A couple who take pride in hard work, dignity

THE old lady who sold fried beehoon at the condo where I live did not come by the last two weeks. She used to make her way up the staircase as I was about to leave for work every morning. She appeared to be in her 70s, had a hunch and walked with a limp, possibly because of painful joints.

Once, as I was descending the staircase, she asked if I wanted to buy fried beehoon for breakfast. She had less than 10 packets in her blue plastic basket. I said I had just had my breakfast, perhaps another time. I felt guilty afterwards and thought I should have bought a packet so that her effort would not be futile.

Later, when I related the story to my neighbour, I found out more about the beehoon lady.

Her husband was the rag and bone man who used to come to our condo to collect old newspapers. He was also in his 70s, pint-sized but strong as an ox. He could lift thick bundles of old newspapers and walk down 10 flights of stairs to his trishaw as many times as he needed to fill up his day's load.

Although many surat khabar lama (old newspapers) buyers called at our condo, my wife always kept our pile for the rag and bone man -- even if we had to wait for weeks or even months before he came knocking at our doors. My wife chose to only sell old papers to Ah Pek (as we had fondly called him) because she reasoned that if he had to work at such an age, he must have needed the money.

I once asked Ah Pek if he had any children. He said his children were all grown up and were leading their own lives. I asked why he was still working at his age. He told me it was easier to live on his own income. I did not know the beehoon lady was his wife until my friend Simon told me about her.

Last year, I received news that the rag and bone man had died. I recall now that it was about that time that the beehoon lady began making her rounds in our neighbourhood. I asked Simon it was appropriate to give her some money the next time I met her, if I did not buy her beehoon. Simon told me not to or risk incurring her wrath.

"She does not take handouts," he said.

"If you give her money instead of buying her beehoon, she would take it that you are treating her like a beggar. For insulting her dignity, you even might get a scolding."

I wonder why I did not see the beehoon lady these two weeks. Perhaps she has found better business in other neighbourhoods and therefore did not need to sell her beehoon at our condo anymore. I pray that she is in good health.

It is not often you meet and learn about people like the beehoon lady or her husband unless you make an effort to find out about their lives. They may be a stark reminder of what's left of filial piety and what growing old meant if your children did not take care of you.

But to me, their spirit to continue living without being a burden to others is an inspiration.

People who take pride in hard work and the dignity of being independent are a rare breed these days - just as those who are honest and have integrity.

Take it with a pinch of salt

THE owner of the mamak restaurant I go to for my weekly roti Arab has given up trying to persuade me to buy salt - Pakistan-mined mountain salt.

I told him I only used sea salt and the last 500g of coarse sea salt I bought was five years ago. We still have some left.

The sea salt I bought came from France. However, I no longer see the brand on the shelves these days.

Either the sea salt is no longer produced or the importer must have gone out of business, especially with people taking less salt and sugar these days.

Never mind what its manufacturer said it could do.

During my childhood in Kuala Terengganu, when the river was clean and the sea green, living at the estuary of Sungai Terengganu allowed my grandmother to make our own salt. Clean seawater was collected when tide came in and filtered using a strainer made of flour-sack cloth.

The brine was then boiled in a wok under low fire and continuously stirred.

When the water had evaporated, we got clumpy white salt.

However, not many people made their own sea salt because the wok would rust or crack if used too often for that purpose.

Besides, white table salt was sold at sundry stores for 10 sen per kati (600g) right up to the late 1970s.

Those days, organic and wholesome goodness had not been heard of yet.

A couple of years ago, I remember, rock salt lamps were in vogue.

Some people lighten up their interior decor with them.

Others used the stone-like lamps at the workplace to send a positive aura through the work floor.

The only trouble most salt-lamp users faced was to clean up the grime under the lamps each morning after they have been switched off for the night.

The mess from condensation-induced salt grime soon put an end to the enthusiasm of one user I know.

These days, mountain salt are making their rounds. I see them in pharmacies, sundry shops, mamak restaurants and even at the pasar malam.

They don't cost much -- about RM8 a packet for table mountain salt and RM10 for bathing salts.

The rose-coloured mountain salt come glowing with promises of putting you in the pink of health, or so one promoter tells me.

Soaking yourself in a mountain salt bath daily will keep wrinkles away.

A foot bath will help drain the negative vibes you picked up at work.

I don't know if it is true but believers say adding mountain salt to your diet will do wonders for your health because it contains minerals not found in sea salt.

I don't think I will switch to mountain salt any time soon.

I know I won't be adding more to my food or soaking gleefully in mountain salt baths.

I know that if the salt in the food doesn't get your blood pressure up, the corroding drain pipes will one day.

When hungry ghosts come out to play

IF you are wondering why the Chinese lit candles and joss sticks, and offered food by the roadsides yesterday (and for the next four weeks), wonder no more. You are in the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar and it's the month of the hungry ghosts.

Yesterday marked the first day on which families offer food, incense, hell bank notes, and paper replicas of earthly possessions for their dearly departed. Until the last day of the Hungry Ghost festival on Aug 28, believers fete free roaming spirits with offerings of food and prayers by the roadsides, light candles and incense and burn joss paper.

The celebration peaks on the 15th day with a tribute to the King of Hades, known as Phor Tor Kong among the Hokkiens. The event, known as Phor Tor, takes on a festive air as believers pay homage to the guardian of the netherworld and ask for his blessings for a year of prosperity and freedom from fear of malevolent spirits.

Various offerings, including the burning of giant paper effigies of horses and men, are made at the height of the celebration. In days of old, Hokkien operas were held to entertain the spirits and the living. However, this has been replaced by modern concerts.

This is a month to be careful in speech and action so as not to offend the spirits, believers say. Exercise caution or risk having to be exorcised. Auspicious events like weddings and official openings of businesses are postponed if it can be helped, usually to next month. And if it cannot be helped, the event will be held on a smaller scale so as not to disturb the peace enjoyed by the free roaming spirits.

If your luck is on the ebb, you are advised to keep a low profile as a close encounter with the unearthly kind is possible. But the daring and the foolhardy say they can take a peek into the other side by rubbing the blood of a black canine on their eyelids and watch the spirits come for the food offered by the roadsides. However, it is not known if anyone has tried and survived to tell the tale.

In the old days, parents also discouraged their children from going swimming in mining pools, rivers or the sea because they believe that the spirits of those who died an untimely death would be roaming the area seeking a replacement so that they could be reborn. Those who drive for a living were also advised to be careful when approaching stretches that were known for tragic accidents, as vengeful spirits were believed to be on the prowl for substitutes.

During the Hungry Ghost Festival, it was also taboo to ask for mooncakes. To do so would earn you the wrath of your elders. You would then be called eow kwee (Hokkien for hungry ghost).

In search of solar car-battery charger

MY friend Aning Awang showed me a solar car-battery charger when I visited him last month. His son purchased the device a decade ago while he was studying in Japan. When he returned to Malaysia after his studies, he brought a couple of the chargers home and installed one in his father's Nissan Bluebird.

According to Aning, the device charges the car's battery using the sun's energy. Leave the car outdoors during the day, switch on the charger, and it goes to work to keep the battery power in healthy condition.

"The good thing about this Japanese-made product," Aning said, "is that it also works under normal light -- not necessarily under the hot sun."

Having used quite a number of solar powered devices -- from torchlights and radios to garden lamps -- I was skeptical of any product that claims to use solar energy. They simply don't last. But I had to give this one the benefit of the doubt.

According to Aning, this charger is different. He said he has forgotten when he last changed his battery since using the charger.

"I only maintained the electrolyte level of my car battery," he added.

When I returned to the city, I went looking for several car accessories dealers to ask about the solar car-battery charger. I even showed them a photograph I took of Aning's charger. No one has seen the device before despite the solar charger being in the market for over a decade.

These days, car batteries cost a bomb. And they don't last as those made in the good old days. Part of the reason is because today's cars are wired with all sorts of power-sapping instruments, especially the central locking and alarm system.

Wet batteries last two years at the most -- if you take good care of them. Maintenance-free ones do last just about the same duration except that you don't have to dirty your hands topping up the electrolyte level every few months.

But if you had been absent-minded enough to leave your car lights on, like I did a couple of times this year, your battery would die even faster. And the red face you would experience would not only come from being absent-minded, but also from having to push your car to start the engine.

I have seen a solar charger for cell phones. I don't know if it works as well as its manufacturer claims but the RM499 price tag makes it too expensive to invest in.

I have also read about annual solar car competitions our local scientists have been taking part in. I am sure each year, they are closer to putting us in pole position in the worldwide race to produce the ultimate solar car.

But can they make me a solar car-battery charger instead? I think it takes less sweat than trying to figure out how to cool the interior of a solar car under our hot weather to make it practical to drive in.

When technology is humbled, rely on the traditional

EVER wondered how coconuts are plucked? If you grew up in villages, chances are that you have seen coconut gatherers at work. During my childhood, the village's coconut gatherer used a rattan loop strapped to his feet to climb the trees.

He would place his feet on the inside of the loop right up to the ankles. With the loop in place, he hops onto the tree trunk, straddling the loop over the tree trunk like a saddle. The rattan loop supported the feet and allowed the soles of his feet to grip firmly onto the slippery trunk. He then wrapped his hands behind the tree trunk, locked the fingers of both palms, and pulled himself up, two limbs at a time, frog hop-like.

