This article is taken out from Malaysian Insider and was written by James Chin who is Head of the Arts Discipline  of Monash University, Sunway Campus. Do not read this article if you are a staunch supporter of the government and what they are doing. I just think that it is one of the articles that really expresses the thoughts of a lot of people.

The damaged brain system

JULY 23 — One of the wonderful things about living in Malaysia is that we devote so much of our resources into building brain power. We love smart people in Malaysia. Parents spend an obscene amount on tuition classes.

Let’s look at some of the major initiatives by our wonderful government to increase our brain power:

1) Malaysia will produce more than 100,000 PhDs by 2012

2) Creating “knowledge” workers and “world-class” IT industry via the MSC

3) Almost all grants by MOSTI is geared towards science and technology

4) Building new universities left and right. In the 1980s we had fewer than a dozen universities — now we have more than 20 public universities and an equal number of private universities

5) “Apex” and “research” universities allocated extra millions of ringgit with the aim of getting into the top 200 university rankings

6) All sorts of academic prizes from all sorts of dubious exhibitions

7) Smart schools

8) All sorts of scholarships — JPA alone gives more than 2,000 overseas scholarships. If you include Mara and GLCs and private companies, the number is probably somewhere about 6,000-7,000 overseas scholarships plus thousands of local scholarships

9) “Brain gain” programme where we try to entice successful Malaysian scientists to come back to help our R&D

10) All sorts of government-backed programmes like the invention awards, best ICT Company, PM’s innovation awards, smart partnership, etc.

Yet, somehow we seem to be going the opposite direction. Mind you it’s been there for more than a decade already and, correct me if I am wrong; the MSC has been a dismal failure since the “knowledge” industry has not taken off and no major Malaysian IT inventions since the inception of the MSC. Cyberjaya is still years behind Singapore.

In fact, the most famous “Malaysian” IT invention — the pen drive — was invented in Taiwan by a Malaysian Chinese who could not even enter a public university here. He had to go to Taiwan, get a degree there (which is not recognised here!) and invented the pen drive there. So today, the world thinks it’s a Taiwan invention! Malaysia Boleh!

The brain gain programme is so successful that almost all the scientists who came back to work here have resigned from the public universities or government research centres, and the bulk of them have left for overseas again. Needless to say, their major complaints were racism (almost all were non-Bumiputeras) and red tape. But no one wants to admit to this since it’s not a very smart thing to admit failure.

Meanwhile we are rushing to produce 100,000 PhDs. Since most of these 100,000 PhDs will be awarded by local public universities you really have to wonder about the quality. But who cares? The important thing is to graduate 100,000 “doctors” of dubious quality so that they can train the next generation. After all, the majority of these PhDs will end up as professors in our public universities and they will supervise the next generation of PhDs. Remember the movie “Dumber and Dumber”?

Is it any wonder that our public universities’ ranking is dropping fast?

On top of that, we have decided to stop emphasising English at the high school level. No wonder international schools are celebrating — their student enrolment will go through the roof from next year onwards.

And to ensure that we have the right environment to produce “Towering Malays” and “world-class” Malaysians, the mainstream newspapers here follow the same editorial style as China’s People’s Daily and the old Soviet Union’s Pravda. Truth is not as important as propaganda and the promotion of racism and racist ideology. Malay newspapers are free to preach racism as long as they reinforce “Malay unity” and Malay dominance. News is only news if the government says so.

In the arts, local productions cannot reflect reality. How else can you explain government directives that Mat Rempits and transvestites cannot be shown on Malaysian movies and television. The way it works is like this: if we don’t show Mat Rempits and transvestites, then they do not exist! See how smart we have become because of all the government investment in educating Malaysians? Very soon, there will be no prostitutes or gay people in Malaysia.

Just to be sure, the government has just announced another round of books that are banned in Malaysia. In total more than 2,000 titles are banned in Malaysia. Some authors do not even know that their books are banned. Reading is a dangerous habit for a knowledge nation.

Meanwhile religion, or the official view of religion, is shafted down the throats of young people through television programmes and in the schools.

You really have to wonder how on earth Malaysia produces thinking citizens since all around them the system, from the mass media to the education system to the universities, is designed to damage the brain? The whole system is designed to produce a non-thinking, non-critical person who can easily be manipulated by propaganda.

It is really mind-boggling that somehow young people have managed to escape this system. Of course there are thousands who believe in the system and are basically brain dead, especially after reading the Malay newspapers and watching the local television stations. But there is a significant portion of young people out there who have managed to overcome the attempt to control their mind. I take my hat off to these young people. Without them, Malaysia will have no future.

