MH370 - Our prayers are with you

I can't claim to be able to imagine what is going through the minds of the parents and relatives of both crew and passengers.

When he wanted to take up flying, after completing his SPM, I was neutral. Sort of. I wasn't pestering him to do it, but neither was I trying to stop him. I was leaving it entirely up to him. After all, it is his career and it has to last a lifetime, so he better choose it himself.

The risk of flying did not enter into my mind at all.

I know of someone who had hid the application form to a flying school from his son; his son had wanted to take up flying then. She was worried about the risk obviously and would prefer not to go through the agony some parents and family members are now experiencing with the loss of MH370 this morning. I can't blame her for doing that, to be honest, though I did not even come close to doing that.

In the early days, I used to wake up with him and prepare his coffee in the wee hours of the morning. In the early days, I used to monitor his flight progress on Flight Radar24.

And I used to spend hours at times at the mosque while he was flying as a trainee pilot. I would also monitor the schedules when he would land and take off as that would be the time I would intensify my prayers.

Nowadays, he leaves home by 4.30 am for his flight, while his parents are in deep slumber. On different occasions, he would only return home after midnight, after everybody has gone to sleep. I did not bother asking him of his flight schedules anymore.

While I would still pray for his safety five times a day without fail, I am resigned to the fact that his job involves certain risks. Pasrah and Redho would be the better terms to describe it. Easier said than done, I have to admit, but I am left with little choice.

He knew our doas and prayers would follow him wherever he goes. It is all in God's hand. I can't go all day, and all week worrying, I guess. It does not make sense.

I have told him, if fate have it that he would be involved in incident of this nature - God forbids, I would want him to leave as a hero and for me to be proud of him.

In the meantime, our prayers for the crew and passengers of MH370.

(However, I have to record it here that I found that rescue mission is too slow and not forthcoming. The plane was declared missing only at 0743, five hours after contact was lost. Too much time was lost by then. Where are our armies and fighter planes? Where are our SMART team? Our plane gone missing at 0240 in the morning and the first press conference at 11 am? The minister started barking at 3 pm? How pathetic our government can be? At this time and age, we must not only be doing something, but must be seen doing something, Speculation is rife due to lack of information.)

Di Pintu Syurga (Dayang Nurfaizah) - PIano Solo & Guitar

A new instrumental from the family pianist Akmal Hariri.

Straight A's and Ivy League Universities

I was amused when FB was inundated with self congratulatory message from proud parents on their children's achievements in the recently announced PMR results.

Yes, may be I am a jealous guy since my two kids did not get straight A's in their respective PMR, and neither did I when I sat for the now defunct but equivalent SRP. I missed on a straight A's as I got a C3 for my Bahasa.

Now you know why I would never write my blog in Bahasa.

There are over 30,000 students with straight A's in PMR. To be honest, I have no clue whether this is a lot or not, or what percentage this is compared to those sitting for the exam. May be it is normal distribution; may be it is done to the whim and fancy of the examiners' board.

I am not in the academic, so I don't have privilege information.

I was told many years ago by a lecturer friend (she has a PhD in mathematics) that the dumbing of ou students started with the current PM when he was the Education Minister God-knows-when. Hey, I am not against him per se; yes, I think he is going against his Election promise, but this is not the topic of this entry.

I would like to invite parents to think about their children's achievement in education. Let's get rid of the straight A's mentality and let our child's ren learn and at their own pace.

Think of how many of these 30K students who would get straight A's in SPM and how many of them would get into Ivy League Universities, and for that matter, how many more of them would graduate with First Class Honours.

From any faculty for any university actually.

I am not asking them to go and do theoretical  physics and pure mathematics or rocket science at the University of Chicago or MIT. How many would graduate with first class honours say from UiTM, our mass production university, for that matter?

And later on in their lives, how many of them would get to own a patent, or invent something worthy of being straight A's students in their earlier lives?

Don't get me wrong; I am not one eventhough at one time, I was nearly a best student in SRP, and I got into mid-level university. Monash is well known enough in Australia and a Top 8 university there, but it is not an ivy league university, mind you.