Coconut tree climbing required not only strength and but also stamina and fearlessness of heights. The climber, who was in then his 50s, had all. He was able to climb over 15 coconut trees by late afternoon.

While coconut gatherers on the west coast of the peninsula used rattan loops, those in the east coast were smarter. Where I spent the earlier part of my childhood, coconut planters cut V-shaped notches onto the sides of the trunk as the tree was growing.

The notches, spaced out a foot or so all the way to the top, became a series of steps for tree climbers to gain a foothold on and get to coconuts easily. And that is why when you see a picture of a coconut tree in a photograph (or a painting) with notches on its trunk, you can bet that the scenery was captured in the east coast.

Old coconuts were usually twisted off their stalks and dropped from the trees by the gatherers. However, young ones had to be lowered to the ground using ropes because to drop them from 40 or 50 feet high would shatter their thin shells and spill the water for which they were prized.

Some also used beruk (pig-tailed macaques) and kera (crab-eating macaque) to pluck coconuts. Properly trained to identify ripe coconuts and how to pluck them, the primates could do a man's job twice as efficiently and at half the cost.

However, they can rarely be taught to pluck young coconuts without destroying half of their pickings should they decide to drop them from the tree tops.

A coconut supplier told me recently that the labour-intensive job of plucking coconuts is fast losing its appeal with the young these days. I know why. A few years ago, the prices of coconut and santan soared because of the shortage of manpower. Local suppliers had to import coconuts from neighbouring countries.

Last year, a competition to produce a mechanical coconut plucker was held in the state of Kerala, India's major producer of coconuts. According to news reports, such a contraption unfortunately will remain a distant dream.

With technology humbled by the coconut tree, I suppose if there is a real shortage of traditional climbers to pluck coconuts here, we can still depend on our beruk and kera.

Surviving on as little as possible in the city

ONE evening, while lamenting about rising food prices and how much a meal costs these days, my wife and I decided to see if we could get a dinner for two for under RM10.

The condition we agreed upon was that the meal must not only be cheap but reasonably balanced, and palatable.

We chose a banana leaf rice restaurant that was usually packed in the evenings. We thought the food must be either good, plentiful or simply cheap. We each ordered a garlic naan and a glass of limau kosong, and a small plate of fried cabbage to be shared.

The naan was about 15cm in diameter, dressed with chopped garlic, carrot and parsley. Only a small portion of dhall came on the serving tray but the waiter said we could help ourselves to more from the gravy container. The cabbage was yellowed. I did not know if it was overcooked, had turmeric added to it, or left over from the afternoon's lunch. As it was warm, it was good enough for us.

The bill came to RM6.80. The naan cost RM1.50 each, limau kosong was RM1.40 a glass, and the cabbage was RM1 a plate.

The meal was nothing to shout about but it was well within our budget.

We could have substituted limau kosong for plain water and ordered a boiled egg each for additional protein in our diet for the same price or less. Or we could even have ordered two plates of cabbage.

I am glad that there are places which still serve such cheap meals these days. If we had gone Dutch, it would only have cost us RM3.40 each. To have the same fare every day would have needed great resolve, but there are cheap meals elsewhere if we were cash strapped and not choosy.

Economy rice, depending on whether you are in Jinjang or Bangsar, probably cost between RM3.50 to RM5 - add RM2 for a drink. Noodles might be slightly cheaper, and you may not even need a drink.

If you know your way around the city, I think you can still stretch your shrinking ringgit a little. If you spend about RM5 for a meal, three times a day, you would need at least RM500 a month, excluding other expenses like transport, clothes and rent.

With these expenses thrown in, what is the least you need to earn monthly to live in a city like this?

A Myanmar I met said he only earned RM800 per month as a production worker at a factory. His employer provides accommodation, uniforms and basic amenities.

Since he has been living here for three years, I believe he was not joking. A Nepali said he did it on a monthly pay of RM600.

With overtime, he said, he takes home slightly under RM900. He has been here for six months and was happy about it.

Perhaps a TV producer should do a reality show on what is the lowest wage one can survive on in the city?

The show may not have the glamour of Malaysian Idol or Akademi Fantasia, but it could be a hit. After all, what could be more "real" than trying to survive in the city with what little we have?

What does it take to have hygienic eateries?

IF you have your breakfast out of home most of the mornings, do take a good look at your drink before you take a sip. The next time your order of Nescafe or teh tarik arrives, scrutinise it-especially the glass or mug it is served in.

What you discover could make you think twice of patronising the popular stall you have been frequenting — just like the guy I encountered at the always-packed restaurant in Sentul last week. I was already about to finish my weekly treat of thosai when a commotion across the table next to mine caught my attention.
A customer had just taken his first sip of teh tar ik when he called out to the waiter who had just served him. The customer spotted a lipstick stain on the rimof the glass mug and pointed it out to the waiter. The latter, who was a new face at the restaurant, did not appear to understand what he wanted.

When complaint turned into commotion, the supervisor who was manning the cash register rushed in to intervene, only to receive an earful from the angry customer. Apologising, the supervisor explained that the worker, a migrant, had just started work and did not understand the local lingo. To appease the angry man, the supervisor reprimanded the waiter in his own language as another waiter was gestured to change the customer’s drink.

As the supervisor calmed the man down, the drink was brought promptly to the drink station. The drink maker, who was hidden from the customer’s view by a boiler, merely poured the drink into a new glass and the tea was brought back to the customer. As the customer started tucking into his breakfast and sipping in his tea, I lost my appetite for mine.

Ever wondered how many restaurants in the city are concerned about hygiene these days? If the City Hall’s enforcers were to conduct daily checks on all eateries in the Klang Valley, especially on the understaffed 24-hour restaurant chains, chances are that city folk would have to starve for weeks. Many outlets would have to be closed down for a week of cleaning up.

Food preparation hygiene is being compromised daily and we have been fortunate not to have a large-scale food poisoning case. As a microbiologist told me, the E.Coli strain that hit Europe recently, is also probably on the tables and sinks of dirty eateries and restaurants. And the reason they have not caused harm is because they had not gotten into the food chain in large numbers yet.

How difficult is it to keep plates, cups or mugs clean anyway? Immersing them into boiling water before they are used is a cheap and effective method to kill germs. But do you see any eatery doing it? There is a café near my office that uses an age-old method of sterilising its cups for any drink it prepares.

The cafe uses an old-fashioned boiler that you used to see in coffeeshops of yesteryear.

Made of stainless steel, instead of brass like its predecessor, the boiler has a long trough at the side. Cups are soaked in the simmering water in the trough whole day long, until they are needed to prepare drinks.

Back in the 1970s, many coffeeshops used this method to sterilise their cups. Unfortunately these days, you don’t see the practice any more. Even the modern cafes that boast of oldcharm ambience you see in the city have failed to incorporate this hygienic practice into their business.

Current trend of electric steam iron leaves some cold

IN THE days when the electric iron was a luxury and the steam model had yet to arrive on our shores, clothes were pressed with the coal-powered iron.

You can see these heavy brass irons at museums, antique shops and old charm cafes, where they are spending their days in retirement as conversation pieces.

In the past, ironing was usually carried out in the evenings after cooking was done. Leftover embers from the charcoal stoves, instead of being left to burn out, were fed into the jaw-like compartment of the brass iron.

I recall it took at least 10 minutes for it to heat up to the right temperature for use.

Since, there wasn't a thermostat to control the different degrees of heat for various types of fabric, one could only rely on experience -- acquired through trial and error -- to not burn holes in the clothes.

Thick khaki trousers and shirts that required high heat were ironed first. Thinner, cotton materials were next, after the heat had dissipated. But even thick fabrics had to be given generous sprinkles of water when the iron base proved too hot.

For the iron to move smoothly, banana leaves were used. The hot iron was first applied on a banana leaf. Its organic wax enabled the iron to glide over even the stickiest of fabrics. You could always tell when a neighbour was ironing by the unmistakable whiff of singed banana leaves.

If one had lots of clothes to iron, the embers were kept burning by adding raw charcoal chips into the iron. However, the burning chips gave out sparks that sometimes escaped through the holes on the sides of the iron. On windy days, those sparks landing on new clothes could literally burn a hole in one's pockets.

White clothes had to be treated with a mild blue dye (known by its brand "Cat Blue" or "nila" in Malay) and starched before they were put out to dry.

The starched clothes, if they had been under an iron in the hands of an expert, not only had perfect fold lines, but also gave off a nice sheen.

Even in those days when coal irons were common household appliances, poor families had to borrow theirs from their neighbours. Otherwise, they made do by folding the clothes neatly and placing them under heavy wooden chests to be pressed.

Today, the electric steam iron is slowly replacing the electric iron.

The latest contraption looked like a vacuum cleaner. A salesgirl at a departmental store was demonstrating its use. The device had a T-shaped nozzle that spewed steam. No ironing board was needed -- the clothes were ironed straight on their hangers.

The teenage salesgirl showed me how easy it was to iron around buttons and other hard-to-reach places, and remove creases on the inseam of trousers without adding more on the adjacent sides.

I told her I was impressed by the new technology but I could never get used to a steam iron. The one that I won from a lucky draw is still in almost mint condition.

I used it twice but gave up the third time when I could not stop water from spilling all over the clothes I was ironing. I was also worried about the safety of an appliance which combines water and electricity in one neat package.

