dependent on credit cards or maybe we don't really need a new car or new house anyway, the old one is still in good condition just that it may look a bit old. Perhaps we should cut down on smoking, beer session, buying 4-D. Or maybe it is a time for us to realise that we are not so forcible and not that resilient anyway.

If winter comes, can spring be far behind? I really hope that we can see some light at the end of tunnel. But if next year is indeed a tough one, I wish all my friends to be blessed with good health so that they can be strong enough to fight the worse ever financial tsunami. No free diary or calendar never mind, I'm going to buy one for myself tomorrow.

Beware of CyberCrime and Identity Theft

Recently, a woman from Kota Damansara was implicated in the weblog insulting Prophet Muhammad and being investigated by the police under Sedition Act. I pity the woman for the stressful conditions that she has to go through and also being a victim by irresponsible people with malicious intent against her.

So happen, I received an "very urgent" e-mail from my wife today, saying that she was stranded in 135 Peckham High Street, London, UK as she lost all her money, cellphone and other documents and valuable things and thus unable to contact anyone except that using e-mail from a state library. Oh my god, what a mess isn't. The funny part is my wife is back home in Sitiawan, not in UK. Apart from me, all her other friends also receiving the same e-mail asking for help. The e-mail was asking the potential victims to transfer a whopping USD 2800 through Western Union money transfer so that she could get the money quickly and could leave there as soon as possible. My wife is having a busy day because of that bloody e-mail, getting calls from all her pathetic friends to verify the validity of the e-mail. I suppose no one has bank in the money for her as USD 2800 is a lot of money.

Anyway, I asked her to terminate her hotmail account which was invaded by the crook and also to inform all her friends on that incident so that they are not too worry receiving the fake e-mail. The trouble that my wife has gone through may seem small as compared to the woman which was implicated in the weblog insulting Hindu and also Prophet Muhammad. But cybercrime and identity theft are everywhere nowadays, if you are not careful, you could be the next victim.

A Shy Dog

2008 is ending fast and 2009 is coming soon. Frankly, I don't really feel the excitement of celebrating a new year. Getting older it is, but am I getting wiser, healthier, richer, stronger? I can't really feel any optimism as the newspapers only reporting negative news on economy downturn, big corporations going into bankruptcy, retrenchment, increasing crime rates. All these bad news don't make you a happy man isn't it.

Of late, the crime rates in my neighbourhood seem to be increasing at an alarming pace. A taman close to the place I stay is facing the problems of break-ins, vehicles got stolen almost everyday. My neighbour decided to rear a dog to protect his house in view of the increased incidents of break-ins. Good idea, I hope that the dog will protect my house as well because I often go out-station. That bloody dog however, was not well trained. It is less than a year and will bark on any damn things approaching its house. The worst thing is that the dog seems to like my house very much and always try its level best to sneak into my house and leave its marks here (shit on my small garden & urine on my car tyre).

I notice that the dog will bark every single morning at around 7 am. At first I thought that it could be barking on the newspaper guy. Then later I notice that it was not the case. The dog is barking as my neighbour is leaving his house for work. It seems that idiot is feeling nervous staying home alone and thus pleading its owner to bring him along.

Nowadays, even dogs can not be entrusted to protect your home, they are simply too tame to do the job.

e-Payslip & Environment Protection

Our company recently introduce the use of e-payslip to replace the normal paper-printing payslip. I find it a bit amuse as the reason given was it will reduce the usage of paper thus more environment friendly so to speak. Not only that, the company seems to be converting everything using papers such as office memos, circulars, appraisal, progress reports and what not into electronic forms by e-mails or other on-line forms. That would reduce the cutting down of trees for making papers thus protecting environment.

Ironically, this company that I'm working with is the largest plantation company in the world. The company have been cutting down countless number of tress since the fifties or sixties in the effort to build up a mammoth hectaraege of 600,000 ha rubber and oil palm plantation.

Just a few day ago while visiting estate in Lahad Datu, Sabah, I was caught in an argument with a estate manager on the issue of global warming and environment conservation. He sort of blasted on the NGOs for their accusations on plantation companies being responsible for the degradation of environment and causing the extinction of wildlife such as orangutan, elephant, tiger and others. He followed by saying that the livelihood of the people is more important than environment protection. He stressed that the survival of the people is more important than the survival of Orang utan. To some degree I agreed with him, as the opening up of plantation does indeed improving the social economy for rural areas, but I told him that when the big plantation companies in Malaysia and Indonesia cutting down ten of thousand of jungle trees to convert into millions of hectare of plantation, It was not purely for the livelihood of the people. It provides plentiful of job opportunities no doubt, but it actually in the way creating more wealth for the capitalists. It is the urge to create more wealth that lead to the destroy of the jungle and the social economy aspects only come later. Apart from higher rank executive and staff which comprise mainly of Malaysian, the larger population of work force is actually comprising of foreign labours from Indonesia.