I graduated with a third class honours in engineering; even then I thought I was lucky to have passed (with failing). Barely I must add. Since then, I have had a mediocre career, although enough to cater for my family and have a good life. I did practically nothing worthy of mention here, but not contribute to the expansion of knowledge.

Definitely my name will not be remembered in the annals of chemical engineering; definitely I will not have my own Equation of States.

The Hariri EOS - I wish.

Let's think beyond PMR and SPM. Let's get our children to understand the fundamental of science and engineering, and not become memorizer of things so that they can get straight A's in school examination. Get them to love science. Let's get to understand how things work and be able to make deduction why many times they did not. Let's them create things, or be creative. Let's get him to be hands-on; let's get their hands dirtied.

Let's get them into arts - languages beyond their mother's tongue. It can be Arabic, which would be close to our heart since it is the language of Islam. Let them learn music and be creative. Let them learn about painting, and craft. Let them learn about life and what is needed to survive in this world.

Of course, let them learn about physics and how it affects our life, especially in this modern world. Do not let them just be users of technology. They will know all the different models of smart phones, right down to the latest models and features, but know nothing about how they work.

Get them to love physics and science, for the sake of learning rather than getting straight A's in any school examinations. Get them to do more experiments than  memorizing books.

I think a combination of these along with traditional subjects may be good for our children. 

Life is beyond getting straight A's. Get rid of that mentality.

But learning is a must and must be encouraged to our children.

Going back, I know soon our FB will be inundated with a flurry of posting when the SPM results are out. Think again before you start posting. What I love to see posted on FB is posting about our children's achievement at the universities. Yes, getting them graduating for now is an achievement I would not mind chipping in my congratulatory message, especially from a good university.

Then the next task would be to encourage them to excel and not become someone who would go with the flow and become anonymous.

Old Paintings by Othmansor

These paintings were left to the elements behind the bedroom door at our Taiping home, and has been with the family since 1970. According to MCKam, the artist painted them in 1968, when he was a bachelor and a teacher. Almarhum Othman Mansor was one talented artist who in 1980 was even sent to the States to study art.

These painting were given to bapak, during one of our visit to his studio home in Assam Kumbang, immediately after he married her in 1970. Almarhum offered one of the paintings for bapak to choose, but bapak could not choose one over the other; so instead Almarhum generously gave both of them away to him.

That's how we came into possession of these two priceless paintings. I should know and I knew it to the fine details as I was there when it happened. I may be young then, as a seven year old, but that conversation remains etched in my memory.

 

One of his painting now resides in Balai Seni Lukis Negara. He won second place in a national competition sponsored by RRI, circa 73/74 when he was a student at USM. It was not a competition for the amateur actually, as the winner was one Latiff Mohidin, Malaysia's most celebrated artist and poet.

That shows how talented he was then. He passed away at a very young age of 37 in 1982. Talented (and nice) people normally die young. He left a very young family obviously - his widow (my auntie) at 27 and his three children, the youngest at two.

This was painted in 1968 and I hope his son and my cousin will be able to restore them.

Now Balai Seni Lukis Negara has two paintings, one done by him and another one by his son, as they had recently purchased a painting by his equally talented son Arif Fauzan Othman. Kemana jatuhnya kuah kalau tidak ke nasi.

His painting (murals if you must) also used to adorn the main entrance of Taiping zoo in the 70s and 80s.

Alfatihah to my uncle Othman Mansor (Othmansor). Moga Allah mencucuri rahmat ke atas ruhnya, dan dimasukkan dalam golongan orang2 yg beriman.

Never go to Makkah immediately after visiting Bangkok

Now that we are nearing to the biggest day in a Muslim's life, I would like to remind my fellow muslims - make it Malaysians, it is more appropriate to address ourselves than anyone else - that they should refrain from visiting Thailand prior to heading to Makkah - either for Umrah, Haj or for any reason irrespective.

I made the mistake early this year when I went for my umrah with my family. Just a week before, I had visited Bangkok for a couple of days for business reasons.

In Madinah, an uncle of mine decided to purchase perfume for himself. There are probably more perfume shops in Madinah and Makkah than any other cities in the world, which to my mind is a paradox, to say the least.