Two sides to our generosity

A FOREIGNER I met at lunch last week praised Malaysians for our generosity.

When I asked him how he came to that conclusion after having stayed in the city for less than a week, he said he had seen enough beggars at hawker centres to arrive at the conclusion.

Embarrassed, I explained that the beggars were probably members preying on gullible locals. They have found rich pickings on our soil and are coming in droves on tourist visas to beg here.

Malaysians, I said, are too easily embarrassed and do not want to be seen as rude when approached by beggars at public places. So, instead of refusing the latter, most give in.

But, yes, I said, we are quite generous. We rally round to raise funds for disaster victims, here and there, at home and thousands of miles away.

Those who can give cash, those who had none, give in kind. We did it in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami which hit Aceh, and we rallied around to help many more disaster victims after that.

Millions of ringgit were raised within days, collectively and single-handedly, by corporations and individuals, and sent to these disaster-hit areas.

We give, whether or not our help is asked for or if our beneficiaries will remember the kind deeds we had done and not hit back at us at the slightest provocation later.

Yes, I think we can be proud of our generous nature and give ourselves a pat on our backs for the good that we have done -- unless of course, we are only giving to rid ourselves of the burden of an old or expiring possession.

I say this because of my experience at a religious observance a couple of weeks ago where boxfuls of soft drinks were donated for helpers and participants of the event.

For years, I recall, helpers had only filtered water to offer as refreshments. This year, they had soft drinks.

I was delighted to see the generosity displayed in a mountain of soft drinks. I even praised the donor's kind deeds when my attention was drawn to the expiry date on the boxes by a helper at the event -- the drinks were about to expire the following day.

Consuming the drinks would probably do no harm, I am sure.

I have unknowingly eaten bread several days after their expiry dates because they were printed on small sealing tags that were easily misplaced rather than the plastic bags.

Is the well-wisher aware of the expiry date before donating the soft drinks?

Or was the donation made because the drinks would otherwise have to be thrown away?

I think it is morally wrong to give only when you know you cannot possibly hold onto your possession anymore -- never mind if it is still consumable or usable for another day or two.

A disaster relief organiser once told me of her post-earthquake aid-raising effort. Her team had asked for blankets and clothes for the disaster victims who were facing an impending winter.

A week after the call was made, the collection centre was inundated with so much generosity. Unfortunately, many donors had also responded to the call to clear their homes of discards.

For days, the aid raiser and her helpers had to sieve through rags in search of clothes that could still be used by the disaster victims.

Otherwise, they would have brought embarrassment to themselves as well.

A kind deed renews our faith in humanity

A TOUCHING scene at a night market in Air Panas caught my attention last week. It was the sight of a woman belting out sentimental Mandarin songs of the 1970s which I believed were sung by Taiwanese songbird, the late Teresa Teng. The woman, whom I presumed to be in her 30s, was singing with a karaoke box. She had positioned herself in between the stalls.

Although techno music was blaring away from two illegal DVD sellers a stone's throw away, her voice managed to come out quite clear that I thought the music which accompanied her songs would have done her justice with a better set of speakers.

But it was not her songs alone that attracted me -- it was the handicapped man seated in a wheelchair in front of her. He was holding a biscuit tin on his lap with his right hand. His left hand was only a stump of an elbow and he had no shirt on his back.

As the woman sang, the man appeared to be immersed in a world of his own. He was oblivious of the crowd hunting for bargains and snacks just as they were of his presence. The sad songs the woman sang did not appear to have tugged at anyone's heartstrings. 

For a good 10 minutes I watched as she sang. Fate was not generous that night. Every single pasar malam shopper walked passed, watched them, and moved on. Some did it with looks of pity, some with whispers of suspicion. None drop any money.

One chap, who wanted to take a closer look, was quickly ushered off by his lady partner.

The trader selling fried stuff two stalls away was cursing under her breath at her bad luck to have the couple nearby -- they must have driven her customers away, I thought.

Then a woman with a small boy in tow walked past. The boy, about seven years old, I think, stopped his mother and asked for some coins. When his mother asked why he wanted money, he shouted above the din that he wanted to give it to the uncle in the wheelchair.

Grudgingly, the woman obliged with some loose change which the boy took and dropped into the man's biscuit tin. The act of generosity drew a nod of gratitude and a weak smile from him as the boy was quickly led away by his mother.

I left the pasar malam wondering how much the couple raised that night and how they had survived the nightly disappointment and possible humiliation thus far. They were fortunate for the small boy even though the coins could hardly be sufficient to pay for two glasses of plain water.

The boy's kindness -- whether he understood the merits of being charitable or was merely repeating something he had seen on TV -- was encouraging. The woman who sang the sad songs, too, was an inspiring sight. At a time when the sanctity of relationships is constantly being challenged, it is reassuring to see the woman standing by her man.

Events like the one which unfolded at the pasar malam that night renews our faith in human kindness. They help us rise above the pettiness and treachery we see unfold around us every day.

No discount for lawbreakers and bad paymasters, please

A COUPLE of weeks ago, a local TV station ran a documentary on a farming venture.

Towards the end of the show, as the anchorwoman was summing up her presentation, she was shown purchasing a bag of organic fertiliser.

As she placed the bag on the checkout counter, she blurted out: "Got discount?"

I am not sure if the question was in the script but the cashier seemed to be caught by surprise as he could only manage a nod and a meek smile in response.

I am sure the anchorwoman did not intend to embarrass the poor fellow, especially in front of his boss who was likely to be present on the set to watch the filming.

But the ease with which "Got discount?" left the anchorwoman's lips gave me the impression that it was a question she asked frequently, so much so that it had become second nature.

You know, like when you see someone getting into the lift at noon and you greet him or her with "Sudah makan?" (Have you eaten yet?) or "Sudah minum?" (Have you had tea?).

Or when you see someone holding that nice handbag that you have been eyeing for the longest time, and having ascertained that the price was still out of your reach, you quickly follow it up with "Got discount, ah?"

The two words "Got discount?" is uttered by many -- automatically and unthinkingly. The thicker-skinned among us would press further with "How much?" or "If I buy a lot, got some more discount, ah?"

I once saw a woman haggling with a petai seller over the price of the stink beans. When the seller asked how many dozen pods she wanted, she said three. The price was RM2.50 for three pods, she offered RM2.

When he refused to reduce the price, she chided him, little knowing that the petai is not easy to grow and harvest.

Would she have gone easier on the petai seller if she knew how high one had to climb to pluck petai? And if she had known the risks, would she have been too embarrassed to ask for a discount?

Recently, I read that the authorities were taking the offences of errant motorcyclists seriously. Those who break traffic rules by not wearing helmets, zipping past zebra crossings, using a mobile phone while riding, and jumping red lights will be slapped with the maximum RM300 fine. They will not be given discounts.

However, motorcyclists who commit what the authorities consider "less serious offences" such as making illegal U-turns, parking next to fire hydrants and on pedestrian walkways, and hogging right lanes, will get a discount on the fine if they pay early.

Why we should reward those who flout traffic rules, even if they pay early?

Why should we give discounts to bad paymasters such as errant property owners who do not pay their assessment taxes? Some local councils did exactly that to get these rate payers to settle assessment arrears.

Are we aware of what this "discount" mentality is doing to us? I am sure it is no less harmful than the "subsidy" mentality, which we should all learn to discount.

When a durian seller is a 'musang' in disguise

WHEN durians were seasonal offerings and cheaper, it was easier for durian lovers to pick their favourite fruit.

I remember when there were only durian kampung and durian hutan. The former were those grown in orchards and compounds of homes while the latter grew in the wild.

Among the best durian kampung was the tembaga variety. Each fruit was slightly smaller than a volleyball, had sharp spiky horns and dusty yellow skin. The flesh had the lustre of polished brass.

Each pod had, at the most, three clumps of creamy flesh that was also slightly bitter. When nature decided to give a treat, there were few or no seeds, or flattened ones, allowing you to enjoy the thick flesh.

Durian hutan was much bigger, greenish brown and the thorns were less spiky. The fruits were not so fragrant, the flesh usually thin and the seeds large.

The only place in Kuala Lumpur you could find wild durian sold by vendors in the 1970s was at Simpang Tiga in the heartland of Gombak. Until the mid-80s, it was the undisputed durian valley of Selangor.

Over the last two decades, durian species have come and gone.

How many of us can tell a D11 from a D24 from taste alone, or an ang hey (red prawn in Hokkien) from a durian kunyit blindfolded? More often we take the durian seller's word for it. Or we follow the crowd. But the crowd may not necessarily be right.

Recently, I stopped by a durian stall in Hulu Kelang.

Judging from the number of people by the roadside stall, it must have been either a good deal or good fruits that attracted the crowd.

It turned out to be both -- cheap durians going for as low as RM10 for piles of threes and there were some without price tags.

I asked the seller about the ones that had no prices and was told that those were the famed musang king.

He grabbed a fruit, whacked it with his durian wedge and handed it to me to take a whiff.

"Very cheap," he said.

"Only RM22 a kilo. How many do you want?"

The price killed my enthusiasm. Since a fruit would not be enough for the family and three would cost more than my weekly grocery, I politely declined.

"How about RM20 a kilo?" the seller offered. That was the lowest he could go he said, but only if I took half a dozen fruits.

