Your Opinion Does Not Matter
Phone rings at the office. It’s an external call. I pick up the phone.
Me: Hello?
Caller: Siapa cakap tu?
Me: Nak cakap dengan siapa?
Caller: Itu kat mana?
Me: Awak nak cakap dengan siapa?
Caller: Awak siapa?
Me: Eh, pundek! Engkau call engkau jawab la dulu! Lain kali cakap dengan mak engkau jangan memburit dengan anjing! Dapat anak bodoh macam engkau! Bahalol!
Caller hangs up.
Hangin betul aku. Puki la posa…
In some ways, I would think that this is a great country to live in. Other than in Bangkok, Singapore or Bandar Seri Begawan, Kuala Lumpur is the only place I can walk around free in the middle of the night without getting mugged or anything like that. Of course there has been cases of robbery and murder here and there, but generally you can walk around feeling safe. A good indicator is the number of expats working here in Malaysia, both legally and illegally. Wifey and I have nicknamed the extremely high-density high-end apartment complex next door as Seri Umaya because it looks like Beirut especially at night – minus the occasional bombing by Israeli fighter-bombers or some dumb ass blowing himself up.
52 years of self-rule has brought all that about. If P Ramlee were to wake up from his grave now, he might say he’s in a parallel world where the city resembles a bit of the KL he used to know.
It hasn’t been easy. And I would say that race-relations now is at its lowest since the May 1969 tragedy. It was a lot better immediately after. People were more tolerant of each other in the aftermath of the tragedy, but not now. And as long as we all look at ourselves as Malays, Chinese, Hindus, Peninsular, Sabah, Sarawak, BN, PR, Muslims, Christians, Hindus…we will never be one. And for this failure, we only have ourselves to blame. Let’s stop pointing fingers to the politicians who run the government of the day, or the selfish bastards in the opposition who are bent on trying to reap whatever they can in case they don’t make it back onto the throne come the next general elections. If we fail to unite, it is because we fail to see who we are. We fail to identify with the country we live in.
Malaysia has always been a melting pot. For at least 1,000 years. Traders, missionaries from all over the world set foot here time and time again. If we do a DNA test on our blood sample right now, there is that slight chance that we’d have a hint of DNA similarities to the dried sperm scraped from some illegal contract workers’ kongsi, or to a student from Africa somewhere. Yet, we are a xenophobic lot, and we often look down on those whose colour of skin is darker than ours; or on the Bangladeshi PhD holder who perhaps earns more here as a waiter in a mamak restaurant than a researcher back home. We often forget that those who walk the planks on top of a high-rise under construction often without form of harness, some perish and some don’t, are the ones who keep the economy growing.
When this country was 16 years young, I still remember how tolerant people in this country were towards each other. I went to a missionary school where the Principal was dressed in a white robe, and the wall of our classrooms were adorned with the crucifix. It was a time, 4 years after 13th May, where Malays, Indians and Chinese would eat together, and play together.
Having done with my elementary education, I went on to the Malay College, an institution some non-malays now think is the epitome of malay-chauvinism. Let me see how true this is by trying to recall the name of the teachers who taught me there: Ustaz Rahman, Cikgu Abdullah Sani, Cikgu Mustafa Kamal Rabah, Cikgu Mustafa Kamal Ishak, Cikgu Wahab, Cikgu Rahim, Cikgu Zambri, Cikgu Shazali, Ustaz Yusof, Mr Phang Chee Keong, Cikgu Toh Ah Huat, Cikgu Tan Gim Hoe, Cikgu Ooi Guan Kok, Cikgu Loh Teik Sze, Mr Amirthalingam, Mr Nadarajah, Mr Purusothanam Panicker, Cikgu Raman Naidu, Mr Leong Chee Seng, and my Physics teacher as well as my English language teacher whose name I cannot recall at this very moment – both non-malays. So, I was taught by 12 non-malay teachers compared to 9 malay ones. Contrary to popular belief, the Malay College never taught any of us to think that we malays are superior to the other races in this country.
