Tag: Asia

Date with Eusoff Chin – 22 Years Ago…


Somehow I managed to get 5 people to come along that day, in the Sultan Abdul Samad High Court complex in Kuala Lumpur. That was 22 years ago now.

I remember there were photos with my parents and grandparents and Tress. They must be in an album in the wooden trunk at home. Hopefully they’re not in the shed. Those photos were probably a tad dark, but I guess the Sultan Abdul Samad complex was probably dark generally – not a lot of light. Not especially since the presiding judge was Eusoff Chin, one of the more overtly corrupt judges Malaysia has known.

22 years later, my dad’s gone and so have my grandparents. My mum look well in a recent photo I saw in a facebook page. Tress has been wonderful and is my joy and comfort every day, far more than the event of 22 years ago has done for me.

I was called to the bar in Malaysia 22 years ago today. I have been a lawyer since, to earn a living. Except for a period of working for a Christian mission not for profit of course. I don’t know what my role as a lawyer through the years have done in terms of helping along for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven.

The journey continues. I still wonder if I ought to be doing something else.

Related articles

Short end of the bargain


I was at another CPD session yesterday but this time it was out of a work driven requirement. The ever growing need to reconcile corporate drivers (profit, margins, market share) with the equally increasing volume in terms of noises made, from the community perspectives. So a corporate entity seeks to report on its corporate social responsibility which was all the rage where I was some 5-6 years ago.

Apparently this has evolved and corporations are now required to report not just how it discharges its CSR, but also how its vision, mission, objectives, strategies, activities etc creates value not just for the corporation but also for its shareholders and all stakeholders at large.

That was why I rocked up to the session yesterday but as is often the case, the delivery was something else.

It was partly my bad however – while the promotional literature talked about “Global Reporting Initiative” and “Integrated Reporting” framework, the workshop was targeted at people who had to produce the report as a whole – albeit incorporating aspects of GRI and possibly, into the future, IR. Maybe the letters GRI and IR jumped out because I was looking for such material. I was possibly misled because of my own agenda and priorities.

Sometimes however, one is misled not because of undisclosed agenda or expectations. One is often misled because counter-party misled you. Tham Fuan Yee proclaims you are his first team, he publicly says things like it would be crazy for him to forge ahead without board support – it would be suicidal even, for him to proceed in this manner – yet actions and day-to-day words suggest to be his first team and to support him means no questions are to be asked. Any questions asked are interpreted as lack of support. That then gets communicated to everyone working for him. The Board is prevented from communicating to the same persons and so that miscommunication is never given a different perspective. Over time, the board is made to appear to be obstructive and unreasonable.

One feels betrayed and short changed. To be treated this way by a pastor hurts immeasurably. The damage is far more destructive than a day lost in mismatched training. To this day, our church life suffers and I feel like a homeless potted plant seeking to be part of a productive plot. Thanks Tham Fuan, for the continuing damage you wrought. Thanks to your harsh words and inexplicable nonchalance for so long, I continue to wander. Instead of gathering like a godly man would, you have succeeded in scattering. Tham Fuan, do you know how that is?

More “running” from Malaysia, and my (closer to “proper”) run…


It rained all day on Saturday. I was a bit restless as a result, itching to go out into the gardens to organise the pruning which has accumulated in a couple of corners in the backyard. The council’s “hard rubbish” week was to start today and I had wanted to clear my backyard off those pruning.

After our usual coffee at the Coffee Club at the Chase, we rang a new migrant couple and invited them to dinner. They were probably too polite or maybe they didn’t want to miss out on an evening of time with the kids (they have 3 young ones) so they suggested afternoon tea instead. It was a novel idea – albeit an very English and therefore old one – but as the idea was to get to know them and see if we can be their friends, we agreed and set it for 3.30. We then checked with Jason and Mel to make sure our suspicion that they would give this a miss was ok. We had asked them the previous night when they were at our home for the first cell meeting of the year, but we thought it was going to be dinner. Our dear friends spend Saturday afternoons swimming and/or playing badminton so dinner was going to suit better. The previous Sat had been taken up with another do at our mate’s home so two Saturdays in a row was always going to be tricky. So it was just Tress and I and the new family.

