Kiddo had an early start today. After weeks of sleeping in she had to wake up early again today, and would continue waking up early for the next 6 weeks or so, when school holidays start again for the Commonwealth Games from middle March. She has to wake up even earlier than last year, when school started at 9am. School now starts at 8.30am.

She’s in “High School” now. Secondary school in Malaysia, also known as “Secondary College” here in Mount Waverley but generally known, in everyday conversation, as being in “High School”. She was visibly worried when I dropped her off this morning. Her head was looking down, and I thought I could see the worry on her face. Did I detect a near-tears situation? I thought I did, but I’m sure she would deny it… After dropping her off, I had to work my way through the heavy traffic, first through Stephenson’s Road, then on High Street Road.  I have to work out a way to drop her off without using these roads.

We prayed last night, and did so again this morning. It is always good to pray with her, especially good with Theresa as well. So I thought she would be alright even if she had to fight a few battles to settle into a new world.

She sounded excited a few minutes ago when I rang her. She even sounded disappointed when I said I couldn’t talk for long. She said she has an even larger group of mates now. I suppose she will soon issue a challenge again for her dad to find mates the rate she does.

I guess I miss having close friends. I am not sure now who I consider my good mate, someone I can share a quiet drink with. Theresa is probably my best mate now but kiddo would probably think she does not qualify, even if Theresa did, during those few very hot days last week, drink some of my beer.

I also picked up the new car today – a Camry, which felt awfully big. That was during lunch and about half an hour ago, I saw my boss filling out an order for a new Honda. We had overheard him (one “overhears” his conversation without any efforts – it requires efforts not to hear his conversation, which thankfully I have come to manage reasonably well) talking about the Honda Accord Euro, a few weeks back so my guess is he went for that one. Good choice. Fantastic choice. Frankly however, I had expected him to be a beemer man but I guess like me, cars are not an important thing for him.

Finally, another new start – Li Lin and her family have just moved into their rented home in Glen Waverly and I think Theresa has said we would visit them tonight. Hopefully they settle down soon and we can help them in whichever way possible.

Just like the opening of the legal year, for all things anew, I guess I say: for the grace of God go I, my friend.

 

I was on the train to the city this morning, wondering what the occasion was going to be like. There was a breakfast in an Anglican church, followed by a full church service. Unusual for a Monday morning, except this morning’s event was an exclusively legal profession one. It was the Opening of the Legal Year.

For egalitarian and supposedly laid-back Australia, the event was very pompous and highlighted the hierarchical nature of the legal profession. Breakfast was in a high-ceilinged chamber. The menu was Aussie (tomato brioche, bacon and mushrooms) but the atmosphere was almost Victorian in the English sense. After breakfast the lawyers lined up like so: the Victorian Governor, Judges with their associates and staff, retired judges, academicians, QCs’ barristers then finally (someone said the “real lawyers”) the solicitors. All these officers of the court marched in a procession outside the St Paul’s Cathedral on Flinders’ Street before entering the cathedral with quite a bit of pomp.

The cathedral was normal but beautiful. High-ceilinged, with the pipe organs almost hidden away on the front right  corner, rows of stained glass windows lined the high ceilings on either side. The wall behind the altar/front stage had a huge tapestry which draped almost the length of the wall. On the top of this tapestry was a painting of a palm, facing out, on something like a cloud. Above it, from left to right, were the sun, an eye and the moon. The Almighty watching over us day and night? Several more icons made their way down the tapestry. Among them, a “P” and “X” sign on top of each other, was on the left. I think they meant Christ or something. Directly across that on the left: doves on flames. Holy Spirit? Next row down on the left, an opened scroll – the Bible? To the right, a chalice with “IHS” on top. Then a huge cross  in the middle of the tapestry, with “A” on top and “Omega” (Greek letter “O”) at the bottom – Alpha and Omega. Right at the bottom, the last 2 icons. One of them I had seen on the door on the way in – coat of arms for either the Anglican church or St Paul’s or something local, maybe. A key and a sword cross each other, with the crown on top and the southern cross (I think – cant remember, should have brought a camera) on the bottom. The other icon had a fish, almost like a picture of some sushi restaurant, and an anchor over it. Right on top of the tapestry at the top of the wall, were another “A” and “O” combination.

