CRIME!!!

Crime! Break-ins, snatching, extortions, criminal breaches of trust, smuggling, rapes ... Sometimes in a man's life, he is forced to face the demons that plague his and his society's well-being. The demons are the the law-breakers such as burglars, robbers and petty thieves and they, regardless of their backgrounds, are a scourge to civil society.

The criminals are getting way out of control. Everywhere in the the world and and in this part of it, crime is rampant.

My office was broken into three times within 8 years. I had triple locks, fortified doors and extra gates. I even had an anti-burglar system installed by a reputable security firm. It didn't keep these crooks out. My estimated financial loss in terms of assets has been well over RM 2,000.

We should be doing something about the crimes that are perpetuated against us.

I did.

Just a day ago, I agreed to be in our local neighborhood defense committee after I was approached by two individuals: an Eurasian and a well-respected ex-teacher of mine who lives near my home.

It certainly wasn't the first time I was offered the responsibility but it was all small scale politics that resulted in the prevention of my participation earlier.

You see, this classy housing area once had a very active neighborhood force after an Eurasian formed it: things were happening. Extra-curricular activities were well-organized. There were parties, jogging contests and aerobic exercises. We came together and acted as one body.

Then a minority group of self-interest ( for better of a harsher word) individuals by clandestine means seized the agenda and so for over 8 years the force went dead. No legitimate elections were ever called despite numerous attempts by others and I to encourage the present leader to call for one. On each occasion, he would casually promise he would call for one "later".

So back to my story: the Eurasian was the very man who was the first leader who got the ball rolling in the early days and it was he who was soon approaching me as he was as alarmed and concerned as I was with the prevailing high crime situation. There have been numerous burglaries in the area.

I told them of the four incidents in my street alone and my personal vigilante action.

Five incidents here!

A few years ago, I saw a burglar climbing out of a empty neighbor's house in the distant in a noisy night of barking dogs. He got away.

Then in another memorable incident, my neighbor alerted me to a break in near our homes and though unarmed we chased the burglar across a huge field. Eventually, he got away, jumping into a dark huge drain and getting into a vehicle driven by an accomplice. The good news was that he dropped the jewelries at the crime scene much to the relief of the grateful owners.

Not too long after that, in another incident, I saw a crowd of neighbors one day while coming home from late work and without hesitation grabbed a long rattan rod to join them. We chased the burglar but he got away by hiding in some bushes. He left behind a bicycle in his haste to escape from us.

Following these three known incidents, the next two ones involved my next door neighbors. My left next door old lady who died recently was beaten up by a man who had broken into their house one rainy day. I was in my office that night when I heard about it. and couldn't do anything.

A distant relative of mine had her home on my right broken into next door as well. The old lady, who died not long after the encounter lost some valuables.

Amazingly, today I ran into an buddy and his colleague whom I eventually recognised as the brother of a fellow ex-scouting Jamboree participant in the old days. My buddy narrated the shocking news about the multiple tragedies in his native in-laws' lives.

According to him, they had their 4-wheel drive stolen when they were about to take their recently deceased close relative home from the hospital. Furthermore, their Permyjaya house was completely stripped of everything, including the lady's valuable generations handed down beads when they arrived back in the evening. To add moew to their pain and distress, the husband had just resigned from a high paying risky job in another division to be with the family.

It was indeed sad to also hear that apart from the psychological trauma that the family experienced (the wife was in a state of such shock that she has been speechless) I was told the cops stationed at Permyjaya got them to file their break-in report at Lutong which is a considerable distance away from Permyjaya.

After awaiting over 2 hours, the C.I.D investigators eventually spoke to them and by the time the traumatised couple reached home, it was past 2:00 a.m. in the morning the next day.

It was indeed also sad to hear that a fellow lady blogger, who goes by the moniker, Ladybird had her home burglarized as well.

I'll pray hard for you, Ladybird.

