The word Allah

Following High Court Judge Datuk Lau Bee Lan’s judgement that the word Allah is not exclusive to only Muslims, Muslims all over Malaysia has joined the Facebook group “We oppose the use of the word Allah by non-Muslim”. The number has grown to 100,000 in a short period of time while at the same time, only 3000+ people joined the group – We support the use of Allah by all Malaysians.

It’s very clear that most Muslims do not intend the word of Allah to be used by non-Muslims, as shown by the supporters of Facebook group, 100,000 versus 3000 (figures updated on 6th January 2010).

As I myself am not a religion expert, I will not comment much on this as whether the Muslims want to make the word Allah exclusive or not has nothing to do with me. But I am just wondering if the Muslims want to make it exclusive, why is it that in Johor’s state anthem, the word Allah is being used many times, eg. Allah selamatkan Tuhan, etc.

If Allah is only meant for Muslims, that means, non-Muslim Johorians should not sing the state anthem during school assemblies, public activities or any government official events.

And, is the Johor anthem only meant for Johor Muslims? Or it is supposed to be sang by all Johorians, irrespective of race and religion?

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Life expectancy at birth

Life expectancy rate of Malaysian male is 71.7 while 76.5 for female (http://www.statistics.gov.my/eng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54:life-expectancy-at-birth&catid=38:kaystats&Itemid=11 – Department of Statistics Malaysia). What does that have to say? It simply means female lives longer than male.

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Tan Kah Kee & Lee Kong Chian

要使马来西亚和中国两地的华人摆脱贫苦与无知，最关键的办法就是兴办现代教育。陈嘉庚躬行实践，不仅自己慷慨捐款，也同时致力唤起社会团体和社群领袖的办学意识。

 

陈嘉庚认为体育是教育的重要一环，因此为集美学村和厦门大学建造了运动场和游泳池。

 

中华人民共和国成立以后，许多华侨子弟归国求学。陈嘉庚协助安排他们在适当的学府就读。

   

陈嘉庚的第一届全国人民代表大会代表当选证书（1954年）

陈嘉庚的护照

 

陈嘉庚的生意失败后，他竭尽全力筹措款项，以求让学校继续运作下去。他一方面变卖自己的房产， 另一方面吁请李光前和其他朋友出手相助，创立了集友银行。

 

尽管当年经济处境艰难，陈嘉庚仍坚持要在中国创办一所大学。面对向外筹集资金不易的困境，他毅然独资办学，终于在1921年建立了厦门大学。在所后的世界经济大萧条时期，陈嘉庚即使在生意陷入困境的情况下，毅然坚持为厦门大学和集美大学村提供经济资助。

 

莱佛士书院的创立。陈嘉庚为莱佛士学院筹建基金捐资1万元（1941年）。

 

李光前出身寒微，这更使他对“教育能改善人生”这个道理有着更深的感受。曾立志成为工程师的李光前，非常清楚科学对现代经济发展所起的重要作用。此外，李光前对具备双语能力所带来的优势也有深切的体会，因此他在战后大力提倡新加坡推行双语教育。

 

李光前出殡时，数以千计的新加坡人为他送行，送殡队伍之长，为史上少见，场面感人。

   

宽柔中学的账簿，记载着南益树胶公司（Lee Rubbers）每月捐出的款项。

 

柔佛新山宽柔中学“光前堂”（1964年）

 

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World Heritage Sites

World heritage sites can be anything – a lake, mountain, building, city etc that is on the list maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term. A World Heritage Site is a place of either cultural or physical significance.

In Malaysia, Georgetown, Melaka and Mount Kinabalu are accorded the status of world heritage sites. That means, if you are a Malaysian, these 3 places are must-go destinations, if not, please don’t call yourself ‘Anak Malaysia’.

Personally, I have been to Georgetown and Melaka and I love both places, the only place that I am still yet to go is Mount Kinabalu.

Hehe, I shall make my planning to conquer this south east Asia tallest mountain.

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In case you fall sick……

Procedure	Average Length of Stay (Days)	Fixed-Fee Package (S$) Standard Room (4-bedder) (at Gleneagles Hospital and Mount Elizabeth Hospital)
Cardiology
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) (3 Grafts or less)	7	S$ 23,000
ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) Surgery
Tonsillectomy	1	S$ 4,990
Total/Subtotal Thyrctomy	2	S$ 9,000
General Surgery
Breast Lump Excision (2 Lumps)	Day Surgery	S$ 3,530
Breast Tumour Segmental Mastectomy	1	S$ 7,000
Stapler Haemorrhoidectomy	Day Surgery	S$ 4,370
Orthopaedic Surgery
Total Hip Replacement (Unilateral)	5	S$ 22,050
Total Knee Replacement (Bilateral)	6	S$ 19,000
Total Knee Replacement (Unilateral)	5	S$ 24,840
Urology
Transurethral Resection of Prostate (TURF) – less than 30 gm	3	S$ 8,500

 

I received an advertisement flyer in my mail box. It’s an ad by Parkway Health (Mount Elizabeth, Gleneagles, East Shore Hospital), Singapore.