Yes… This post has been long overdue. But today, I am in a ‘posting’ mood! I just published my ‘Books for Thoughts’ post which I drafted 4 days before my Sabah trip. And now that I’m on a roll, I might as well finish up my post on Sabah. If I remember clearly…. KK is where we got all our aches – butt and all =).

July 10, 2009
This time, there were no more first-class service from friendly air steward and we were no longer Stamford College’s models =P. We took MASWings whereby there was only 2 air stewardess. On the plus side, the packet of Milo Kurang Manis was really good (the air stewardess gave us 2 each…. yay!)

That is the pilot and the co-pilot. Haha. What ran through our head, I don’t know.

July 11, 2009
Got up, dressed and packed for…… ISLAND HOPPING!! Before that, we had breakfast in the common area – toast, swiss-roll and tea made by Susan (first-time effort).

We chatted with the lady boss of Lavender Lodge and she was really helpful. She told us the places where we get good food and how to get around AND she ‘planned’ out our 2nd day activities(sort of).

We walked to Jesselton Point (I have a picture for this but I decided against putting it up… this post will be freakishly long then). Once we got there, we found out that we were only in time to go to one island. We chose Manukan Island, the largest of the five islands. Sitting on the jetty was a blast! It was the main contributor to our butt ache BUT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! Woohoo! I don’t mind going on that all day!

We were greeted by a guide, Amir once we reached Manukan who was really friendly…. in fact, TOO friendly and hence, the stalker as was mentioned by Li Qing in the chatbox. Anyway, it rained 5 minutes once we reached the island. 15 minutes afterwards, we decided to play in the water despite the drizzle. Managed to snorkel a little. Half an hour after that… boom… heavy heavy heavy heavy heavy rain and strong strong strong strong strong strong winds *ULTIMATE EXASPERATION*. We had to get out of the waters and head for shelter whereby we were joined by Amir. That’s our lunch – BIKA and Milo from the plane. The wind got a bit unbearable but Li Qing insisted on walking along the beach which Su and I sat out on. IT WAS JUST TOO COLD!! Then, Li Qing being the Sociable Queen made friends with a lifeguard and another worker on the island (To Su – I’ve included two ‘scandals’ on Manukan Island. Did I miss out any?). After she returned from her walk, we managed to persuade her to return to the city as it will not be possible for us to snorkel anytime soon (Thank Goodness!! No offense Qing… but I was really really freezing!!)

That’s me… wrapped with life jackets and two towels … shaking.

The tide rose to that level

The guy in the picture with Li Qing is Amir who walked us to Gaya Street where we managed to lose him but not for long. He was not there physically but he made sure that he was there thanks to the invention of cellular phones =). He took down Qing’s number as Su and I left ours in the lodge, sms-ed every two seconds and tried to call us in between. If only he just left it at being friendly in Manukan, the trip would be near perfect. Unfortunately, it was not so. Li Qing finally got rid of him on our last day by telling him off (U GO GIRL!).

Our original plan was to go to Tanjung Aru but because of our tiredness and our stalker who lived there, we changed course and went to the Waterfront Esplanade (literally water front – in front of the water) and the Night market which was within walking distance.

In Front of the Water

Hmm… what shall I say about it… there’s just a lot of shops selling very similar stuff at the same price. So… hmm… well… it was ok. I was just expecting more variety. Then we went to Sabah’s version of Petaling Street. Now that was pretty interesting.

July 12, 2009
We went to the Gaya Street Market on Sunday which is a must to all Kota Kinabalu Travellers whose stay covers a Sunday, there are loads of interesting stuff there. However, we couldn’t cover half of the street as we are dued back at the lodge to begin our day trip to Kinabalu Park and all those on the way (Nabalu Market, Poring Hot Spring, Canopy Walkway and Kundasang Market). Our chartered taxi man – Jeffin was nice. Like I said, we met a lot of nice people.

First Stop: Nabalu Market

Compared to Gaya Market, they have a more limited variety but the people there are nicer. We got some really good bargains there. I got most of my souvenirs there and anyone who knows me knows that I am very thrifty (I’m getting better nowadays, mind you). 2nd Stop: Timpohan Check Point

The place where people start their quest on climbing Mount Kinabalu. Really cold!

3rd Stop: Exhibition Hall

4th Stop: Botanical Garden

Not much to report here. There’s not enough variety and flowers to interest a non-botanical person. The walkway within the botanical garden, though not steep, made me feel my back pain. 5th Stop: Poring Hot Spring

Me and Li Qing totally bypassed the hot spring and head to the Canopy Walkway. Su said on a bench near the hot spring due to her oh-so-poor back =).

This is less than 100m. Imagine climbing this stairs when you have sore muscles. Whoosh…

I think it’s worth mentioning here that my superwoman wanted to go to the waterfall which is 430 m from the start of the canopy walkway which means we would be walking about 1800m to and fro from the hot spring! However, proving that she is smart, she scraped that idea off once we were halfway up the stairs =).