Seeing my hesitation, he asked me to check with a group of durian lovers happily tucking into what he claimed to be musang king durians.

A pile of well-formed durian seeds left by the group caught my attention.

A Datuk, who owned musang king trees in his orchard in Janda Baik, told me that a genuine musang king came with flattened seeds -- seeds that did not have well-formed cotyledons, which allowed the flesh to be thick.

If anyone claims that it is a musang king, just look at the seeds to tell a real one from a fake, he said.

Since I have never tried a musang king, I decided not to take chances. The durian seller might turn out to be a musang in disguise.

Maybe in the next season, when the musang king is cheaper, I will get some.

Thank you, teacher. You made a difference

ONE of my primary school teachers I remember well was the discipline master who also headed the prefectorial board. I remember him not because of any significant contribution he made but for the one incident that showed his cruel side. The victim was a boy in Standard Two who was often late for school, wore heavily soiled shoes, and crumpled shirts that were usually not tucked in. Despite repeated warnings by the prefects, he kept to his ways.
That day, when the discipline master saw the boy in slippers again, he was incensed. When the boy could not explain why he wore slippers, the teacher grabbed him by the pants and shook him so hard that it snapped the raffia string the boy had used to hold his pants in place. When the teacher let go, the pants dropped. Some of the pupils who saw the incident laughed. The boy cried. I did not know if it was out of fright or embarrassment.

Later I found out that the boy came from a very poor family. They had lived on handouts. Finally I understood why he appeared the way he did. He probably had only one pair of shoes, which explained why they were often soiled. And on days when the shoes were wet, he had to wear slippers.

Instead of embarrassing the boy, I thought the teacher could have been kinder. The incident affected me so much that when I entered Form Four, I decided not to be a prefect but a librarian instead. However, luck was not on my side or was it?

Although I had passed all the practical tests for librarianship which included book arrangement and repair, and cataloguing them according to the Dewey Decimal System, I failed the interview. A safety pin was the cause.

The morning of the interview, while rushing to class, my shirt's sleeve was caught on the handle of a bicycle. The uppermost button snapped loose. Since I had no spares, I used a safety pin in place of a button. The teacher who interviewed me was a stickler for dressing. Instead of asking me why I had a safety pin on my shirt, she failed me because I was not "presentably attired".

I found out about it a week later from my seniors, after the librarians were installed.

Fortunately, I had more good teachers to remember than bad ones. Among them were Mrs Chan Wing Mun and Mr Chin Peng Weng, who both taught me English at Setapak High, and were my form teachers in Form Two and Three respectively.

I remember Mrs Chan because she had the habit of recording names of students who had more than three mistakes in the weekly dictation and spelling tests.

Those whose names were noted down for three consecutive times would be asked to sit under the table. Although she never did carry out the punishment, the fear of ending up the laughing stock of the class improved our vocabulary.

Mr Chin, who had a booming voice often threatened to cane the more recalcitrant among us. But he never did, no matter how badly we behaved.

Instead, he would regale us with stories of his younger days to motivate us. One of the phrases he often used was: "Aim for the stars so that if you did not reach them, you would at least have reached the moon."

Mr Chin's wife, whom everyone called Mrs Chin Peng Weng at school, taught science and art.

During her art classes, she never belittled any student's painting, no matter how horrible it looked. One day, when I asked her what to paint, she said I should paint what I liked.

"If I had to tell you what to paint, then it would not be art," she said.

Although I did not understand what she meant then, my friend Maamor did. And if Mrs Chin is reading this, I am pleased to inform her this Teacher's Day that her student Maamor Jantan is today an accomplished artist.

And it was Maamor who told me that if he had not met Mrs Chin, his life might have turned out differently.

Bus Rapid Transit can solve congestion woes in KL

THE Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) is studying the feasibility of introducing dedicated bus lanes with barriers in the city.
If implemented, this could well be the answer to the worsening congestion woes in the capital. And if workable, perhaps the system can be replicated in other jam-plagued cities in the country too.

According to reports last week, the dedicated bus-only lanes will have barriers all along the route to separate stage buses from busy traffic on main roads. The concept, to be known as the Bus Rapid Transit or BRT, will allow stage buses to ply their route without obstruction.

Currently, the yellow-lined bus lanes in parts of the city that were supposed to be used only by buses and taxis daily, except Sundays and public holidays, are not being taken seriously. Errant motorists and motorcyclists have been encroaching onto these lanes, especially during heavy traffic, and obstructing bus movement. Buses and taxis that were supposed to use the lanes have also not stayed on their side of the deal.

By using physical barriers to prevent other motorised traffic from encroaching onto the dedicated lanes, hopefully the buses will arrive on time and move commuters from one busy part of the city to another without delay. The separated lanes, I think, should also be opened to emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire engines during peak hours when there is congestion of the main traffic stream.

Although the system can reduce jams and improve commuting by bus, the dedicated lanes with barriers should also be made at least two buses wide to cater for any bus breakdowns. If you have been driving around the city, you will notice that a week seldom passes without seeing a stalled bus on a busy thoroughfare that adds to the jam.

The authorities will also have to make sure that bus drivers do not turn certain spots along the dedicated lanes into ad-hoc depots for them to have a tea break or wait for passengers when commuting traffic is low.

I think the current dedicated lane system for buses and taxis has failed because of the lack of enforcement by the authorities. You only need to stand at any area along Jalan Raja Laut at 6pm on workdays to see how the errant motorists break the law and treat the dedicated lane as their own and get away with it. Bus drivers too can be seen moving in and out of the lanes to get ahead of their competitors.

If the barrier system is to be successful, the authorities should also expect challenges from the city's ever increasing number of motorcyclists. Will the barriers be made high enough to prevent encroachment by motorcyclists? Already, some of them are riding on the fast lane of busy roads and riding on pavements meant for pedestrians when encountering jams on main roads.

Who is to stop these errant motorcyclists from using the new dedicated bus lanes as their racing track?

Strong current to rehabilitate KL's rivers

IN the early 1970s, when the southwest monsoon hit Klang Valley without fail annually, heavy rain that came with it at the beginning of the year was much feared by villagers living along Sungai Mulia in Gombak.
At the village where I spent my childhood, villagers often lost the back portions of their houses to the swift currents. Toilet renovations were often an annual affair.

Sungai Mulia was one of the two rivers upstream that fed -- and still feeds -- Sungai Gombak. The other river is the Sungai Batu which meets Sungai Gombak at the Putra World Trade Centre.

Sungai Gombak joins the Kelang river a few kilometres downstream at Masjid Jamek from which confluence Kuala Lumpur got its name.

In the days when most houses were powered by kerosene lamps and water came from wells, families who lived along Sungai Gombak depended quite a lot on the river.

From the bridge along Jalan Kampung Bandar Dalam, which linked Gombak to Sentul, womenfolk could often be seen cleaning their laundry on the rocks under the shade of the Lian Hin rubber smokehouse.

I recall hot afternoons and during school holidays, the area became a children's playground.

A dhoby operator used water from the river to clean its laundry and clothes were dried in long lines along the bank.

That section of the river teemed with life. Small river carps that belonged to the lampam family could be seen in the almost crystal clear water. Freshwater shrimps, too, were plentiful. Freshwater turtles, or labi-labi in Malay (or tsui yue in Cantonese), were found in abundance during the months when the ara trees upstream bore fruit.

White-breasted waterhens, known as wak-wak or kedidi in Malay, were also many. They could be seen foraging along the waterline with their chicks in tow. Village folk used snares or bird traps called jebak puyuh to trap these birds.

Pollution those days came mainly in the form of domestic rather than industrial waste. The only big factory upstream was Lee Rubber.

As I remember it, Sungai Gombak remained visibly clean until the late 70s when pockets of small factories and workshops sprouted.

Its demise came, I think, around the 1980s when housing estates came up and more people found it easier to dump garbage into the river than throwing them in communal garbage bins.

Recently, when I read that the Selangor Government had appointed four companies to carry out a RM50 billion project to rehabilitate the Kelang river, I was delighted.

Having seen how the Malacca river had been successfully transformed, I cannot help but feel hopeful that Sungai Kelang and Sungai Gombak can be returned to their glorious states in the 1970s.

However, unlike the Malacca river, which is shorter and less populated, save for the section when it ran through town from Kampung Morten to the estuary, the upper reaches of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Kelang will be a bigger challenge, especially with many illegal factories and squatter areas still dotting the riverbanks.

To clean up the rivers, it will take more than just stretching floating rubbish booms across them.

Those responsible for rehabilitation must first clean up the mentality of city folk and riverine dwellers that the two rivers are not open sewers.

They may even need to employ a river warden like some countries do to patrol the rivers to nab litterbugs.

The state government's projected 15-year rehabilitation period looks like a reasonable time to do so, if they start now.

Games of old provide healthy interaction for players

ON a holiday at the beach in Terengganu recently, I showed a group of vacationing city kids a game children played four decades ago. I don't know who invented the game, or if it was called by the same name. We called it "cham keh thau" (or beheading the cockerel) in Hokkien, or more commonly called konda kondi. I don't know if the term was in Tamil or Malay, but I am certain it is not rooted in English.
The game uses two rounded sticks usually sawn-off brooms -- the bat measuring about 0.6m long and a short stick about 7.6cm to 10cm long.

