“Injin Sigal”

Living in Kampong Aing aka the Water Village in the 1970s, shopping was very different. Instead of you going to the shop, the shop went to your doorstep. Literally! Most people I am sure have heard of the padian, ladies who paddled around Kampong Aing in small boats known as ‘jumpung’, selling foodstuff and groceries. This is a well known, often mentioned history of Kampong Aing.

A lesser known part of this shopping at your doorstep was the few chinese ‘merchants’ in small boats powered by low powered outboard engines peddling all sorts of clothing and shoes. You could here them coming with the loud noise yet you waited for ages for the boat to appear. Grunt like a tiger but slow as a snail. Remember those days the surroundings tend to be quieter.

With inadequate knowledge and almost non-existence of English vocabulary, I got to know the outboard engines were called ‘injin sigal’ and always linked to ‘slow like a tortoise’ engines. This stayed with me until recently. With hindsight, I should have known better. Like some strange sounding Brunei Malay words, it had a British origin. There are plenty examples of this. ‘Gostan’ which came from ‘go stern’, ‘paip jus’ from exhaust pipe, ‘obasir’ from obverseers are amongst these words.

So it is of no surprise ‘injin sigal’ has got British origin. The ‘sigal’ was in fact a low powered (10 horse power?) two stroke outboard engines named ‘British Seagull’. Now it makes sense where the ‘injin sigal’ originated. Surprisingly, this particular brand of engines is still in the market since the first models were rolled out in the 1930s. There are even groups keeping the memories of the British Seagull. More about this can be read here. 

The days of the ‘injin sigal’ in Kampong Aing are long gone. Now we have high powered, petrol guzzling outboard engines powered boats criss crossing the river. May be, as part of the effort in reducing our carbon footprint, we can reintroduce the ‘injin sigal’ to replace these high powered engines. At the very least, we will be transported back to the days when life was slower and more tranquil……

Common sense….

I am on the last lap of my sojourn in this fast paced Red Dot. Time flies. It seemed only yesterday I sat down in the corner clueless, wondering what had I got myself into. Almost 12 months later, after all the up and down of so many challenges, one question keeps popping up in my mind and in my head. Not an easy question to answer. Not because it is a toughie. More because everything went so fast, it all seemed blurred.

What is the most valuable learning from my time here? I can think of a few. One I have written about earlier, the self-deception. Looking back, the most valuable is something we take for granted in our everyday life. We have been doing it since we became responsible adult, ‘akil baligh’. It’s about how we deal with problems. In facing a problem, the first thing we do is find the reasons for the problems. Then we look for ways to solve the problems. In deciding which solution to choose, we consider the available solutions from many angles. We weigh all the possibilities before coming to a conclusion on the best solution. Common sense isn’t it?

Surprise, surprise, policy analysis which the mere description scares many people is similar. Identify and define the problem. Determine the root causes. Design alternatives to mitigate the problem. Select criteria to assess the alternatives. Project the outcomes of each alternative under all the criteria. Then decide. Sounds familiar? Common sense isn’t it?

If it is common sense and we are so used to doing it, how come in many organisations policy analysis is taken lightly? May be its time for us to be our true self in our work.  Do the normal things we do in facing problems. May be, just may be, we can find better solutions in our policies.

All it takes is common sense…..

Self Deception…..

A few years ago I was introduced to a book which I never bothered to read. Once I got the book in the mail, to the book shelves it went. Untouched, unread for years. A few months ago,  in a leadership group, the facilitator introduced the same book. Being a forgetful person, I did not even remember I had the same book lying on the boook shelves back home. I went out to buy the same book albeit it’s the new expanded edition. Guess what happened? This book suffered the same fate as the earlier edition. To the shelves it went. Well, this time it was a bit better. A couple of chapters were read. May be I was being influenced by the title ‘Self Deception – Getting out of the Box’ which I took literally to mean get it out of the box and to the shelves and equates it to act of reading the whole book.

A month or so ago, I was fortunate enough to sit in a talk on the same book. All I can say, it was one of the most rivetting talk I had the fortune to sit through.  If my memory serves me right, the trademark ‘yawn every five minutes’ was absent in the talk.

So what is this book all about? To quote the publisher’s website on this, the book is all about:

You often intuitively know what a right action toward another person is.

It's 4 am, my kid is crying...I'll go care for her.

An act contrary to what you feel you should do for another is called an act of "self-betrayal."

I'm tired - let Jill do it.

When you betray yourself, you begin to see the world in a way that justifies your self-betrayal.

