2020 starts of with a bang on the news front. It gave me a great sense of pride for the wild things the Malays have somehow achieved within just weeks of the year 2020. No other race in Malaysia can come close. Not the Chinese whom common knowledge have pegged them as the Race of businessmen and owns most of the wealth in Malaysia. Even the Indians can’t top the Malays in this area, even though we all know that The Indian and Singhs are the doctors and lawyers of Malaysia.
Malays have finally grasped the epitome of achievement in upholding our dignity to be stupid with all our might. To be exact, the leaders of the Malays. Since the Malays elect and continuously support these leaders, by proxy, they are of the same quality. Mind you I am a Malay as well. It’s the box I tick every time I fill a form that asks for my race at the very least.
Let me present my case. First, PPBM Dengkil Assemblyman who was caught together with a group of men and women having a wild party fueled drugs and gambling. Social media was buzzing at full capacity when the news hit the public. He was caught red handed however, he denied it. On the same day later, he then claimed he was among those in the party. He claimed to be “at the wrong place and at the wrong time”. Yup, blaming the situation. Blaming the police for being there and caught him. Blaming the drugs for existing. It just baffled me to say something like that. He’s just bereft of accountability.
Where is his dignity of being the leader of Armada Selangor? And Syed Saddiq should’ve just sack him and the lot instead of just suspending them. He admitted to be there, allegedly involved with drugs, gambling, women and drugs. Just bloody sack him and ask him to resign from holding any post other than being the Assemblyman and be done with him. But then again it’s politics, once can just get away with it oh so easily. Bro Syed, if by any chance you read this, don’t be like the very politicians you despise.
YB Ostard Dato’ Haji Mohd Amar. Deputy MB of Kelantan who equates himself and the rest of the 14 new Mercedes ‘owners’ to be of the same level as Prophet Muhammad.
The Menteri Besar nonchalantly said it was well within their rights. Their cars are old and ageing and costs a lot of money to maintain. So buying a not one but 14 Mercedes is to save money. He also dared to make fun of the Viva. They are too good to be in a Perodua Viva. This is a classic. This is why I don’t believe Ulama adalah pewaris Nabi.
It’s not about whether you have the right to buy them. Whether you can afford it or not. It’s about what are your state’s priority in spending money. It’s about your need versus your rakyat’s need. What are your priorities my dear Menteri Besar? If you can’t decide between these, then you are not fit to be leaders. I’m always fascinated with these PAS leaders and more fascinated with their hardcore followers. They claimed to be well versed in both Islam and Politics but time and again it’s proven that they aren’t really that well versed in both.
Additionally as usual, these Tuan Guru, Ustaz, Ulamak equate themselves to the Prophet. So selfishly telling everyone that they of the same level as our Prophet. This is totally unacceptable in my book. However to their supporters, it’s the righteous way to justify themselves. It’s in the books of the every politician in Malaysia to make use of Islam to justify they are right. Even in the case of buying truckloads of Mercedes. This is so stupid that even the kafirs are laughing as just how stupid Islam works out to be. And the Pas leaders have the dignity to do this. That is why he received this zero dignity award from me.
Najib looking confused with whatever that is going on in his SRC case.
Najib’s Darling there. Can’t take my eye’s off of her so some reason.
As you probably know, Najib used the sanctity of Islam to prove his innocence as well. It’s typical of a Muslim to “sumpah” that he’s innocence. We all know that there’s no such thing as “sumpah Laknat” in Islamic law. Federal Territory Mufti said the same thing. To me, the only value in Sumpah Laknat is the one where P. Ramleed did with his “Sumpah makan sate 30 cucuk”. This was way better and way more meaningful than Najib’s.
As usual the Malay folks gobbled it up as the gospel truth. Some even defended Najib’s action and spoke against the Mufti. So easy to play-up the Malays nowadays, just use the race and the religion card. Najib should head the list of the award but I’ll let it slide because I’m pretty sure we get to see more of his antics later. He’s of course the President of GTB (Geng Takut Bini). So it’s kinda guaranteed that we will see more.
2020 just started and we have a shitstorm of stupidity all in the same month. Where is our dignity my dear malay politicians? Where is our dignity my dear malay supporters of these politicians. If you love and support your malay politicians, tell all and sundry that they are wrong. Tell everyone that it’s not acceptable. Show the politicians that you have the dignity. Don’t be so blind to their antics and let them play you like a fool. That is if you have the real Malay dignity. Not the dignity to be stupid.
Sometimes we get hung up on the finer points that we tend to miss the big picture. Many people tend to do this constantly. Me included. There are many reasons why this is the case but chief among them are the fact that there are too many things to do or to fix at any given time considering the VUCA state that we are in now. We then to get caught up in the whirlwind of things.
In the case of Bapak Maszlee the chief of the issue to me is the 3-page jawi subject. My apologies, it’s not even a subject but a passing remark for the Standard 4 BM subject. Just how long throughout a year of schooling will teachers be spending on three pages of a text book? Would it be one whole period? or half a period? Two period perhaps? And yet the whole nation is up in arms about it.
For completeness sake, let’s take a look at the proposed three pages of Jawi in Standard 4 textbook.
It really is nothing much isn’t it? Don’t you guys agree?
My eldest daughter and my son can read and write Jawi and they are still in Primary school. They aren’t great but they aren’t very bad either. They are doing fine even before all this hullabaloo. With these 3 extra pages on Jawi in the standard 4 textbook and probably 1-2 period spent on it, will it make them Malays, Chinese Indian, Iran, Kadazan and other ethics more Malaysian? At the end of the day, the only take away is “it’s Jawi writing”.
Today, if you were to google ‘Subjek Jawi’, you’d see endless links to opinions and debates about it. This article will definitely add to it. The more you delve into it, the more you will see that it’s dividing the very fabric of our unity. You’ll start to see that it has resulted in people being downright racist and bringing in religion into the matter. Let’s take a look at a few examples here.
With just people refusing to have a 3-page jawi in the textbook, they are immediately labeled as Communists. We see the Malays turned it into a religion. issue. And some even told these Chinese folks to go back to China. Would this sort of language makes people want to learn Jawi?
Personally, I am fine to have it included in the syllabus.I’m not against it and I’m not for it. I’m just indifferent. It won’t make or break anything for me. Make that what you want of me, you can label me with anything you want. Go ahead.
The original proclamation of Malaysia in Malay written in Jawi script.
This would’ve been a better topic to discuss about Jawi in my humble opinion. But then again I’m not an expert in Bahasa Melayu for Standard four.
What I am so angry about is that we treat Jawi as an Islamic script. Let us be clear, it’s not an Islamic script at all. It’s as Islamic as Rumi, or any other script out there. Jawi alphabet is not the even same as the per Arabic alphabet. There’s an additional 5 letters in Jawi in case you forgot about that. Have you read erotica in Jawi from the 40s and 50s? I remember reading some of it back when I was in primary schools. Friends passed around erotica in jawi, It’s almost like an amulet or “tangkal”, yellowish piece of ancient paper folded with Jawi writings on it. So yeah, nothing Islamic about that. Have you seen this add beer add in Jawi?
This is the problem with the Malays. We believe we own things and it’s exclusive to us. This country belongs to the Malays and Malays alone. The rest can get the hell out if you don’t like it. And whatever we owns are automatically Islam or Islamic. Bribery kinda now have Islamic version of it and working together with non muslims now becomes TahalufSiyasi. And now suddenly Jawi is the language of Islam. If it’s really is that, why are you lot only making a big noise out of it now? Why not back in 1950’s?
In case you forgot all about it, it was Asas 50 back in 1956 through 3rd Malay Language Congress (Kongres Bahasa ke-3) that proposed the Malay language be used in the roman or Rumi script. Asas 50 was made up of journalists, writers and teachers of the Malay language. These are the folks who hold up Bahasa Melayu up so high in their heart more than any of you guys and myself included. They love the language so much that they put up a proposal to romanise the Malay language.
