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A historic change of government in Malaysia
Post Date : 2019-07-11
Alor Setar, Kedah
May 9 - Aug. 1, 2018
When Malaysia voted on May 9, Barisan Nasional and its coalition is probably is the longest-ruling political alliance in the world but no more was it the case. It was a historic moment in Malaysia for the opposition to take over the government that had ruled Malaysia since its independence 61 years ago. While I watched the neck-to-neck result on Thailand's social media, it didn't seem perplexing to experience a delay on the Malaysian side of the news. Were they blocking the results when it seemed clear that the opposition had won? If it were, I wasn't shocked at all. A system of governance since Malaysia's independence in 1957, the regime had gotten greedy and fought hard to stay in power. They had, have and will continue to weaken the democratic institutions, introduce systematic racism, use fear tactics, gerrymander.
The plane I boarded, landed after the election just a day earlier. I was simply glad that there was no bloodshed and a peaceful transition of power had taken place. This was partly due to the wisdom of the 93-year Tun Dr. Mahathir who was once the leader of the opposition, now officially world's oldest elected official. He declared Friday (May 11) as a public holiday, freezing any possible transactions to move money out of the country by the then-corrupt government Afterall, 1MDB, the world's biggest financial scandal which accused Najib Razak, the now-deposed Prime Minister of Malaysia of receiving $681m in cash -- a claim which he had systematically denied. The US Justice Department claimed that the money was used to purchase luxury apartments in Manhattan, mansions in Los Angeles, paintings by Monet, a corporate jet, and even financed a major Hollywood movie.
While these were important development as all my family members are still Malaysia, the main purpose of the trip was to visit my aging mother. At 86, she now walks with a walker due to a mild stroke in 2015. When the immigration gate opened, it was such a delight to see her and dad anxiously awaiting for me. Once home, my sister-in-law's younger sister and her husband were also there as they were also anxiously awaiting for the Coach merchandise I had gotten from the Blue Grass outlet in Simpsonville, Kentucky. The money was used to help pay for our lawyer's fees who was hired to facilitate the sale of one of my websites to a German company which started an arbitration war with us in 2008. The case went all the way to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) based in Switzerland. Luckily, their case was weak and the lost but have since returned to offer to buy the site. Somehow, I doubt their sincerity because the terms kept shifting after we finalized it with them. More about the 2008 WIPO case here: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2009/d2009-0210.html
Not only did I get to celebrate her birthday with her during this trip, I also managed to squeeze in my 2nd niece's birthday. In addition to birthdays, Mother's Day also fell in the month of May which I gladly celebrated with mom and the rest of the family as well. On the second day of my arrival, I couldn't forget it as I took a picture of my niece in the garden, bravely holding the flag of the coalition which now forms the new government. Some immediate changes enacted by the new government include the banishing of the highly unpopular GST (goods and service tax). At seven years old, the change of government may not mean much to her, but if this secular and more progressive coalition could hold together to embrace another victory in the next election, the country could finally start to mend itself after decades of mismanagement and corruption at every possible level.
In imparting a sense of responsibility to the kids, we adopted a stray puppy and the first one, named Vege (veggie) by the youngest niece but unfortunately, he contracted parvo virus and died. Our second attempt was another stray puppy named Happy and this little guy, caught distemper, and broke little Zi Xin's heart for the second time. It left a painful reminder in me about the preciousness of honoring the living which explained why when I contacted a former classmate from secondary school (US 8th grade) named Lim Chong Hooi, whom I had learned about surviving cancer. He now lives in Butterworth in Penang and although it was a short visit where we had lunch and tea, I cherished every minute of it, and so did he.
