As I write now, there are cops all over the major h/ways leading to KL. Their objective is to weed out those who are going to allegedly illiegally demonstrate (or whatever the hell they will call it) in front of the British High Commission on Sunday. The group leading this is the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf). Their purpose is to send a petition supposedly signed by 100,000 Indians to Queen Elizabeth II to appoint a Queen’s Counsel to represent the Indian community in a class action suit against the British government for bringing Indians as labourers here and exploiting them. An estimated 20,000 people are estimated to take part and are said that they will be wearing orange. They are demanding USD1MM for every Indian in Malaysia and that apparently came to about USD4 Trillion in total!
With this new development from my race of people, I am sure like me, you are besotted by three very crucial questions that will shake the very foundation of our country's morality and cultural fibre. One, how do you spell besotted? Two, why does culture have fibre? And three, isn't the British High Comm closed on Sunday? Who are they going to give it to, the security guard at the gates? the police is going through all this trouble for this? The police did say that Hindraf will plan riots and fights. Needless to say, the police didn't say how they found that out. But if fights were planned, between who? Oscar Del La Hoya and Evander Holyfield? Maybe we could sell tickets to the spectacle.
One things for sure, there will be jams all over to spoil our weekend lives. In all seriousness, I am a little ignorant but maybe more confused. What precedented event triggered this lawsuit from Hindraf? What are their chances of winning and what are they really hoping to achieve out of this? Being half Indian, do I qualify for at least half or can I fight for full compensation since my IC says I am Indian? What about those Indians whose forefathers didn't come as labourers but as merchants, chettiars (these are Indian Ah Longs called Samy(s)) and others occupations? Are they eligible to this compensation as well?
Like I said, my views may be very myopic or blissfully ignorant. I have googled Hindraf and they have been getting their views heard more vocally than other groups about a lot of issues regarding the Indian and Hindu community. Like the demolishing of a Hindu temple. Maybe the Indian community needs to be more vocal to be heard since we seem to be overwhelmed by other issues. But maybe we need to be find better ways to be heard and respected at the same time.
Whatever it is, rest assured I will be filling out my list of things to do when I get my million of which one of the things is to donate some back to Hindraf. It will at least help to pay for their phone calls to high comm so that they can find out if it is open on Sundays. Also I am burning all my orange shirts.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
The second tech fails
I have been without my most loved PC for the last 1 week. For some reason, the video application or card or some thingamagic refused to work and I can't get the display up. I have sent it to my "tech" guy and he has been on it for a week. I am writing on my office laptop which is obviously not as fun. My life has been a little depressing the last few days without my PC to come home to. Which brings me to think about out dependancy on technology and gadgets. I am pretty tech savvy which means I know about 80% of the acroymns but not always know EXACTLY what it means. I am a demi-geek! Not quite there yet.
I used to work in a little software company from Seattle, USA. You may have heard of it. It's called....i think...oh yeah, Microsoft. It was gadget haven. I had access to either the latest gadgets or people who had access to the gadgets. Smartphones, latest accessories, mouse, joystick, hard drives, USD drive, wireless up the wazoo, etc, etc. It has been 3 years since I left and while I am totally deprived of these gadgets, I am still pretty addicted. I sometimes catch myself wondering into the tech section at the mall and just staring at the lovelies!!! However, since Microsoft I have been addicted to all kinds of IT stuff from gadget to surfing the internet with Facebook being my latest addiciton.
So now, as I lay depressed on my bed listening to my iPod video on my iHome, with my laptop and Blackberry, I began to wonder what life was like without all these gadget so many years ago. Actually it was more like 10 years ago. Hmmm....not so long after all. Today, we absolutely cannot go anywhere without our mobile. We give our kids a mobile phone not becoz of status but out of necessity. the lowest income groups today have mobile phones. We have ppl in the used mobile phone business. Pretty cool industry seeing that only 10 yrs ago it was a premier status symbol.
I am also pretty addicted to my XBox (did i mention i used to work in Microsoft). things are also looking bleak on that front when one of my controllers got busted. We are now stuck with one and I have to fight for it. For those of you who have been living under a hut in a south tropical island where only the crabs are your friends, a controller is what we use to control (duh!) the characters in your game. During the game you can swear and curse at the characters for being inept and not moving fast enough to where you want them to move and for not knowing that you shouldn't go there in the first place (like if there is a hole or a giant mouth with no eyes wating to swallow you whole). No violence, just creativity.
Anyway, since tomorrow is the weekend, I am going to head on down to my baby (the PC you dolts!) and see what is up with her. And if it is not ready or if there is no update, I am going to shove a broadband so far up the repairer's ass, that when it downloads, it will come out of his mouth. Obsess? what obsess?
