不如意事十之八九

最近总算领教了何谓不如意事十之八九。不如意的事接二连三的发生，真叫人透不过气。小事不称心如意也就罢了，当作磨练，大事可叫人忧心忡忡，那种折腾可是无比的煎熬。八月老婆动了一场大手术，当护士把躺在病床的老婆推进手术室时，握着她有点冰冷的手，看着她忧虑的双眼，我能做的也只有强忍着泪，说一些不知道有用没用安慰的话。之后数个小时的手术，也只能坐立难安的等。即便医生说是风险不大的手术，但那种等待并不会因为医生说的低风险而变得轻松，还是很难熬的啊。

结果我在等候室待不下了，便在医院的楼梯爬上爬下的，希望流一身汗也许能够减少忧虑和压力。事实上在那种非常时刻，运动也帮不上很大的忙。那种煎熬还是要等到亲爱的人从手术室平平安安的推出来才得以解除。

以为老婆逐渐康复，一切也该恢复正常了，又无端端的出了一场莫名其妙的车祸，搞到我车子修了整个月。以此同时，父亲突然病发入院，这些突发事件又把逐渐回归正常的生活扰乱了，心情和思绪又开始千丝万缕般的纠缠。

那天在上班途中车上听收音机广播，刚好听到戴晨志博士说起人生不如意事十之八九，劝告听众遇到不如意的事时要積極地往正面的方向想。想想也对，每个人都难免面临各种各样的烦恼；工作上的琐事，身体上偶尔的小疾，感情上的跌跌撞撞，夫妻间的争吵，兄弟姐妹间的不和…面临种种的麻烦，我们总会有惊慌失措的自然反应，想急于将它甩掉。但是，麻烦往往如影相随，让人无法彻底甩掉，还会让人跌入低潮。

生活中的麻烦一个接着一个的来，也只有像戴晨志所说的用正面思维来克服。麻烦与快乐像是孪生姐妹，只不过快乐到来时，我们不会憎恶它，但麻烦一来，咱们就怨天忧人。英文有句很实用的话“Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”. 说的也对极了，要是整天想着那些烦人的事，生命还有什么乐趣可言？还不如積極地往正面的方向想，虽然不一定会将所有烦恼消除，但至少可以让希望的种子在心中萌芽，就像在漫长的黑夜后必有黎明的到来。

度量须比肚腩大

人过中年，身体自然会多点病痛。小病也许是福，休息一两天，吃了药也就没事。大病可就头疼，除了患者身心受折磨，身边的人也免不了忧心忡忡。所以说健康是最大的财富，没病没痛比再多的金钱更难得可贵。要是不幸病了起来，又没钱治疗，那可是烦上加烦，苦不堪言。

像我们上班一族，为了事业打拼，往往忽略健康，当身体发出讯息时，大问题也就跟着来了。花钱治病是免不了的，但身心上的折磨更是可怕。当你躺在床上，翻来覆去，为了自身的病或是亲人的病而睡不着觉时，那可是会累垮的。那种无形的折磨是非一般的难熬。

所以说事业要经营，自身的健康更必须要细心经营。吃的，喝的，运动，睡眠，工作，随着年纪的增长，都该适当的调整以便让老化的身躯能够免于或减少病痛。对人对事，心态也该适当的调整。也没有必要对别人的闲言闲语，冷讽热嘲，而耿耿于怀。为了那些没有修养的人而动怒是何其不值和不智的事。

人过中年，度量必须比肚腩大。所谓宰相肚里能撑船，就是倡导为人处世要豁达大度，待人处事要宽厚仁慈。不然小事斤斤计较，心胸狭窄，小肚鸡肠，难不保气出一身病来。当然人非圣贤，要真正的做到宽宏大量，宽厚仁慈是难上加难。但只要不为别人的冷讽热嘲而动怒，就自然的快活些。

人只要活的自在，就仿如走路有风。以不变应万变，自然就会百毒不侵。

Roger vs Murray, Lim Guan Eng vs Chua Soi Lek

It was hard to stick to one channel last night if you’re a sport fan. The great Wimbledon final between Roger and Murray, and the Formula 1 at Silverstone were running concurrently and as the F1 went to Mark Webber at 9.45 pm, Murray was leading Roger with 1 set up and it was such an exciting tennis match between a legend and a highly talented British player so eager to win his first Grand Slam. After all, it has been since 1938 that a British won their home tournament at Wimbledon, expectations were high on Murray seen as the best chance to end the drought for so many decades.

He failed eventually despite of winning the first set and so close in the second but when the roof was closed and turned the court into an indoor one, Roger was simply unstoppable. Perhaps, he shoulders too much of the expectations of his countrymen as even the likes of David Bergkamp, Posh Spice, Duchess of Cambridge and her sister Pippa and Prime Minister David Cameron were there to lend him supports.