The 'official' trip of Singapore
Post Date : 2019-07-11
Singapore
May 14 - May 23, 2018
Barely five days since the plane touched down in Malaysia on May 9, I was on a plane again, this time, to Singapore. I had received an email from the management office about water leakage problem at my condo in Singapore. When I left Singapore for the States, three year earlier, I had rented the condo out to supplant the exorbitant mortgage. I would have sold it but a lucrative previous en bloc attempt to sell the building to potential developers for redevelopment had fallen through, leaving many of us with no choice but to persevere for future possibilities. The drainage had affected the neighbor downstairs who over time had put up with many of my quirky renters from Chinese mainlanders who illegally put up partitions in the living room to Indian smokers who accidentally flung cigarette butts into her apartment right downstairs from my unit above. Ms. Ng was a kind lady and as it turned out, was a realtor too who was able to find a renter for me. My accommodation for the 9 days was spent at Lena's house. She was someone who I befriended after her short stint as a PR personnel at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information when I used to teach there. While that was nice, I was highly irritated by the former rental agent, Pauline Chong, who promised to take good care of the condo but the mail inside the box was so full that hardly any new mail could be slotted into it and in addition, her tactic of finding laborers who pretty much had damaged all the equipment I provided, further irritated me. I had no choice but to evict these renters...
A ritual that I followed closely when I visited Singapore was to visit my former students who graduated from the BFA visual communication program I had helped to start at the Art, Design, and Media School at Nanyang Technological University back in December of 2004. We didn't get the first batch of student until 2009. Hong Yang and his wife, whom he met from my second batch of Visual Communication students have always been welcoming and would gladly arrange for other former classmates to have dinner with me. Jeff Koh, another former student, also from the Visual Communication program, was originally from the first batch. He struck me as a very hard working student who used to travel an hour on a daily basis and was always one of the first few to arrive during class hours. It was a delight to see them growing as a person, maturing into adulthood. Jeff is now a parent. Lastly, as part of the mission to be accomplished while in Singapore: I stocked up on dried food supplies which could come in handy when I am back in the states. Part of the stocks will be allocated to my family in Malaysia too. It seems the girls (my nieces) are, especially the eldest, are quite fond of the Singapore Teochew-styled bah kut teh. This 'official' trip, which I used to justify the needs to spend extra money to divert me from my original plan to spend more time with my family in Malaysia, was also about renewing the two dongles from the banks that I have kept the accounts active in Singapore. I was getting worried as one of them had a low battery indication on every time I turned it on. I needed the dongle to work because I checked rental money deposited into my account at the beginning of every month. I decided to cancel my Singapore Permanent Residency and because of that, some amount of money would be deposited into my bank account--something that would come in handy indeed. The permanent residency, PR, in short, was a joke because it wasn't tied to the person, but a full-time job that is associated with the person. It was no longer active so why should I let the government of Singapore hold on to my social security cash?
Reflecting back on my relocation back to the States, there are a few pros and cons. For one, I surely never appreciated the hot, humid, and rainy seasons. As the country is in the tropics, it is always hot and humid but luckily, there are plenty of shaded walkways which helps especially when I was caught without an umbrella, no matter how beautiful the weather could be. Singapore's broad road network and transportation system are extensive and there is no need to own a vehicle which can cost an exorbitant amount of money due to the COE (certificate of entitlement). Lastly, it is a very safe country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world, with a zero tolerance policy when drugs are concerned.