You want to know why? It for one single reason and one single reason only. In a memorandum by Asraf and Usman Awang (Memorandum Mengenai Tulisan Rumi Untuk Bahasa Melayu: Disusun Oleh Asraf dan Usman Awang):
Bangsa-bangsa asing dapat mempelajari bahasa Melayu lebih mudah melalui tulisan Rumi, bukan saja kerana tulisan Rumi sudah menjadi tulisan yang universal atau diketahui di seluruh dunia umumnya, tetapi juga kerana buku-buku pelajaran sastera bahasa Melayu serta buku pengetahuan lainnya mengenai bahasa Melayu dapat dengan lebih mudah ditulis untuk orang asing dengan tulisan Rumi daripada dengan tulisan Jawi.
Memorandum Mengenai Tulisan Rumi Untuk Bahasa Melayu: Disusun Oleh Asraf dan Usman Awang
It’s for this very reason that it was introduced to be romanised back in the 50s. And on 14 December 1959, Parliament have stated that both Jawi and Roman script of Bahasa Melayu are both accepted.
Today, we have people of various ethnicity can speak and write in Malay easily as it’s romanised. Now we want to go back to the 1050’s? Okay, I understand, fashion come and go right? Nowadays people wear ‘tengkolok’ or ‘tanjak’ a Malay headgear for men, it used to only be back in the day. So fashion do comes back in style. So yeah, don’t forget that it was the Malays who wanted to throw away Jawi. It’s very common for Malays to forget. Remember Boikot McD? Remember the more recent BMF? Of you forgot about it already? Ya, Melayu Mudah Lupa.
Now Jawi have become a national education issue and have somehow become the last straw for the Minister of Education to resign. It has divided the nation once again since 1956 memorandum. If we really are going have this rather time consuming and all encompassing discussions about our education system. If we really want to have a discussion that will probably divide the nation then why not do it proper? Why not take on the subject of One School System, No SRJK (C), no SRJK (T), no Sekolah Agama Rakyat, No Sekolah Tahfiz, no any other types of school except National school? Mother tongue language, Arabic, French, KAFA, Tahfiz, Usuludin or whatever else can be electives and taken up after official school hours. Debate on this and divide the nation on this instead of a 3-pages of Jawi that is not worth dividing the nation at all. This is a subject I don’t mind to divide the nation with. Not the 3-page Jawi non-issue.
With this Jawi issue, Mazlee let the bigger objectives of him being the Head of MOE be gone with the wind. Personally I think he had the toughest job right after PM and MoF. I don’t envy him and I think nobody in their right mind would envy him. It’s a tough position. He needs to get his head clear of the main objectives and keep that as the big rocks. Is Jawi his big rocks? Should it be front and centre every time Minister Maszlee comes up? Or should something else be front and centre? That’s the issue I have with him.
He not all bad, really. He did several right things right. He was the first among the ministers to share his ministry report card. Having said that, I personally think report card is rubbish. Anyone trained in KPI reporting will see that sort of KPI reporting is rubbish but I’ll give him the credit that he was the first to published it. He has the right mindset and the big balls to do it.
Summary of the KPI shared by MOE
He said all the right things on Cikgu Duka Lara (Teachers who are separated from their spouses as a result of being posted to different states are not only suffering mentally and physically but also financially). He started the ball rolling and made it all public. On top of that he also made inroads on reducing administrative works for teachers.
He made sure schools that are in dire needs for improvements get a big allocation in the budget. I remember cheering about it when it was announced by MoF in the budget.
As a first timer he did better than many other ministers out there. Many of whom who didn’t even break the news stratosphere because he/she did nothing at all. He did his best and Dong Zhong agrees with me. It’s unfortunate that the Jawi issue is overblown and costs him and us the situation we are in now.
With this resignation I expect other ministers who performed worse than Maszlee to resign as well. Dr. Mahathir proved that he’d doesn’t mind dropping a minister from Bersatu. So I’d expect Anwar Ibrahim, LGE, Mohd Sabu and others to also drop non performing ministers.
It’s important that the head of a family be true to the main objectives and goals. Don’t be caught in the whirlwind of things that’s not paramount to the objectives. It’s like this friend of mine, recently he contacted me through WhatsApp. He was telling me about this argument he and his wife were in on which school bag to buy for their standard 6 kid. The kid wanted an Barbie bag, but the Mom wanted to buy a Smiggle bag. It costs roughly about the same with Smiggle only slightly higher. Mom’s point is that it’s on sale. It’s usually much more expensive, not to mention it’s of good quality. Dad said his kid wanted Barbie and that’s what important.
I then replied the Bapak, “Bapaknye, you guys arguing about this bag…Have you guys bought all other things? The text book? The stationary? Uniforms? Got him a good tuition centre already? What about his extra curricular? Belum eh? Don’t miss the trees for the forest please Tuan.”
Recently I saw a friend of mine quit his job to take care of his ailing father. He had a pretty stable job. Probably brought back a good RM7-RM8 thousands a month with his job then. He’s the sole breadwinner. He will be going back to Batu Pahat Johor to live with his father. He will be taking his wife and his 2 sons with him. His father was too old to be living alone and his father just don’t want to live with him in Selangor. It’s not our culture to send old people to old folks home hence as a good son he is, he moved his home to Batu Pahat and lives with his dad. He earned a living by driving for Grab while doing some odd jobs here and there.
This situation is not at all uncommon. We find there’s more and more people living with their mom and dad. And this doesn’t look like it will change any time soon. According to the data shared by Employee Provident Funds, on average contributors who are aged between 50-54 only have RM200 thousands in their account. What’s worse, 67% of these folks have less than RM50 thousands in their accounts. The rich have so much money it inflated EPF average number for that age bracket. That’s very very worrying.
Table from 2018 EPF Annual Report. It’s scary looking at them.
Let’s assume that many of these old folks will indeed retire with RM50 thousands in the bank. Let’s further assume that these vintage folks will continue to live for another 15 years as Malaysia’s life expectancy is indeed 75 years old.
What can RM50 thousands give you over 15 years? That’s about RM278 a month. How much does a pensioner needs to live nowadays? This is what EPF shared.
That’s right folks, for a vintage couple, they need about RM3,100 or RM1,500 per person in a month. Probably more if they live in Klang Valley, Penang or JB. In 5-10 years, those in the age bracket with about RM50 thousands in their EPF account vintage folks will retire with only RM278 monthly income. That is if they don’t spend it at one go for umrah or pay up their housing or personal loan upfront. Even if we have double of that amount, RM1000 a month is not a lot.
Why am I sharing this? Because, where we are headed at our current rate, it’ll be way way worse than this. Lots of the folks in their 30s and 40s are still paying for student debt (PTPTN), fresh graduates have upwards of RM40 thousand in student loan alone. Most will have taken personal loan for marriage (I took out RM15 thousands loan for my marriage back in 2005. Then there’s car loan and credit card outstanding balances and many other loans probably.
We may ended up not having anything saved for out retirement. If we are part of the 67% of people that have less than RM50 thousands in our accounts by the time we are 50 years old then we need a miracle to be able to retire comfortably.
Remember that current adults and later our kids will not have it easy either. Even now people in their twenties are having a hard time to make enough money for themselves. Fresh graduates are doing menial jobs and paid at just slightly above minimum wage of RM1400. These are salary for folks working in fast food joints and restaurants. They don’t even have enough for themselves. More than 60% of graduates are unemployed in the first year after graduation. In total there are more than 500,000 adults are unemployed in the country. We don’t need statistics to tell us if these are younger folks or older folks.
So let’s be better prepared with our finances to better take care of our parents. Be better to prepare our kids so they fared better in the economy. Be prepared so we retired comfortably and won’t burden our parents nor our kids nor their kids.
