The Malaysian Kronikels (satu)

For the ignorant ones and the non-ignorant ones, this is basically what I've learnt in my five days in Malaysia. For the record, let me tell you that I am not racist or nationalist, I merely love my race a lot and love my country a lot. That might create some misunderstanding within some of you, but I ensure you that I do not hate any particular country or other.

What you will see next is the first part of my observations in Malaysia, also known as TRULY ASIA. I start to wonder what would happen if the whole of Asia was like Malaysia, but never mind that. What is important is that you take your learning to wherever you go, and I believe I did learn quite a lot of things from Malaysia. If you have any violent objections or disagreements, keep it to yourself please. Especially Seng Kong, since I believe he is Malaysian.

If you are wondering at any point of time on what the heck was I doing in Malaysia, I was actually preparing for the Asean summit from the 12th to 14th December. In fact, (this is a secret so don't tell anyone else), I was there to make all the decisions before the Asean summit actually began proper. The decisions that eventually will be made would be that of mine, though the various leaders would just be putting up a show (acting like they made the decisions) in the days to come. After all, too many cooks spoil the broth, so they just got me to go over for a while, enjoy myself and settle whatever they were going to discuss. It's a one-man show, but few people know about it. I like having a low profile and living out of the limelight - it's much better that way. So even though I'm doing most of the work, please keep it a secret, okay?

And once again, I mean no offence in my observations. It's not my fault if the truth hurts.

So without further ado, Part One of The Malaysian Chronicles:
(PS Please pardon me if my spelling is a little funny, it's a five-day influence thing)

satu.
The first part of the trip was in Singapore (okay duh) because I travelled by coach. I'm sure most of you would have travelled to Malaysia, especially my fellow waterpolo maties who went along with me in Sec 2. We've had lots of fun, and the coach trip was part of it. Keeping awake from 12 midnight to 5am was the highlight of a long trip to KL, although I can't say I stayed awake this time.

My experience from sleeping in class soon paid off, because I was able to sleep through the long journey up the mountains. I slept in almost every position possible - and it wasn't difficult as I just imagined the window to be the whiteboard in class. The "recess" came at the break at Yong Peng, some disgusting place in Johor which gets too many tourists and far too much dirt. The "lunch" was at the destination, another disgusting place, though this time in the giant state of Pahang. The lesson to learn? Sleeping in class has its applications as well - because you wake up just in time for the recess and the lunch. Same goes on the trip. Elementary.

Oh and another thing - this was a free and easy trip, also known as a trip of iron. This is because Free and Easy goes by the initials Fe, and that's the symbol of iron. That's kind of ironic, because how can a trip with the agenda of holding the Asean summit be free and easy? I don't know either, but it's just an ironic trip so keep that in mind.

Malaysia is quite an educated country, from my observations. Though they certainly leave much to be desired in the field of English and of spelling, examples being "kad", "konsert", "konsortium", "klasik", "restoran", "butik", "komputer", "aksesori", "bas", "lori", "teksi".. okay wait I'm getting carried away. Though they certainly leave much to be desired in the field of English and of spelling, examples like "tol", "beg", "relaks", "tren", "farmasi", "refleksologi", "teknologi", "sentral", "kaunter".. OKAY SORRY!!

I'm just trying to say their spelling sucks, but their sciences as sure as hell would earn them a GPA 4.

Protons
The reason why I say so, is because I believe their Kemistri is one of a kind. The amount of Protons they have on the road is simply amazing - and is an indikation of how much effort they have put into their research. I see different types of Protons, probably belonging to different elements. Now I'm no katalyst, or any elektron, but I sertainly could kombust as I have properties of oksigen. That is not the point. The point is, there are tons of protons of the road and I admire very much their kemikal research. If you're an electron, please don't go into Malaysia because you're in danger of being neutralised. If you're dumb, I'm telling you that you'll get into kar krash.

Km/J?!?!
Their road signs are a bit funny - with km/J. This proves they are Fiziks eksperts and very much ahead of us, because although we count kilometres in terms of hours and plot our distance-time graphs, they could see the much deeper relationship already. Think about it - it's not even acceleration or velocity, it's ENERGY! They count km in terms of energy, that's power packed. Malaysia, head of Fiziks department in Asia. Or maybe it's just a progressive thing.. like you know:

Singapore: km/h (yh)
Malaysia: km/j (yj)

So maybe I assume Thailand would be km/l. (yl)

Maksimum
Maxis spams you when you get into Malaysia. When I received 4 messages suddenly, I thought people was missing me back here in Singapore. Unfortunately, it was just the bloody operator Maxis (Maksis also can) who was spamming me. Damn, it raised my hopes a lot.

On the way up to the mountains of Pahang, I saw something that really should be noted. I took a picture on the way back.

