Casualty of war

During the Vietnam war (1959 - 1975) it was estimated over 1.1 million war casualties. I am not sure though, how they came about with the figure and who did actually do the survey, but we will never get the exact number. It was just an estimation, stipulation, assumption etc. Who's on earth would want to wade the raging war and count the bodies anyway. How to count bodies that has been blown into pieces, burnt and look so similar like charcoal, buried in unmarked graves enriching the soil and migrating to Hollywood selling Bun cha or Chinese dim sum? But the number is quite a phenomenal and gross in a way. In the course of the war, it was also sad to see many innocent civilian fell into the statistic.

Back in our mother land, we are not shy to say we share the same feeling with these people once popularly known as the "boat people". The war come at the end of every year and bring a lot of sorrow and agony to those who lost the battle, especially to the unsung heroes. It is such a vicious cycle. The stressing effect of this battle will be felt most by the people who work in the government sector. Most will definitely lost the battle because they are in the lowest of the ranks which is the rank of a servant. In our mother land we call this war, The War of Supremacy, Kasi and Takasi or SKT in short. Those who fought fearlessly throughout the battle but at the end were forgotten and not awarded with the highest accolade such as "Anugerah Cemerlang", of which similar to the Purple heart medal, will suffer the most. People who lost but survived this war will have this superficial withdrawal syndrome. This syndrome if not addressed and cured fast by the high ranking officers will go through the apoptotic stage and finally the natural death. Sad and so tragic.

I choose to talk on this issue because the war is just around the corner. Rumble in the jungle is so close and intense that I can already feel the heat on my face. And I have seen some casualties already. I can understand how the poor fella SKT 84 feel, because I have walked the path before. Funny thing is, this war never failed to give 5% of the population with the reward, a quota that only the supreme commander has the final say. It seems quite a pathetic because in this modern warfare, if we want to win the battle, it has to be a collective effort. How on earth the supreme commander can limit and distinguish between bravery, ingenuity, fearless, intuition, leadership, intelligence etc. from his entire battalion. It doesn't make any sense at all. Unless the guys up there has no brain or has the brain but the size of a peanut.

As I am considered a veteran, and into my 17th. years of the battle, this coming war is just another campaign that I will face, stand my ground and adapt a new strategy each time, to keep alive for a bigger and more challenging battle ahead. But if i ever win the war, I will bath myself in vanilla icecream for months, with chocolate topping as a scrub.

Not for the faint-of-heart

This year we are celebrating Eidul Adha or Hari Raya Korban in Kay El. We decided not to go back to Keropok-lekor state because they are now very busy celebrating another important festival i.e the monsoon cup thus flooding the whole town with boats and yachts. And we do not go down to the south either because the hinglanders are bobsledging there, fleeing from the massive landslide.

I was informed that our surau is not doing any qurban this year. Apparently everybody is really doing their part in saving our country into recession. Frugality at its best. My wife, as usual will cook her favourite rendang, using her secret recipe and we will enjoy our Raya with relatives and close friends.
From last year's album - Young apprentices and seasoned helpers, everybody was in the mood and get ready for the slaughter
Checking if everything was in order, and the qurban is securely and safely handled
Big galleries, witnessing the process. At the same time giving the morale support.One for the album. The most veterans did not want to miss this annual event
Another rivalry contender nextdoor doing the same deed. One..two ..three
Skinned the qurban for later distribution.And finally it end up like this. Yummy...

Just another headline

Another major disaster - by Malaysian standard- has hit the suburb Kay El in the early Saturday morning that graced all local mainstream newspapers' headline today. Even though this catastrophe was quite predictable and can be considered as an annual event in the calendar of these residents, many reacted with total disbelieve and shock. Many families mourned for the lost of their loved one and belonging. Imagine in split seconds, you lost everything and striped down to your underwear.

Frankly speaking, I am not shock at all. In fact I am angry and frustrated by our own idiosyncratic behavior and a total disrespect to our mother nature. Over the years, I observed our nasi-lemak nation was so passionate in developing the highlands for a mere unobstructive and exclusive view of KL twin tower, leveling the hills so flat you can slide on it and chopping down trees like hungry termites. At one time I almost thought that these nincompoops were color blind because among all the colors, green was not their favorite one.