If we aren’t prepared, we will be living with our kids later, together with their kids and their kids’ kid all in the same home. Singapore folks seemed to be ready and way ahead of us for this, for better or worse.
Looking back at the 17 blogposts I have written this year, there’s not much gratitude found in them. There are a few thrown in here and there. Some are big and bold writeup of gratitudes, some are just bits and bops. I’m a little disappointed with myself in this regard. I set out to make the world better but probably ended up with a bunch of frustrated criticism in my writing. I can blame the world for making me feeling angry, disappointed, frustrated with the people or situation but in the end these are just excuses. I’m thinking…let’s end 2019 with being grateful.
Research have shown that our brain and body works better when we are in a positive state. We need to be positive in everything, even in death. We have all heard of the phrase ‘she/he is now in a better place’ or ‘Allah loves him more’ at every funeral right? That is putting death in a positive way isn’t it?
We can be easily be more positive by being grateful. Being grateful literally makes our brain positively better. Saying our gratitude out loud and writing down our gratitude make our brain ‘workout’ to be more positive. Think of an athlete working out to build muscles, the same principle applies here only that it build neural sensitivity to positiveness.
Being grateful is vital in making us stronger and more resilient to stress. In today’s world, stress is almost everywhere. Read the newspaper, stressed with the news. Drive to work, stressed with the traffic. Take the train, stressed with the sardine packed situation. Arrived at the office, stressed with our boss and co-workers. My wife arrived home, stressed with me spending more time with my second wife.
There are simple ways to rewire our brain to be grateful. But before that, let’s understand what gratitude is. Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines gratitude asthe state of being grateful. Grateful means appreciative of benefits received. We sometimes think so hard for big and bold things to be grateful of when there are so many little things in life that we can be grateful of as well.
This includes me as well. I wanted to write things I’m grateful of in 2019 but I kinda struggled to find the things I’m grateful of. That’s when I got reminded of being grateful to the little things and also this book. This is what sparks this write up.
Onwards with the 5 ways to practice being more grateful and slowly but surely rewires our brain to be more positive. I should do it more and I believe so should everyone else.
Practice sharing with loved ones
Share your gratitudes with loved ones daily. Best is to do it at the dinner table. Or it could also be just before you go to sleep. Try your best to share your gratitudes for the day, it can’t be from the day before or last week. It has to be from the day. It must also be uniquely yours, can’t be the same as your wife/husband or kids. Take turns, and you start first.
It’s also better at night because being grateful just before going to sleep will help us to sleep better.
PracticeJournaling
Writing down really works well with our brain. Ever heard your teacher or lecturer said don’t just listen to the lecture but also take notes? That’s because writing down further strengthen the brain neural activity. Furthermore it also involves physical object and thus further strengthening the neural activities of our brain.
Just write down three things you are grateful of before you go to sleep every day and that is it.
With your phone, it’s makes it THAT so much easier to write down three gratitude daily. We all know you scroll through your social media feed just before going to sleep, now replace it with writing down the things you are grateful of for the day.
Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness is so very simple, it means: slow down.
I’m guilty of this as well. I want everything fast and now. In playing my video games, almost always I have this ‘min maxing’ mindset. To maximise everything in minimum time.
We tend to be doing it in real life as well right? Some wants to be millionaire before 40. Some wants to be in office on time and rushes through the traffic.
Mindfulness is to notice ourselves in a hurried state, and let it go away. Just let it go away and relax. A few minutes late won’t kill us. Tomorrow be out of home earlier and not be late anymore.
On the way to work, take notice of the birds, the trees, the clouds, the flowers planted by nature and also by humans. Once you got out of the car, look at the nature around us. Mindfulness is literally about asking you to stop and smell the roses.
Life is too short to be missing out on all of these, be grateful and let’s appreciate these little things.
Eckhart Tolle the author of “The power of Now” said it best, Nature never rushes, and yet everything gets done.
Practice Stoicism
This is my second personal favourite.
Buy the new iPhone 11 Pro and the pleasure of owning it will wear off pretty quickly. The feeling will be completely gone by the time iPhone 12 comes out.
Same with buying a new car. Try driving an old 10 or 15 years old car instead of your 5 years old car and you’ll be thankful of your current car.
I still drive our trusty 11 years old Proton Persona to work every day. On the weekend I’d drive my wife’s newer car and that made me appreciate it so much more.
Make it a habit to live a simple life. This will help to make us think more of the pleasures in life that we take for granted. Take a simple meal that only a minimum wage person with a family of five can afford and the next Nasi Goreng USA Special will be the best meal you have ever had. Take the bus or walk somewhere instead of driving and you will be grateful you can afford a Proton. Sleep on the floor for a week and you’ll be grateful you have a RM150 foam mattress instead of a ten thousand ringgit latex mattress.
We all probably have a lot of comforts and life pleasures, even the little ones. Try to live without them and it will teach us to not take them for granted. We will actually be grateful for them instead of thinking to replace them with newer and better things.
Practice to combine gratitude and forgiveness
This is my number one favourite of the five. This is the ultimate workout for our brain. We all experienced stress, anger and hurt. It may have manifested or it may have not and are buried inside us without us knowing. These stress, anger and hurt are probably caused by someone.
Write down these stress, or anger or hurt that we are feeling. Feel them, feel them hard.
Once you felt it hard, find a way how have this stress, anger or hurt have made you a better person. Find a way how you may have benefited from it in a way.
Then let the the stress, anger and hurt got away or melt away. Let the negativity go.
A good example I can share, my previous job is so very stressful. You think of the most stressful situation you have ever been in. Got it? Now multiple it by a million, that was how stressful I was. Not only that, I was also angered and hurt many times while working there. However, without all that stress, anger and hurt, I wouldn’t have learned how to cope with hard situations, I wouldn’t have had the best experience in my entire career, I wouldn’t have had some of the more fulfilling achievements, I wouldn’t have paid off several of my debts. Lastly, I wouldn’t have been the person I am today without all that stress, anger and hurt upon me. I let it go, let it melt away and it’s the best feeling ever.
I hope the above 5 ways to be more grateful will help you to live your life better and now I’d like to share the top three things I’m grateful in 2019.
My mom and the rest of the clan.
My mother is now 65 years old and she is fit as a fiddle. She still cooks for us when we are back in SP. She’d also pack for us food should someone is heading to KL and told him/her to pass the packed food to us. She would call me whenever I forgot to call her (and I almost always forget to all her). Until today she tries her best to not cause us trouble whether financially or emotionally. More than that, she was worried for me when I quit my job earlier this year. If there’s one thing I’m grateful in this year it’s this.
Second would of course are all the great games that I played this year. It’s been so overwhelmingly great. I played so many good games it’s sucks so much of my productive time that I feels so guilty. It has taken away time when I can read more, work more, spend more time with my wife and family more and do whatever more things I can do but instead I played these video games. And for that I am grateful.
This is probably 5% of the total team whom I have had the pleasure of working with. Thank you to all 100% of them.
Lastly, thanks the two great folks at my work place. First is the folks at my previous workplace for an experience of a lifetime. From my first day there, up to the very last day, it has been nothing but great stuff. You all know who you are and I’m forever in your debt for an experience of learning and contributing of a lifetime. Second is to the folks at my new workplace, I’m grateful for the chance given to me and the trust placed in me to be part of the great team there.
That’s all folks. Thank you for all your reads and comment here or personally or on my social media pages. See you in the next decade that is tomorrow. Have another great year in 2020.
Since there’s all this talk about this Ustaz or Da’i or PU or whatever people call them nowadays, one thing for sure is these ulama’ folks are definitely NOT what we would call pewaris nabi for sure. Okay back to the main story, since this Da’i actually married his second wife and told people that he met his wife in front of or near the Kaabah and that he can’t resist her after the 18th times or something like that. I think it’s my turn to tell all of you about my second wife. I want to one up the Da’i this time. It’s our 25th Anniversary anyway so it’s kinda a good time to be talking about it. It’s also a good time to be sharing with all of you about my second wife.
