Don't just generate hot air. Do something!

I’ve spent a year now on community service. When I quit my full-time job, it was with the intention of spending more time with family and focusing on doing things I enjoyed. However, MP Tony Pua persuaded me to lend a hand for a better Malaysia.

So, I helped to craft the privatize PLUS proposal, which the MCA subsequently decided to support and now the Barisan government under PM Datuk Seri Najib has commissioned a study on Malaysia’s toll highways.

The DAP’s Alternative Budget is on its way, and if all goes well, my book The Budget: How the Government is Spending OUR Money will be published by mid-October. I think it’s a good informative read. Buy a copy and tell me if you agree ; -) It’s not all boring financials – Antares (formerly known as Kit Leee) is working on the illustrations. Mail orders also possible - please send an email with your name, address and phone number to econs@chichang.net. Publishers REFSA will contact you just before the book hits the shelves.

Along the way, I also started this blog, helped in explaining the extent of the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) debacle and worked on other odds and ends …

With that, it’s time to go back to paid work. Circumstances change, and a steady cash flow stream would be nice again. Senior managers at statutory bodies may not know what cash flow is, but the rest of us hard working Malaysians fully understand its importance. No cash flow = no money!

All my work was done pro-bono. The only expense claim I’ve made is for one return (Firefly) flight to Penang. All other expenses such as fuel, toll and parking charges and telephone and other bills I paid myself. No donations came my way, and certainly no trips to Disneyland or private jet flights! I would likely have justified a nice, tidy sum in consulting fees if I’d been hired by the government, but that’s the way it is … In the meantime, hats off to all the dedicated staff and volunteers I’ve met.

As for the people who continually gripe about the state of our country, our education system, the crime rate, our politicians .… We get the government we deserve. If you want things to be different, contribute, whether it be in time, effort or money.

Today is our nation’s birthday. Don’t just sit around spouting hot air. Resolve to do something productive instead.

Thanks for reading. This is the 99th and last post for a while.

Well it's all right, remember to live and let live
Well it's all right, the best you can do is forgive
- The Traveling Wilburys


PS: Just a reminder- PLUS can be privatized at zero cost to the taxpayer. It could be toll-free before 2020!

Independence

Merdeka Day is just around the corner. Here is food for thought from Xanana Gusmao, fighter for independence and the first president of East Timor:

“Independence for East Timor has never been an end in itself but rather is a means. True independence is the recognition of the freedom of others, is the respect for the supreme interests of populations, is the respect for the most basic human rights, is the fundamental right of peoples to determine their own destiny.

When independence is only a trampoline for rulers to enrich the families of a parasitical elite, with the confiscation of peasant lands, and with total disregard and indifference for the miserable living conditions of workers, when independence blinds rulers, greedy for their own well-being and the profits of their grandchildren’s grandchildren and who set the country’s doors wide open for the invasion of international monopolies that ruthlessly destroy the environment, when independence denies the citizens the freedoms to express, to assemble, to organize and to question; when all this happens in a country with its own flag and president, the independence is but a luxurious reality for only a few, and a nightmare for millions of others ….”

Letter from the Commandant, an excerpt of a speech written by Xanana Gusmao while imprisoned in Cipinang, July 1995.

The above is taken from “The Truth and What to Do With It”, Off the Edge, Apr 09.

It’s expensive keeping up with the Joneses in the Barisan Nasional

The passionate enter politics to make their ideals of a better nation reality. They enter to serve. Some suffer imprisonment, personal injury or even death in pursuit of their beliefs. They pay the highest price of all.

Things are better in the BN. High prices also have to be paid, but these are merely in ringgit terms. Chow Kum Hor, aide to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat, wrote in the New Sunday Times on 16 August that he “… spent a fortune changing my wardrobe and even stopped going to the neighbourhood barber” as he does not want to “… make the boss look bad.”

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised at Chow’s sartorial upgrading. When your boss flies private jets (business class is not good enough?), and your coalition counterparts swan around in handsomely-tailored Italian suits and luxurious Swiss watches one could be forgiven for feeling a little bit insecure.

That’s the BN for you. A preoccupation with style over substance. It doesn’t matter that 400,000 households – about 2 million Malaysians - still live in poverty. Our government must look good!

