The place is also near Salzburg, where the movie “The Sound of Music” was filmed, so if you’re going to that place anytime soon for a vacation, please remember to add this place to one of your “must-visit” locations.

You'll fall off the bike too if you suddenly see this sign!

Apparently English speaking tourists going to the place has a lot more idea than just taking pictures. There was one occasion where a total of 4 stolen signs in one night! Boy, that beat my record! (Whoops!) Eventually the signs were later replaced with permanent posts that were welded with concrete to the ground and bolted in place. Even CCTVs were installed to prevent people from making indecent acts in front of the signs! That bad huh?!

Wait, there’s more, how about that place called Anus, Pussy, Condom in France, a couple of Climax, Intercourse  in US and Dildo in Newfoundland? Some people have weird sense of humour…..

You see, I have now changed job, since 1st July. I am no longer working in Cyberjaya, and I loved the place! (The town, NOT the workplace) Now my new company is located in Midvalley. I have been pondering for a very very long time whether or not to work at that place. Transportation was, and IS, the only obstacle that repels me away. I have tried to wear a positive mindset, but that obviously did not work.

My first day there started rather well. Mei Fen dropped me off at the KTM Kommuter station in Serdang. opposite the Mines early in the morning at about 7:50 am. I bought the RM60 monthly return pass, and in no time I was in the train. It was still good, there was no pushing or shoving, everyone was very civilized. I can still breathe, I can feel a slight cool breeze coming from the air-cond vent. This isn’t so bad after all.

My new colleague who also happen to stay in Serdang and takes the KTM to work everyday told me that the morning commute is still bearable, it’s the evening trip back to Serdang that I should watch out for.

And boy was he right. On my first day evening back home, there were a lot more people standing at Platform 2 waiting for the train compared to the morning trip. Where did all the people come from? It was stuffy as hell, I had to hold my breath for 20 full minutes of pure agony before the train stopped in Serdang.

I still have not found the optimum time to leave the office. Yesterday, the second day of work, the trip back was even more horrendous! I was standing in what seems like hundreds and hundreds of people on the platform. Even that did not even begin to describe what a horrible experience that I was about to go through for the next 25 minutes!

The first thing that sends a cold shiver down my spine was the announcement on the PA system, “Tren seterusnya akan sampai pada pukul 7:06 minit malam. Tren ini amat sesak”. * Gulp, did I hear that correctly? I have never hear any announcement of that nature before. Could it be that my ears are playing tricks on me? “The next train that comes at 7:06 pm is very VERY congested” Oh no, he is even stressing the word VERY! This can’t be good, I mumbled under my breath. I better enjoy the stuffy air on the platform while I still can!

In about 2 minutes, the train screeched to a stop on the platform. I can hear the groans of the other passengers on the platform on seeing the sardine-packed coach. Shit, how am I gonna go inside the train? I was about to give up hope. If I can’t go in this one, I’ll just wait for the next train, I naively thought to myself. The door opened, about a dozen people squeezed their way through us, and before the last passenger alighted from the door, a sudden force gushed from behind our backs! Turning back to wait for the next train was not even an option. So there I was involuntarily shoved into the train. There was no time for you to think, you could only try to maintain balance not to trip over and get squashed by the stampede. The train door closed, much to the dismay of hundreds of others still trapped on the outside. They should count their blessing, I thought. Being on the inside of the train is actually the wrong side of the train!

The train slowly jerked forward. Unlike my morning trips, I had no need to hold on to any hand rails. My handrails are the many sweaty bodies around me. Smelly men, helpless young ladies, old aunties, the poor Malay girl. These are all the total strangers whom I had to privilege to exchange my bodily fluids with, through our skins. The old auntie behind me complained that something hard is pushing against her shoulder, and her friend asked her to push me back. How rude! It’s like, do I have a fucking choice? My laptop is inside my bag, and does it look like I have a huge empty space right in front of me, and that I am only pushing you just for the sake of it? These old aunties can be so damn inconsiderate! Don’t let me see you again, I’ll push you even more, and this time not only with my bag!

