Farewell Tuan Haji Kamalur

34 years is surely a long period, and to faithfully serving a company for that long is certainly very rare nowadays. Our general manager has finally decided to call it a day, after 34 years of loyalty to a company which was involved in a mega merger of GLC some years back. He has gone through all the challenging periods and critical transitions such as the infamous dawn raids and also the more recent mega merger of Guthrie, Golden Hope and Sime Darby.

We just had a simple farewell gathering for him, together with some other staff member who coincidentally also leaving the company for various reasons. The farewell high tea was too simple and hurriedly put up at Banting office, in my opinion. A person who has served a company for 34 years certainly deserves a much better farewell than the one that we just organized this evening.

Does a company really appreciate a loyalty of an employee? Or most of the companies just like one of the local leading oil palm company using people as though they are using ball pen, throwing away the old one and use the new one? Sometimes I just feel that all these employers be it GLC or any other private companies are just the same, saying one thing and doing another.

Just a couple of days ago when I was in Sabah I was told that one of the estate manager who has served various estates in Sabah under the same company asking for a transfer back to Peninsular Malaysia after a 15-year of service abroad. This guy’s home town is in Batu Pahat, Johor and he was hoping that he will get a transfer back to the estate closer to his home town.

He gets a transfer back indeed but the company posted him to far North in Kedah which is about 8 to 9 hours drive from his home town at Johor. All his friends are laughing at him as he is worst off after getting a transfer to West Malaysia. Instead, he just needs slightly more than two hours flight to get back to his home town in Batu Pahat if he remains at Sabah. This guy naturally gets very disappointed as he thought that for his loyalty to a company for about 20 years, he could have been treated better towards the tail end of his employment with the company.

I suppose that is the predicament of an employee, wherever you are.The company gives you two options, take it or leave it. So for all my "fellow employees", you know your options.

Farewell Tuan Haji, I salute your 34-year royalty and hoping that you and your family will live a healthy, fruitful and happy life together after your retirement.

Another accident and 10 killed

Many a time when I drive on the North-South Expressway, I notice that busses are driving at very high speed, overtaking other vehicles on the third lane. Sometimes you can even see the big tankers, huge lorries are doing the same thing also, driving like daredevils. The behaviors of most of the bus and lorry drivers need to be improved in order to for us to have a safer road. A bus can accommodate about 40 to 50 passengers and if something untoward happen many lives will be affected.

It is sad to read about the accident where a double-decker skidded at Ipoh Selatan resulting in 10 passengers killed and many others injured. Could it due to the ruthless driving or other factors is still yet to be ascertained but one thing for sure, if the bus was driven above the speed limit, anything could happen over a split seconds and bus speeding is not uncommon if you ask the regular bus passengers. It is high time for the government to seriously limit the speed of the busses by withdrawing licenses for frequent defaulters especially those companies involved in many accidents involved deaths. Otherwise, how could we safeguard the lives of people using express busses which mainly comprises of lower income group.

Sometimes you have to blame it on the government department involving in issuing licenses or the enforcement units as if everything can be settled by money, then it is pointless for us to have a beautiful set of rules and regulations.

The monster is back

The Nurin case is still unsolved for two years. We don’t really know whether the Police are still pursuing the case or it has already been put aside and the files all closed and dusted. Perhaps most of us have completely forgotten about the poor little girl who was brutally raped, sodomised and killed, not until another similar case reemerged. Post-mortem of a girl’s body which was found dumped at a retention pond two days ago revealed that she could have been sexual assaulted before her death. It then reminds us again of that poor little girl Nurin.

Two years have gone by and I don’t really think that the Police are capable to solve Nurin case, perhaps only God can give a clue if He really wants to. We have millions and millions of foreign workers over here and some of them could be the psychotics who committed the crime and the next moments just take a boat or flight and gone back to their countries and left no traces on the crime. Or the same monster that brutally raped and murdered Nurin has reemerged after a two years of hibernation?

But can the Government seriously look into way and mean to prevent such gruesome incidents from recurring? Can a special task force comprises of crime experts be assembled to specifically looking into the case involving the rape and murder of innocent young girls? Or are we just conveniently bowing to the adversity and inevitable and let the innocent young girls become the prey of these psychotic monsters again and again?

Man of honor

Sometimes you come across some good movies which are very touching, just like reading a good book; it often leads to some soul searching. Man of honor, stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Robert De Niro is such good example. I have seen this movie many times, not that I like it so much but rather coincidental that many a time when I was staying in hotel during my out-station assignment, HBO was showing this movie. I often finished watching it despite of seeing it for many times.

This movie revolves around two men of honor; their relationship, their ups and downs and triumphs. Carl Brashear played by Cuba Gooding Jr. determined to become the first African American Navy Diver in a time where racism was strife. Leslie Sunday played by Robert De Niro, on the other hand was his embittered trainer who determined to see him fail. However, fate, challenges and circumstances draw these two men together in a tale of turbulence and these equally hardcore stubborn navy officers eventually helped each other to overcome their respective failures.