The aim is to use the bat to hit the short stick and send it flying across the field to the opponent. There are three rounds to a turn. First, the short stick is placed straddling a three-inch long hole in the ground. The hitter uses the bat to flick the short stick across the field.

If the catcher fails to catch the short stick, the hitter goes to the second round. He throws the short stick into the air, hits it to send it flying towards the catcher. If the short stick is caught before it lands on the ground, the hitter loses his turn.

If not, the catcher still gets a chance to knock the hitter out of his turn by throwing the short stick as close as possible to the hole.

If the short stick lands within 0.6m of the hole, usually measured by the distance of the bat, the hitter loses his turn. Otherwise, he goes to the final round which gives the game its rather unglamorous Hokkien name.

This stage requires speed and dexterity of the limbs. The short stick is first placed with one end protruding from the hole at an angle. The hitter strikes the protruding end and causes the short stick to somersault into the air, before quickly hitting it to send it across the field.

If the catcher fails to catch the short stick, the position where it fell is noted. Using the length of the hitting stick, the distance from that point to the hole is measured. The number of counts represents the score. The game is played one against another or in teams of four to five persons over a pre-decided time or whoever reached the pre-determined score first.

I have not seen konda kondi being played these days. I wonder if anyone also remembers games like chopping (using a tennis ball to strike out opponents one by one until there is only one left on the field), rounders (a game similar to baseball), or even dividers (a game boys played by flicking a pair of dividers or a folding knife onto the ground in several rounds).

I think I can see why such games have fallen out of favour with today's city children. Within the confines of the space-challenged highrises where gardens are small and the grounds concreted, you can't play these games in their true form without breaking the windows of someone's condo or the windscreen of their cars.

A city-bred parent tells me that he wouldn't let his boys play such dangerous games although he would not mind them spending hours on the Wii or Playstation. As long as his children are safe, he would not mind the cost of frequent software or equipment upgrade.

I told him that he and his children are paying the price of losing out on the healthy interaction with other children that games of old provide.

Through games like konda-kondi or chopping, when played in groups, they learn about solidarity and teamwork, and of honour and integrity.

Yes, there is a chance of getting hurt in the rough tumble but that's how they learn to keep themselves safe in the real world.

No fake eggs, only good and bad ones

The news you have been fed by the radio, newspapers or the TV about fake eggs is inaccurate -- fake, if you will.
The so-called "fake" eggs seized from the Pulau Tikus wet market in Penang a few weeks ago were real.

Veterinary Services Department director-general Datuk Dr Abd Aziz Jamaluddin said so.

Apparently, the department ran tests and found nothing fake about the eggs. So, don't worry. Go ahead and have your hard-boiled eggs or roti telur today.

When my colleague told me about fake eggs from China being sold here, I was amused. According to him, it costs only three sen to produce a fake egg.

If indeed eggs can be faked -- and so cheaply at that -- greedy local traders would be crowing all the way to the bank. Poultry farmers would be crying foul.

But now we know that "fake" eggs are but only deformed ones that are deemed unfit for sale because they are not aesthetically pleasing.

Ironically, such confusion and controversy can only happen in the modern age. Those who love their eggs these days have probably never reared chickens. If they had, they would not have been so easily ruffled.

When my family lived in the kampung back in the 1970s, we reared chicken, ducks, turkeys and geese.

Our neighbours also had their free-ranging poultry.

As children, we knew how to distinguish one type of egg from another, and not mistake a duck's egg for a hen's. We also saw our share of strange eggs, especially those from chickens.

Did you know that shell of the hen's egg is soft when it is laid, but hardens within seconds?

But some of the eggs remained soft indefinitely. We have also seen "deformed" ones, which shells are rough to the touch. Some are not oval but round like a turtle's egg. There were also those with shells so thin they cracked as easily as a lizard's egg.

Some eggs came with two yolks, which according to an old wives' tale, would result in the birth of Siamese twins if they were eaten by a pregnant woman.

To deal with deformities of the egg shell, we burned cockle shells, ground them into powder, and added it into the chicken feed.

Within weeks, hens fed this mix would lay uniformly sized eggs with normal, shiny shells.

Our elders believed that hens laid abnormal eggs because of too little calcium in their diet, hence the cockle shell supplement.

I do not know if that is true. But I do know that when we wanted the yolks to be bright yellow, we only needed to feed the hens a ground padi husk and corn mix.

The problem kampung folk faced those days was not fake eggs, but hidden eggs. The free-ranging hens were experts in hiding their eggs - in the lemon grass (serai) bushes or under piles of firewood.

Our clue was the hen's incessant clucking after it has laid an egg.

Where the hen clucks, the egg is not far away. The Malay proverb Bertelur sebiji, riuh sekampung was hatched from this. It is applied to people who like to brag about their accomplishments, especially small, insignificant deeds.

Widen dragnet for abandoned vehicles

CITY HALL's move to remove abandoned vehicles from the compound of low-cost public housing areas last week must have come as a surprise to the owners. How many would have expected it to happen.
Those whose abandoned vehicles had been wheeled to City Hall's car pound can now pay the fine, tow fees and other charges to reclaim their vehicles or have them sold off as scrap.

One low-cost unit dweller who read the news in Streets last week told me he was happy with the move. Heaping praises on City Hall's enforcement team, he said the local authority should conduct the operations on alternate months and set up a hotline where people can report abandoned vehicles to the local authority.

"DBKL should have done it earlier," the chap said. "The owners of these abandoned vehicles are just selfish.

"They leave the old cars and trucks in low-cost public housing areas because the high pedestrian traffic in the densely populated area reduces the chances of the vehicle parts like the tyres or lamps being stripped by vandals.

"Some of the vehicle owners don't even stay in the flats," he added.

"They only use the parking lots as storage area until they figure out what to do with the vehicles."

I agree with him. Although I don't live in a low-cost flat, my medium-cost condominium has also been used to dump old vehicles. The building manager is facing problems with abandoned vehicles whose owners' whereabouts are not known.

There are now several vans of dubious origins taking up precious parking space. Last year, a truck was left in our compound for about six months until someone complained that it could be used by unscrupulous people to store contraband. It prompted the building manager to put a notice on it saying the the vehicle would be removed if the owner did not claim it. Soon after, the van was driven away.

I am wondering if City Hall would extend the service to all housing areas to get rid of such abandoned vehicles -- especially those that rob rate payers of parking space. Some of those who own old vehicles are conveniently exploiting the inaction of local authorities and using public space as their storage area for free.

One chap I know who operates a business area in Taman Danau Kota, off Genting Kelang, complained about old vehicles being left along the roads there, some illegally along yellow lines and many on legitimate parking lots.

According to him, the vehicles had been seen since a midnight bazaar started operating a few years ago. I also remember seeing the vehicles, most of which were vans and small trucks.

"The vehicles are owned by bazaar traders," he said. "These old vans and trucks are mobile stores, usually filled with merchandise. They are left at public parking lots or by the road side near the bazaar during the day.

"At night, their owners drive them to their respective trading spots at the bazaar. The vehicles are left in public parking lots where parking fee collection has yet to be implemented or parked along yellow lines.

"As a result, they take up valuable parking lots and deprive those who are running errands here of parking space. They are then forced to double park and cause congestion."

Annual income requirement for cardholders too low

THE RM2,000 monthly salary requirement for new credit card approvals did not go down well with one of my teh tarik mates.
Last Saturday, while having breakfast in Sentul, our topic of conversation switched from the Japan nuclear crisis to Bank Negara Malaysia's revision of the minimum annual income requirement for new credit card applications, from RM18,000 to RM24,000.

My friend felt that the RM2,000 monthly pay requirement was too low.

He suggested that the minimum requirement be tagged at a monthly salary of RM2,500 or even RM3,000. The revision does not make it too difficult to own a credit card, he said.

"Even making those who wished to own two cards to have an annual income of RM36,000 per annum will not help reduce credit card debt problems," he added.

It is not difficult to see what he is driving at. To give a credit card to someone who earns RM2,000 a month is asking for trouble, especially for those who are living in the city where the cost of living is high and the temptation to spend aplenty.

Simple calculations will show why.

Subtracting 15 per cent from one's monthly pay, say RM2,000, for mandatory deductions like the Employees Provident Fund and Social Security contributions will leave the wage earner with about RM1,700 to take home.

Take away a third of this for accommodation needs, and he/she will be left with about RM1,000 to spend.

Remove another RM300 for monthly travel expenses (which is not enough if he/she owns a car) and he/she will be left with about RM700 monthly.

This translates to about RM25 per day left for other expenses such as food, cigarettes, phone top-ups, entertainment, Internet access, and sundry purchases.

This is based on the assumption that the wage earner does not have other commitments such as housing, car, education or personal loans to repay. Otherwise, it will not be long before the credit card owner gives in to the temptation and starts living on credit.

If statistics are anything to go by, one should also be concerned that 50 per cent of 3.2 million credit card holders have annual incomes of below RM36,000 as quoted in the recent news report. It would be interesting to know how many of these card holders owe their banks, how much, and for how long. Even more interesting is how many of them have been blacklisted and are on the verge of bankruptcy.

The credit card can only encourage prudent financial planning if one manages one's spending well. But how many people use the credit facility responsibly and resist the temptation of not making purchases using income yet to be earned? The poor spending habit is further compounded by the fact that one only needs to pay a small fraction of the total debt monthly to continue using their plastic cash.

