How to "Enhance" Your Marriage With a Special Device

No, it's not that kind of article. Wipe your mind clean with soap, thank you. I'm talking about the savior of many a marital relationship, that bringer of the olive branch and winner of the Nobel (Marital) Peace Prize. I present to you, the GPS Automotive Navigation System, specifically this Navman MY30 that I bought a few months back.

Despite being able to memorise the names of hundreds of bacteria and viruses, I am what is termed a "spatially challenged person" meaning that I frequently lose my way and couldn't find my way out of a wet paper bag. I must have bad short term memory as I am not able to remember the intersection that I have just drove through an hour ago. As God has deigned it, I married my wife who despite taking SPM-level Geography, couldn't read a map. Naturally, as you can imagine, this is a cause of some unhappiness between us. A typical driving trip would involve me sorting through paper maps and Google maps, manually drawing out the route on a piece of paper (to reduce confusion), giving it to my wife to navigate, and more than 50% of the time still getting lost. We will then get into arguments about who to blame and spend the rest of trip in angry silence.

This state of affairs continued until I made an impulse decision to buy a GPS navigation device when renting a van for the trip to Mahia with my parents. Originally, I wanted to rent the device but the rental company ran out. I don't want to end up having arguments with my wife in front of my parents, so a quick run across the road to Dick Smiths and NZD 270.00 later, I was the proud owner of a brand new Navman MY30 GPS device. It was one of the best decisions that I have ever made in my life.

Immediately, my wife and I noticed that we stopped bickering while in the car. This is helped by the Navman having as default, a soothing (though Aussie) female voice that gives out directions. Going to unfamiliar addresses now is a breeze. Just type in the address and away we go. And if we sometimes do still lose our way, then my wife and I could unite in our condemnation of the Navman, instead of blaming each other. While on the Mahia trip, I lost count of the many poorly marked intersections that we could have potentially gotten lost into, had we not have the Navman. Due to poor planning on my part, by the time we reached the mountainous region near the coast, it was already dark and the road ahead was pitch black. The Navman was literally a lifesaver as I could anticipate and slow down before the many hair raising hair-pin bends along the route because they are shown on the LCD display.

So, if you value your relationship with your spouse, take my word for it. Get yourself one of these GPS navigation devices. I haven't tried the other brands, but the Navman MY30 works fine for me. Sure it costs a couple hundred bucks, but in the long run, it will save you in bills for your high blood pressure medication and God forbid, lawyer fees.

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More Things That (Some) Indonesians Should Claim as Theirs

Some deluded Indonesians (not all, Indonesia has 230 million people, and I refuse to believe that all of them are deluded) has laid claim to many of our shared traditions, folk songs, even our Malaysian national anthem. Of course, this makes as much sense as an older brother suing his younger siblings for having the same genes for black hair and brown skin. Never mind that we share the same ancestry, languages and dialects, cultures and history. No, it has to be theirs, and theirs alone. Admittedly, the Bali dance was mistakenly included (not by Malaysians, but by the Discovery Channel), but the Indonesians have been raising stink over stupid things such as the Rasa Sayang and Terang Bulan songs.

If they stopped and thought about it, those Bali dances has Indian and Hindu influences. Should people in India therefore burn Indonesian flags and chant "Ganyang Indonesia!"? What about the many words in Bahasa Indonesia that are borrowed from the Dutch? And what is with the "Ganyang Malaysia" slogan anyway? The last time it was used, the Indonesians got their buttocks handed back to them by Malaysian and Commonwealth forces during the Konfrontasi. You would have thought that they would have come up with a new slogan by now. So, without further ado, I present to you a list of More Things That (Some)  Indonesians Should Claim as Theirs (TM).

1. Eating rice
2. Eating said rice with your right hand
3. Having brown skin, black wavy hair
   
4. Washing with your left hand after going to the toilet
5. Taking your shoes off before going into people's houses
6. Duduk bersila
7. Bersalam
   
8. Any phrases that begins with "selamat...", heck, just claim the whole language
9. Baju batik, kain batik, kain sarong, songkok and anything that any Indonesians happens to wear today
10. Everything else so that they can feel superior to our inferior copycat Malaysians.