No one were to be blamed for these natural disaster even though some call it the act of God (now they are blaming God), but I can rest assure our policy makers, poticians, greedy developers are having tough time sleeping in their bed, knowing thousands homeless highlanders are now cursing on them.

You see, these hills, hinglands and forest with balanced ecosystem are natural water catchment area. It is just like a big spongebob that absorb and store water and then disperse it slowly into the environment. At the same time these ecosystem is also a big water purification system. Once you meddle with these mother nature, you will pay for it. The mother nature award our greed with flash flood (so that we can build SMART tunnel), landslides (for bobsledging enthusiast), polluted rivers (that is probably where mamak restaurants get their supply of their infamous teh tarik), water shortage etc.

The problem is, our policy makers, politician, developers etc., they hate sciences and probably "tuang" the class during the lesson. Because they thought sciences are for geeks. Money and cents are the priority. But at least some common senses and social responsibility will do. What happen to the compulsory Environmental Assesesment Impact (EIA or Penilaian Impak Alam Sekitar) report which was normaly carried out by experts and forward to these people before any devlopment can take place?

The best policy for us now is to caveat emptor (translates as "lu pikir lah sendiri") because we, a nasi-lemak nation, after a while, is always tend to forget and then forgive easily....until another disaster knock at the door again.

Bagero...!

Early this morning, while I was attending to my usual Saturday morning gardening chores, my wifey panicky showed me some unusual discovery, resembling an artifact from the King Tut tomb. It was a half-cut shoe, found by our new maid under her mattress. And it was my shoe! My seasoned shoe that I wanted to throw away in a bin some time ago. After some detail investigation we found a small "kemenyan" wrapped inside a piece of newspaper. Walauweee... now things becoming very serious man. I am no fan of "Misteri Nusantara" but this reminded me of creepy stories in my all time favorite bed-time book "Siri Bercakap Dengan Jin". What's on earth was our previous maid thinking or doing? She did not look like a person who like an art at all, even though her craft was quite a masterpiece.

My previous maid worked for us for a mere 6 months stint. The shortest among all maids that we had. In fact she was not our ideal maid at all. The nice description given by the "tekong" was a real misleading. It was like expecting Siti Nurhaliza but you got a monkey from our National Zoo. In fact she is the reigning no one from our list of "maid from hell". My suspicious wife told me probably she wanted to charm me. This was judge by her flirtatious manner, especially with several Indons that worked as labor in our neighborhood. Even the stray cats did not escaped her affair. I found this out one afternoon, while doing my spot-check on her. While both my wife and me were not in the house, she did went out and "bercengkerama" with her indons friends. So as gentleman I was, I kicked her out from the house. Now I start to think that that half-shoe did really served her right after all.

So the morale of the story is never..never keep your old shoes. Burn them to ashes or auction them on lelong.com.

Now even rubbish is a good commodity

These days if we read newspapers, listening to the radio, watching News and browsing the internet, one thing that won't escape our attention is headlines on economic crisis, credit crunch, oil price fluctuation and our government encourage us to spend more in order to give some breath to our domestic economy. This issue is more popular than the other important and glamorous issues such as artists caught for close proximity and the actual reason why there won't be any brand-new Dato' in selangor this year. This pertinent issue on economy was discussed by high ranking politicians who doesn't even know how to distinguish credit crunch and cocoa crunch and as well as our ordinary kampung folks at warung kopi.

I am neither an expert in economy and the cycle of it, nor I am a self-declared financial analyst, but I am very sure everybody (everybody here translates into ordinary Malaysia citizen who works their sweat and blood to earn a living, and not the few privilege ones like the Jutawan Sektor Awam) is suffering one way or another. Maggie mee is becoming very popular and catching up fast into becoming our national delicacy. I know one of my close friend who is now doing the "Jihad" in the Land of Kiwi, who has to sell his beloved sport car barely after one or two months owning it because of this crisis. He told me, even the ruminant grass now look very tempting!

