Every year, all publications jump on the bandwagon to recap the year's events. This year is not exception.
The recent Bhutto assasination will certainly bethe hottest news. A liberal Western-educated Muslim murdered a month away from democratic elections in a country plagued by militancy and dictatorship? How could anyone miss that for a Top Story?
Then there is the story of the Democrats' regaining control in the Senate which will surely be big in the USA, for it reflects Americans objection to the war in Iraq.
In Asean, it's probably the PPP's win at the Thai elections which grab headlines and likely to affect the region, economically, in 2008. Thaksin's purchase of Manchester City football club may even get slight mention. The suppression of Monks in Burma will definitely be a big story although economically, for Asean and the rest of the world, Burma is but a situation for scoring political points.
Most of the often authoritative and sometimes violent or brutal Asean states don't really care about what the Burmese military does to the monks. They condemn the military's acts just so they can be included in the world's list as being respectful of human rights and freedom of expression. Malaysia suppresses their Indians and others protesting for different causes, violently. Singapore will not even allow protests at a major world conference they hosted this year. Thailand's military muscled in on their own politicians and people during last year's coup. You name the countries in Asean, and perhaps Asia for that matter, they are all equally guilty of human rights abuse and suppression of freedom of expression in their history.
Indonesia's media will probably be filled with glossy stories about celebrities' divorces and scandals, including Roy Marten's drug case which will obviously not be left out. The recent world conference on climate change in Bali will be something the Indonesians are proud of as well. Then there's this verdict by the monopolies commission on Singapore's Temasek Holdings and its related companies. Major corruption cases won or prosecuted by the government (if there were any) or their fight against terrorism will probabl not be sensational enough to make top stories of 2007.
What has become of this world we live in? The Americans have their domestic problems. The Europeans are distracted by domestic pride and a fragile and young integrated European economy, the Middle East has problems dating back centuries ago, and Asia is coping with survival in the face of the rise of two economies like China and India whose populations can sink the world should they all jump at the same time.
Al Gore did a brillant job to win his Nobel prize in reminding the world about climate change and greenhouse gases. But by the time the people of this world react, it will probably be too late. What does carbon footprint mean to a poverty stricken family in Indonesia or Africa? Is America or Europe going to foot the bill for their alternative fuel needed for subsistence?
Our world is known to be quite resilient. Every time a problem is highlighted, there seems to be a group of people who will come up with a solution. A vaccine was found for the plague. Two world wars ended and countries rebuilt to become economic powerhouses. The cold war ended diplomatically. We seem to be going around in circles. Is this what God intended? Make Men, then let Men make mistakes and learn from those mistakes in order to continue living in a world He created?
Perhaps so... Unless you can come up with another explanation.
Sunday 30 December 2007
Saturday 29 December 2007
Disappointing visit to Malaysia
Had the chance to visit Kuala Lumpur last week. Thought that would have been a reprieve as this was a much needed break, and Malaysia seems to be the country of choice judging from the way they've bent over backwards to attract visitors in their TV ads around the world. But it was not to be.
After clearing immigration, the wait for baggage to arrive at the carousel was 30 or more minutes. Customs was lax, but I was greeted by at least half a dozen taxi or private hire car touts when I got out of the restricted area. I missed the guy who was supposed to fetch me as he was holding up an A4-sized card with my name, only to be obscured by the same people picking guests up for the hotels, and, the touts.
Finally I found my guy and I pushed our trolley out to the pick-up zone while he retrieves his car from the car park. Where I was waiting is a stretch of area around 10 metres deep. A sultry airport worker (my guess as he was not in uniform) showed up to collect empty trolleys from the edge of that area where cars pull up to fetch the visitors. While I was standing at the edge, and looking out for my commute to the city, I noticed this airport worker gesturing for me to move off his path. I realised I was in his "immediate" path, not that the rest of the 10 metre deep waiting area was congested and he doesn't have an alternative way out with this sole trolley he'd collected.
There was room away from the edge of the road, but he chose to gesture. No "please can you move" nor a smile accompanying his gesture. Although he was not Malay or Chinese, surely they must speak some form of common language, or have had some basic training about how to make visitors welcomed before being allowed to work in the international airport of a country which has spent millions of dollars to attract visitors. Or is that too much to expect of the Malaysian bureaucracy?
