The King Kong In Us

I actually intended to write something about my friend Raymond Lee, a talented musician and a former kaki tambak.

But when I got home from work, I came across the news of Tan Chun Kee who was robbed and stabbed to death in KL. The news made me numb.

It brought me back to 2006 when I too lost my dear friend in the same manner. She was killed 3 days before she could turn 18. She was cremated on what was supposed to be her 18th birthday. That was the darkest hours of my life.

It was with great sadness that I have to read the news of Chun Kee, the latest victim. What evils and hatred that drove these perpetrator to kill their innocent defenseless victim? Where is justice? When will the killing stops? How can I not hate this murderers? These questions are a burden that I carry everyday.

So it was weird, that later tonight my 2 year old daughter forced me and my wife to watch the DVD King Kong by Peter Jackson. During the movie, I could sensed my daughter being touched by King Kong. I could see the sadness in her eyes when King Kong was pounded by bullets after bullets and falling imminently to his death. At the end of movie she immediately gave her mother a hug.

And it struck me that all humans or beasts are born with a love and affinity for life. My daughter has it. King Kong did not lost his. But it seems that many of us has lost it somewhere in the midst of our complex man made society. Until we humans rediscover it, we cannot find a way out from the violence and hatred clouding all over us.

Weird as it seems, that a fictional Hollywood beast can possibly shed some light on our lives. But only if we want it to.



Peace,
Kaki Tambak

Calling All Malaysians down South!!! Voter Registration At Sutera Mall on Every Sunday of Jan 2009

The following article is a citizen journalism report by Anak Bangsa Malaysia Selatan:

Johor Bahru, Jan 3 - A voter registration campaign was launched at Sutera Mall, Johor Bahru today. In this campaign a voter registration kiosk will be setup at Sutera Mall(next to Information Counter) from 11am to 10pm for every Sunday of January 2009. The kiosk are meant for new voters registration only. For existing voters who wish to change their voting address, they need to change their address at the National Registration Department (Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara) first and then register the same changes at the Malaysian Election Commision (Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya or SPR) offices or the nearest Post offices.



The kiosk is managed by Mr Tan Yen Ming, Assistant Registrar appointed by SPR. SPR's Assistant Registrars are apointed from civil servants or nominated by political parties to assist them in the registration of new voters. In Mr Tan's case he was nominated by PKR. All voter registration operations by these Assistant Registrars are operated under SPR banner. No political parties or organizations logo or indirect campaigning are allowed to be featured in such operations.

This campaign aims to help eligible Malaysians who are unable to personally visit SPR offices or Post Offices during office hours for registration. Additionally Malaysians working or staying in Singapore can also take advantage of the voter registration kiosk at Sutera Mall. To register as a voter all need to do is you fill in an SPR form and need produce your Mykad for verification purpose.

Afterwards, the Assistants Registrar will submit these completed forms to SPR for processing. Since they are submitting hundreds or thousands of forms at one go, there are possibility that some registrations form will not be successful the first time due to the heavy load of paperwork at SPR. Mr Tan assured that he will follow up and ensure all his submitted registrations to the SPR are successful. In the event of SPR rejecting some registration, he will seek the reasons from SPR and informed the voter applicants accordingly.

Mr Tan assisted by volunteers at the voter registration kiosk at Sutera Mall


Mr Tan verifying and completing the registrations forms.


As of 8pm today close to 400 new voters has been registered at the kiosk. They people behind this campaign is appealing to all unregistered eligible voters in JB and Singapore, to secure their right to vote and exercise their right to vote in the coming election. - Anak Bangsa Malaysia Selatan

So guys please kick the butt of those millions of Malaysians around you who still have not bother to registered. Concerned fellow Malaysians are sacrificing their Subdays to help you get registered. Please do your part for Malaysia.

PS : Most of the volunteers there are not PKR members. They are there to help Mr Tan only.

Regards,
Kaki Tambak

Lets make the new year great!

I am going to be a bit odd here and not wishing the conventional 'Happy New Year'.