So we had “tea” on Saturday arvo. The family was lovely. They’re both IT professionals – very highly successful ones with large MNCs, but remained very pleasant and courteous. Their kids were a joy to be with. Extremely courteous, curious and obviously intelligent, they were very warm too, to boot. They would be such wonderful additions to the local community. They have been here only a few weeks, but they are one of probably half a dozen or so families we have met in the last 6 months or so, who have chosen to leave Malaysia. The trend is a continuing one and appears to be escalating. All Australia’s gain and Malaysia’s loss for sure, but I dont think those idiots who pretend to run the country care very much at all. Someone told me Idris Jala, a Malaysian government minister, recently went back on his views that Malaysia faced bankruptcy unless fuel subsidies were removed. No one in Malaysia thought this reversal had anything to do with any notion of an improving economy, and more to do with another minister who either did not know what he was talking about or one who lacked courage to defy his band of thieving and lying manipulators.

Anyway, this family appears to have settled in well and quickly and will no doubt contribute to Australia more positively and will be appreciated here more than they were in Malaysia. At least their kids can attend university courses of their choice and which they qualify for strictly on merit, instead of seeing buffoons take up places they dont deserve, in hopelessly narcissistic universities anyway.

———————————-

Yesterday in church someone asked me if I can recommend his grandson a job. He just finished his law course in a local uni and is probably having a testing time looking for work or deciding on the next step. I mentioned to his parents before, about roles in the State Revenue office but I’m not sure if he’s into that sort of stuff. Like I always suspected, if you finish law school without ever securing a summer clerkship at anytime or locking up an article clerkship, you’re in for a rough and yet very ordinary careeer. That is not a bad thing as lawyers who work their entire lifetime in suburban practice can do well and be happy but it does tamper with a young man’s often rose tinted view of a law career.

Having said that, I’m still struggling with what to do myself. Increasingly, spending time in my present role is just that – spending time. It is still underwhelming, uninspiring and I often go home with a flat feeling not from exhaustion but from being flat all day with little push or excitement. How one needs to be happy with one’s work.

So I’m hoping to make up for all that flatness by running a little bit more. I have previously resorted to food to do that for me – to provide something to look forward to each day – which has been a bit of a problem. Last week I clocked a 32km total, which is something I had not done for months and months. To run 8km a day again, for 4 days a week, feels a little better. It was laboured and it took a lot longer than it used to, but at least the run was clocked up.

This morning I did a 9.6km, albeit still at a slow time of just over an hour. I wonder if those 11km-12km an hour days are well and truly over. At least it made me feel a little better.

Related articles

Sang Kancil Forum


There was a forum in Malaysia, back in the nascent days of internet comms, which the late MGG Pillai used to contribute to. Someone mailed me a link which said this, almost 12 years ago!:

 

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [sangkancil] Malaysian Dilemma

Thanks Mr Teh and very well said.