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Lost inTranslation

I'm studying in New Zealand at the moment and I have my wife and two young daughters here with me. Both of them are under 5 and are amazingly quick at picking up the English language. My wife and I are always encouraging them to build their language skills and at first, it seems, everything is fine. Then, one day I decided to play a little game with my eldest daughter. I would ask her "what is X in Bahasa Melayu?" where X can be anything. I was surprised to find out that she doesn't know many common Malay words such as gajah for elephant, numbers more than 5, kereta for car etc. Though it is funny when she gives gibberish-sounding answers, this worries me a lot.

When I was doing my bachelor's degree in UPM, I had many Chinese and Indian-Malaysian friends who couldn't read their ethnic script and sometimes not even speak fluently in their mother tounge. I have always told them that this shouldn't be so and that they should not lose their cultural identity. I took some Tamil language classes at UPM and actually can spell and write in Tamil better than many of my Indian friends (though I might not know what the words mean). As a Malay, I can read and write in Bahasa Melayu well, and thanks to my religious school days, I could read Jawi well too (Malay language written in Arabic/Persian script). My point is that I have always taken it for granted that my kids will not have a problem with their own mother tounge.

Apparently, this is not so. Staying in New Zealand, my daughters are in a totally immersive environment where English is spoken everywhere. The only time that they ever hear Malay spoken is at home, and even then, I noticed that they prefer to speak in English when playing together. I am somewhat relieved to know that we will be going back to Malaysia after I have graduated but what of the kids of those who have migrated here permanently? Will they, after several generations lose the ability to read and converse in Bahasa Melayu? Are the parents okay with this development? Or should there be some sort of formal Bahasa Melayu education here in New Zealand? If so, who should do it?    

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Memories of Berpuasa (fasting)

I remember the times when I was just a kid and learning to fast. I started to fast when I was 7 years old. At first it was for only half a day (puasa yang-yok) but gradually I started to fast for the whole day. It took until I was 9  or 10 years old before I genuinely fasted for the whole month of Ramadan. My parents gave me RM 1.00 duit raya for each day that I fasted, so there was some very-unikhlas incentive for my young self to fast.

My deepest and darkest secret is that sometimes I sneak a drink during the fasting when I was young. I used to surreptitiously drink some tap water (we call it Paipsi-Cola) when taking the wudhu, usually for Asar prayers. What's worse, I mostly did that when at religious school! Malaysian tap water is highly chlorinated, so it wasn't particularly tasty. One time, I couldn't bear waiting for buka puasa that I openly ate in front of my parents, just 30 minutes before Maghrib. Needless to say, I got some whipping for that and had to wait for the adults to finish eating before I can have dinner. Another memory is that when I just started to fast, my younger brother and sister were too young to fast, so they can have lunch. My younger brother enjoyed taunting me by tempting me with delicious ayam goreng or cold refreshing ice cream. etc. I then,  haven't yet learnt to control my temper for Ramadan, so we usually get into a fist-fight after that. I also used to miss out on sahur because I was too lazy to wake up. When I was at SMS Muar, the sahur was very unappetizing anyway, so I got even thinner. After getting married, I almost never missed sahur because my wife is a good cook. 

Nowadays, I get tired near buka puasa time but never as desperate and as listless as I was when I was young. Now, fasting has taken more of a spiritual meaning for me and I use each Ramadan to gradually give up some bad habits that I have. I also try not to miss any terawih prayers any more and insyaallah, this year will be the first one where I pray terawih every night. Being so far away from home in New Zealand, also brings another dimension to fasting. There are always curious non-muslim Kiwi friends with a hundred questions about fasting and there are also a thousand and one temptations while living in a non-muslim country. I pray that you and I will see the next Ramadan so that we can gradually become a better person, spiritually and physically.

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On Afghanistan or Why the US Will Fail

Afghanistan. For many reasons, this country has mesmerised kings and empires throughout history. Everyone, from the Persians, Alexander the Great, Seleucids, Turks, Mongols, British, Soviet Russia and now the USA has invaded it. In their blinded rage for the terrorist attacks in September 11, the US unwisely invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in order not to lose face. This is of course exactly what the "al-Qaeda" wanted. A nice war or two to gain more recruits and to provide a training ground. The USA is now paying the price. I have read an interesting article stating that the number of American and allied troops in Afghanistan has exceeded the number of Soviet Red Army soldiers in the 1980s. Of course, this is not reported in the mainstream media. Can't distract people from 9/11 propaganda. Please read the article that I have linked. It contains everything that explains why the USA, like the Soviets and many others before them will eventually fail in Afghanistan.