In the end, Murray choked when delivering his speech and his public tears just proved how much winning at Wimbledon meant to him. But he did his countrymen proud, 20-millions Britons were reportedly following the live telecast on TV struggled to contain their disappointments. Despite of losing the match, clearly the young lad has the supports of his countrymen undividedly behind him.

Switched over channel 301 of Astro and you see two so familiar faces finger-pointing at each other again for the second time and there was nothing new at all, not inspiring, not moving, perhaps a little bit disgusting especially when they took turns to throw slanders at each other. Talking about policies to benefit the people and country? Are these two guys genuinely thought that they are capable to bring about a significant change to effect a better live for us?

Watching Murray losing to Roger is more inspiring I guess, at the very least, there were no crocodile’s tears. Murray’s tears were genuine.

天门洞～999-级的挑战

还没去张家界前上网做了些功课，知道要观看美景，将免不了攀爬梯级之苦。所以去前做了些准备和体能上的调整，除了吃了些补充膝盖的营养素，还到离家不远的小山锻炼体力。但文字里的讯息和现实往往有差异，毕竟每个人的解读和联想不尽相同。没去前对独特的天门洞是多么的向往，所以当我们乘坐的小巴抵达天门圣景时，望着那999-级的梯级和这么一个大山洞时， 心里不免一惊，这上得去吗？

依照我们的内地导游的说法，年轻小伙子只需20分钟就能爬上山顶，中年人勉强的可以慢慢爬，老年人最好坐在山下的茶馆里悠哉喝茶免了攀爬梯级之苦。言下之意，游客们量力而为吧，不能爬就不用爬，大伙儿省下时间往下一个景点去吧。在我犹豫上不上的时候，老婆大人已经兴致勃勃的准备上山。我抬头仰望，999-级不是一般陡的梯级肯定不是20分钟就能上得了的，咱们自家的黑风洞都只不过272-级，这可是黑风洞的3倍有多，行不行啊，老兄。我们参观天门山前，已经在天子山，袁家界走了数天的山路，爬了数不尽的梯级，膝盖都有点刺痛了。

结果我们一团30个人少过一半决定上山观洞。天门洞的梯级虽然没万里长城那么高，但是整段路也是很陡，所以没走几步，大半团友都已气喘如牛。抬头看，山顶是那么遥不可及。为了减轻老婆的负担，我把她的背包拿了过来，以让她可以双手扶着扶手一步一步慢慢往上爬。另两位随团的好友虽年过半百，看到老婆脸青青，胆怯怯但还是坚持的攀爬，也勉强的拖着肥胖的身体边爬边坐，汗如雨下的上山。也搞不清我们到底是旅游观光还是在参加运动比赛，登山观景的毅力还是蛮强的。

所以膝盖虽痛，腿再酸，气虽喘，心跳得再快，还是征服了999-级的梯级。登了山顶的第一个感觉并非是给美丽的景色所吸引，老实说是那种如释重担的感觉。毕竟还是有点担心，万一头一晕，滑下去可不得了。天门洞的景色也不是那么的无可比拟，只是很奇特，那么大的一个自然形成的穿山洞也算少见的奇景。但是如果你往刚刚爬上来的梯级一看，看着犹如蚁一般的游客在山下攒动，有种自我挑战成功的意义，也算是欲穷千里幕，更上一曾楼的满足感吧！

下山容易得多了。我想我们是花了40分钟上山，20分钟下山。导游先前说年轻小伙子只需20分钟就能爬上山顶看来只适合运动健将，一些小伙子比我们这些40多岁的中年人还不济，没爬几级，就气喘如牛。一些老年人比我们还健壮，面不改色，轻轻松松的上下山。看来差别不在于年龄，而是一个人平时有没有适当的运动。到了山下，和没上山的团员分享上山的点滴，难免有点洋洋得意。

凤凰古城～夜与晨

抵达凤凰古城时天已黑，上山的路有点颠簸，所以巴士开得缓慢。而且路窄又多处修路，往往和反方向的车辆插身而过时，都让我们心惊胆颤。一到酒店，服务生们想必是等得不耐烦了，我们还没坐好，菜都一股脑的上完了，也都冷了。所以我们吃得有点赶，一半是饿，一半是赶着去看凤凰夜景。

虽说大部份的店已打烊，但古城内还是人山人海。虽说是古城，但在七彩缤纷的霓虹灯和热门音乐的衬托之下，走在古城里，其实和走在五光十色的城市也没多大分别。所以古城的夜景虽美，但因为霓虹的关系，就跟“古”字扯不上关系。

清晨六点，天才微亮，还没吃早餐，我和老婆再走进古城。沿途街道旁有少数民族在摆档子卖菜，卖吃的穿的用的，非常的热闹。赶着上学的小孩们和游客形成了有趣的对比；游客悠哉，缓步慢行的欣赏古城美景，而穿运动校服的小孩们却急步走，有些还边走边啃着面包，看着来来往往的游客，像是羡慕游客们的悠闲。