If we followed the instruction as they said, we might as well not get a komputer. Holding down Alt-F4 indeed. Anyway this was taken at the Plaza Tol, which only serves to piss people off. People lose money not happy already, so why the hell would they listen to your advice about holding Alt-F4? I think this plan about kicking out porn from Malaysia is gonna fail badly - and no thanks to Plaza Tol.

(PS I think one reason as to why Japan took quite long to invade Malaysia, was because they haven't kollekted enough ringgit to pay Plaza Tol.)

The Dangers Up There
It only pays to pay attention during NE lessons. When you're up in the mountains of Pahang, safety comes first, trust me. So you'd better learn some Civil Defence. It's not so much of the tigers of the jungle, but rather the food. Or lack thereof. It's like being a Pokémon and travelling from New Bark Town (Singapore) up to Goldenrod (KL) and then up to Mt. Mortar without any potions in hand. Then when you're about to faint from hunger, you try getting an Escape Rope but NO! You're jacked! There are none in your Pack so you faint, white out and be sent to Goldenrod Pokémon Centre where you have to make your way up to Mt. Mortar again.

That's quite sad isn't it.

Thankfully, I found some potions in my Pack so I didn't faint. Nowadays better be fully equipped. No matter what, you'll never run out of hot water so bring some instant noodles wherever you go. The food up there is inedible and unaffordable, from my experience.

Just for fun, I included the place where I had my potions. The seat was also to be my bed, because the bed in the room was too big for me. It's funny sleeping in an L-shape, but like I said, sleeping in class for the whole year helps in your adaptability.

Vulgar Malaysians
Now this is no joke, because the hotel I stayed in (name not stated to protekt identiti) is really very unbecoming of Malaysia, truly Asia. I mean the occasional vulgarity is fine but to display it blatantly is not okay. I've got proof, too:





So that's proof enough. They also have one "do not leave anything behind" sign on top of a DUSTBIN. Now this isn't vulgar, but a pretty stupid way to convey a message. I couldn't take a picture because there was a securiti guard around. If I got caught I might be forced to hand over the inkriminating evidens of the previous picture and I couldn't afford the risk. Sorry.

Their Newspapers
Very biased sources. Now I don't have any proof here so you'll just have to take my word for it.

And I'm saying that it's screwed up. Why?

Because a typical Malaysian newspaper goes like this:

Pg 1: Nicol, we're proud of you! (She, Nicol David, is the World's No.1 squash player and won some funny tournament which got her to that position)
Pg 2: Well done Nicol!
Pg 3: PM says, Nicol, you are more famous than me!
Pg 4: Her coach says..
Pg 5: Her family says..
Pg 6: Nicol's future plans
Pg 7: Nicol's shit is brown
Pg 8: Nicol went to sleep at 11pm!
Pg 9: Her history

You get what I mean. They can't stop reporting and gloating over the fact that their player has made it to the top bracket in sports. Sure, it's something they are proud of and I respect Nicol David for the sportswoman that she is, but is there a need to have such in-depth coverage?

And it's not only for ONE DAY I read this rubbish. For FOUR DAYS straight there are at least two artikels about her. The fifth day I read it, there was only one. What the hell man. And the best thing was she didn't even go for the SEA Games to play in some other competition. And she got lots of money from the gahmen over there. 200k RINGGIT! Lucky you convert to SGD also not 100k, haha jackasses!

Still, I think the coverage of Nicol David is too much. I don't have anything against her, though I have lots against their press. One of them's called New Straits Times, and it's a disgrace to the good old Straits Times they have in Singapore.

Their SEA Games coverage is also damn screwed. Their review went something like:

Malaysia's focus on the 8 core sports did well, except for soccer. (61 golds also not bad for them)

Now that's okay. But what goes next is the individual reports. (not word for word)

Athletics (Athletik): We did pretty well, though we could have won long distances. - No complaint here.

Fencing: We haven't won anything in the past, and we still haven't, so what are they doing? - WTF.

Soccer: We are almost there and hope to win the next games. - Zz..

Badminton: Lots of us love badminton and that's why we won. - We all love soccer, don't we?

These are the real STUPID ones.

Table Tennis: Myanmar, like Singapore, has started importing foreign players from China and we keep losing to them. However, that is no excuse and we must improve.

I could tell them, Nicol David's ancestor probably wasn't Malaysian and that's why we lost. Bet she's some cheap foreign talent that Malaysia acquired but still Singapore has a long way to go in Squash?

Real lame - and oh, there was no review for Swimming. I must have looked back and forth at least twenty times of their SEA Games review but I still couldn't find that sport. Have they left it out on purpose, or was it just that they forgot to include?

I don't like to speculate - but their papers, either way, are screwed.