And when emergency expenses hit those with high credit card debt, they have no choice but to borrow from friends or even loan sharks to stay afloat.

Why have your resume in MyKad?

TO make it more convenient for job seekers, the Labour Department has proposed that soft copies of resumes be stored in the MyKad.
According to a report two Sundays ago, the department director-general Datuk Sheikh Yahya Sheikh Mohamed said the proposal had been made to the Human Resources Ministry, which would study the available technology and costs. The move is to relieve the burden of job seekers, especially school leavers.

While the idea is good, I wonder if it is practical, considering the fact that resumes need to be updated each time one changes jobs, acquires new skills or gains new paper qualifications.

If a self-updating feature is available, and the user is allowed to freely access the MyKad, then the authorities will have security issues to contend with.

Is the technology worth the investment when there are so many online networking sites that offer resume templates, and which can be easily accessed via any mobile or desktop web browser?

Some of these sites are not only created by professionals, but are as easy to use as the email.

A good example is Linked-In (www.linkedin.com), created nine years ago. It has 90 million users worldwide and an infrastructure few can equal. Not only does it provide resume templates, it also has a professional contact networking feature. It can be used to find jobs, people or business opportunities. You can even list jobs and seek potential candidates. Job seekers can check out the profile of the potential employer and see which of their contacts can introduce them to the vacancy.

Moreover, Linked-In is not the only site with all the bells and whistles that young job seekers today expect.

So, how relevant will the proposed resume feature in the MyKad be to the average modern job seeker, who is well-connected and technology-savvy?

That aside, there is little sense in using sophisticated -- and probably costly -- technology to perform a job as simple as the storing of a resume.

The MyKad should instead contain vital information such as its holder's medical history and allergies (like the Medic Alert band).

It could even have a geo-location of the holder's home or workplace, with widespread use of global positioning system (GPS) devices. The phone numbers of the card holder's next-of-kin would inarguably be useful in an emergency.

For resumes, just use a flash drive -- it's easier to carry and cheaper, too.

Respect zebra crossings forpedestrians' sake

HEARD the one about a country bumpkin who was trying to cross a busy street downtown? Seeing the poor man in his predicament, a traffic policeman walked up to him and said: "Sir, there is a zebra crossing down the street."
The chap looked at the policeman, looked annoyed, and exclaimed: "Oh, yeah? I hope he's got better luck than me."

If you are smiling because you know what a zebra crossing is, I wonder if you recognise it when you see one.

Plentiful in the 1970s, zebra crossings are black and white (now yellow) stripes painted across roads with flashing amber lights stationed at either end.

They have no standard traffic lights facing oncoming traffic, but motorists are obliged to stop when someone is spotted on the crossing, or at the road shoulder waiting to cross.

The pedestrian crossings you see around the city today, including those at traffic light junctions, are not zebra crossings in the strict sense of the word.

In the United Kingdom, they are called pelican crossings -- pelican being a modified acronym for pedestrian light controlled (or pelicon). These have standard traffic lights mounted instead of flashing amber lights.

There is a button for you to press if you need to cross, but you have to wait for the light on your side to turn green before you should do so.

Some of these crossings are disabled-friendly, with chimes to alert the blind when it is safe to cross. Many have countdowns to let you know how much time you have to cross before the light for oncoming traffic goes green.

Compared with viaducts or overhead bridges, zebra or pedestrian crossings are more viable alternatives to connect walking pathways.

They can be built at a fraction of the cost of a bridge and in much shorter time.

They are also easier to maintain and more likely to be used by everyone than the pedestrian bridges or underpasses, many of which have become crime havens.

The only problem with pedestrian or zebra crossings is that many city motorists are like country bumpkins.

They do not recognise the crossings when they see one -- perhaps out of ignorance or apathy.

Take the zebra crossing at Sentul Pasar for instance.

Each morning, while driving to work, I see market-goers making their daily dash to cross the busy road despite using the crossing as they lug their baskets or with children in tow.

Motorists zip pass without batting an eyelid, let alone stop.

There have been many near-misses and I have watched startled pedestrians hurling verbal abuses at inconsiderate motorists.

Fortunately, I have not seen anyone hurt.

I have not seen any camera mounted at this zebra crossing or any pedestrian crossing around the city for that matter to record the misdeeds of errant motorists.

Because of this, brazen motorists continue to give scant regard to the rights of pedestrians on crossings.

In one of my trips to Johor, I saw a pedestrian crossing that can perhaps be an eye-opener for traffic authorities in the Klang Valley.

This crossing did not have flashing amber lights or signalised traffic lights. The only indicators of the crossing's location were two signboards placed several metres up and downstream of it.

But motorists obediently slow down when approaching the crossing even when no one was using it.

Humps high enough to slow down the most reckless speed demon have been put up on both sides of the crossing.

Someone must have been irked by speeding motorists in the area to have come up with the bumpy ride idea to teach errant motorists to slow down.

Perhaps the traffic managers in the city can learn a thing or two from this so that errant motorists learn to respect the rights of pedestrians at crossings.

Fuming over shisha smoking ban

THE call for the ban of shisha smoking at eateries did not go down well with a group of smokers at an Arab outdoor restaurant in the city where I was dining out with my family last Thursday.

Apparently, the group of local shisha smokers was fuming over the report in the New Straits Times they had read earlier that day.

The Malaysian Medical Association had called for the ban of the tobacco-molasses pipe following the Kota Baru Municipal Council's decision to stop shisha smoking in eateries.

We were finishing our drinks after dinner when the group arrived. They took a table next to ours and promptly ordered a shisha pipe to be shared.


Because I was not too fond of smoke when dining, I took a table far away from diners who were there to smoke the pipes.

But when the group arrived, I had the pleasure of listening to their side of the story. The youths, three young men and a woman in their 20s, were loudly expressing their displeasure between shared puffs of the shisha pipe.


One of them said that shisha smoking was not harmful, and concluded that it was no worse than cigarette, cigar or pipe smoking.

A girl in the group chided the MMA for not minding its own business and infringing on the right of shisha smokers to smoke.

I did not know what shisha smoking was until that evening's eye-opener. As I watched the waiters topping up the hot coal onto a receptacle on top of the shisha pipe, and smelling the sweet scent of the second-hand smoke, I realised why many non-smokers who hated cigarette smoke did not mind shisha's.


It did not smell as bad as burnt tobacco, a clove cigarette, or cheap cheroot.

But I wonder if shisha smoking is not as harmful as smoking cigarettes.

Never mind if the smoke is less smelly but tobacco is still tobacco, and burnt tobacco produces nicotine.

And what about the coal used to heat up the shisha -- does the smoker not inhale some of the fumes from burning coal in the same breath?

That evening, I wondered if the eatery which provided such good Arab food would consider setting up a non-smoking area soon so that non-smokers like my family and I could enjoy their excellent cuisine without having to inhale second-hand smoke on the slipstream or struggle to see what were on the plates because of too much smoke.

Defenders of shisha smoking could say that the activity is attractive to tourists from the Middle-East.

Premises offering shisha smoking can certainly make these tourists feel at home -- just like the sight of nasi lemak to Malaysians in a foreign land.

But when I see more locals than Arabs tugging at the hoses of shisha pipes, I wonder if local smokers are merely doing it to look cool or a new smoking culture is being adopted.

As far as I know, our forefathers only smoked rokok daun (tobacco rolled in nipah palm leaves) but never shisha.

2011 shaping into good year for the fortune tellers

JUDGING by the amount of exposure soothsayers were given at the very beginning of this year, says an observer, horoscope reading must be getting back into vogue. Not only were the periodicals generous with their print space to feature fortunetellers and their predictions, the electronic media, too, has given much airtime. One television station featured horoscope reading as an hour-long programme on the eve of the New Year and repeated it the next day.

The days of sidewalk fortune tellers may be numbered in the age of computers, but certainly there is no shortage of demand for their services even among the most skeptical or highly educated. Given the right marketing push, the art of divination can be lucrative.

One soothsayer had came up with a series of books to predict what the Year of Rabbit held in as early as October last year. Whether or not the predictions are accurate, I have no way of knowing, but to judge by the dog-eared copies in dumper bins with big discount stickers now stuck on them, I can't help but wonder if the author could have foretold the outcome of the books.

Chinese or English horoscope, there is no shortage of believers - whether they read them out of obsession or curiosity. Some people I know will not buy a newspaper if the horoscope section is missing. No one noticed when once, some predictions became mixed up, a magazine copy editor told me. But when she left out a horoscope in one issue, the phones did not stop ringing.

Science or quackery, only the experienced can tell. Sometimes even the experts are stumped when the stars refused to cooperate and play havoc with predictions. The more sensible among my friends say that you should take readings with a grain of salt. Take the case of a colleague who turns 60 this year. The stars are said to be against him - and people born in the Year of the Rabbit. However, his fears proved unfounded when he struck lottery a fortnight ago.

Perhaps the best way to take horoscope readings, if you cannot accept them as novelty, is to use some common sense.

If you can get out of bed today, earn enough to feed and house yourself and your family, and sleep well without worries t onight, then it is a good day regardless of what soothsayers say.

Rejoice in price-less celebrations

AVOIDED buying white pomfret (bawal tambak in Malay or tau tai cheong in Cantonese) this year although the price was cheaper than last year's at the pasar tani I had gone to.

