The sky is grumbling, and the clouds are threatening to release its contents upon earth, reducing us mere mortals to a big mess of traffic jam soon. The sun is still shining angrily upon the vast buildings of concrete around me, but soon it will be no more.

The time is 4:26 pm. The view from the 14th floor is clear, that the downpour is eminent. As my eyes are fixed upon the pile of crawling metallic beasts on wheels downstairs, I cannot help but think how irrelevant a human live is compared to nature’s wrath. How am I going to go back home on time? Hmmm …. change that thought. How am I going to go back at all? Such is the effect of rain in KL

Why do I have to be stuck in here? Why do they have to have their office in such a terrible place? What’s so good about having a workplace in the middle of the busiest place in Klang Valley? Glamour? Show off?

As I ponder the meaning of this daily commuting nightmare, the rolling thunder do no more to calm the brewing turmoil within me …..

Popularity: 1% [?]

Can’t believe that this is happening at this time of the century! Sexual discrimination against the darker (opposite of fairer lar) sex.

Don’t believe me? Today it was raining heavily. I was out shopping in Low Yat for a small retractable umbrella for easier storage in my bag. Nowadays I car pool with Mei Fen and I sometimes walk a fair distance to and from work. Therefore a small retractable umbrella will suit my needs.

So back to Low Yat. What strikes me is just how stereotype such a simple thing as an umbrella is! It almost always has to be pink, or bright yellow, or in attractive apple green with tiny leave patterns! Can’t they have an umbrella that is just THAT, plain solid coloured umbrellas? Are women the only users of umbrellas? Can’t men use them?

Umbrellas are not the only thing that suffers from this design problem. I also realized that women’s shavers are more smoother on the skin than men’s equivalent! No joke! I have tried them personally! How about those skin products? There seem to be a lot of personal hygiene product only specially tailored for women. Hey, men need to look good too you know?

Of course, I wouldn’t go far as to cross dress. But some accessories that were once women-only-territory is now widely used by men. I’m sure you have seen men wearing those wire hair bands over their long locks, especially on some footballers that I have seen. They might not be the exact same thing, but I’m sure they came from the same idea.

I draw the line at bras, thongs and lipsticks though. * Ahem. *

There are also jobs that are heavily biased towards women only. Mention nurse, secretary and teacher, and almost immediately an image of a women comes to mind. I know of a male friend who went to US and work as a nurse there! Male nurses are in great demand there. Come to think of it, male nurses are useful. I mean, come on, if I were to strip down to my birthday suit, I wouldn’t want to have a lady watching my bum (or any other valuable asset for that matter)!

So what do you think, boys and girls? Does the community discriminate against men too?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Yeap, for lack of a better term to describe it, I have been sold. In chinese, or more appropriately, Cantonese, it’s literally called “sold piglets”, 卖猪仔. I’m now enslaved under ********** Malaysia located in the centre of the Golden Triangle, Kuala Lumpur, in Menara **********. (Name hidden for the sake of my client, but you know who I’m talking about)

The term 卖猪仔 comes from the old Cantonese term that refers to slaves being sold from Mainland China to the then Malaya to work in tin mines sprouting everywhere. In order to redeem themselves, they need to work for a certain period of time (which may span years) before they become free men.

How well-described is my situation right now! I now have to endure waking up in the unearthly hours of the morning, brave the dreadful morning KL crawl to the city, fight for a parking space (and cross my fingers that it wouldn’t get flooded when it rains later in the evening) and rush with the lunch crowd for a RM6 sorry-excuse-for-a-plate-of-rice. Yup, it ain’t no better than my fore-fathers who arrived in Malaya as collies.

I am here for a project aptly called “Process Re-engineering”. More like re-engineering the way I wake up every morning. Now I will have to train my ass to wake up 2 hours earlier each morning to do the bowel movement exercise. Else I’ll have pieces of shit stuck in my ass for the better part of the morning.

But what might does a mere mortal like me have against the will of destiny? I will have to endure all 9 months of it, starting today. Goodbye smooth journeys to work everyday to Cyberjaya. Hello HELL!

Popularity: 1% [?]