Oh and the last thing that got me pissed off. West Ham match against Birmingham away. The newspaper's headline was "West Ham secured their first-ever EPL victory with a win at Birmingham" - and the Premiership table right beside it showed that West Ham had 6 victories. I know, the sentence does make sense if you read it in another way, but that means it's ambiguous. Sorry, New Straits Times, like your national table tennis players, there is no excuse to shy away from this. Go brush up on your English. The picture on the same page was a totally unrelated one, and I also don't know why it was there.

Best thing is that you go over and have a read for yourself. 百闻不如一见。

Tap-Kad
Malaysia tried to imitate Singapore's Tap-Kad system in Genting, picture below:

But it's a big failure. For one thing, when I tapped it once, 6 kredits were used up. AND I ONLY HAD 10 KREDITS IN IT! That's 60% and the game turned out to be bloody cheating me of money. Bloody waste of ringgit and I'm still seething over it so just trust me, if the arcade in Malaysia you go to uses the Tap-Kad system, there are two things you could choose from:

1) Don't go into it at all.
2) Be very careful.

Simple as that.

Or maybe I'm just plain stupid and cannot use their Tap-Kad.

Other than the silly Tap-Kad, Genting could offer better stuff - and the picture above is an illustration. Now it might look pretty normal to you, but I can assure you it's an extraordinary buy. I wanted to take picture of its feature, but I haven't found the time yet. Well, perhaps if you're lucky, I'll remember another day to post it.

Meanwhile, I'll just admire it myself and maybe show to YH, who's an Arsenal fan eh?

By the way, I don't exactly support Arsenal, though I like Henry. And there weren't any West Ham caps on sale, so what the hell, since Arsenal was in London along with West Ham, I just bought their cap. It looks nice anyway.

Highlight of the Trip
I can't say all was bad, because the weather was good up there and the place was rather neat. I've got some pics of the whole resort and their future proposals, well here they are. Don't know which is which, and can't be bothered to label them, so just trust me that their resorts are rather nice.

AND

But that's not the highlight, duh.

The highlight WAS Benfica vs Man Utd!! Supposed to be eksklusively shown on TV3, though when I woke up at 4:45am there was some Malay program going on. Then I thought, what the hell and tried switching channels. No avail. Baskit I would have thrown stones on the TV (SINGER BRAND - ISN'T THAT THE SEWING MACHINE) if I could find stones. I mean, yea, we were up in the mountains in s0me funny resort but TV was still TV!

I went to boil a lot of water while I boiled internally because of the lousy services they had. Then I stormed back to my L-bed thinking that the highlight was gone.

My father woke up saying I made a lot of noise, and told me to go to watch some TV if I couldn't sleep. I said what for, it's already 5 plus and the match is over.

He reminded me it was 3 plus and told me again to stop making so much noise.

Then I realised I kaunted wrongly. Shit, that's what happens when you have your watch at European time and when you think your Maths can survive. Now my arithmetik also gone kok in Malaysia. Never mind that - the letdown turned back into a highlight.

The match was very good for obvious reasons. I know YL might be saying West Ham didn't make it into Europe, but if they did they might not have finished last in the group. After all, the ball is round and you never know. It's 50-50 whether they get into the last 16 or not. Unlike Man Utd who crashed out. I'd rather have 50% chance than NO CHANCE at all. Well so much for that. Benfica won 2-1, and I must say those two hours spent watching the match was the best I ever had in Malaysia. The very best. (No pun intended about George Best)

When I woke up later in the morning, I didn't feel tired at all. On the contrary, I never felt so much energy as I did - and it wasn't anything to do with the Milo. Nor the bottled water in the fridge which also happened to share the same brand as the sewing machine and the TV (ie Singer).

Oh by the way before I left the hotel, I realised my mp3 had low battery. So once again applying my koping skills from school, I koped one battery from the aircon remote (I should have koped two because that laupok battery, which was Eveready, ran out in just FOUR HOURS. and it's not any lousy brand). See, application of skills could earn you survival up in the mountains. This is what I call SURVIVOR - and I'm sure Tumnus would be proud of me if only he knew. Next time I don't give any more chance. Gonna be merciless.

And the next tourist might find it slightly hot in the hotel room. Not my fault ah, it's just circumstance and koper's instincts that forced me to carry out that sertain aktion.

Closing notes

For the first part of the trip up in the mountains, Malaysia was beautiful and a pleasure to be there. See the wilderness above? It's just a klasik example of how nature prevails up there. Also might remind you of someone haha though I better not say. I liked staying up there pretty much and I'd recommend you to just go up to Pahang to refresh your senses. If you really want to know where I stayed, you could always ask me on MSN, no problem, but I must protekt their identiti here. Like I said though their newspapers suck, you can't deny they have very good scenery and their service is not bad. This is all I have to say, because I'm getting chased off from the komputer, ugh.

And well, before I leave, just a souvenir from Malaysia. Hope you enjoyed this.

THEIR NATIONAL DRINK, TA-DA!