A Low-Key Celebration

Son No 3 turned 6 yesterday.

In our family, we have traditionally celebrated the 6th birthday in a big way. Turning 6 is somewhat a milestone as it signifies the end of toddlerhood. When my two older boys turned 6, each of them had a birthday party at McDonald's. They invited their friends from their class and had loads of fun - the McDonald's way.

I wanted to keep the tradition and throw a McDonald's party for Son No 3. In fact, we discussed about it way back in February. But Son No 3 was not keen on the idea. I guess he is like me - he does not like to be in the limelight.

Not only that - but initially, Son No 3 did not even want to celebrate his birthday in school. I asked him many times whether he was sure about that because in his class, it is almost a norm for the class students to celebrate their birthdays in school. The birthday child will cut a cake and give a goody bag to each of the friends to bring home.

Who knows, to our surprise, at the very last minute, Son No 3 changed his mind and asked whether he could bring a cake to school. Maybe it's the excitement catching up with him finally.

So the night before his birthday saw me and my hubby scrambling to Mutiara Damansara to get a birthday cake large enough for his class of 18 students. We got the cake at 9 pm and did not have much choice (see above left). Luckily, I already had the goody bags packed earlier on and they were ready to go.

I went to his school for the celebration. Son No 2 also came along. It took place during their snack-time and was over in a jiffy.

Son No 3 was nervous and was not his normal self but I was glad that he at least made the effort to have the simple "do" in school.

That night, we had a simple dinner at our favourite family restaurant, Wok Hei. We bought another cake for our little home celebration and took some shots for the album. Hmm, this time, the birthday boy looked happier in the photos!

Real Living Differences

Based on 2008 estimates, Singapore's per capita income is 3.4X higher than that in Malaysia (2003: 2.7X). This significant difference in per capita income is unlikely to be eroded in a short time, whichever way the current economic storm blows and affects both countries.

Having been back in KL from Singapore for more than 2 years now, I am in a position to translate what that difference in per capita income really means to the general population.

At the macroscopic level, in terms of housing and infrastructure, this is evident even to first-time tourists. Once we cross the Causeway into Johor, it is a different world. The buildings are less gleaming, the roads have more potholes, the surroundings are less spick and span and the cars are no longer all spanking new, shiny and spotless. To a lesser extent, this description of JB also applies to KL.

What would be more interesting is to see at the microscopic level what the lower per capita income really equate to in the daily lives of the ordinary people.

For example, motorcyclists carrying their entire families on the motorcycle is not an uncommon sight - the father in front, holding a toddler in front of him, with his wife behind and perhaps 2 children squashed in between. My first reaction used to be to blame the irresponsible parents and after that, I would lament on the poor enforcement of the law. But now, on further reflection, I guess I can afford to be more sympathetic and recognise that some people may not have a lot of choices.

We see the same motorcyclists sometimes ferrying long poles or heavy equipment - why can't they take a taxi?! - and the answer is probably they cannot afford it. Although motorcyclists are the undisputed menace on the road (together with heavy trucks), I know that for some of them, it is their only form of transportation. It thus adds the pressure on me as a motorist to make sure that they are safe.

At the petrol station, I often see motorcyclists filling their petrol tanks only to as much as their pockets could afford. Thus, (on the right) the display shows a purchase of RM2 worth of petrol. That's less than SGD1! Well, at least, this motorcyclist can travel a little closer to his destination with his 1.11 litre of petrol.

Sometimes, workmen carry mobile phones - but they are still uncontactable. Why? Because they have no money to top up their pre-paid telephone cards. The phone is for showing-off only!

At the kedai runcit (sundry shop), the shopkeepers still sell cigarettes by the stick and colour pencils by the pencil. Apparently, not everyone can afford a box of cigarettes or a box of colour pencils. Note that we are talking about cigarettes here, not cigars, lol!

At the market, we find that the best vegetables and fish have been exported to our southern neighbour for the higher prices that they can fetch - as a result of which we end up buying produce that are not of the best variety. Imported goods are available but by local standards, they are out of reach to many ordinary people.

One phenomenon that we do not see here is declining birth rate. Many of the lower income Malays continue to have large families with an average or 4 or 5 children. When I give away my children's old clothes or toys to the general workers in the condominium, they are truly appreciative - and I can guess why.

Overall, what we have here in KL is really not too bad, considering that Malaysia is ranked 3rd in per capita income in South East Asia, after oil-rich Brunei and Singapore. In the world, Malaysia is ranked 58th while Singapore is at an incredible 7th position.

In fact, there are many students from African nations who come here for their tertiary education and are wowed by what they see. Most of the African nations presently occupy the bottom half of the per capita ranking table.

I do not mean to say that KL is a hardship posting - far from it! There are things that we can afford here that would be quite out of reach in Singapore because of the lower cost of living here. It's just that when comparisons are made, it is inevitable that there will be some areas in which Malaysia falls short.