Let me start about a few months before we got married. It was the year where I was sitting for my SPM. I first saw her in City Point Shopping Complex. It was the premier Shopping Complex in Sungai Petani at the time. It’s just 2 minutes walk from the gate of my school. So you can all imagine the temptation we all had to go through every day. Who in their right mind wouldn’t “lompat pagar” or skip school when the best place to hang out is just 2 minutes away.
This is a recent photo of City Point. It’s no longer the best place to go shopping, I believe only the ground floor are occupied and probably a portion of the first floor.
I first laid my eyes on my second wife somewhere in early 1996. She was in this shop on the second floor of City Point Shopping Centre. It was there and then that I vowed to take her home one day in the future. I was so determined to marry her, that first time I laid my eyes on her, no need to wait till 18th time. That’s how much I love her. Unlike the Da’i lah, took him 18th time to realised he needs to marry her. Apparently lambat naik.
This determination has boosted my zeal to go through my Form 5 and finish my SPM as swiftly as I can, so I can marry her. The next few months I spent most my afternoon with her at City Point. Everyday right after school, I’d hang out in City Point with her. I was lucky as the uncle who takes care of her in City Point allowed me to spend time with her daily. I’ll never forget you Uncle. So sporting at the time considering it’s the 90’s.
Fast forward a few months later, the day of my last SPM paper has finally arrived. It was an afternoon paper. I cycled to the school about an hour earlier. I stopped by at City Point. Met with her and told uncle that I want to marry her in a couple of months time. Uncle just smiled and told me to start working and earn a steady income first and be a responsible person. I hold on to his words. I started to save all my daily school allowance since the day I met her. I worked in a bread factory near my house the whole year almost everyday after school. I told Uncle that I’ll immediately start working after SPM and I’ll save all my salary so I can take her from you Uncle. He again smiled.
Immediately after my last SPM paper, my brother, who was working in KFC at the time hooked me up to work in KFC Jam Besaq Sungai Petani. That was THE place to work at the time. Number one Fast Food joint in SP. It was a privilege to be working there. I was thinking, there’s no way Uncle would say no to me knowing I now works at THE best fast food joint at the time. Exactly 3 days after SPM, I started working in KFC. It was probably somewhere in October of 1995. I worked hard and I was awarded the Best Rookie of the Month. I’m not sure if I was really the best or they were just being nice as there was only one new joiner that month. But, it doesn’t matter, I was happy because I was sure that this will further melts Uncle’s heart when he knows that I’m so responsible as a worker and that this award is the proof.
After working for 1+ months, on Sunday, 4th December 1995, it was payday. I have worked for a full month and a bit of extra days in October. I finally received my first salary. My first proper job salary. The total money I got at the time including my savings was probably over RM800. I remember we were only paid RM1.80 per hour at the time. With this much money in my pocket, I then decided to go and see Uncle and tell him that I’m taking her hands in marriage. Never before in my life I had that much money and with this money I can finally get married.
Immediately after my shift ended, I went straight home. Took a nice bath and wore the nicest Baju Melayu I have. It was a Navy Blue Baju Melayu, very fitting as that was her favourite colour. Took out all my savings from the beginning of the year, added together with my salary from KFC, I believed that I now have enough. I said to myself, “Asslamualaikum Cinta, Saya nak amik awak ni. Kuatkan semangat saya”. Went out of my room and I saw my mom at the kitchen, Immediately my brain moved my mouth and told my mom that I’ll be going to the Masjid for Isya’ tonight. My mom smiled so hard, it’s like her dream has finally came true. Yup, that’s a sin for me there. A white lie sin.
Now, I know what you guys are thinking, but hear me out first. You can’t tell your mom that you wanna get married right after SPM. We came for a not so well to do family. She expected me to study hard, go to university and probably be a doctor or something. And here I am, just content to be working in KFC and settle down with the love of my life right after SPM, so of course I can’t just tell my mother. The only option I have is to strengthen my will and told my mother a white lie. I was sure she will be okay with. As people say, it’s easier to say sorry after the fact than to ask for permission before we do it. Right? Right?
So after the white lie, I then head out to City Point on my sister’s bicycle. It was what we call “Basikal Mini” at the time. It was also in blue and it had a basket in front of it. I never thanked my sister for this. I’ll be sure to thank her later after I published this post.
If my memory served me right, this was what it looked like back then. At least similar to this.
I then cycled straight to City Point. Throughout the trip, I imagined Uncle smiling as I arrive in my Baju Melayu. I also imagined holding her in my hands. My head was racing with thoughts of what will be the first thing that I will do with her when I took her hand in marriage. It took me probably 45 minutes of cycling before I arrived at City Point but I didn’t even broke a sweat. I was on cloud 9 where the air is cool and refreshing throughout the trip. I arrived at around half past eight.
The exact route I took to go to City Point that night.
I parked my bicycle at the usual parking spot on the side of the building. Took the side stairs up to second floor and went straight to see Uncle. He gave me a big smile with a hint of suprised look. He never saw me in Baju Melayu and I think that suprised bit was because of just how handsome I was at the time. It was then I proposed to my second wife. I hold the controller in my hands and asked Uncle if I can take her home. Uncle gave his signature smile and said “Aiyaahh mai mai. Mai sini pilih game, selalu free 10 game saja. Hang selalu mai sini tolong Uncle, hang amik 30 free game”
My second wife with a controller and a memory card
I was so happy to get 30 free games with her instead of my initial expectation of only 10. It took me a good 30 minutes flipping through the game binders at Uncle’s place before I can finally decide the 30 games.
I can’t remember all the games but I still remember the first few games that I was so excited to play that night with my newly wedded wife.
On the left was European Cover for the game. Ont he right was a screenshot of the game.
The first one was Wipeout. Much have been talked about the game on the internet. The game still lives till today with a Wipeout HD and Fury released as remastered for PS4. It’s a futuristic racing game with an anti-gravity vehicle and weapons thrown in. It features a sleek art design of not only the vehicles and tracks but also the whole game presentations like the menu, logos of the teams and logos of the tracks. It boasted a super great collection of industrial music big shots like Prodigy, Orbital, Future Sounds of London and many others. This game is how I got my teeth into industrial and house music. Love this game to death. I’ve never missed a single game in the series on all PlaySation consoles.
Battle Arean Toshinden Cover and screenshot. The game that was supposed to kill Sega’s Virtua Fighter.
Second game that I played that night was Battle Arena Toshinden. It blew my mind when I first saw it. It was super fast paced and characters were circling each other on screen in 3D manner. It was unheard of at the time where most of the games are 2D. Even Sega’s Virtua Fighter had a more traditional 2D gameplay. Compared to Toshinden, the players can easily ‘circles’ the opponent or avoid a punch or projectiles by sidestepping. This gave the impression of the 3D space arena that they have. The game was also less blocky than Virtua Fighter and faster paced. That was why I got hooked.
Ace Combat cover and screenshot
The third game I played that night was Ace Combat. I was a big fan of the arcade game. I get to sit in the cockpit of a fighter plane with a big ass screen in front of me and a flight stick in between the legs. It was great to have the arcade game in our home. Later with Ace Combat 2, it came at the time when Dual Shock controller was introduced. It made the whole thing that much better.
If you guys read this up till this point, I commend you guys for a job well done. Onwards with the story with my wife, I got home that night with the PlayStation box and 30 games in a yellow plastic bag resting in the bicycle’s basket. My mom was still awake so I had to improvise. I took another plastic bag from the kitchen, wrapped the big yellow plastic bag with another plastic bag and hid my newly wedded wife outside the house. Once the coast is clear, I picked up my wife and brought her into my room. At the time my room had a small 14″ CRT TV. It was then that we consumed each other.