I was soaking it all in, admiring the whole set up but then had to turn my attention to the proceedings. Some traditional hymns were sang, scripture read and prayers made before the sermon was delivered. Half hearted with no follow-through, the Dean was trying to preach of forgiveness and acceptance in the context of the recent changes to the law designed to address terrorist threats but it was a lame attempt. We caught the drift but he should have made his stance and his statement more emphatically. Or maybe he hasn’t had one yet.

At the end of the service the lawyers and participants made their exits in the same way they made their entries – in a hierarchical way. That was when I was struck again by the root of the English courts – it was all part of the Ecclesiastical court. As the lawyers, especially the barristers, were leaving their pews, thy bowed towards the front stage before turning to leave, just as they would in a Court of law. It was like an acknowledgement that this was where the Court of law began – in God’s courts of justice. There were no one in the front, so the bowing was to acknowledge God, I guess?

We all made our way back to the office around 11.30 am and I guess from now on it is “full-on” work wise, having trudged along in a slow start the past few weeks.

I don’t know yet where I will end up this year. I still wonder if I should remain in practice, especially in a suburban practice. Lately however, this has not been an important issue. I guess as long as there is work to be done I will try to do and try to enjoy it as much as possible. KISS principle, long learned but only now putting into practice on a daily, even hourly basis. After all the wise teacher in Ecclesiastes did say that we are to enjoy our lives, enjoy our food and drinks and be glad, then joy will accompany man in all his work all the days God has given him under the sun (Eccl 8:15) and that “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Eccl 9:9).

 

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Tomorrow’s the eve and we will attend a dinner party with Theresa’s 2 uncles and their families, together with a few other families, most of whom we have come to know a little bit over the past year. Theresa’s auntie would not be joining us as she would be with her husband’s (Marloney) family, who have been living in Melbourne for many years.

Apart from Christmas, Chinese New Year is one occasion during which I really want to be with my family. The more the merrier. It’s going to cost a little to be part of this party but it would be money I’d gladly spend. Sort of compensate for my lonely Christmas without Theresa and Elysia with me.

When I was a boy my brother and I used to spend the weeks leading up to CNY tidying and cleaning. My mother would drag out everything from every corner to clean out every speck of dust. The furniture would do an Aussie and spend hours basking in the sun. The frenzied working of dusters, buckets, brushes, rags, soap and mops would culminate on the morning of CNY Eve, to very quickly give way to the wok, pots and pans. The cooking activities would have started a few days before with cookie making, sunning dried shrimps, dried oysters and mushrooms. As the stoves fire away to a crescendo, we would be put to work changing sheets, cushion covers, fresh curtains, putting out the new rugs, and generally transforming the house into a fresh, clean and ornamented little chamber. The funny thing is we would then leave this beautified home all empty and go over to grandparents’ house for the Tuan Nien (Reunion) Dinner.

Grandfather would always have everyone over for the Tuan Nien Dinner. He would tell everyone very close to the day and that used to annoy my father. Everyone had to bring something and mother used to bring 3-4 dishes. Grandmother’s specialties were usually a pig tripe and pepper soup, a pork leg stew and glass noodles. Grandmother’s glass noodles were always very special. With everyone bringing at least 2 dishes and with up to 6 families there the largish dining table would be creaking under the weight of all the food. There was usually enough to feed the whole clan again for lunch and dinner the next day.

We usually stood around the 2 or 3 tables (one for the kids) while Grandfather said grace for the food. After dinner there would be a blend of groundnuts, mandarin oranges, mellon seeds, angpows and fireworks. It was the tradition that Grandmother would be the first to give out the angpows, on CNY Eve. Then Tibby, Thomas or Stephen would bring out some fireworks. The props were usually a lighted and broken mozzie coil, a few empty bottles (launching pads for “rocket”) and a few boxes of matches. It would go on and we wont be home till just before midnight.