Was it Myanmar, Burma, Yangon or Rangoon
Post Date : 2019-07-12
Yangon, Myanmar
May 18 - 20, 2018
Years back, I had decided that I should at least visit two new countries or territories each year and Myanmar was on the list. Wait... was it Myanmar, Burma, Yangon or Rangoon? It seemed that Burma was a name enforced by the British and they reverted back to Myanmar, as the official spelling for their country. I wanted to see first-hand what the city was like before some older building were torn down. My personalized tour guide (from Singapore) Lena, an ex-colleague from Singapore, had offered to be my personal tour guide to Yangon, so I took her up on her offer. It wasn't a bad idea since she had been there before and this could save me a lot of headache in researching for places to visit. We left on the wee hours of Friday, May 18, 18 (at 3 AM to be exact) and our first visit, after we had settled down, was at the Bogyoke Aung San Market (formerly Scott's Market) where we used our public find which Lena suggested to buy two wooden shoe horns for 3500 Kyat for two which translated into S$3.50 for one and it was made out of natural wood. Almost every ladies of all ages wear longyis (pronounced lon-gee) which were made out of very colorful fabrics often worn with a matching close fitted top. They also wear 'thanaka,' a type of powder ground from a tree which can be a good protection from the sun. Men wore sarongs with dress shirts, casual shirts or T-shirts.Flip-flops weren't cut out for walking as the road surfaces can be uneven. However, taking the local train was an unforgetable experience. It was Lena's new experience too and we noticed that people were using the train not just to transport themselves, but goods, often carried by men in big heavy sacks, and people were also selling all kinds of foods and merchandise up and down the aisle of the train. It was something unique that can only be seen in places that hasn't been gentrified yet.
Souvenir collecting was also a habit that I had amassed from my global travel and at the air-conditioned mall across called Junction City, I found a wooden souvenir of a baby in a traditional hair-do with moveable limbs for 9500 Kyat. We also checked out the 999 Shan Cuisine on 34th street, which was one of the recommended places by TripAdvisor. The noodle was ok. A bit too sticky for me. It cost 2500 Kyat to visit the Schwedagon pagoda where the entrance fee for international visitors cost 10,000 Kyat. Lena asked me when my birthday falls on this year to coincide with the day to pray to the Buddha where they had set up days in the week. Under her insistence, I decided to give the Buddha a bath although I told her that I'm now an atheist. On the next day, the big event of the day was the betrothal of Megan Markel to prince harry of England which we could watch on YouTube live. We tried to catch some of it but I was more interested in the events that unfold in Malaysia's new government. Usually, a lone travel, it was always hard to travel with anyone, as it was in this case as I decided that it was a bad idea in the first place. I would not travel with her again because the motherly lording side of her just like her sister was beginning to show. I hated that she has the needs to argue and nick pick on me so I warned her about opening that floodgate. She had also been using me as a punching bag to dump all the negativity about her workplace colleagues and I began to feel like Dr. Phil, discharging free advice... Would I be back to Myanmar, possibly not. However, it is a country and a city checked off my travel list.
4th of July in New Zealand
Post Date : 2019-07-15
Auckland, New Zealand
Jul. 2 - 7, 2018
Being able to kill two birds with one stone has at least two benefits which in this case is an opportunity to visit a brand new country for the first time on a personal capacity and on a professional one: to present a paper. As time goes by, the need to visit my aging parents on a yearly basis has become more prevalent so I cooked up a method: visit them, and try to find a conference at a nearby location. My opportunity arrived in February when a former colleague: Dr. Sean Chaidaroon, a Senior Lecturer who now teaches at University of Technology Sydney told me about the opportunity to present at the ANZCA (Australia New Zealand Communication Association). We started planning on the dates as he would be there as well. It had been a while since we saw each other, especially after he left our former university in Singapore for a teaching position in London, UK before moving to Australia for his current job. I booked my hotel at Ibis budget Auckland Central, thanks to Sean who proposed an alternative site to book for accommodations. Next was the plan to find a flight to Auckland that would be close to the time of Sean's arrival from Australia so that we could both share a taxi. After the taxi arrived at our hotel, to my surprise, he offered to pay the exorbitant NZ$87. 620 since his department would be picking up the bill. I remembered the days back in Singapore that he had always been a generous friend.
