Off She Goes To The Executioner's Block

Well, some people never learned after the March 8 thing. And this time, these people are playing the race card again and this time it involves 'brainwashing' the students in primary and secondary schools. From this piece by The Star:

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian group condemned the uniform worn by girls at government schools, saying it encouraged rape and pre-marital sex.

“The white blouse is too transparent for girls and it becomes a source of attraction,” National Islamic Students Association of Malaysia vice-president Munirah Bahari said in a statement.

“It becomes a distraction to men, who are drawn to it, whether or not they like looking at it,” she said, calling for a review of uniform policy so that it did not violate Islamic ideals.

In multicultural Malaysia, home to majority-Muslim Malays as well as ethnic Chinese and Indians, female students at government schools have a choice of wearing a white blouse with a knee-length skirt or pinafore.

They may also wear a “baju kurung” and a headscarf is optional for Malay students.

Munirah said that “covering up” according to Islamic precepts was important to fend off social ills, including “rape, sexual harassment and even premarital sex.”

“This leads to babies born out of wedlock and, to an extent, even prostitution,” she said.

“Decent clothes which are not revealing can prevent and protect women from any untoward situations,” she said, suggesting that girls wear a blouse of a different colour or with an undergarment.

However, the girls themselves also came in for criticism, with the association saying that some used the white blouse to lure men.

“This is the source of the problem, where we can see that schoolgirls themselves are capable of using this to attract men to them,” Munirah said.

“This could see them getting molested, having premarital sex and all sorts of things.” – AFP

The main purpose of school uniforms is to establish the definition that whoever is wearing that is a student of a school or something. Establishing the definition is the secondary reason of having clothes. First reason is to keep you warm and covered. Religion does not take into account or whatsoever in school attire.

My dear Munirah, if your intention is to have every student, Muslim and non-Muslim to wear everything to cover for the sake of religion, you are wrong. This is not a country with four-seasons. Instead it is either a hot or a rainy day, and since every student is given the chance to participate in physical activities, you do need to wear those tight and covering clothes. Have you forgotten about basic health, to keep you body in a consistent temperature. Having that thing just for the sake of religion contributes indirectly to a person's health, that includes blood circulation, body temperature, and well a few things. As long as you are not naked or wearing something that is not supposed in school, then it's okay. Nothing more, and why do you need to make the fuzz.

According to my friend, Edmund from Jeremiah Blues, he told me that some non-Muslim female students in Johor were made by Little Napoleons teachers / HMs / principals to wear baju Melayu and tudung, physically appearing as a Muslim girl against their will. This is not an Islamic country and it never will be. In English schools, standard uniforms that school students wear is enough to establish the physical definition of a student. Sweaters are allowed especially if it's in the winter time, that is an exception. There could be a small number of liberal Malay students, I've seen one before back in school days BTW, that wear school uniforms like non-Muslim female students. What is wrong with that? Liberal minded people would say it is the comfort that is taken into account as well!

For too long, students have been shaped into ideals that are actually wrong against the current tune that the world sings. A perfect example is on language. While it is essential for everyone to have the understanding of the National language, English has taken a step back for that thing, and as a result, many could not speak English well or not as perfect. In multi-national companies or in working environment, English is the foremost language that you must be good in otherwise you can't work in big companies. The education policy is still misguided.

My dear Munirah, whatever you say here warrants the definition of walking one step backwards. In situations where someone is playing by the race card, that person most probably is going to lose in the long run. And if this time is World War II Russia, walking one step backwards means that Munirah has 'signed a death warrant' and has consented a Comimssar to shoot 'a traitor to the Motherland like her' on sight.

Let me remind you that other people and youngsters don't put too much stock into religion nowadays and they are not too straight or too zealous in this. They have been angered by the fact that another group similar to you has protested over the Beyonce concert. She could have performed here, but they believed conservative groups like you have blocked her appearance here. People are more liberal, having a good life with religion as a rough guide is good enough. If you are attempting to force ideals on people, it is another form of communism, just as attempting to force Islamization on everything in Malaysia, that is the new form of communism!

Kerishamuddin Says Sorry For Dagger Antics...So?

From The Malaysian Insider:

KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 — It’s over. The single act which alienated many Malaysians and was responsible for driving many Chinese and Indians into the clutches of the Opposition will not be repeated. Umno Youth chief Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein today cut his losses and apologised for the keris waving act which he introduced as an opening gambit at the Umno assembly three years ago.

His colleagues in the Barisan Nasional Youth were surprised when he broached the subject of the keris during their closed-door meeting. He said that it was time he offered Malaysians an apology over the act which was criticised as a saber-rattling and threatening gesture towards non-Malays.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to move on politically, he said. Officially, he will have to get the support of the Umno Youth exco before canning the keris act but in reality that is just a formality for a politician who commands a strong grip on the wing.