My first taste of racism was when I went to England after SPM, not just from the English students, but also from some of the lecturers. I was subjected to racist attacks both in and out of college. But unlike other malays, or other races from this country that I met there, I did not yield and did not stick to my own kind. Instead I had to think two or three steps ahead of the whites. I got into a fight with a group of white boys who threw snowballs that had rocks hidden inside them. What did I do? I went for the group leader and beat him up and disregarded all the rest while they were punching and kicking me from behind. Once they see their leader all bloodied, they scarper like stupid wild dogs. When a lecturer asked me cynically about my somewhat good command of the English language and where did I learn it from, I just said, “On the plane on the way here.”
I was wrong to be happy about leaving all that behind three years later to return to Malaysia because the Malaysia I returned to was different. I could see its people being suspicious of each other. This attitude caused race relations to simmer, and culminated in the Ops Lalang of 1987. Let me mention something about Ops Lalang. My father did not take orders from the then Prime Minister to execute the operations. In fact, he had had a meeting with all his directors and the top Special Branch people in Fraser’s Hills prior to that to plan the whole thing. And I remember him talking sternly to the Prime Minister over the hotline warning the latter that he would be arrested too if he did not keep the rest of the politicians leashed properly.
Look at where we are now. Multi-polarity is so huge here that we see ourselves according to racial, religious and political background. People are more extreme in their thinking and are keen to blame everyone else but themselves.
There is a saying: “An empire does not crumble because of outside forces; it crumbles from within.”
Stop blaming the politicians. They are idiots who are supposed to represent us. We’re supposed to be the ones with brains to think and assess the situation. If they continue to dwell in their own stupidity, and promote racial tension, are we supposed to just listen to then blindly and let things crumble? If you think either BN or PR is right, or wrong, or that you and your religion are superior over others, then you are as stupid as the politicians are.
Selamat Menyambut Ulangtahun Kemerdekaan ke-52.
Do you think there will be 52 more years of this?
…kampungku indah nun jauh di sana…
I no longer have a kampung. And how I define a kampung as is a place where my grandparents lived, and either parent originated from, and filled with my childhood memories. Since we hardly went back to Teluk Intan (my father’s hometown) when my paternal grandmother was still alive: Kampung Jerangsang, Mukim Tanjung Besar, Daerah Benta, Negeri Pahang was the only kampung I have vivid memories of. And the month of Ramadhan is always closely associated with a kampung, underscored by the late Sudirman’s song “Balik Kampung.”
Back in the early 70’s, the house my late grandparents used to live in consisted of only 3 parts: the serambi (the verandah where guests were entertained), the Rumah Ibu (the main part of the house that had only two rooms, one was occupied by late grandparents, the other was by my youngest uncle before he went off to England to further his studies back in 1972), and the Dapur (the kitchen). At the edge of the dapur, the planks were made of 2-inch boards with gaps in between as it served as the toilet at night. Those were the times when tigers and communist terrorists alike, used to roam at night, not to mention some supernatural beings they say. The bathroom was a well on the left-hand side of the house, where, during those early days, we had to employ a pail attached to a rope to fetch water.
The house was separated from the paddy fields behind it by a small stream that looked somewhat wide when I was little. My elder cousins used to bathe in it, and I have seen people fish in it. But what I remember most about the stream is the coconut tree trunk that used to straddle it, that was used by my cousins for mass crap-dumping sessions after dinner, while the younger ones like I, and my cousin Harry, would have to stand guard with a torchlight to “light” up the dark night.
The house eventually “grew” in size; in the end it had 2 other rooms added, three bathrooms (one ended up as a store) with flush toilets. Electricity came to Jerangsang very slowly. In the early 80’s we had 12-hour electricity, that eventually became 24-hours in the late 80’s. Water supply came in around the early 1990’s, but that was more to supplement the fresh cold stream water we tapped from the hills nearby.
Hari Raya would see us: aunts and uncles, and cousins get together as one, catching up with those who did not live in KL as most did. And because of the celebration being in a kampung, it was more traditional in nature than it would be in larger towns and cities. Two days before hari raya, arrival at the kampung was never followed by a good rest. You would be assigned to a task: the men would have to help make rendang, lemang and dodol, while the womenfolk, led by my grandmother, would be in the kitchen, cooking other dishes that could be eaten with the lemang, or for the breaking of fast later in the evening. And every night after, we would have fireworks and firecrackers to play with, much to my father’s chagrin. On Hari Raya itself, we would have members of the police field force (now police general operations force) on duty in that area coming over to the house on my father’s invitation, to eat good food.