Carl’s leg was seriously injured as a result of an accident occurred during a diving operation searching for a missing bomb. He was forced into retirement but Carl wanted to return to full diving duty and therefore requested that his injured leg been amputated and fitted with a prosthetic leg. Sunday on the other hand was going through rehabilitation to overcome alcoholism, and volunteered to help training Carl before a hearing with the Chief of Naval Personnel. A month later, Carl appeared before the Naval Personnel to ascertain his possible return. Carl was requested to put on a new diving suit, weighing at 290 pounds and he was requested to take 12 steps inside it on land to prove that he is capable of doing the diving work with the prosthesis. Carl, seeing that his wife and son were in the audience, volunteered to take the 12 steps right then and there. He struggled initially but his steel determination got him through.

The top rank Navy Personnel were moved with Carl’s determination and asked why was he so determined to return to a full diving duty despite of the mishap, to which Carl said; “Forgive me sir, but to me, the Navy isn't a business. It's an organization of people who represent the finest aspects of our nation. We have many traditions. In my career, I have encountered most of them. Some are good, some not so good. I would, however not be here today were it not for our greatest tradition of all.” The Navy Chief then asked; “What would that be, Chief Brashear?" Carl Brashear unwavering answered; “Honor, Sir” To me this is the most touching part of the movie.

As Carl rightfully put it, Navy isn’t a business. Similarly, Police, Army are not a business. Men and women wearing uniforms must have honor to discharge their duties or otherwise these people will one day become so corrupted that they could even sell the country. Just look at what’s wrong with RMAF’s missing jet engines. It could just be another tip of iceberg.

Climate change, whose fault is it?

World leaders are gathering at Copenhagen right now to address the critical issues pertaining to climate change. What can this UN conference coming out with is everyone guess but it will not likely to effect any significant outcome as what has happened on Kyoto Protocol.

The environmentalists, politicians, scientists, NGOs and so on are having their own interpretations on the climate change and its repercussions on the well being of the planet that we live in. Developed and developing countries are pointing fingers as usual. Developed countries are accusing the developing countries for deforestation, high emission of green house gas. On the other hand, developing countries are counter-accusing developed countries for doing the same thing a few hundred years ago in order to be where they are now and depriving other poorer countries for doing so. When does this finger-pointing ends?

As much as we want to deny, human being is the greatest sinner and destructor of this planet. We cut down the forest to plant crops to feed our stomach in the way destructing the habitats for other animals and plants. We call all other animals eating our crops as ‘pest’, but not realizing that we are the greatest pest in this world, creating millions and millions of tones of pollutants everyday that are harmful to the environment. We are exhausting the irreplaceable natural resources and creating pollutants in return. The animals can only crying in vein as they are facing extinction because of the selfishness of human. We cut down trees that have being living in this world for a few hundred years to make houses, furniture and so on, and we are now talking about the danger of climate change.

It is no point having a big conference if human being is not changing their attitude towards the environment. People are starving in poor countries and some of them don’t even know what is going to happen tomorrow so let’s not talk about global warming to them but indeed feed their stomach first. Let’s stop the finger pointing and moving towards the mutual understanding of various nations so that a peaceful resolution can be achieved to balance out the needs of all the nations in order to create a better world for tomorrow.

Busy go nowhere

MACC must be very busy at the moment as another huge graft involving a political secretary of a senior minister was recently exposed by opposition MPs. The MB of Negeri Sembilan was earlier alleged to be involved in the money laundering activities involving exorbitant amount. As much as MACC try their level best to portrait themselves as the fearless anti corruption agency, many would still think that they are merely going for the small fishes but dare not even raise the case on the big ones. Who are the fish or big shark? There are traces that everyone in this country can see. Big palaces, luxurious cars and expensive holidays abroad, all these we can see but MACC simply can’t dig out any irregularities.

Perhaps it is our culture, the culture of blind obedient to the leaders, as most of us still think that all these politicians, member of Parliament, family of royalty and so on are untouchable, as these people are linked to politically powerful people. But is there anyone in this country or for that matter over the world that is above the laws? Perhaps we are not as bad as Philippines as there is no one is having his own army in this country.

Just like ordinary people like you and me, when our subordinates are doing something wrong we are quick to point out their mistakes. But when our own bosses are doing something not right, we are just keeping our mouth shut so that not putting any worm inside our own ass.

Chinese schools produce 'copycat' ?

The issue of single stream school has been much debated of late, especially when prominent historian, Prof Khoo recently remounted his idea of replacing the current vernacular system with a single stream school in the way demolishing all Chinese and Tamil primary schools. Race unity and harmony is of utmost importance to a nation, especially a multiracial and young nation like Malaysia. However, even if we implement single stream school, putting all the young kids of various races under one roof since the very beginning of their formal education, can we be assured that a better race unity will be achieved? Race issue is a very complex one. Even in the country like USA or other European countries where all black and white and other races are studying in the single stream school, is racial harmony really that better than our country? Just look at Indonesia, is racial harmony really better than that in Malaysia with the practice of single stream school?

I supposed a prominent historian like Prof Khoo should know better that the existence of vernacular schools is an integral part of the nation building history of this country. Since independent, countless of students which had gone through the vernacular schools had been serving various economic sectors and contributing to the success of the country. Sadly, when the deputy Prime Minister praises the Chinese primary school for producing students who are capable of better mastering Science and Mathematics, Prof Khoo is of the different opinion that Chinese school is only capable of producing “copycats”.