My wife also decided to forgo banana prawns, the crustaceans sought after by the Chinese during the Lunar New Year for its auspicious significance. The giant prawns were so ridiculously priced, at RM80 per kilo a week before New Year's day, that I felt I could do without the prosperity dish if it meant making fishmongers prosperous first.

We avoided buying dried meat from a famous shop in the city centre - not only because the prices had gone up but the queue was painfully long.

Although the shop's dried meat was my daughter's favourite, we decided that standing for more than an hour in a queue is a price not worth paying for.

Ever counted how often we have allowed ourselves to be drawn into festive buying frenzies only to regret later that we had bought things we can ill-afford or don't need?

Through herd mentality, how often have we allowed ourselves be fooled by marketers playing on our emotional weaknesses and superstitious beliefs? Regardless of our religious inclination, educational background, or creed, gullibility gets the better of us sometimes.

Today, I am sure the hopeless romantic in us will be paying for roses through our noses. It is Valentine's Day, in case you have forgotten. And yes, another excuse to splurge. Never mind if the roses cost you an arm and a leg -- you can still hop into work the next day, hopefully.

Luckily, Valentine's Day does not fall on Chap Goh Meh. If it did, one city pub owner tells me, business might suffer if Chinese lovebirds chose to celebrate the Chinese version of the lover's day by flocking to bridges and throwing oranges into rivers instead of going to pubs and fine-dining restaurants.

We can point fingers at commercial brainwashing for all the hype that are burning holes in our pockets but I think we have only ourselves to blame for succumbing to price hikes during festive seasons.

In the case of Feb 14, which is a multi-million ringgit industry flooded with cards, presents, and flowers, we should perhaps allow heads to rule our hearts instead.

Isn't it ridiculous to associate the price of gifts or number of roses you receive or give away with the level of affection? Why show love and affection only on this day when it is perfectly all right to do so on any day of the year -- and with less strain on the pocket?

Don't get involved in this hare-raising experience

PEOPLE tell me that pet dealers are laughing all the way to the bank this Chinese New Year. Rabbit sales have outdone that of dogs or cats.
Although some restaurants have their reservations in serving rabbit meat, the enthusiasm for bunnies among those whose houses I visited is simply amazing.

I was also told that some had bought rabbits after some soothsayers claimed that it was auspicious to have a bunny in the house.

But if the path to prosperity is still not clear to you as you read this, and you are prompted to get a rabbit for your home before Chap Goh Meh, I think you should be aware of a report I read two weeks ago.

According to AFP, rabbit dealers from Thailand to China are doing brisk business but their road to prosperity has raised concerns among animal activists.

To discourage maltreatment of rabbits, a representative of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) organisation has reiterated that rabbits are high-maintenance animals that require significant resources, equipment, attention and veterinary care.

They are not, as your pet dealer will tell you, cute and easy-to-care-for pets that you can introduce to your children.

I agree totally. Having lived two doors away from a neighbour who reared rabbits for meat in the 1970s, I recall how much work went into rabbit keeping.

Rabbits dislike heat and dampness. You cannot hose them down during hot spells like you do a dog or they will catch a cold and die.

As commercial rabbit feed was not widely available, the rabbits were fed wheat grain and rabbit hay -- a type of long-node succulent grass found near waterways.

But you had to make sure the grass is completely dry before they are dropped into the pen. Wet feed would give the rabbits a skin disease and eventually kill them.

Rabbit pens were raised a metre or more off the ground.

They had mesh flooring to enable rabbit urine and droppings to fall through.

The pen had to be airy and the area beneath cleaned daily. A dirty surrounding breeds diseases; a fungal infection can wipe out an entire rabbit population in days.

Of course, for the commercially inclined, the amorous rabbit is a boon. Left to their own devices, a pair can bear you an army six months down the line. You will know how scary that can be if you have reared guppies.

Maintenance and labour costs would multiply unless you keep the males and females separated.

And if you are thinking of buying a rabbit as a pet companion, perhaps you should think again.

Unless you can take good care of the animals and not dump them into the woods, like most people do their unwanted dogs and cats in the city, the bunny may not be good company.

And I am sure the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will appreciate it if you do not get them involved in your hare-raising experience

Goodbye to a good year, hello to a new one

SO, we have already chalked up a month to another year. Last year wasn't so bad, was it? I am sure you will agree that we had more to be thankful for last year than we had the previous years.
For one, there were fewer street demonstrations in 2010 and city folk like you and I could go about earning a living without worrying if we would get to work or home in time because of sudden road closures.

The number of street demons aka Mat Rempit has not gone down but let's keep our fingers crossed that those who escape police dragnets will grow up, repent and ride safely for their own sake and their family's.

As for the morning jam, well, just treat it like breakfast, and with less fuss until the traffic or public transport system is improved.

My side of the city feels a little safer with mobile police beat bases set up in areas where youths like to loiter. Since I have not heard about snatch thefts in the past two weeks, I am going to hope that the police presence is enough to deter petty crime. I know my colleague who stays in Puchong sleeps a little easier with policemen on horseback patrolling her neighbourhood.

City Hall officers have done a good job, too, where discouraging illegal parking is concerned. Last year had been the city authority's year of enforcement, and I am encouraged to see that it had done well. From the windows of Balai Berita, I have observed how often the DBKL men and women came around to issue summonses on illegally parked vehicles -- although some errant motorists are still at it.

Perhaps the authority will just have to work a little harder since the tide of reckless parking has shown little signs of ebbing. Higher fines may do the trick where even towing has failed. But, of course, City Hall has to ensure that there are enough parking lots. It is not fine to fine motorists who park illegally while allowing workshop and eatery operators to hog the parking lots in front of their premises.

Under the safe city concept, covered pedestrian walkways connecting some light-rail and monorail stations (LRT) in the city were constructed. These will be a boon to pedestrians. Once completed, more people will be encouraged to use public transport and fewer will drive into the city. This will, in turn, reduce jam and pollution.

The long-awaited transformation of Brickfields and the massive upgrading of Taman Tasik Perdana are two developments we can be proud of, among others, last year.

Let's hope that this year, urban renewal programmes will make the city an even better place to work, live and play in. Can we trust the city planners to have the foresight to retain traditional charms in the pursuit of modernity?

The best news last year was probably for the poor, when 44,146 low-cost flats from the People's Housing Scheme were offered for sale to them. The extra effort taken by the Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing Ministry to set up the Housing Credit Guarantee Corporation to act as bank loans guarantor for those wihtout a fixed income is commendable.

The challenge now is to make sure that the low-cost units go to the deserving and not to those looking to make a quick buck by renting out the flats. And once these properties are handed over, City Hall should ensure that these low-cost housing schemes are well maintained so they do not become urban ghettoes.

So, as we celebrate yet another City Day tomorrow, we have lots to thank for. I am counting my blessings today and possibly over the next few days.

You can join me in appreciating the sparse traffic and improved air quality if you are in no hurry to get out of town like most of the city folk on long weekends.

Motorcycle riders' dance with death

A LADY biker I read about in one of the dailies recently likened riding a bike to dancing the salsa -- you need to twist left and right, she was quoted as saying. Although I did not agree with her, I am happy she has finally explained why some bikers are so fond of weaving in and out of traffic. A silent rhapsody must have triggered the odd behaviour.
You have met some of the notorious ones, have you not? I am not talking about the Mat Rempit, whose status has now been reduced to Gengster Jalanan (or road hoods) to prevent further glorification of the nickname.

I am talking about the regular road bikers you and I meet on our way to work and back daily -- the sensible folk who need a job, money and good health as much as you and I do. Those you meet at the office, the food stalls or the pasar malam, and whom you would not mind being friends with -- until they put on their helmets and throttle up.

You often catch sight of them in your rear view mirror as you wait your turn at the traffic lights or during a jam. They weave in and out of the lanes of cars behind yours. Often, the sight of them make you go weak in the knees as you pray that they will not ram their machines into your car's rear bumper yet again, or smash your side mirror as they shoot past you.

On unlucky days when they do break your side mirror, you pray hard that they will not be caught off-balance by their own folly and injure themselves and blame you for it.

I am sure you have had the daylights scared out of you at the traffic junctions when some of them shot off to a flying start even before the traffic lights on their side had turned green. Not too long ago, a long-haired biker showed me how a two-wheeler can put my four-wheeler to shame on the fast lane. I did not know where to put my face when I finally caught up with the biker at the junction -- only to find that it was a makcik in a leather jacket and jeans riding a kapcai.

I remember that in the old days bikers used to show more courtesy to other road users. They also had greater respect for the law. Today, the road manners of some of them leave very little to be desired. They no longer ride on the left side of the road or keep to speed limits.

Maybe it's advertisement puffery that drives them to think that it is stylish to ride fast and furious. Perhaps we can blame technology for coming up with lighter machines that have more power to do more harm than good, especially if the power-crazy throw caution to the wind.

Some people tell me that it is the perception that, in the event of an accident between a car and a bike, the law will always side the biker. Could this have driven most sane people to do crazy things on a bike then? Really, does it matter who is in the right or wrong when bikers lose a limb, or life in an accident?

Rogue drivers bring traffic to a crawl on highway

A FEW weeks ago, I had to visit a a relative who was hospitalised at the Subang Jaya Medical Centre. Since I had to drive to Subang Jaya from the city, I decided to use the North Klang Valley Expressway.
That day being a Friday, I thought the NKVE would be a better choice to avoid the evening rush-hour traffic. The downpour that came an hour earlier also prompted my decision.