I used to work in a little software company from Seattle, USA. You may have heard of it. It's called....i think...oh yeah, Microsoft. It was gadget haven. I had access to either the latest gadgets or people who had access to the gadgets. Smartphones, latest accessories, mouse, joystick, hard drives, USD drive, wireless up the wazoo, etc, etc. It has been 3 years since I left and while I am totally deprived of these gadgets, I am still pretty addicted. I sometimes catch myself wondering into the tech section at the mall and just staring at the lovelies!!! However, since Microsoft I have been addicted to all kinds of IT stuff from gadget to surfing the internet with Facebook being my latest addiciton.
So now, as I lay depressed on my bed listening to my iPod video on my iHome, with my laptop and Blackberry, I began to wonder what life was like without all these gadget so many years ago. Actually it was more like 10 years ago. Hmmm....not so long after all. Today, we absolutely cannot go anywhere without our mobile. We give our kids a mobile phone not becoz of status but out of necessity. the lowest income groups today have mobile phones. We have ppl in the used mobile phone business. Pretty cool industry seeing that only 10 yrs ago it was a premier status symbol.
I am also pretty addicted to my XBox (did i mention i used to work in Microsoft). things are also looking bleak on that front when one of my controllers got busted. We are now stuck with one and I have to fight for it. For those of you who have been living under a hut in a south tropical island where only the crabs are your friends, a controller is what we use to control (duh!) the characters in your game. During the game you can swear and curse at the characters for being inept and not moving fast enough to where you want them to move and for not knowing that you shouldn't go there in the first place (like if there is a hole or a giant mouth with no eyes wating to swallow you whole). No violence, just creativity.
Anyway, since tomorrow is the weekend, I am going to head on down to my baby (the PC you dolts!) and see what is up with her. And if it is not ready or if there is no update, I am going to shove a broadband so far up the repairer's ass, that when it downloads, it will come out of his mouth. Obsess? what obsess?
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Blogging for beginners
It has been a month since my last post. I read it back and it looks quite sad. That's becoz i dont know how to blog!!! Anyway for those of you who want to comment about my short forms and lack of punctuation marks, pls bear this thought in mind, "I DON'T CARE!".
There, glad we got that out of de way.
Anyway, I will write about things that happen in our lives. Hopefully they will be insightful and funny. Otherwise, just put it down as me having a depressive spisode. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, one more thing. I like to laugh in my blogs. Get used to it!
Hopefully through my blogs and insights as someone from the 2 most populous cultures will help foster a greater understanding among our races in our society. I will present the Chindian point of view to the happenings in our surroundings, politics, family, love, etc. It may be different since I have the benefit of best of both worlds and I am able to balance both races' upbringing and social culture to form my opinion. Also, I just wanted an excuse to write and get out of doing chores.
I intend to explore every major facet of "Chindianess" including the historical facet, socialogical facet, physiological facet, psychosexual facet and the facet on why Chindians looks so much better. Every details is derived from very scientific and extensive research and study (available upon request) or I might have made it up. But you can trust me. I am a Chindian.
There, glad we got that out of de way.
Anyway, I will write about things that happen in our lives. Hopefully they will be insightful and funny. Otherwise, just put it down as me having a depressive spisode. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, one more thing. I like to laugh in my blogs. Get used to it!
Hopefully through my blogs and insights as someone from the 2 most populous cultures will help foster a greater understanding among our races in our society. I will present the Chindian point of view to the happenings in our surroundings, politics, family, love, etc. It may be different since I have the benefit of best of both worlds and I am able to balance both races' upbringing and social culture to form my opinion. Also, I just wanted an excuse to write and get out of doing chores.
I intend to explore every major facet of "Chindianess" including the historical facet, socialogical facet, physiological facet, psychosexual facet and the facet on why Chindians looks so much better. Every details is derived from very scientific and extensive research and study (available upon request) or I might have made it up. But you can trust me. I am a Chindian.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
My best friends
Many will ask me how I went through my childhood with so conflicting cultures and opinions. Having seen it first hand, trust me when I say, there are very many distinct differences about the Indian and Chinese culture. Like Russel Peters said, the Chinese will try to take every penny from you and the Indians will try to keep every penny. Can you imagine the internal conflict just on that point!
However, I had a very fulfilling, fun and I think appropriate childhood. The mainstay for my "normal" childhood were my friends. In primary school, I didnt really have too many good friends. Also at that age, we were more interested in getting ourselves dirty in the mud playing football, rounders, catching, chopping, marbles, taichi, hop n run and a whole bunch of crap games. It always involved running around and hurting someone.
