SOUL SCRIBBLES

I have a confession to make.  Some years ago, I brought home RM600 worth of sparklers and fireworks. My mother didn’t ask me where I got them from and I didn’t tell her. She repeatedly said I was “burning money” for buying and lighting up the fireworks. That money could have put to good use elsewhere.  That was the year we beat the other houses in the area in an unofficial fireworks competition. It started close to midnight on the eve of Syawal and was based on who could shoot the highest or the loudest. We kept our “secret weapon” for last. We let our neighbours have all the fun — they had teased and taunted us with their fireworks.  At the stroke of midnight, our fireworks lit the skies. We gave our neighbours, and a passing patrol car, some two minutes of spectacular fireworks display. No, we didn’t get into trouble with the authorities. They didn’t even alight from their car. They probably saw that the fireworks were lit under adult supervision. We didn’t think the...

It is already the 11th day of Ramadan. Soon, we will see people rushing to do their Raya shopping although shopping complexes have been putting shoppers in a festive mood since the start of the fasting month. Huge (and to a certain extent, ugly) decorations are hung from the high ceilings; the banners and bunting are on the walls and Raya songs are aired.  Yes, there are still many things to be done before Syawal arrives. The Hari Raya cards need to be mailed; hopefully, it will reach the recipients on time. Despite the advent of technology, there are still people who mail greeting cards to friends and family members. Those with email addresses will be sent e-Hari Raya cards, of course.  On top of that, text messages will be sent on the eve of Syawal, which will see the telecommunication companies earning millions of ringgit. Have we ever gotten a text message greeting from the companies? What we do get is a reminder to spend more through their special Syawal promotions....

I went to a gathering of blogging and Facebook friends in Bukit Jelutong last week. I was invited to the gathering, hosted by a well-known ceramics designer, by a friend who is back from London for some work and some down time in Malaysia.  The London friend was in fact the guest of honour at the gathering. I’ve met one or two of the bloggers invited to the gathering while the others were relatively new to me; I know them by name, having read their blogs and also their comments on the London friend’s FB page.  The gathering was held at the ceramics designer’s showroom. The driver dropped us (the London friend and I) at the wrong showroom. “Why don’t you give her (the ceramic designer) a call and ask her for directions to the store?” I asked the London friend. “I don’t have her number,” she said. “Then how do you communicate?” I asked. “Through Facebook,” she said.  In fact, she told me she had never met the ceramic designer before this.  Yes, I believe we all sta...

I went fishing in Norway last week; at a fjord near Bergen, a city on the west coast of the country, to be exact. The weather was fine; a little chilly despite the temperature recorded at 20°C.  Between the 13 of us, including the captain of the boat, we not only caught five fishes, but also got ourselves a little bit of a tan being in the sun. Jon Erik Steenslid, the Norwegian Seafood Council regional director for South-east Asia, identified the fishes we caught, which were then released into the water after a brief photo taking for keepsake.  The Norwegian Seafood Council arranged for the media trip to enable us to learn more about the Norwegian fisheries industry, especially on two of their biggest exports, namely salmon and trout.  Contrary to popular belief, the salmon we eat at most Japanese restaurants here do not come from Japan but from Norway. In fact, salmon was never part of the Japanese sushi and sashimi menu until the 1980s after a Norwegian seafood deleg...

In kindergarten, I remember singing this English nursery rhyme asking for the rain to “go away, come again another day, little Johnny wants to play”. In the Malay nursery rhyme Bangau oh bangau, however, the frog calls for rain as a snake wants to eat it. With the heatwave that we are currently facing, we would be more likely to sing (or in this case, pray) for the rain to come.  The average temperature here is 27°C, but, in the past month or so, temperatures have soared into the upper 30s. One can check the Meteorological Department’s website, where there is a banner with information on temperatures in 15 or so locations. On Workers Day, for example, the highest temperature recorded was 37.9°C in Kuala Krai, Kelantan. The highest temperature ever recorded in Malaysia was 40.1°C in Perlis in 1998.  The Instaweather application on my iPhone tells me that the temperature may be, say, 33°C but it “feels like 42°C with 9kph winds and humidity of 66 per cent”. I daresay that the ...

My friend and I will be in Bali next week. This will be our first trip to the Indonesian island this year but the seventh in the span of three years. When we told friends that we are heading out to the island yet again, they were surprised. What else is there in Bali that we have not seen? We have visited almost all the tourist attractions on the island, but this has not stopped us from making more trips there.  Our decision to go again is not influenced by the republic’s “Wonderful Indonesia” tourism campaign. I must say that the Indonesian tourism authorities have been aggressive here. I have seen their huge booth at the Food Truck Festival in Putrajaya last February and have also watched and listened to their commercials on the Express Rail Link (ERL) whenever I go to the administrative capital.  And, I believe their investment is paying off. In the first two months of the year alone, 726,625 tourists were in Bali, with Malaysians being the seventh largest group after tou...

Ridesharing services are not new in Malaysia.  I remember way back in 1970s when I was growing up in Johor Baru, they were called kereta sapu or prebet sapu. You share rides with passengers into town in private vehicles. You hail these cars at bus stops (somehow you know how to identify these cars). It will also drop you at the nearest bus stop to your house, not to your doorstep. It did not replace the public transportation services back then. Rather, it complemented them as buses were too few and too far in between. Taxis, too, were scarce.  The services died a natural death when the public transportation sector improved. Some people still used the services to send their children to schools when school bus services were unavailable in their housing areas.  These days, the ridesharing services have taken glamorous names like Uber and GrabCar. You can book these door-to-door services via an application on your mobile phone. Rates are a little bit lower than a metered b...