One would have thought US would be pretty good at crisis management. Many Australians were very impressed with the way the Canadians handled a recent plane take-off accident, where there were zero casualties. Equally impressive was the way the British authorities handled the aftermath of the recent bombings in London. It came as a shock to me therefore to wake up to the news that New Orleans is in utter chaos after Katrina’s destructive blast. What caused such chaotic aftermaths? Rescue missions had to be held back because of shootings in the streets? Why were there shootings in the first place? Was uncontrolled looting the cause? I’ve heard of New Orleans being a pretty free sort of a place but there appears to be absolutely no restrains of any kind going on here. I prayed for that city for the first time ever. I think it was the first time I prayed for any city in the US. Not even when the World Trade Centre was attacked, did I pray for the US. Later when Elysia and I prayed before leaving the house, we prayed for New Orleans again. It is tempting to think of it as a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah type of retribution, seeing that New Orleans is probably what one may call a city of sins of sorts, but it is a city full of loving, ordinary decent people, I’m sure. May God have mercy on the people there and bring deliverance soon.

2 senior Berkeley professors of law recently wrote a piece http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol2/iss3/art4/  suggesting Americans’ low contributions to charity can perhaps be nursed to more respectable health by creating a public registry where details of donations to charity are detailed for all to see. It was suggested that such publicity would encourage more generosity and discourage miserly behavior.  It is refreshing to have such clear, simple, unadulterated and intuitively correct propositions by law academics. Overseas Chinese guilds have for generations practiced such a public registry system. I remember staring at huge wall panels on which row after row of donors’ names and the amounts donated are all carved with gold calligraphy. Such public displays of donations have or course been instrumental in funding causes which would otherwise not have taken off at all. Chinese schools and Chinese hospitals have for years been beneficiaries of such largesse harvested largely through a public registry tool. Chinese funerals are another example. Almost all such funerals I have attended have cash registers at the front where cash contributions are collected and at the end of the 3 or 4 day wake, the family would announce the amounts to be donated to various Chinese schools or associations. Each one of these cash contributions is painstakingly recorded and such records are kept for generations. I also recall going to my grandfather’s Hokkien Association or his HuiAnn Association annual do. Go to any such Chinese guild and association functions and you would have public auctions of items where local tycoons would outwardly and ceremoniously attempt to outbid some other competing local tycoons to buy a tv or fan, to raise funds for the hosts. Leaving aside the fact that these bidders are often in a mode of drunken bravado, these “public auctions” can reap a small fortune for the guild or association. The idea of course is the concept of “face”. It has been said to be an Asian trait but I have always suspected it is universal. Everyone (ie all races) is conscious of attracting accolades or avoiding embarrassment. Heck even in my church in Klang, the monthly and special offerings are published in full. The official rationale is accountability but I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that it is a Chinese church and it is saddled with a lot of traditional Chinese practices, including keeping public registries of donations. It may not be biblical (do not let your right hand know what your left hand does) but it tends to work. As a Christian I should obey God’s words and not seek to have my charity be public knowledge but I have to acknowledge the efficacy of keeping such acts public. Of course it boosts the coffers of public charity.

