Indonesian workers slam anti-Malaysia activists

I must say Indonesian workers are among the toughest people capable of working under very harsh environments such as those at remote oil palm estates lacking basic facilities i.e water and electricity. They can survive without proper water supply and bathe themselves and doing washing at the river. I must say our oil palm industry as a whole owe a big thank you to the Indonesian workers working here. Without them, we would not be able to harvest the fruit bunches to churn out the much precious palm oil which is the third largest economy contributor of our country.

Labour shortage problem has become more critical of late as the labour requirement has grown exponentially in tandem with huge expansion of oil palm plantation both locally and in Indonesia. There are information saying that Indonesian oil palm companies are recalling their experienced workers in Malaysia to go back to serve their own turf. These Indonesian companies are willing to pay the experienced workers handsomely equivalent to what they are getting here.

It is disgusting to read about a 26-year old Indonesian maid was physically and sexually abused by her employers in Penang a couple of days ago. The errant employers are treating their maid as though she is a slave. Such irresponsible employers must be penalized by the authority as no one should treat another person as a slave, remember all men and women are created equal. The maids work for their employers in exchange of their wages and the relationship should be a cordial one, it is not slavery. If these maids are not up to expectation, go back to the agent for an exchange or whatever, but why torture them?

The strained relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia is not doing any good to both of the country. Indonesia is a big labour market and Malaysia requires a huge supply of labour, so why fighting while we should actually complement each other?

A victory at last.....

When two finest players meet each other in a final, a dynamic and interesting match is always expected. But in the past, we have seen too many disappointments when Lee Chong Wei meeting up with his arch nemesis, Lin Dan, the nearest one being the past Thomas Cup where Lee lost to Lin Dan dismally.

I guess Malaysian fans including me never give up on Lee Chong Wei or for that matter Koo and Tan whenever they play against the world best as apart from squash, badminton is our only pride at the world sport stage. We were close to win our first Olympic gold medal but it was Lin Dan who stood in our way, defeating Lee Chong Wei with much of an ease.

In Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, surprisingly there were many Malaysians supporting Lee playing in the men-single final. You could hear loud voices chanting Malaysia Boleh in supporting of the much confident Lee. When Lee edged Lin Dan in a closely fought match, the Malaysian fans roared in the stadium, it was such an ecstatic mood while our hero Lee Chong Wei smiled broadly, breathing a sigh of relief perhaps, long awaited victory at last.

The Japan Open should be a good boost for Lee, no home ground advantage for both, only determination set the difference. Lin Dan played brilliantly so did Lee but our hero somehow with nerves of steel refused to let hot favorite Lin Dan to tame him for another time. Congratulation to Datuk Lee but for how long can we depend on him to shoulder such a heavy responsibility of the sole flag bearer in the international sport arena.

Grandma slaughtering chicken

When I was a small kid living in a small town Arau the only thing I hated so much during festive season was too see how my grandma slaughtered a chicken. She would slit the chicken’s neck, then dropped the chicken at the side of our well and the chicken would then be reflectively jumping up and down, flapping its wings and making hell lot of suffering noise. Fortunately my grandma didn’t just chop off the head or otherwise it will be a nightmare seeing the chicken running around with their heads cut off. It would take quite some time before the blood was drained out completely before grandma started to pluck the chicken.

The scene was so bloody that come to think of it, I really salute my grandma for her bravery to slaughter the chicken. I can get fainted if I see too much of blood, so when grandma asked me to catch a chicken for slaughtering, I always ended up running away from her rather than helping her catching chicken.

Nowadays, some psychotic people are simply killing people as though they are slaughtering chicken. When the news of the millionaire businesswoman and her companions were brutally murdered and theirs remains burnt into ashes, I wonder what had happened to our society and why are there so many psychotics around us, murdering people simply because of business rivalry. Worst still, a reputable lawyer in Banting who has a Datuk title was among the suspects arrested.

Remember some days ago the de-facto law minister’s call to abolish death penalty and saying that it was wrong to take someone’s life? Well, he may just have to think over it again.