Recently I met an old friend who is planning to do her postgraduate study. The last time we met was during our compulsory course "Kursus Induksi Umum 2/1993". The course was now a history presumably because of its high succes rate in converting innocent "mat/minah skema" into young hippies who challenged everything that doesn't fit into their dictionary.

Among the thing that we discussed was the subject of her study - which is totally rubbish. Yep you hear me right. Rubbish (sampah sarap) is proposed to be circulated as our future currency. How it is going to work, we have to read her theses then. That is however quite a noble idea considering others are selling our fresh air like mad now in a practise they call "carbon trading". To understand what is carbon trading and how complicated and sophisticated the process is, this time you have to digest the Kyoto protocol.

Be happy and you will live longer

This afternoon my eldest son and me paid a visit to University Malaya Specialist Center for his sinusitis problem. While waiting to see Prof. Prepa, a ENT consultant, I went through a pile of magazines in the waiting room. I came across this article on happiness, in an outdated Time magazine of which I thought very interesting enough.

In that article, the author listed 10 practical tips on what we should do in order to keep us in a joyful mood if not over the moon. But unlike my house mortgage BLR, my mental memory keep reducing in the capacity and I can't memorised all the 10 tips. But one thing that managed to embed in my mind, probably because of its simplicity and practicality was was to jot down at least 10 good thing that we do each day. By doing this we will initiate that feel good factors and harbor a positive feeling in us, along the way will make us happy. And if we keep doing it over time so that it become a habit, we will be a happy person all the time. I think that was quite a simple thing to do. And i am sure in one whole day we are doing more good deeds than we can think of.

Let see what are the good deeds in my bag for today, that make me feel good:

• bought that tasty nasi lemak and roti canai for breakfast - save my other-half from wasting her beautiful morning in the kitchen
  
• Washed and cleaned the two workhorses - it look sparky clean
  
• attended to my garden, weeding and manuring the plants - the plants look healthier that the dog next door
  
• glued a small broken part on the playstation console that was broken - kids happy, I am happy
• Gave my helping hand to my other-half in attending our youngest son that got fever
  
• I did not eat much during our departmental dinner even the food selection was so irresistible
  
• Feed the Kois in my pond
• Brought my son to see his ENT specialist
• I gave way to one typical-Malaysian-impatience driver on my way back from the dinner
• Sharing this tip with the whole cyber community
  
• I am on leave today but yet I still got 43 odd days left for my honeymoon

Hey... I think it work. I start to feel good already.

I have four superheroes

I remember during my adolescence, I always admire some heroes or certain characters in drama series of 70s and 80s. They were heroes like Mike Guyver, Six million dollars man and Ultraman for instances. I am not quite sure however, why on the other hands I didn't really fancy Superman. Probably because I couldn't understand why a weirdo that can fly and has the strength of many-many elephants, wears an underwear outside his trouser. That just didn't make any sense at all.

Nowadays, my superheroes are four indestructible but cute little youngsters of which from time to never failed to amused me and at the same time keeping my days very busy. Man, they grows very fast and they are big eater as well. Their appetite can match any hungry wolves for that matter. They can consume a month of your ration in a merely week time , with still a place for more desert. I think African locust will have to surrender to these superheroes where appetite is concern. Their infestation is unstoppable. To make the matter worst, the eldest one has always become the dumping-site for his other brothers leftover food. No wonder he is among the chubbiest of all.

Since they all grow very fast, I can't remember when or how they learn not to pee on the carpet and start using their toothbrush properly. But one thing that I always remember, especially on the sign of their fast growing was when they don't bother to follow you anymore whenever you want to go shopping for groceries. The sight of them chasing and teasing each others was the sight that I will always remember fondly. I can't imagine how lonely a couple would be without these noisy kids around. But I can understand now, why everytime I or my other siblings 'balik' kampung to see our aging parents, we really put the big smile in their face.

My life nowadays simply revolving around these four charming little creatures. They are my superheroes now. They are my savior. I will miss their innocent little faces sooner of later but I am quite certain they will always put a big smile in my face.