Several days ago I received an email from my brother. Someone we know has been diagnosed with leukaemia. I immediately felt sick and thought of another late brother from the Klang church, who died a couple of years ago from the same illness. I wondered how he and his family felt, and I still wonder how they are now feeling. This has been a man who has taught me so many lessons in life. His was a life of simplicity and humility. He holds a PhD in public finance, from the University of Chicago. If he was Malay, he would have made it to the very top in civil service (Ministry of Education). He wasn’t, and didn’t. He is a Chinese, and despite his top class qualification and years of loyal service, retired with only an AMN or KMN or some other token reward like that. He always took the bus to work, all the way from Klang to KL, with his office in the heart of the city. After his retirement from the civil service, he joined a private college. That was the first time he ever drove anything remotely resembling a luxury vehicle. He was given a Volvo – an 850 or something like that. He looked good in it but was ever the humble person I had always known him to be. In family gatherings he would sit in a corner and would invariably take a snooze. When he is awake however, he is always keen to walk into some conversation and shoot a smart repartee to whomever he was inclined to have a go at, smiling widely as he does it. He was always wearing a cotton shirt and a pair of shorts. In church, I would usually not see him until after the service. He would then, usually, be in some corner having his coffee and biscuit, and having a warm conversation with someone. He was always pleasant when we spoke, and even if I don’t always show it, there was always deference in my heart. I was always conscious of speaking with an intellectual who didn’t behave anywhere near like one. He was a man of God as well. His mother was a lay preacher and I always remember her to be the one who brought my maternal grandmother to Christ. She was a frail, gentle and most pleasant woman, who had lost her husband while the kids were all still very young. If this sounds like a eulogy I hope I’m way too ahead of events. He can of course, be treated, although one of his daughters (a dear cousin) had in an email, said the prognosis wasn’t good. He is one of my many many loving uncles whom God has blessed me with. He was one of many beacons to my path in life, and because of him, I often try to think of how I too, can become a beacon to others. I have been praying for him everyday, and I hope to continue doing so. I hope they opt for treatment and try to keep this wonderful man shining for as long as possible, so that more can have their lives illuminated by him.

I have just assisted a colleague in attending to an elderly client. This client needed a will done. We are also assisting this client in the matter of a divorce consent orders. An elderly person facing divorce. The couple has been married for 25 years. The man is 79 this year. The woman is 68. I am so disturbed as I cannot get my head around this decision by what appears to be a lucid person. What may be the courses leading to such a drastic action? Can it not be salvaged? The man was 54 when he married her. He was married to her for 25 years. She was 43 when they married. At 68 she faces the prospect of living alone again. Was it such a bad marriage? At this stage of their lives, the marriage must be of a destructive nature for it to be ended in any means other than death. I am so saddened by this. The client appears to be such a pleasant person. I am sure the (soon to be ex) spouse is equally pleasant? How can 2 decent looking people be so bad together? Why at the throes of death does someone decide he or she has irreconcilable differences with the spouse and asks a court to dissolve their marriage? I find this appalling. In old age, all one has is the partner. I see my paternal grandmother’s eyes well up every time we talk about our late grandfather. It is obvious she loved him and still missed him, the last time I saw her, many months ago. I remember the odd occasion I caught my late maternal grandfather eyes, also tinged with sadness, when we had family get togethers and spoke about my late grandmother, who had died many years earlier. I see the different moods of my mother in law whenever my father in law goes away for a trip abroad. She is clearly happier with him around. Even though my own parents bicker at each other, I hear the love each has for the other in their voices. In my own case I love my wife to bits. I have loved her long before we were married and I love her even more now than I did before. I hope to love her for many years to come. I cant imagine ageing without her. That really is a major occupational hazard for family law practitioners. Yes, it is stressful to deal with business failures, business joint venture break-ups, landlord-tenant disputes, even sibling disputes. It is much less stressful to deal with supplier-customer disputes. I cannot however imagine how one copes with dealing with marriage breakdowns on a daily basis. We once had a casual chat in office about this and the answer was – alcohol. Many family law practitioners turn to the bottle as a way to deal with this sort of stress. I can understand why. The case I just mentioned was sad, so sad. So sad it is almost bizarre. If I had to deal with this on a regular basis, I wont discount turning to the bottle to clear my mind, everyday. As it is I had while practising in KL, regularly drank just to unwind. I wasn’t practising family law then, I never did. I shudder to think how badly I might have turned to booze had I been practising family law.