Prof Khoo questioned that how many prominent scientists or innovators that are actually coming out from Chinese school. What clearly amiss is that he forgets to ask how many prominent scientists or innovators are there in this country regardless of their schooling background? May be our present education system needs a major overhaul as it is incapable of producing great scientists or creative minds such as that of Albert Einstein, Newton or Steven Hawkins and only good in producing historians and politicians. But as a young nation such as Malaysia we should indeed inculcate young talents based on merits and all the talented minds should be given the equal opportunity to acquire higher education so that these young generation will form the moving force to prosper the country through the next millennium.

In a time when our diversity in races should be capitalized as it provides better flexibility in the face of globalization, it is too bad that if we were to close down the Chinese or Tamil primary schools simply because 0f the narrow-mindedness of certain people.

Poor planning of state government

End of the year is the monsoon period, rainfall is high and flood is everywhere. The whole nation knows about this. But apparently the state government of Negeri Sembilan doesn’t know about this, why? They are resurfacing the roads during this monsoon period when there are rains almost every day. How would you expect the roads to last longer than they supposed to be? I guess the state government is rushing to finish off their budget for the year.

That’s why they are now rushing to resurface the roads wherever they could, do not give a damn on whether the roads resurfaced during high rainfall period will last for a year as come the same time next year, they will do exactly the same thing again.

Good gesture inviting criticism

A person of Barack Obama’s status will have to be very careful on what he does. Even sometime when this person is doing something that is not wrong but the media or the people at large will still make some criticism. For instance, Barack Obama took a deep bow when greeting Emperor Akihito of Japan a couple of days ago. Would you think that is a problem? Or we can just perceive that he is just a young man greeting a much older person following the Japanese custom by doing a deep bow?

Barack Obama is no ordinary person as he represents the people of United States. Hence, a lot of Americans will think that taking a deep bow is as though their president had disgraced his countrymen. To me, it is just a very nice man following Japanese culture of bowing to an elderly man while greeting him.

A murderer comitted suicide

A murderer who killed his own mother, chopped her body into pieces, stuffed them into a traveler bag, arrested by police, was found committed suicide in the jail. Would you care whether he was really committed suicide or would you suspiciously think that there could be foul play at the police custody?

I would not give a dam, would you? This guy was a murderer and he murdered his own mother and was linked to another case of murdering a girl in which the body was thrown inside a well. A murderer gets what he deserved, that is all in my mind, even though the family of the murderer who committed suicide wanted to know the truth as they suspected foul play in the police custody. They even linked the death of this murderer who they curse and swear with the sad incident of Teoh Boon Hock who was found dead after the investigation by MACC.

We often heard that too many criminal were set free by the court due to insufficient evident. Sometime, it is very frustrating to see bad guys not getting the punishment that they supposedly are getting. We blame the god for unfairness but sometime a person is getting the punishment that he truly deserved without a doubt, there are people simply seeing another opportunity to gain some publicity.

Sick world

There are sick people all over nowadays. A son murdered his mother due to jealousy as his mother treated his brother better than him. An old man killed his wife as the wife asked for a divorce. A father killed his own son and daughter before setting his house on fire and committed suicide.

You would think that there are a lot of people who are seriously sick, so severe and incurable that they decided to do things in extreme ways. The worst thing is that a problem or problems for a single person can become big problems for other, especially the loved ones. Why the father killed his daughter and son before committed suicide? He can solve his own problem by ending his own life but why must he kill his children? It was quoted that the man could not live with the fact that he might lose both of his kids if his wife divorced him. May be we can’t apprehend why the person who loved his children so much can resort to kill them simply afraid of losing them.

This world is sick. People are without love nowadays. We don’t know what love is all about. We end up hating each other. The world is slowly full of hatreds and there will slowly be no peace in this world. If a person can resort to kill his children to solve his own problem, what do you think of the worst ever thing that could happen in this world.

Burning taxpayer money again?

Rumours are rife that Renault is withdrawing from F1, becoming the fourth car manufacturer to exit F1 starting from Honda, BMW and Toyota. The financial turmoil has certainly caused a toll on motorsports as decline car sales is seriously affecting the financial status of the car manufacturer who took part in F1 and also other major sponsors.

As a faithful fan of F1 over a decade, I’m not at all excited when Malaysia is announcing its participation in this extremely expensive motorsport. How can we benefit from F1? If the car giants such as Toyota, Honda and BMW are withdrawing, why is Malaysia, with its people-subsided Proton, a meager car manufacturer, taking part when other big giants are exiting after suffering great investment losses?

The government ensures that there would not be any government fund involves in One-Malaysia F1 Team. We have to open our eyes wide to see if that’s indeed true. Let’s recall a few years ago we had sent an astronaut up to space. Do the ordinary people stand to gain anything except that the government is getting publicity from the live telecast? We burned millions and millions of taxpayers just to sent an astronaut to the space making him a hero going everywhere given speeches gaining more money and what the people are getting out of it.

Floods are still there every year in and out and people’s home get damaged and livelihoods badly affected. Why not the money spent on all this nonsense be more wisely used to upgrade infrastructure so that our people can live a better life?

