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A weblog about life / politics/ impressions of Malaysia through the eyes of a foreigner




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Monday 30 June, 2008
25 Jumada al-Thanni 1429AH

A weblog by Albert. From my home in Yan Kedah. I reside here since 1992. See here to know where Yan is.

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Blog category: all categories. - March 2007
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 You want to defeat BN? - by @lbert
  Posted:29/03/2007 - 20:58 - in category: politics Malaysia
Pas, Dap, Keadilan.... Do you people really want to try to defeat BN in the upcomming elections?
Well this is never going to happen as long as all of you display this childish mentality of keeping on bickering over non essential things.
Whether it is in those parties or in their cooperation.
If you want to be powerful, than start planning your strategy NOW!
And show that you are able to compromise in order to have a strong opposition.
You people wait any longer.... the next election is totally lost to you, no chance no way!
So throw your diapers away and show that all of you are grown ups with some intellect (what is totally missing in the current Dewan Rakyat).
Do not promote politicians to minister posts, find people in your party with the real knowledge for the post.
Not like now where an art degree is good enough to become a minister, just because you are a party boss.
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 To little to late... - by @lbert
  Posted:28/03/2007 - 10:07 - in category: politics Malaysia
Right that it is, to little and to late.
Now suddenly islamic banking companies in Labuan can be 100% foreign owned.
In the Iskandar project the NEP suddenly can go overboard.
Why? The last one probably will end up as another white elephant, just like multimedia corridor and so many others,
because Malaysia already missed the boat!!
See the FDI statistics below. Even the 'tiny little red dot' fared 9 times, yes nine times, better than Malaysia.

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 AAA achievers... - by @lbert
  Posted:27/03/2007 - 13:42 - in category: general
Students jump through the roof,..... wow i achieved xxx A's in my school exam.
Well thats great for them, but does it have any actual meaning?
That is what is really doubt.

The whole education system nowadays is all around these fuckin A's!
Is a student with 10 A's better than a student with 6 A's?
For the exam results yes, for the future absolutely NO NO NO.
Why? Because all these exams all focus on achieving A's, it is like pumping up a balloon.
You pump it up with knowledge, than after the exam you can let all the air go.
This means that most knowledge is short-term and 3/4 if forgotten in say 6 month to one year.

That is why in university 10 A's on your exam mean nothing, a student with very average figures might easily out do the student with all the A's.
For the universities this means that drop outs under A-exam achievers can be higher than under average exam achievers.

This has already been proven in europe for ages, and this is why many universities use the first year to sift through the quality of students and make sure that only those with the real spirit and capacities can continue, or have their own entry tests.
Something to chew on Mr Krishamuddin!
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 Police salaries. - by @lbert
  Posted:27/03/2007 - 11:35 - in category: politics Malaysia
Pay the police a proper salary....
At present it seems a constable is receiving RM 690.00 a month!
In a city like KL or Johor can YOU live of it? NO WAY!

Those in the government can build istana Zakaria, buy yachts that cost millions, and have an airplane shoved under their ass.
Just look how this countries politicians live.
But the lowest police rank has to do with 690 a month, that is sick.

Do they really want to fight corruption, than make sure the minimum in a big city is at least 1000.00.
Afterall housing is free in most cases.
Maybe this will finally rot out the duit-kopi practice.
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 Back from Indonesia ... (2) - by @lbert
  Posted:24/03/2007 - 21:27 - in category: travel abroad
How many times have i been to Indonesia? Lost count... 50 times or so i assume.
Still after so many times Yogjakarta is still one of the cleanest places in Indonesia.
The rest is like Malaysia where you throw your rubish as you please.
Since Yogya is a university city, it means that lots of students temporary live there. This means that many things are actually really quite cheap, especially food.

Yogya with its Malioboro shopping street is for the past 6-7 years deserted by tourists.
I dont know the reason, but before the economic crisis you could walk on the heads of tourists in Yogya.
Now many hotels and small restaurants catering to tourists went bust.
This city has a lot to offer.
Burobudur and Prambanan in its neighborhood (make sure you pretend to be Indon in you visit these!)
A nice beach in Parangtritis, ceramics in Kasongan, stone art in Muntilan and also plenty of beautiful furniture in Klaten.
From Yogya it is a 1/2 day trip via Magelang to Dataran Dieng (2000 m) with lots of hindu relics and hot springs.
Or go to the slopes to Mt Merapi (Kaliuran) and stay there for some cool days.
You want batik go to the pasar Beringharjo on Malioboro (Jl Yani).
And of course there is the Kraton and the Water-palace to visit.
In front of the water-palace (pasar sari) is a small market that sells vegy and on the left side birds and small animals.
It is easy to spent a week or so in Yogya, and than on your way back spent 1 or 2 days in Solo.
Solo has a nice Kraton and pasar Klewer is famous for its cheap textiles.
From Solo you can fly back with Air-Asia.
From Yogya you can fly back with Garuda (double the price...)
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 Sudirman - by @lbert
  Posted:24/03/2007 - 18:58 - in category: TV
For years I thought that Sudirman Arshad was a banned object on RTM. It has always been very rare that a reference was made to him, or any old piece of a show replayed.
So now suddenly out of the blue they show a program on Sudirman's songs on TV next week.
Surprise, surprise.
All this while to me Sudirman is a really great artist/showman Malaysia ever produced, who died way to early and is sadly enough hardly remembered by radio or tv.
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 Back from Indonesia...(1) - by @lbert
  Posted:23/03/2007 - 18:28 - in category: travel abroad
I am back from the land of no progress.
This is absolutely true, i got a feeling that a lot of things only go backward!
After the earthquake in Yogya the people with money quickly rebuild their houses, but the poor people are still camping in makeshift tents, bamboo huts and so on. This even after more than 1 year.
People in Sidoardjo after 1 year still have not been compensated for the ridiculous mud-flow.
I was there when the Garuda Boeing 737 tried to find out whether the airport had underground parking. After seeing the pictures, i really wonder how much fuel was loaded in this plane, the fire was really absurd.
But this is normal in Indonesia, in Surabaya there is already an airplane 'parked' broken into 2 pieces, which airline i forgot. They just leave it there....
On the side of buying things i am surprised that so many things are a lot cheaper in Indonesia than in Malaysia.
Pepsodent is half price of Malaysia, Nivea products 40% cheaper, actually all cosmetics are 40-60% cheaper over there.
But also foodstuff why do we have to pay 4-6 rm for a kilo of tomatoes, they go in Indonesia for 80-90 sen Malaysian!!
Biscuits produced in Indonesia (imported here by among others Diethelm) are more than 50% cheaper. Do these companies need such a profit?
An icecream cone in McD costs 0.60 and here i think RM 1.80!! Same for KFC.
These things make the pricing structure in Malaysia totally unbelievable. Some people are really filling pockets big time.
After all Sumatera is a few hours from Malaysia, no body who can import tomatoes, daun bawang, daun sup, from there (Hello Tesco), afterall it is probably all 50-80% cheaper and whats the cost of transporting a few containers (Singapore does it big scale).
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