I was shocked by some of the statement made on Charlie Hebdo shootings. They opined that such a comic that poked fun at religion will have such a consequences.
My grandpa waived goodbye to us on Christmas day, he passed away in his sleep, which had seemed to be an exhausted day for him.
He is a classic Hakka husband - thrifty living, but love the wife so much that he can forget the rule of being thrifty.
My late granny was a fan of direct sales products - yes, the sales just love her - I remember grandpa was grumpy about the necessity of the products, yet in the end, still gave in.
When my granny wanted to stay in somewhere that is cooling, he immediately bought a unit of condo at genting. How lovely.
Then my late granny had to walk with stick. There was one occasion I was with them in the lift. The moment the lift door open, the first thing my grandpa did was to hold her hand. How sweet.
That was in year 2007, the year I struggled with work. I took the opportunity to relax at Genting during some of the weekends. I'm glad I did, which since to be the last few months I could spend with my late granny.
Needless to say, the departure of my granny was a big blow to him - it was a surprise as it happened within a month from the moment she was hospitalised.
Back to my grandpa, for the past 7 years, he had been unhappy. We tried to bring him to travel around but in recent years, his legs are not as good as before, coupled with serious obesity issue.
About 2 months ago, he had a fall. From there on, his health had worsen, first was the serious water retention issue on his legs, which he was reluctant to see doctor until 3 weeks ago.
He was hospitalised when we were in Bangkok. On 15th Dec, the day we came back from Bangkok, we as a family immediately visited him in the hospital.
That was our last time communicating with him as one family.
In the hospital, it seems he didn't eat for the past 1 (or 2?) days, my sister and I fed him with biscuit and milk. I could still recall the scene when he ate the biscuit hungrily, my heart sank.
I'm glad I managed to do something for both my late grandparents before their departure. Not something great but something I hope I had given some little care.
The rest is history.
The reason I put the song, Real Love, is dedicated to my grandpa.
He won't be alone now as he, after 7 years, is reunited with my late granny in better place.
Rest in peace, grandpa. You will be missed and we love you.
I dreamed that I went to a subway station (similar to the abandoned subway station in spiderman 2 2014) to catch a python.
We went to second floor and there were two guys who were killed by the python.
Lastly a guy managed to chop off the head of python, but one of the deceased guy's wife didn't believe that her husband was dead and want to send to hospital n
Suddenly there was one train approaching in subway station. I stopped the train and managed to get help from the train driver to carry the body into the train.
We delivered the body to city centre then transited to a car. We drove towards the city centre but we were actually driving thru the desert.
I was sitting at the back, with the bodies on my right and head of python on my left.
After we had arrived in city centre, we decided to take a lunch. Went to a local Japanese restaurant. There I met an ex colleague at IBM. He is a Thai hence I greeted him in Thai and I spoke some basic Thai with him
Another friend of mine said we've got a job in that city centre. So we left our stuff in the restaurant to sign the offer letter at that company.
There I saw my Australian ex boss in a Volvo. But she pretended that she didn't see me
After we've got the offer letter it started raining. They were running but I chilled and covered my head with offer letter
When we were back to the restaurant it was closed. We had to wait for it to reopen again.
That's when I woke up
If you are a follower of Susan Miller's astrology forecast, Mercury Retrograde will not be a stranger to you. You may read an article here
Believe it or not, today I experienced the first effect of mercury retrograde - I was taken Putra LRT on my way home - it is a driver-less train - suddenly at Masjid Jamek station, it had emergency break, and it didn't open the door to disembark the passengers, then continued to Pasar Seni station.
The train had to terminate at Pasar Seni station (my destination was KL Sentral) and of course - many were frustrated.
But for me, I was not frustrated - I was amazed at the odds and if those stars retrograde can really affect our lives.
Well, it is just a reference - I am going to Taipei for 4 days tomorrow - Hope everything goes well.
I've almost finished reading John Robbins' "Healthy at 100"
I was fortunate to travel to two countries that have close relationship to my life
1) Taiwan: as a descendent of Chinese, it is normal for me to compare with Chinese descendent in Malaysia and in Taiwan
2) Japan: I watch Japanese drama, love Japanese food and use Japanese product. It was dream like for me to be able to travel to Japan
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Interestingly, these countries are closely related to each other.
Taiwan was under Japanese colonial for half a century. Till todate, many things in Taiwan are still heavily influenced by Japanese.
The train, they way they being polite, the product they use, they way they promote the products/awarenes, tv shows.... Etc
I immediately realised this on day 1 I stepped into Japan (i went to Taiwan in April, then to Japan in October)
In Taiwan, I went to Taipei, hualien, kaohsiong, taichung, alishan.
In Japan. I went to Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, nara and Hokkaido.
Nice view in Taiwan... In terms of nature sightseeing in alishan & hualien.