凤凰的美，在于沱江的水。所以古城的夜景虽美，霓虹五光十色，但见不到沱江的水，也属有所不及之处。就像一位美丽的少女剪掉了一头乌黑的长髮，虽看起来还是英姿勃勃，但是欠缺那种柔性的美。霓虹就像过量的胭脂，反而把凤凰的古典美破坏了。沱江清澈的水衬托着古色古香的高脚楼，有种脱离尘世，或者古时代那种不经工业化污染的美。

沱江上有一座石梳桥和一座木桥，往对岸走再回头看，独特的高脚楼尽入眼帘，和清澈的沱江水形成美丽的倒影。也许是接近上课时间，越来越多的小孩急忙的过桥到古城内的学校。孩子们都胆大心细，快步的走在石桥或木桥上，一点也不胆怯。

没有了霓虹，凤凰的景色反而更是让人着迷。瞬间像是进入时光隧道，仿佛走在古代的街道上，没有汽车轰隆隆的引擎声和废气污染也是一种难得的享受。一看时间差不多了，我们得快手快脚的往酒店回头走，也沿途拍摄了无数的美好风光。

Why bother on what people are saying?

I told a dejected friend that “life is not how people look at you but it is how you look at yourself”. He was dejected after being criticized by his boss for not competent and so forth and getting a poor rating for his appraisal for being “young” and not able to perform his duty as what expected from him.

Coincidentally this morning, there was a report on the Stars saying that employers consider fresh graduates as liabilities and would prefer to hire experienced and skilled professionals who can bring instant returns.

We all have gone through the process in a working life. We were all young before and joined a company with a paper qualification but with limited skills and knowledge but over the years acquired the skills and other requirements to be a competent worker, earning our living. But it doesn’t mean that everything will be a smooth sailing process. You may be thinking that with a degree in hand, you can accomplish a lot of things in your life and rise up to the rank, sitting up at a high position in a company and earning big money.

Sometimes, there are so many twists and turns come along the way and you need to bow a bit if the pressure is too great, just like bamboo, when the winds are strong, they bow but when the winds are over, they get straightened back. Just be resilient and the difficult moment will be over.

A poor rating by your boss probably mean that you would not get a good bonus or increment but it should not affect your internal peace. Come on mate, even your parents will have some preferences on your brother or sister so what more you expect from your boss?

As my friend was so down with the comments said by his boss, I then told him that “life is not how people look at you but how you look at yourself”. We bound to come across many challenges in working life. Your boss may not like you, or your colleagues hate you or your students wrote something bad about you. All these can demoralize a person but we need to keep our conscience clear that so long that we are not doing anything wrong, such adverse comments, criticisms, gossiping and so forth should not disturb our inner peace.

I advised him to go for a movie over the weekend and recommended him to watch the Avengers and hoping that he could gain some strength after seeing how the superhero settling down their differences and ego to save the world. I told him even the Prime Minister was also receiving some sarcastic reception from Bersih supporters during his working visit to England and what more the ordinary guys like you and me could expect? Don’t be so silly to expect everyone will like you even though you have done your part 100%.

We do not have the capability to please everyone but at least we can please ourselves by not being disturbed by all these nuisances created by other people.

Crazy season.....crazy finale

Fans of BPL throughout the world were probably experiencing one the of most thrilling moment on the last day 2011/12 season as it was down to the wire before the league title was decided with 2 goals scored by Man City in the injury times. All of us could have thought that Man City were dead and buried when Djibril Cisse and Jamie Mackie overturned Pablo Zabaleta's first-half strike and Man City seemed incapable of breaking the net strongly defended by a 10-man QPR.

It was as if on a roller coaster ride for both Man City and Man United fans. Most of the football pundits would have thought that It was going to be a walk in the park before Man City could lift the trophy that they last won 44 years ago. No body could have expected QPR showing that sort of gutsiness, sheer determination to fend off the might of Man City’s strikers but it is the beauty of football that keep us so attracted to it. Never say never before it is over. Even with the last 5 minutes of injury times, if the players push hard and keep on attacking, the unthinkable might happen.

When Aguero struck in the winning goal that crowned Man City the champions, thousands and thousands of city fans flocked into the pitch and the Etihad stadium erupted into jubilations. Fans were hugging each others with tears in their eyes. Some lying on the pitch crying uncontrollably.

Without a doubt, this is the most dramatic match ever seen on BPL and it is the most sensational day as well, Man U won 1-0 at Sunderland but not enough to stop Man City winning the title, Arsenal won 3-2 at West Brom and guaranteed themselves in UCL next season, Tottenham won 2-0 at Fulham but have to wait for the outcome of Chelsea vs Bayern and Newcastle lost 1-3 at Everton. What’s more? Ohhhh…QPR stay at Premier League despite losing as Bolton drew 2-2 with Stoke.

Many could have thought that Man City with the mighty wealth of their Arab billionaire owners could have easily assembled the best squad in the work and winning trophies after trophies but what we have witnessed over the so-called “craziest finale on a crazy season” by Roberto Mancini, it was not the money that matter but it was the people; the never-giving up players, the coaching team, the fans, and millions and millions of supporters following the live telecast all over the world, seeing their dream came through in such a sensational manner and that is sheer satisfaction, the unparalleled satisfaction.