I do everything I should do ... work hard, help in the house ... I'm a good husband.

When you see a self-justifying world, your view of reality becomes distorted - you begin to deceive yourself.

Jill is so lazy... insensitive... slacking off...

We call this "entering the box."

Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of you, and you carry them with you.

I'm fine ... all our problems are Jill's fault because she's lazy, insensitive...

By being in the box, you provoke others to be in the box.

(Jill's thoughts about you): He's so cold and dismissive...always blaming me ... what a jerk...

In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reasons to stay in the box.

It’s all about ‘being in the box’ and the negative impact it brings. How do we get out of the box? Read the book, I guessed, it’s the best way to learn on how to get out of the box. For now, the following steps will be a good start:

1. Don’t try to be perfect.  Do try to be better.
2. Don’t use the vocabulary – “the box” and so on – with people who don’t already know it.  Do use the principles in your own life.
3. Don’t look for others’ boxes.  Do look for your own.
4. Don’t accuse others of being in the box.  Do try to stay out of the box yourself.
5. Don’t give up on yourself when you discover you’ve been in the box.  Do keep trying.
6. Don’t deny you’ve been in the box when you have been.  Do apologize, then just keep marching forward, trying to be more helpful to others in the future.
7. Don’t focus on what others are doing wrong.  Do focus on what you can do right to help.
8. Don’t worry whether others are helping you.  Do worry whether you are helping others.

Good luck and stay out of the box……

P.S.

Nowadays, asking myself the question ‘Am I in the box?’ is a ritual ……..

10,000….

Without realising it, this blog got its 10,000 hits sometime ago. A major milestone considering periods on ‘inactivity’ in the last few months.. It took a long time to reach. Over three years, if my memory serves me right. This blog went from a totally anonymous one to a semi anonymous. May be it will be a ‘not anonymous’ blog sometime in the future. Being anonymous had its advantages. You can say whatever you like. But then again, people can say you are being irresponsible, not transparent and not accountable, the hallmarks of good governance. It can be like what the Malay ‘peribahasa’ says ‘lontar bantu sembunyi tangan’. 

You can only remain anonymous to certain extend. From time to time, someone will figure out that the person  behind this blog is you, especially if the can add two and two together in the various entries.

A lot of things had happened since the beginning of this blog. Ideas came, ideas went and ideas dried up. It is not easy to get ideas what to write. I have full respect to the bloggers who managed to update their blogs everyday consistently.

Coming back to the ‘a lot of things had happened’ part, Brunei now can play football LEGALLY. Thanks to relentless and dedicated effort of those people who loved the sport, we are now back in the football family. We can now occupy and make full use of the ‘Goal Project’ building across the ICC. Looking beyond the surface of all the happenings in getting our beloved country back in the footballing world, Brunei is indeed a truly blessed country. Blessed in the sense we have perfect timing and able to ride the ‘political environment’ of FIFA. FIFA is at an all time low and it needs all the support it can get. One of the best way to get support is to be seen as ‘fair’ and ‘caring’. Giving the nod for Brunei to be back in the football family is such act. Well, this is just my postulation….

Nevertheless, job well done to the Normalisation Committee. Let’s play ball…….

P.S.

Now Brunei can look forward to be co-host of the 2030 world cup if ASEAN wins the bid. Quite how 10 host countries takes 10 slots and participate in the world cup is another matter altogether….

Metaphors....

Recently I was asked, as part of a class exercise, to use metaphor to describe the school in terms animals, type of food, season of the year and place. For each of these choices, I have to give a reason.

Animal? The lion came to mind immediately. Aggressive and daring. Turtle came a close second. Slow, cumbersome yet enduring and lovable.

Food? The spud sprang to mind. Reminded me of those spud eateries sprouting in Manchester. Spud aka potato is bland and tasteless. It needs to be spiced up before it became tasty. If you asked most students, most prefer not to go to school. They need all the push and incentives to make the school attractive.

Season? Winter is my season of choice. It’s dull yet hold the promise of breathtaking things especially when it snows.

Place? Bedroom stood out. Why bedroom? If a student goes to school, he or she can either dozes off bored stiff or be stirred up by the knowledge. Bedrooms have the same effect. A place to sleep as well as its where all the exciting, stimulating, thrilling, rousing stuff you can imagine.

In short, it’s our own choice to make it ‘bland’ or ‘spicy’. With the right ingredients, school can be very spicy indeed!

P.S.

Aji No Moto (not related to Hello Moto of Motorola), aka Monosodium Glutamate can make food very tasty. Its been called the sixth taste. Despite this ability, overall, it had been linked to harmful effect. Keep your food MSG FREE….