I reached the Jalan Duta toll plaza about 6pm and queues were already forming at all lanes, which was not surprising.

However, after the toll gate, the traffic ahead had been reduced to a crawl, made worse by the heavy vehicles that did not keep to the left lanes as they were supposed to as they climbed the slope.

When I reached the fork in the highway that led to Sungai Buloh and Petaling Jaya, I was in for more surprises.

It had started to rain and from there till the Kota Damansara exit, it was a bumper-to-bumper crawl.

Being unacquainted with the traffic situation there, I called Plusline when the vehicles were at a standstill and the operator told me that the bad crawl was precipitated by the usual after-office-hour jam at the Subang exit.

Throughout the journey from the Kota Damansara exit to the Damansara exit, queue jumpers made the slow moving traffic worse.

These impatient motorists switched lanes as and when they wanted, getting ahead when other drivers were not keeping up with the vehicles in front.

And if one motorist denied them their chance to move into their lane, they waited for another.

While the inter-lane queue jumpers wreak havoc on the main traffic stream, another group of inconsiderate drivers use the emergency lanes to swiftly get ahead of the queue.

Vehicles of all sizes formed this rogue convoy. From drivers of Kancil to express buses, 4WDs to trailers, these motorists were using the emergency lanes. These rogues got onto the adjacent lane whenever there was a gap.

One truck driver, was incensed by the driver of a Kancil that he threw an empty plastic bottle at the car when it inched into the space between the truck and an express bus ahead.

Though the highway authorities can do little about the queue jumpers, it can act on those abusing the emergency lanes since the highway is monitored by closed-circuit television cameras.

Fines can even be imposed when they exit at the toll gates since their vehicles can be identified through the CCTVs.

Traffic controllers on bikes could also be dispatched to these areas to set up barricades.

Highway concessionaires have a responsibility towards their road users.

In exchange for the toll fees, road users expect to have a pleasant, safe and, often, faster journey to their destinations.

By taking steps to apprehend rogue drivers on highways, concessionaires not only generate goodwill among their paying customers but are also helping to prevent accidents.

Wife's smile truly a sight for sore eyes

I UNDERWENT surgery six days ago to remove a cataract in my right eye. The cataract was discovered during a routine eye examination two years ago.
I ignored it because it was not a hindrance - until I started seeing triple images in the middle of last year.

My optometrist said it was no use trying to correct my increased astigmatism, which was caused by the cataract as tests had ruled out corneal astigmatism. He asked me to consider surgery.

Since my children were sitting for important examinations last year, I decided to delay the surgery unti after Christmas. While waiting, I learnt all I could about cataract, even about how the lens should be inserted into the eye during surgery for best results.

Cataract is the clumping of proteins of the lens, turning it opaque and yellow as we age.

The most popular treatment is surgery -- the faulty lens is removed and an artificial, biologically inert lens is put in its place. Over the past 15 years, I read on a lens manufacturer's website, 30 million eyes have been implanted with such intraoccular lenses.

Since clumping of the proteins causes cataracts, I thought there must be research done on the reversal of the process. As I Googled for scholastic papers on the subject, I found a research done by a Russian scientist and wrote to him. He had perfected the method of introducing a chemical via eye drops that he claimed successfully reversed cataracts in people of various ages in human tests.

Hopeful, I asked a friend's brother to purchase the eye drops for me. I became my own guinea pig, just to see if it worked. My decision was partly inspired by the scientist who replied to my email and explained how it worked. I figured if it worked, the results would be apparent in six months and I would not need surgery. Unfortunately, in my case, it did not.

Finally, when everyone else was celebrating Christmas and New Year, I was feeling anything but happy. I went to see the eye surgeon, fixed an appointment, and scheduled the day for surgery.

On the day of surgery, I got up early, said my prayers and headed for the hospital. A nurse asked me if I was scared. I told her I was not. But I was a little worried, I said, after having read so much about surgery and complications. Afraid? No. In fact, barely an hour before I was wheeled into the operation theatre at 1pm, I even helped troubleshoot a faulty laptop computer belonging to a hospital staff member.

Although general anaesthesia was available for the surgery, I did not ask for it. I was curious and wanted to see what was happening. I did not see much except for two bright lights as the good doctor started working on the eye. My other eye was kept under drape. All I saw were flashes of light as some kind of solution was used to irrigate the eye that was being operated on.

It was over in 10 minutes or less. That was all it took the surgeon to make a 2mm diameter cut on the cornea, insert a tool to break down and suck out the cataract, and clean the lens sac before replacing it with a foldable 6mm diameter lens. When it was over, I was given an eye shell to protect the eye and wheeled into the recovery room.

As the nurses wheeled me from the recovery room into the day care ward, I peeped out from the side of the shell and saw my wife waiting there. Sleepless nights and worry had drawn dark circles around her eyes.

All went well, I said. She broke into a smile. It was the prettiest sight I had seen through the new lens.

And I knew then why I was not afraid when the surgeon took the cataract out.

Never compare children's achievement with their peer's

MY youngest daughter enters Form Four today after passing her Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) with As in all her core subjects, including that which many teachers had described as a very tough Chinese paper.
Since her exam in October, she had been worried whether she could get through the Chinese paper.

Her classmates in the same study group were just as jittery before the results were out. Thankfully, all passed with As. One Parent-Teacher Association committee member, who two years ago thought this batch might not do well, told me he had underestimated them.

One parent asked me for the secret of my daughter's success.

I was not sure, I said, but hard work could be one contributor. I do remember her and her elder sister giving up their Facebook for schoolbooks in the run-up to the trial exam.

But as parents, I admit that my wife and I were of little help to our children's studies. We know very little of the subjects they are studying. They have changed so much.

Even History is no longer called Tawarikh but Sejarah, and the topics are different from what I studied decades ago.

With household chores and work taking up much of our time, we were both guilty of not being able to sit down as often as we should have. I felt guilty the most when work kept me away on Sundays. My only offer of compensation for my absence was by getting them the revision books they needed.

When my youngest daughter entered Form Two, many of her classmates had already joined tuition centres to prepare for the PMR. I wanted to enrol her in one although she did not ask for it.

However, my wife and I later decided against it since tuition would take away what's left of her free time. We figured that if she was already doing her homework well and had never missed the extra classes in school, she should be all right.

I think her success came largely from the efforts of her dedicated teachers. They were never tired of giving notes and past-year questions to her and her classmates.

And on our part, we made sure she completed the assignments, paid attention in class, and that she was never afraid to ask questions if she was not satisfied with the answers.

If there is any secret worth sharing, I think it is simply this: never to compare a child's achievement with their siblings or their friends'. It belittles their efforts if the results are not what you expected.

Whenever our girls brought home their report cards when they were in primary school, we often reminded them never to compare their positions in class or their exam scores with their schoolmates' to avoid being overconfident or too disappointed.

Instead, they were told to use the results of their last exams as a benchmark for their progress. We often told them that if they could keep improving themselves, then it doesn't matter who or what they faced. We were not sure if they understood what we meant then. Now I think they do.

Ill-conceived renovations put houseowners' safety at risk

WHEN I first moved into my condo more than 10 years ago, a contractor asked if I wanted to have additional floor space by renovating the air-well.
When I asked him if it was legal, he said since other condo owners were doing it, it should be all right with the law.

The authorities would have to think twice before tearing mine down, he said, because it would be too much hassle for them.


Not only would they have to act in my condo complex but also across the entire Klang Valley. And possibly, even the entire country.




The thought of having additional floor space was tempting, but I told him it would eventually give me sleepless nights.


Putting a floor where it does not belong is courting trouble. Adding load-bearing structures to completed buildings without considering additional stress created on existing beams and steel bars spells danger.

Anyone who had gone to engineering school will tell you that. Besides, air-wells are created to allow proper ventilation. So, I declined the offer.
Recently, this paper carried a story about how Kampung Chempaka residents' penchant for renovation could one day spark a tragedy should a fire break out. If you have read the story, I think you will share my concern, too.

There are many "Kampung Chempaka" around the Klang Valley, of course. From Desa Setapak in Wangsa Maju to Taman Sri Sinar in Segambut.

You will probably know more such places hidden on the fringe of Puchong or Shah Alam where greedy houseowners flaunt their wealth and expose their poor understanding of aesthetics at the same time.

I have seen two-storey low-cost cement-brick houses built in the early 80s that have been today transformed into three-storey bungalows. They stick out like sore thumbs in the neighbourhood. Some are designed like flashy stainless steel fortresses, others have more floors added, and roof gardens.

Corner-lot houses are especially susceptible to renovation, I noticed. Small porch areas are enlarged by claiming public road into one's own and the buffer zone between houses are turned into additional kitchen space.

There is no limit to the renovator's creativity. If you have the cash, some builder out there will be willing to help you turn chicken coops into castles.

Asking if some renovations are legal will make you look stupid, of course. But seeing so many where they should not be makes you wonder about the enforcement of building laws or the lack of it.

Who approves such renovations in the first place?

Do we blame the renovator for his greed, his neighbour for not reporting it to the authorities, or the authorities for their lack of vigilance in monitoring conspicuous illegal renovations or extensions?

And if such renovations contribute to loss of lives, directly or indirectly, whom do we hold responsible?