Climbing 999-step to see a big hole

There are always memorable moments during vacations and sometimes there can be satisfaction beyond our own expectation. My wife and I were in Zhang-jiajie of Hunan Province, in China two weeks ago and we were amazed by the beauty of mountain ranges in Wuliyuan Scenic Area where the hills are so unique with pillar-like formations with their shape resembling human, animal and other things. The hills are named after their shapes. There most notable ones being 3-sister peak (三姐妹峰), Herb-collecting Old Man (采药老人) etc.

But there are simply too many attractions in Wuliyuan Scenic Area which covers 690 square kilometers and even after spending one and a half days over there, I felt that it was a bit too rush as there were times wasted on queuing for cable cars, climbing steps after steps and so forth. Instead of enjoying the beautiful sceneries, most of the tourists were busy taking photos and the major tourist spots were so crammed that if you walk a bit slow, probably you will end up being pushed by people at the back. You must be very quick in taking photos or else it will end up strangers blocking you.

After visiting China for 6 times I’ve learned one thing is for sure; people-mountain-people-sea (人山人海), every where you go, it will be crowded. So you have to walk fast, eat fast, ease yourself fast. I’ve never climbed so many stairs in my life during the 8-day spent at Hunan. All the mountainous scenic areas are testing your knee and the queuing is just killing.

But I find that both my wife and I had achieved something so special during the tour to Hunan. We’ve successfully climbed a steep flight of 999 steps to reach the summit of Tianmen Mountain where there is a big natural cave which is the so-called “door to heaven”. The local tour guide told us that it would take 20 minutes to climb up but we probably took much longer than that, 40 minutes perhaps. The steps even though not too high but the whole flight was too steep and could be dangerous if the wind is strong. Fortunately for us, after resting a few times to catch our breaths, we reached there despite the knee pain.

Coming down took us a shorter time as we didn’t stop at all; certainly it was more difficult to go against the gravity. Come to think about it, It was a sheer satisfaction and even though it was not the Mont Everest that we climbed, it will still be a unique achievement in my reckoning; climbing 999 steps to see a big hole, worth it. Just imaging, our own Batu Caves is only 272 steps.

A big one is coming in Padang?

There is an article in NST yesterday elaborating at length on high possibility of gigantic earthquake or tsunami occurring in Padang following an 8.6 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Northern Sumatra occurring on 11 April. Seismologists predicted that an earthquake could strike anytime in Padang due to the building up of stress in the areas concerned and warned that there will be very strong shaking and big waves may come 30 minutes later. It will be very devastating should that happen as Padang is so close to sea.

Padang is a town at Western Sumatra that I used to visit since 1999 for 2 or 3 times a year until the client terminated our service. The 3-storey office building of one of our client is just located a walking distance from the seaside and the previous earthquake occurring in 2009 had partially damaged the office building but it is still safe for occupying after some repairing. 

Come to think of it, the town is so densely populated and if gigantic earthquake really happens as what predicted by the experts than the damage will be far beyond our imagination. It could be as serious as the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami which killed 70,000 people in Bandar Aceh and a total of 230,000 people in 14 affected countries with Indonesia, the hardest hit country followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. 

Padang is just an hour flight from KL and should a gigantic earthquake occurs there I guess our country particularly West Coast of Peninsula Malaysia will be somehow affected. We always say that this country is safe from earthquake as it is located out of the ring of fire but even with the most sophisticated equipments, we can’t simply see what is going to come in the future. 

Furious teacher flung a sandal at a student

You need a lot of patience to be a teacher nowadays. As long as you are dealing with the so called Generation-Y or Millennial Generation or the Facebook Generation then, you need exceptional patience, self-motivation and superb anger-management to be a teacher. Some youngsters are spoiled brats, unlike those growing up in the sixties or seventies which are more humble, polite and respectful to their teacher. Our society has been changing over the past two decades and thus the teaching professionals such as teacher, lecturer and so forth must also change their mentality and also the ways to handle the student.

A primary school teacher was reportedly flung her sandal at a 7-year old disobedient boy for chatting in the class despite being reprimanded earlier. Fortunately the boy only suffered minor injuries but the parents had lodged a police report on the incident and demanded that the teacher be suspended from her duties. When a police report is made, naturally such incident will be reported in the newspaper.

Use your imagination; if you are the teacher, while you are busy teaching in the class full of enthusiasm and there’re disobedient students keep-on talking and making noise in the class despite your warning many times, what would you do? This kind of things happened very often when I was young in the primary and secondary school, the teacher would just fling a duster to the student and no one dare say anything. Sometimes the duster hit the student, so you can imagine the student’s uniform will be full of the chalk dust.