It also betrays a lack of true self-confidence. What’s important is your ideas and character. Gandhi lead India to independence in a dhoti. Fine, Gandhi is perhaps too ideal an example for our politicians to aspire to. President Barack Obama, leader of the most powerful nation in the world, wears US$1,500 suits which can be bought in department stores. And here at home, DAP leaders look just fine in their regular outfits.

I agree, clothes make the man and first impressions are important. I wouldn’t want our leaders presenting themselves in rags and tatters. But there is no need to spend a small fortune to look good. Consider the picture below, from Malaysiakini.



The DAP elected representatives look smart enough to me. By the way, Tony Pua (far right) didn’t change his wardrobe when he was elected as MP for PJ Utara. In fact, he downgraded. Following a price hike at the Lake Club barber, he now patronises the neighbourhood barber just downstairs of his service centre. And as far as I can remember, Kit Siang and the rest have dressed the same.

Great leaders are often described as having great vision, passion and character. A snappy wardrobe is rarely mentioned.

I’m not saying the DAP leaders carry all the positive qualities. But at least they live and dress like most Malaysians.

The BN in contrast, considers the neighbourhood barber low-class. It’s good enough for millions of Malaysians but not enough for them. If they’re so divorced from the average Malaysian, can they really lead us to a better future?

Malaysia’s lead is evaporating

I spent most of the last two weeks in Hanoi and north Vietnam, with a short stop in Singapore. Singapore is as efficient as usual, Hanoi was an eye-opener. Malaysia is not as advanced as we think it is. Or put another way, the rest of Asia is far catching up.

The experience starts with the taxis. Getting one is a breeze, even at the airport. No need to brave touts, nor buy coupons and endure long waits for “official airport taxis”. Just walk straight out and into a regular cab. The cab, by the way, is a nice, spacious newish 1.6-litre Japanese car. Not a cramped, rattling Proton which should have been long-retired.

To help keep cabbies honest, the taxi meters don’t just click off the increasing Dong fare, they also show the distance traveled and time taken, so you know if you’re being taken for a ride. Such a simple solution to meter-rigging. I wonder why we don’t implement this in Malaysia.

The hotel was a pleasant surprise. We’d booked the 3-star Classic Hotel for US$35 (RM130) per night. It looked pretty good on the website, but we were prepared to be disappointed. We weren’t. We got a nice, clean spacious room complete with minibar and flat-screen tv. But what took the cake was a computer, together with free internet access!

I couldn’t help but think of my last local 3-star experience, at an exotically-named hotel in Langkawi. It was so exotic, there was no washbasin in the bathroom! We had to spit straight onto the bathroom floor. One wonders how a ‘hotel’ like that got final operating approvals. Malaysia boleh.

Moving on to the food, any hesitancies we had about street food vanished when we saw the hawkers. The stalls and surroundings were generally cleaner than in Malaysia. Little litter, no obvious rats or cockroaches. And that goes for their markets too.

There are issues of course, including rogue taxi drivers. We were advised to use only a few specific taxi companies. We did, and encountered no problems. Service in the shops and cafes was, in our experience, generally surly or at best, not friendly. But there were gems, including one nice hole-in-the-wall café-owner who took a dish back and waived the charge when we said it wasn’t to our liking.

I can’t help but think it won’t be long before the tables are turned, and travel guide-books to Malaysia become fraught with the warnings we’d become accustomed to when visiting our our less-developed neighbours. Beware of the taxi drivers; street crime is a problem – don’t carry handbags; be very careful with the local food and water – eat only well-cooked food and drink bottled water ….

And one final observation - while some Malaysians are still uncomfortable with the English language, many Vietnamese are eager to pick it up. One cannot accuse them of being unnationalistic. This is a nation that defeated invaders ranging from the Chinese to the French and the Americans. Yet it is enthusiastically embracing the language of its most recent enemy. There is no emotional baggage associated with English. It is the language of commerce and science, and if you want to pursue the path of material success mastery of English is the way to go.

#9 of 51 ideas for a better Malaysia

Lulu dragged me into this initiative started by Nizam Bashir. One blogger posts one idea a week. Hopefully the chain will continue until we hit 51 ideas on how to make a better Malaysia. My favourite piece so far is by Antares, the coolest grand-dad in town.