The ride into the city was alright, except for the occassional road hoggers crawling in the extreme right lane of the expressway. Either their eyes were off the rear view and wing mirrors, or they simply didn't feel the need to move off that "fast" lane.
Then the check-in at the hotel. From the time I walked through the doors, it was at least 20 minutes later before I arrived in my room. I'd booked an executive suite room but have never stayed in this hotel before. The reception at the lobby level told me I had to wait as one of the guest relations was going to check me in and show me to my room. She finally showed up. She was "Chinese-looking", spoke very poor English, but did not respond when I spoke Mandarin or Cantonese to her (common languages in KL for the Chinese). You know what all the wait was for?
Well, I finally found out that being a guest of the executive floor, I was supposed to be checked in by staff from their executive lounge on some high floor. The receptionist who handled my check in didn't tell me I could go straight up tot he 20-something floor and be shown my room without the hassles of waiting at the reception like all the other guests. I've stayed at executive floors in hotels all around the world and have always had a pleasant experience. Either they check me in prompto on the ground floor, or someone would immediately lead me up to my room to be checked in. I never had to wait for someone to wait for the lift and descend from the 20-something floor just to lead me back up to my room on that floor.
More "amazing" things happened during my short stay in Kuala Lumpur. Throughout my stay, there were billboards about "loving Malaysia" and at touristy spots, signs of welcome and hospitality. But they all seem to be messages conjured by expensive advertising agencies which the Tourism board hired, but without the support and conviction from all (to be fair, most) levels of Malaysian society at all.
The only smiles I found were the sales people in the exclusive boutiques I walked into, perhaps eager to have me flash my plastic card so their cash registers go ka-ching! Even the staff at the clubs which charge US$12 for a glass of house wine were sultry and unfriendly. What's with this country, I wondered.
Why has so much money being spent on publicity to attract visitors while the rest of the nation isn't contributing to make visitors feel welcomed? Is it so difficult to smile or be courteous or otherwise interact in ways which make others feel like they're their money is well spent on their establishments, including airports charge fees for their use which are eventually passed on to us travellers? Perhaps they mistook my Chinese face as a local Malaysian. If that is so, how could Malaysians in the service industry treat their Malaysian clients and customrers in that way anyway? Is the money they spend different from that of a visitor of another skin colour? Didn't seem to be the case as I noticed the same sultry and unfriendly faces when they were serving Caucasians and Middle-Eastern looking people.
Quite a pathetic state, I thought. Malaysians don't seem to be happy at their jobs at all. Leaving the airport, the lady at the immigration counter took almost 15 minutes to process a family of three in front of me. She moved at a snail's pace, at times, she didn't even appear like she was paying attention to the passports and immigration cards filled up in front of her. In other words, she was day dreaming most of that 15 minutes while I waited in line. Even the immigration authorities in customarily slower Bali (Indonesia) work quicker. Of course Bangkok, Singapore and Hongkong are miles apart.
Malaysia, Malaysia.... Are you "Truly Asia" or still in the backwaters of civilised Asia?
After clearing immigration, the wait for baggage to arrive at the carousel was 30 or more minutes. Customs was lax, but I was greeted by at least half a dozen taxi or private hire car touts when I got out of the restricted area. I missed the guy who was supposed to fetch me as he was holding up an A4-sized card with my name, only to be obscured by the same people picking guests up for the hotels, and, the touts.
Finally I found my guy and I pushed our trolley out to the pick-up zone while he retrieves his car from the car park. Where I was waiting is a stretch of area around 10 metres deep. A sultry airport worker (my guess as he was not in uniform) showed up to collect empty trolleys from the edge of that area where cars pull up to fetch the visitors. While I was standing at the edge, and looking out for my commute to the city, I noticed this airport worker gesturing for me to move off his path. I realised I was in his "immediate" path, not that the rest of the 10 metre deep waiting area was congested and he doesn't have an alternative way out with this sole trolley he'd collected.