Second wave of H1N1

Of late, the Ministry of Health has been sending out warning of the probable second wave of H1N1 infestation. You can read about the warnings on all major dairies. When I was in Beijing two weeks ago, the second wave of H1N1 already started there. With the bad experience in handling SARS some years ago, the authority was quick this time to put up very strict health screening at the airport. In addition, the private sectors were also quick to take preventive actions. In the department stores, you can see all the employees were checked for their body temperatures before started working. It seems those with body temperature higher than normal will be sent back for house quarantine.

I guess the China authority which was under scrutiny few years back due to their poor actions to SARS pandemic are taking serious preventive measure to safeguard its people. When coming back to Malaysia on 25^th October, we were requested to fill in the health declaration forms by the tour guide. But when we were passing through the health screening check point at KLIA at about 11pm that day, nobody seemed to be interested in collecting the health declaration forms from us as we were just walked through the thermal scanner without any screening.

I guess the authority is just saying one thing and doing another. When the first wave of H1N1 hit our country, there were very strict health screenings at the airport. I remember when I came back from Indonesia at that time, I had to go through long queue for health screening and the officers were collecting the declaration forms from each and every passenger. Merely after a few months when the infection rate becomes lower and lower, the authority starts to get slackened. Lip service alone is not good enough to prevent a second wave of H1N1, or the Health Minister is currently too busy for the infighting in his own party.

Three Kingdom

Animals in the wild often fight for territory. The best part is the loser will leave the place, looking for another piece of land to build its new territory. Harimau thought that he could have easily saw off his enemy Tiger but he was indeed wrong as Tiger is never an ordinary Tiger. He fought back swiftly by successfully calling for a tribunal. The tribes were sick of these two fighting cocks and their seemingly never ending meaningless fighting. The tribes then spoken; they voted against both of them. So, both were losers. A wolf seeing two tigers have already half dead after intense fight, smiling quietly thought that his time has come finally.

Harimau and Tiger then realized that both of them were loser at the end. If both also leave, it will only benefit the Wolf. What the heck, that was not supposed to be like that man. So Harimau and Tiger secretly met up for a peace talk. Harimau apologized to Tiger, saying that he should not be overly jealous on Tiger, who at the age of above sixty, still so good in the art of commanding the tigress. Tiger said ok-lor, since you have apologized already, I will accept your unity plan provided you compensate for my losses. Harimau said no problem, now friend already, what you say I follow. But inside his heart he realized how painful it was to have put the worms inside his own ass.

Harimau and Tiger become friend once more. They said that a unity plan has already been achieved as though the whole tribes were their puppets playing to their tune. Now, Wolf cannot tahan already. His golden opportunity has bubble burst in split second, second wave of war is on the way for sure. This animal kingdom will never be at peace.

Great Wall

Somehow my wife and I get addicted to China since the first time we visited Shanghai a couple of years ago. So when it comes toward the end of the year we will start thinking about where to go, surveying the available China tours and calling the tour agencies for more details for comparison. I suppose the autumn is calling us, and somehow the chilling weather although is killing, it is something that we kind of looking forward to.

Just came back from Beijing after a weeklong tour. The weather was fine during the first few days although it turned somewhat hazy and becoming cooler by the end of last week. Fortunately both of us were not affected by stomach upset unlike our first visit to China a few years ago notably due to very cool weather especially when it was approaching winter and also oily food.

The sky was as clear as ours when we arrived at Beijing on 19 October albeit a bit cool. But as usual, it was walking after walking as there were too many interesting places to cover in a day. It was very tiring on the first day as after a 6-hour flight from KL, we straight away went to the Museum Palace a.k.a Forbidden City. A very elderly gentleman was actually lost his way when we visited the Forbidden City ending up the local tour guide had to spend almost an hour to locate the 78-year old man. It was so crowded in the Forbidden City, you could easily get lost if you go a bit slow. In another instance when we visited the Temple of Heaven, an elderly couple were unable to get into the temple as they were too slow at the back and the guard refused to let them in as the tour guide was holding the tickets and the guard was just counting the number of people following at the back of the tour guide who held the tickets.

Beijing is such a wonderful place to visit especially after the Olympics as there are more tourist attractions such as Bird Nest, the Cube and etc. But what I like the most is the Great Wall. It was amazing to see the Great Wall which was built in the Qin Dynasty to protect the empire against the intrusion of the enemies could last the centuries of sandstorms and also the kampong folks of digging the bricks for their own use. But then again most of the Great Wall that can be seen today is actually that built and rebuilt during Ming and Qing Dynasty. The wall around Beijing is especially strong to protect the Capital City of Beijing for so many centuries. It was very windy at the Great Wall, rendering it a bit unsafe to climb. My wife was only able to reach to the second stage and thereafter she was afraid of height and unable to proceed further. “不到长城非好汉” despite of my leg aching, I continued to climb further up to the summit to fulfill my dream of being a tough guy (好汉).

Perhaps vote buying is not as bad as being caught pants down

Bagan Pinang is just a stone throw from my new office in Lukut. For the past few days, the town of PD had suddenly become so busy, so many police patrolling and roadblocks here and there. As usual, by election, the police need to let their presence felt.

