Perception and Impression

I was talking to my students as they were doing the exercise that I gave them in class. As I was walking, looking at their work, I struck up a conversation with one of the students. He is from Afghanistan. We talked about his country as he related his experience being here in Malaysian and being in his own country. We also discussed about one of my favourite movie, which is about Afghanistan, The Kite Runner.



He told me many people were surprised when he said he is from Afghanistan. I asked him, why? He answered, " They thought those who are from Afghanistan would wear the turban, has long beard, which I am not." Well, I said, aren't most of them like that? Then he told me something that I never knew.

" Most of those people are not even from Afghanistan. They are outsiders, came into Afghanistan and ruled the country."

I was shocked. Then he continued, " If they know I am here and learning, I would be in big trouble. They would not want us to learn or to improve ourselves because they are afraid that we would be clever and try to get the country back from them." Then I remembered a story about a girl who was tortured just because she wanted to run away from people who abused her. She was featured in the front page of TIME Magazine.


You can read more about her here.

In my other class, I was giving them exercises and in one of the session, I asked them to give me an example of a developed country. I half-expected for most of them to say, US or England or whatever Europe country that you can think of when suddenly one of the student,an Algerian, without blinking an eye, said,

"Malaysia."

I was a bit embarrassed when he said that when I don't even consider my country as a developed country.

How we see other people and how we perceive them is important as sometimes we are being given the wrong information all this while. Some people have a hard time with their country but even with all the obstacles, they still return to their motherland as they cherish whatever is there even though it wont be the most ideal place. So love your country and whatever you have but at the same time try to improve and do not just content with whatever you have now. I love you Malaysia.

a bit patriotic here,it is the month of Independence, right?

To The Core

Everytime there is a problem with Muslims being opressed, there would be calls for us to boycott whatever that is produced by the Jewish companies or the Americans. Be it milk, toothpaste to electronic items. Sure, we can boycott, then they have less buyers, then their profits would crumble.


Then what?

It is actually about the economic problem and how it is problematic when we associate it with religion without actually knowing how to.

How many of you have been to the markets and people would try to sell you halal toothpaste, with a big halal wording on the toothpaste, giving it the Arabic look, with a hope that you would buy it? Or maybe when they try to sell you an eye-healing device, give it some Arabic wordings, then sell it to the masses. This is what we call, ladies and gentlemen, selling the religion itself. These people are actually selling something by associating it to the religion as they hope gullible buyer would succumb into the tactic as they are supporting something that actually promotes the religion.

As many of you would know, there are many brands that are actually associated with Jewish companies that whenever there is a boycott, these brands are the one targeted first. But let's wait for a while. How did the brands promote themselves? Did they put some Yiddish words on the cover, promoting for the Jewish people to buy it? No, they did not. They promoted it just like what other brands that are not associated with the Jewish companies did in promoting their stuffs. It is on a level playing field. Whereas here in Malaysia, we even put a halal logo on a toothpaste, which is in a way, trying to secure the market in the Muslim segment. I think that is like a cheap shot in a boxing match. If you want to promote your stuffs and they have a good quality, no matter whether you put a halal logo on it or not, they would still sell. So in a way, we are compromising ourselves economically. By playing on a level field, we will motivate and push ourselves to do better instead of just relying on a sure, tapped market.

A Muslim who is a businessman bought a very well known franchise which actually originated from the USA. He is on hold of the franchise business here in Malaysia. Suffice to say, he is like the owner of the franchise here. So one day, he was asked by an audience during a talk, why did he buy a company, which originated from the USA, which all of us know, are allied to the Israel? He just smiled, and answered,

" The problem here is not where the business comes from. Why do you keep on thinking where it came from? The problem here is we must think on how to conquer the business that is started there. This is just a start. Maybe one day, I will own the biggest shares for the worldwide franchise."

I have to rephrase the sentences, but you got the main point there, right? So what he is trying to say here, we should not really think where the business comes from, how long would the boycott lasts and everything. That is not the main concern here. What we should really think of is how we can improve ourselves and be better instead of just boycotting without any real solution to it.

Oh, and maybe not to sell our religion by using the mambo jumbo crap trick.

Gone But Not Forgotten

What we've got here is (a) failure to communicate - Cool Hand Luke

In one of my class, I asked my students about the Berlin Wall. Majority of them never even heard about it, which stopped me from asking further whether they even know about the East Germany and West Germany that are divided by the wall. History has never been a favourite subject for students as it is not being given the importance and recognition that it should get. I was reading an entry by saifulislam.com. He talked about how Prof. Khoo Kay Kim commented that Geography and History are not being given the preference in the education system. This leads to students studying Science and Maths subjects more so that they can score as many As that they can thus getting to study engineering or medicine. Undoubtedly, the profession that is being craved by the students, such as medicine, is a very noble and important profession. But at the same time, there is no balance between the left brain subjects and the right brain subjects. This leads to what saifulislam said, producing workers, but not thinkers. Arts and history actually help students to look at the aesthetic of life rather than what should be gained in life. Creative minds are being suppressed, I guess.