Some of his party men will view his apology as a climb down in the face of external pressure but the majority of them will understand his gesture. They too have been complaining behind his back on the silliness of persisting with an act which has cost them dearly at the polls.

His friends from MCA, MIC, Gerakan and other component parties of the BN were pleased with Hishammuddin’s apology. At a press conference after the meeting, the Education Minister said that he was sorry if his keris waving action had affected non-Malays. For good measure, he also said sorry to the Malays.

"I would also like to apologise to the Malays over my failure to uphold the Malay symbol," he said. He was recently taken to task by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for spooking non-Malays in the country.

His friends say that the results of Election 2008 and the swing of the non-Malay vote to Pakatan Rakyat stunned him. His soul-searching led him to the unmistakable conclusion that his keris waving act had been a major factor in the defeat of many of his friends in BN.

This was especially so in Penang where the DAP effectively caricatured him as a chauvinist and Malay ultra. Posters of him clenching the keris were placed in strategic places around the island.

For Hishammuddin, the apology is a must if he harbours any hope of rising to the top of the political ladder. Several years ago, he was seen widely as the man who would one day become the prime minister of Malaysia. The man who would carry on the legacy of his grandfather and father – Onn Jaafar and Tun Hussein Onn, both men who were revered for their sense of fairness and belief that Malaysia belonged to all races.

In the last two years, even his Chinese businessmen friends have been wondering whether he had crossed over to the dark side and become a Malay nationalist. Today’s apology is the first step by him to try and rehabilitate his image and re-launch his political career.

***

About time for him to admit that he's antics had driven many minorities into anger and that is one of the factors of why Barisan Nasional was punished on March 8.

So far, it's good but there is one more thing for him to do if he wishes to say geniunely that he's sorry for it: Since he's the education minister, he has to do some serious revamping over the education policies in Malaysia. Still the results are not good: STPM is not accepted worldwide, people waste another year for A-levels, the education quota in local universities remains unacceptable to the minorities and etc. Only if he fixes that, then it completes the path of 'atonement'

Visiting St. Michael's

Last Friday I went back to St. Michael's on the pretext of enquiring about my brother's leave certificate. I was told that it was only to be issued when the SPM results are out in February.

Someone next door there saw me and asked me whether if I am Melvin Mah or not. Then I realized that the man I was talking to was Peter Khiew, an afternoon session teacher who is in charge of the school blog here. Couldn't remember the face, but somehow the name was familiar. He started teaching here since 1999, but never in class.


So that started a long chat and he showed me around for a few changes in school. As you can see, there has been a staircase added that allows faster access to the office. The old 4 Science 3 classroom has been replaced with a brand new meeting room. I also managed to get an explanation of him over why the new bathroom was never used at all despite having the thing built. Told me about the water piping that was inadequate and not ready for the thing. They could have done it faster by having everyone told as soon as possible.

The primary school block has been completely demolished and something is up on the way.

We managed to get on friendly terms and I didn't know that Peter started to say that I was there and some other die-hard younger Michaelians making comments on his blog. I wasn't interested in their remarks. Told my piece about some teachers here and asking them to handle that thing.

A lot of top figures come from missionary schools and I felt that the two MPs making remarks over removal of religious imagery shows the lack of respect for other races. Sack'em!

Witchhounds in Campus

I remembered one my schoolmates in secondary school and my aunt studying at UPM for their degree courses respectively. I am aware that in universities there is such a thing as university politics.

Of course, student leaders are free to do so as long as it doesn't go above the ethics in the university.

But I feel that the case at UPM is quite outrageous.

That student is trying to make his time at UPM memorable and being active in various activities besides studying. Instead, he finds that his things are confiscated by security personnel who don't even understand the word of privacy.

From Malaysiakini, briefly:

First-year Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) student Yee Yang Yang is considering legal action to get back his laptop which was seized by the campus security on Friday night.

In addition to his laptop, the security officers also carted away Yee’s mobile phone, MP3 player and 10 other items valued at RM6,000 during a spot check of his hostel room. Documents were also confiscated.

Yee (right), who is studying timber technology, was also interrogated about his involvement in student politics.

Although he was told that the items would be returned last Saturday, this did not happen - and a 75-minute meeting with unit director Mej Othman Jailani today did not produce results either.

"They (security officials) wanted me to give them the password for my phone and laptop so that they could check the contents," he told reporters outside the campus security's office this afternoon.

"I refused. I want them to return my things and to apologise to me publicly because they did not follow proper procedures when they took away my belongings.