The next day, my mom realised that I slept with my newly wedded second wife and she asked, “Berapa ringgi Fikri beli tu?”, I answered, “RM200 lebih ja”. So that was another lie indeed. Mom, if you read this, and if it makes you feel better, I still lie to my first wife whenever we talked about the amount of money I spent on my second wife. Not sure when can I stop lying. I believe I’ve made enough money on my own to freely buy what I want but apparently I still get questioned about it. That’s what happened when you have two wives I guess. Always feel guilty of not being fair enough between the two. Always tipu sunat.
Today, with my second wife, we have been blessed with 5 kids. They are PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. I’m happy to tell all of you that our 6th kid is coming next year insyallah. To keep with with the naming convention, we will call him/her PlayStation 5.
I love both my first wife Intan and my second wife PlayStation and I’m so blessed that we can all live happily together. Intan kids are playing daily with the PlayStations and they really love each other. I couldn’t be happier and always felt so blessed. In fact, even my first wife Intan spends time together with my PlayStation. They aren’t really in love with each other yet. They tend to get jealous whenever I spend more time with the other. For the record, Intan is more jealous of PlayStation since I tend to spend more time with PlayStation. I know I should be fair among the two but after 18th time PlayStation sent me notification to play more games, I can’t say no. So I ended up spending more time with my second wife.
To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of PlayStation, I’d like to express my love to you my Dear PlayStation. Thanks for keeping me company during my highs and my lows, keeping my family together in home instead of outside and keeping me sane with all the worldly pressure and stress. Thanks for giving me all great experiences, the smile, the tears, the rage quitting, the shouting and lastly the friends within the PlayStation community. The PBMY Community and Destiny Community.
Here’s to another 25 years of PlayStation. Peace be unto all.
I was reading the news recently and came across this article from The Star. It’s our Human Resource Minister Kulasegaran saying, “As I am speaking, currently there are more than 640,000 job openings available. Not just the 3D (Dirty, Dangerous, Difficult) jobs, for example at the management level there more than 6,000; for professionals more than 21,000; as well as technical and associate professionals for more than 22,000.” He added “The biggest challenge for us is there are a lot of employment opportunities, but the youth are not willing to take these jobs.” Bold font emphasis is mine.
He was answering a question by DS Ismail Yaakob (BN-Bera) on the ministry to state whether the Pakatan Harapan government will be able to implement its election manifesto of creating one million job opportunities by the end of its five-year term.
First of all, if we add the management level, technical and professional jobs, it’s not even 10% of the 640k jobs available. Does it means the rest are all 3D jobs? Why do you like give half-assed answers that opens up your backside Minister?
This is why I hate our half-assed politician and minister. They think they are so good and performed well enough when in actual fact it’s far from what it should be. Let’s take a closer look at your ministry.
Clearly, in the mission statements you wanted to “Increase employability and employment rate of the local workforce to meet the national labour market needs”. So it’s not just jobs creation, but also getting these unemployed youth to get jobs. Now, if what this prick said is true, that we have more than 640K jobs available and that 150K of those jobs were created within the year. We would’ve significantly reduced unemployment rate already by now because back in March, I remember our unemployed people in the country are in the range of 500k. So let’s take a look at the latest unemployment rate by the Department of Statistics Malaysia.
Unemployment rate has remained flat since the beginning of the year. – DOSM
So there you go you Minister Prick. You have done nothing so far. You can add even a million jobs and if the unemployment rate doesn’t change you can forget it. It’s just like increasing minimum wage, you can increase minimum wage to a hundred thousand a month. If the purchasing power doesn’t increase, you can forget it.
Now look, I’m a reasonable person, if he doesn’t stop at saying our youth are picky and continued to acknowledge that the ministry hasn’t done enough to either educate these picky youth or create more jobs that suit the youth and these are the things we are doing to fix that, then I’m okay. It means he understands that there are still more things that he needs to do. Then again, only a minister with a big cojones will acknowledge that he/she still have a lot to do. This particular minister, this particular prick? Not so much.
I have said before that youth nowadays have mismatched expectations when it comes to jobs. This is not something new, we all know this. You know this, Minister Prick knows this, I know this. So instead of saying the same thing over and over again, Minister Prick, you need to work on getting it resolved.
Another thing, you don’t get to say it out loud that youth are picky. You haven’t even done anything significant yet, so you haven’t earned the right to say it. Don’t for a second think you can be like Dr. Mahathir, he has earned the right. He can say Malays are lazy or whatever the heck he wants. He has earned it. You Minister Prick, haven’t. We the rakyat, get to say whatever we want because we put you in office. Remember why we put you in office? To solve the damn problem.
So start working on getting it resolved, stop telling us youth are picky because you are such a prick for saying it.
Our third child Ayra (pictured with her elder sister above), will be turning three later this month. This means next year would be her first year of school. So it’s that time of the year where the wife and I starts discussing which school to send her to.
The first thing that came up to my mind was, we need the school to get her her to talk more in English. I find that Ayra at three years old can’t speak English as well as I’d like her to. Probably because the current nursery she’s in now primarily are Malay language centric. Wife on the other hand thinks that Ayra can communicate well enough in Malay and that she wants Ayra to continue to converse in Malay.
She added that both Alia and Danial, Ayra’s elder siblings, often have to ask us what this Malay word or that Malay word means and often, we have to translate these words from Malay to English for them to understand. I find that this is good as they are leaning to have English as the first Language and Malay being second. They usually speak in English between the two of them and with me. While with their mother, they would speak in Malay since that how the wife wants it.
Just like many of us who wants PPSMI, I believe English to be the current language of business, the language of the world, and the language of knowledge. Most of the big businesses today communicate in English, travelling around the world is made easier when one can speak English and there are millions of book in English that we can read and learn from.
Now, let’s not get into this conversation where people in Japan with millions in business dollars doesn’t speak much English. Or English doesn’t do shit when travelling to Korea and lastly, there are also millions of books in other language and the mother of all books that is the Quran is not in English.
It’s obvious that other languages have their place place as well and I’m not challenging that. So let’s not go there. The point on my part is, would I rather have my kids be better and more comfortable in English than in Malay or do I want them to be better and comfortable in Malay more instead. Why not both?
Why am I having this thought now? Why didn’t I have this thought back then when Alia or Danial was turning three years old? Thinking about it, it’s probably due to the recent trend in social media I saw. Folks were questioning the “Malay-ness” of those who express their thoughts on social media in English. It basically revolves around how these people didn’t uphold the standard of Malay Language as the official language, how much they didn’t appreciate the nuances or the beauty of the Malay Language, There are also those folks who shame these English speaking Malays. Example, these folks are Mat Saleh wannabe or Mat Saleh celup, acah-acah foreigner. The list goes on and on.
Lot’s of people out there shaming folks who speak or write or even listen to songs in English. An adult can handle these, but for small kids, it’s probably a little harder. By a little I mean a lot. And it’s getting ridiculous. Really really ridiculous. Heck, I saw someone cursing on social media, and in the replies, I saw folks shaming the lady for cursing in English. Just how screwed up is that. And here I thought I’ll see people replying to her to denounce the cursing but instead cursing is okay, just curse in Malay lah, not English please. “Kena hormati bahasa ibunda”. It’s not our “Budaya” to curse in English. “Mana kemelayuan kau mat salleh celup?” It’s getting really ridiculous.
Staring in the the future, I can’t wait till China become the superpower in both economy, culture and probably military. By that time, the language of the world will be Mandarin. and I can’t wait to see the face of the same folks when they see lots of Malay folks starts tweeting, talking and cursing in Mandarin. If you think these folks are allergic to English, think again, they are far more allergic to the Chinese, not just the language but everything Chinese.