Those days, the disobedient students would never inform their parents on such incident unless very serious thing involved injuries or whatnot. The students even though naughty, are scared of the teacher. The parents no matter how still respect the teacher and if they know that their kids are being punished for some wrongdoings, very likely, the parent will punish their kids for another time at home.

A few months ago, the parent of a college student who committed suicide went to the college that so happened my wife is teaching, blaming the college authority for not alerting them on any abnormal behaviors of their son who committed suicide. They opined that if the college authority were more attentive and observing, could have help to prevent the student who suffered from depression from committing suicide.

The fact is; if we do not straighten the discipline of our own children, then don’t expect the teacher to do it for you. If as a parent you can’t even discipline your own kids, then you can just imagine how possible could the teacher doing it in a class of 40 to 50 pupils? Those days were different as the pupils were scared of the teacher more than their own parents but nowadays, the spoiled brat don’t even bother about their parents let alone the teacher.

What do we get from LYNAS?

The government is now fighting hard to ensure the Lynas project can be operational as it was initially planned. By the way, the factory is almost completed and there is no way back for the government despite the protest by the people all over the country, not confined to those living nearby Gebeng where the factory is located.

The Mentri Besar of Pahang even took a swipe on those who claimed that property prices dropped at Kuantan, arguing that the property prices had risen instead due to the setting up of Lynas factory. The fact is what do we actually get from Lynas? We import the rare earth from its country of origin far away by ship, then transport them via Kuantan port by trucks to Gebeng, creating a few hundreds jobs, making millions of dollars for the Australian company LYNAS but leaving behind millions of tonnes of waste which are potentially harmful even for our future generations.

There are possibilities that the waste materials could seep into the nearby Balok River and then the whole ecosystem will be affected, the fish, animal, human, plants and everything else you name it. Rare earths are  by itself harmless as what pointed out by the government but they are mostly mixed with radioactive substances that's why an extraction and separation process is required.

Many of us who are not staying nearby the factory area couldn’t be bothered by the protests against the setting up of Lynas. But come to think of it, what do we really get from Lynas? It is worthwhile for just being a country absorbing all the radioactive waste materials from Australia by merely creating a few hundred jobs?   

Our thoughts are with you, Fabrice

We don’t know exactly what’s inside our body; only god knows whether all our organs are functioning well inside. The EPL fans are saddened with the collapse of Fabrice Muamba on the pitch when his team played against Spurs on last Saturday. He was suffering from cardiac arrest and collapsed out of the sudden. Even the team doctor was saying that it was miraculous to have Fabrice staying alive after being in-effect dead for 78 minutes. 

I can’t imagine it sometimes, how could a seemingly healthy, young and physically fit footballer fall ill due to heart problems but things like this happen though not very often. We can only pray for his speedy recovery. Fabrice is a fighter on and off the pitch and hopefully one day he will be running on the football field again. Although things like this happened far away from our country but I guess thousands and thousands of football fans in this country will be saddened by such incident. We are entertained by all this brilliant guys through the one of the most watchable football league in the world. 

Probably Fabrice is a bit lucky to be in England, or to be playing with such a caring team like Bolton. The team doctor had said that 15 defibrillator shocks had failed to get the 23-year-old’s heart beating in the hour after he collapsed on the pitch, and it was altogether 78 minutes of heart stop-beating before Fabrice reached the hospital. Probably he was lucky that a consultant cardiologist at the London hospital who was at White Hart Lane as a spectator at that time ran on to the pitch to help. Fabrice can survive because the team and doctors never give up on him; they tried their level best to bring him back. Such spirits and determinations are truly commendable. These are the finest example of footballer, coach, doctors and good Samaritans. 

Get well soon, Fabrice, our thoughts are with you.

Don't take thing lightly

Visited my sister-in-law who underwent a knee operation yesterday at the Penang Aventis Hospital then I realized that very often, we do not really know how to take care of our self and tend to overlook on symptoms or signs given by our own body until it becomes something serious.

Perhaps some of us know how to take care of our car better than our own body. We send the car for servicing when it is due and spent a few hundred dollars sending it to the experts to deal with it. Nevertheless, when fall sick, most of the people tend to take the over-the-counter medicines and hope that everything will be ok by the next day.

As we get older, it is important to adjust our lifestyle to suit the decline in our physical wellbeing. You job a bit faster and the next day you will have stiff legs and you sleep a bit less the next day you will be drowsy and loss concentrations. That’s how it is. Take thing lightly, don’t get too emotional when you argue with someone or else your BP will be skyrocketing and that is really detrimental to our health.

Life is short and nothing is more important than a healthy body, mind and soul included.  

Don't take thing for granted

Travelling along Jalan Kelanang to my office I sometimes see underage kids riding motorcycles without wearing proper safety helmets. These kids shouldn’t be allowed to ride in the first place as they are too young to even own a license. I have seen for far too many times that very young children riding motorbike fetching 2 or 3 of their brothers or sisters at the back cruising along the road and I was thinking how on earth their parents could allow them to do such dangerous things. 