Happy New Year….

It’s the time of the year again. The time to look back and the time to look forward. New resolutions, lesson learned, assesment of achievements and plans for the future. All of us know the drill.

It’s also time for SALE and spend spend spend. Floods of money for most people especially the Government Servants who got their bonuses. To those unfortunate ones without bonuses we say hard luck and have a lot of strength. Seeing every other person waving their bonuses and spending it on their dream items is not easy. To those with the bonuses, remember the ‘hutangs’ or the money you may owe others. Pay up first before you spend.

To me, accidentally, two years in a row I ended up with a Mac product on the New Year’s Day. With some luck, it may turn out to be a hattrick next year. May be it will be an annual ritual. I know of some people who have the annual tradition of buying ‘luxury’ items. Definition of luxury items varies form person to person.

Why Mac? Why not other stuff? I was in the hardcore ‘against using Mac’ category only a year or so ago. Especially after the bad experience of owning a Mac Book a few years back. Even having a boss who is a hardcore Mac user did not have any impact.

Then the iPhone came into being. After many months of pondering, decided to jump into it despite clueless on how a Mac product works. To my surprise, it was ‘peanuts’ to use. Easy peasy. Super user friendly after getting through the first hurdle of syncing, apping, ituning etc. Top that with myriads of apps, some very useful, some utterly nonesene. In short, to me, the iPhone is a ‘game changer’; a life changer in fact. From that moment, swiping is part of my life. Everything on the iPhone involves swiping. All part of life is affected. From the mundane calendar and address book to prayer time and calorie counting.

Macbook is the obvious next step. For someone who has been using Windows, there was hesitancy in the migration to the Mac. Again, to my surprise, it was straightforward and uncomplicated. So here I am, a total Mac Convert. In my experience of using windows after converting to Mac, it was easy to convert to Mac but very difficult to revert back. Why? It’s not easy to describe and explain why. To use an analogy, it’s like trying to revert back to mental calculation after experiencing the use of calculators.

Happy New Year everyone… May this New Year bring happiness, good health, success and prosperity.  And off course new Mac products……

P.S.

This posting is not sponsored by Apple or any other Mac related companies.

That's Cricket.....

Cricket is a strange word to many people in the world. Kids may know cricket as  Jimmy the Cricket who accompanies Pinocchio, famously known for his growing nose, in his adventures.  Cricket the game is even stranger to many. Despite being the second most watched sports in the world after football / soccer, a lot of people don’t understand the game. Not many countries play the game at the highest level. The highest level being a Test Playing Nation. South Africa, India, Pakistan, England, New Zealand, Australia and the West Indies. Just in case you are particular with your geography, The West Indies is not one country, but a multinational team representing 15 English speaking Caribbean Countries.

I will not do cricket justice if I try to describe what cricket is. Event though I am a fan, especially when it involves England, I understands less than 50% of it! If you interested to know about cricket apart from most of the time it is being played ‘gentlemanly’ by 22 men or women in all whites with reddish streaks on the front part of their pants at the strategic areas appearing as the day goes by, you can read more about it in the forever reliable (not 100% trusted) Wikipedia. On the team attires, nowadays you get teams in multicoloured ‘pyjamas’ in almost all forms of cricket bar the Test.

Pondering on a recent remarked from  a friend was surprised to know I am a cricket fan, how did I become one? To support England is normal for most Bruneians. That’s not strange. Most of us support England in football. May be its because of our history closely linked to the United Kingdom. Bear in mind the administrative power of the UK is England. Nowadays slowly the powers are being devolved. That’s a story for another day when, if ever, I start writing about politics. Back to cricket. My love for cricket grew from my first summer in England, Ulu England to be precise, years ago. With the smell of fresh summer intertwined with the smell of ‘cow dung’ in the air, there I was watching my first game. Cricket is a game for the summer time. I can’t recall who was playing apart from one of the teams was my school’s team. But the sight of the summer day is still vivid in my mind.

From that day, my ‘love’ or rather fondness for cricket grew. Supporting the England team. Watching the live telecast on TV. Listening to the radio with headphones in the middle of the night when England is playing down under. Bear in mind those days, internet was still at infancy and only used by the military. So TV and radio was the source. Fans of cricket know the biggest rivalry in cricket is between England aka the Poms and Australia aka the Aussies (rather obvious). The rivalry is at the most when they are battling for the Ashes. If you are interested enough, you can read about the Ashes here.