I accepted Cheong’s request for me to be their wedding photographer for a day. Their big day was on 24 December 2007. Went to Darby Park to where Cheong’s wife and her family are located.

Start early

more…

Popularity: 2% [?]

Lots has been said about the language and its uses in Malaysia. The latest development saw our former Prime Minister to urge the government not to forsake the future of our children by denouncing the importance of English. I am totally aghast at the action of some parties who chose to childishly ignore the use of English to increase the competitiveness of Malaysians as a world-class citizen. English is, after all, the 3rd most spoken language in the world after Chinese and Spanish. Note that Malay, or its nearest variation Bahasa Indonesia is nowhere near the top 10.  And this decision came from no other than the seniors in our very own Menteri Pendidikan! And today the news says that majority of the people do not want English to pass in SPM! What the fuck are they thinking?

Let us just step back for a while and look at the Malaysians now as a whole. Throw a stone anywhere, chances are the person you hit knows a smattering of English, at least to be able to communicate properly with any English-native speakers. Last Sunday I went to the zoo, and I stopped at a bus-stop to take a rest. There was an old Malay grandma there, probably in her 70’s, looking after her young toddler grandchild. To my surprise, she speaks in English with us, refusing to converse in Malay even when we sprinkled some Malay into our conversation. She even spoke in English with her young grandchild, who is no more than 14 months old! There was a bit of typical Malaysian slang, but the point is that everywhere, people have no problem talking in English. So why the decision to lower English to second-class status?

Have you ever been to Thailand? Indonesia? Vietnam? Japan? Korea? How do you communicate with the most common of all people that you see; the taxi drivers? Do you have problems communicating with them in those countries? If you only speak Malay, then the answer is most probably a big YES. Do you think tourists to Malaysia will have problem communicating in English with our taxi drivers? Other than the quarrel about the use of meters, chances are that most if not all taxi drivers in Malaysia can speak good English.

We have been so long into allowing our SPM test papers to be answered in both Malay and English. Just as when we are almost seeing the result out of this, they have to revoke the importance of English. Wouldn’t it be a waste of effort? Come on, get real. For those who still insist on the purity of the Malay language, let me ask you this question. Can you speak purely in Malay without ANY influence of foreign language, especially English? What is the word “komunikasi“, “satelit“, “implikasi“, “dansa“, “televisyen“, “radio“, “komputer” doing in the Malay language? How do you pronounce chlorofluorocarbon in Malay? Or the mezzanine level? How about phobia? Tell that in Bahasa Baku to my face, you hypocrites!

I am not saying that Bahasa Melayu is of lower status. I cannot ignore its importance in Malaysia. I speak fluent Malay, and it’s the second language that I picked up after my native Cantonese. I had a very close Malay friend in primary school. But it just annoys me that some people choose to ignore the importance of the English language, and that they can live with just Malay in their daily lives. For those people, go live in an island and good riddance with you!

*Sigh*, what has our education system come to now? My poor girls……

Popularity: 1% [?]

I know, I know. Photography in Singapore is not new to readers of my blog. I have been at it since many aeons ago with my old Canon A70. This new batch of photos is a cumulative work of all my past experiences combined together. I especially like HDR, therefore you will see a lot of HDR pictures in this round.

Compare these pictures taken almost 2 years apart of the St Andrew’s Cathederal.

Photo taken in May 2007

Same image, taken this year

more…

Popularity: 2% [?]

4th June. Today, a very important piece of history happened in the world. But sadly the very people who was supposed to know this history, has been denied knowledge of it.

Excerpt from Baidu's History Search

I can’t read chinese, but I know one important year is missing.

1989

It’s a sad truth, the people do not know the truth, nor will they be able to know the truth. It really does not concern me personally, but as a mortal, we deserve to know the reason WHY we are here now, so that we may know where we need to go in the future.

My hats off for them…..

Popularity: 2% [?]

I got a chance to see what a real bird’s nest looks and taste like. Of course, this is not a photographic opportunity to be missed! Especially since this handful of bird’s nest already cost us RM50!

This handful of bird's nest (only two nests) costs RM50!

more…

Popularity: 2% [?]