state of flux

Sorry for the really long absence, but my life is currently in a state of flux. I finally bought an SLR some time back and I now have a huge backlog in my photo sorting and cataloguing. I’m also preparing to move soon. My room’s in a HUGE mess, and my schedule’s pretty much so….

another new toy

µ 1030 SW, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

It’s waterproof, freezeproof, dustproof, shockproof, has a wide-angle lens, and it fits in my pocket!

my first online photo contest

over the rainbow, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

I’ve entered this self-portrait for a Lonely Planet photo contest on Flickr. This is the fist time I’ve entered a photo contest online. I’ve entered a photo contest once before this; it was an internal competition for staff. This was the photo I submitted which didn’t win:

ruin somebody's life

perKENAkan orang, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

How apt!

don't you dare fall down

don't fall down (made possible by the pride group), originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

me and golden weeks

IMG_5583a, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

Finally, on my sixth trip to Beijing, I went sightseeing. The first time I was there, I didn’t have enough time to do any sightseeing. The subsequent trips before this were during winter and I didn’t feel like walking around in the bitter cold. This time around, the weather was quite comfortable. Unfortunately it was Labour Day Golden Week (a week-long public holiday), so I had to fight for space with billions of Chinese residents! The last time I went sightseeing in Mainland China was in Shanghai, it was the National Day Golden Week. So both my sightseeing experiences in Mainland China have been characterised by spectacular crowds of millions!

pink dolphins

pink dolphin, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

The pink dolphins in Hong Kong are really pink! Whenever I read about pink dolphins before, I had always imagined them to be rather grey with pinkish undertones. The dolphins I saw were Chinese white dolphins (Sousa chinensis), also known as Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins. They are born dark grey and gradually lose their pigmentation as they mature. It was definitely worth the chionging straight after a fourteen-hour flight without sleep!

lots have changed since

I’m back in Singapore now after a Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco-Hong Kong-Singapore flight and a trip back to KL. Lot’s have changed since I was last in KL during Chinese New Year. New government, new politics, new media, new car, new homelessness, new ancestry!

The new socio-political scene of course I knew about. Who didn’t? What I didn’t know was that my dad bought a new car and sold off the older one. This car is by far the most far-removed from my taste among the many cars we’ve ever had (nauseating purple coat of a previous car aside). My parents have also sold off our house and have nowhere to move into just yet.

The most interesting piece of information I got was that my mum’s birth parents were apparently Hakka. This means that I could very well be of a hundred percent Hakka decent (since my dad’s Hakka too). For some reason, this new knowledge has a rather profound impact on me and what I perceive as my identity. Half of my biological heritage has always been somewhat of a mystery to me but somehow I’ve been quite comfortable with this uncertainty. This revelation has been rather unsettling. I’ve always been quite “connected” and fascinated with my Hakka roots despite not being able to speak it. I’m quite sure that my inability to speak Hakka contributes greatly to this perturbation.

artistic pachyderms?

This is pretty amazing indeed. It’s sad enough that they’re in captivity, I hope no additional torture was involved in training them….

harowa, kl & sjørslev

IMG_4590a, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to visit a friend in Denmark recently. It had been seven years since we last met in KL. She now lives in village called Sjørslev (pronounced something like "shars-lef") with her husband. We only had a few hours together but it was really good catching up with an old friend.

I never thought we would ever meet again after we first parted in Harowa, Bangladesh nine years ago, but she came to visit us in Malaysia and this time I visited her in Denmark. The four of us (me, her and two other Malaysians) spent almost a month together teaching English in Bangladesh and became pretty close friends as a result. It would be nice to have the three Chinese and the Viking at the same place at the same time together again.

go forth and fill every niche

The following sentence is taken from the article “10 Ideas That Are Changing the World: #1. Common Wealth” by Jeffrey D. Sachs which appeared in the 24 March 2008 edition of Time, also found online:

“Human beings fill every ecological niche on the planet, from the icy tundra to the tropical rain forests to the deserts.”

The article is supposedly taken from Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet by the same author to be published by Penguin Press. So it’s part of a book, not just an article in a periodical.

I really hate it when writers use words they don’t understand (or worse still, choose to misuse words) for the purposes of dramatic effect. The offending word here is “niche”. I’m no ecologist but I know well enough that the only way we humans can fill every niche is if we were the only species left on the planet and managed to evolve to the extent that we no longer depended on any other species to survive, being able to produce energy on our own through photosynthesis or some other parallel process and recycle our nutrients without the aid of other organisms. I can’t imagine how this is ever possible.

Perhaps, the word the author was thinking of was “habitat” or “ecosystem” instead of “ecological niche”, but even then, we humans do not fill every habitat or ecosystem. “Human beings inhabit almost every terrestrial ecosystem” is definitely a less exciting clause but….