Sometimes, adults tend to take things for granted. Just like the mother of the poor little girls Dirang thought that it was safe for her daughter to go the shop nearby as most of the parents were also doing the same thing. But unfortunate things did happen from time to time and we never take it as a lesson. It happened before that a pity little girl by the name of Nurin was adducted and murdered and after so many years the police could have conveniently forgotten about the case and such pitiful things happened again and this time around Dirang was the unlucky one. 

There are monsters around us that hiding under the sheep’s skin that we might not know who they are or for what evil purposes they adducted innocent boys and girls. If there’s really a God, then God should punish them before more victims are harmed. If there is such a thing by the name of justice then it should be served quickly to prevent more innocent kids from falling prey to such inhumane acts. 

Coming back to my story of underage kids riding a bike speeding on a kampong road, sometimes, it is the parents to be blamed for allowing their kids to do such dangerous things. Just like a mother allowing her little girl to go to the shop nearby unrealized that her girl could end up being adducted and murdered, the parents should stop their kids without a driving license to ride a bike.    

Be careful on EPF withrawal

Many people fail to understand that EPF is a retirement fund; the funds that you need after you stop working at old age. In that sense, it should only be utilized at that time for retirement purpose. There are many articles flying around on the internets saying that the government is misusing the EPF fund and thus urging the contributors to withdraw the money from EPF and invest it in various types of mutual funds permitted by EPF in order to get a better return. 

I did the same thing a few years ago and recently when I received a quarterly statement from the mutual fund company that I invested in, I was pleased to see that the fund has grown some 40% over the capital that I withdrew over the years. 40%, not so bad isn’t it but bear in mind, if the share market goes upside down due to whatsoever reasons, the fund may potentially go kaput, and that is the inherent risk of withdrawing money from EPF for investment purposes. 

Unless you are thinking that this country is going bankrupt within your lifetime, your EPF fund should be kept intact in the Institution until such time that allow you to enjoy your retirement. Even though the dividends given over the years are nothing to shout about, ranging from 3 to 6% but don’t forget the compounding effect that the fund will generate and its snowballing effect. I was especially excited to see the amount of money generated from the 6% dividend declared by EPF recently, and as the fund growing bigger with years, even at 5 to 6% dividend will churn out quite a handsome amount of money. 

Wage earners should be especially careful on the withdrawal of EPF as our savings are limited and unless you job-hopping very frequently for a better salary or getting promotions faster than normal people, you can just expect a meager of increment in your salary from year to year. Whether or not our annual increment is sufficient to cope with the inflation is another issue. 

You will notice that a lot of people still continue working after retirement not for the sake of enjoyment but because they need money due to insufficient retirement fund.

EPF declares 6% dividend

I guess EPF contributors countrywide must have been very excited about the 6% interest declared just yesterday leading to high traffic on EPF website. I was trying several times to see how much I made from the 6% dividend on my hard earn retirement fund but failed to get into my i-Akaun due to high traffic. 

6% is the highest dividend over the past 6 years and perhaps it also clear the air that the Government has misused the fund and thus not being able to pay out good dividend. At least it is better than putting our own savings into the FD which yields very poorly nowadays. 

Some say it is an election year and the government is buying votes from the ordinary wage earners. It may be true it may be not, but for the ordinary wage earners, a 6% dividend is still a good return and kudos goes to the board of EPF for their good effort. What we do not want to see is that the dividend payout is being manipulated in such a way that come next year, after the election, we get peanut for 2012.   

Debate or just another political caramah?

The highly anticipated political debate between the President of MCA and Secretary General of DAP was a bit of anti-climax in my view albeit the first political debate of such nature and intensity conducted in our country. Both LGE and CSL were merely attacking each other but failed to conduct a healthy and fruitful debate on the subject topic. It was as though putting together a DAP ceramah and MCA ceramah into a same hall with their own supporters shouting from the floor and even the questions from the participants were highly polarized into DAP supporters criticizing MCA and likewise MCA supporters trying their level best to put down DAP. 

Even the former president of MCA “was put on the stage” by LGE and CSL with his usual cynicism, very quick in bashing his former president for not being able to conduct his duty as a president and thus voted out by its members. All in all, the debate was not a debate after all and LGE stick to his script by illustrating on the progress of Penang under the rule of DAP-led Pakatan Rakyat and highlighting more on the anti-corruption agenda while CSL was attacking DAP for its inability to stop PAS from setting up an Islamic state should Pakatan takes over Putrajaya. 

Both debaters were not focusing on the topic “Is the Two-Party System Becoming a Two-Race System” but kept on attacking each other just like the usual political ceramah we often see before election. If CSL thought that LGE, after becoming the Chief Minister of Penang should carry himself like the Emperor of Shu, Liu-Bei but not his fighting cock General Zhang-Fei, he should also look at himself whether he is not reacting like Zhang-Fei. 

The fact is that when the politicians are throwing slanders at each other, they failed to see that the rakyat will always be the judge at the end of the day. 