There was room away from the edge of the road, but he chose to gesture. No "please can you move" nor a smile accompanying his gesture. Although he was not Malay or Chinese, surely they must speak some form of common language, or have had some basic training about how to make visitors welcomed before being allowed to work in the international airport of a country which has spent millions of dollars to attract visitors. Or is that too much to expect of the Malaysian bureaucracy?
The ride into the city was alright, except for the occassional road hoggers crawling in the extreme right lane of the expressway. Either their eyes were off the rear view and wing mirrors, or they simply didn't feel the need to move off that "fast" lane.
Then the check-in at the hotel. From the time I walked through the doors, it was at least 20 minutes later before I arrived in my room. I'd booked an executive suite room but have never stayed in this hotel before. The reception at the lobby level told me I had to wait as one of the guest relations was going to check me in and show me to my room. She finally showed up. She was "Chinese-looking", spoke very poor English, but did not respond when I spoke Mandarin or Cantonese to her (common languages in KL for the Chinese). You know what all the wait was for?
Well, I finally found out that being a guest of the executive floor, I was supposed to be checked in by staff from their executive lounge on some high floor. The receptionist who handled my check in didn't tell me I could go straight up tot he 20-something floor and be shown my room without the hassles of waiting at the reception like all the other guests. I've stayed at executive floors in hotels all around the world and have always had a pleasant experience. Either they check me in prompto on the ground floor, or someone would immediately lead me up to my room to be checked in. I never had to wait for someone to wait for the lift and descend from the 20-something floor just to lead me back up to my room on that floor.
More "amazing" things happened during my short stay in Kuala Lumpur. Throughout my stay, there were billboards about "loving Malaysia" and at touristy spots, signs of welcome and hospitality. But they all seem to be messages conjured by expensive advertising agencies which the Tourism board hired, but without the support and conviction from all (to be fair, most) levels of Malaysian society at all.
The only smiles I found were the sales people in the exclusive boutiques I walked into, perhaps eager to have me flash my plastic card so their cash registers go ka-ching! Even the staff at the clubs which charge US$12 for a glass of house wine were sultry and unfriendly. What's with this country, I wondered.
Why has so much money being spent on publicity to attract visitors while the rest of the nation isn't contributing to make visitors feel welcomed? Is it so difficult to smile or be courteous or otherwise interact in ways which make others feel like they're their money is well spent on their establishments, including airports charge fees for their use which are eventually passed on to us travellers? Perhaps they mistook my Chinese face as a local Malaysian. If that is so, how could Malaysians in the service industry treat their Malaysian clients and customrers in that way anyway? Is the money they spend different from that of a visitor of another skin colour? Didn't seem to be the case as I noticed the same sultry and unfriendly faces when they were serving Caucasians and Middle-Eastern looking people.
Quite a pathetic state, I thought. Malaysians don't seem to be happy at their jobs at all. Leaving the airport, the lady at the immigration counter took almost 15 minutes to process a family of three in front of me. She moved at a snail's pace, at times, she didn't even appear like she was paying attention to the passports and immigration cards filled up in front of her. In other words, she was day dreaming most of that 15 minutes while I waited in line. Even the immigration authorities in customarily slower Bali (Indonesia) work quicker. Of course Bangkok, Singapore and Hongkong are miles apart.
Malaysia, Malaysia.... Are you "Truly Asia" or still in the backwaters of civilised Asia?
Sunday 23 December 2007
What's with the Indonesians and Malaysians
There has been quite a bit of squabbling between the people of these two neighbours, not their governments, thankfully.
FIrst it's about a song. Did Indonesians originated that song or did a descendant of the Malay race write that song while living in a land which was neither Indonesia or Malaysia then?
Then there's this dance which was used by Malaysia in a an ad about the country. That was purportedly an Indonesian dance.
A blog surfaced recently with the hate for Indonesians as its theme, purportedly set up in Malaysia but written in perfect Bahasa Indonesian rather than Bahasa Melayu, the language used in Malaysia.
Why do Malaysia's government departments need to feature songs or dances which are not truly Malaysian, beyond all reasonable doubt? That country supposedly has a higher literacy rate than Indonesia's 220 million people; yet it seems to falter on basic research. Hasn't Malaysia or haven't Malaysians "originated" something truly Malaysian. Why use songs or dances which are or could become potentially contentious?
