More stories to be told

Thus far, Sepet is the only local movies which I bought its vcd. That was many years ago. My wife wanted to watch so I bought it quite reluctantly. I must say it was enjoyable to watch, somehow, if I don’t fast forward a movie that would be something that warrants patience for one and a half two hours. Sepet received many negative critics as expected, a Chinese boy fell in love with a Malay girl, what would you expect?

Yasmin is one of the local directors who have the courage to touch on sensitive issues, racial issues especially. You can see the massage she wants to deliver in many TV commercials she made for Petronas. Not only on racial harmony, but also on human value, family value, traditional value and society value and so many values that we tend to forget nowadays, busy for daily bread and butter. Some forget about their ageing parents in kampong, some neglect their young children, some simply too selfish to care about people around them. We are someone somewhere forgetting something.

Get well soon Yasmin, you have more stories to tell. In the present day where moral values are deteriorating fast, we need some fresh breeze, reminding us the difference of good and evil. Get well soon Yasmin.

Estates urged to improve worker incentives

Tan Sri Bernand Dompok said that the government will take initiatives to talk to plantation owners to improve salaries and other facilities so as to attract more locals working in the estates. Perhaps the government also realizes that over dependent on foreign labour would not do any good to the plantation industry. Oil palm planted hectare has been increasing exponentially in Indonesia over the past few years. It will come to a time that the plantation companies in Indonesia will pay the workers well enough to retain them especially if CPO price is sustained at high levels. We would have a tough time to get labour supply from Indonesia at that time and that would seriously hamper the plantation business in our country.

You probably have heard that the wages for plantation workers are not attractive and the working conditions and living environment are below par. How bad is bad? Let’s me share with you the stories or rather the hardship the plantation workers have to endure. One instance, the estate was facing the shortage of quarters and thus they cramped two families sharing in the same quarter with only one room. Now what happen if the couples want to make babies? Well they will have to take turn to use the only room in the quarter or they would have to do it in the field. No wonder sometimes we come across some used condoms at the fields. Some worker quarters in remote areas are without water supply. The workers have to take bath and doing washing work at the river, and depending on rain water for drinking and cooking. Plantation companies are making tones of money especially when the CPO prices are skyrocketing over the past two years. But what have they done to the workers which I regard them as the vein of the plantation as without them harvesting the crop, the plantation would not been making money.

When the plantation companies are putting up attractive remunerations to the top management, at least what they should do is to improve the living conditions of the workers. When the big bosses are driving expensive company cars, BMW or sorts, at least there must be transports available to send the workers to the hospital should they fall sick. Somehow I feel that the workers are suppressed simply because their employers have to be prudent on the cost in order to support the high remunerations of the top management.

Mad world

It is a mad world out there that we are living in. People are killing people for all sorts of reason. I was just coming back from Padang, Indonesia and fortunately not in Jakarta where two hotels were blasted by terrorists killing 8 people and injuring many. Then, there was this sad news of the death of Teoh Beng Hock, who was found dead as a result of multiple injuries sustained from a fall at the MACC building. No one knows for sure what causes his death. Conspiracy theories were spinning out quickly in the media and MACC was also fast to wash their hands, saying that Beng Hock was no longer under their custody after he was released at 3.45am on that night.

Whatever it is, MACC will surely be under close scrutiny in the eyes of the public. Its credibility as the sole corruption fighting agency will surely be tainted if they continue with “none of their business’ sort of attitude. Whether there is any foul play involved in the death of Boon Hock is anyone’s guess but more importantly, he is a victim of circumstances, he was not even a suspect, just a good samaritan standing in to provide cooperation to MACC. The family members especially his pregnant fiancée are still mourning and in great pain but sadly all you can see is how political parties, ruling party and opposition alike, capitalizing on this tragedy and trying their level best to politicize this untoward incident.

The police have been giving assurance that no stone will be left unturned. Let’s assume that it is going to be that way as there are so many stones left unturned and people are still searching for the answers. Who kill the Mongolian lady and why? The truth must be revealed so that Beng Hock’s soul can rest in peace.

English Proficiency and Ever Changing Policy

I received a sms from a friend FT Fun asking me to log on Tun Mahathir’s blog and vote for the teaching of science and mathematics in English. It seems Chedet is compiling the feedback from the public so that he can convey the message to the government. Tun Mahathir apparently disappointed with the cabinet’s decision to reverse to using Bahasa Malaysia and other mother tongues in teaching science and mathematics in primary school which will take effect on 2012.

Tun Mahathir, as one of the smartest person in this country has his points, English proficiency among the younger generation is rotting. Some graduates can’t even speak proper English rendering them difficult in getting employment in multinational company. But how representative is the poll put up by Tun in his blog is a question mark. Who do you think will vote in his blog? Highly educated people of course and are they representing the whole population?

Speaking from my own experience, I’m against teaching of science and mathematics in English right from the very beginning. When I was in primary school, it was a well known fact that the Chinese vernacular school put a lot of emphasis on mathematics teaching. Simple reason, how to do business if you don’t know how to count? My classmates and I were so interested in this subject as it is practical, applicable and also mind cranking. But when come to secondary school, mathematics was not that enjoyable to learn anymore. Not because that it is tougher but because of language barrier as you first have to master Bahasa Malaysia before you can learn mathematics. The terms and so on were entirely different from the primary school when mathematics was taught in Mandarin.