            There are a few little roundabouts which I must go through to get to work each day. As usual as I come to each of these little doughnuts, I stop to allow vehicles already in the doughnut to clear away. As usual these drivers, who unfortunately are not Malaysian-trained, tend to take their time and smile unhurriedly as they make their pathetic little manoeuvres. Unfortunately by now I have acquired some of these habits and as I take in some of these unhurried smiles, I usually smile back suggesting I too am not in a hurry, am ever ready to patiently wait for my turn and be pleasant at it all. In other words: shake off my hurried, impatient aggressive Malaysian driving style.  This morning however, as I approach the last of these little roundabouts, I saw a very unpleasant face staring out of one of these cars trying to go around. It was a young man, obviously very unhappy. Reminds me of Malaysian drivers, except he was a white Caucasian. As I took a second look – voila – he was driving a Waja. This is the first time I have seen a Waja in Melbourne. It is in the ubiquitous (in Malaysia at least) silver colour. I wondered what made him so unhappy – was it the power windows, the steering-wheel mounted radio controls, the cigarette lighter, the wiper or some other faulty accessories all Waja/Proton owner-driver have to deal with. Maybe that’s why Malaysian drivers tend to be unfriendly. It’s the Proton car they have been trained to drive on… The happy drivers are the AP drivers. Drivers with AP faces because they don’t have to use Protons… Anyway, it gave me another sense of déjà vu – imagine that, a first sighting of a Waja in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

I find it exhilarating to read recent exchanges questioning the basis and rationale of positive discrimination in Malaysia. The fact that they are so openly discussed is in itself a development one dared not hope in not-too-distant memory. To read of how Ministers and other potential leaders are openly (at least in cyberspace) derided and pilloried for blindly and stupidly parroting the alleged constitutional basis for the inequity and unfairness suffered by Chinese, Indians and other non-Malays all these years, is a refreshing breath of much needed fresh air. Then there is the statement by a former champion of Malay rights, Anwar Ibrahim, that the Malays’ special privileges should be scrapped. This is all shockingly positive news. Wonderfully encouraging news. Would they however, mean that Malaysia is well on its way to a more open and equitable society? It sounds like tiny first steps to me, but they represent the biggest steps taken in Malaysian history for as long as I can remember. If this carries, then it leaves corruption as the remaining malaise to be combated. Is this sufficient reason to contemplate making Malaysia our home again? Of course. Malaysia is where my family and I were born and raised. I’d return and call it home again if I so much as catch a whiff of potential change. The effects of such crippling policies however, have been far and wide. The twin terrors of NEP and corruption have been allowed to fester for so long, recovery will take be a long time coming (to say the least). Even if God allows Malaysia to get out of these woods the recuperation will take a long time. Certainly, such recovery if at all will not come quickly enough to warrant a reconsideration of our plans to make Melbourne our home. Malaysia has only begun waking up to the need to see a doctor. It is only beginning to be uneasy with these twin cancerous inflictions. It is only starting to ask questions. Whether it proceeds to have the problems properly diagnosed seeks treatment and accepts the need to adopt drastic measures remains to be seen. Only if it does, can we even contemplate the healing process.

Some people I have exchanged emails with accuse me of running away from the problems. They accuse me of not staying and fighting, saying I leave my fighting to others. I have never read Sun Tzu, so I can’t claim to be acquainted with the art of war but I know this isn’t a war I can fight and win. Knowing as I do, am I not obligated to salvage my child’s future and seek safer pastures? In any case, are those who choose to remain in Malaysia staying for noble reasons? Many remain because they have no choice. Emigration isn’t open to most people. Others stay because the price is too high. We spend a small fortune relocating, sacrifice a fortune by giving up vocations we had spent years building and give up on pleasures of extended family network and support. Then there are smaller pleasure like domestic help, good food, and laid back communities. All these add up to an enormous sacrifice which many are not prepared to make. Aren’t they running away from responsible action? Am I doing the running or are they? I have carried my fight elsewhere, where I think I or my child at least has a fighting chance. They have chosen to run away from this fight, as by remaining in Malaysia, they don’t have to fight. They already have a secured and pleasant lifestyle. I argue that this is temporal as their children are the ones who will have to make the sacrifices later on, all things being equal. If I am right, my accusers are the ones running away from the problem. If they want to avoid this cop-out, they should pack up their bags and go fight battles where their children can have better chances of winning.