Be it mother tongue or foreign tongue, “pi mai, pi mai, tongue tu jugak”.
What have happened to the campaign? Why then the MARA Digital Mall that is built for Malay Muslims is closed?
Ever since the announcement was made, I have my reservation. Those close to me would’ve probably heard my grouses or my frustration why I think MARA Digital Mall will not work. Today, my frustration and grouses were proved true. In a written response to a question by the previous Rural and Regional Development Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Rural Development Ministry said, that slow-moving sales coupled with disproportionate operating costs caused tenants to cease operating at the premises. It really is disheartening when you hear businesses failed. People put in the time, and money, some put in their life savings and all went down the drain.
There are many reasons why I believe that it won’t work. First, it was born out of spite. That is right, the MARA Digital Mall was born of spite after the infamous issue involving a guy who claimed to have been cheated after he purchased a phone from a seller in Low Yat Plaza. The issue later spiralled to a full blown riot in and around Low Yat Plaza. Why I say that it’s born out of spite? Low Yat Riot happened on 13 July 2015. Ismail Sabri was made as the Minister of Rural and Regional Development on 29 July 2015. and he proposed Low Yat 2 in early August 2015. No a month passed after the riot and he proposed Low Yat 2 for Malays. Just because there’s a fight between some Malay men and Chinese traders over a handphone. It’s time for Malay to fight against the Chinese. It may be a business fight, but it’s a fight nonetheless.
The information and communications technology (ICT) centre at MARA Digital Mall. (Photo by NST)
And just like that, Ismail Sabri got MARA working overtime to get a Mall set up for all the Malay traders. I’m sure hundreds of thousands or even millions were spent to set it up if we include the 6 months rent free period for all the Malay traders there. Mind you, these millions could’ve been spent on MRSM, or a real rural development project that would uplift the rural Malays who needed help the most. But nope, it’s better to pay the contractors to remodel the mall so that other urban Malays can open a handphone or IT shop. Sorry my dear kampung folks, the bandar folks is more important lah after the riot.
Second, the business environment was a bit off (by a bit I mean a lot) to begin with. MARA Digital Mall was planned to be opened early 2016 planning starts in August. 2015 was the year that Lazada saw the big explosion in their sales. They recorded US$1.3 billion of annualised Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in 2015 across its six markets in South-East Asia. At this point, millions of us have already got a Lazada account and other online shopping platform accounts, and the biggest dollars was spent on electronics. It’s already telling at this point but of course Ismail Sabri don’t know any of this. He only knows that we Malays must fight the Chinese. Just fight, no need strategy, no need to make sure we win, just fight lah, and it’s okay because it’s not our money to use to fight anyway.
Electronics has been the biggest category in e-commerce and it’s expected to continue to be the main drivers of e-commerce. But of course Ismail Sabri don’t know this.
Of course you want to see consumer trending in spending before you spend millions of ringgit for a 5-7 years project. By 2015, we can see brick and mortar retail spending in electronics have trended down while online sales for the same category have rocketed. We see retailers like Seng Heng, and Other electronic stores open up shops in Lazada. We also see manufacturer like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi and many others doing the same. But not Ismail Sabri, he wants to spend millions to open a brick and mortar digital mall instead. Not really a fully researched business venture indeed. And it’s all because his rather short sighted views of the whole thing, being clouded by Malay versus Chinese sentiment.
The above two reasons are good enough to see why the venture would fail. now that the venture failed, who lost the money? First and foremost my dear readers, it’s you and me. All the monies used to set up MARA digital mall are our hard earned money, the taxpayers money. Not Ismail Sabri’s but our money. He got the benefit or riding the UMNO branded Malay versus Chinese bandwagon while it’s the taxpayers money that is spent. And these money was taken away from other projects that may uplift the poor rural Malays life. It’s so disheartening.
Typical logo for BMF Campaign. Notice the present moon and green colour palette. More on this later.
I’d like to take this opportunity to bring our attention back to Buy Non-Muslim Last Campaign that is going on right now. Let’s face it, it’s not a Buy Muslim First Campaign. It’s a Buy Non-Muslims Last Campaign. Say it like it is lah. Have some balls lah. Don’t be such a kitty cat. At least Dr. Mahathir back in the 1980’s is honest enough to call his Buy British Last Policy, “Buy British Last”. He didn’t name it “Buy American First, or ‘Buy Malaysian First’ or whatever name that is politically correct. So first of all my dear Muslims friends, please have some balls and call a spade a spade lah. I thought Berani Kerana Benar?
The Good ol’ Dr Mahathir doesn’t need to be side stepping much because he have balls. He called a spade a spade. Unlike the Buy Non-Muslim Last folks, them balls not so big..
The point I’d like to stress is Islam is very inclusive. Islam can’t be exclusive. We can’t treat Islam like this exclusive club where only the Muslims can join and enter or prioritise muslims first. If Islam is exclusive, then Prophet Muhammad would be the only Muslim because it’s exclusive to Muslim only, and since anybody else can’t join, he’d be alone. That is why anything Islam, shouldn’t not be exclusive.
That is why I despise mosque or offices that mandated all to wear hijab or cover their aurat to enter their premises. We need to be inclusive. There’s this situation where a person who’s not wearing hijab but just started praying 5 times a day. One day, She was on a long trip and stopped at a mosque to pray. She saw a sign that says she can’t enter a mosque without hijab, she entered anyway as it’s to conduct her prayers, she was scolded by a Pakcik there for not wearing hijab. How can we perform dakwah if non muslim and muslim who’s not fully practicing Islam can’t even enter the mosque? I’ve been to numerous mosque in other countries and very hardly I see this rules. they would welcome everyone no matter who and they would use the opportunity to perform dakwah during the visit. Islam must be inclusive. It’s for all, be it Arab, Malays, Chinese, white, blacks, brown, yellow or even purple. Islam is inclusive, no matter who you are, you can join the club. I’m sure I’ll get some backlash on this it’s oh-so-typical to get backlash on stuff like this.
You’d sometime see sign like this in mosques and some part of government offices.
Now back to this campaign, this Buy Non-Muslim Last Campaign. This is an exclusive campaign targeted for muslims only. They are telling people to make the club exclusive to muslim only. Brand it as Muslim first, Malay First and whatever first lah. This is not a sound business practice. You don’t learn from the very people that you despise. I saw many posts shared by the proponents of this campaign, they are trying to crate this list of non-muslims products that look like a muslim’s product. For example the name would be using a Malay word like Ikhlas, Murni, Bersih, Sufi and the likes. On top of that, the packaging would be in green and have a muslim-friendly logo. For example, using jawi font, cresent moon logo, batik pattern and the likes. These are the product that they despise as they are from non muslim’s but portrayed to look like a muslim’s, they felt cheated.
What you need to learn is to outbrand them, be inclusive. Include everyone and show to everyone that you are the most honest, the most value for money, the best, the fastest and whatever that is inclusive to all. Don’t just stop at being muslim and that is it. A muslims means nothing, a muslim still can end up in hell ya lest you forgot. We have Muslims thief, a muslim murderer and worst of all, a muslim child rapist. So, a muslims means nothing. If you have a shop selling phones, don’t just be a Muslim shop selling phones. Be something that is inclusive and have value to all, best value phone shop, best customer service phone shop, cheaper phone shop, most variety phone shop. Whatever tickles you fancy lah. Just don’t stop to be Muslim only. Must be good muslim ya, not just muslim.