It seems to me that everyone is blaming the school or in this case, the government for the deteriorating proficiency in English. I don’t blame the school because education is not the sole responsibility of the school. It is also the responsibility of the parents, the family. Some of us grown up in a family where our parents speak only their mother tongues, no English. The only place we learn the language is the school. The school should in fact put in more emphasis in encouraging pupils to speak the language and not by drastic move to teach science and mathematics in English as that would probably complicate the learning process. At the end, neither here nor there, English don’t seem to improve and worst still pupils lost their interests in learning science and mathematics.

All this hiccups we see on TV and newspapers pertaining to the issues of teaching science and mathematics are mainly spurred up by highly educated groups of people, somehow their views are only confined to their own experience but not taking into the account of larger masses where students are from family that do not speak English at all. The dropout rates will become higher if the student lost interest in study and would do nothing good to the future generation, proficient in English or not.

Ah Beng's house in Padang, Indonesia

Ah Beng is an Indonesian Chinese operating a sundry shop in Padang, Sumatra Barat, Indonesia. I often go over to his shop together with the estate managers whenever I visit Padang. If you see his sundry shop from the outside, you would think that it is just an ordinary shop, no difference with any other shops operated by the Indonesian. The reason why my friends like to go over there is because Ah Beng sells some Chinese herbs and other Chinese foods that he brought over from Malaysia or Singapore. Apart from that, my friends also take the opportunity to exchange money as Ah Beng offers slightly better rates as compared to money changer.

So, what so fantastic about Ah Beng’s house? Hey, if you walk pass the shop into the living hall of his house, you will really impress with how Ah Beng furnishes up his house. Beautiful furniture, modern electrical appliances, classy decorations and so on which you can’t really imagine if you see from outside his rather mean looking shop. They say don’t judge a book by its cover, I guess that’s right. So I asked Ah Beng why not building a beautiful house instead, rather than big renovation on the inside but rather run down looking from the outside of an old shop house. Ah Beng heaved a sigh, since the Jakarta riot of anti Chinese in 1998, the Chinese learned their lesson. At that time, shops owned by ethnic Chinese were looted and burned and worst still, Chinese women were reportedly raped and killed. Since then, ethnic Chinese become more preserved in showing off their wealth. Ah Beng tried to put the black incident behind him. It was fortunate that no major incident happened on his family during the 1998 riot except that his shop was rooted, not once but many times.

We are in fact pretty lucky as compared to ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. At least, there is no major riot since the May 13, 1969 incident. At least we don’t have to hide how rich we are unlike Ah Beng who could only do a massive renovation inside his house while keeping a rather old and weary appearance of his house from the outside. Just look at the Istana Zakaria and another Balinese mansion in the making, you would wonder how rich our politicians are, and how pridefully they show off their wealth.

Don't kill your child to solve your problem

It is rather sad to read about a tragic death of a UTM student and her newborn child whose umbilical cord was still attached to the mother when they were both found dead by the university warden. It was believed that the pity girl and her baby had died for about two days when they were discovered. How tragic was that?

It is not uncommon to hear about sex before marriage giving rise to abortion, child abandonment and all sort of social problems. I was recently told by a friend that he was shocked when told by his 20-year old son just after the moment his girl friend gave birth to a baby boy. His son and his fiancé are both university students. My friend was shocked and angry as the son has been hiding the pregnancy of his fiancé for a good 10 months from their family members. I can’t imagine the stress and torture that both of them have to suffer for that long. It seems that young people don’t even bother to think about the consequences when come to sex. We cannot behave like stray dogs, fucking around and giving birth to more stray dogs. Please practice safe sex young girls or boys if you buggers think that you are old enough to have sex. Otherwise, a lot of problems will crop out. Girl especially should insist on safe sex, not only for contraception but also to prevent sex transmitted diseases, and don’t ever play a fool, these diseases can be life threatening if not treated.

I remember I read about a speech given by Mother Teresa on the annual National Prayer Breakfast on February 3, 1994 in front of Bill and Hillary Clinton and the whole bunch of important delegates, politicians and etc. She spoke about social problems derived from abortion. She said that the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion, because every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus. I’m not a Christian, not a Chatolic but I respect Mother Teresa as she has the standing of a saint, for her devotion to god and human race. She said that abortion is really a war against the child, and she hates the killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we can accept that the mother can kill even her own child to solve her problem, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? She spoke on fighting abortion with adoption, telling the frightened young girls please don’t kill the child and give them to her instead. Her speech was given a standing ovation even though Bill and Hillary and other politicians from Clinton administration seemed apparently unmoved as these were the people who pledged supports for abortion rights.

Whatever religion you are, we are all sinners, we make mistakes at some points of our life, some big some small. For those frightened young girls or unmarried young couple, please seek help if you or you fiancé are pregnant accidentally. Don’t ever think that you can solve the problem by yourself, seek help, there are a lot of counseling or community services offerring help if you can't get help from you own family.

Please don’t solve your problem by killing your own baby.