My, idea, #9 in the series, is: Plain water in restaurants, please

Water is my favourite drink. It was hard to find out in KL while growing up. If you wanted a drink while wandering around town it had to be something sweet. Times have changed. Bottled water is now abundant.

Too abundant. Have you noticed how many eating places now insist on serving bottled water? Ask for regular water and you'll get a snooty, “We only serve mineral water,” with a tone implying it's superior. That's ridiculous. My next question then is, “How do you wash your salad vegetables? Can't you serve me that same water?”

Bottled water is an extreme waste of resources. Petrochemicals and energy are used to make those plastic bottles. Then, more petrol is burnt transporting the plastic bottles to the bottled water producer. The bottled water producer fills the bottles with water, packs them into cardboard boxes (made with trees, energy and more transport) and then ships them to the shops, burning even more petrol.

Everytime you take a plastic bottle, you're creating an heirloom. It can last for a thousand years, even in a landfill. Your great, great, great ~... grandchildren can continue to admire it long after you've finished the water and long after you're gone.

All for something that can be had by just turning on the tap.

I wonder what's wrong with restaurant economics in Malaysia. Restaurants down south in Singapore serve plain water as a matter of course. Up north in Thailand you get bottled water, but that's because the tap water there isn't potable; and in any case, you're not charged an exorbitant amount. Why do restaurants in Malaysia have to make water a profit centre?

But let's accept that over-priced water is a necessary evil when eating out here. Let's do our part by insisting the restaurant serves us plain boiled or filtered water. Pay the restaurant whatever they want to charge for bottle water, but insist you don't want the bottle. Tell them they can serve you plain, boiled or filtered water. Don't force the restaurateur to give you a bottle. That bottled water may not be pristine anyway. Wasn't there a study not long ago that found quite a few brands of bottled water were “just” tap water? And remember upmarket Perrier that did a recall when benzene was found in its bottles?

Over to boo_licious for #10 in the series. I hope she'll keep the kettle boiling :-)

Protect Malaysian Wildlife - please sign this petition

Malaysia's Protection of Wild Life Act 1972 is a 35-year-old law that is severely outdated and riddled with loopholes. The Malaysian Nature Society, TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, Wildlife Conservation Society and WWF-Malaysia are jointly calling for better law for wildlife in Peninsular Malaysia. Please support their petition.

That’s palm oil in your teh tarik; when fresh milk is not whole milk

Take a closer look at the labels next time you’re shopping for fresh milk at the refrigerated section of the supermarket. I had assumed “Full Cream Milk” is made from fresh milk, especially since it’s sitting in the chiller compartment. But something made me look at the ingredients that day. I was shocked to find “Full Cream Milk” is made from milk solids, milk fat, something called choline chloride and permitted food conditioners.

Only “Fresh Milk” is actually made from fresh cow’s milk without additives. And those of you thinking you’re being healthier by going for “Low Fat Milk” – be aware that it also contains choline cloride and food conditioners.

Condensed milk has already disappeared from our shelves. Will whole milk also become impossible to find? Wait, I hear you say. You must be wrong. How do they make my teh tarik if there is no condensed milk?

Teh tarik now contains palm oil! It’s Condensed Creamer being sold nowadays. And look at the ingredients – palm oil is in it. Now, I am a strong supporter of palm oil and am dismayed by the unfair western lobby against it (Remember the misinformation that palm oil is bad for the heart? And now they’re bringing orang utans into the argument? Oops. I might have just antagonised some greenies. Let me say upfront that I’m a member of the Malaysian Nature Society and we’ll save this for another blog another time).

I like palm oil; I use it to cook at home and it’s great for deep-frying my chicken chop. But I absolutely hate palm oil in my tea! I noticed the emergence of palm oil two years ago, when my favourite coffee-shop drink, teh-C-kosong started tasting odd. Because there is no sugar to mask the taste, the “funny” taste of the “milk” quickly became apparent. That was when I started looking more closely and realised that most manufacturers were selling Evaporated Creamer instead of Evaporated Milk. The difference – palm oil is used instead of milk.

What are the health implications? Are we sowing the seeds for a whole generation of calcium-deficient adults? How many parents realise that the ‘milk’ they are putting into the Milo/Horlicks/Nescafe/tea/coffee is actually creamer? Nutrition is not my forte; so comments here would be very welcome.