In case you fall sick, these are the price you have to PAY!!!

So, let say you sit in office for too long and you got hemorroids, 痔瘡, please pay S$ 4,370. I think the price given is just the fee for operation, still excluding medication fee, hospitalization and other hidden charges.

Prostate problems are common among old guys. The price to pay is S$ 8,500.

If you have heart attack and want to do a bypass, huhu… you gotta pay S$ 23,000, cheap cheap nia lah……

Suddenly, I feel blessed living in Malaysia. Although this country sometimes ‘sucks’, but at least the healthcare is good. We can still access to very low-cost healthcare services.

Institut Jantung Negara (IJN) provides by-pass surgeries at a fraction of the cost only.

Affordable health care is one of the reasons we love Malaysia!

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Canadian H.E. David Collins

On 5 May 2009, His Excellency, David B Collins, the High Commissioner paid a courtesy call on the President of the Malaysian Bar, Mr Ragunath Kasevan.

I would not elaborate long on the meeting but would just like to point out a few main things that I am interested.

Firstly, regarding the notorious prevention detention, ISA, H.E. David Collins said that there was no equivalent to such preventive laws in Canada.

Secondly, legal aid in Canada is FULLY funded by the Government. Law students in Canadian Universities are encouraged to take up legal aid cases during their 2nd year study and that some legal firms were known to survive purely by handling legal aid cases.

Malaysia’s legal aid is currently provided by the Government as well as Bar council. Bar council is pressing so that the Government widen the scope and availability of legal aid services in the country.

For full story. See here.

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东方人对西方人的误解

我们东方人往往对西方人有一番误解。我们总以为“鬼佬”一定就是思想开放，热情外向，社交随便。

事实上，这可能只适用于一部分的美国人，对于欧洲人，他们其实是非常冷淡、害羞、保守的。我的一位朋友的朋友-玛丽，是一位瑞士女孩，她今年26岁，26年来认识的人不超过300人。天啊，这简直难以相信！我们从幼稚园、小学、中学、大学、工作、生活营、团体活动等所认识的人，随随便便都超过3000人吧！但是事实就是如此，欧洲人（例：英国人）就是如此不擅社交。

玛丽最近暗恋了一位合唱团的男孩，却不敢主动去认识他，可能是害羞？或是女孩的矜持？这跟我们印象中的‘洋人’真的很不一样！洋人不都是见到人就说：“Hi，how are you？”的吗？不管你是陌生人还是什么人，洋人不都是微微笑，与你打招呼的吗？现实里，其实并非如此！太奇怪了。

洋人分成好多好多种，每一种洋人都有不同的文化。就像我们东方人，有日本人、韩国人、华人等等。华人又分成中国华人、台湾华人、新加坡华人、大马华人等，各不尽相同。

开放的大多是美国人而已。欧洲人其实很讨厌美国人的。他们认为美国人没修养、没文化。

Those Americans are ill fitting yankees, uncultured and swaggering.

The openness we see is Americans, not Europeans.

玛丽读书时，学校很少课外活动，因此玛丽的社交圈子很窄，认识朋友是相当困难的一件事。玛丽不会主动去认识一个人，因为她认为这样很唐突，没有文化修养。比较妥当的打招呼方法是先看着对方，如果对方也和我们有眼神交触，那么我们才向他问好。

They call it civilised, politeness, ethiquette and culture.

欧洲人并不友善，他们其实是蛮冷漠的。

嗯，不知你对西方人又有何见解？

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疗养院a.k.a.老人院

如果你想在新山做生意的话，我介绍你开老人院。就像下图，租/买一件半独立式的屋子就可以了。

新加坡老人越来越多，不孝的年轻一代也越来越多。老人怎么办呢？很简单，每个月给个几百零吉，把他们丢来新山咯。

 

所以新山的老人院越开越多，生意还是依然那么好。现在搞到新加坡政府要制定法律规定孩子供养父母。唉，孝顺并不能用法律来约束的，那是教育的失败！

 

回头看看自己，我们老了，会是怎样呢？

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What are you worried most?

There was a survey done in UK with children aged 6 – 12. The survey wanted to know what were the children worried about most?

The answer was shocking! These UK children were worried about the bad economy and deteriorating public security.

HUH???? Economy??? How could children aged between 6- 12 worry about the economy?

I don’t even know much about money when I was 12 years old.