As both of the debaters were happily shaking hands after the debate, there was no winner or loser so to speak but I was not especially disappointed with the outcome as I didn’t harbor high expectation before the debate. The debate was proclaimed to be the face-off between the two Kings of the Chinese community no doubt but these two Kings are not the “Real King” that going to change our life anyway. 

So would the Real Kings debate? 

A step backward, a step forward

Sometimes, things that happen far away can influence us to a great extent. For instance, the spat between Lois Suarez of Liverpool and Patrick Evra of Manchester United are attracting far too many mouth-watering spats among my friends who are the fans of EPL.The fact is racism is not only an issue in our country, which is multi racial and multi religions. It is also an issue in developed nations such as US, England and other EU nations. 

That’s perfectly normal in my view as human are just human, have likes and dislikes. Some people could seem to be very open-minded but deep inside fanatic. That’s why people said don’t judge a book by its cover. Even the parents may have their own blue-eyed boys or girls. The fact is that too many people are using “racism” to attack others for ulterior motives such as to gain popularity or political mileage from their own race and in the way creating unnecessary tensions and disturbing racial harmony. 

For instance, the issue involving one Chinese customer and one Malay KFC worker at ICity recently must not be perceived as racial as it was merely an issue involving dissatisfied customer and over-aggravated worker. Just let the Police do their job and prosecute the offenders and all political parties should stay away from further complicating the issue.

I have already blacklisted many restaurants or eateries at Seremban or near my work place simply because of the bad attitude of their waiter or waitress. And sometimes it is no point to quarrel with strangers that we don’t even know. They could run amok and become extremely harmful to us. 

Sometimes a step backward do not make you a loser, likewise, a step forward don’t necessarily make you a winner.

Who is telling lies?

Who is telling lies now? The finance ministry officer or Wan Shahinur of National Feedlot Corporation? Wan Shahinur was saying that his company has the right to use the RM 250 million loan for whatsoever purposes, based on 1 2007 deal it had with the Finance Ministry as long as the company repaid the interest of 2% in full. On the other hand, a senior officer from the Finance Ministry had testified to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the NFC scandal that the loan cannot be used for other purposes other than that specified, and the ministry had never received any applications from NFC to purchase any property.

I think this is the only country in the world that giving away taxpayers’ money in the form of low interest loan to the cronies of the minister so easily with no proper guidelines and monitoring putting in place thus allowing all sort of misappropriations. Despite of meeting its original objective of cutting the reliance of the country on beef imports, such hush-hush projects given to the certain individuals are only good to making them ever richer and richer. Instead of rearing cattle for the sufficient consumptions of the people, the fund was misused into buying expensive properties such as luxury condominiums in Bangsar and Singapore. Perhaps these people could have thought that they are above the laws simply because their mother or wife is holding a minister portfolio.

When we talk about corruptions and most of us will be thinking about those traffic police asking for “duit kopi” for traffic offences or immigration officers harassing the illegal immigrants and so forth. It is high time to move up a nod for our anti-corruption campaign and an effective mechanism must be put in place to more thoroughly check through the high ranking government official and ministers. If we are only good in catching the small fish but the big fish which are more harmful to the nation are let off hook simply because they are protected by the powerful politicians, then MACC is as good as any another government agencies which are serving the government rather than the people.

Kneeling cats on 100 dollar note of Renminbi

Internets allow the people to spread all sorts of things in a split second and getting responses almost instantly. Some people can quickly become a popular figure or hotly debated issue overnight just because of the postings on the YouTube, Face-book, blogs and so on. Of late, a video clip on the assault on a customer by KFC workers at I-City has gone viral but my interest is on the “kneeling cats (朝拜猫) on 100 dollar note of Renminbi” which is currently the hot topic on the internet in China.

After reading the news, I took out a 100-dollar Renminbi and it was true enough that the geometrical lines on the left and right side of the Mao Tse Dong’s portrait did resembling 2 cats kneeling and worshiping an “emperor cat”. Although the official from the Centre Bank of the People Republic of China have refuted the claim and saying that it was purely the imagination of the internet readers but it surely do not stop the millions of people in China from speculating on the kneeling cats. 

    

Enter the Year of Dragon

Fortune-telling is a big business nowadays and if you’re at a bookstore you will see all sorts of magazines and books on astrology, horoscope, feng-shui, Tarot and so on. People regardless of race or religion seem to be very concern about predictions and their impacts on every scope of their lives.

In the past many years, I had read a lot of such books at the beginning of a lunar year just to have some insights into some information that is crucial to me over the next 12 months. I was particularly interested in the auspicious months that showing good sign for wealth so that I can try my luck on the lottery. Well, my experience taught me that those predictions from the feng-shui books were mostly far from accurate. There are 7 billion people in this world and how could it be only 12 Chinese zodiac or 12 horoscopes to predict the future of the astronomical number of the people.