The result of the Bagan Pinang’s by election is not at all surprising to me despite the landslide victory of Tan Sri Isa even though the Parkatan Rakyat had a good streak of winning the past 8 by-elections. But did the huge majority of over 5000 votes signal the return of the voters’ confidence on BN or it simply because Tan Sri Isa is such a heavyweight figure that is incomparable to his featherweight opponent? The chief minister of Pinang, when asked about the chances of Pas candidate winning the by election a couple of days ago, replied; susah, susah, susah. Three times susah surely means extremely difficult and that was proven to be true, as Pas candidate lost with a huge margin as compared to the general election last year.

Despite of Tan Sri Isa being associated with vote buying during the UMNO party election and subsequently being suspended by the disciplinary committee, it doesn’t stop over 8000 people in Bagan Pinang from voting for him. Perhaps many of us will wonder is there any politician that is truly clean. Perhaps being caught for vote buying is not as bad as being caught with the pants down. After all, we Malaysian, a truly Asian are a bit shy in nature, simply cannot accept a person to be a leader when we have seen his ding-dong in action. Perhaps the Pakatan people should take a hint or two from this defeat, as there are many issues cropping out in Pakatan led state governments in Penang and Selangor recently that threatening the credibility of the partnership.

So How, MCA?

The MCA delegates have spoken loud and clear. OTK and CSL had been given the mandate by the delegates about a year ago to drive the party through the political Tsunami after 2008’s general election. But sadly, these two gentlemen simply cannot work with each other, they differ in so many ways but sharing a common character, both equally hard headed, and that ultimately lead to unavoidable split.

The central delegates of MCA had made yet another painful decision in the recently concluded EGM. If the president and his deputy cannot see eye to eye, it is best that two of them go so that a new leadership can be formed to steer the party and more importantly to better serve the community.

In any organization, people can come and go. Some political leaders for some reasons are hanging around for far too long. Some are so thick-skinned, reluctant to handover the leadership of the party despite being defeated in the general election. But if Ong did decide to step down, which I think he surely will, it is simply too short a time for him to make a noticeable impact and significant contributions to the Chinese community especially. He is simply making himself a record of the shortest-life president in the history of MCA and all the reforms that he was talking about will come to a natural death.

Ong and Chua started up the war, the central delegates voted for a ceasefire and that resulted in both of them have to go. It is now time for MCA to pick a new leadership that can garner the support of its member. Time has running short, MCA is urgently needing a new lease of life. For the interest of the party and Chinese community, MCA should form a new leadership that can start on a reform. Too many infighting over the past many decades has rendered MCA becomes the laughing matter in the coffee shops.

Are you coming over, Benteng?

Interesting but what a joke? A group of Indonesian calling themselves Benteng Demokrasi Rakyat is planning to attack our people in our country with primitive weapons like bamboo poles, parang and sticks and so on. Why are they doing so? They are accusing that Malaysian are stealing their cultures and abusing their people who work as maid in Malaysia.

I don’t know since when people become so emotional over some misunderstanding on culture sort of things. In the past, there were wars arising on dispute on religions or related matters but claiming people for stealing their culture and waging war arising from that is something quite rare. In the modern world nowadays where globalization has slowly opening up for the growth of cross-cultural development, it is laughable that some of our Indonesian friends are making hell lot of big story simply because “we steal their cultures”.

Wouldn't it be more meaningful if Benteng can divert their 1300 good people to Padang for the humanitarian work rather than seeping into Sarawak to attack the innocent people.

My wife first experience in earthquake

My wife fell down as she was about to leave her office in PJ, unknowing that it was the tremor arising from an earthquake occurred in Padang, Indonesia. She felt dizzy, couldn’t stand up for a few moments and everything was shaking. She thought that it was due to her low blood pressure as sometimes she also experienced dizziness.

When I told her about the earth quake happened in Padang and then only she realized that it was the tremor that caused her to fall down in her office this evening. Having no previous experience in earth quake, I can’t blame her for not evacuating herself from her office in time.

I experienced the earth quake 2 years ago when I visited Solok Selatan, also in Sumatra, 2, 3 hundreds kilometers from Padang. It was a light tremor. I could see the water in the glass was so shaky and the curtains were also shaky. An expatriate who was taking a nap in his room ran out and told us that it was the earthquake. But I supposed the tremor I experienced some years ago in Solok Selatan was not as strong as the one experienced by my wife this evening. At least I didn’t fall down.

Malaysia is blessed as we are out of the Pacific ring of fire and thus, no earth quake, no typhoons and other serious natural disasters. But things may change now, if a strong earthquake happens in Indonesia, we can’t be sure that there would not be any serious damage to our high rise building in highly populated areas such as KL, PJ, Penang and JB. Our buildings are certainly not built to withstand earthquake.

A bonus letter with a threat

Receiving a bonus letter should be a happy thing to do, especially if you think about the hard work that you have put in over the past one year and if the bonus is indeed a generous one that would really be a bountiful harvest for all the effort and hard work.