Almost invariably, father would burn a finger lighting up one of those gigantic row of firecrackers. That too was tradition. We were told that Ah Choh (Grandfather’s mother) did that too – burned her own fingers playing firecrackers during CNY – so father was just keeping a family tradition alive, I guess. By the time we were old enough firecrackers have been formally banned, but of course that didn’t stop my neighbours from letting fly full bodied missiles which leave a bright bloodied trail on the roads the next morning. That is one part of CNY I wont be missing, especially in the serene suburbs east of Melbourne.

1 day after returning to Melbourne from their holidays in Malaysia, Theresa and Elysia were in the car with me when Theresa suddenly noticed how quiet everything was. There were a lot fewer cars on the road and it looked like a ghost town, she noted.

I love family gatherings but cannot stand the commotion of a festive celebration. Is that contradictory? I love CNY for all the getting together it brings, but hated the commotion which come with firecrackers and lion dances.

I feel old every time I philosophise but I’m going to do it anyway. Such really IS life – one takes the good with the bad. One bask in, enjoys the thrills, soak it up and revel in the goodness of something but puts up with and endures the bad which come with it. Work, parenting, physical wellness – they all come with bad parts to endure in order for the good bits to be enjoyed.

I’d gladly put up with the noisy, deafening firecrackers and annoying in-your-face lion dances, just to be with the rest of the family (my parents, brother and sisters and their families) again. Happy New Year and I will miss you all so very much tomorrow.

 

It was a “stinking hot” day last Sunday – the temperature reached 42 degrees. The previous day was almost as hot, made worse by the fact that we spent much of the day outdoors. We looked at a couple of houses in Chadstone. One was a beauty, but the backyard garden was a bit intimidating. Theresa and I both thought it was quite beyond us to maintain an Eden like this. The other was much newer but one which had rapidly descended into deepest darkest Hades, no thanks to a bunch of monkeys for tenants. The moment we walked in we could smell the previous night’s cooking. The tenants were Indians, or from elsewhere in the sub-continent, as the rolling pin, wheat flour and trays for serving the chapattis were all over the kitchen. The giveaway really was the fact that these monkeys (or pigs) were actually sleeping in their rooms as prospective buyers were walking in and out of the property! The whole house reeked, had grimy floors and walls and was pretty much a pig sty. All in all, it was another futile day’s of house hunting so we returned home to cool off.

Around 2.30pm Theresa and I headed out again, this time to a car dealership. We had talked about trading in her 5-year old Holden Vectra. She had driven her mom’s brand new Camry while holidaying in Malaysia so our minds were more or less made up. After some haggling, we signed on and the Camry should be the new family car soon.

This morning I rang Vic Roads about getting a special plate for the Camry. In Malaysia that would have required paying illegal money a few persons or asking the dealership or the salesman to “take care of things”, just to avoid getting the dreaded “4” or “5”. I had called the salesman here to arrange for our special plate, but he said to call Vic Roads directly! I did, and I wasn’t asked to “come in and see someone”. Neither was the call passed around. After following some automated prompts, the first human being I eventually spoke with gave me all the information I needed. The costs were exactly as I had read about on their website and all she had to do was to confirm the availability of the number we wanted. The special number was reserved, paid for and transaction “kow-timmed” within 5 minutes. The plates would be mailed to our address in about a week. When they arrived, all I had to do was call Vic Roads again to tell them I have received them and fitted them onto the new car, at which point they would assign the special plate to our car, retire the original number and life goes on.

I wouldn’t care to recall what I would have had to do with the JPJ in Malaysia to get the same things done.

Melburnians complain about Vic Roads more than Malaysians do about JPJ. Really. That shows how much nonsense and incompetence Melburnians tolerate. In my dealings with them so far, I have had next to nothing to complain about. I think an advantage of growing up in Malaysia is we put up with so much crappy service from public bodies that we feel Christmas has come early when we suddenly deal with regulators or public bodies who don’t dish out such rubbish. Vic Roads may not be a popular body here in Melbourne but they are okay in the books of someone brought up on JPJ.