Later in the 80’s, one by one the older cousins would start their own family, and have their own life. Although they do make it a point to go back to Jerangsang, we would only meet each other there on alternate years, or not at all since their alternate years of being there is when others were away. That’s one of the ways how us cousins grew apart.
My last hari raya spent there with my grandparents was just a month before my grandfather passed away. Still reeling from my divorce and the Asian Financial Crisis, I went back to Jerangsang with whatever money I had left with me. I am glad I made that journey as it would be the last time I would see my grandfather as his usual jovial self. He even got a masseur for me that hari raya day because I had sprained my back so bad I could not lift my right arm or breathe without feeling pain. A month later, I saw him at the hospital, post-surgery, in a coma; and he passed away not long after. My grandmother followed him exactly six-months later, which, I believe, was more because she missed him terribly, than because of the sudden onset of terminal cancer.
It was decided by my mom’s family that my late uncle should stay there with his family to look after the house. We went back for hari raya again the following year. Yes, it wasn’t the same without the matriarchal and patriarchal figures around, but nevertheless we managed to keep the family together still.
Then my uncle passed away in an accident in 2002. Subsequently it was decided to rent the house out to aliens from a neighbouring state. With that, we cousins have lost the final link: a place that would have brought us all together as one, as it used to for decades.
Gone are the laughters of the members of the fourth generation, the stupid jokes the third generation would trade; we cousins now hardly know what’s happening to one another. Let’s not even talk about if any of our children know each other, save for one or two second cousins.
And as I sit typing this posting out, I can still remember the smell of the crisp cold fresh air, the mist-covered top of the hills behind the paddy fields, and the hot black coffee we would enjoy with our late grandfather, served with cream crackers…and ponder upon the thought of having to return to my wife’s kampung for the rest of my life…her kampung, where only love exists, but devoid of childhood memories.
I hope, if any of my cousins are reading this, please let us get together one day, with photos of our beloved kampung and let us scan these pictures and distribute them. I’m sorry but I have none.
For those who still have a kampung to return to, preserve your kampung and the link between families. You have no idea how it feels to have lost a kampung.
Wifey is on her flight and now I am waiting for her arrival at the airport. And everytime I am about to see her again, no matter the duration, I get butterflies in my stomach. And I have not felt as such for a long, long time. And it is always good to know that the one you love still has that effect on you.
For Wifey, thank you for making time to be with me a day before my course exams, and for wanting to be with me.
MY WIFE, MY LIFE
It has been a fortnight of sleeping in a cold bed
And every morning I wake up feeling dead
What I would give to be with you each day
But I could not have you by me no matter the wayI wish I could tell you the things I wanted to say
From the dark of the night until the sun shines it ray
But no matter how sunny it may be in the morn’
I always wake up like I’m in a mournI am a man forlorn
On me the day’s beauty does not adorn
Getting through a day alone is always laborious
Without you the simplest of things become arduousReturning to me today is the meaning of life
Returning into my arms today is my lovely wifeJohn F SeaDemon
Senai Airport, JB – 20th August 2009
I’m sorry if it sounds crappy. At least it rhymes. 😛
You enter the room
You brighten the darkness my love
In moments with you
There is no end in me or begining in youMove to the floor
The purpose combined, my love
Like motion of stars
Dynamic symmetry combinesBreak my fall
I found what is missing inside you
Break my fall
Na na na na na na na na
Break my fall
I found what is missing inside you
Break my fall
Na na na na na na na na
Pukul 2 pagi. Aku tertidur kejap tadi tapi lagu Tiesto ni asyik main dalam kepala aku. Aku masih hyper akibat mendengar lagu Tiesto sepanjang jalan ke Pasir Gudang dari KL tadi.
Aku bukannya nak tulis pasal Tiesto punya lagu, tapi sebenarnya nak tulis pasal gelagat orang bawak kereta kat highway dan sebagainya. Sebagai contoh, aku tak faham kenapa separuh orang boleh bawak lagi perlahan dari anak aku kayuh basikal, tapi bila aku nak potong aje, dia laju. Laju yang tak masuk akal gaya memandu.