So, I suggest to stop this nonsense of buy non-muslims last campaign and start a new campaign. I suggest a campaign of “to be the best in the the segment that you want to be”. The segment must be inclusive and universal. No such thing as Malay first, chinese first or gay first. An example would be best value grocery store. I want to go to that store because it gives me best value. If there are two stores, one belongs to a muslim and another is non muslim. Assuming the Muslim store is the one that give more value while the non muslim not so much. I can guarantee that both muslims and non muslims will go to the store that gives more value in the long run. Why? because that nobody wants to waste money down the drain. Heck, even the Chinese wouldn’t want to buy from another chinese who charges more than he should because Chinese are good with money. They don’t waste money for nothing. The Chinese are good at that.
Another example would be best quality and design tailor. No matter if you are muslim or not, people would go to a tailor that have the best quality tailoring and design. No point going to muslim shop and at the end of the day got a lousy design and tailoring quality. High quality and good design are universal, everybody wants high quality and good design, especially if they are affordable.
So remember, don’t do something out of spite, start a digital mall out of spite lah, start a “Buy non-Muslim last campaign” out of spite lah and whatever else out of spite. Just be a good muslim and practice all the universal values that Islam preach. Start a business that have a universal and inclusive purpose. Don’t have a business who’s purpose is to kill the other guy. The purpose of the business is to provide the best service or product for the customer. The byproduct of that successful business might be the closure of your competitor shop and another byproduct can be you making millions of ringgit in profits. That’s good right?
If we can do the above, and coupled it with a good business sense and great work ethics, perhaps we can have a successful Digital Mall or any other business for that matter. Inshallah, Muslim and Non-Muslim will buy your product.
Yesterday’s posting stirs quite the bee’s nest. Thank you for all the feedback and views shared.
In this second part, the issue I want to bring up is on Malaysian@Work initiative. Under the Malaysians@Work initiative, graduates who secured a job after having been unemployed for more than a year will receive RM500 per month from the government for a duration of two years.
Employers will also receive a hiring incentive of up to RM300 per month for each new hire over two years. The idea behind it is to create jobs for the unemployed graduates. With this, the Malaysians@Work initiative is expected to create an additional 350,000 jobs for Malaysians and reduce foreign worker dependency by more than 130,000 and will cost the government RM6.5 billion over five years. That is a lot of money.
Malaysias@Works initiative tabled in Parliament as part of Budget 2020.
It’s typical of politicians or bosses that don’t have connected brain cells. Before solving a problem, we need to to a little bit of RCA. Root Cause Analysis, find out what caused the issue, not just any cause, we must find the root cause and then fix it.
Let’s dig a little why do we have so many unemployment in the country. Here’s a quote from MEF Salary Survey 2016:
“In order to enhance the employability of graduates, he stated that 90.3% of the respondent companies were of the view that it was important to improve the proficiency of English to increase the employability of graduates followed by developing soft skills, such as communication, problem solving and management skills (87%),” said Tan Sri Azman.
You guessed it right, it’s a skill issue. In this case, companies aren’t hiring our graduates due to communication skills issue. Apparently our graduates can’t speak nor write in English for shit.
God forbid they learn English in school, but ohhhh, they must have Khat and they are willing to fight tooth and nail till Jannah, to have Khat in the syllabus, even if it’s for just 3 pages of Khat studies in the textbook. Fight till Jannah for Khat, but for english…that’s kafir! That’s is stupidity indeed. Alright, I digress, my apologies, back to the topic at hand.
English is the language of business here in Malaysia. In 5-10 years time, it will probably be Mandarin because China as an economic super power is almost guaranteed now.We have no choice but to equip ourselves with English and our kids with both English and Mandarin. Get angry at DAP all you want but the future of SJK (C) and the Manadarin language is here to stay. We may end up having Mandaring language as one of the subject in Sekolah Kebangsaan. The ability to communicate with English and Mandarin speakers will be more important in the future. Here’s the 2018/2019 Critical Occupation List and Top Associated Skills from World Bank. Take a look at the skills needed for the positions. Notice the pattern? Good.
I highlighted Chinese for clarity. And noticed English is in almost every position. Where’s Khat? Jawi? Let’s fight till Jannah.
Secondly, in the 2018 paper “Graduate Work-Readiness in Malaysia: Challenges, Skills and Opportunities” by Dr. Noorziah Mohd Salleh et al., lecturer at the Faculty of Business and Management, UiTM (my alma mater). Dr Noorziah et al. wrote that while “low skill and low productivity work with tough working conditions and limited career development opportunities” are aplenty, these jobs do not appeal to graduates. “The low level of work-readiness among Malaysian graduates” is an issue that has yet to be resolved.
Ok the doctors in universities like to use hard to understand language. Let’s break it down. First, most work that is available are those with low skill, low productivity, tough working environment and with limited career growth. Basically it’s a tough job lah. Kerja susah, kerja kucing kurap dan susah nak naik pangkat, pastu gaji ciput. These types of jobs are not preferred by these graduates. And these jobs are filled with foreign workers.
This is what the government needs to tackle. Creation of high-skilled jobs. Not the creation of low level jobs that doesn’t give the satisfaction in the workers mind. I’m talking about job satisfaction, not monetary satisfaction. Take a look this statement by BNM in their report on the question of the workers paid fairly?
Evidence suggests that the lack of high-skilled job creation could have played an integral role in this. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of diploma and degree holders in the labour force increased by an average of 173,457 persons per annum, much higher than the net employment gains in high-skilled jobs of 98,514 persons per annum.
Apparently our economy are not generating enough high-skilled jobs to fulfil the demand of these graduates. Looks like the Good Doctor is right again. I still remember in the big hall of ITM back in 1999. I was among the people who are in the hall when Dr. Mahathir announced ITM will be given university status and the name changed to UiTM. In Dr. Mahathir’s speech, he mentioned that we have too many universities and we are producing way too many graduates who thinks they should be leaders. Dr. Mahathir said we may end up with too many ship captains without their ships and without their trusty sailors. It looks like this turned out to be true. We have way too many ship captains available and yet not enough ships in this economy now. And these captain wannabes want to be a captain and nothing else. Or, they can be sailors but with a captain’s salary, more on this soon.
These there are the problems causing the high unemployment among our youth. First, they can’t speak nor write in English. Second, we don’t have enough high-skilled jobs in the economy. I’ve been in the business of hiring youth the last 18 years, and I can confirm the above two facts are the truth. They are mostly Malays, we can’t deny that these are mostly Malays.
Don’t start telling me about many of our Malay brethren works delivering for foodpanda or Grabfood. These are high paying, low skills, low complexity jobs. Get that, kerja senang, gaji tinggi tapi takdak future. I have talked to numerous foodpanda and grab riders. They can get anywhere between RM750 to RM1250 weekly, yes weekly. They even told me, “I will do this for a few years to save enough money to (get married, buy a house, buy a car, etc) and then I quit. I don’t think this job has a future”. They know this is a dead end and low skilled job and yet they still do it because the pay is good. Low skills, no career growth and high pay. I have friends who quit their 9-5 job that have a decent pay but with tremendous career growth and yet quit and joined grab. They prefer big and quick money for a quick and easy job. Remember when I said our graduates don’t mind being sailors as long as they get paid like a captain? Yup, and did you recently hear someone, somewhere said the Malays are lazy? Kerja senang, nak duit banyak dan cepat. This also reminds me of the Marshmallow Experiment. Wants everything now and not later. Ah, I digress again. It’s not about the Rakyat, it’s about the 2020 budget and the government. We talk about the Rakyat in some other posts.
That’s is a nice looking jar of marshmallows. Go read up on Marshmallow Experiment. I’m failing this miserably with my kids. They seems to want everything now! Just like my bosses!