Ironic in the sense that while we are doing the umrah or Haj (i.e. religious pilgrimage duties), one is not supposed to use or be in touch with any form of perfume. The umrah will be considered null and void if you use perfume of any kind - accidentally or intentionally. So we tend to stay away from such fluid like a plague.

Anyway, going back to my uncle Pak Su wanting to buy perfume. He can be considered a world traveller, being a former Malaysian Airline captain and now captain for Korean Airlines for the past 10 years. So I know I can trust his judgment when it comes to shopping.

He wanted something soft and easy on the nose; so soon he had zoomed in on the Majestic. It was then bargaining time - the price quoted is SR600; he was asking for SR500. But the seller would not budge. Not even for a single riyal, I would say.

I was watching the proceeding intently. I had never bought myself this kind of perfume before, so this was new to me. But I was left wondering in my mind. Here we have a Boeing 777 captain earning in US$ and wanted to bargain on a SR600 item.

I thought it was unnecessary and I would not (bargain). SR600 is too cheap for this wonderful perfume. There was no need to bargain. In fact, I chipped in and told the seller that I would take two bottles for myself and Arif.

"You would not mind having a bottle, would you Arif? " I asked Arif. I thought he can make do with a bottle himself. After all he is an airline pilot and being in the airline industry, he meets a lot with people and it would be appropriate to have a good perfume.

The most wonderful perfume that cost me a bomb. But the scent would linger on for the whole day

So I paid for two bottles of Majestic perfume for SR1200.00 using credit card. I was satisfied - I thought it was of the best smelling perfume I had ever come across, and I got myself a bargain.

Bargain of the trip!

Coming out from the shop, then something struck to my mind. What was I thinking? Pak Su was not being cheap when he was bargaining for his bottle of perfume. The bargaining was perfectly appropriate. I was totally wrong with my math. The conversion for SR from Ringgit is approximately 1:1, so each bottle had cost me nearly RM600 (actually it is RM500.00), and I had just paid nearly RM1200 for my two bottles of perfume.

"La, Pak Su, silap kira la," I lamented to my uncle, "I thought the price is RM60.00 per bottle."

At RM60, there was no reason to bargain. But at RM600a bottle, and for two bottles?

It struck me then that I had confused myself with the Thai Baht. The Thai Baht conversion to RM is approximately at 10:1. So B600 would be about RM60.00, and the week before departure I was in Bangkok for a couple of days for business reasons, and everything in the city has to be divided by 10 for me to know the value in Ringgit.

Well what can I say? I thought I was smart and I thought I knew my math. After all I had taken advanced engineering mathematics at university level, and international finance at MBA level and breezed through them. I had just paid for two bottle of perfumes for RM1200, and I thought I was paying RM120.00 instead, and I guess I should probably be drinking perfume for the next 6 months to pay for that two bottles I actually cannot afford.

Aah, well. Luckily I have two sons and between the three of us, I am sure we can use and finish off the two bottles of the most expensive perfume I had ever bought! Why oh why do we have to have different currencies and not a single one to contend with?

Or for that matter, why can't we do currency conversion using Laplace Transform? It would be easier for us engineers!

Morale of the story - Never go to Bangkok before heading to Makkah or Madinah. It is totally inappropriate, I can tell you that.

Hahaha.

Gotcha!

PS I wonder what were you thinking when you read the title of this piece. ;)

Enka - the beautiful Japanese folk/traditional music

Enka music/songs can be emotional - they are raw, they are honest and they are full of sorrow (at times much like our Asli). You would feel them even if you do not understand a single word. One need not to, to be drowned in typically melancholic songs. Having spent months on end in remote parts of Japan in the late 80s/early 90s, listening to these traditional Japanese folk-influenced songs on the telly on cold wintry night (with nothing else to do, to be honest), one could not help but feel the pain of these songs.

And one can easily be captivated by them.

I remember a couple of such songs that I was taken by by then that I had to hum them to the instructors so as to identify them and, with their help, brought back a couple of cassettes for me to enjoy back in KL.

Beyond the Amagi Gap (Amagi-Goe) is one such powerful song. Aah, and now it is fully translated into English, never mind that the translation leaves much to be desired.