What did this survey reveal?

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What is the best profession (in 2009)

You are deciding on courses to take in universities. Your parents advised you to study professional courses. Okay then, but there are so many professional courses to choose from, accounting, law, dentistry, medicine, engineering, etc, etc. Which one is the best (currently) ?

I am going to give you the answer: dentistry.

If you are a doctor, you will also feel the pinch of the economic crisis because some not so well-doing patients are turning to government clinics and hospitals. But for dentists, they are still getting the business.

You might be amazed why is this happening. Those dentists should thank government policies for pushing the businesses to the private clinics. The government intends to increase public satisfaction towards dental clinics so they came out with a 30-minutes waiting time policy. Every patients need not wait for more than 30 minutes to see a dentist.

But the real life is some minor surgeries or tooth extractions might take about 30 –45 minutes or more than that. So what do the dentists in government clinics do is they will ask the patients to go home first and make an appointment (to avoid the patients from waiting too long in the clinic, complying to the 30-minutes policy). The appointment is usually after 3 or 4 months as the waiting list is long.

Imagine you are the patients- having toothache, and the dentist in government clinics asking you to go home and come back after 4 months! Crazy, you are already so painful and you can’t even chew your dinner!

You guess, what happens next? Most patients will head for private dental clinics to have their tooth extracted! They can’t stand for the pain for 3 or 4 months! That would be unbearable!

So, that’s the reason the private dentists are still getting businesses although the economic is bad. According to a reliable source, some dentists in KL are making millions per year. One friend of mine is making more than one thousand per week by working just part-time in private clinics (he is now doing his compulsory service in government clinic).

The conclusion is: Malaysians are getting more health conscious, they take care of their health, they eat well. But they still fail to pay attention to their teeth and they still go to the dentists and pay a handsome load of cash to them to have their dental problems fixed.

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Yes Man

Have you watched the Hollywood movie “Yes Man”? This story is actually based on a book written by Daniel Wallace.

Ironically, the concept for Yes Man came out of heartbreak. Wallace had broken up with his girlfriend and was depressed. “You close up a bit when something like that happens,” he recalls. “Saying ‘No’ when your friends ask you to go out becomes a habit.”

Then he met a mystery Indian man on a London bus who advised him that the way out of his malaise would be to say “Yes” to every request.

Danny decided to try it for 24 hours: “The first thing was a phone call from a man asking if I wanted double glazing. I said ‘Yes’ and we arranged a meeting.

Then I remembered I already had double glazing, so I told him. He asked, ‘Are you wasting my time?’’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ I realised there and then that this could be interesting.”

Giving affirmative answers over the next six months resulted in Wallace buying a car he did not want, flying to Singapore for a weekend when a magazine advertisement suggested it and to Holland when invited by e-mail scammers. He spent time in Wales with a hypnotist and his fez-wearing dog (who can also hypnotise people) and had to endure an excruciating dinner with his ex and her new boyfriend when they asked him to join them.

Yet, in the end, everything worked out for Wallace. Saying “Yes” to a request from an Australian girl called Lizzie to buy her a ticket for the Edinburgh Festival led to him finding a new girlfriend. The six months ended with the biggest “Yes” of all – Danny and Lizzie are now married.

“The experiment opened my eyes to the realisation that ‘Yes’ is a word of change and ‘No’ is a dead end. You should try to say ‘Yes’ to everything because how do you know what the right thing to do is?”

The Yes Man’s three easy steps to a more positive life:

1. Smile More

2. Talk to a stranger

3. Take a chance

SAY “YESSSSSSSSSSSSsssssss”!!!!!!

Source: Reader’s Digest, Feb 2009, Page 74-75.

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Bar membership

I visited Malaysian Bar Council’s website today and found something interesting.

A person is disqualified from being a member of the Bar Council or a Bar Committee, or of any committee of the Bar Council or a Bar Committee -

(a) if he is a member of either House of Parliament, or of a State Legislative Assembly, or of any local authority; or

(b) if he holds any office in-

(i) any trade union; or
(ii) any political party; or
(iii) any other organisation, body or group of persons whatsoever, whether or not it is established under any law, whether it is in Malaysia or outside Malaysia, which has objectives or carries on activities which can be construed as being political in nature, character or effect, or which is declared by the Attorney General by order published in the Gazette, to be an organization, body or group of persons which has such objectives or carries on such activities.
Where a member of the Bar Council or a Bar Committee, or of any committee of the Bar Council or a Bar Committee, becomes so disqualified, he is immediately deemed to have vacated his membership in the Bar Council any office that he may hold therein.

A person is disqualified as bar member if he is a Member of Parliament, state assemblyman or hold an office in any political party.