Taipei, taichung and kaohsiong are urban cities (shop till you drop in Taipei and weather in kaohsiong reminds me of KL)
We thought of visiting Taiwan again in few years time but... Malaysia Airline gave us early Christmas gift: we managed to hunt return ticket to Osaka with just... RM189
So, spent another total RM7000 in this trip. All in.
We were pleasantly surprised with all the five places in Japan. Each of them have their own uniqueness.
Osaka: a city with historical places to visit, various food, even more shopping than Taipei
Kobe: peaceful city ... Lots of European style buildings and... Kobe beef.
Kyoto: city of temples. Extra nice if you visit during autumn leaves season.
Nara: city of deers. Where deer > human
Hokkaido: RAMEN AND SEAFOOD! You can't go wrong with those two (er... Skiing wasn't part of the plan so can't comment)
Hokkaido is unique on its own. They have many products produced and sold only in Hokkaido (maybe a marketing strategy, but still feel exclusive) and their airport sells seafood and fresh corn (!!!!??)
When we were back home, my parents stopped mentioning about visiting Taiwan in near future.
My mum kept the Japanese yen asking us when are we going to Japan again.
And the couple spent the next one week revisit the photos taken in Japan.
If you have visited Taiwan, try Japan. You won't be disappointed.
Malaysia is a secular state, and I feel it is best it is maintained so.
Religion is a very personal belief.
I would compare religion as your favorite colour.
There can be a lot of reasons why you love a particular colour, it's a feeling, it's a trust, it's a belief that can make you feel good.
But you can't force others to have the same likings - they have their own preference too.
Even if a person loves blue colour, there are navy blue, dark blue etc (e.g. Protestant and Catholic in Christianity, or Sunni and Shia in Muslim). I can't
So if a country is ruled by religion, especially a country that has multi-religions.. just imagine a person who loves orange colour, and force the whole nation to paint nothing but orange colour for their house, and wear nothing but orange shirt.
If you feel ridiculed - you can expect the exact ridiculous stuff happening in countries ruled by religion.
I randomly thought about several products that we use daily - they are mostly made in Thailand.
I guess most of the FDI, previously parked in Malaysia, had been routed to Thailand.
Well, if I am foreign investor, I would do the same too - cheaper labour, no silly issues such as quota ratios..
To sum all up - openness is the key.
The moment you try to control a country with rigid elements such as religion or closed-door policies, you will start to see downfall.
Example? Myanmar. It was once a very rich and prosperous country, but due to its closed-door policies, it had become one of the poorest in SEA.
It starts booming as it opens its door again.
Cheap air ticket, no visa requirement, depreciated Japanese Yen.
What more can I ask for?
Japan here I come!
Looking back what happened in the past one year, the first half was drama to the max.
I would say my mind and soul went thru various dramatic encounters, be it willingly or unwillingly.
The second half was a lot more peaceful. But I consider yet another drama - initiated in the first half of the year - ended in early April.
To be honest, I don't regret for the decisions I made, I believe they were the best attempts to move forward in life.
I am happy, especially on the career part. At least it was something that I've been searching in the past few years.
Life wise, I triggered a drama early last month, by chance.
Quite positive so far but the insecure me, will always worry how long will it last, what if it doesn't last, what if it lasts.
Should I blame it on horoscope for it tells that, from my natal chart, I have very mutable personality?
To summarise my currrent state of mind: happy, nervous, positive, worried, calmed, contented, hollow
Or put it in this way: split personality at work.
I found that I blog lesser and lesser.
Facebook is the quickest way to share things.
Am wondering if I have to maintain two sites.
We can see the last election was the most emotionally driven ever.
I hope everybody would keep calm and carry on.
5 years is not too far away.
Even the king didn't comment much. What we as a common citizens have to say about this?
Really. We've done what we could. That deserves a big hand for.ourselves.
If only time can stop at that era.
Personally, I think that was the time people of Malaysia lived in harmony.
People, regardless from any descendant, would come together watch the movie, laugh and talk about it.
Talk about now - which was the last Malay language movie that all Malaysians last watch?
If you look at P.Ramlee's movie - its value is still relevant, the humour is still silly and funny.
You can feel that the people back then were really honest, straightforward and simple.
I hope someday, the day would come - that Malaysians would realise that, happiness means simple things.
It's not peer pressure, it's definitely not emotional - it can start by smiling in this hard time, just like how P Ramlee stayed positive in his movies.
That was my first job.
But in the past 7 years, I was able to re-use that knowledge in different job, to create tools to automate manual processes.
Recently I was tasked to automate some manual works, the objective is to have data keyed in, and the tool/application should generate a Gantt chart to clearly show the dependencies and timeline.
While it is definitely a challenging task to do, but I think if it is done, it will be my personal breakthru, too.
I feel blissful to have given the opportunity.
Something wonderful happened to me in the past 7 months.
New job, new environment and bumped into an interesting person.
Unfortunately timing was wrong for me to get to know that person further.
Actually from day 1 I knew the person would vanish.
Now everything is back to where it started. The person has vanished. I've learned the power of "source of inspiration"
It was a memorable roller coaster ride