I hope I wont have cause to complain about Vic Roads, and that I will always remember the rubbish I received from JPJ, just so that I will appreciate the contrasts when dealing with Vic Roads.

 

I sent this off earlier this morning – not sure if the address is correct or if they would carry it. The contents are same old same old.

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

Smita Elena Sharma may have re-affirmed what many Malaysians have experienced for so long. My family and I left Malaysia more than a year ago. Smita was right – we left Malaysia reluctantly, especially me. My wife and I had well-paid jobs, were debt free and had only 1 child. We had great friends, wonderful relatives and a strong network of social circles to make life a thoroughly enjoyable journey. We could see however, that it was a fast eroding paradise. Our employers were successful only because of political patronage. Our child remained a second class citizen as far as education was concerned, and this was going to be only the first of many more discriminations to come. The public institutions could not be relied upon to do the right things. In fact few bothered with doing the right thing. Malaysian society was disintegrating because the leadership was distracted in all sorts of ways.

We have been here in Melbourne, Australia for more than a year now. We had to start all over again. Re-build our careers. Start new relationships. Find and build our home. We bump into Malaysians all the time. They are all here for the same reason – to give their future generations a fairer go. They are here to raise their children in a place where work ethics, intelligence and industry count for more than skin colour and political patronage. They are here where wrongdoings are highlighted and challenged and their perpetrators are put under the spotlight. They are here to give and take in a fair exchange. Do we miss anything in Malaysia? Absolutely. We miss our family and friends. We miss, just as Smita wrote, the wonderful food. We miss the familiarity our previous home gave us. We were reluctant leavers.

Yet we were a lot more fortunate than many. “Poor Malaysian” for example, rightly pointed out that many simply can’t leave. Traditional destinations are not open to them as they don’t meet the criteria. There are also many who, by default, remained in Malaysia. They cannot bear to sacrifice the life they have in Malaysia. Lifestyles many more times more opulent than the one my family and I enjoyed. Some of these people have accused us of running away. Some say we are armed and equipped to fight for the less fortunate in Malaysia, to help bring about a more just and equitable country. By running away, so we have been accused, we have not discharged our moral responsibility to help bring about this change.

YMM in his letter “Not Giving Up Hope on Malaysia” echoes this tune. It is an admirable tune. I hope one day it becomes a battle cry to bring down this racial and religious barricade. Such lofty aspirations were mine too, some 15 years ago. When I first returned to Malaysia after studying in Australia, I vowed not to follow the steps of those who left the country. I decided to stay and make Malaysia my home, and try to make it a better home for my fellow Malaysians as well. Soon however, this decision is faced with the harsh reality of being a victim of discrimination. Let us not mince words, the vast majority if not all of us who are not bumiputras are victims of discrimination. We put up with being victims because the scraps are always enough to fill our coffers. In spite of such discriminations, most stayed on because there is money to be made. It wasn’t to fight for equality that those who could leave decided not to. It was the fact that there was material wealth to be accumulated and it was also due to inertia. Our lives have simply continued without us pausing to think and plan ahead and, if necessary, make major changes. If we do, I cannot imagine anyone seriously believing that Malaysia offers a better chance of a better future for our children than many other countries. The one thing which would swing my assessment is the total abolition of the current pro-bumiputra policies, in toto. I don’t see this happening, no matter what I do. Was it I who have tucked tail and left, or have those who, recognizing such a change would not come about, be the ones who tucked tail and remained? I decided I have not put up a sufficient fight after 15 years. I decided I was not about to spend another 15 years trying, while my child foregoes an opportunity to go and fight her battles elsewhere, where there is a fairer go for her.

Do I miss Malaysia? Only the people there. My family, relatives and friends. I remain a reluctant leaver. There are many things we do in life not because we want to, but we need to. Leaving Malaysia is one of them.

 

Yours faithfully

Ian Teh

Mount Waverley

Victoria, Australia

The attached email is self-explanatory. The Boss is still in a self-confessed start-up mode, not quite in full flight yet, hence this little distraction.