The cold snap has continued to freeze the socks off south-east Australia. I again braved a 3-4 degree morning as I climbed out of bed a little after 5, and stumbled into the kitchen to put the kettle on. I shivered as I prayed and read the bible, sipping a beautiful mug of steaming hot tea. When I slipped into my running shorts, I felt the hair on my leg stand. I was very thankful I have an indoor thread mill to run on, and hoped the gym will fire up the heater nicely. It was only 6am but the gym was already abuzz with members dashing in out of the cold. Again, even after a good sweaty work out, it was still a little chilly. I had turned on the heater at home just before I left however and when I got home, it had been on for over 1.5 hours so the home was quite nicely warm. I returned just in time to catch Theresa as she was just leaving for work and she was almost shivering but thankfully there were no tears. When Elysia and I left home at 8.30am it was still only 5 degrees. She had decided against the extra jumper even after I insisted on it. “I should have demanded it,” I thought as I walked from my car to the office. It was still chilly. Anyway I hope the cold would take a break tomorrow.

                   There is a “cold snap” presently hitting south-east Australia. Apparently some storm out of Antarctica has generated enough momentum to carry all the way here. Yesterday morning Melbourne got all excited as it snowed in a number of places – something which hasn’t happened for 50 years. Elysia was excited too – last night over dinner she told us her school ground was covered with icy hails. All these of course meant that it has been rather cold. The temperature remained between 5-8 degrees for much of yesterday, and this morning one radio presenter suggested it was about 1.5 degrees! When I pulled into the parking lot of the gym at 6 this morning people were seen making quick dashes heading towards the gym, trying to get out of the exposed areas. Inside the gym it was less crowded than usual. I did my usual run, had a quick shower and despite the drenched t-shirt, I still felt cold once outside the gym. I had turned on the heater just before I left home in the morning, to make it easier for wifey and kiddo to wake up. It appeared to have worked as when kiddo and I sat down to breakfast, she suggested she was too warm and wanted the heater turned off! Of course she had an extra jumper on, like I had told her to the day before.

                   Yesterday, I forgot to take my mobile with me to work. I had left it in the jacket I had used when we dropped mom, sis and Stan off at the airport. And what was the result of this slight slip of the mind? 6 litres of milk, 4 loaves of bread and 2 cartons of eggs now sit in our fridge/pantry. Theresa and I both picked up the exact same things on our way back from work – each of us bought 3 litres of the same milk, 2 loaves of the same bread and 1 carton of the same eggs. Yes, we have been married for just that long… So we had French toasts for dinner (to use up the eggs and bread) and had pork strip soup (with beaten eggs of course) to go with the toasts! It was actually quite a nice change.

                   This morning we had a walk-in client. He was of dark complexion, had a middle-eastern sounding name, wore a black leather jacket and had a dark green beanie on. He was unshaven, and looked well-built. He spoke with a slight middle-eastern or south-Asian accent. He had a request which was made to sound unusual but in retrospect wasn’t at all unusual. He wanted his name cleared from credit agencies but said he didn’t want his name to appear on any database at all. In today’s context of fear and irrational responses arising from latest London bombings, these were facts which add up for an easy, though of course unfair, snigger around the office – “he even looked like a terrorist”… He appeared decent enough, spoke English reasonably well and appeared to be a genuine potential client with a fair dinkum request. If the same client appeared pre September 2001, no one would have thought anything. I confess that when he mentioned how he didn’t want his name to appear anywhere, that same unfair thought raced through my mind: “Why, I wonder – who are you hiding from?” I also wonder however if our thoughts and responses were totally irrational. What the London bombings manifestly established was that perfectly normal looking persons with perfectly normal lives are capable of hideous terrorist acts. The one unfortunate common thread through all these perpetrators appear to be their ethnicity which unfortunately has a common religious affinity. If one is middle-eastern or south-Asian and is a Muslim, it immediately arouses suspicions, especially if he is a young single male and has requests like the one we had this morning. I just don’t know what is right anymore. It is wrong to have prejudices but at the same time we cannot ignore the and events facts as they occur. We wrestle to maintain natural justice, fair play and rule of law without consideration for race or religion but events and facts tell us we can no longer have no consideration for race or religion. Or do they? We need guidance from our leaders. Political, communal and religious leaders.