And now I know why.

I was taken aback when Deputy Finance Minister Awang Adek, said that the Pudu Prison has no significant importance in view of the impending construction of new commercial buildings on the site of the demolished Pudu Prison. Something as historic as the Pudu Prison has no significant importance? Wow, that is surely one way to teach our kids about history then. I went to the start of the demolition of the walls yesterday. There were many people who came and watched as the bulldozer demolished one part of the wall. That shows that there are many others who are still interested in watching the historic building being demolished, as a remembrance for the future. While development is a must and something must be sacrificed to make way for development, there should be something that is left from the historic Pudu Prison for the future generation to look at. At least one part of the wall should be preserved, just like one part of the A Famosa that is still standing as a tourist attraction and serves as a reminder of the past. Just because the land of the Pudu Prison is located at a prime place, commercialisation should not take place at the expense of education and history. There should be a strike of balance between them. But the world is never fair, thus the capitalists have their way and disregarding the opinion of the masses.



And they still dare to say that the youths do not appreciate history when the reason that it happens is because of the people in power prefer money over history. How many historic buildings must be demolished? How many Pudu Prison? How many Bok House until we realise that history plays a part in our life. This might sound like disappointment talking, but it is actually a hope, that one day, there will be people who realise that the development of people is more important than the development of commercialization which only benefits the few.

The Man I Ought To Be.

I know it is a bit late, but I had a lot to talk about as I was starting to write about my dad. I had to omit a lot of things due to time constraints. But, here goes.

My dad is the type who rarely talks about his work. When I was still in school, whenever people asked me about his job, he just told me to answer, "Ala,pegawai kerajaan je.(Just a government servant.)" Now that I'm in a working environment, I just got to know that his job is one of the highly regarded job that people would compete to get. He never told me how hard it is to get oneself into his profession, which I would say can be rewarding at times. He never bragged about his job, being humble is his choice, I guess. But now that I passed the exam to get myself into his profession, I can see that he is actually proud of me, which I gladly did.

He actually wanted me to become an engineer. I vividly remember the times where he would proudly claim," You're going to be an engineer one day " which I'm not right now. We had our arguments about the choices that I made of what I wanted to do, but I stood with my decision which though he reluctantly accepted at that time, I can see now that with the offers that I'm getting, I hope that I made him proud. We rarely had our bonding time with each other, but I know that he likes something that is related to current issues. So I trained myself to read a lot of newspapers and get myself updated with current issues so that we would have things to talk about. It worked, actually. We always have something to talk about. At the same time, it helped me in a way that I can talk about anything with anyone. I always have a topic to talk to. That actually builds up my rapport which is quite useful when you have to deal with a lot of people.

Not only that, he is actually one of my readers whenever I write something in my blog. At one time, he called me just to say that I made a grammar mistake in one of my postings. After pointing it out, he would proudly claim that his English is better than an English teacher (read: me). Oh, whatever.Haha. It is one thing to read my blog, but it is another when he promotes my blog to his friends. He even promoted my blog to one of his friends who is a chief editor of a news agency. Because of that, I was called for an interview and was offered a job as a journalist. Though I had to reject the job offer, I still owe it to him for promoting my blog, which I myself wont be doing as much as he did.

"It's ok, just make sure that you wont do the same mistake after this," my dad said to me.

You see, I was into trouble for a lot of time. So everytime I was in a deep shit, I would get the dont-do-it-again lecture from my dad which he would end with that sentence. Whenever I did something bad, the first thing that I would think about is him. I was very afraid of what he would say or do if he found out about what I did. I can still remember till now when I was a kid and I didnt want to take a bath, he chased me around the house just to get me to take my bath. He was quite strict when I was small but now that I'm grown up, he only told me to learn from my mistakes and not to repeat it again. In a way, I learned that whatever bad things that people did, try to forgive them and try to encourage them to learn from their mistakes rather than punishing them and condemning them for the rest of their life. It took me some time to realise what he tried to teach me so now when I can see that, I tried to be someone who is more forgiving towards others and to give others another chance to learn from their mistakes. It's not easy but it surely gives you self satisfaction which you can't get from all the riches in this world. That is my dad. My abah. He taught me that. So thank you abah, and happy father's day.

