Miri's Firecrackers Accident

Don't play with firecrackers! The consequences of not listening to good advice is this!

The poor Indon apparently set up the lengthy string of crackers
by dangling it from a small metal rod that was placed inside a bigger metal pipe.

When the carckers exploded, the pipe flew off and despite the distance he was standing from it, smashed his skull severely, cracking it open and scattering his brains everywhere.

This accident happened in Miri City during the Chinese New Year celebrations this year.

Playing with firecrackers is an offence of course and rightly so considering the accidents that do happen to youngsters... and no, this fella was not a youngster!

A Death Omen

A strange but true story here...

One day, I had the sudden inspiration to paint the wall of an old building that was formerly used as a dreaded Kempeti (Military police) interrogation centre by the occupying Japanese army during World War 2. The building is located in a graveyard which holds the remains of many foreigners and locals. Most of the foreigners were Aussies, Britons and Canadians, unfortunate victims of rampant diseases as workers in the newly discovered oilfields. The area is close to Sarawak's Miri's most famous landmark, aptly called Canada Hill in honor of many Canadians coming from oil rich Alberta in Canada who had been hired as oil workers.

So back to my story... the walls of the building had been painted with a faded pink and there were black fungi patches all over it. The walls used to be painted in grim black.

I decided to paint sea creatures all over the wall to enliven everything a bit in view of the grim graves and a solitary war memorial that housed the remains of 28 innocent foreign and local civilians-including my granduncle- who were brutally tortured and executed by the barbaric WW2 Japs.

The result of the mural work was colorful sea creatures were randomly splashed everywhere, including the sting ray as shown in the pic.

It was an instant image in my mind that a sting-ray, which my friend and I had had an encounter with back in the late '70s (resulting in his emergency treatment) would serve as a scary warning of its potential devilish dangerous and harmful capabilities beneath its benign appearance ...

Not too long after this, the world would shockingly lose one of our courageous animal rights heroes, Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin when he had a rare careless encounter with a sting-ray in Australia .... Could this be a premonition of his death?

In Memory

... of those warm endless days when my two bright students' New Zealand-educated mum graciously showered my teaching staff and I with gifts of appreciation.... A bright shiny star, the humble daughter of a datuk with a heart of gold... a rising star holding the position of Assistant Manager in Miri City's Public Bank.... Cruelly, one rainy day, she was snatched from us.... leaving a painful void in our lives... Do click to enlarge pic & story.

16 Crows: Bad Omen?

It wasn't too long ago that I mentioned the sight of 16 crows with bloodshot eyes outside my residence. Several deaths-six to be exact soon followed ... What is disturbing, if I may repeat the story, is that the last time I saw a crow in my large garden, a close overseas-educated friend died in an unexplainable accident.

Here's an abstract of an interview by a Korean interviewer with a Malaysian girl in the blog Paths to Peace at http://www.prkkorea.com, dated 30-11-07. It briefly touches on the significance of seeing crows:

Q3. In South Korea, a crow is the symbol of a bad omen, while a magpie is the symbol of a good omen. Are there any superstitions related to animals in your country?
A3. Well, in Malaysia, we have various cultures and religions. Different cultures have different beliefs about animals. Muslims do not believe that a crow is a bad omen. Malays believe that wherever you see a group of crows, the place is dirty with garbage or something. Some other cultures believe that if you see a crow, there is a ghost.

Wow, I had no idea a crow is also a symbol of a bad omen in beautiful Korea!

Nein, no, Malaysian interviewee, my garden and the surrounding areas are spotlessly clean and well-maintained so the crows shouldn't have suddenly appeared during the light drizzle...

Remembering a Great Asian Singer

What a tragedy it was for lovers of fine music and the music world when Kyu Sakemoto was killed in a tragic air accident one day. The smiling highly popular singer had one of the best number one hits in the U.S. with his hit Sukiyaki.

It was a sad Japanese love song about being jilted by a girl and recalling the wonderful moments they had had shared together...

Take Time for a Good Laugh!

Here's a story-may it tickle your funny bone! It did that to mine! Thanks my brother Eddy for sharing it with me!

This would make a bad day at work.

This is funny!

Bad day at work???

This is even funnier when you realize it's real! Next time you have a bad day at work, think of this guy. Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.

Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister.

She then sent it to a radio station in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, which was sponsoring a 'worst job experience' contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool.

So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel-powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea, heats it to a delightful temperature, then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints.

What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my bum started to itch.

So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my bum started to burn!

I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it.

However, the crack of my bum was not as fortunate.

When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my bum.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator.

His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.

Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.