The air inside! Ohhhh ….. *stuffy* don’t even begin to describe the suffocating crush inside. The stale air burns our throats and  lungs. There was a portion of the trip when the train will stop function for a short duration. It always happen between Salak Selatan and Bandar Tasik Selatan. During that outage, the air-cond would also stop function. On that fateful day when the air-cond stopped, instead of feeling worst, I did not feel anything. The air is already bad even with the air-cond, so turning off the air-cond does nothing to make any difference. They might as well save a bit of electricity and turn off the air-cond straight!

People come and go at the stations, but there are still a lot of people in the train. I saw a dude who closed his eyes, beads of sweat rolling down his cheek and nose. He has the expression of pain in his face. There was also another mother who brought his young boy along with him. As soon as the door closes behind them, the boy immediately cried. Can’t blame him, I would have cried too myself!

Gosh I wish it was just a nightmare, and I will wake up as soon as I blinked my eyes. I blinked, but I am still here in the train. Oh no, this is for real! And I will have to endure this for the entire duration of my tenure in Midvalley! PLEASE HELP ME!!!

People, I urge you NOT to be pitiful to MF Chew. As Soi Lek  mentioned yesterday, MF Chew is indeed very “talented“. She is the only one among 7 million chinese in Malaysia who got a portfolio in the ministry even though she lost her constitution. (Chua, you forgot about Koh Tsu Koon )  MF Chew deserves it, and if she knows better, she had better resign from all her post in MCA. Nobody wants a loser in the party.

Looks like MCA is regaining back its shine after all. Let’s hope this stays

Then there is the condition of the wet market in the centre of town. It’s been there since the town was established and frankly it has way expired! MPSJ promised to move the fucking market elsewhere. That was even before I moved to stay in Seri Kembangan. Nothing much changed since.

The booming city where I stay isn’t helping the situation. Apart from Jusco, there is now a coming Giant and an entertainment hub at The Atmosphere. It’s right next to a tolled LDP, so people who wants to go to KL without paying the exorbitantly priced highway toll have no choice but to go through Serdang town. Even if they want to pay toll, the exchange going to LDP / Cyberjaya in front of The Atmosphere gets jammed up every morning and evening. A big turn off!

So the people staying here cannot do nothing but just endure this, day in and day out.  X-(

Everybody by now should already know about the ruckus that is hitting MCA. Her first statement that deserves my boo is her announcement that a fresh election be carried out to elect a new president and vice president for MCA. Okay, I know she is not the only one making that decision, but I hated that decision anyway. To me, I don’t care what is happening inside that stupid MCA, but I still feel for both Chua and especially Ong. I salute Ong’s brave resolve to his stand. I believe that he is a man of his words, and it is hard to find faults with him. The other guy, Datuk Liow, despite his goody-two-shoe looks and soft-spoken demeanour, is no better than the other corrupt government officials. His wife was “alleged” to have received a half-a-million ringgit Toyota Alphard VeilFire from a contractor who just won a project from Datuk Liow. Who stands to benefit when a fresh re-election is called? Datuk Liow of course. And who is supporting him? Our beloved Datin, the subject of this post of course.

The second Boo came from her other remark about a certain potong commercial that she feels is sexist. Ehh hello Datin, since when potong lanciao is derogatory against women? The most is that it qualifies as hamsap (but even that is a long shot). How does it offend you lar Datin? You mean you know how it feels to kena potong is it? She even has the balls (ehh, really?) to call for all women to boycott the company. Please lar Datin, you live in Malaysia, but the rest of us live on Earth. Please grow up and follow the development of the rest of part of the world. If you cannot accept that kind of mild sexist joke, you should just go back and live in the forest.

2. Why do we use the highways? What is the basic thing that you expect in return of paying a hefty sum at the bloodsucking toll booths? The convenience, the time you save, the assurance that you will arrive IN TIME for that 8 am meeting in JB. What if you cannot get that? What if you are stuck in a stupid jam from KL to Ipoh for 5 hours? Who will pay for the lost of time and opportunity? PLUS should give us a rebate for every hour that we are delayed in our journey!