And since we are on the subject of grab and foodpanda, we have our Youth and Sports Minister, Syed Saddiq, working hard to bring in GoJek. It looks as if he’s giving Gojek preferential treatment with special meetings and some behind the scenes time. This is another short sighted views of the whole matter. We need to create high-skilled jobs, not more low skilled jobs. Our BNM reports said so Tuan Syed. Then he’s also meddling in this foodpanda vs the workers situation. If this is not paving gold plated red carpet for GoJek, I’m not sure what is. Here’s a new and young minister with a new face and no baggage of owing to corporations for money and whatnot, so don’t start going down the road of kowtow-ing to corporations lobbyist. Just be fair to all businesses, make it easier for businesses to thrive. Businesses thrives means more job creations. Ahhh, I digress again! The point is, high-skilled jobs, not low-skilled jobs. Got that Tuan Syed?
Syed Saddiq being perceived as paving a gold plated road for Gojek to come in. While it’s great for everyone that we break up Grab’s dominance in e-hailing, it must not be seen as the government is giving preferential treatment to GoJek.
Back to the main point, the root cause are skill mismatch issues and not enough high-skilled jobs issue. It’s not a situation of our youth not getting enough salary or the employers not having enough money to employ these youth. It’s so typical of politicians, they think they can solve problems by throwing monies everywhere. And Syed Saddiq smiles and looked so proud and can see his mouth saying jobs, jobs, jobs. Let me tell you mr Dear Syed, this won’t solve the problems. Giving free money to the Rakyat and companies wont’s solve the root cause of the problems. As much as you hated BN last time or giving out free money in the form of BR1M, you are doing the same thing here.
My beef is the budget didn’t touch enough on creating more high-skilled jobs, working with universities to have better courses and produce better graduates that have good english communication skills. Let’s hope the longer term 12th Malaysia Plan will touch more on this and makes it the central theme.
So there you have it folks, two issues I have serious beef with. PART 1 on minimum wage, Part 2 on Malaysian@Work initiative. See you in the next budget.
I’ve penned two things I have a beef about in the 2020 budget.
I just downloaded THIS app to start managing my monies better. It’s pretty unique and good actually. I have a few goals for next few years and I’d like to achieve them all. Let’s hope this app can help me achieve these goals.
Since we are on the subject of budget, I am a bit torn with a few items in the recently concluded 2020 budget tabling by LGE our Finance Minister.
LGE presenting the 2020 Budget in Parliament
Overall, I feel it’s a populist budget. Most people get something from the 2020 budget. It’s for the masses. Middle income get some, B40 gets the most, and everybody is happy now that the rich are taxed more. Be it only 2000+ of the filthy rich folks impacted, it will still make a good headline for the masses to feel good about it. A populist budget means the government wanted the Rakyat to feel good about the administration. The Rakyat has been feeling anxious and unhappy with the performance of the administration the last year or so. This populist budget will probably get the administration a few points up, in the approval rating.
I’m feeling pretty good about many of the stuff that was announced. Some of the opposition politicians said the budget had nothing significantly new. Many of the initiatives are carried over from BN era apparently. Well to that I say, why fix it if there’s nothing wrong. PH main beef was with Najib, many other policies have proved to be successful, so continue lah. It’ll be stupid to change something that’s working well. Just change what’s not working well and that’s Datuk Seri Najib and his cohorts.
So to keep up with the spirit of typical Malaysians, whom does not comments on good things, and just comments super hard on the not so good things, let’s get the ball rolling.
First up, the Minimum Wage. Government will increase the minimum wage to RM1200 for select major city. I’m going to assume major cities will be Klang Valley, Penang and JB.
Let me get this out first, I believe we should have less government intervention and more market forces decided on things. I agree that there should be government intervention, but it needs to be kept at a minimum.
So, when the government announced higher minimum wage, I’m not a happy camper. We are just buying time to satiate the rakyat with easy money without increased productivity. Market forces dictate that one should only pay when one gets the value that one wants. In the case of minimum wage, the employers get the same output/productivity but it costs more now. That is not economically viable and against the law of economics. Market will eventually correct itself.
LGE tabling the budget, statingmMinimum wage has been increased to RM1200 starting next year in major cities.
Imagining running a business and you get this increased costs out of nowhere but productivity remained the same. How will the business compensate to the increased costs? Increase the price! That’s the easiest. It’ll be easier since the market now have surplus of money due to the increase in minimum wage.
Very quickly, the market will adjust to the increase in costs with an increase in price. Give it 3-6 months to adjust, probably by April or June of 2020. The Rakyat’s buying power will then be back to where it was before. The rakyat will not get intended increased buying power and the business will then get back their normal profit levels. But prices of goods and services have since increased.
Another unintended impact of higher minimum wage is automation. Look at some of the places in the world where minimum wages has become so high that businesses can no longer afford to hire minimum wage worker. The businesses resorted to automation. Robots instead of chefs/cooks to cook the food, drones to send the pizzas instead of riders. Conveyor belts and robot arms to pack stuff at the warehouse instead of packing worker. Robots vacuum cleaner to clean up the floors at offices instead of your typical auntie cleaner. These are minimum wage jobs with minimum wage tasks.
Here are some examples we have in KL, look at many McDonald’s outlets we have around the city. They now have ordering kiosks, some outlets have three of them installed and some have up to 5 kiosks. Who are these kiosk replacing? Yup, minimum wage cashier. Now we only see one cashier manning the counter.
Another example, Pump attendant, back in the 90’s we have pump attendant. Nowadays with cashless payments and automated pump, we no longer need the minimum wage pump attendant workers.
In the more developed countries, we have ROBOTS FLIPPING BURGERS! Take a read in that article and see for your self a robot flipping burger patties.
That is Flippy, a robot flipping burgers in California.
Let’s take a look at San Francisco, California. Here, the minimum wage is a whopping USD12 per hour. How much money is USD12 per hour? Let’s do the Big Mac meal set comparison. A Big Mac meal set in Bay Area, SF, is USD5.99. Working for an hour there can get you 2 Big Macs meals. So, working for an hour will get you 2 meals for the day.
Let’s do the same calculation in KL. RM1200 a month is about RM5.77 per hour. A Big Mac meal set in KL costs RM14.95. You need to work for 2.6 hours before you can get a single meal.
Comparing San Francisco Bay Area and Kuala Lumpur, the minimum wage if California is super duper high lah, we can say that kan. That is why my friends, they have robots flipping burgers. These robots cost less than a human being, at USD60K per robot, the cost is the same as 20 months of minimum wage salary + some benefits of probably valued at about 20% of the salary. Benefits like annual leave, hospitalisation and medical, EPF and etc.
This means after 20 months, the robots now works for free. Robot don’t do mistakes, they cook perfectly, they don’t complaint, they don’t take breaks, they don’t ask for 15 minutes solat break twice a day on top of the 1 hour break. Best of all, robots don’t get sick as often and don’t go on annual or maternity leave.
Have you ever had Costa Coffee brewed by the robots in those Shell Select Petrol Stations? They taste the same almost every time you get them right? Compared to Starbucks sometime too sweet, sometime too bland and sometimes the Frappuccino ice is too chunky and sometimes not. Some of you argued that you need human to interact and whatever lah, when was the last time you spoke to the baristas brewing your coffee? While using the McDonald’s kiosk and did not even miss the human cashier you had interacted back in the days. In fact, you are glad that you had the kiosk because it’s way faster than having a newbie cashier taking you orders oh-so-slowly and sometimes with errors.
I might be talking too much into the future but sometimes we forget that the future is not that far off. Look at that family picture you have in your purse or wallet or on your office table, yeah, it’s been more than 10 years since you got married. Time flies.
Alright, let’s take a look at the second not so good things about the 2020 budget. Let’s take a look at it in a separate article I’ll post tomorrow. I feel this is getting too long already. I need to write shorter articles and get to the point faster. Lots of my readers only skimmed through the articles and they feel it’s too long. If you managed to read up till this paragraph, give yourselves a pat on the back and give a comment on what you think below or on my FB/Twitter/LinkedIn page and I’ll send you Domino’s Pizza discount codes as a token of my appreciation. I got a few extra and these have expiry dates and limited quantities. Be fast yah.
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