As for me, having lived in Singapore for a quarter of a century, it did take a while for me to get localised again. The difficulty in adjustment is not due to the less affluent living conditions, but rather, a matter of difference in national culture. But that will be the topic of discussion for another day :)

The Climb

I remember when I was teaching an O level class some years ago, we would choose some motivational songs to sing together, especially when the exams were nearing and the going got tough. Two of those that we liked were Diana Ross's "If We Hold On Together" and Mariah Carey's "Hero" .

Recently, I heard this song, "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus and would deem this song to be the most appropriate yet. The lyrics are really meaningful and encouraging. Check it out - I have supplied the lyrics after the video:



I can almost see it
That dream I am dreaming
But there's a voice inside my head saying
"You'll never reach it"

Every step I'm taking
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking

But I gotta keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking

I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep going

And I, I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on

Piracy Reigns

Over the past 2 weeks, Son No 1 and I have visited several shopping malls, looking for a new Wii game.

Son No 1 was having his Easter break and was looking forward to a new Wii game. We did not have plans to go anywhere for the holidays because the two younger boys were still having school. The 3 boys follow different school calendars and that make it difficult for us to plan vacations. In fact, their holidays do not coincide until December.

Anyway, while traipsing from one shop to another, I was reminded once again how rampant piracy was in this part of the world. Most of the game-shops stock only pirated Wii games. I guess that is where the demand lies. The handful of shops that carry the original games had only token titles.

We do not stand on moral high ground on this issue and frankly, would have bought the pirated games... if only we could play them on our console. But we made the mistake (?) of purchasing a Wii console that was not "cracked". Only the "cracked" type of console could play the pirated versions of the game.

We already knew the difference when we chose to buy the original Wii console. We knew that the original Wii console could play only original Wii games, which cost substantially more, but this factor did not figure prominently in our purchasing decision as it was never our intention to buy a lot of Wii games - it would be too distracting for the children.

Furthermore, we thought we should be assured of a continual stream of games from the original creators while there was no such assurance from the pirates. If the pirates faced a massive crackdown, there would be no more pirated games and the "cracked" console would be rendered useless. As the original and the "cracked" consoles cost about the same, it seemed to make sense at that time to buy the original console.

But we have underestimated the pirates. They truly have cornered the entire market here. So, although we were willing to pay 20 to 30 times more for the original games, we could not lay our hands on the titles that we wanted. The shops were just not selling them. The pirates have won convincingly.

The last few original games that we bought were from Singapore and we were about to send an SOS to our relatives there to courier to us the original games. But in the end, Son No 1 chose a title, that was not his first choice - but was a first-shooter game nevertheless - and settled for that. I guess it was partly due to what is known in the marketing world as buyers' fatigue. He was just too tired to go round shopping any more and just wanted to get over with it.

And so what is the dubious moral of the story? If we can't beat them, join them??? *Sigh*

The Worker Is King

This morning, the check-out cashier at the Carrefour hypermart made a mistake while scanning the very last item in my trolley.

Not unusual. I pointed out the error to her, thinking that all she needed to do was to reverse the item and rectify the error. But nope, she asked me to pay first, and seek the refund of about RM6 from the Return Counter.

Now, why should I do that? It would be a waste of my time. The Return Counter was at the other end of the store, was frequently understaffed and I did not know whether there was a queue there. I insisted that the cashier reversed the item on the spot - it was after all quite a simple task.

And so the cashier reluctantly tried to reverse it. But, alamak, try as she would, she couldn't do it. She just did not know how to undo the error.

Worker incompetence is not uncommon here...so that's not the point of my story.

To continue with the story, the cashier, a young Malay girl, then called her supervisor and explained the situation to him. The supervisor was a little better in customer service - he greeted me with a smile and apologised to me - and then proceeded to show the cashier how to reverse the item.

And then, HE got stuck, lol! He was also unable to reverse the transaction. In fact, the more the both of them tried, the worse the situation became.

Well, that's also not the point of my story. As I said, worker incompetence is something that one got used to after a while.

So, to solve the problem, the supervisor told the cashier to void all the purchases - and re-scan ALL the items in my trolley.

Dismay filled the cashier's face. I can understand why. Since I was doing my weekly grocery shopping for a family of 6, including 3 growing boys, you can imagine what a load of shopping I had and how much unnecessary work that translated to - unloading and reloading.

Nevertheless, instead of being apologetic for taking up MY time, the cashier then showed a BLACK face to both me and the supervisor - although the supervisor did his best to assist her in the re-scanning process. The cashier had neatly forgotten that it was her mistake that led to all this. Well, I couldn't care less about her attitude - I just watched the digital check-out display like a hawk to make sure that she did not make any errors this time.

And THIS is the point of my story - that the Worker Is King here. Not the customer. Not the employer or supervisor. In fact, both the customer and the employer have to live with the worker's atittude.

