A Turmoil World

Trolling the book store today, we found a couple of interesting books to read. One is regarding a person's own account on what are happening inside the many madrasahs in Asia and the different and usually totally opposite perceptions that we and western world have on them.

The other book is written by a well known figure by the name of Chris Patten sharing his thoughts on what awaits us in a new world of the twenty-first century, where the challenges we face will be complex, from energy security to environment to financial and so on. Indeed the past few years have been not only a turmoil period in the financial world but also pretty unpredictable in many aspects.

As we conduct our life, between maintaining our spiritual consciousness and gathering material gains, most of the times it is difficult to balance between the two. On one side, a minority group of people would completely abandoned material gains and throw themselves completely into religious life with uncompromising zeal. That's what the first book talked about. Another group of people, if not the majority, would happily gone into a rat race to satisfy self hunger and desire for everything worth going for to elevate one's standing in the society. These are indeed difficult things to balance. We just all hope and pray that we are given the righteous path as we spend our short life in this world.

Paradise on Earth

It's a bright start to the day. The heavy rains over the last two nights have at least cleared up the air from the recent hazy situation. We took a short flight last night to a place where we have not been for the last seven years. For most people back home, this place is so familiar, it is their annual holiday destination. For us we will be spending a few days at a family's house, away from the hustle and bustle of a hotel and where our kids can meet up with their cousins.

Our first impression of this place has been good. Indeed the whole place is so well developed. One would wonder why Bumi Bertuah cannot be like this. There seemed to be no straight answers.

We made a short hop to one of the island. The water was cold even when snorkeling in the middle of the day. One could easily get sun-burned if not careful. But the kids kept reminding us that it is really a good thing as the sun is a source for generating vitamin D in the skin!

Turun nya Rahmat

After what has been a long dry spell, finally it was raining heavily last night. The earth must have been longing for this for some times. The morning after was really amazing, it was cold, wet and a bit overcast. We saw the rain still drizzled lightly but I guess nobody would mind that. It was such a welcomed change. Hopefully the burned forest will start regenerating again and the brownish scenery will start becoming more green. The outlook is that more afternoon and evening thundershowers can be expected for the next few days. A late season cold surge has brought about increased convective activity over the country.

Most schools start today after the mid-term break. The same goes with most office workers, coming from a break is not easy and psychologically Monday could be quite a challenging day to face with. Luckily I don't have to face the same Monday blue as I am on leave!

Time Off

It's the first day on leave. So far managed to keep self busy, running 12 km and done a few errands at the government offices and shops. But one would not missed from the media that today is Earth Day - it seems to be the order of the day. As like every good teenagers around the world, our kids switched off the lights at home at 8.30 pm for an hour. Nowadays everybody seems to be eco warriors and having global mindset. It is as if everything that we do has to be tied in to some global initiatives. Even sometimes I feel irritated that there are so much global news on television and hardly any local ones. At times I get to know car accidents in some corners of the world but ironically the recent road accident that killed three people back home hardly get reported. At other times I get to watch bush fires in Australia or California but hardly see any coverage of bush fires that are becoming rampant down the road here. Not that I am against having a global mindset but lets not forget our roots as well.

Dry Season

The weather has been dry and hot lately. On my way home yesterday, I passed 5 bush fires. Only one was attended by the Fire Brigade while the rest were left to spread on their own. I guess the Bomba were working overtime and could not handle all the locations. Perhaps this is the time to activate the national management disaster team.

Nowadays we are all measured as to how green we are. Countries are now compared to how many tons of CO2 they produced per capita. Some countries although are big polluters counteract that they still preserved a lot of green belts and pristine forests.

We in Bumi Bertuah are blessed, a large tract of our country still remains fairly undisturbed. Nonetheless the same cannot be said for many commercial areas that are dotted across the country. Most of them lack any planted trees or 'green' initiative in the area development. It seems that the easiest way to develop such areas is to flattened the whole land and uproot all the trees. Once the buildings were completed, next was to pour ton of cements all around them. How sad!

Bumi Bertuah - My Country

The photo was courtesy of a good friend of mine, who took it after watching the national parade. Thanks.

The national flag has now been hoisted down in our front gate. It has been almost a month now that we celebrated the 26th National Day. Time really flies. Back then when I was finishing my high school, the country became independent. Now I am in the midst of my career, perpetually moving beyond my comfort zones to face new challenges everyday.

It was of great interest to read an article from our neighbouring country recently. It begins by saying "regardless how perfect a race car is, it will be inadequate after 20 years. In order to win the first place, the engine must be replaced. It has been 40 years since the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced in 1970."