A bonus message by our SVP was e-mail to me and when I read it, somehow I feel a bet disturbed, as it carries a threat along with all other motivating messages. It literally warns those intended to tender resignation after receiving the bonus should think twice before doing it. Even though the pasture is always greener on the other side but higher salary always comes with more responsibilities and hard work. The message even suggests that there are difficult bosses everywhere and it makes no different whether working with the company or others and thus it is better to continue working with the devil that you know.

Finally, the SVP said that he will not stop anybody from leaving the company but he opined that some who left the company eventually regretted. This sort of “management by fear” doesn’t work anymore as there is abundance of vacancies available with the huge expansion in the plantation industry.

The biggest doesn't mean the company can attract people even with the good remuneration as the so called good remuneration is only given to the top people, while the ordinary executive and staff are just getting something similar to what others are getting somewhere else. SVP doesn’t seem to realize that he can’t fight the battle with all the well paid generals but without the soldiers.

Mother of all love

We don’t need a tragedy to tell us how deep a mother’s love is. We have seen enough. The Sichuan earthquake, the recent Morakot Typhoon in Taiwan and just a day before a morning blaze at Jalan Pudu. A woman and her 3-month old son died in a fire. The mother was still holding to her son when both of them were discovered by fire fighters after putting out the fire. The bodies became charcoal, but the love of a mother will last forever.

Sometime reading newspaper is a painful thing to do, especially in the early morning, coming across all these sad news. Worst still, when you read about all these disgusting people fighting for power. Ugly politician I’m referring to. Name calling, father of all nonsense, mother of all lies and what else? These so called leaders, their quality as a human is not even close to the mother who still wanted to protect her child at her last breath.

There are still a lot of people living in vein, those hardcore poor, those living without a proper roof above them. Some staying in squatters for years, not safe, just like what happened to the mother and son who died in the fire. Their wooden house is not safe to live in but who care? Does Ong care? Does Chua care? No. They only care who is going to win over the other in their political battle.

Boy, oh boy

As a guy growing up from a kampong in the seventies, I’m still admiring the simple livings of kampong folks after so many years working and living in town. Whenever I travel outstation while working, I always stop at small villages just to get the feel of the olden days. Those days when I was still young and everything seemed so simple and less complicated as what it is today. People were so accommodative to each other, respected each other unlike nowadays, people is so intolerable, only thinking of their own.

While travelling back from Endau Rompin, I stopped at Kg Lanjut when I saw a signboard pointing to the Lanjut beach. I thought that it was a beautiful beach but to my disappointment, it was just a beach with a few simple wooden shops and no visitor. I walked on a jetty by the seaside, and that was the time I saw a boat approaching the jetty. I could hear some young kids laughing and cheering, even louder than the noise of the motor boat. There were ten over young children coming back from school, wearing school uniform and carrying school bags. I asked one of the boy where were they coming from. He said they were just coming back from school which located on the other side of the beach at Rompin. These kids were around 8 to 10 years old but the way they climbed up from the boat and the way they running up to the jetty you will be surprised at how brave these boys and girls were. Perhaps to them, it is already a way of life, riding a boat to the schools without life jackets and so on even to us that was somewhat dangerous.

One of the boys ran down to the beach from the jetty. He dug and dug and dug. I was wondering what the boy was doing. Finally, the boy stared up to his school mates walking on the jetty and laughing cheekily. Then he threw something to the rest of the boys and girls walking slowly on the jetty. Some of the girls started to scream, some of the boys laughing and then I had a closer look at the things and there were two sea worms with a lot of spikes. A boy then picked up one of the worms then threw it at the girls and the girls started screaming and running again. I was so taken aback and my minds just flying back to those days when I was as small as this buggers doing a lot of naughty things like they did. I asked the boy what was that, he told me it was ulat bulu meaning hairy caterpillar. The boy apparently being stung by the caterpillar, he seemed painful. The girls were then laughing at him and said that he got what he deserved for his naughty work.

When we are young, we are innocent even though some are always naughtier than other. Somehow, as we are growing up, our hearts are gradually filled up with all sort of nonsense, hatred especially, dirty politics and slowly losing up our innocent. And we start wondering why the world has changed so much as compared to our younger days.

Reinventing the wheel

Sometimes big corporations are reinventing the wheel every now and then especially when there are changes in the top management. For instance, if a new boss is coming in, surely he or she will have his or her management styles and thus requires management team to make some adjustments to suit the new boss’ management requirement. But that probably would not affect the whole work force. Prior to the merger, the company I’m currently working with spent millions of dollar to development a new appraisal system. Each of the executive was given ample trainings and thick dictionary which contains detailed definitions of all those confusing HR terms and phrases. They called it PMD a.k.a Performance Management Development.

Well, that only lasted for two years than the merger came in. Naturally we have to abandon the old system and to adopt the new one. Again, a lot of training conducted for everybody to be able to do the appraisal. This time it is an on-line system. Within a time frame, the on-line system is opened for the employees to key in their KPIs and Leadership qualities and so on. Then the KPIs will be moderated by the immediate superior on-line. Six months later, you have to do mid-year review and a year later final appraisal. It seems very complicated isn’t it? Again, a lot of money was spent to develop the system, to train the people and also installation of the hardware and software. At the end of the year, the company will tell you that the performance of the company is not so good and thus it is not paying good bonus and increment. There you are, people get fed up, for all the nonsense that they have to go through, they get peanut at the end of the day.