"Not only were they not in uniform, but they were also rude when I asked questions."

The attitudes of these authorities shows that they are arrogant, thinking that they are high and mighty. In addition, these "pigs" absolutely have no respect on one matter: privacy. Which is indeed against the rights of every human being that is entitled to.

I often think that to have that thing impede your way to make your life meaningful in campus means is to make a ruckus out of your for nothing.

If it is clearly because of the survey form in which you hardly like the current ministers of Bolehland, this means that you are trying to force everyone to accept the statement as the Nazi man Nazri would do before. It is still the shut up and listen mentality that these people are trying to impose. I recalled the statement that Machai made sometime ago that they still need to listen to the UMNO because of the superiority...why keep doing that when you know that you don't really agree to their ideas? Public backlash? That's because despite having the kind of stature and reputation, some of the cronies have a shallow level of understanding!

You don't have to stick to a group if you don't really agree on. You can just ignore the call to be called a black sheep. Stand up for what you are, people!

If I had the chance, I would definitely carry a gun and shoot the idiots point blank in the face. What a kind of disrespect you show to a student that poses no physical harm to others. Yee Yang Yang deserves the right to voice his on comment, not to be shoved of stupid men ideas!

The real truth is indeed hurting the guys at UPM. It's just another parallel case of the lawsuit against Rocky and Jeff. Kalimullah Hassan is trying to shut things up the same thing he gags Matthias Chang - a fellow man from the same school of mine - and Husam Musa. It's going to be another embarrassment for the idiots of the Bolehland.

I often dreamed of Bolehland guys running the nation well when I was a kid. But after Mahathir era, it is going the other way round. I just simply don't have much words to continue about that.

Teachers Day Retrospective

The following text is a posting to commemorate the Teacher's Day celebration at St. Michael's this Friday morning. I came to understand that this retrospective might be added to this year's school magazine which I am not sure whether it will be featured or not.

Let's assume that the content will be edited for the purpose of length constraints. Here is the completed text which I just finished just now.

For every student at the age of 12 - the younger the better - living in Ipoh, going to St. Michael's Institution is a dream that they would definitely want to achieve and a privilege. Through positive word of mouth that covers achievements in various fields, you name it academics, sports and so on - that's how St. Michael reaches its reputation as one of the best schools in Malaysia.

Starting day one in St. Michael's is like walking into an unchartered territory with you being on your own. From then on, you start to make friends, acquaintances. You start to know more about the school, who are the teachers that are in the morning / afternoon, the teachers that teach the class that you belong. With that, you get to be familiar with the school environment, the school's culture. You get to say that I am happy to be in such school as St. Michael's. But the biggest effect that a student will feel would be, that he will have some sort of emotional attachment with the teachers that might be teaching them until they finish school.

The truth is that when you step into St. Michael's you will never walk alone. The very first person that will help you to get use to the environment is always your class teacher.

Looking back after finishing school 5 years ago prompted me to recollect my years in the school. Of course life in school is like a daily family drama. There are moments of happiness, sadness and anger that no student can escape from it. You may not learn to appreciate the efforts of some teachers whose personality you hate most but when you move into the working world as I do, you will have a change of perception of your former teachers. It is through them that I learned things such as we go on, we cannot always depend on others to hold hands with you all the time. It is through them that I learned that you either take their word or you don't hear them. It is through them that you learn to be treated as an adult. As nature's law, a man tends to go wiser as he grows older. I could see from the other perspective that teachers had more things to do than a student would do. He / she has to prepare lessons, mark your homework, has to tend to their family and more misc. jobs. Imagine the amount of work your are given...it' just a portion of what they have now!

See how fortunate you students are? Shouldn't we say thank you to them once for a while?

Like I've said just now, St. Michael's is more than a school. It is a place where there are annual moments in school that will inspire you to reach your potential. Everyday when I went for the morning assembly, the teachers and the principal would be talking about things that will try to inspire you and perhaps motivate you to do something that will benefit and give a boost of reputation to the school.

I was inspired by their words. I was also inspired by my seniors. That's why I set out to achieve things personally and for the school before I finished my time here. I won some sports awards (Special Achievements), I led a team of members performing stage crew work for 'Desert Song', I appeared in the newspaper twice - recalling that, now I realized that it was the teachers that inspired me to do so. At that time, I could feel that my time in there would be running out.

I came to understand that to this day some teachers still cannot understand the rebellious behavior of some students. The reasons are: students now have the kind of maturity that is not seen compared to the students 20 years ago. There are teachers that still go by the book - the book of the 1980s or even to exert their 'shut up and listen' influence. If they are to stick to those, you can never win the respect and appreciation of students. We are now in the new millennium, not in the 1980's. Thus teachers will have come out with something innovative to attract their interest. I watched the movie "I Am Not Stupid Too" and I came to realize that teachers will have embrace new approaches prove their ability to inspire students.

