Ironic

Just thought I'd share something ironic of what  I just saw. It's the biography of 2 individuals that are somewhat iconic in Malaysia, stacked side by side at the Borders bookstore.

One builds dreams and the other one destroys them with impunity. Let history be the judge.

Once Upon A Time....In My Life

This Is So Fucking Embarassing

"On July 9, 20,000 Malaysians gathered in Kuala Lumpur to demand more transparency in electoral laws in connection with next year's national elections.

Police unleashed tear gas and chemical-laced water on the demonstrators and temporarily detained nearly 1,700 of them. According to reports, authorities also detained six opposition activists without trial and accused them of trying to use the rally to spread communism. Police said they found T-shirts and other materials linked to communist figures.

Apparently, these measures didn't suffice for some of Malaysia's nervous ruling elite. The editors of Utusan Malaysia, owned by Prime Minister Najib Razak's United Malays National Organization ruling party (UMNO), defaulted to a time-tested maneuver: When in doubt, blame the Jews!

The Jews? Most citizens of the overwhelmingly Asian economic giant have never and will likely never meet a Jew in their lifetime. And yet the folks at Utusan Malaysia, which is influential among Muslims in rural areas who rely on government-linked media to shape their worldview, are apparently confident warnings about a "Jewish plot" would resonate in a land without Jews.

To understand why, you need only look at the track record of the man who dominated his nation for a quarter of a century, Malaysia's fourth prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad.

Mahathir was credited with engineering Malaysia's rapid modernization and spectacular economic growth. He was a dominant political figure, winning five consecutive general elections. He also used his political clout and controversial laws to detain activists and political opponents.

And Mahathir is an anti-Semite.

Back in 1970, in his treatise on Malay identity, "The Malay Dilemma," he wrote: "The Jews are not only hooked-nosed ... but understand money instinctively. ... Jewish stinginess and financial wizardry gained them the economic control of Europe and provoked antisemitism which waxed and waned throughout Europe through the ages."

In August 1984, a visit by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was canceled when his Information Minister demanded that music by composer Ernst Bloch be deleted from the program. His crime? He was a Jew and the selection chosen was based on Hebrew melodies.

In 1986, Mahathir charged "Zionists" and Jews with attempting to destabilize the country through allegedly Jewish-controlled media. He subsequently banned The Asia Wall Street Journal for three months describing the publication as "Jewish owned." In the 1990s, Mahathir used the Malaysian news agency, Bernama, to accuse Australian Jewry of conspiring to topple him.

Mahathir, who made Islam a central component of Malaysian identity, made this chilling charge in 1997: "We are Moslems, and the Jews are not happy to see Moslems progress."

Perhaps that would help explain the resounding ovation which greeted his screed at a Islamic Leadership Conference in 2003: "The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million ... but today, the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."

And just last year the elder statesman of anti-Semites said this at a conference: "Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had been confined in ghettos and periodically massacred. But they still remained and still thrived and held whole governments to ransom. ... Even after their massacre by the Nazis in Germany, they survived to be a source of even greater problems to the world."

All this may help explain why Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are on prominent display at the Malaysian capital's International Airport.

But there are some signs that in 2011 not everyone is drinking Mahathir's toxic Kool-Aid. Maria Chin Abdullah, one of the organizers of the mass rally that sought to prevent electoral fraud, charged that Utusan Malaysia's warning of an alleged Jewish conspiracy was "nonsense that is being spread in very bad taste," adding, "To rely on this claim of Jewish support is to insult the people's good intentions of seeking important reforms."

Perhaps Kuala Lumpur hasn't paid much attention to the Arab Spring. Maybe its time they did, especially since it was inspired by Muslims demanding more freedom and democracy. It isn't world Jewry that is driving members of minorities to the streets of Kuala Lumpur, but the failure of a democratic government to provide equal rights and opportunities to all their citizens. It's time for Malaysian leaders to grow up. Relying on big-lie Jewish conspiracies is no substitute for honest and transparent governance".

Original post can be found here.

I hate to say this but a vast majority of Malaysians of the Muslim faith IN MALAYSIA are full blown anti-semites. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise with all the indoctrination they've been subjected to at their homes and/or religious schools. I think they should free their minds and get rid of the hate. Jews are the easy targets here as there are no Jews in Malaysia to defend themselves. Unfortunately, Christians are also their favourite target of discrimination. This is too damn depressing, I can't go on. Give me a holler if you want to discuss this.