3. I agree with those who drives in the emergency lanes. “If I do not drive in those lanes, somebody else would anyway. It might as well be me.”

4. Speed limits are only beneficial to the police who radar-scans us.

5. Elsewhere in the world highways are used to divert traffic from a heavily congested area and maybe make a little profit, just enough for general maintenance of the highway. Malaysian highways are designed from a profitability point of view.

That said, safety on the road is still necessary. Make sure you are in physical fit condition before you undertake that 300 km exodus back to your hometown. Have a safe trip everyone and SELAMAT HARI RAYA!

I can only afford an uncontrollable insane laugh! Come on Malaysia! Not another one of your tasteless jokes! Can this be one of your publicity stunt again? I mean, seriously, what do you expect to put in your machine? A 1.6 litre turbo CAMPRO engine? Well, here’s news for you! CAMPRO engines are lousy, inefficient and unsafe! Just the other day, a poor young mother burnt to her death when her Gen-2 fitted with the CAMPRO got hit on the engine compartment and caught fire! And this is not the first time I heard of such news. And don’t get me started on the potential driver. The son of a big-shot. Ring a bell? The last Malaysia F1 joker driver was also a son of someone influential who pushed him into the game, and look at the mess he has made for Malaysia!

For you who bought Proton cars (my poor self included), it’s time you stop supporting Proton and start buying from a REAL car company.

As mang0 has already summed it up, I have either the option of teaching my girls in English myself, or sending them to an international school. I think I am more inclined towards the latter. Malaysian Educational system just don’t have the edge anymore to remain competitive.

This harks back to my early schooling days when I remembered a very important event in life. It was the early nineties. I applied, went for interviews, and was finally offered a scholarship, the Asian Scholarship to go study in Singapore. Naively me and my parents turned down the offer. I can understand their reasoning. My dad was afraid to let me go that far. I was only a teenager about to go into the wild puberty stage. Letting me go there alone would have exposed me to all kinds of vice. (Hey, isn’t that great?! HAHAHAHA!!! ) Thinking back, I felt kinda regretful. I would have enjoyed a better life there in Singapore. I mean, come on, I hate the life in Singapore, but I don’t mind the 5 times more purchasing power the Singapore Dollar gives me! My life would have turned out differently. I could have married another girl, or maybe even still be single. But I would have missed having Kit Yan and Hui Yan

I got lucky in my years of schooling. I have been schooled in a Malay / English medium all my life. Nevertheless, my grasp of the English language was not very strong. Blame it on the education system, only academically strong but no real world exposure. I got my break when I became close with Vinod Nair, of mixed Indian and Chinese parentage. I owe my English to him. I later found out that he had wanted to learn Cantonese from me, but turned out he landed on the losing end of the deal!

I also had a lucky break in St Michael’s Ipoh, where I did my Form Six. There, EVERYBODY speaks English as the main medium, even the Malays. Our physics teacher, Mr Ng, encouraged us to learn physics in English, although STPM was conducted in Malay. He told us that in order to prepare ourselves for the university and subsequently to the world, a full grasp of the scientific term in English is compulsory. Come on, the “hardware = barang keras” joke is an exemplarily example of the silliness impracticality of using Malay as a technical language.

All hail the Dark Ages of education in Malaysia!

Edit 13 Jul 2009: It seems that certain factions of the chinese and indian community also wants to abandon the English as a technical language too! I am deeply aghast!

Hardware: barang keras
Software: barang lembut
Joystick: batang ria
Plug and Play: cucuk dan main
Port: lubang
Server: pelayan
Client: pelanggan

That server gives a plug and play service to the clients using either hardware or software joystick. The joystick goes into the port of the client.

“Translated”
Pelayan itu memberi pelanggannya layanan cucuk dan main dengan mempergunakan batang bahagia jenis keras atau lembut. Batang ria itu dimasukkan ke dalam lubang pelanggan.

Have you also seen how silly the translation in cinemas can be? They are better off not translating at all! Tell me a few examples if you have any.

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……