6th Stop: Kundasang Market

7th Stop: Jambatan Tamparuli

We reached the lodge at 7pm. It wouldn’t be fair for us to go all the way there and not show you a picture of the magnificent Mount Kinabalu right?

July 13, 2009
Last day! First stop – Monsopiad Cultural Village. We got there by bus to Penampang and a van to the village. We were just in time for the cultural show which showed 4 traditional dances, my favourite being the last one with the bamboo sticks (Don’t remember the name).

After that, we had our guided tour around the village. It would have been sweeter if our guide, Ros, did not ignore us local, teenagers. We were the only locals in our group. The others were foreigners. We went to the hanging bridge which was no different from the canopy walkway, the rice making section, the skull house, traditional games section and the traditional house.

As a token of remembrance, we were each given beaded necklaces. We went back to the city, walked around Centre Point and headed back to Lavender Lodge to collect our bags and check in.

Alright… before my post head to the airport. This hotel looks extremely impressive

and in comparison… ours look like this =)

At the airport: We were at the airport 2 hours before we are supposed to be there. Apparently… we were not the only ones. Shorty hottie, tall-ie brother and shorty mummy and their dad were there. Ehem… Li Qing and Susan had a fit! We know that the tall bro is going to London (info gathered thx to the mother). Their bags took really long to clear and my two wonderful friends took advantage of that time.

There they are!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, to the joy of Su and Qing, there were in the same flight as us. A few rows to the front. Still within Su’s spying and sharp eyes=). Well, one can only guess what those adjectives mean.

Ah… We had a REALLY really good time. Now, if only the original owners of the photos could upload their photos… Ehem… Ehem… =)

Labels: events, fun, happenings

It's been a week since I'd posted anything. That's because I WAS IN SABAH!! The trip with my two school besties started on July 8 =) and officially ended on July 14 when I reached Batu Pahat alone =(. This trip was filled with loads and loads of walking but what we got out of this trip made all our sweat and pain (back, legs and head) worth it.

July 8, 2009
Took the 6pm bus from Batu Pahat to Seremban with Li Qing where we arrived there at 9pm. Li Qing's cousin provided us with the accommodation and transportation that we needed to get to the airport the next day. We met her at the Nilai KTM station and went to pick Susan up from Inti. Then we talked, had a burger, washed up, did our last minute planning and went to sleep. We slept pretty late that night ... about 1 or 2 am?

Testing the camera before D-Day

July 9, 2009
Arrived in KLIA at about 6.30am for our 8.05am flight and we had to check-in ourselves because it was too early and there were not enough counters to perform the job.

Then we went to the ticket counter as we had to reissue our 'Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu' tickets. Spent quite a lot of time there which made my 'people' itch for the camera.

We went mask hunting after that (H1N1), just as a precaution, 'better safe than sorry!'.

We were kinda like the last to board the plane. Too much to do in such a small frame of time and our gate was right at the end (A11)! Adui.

We had a good breakfast on board. My eyes automatically went to the Fererro Rocher that was in the food box! Wow! It was worth it to be on the MAS!!

The air steward, Khairul, approached us after our breakfast with a very familiar line… ‘Have I seen you guys before?’ Haha. Apparently we were models from Stamford College =D. We chatted from then on until the end of our flight. He was a nice guy. Plus… he gave us loads of goodies like salted peanuts and candies.We reached there at 11am and we took a taxi to Mayfair Hotel. The journey to town cost us RM26.50 – standard price. We hired the taxi man, Haffizan, who brought us to Mayfair to bring us to Sepilok, Labuk Bay, Pu Ji Shih temple and the floating Malay village for RM150. It’s really not expensive at all.

*No pics here =P*

After we checked-in at Mayfair, we were soooooooo in the mood for photos (most probably is because of that HUGE TV we had in our room). We took some really ridiculous photos, but I’m not going to upload all of it here as most of them would probably be in Facebook.

After lunch, which was not very nice, we went to Sepilok to see one of our distant relatives. We were just in time to watch them eat. I’d probably won’t really recommend Sepilok as a place to go as the only interesting time is before and after the feeding time. When they eat, you’d probably be just staring at their butts. And the entire process will just last for … say 10, 15 minutes and that’s that.We moved on to Labuk Bay to see the proboscis monkeys. They only live in mangrove areas. Hence, the journey to that place takes about 1 hour or more. They have really bad roads here but I feel that the it is worth it when I compare it to what I see in Sepilok. It is here that we met Susan’s and Li Qing’s shorty, hottie with his shorty, loud mummy. Basically, there are two brothers. One’s hot, the other’s not so. We know their names, thanks to their really loud mum. But I’m not going to enclose it here in my blog. Their presence is vital to my next post.