Last week, masa dalam perjalanan balik dari Perhentian, ada makcik sekor ni bawak kereta kat Paka. Dah la slow nak mampus, makan dua-dua lane pulak tu. Aku duduk aje kat belakang dia. Bila dia rapat ke kanan, aku pun cuba nak potong dari kiri. Dia pecut Gen-2 dia. Lepas tu, bila ada kereta 16 batu kat depan, dia slow mendadak. Bila aku nak potong, dia laju balik. Aku ingatkan dia sorang aje bawak macam tu kat Paka, rupanya ada 2-3 orang lagi mada-paka yang bawak kereta macam tu. Ni mesti kes laki koter kecik jadi nak balik rumah lepas kerja pun tension.
Anyway, petang tadi aku kat highway sebab nak ke Pasir gudang untuk kursus selama 2 minggu. Lepas dari Seremban punya R&R tu ada la satu Satria merah. Bukan GTi, tapi Satria lama. Dia kat lane laju bawak 70km/h. Kereta lain yang laju potong dia ikut sebelah kiri; ada yang kasi jari tengah kat makcik sekor ni. Ye, makcik bertudung berumur lingkungan 20-an, tapi rupa dah dekat 50-an. Aku pun slow la ikut belakang dia, kot-kot dia nak ke tepi. Dekat 5 minit aku macam tu. Kereta lain siap horn kat dia. Ada mamat sorang tu siap keluar kepala memaki sesuatu kepada makcik ni. Last-last, aku bagi high-beam kat dia. Lantas dia memecut. By aku punya standards, tak ada la laju mana. Lebih kurang speed aku bawak nak ke office hari-hari lalu depan IJN dan Jalan Tun Razak. Tapi, masih jugak enggan yield. Rupa-rupanya, plate ‘J’. Bini aku pun bawak kereta plate ‘J’ jugak, tapi tak la macam cipet sekor ni. Aku selalunya allergic dengan plate ‘J; kat tengah highway ni apabila telah melewati simpang Air Hitam menghala ke plaza tol Skudai. Tapi nampaknya kali ni kegatalan aku telah datang lebih awal. Dia punya pecut nak tinggalkan aku sampai nak barai enjin dia aku rasa, berdasarkan bunyi yang datang dari kereta dia di hadapan walaupun aku sedang mendengar lagu-lagu genre Trance yang didendangkan oleh DJ Tiesto. Tapi masih enggan dia memberi laluan. Sekali tu, sebelum kawasan rehat Senawang, ada accident. Traffic memang standstill kat tengah highway. Aku pun terus apply brakes sampai ABS kicked-in. Makcik ni, siap swerve dari right-most lane, terus ke hard shoulder/emergency lane sebelah kiri – narrowly missing one Mercedes in the center lane and sebijik lori on the slow lane. Punya la dia nak kalahkan aku jugak, nak speed kat emergency lane.
5 minit kemudian, aku nampak polis trafik tengah menyaman si cipet ni yang tengah muka berang marah-marah polis ni tadi agaknya sebab spoil dia punya mood driving.
3 bulan lepas, masa aku datang kursus di Pasir Gudang ni jugak, lepas dari simpang Air Hitam, kereta plate ‘J’ akan bersusun di lane sebelah kanan, memotong lori yang 20 kilometer di hadapan, dengan kelajuan di antara 70 hingga 90 kilometer sejam. Jangan tanya aku kenapa, tapi inilah hakikatnya. Aku tension betul dengan fenomena yang sangat cipet ni.
Tadi, benda yang sama berlaku…tetapi kali ni mula selepas simpang Yong Peng Utara lagi. Satu deret kereta plate ‘J’ yang tidak mengenali di antara satu sama lain, cuba memotong sebuah bas yang berada 982 kilometer di hadapan, dengan kelajuan 80 kilometer sejam. Aku punya la tension. Aku bagi lampu 3-4 kali pun buat bodoh aje.
Masa aku driving, ada 4 jenis lagu aku dengar, mengikut mood aku drive:
1) Lagu berirama balada seperti lagu-lagu Babyface dan sebagainya menandakan aku tengah boring dan nak drive relax aje,
2) Lagu irama chill menandakan aku dalam mood nak drive laju tetapi dalam keadaan relax. Biasanya, lagu-lagu oleh DJ Ravin secara solo, atau koleksi Buddha Bar, atau Hotel Costes menjadi halwa telinga,
3) Lagu irama trance oleh DJ-DJ ternama seperti Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Judge Jules, ATB, Armin van Buuren menjadi teman setia. Selalunya cara pemanduan aku masa ni adalah laju dan constant,
4) Lagu Irama Besi Berat – kebiasaannya oleh AC/DC, apabila aku ingin memandu laju dan aggressive.
