Entries from August 2008 ↓

JOHOR BAHRU: Daniel Liew reporting live from Skudai. The hottest event in Johor Bahru was reportedly happening in the Church of Immaculate Conception in downtown Johor Bahru.

CIC Family Day 2008! Held to celebrate three important events, firstly our nation’s 51st Merdeka, secondly to bring families closer and third to celebrate Fr Paul Wong’s ordination as a priest (four years old).

The century old church (built in 1883) started the Family Day tradition a few years ago. Ever since, this tradition has been able to bring families of different speaking groups closer and closer. The Bahasa, English, Mandarin and Tamil groups worked together to make this event a success.

Parishioners started flocking the church compound when all the stalls started operating in the morning. By 10 o’clock, the crowd was just as big as the one shown in the below picture.

Rev. Fr. Michael Mannayagam, our Parish Priest, officiated the Family Day right after the Mass ended at 1130 o’clock. Our national anthem - Negaraku, was sang with all our might.

Right after the opening ceremony (no pictures to show), the organizer invited Fr Paul Wong, our assistant Parish Priest to come forward to celebrate his fourth year as a priest. He’s a very young priest, a priest whom kids, teenagers and adults find easy to get along with.

Out of a sudden, the weather man was playing trick on us. Rain started pouring. Nevertheless, the rain did not dampen the mood of the parishioners. Activities and performances still went on as if the rain was invisible.

Children, pure in the sense that their thoughts are not yet complicated by adult life, hold the Jalur Gemilang with great pride! They hold the flag because this is the country they were born and will continue to prosper it. To them, Malaysia is a country which belongs to all of us and not of a single race.

If you like poems, I would like to refer you to read Arthur’s To know Malaysia is to love Malaysia….

The crowd were also entertained with traditional dances despite the gloomy weather. The music just ligthened everyone’s heart. Seriously I enjoyed the dances from Indonesia and Sabah.

At the end of the day, there were prizes given to the best decorated store. If you wonder how a beautiful stall looks like, here you go! You need to have big visible signboard, beautifully laced table, and flowers to freshen people up.

But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
Matthew 6:33

I hope you won’t be disappointed because you are not getting the chance to see my face in this post. The reason I am reluctant to appear in photographs nowadays is mainly due to the fact that I am getting rounder and rounder each day. Wait for me to slim down to the usual figure, give me two weeks!

This is a very nice shirt which I initially thought of giving it to one of my friend who likes white colour a lot, I noticed that most of his shirts are white. But then, I can’t find any reason to give him so I decided to keep for myself. Lol! This will be my very own birthday present.

That’s all from Daniel Liew, a very short report on the CIC Family Day 2008. God bless!

Had a very unlucky day on my first day of holiday. Walking out of the door and into my car, I noticed that my slippers just gave way to long term wear and tear. One of the straps was torn and it went flip flop when I walk around. It was still fine yesterday, I aver that.

I thought it would be a good time to replace my slippers so I headed to the nearest Bata shop (I am a Bata fan) in Jusco Taman Universiti. Forty ringgit was spend on my slippers, my heart ached a while when I had to pay the cashier. I had her disposed off my old slippers and wore my new slippers proudly after that.

Got myself a Chocolate Sundae which was priced at RM2 at McDonald’s. Merdeka promotion, kononnya..

Then I drove to another shopping mall - U Mall to purchase my mobile reload coupon. I just learned that U Mobile had a store there so I bought a thirty ringgit top-up. I remember keeping the reload coupon inside one of my pocket before I head off to buy some buns for my lunch.

While I was paying for the hotdog bun I got panicked when I could not feel the reload coupon which I thought all these while was in my pocket. I paid for the bun and straight away dashed out to the walk way which I took just now to scout for my lost coupon. “It must be somewhere, I must have dropped it while adjusting my pocket or wallet” I convinced myself.

I rounded the place twice but my reload coupon was nowhere to be found! Being fed up with the search, I went back to the store to buy another one. The pretty lady there pitied me and advised me to be extra careful next time when she learnt that I lost my coupon. She even offered to perform the reload for me. Gratias Vobis Ago!

I headed back to my house to enjoy my hotdog bun. Guess what! I could see green mould! What the heck is going on with today?!  SUEIH!!!

Fly the Jalur Gemilang. Our country is exactly fifty-one years old coming August 31, 2008! Though I celebrate August 31 as the National Day but deep down in my heart I only recognize September 16 as the real Malaysia Day. For September 16 is the day the Federation of Malaysia was formed. I will cling to this for the rest of my life.

The Government has just tabled Budget 2009. On the Budget, it is essentially an expansionary budget, a deficit budget to ease the burden of the people, hence themed “A Caring Government”. I don’t see the Government doing well enough to push the limit of better efficiency and governance, let alone addressing unwise spending (ie. closed tender, corruption).

I had a brief look at the budget, all I see is increasing excise duty specific on cigarettes, increasing the eligibility criteria for welfare assistance, benefiting government pensioners, channelling financial assistance to victims of calamities, increasing current tax rebate, and so to name. The Government also plans to reduce import duties on various consumer durables and road tax on private passenger vehicles with diesel engines. Full import duty exemption will be exercised on several food item.

My mum used to tell me that no matter how high the mountain is, if you keep blasting it for granite (money), it will diminish one day.

It’s more of expanding the budget to help the poor, needy, lower class and lower middle class citizens. Lot’s of spending are spent on these group. I know it’s important to address their grouses and to improve their lives but heck, the government is not even talking how are they going to generate income for all these expenditures. Don’t tell us that you are going to suck in money from our Petronas. Though I am not an economist, I know such shouldn’t be the long term plan.

I see vast potential in Sabah and Sarawak. An allocation of RM3bil and RM3.3bil is provided for Sabah and Sarawak respectively to implement various projects. This is supposed to be goodies for the two BN strong backbones. But I am also interested to know if the fate of Sabah and Sarawak will be the same as Penang should some of the Member of Parliaments decided to cross over. We never know?!

On construction and agricultural, a sum of RM35bil will be expended during the period 2009 to 2014 to improve public transportation while RM5.6bil will be allocated as incentives to agriculture entrepreneurs to reduce production costs and encourage higher agriculture output.

On education, RM160mil will be allocated to provide better education opportunities as well as improve health and basic amenities for the Orang Asli. These are the groups which really need better access to facilities!

You know what? I have been thinking that I should really go back to my own state after graduating. I want to bring home what I learned in West Malaysia. This is really a road not many people choose to take, most Sarawakians after completing their studies in the West prefers to settle down there. I beg to differ from the thoughts that Sarawak has no opportunity. It has, just that we have to discover the opportunities there.

Seriously, I still think the Government is not addressing the construction industry which was robust back then. Civil engineers are having bad time lah…

To all fellow Malaysians, I would like to wish all of you Selamat Hari Merdeka!

I would like to modify a quote from Mohandas Gandhi, “I like Malaysia, I do not like our politicans. Our politicians are so unlike Malaysians.” Dear MPs, please be reminded that we voted you because we trust you to run the country and not to give you the power to rule over us. You must remember that you are a nobody if not for us, you are somebody because of us.

Selamat Hari Merdeka and Awal Ramadhan!