I found my best friends in secondary school, the height of puberty. Some of them came and went but the main group stayed. No matter what I may say about them, they are the best things that could have happened to me. I was the poorest among my friends and definitely the dorkiest. I had the weirdest looking school bag (tearing at the seams), bell bottom pants and always short of spending money. But they always made me feel at home and welcome (either that or I was too thick skinned to get the hint).
For example, my friend Peng Koon actually gave me a pair of his pants for me to wear at his birthday party. Well, in all fairness, either he was too embarassed by wat I was going to come in or he just wanted to get rid of his old pants. Regardless, i was very touched. Also he always helped me out whenever I was short of cash but most importantly he never asked for it back. There was Kok Hin, who was and still is a little wierd. He will take the trouble to teach my brother when I wouldnt bother to. There was also Ooi Khuan who will welcome me to his home and lunch whenever we have library duty in the morning. I will stay in his house until school starts in the afternoon. there are countless other stories that my bunch of friends have touched my life and the blog is too short to mention.
There was also Jer Shyan whom I got to know in Form 4 and the first word he spoke to me was "masturbate". All the sexual innuendo words was always spoken by us in its crude and vulgar form. It was the first "dirty" word we knew that was from the dictionary. Then there was Chee Onn who was always checking his hair in his 20 cents pencil sharpener mirror.
Of course my friends must include Valerie who is also a Chindian but a heck lot better looking. I loved her from the first time i saw her that mid Jan day in 1983. She is still my best friends and the godmother to my daugther. (We guys all know what that means sex wise). It was also through her, I realized I had a poetic talent. I wrote many poems after that, that helped in my quest for love and lust (hey it was the height of puberty; everything involved some amount of lust). ;-)
We dont keep in touch as much anymore. The occasional phone call or IM is at best. I havent seen some of them in 8 years. That is kinda sad but life is such. We all have families and job priorities now and most of them also have English names now. I know Peng Koon went through a whole list before settling for Derrick.
Anyway, it my future blogs, I will be including stories about our exploits as it comes to me. I am not getting any younger and my head is full of useless information so can't remember too many now. These guys are my mainstay of sanity and are a very big, important and humourous part of my life. I do hope I was of the same to them. God bless these guys and gals!
However, I had a very fulfilling, fun and I think appropriate childhood. The mainstay for my "normal" childhood were my friends. In primary school, I didnt really have too many good friends. Also at that age, we were more interested in getting ourselves dirty in the mud playing football, rounders, catching, chopping, marbles, taichi, hop n run and a whole bunch of crap games. It always involved running around and hurting someone.
I found my best friends in secondary school, the height of puberty. Some of them came and went but the main group stayed. No matter what I may say about them, they are the best things that could have happened to me. I was the poorest among my friends and definitely the dorkiest. I had the weirdest looking school bag (tearing at the seams), bell bottom pants and always short of spending money. But they always made me feel at home and welcome (either that or I was too thick skinned to get the hint).
For example, my friend Peng Koon actually gave me a pair of his pants for me to wear at his birthday party. Well, in all fairness, either he was too embarassed by wat I was going to come in or he just wanted to get rid of his old pants. Regardless, i was very touched. Also he always helped me out whenever I was short of cash but most importantly he never asked for it back. There was Kok Hin, who was and still is a little wierd. He will take the trouble to teach my brother when I wouldnt bother to. There was also Ooi Khuan who will welcome me to his home and lunch whenever we have library duty in the morning. I will stay in his house until school starts in the afternoon. there are countless other stories that my bunch of friends have touched my life and the blog is too short to mention.
There was also Jer Shyan whom I got to know in Form 4 and the first word he spoke to me was "masturbate". All the sexual innuendo words was always spoken by us in its crude and vulgar form. It was the first "dirty" word we knew that was from the dictionary. Then there was Chee Onn who was always checking his hair in his 20 cents pencil sharpener mirror.
Of course my friends must include Valerie who is also a Chindian but a heck lot better looking. I loved her from the first time i saw her that mid Jan day in 1983. She is still my best friends and the godmother to my daugther. (We guys all know what that means sex wise). It was also through her, I realized I had a poetic talent. I wrote many poems after that, that helped in my quest for love and lust (hey it was the height of puberty; everything involved some amount of lust). ;-)
We dont keep in touch as much anymore. The occasional phone call or IM is at best. I havent seen some of them in 8 years. That is kinda sad but life is such. We all have families and job priorities now and most of them also have English names now. I know Peng Koon went through a whole list before settling for Derrick.
Anyway, it my future blogs, I will be including stories about our exploits as it comes to me. I am not getting any younger and my head is full of useless information so can't remember too many now. These guys are my mainstay of sanity and are a very big, important and humourous part of my life. I do hope I was of the same to them. God bless these guys and gals!
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