By the time we finish with these two places, we were EXHAUSTED to the MAX! Mr. Haffizan was kind enough to allow us to extend our trip to the next day. We just had to pay him an extra RM40 for him to bring us to a restaurant for dinner and back to the airport. He then suggested that we can have an inexpensive dinner at Hawaii Restaurant. We then went to Gentingmas to buy some tidbits and went back to the hotel to watch some DVDs. We are allowed to borrow 5 DVDs at a time. Slept late again!

July 10, 2009
We checked out of the hotel and dumped our bags into the store room. Then we went town-browsing and for lunch. If you expect the food there to be priced like Batu Pahat… dream on. It’s expensive! I ended up eating roti telur and Li Qing and Su shared a RM7 special nasi goreng.

We found a strand of disgusting something in the food.

After lunch, we walked around some more snapped photos of our hotel.

This hotel caught my eye when we arrived at the city. I wished we stayed here! But, our budget only allowed us to stay …

Don’t be fooled by the front door. We had a really nice room with a nice uncle in-charged of the place.

Mr. Haffizan then met us down there and we zoomed off to Pu Ji Shih temple which was majestic. It looked like those Imperial Castles from China. Our taxi man took the role of a tour guide today.

It was off to the floating village afterwards which was interesting. The houses were built on sticks and some of the houses even had a speed boat in them. From the outside, their houses does not look that nice. HOWEVER, their interior decoration of the houses was nice, they had loads of clothes and shoes and we even came across a house with 6 Astro decoders!!

We then head off to Pasir Puteh Restaurant for dinner. Being a homebird, I personally prefer my Minyak Beku seafood dinner =). Then it was off to the airport with us where we are scheduled to depart at 9pm. Bye Bye Sandakan!!

Labels: events, fun, happenings

Labels: fun, home

I managed to squeeze in a book during my first week at home after. A book in a genre which I really, really want to avoid. HISTORICAL ROMANCE! Haih… Where do I even begin with these kind of books. *Exasperation*

For some reason, the heroes in these books are always rakes… wealthy, blue-blooded rakes while the heroines will always be innocent and naive (in certain ways). Isn’t this some sort of gender discrimination or stereotype? Why is it that it‘s ok for guys to sleep around but the girls must always be pure? I am not saying that I want the heroines to do what the heroes are doing, but why can’t guys not sleep around? Why must they always be ‘experienced’ in those books and the girls – helpless virgins in bed? Sheesh…

However, despite the rakish behaviours of the heroes, they are always perfect and this is the MAIN reason why I want to avoid these books. They are always smart, intelligent, excel in sports, exude charisma, carry themselves well, sarcastic but still possessing a sense of humour, mysterious and… they are very, very masculine. OTHER THAN THAT – yes, there is more, they genuinely care and love their girls. The heroes in the books by Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, Sabrina Jeffries, Cole Kresley and Teresa Mendeiros will totally, totally destroy my hopes of ever getting a guy! =D There is no way that such guys actually exist in this universe! It's all an illusion!

I’ve just completed a much overdue fourth book in the Wallflower series and… I must say that, I liked Daisy’s story the best. It’s just great fun and I had a good time laughing over the conversations that Matthew had with Daisy or when the four wallflowers are together! What made it extra sweet is the addition of Isabelle to the story. I just L.O.V.E. stories with babies in them! And… I currently L.O.V.E. Matthew Swift second best after Mr. Darcy who will always be my favourite hero(Pride and Prejudice) =P!

Enough with my fan-girling over non-existing heroes (thanks to a certain romance book ‘provider’ friend =D), I read a more productive book which tells the story of a true hero or teacher, which would be more appropriate. ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom is a real life story written in the form of a ‘final thesis’ based on what he learned on the fourteen Tuesdays that he spent with his old professor.

Reading this book made me think a lot about life and what’s important. Though I must say that the part about money not being the important thing is doubtful. You can only say that when you are already established and have a flow of money ready to be used in the bank. That is when you have reached the point where you can afford to not work and just concentrate on what really makes life richer. Imagine if you were poor it would be impossible to apply what Morrie says in this situation. You need to survive first before you can think of family or relationships. No doubt they are important, but my point is…… survival! They have no choice but to make money their priority. If you can’t put food on the table, what relationships are you talking about? There’d probably be a lot of fighting, disappointment and guilt. Too much bad air will exist among the family. But once we get through that point, we should have different priorities and enrich our lives with something other than money.

There are more philosophies that Morrie pointed out in the book which I thought was really enlightening. As the book is not with me in uni, I’d update this post when I get home.

Labels: books, home