The lower level workers, especially, often show this couldn't-care-less attitude. It is as if they have nothing to lose for poor performance and nothing to gain for good performance. So why perform? Some of the workers here work in a perpetual slow-motion mode - they talk slowly, walk slowly, react slowly, stare blankly when you talk. My mother, a true Type A personality, is so used to the super-efficiency of Singaporean workers that she never fails to grumble about the workers here each time she comes back for visits. She buay-tahan:)

The government and the law also tend to favour the workers. It is not easy to fire a worker - many employers have been brought to court on the grounds of unfair dismissal and it is the onus of the employer to show negligence or non-performance of the worker. This is not easy to prove in court because workers can do the bare minimum with the poorest of attitudes and still, they would be deemed to have carried out their job functions. The courts tend to favour the workers when in doubt. I can see how frustrating it can be to be an employer here.

As for me, the customer, I have gotten used to all this. Believe me, I was not agitated this morning despite being held up for 20 minutes, which caused me to be late picking Son No 3 from school. We just have to accept this is how things are. *Peace*

My Son, The Blogger

Hey, there's another blogger in the family!

Son No 2 has been asking me to make a blog for him for weeks. He has seen me blogging and he seems fascinated by the process. He has never really read what I have written - which is a bit too long-winded for him - but he has an idea what blogging is about. The idea of writing on his favourite subjects enthuses him.

I did not take him seriously at first and used my normal delaying tactics to avoid creating a blog for him. I did not want him to start something and then abandon it.

But he was persistent, as only 8-year-old little boys can be.

So finally, last weekend, I sat down with him and together, we set up the blogger account. I gave him some ideas how he could name his blog and he chose the name, Jian's Diary. I like the simple title of his blog. He chose the template and soon, he was writing his first post. Hmm... it looks like he's going to take away my blog traffic, since we are likely to have the same target readers, but never mind!

Over the past three days, Son No 2 has written 6 posts. Not bad at all :) The story ideas are all his own. I step in to correct some grammatical and spelling errors - though as far as possible, I try not to change too many things or alter the flavour.

But I do take this as an opportunity to hone Son No 2's writing skills. I would ask him questions like, "So how do you feel?" or "What did you see?" - to help him in the writing process. From my experience with Son No 1, boys tend to be very focused on action when they write ("they did this, they did that") and not enough on the feelings or senses. I would like Son No 2 to be more perceptive in that way.

Well, it is really very easy to set up a blog, but it is the maintenance that is going to be tough - it does require considerable discipline, fortitude and a love for writing. There are millions of blogs in the world of which only a fraction are active. The rest end up as litter in the blogosphere.

Anyway, I am just glad that Son No 2 is enjoying himself now.

If by chance, he discovers that he has a love for writing, that will be a real bonus :)

Learning Mandarin

Son No 3's favourite subject in school is ... *gasp*.... Mandarin!

No kidding.

It's totally unexpected because he is immersed in an English-speaking environment - we speak mainly English at home, his teachers speak mainly English in school, he watches only English TV shows and he plays computer games that are written in English.

At the beginning of last year, Son No 3 told me earnestly that all the boys and girls in his class were English - I was puzzled because I knew that was so-not true. His class has a good mix of Malays, South Asians and Chinese.

Son No 3 also said he was an English boy. An English boy?!!

I then realised what led to his confusion was that in the construct of his world, there was no such concept as race or ethnicity. His classmates speak English, and so they must be English. Similarly, he speaks English and that's why he is an English boy, lol! Children are truly colour-blind.

When I explained to him that he is actually a Chinese boy, he became very motivated to learn Mandarin. He reckons because he is a Chinese boy, he must know Chinese (Mandarin)! He came up with that conclusion all by himself - and that's the truth, I did not say anything to that effect :)

There may be other reasons why Son No 3 likes learning Mandarin. For one, he is well ahead of his classmates in the language and so it makes him feel good. Mandarin is a compulsory subject in his school and many of his classmates are disadvantaged because they are non-Chinese. He has a natural advantage because we do try to speak a smattering of Mandarin at home now, I can coach him a little in the subject and additionally, Son No 3 goes for Chinese enrichment classes.

The other reason why he likes Mandarin could be because the Mandarin teacher is very strict and makes them do a lot of writing - and that is something that he likes! Son No 3 is a pretty serious learner, lol!

There is also a niggling suspicion that he wants to learn Mandarin because he has a strong kiasu streak. He feels left out when his brothers and I talk about or in Mandarin and he desperately wants to participate. He constantly sets his second brother as the benchmark and so, he needs to be good at Mandarin.

All in all, this is a happy situation to be in.

When Son No 3's friend gave him a diary with a lock, he started keeping a "journal" - in Mandarin! (See picture above) Now, he can only write simple sentences, but nevertheless, it is a good start.