Ling Sen Tong Temple

Took a drive to Ipoh this morning for work and on the way back I decided to stop by the Ling Sen Tong Temple, a Taoist temple located at the foot of a limestone hill just outside Ipoh. Apparently this is the first of 3 temples located on the same stretch of the road or shall we say on the same side of the Gunung Rapat.

I've taken a few shots of the temple with my handy Nokia N8 and believe me the pictures do not do justice to the place which are way nicer. Except for a few visitors, the temple grounds were generally empty

Three famous characters from Journey To The West

This is the neighbouring Nam Thean temple

On the grounds of the temple itself you will find many swiftlets. The nests of some species of swiftlets are built entirely from threads of their saliva, and are collected for the famous Chinese delicacy bird's nest soup. Check out the video below of the swiftlets nesting on the temple arch.

If you are interested, here's the map to the temple location :


View Larger Map

iBooks

A cool tutorial on converting your pdf books to the epub format. Unfortunately it has the same problems as Calibre ie formatting issues. Go ahead and give it a try anyway and see if it works for you

Location:Jalan Morib,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

3 Black Belts in the House

December 4, 2011 marks another milestone for Escobar BJJ with another seminar, this time with Prof. Alan "Finfou" Do Nascimento, Prof. Victor Costa and our very own Prof. Marcos Escobar. The seminar was split between a no-gi session and a gi session. There were some crazy moves in the seminar (see video below) but I particularly enjoyed the basic ones especially in the gi session eg controlling the opponent in setting up the submissions. For me it's the basics all the way.

All in all, it was well worth the time. Thanks Fight Zone Malaysia/Checkmat Malaysia/ EscobarBJJ in organizing this one

ps - if you check out this video, you will be able to see one of the craziest back takes ever (which was taught at the seminar) at 2:44, bugger me!

2 Months of Skool

Today marks the end of 2 months of school for the girls.

Our initial fears of enrolling them in the Chinese school system have proven to be unfounded as they seem to be coping quite well with mandarin. It's actually quite cool to see them conversing in mandarin nowadays (well occasionally anyway) considering both me & the missus can't speak a word of mandarin. Hey maybe one day I might pick it up from them. Who knows.

Anyway here's a snapshot of them finishing up their homework today

- Posted from my iPhone

The Weekly Grind

Every Friday afternoon without fail, Dawn & Grace will cry through their piano class. It seems that the theory part of the lesson is tough. I've never taken music lessons in my life, so I am kinda in the dark and consequently of not much help.

Thankfully, they enjoy the practical part of it more. It's difficult for me to see them 'suffer' through this but ultimately I hope that they will benefit from something I've never had.

Dang kids!! I am gonna tally up the costs and make them pay it all back into my retirement fund!!

Effing Coppers

This is a common scene outside my apartment, fucking cops not doing their jobs and just sleeping in their patrol cars. Sometimes they will come the apartment and harass the boys working downstairs and seek bribes, their main source of income.

That's the problem isn't it, the government sweeping all these unemployables off the streets and giving them jobs irregardless of qualifications. And we wonder why the civil service sucks

Wonder no more!



Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Time Flies Y'all (Blue Skies and Everything Nice)

This morning I had a chat with the Mrs and it dawned upon me that the kids will the starting their Standard 1 in 2 months time. It wasn't that long ago that the Stork brought them in, I can still remember it like it was yesterday..both of them wrapped up in their blankets and easily fitting between my palms and the crook of my elbows.

What brought about the conversation was that there were a lot of things that were still needed to be taught to the girls before they start school. Simple stuff like how to buy things with their pocket-money, how to tell time or even how not to talk to strangers. It may seem a long time ago, but I still remember these same lessons as they were taught to me by my parents some 30 plus years ago.

As usual the bulk of these 'lessons' will be handled by Sumi. I don't aknowledge it often enough but Sumi is THE PERFECT mom for the kids. I am not home during the day so I don't actually see how the kids are being guided daily but as I see how the kids have progressed so far, I know they are in perfect hands.

Good kids and a good loving wife. What more can a guy ask for? Nothing.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Seminar : Checkmat Malaysia

In about 2 weeks time our gym will be having a BJJ Seminar with classes to be conducted by Marcos and Chico. One thing you have to know about me and it's this : I am a lazy git. But nevertheless I can assure you guys that I will be attending.

