My Kunming Trip

Ah, it's Thursday 6.30pm and I'm still in office trying to finish off end of well report due tomorrow. It's tiring and requires lots energy for it. So taking a break now trying not to exert myself too much. It's been a long day by the way.

Since there's nothing much to do in office anyway, let me try to put up a post with photos... Learning... ;-)

Here are some photos of my Kunming trip end of June

Welcome gift from the local minority beautiful lady ;-)

Local Lion Dance - so different from Malaysia 'born' Lion Dance

Ahhh, so relaxing at this 'Stone Jungle'

Tibet house with Hui Ting, Elken upline

This weekend will be Malaysia's Merdeka weekend. Recently life has been monotonous and routine... too much work... tiring... thinking of hop on to a train heading to Hatyai tomorrow night and come back on Sunday... I miss this train journey a lot since the last and only time I took it in Oct 2003 when I travelled with 3 other friends for our memorable Thailand backpacking trip... It's a 16 hours journey anyway, by the time arriving Hatyai I would have to hop on to another train to come back to KL :-))... I purely want to enjoy the journey only ;-)... My friend said I'm crazy... Yeah, we should do something that scares ourselves more often to add interesting spices in our lives...

Should I should I not? Well, will see which side of bed I wake up tomorrow hahahaha...

Wake Up On Wrong Side of Bed

Yesterday was totally not my day. Was woken up by a phone call at 9am. On a normal day it would be ok but yesterday was a Saturday. How I wish I could wake up naturally after I have 'enough' sleep. Body and mind were still tired. It's perfectly normal to feel a bit agitated, consciously or subconsciously.

By 11am, I had to pull my lethargic body out of house and head to Auntie's house. Staying in Kajang is such a hustle, it's so far away to everywhere. It's exhausting even to think of going to KL city. I would not mind that much if the traffic is smooth. It's just my luck that the Police for whatever reason had a road block on the highway. I didn't realize if there is any kind of street demonstration or whatsoever gonna take place on that day itself or on the next few days time. And can you believed it? For that short 2km journey, it consumed my precious 1 hour of my life. That 2km stretch takes only maybe 1 min on a normal day. Other drivers temper flair. Drove like crazy people. Didn't give way to others as everyone wanted to get out of that situation as fast as possible. When I passed the policemen, I felt like bashing them inside out but of course I didn't... still managed to maintain as a civilized human being. hahaha...

So the irritation level has just been 'upgraded'.

Luckily had good time in Auntie's place. She prepared delicious lunch for me. I met old friends too catch up on things. And I borrowed few good VCD / DVD home. Not too bad.

Was supposed to play tennis later in the afternoon. So headed to Setia Wangsa area. When I reached there, i saw dark clouds started to 'meet up' in this area like they're gonna have afternoon tea gathering. Oh Boy!!! I thought, not again please. Same story in my life, whenever I wanted to exercise, usually the sky will open up. Even my colleagues noticed it. Fed up. True enough it was raining like cats and dogs. So the tennis plan is gone with the rain and the irritation level escalated.

To relax, I opted to go for my regular blind massage. Aaarrrgggghhhhh.... traffic jam !!!!!! My patient has been tested to the maximum at that moment. I had to change my course, U-turn (luckily there is a U-turn) and took another road. I was praying, please let me have a clear route even though the distance is longer.

I guessed the saying 'one door is close a window opens' has some truth in it. I had a longer but clear route. I managed the anger before I reached Brickfield the massage center. felt much better. After 1-1/2 hours of massage, where the masseur helped to correct my light slip disk, legs, hands, shoulders and neck problems (too many injuries), physically I was loosen up.

On my way home, I was thinking to myself that the policemen were just doing their job. They got instruction from their bosses. Their bosses got instruction from the government, perhaps. But whoever gave the instruction for this stupid road block, one thing they didn't see is that, so many man-hours are lost during the operations. If there was 1000 cars trapped in any one hour duration, average 2 persons in one car, that's 2000 hours lost. Imagine what can you do with 2000 hours? The benefits the society and country would enjoy? There will not be any demonstration if the government runs the country fairly, efficiently and effectively. The government should re-group and analyze the situation instead of implementing all these nonsense tactics to try to seize control of the situation. We all know that it doesn't work that way.

Talk about wake up on the wrong side of the bed, what can I say. All those who got stuck in the traffic jam, the on duty policemen, the family members who're waiting for the love one to come home, those people who desperately needed to go toilet but stuck in that stupid traffic jam (imagine that), those whose cars broke down in the monsoon rain, those who couldn't play their sports because of the rain; those whose houses were wet because forgotten to close the windows; clothes got wet... Imagine the sick needed to get to hospital but the traffic jam... hmmm... not pleasant at all...

Wrong side of the bed? We're not alone here. But I think we can bitch and complain about it, but do not dwell in it for too long. Instead need to dig deep to get out of the situation. Just like a tennis match, we don't play the best tennis all the time, but we can stay calm and maintain the composure to turn the match around. Think of those who're in the worse situation than us.

Here is a short video which i like and a good illustration on 'wrong side of bed'... But whatever goes wrong in our lives, remember shit happens... life goes on and we can only move on and improve from the experiences gained and be better in the future...

Human Relationship

Human relationship is unique and complicated. Nobody really understand the chemistry behind it.

It is funny to learn that in my company there are these two guys who can't stand each other's presence but have to work together. The sound of it indicates the wrong mixture of chemicals. These two guys hence split their working hour like this - day shift and night shift. Often enough they don't have an overlapping period for handover because they couldn't stand each other. Also they don't bother to write a handover note. Simply because they don't even want to have any kind of interaction with one another??? That I wouldn't know.