4 Siblings surviving on biscuits

Last week while I was sitting in a coffee shop in Sibu with a friend and his contractor, we heard a vocal singing a Mandarin karaoke from afar. As we were wondering who sang karaoke so early in the morning, we saw one handicapped man without both of his legs sitting in a wheelchair, pushed by another limping handicapped person, singing a mobile karaoke, begging for money.

The voice was so soothing that when you look at that pitiful man without both legs, it make you wonder how unfair god is, giving some and not giving some, putting such a good singing talent in a pitifully handicapped body. As the car parks outside the coffee shop were all full, the wheelchair bound singer couldn’t come close to us. Seeing that these handicapped men could not come up to where were sitting, a lady sitting next table to us stood up and walked out of the coffee shop to give some donations. My friend Chong Kok Siong quickly pulled out 10 ringgit from his pocket and I did the same, asking the nice lady to pass up the donations for us.

Such unfortunate things happen all over the world. Sometimes I wonder how lucky we are, to be able to live a normal and healthy life. Not rich enough to live luxuriously but mean enough to have our stomach full each day. But there are unfortunate people everywhere, some know how to seek help, some don’t. Just a few days ago there was a piece of news on the Star reporting on a poor guy running away from Along, can’t even feed his 4 kids with proper meals. The 4 siblings were reportedly surviving on biscuits and have never tasted a grain of rice in their life as the father was unemployed and can’t afford to provide the kids with proper meals and accommodation.

I looked at the pictures of the skinny girls and boy apparently under nourished; I shake my head in disbelief. At least what the father should do is to seek help, or to send the children to the orphanage house or to look for someone who is capable to raise up these kids. Certainly they deserve to live a better life, to get education so that they would not be like their father, living uncertain life, running there hiding here. They can have a better future if the father is brave enough to seek help but unfortunately their father chooses to let things go as what it is, letting the poor kids hiding inside an abandoned workshop, eating biscuit day and night to stave off hunger.

Sometimes I wonder why these people want to have babies if they can’t afford to raise them. Why want to let the poor kids suffer, as though suffering is a way of life that everyone has to go through.

The culture of Kiam-siap (Thrifty)

We had the opportunity to interact with the new acting President/CEO of Sime Darby via a townhall session conducted yesterday. After all the bad news and huge losses suffered by the Energy and Utility Division of the company, I guess the employees are eager to hear from the new President himself what he has to offer to make Sime a more successful company or rather how can he steer the company out of the recent blunder of the E&U division. Since the disclosure of the huge provision for losses for E&U, the share prices of Sime had been spiraling downward causing once the biggest company in term of market capitalization in Bursa Malaysia to shamefully shrink into the third position behind Maybank and Public bank.

This man, from the first impression is down to earth sort of person, not the usually flamboyant or gung-ho types of businessmen we always see. He speaks business and he means business. Hence, no extravagant expenditures one can expect from him. He had said that it was no point spending lots of money to decorate his office with Versace outfits and expensive furniture and so on but if there is a need to expand the business he will spend. Quoting an example of when he was negotiating the sugar business with Robert Kuok’s Perlis Plantation, he was rather impressed with the thrift culture adopted by Robert Kuok. The office of PPB was simple, and the breakfast provided during the negotiations was also simple, just coffee, tea and some nyonya kuih. But if you walk into any Shangri-La Hotel, you will get the first class reception with all the premier facilities. To make it simple, Datuk Bekke reiterated that, the culture of thrift will be the way going forward, spending money at the right place to generate more values for the company and shareholders, and stop all unnecessary spending.

He originated from Penang and thus I guess he knows a little bit of Hokkein, he mentioned the word “kiam-siap” which means thrifty and his speech was basically surrounded by the culture of thrift and cost efficiency. Unlike the usually gung-ho types of businessmen, this time around we have a person who speaks business and means business to helm the company. He had mentioned during the townhall that the “bleeding” has stopped with all the provision have been made to counter the losses of E&U Division. Hence let begin a new journey with a down-to-earth captain to sail through the varying sea and wind conditions, exploring the new frontier.