>From: Bala Pillai 
>To: sangkancil@malaysia.net
>Subject: [sangkancil] Malaysian Dilemma
>Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 13:46:46 +1100
>
>--forwarded message--
>Date: Sat, 11 Mar 00 10:30:00 +0800
>From: TEH THIAN HWA 
>To: adnan98@pd.jaring.my (Adnan_xyz)
>Cc: bala@malaysia.net (Bala Pillai)
>Subject: Malaysian Dillema
>:
>:
>:
>
>Dear xyz,
>
>I refer to your email to sangkanchilers dated 10 March 2000. I am a
>Chinese and can therefore safely condemn the Chinese race's shortcomings.
>
>I make the following observations:
>
>1. The primary school teacher incident.
>
>i. I am inclined to believe one can find a vernacular school where when
>the race factor is eliminated, one finds a similar pattern of car
>ownership or qualification for an assistance scheme, between wage earners
>and entrepreneurs.
>
>ii. Perhaps the families which did not own cars had better furnished
>homes or were better clothed. My personal visit to homes of my malay
>friends and chinese friends tell me that malays in general place more
>importance on home furnishing than chinese. Down my street there are a
>couple of beemer owners, but their single-storey terrace units are in
>absolute shambles. My double-storey terrace unit looks like a palace in
>comparison, but my Iswara parked in front is somewhat of a giveaway
>
>iii. More pertinent may be why malay parents were more likely to be wage
>earners than chinese parents. Can one not turn it around to suggest
>employment opportunities unfairly favour malays? I know many small
>business owners who would not have chosen to start those businesses had
>they had better employment opportunities. Is there unfair treatment here
>and by whom?
>
>2. Special class during Friday Prayers
>
>Assuming the students who were praying did not know about the classes and
>would have attended those classes had they known, or assuming those
>classes were not specifically requested by those students not praying,
>the teacher was wrong
>
>3. Students Abroad
>
>I studied abroad. When I left home my father gave me enough money for
>three months. I started looking for part-time work on the third month.
> >From the fourth month on, I worked part-time and continued doing it until
>I left for home 6 years later. At the worst of times (during semester) I
>had one weekend job, working 10-11 hours starting at 5am on both
>Saturdays and Sundays - manual labour in fish markets. At the best of
>times during summer breaks I had four jobs simultaneously. Paper runs on
>weekdays at 5am-7am. "Regular" work as a cleaner/porter in a hospital
>from 8am-4pm weekdays. Ad-hoc work at university faculty in the printshop
>and moving furnitures, after 4pm. Fish markets weekends. Often I did
>paper runs and fishmarkets during semester. All this while, a family of
>malays live one floor above me. A married couple, both sponsored. Neither
>worked. They had children while I was working. Two of them, one after
>another. They had a good 10 years head start in raising a family.
>Assisted. I wasnt abroad because I was rich. I'm no Einstein but neither
>am I an intellectual slouch. I was in a top university in a top faculty.
>It now requires a near 99% percentile for admission. The family man was
>in a university a few suburbs away. In a faculty my cousin whose mother
>wished she had me for a son instead, would have gained admission if he
>tried harder. Merit? Deserving? Sigh ...
>
>I have another cousin whose father was schizophrenic. Left home when my
>cousin was only 2. My auntie became a seamstress to bring him up. There
>wasnt a year through primary and secondary school when he wasnt the top
>student. Guess who fished him out of the poverty cycle? The Singapore
>government.
>
>Of course, apart from my family man neighbour, I knew of another rich
>malaysian kid in my faculty, who was of the indian race. He drove a big
>Japanese car. Spent weekends on some waterfront hangout with local kids,
>sipping beers. Goes skiing during winter break, and out deep-sea fishing
>(read : sailing in some classy yacht, no doubt champagne laden) during
>summer breaks. He chatted now and then with me. I envied him whenever I
>do. I wished somebody had fished me out of my fishmarket routines. I know
>the malaysian government didnt. It plonked instead for that family man.
>And his wife.
>
>Also, the rich kids that malay student you mentioned spoke to? Maybe they
>had money because they worked. Not in fishmarkets may be, but maybe they
>worked. Certainly their parents did. Perhaps their parents were given a
>break from the vicious cycle by someone, huh?
>
>4, 5 & 6. Business cheats
>
>A pure, unadulterated truth - businessmen consider it a job well-done
>when they can squeeze maximum profits out of a deal. All businessmen do
>that. The fair ones try to give the party squeezed, some benefits so that
>they feel they have been fair. They squeeze some harder than they do
>others. Bases for differentiation? Anything. Race is certainly one way. I
>have been taken for a ride by a chinese, just because I speak a different
>dialect. Racist? Almost certainly to a large extent. Many chinese are
>racist. But that su
>
>
>Thanks,
>Teh
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, send a blank message to 
>
>or go to <http://www.malaysia.net/lists/sangkancil>
>
>

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
  • Follow-Ups:
    • Re: [sangkancil] Malaysian Dilemma
      • From: “adnan”
Related articles

Cleaning and Waiting


With kiddo away for her version of schoolies Tress and I have been filling our time with stuff that revolves around people in church and food.

Last Wednesday night after my brief appearance in a board meeting at work we went out to a Chinese dumpling place. Then on Thursday we were at an Indian place with a couple o families and on Friday we met with about half a dozen other families in Brian and Doreen’s home for a break up dinner. On Sat it was at Alex and Li Har’s, this time for a farewell for a family who was relocating to WA.

Finally last night another half a dozen or so families came to our home for a roti and curry dinner.

Tress parents are coming to visit in a little over 2 weeks and together with the dinner last night, we had good reasons to go on a cleaning spree over the weekend. Following on from the previous weekend, we continued to sweep, wipe, mop, wash, vacuum and dust. The cool weather helped heaps and kept us going till it was time to get ready to get to Alex and Li Har’s.