Anyway, back to the drive earlier this evening, memang aku tak faham kenapa kereta-kereta plate ‘J’ ni suka sangat bawak perlahan di lane memotong, lepas tu berderet sepanjang-panjang highway tu, dan nak kata ada bas, atau lori, atau kereta perlahan di lane kiri tu…memang tak ada. Bas dan lori pun lagi laju!
Paling aku tension, aku potong satu deret 600 lebih kereta plate ‘J’ dari sebelah kiri. Kemudian, di hadapan aku ada satu Myvi plate ‘J’ yang slow, lebih kurang 200 meter di hadapan kereta ciput yang paling hadapan. Lepas kereta paling hadapan tu, aku pun masuk la balik ke lane memotong. Tiba-tiba, cipet Myvi ni boleh swerve masuk depan aku dengan kelajuan 70km/h sebab nak potong lori 1 tan yang berada 400 kilometer di hadapan. Aku rasa masa tu kalau ada high-speed camera mesti dah boleh nampak brake disk aku merah menyala. Bukan takat badan aku keras sakit, keras kembang telur aku sebab badan aku punya pressure naik. Betul punya kimak. Takpe lah. Sebab aku baik dan tak dengar AC/DC, aku relax kat belakang dia dan travel la lagi 400 kilometer pada kelajuan ciput sehinggalah Myvi ni potong lori tadi. Lepas dah potong bukan dia reti nak masuk balik ke kiri! Ada bas lagi 250,000 batu kat depan! Angin betul aku! Aku siap boleh karang SMS hantar kat bini aku komplen pasal kimak ni…berkajang-kajang SMS aku! Bayangkanlah betapa slownya cipet Myvi ni.
Lepas tu kat belakang aku ada satu All-Fart guna lampu HID dah cucuk belakang aku. Lagi aku angin. Mangkuk kat depan tak hiraukan high-beam aku, cibai kat belakang pulak buta malam nak kena guna lampu HID baru nampak. Aku pun kick-down accelerator pedal tu, swerve ke kiri nak potong Myvi ni tadi. Boleh kimak ni masuk kiri pulak depan aku! Mencecet aku tap brake pedal aku, tak nak terus tekan takut momentum membuang kereta aku pada kelajuan ni. Aku rasa senarai carut aku dalam vocabulary aku, memang habis digunakan kat highway menghala ke Skudai hari ni. Dah lah aku trapped belakang babi ni, sebelah kanan aku ada beberapa buah lagi kereta plate ‘J’ yang tadinya aku potong sebab buat 90km/h, mula memotong aku sebab aku pada kelajuan 70km/h. Tak babi ke hangin aku?
Sebab tu la sampai sekarang aku hyper dan lagu Tiesto main dalam kepala aku. Jadi aku nak share dengan ngkorang lagu tu:
While driving I saw these:
The sticker says: ONCE I WAS A TKC GIRL
The TKC girl is now a TKC man
Stupid England. This is a direct translation of KAMI ANTI ISRAEL DAN U.S into English. It says: WE ANTI ISRAEL & U.S. Idiots.
Wifey’s latest (as on 27th July 2009) Facebook status begs ASTRO to stop having multilingual options for English programmes especially on Playhouse Disney Channel. She was seething with rage when she discovered her two younger children have been watching English cartoons dubbed in malay. My younger kids did that too when they were staying with me, and they received the literal rap on the knuckles whenever I catch them doing so. ASTRO should really think of the impact such options have on the ability of the children to have a good grasp on the English language. Even I still have trouble with mine.
This brings me to an event I attended last week, that was also attended by members of a foreign (mainly White) company that is a client of the host. When you do not have a good grasp of the lingua franca, you stand a good chance of making yourself a laughing stock. I know for sure that the MC had had a script written according to the running-order of the event; to say what after what and so on. Despite the script, her English was as good as mine when I was seven years old. Among the things she had said on that day were:
“Good morning to all. I’ms the MC for today’s events.
Mind you, she’s the Corporate Communications Assistant Manager from the company that was hosting the event. And after each guest’s speech, she’d say things like:
“That was a good speech by Mr So-And-So. Please give him a round of applause!”