From the economic perspective, it is clear evidence that price controls do not work. Condensed milk is a “controlled-price” item. If the controlled price is too low, there will first be lower quality as poorer ingredients are used, then shortages as less efficient producers pull out and ultimately no product at all when it is unprofitable for anybody at all to make it.

Next, it also leads to a misleading inflation (CPI) number. If the price is controlled and does not change, then the CPI shows no inflation. But the product itself is also not available in the market, so consumers either have to settle for inferior substitutes, or more-expensive products. Minister of Domestic Trade & Consumer Affairs Shahrir Samad had honestly and sensibly pointed out in March that price controls are in place on products that do not exist! He said he was working on resolving these. I do hope he does, at the very least so that I will be able to get decent teh-C-kosong again.

(With thanks to Lulu for help with background).

A little more about me

I was born in Ipoh in 1971. My parents moved to PJ in 1976, but we continued to make many balik kampung trips, so I have lived some of Lat’s “Kampung Boy” and “Town Boy”.

I had excellent teachers at Methodist Primary School and a great education at La Salle PJ (thank yous, some posthumous, to Puan Maimon, Mrs Murugesu, Mrs Cheah, Tiger Thong, Mrs Chan, Mrs LC Choong, Mr Clement, Mr Rex Michael …..). I learnt discipline and diligence at MPS and acceptance and a broader view at La Salle, a melting pot of ethnic groups and social classes – the No 1 student of my year was in my class, so was the barely-literate last. I wish my children would be able to have a similar education, but that’s a pipe-dream after years of education policy mismanagement.

I have “done well” in the conventional sense, winning two scholarships for study in the UK (for which I am grateful to the University of Warwick and the British government), having lots of paper qualifications (a first-class honours B Sc degree from Warwick, a Cambridge MBA and the CFA charter) and a career which involved jetting around the world business-class and being whisked around Stockholm, Milan, London and New York in chauffeured cars.

Malaysia is my home, and has been home for my family ever since my great-grand father boarded a ship from China. I am third-generation born in Malaysia, which makes my roots deeper than some very senior UMNO politicians. My grandfather, my grandmother, my mother and all my parents’ siblings were teachers or civil servants contributing to nation-building while some of today’s bumiputeras were still growing up in Indonesia.

My family tries to practise low impact living. We do our best to minimise plastic usage – we use our own containers to “ta pau” food and take plastic bags to the pasar malam, we recycle where we can and make compost at home (which is a modest 2-storey terrace), I drive a diesel car (and continue to yearn for better-quality diesel), … but I’m far from a pleasure-denying ascetic. I enjoy teh tarik, canai and daun pisang, sambal belacan, ayam masak merah and nasi kerabu, and yes …. siew yok and wine .. my musical tastes range from AC/DC to Ramli Sarip, Search, Jackson Browne and Theresa Teng …. My guitar heros include Bala, Julian Mokhtar and Angus Young …

Everything in moderation is my philosophy … and I wish all of us can get together AGAIN and ENJOY Malaysia’s diversity rather than just tolerate the differences. “AGAIN”, because my childhood fun included so many birthday parties in so many homes with everyone eating and playing without thought of immaterial differences.

Why I joined the DAP (Democratic Action Party)

It pains me that Malaysians have benefited so little from our country’s wealth. The legacy of 51 years of Barisan’s rule is a litany of woes, ranging from unemployable graduates to an ever-growing national debt. But the greatest tragedy, to me, and indicative of all that went wrong, is the senior citizens living lives here far away from their children and grandchildren who have headed overseas seeking work and education.

Little headway has been made in the things that matter – effective education, job creation, raising living standards and creating a civil society. Our resources have been squandered on enriching an elite few and community has been debased by those with wealth and position flouting the law with impunity.

I see a glimmer of hope in the DAP. It has always been a party grounded on principles - human rights, equality, social and economic justice - and I am pleased to see Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng doing his best to implement integrity and good governance now that he has the opportunity to do so.

It is my privilege to share my experience and skills with the DAP as it seeks to develop Malaysia for all Malaysians. I look forward to the day when every Malaysian has the opportunity to develop to his or her fullest potential here in Malaysia, establishing a virtuous cycle where their talents then enrich Malaysia, creating opportunities for even more Malaysians and an ever-advancing nation.