I then told him that our company is no longer printing payslips for the employees in order save the planet by reducing the cutting down of trees for papers. He then asked me to propose to our CEO that the employees should wear banana leaves instead to work so that we can save the planet even more. Both of us then laughed profusely.

Tough Life, Anywhere.

While in Nanning, China last week, we had some free time to go shopping. We were told by the tour guide that the most famous shopping centre in town was Parkson/Walmart which is a few km away from the hotel that we stayed. The taxi fare was about 8 yuan (or about RM 4). It was not very far but we were advised to take a cab as the roads could be a bit of confusing.

My wife and I decided to walk, as we could see more things by walking. We checked for directions from the receptionist at the hotel who gave us a clear direction. It took us about half an hour to reach Parkson. As usual, a lot of cars and a lot of people on the road. I actually quite worry of not being able to go back to the hotel as it was turning dark quite early at the evening and the roads were full with fast walking people, I might get confused on which way to go.

Things were not cheap in Parkson. But people in Nanning seemed to be so happily shopping despite of high prices. My wife managed to buy two pieces of jacket which were discounted for 50%. The shopping complex was full of people, I wonder how the Chinese youngsters not worry of recession or economic slowdown as they were still spending like no body business.

After tired of window-shopping, we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was damned cold outside the shopping complex. I told my wife we might not be able to find the way back as it was dark then. We then saw a motorcycled-trishaw parked at the roadside with a handicapped lady shivering, waiting for customer. I told my wife to take the trishaw as it was too cold to walk back. We asked the lady how much was the fare to go back to the hotel. She said 4 yuan. We then sat in the hooded cab and the lady drove us slowly zigzagging through very busy roads in Nanning. It was quite scary sitting in the hooded cab watching cars and motocycles passing by speedily. It took about 10 minutes to reach the hotel. We were shivering in the tiny hooded cab as the winds blowing on our face were unbearable.

Upon reaching the hotel, my wife asked me to pay her a bit more, sympathizing with the handicapped lady working hard to earn a living in such a difficult condition. Business was so competitive as there were so many similar trishaws parking outside the shopping complex waiting for customers. I paid the lady 10 yuan and told her to keep the change. I could see that she was so appreciative, thanking us many times before we went inside the hotel. Life is tough nowadays, but there are those underprivileged people still brave enough to weather through the hardship of life.

Enjoyable Trip to Guilin

Just came back from holidaying in Guilin, China. A wonderful trip covering a few cities in GuangXi province. It was so happen that GuangXi Zhong autonomous region is celebrating their 50 years anniversary. The city of Nanning and Guilin were decorated with beautiful flowers everywhere, so eye-catching. The weather was cold, averaging below 10C, damn cold, I couldn't take it, but fortunately, both my wife and me were not sick. Unlike our first visit to China last year also during end of autumn, both of us were down with stomach upset and diarrhea. It was a big letdown when you are supposedly happy going on sightseeing but your ass just couldn't co-operate and thus instead of fascinating on beautiful scenery, you end up frequenting W.C., and knowing the cleanliness of toilets in China, the less time you go to the loo the better.

This year's visit to Guilin is a memorable one. Perhaps we were better prepared for cold weather by putting up more clothes. Or perhaps the foods were more to our stomach's liking as compared to very oily and salty stuffs in Shanghai a year ago. Li river cruise was my favourite, beautiful mountains and crystal-clear river water that you can even see the bottom of the river. The best thrill was certainly seeing two pandas, Ying-ying and Yang-yang in Sevenstar Scenic Area.

We also went to see the terrace field in YangShou and experiencing the unique customs of ethnic minorities. It was enjoyable and cheap touring China. But of course the package also included the fixed itinerary of visiting tea, silk, Chinese medicine outlets that were made compulsory by the tourism department of China. Whatever it is, you can't complain for a 8 days 7 nights tour which inclusive of airfare, hotel, food and etc that only cost slightly more than RM2300.