Each of us is walking our own path and if you believe in horoscope, is the Scorpions like me who was born in Malaysia, sharing the same fate as those born in Africa, India, Indonesia, China, America or Europe? Geneticists will tell you that all of us are made of different set of genes and there will be no two individual that is sharing the identical DNA and how could 7 billion people be generally categorized into 12 zodiacs sharing the same fate?     

Life is unpredictable, every moment the clock is clicking, a completely new thing might just crop up and there is no way to predict it. Do you believe in the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar that 2012 marks the end of the world? Well, we have to wait for another 12 months to see if it actually happens. Could there be more natural disasters such as typhoons, earthquakes, wars occurring in the year of dragon? There are so many predictions by so many experts but whether these predictions are really going to happen or not only time will tell.  

One thing is for sure, there will be more Chinese couples getting married in 2012 in hoping to give birth to the dragon babies and such phenomenon are recurring every 12 years as Chinese no matter in the past or present, seem to like the dragon although this mystical creature could only be the fictional one. To me, that’s nothing wrong in reading into the predictions, the good one will make us happy and for the bad one, just take it lightly or take it as a precaution and doing things more carefully so as to avoid the bad one from happening. 

Lee Chong Wei makes us proud

It is surely a good beginning for the year of Dragon for our badminton player Lee Chong Wei after winning back-to-back victory in Korea and Malaysian Open. More importantly, he defeated two of his closest rivals for the Olympics Gold, Lin Dan in the final of Korea Open and Chen Long in the semifinal of Malaysian Open. It is also a bountiful Chinese New Year for Chong Wei too as the combined prize money was US 105,000.00. It was reported in the China Press that the stadium was full of Chong Wei’s supporters during the final on last Sunday, ended up the car park in Bukit Jalil was all full and even reporters were not able to park their cars close to the stadium. Such was the support given by the Malaysian fans to a hero that really makes up proud.

US 105,000 over a short period of 2 weeks is certainly a very good income but I guess nobody in this world will ever question whether Chong Wei deserves it. Indeed, he truly deserves it, for all the sweat, discipline and long hours he put in training and continuously improving his mental strength even defeat after defeat to Lin Dan and Chen Long and single-handedly carrying our flag in the international sports arena. He deserves it; he is the best sportsman that we have.

On the other hand, after the Auditor General exposing the “mess” of National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), and the opposition leaders digging deep into the so-called “messes”, we then know that the Chairman of NFC, who is the husband of our Women, Family and Community Development Minister, is drawing RM 100,000 a month. Their 31-year old son as the Executive Director is drawing RM 45,000 a month, another 27-year old son as the Managing Director is drawing RM 35,000 a month and another daughter aged 25 years old is drawing RM 35,000. The whole family is drawing RM 215,000.00 a month from the NFC and do these people contribute anything to the people?

Chong Wei makes us proud, he sweats and fights for his glory and for the country and we are proud to be supporting him as he possesses the finest quality of a sportsman, never say never to defeat and despite of fatigue, countless injuries and tremendous pressure on him, he stays on and never let his supporters down, and as a sole flag bearer, he boldly project the image of a fighter from Malaysia. Unlike the so-called “parasites” that are sucking bloods of the people, Lee Chong Wei stands tall in all occasions, in or out the court.

Steel-minded Kak Wan

Finally, Anwar was acquitted and the Justice had said that after going through all the evidence, the court could not be 100% certain the integrity of the DNA samples were not compromised and the court could not rely on the “so-called” victim’s testimony which was uncorroborated to convict Anwar. So this is the end of Sodomy II but we are not sure what will come up next, the sex scandal video maybe.

As Anwar was freed by the court, there were 3 explosions occurring outside the court complex, injuring a few and damaging some cars. It was so fortunate that no one was killed or else it will add another ugly incident to the more and more intense political development in the country. Who set up the explosives and why? Your guess is as good as mine but we may not even know who the actual culprits are. Just like Teoh Beng Hock’s suicide, was it really a suicide? Even the royal inquiry couldn’t tell us the truth, so be it, and your guess is as good as mine.

As Anwar was set free by the court, he thanked his wife Wan Azizah for standing by him and credited Karpal Singh as the intelligent defense counsel. In fact, Karpal before the court convicted Anwar, was so confident that he will walk a free man. As one of the experienced most lawyer in the country; he had probably found too many weakness or flaws on the prosecution side.

But Wan Azizah is such of an extraordinary woman. For so many years, she stands behind her husband despite all the humiliations of going through not other crimes but sodomy trials and all these years of sacrifices bring out the best of her strong character not normally seen on women politicians in this country. She reminded me of the Iron lady, Margaret Thatcher not for her political role but as a loving wife standing behind her husband.

When her husband Sir Denis Thatcher died in 1993, the Iron Lady had paid tribute to him in The Downing Street Years, writing "Being Prime Minister is a lonely job. In a sense, it ought to be: you cannot lead from the crowd. But with Denis there I was never alone. What a man. What a husband. What a friend". Perhaps Anwar should say the same thing; what a woman, what a wife, what a friend.