Coming back to 9/11, notice how the Western media propagandise it for all it's worth. 3000 people died in the attack and I think no one who is sane and have any trace of humanity in their soul, will support the terrorists. Yet, why is there no wall to wall coverage of dead Iraqi and Afghanistan civilians killed by the US troops and bombs, what the Western media euphemistically call "collateral damage"? How is it that state of the art laser guided weapons miss and kill civillians? Or is it that the US military just don't care. The number of people killed as a consequence of the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is now many times the 3000 killed in 9/11. Memorials and shrines are built for the 9/11 victims but in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are just statistics. Are the "brown people" lives worth less than "white people" lives who died in 9/11? What about the people tortured by the CIA? How is it that Khmer Rouge war criminals are put on trial but Bush, Cheney and co. goes scot free? The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan are illegal and against the UN Charter. Why is it then that countries like New Zealand and Germany sends troops there?

I have been told that our kids are being brainwashed in school on 9/11 by their teachers. There is nothing wrong with teaching them to hate terrorism as it is against the teachings of Islam too. But so is killing civilians in war. Yet blaming all Muslims for the 9/11 attack is grossly misleading. Terrorism is a dead end. It does not solve any problems and only creates more. But don't confuse terrorism with genuine resistance movements like in Palestine. In order for the Muslim world to regain its power, we need more brains not brawns. It is the scientists, scholars, engineers, doctors, lawyers, industrialists, bankers, who are the vanguard for our revival.

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You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone

I remember this song called Big Yellow Taxi originally by Joni Mitchell in 1970 but covered by the rock band, Counting Crows in 2002. This particular song has the lyrics "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone", and I think that it is very apt for what I am about to tell you. If you are on the group-calling plan with Phillip, then you probably have received his latest email. Phillip has decided to disband the group-calling plan, effective October 15 because some users have been late with payments or have been making negative comments and he thinks that it is no longer worth his while to maintain the account.

My question is, why would anyone burden Phillip by paying your bills late or even worse bad mouthing him? No one was forced to join up and you could leave any time. The billing was transparent and Phillip has maintained that he did not take any profits (and actually had to use his own money to cover for late-payers), so what is the problem? Did not our religion teach us to repay debts and to not bad mouth each other? Now we have lost an important convenience and I don't blame Phillip for making this decision. For those of you who have caused this conundrum, please repay what ever amount that you owed ASAP. If you have bad mouthed him, then maybe you should seek forgiveness since Raya is only a few days away. I remember what my Ustaz told me when I was at religious school. He said that Allah will forgive all of our sins, even major ones except those that involves us wronging a fellow human being. In the latter case, we must ask the person for forgiveness ourselves.

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Hello World

Salam and hello. I have created this blog to post my personal views. Some of you may know me as the creator of Waikatomalaysians.wordpress.com. I have been maintaining that blog for I think more than 2 years now and it has grown beyond the original personal website that I have started. That blog has taken a life of its own and after some discussion with some of the community members, I feel it is best if I create a new blog where I can freely express my personal views. This is to differentiate my own views than that of the rest of the community. I will start to migrate most of the recent "personal view-articles" from the Waikatomalaysians blog to this blog. I will still maintain the Waikatomalaysians blog until I leave NZ, after which it will be passed on to someone else. This I feel, is the best way forward.

I have chosen the name Roket Botol (bottle rocket) for this blog because of my, uh, "experience" with this type of fireworks, as the scars on my hands prove. I have had great fun with rocket fireworks when I was a kid, though on hind sight, I was lucky to make it alive. This blog will be more of a personal one, with a more casual tone of voice than the Waikatomalaysians blog. It will also occasionally be more controversial. I would like to keep people to still visit the Waikatomalaysians blog and not turn off anyone by my personal views. This blog is currently under construction and I will experiment with the layout for a while. So, thank you for visiting, and you are always welcome to comment.

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