Instead I challenge every Malaysian to make this year great. In order to have happy new year, we have to first work hard towards it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to spoil the party. Celebrate all you like but a happy and smashing year won't fall merrily onto our lap. Only after when we achieved something significantly greater, then we can be able to call 2010 a happy new year.

The shit in our country can only be cleaned up when there is enough of us getting out of our comfy seats and start fighting. Mine is not so comfy, so I am already all geared up for a fight.

Here is a video for those of everyone's contemplation. Its from SABMtv.






Regards,
Kaki Tambak

Perakians Working in Singapore Part 2 (Pics of A Once Happenning Little Town in Perak)

It has been quite sometime since Part 1 of Perakians Working in Singapore. Today I wish to share some pics of my father in law's hometown in Perak. These pics were taken duing his funerals.

I absolutely love these pics because it captures the simple beauty typical of small towns across Perak. These pics were taken using an average Nokia phone by a lousy photographer without much effort.


Its a beautiful little town at the foot of Cameron Highlands. At first glance, it looks no more than just another forgotten old folks town of Perak. But you really have to be there to feel what a great place it is. Your body and mind just feel totally soothe just by being there. The air and weather there are just awesome.


And there is a sense of history too. A sense of roots of where sub-modern and sub-urban people like me originates from. What we see now maybe some run-down houses and shops. But this was a rather happening place even before Merdeka. From 1930s to 1950s the town was fill with businesses and and other human activities(e.g gambling, prostitution and subastance abuse).


I know its hard to imagine but once upon a time there were crowds(Chinese, Indians, Ang Mohs etc) drinking and fooling around on these streets.


In the old days everyone travelling between KL and the northern states had to pass through this town. But the creation of North-South Highway left the town stranded from modern development.







Sending my father in law on his final journey across the streets he grew up.






At the cremation afterwards, the most delicious roast pork that I had ever tasted.

Apologies to Muslim friends !




Perak in Malay is silver. The British travel half the globe to plunder Perak riches. Chinamen were brought in to work tin minings. The rise of this town and many like it were the result of tin mining industry. And sadly with the demise of the tin minings, saw the decline of these towns.




Regards,
Kaki Tambak

Another Torrid Journey Home

Yesterday journey home is another horrendous one for the records. Started my journey at 5.10pm and reaching home at 7.40pm.

It was raining heavily from 5.15pm to 6.00pm. Visibilty at times was only 50 meters.I had no choice but to ride slowly (about 50-60 km/h). It felt more like NEE (Never Ending Expressway) than AYE (Ayer Rajah Expressway).

After toiling in the cold hard rain, I finally reached Tuas checkpoint at 6.10pm to be greeted by a virtual motorbike standtill. The operations yesterday evening were way slower than usual. Normally it only would take 30 minutes to clear a 60 meters que. Yesterday it was near to an hour.


From the video below, Block D1 was totally unused. You can see the motorbike traffic was not moving at all while the cars were moving pass the bikes slowly.




And 2 minutes later, I was still rooted to almost the same spot. Furthermore you can see a totally different set of cars next to me.



Till this day, I still cannot understand why Tuas checkpoint management rarely make full use of all three blocks (D1,D2 and D3) during peak period.

Is this a mission impossible to them?
Or did the cold rain yesterday lowered the metabolism of Tuas ICA officers causing slower clearance process?

Until they figure out how to improve the situation at Tuas, we tambak riders will have to carry on with our jiak lat life.



Regards,
Kaki Tambak

Female Tambak Riders

The above pictures shows 2 female kaki tambaks on motorbike at the 2nd link. One is the actual rider(penunggang) and the other is the pillion(pembuncing). There are lots of pillion female kaki tambaks who travels daily with their tambak riders husbands or boyfriends.

However, there are not many actual female tambak riders around. Maybe the less than 0.1% of total tambak riders population. But there seems to be more of them using Tuas Chechkpoint than Woodlands. Most of them probably lives in Gelang Patah area and works in Jurong/Tuas.

I wish to express my utmost respect to these tough ladies who weather the torturous motorbike jams at Singapore checkpoints everyday.