When a new boss comes, the system will be changed. The government has recently appointed Idris Jala of MAS to be a minister in-charge of monitoring ministerial KPIs. Basing on the inconsistency of the government in monitoring the performances of its minister and also the civil servants, I do hope that Idris is capable to instill some positive changes and coming out with something effective and most importantly can last long enough to see positive results. Otherwise, we are just reinventing the wheels again and again, going nowhere all this while.

Speechless

It is totally disgusting, seeing a group of protesters carrying a severed cow’s head marching on the street, protesting relocation of an Indian temple to their area. I thought that this kind of thing only happened in the ancient times, like those headhunting practiced by certain tribes, or an ancient ritual where animals were beheaded for celebrations or ritual practices. In the present day, this sort of thing should not happen at all as it is uncivilized and too provocative, but too bad that it actually happened in our own country, a peace loving country, a multi-racial country where everybody respects each other even though they are different in terms of origin, religions, culture and many other things.

Along with the caning of a Kartika for consuming alcohol, this incident will surely attract wide coverage from the media around the world. Peace-loving people, human right activist and perhaps animal lovers throughout the world will surely condemn such inhumane act. It will surely tarnish the image of the country.

To sack or not to sack?

Apparently OTK is having a different standard, or shall I say moral standard, as compared to his predecessor OKT. Chua was not sacked when his infamous sex video scandal surfaced in the late 2007. But how come about 2 years later, he is sacked for the same offence after so long, and after being elected as the deputy president of MCA? How MCA could prosecute a person for an offence committed 2 years ago, I wonder. But that is politics; you can have a thousand of reasons to sack a person, especially if the person is not in tune with the president.

Fong Chan Onn pointed it out precisely the dilemma of MCA. He said MCA do not have any more capital for unrest in the party. The sacking of Chua would certainly trigger a further split in the party which already loses supports of the Chinese majority during the 8 March, 2008’s general election. Don’t forget Chua was elected as the deputy president even though the grassroots knew very well about the sex video, which to many was a frame up by his political enemy. Chua can only have himself to be blamed for not knowing that the safer place could very well be the most dangerous one.

To cane or not to cane?

Out of the sudden, Malaysia is in the international limelight again. This time around is because a Muslim lady was sentenced for 6 strokes of caning in offending the syariah laws of drinking alcohol. Then again, the Syariah Appeal Court has decided to defer the caning sentence as it is now the fasting month.

The Prime Minister has openly urged Kartika to appeal against the Syariah court to cane her. Sharizat, the minister of Women, Family and Community Development reiterated that the caning sentence meted out to Kartika is too extreme and the former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir also opined that the punishment was too harsh especially for a woman committed the offence the first time. All these experienced politicians and leaders know that the caning sentence meted out to Kartika has already attracted wide coverage of foreign media. Certainly, our prime Minister would not want to let the whipping sentence on a woman because of drinking beer to tarnish the image of our country. Such punishment will surely be deemed too extreme and violation of human rights by foreigners who drink beers just like we drink coca-cola every day.

The problem now is that Kartika is willing to accept the punishment. Unlike others who committed the same offence and getting the same punishments but went on to appeal, she didn’t appeal and thus the authorities got caught up. Now, to cane or not to cane is not just a simple decision to call for but a rather complicated and in-depth review on the present laws is needed to better shape up our legal systems so as to avoid such confusion from recurring.

Change....

In life, change is inevitable. Some changes are too drastic to bear with. Some people lost their family, house, belongings everything over a split second which is too drastic a change, so unbearable, just like those who lost everything during Morakot typhoon struck Southern Taiwan on 8 August. To the victims, such a change is too cruel as they lost everything including hope over a split second, not the fault on their own doing, just a bad verdict from mother nature.

My office is going to be closed down end of this month. I shall be relocated to Lukut, not too bad as compared to my colleagues who were earlier transferred to Banting or Carey Island. At least Lukut is nearer to Seremban. Unlike my colleagues who need to wake up early in the morning to make in on time to Banting office, I can still continue to enjoy my sleep until 7.00am then only take a shower, breakfast then drive slowly to my office, not bad, not too bad at all.

I have been comfortably working in Seremban since 1999. Well, a good ten years, sweet memories which I hope will last much longer but with the merger, a change is in the way to break the complacency that I have enjoyed thus far. That is what it is, life goes on no matter rain or shine. We can only hope that the change is for betterment.

Cadbury NZ stop using palm oil

The oil palm growers have initiated the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) a few years ago knowing the consequence of bad impression of westerners on palm oil production. The cultivation of oil palm has long been associated with the destruction of tropical rain forest and also its biodiversity. The planters are always in a defensive mode when talk about the lost of forest and biodiversity due to the expansion of oil palm cultivation. We have to somehow admit that oil palm is growing on huge areas which were formerly rain forest. Just like any agriculture activities, lands are getting scare and therefore evasion into forest reserve is happening.