Love Sayuri Ishikawa's engaging performance and the setting is so beautiful.

But the lyrics?

"Stains from mating?", "I would rather kill you than see you love somebody else?" Hahaha, fortunately our writers are not that adventurous!  ;)

Aah, just read the lyric while listening to the wonderful voice of Sayuri Ishikawa and of course her engaging performance.

For the translated version, please go here. They would not allow me to embed it here. I love it when she sings "Darling, over your shoulder, the mountain is burning" while the background is a simulated mountain burning.

Magnificent!

Once a Tiger

Initially, I was a bit reluctant to join, but he insisted.

"There will be many from our primary school, furthermore I will also be around," Siva trying hard to convince me.

I don't really know everybody, to be honest. After all, this is basically a secondary school gathering - Class of 1980, to be precise. I was barely there then - a mere 2 weeks in January of 1976, while biding for time before heading to a boarding school in Kota Bharu, so far removed from Taiping. Other than that, I was an Edwardian in Std 6 in KE-1 primary in 1975 (from  1973). That means I have not seen them for at least 38 years. That's a lifetime, to be honest.

I had attended my main alma mater Class of 1980 reunion years ago, but that was for a secondary school where I had studied for 5 years.

Studied and lived, if I may correct that, which means that I was there 24 hours a day, not quite 365 days a year though, and knew almost everybody. I am still waiting for the 50th year anniversary reunion, but that's like waiting for the cat to grow horns. It probably will never come. The organizing committee must have been hibernating in a cave somewhere.

So the KE anniversary seems like an ideal alternative.

I was counting on the fact that I was a rugby player in primary school. I was the 8th person in scrum in the primary school rugby team. For the uninitiated - like me - it is considered as the last person. Typically that position is reserved to the biggest (and most powerful) boy, as he is required to push all his seven mates in front of him, against another 8 persons in the opposite side. So many should, and would remember me - that's what I was hoping.

But ignore the 'powerful' statement. I don't believe it myself. Hahaha.

If not for Siva, I would not be here. By this time, I felt at home with familiar faces all around me, so it was a joyous occasion for everybody, including yours truly.

Siva, now a teacher at KE himself, was a classmate and more importantly was part of the team that won the Perak rugby championship for U-12 in 1975, and by virtue of that alone, no one can question our (read: my) credibility as a Tiger.

I thought I would qualify as as permanent OE member automatically, never mind him. You can read about our exploits in 1975 here.

Smiles all around. Rahman Salleh is a good friend until today as we live in the same Taman in Taiping. Well, my mother's house anyway, so I meet up with him regularly every time I return home to Taiping.

So upon arriving at at Selangor Royal Club that Saturday night (14 Sept 2013), immediately Siva greeted me. I was relieved. He is a familiar face as I had met him again last year. Immediately he informed another friend - Zainal Azman. Yes, another person I had met a few years ago.

And while I was about to register myself, another guy approached and said, "Hey Rahman, do you remember me?"

Singing session. Gim Teik is on the right.

I stared intently at him, smiling but it was a blank stare. I can't for the life of me figured him out. He - whoever he was then, was a matured man of 50, just like me. I am sure I last saw him as a 12-year old. I told Siva that it was unfair for him to declare my name to this guy, while I had to figure him out on my own.

"Gim Teik," he told me. That's all that I need. Of course I remember Cheong Gim Teik.

Gim Teik was a very generous guy - generous in his compliment. He took me around while telling everybody about my exploits in rugby at KE primary. "He is the last man in scrum - the 8th person. Without him, we would not have won the state rugby championship," he said.

Well, it is nice to be remembered in such an endearing fashion, but honestly I don't deserve such accolade. I was the last person - that much I would admit, but I was not the star player then. That accolade should go to Azli, whom I believe was a very nippy and critical player then, (and perhaps Muniandy and Ahada).

Wishing ourselves happy birthday in 3 languages

But I played my part, as did everybody in the team. We had buried the previous year's (1974) albatross hanging over our heads - that massive loss (0-98) to Clifford of Kuala Kangsar by our seniors. It was a tight game this time around - in the first 10 mins, we were trailing 0-8, but we regrouped. We were the better team and won reasonably convincingly (19-11) in the end.