Regards,

Kaki Tambak

ISA : A Draconian Means To A Benovalent Ends?

I had read Paula Khoo's blogpost HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE US ALL with some interest last week. It was about the ISA detention of Dr Lim Hock Siew by LKY. The heated discussions that follows, sort of made me wanting to add a few words here. The arguments can sort of be divided into 2 camps. The anti opression 'No draconian laws please' humanist camp and the pro-developmemt 'Crush the troublemakers' camp. From the humanist camp, you have your universal love and respect for human dignity. There shall be no excuse whatsoever to use evil laws and opression. Though I strongly support their principles, I am not going touch too much on it. Since they are mostly the usual stuff that sometimes fall into the trap of vocabulary elaboration. I also want to avoid sounding overly righteous and idealistic. It doesn't suit the image of a hardcore blue collar slave like me in a cosmopolitan city called Singapore. But I would rather share some thoughts on points made by the Arthur a LKY protaganist. These are points that I feel should be re-examined more directly. Our history books paints a scary picture of communist threats during the 1950s to 1970s. Indeed it could be scary indeed, had LKY not won Singapore could have became a leftist state like Myanmar and Vietnam. Thereby ending up as a military state with decades of under development. Arthur argues that Singapore at that time was in a fragile state. To focus on steering the ship he had to use draconian laws to overcome destructive left/communist insurgency. The success of Singapore today is a testament that he made the right call.

Lets check out of the matters raised by Arthur(Please read Artur's comment yourself at the link above) :

1) Dr Lim was leaning towards left and LKY towards democracy. Maybe more of LKY leaning toward UK/US anti communist stance. Is democratic spirit more alive in Singapore today than Malaysia or Indonesia? 2) The blanket term of 'communist/left movement threat'. Life was hard back then, so it was natural for people to incline more towards the left in search of fairness. Oppressive publication, societies registraton and detention laws was the mainstay of British colonial rule after WW2. The populist movements was driven more by anti-colonial sentiments than communist ideaology. And many that LKY was the extension of Britain. For example Fong Chong Pik in his memoir wrote that his detention by corrupt British backed cops was the turning point of him joining the left. 3) Teh Ching Wan is a straighforward corruption that became controversial. Did Mr Teh commited suicide because of his guilt towards the people of Singapore? Or was the pressure above too much too handle. If it is the latter, then it is a sad reflection of a society that to drives people to suicide in order to fight corruption. The courts fair action in dealing with Mr Teh case would have been sufficient to show the maturity of the Singapore estate. IMHO, anything else is just public relations( or worst political spinning). Another aspect that escape many of us, was the ammendments to the laws pertaining to the appeal of criminal and civil cases that follows Mr Teh case. 4) If LKY was not ruthless, he would have find it hard to rule. You are right, it was difficult for him to win populist support in the war of persuasion. With ISA/ISD he will guarantee win because it is his side who is doing the persuasion only. 5) Times are different, but Malaysia still uses ISA to stifle legitimate political dissent. Yes time are different. But things are still the same in some way. Legitimate political dissent is a threat to UMNO rule in the same way leftist movement were a threat to LKY rule at that time. For me, ISA should not be confused with left vs right, US Vs terrorists or UMNO vs Non-Malays. ISA is a trump card to stay in power when the chips are down. Basically anyone that controls the police and military hold this Dai Di (Trump Card for HK card game). The protagonist will argue that we need ISA to avert chaos. The antagonist will argue that ISA be abolished to prevent abuse. ISA and other oppressive tools is a manifestation of one individual /party quest for power to implement his ways or vision onto the society. So its back to the age old question of ' whether a benevolent end justify the ruthless means?'. Such justification process is a slippery path. We would even find it hard on how to define a benevolent end? Or to determine which is the lesser of multiple wrongs? Opressive rule thrives in society that over-relies on leaders and governments. Its sort of like a test of character and maturity of state (Not sure if anyone agrees with me on this). Is a society too dependent on its leaders to work things out for them? Or does masses play the leading role by moving together to find a way out of the mess? Regards, Kaki Tambak