I could only pray that we good citizens will do something about the crimes that are perpetuated against us. Let us all join the Rukun Tetangga (Neigborhood Watch Organization) and other social service organizations to relieve and help the poor. In this way, we will be proactive and legally win the war against these evil criminals! And Yeah, let's not be wise monkeys in this matter or stick our heads into the sand, expecting everything will work out fine....

Thanks for the Memories...

It has been quite a year for us monkeys and you humans!!!

A Jungle Tale

First of all, before I tell this tale, let me remind you I'm a plain old gorilla. No, not any ordinary animal but one who can read, speak and write.

Here's my tale of how wrong things are made right in my jungle home.

For several moons now, we have been having an ongoing crisis in our judicial system. Our society, or a large segment of it has lost faith in the judicial system. We think it is corrupted.

A law system in our green jungle paradise? Aye, we too have a law system-it used to be such a glorious judicial fair system with integrity in the past. It was one that used to stipulate that no one was above the law: from the maggots to the whale, all creatures, great and small would fear the law. There were fewer criminal acts because of this fear! It was the envy of many others in hundreds of other lands, I tell you!

Alas! Like I said, that was in the past!

Now, back to the present and my woeful tale-before the crisis, some mischievous monkeys-we always have all sorts of problems with these chattering animals of ours who can be quite an irritant in our civilized habitat-exposed that one of our flamboyant Legal Eagles had actually engaged in unfair buckaroo activities with those who are supposed to cleanly disperse out justice in our beautiful land.

These nefarious hanky panky may even deeply involve some of our leaders who may be fellow stubborn donkeys, human-eating crocodiles, lazy boars and others. Ah! Too many animals were caught with their dirty hands in the cookie jar!

I'll tell you why I say that some of our leaders may be involved somehow: they don't seem to want the best obvious solution...There's one such as a special tribunal that would be protective of all witnesses, 100% clear-cut and could resolve the whole matter fairly and quickly in public. Why is it not set up?

Now, not one single brave jungle animal of us, not even Sang Kancil or Sri Harimau, would want to foolishly come out and roar, howl, bray or meow out whatever we want to share of any knowledge of wrong-doings in the judicial system....because it's a no brainer that we would not be protected from prosecution or lawsuits.

So the clever ones in our mighty animal society have chosen a brilliant solution-the cunning monkey trick of all time-delay, delay, delay and hope that like our present murder trial (Some cowardly monkeys-who else- were monkeying around with something explosive and killed a harmless human) that is slowly ongoing at a snail's pace in our green paradise, the outraged public will eventually get bored and lose interest in it.

You see, some animals of ours-maybe, just maybe they've been overseas and learnt new monkey tricks from other foreign monkeys-have figured out that our emotions will calm down this way. It's kind of using soft kid gloves on us to handle a politically damaging problem. If we s get angrier and the anger gets out of hand, another tough measure, though highly unpopular, would likely involve jailing the annoying critical creatures with or without secret methods.

Fortunately for all, in a crafty move that has never been done by anyone in our society before, three wise creatures were chosen as a publicity stunt to assure every angry jungle creature something is being done. The ruling animals say, "Don't worry-it's a tiny weenie problem-just stay happy! Here's the best brilliant first solution!"

Hey , fellow animals, do you get the real message with the three wise ones?

Of course, in the course of the delay, we're having comic relief as well, provided by-who else-our top-rated entertaining jungle apes.

Yeah, guess what Wikipedia has to say about the proverbial Three Wise Monkeys?

Meaning of the proverb Just as there is disagreement about the origin of the phrase, there are differing explanations of the meaning of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

* In Japan the proverb is simply regarded as a Japanese Golden Rule.

* Some simply take the proverb as a reminder not to be snoopy, nosy and gossipy.

* Early associations of the three monkeys with the fearsome six-armed deity Vajrakilaya link the proverb to the teaching of that cult that if we do not hear, see or talk evil, we ourselves shall be spared all evil. This may be considered similar to the English proverb "Speak of the Devil - and the devil appears."