As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my bum as soon as I got in the chamber.

The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poo for two days because my bum was swollen shut.

So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your ar*e.

Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job". Remember whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, "Is this a jellyfish bad day?"

May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!

Chinese Horoscope

It is believed that the Chinese horoscope dates back to thousands of years. I haven't done any research on it but I can say that what is written regarding human traits, characters and the fates of each person can be amazingly accurate.

I used to be a doubting Thomas. That was till the day certain warnings and significant signs became ominously clear. Yet, even when we were forewarned, Fate could not be averted. Well, at least we could be prepared... if we have a good memory!

I'm just rambling on about an accident back in the 1980s that happened to me. The Chinese horoscope was warning about certain colours and objects I needed to avoid in the following week from the reading date.

I heard about it from my late dad who believed in this mumbo-jumbo and could read Chinese. Typically, like many others, I ignored it and forgot all about it until one fateful day when I was involved in a truly bad incident.

I smashed my reddish Yamaha motor-bike up, crashing into a huge red garbage bin! Then a snarling and gnashing ugly black Doberman attacked me!

Yes, I recalled at that moment in time I had been forewarned to beware of the colours red and black, a heavy object and an animal.

I'm No Politician...

There are a few things I want to say today: I believe I did ruffle a few feathers out there when I said I wasn't going to fly the flag earlier on. Okay, you turkeys, I didn't fly it but it was no big deal. I was just talking about a small cheap flag for my car. Every year in the past I did fly one or two.

It was interesting to notice that there were very few flags- that is - in Miri proper, been flown on vehicles this year.

Before saying anything else, I want to remind my buddies and visitors out there that I'm not a politician. I don't wish to be chameleon, modifying my camouflage colors to suit my surroundings-in short-sucking up to the top just to get something , usually a selfish desire. Don't get me wrong - there are exceptions to some politicians who have cast aside their own self-interests...like the Tunku, Malaysia's founding father.

So what does it feel like to be overseas and then back to Malaysia...I guess in some ways pretty much like Gulliver in Jonathan Swift's insightful satirical Gulliver's Travels.

Here's what Malaysiakini (The must-read out of the box online paper) has interestingly published...it's a charmingly well-written letter from a lady by the name of Susan B.... Hmmmnnnn ...wonder if she's single and available for a handsome neighborly Sarawakian bachelor...

England, Sabah and Merdeka thoughts

Susan B Aug 30, 07 2:23pm Adjust font size:

Come August every year, there seem to be this sudden need to be patriotic or to talk about Malaysia’s development, to reminisce of the idyllic past when race and religion did not seem to divide the people. I, too, am caught up with the Merdeka thoughts and would like to share a recent experience. I have been away doing my postgraduate studies in England for the last year and returned to Malaysia a couple of weeks ago. It felt really strange leaving England. I tried to take in as much of the scenery as I could on the way to London’s Heathrow airport to return here. There were pangs of sadness and I shed some tears along the way. As expected I exceeded the luggage allowance by 9kg. There’s no point trying to explain your way hoping to get some sympathy from the counter officer. In England, it seems the rules are adhered to strictly - a 20kg allowance means a 20kg allowance. In Malaysia (well, in Sabah at least) most people will tell a sob story and the counter officers will look at you as if it is the saddest story they’ve ever heard and then say, ‘Okay, I’ll let you through this time without paying but next time don’t do it again’. The journey home was not interesting, nothing much to tell. It was a full flight, with many Malaysians of all races on board. I remember reading the in-flight magazine and getting annoyed reading the 50 reasons why it’s great to be independent (in reference to the 50th anniversary of our independence). Whoever wrote that piece needs to be sacked! Things written included reasons like ‘Because we can eat ‘nasi lemak’ at a food stall at 2am’. My goodness! Are we that desperate to find 50 good reasons? I mean, I enjoy my ‘nasi lemak’ but I can’t imagine saying to my children before independence, ‘Children, we must fight for independence with all our might! Sacrifice your life in the name of ‘nasi lemak’ at 2am’ Ridiculous isn’t it? It also annoys me that it is claimed that Malaysia is 50 years old this year. In actual fact, it has only been 44 years since the formation of Malaysia, not 50 years. Malaya gained its independence from the British on Aug 31, 1957 and it was only on Sept 16, 1963 when Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak together with Malaya came together to form a new country, Malaysia. I cannot believe that the same mistake is being repeated every year. After 50/44 years (take your pick), we are still a divided nation, by race and religion. The recent claim that Malaysia is not a secular country brought feelings of dissatisfaction from many non- Muslim citizens as evident from the numerous letters sent here. Some claimed that non-Muslim citizens of Malaysia are classified as ‘dhimmis’. Also, there’s the quite blatant abuse of the affirmative action polices such as the National Economic Policy which was set up initially to bridge the economic gap between the Chinese and the Malays. As a result, many Indians, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, the indigenous people are marginalised in Malaysia. Even if you are the fourth generation and classified as Malaysian citizen, you are still considered as not being equal to the ‘locals’ and are even branded as ‘orang asing’ (foreigner or alien) no less by the so-called leaders of the country. Never mind that it was the sweat and blood poured in by all the races that created Malaysia that brought about the development of the country. Landing at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, I felt really touched by the reaction from an elderly Chinese who was travelling with his family. As the plane landed at the airport, I saw his face trying to suppress a big smile before he proudly announced ‘We are home!’. On the connecting flight to Kota Kinabalu later, I sat behind another Chinese man. Sitting next to him was a European man who was travelling with his family to visit Sabah. True to the Sabahan way, the Malaysian started a conversation with the European man. Realising that it is their first visit to Sabah, the Malaysian man relayed to the European man the beauty of Sabah and Malaysia, where to go, what to try out, endlessly talking about Sabah life. I was impressed by his knowledge. The term ‘orang asing’ or ‘alien’ is so remote a description for this Malaysian man. I knew I had arrived home when the local passengers undid their safety belt as soon as the plane tyres hit the airport runway; the immediate standing up as soon as the plane came to a halt; the mad scramble to exit the plane; the sleepy immigration officer at counter; the glazed look of customs officers who seem oblivious to the passengers pushing two trolleys each full of large boxes; the sleepy crowd at the airport exit; the haphazard parking of cars along the road blocking trolley ramps; the ‘Welcome to Sabah’ archway as you exit the airport; the potholed road; the mini-buses that stop as and when according to their passengers’ requests; the weaving in and out in the slow traffic by tiny local-made Kancil cars; the unlit road lights along the highway and, of course, the colourful neon lights of seafood restaurants along roads. I exclaimed ‘I’m home!’ half-smiling, half-sighing ... it is good to be back. I have spent 10 years out of 36 years of my life living outside of Malaysia, and I have always wanted to return to Malaysia. I may not fly the ‘Jalur Gemilang’ in August but my loyalty, love, unrelenting hope and participating in extending the narrow boundaries of democracy in Malaysia are my gift to my country. Malaysia.

Miri's Most Haunted Tree

For some time now, Mirians have been talking about a certain part of the city along the Miri-Pujut highway at which witnesses claimed to have seen some sort of supernatural activities... It goes back to the time when three brothers lost their lives tragically, ramming their expensive vehicle into a tree close to the Pujut Maybank across the road. Here is the Borneo Post pic dated 20/1/1997 of the appeasement ceremony conducted by their family members. Remember, don't ever pick up three persons around this place...they may not be whom you think they are....

A Loving Witness of Christ

I was researching in my archives when I came across this carbon copy of a letter written by the late Garnet Dearnley (see pic with his son, on right), from New Zealand. In it, he aptly described his experience in Miri here in those days. In delving deeper, I learnt more about him and actually came to the realisation that this European truly loved my old school, Saint Columba's School and its founding mission, the Anglican Church.

Sadly, the late Dearnley, a jolly lecturer at Tanjong Lobang College died in a fatal motor-cycle accident, not too long after writing this letter, near where he is presently buried, in the oldest Christian graveyard in northern Borneo, between St. Columba's School and St. Columba's Kindergarten. His grave is closest to Abang Indeh Road with abundant yellow daffodils growing beside it and has the friendly handsome gent's pic, placed there by his son whom I met over a year ago.

A Beloved Witness for Christ to the End

I was researching in my archives when I came across this carbon copy of a letter written by the late Garnet Dearnley, from New Zealand. In it, he aptly described his experience in Miri here in those days. In delving deeper, I learnt more about him and actually came to the realisation that this European truly loved my old school, Saint Columba's School and its founding mission, the Anglican Church.

Sadly, the late Dearnley, a jolly lecturer at Tanjong Lobang College died at quite an early age in a fatal motor-cycle accident near where he is presently buried, in the oldest Christian graveyard in northern Borneo, between St. Columba's School and St. Columba's Kindergarten. His grave is closest to Abang Indeh Road with abundant yellow daffodils growing beside it and has the friendly handsome gent's pic, placed there by his son whom I met over a year ago.
Every day, as I bring my wife who works as the headmistress of St. Columba's kindergarten there, his face would be seen with a friendly grin.