Exercising artistic liberty is fine but not when it distorts facts in a piece that purports to convey factual information from a policy maker. Science is not art.

holey shit

Whoa, this is some scary shit; the thought that it’s even remotely possible….

family values

When I was in Manchester, I saw an ad for a TV series, DNA Stories. It’s tagline was “You can’t choose your family but you can disown them”!

very effective and greatly respected overseas

I was stunned to see this piece published by The Star. This is definitely a step in the right direction.

blogged for the 1st and nth time

Another photo of mine has been featured in a blog for the first time to my knowledge, and my most popular photo has been featured again in another blog.

breaking wind

Despite being sickened by all the recent multiracist rhetoric, hope still springs (though not eternal) in my breast. I was inspired to bastardise a Scorpions song after reading a Malaysia Today article. Here goes:

I follow the Kelang
Down to the Padang
Listening to the wind of change
This night on March the 8th
The Rakyat eagerly wait
Listening to the wind of change

The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That this would happen in our lifetime
The future’s in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change

Walking down the street
Recent memories
Remind us that the fight’s not over
I follow the Kelang
Down to the Padang
Listening to the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams
With you and me
Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change

The wind of change blows straight
Into the face of time
Like a tsunami that will cleanse
This polluted land of mine
Let the Dewan Rakyat sing
What Malaysians wants to say

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams
With you and me
Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change

for what is a man profited…

“Datuk Zakaria Md Deros died…at his palatial home….”

a new day has come

There is hope….

fisheye

CNV000001, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

I have a new toy!

new slippers

karate sandals, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

I bought a new pair of flip flops to replace my stolen pair. I hope this pair is ugly or at least common enough that no one would want to steal them. Unfortunately, I didn’t try them on before buying them. If I did, I would have bought a pair two sizes larger!

another pair stolen

After my Havaianas were stolen, I bought a ciplak pair of slippers which I leave outside my flat, but even that got stolen. How sad!

best burger in town

After so many months, I finally checked out my friend’s place, the cutely named Palate Palette. I had dinner there last night where I had the best burger in the Klang Valley: the Minimalist Burger, a burger without the frills and fillers, just the patty. It was utterly divine. At RM23, it wasn’t cheap, but it was worth every single sen; we even ordered a second. The Burger Ayam Special from the Ramly Burger stall outside the 7-Eleven at USJ 4 now trails far behind at second place. What is it about Ramly Burger stalls and 7-Eleven stores?

clean and fair elections

From an article in today’s Sunday Star, a newspaper owned by the Malaysian Chinese Association, a component party of the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional: “Contrary to the lingering perception that KL is a pro-opposition city, the Barisan has commanded the lion’s share of seats for several elections as a result of redelineation exercises by the Election Commission.”

wild kl

KL is one wild city. Like many cities around the world, it has its regular share of urban wildlife like birds, bugs, lizards, frogs, toads and small rodents including cat-sized rats, and of course there are lots of stray cats and dogs. But it’s also common to find monkeys, civets, treeshrews, monitors and snakes in your garden in KL. Not too surprising I guess, as these are generally small and generalist animals. What makes KL truly wild is the fact that you get tigers roaming in your neighbourhood, pythons and king cobras slithering in your backyard, tapirs wandering into swimming pools and getting hit by traffic, serows joining the morning traffic, leopards sprinting across race tracks and crocodiles swimming in rivers in the city centre. It’s a modern capital city alright, but it’s a jungle out there! Does anyone know of any other concrete jungle which supports such a gamut of wildlife?

victim of crime in singapore

I’ve fallen victim to crime in Singapore! Someone actually stole my old pair of Havaianas which I bought in Rio the first time I was there.

delhi

IMG_3260a, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

I was in Delhi recently. This time I had the opportunity to visit the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid and to take a lot more photos than before.

11 days off! balik kampung…

Woohoooo! I have 11 days off for Chinese New Year! I’m still unable to make it for Reunion Dinner, but I’m still trying to work something out. As of now, I’m off from the 8th till the 18th of February. It will also be my first balik kampung experience for the festivities, having lived in KL all my life before this.

a380 airborne

I’ve seen the A380 quite a few times, but I saw it airborne for the first time a few days ago from the train when I was going to work as it was about to touch down in Singapore. I'm thinking of photographing it airborne, now that I know of a vantage point to do it….

snail in singapore

I just saw a snail. “So what’s the big deal?” you might ask. The thing is I believe this is the first time I’ve seen a snail in this sterile biodiversity coldspot that Singapore is.

trying to be home for reunion dinner

I’m on standby on the second day of Chinese New Year. If only I could give it away, I can be back in KL in time for Reunion Dinner….

2 days off

Finally, after over a month, I’m getting two days off after my five-day Penang-Christchurch flight. The last time I had two days off was on the 2nd and 3rd of December after Cape Town, but I took the opportunity to go back to KL, so it was very hectic. The last time I had two days in Singapore was the 27th and 28th of October!