Hidden Treasure

When asked where could this photo been taken, most likely the answer would be somewhere in Malaysia or Thailand. This is in fact in Bumi Bertuah.

We recently had a look at this place, already quite renowned by most people by now, the Mangrove Resort.

I saw a few friends were checking in, the idea of spending and relaxing in our country may be a new thing but that concept is definitely catching up. From here there are quite a number of activities that could be done such as taking a boat ride to watch the proboscis monkeys living in their mangrove environment or simply going fishing.

Dining in the Sky

These past week and month, I had the chance to dine at two of the highest restaurants in our neighbouring countries.

The first was the Equinox located on the 70th floor of The Stamford in Singapore. From the top, one has a good view of the city, dotted with new and old sky scrapper buildings. The whole place seems to be well organised and vibrant. It is a place that I know well having lived here for four years during my student days.

The second restaurant was at the Petroleum Club on the 42nd floor of the Twin Tower in KL. This was my second time here. The dinner started with an interestingly talk on how the whole concept of investing in a project of such mammoth proportion has changed the mentality of a nation. After dinner was followed by a walk across the sky bridge, which was actually the most difficult part of the whole constructions. The sky bridge is actually not directly bolted to the main structure, but is instead designed to slide in and out of the two towers.

Earning a Living

We spent sometimes just looking at the water taxis in Kampung Ayer and observing how these people are earning their living by waiting for passengers in an agreed formative position before cruising out to the horizon. It is a tough job, at the mercy of the elements, rain and sunshine, sweating to earn a modest living.

The school holiday is back again. With the changing in expectation, everyone are more prepared of what to do during this period. When traditionally people only travel on holiday at the end of the year, nowadays people seems to be traveling at every opportunity that awaits. It is a good sign but opportunity lost as most people would travel overseas. The least I would expect is a strong promotion of our KNK or Kenali Negera Kitani or some extraordinary exhibitions going on at the Museum for instance.

I read the comments made by visiting tourists of what impresses them whilst visiting this country - one thing that always sprung out was the strong family way of life here. Strong family ties are quite typical of our Asian culture. But with the modern living, when both parents are working, when there are endless official and family functions to attend in the evenings and weekends, when children are being chauffeured to schools by drivers and pampered by amah at home, that strong family ties are slowly eroding. So when officials suggest that parents should keep a closer eyes on their kids because of the rising problems seen in the country, it seems to me that if we reduce all those endless pompous events and commitments that are dragging parents away from their kids, that would already be a big step towards countering such problems.

Restaurant with a View

Today we saw a panoramic view of Brunei River and Kampung Ayer. This was from Terindak Restaurant located at the Handicraft Centre. I don't know how long this restaurant has been in business but it is definitely quite classy and different. And the view was just amazing.

Today is also when our youngest is coming out of age. He is 13 years old.
In the midst of his reading the satirical Animal Farm book from school, he wanted to read something different. So there he was sitting down reading a slightly more serious book written by Martin Meredith called The State of Africa.

It's a far cry from Animal Farm but similar characters like Napolean, boxer and so on and the doctrine that all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others are to be found in real life in the State of Africa.

The fact is in the rush of independence and desire for nationhood, similar selfish and self enriching characters plague the continent and have brought most of the countries battered, begging and kneeling on their knees today. It took me months to read this book, but our boy is already deep reading the early days of Rhodesia of what nowadays is called Zimbabwe.

Our Little Book Corner

It has been quiet on this blog over the past two months. That is a sign of how little spare time there is in this busy and demanding modern living.

Workloads have been relentless lately but also the need to do a lot of exercises have moved blogging down in the priority list.

There were also a few other things that needed to be sorted out in the house. One of these things and that took a lot of time was setting up bookshelves and arranging books from our old library. And now finally

the books are in-place in a cosy corner in the house, over a thousand of them collected over the years.

5th March 1978

On 5th March 1978, a group of nine 12-year old met and came to know each other for the first time. They were on a flight to Singapore to study in a couple of schools and became close friends for a number of years before going separate ways to further pursue their studies elsewhere and focusing on their career and family life. So tonight exactly 32 years later, we saw each other again as a group together with our other halves for dinner. Three at least have not met each other for as long as 28 years! Even then we were still missing three who were either overseas or not able to come.

During dinner, amazingly the little detail in those years could be recalled. Good memories are easy to remember - a sign that we enjoyed and cherished those moments.

Everyones have married, got kids and pursuing own jobs in both the public and private sectors.