Then, the representative of the foreign company was invited to speak. The relationship between the foreign company and the host has never been cordial. So, the representative did not mince his words, whacked the host for giving the former a product that did not quite meet the specifications, so much so that the CEO of the host’s company’s face was red with probably both embarrassment and anger. And guess what the MC read from her script:
“That was an outstanding and inspirational speech from Mr Pissed-Off. We hope that this very goods relationship betweens our two company will be carry on like this. Once again, let’s give Mr Pissed-Off a round of applause!
I cringed and looked behind me, at the other guys from the foreign company, chuckling with disbelief. They clapped their hands in the manner that one would after watching a good stand-up comedy act. It was obvious the MC did not have a hint of comprehension of what had been said in the speech.
Trust me. When the Language Nationalists finally have everything their way, we’ll hear more from the likes of this MC…or worse.
I wrote this when I was doing the ‘D’ on the Porcelain Throne just now. This is for Wifey, and it’s called “Because You’re My Wife.
I write this because you’re my wife
Sometimes in the morning you forget to kiss me
But I know you can’t always please me
Because you’re my wifeThere are times that you get grumpy
But I try not to feel all lumpy
Because you’re my wifeYou steal the blanket sometimes at night
But to me that is funny and quite alright
Because you’re my wifeAnd sometimes you’d fart in your sleep
I smile even though the smell makes me weep
Because you’re my wifeDespite some shortfalls and come what may
I’ll love you forever, not just today
Because you’re my wifeJohn F SeaDemon
The master toilet of Villa 6A
Swiss Garden Damai Laut,
Lumut, Perak
26th July 2009
I love you, Baby!
It’s 3.21am, it’s been raining heavily outside for the past hour or so, and I am here typing away as I sit on the porcelain throne.
As I walked into this bathroom, and saw the reflection of my butt in the mirror, I thought to myself,
“How could man land on the surface of the moon 40 years ago, using only a 32k computer on board?”
You tell me.
Martin Luther King Jr once said:
“I have a dream!”
Of course, he was shot dead and his actual dream had died with him. Well, no one really knows what were those dreams that he had…the ones he never mentioned. And one witty sarcasm would sound something like:
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
If you look at the title closely, the first letter of each word resembles a familiar acronym to many people in Johor…or maybe not: IIB. And why not? Because I think that this whole idea of the Iskandar Malaysia region is a stupid one. Maybe not totally, but stupid nevertheless. I’m not going to do analysis after analysis etc etc when I read this because I am going to write this as how I see it, and as how I feel about it. One thing that you have to remember throughout this posting is that ISKANDAR MALAYSIA IS NOT MADE TO COMPETE WITH SINGAPORE, BUT TO COMPLEMENT IT IN THE WAY SHENZHEN COMPLEMENTS HONG KONG.
The core of the Iskandar Malaysia region right now is what is known as Nusajaya – a piece of land owned by UEM that has been developed into landed properties. That project began long before my father was part of UEM (this was like back in the mid 1990s), and made its first sales two decades after it started. I mean, who in the right mind would want to move to JB? Personally, I wouldn’t mind going there once in a while to eat – food’s good but getting more expensive nowadays (a glass of Teh O panas in DUNGU Bay costs RM2.00). But unless I have a real reason to move there, I wouldn’t give it a thought. My only reason for wanting to relocate there last year was because the company that Wifey worked for then, moved there from KL. They bought several shoplots at DUNGU Bay, moved everyone there, then maintained the KL office so they can have meetings with clients there. Therefore, they spend like 3-4 days in KL having meetings with clients and investors. They leave for KL on a Friday, spend the weekend in KL, then conduct meetings in KL on Mondays through Wednesdays, then work in their JB office on Thursdays, and the whole cycle starts again Fridays. So, imagine having to move your family to JB, then you spend more than half a week in KL having meetings. They should just shut down the KL office and get their potential investors to stay and have meetings in JB. After all, the products they plan to sell are in JB.
Apart from the announcement of Legoland wanting to operate in IM, nothing else have actually taken off. And why Legoland? Who on earth would want to go and play with Legos there? The new state administrative center located there is causing civil servants to complain. Previously, they didn’t have to travel far to work. Now not only do they have to leave home earlier, they even have to pay toll to get to work. Unlike Putrajaya, I don’t think there are any quarters there for the peasants working for the state government.