Agriculture is a mean to improve social economy for developing countries like Malaysia and Indonesia as the industry provide work opportunities and also improve infrastructure especially accessibility in remote areas. As an agronomist visiting plantations in remote areas in Sabah, Sarawak and Indonesia over the past 10 years, I can appreciate the development of remote areas brought about by the opening of oil palm or rubber plantations. From year to year, I can see the development of township or prosperity of remote areas as a result of plantation expansion.

However, there are irresponsible planters which are simply disobeying the good agriculture practices while doing the land clearing activities. One such example is that they use burning to clear land knowing very clearly that zero burning policy has been mandated by the government. Of course it is easier to burn as everything will turn into ash and that will make planting work much easier. At the same time, there are good planters who dedicatedly carry out agriculture activities according to the RSPO requirements. Now, can you tell me whether palm oil is good or bad as far as environment is concerned?

Whatever it is, it boils down to supply and demand. Very good example is that Cadbury New Zealand has bowed down to the pressure of NGOs to stop using palm oil in their products. Palm oil has been associated with the destruction of forests and wildlife by the environmentalists. As much as we want to dismiss the claims by the NGOs on the issue of rain forest destruction due to cultivation of palm oil, the oil palm planters must also be more environmentally conscious when clearing up new lands for oil palm. Rain forest should indeed be deemed as a world heritage and should be protected as it plays a key role to slow down the process of global warming. We can’t be felling down trees indiscriminately as these trees are also meant for future generations.

Bigger payouts for directors despite economic woes??

Since the occurrence of world economic crisis, the employers have retrenched millions of workers or exercised pay cuts affecting the wage earners around the world. Not too bad for me, still keeping my job but the increment for this year was cut and the bonus is going to be affected as well.

But how come the public listed companies such as Genting, IOI, SP Setia, Ancom, Hiap Teck, Public Bank and so on can still afford for bigger payouts for their directors in the bad time likes this? Are the employers cut our increment and bonus so that they can better pay their directors? This is something that deserves the attention of Bursa Malaysia as it is clearly a victimization of the public listed companies on the wage earners.

Lack of empathy

Ma Ying-jeou is strongly criticized for inefficient rescue effort and also lack of crisis management when Morakot Typhoon struck on 8 august. People at Southern Taiwan are increasingly disappointed with their charismatic but lack of empathy president. More and more internet users have jointly asked for his resignation due to the high death toll arising from slow response of Ma’s government to exert timely rescue efforts. The severe flood brought about by Morakot has left a few villages in Southern Taiwan completed wiped out and a few families with all their family members killed.

Comparatively, the first lady Chow Mei-ching was seen to be giving genuine concern to the victims by listening attentively and hugging them. She was given a thump-up by the people for her empathy. Even the ex-President Lee Tung-hui was rated highly for his prompt actions and more efficient rescue efforts during the 921 earthquake occurred in 1999. That earthquake had certainly changed the political landscape of Taiwan as people in Taiwan were increasingly unhappy with the long ruling Kaomintang and went on to unseat its candidate in the following year’s Presidential election.

Ma Ying-jeou grown up in a political family and groomed by his father to be the President of Taiwan. He has never gone through the difficulties of life endured by most of commoners. With such a background, no wonder his lack of human touch in a time of crisis attracted so many critics.

What's wrong with mother nature?

When the sky is pouring down 2500mm of rain in a single day, you know that it is going to cause havoc. Morakot 2009 is breaking the highest known precipitation induced by tropical cyclones, causing catastrophic losses. More than 500 people in severely affected areas in Southern Taiwan were fear death. Most of them buried alive due to landslide, some killed by flood water. The government of Ma Ying-jeou is accused of slow response and lacking of crisis management leading to high death tolls.

What's wrong with Mother Nature? Why is that a quantum of rains which supposed to be precipitated over a year period being poured over a day? Well, there would be any answer to that. As we mourn for the deceased and pray hard so that more victims can be salvaged in time, we should perhaps think more deeply as to why the intensity of tropical cyclones become more severe and the weather change so erratic. NGOs and nature lovers are constantly warning the people the severe consequences of global warming and environment conservation, but is there any concrete measures being taken to prevent a further rot in this world full of sinners?

Smoke gets into your lungs

A friend from Sibu, Sarawak told me that when he was undergoing his routine medical checkup a week ago, he felt disturbed when told by the doctor to quit smoking. He told the doctor that he quit smoking 30 years ago and have not been smoking since then. The doctor was obviously puzzled as he told my friend that his chest x-ray reminiscent of a heavy smoker. My friend became worried as he thought that there could be some hidden causes to his unhealthy lung conditions.

Both of them looked at each other and then came to a conclusion that it could be the prolonged occurrence of haze that contributed to such unhealthy lung conditions. My friend is working in a plantation in Sibu where there seemed to be ongoing burning activities by plantation operators causing serious hazy conditions. Sometimes you can even get the burning smell all day especially over the past few months due to prolonged drought.

A couple of days ago when I was in Batu Niah, I noticed that plantation companies in interior areas were still carrying out burning despite of the unhealthy API in Miri. The authorities seem to close one eye on the burning activities carried out both by the natives and also plantation companies. As we always blame Indonesia for exporting smoke to our country year in year out during the dry spells, how much have the local authorities done to totally eradicate illegal burning?

Unhealthy air quality in Miri