We haven’t got anything else lined up for our home the next few weeks. Things have come to a halt now and like someone said to me last night, it would be a really good time of just reflecting on what to do, next year in particular that’s for sure but also from a more general sense, for the next ‘x’ number of years. In a sense, all that cleaning is to be ready for the waiting which must happen now.

Bali Boy Family Cash Grab – What’s Wrong With That?


Family of Bali boy in quick cash grab – headlines to that effect in an online news portal seem to suggest it was a reprehensible act. Somehow, the opportunistic conduct of the family of the teenager arrested for buying drugs in Bali, was thought to be something many would tut-tut about.

It looks like no matter how much the society worships money, it still frowns on conduct which is self serving and opportunistic, especially when the community has backed the family up in providing moral support to the teenager and his family.

I must confess to being apprehensive about this family’s values and conduct. I have been guilty of thinking the parents must have in one way or another been involved in drugs themselves and that the conduct of the 14 year old probably reflects what has been going on in that household. That’s a prejudice one easily slips into, much as I dont want to find any excuse for my thoughts. I’m sure I’m not alone and many would try to rally to this young person’s cause and try and have this boy come home soon, to be spared of the emotional and mental trauma that he must have been going through.

So why then does the news headline imply impudence and invites sneers and even condemnation?

I suspect it is the apparent selfishness of the act – the abandonment of communal values as a price for self advancement and self improvement. Apparent apathy for how that conduct would sit with community expectation is probably what irks many. The world may turn its back on the cross and the selfless interest it represents, but it still wants behaviour which is sacrificial for the sake of upholding common values. I thought that was interesting.

Related articles

Second Attempt Does It for Li Na


Chinese Tennis player Li Na on the opening day...
Image via Wikipedia

Li Na won the French Open ladies’ title last night and while I dont normally watch a ladies’ tennis match I stayed up last night to watch this one. It was the second Grand Slam final Li Na has managed to get herself into, after losing to Aussie Kim in Melbourne Park earlier this year. This time, she beat the lady who stopped Sam Stosur last year, Schiavone – she of the Ah Hiiiii infamy – and became the first ever Asian to win a Grand Slam singles title. I had to watch this one for that reason and it was well worth it.

Well done Li Na, and may there be many more players from China and the rest of Asia, to add variety to the tennis scene. The commentators on Sky made some negative remarks about the both Li Na and Schiavone’s English language proficiency but why should that be an issue at all. Tennis has ceased to be an English speaking countries‘ game for a long time now and while 3 of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments may be hosted in English speaking countries, the players’ proficiency in that language should be no issue whatsoever. One day, commentators may need to be able to speak Chinese before they can be useful even as television pundits, so better avoid that issue for now.

Gong xi Li Na.

Related articles

Still Submitting?


The following entry was over 3 1/2 years ago, and I wonder what my friends and relatives in Malaysia feel now about not speaking out strongly against the Malaysian government today:

http://godsmustardseed.com/2007/09/05/submitting-to-authority/

The recent independent day celebrations in Malaysia have, as one may expect, stirred a number of publications into putting out pieces on challenges facing Malaysia today. I sent one of these (from The Economist) to a number of people and it generated a little heat. That has lead to the creation of a new blog for certain family members to further talk about this and other issues. It also lead to the discussion of that age-old issue of what do we do with a government we don’t agree with?

This latter issue was raised in conjunction with obedience to Romans 13. That chapter started with a call to submit to the authority of the existing government. Of course, in a modern democracy, you fight like crazy to have your preferred candidate making the laws and no matter what the outcome of your fight, you have to remain law abiding citizens. That is an obvious starting point. Our natural instinct tells us however, that it is a relative and malleable principle. It doesn’t take much to respond, at the very next breath, with a yes-but. The holocaust jumps out in a flash in a topic like this. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, modern Serbia, Rwanda and most recently, Zimbabwe are regimes which scream out against an unqualified plain reading of Roman 13.

The problem with qualifying any part of the scriptures is it invites analyses and second guessing, based on our values which are subjective by definition. When that happens it becomes a free for all and you might as well throw away the bible. On the other hand, you have references such as Acts 5:29 in which Peter clearly qualifies Romans 13. Is that the answer then? I guess it must be. You can and must only submit to the authority of a government which has not clearly violated God’s standards. Peter himself has echoed Paul’s advice – see 1 Peter 2:17. Yet Peter in Acts 5:29 clearly said obedience to God must take precedence.

