Of governing Pedra Branca and reminiscence of rice field

Those square shapes are actually paddy plants that been moved from the nursery before it is plucked and planted in rows and lines with 1 or 2 or maybe 3 strands of it in a single cluster. More room for them to grow when spaces are created in between the clusters. The nursery for breeding the plants is in another plot of land. They are taken care of right from the seeds until such time to move them over to another land plot like in the photo above, to be planted and to yield the rice when they mature.


Pedra Branca is better known as Pulau Batu Putih among Malaysians. It is a sad thing when we have lost our dominion over the tiny island to Singapore. A few lessons can be learnt from the incident. On the administrative level, the lesson is, do take care of our soil and never let people establish their footing for you will later loose the ownership.

For civilians like you and I, accept it wholeheartedly when we were once put the trust in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to tackle the dispute and they did their job, delivered the verdict and substantiated well legally.

Whilst it has been hard to accept the fact of loosing Pedra Branca as far as sovereignty and pride are concerned, perhaps it is not too hard on me personally as I still remain as the governor for the island – GABENOR PULAU BATU PUTIH. I am kidding! I know that’s silly but I love saying foolish thing like this. LOL!

Forget about Pedra Branca for a moment. Let me relate to the pictures that grace this entry (as you may later see my digression due to pivotal point of Singapore). These pictures are taken when I brought my family to Tanjung Karang a couple of months back. For those of you who are not aware that Tanjung Karang also does have rice fields, I want to assure you, it does. Their economy is not just confined to sea-related produce alone as the impression one might have. Or you may not even have any idea about it?!

The serenity and tranquility of the rice field brings me back to my childhood days. And not without the kind of special feeling that always comes knocking upon looking at it. On an occasion when I am all alone entertaining my own thoughts at the edge of the field while my eyes would go as far as my eyes can see, mixture of feelings would come without warning that makes my eyes water. I would see my frail body splattered with mud playing in the field. I could hear the echo of a cow mooing in the distance. I’d vividly hear grandpa shooing a school of birds to be away from the field. And I would see cynical smiles and contemptuous smirks from specters for no apparent reasons.

Yet I am there slightly get my pants soiled upon sitting on the grass and come to realization that it happened in the past decades when the giggles of my kids playing nearby overshadows.

I was staying with grandparents as dad passed away since I was small and mom had her own life somewhere. To make matter worst, we were staying with another two cousins under the same roof. Due to some ill twist of fate, my uncle had divorced his Singaporean wife. The wife refused to take the kids along and he was then facing concrete wall in juggling his life in Singapore between career and small kids under his arm. By the way, my uncle studied in Singapore when he was small, staying in there since and even calls Singapore as home until today. See here

Decision was made; sending his small kids under the care of my grandparents would be better idea, at the onus of poor old folks.

There we were, surviving by the day with least allotments to continue living. Somehow we pulled it through despite of the hitch, thanks to the fine nurturing that taught us to be not just tough but also not to be deprived from self-esteem. And it also circumstantially taught us to tell no difference between siblings and cousins.

Now all of us have grown up, became adults, have families and lead quite successful lives on our own standard, but the very lives we had under the care of grandparents is always special to us.

And rice field will always be dearly to me.



It's a classic design of a simple bridge made out of wood that normally would be constructed to connect between the dry land to rice field across the waterway. This sight can be seen everywhere in the area.


This is an essential element to grow rice – a waterway, to irrigate the land. With its presence, not only it is meant for practical reason but it adds serene and beauty to the area too.

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Moronic product of edification

It captures the imaginations of kids with this icon of a Japanese cartoon series. The irony of it all is, many years ago, it became an issue and debated over in the Parliament. I don't know whether the MP was silly or Doraemon was too influencial until it makes a debut in the Parliament.


I was once wondered why kids like to watch cartoons!? It took me long before I got the answer, that not until I stumbled upon an article about it in the local dailies.

As kids do not possess the complexity in thinking, simple by nature; they would prefer to see things in simple form. The outward appearance of cartoon characters made kids easy to be acquainted with, perhaps requires less chemical processing in the brain to finally accept it as something they like.

The cartoon character is only drawn with the basic outline to resemble the look as for the eyes, nose, mouth and ears which finally sheathed in the shape of human face. Likewise the basic outlines are applied to resemble animals and objects too.

For kids, that is enough to incarcerate their thoughts and imaginations as those are life characters, impartial to the level of their brain activity.

But we adults, our minds are corrupted, way too sullied to see those simple characters without harboring thoughts of proper skin tones, precise facial expressions with specific facial muscles at work, a degree of grace in movements and all until it becomes less appealing to enjoy those cartoon characters as much as kids do.

In short, we make things complicated. Throughout the years lived, we keep on adding unnecessary paraphernalia in our standard for taste and liking. All the basic outline and figure of things are no longer enticing as we keep on piling the pre-requisites for our penchants.

Onto that, little wonder the real fight between humans is only demonstrated when they are grown-ups and are smart enough to discern between good and bad. The irony is kids fight more often than adults do even at a snap over a cookie. But, due to their simplicity in way of thinking, the inferno settles down as quickly as the outburst and tantrum built up and oblivious over the earlier affray.

Adults can be at their lowest point, worst than kids. Adults even fail to see flag as a flag when they start seeing what colors and design they made up to be.

Sheesh! Kids are better than you!

I was driving around on that Saturday morning looking for good place for breakfast and it brought me to Kg Baru area, a traditional village in the heart of the city of Kuala Lumpur. I stopped over at Dewan Sultan Sulaiman to find out that an open field next to it was filled with school kids from the elementary school nearby.



Coincidently, a busload of kids stops over in that afternoon when I was there at Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque, KLIA

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The mockery of my guts

It puzzles people when I show this image to them. It is fun to see their foreheads wrinkle, as much fun as I am photographing it. I name it as Pseudo-Galaxy. Can you guess what this is?

I may be writing and replying in a lot of political issues in prominent blogs in the cyberspace under assumed nicknames but I want to keep the record clean in my personal blog from politics. This is mainly due to realizing that I am not the type of person inclined towards partisan politics but more on quests of understanding the nature of the issue is raised; try to rationalize it and for my own consumption, figuring out the best possible answer to it to resolute community unrests – and on top of it to visualize what would benefit the society.

Throughout the pursuit, I found out that more often than not, issues are just mere blusters and innuendos. They’d blow things out of proportions over the course of justifying what they want to have the way the very issue is projected. They’d shout profanity at each other and blasphemous over others’ prudent. It is hardly can be seen one agrees with what opinionated by the counterpart even though when it principally deserves an agreement for it indisputably is meritoriously spot-on. They won’t easily trade-off. It’s a tough thing for a living soul with a heart like me to comprehend, let alone to swallow – and it is saddened.

Anyway, I don’t want to carry those frustrations, disappointments and disenchantments into this “From the Governor’s Desk” blog. Let it remain as the place for me to entertain myself with the heavenly things that I see in my day-to-day life. Let it remain for me to record the growth chart of my kids and it is for me to see what kind of emotions behind what I had to write when I would later recall. Let it be the place for me to rekindle my past to have me reminded from where I come from and what pasts made me today.

And let it be the place of sojourn from my daily tasks.

And….. You know what? The one I wrote above comes from deep within me despite of my digression when I hit the keyboard without knowing what I want to write.

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I want you to enjoy these pictures.

These are taken during our recent trip on Sunday (4th May 2008) to Kalumpang Resort in Kuala Kubu Baru. I had fun playing in cool water of the stream with my boys Sam and Edrin. Fara and her mom were just contented to just watch us from the distance.

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