The whole idea of Iskandar Malaysia is to have one huge development project in an area of 2,217-sq km. Initially, there was to be a monorail system or something that would run from the eastern side of south Johor, to the west. That’s over 100km long. But of course, that, and the fact that there is a glut of office space, houses as well as abandoned housing projects, in that region, don’t seem to worry those people at IIB/IRDA at all. Back in 2007, they planned to have 13 million people housed in the IM by 2025. The whole of Malaya, in 1957, only had about 7.3 million people in it. 43 years later, it only had about 23.27 million people. That’s a growth of 15.97 million people over 43 years, or roughly an annual increase in population by 371,400 per annum. The whole state of Johor only had 2.7 million inhabitants in 2000. Even with that kind of proximity to Singapore, Johor still has problems getting people to move there for good – unless they come from Johor and have been working in KL, and would like to retire there. So, how on earth does IIB/IRDA plan to have an exodus of 13 million people (more than half the population of Malaysia now) to the IM region? Even KL with a population of more than a million cannot create enough volume for its mass rail transit systems to make money; what more having a rail system that runs more than a hundred kilometers within the IM?
Then there was this idea to turn IM into a medical hub, more for recovering and recuperating surgery patients etc from Singapore to rest and get proper medical care. So I’m in Singapore, they cut up. Then, instead of pushing me into the recovery room, they put me into this luxurious ambulance and transfer me across the Gelang Patah-Tuas link (Second Link), into a hospital located within the IM. How absurd is that? Here I am just stapled back into one piece (just), and I’m being wheeled here and there, and having to go through the (probably better than the normal) Immigration and Customs processes, from one country to another, to recover from the surgery. The only thing I may have to declare by the time I get to the Malaysian Customs complex is that I died during the transfer. Imagine also the hassle for my family members to go and visit me everyday. Toll, Immigration, Customs, traffic jam etc. Well, I don’t suppose they would build hospitals in IM to compete with Singapore as competing with Singapore was never the idea for having IM in the first place.
Then, there is this rebranding exercise of JB. IIB bought over DUNGU City Mall that was left empty for quite a long while, and plans to buy the Kotaraya Complex and turn it into an upmarket shopping mall, catering for high-end products probably like what The Gardens is to MidValley in KL. The Kotaraya complex has always been THE center for el-cheapo stuff, mainly for the malay population of both Johor and Singapore. On the other end would be Plaza Angsana due to its proximity to the Second Link. I suppose IIB has not learnt the lessons of the JB Waterfront City project that was abandoned in 2003. Some smart alec thought that having a floating city in front of JB would be a good idea, and the JB Waterfront City was to be its precursor. What they didn’t realise was that JB people needed a floating city as much as they would like to have a hole through their head. Now all that remains of this floating city are dozens of piles that were driven into the seabed that remain to this day as another blight on the JB seafront.
They should also learn that Singaporeans throng JB to buy cheap goods at Giant, Tesco, Carrefour, Extra etc. And if they want to buy stuff like Gucci, Coach and what-nots, they’ll go to Holiday Plaza. Now, that is one shopping mall that does not need rebranding to stay alive. It has been there since 1985, and probably named so because it was built next to what was the Holiday Inn Johor Bahru. That hotel has since changed its management and name, but Holiday Plaza is a brand in itself. If you look at its neon signage, it has old school disco font. Ask any el-cheapo shoppers almost anywhere from the central to southern part of Malaysia (and even Singapore) and the name Holiday Plaza would be the first thing on their mind. Reputation builds brands. Therefore, Kotaraya, Angsana and Holiday Plaza, all have their own brand and brand name. Efforts to re-brand them into something else would, in my opinion, end up disastrously.
I can go on and on about IM, there’s almost no end to it. Development is all about explosion. It explodes outwards, grow in strength, where one development creates satellite developments, much like KL, PJ, Shah Alam. It expands when it is saturated. You do not implode and call that development. There is no sense creating infrastructure when you cannot have the kind of saturation and volume you need to sustain that development. I don’t have to be an urban planner or an economist to know that. That is why it is called DEVELOPment.
Oh, and of IM complementing Singapore much like Shenzhen complementing Hong Kong, remember, in the end, Shenzhen and Hong Kong are in one country. Two different countries never complement each other. They always compete.
SeaDemon Says 
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