 

A few of us have guessed that it is the Australian Open. If so, that would be FANTASTIC!

 

 

Dear everyone

 

Tomorrow at 11:00 am or so, we shall leave the office for our magical mystery tour and come back here about 5:00pm or so (to make any catch up phone calls if necessary). We’ll travel together in Andre’s van to a surprise destination.

 

You can dress casually for the office in the morning if you like (although if you are seeing any clients in the morning then perhaps come in office gear and change into casual- that’s what I’ll need to do). You will need a hat and sun screen and shorts or whatever (it is going to be 35 tomorrow). We’ll get lunch as part of the tour.

 

Regards

David Sharrock

Accredited Business Law Specialist

Sharrock Pitman Legal

 

Suite 2, Ground Floor

40 Montclair Avenue

Glen Waverley  VIC  3150

www.sharrockpitman.com.au

Telephone : (03) 9560 2922

Facsimile : (03) 9561 3342

 

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Theresa and Elysia have been back in Melbourne for 4 days now. Today Theresa received an email from someone, a relative, asking if they will be in Malaysia till the Chinese New Year. I guess she didn’t have time to say goodbye to all relatives, and I guess there were no opportunities for all relatives to keep up with all the traffic to and from Malaysia during this holiday period. I couldn’t help but sense that given even more time, less relatives would have an attachment to us, and vice versa.

That’s the nature of relationships. If little or no efforts are invested into keeping the ties fresh and interesting, they dry up over time and soon perhaps, there is no cause to exchange words anymore.

I realise that with some email exchanges as well. After a while somehow the exchanges dry up. It takes efforts to keep the flow going and sometimes we all get caught up with the activities immediately surrounding us we neglect these efforts.

I remember the days when Theresa and I were dating, back in the days when the aerogram was the medium through which we corresponded. On a good week I’d get 2, even 3 letters in those blue aerograms, from her. To get these, I had to of course write to her. They took a lot of effort, but we didn’t feel like they did. We had to buy a stack of the aerogram, pre-fold them (to avoid writing on spaces likely to be torn up while opening the precious thing), use a good biro and make sure I think a lot before filling in the approximately 1.3 pages of spaces.

I had to think because it required planning. It had to be on something and have a reasonably smooth structure to the flow. It had to end before one runs out of space. It also had to end not too early, leaving acres of space which tells the recipient you didn’t have much to say to her. It cannot be written with suddenly shrinking letters or suddenly enlarged letters, for the same reasons. After the contents are finished, the address had to be written out in full with care, to ensure it actually arrives at the desired destination. The writer’s address at the back must also be carefully written, again in long hand, to ensure that it gets returned to you if for some reason it is not delivered.

Then it all has to be taken down the road somewhere or to a union shop on campus, to be dropped into a mailbox.

Contrast all of the above with the modern email. If you think of something to say to someone, you simply pressed “Alt-Tab” to get to the email software. You typed the first 3 or 4 characters of your recipient’s address and the auto-complete function completes this address. You then type out your message – as long or as short you want it to be, without pre-meditation – at the end of which you simply hit the “send” button. The recipient gets it in the next few seconds, or minutes at worst. The whole exercise can be completed within 15 minutes tops. I have regularly sent several messages in a day just to keep in touch, all taking less than 2-3 minutes each.

Yet in spite of the wonderfully convenient, truncated and near effortless tool of the email, we have not kept in touch better than in earlier, pre-email days. We still drop out of sight. Some relatives of mine have taken to constructing their extensive personal newsletters which are then sent out en masse, almost as a junk mail, which of course they aren’t. That is a wonderful method to stay in touch, and let other know what has been happening to us. Personally however, I prefer the quick 1-2 short paragraphs which are sent out every other week or so (preferably even every other day), even if they don’t say much.

I exploit the email endlessly. I love sending email messages and love receiving them even more (especially non-work related ones!). Like all correspondence however, the key to an interesting email exchange can be found in the word “exchange”. The more the merrier.