Love is blind

Sometimes I would think that animals possess more love than human. After seeing a few rather rare photos taken by a well known wildlife photographer David Tipling, I reaffirm my belief that love is blind, as even a pair of tidy reed warblers display unwavering love beyond our apprehensions. This pair of warblers was apparently tricked in to thinking that a cuckoo was their own baby, and thus feeding and taking care of this rather odd chick despite that it was 3 times bigger than a normal warbler chick.

It seemed that a cunning cuckoo had laid it egg in the nest of this pair of loving warblers. Although the warblers could have sensed something amiss as their offspring was so gigantic that it could almost destroy the small nest built by the warblers, it didn’t stop them for providing adequate food and keeping it warm.

If you think of ever increasing social illnesses such as abortions, child abandonment and other ridiculous abuses, it makes us feel so ashamed that even tidy warblers know better what love is all about.

No fire in Lin Dan

It is an anticlimax again as there would not be a Lin Dan-Lee Chong Wei showdown as anticipated for the Indonesian Open which is reaching its pinnacle this Sunday. Lin Dan who conceded a walkover to his teammate Chen Jin in the men single final in the Singapore Open last Sunday, went down to a less prominent player, Sasaki from Japan. Whether or not Lin Dan was still not recovering from the sickness which forced him to handover the Championship to his teammate in Singapore, I don’t know but surely it was a great disappoint to the fans that spent money to watch the game and millions of badminton fans around the world that are hoping for the two best players meeting in the final of Indonesian Open.

A week ago, Lin Dan was booed by the fans in the stadium when he turned up with compatriot Chen Jin to apologize to the stadium-packed fans and clearly the fans there were very disappointed with the way Lin Dan pulled out from the tournament despite of having the confirmation from tournament doctor that he was medically unfit. With the disappointment of Singapore Open, the fans would naturally anticipate for a fierce game of Lin Dan vs Lee Chong Wei in the ensuing Indonesian Open but alas, Lin Dan was defeated by a relatively unknown opponent at such an early stage.

Seu Bock, Chong Wei’s coach said that there was no fire in Lin Dan as he was not playing at his full force against Sasaki. Perhaps Lin Dan still had not recovered from the sickness or perhaps he was just putting least importance on these two tournaments.

Nor Ashman impresses

I must say that I’m very impressed with Nor Ashman, the son of our Prime Minister. Nor Ashman, who accompanied his father in One FM radio interview yesterday morning spoke fluent Mandarin to my surprise and when I heard his “Zhao shen, da jia hao. Wo de ming zhi jiao Ashman. (Good morning everyone, my name is Ashman),”, I was mistakenly thought that he was LeeHom Wang, the American-born popular Taiwanese singer-songwriter who spent years oversea and thus his Mandarin carries some mat salleh slang.

And I must say that whether or not the Prime Minister has any thing to do with his son kind interest in learning Mandarin, up to the extent of spending three weeks learning Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University in China last year, this young man is surely that of forward-thinking type who dare breaking the racial barrier and willing to learn a foreign language that even some of the Chinese in this country or our neighboring country Singapore are not kind in learning.

Some of my Chinese friends are so ashamed of speaking Mandarin in the public and some even worst, don’t even know how speak and write in Mandarin, as to them, speaking English or Cantonese are probably a class above the rest of the people, Chinese especially. But with China growing into one of the strongest economic force, the number of foreigners learning Mandarin is growing by leaps and bounds.

Many years ago when I was visiting Shanghai, seeing some Americans wearing smart suits relaxing and seeping coffee in Starbuck, speaking fluent Mandarin with their Chinese accompanies, then and there I realized that the world is fast changing, Mandarin has gained its increasing importance as China evolves into a major economic force in the present world.

娜姐的六四

娜姐以二十九岁法网夺冠属大器晚成，但对黄皮肤来说可算是例外吧。毕竟网球本非华人所长，自从张德培在十七岁那年轰动球坛，夺下法网冠军之后，就属娜姐今年的成绩最为杰出。但张德培毕竟是土生土长的美国华侨，和13亿中国炎黄子孙是有那么一点距离。李娜就不同，和刘翔，姚明同属中国大陆最顶尖优秀的运动员，所以凡是黄皮肤的没有不为李娜的法网夺冠而骄傲。

那场和卫冕冠军斯齐亚沃尼直播决赛我有看，之前和俄罗斯选手莎拉波娃的半决赛也有看。难得嘛，自从张德培挂冠归里后，没多少机会可以看到华裔和世界级网球员一较雌雄，更何况是大满贯。当李娜赢了比赛，兴奋的躺在球场上，让罗兰·加洛斯的红泥染红了球衣，成为中国以及亚洲第一个大满贯单打赛事的冠军。从那一刻起，李娜就成为13亿中国人的娜姐。

2008年奥运之后，李娜与中国其他三位顶尖女网选手正式脱离国家队，成为自负盈亏的职业网球员，也脱离了中国体育制度的管制。很显然的，单飞后的李娜在夺下法网冠军之后，已到达了职业网球员之巅峰。而这一路走来不为外人所知的辛酸，已是过往云烟。

六四本是悲愤莫名的一天。二十二年后的同一天，天安门虽风平浪静，但会否因茉莉花革命而再度风起云涌则不得而知。也许李娜在六四这一天夺冠有着宿命的特殊意义。

Bankrupt & Corrupt

The former mentri besar of Selangor is surely one of the richest people in this country although he is not listed in the Forbes’ list of the wealthiest. He can afford to pay cash in the range of RM 250,000 to RM 500,000 for several installments to a freelance landscaper for transforming a bungalow in section 7, Shah Alam into a Balinese mansion.