Since Malaysia won two tiny disputed islands off Borneo's coast at an international tribunal from Indonesia, the Malaysians seem emboldened. They're presently fighting with Singapore for another island between Johore and Singapore, based mainly on historical claims that one of their many sultanates owned that small piece of rock off their coast since time immemorial.
Both Malaysia and Indonesia are proud countries with proud people. Their people are supposed to have lived on their lands, not recent migrants like the majority of Singpoare's population is made up of. But the real indigenous people of their lands have been neglected too, not to the point of being marginalised like the aborigines in Australia appear to be.
But in fact there's still some doubt as to whether the Malays in Indonesia and Malaysia who now controls their economies and governments are actually natives of those countries. In Wikipedia, there is mention that some believe that they are actually "Austronesian people" who migrated there from southern Philippines. Whatever the theory, the people of Indonesia and Malaysia belong to the same race, separated by two national flags.
ASEAN member countries just signed a charter recently in Singapore for all of ASEAN to become integrated like the European union. Economically this made sense, and could be the only chance for survival in the face of competition from "billion people" economies like India and China. So why are ASEAN countries quarreling like they are now? Doesn't seem like they realized the virtues of unity for the common good. Do we really believe ASEAN can be one?
With young (relatively) nations like Malaysia and Indonesia whose politicians have no qualms about invoking nationalistic sentiments to drum up support or distract their populace from the real problems in their respective countries, do we think that a united and integrated ASEAN is really possible. Just look at what's happened to Singapore's Temasek's investments in Thailand and Indonesia and you'll understand.
Well whatever it is, we won't have to wait long. When we get closer to 2015, we should all be singing "I could see clearly now the rain has gone".
FIrst it's about a song. Did Indonesians originated that song or did a descendant of the Malay race write that song while living in a land which was neither Indonesia or Malaysia then?
Then there's this dance which was used by Malaysia in a an ad about the country. That was purportedly an Indonesian dance.
A blog surfaced recently with the hate for Indonesians as its theme, purportedly set up in Malaysia but written in perfect Bahasa Indonesian rather than Bahasa Melayu, the language used in Malaysia.
Why do Malaysia's government departments need to feature songs or dances which are not truly Malaysian, beyond all reasonable doubt? That country supposedly has a higher literacy rate than Indonesia's 220 million people; yet it seems to falter on basic research. Hasn't Malaysia or haven't Malaysians "originated" something truly Malaysian. Why use songs or dances which are or could become potentially contentious?
Since Malaysia won two tiny disputed islands off Borneo's coast at an international tribunal from Indonesia, the Malaysians seem emboldened. They're presently fighting with Singapore for another island between Johore and Singapore, based mainly on historical claims that one of their many sultanates owned that small piece of rock off their coast since time immemorial.
Both Malaysia and Indonesia are proud countries with proud people. Their people are supposed to have lived on their lands, not recent migrants like the majority of Singpoare's population is made up of. But the real indigenous people of their lands have been neglected too, not to the point of being marginalised like the aborigines in Australia appear to be.
But in fact there's still some doubt as to whether the Malays in Indonesia and Malaysia who now controls their economies and governments are actually natives of those countries. In Wikipedia, there is mention that some believe that they are actually "Austronesian people" who migrated there from southern Philippines. Whatever the theory, the people of Indonesia and Malaysia belong to the same race, separated by two national flags.
ASEAN member countries just signed a charter recently in Singapore for all of ASEAN to become integrated like the European union. Economically this made sense, and could be the only chance for survival in the face of competition from "billion people" economies like India and China. So why are ASEAN countries quarreling like they are now? Doesn't seem like they realized the virtues of unity for the common good. Do we really believe ASEAN can be one?
With young (relatively) nations like Malaysia and Indonesia whose politicians have no qualms about invoking nationalistic sentiments to drum up support or distract their populace from the real problems in their respective countries, do we think that a united and integrated ASEAN is really possible. Just look at what's happened to Singapore's Temasek's investments in Thailand and Indonesia and you'll understand.
Well whatever it is, we won't have to wait long. When we get closer to 2015, we should all be singing "I could see clearly now the rain has gone".
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