I can give you a thousand excuses why I don't want to go but despite that, I will be there and I will tell you why. Let's face facts, it is a huge deal to have a BJJ Black Belt exponent in Malaysia or even within the ASEAN Nations. We have Niko Han in Indonesia and Cristiano Carvalho in Singapore and Marcos Escobar in good old Malaysia. With this seminar there will be 2 BJJ black belts in our midst and I can tell you it sure hell saves a lot more money to have them come here and teach than for us to go over to Brazil.

And to tell you the truth, I will be hitting 38 this year, yep you heard me right...38 (having just taken up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 2 years ago) and that means this sport is getting tougher by the day for me and so I just want to go out there and absorb as much as I can before...well before I call it a day as far as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is concerned. But honestly I am quite happy with my progress so far. I am just keeping to the basics, constantly improving on them (I hope) and improving on my cardio

Tentatively I've been told that the first day of the seminar will deal with fighting from the bottom and on the second day fighting from the top. Actually I hope to see most of the guys from our gym attend and maybe from the other gyms too, correction especially from the other gyms. Opportunities like this don't come often and I hope it can be seen in that light.

The address and contact are as follows :

No. 8-3 JALAN PJU 5/10
DATARAN SUNWAY
KOTA DAMANSARA

tel. +6012 2206 064
email. ebjj@live.com


SEE YOU GUYS THERE

Muzium Negara

Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to visit Muzium Negara with the kids. Frankly I did not know what to expect since it's been nearly 20 years since I last set foot on it. I didn't really plan on going to the museum with the kids but we were driving aimlessly around KL on a lazy Saturday morning when we passed by the museum.

So what the heck, I told myself, let's go in to have a look. To say I was disappointed is to understate it. I don't really know how to put it but after touring the place, it's like Malaysia does not have much of a history or at least that our history has not been documented all that well.

The first thing you see when you enter the museum at the foyer are several plastic tanks filled with fish, turtles and other assortment of aquatic life. You can also see a whole skeleton of a small whale, a skeleton of a dugong, a baby dugong preserved in a jar (well in a small aquarium like jar), a 2 foot fish also preserved in a small aquarium like jar and several other small glass aquariums filled with sea horses and fishes.

At the side wall on the ground floor, there is a display of some porcelain bowls, plates etc which the museum authorities helpfully inform us is from the 'Lady Diana'. Information like what the hell was the 'Lady Diana', was the 'Lady Diana' sunk (I am assuming it's a ship), where was it sunk, who sunk it, where was it coming from, where were the porcelain bowls etc from, what year did the 'Lady Diana' sink....you know casual information that might satisfy the curious mind were sadly unavailable

Now, if you decide you want more disappointment, as I certainly did, you might want to venture upstairs. At the time of my visit, the entire left wing was closed. No reasons given. Fine. You still have the right wing.

In it your will find the replica of a tin mining dredge. Press the red button and the mechanical parts will move. Woohoo! Next to it, you might catch a glimpse of a pre-WW2 bicycle, iron, rifle and the replica of the A'Formosa and some cannons

Another section of the museum will show pictorials of our recent history with scenes dominated by our ex-prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir, our Thomas Cup exploits etc and even a small section for our World No. 1 pendatang Nichol David.

The only part I found interesting was the section where they had the pre-Islamic era artifacts from the Bujang Valley on display. Again there was hardly any information on it. Of course there were the usual broken pottery and stone axes on display in another dimly lit section of the museum.

My verdict? If you have really run out of ideas on where to visit, give the museum a shot. Otherwise go to a bookstore and buy a book on the history of Malaysia. I hate to say it, but the museum like many institutions in Malaysia has seen better days

Looking Ahead - 13 Years & Counting

The girls will be 5 this coming October which gives me approximately 13 years to save up for their tertiary education assuming of course that 1. they qualify and 2. they actually want to do it. 13 years is actually not a long time and the girls being twins do not make things any easier.

But still, this was what I signed up for when we decided to have kids and hopefully I won't let them down when the time comes. I have never given much thought on how my parents managed to give me a tertiary education prior to this despite our obvious penury but believe me I am thinking about it a lot.

Perhaps if it were not to much to ask, my only hope is that the government would have by then scrapped the discriminatory policies currently being employed in Malaysia. Perhaps by then the girls just may qualify for a place in a local university based on merits, but then again I am not holding my breath.