Secondly, the school will need to learn a new principle: flexibility. We cannot always depend on precision. Sometimes there are things unavoidable where we may end up a little late or early like recess, lessons. I am still surprised to see that this was hardly practiced in school. We are not robots that must be precise in everything!. We are humans that make mistakes in our lives. It is part of the life's parcel. Why aren't we doing this?

Recalling my times sitting in classroom during lessons, I believed through observation and psychology analysis that the enjoyment of learning actually comes from a teacher's magnetic personality. If he / she has the charisma that draws the attention of students, maybe a good sense of humor and the most important of all, creates the proper atmosphere / motivation, then the teacher has already won the respect of students. Sadly the number of those teachers - those ICON teachers - that has that kind of personality - dwindle as every year passes by. Were it not for them, I would not be writing this mail.

There are ICONIC teachers who inspired me - who eventually made me aware and understand life better as I move on. Who are they? They are:

1. Mr. S. Saminathan - my Form 2 class teacher - has the wonderful sense of humor that I enjoyed it a lot.
2. Mr. Louis Rozario - the principal - were it not for his true Michaelian style of leadership and motivation, I would have a different understanding and appreciation of life.
3. Mr. Zahari Badri - my Form 3 Living Skills teacher - he has that kind of curiosity that and things that inspired me to do better - I remembered he asked me other things about my electric project and even things like my life that I never asked.
4. Mr. Mohd Darus Daud - my Form 4 and 5 teacher - I really loved his personality and style.
5. Mr. V. Paltoray - At first he was strict, but I started to appreciate him and enjoyed his lessons very much
6. Mrs. Adeline Tan - My friend's mother and teacher. Lovely, but when she retired, I admit that the quality of school plays are degrading.
7. Ms. Tan Mee Hoong - taught me a few things in life that I have to tolerate and understand about
8. Mr. Lee Kem Siang - One of the ICON teachers that has that caring personality and wonderful character that I would appreciate eventually.
9. Mr. Koi Siew Chay - A larger than life figure which I respected him and we would have a good talk in years after I left school.
10. Mrs. Oo Phaik Tin - my Living Skills teacher, the best of all the three years I learnt L.S
11. Mr. See Thian Seng - used to help me through some things. Wonderful man, before he came the state assemblyman for Port Weld.

I am delighted to be given the chance to offer my retrospective of my school times and at the same time wishing my teachers a Happy Teachers day.

Melvin Mah
(1997-2002)

Revisiting A Past

On Monday, I sent the car to the workshop for a oil-filter replacement service which is done on a quarterly basis. However, because this time, the service involves replacing the car's timing belt, it took a little longer than expected, roughly four hours. The car will not be done until before 3 p.m. and as to kill time, I decided to visit my school, St. Michael's while at the same time I could pick my brother up from school earlier since this two weeks is actually the school's mid-term examinations.

School has changed a lot in the last five years. What I am talking about is that there is plenty of interior changes into it. Every year, the school's musical production earnings were used to facilitate renovations and repairs to the building. The most critical of all would be the replacement of the roof since it was in a bad condition and repairs can no longer be delayed. The number of new faces of teachers in the school are pretty much more compared during my time in school. Some came after my time and the number of teachers that I see during my time began to dwindle as time goes on.


The biggest change of all is that the primary school students get to study at their own new school block next to the workshop block and the canteen has been fully renovated. It was no longer the style of the 1990s and instead it is much more pleasing looking than before. So with that building constructed since 05, the primary school block is more pleasing looking than it was as in the old primary school block, which shows its age and it's scheduled to be demolished by end of this year.

Update: Continuation of the post.


The school is currently undergoing the replacement of the roof. So far only half of the main wing has been completed with the other one in progress. It was said that the completed period would be somewhere within next month. The final price tag was estimated to be around at $600K. It was the only way to beat the mites infecting the roof and prevent a possible ceiling collapse.



The cafeteria was first renovated back in 2000 but more changes were added into this sometime after I left school. Among them, you can see there are permanent chair fixtures, new tenants replacing those who left after my time, railings, and proper back doors for tenants only. The doors were painted in blue. Back in the 90s, you would not see that. The number of stalls are doubled compared five years ago. Hence, there were about 16 stalls compared to 8-10 before.

This was the first change to the school's interior right after I left school. This would be the lecture hall, the major changes would be the tiling and repainting. Also, the hall was also renovated to accommodate new benches, a television and a projector as well as air-conditioners.