Human relationship is complicated. Sometimes we like a person at the first sight. Sometimes we grow to like a person. It takes time to see a person's good side. Sometimes we dislike a person at the first sight. Some people have hated one another no matter how long they've known each other but circumstances 'bind' them together. There are many more examples but I'm not going into that detail :-p

If people dislike each other, it's because the auras do not match with each other, according to one GURU i met long time ago. Many more 'explanation' to why two persons dislike each other.

To me, life is short. I believe it's a complete waste of time to engage in dislike, hatred and all sort of negative thoughts / energy. We should channel our energy to do things that is going to be beneficial to our lives. Do something good for our family, parents, siblings, friends and even people that we do not know if possible. Exercise to make us fresh and energetic. Have good diet so that we do not 'balloon' up and torture our body. Have a good financial planning to have at least a emergency fund when we need it. Read more books to be more intelligent and intellectual. Travel to broaden our horizon. Invest wisely. Decorate house make it at least a livable place (HAHAHAHA!!!!!!). Donation to help the needy. Just enjoy every moment of our lives. It's too short.

Instead of playing games and politics with one another while we need to face each other everyday to make a living? Well well well, better sort that out before everyone goes crazy... hahaha... In a blink of an eyes, we would become old. When the time comes, perhaps we would be laughing at ourselves why waste time and energy on all these negative 'problems'.
Perhaps we would think ai ya, I should have done this, I should have done that...

I think, we live the moment, make full use of it, and most importantly, enjoy it :-) Yesterday is history, tomorrow is unknown. Now is the best time !!!

Malaysia Politics

It's funny to find that I'm actually sitting in front of the laptop writing something about politics. It's unreal. All my life I've never been interested in anything about politics. Perhaps to me politics is just a kid monopoly game that real adults play which involved everyone in the world, whether we like it or not.

This morning was reading The Sun. When I turned to second page, it was all about the Battle For Permatang Pauh between Datuk Arif Shah Omar Shah and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Funny thing is that the introduction of these two 'giants' is first, Name, second, Age, then third, Marital Status... I couldn't stop wondering why Marital Status is so important that it can make it to the top three here. I wouldn't know what would be the appropriate data to be shown here (maybe the current position they're holding???), but Marital Status? come on... Perhaps they could think of 'Gender' in the future... hahahaha...

Another question arise. What happens is that Anwar Ibrahim's wife wants to give up her seat and gives it to her husband. Why an election is needed?

I'm saying this because I don't really understand the rules here. You see, after the election in March, some parties which have won could switch the parties they represented to the opposition parties. They were voted winners by the people. If they want to switch parties, there should be another election to be held so that people's opinion can be valued. They need to seek approval from the people if they can switch or not, agree? If they can switch parties just like that, then what's the election for? As one of the people, I feel I have been cheated by the so-called Democracy in Malaysia and roped off the right I have as a citizen.

One of my colleagues asked an excellent question. She asked, if Prime Minister's position can be passed on just like that i.e. without the needs of voting, then what's the big deal about this Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat? Agree? Argument anyone?

I have been following the current news of Malaysia and the world more than ever this year. The more I read, the more I learned. Politics, it is an interesting game. But the politicians have to hold their hearts and ask themselves honestly, what do they want out of this game. Is it money? Fame? Power? or they really want to do something good to their people? After all, without people they're nobody. Till now, my conclusion about Malaysian politicians are generally a bunch of no brainer and selfish adults play a fool among themselves and along the way they want to get as much as possible to fulfill their greediness. To them, who are 'people'? That's what I think. Well, can't deny that there are some good bunch out there though. But for the not so good bunch, one day nature will give them back what they deserve ;-)

Hungry Ghost Festival

1 - 15 July of Lunar Calender is the Hungry Ghost Festival. What's Hungry Ghost Festival? It is believed that during this period of time the gate of Hell opens and all the 'living form' in the other world comes to our living world for God knows what activities.

Whether it's true or not, I don't know. There is basically no prove of this happening. I don't know if there really is Hell or even Heaven. I don't know if there's other living forms other than human in this world or in this universe.

However, there is one thing I believe in. The Hungry Ghost Festival has been around since long time ago. The actual official date of festival is unknown to many, unless to me. After such a long time the festival is still been 'celebrated' it is still around shows the importance of this festival in Chinese culture. During this period of time, you will not see many Chinese go out at night as it is believed that other living forms are more active during night time as there is no sunlight which represents the Yang (hot) energy. If there is no truth in this festival, I would think that this festival would be long ago been phased out.

Even though there is no scientific proof of this event, facts do speak for itself. Case history tells us that during this Hungry Ghost Festival, accident rate is usually higher than other period of time of the year. For example, there is a fatal accident on one of the offshore rigs in Malaysia and another passed away due to heart attack. There is one 'death ceremony' in my neighborhood. Over the years I have heard lots of interesting stories that happened during this period of time, but usually I forget after listening to them, so sorry guys, no horror stories here ;-)... will write about it when I come across in the future or when I remember them.

In a nutshell, I would say believe in something which has been around since ancient time. Don't take things for granted. Just believe, take necessary precaution steps but don't get superstitious. Superstitious will make our life miserable (maybe will talk about it next time :-)). Something that we can't see doesn't mean it doesn't exist, so JUST BELIEVE :-p......