How to Double Your Money

It makes me cringe everytime I see a picture of people showing their bank accounts,showing off how much they are getting each week by participating in a scheme where they invest a small amount of money and getting a huge return in a short period of time. My take? There is no easy money in this world. If it seems to be that way, then there must be something fishy about it. One of the most notoriously known is 'Login FB dapat RM100' which is utter bullshit. For those who really understand how it works,it is just a scheme where the money just rotate and in order for it to keep on rotating, you have to get downlines. Yes,once you are caught in the web, it would be very difficult for you to get out.

The thing with many of those who are duped, they are too gullible in believing that they can get money without sweating it out. They just have to be shown with an amount of money and can easily be induced with it.

Or they can be shown a picture of someone with a big house or a big car and keep on dreaming that someday they can be the one in the picture when actually, the guy in the picture only borrowed the car and the house for a while.

Ye,saya menang motor.

I have a friend and he is now doing a business of selling things. He already has a stable job and he is doing this part time business as his side income. He told me that this part time job is just that, a part time job. He is not doing it very aggressively as it is not his main source of income. If there is a customer, he would try to sell his things. But if there is none, he would just do his main job without concentrating too much on his part time job. Of course, he did put up some advertisement about his business, but if there is no buyer, he wont be too sad about it. I asked him, why? He told me he has this habit that he felt somehow helped him in one way or another. Everytime he went to the mosque for the Friday prayer, he would try to donate at least RM1 or RM2 to the mosque. It is not a huge amount, but it sure is a good thing to do, he said. He told me that each time he did that, in one or two days, there would be more customers looking for him. He said that maybe it is a gift from God, that for the small amount that he gave to the mosque, God would give something better to him. But he warned me, that we should not be thinking of getting a reward when donating, we must be sincere and not to be thinking too much if there is no return from the small donation that we made. God, he said, already has plans for us. If God wants us to get some money from our dealings, we would. But if it is not meant to be, then it is not meant to be and we just have to work harder.

Money is a sensitive topic to be talked about. People just seem so eager to amass as much as they can without actually knowing the source of the money first. The money from gambling, for example, which would be used for us to buy food for our family, would have a long term effect which we wont be able to see until it is too late. This is one of the problems with Malaysians, some of us just cant get enough of money that they would resort to whatever method that is possible as long as the money reaches them. It is like organic food and non-organic food. You might get bigger and juicier orange which is chemically laden, but you would get a better quality orange from the organic orange. That is how it is with money. The bottom line is, there is no free lunch. Not even free orange.

Your Shoes Are Too Big For Me.

It is a bit ironic that Mother's Day falls on the same month with Labour Day. A traditional and conservative family would regard being a mother is actually a job per say. So I guess it is not very ironic to some then. Being a mother is a lot of work. Loads of chores have to be done while juggling with the kids and at the same time, preparing things for the husband. For a family where the burden of chores are all on the shoulder of the mother, it certainly won't win the most coveted job of the year.

The place where I'm working right now requires me to deal with nurses, a lot. For those who don't know, my mom used to work as a nurse and she is already retired now. I got my chances to talk with the nurses and asked a little bit about their job, their life experience and everything. I learned a lot from them. But one thing that all of them agreed on is that being a nurse is not a very easy job. It made me think, how did my mom managed to raise her children and at the same time juggling with her demanding job, taking care of the children when we are sick, just like how she took care of the patients when they needed her the most. How was she able to prepare our breakfast before she went to work early in the morning? I am not even married yet, but I already feel the burden of working. I have no idea how hard it could be if I were to be like her.

People say that we won't know someone until we put ourselves into that someone's shoe. But I guess to put myself into my mom's shoe is just impossible as her shoes are too big for me to fill. Happy Mother's Day, ibu.

I Want.

A few days before my birthday, people keep on asking what I wanted for my birthday. I never really know what I wanted, so I made a list and had a few things things in mind.

I already have a personal computer but I have always wanted a netbook. Maybe a Dell netbook as I have always preferred Dell when it comes to laptops.

I was thinking that maybe I can use it for my photo outings and can easily transfer my pictures into the netbook as a backup.

Or...maybe I would want to have a new DSLR body, the Pentax K-7.

Just imagine the possibilities of what I can do with a new body :D

Oh man....I'm such a gadget freak, aren't I ? But to prove to you that I'm not, I have another thing that I would like to have.

I would like Lisa Surihani to sing to me. Though looking at her acting skills, I dont think I should hope for much if I were to get her to sing for me.

So when I had a look at my list,trying to get the best thing as a present for my birthday, I realized that I dont need these things.

I only need my dearest to be with me.

Needs are more important than wants.