And the landscaper was a bankrupt and therefore not having any bank account and of course he didn’t disclose such a huge sum of money he received for the renovation job to the Department of Insolvency despite being a bankrupt. And perhaps that was what the former mentri besar had wanted, low profile, no record, no traces.

For ordinary taxpayer like us, we are required to keep all the stupid receipts big or small amounts so that if the notorious income tax department decided to check into every single detail of your expenditures, we have the evident to support. It is a requirement by laws anyway that the taxpayers need to keep the receipt for a minimum of 7 years for the purpose of auditing.

But for rich people like the former mentri besar, there is no such requirement; no receipt is required even though it was such a huge sum of RM 500,000. And he had trusted a bankrupt landscape architect so much that huge sum of money paid without any proper contract or documentation to renovate a bungalow amounting to RM 6 million. As they say, easy come easy go, I guess that’s what it is, the money has come so easily that it had been given out simply without any fuss.

Spending RM 6 millions just to renovate a house is quite ordinary for the wealthiest people but to a government servant; surely the people are curious to know how much actually a mentri besar can earn to allow him to live such a lavish life. A RM 6 million renovation plus the RM 3.5 million being cost of purchase and the mansion of the former dentist-turned-mentri besar will cost a whooping RM 9.5 million, let us jaw-dropping at the same time puzzling.

That Balinese mansion is without doubt one of the main factors leading to the downfall of BN government in Selangor.

Well done, Sime Darby

Most of my colleagues are wearing a smiley face this morning. Our CEO had announced yesterday that all estate workers including non-executive staff will be getting a pay rise of 20 to 30% effective 1st July, arising from a voluntary step taken by the company to increase the living standard of the employees, in the way meeting the goals set by New Economic Model.

For years, the associations of estate workers and the plantation employers have not been able to achieve a mutual agreement on the minimum wages and perhaps that’s the reason why the government have changed its strategy to let GLCs such as Sime Darby to be the initiator to increase the wages for the estate workers and hoping that the industry will follow suit. The government has no control over the private sectors and wages are by and large decided by the market force.

But through GLCs, the government can initiate some necessary measures such as what Sime Darby is doing to set a new benchmark in the way inspiring or rather forcing private sector to change. An increase of RM 200 may seem insignificant to many but it will translate into a huge sum of 88 million ringgit of additional annual expenditure on remuneration as it involved a total of 37,000 employees.

Come to think of it, even though the top management of Sime Darby is enjoying the big paycheck and all other perks, but yet, there are still those responsible for incurring billions dollars losses suffered by the company as reported over the past few years. Perhaps a RM 200 increase for workers will cheer them up for a little while but nonetheless, may still not be enough to cope with the ever increasing cost of living.

Some say this is an election gimmick. I would rather say that this is an excellent initiative for public good. For long the plantation industry has been neglecting the core of its work force, which essentially is those workers who involve in daily operations such as harvesting, evacuation, driving the tractors, spraying the weeds and so on and now hopefully with such a timely move, it would be able to attract more people to work in plantation industry which is currently facing an acute shortage of lobour.

iCloud......

Steve Jobs is an incredible person.

Millions of people get addicted to him not because he is good looking, as he is thin, almost gaunt after recovering from a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. But it is his ability to create unthinkable stuffs that attracted millions and millions of fans around the world. People are eager awaiting for his new creations such as iPhone and iPad and do not mind queuing for hours or days just to be among the first to own his new gadgets.

Steve had just launched iCloud, which is a free digital hub that allows the users to store and access content on the internet. This is incredible surely and the users can save on buying eternal hard disk and enjoying all sort of conveniences provided by this free digital hub. As Steve put it during the launching, his company, Apple is going to move the digital hub to the cloud and make it free for everyone.

But how secure is this iCloud on the other hand? If Apple can put up the device to let the users store their content on a free digital hub, what are the safety measures implemented to disallow unauthorized access? Or simply put it, can Apple access to those content and hijack the information if they want to?

Steve Jobs is an incredible person, and his Apple's co-founder, Wozniak was an electronics hacker.

Loud speaker

If you have a person or a few people who talk very loudly in your office, then they could instantly turn your office into a night market when they speak on a phone. it is even worst when the cell phones are ringing concurrently, you will hear all sorts of ringing tones or music which instantly turn your office into a pub. And most of the time, you will notice that a lot of people wasting time talking on some things which are not related to work at all when they speak over the phone in the office. The whole telephone conversation could be a few minutes but just to send across a simple massage and 80% of the time is wasted on gossiping.

That’s bad, I guess but some people just can’t stop talking as though they have a very big idea to share with and this idea is worthy of their precious time for a eloquent telephone conversation. Last night, on the prime time news, there was a piece of news likening the hazards of cell phone to cigarette smoking and instantly I turned to the lady sat behind me who was busying with her computer while talking with her sister over the cell phone for a few minutes, gave her a perfect-timed warning on the health hazard of cell phone. The lady seemed unmoved by the news; perhaps the enjoyment of talking supersedes its health risk, just like smoking. Most of us would not believe that using cell phone, which is such a convenient thing to do, can be as hazardous as smoking.

There are scientists believe that our daily exposure to electromagnetic radiation is 100 millions times higher than it was during our grandparents’ time. Wow….100 millions times is surely a lot but how many of us are actually concerned about it. Some people are even sending SMS while driving and the so-called electromagnetic radiation and so on is just like their mother’s nag. I guess that’s the nature of human, we always put enjoyment ahead of risk.