 I have made numerous entries on my feelings on the deeds (or more accurately, misdeeds) of the rulers of Malaysia. I don’t know they are clear violations against God’s laws – I suspect so but have not clearly pinned it down. I have not openly rebelled against any particular law of Malaysia. I have merely spoken up against many of its policies and practices. I guess instead of staying and chancing deterioration and prospects of actually violating Romans 13, I opted instead to avoid the issue. I simply thought it wasn’t worth it. Maybe it isn’t the issue of not being law abiding citizens so much as an issue of opting out of an unsatisfactory regime

 

Related articles

A Niggly Weekend


After submitting an essay on Thursday night, I felt like a sudden depletion of energy ebbing away inside me. The next day I worked on a couple of relatively light files, then went home looking forward to a night with Tress, Kiddo and some friends in a little Singapore café in Boronia. Bert’s café on 146A Boronia Road serves Singaporean street food and the owner chef used to work at the Meridien in Singapore. About half a dozen families were there and we took up the entire café. The food was very good and the service was very friendly and quick, with normal reasonably low prices ranging from $5 appetizers to $9 main noodle dishes. I’d go back in a hurry if it wasn’t so far away from our home.

Sat after our usual coffee and brekky at our local (The Coffee Club at the Forest Hill Chase) we did some  quick grocery shopping before returning to do some overdue house cleaning. Tress cleaned up the garden and front yard, I vacuumed the house and cleared parts of the gutter as well as bit and pieces of other chores. Kiddo had a bit of a mishap on Mahoney Street… kua kua kua…

We decided to stay home that night and I cooked – we haven’t stayed in for home cooked food on a Sat night for a while now. The wonbuk tofu soup was very good for a cool night.

After the disastrous semi final game, I slept in and missed the fun in church early that morning when a team was putting the furniture back in after a carpet steam clean. A few of us – pastor and family, Jason and family – had lunch in Shangri La after church and we had a good time just catching up on a number of things. That afternoon was a bit lazy for me and I basically just vegged out doing next to nothing other than take the little Black Jedi out to the park for a walk – it was a gorgeous sunny afternoon so it felt perfect, except not the pressure builds up again for my next piece of work. Something on sola scriptura and prophesy… help me Lord.

Related Articles

Malaysian Tragedy


The recent statement by Raja Petra on the events leading up to his Statutory Declaration on Rosmah Mansor, and Din Merican’s response to that statement, really showed how things are done in Malaysia. Reliance on a couple of telephone conversations, which appeared really short on details, lead to a statements which the masses were too happy to jump on with conclusions.

Apparently a guy called Nik Nazmi Nik Daud orchestrated the whole thing. He duped Raja Petra into thinking there was an intelligence report by Lt Kol Azmi Zainal Abidin which proved Rosmah Mansor’s presence on the murder site. 

Raja Petra, for all his resourcefulness, relied on just 2 apparently quick phone calls to verify the existence of the report. He did not insist on seeing the report or even talking to the purported author of the report. He spoke to third parties on the strengths of their connections with influential people.

That unfortunately sounds all too familiar. Businesses are transacted, assets are purchased, marriages are instituted, and other major decisions are made far too frequently on the say so of someone rather than on detailed investigation of what is the substance of the matter.

“Is this speaker any good?” Yeah he is – so and so said so. There he is on the pulpit delivering hogwash based on non-existent exegesis and some snake oil theology.

“Is this company share worth buying?” Yeah it is – so and so said so. A couple of million ringgit later the buyer is cursing and swearing for losses made because some fund manager was actually trying to offload his holdings.

This reliance on “so and so said so” is mind boggling. Malaysians are just so scared, so lazy, of doing the hard yards. The investigations, the reading, the comprehension and analysis, are often all missing. The short cut is easy but often riddled with dangers. We deserved better. We had one of the best education systems in the world (had is the operative word now) – so why make ourselves look like lazy, uneducated sloths?

I know 20-20 hindsight is always 100% accurate but unless we learn to put in the hard yards by getting our eyes and hand down for some grinding work, we can only blame ourselves if things go wrong. RPK may have been well liked and trusted but despite his Welsh blood, he is as Malaysian as they come. Din Merican said Anwar said ok and John Pang said Ku Li said ok, and bang, the mother of all SD’s out there to spawn a whole saga all its own. Malaysia boleh? There’s a twist even to that stupid phrase.

Related Articles