I celebrated America's birthday in a new country, Auckland, New Zealand. We made our way to the ANZCA 2018 conference held at the University of Auckland's downtown Science center. After obtaining our registration, we attended the keynote speaker which seem to push more of the Beijing agenda since he came from the University in Beijing. Another former colleague, Angela Mak, who now teaches in Hong Kong, also joined us at the conference on the day after the 4th of July. When we were colleagues, her daughter was a toddler and she is now a 10-year-old. Besides the conference, we also managed to shop around for a bit. Some of the shopped items included manuka honey, facial cream, souvenirs. I also bought both nieces three pens that could be joined together which would make a good present. As for my own gifts, I added home-related stuff like a set of plastic inserts that would eliminate wobbly furniture and a black shower curtain for my house in the States. I couldn't pass up walking into a 'recycle boutique' where I found a dark blue man's jacket for only $4.50. Even the cashier couldn't believe it and asked me where I found it. All that shopping meant a lot of walking and I recorded that on July 6, I had walked 18,251 steps. When it came time to present on the 5th of July, I discovered that the files I had in the thumb drive wasn't there which caused me to run like hell back to the hotel to retrieve it. I arrived within 7 minutes, a record time. The organizer had moved me to the back making me the last person to present. It went well especially when I finish on the dot within 15 minutes. I also distributed about six which is a set of three different prospectuses. All went well, nonetheless.
The flight from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur, to Penang finally landed after some delays at 1230 noon on July 8th and my brother picked me up with mom at the Penang airport waiting for me. I treated everyone to Dragon-I restaurant where our Chinese meal of half a roasted duck, mapo tofu, baby cabbage, and long bean cost me RM160 (US$40). After our meal, we pushed mom with the three of us taking turns. We also started noticing that mom started to tilt her body more to her left side and when the maid tried to get her to sit correctly, she was resistant and started to say hurtful things to the maid that after she died, the maid could go back to Indonesia, and I could go back to States. It was difficult to blame her for old age, osteoporosis, and a mild stroke had robbed her of her mobility while dad still drives his own car and that philanderer also has a girlfriend on the side...
A purely pleasure-driven trip
Post Date : 2019-07-15
Bangkok, Thailand
Jul. 20 - Jul. 24, 2018
After so many official businesses, the trip to Bangkok, Thailand was purely for pleasure. Before leaving for Bangkok, I visited my friend from secondary school at the Kolej Sultan Abdul Hamid. His house in Butterworth was symptomatic of an empty bird nest, with him, his wife, and his Pekingese dog, Max. It was a short visit but a memorable one because we hadn't seen each since 1985. The fact that he was fighting to keep his innocuous cancer at bay made it much more significant that I squeezed in this little time to meet him before my brother drove me off to the airport in Penang to catch a flight at 2:30 PM. Arriving on a Friday night allowed me to ease into local time where I tried out local street food before the big day on Saturday to shop till I drop at the weekend Chatuchak market.
The Siam Discovery has become very upscale in its presentation. Although there were some nice stuff, they were so overpriced. At the Kinokuniya bookstore inside the paragon mall, I finally found three books as present for ZY at the cost of 876B. Luckily I'm able to charge it to my credit card. Upon arrival at the Silom station, before I could even exit the station, 200 Baht went to pay for six pen with the top in the shapes of unicorns for ZX. I knew that she had bought a unicorn phone case and hopefully these would make her happy. What made my feet happy was a new pair of sandals from the Korean brand called Oofos for the amount of 1611 Baht (US$53) at 8:30 pm. It was a hefty price to pay but I've had it with painful legs and I still have other shopping grounds to cover.
With the high cost of glasses in the States, Thailand was a great alternative for my prescription glasses. At a store called Falcon Optic, I charged 2600 Baht (US$84) for all four prescriptions. That literally translated into only US$21 for the prescription. Seeing the picture of the former deceased king near MBK saddened me. I had practically grew up seeing his profile on Thai currency. Because Chong Hooi added me to the WhatsApp group, as I shopped, I found myself responding to questions from former classmates of how I ended up in the States. I also received images from my brother about the stray puppy we were trying to adopt but we seemed to be fighting a losing battle. We didn't want to give up but at the end, it was inevitable.
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YEOH'S JOURNAL
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