* Others believe the message is that a person who is not exposed to evil (through sight or sound) will not reflect that evil in their own speech and actions.

* Today "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" is commonly used to describe someone who doesn't want to be involved in a situation, or someone turning a willful blind eye to the immorality of an act in which they are involved.

Monkey Talk

So here's the latest Malaysian monkey news: Yak! Yak! I'm free to be sold and traded to animal exploiters, killers and murderers... How about establishing a nice cosy home for me and my type instead, please? I know we're producing too fast and too many but keep us in a zoo or whatever -anything-but not to those who torture us for tests and experiments to see if we can be blinded or hurt, dead by various chemicals and drugs... just for all you humans and your selfish vanity ... desiring products like perfume products, health drinks, drugs ... Does Malaysia need more money now? Can't you get foreign exchange earnings from other sources? Trust me, if any of us die because you sent us to our deaths, we'll meet you in the hereafter!

Day 5: Where was I?

This gorilla was in the jungle. That's the truth. Well, honestly, I was in there for many hours, traveling in a bus or coach as some would say. I arrived in my favorite city, Kuching, Sarawak's state capital.

It was a first trip by slow-actually it wasn't; more about it later-coach. Usually, I went by air and in the old days this meant via MAS. Nowadays, we're talking about Air Asia.

By coincidence, before the Monday tragedy in West Malaysia whereby 20 died, on Sunday night as I was in the coach, I was imagining all along the long journey to Bintulu, Sarikei, Serian and finally Kuching how fragile life was when a person had to sit in a frightfully fast-moving vehicle which was almost like a sealed casket. There wasn't even an emergency exit. The glass window panes were huge and thick. When I looked out I could see deep gorges and ravines on both sides of the bumpy roads. All it needed was a burst tyre (tire) and that was it!

How fast was the bus moving? We left at 8:oo P.M. from the Miri Bus Terminal at Pujut. By 8:18 P.M. we had reached the Miri waterworks station, a place I had once been invited to when it was first declared open by a minister and I was a promising star in a certain political party.

That was an amazing speed for the coach to reach the station as I had just been to Lambir National Park a week earlier. It took me 30 minutes by car, traveling at about 70km/hour from Pujut corner where the station is located.

Briefly, some interesting observations along the way:
A) I didn't see a single animal along the way; in the past, I had seen snakes, a chameleon and monkeys;
B) I saw at least three separate native families bathing and washing clothes in two
separate pools of fresh water and a stream;
C) open burning for padi cultivation was less; only 3 cases of open burning was seen;
D) some parts of the highway were unpleasantly bumpy. A journal of mine fell from my bag which was placed in the baggage compartment above our heads to the floor of the coach;
E) the coach stopped at least 4 times along the way at coffee houses. This allowed everyone to ease themselves or to grab some chow;
F) it was an unpleasant experience in Serian when I answered the call of nature and even though the coach driver had been informed of my visit to the washroom near the Serian Bus station, he almost drove off without me! I heard his coach's horn blow and as I rushed out I could see the coach driving off towards the junction...;
G) the bus companies should always 1) tell all passengers the length of the break and 2) do a head count before leaving a place of rest; other companies did so, as I recall but this particular company didn't do so, except on the way to Miri from Kuching;
H) a cop did a good professional check of ICs at around 11:30 pm after the coach left Bintulu. He was courteous but the 11:30 p.m. time wasn't the most happy time for many as it was bedtime in the vehicle;
I) there were 2 drivers who took turns to drive and to rest. This was a reassuring sight;
J) the large TV set didn't work and the explanation by the company in Kuching was that the set had broken down due to the bumpy roads.
k) I killed at least 8 small hungry roaches which apparently crawled out from the corner compartment which housed the air-conditioning engine. At that time, we were just leaving somewhere past Serian and no one else was sitting in the back row seats.