Well, this is weird, weird, weird. Our ‘Singh is King’ – Karpal Singh, is a veteran MP, but somehow he can still appear in court. Shouldn’t he be stripped off his bar membership if according to what was written above?

Besides that, lots of politicians in our country are lawyers. They hold offices in their respective political parties and at the same time, they practice law. Isn’t it rather contradicting?

This is confusing. Hi reader, are you a lawyer? Or do you have friends who are lawyers? Could you please explain this to me?

Thank you.

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Family

 

4 Aunties are having a coffee talk.

One of them has a son who is a specialist doctor. Another one of them has a child who is a chartered accountant. The 3rd aunty’s son is a successful entrepreneur.

4th one? Just an ordinary man who drives only a Proton. Although the first 3 aunty’s children are so successful and taking home lots of money, they don’t have much time to accompany their ageing parents, unlike the 4th aunty’s son.

sigh…

hi, ck, tt and cc, should we organize a short trip for our parents? But the main obstacles would be uncooperative dad who is always segregative from team.

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Will Singapore ever lose its competitiveness?

One friend of mine was talking about Singapore’s children with me today. Her husband is working in Singapore as a lecturer so she actually gets to know Singapore children quite well (thru her husband, of course).

She was commenting that Singapore new generation (those studying in secondary and tertiary schools now)are too spoilt. Yes, Singapore outperformed all ASEAN countries in economy but this is due to the contributions and sacrifices done by the older generations. Those older generations experienced Singapore independence (separated from Malaya). They experienced how hard it was to build a country from scrap. A country with limited land, no resources, nothing. They were poor when they were young so they appreciate what they are enjoying today.

But the new generation takes everything for granted. Singaporean families usually give birth to only 1 or 2 children. So, in most cases, those children are too pampered and spoilt. My friend raised up lots of examples that happened in school that her husband is teaching, including confrontation by parents, etc.

Old generations that are responsible of spurring up the Singapore economy will die one day. MM Lee will also pass away some time in future. And today’s over-pampered and spoilt child will rise to be the national leaders. Where will they lead Singapore to?

I am sceptical that Singapore will ever retain its predominance in economy after some 10 to 20 years.

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Condemn UUM

UUM has increased its bus fare recently without consulting opinions from various parties involved. This has led to dissatisfaction especially among students as they are the ones who use the bus facilities.

A student named 朱国伟 (Choo) has started an online petition to gather signatures to express their dissatisfaction over the price increment as University should not burden students during this economy downturn. When the petition was submitted to the Vice-chancellor, Choo has been prosecuted under University and College Act.

What the hell!!! Choo is not against the government, neither is he against the university or whatever. He was just voicing out the dissatisfaction over bus fare increment. How could the university charge him under University and College Act? That is ridiculous! Totally absurd and crazy.

Youths in Malaysia are politically and socially apathetic and this is a sad thing. Choo is the paradigm of today’s University’s graduates. He possesses the quality as a a real university undergraduate – dare to speak out for the interest of community and society.

Choo’s act should be lauded instead of suppressed. I express great disappointment toward the top management of UUM for being over-reactive towards the petition submitted. Now we have every reason to suspect that maybe the contract signed between bus company and university might have something ‘wrong’. Now the university is urged to publicize the contract details (but I bet UUM will not publicize, we already knew what is in the contract, it is just the same thing like PLUS highway contract or other highways contracts in Malaysia).

Anyway, I strongly condemn such a malicious attack towards a supposedly-laudable act.

朱國偉作為一名自發發動網上聯署，來表達意見的北大生，不但不應該受到任何對付，反而應該得到嘉賞。在目前年輕人普遍上對社會冷漠、不關心社會發展的當兒，他作出這種自發性的行為是個典範，而不是罪犯

                                       - 《東方日報》

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An despicable act

Bukit Lanjan assemblyman, Elizabeth Wong’s nude pictures have been circulated in the internet. Personally I have not yet seen the pictures (I think it’s unethical to look at it?).

There are 2 possible culprits to this incident. One is her political opponent, and another one is her ex-Malay-bf.

The police are still working on the case to find out the real culprit. If it is done by her political opponents, I think this is simply a low-down, dirty, cheap tactic (ironically, it works well). Everyone of us should condemn such an despicable act. Women are extremely vulnerable in politics. If the authorities do not do something, I believe more and more good people – good people who really serve the country and people, will be put off.

If the pictures were circulated by her ex-bf, then what is his motives? He hated her after break-up? Or is he being bought over by Elizabeth’s political opponents?

As a conclusion, NEVER let your partner take your nude photos no matter how close, how intimate you are. You might be black-mailed after breaking up. Hey, don’t say that you’ll love each other forever. Don’t be naive, we can’t predict future. Furthermore, relationships get more fragile nowadays.

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