The Edwardians were a boisterous lot. They were loud, they were rowdy - as they should be. I had never seen such a jovial friendship and camaraderie. Honestly my main secondary school alma mater did not come close to having the OE spirit, and paled in comparison.

May be because KE is a boys school - there was no protocol to follow. May be KE was such a mixed school in term of race - every race was represented, and represented well at school and during the reunion. With beers flowing freely - it was not free though, even the most reserved person would soon get rowdy.

Hahaha - don't worry, we did not touch any. We had to sing the school song, which I had never heard before. I guess when we were at primary we did not have that song, I am not sure. But luckily, many had to look at the lyric sheet to sing along, just like yours truly.

But sing they did. With their hearts and with pride.

There was no 1Malaysia then, but there was no need for one. I think there was no segregation in as far as Edwardians were concerned then. We mixed with everybody, and we mixed very well then. We even had 6 Indians in the takraw team!

I saw Gim Leong. Still look young enough for me to recognize him and apparently he has good memory to be able to recognize me at first behest. There was no hesitation in his voice when he mentioned my name. Gim Leong was one of the top students, if not the top one. He would always compete with Zakri as the best students then. I could never beat him in exams, to be honest.

Funnily he is also in Oil and gas industry, so we do have something in common. I saw Zaini, Fu Seng, Rahman Salleh and Tharmarajah. I have to apologize to Tharmarajah - I could not figure him out without looking at the class picture and I have misplaced the class pix.

Marriyappan was the heart of the party

I think Mariyappan played a good role in making it a joyous and memorable occasion. He was a jovial person and that trait is contagious to the rest of us!

I also like the fact that everybody was asked to say a few words - obviously many have many things to say, some few. Even I was invited and shared the rugby story with rest, with Cik Razak exclaiming in amazement that I could remember all the scores.(Cikgu Razak was the sole teacher that night. He taught pendidikan seni at SM KE, so I don't really know him.)

Yes sir, I could. It is as if it was only yesterday I played those games!

Loss for words? Not! Personally, I found that it odd and perplexing that no one brought up a rugby story at a KE gathering, so I had to bring up the story of how we won the Perak U-12 rugby tournament. I even related a story I shared with Siva on how we used to poke fun at our Sikh friends, with apology to them - well, he did mainly! We were kids then, and we had learned our lesson from Cikgu Lee Tat Choy that afternoon while waiting for our rugby training session one afternoon in 1975.

Thank you all, thank you for the occasion. It seems that it was organized on the go, and that is a compliment. No pompous ceremony; there was no caste. Everybody is Edwardian, and everybody was wearing the same school-coloured t-shirts.

With pride.

Some of the souvenirs I got from that night

I got myself many school souvenirs - t-shirts, mug, golf umbrella, stickers and a coffee-table book. I don't think my other alma mater would be able to top that - in term of numbers of souvenirs for a batch or even school reunion, and especially for that 'The First Century" book. I had asked them to do one, but got a response saying that they did not want to follow MCKK (since MCKK had also published a book of their old boys reminiscing the old days). Yeah, I know what he means. We are better than MCKK; we are the MRSMers!

Lame excuse though, I must add.

Din Selamat showing off the KE umbrella. I managed to get the bigger golfer umbrella. Unfortunately it rained that night, so we had no choice but to try and stay dry, so it was a good idea to buy the umbrella.

But King Edward, an older and much respected institution had taken the lead. It was not a select school like MRSM. Not as glamorous either, I guess. But King Edward seems to do better in term of spirit of its former students. KE has the tradition and the history on our side. That tiger spirit is missing at my other alma mater; may be because there is no big ego at OE, definitely not for the Class of 1980.

Oh by the way, actually I was not the only one with Edwardian with MRSM connection. Shahrom aka Ohm shares that linkage as does Dr Jalaluddin (who was not there). So that adds up one more familiar face that night.

Eh, MRSMers, especially KB76ers, this is how reunion and anniversary should be organized!

Tigers with two alma maters

(Pictures courtesy of Asokan Chinniah. Thank you, sir.)