Mom and May, with Stan the Man (my 5-year old nephew) leave for Sydney tonight. They’d be there for a just under a week after which they are off to Malaysia. May and Stan will then return to Xuzhou in China, 2 weeks later. There’s only a slight chance we will catch them if we make a visit to Malaysia end of the year. Otherwise, we wont be seeing them for a while. Mom seems to have enjoyed herself. We were hoping to re-acquaint ourselves with her cooking but she has cleverly stayed away from the kitchen the entire 10 days, so we didn’t so much as get a cup of coffee from her…  May cooked dinner for us once, so that was great. Otherwise, they pretty much put up with our cooking except for 2 meals which we ate out – one Italian and the other, Chinese of course. I am going to miss that many-people-in-the-house atmosphere. More people meant more work which made it difficult to feel lonely, and time really flies past you when you have a lot of work. With fewer people and therefore simpler meals, less work leads to more time to think about them… hmmm… I will miss them.

I have been a member of one gym or another for many years now. I started out at Equinox in the KL Equatorial Hotel, while working in Menara IMC. When my office moved to Jalan Tun Razak, I switched to the Crown Princess Clark Hatch and while there, used many Clark Hatch gyms all over Malaysia, but mainly in KL Hilton, PJ Hilton, KL Istana Hotel, and a couple more hotels in KL, Subang and Shah Alam, which I have forgotten what they are called. When I changed job and moved back to Jalan Sultan Ismail, I switched first to the Istana Clark Hatch then, back to the Equinox. Curiously enough, my gym experience in Malaysia started and ended with Equinox. My last 3 years (2002 – 2004) in Equinox were particularly filled with fond memories, as it was a quiet, friendly and very well maintained gym. By and large in any event, the gyms in Malaysia I have had the good fortune to be part of were very friendly. Maybe because I was a regular and was often the first one there on weekdays when they opened in the morning, but my relationship with the trainers and attendants were all very cordial and friendly. Of course, there were exceptions, as invariably there was the odd one or two which had something to say about my profuse sweat glands, especially at the end of my run on the thread mill. But like I said, a huge majority of them were very friendly and pleasant. Even the staff at the clubs we were member like the Klang Club and Klang Executive Club had friendly gym staff. It baffles me therefore to encounter cold and unfriendly staff I have been dealing with at the Fitness First gym in Glen Waverley, where I joined a little over a week ago. Maybe it is the size of this place. It is larger than any gym I have been part of, had something like 20 thread mills and equal numbers of cross trainers, step climbers and cycling machines. That is only one quarter of floor space dedicated to exercise machines. The other 3 quarters had weight machines, free-weights, cardio circuit area, stretch area, studio for classes, solarium, juice bar and refreshment areas, it is just so big. Yet I cannot come to grips with the attitude of the staff. They are not necessarily nasty or rude in any way, just not interested in chatting with members and making them feel at home. This morning I approached one of them to collect my freebies which I was supposed to be given when I signed up (they ran out of stock and asked me to collect it them few days later). Without nary a smile the young lady at the counter simply packed the stuff into a big and handed it to me. It isn’t anything to do with race either (before anyone suggested it) as that young lady was an Asian, and has that same demeanor as the other girl on duty, a lanky Aussie girl. Sigh… as friendly as Melbourne folks are in general, gym staff in KL beat their Melbourne counterparts hands down. Maybe it was my state of being soaked when I approached them – I don’t see anyone around sweatier than me – but even then the Malaysian variety were friendly regardless of my state of sweatiness. That’s the other thing – it feels good to sweat that way, again. So, whether they are friendly or otherwise, I go away happy. Tired but happy.