From the time I started watching cricket up to as recent as 4 or 5 years back, the Aussies always thrashed the Poms. Only in the recent years the Poms got the upper hand. Right now, they are in the middle of the battle. Very intense, highly captivating. Glued me to the internet where I got a ‘free’ (illegal?) live streaming of the games. Or to my able phone for regular updates when I am on the move.

What intrigued me is how cricket, the supposedly gentlemanly game has adopted to the use of technology in disputed or bad umpiring calls. Well, the word gentleman conjured up the perception of resistance to change albeit in a polite way. Compared to football or soccer (as known in the USA), cricket has embraced new technology with open arms. Football on the other hand still resisting technology despite some admitting wrong decisions can affect the lives of many people. The famous Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly said football is more important than life and death. So why leave it solely to humans, who are prone to making mistakes? After all, football results had been known to caused deaths to the supporters.

In cricket, new technologies are embraced. Apart from the two umpires, they utiilise a third umpire who has access to myriads of technology. Hot Spot, Hawkeye (similar to the one use in tennis) and snick-o-meter are some of these. Google them up for details. Instead of slowing down the game, it made it more interesting especially for the spectators. Added suspense when a player or a team referred the decision to a the third umpire. Spicing up the excitement for us. May be football can learn from this and we will never again had the ‘did it cross the line or not’ aka the Russian linesman incidents.

Talking about technology, here is a funny yet inspiring story from the Daily Telegraph…

“….Sydneysiders finding it hard to be enthused by the fifth Test should draw inspiration from the great lengths Twitter cult hero @theashes is taking to get to the match. Not even a giant blizzard sweeping along the US east coast can prevent Theashes, a Massachusetts woman unwittingly bombarded by messages from cricket fans tweeting about the Ashes during the first Test, from seeing a match first hand. About 2900 flights have been grounded after snow blanketed cities from Philadelphia to Boston. The freeze saw the cancellation of buses and trains heading to New York, leaving Theashes stranded at home. ''Unless @qantas-airways can get me a flight tmrw, not coming,'' she tweeted in the early hours of yesterday morning. ''I hope I can work something out with @QantasAirways in the morning so I can still go.'' Fortunately for her, Australia's national carrier came to the fore yesterday. ''The trip is on! @QantasAirways got me a flight for tomorrow. I'll be in Sydney to @SeeAustralia on Thursday the 30th - in time for New Years……'

Moral of the story? Technology is a great tool but it is only a tool and not 100% foolproof. It can still deliver the wrong message to the wrong person, fortunately this time with a happy ending….

P.S.

At the time of writing of this entry, England is well on the way of thrashing the Aussies in their own backyard and retaining the Ashes. Wonderful feeling with a tinge of regret. I would have been there, should have been there witnessing and be part of history. If only I had chosen to spent my sabbatical not here…..

Paradox of Savings….

Paradoxes are everywhere in this world. Recently came across this term ‘Paradox of Savings’.  It’s one of the paradox of economics. Popularised by the father of Keynesian Economics, John Maynard Keynes, according to the Wiki, “The paradox states that if everyone tries to save more money during times of recession, then aggregate demand will fall and will in turn lower total savings in the population because of the decrease in consumption and economic growth.”

To explain this, the Wiki says, “If a population saves more money, then total revenues for companies will decline. This decrease in economic growth means fewer salary increases and perhaps downsizing. Eventually the population's total savings will have remained the same or even declined because of lower incomes and a weaker economy.” In short, increase in individual’s saving may be harmful to the economy.

Admittedly in economics there are many ‘factions’ or ‘schools of thought’. This view is from the Keynesian School of Thought. Others may beg to differ.

So what do we do? Encourage savings or discourage it? I am not an economist to answer this. It’s up to individuals which faction they want to believe. But what’s interesting is how we Asians specifically the Chinese think of savings compare to the Americans.

Michael Pettis in his article ‘Chinese Savings and the Wealth Effect’ discussed why the savings rate in China is very high and why savings rises when interest rates decline. By commonsense, when interest rate increases savings will increase. But not in China. The author shared that in China savings are meant for things like education. Parents will have a specific target that will cover their children’s education. This will be calculated taking into account interest rates for a monthly amount to be saved. Hence when interest rates decline, they will have to increase their monthly savings to cover the gap resulting from the decline in rate.

Culture seems to play an important role here. One thing it thought me, you have to wear many ‘glasses’ to see the true picture. The world seems different when seen through an economist’s eyes but not necessarily the complete picture…..

Lesson Snippets….

It’s not easy going back to academic stuff. The hard drive and the RAMs are not what they used to be. The CPU is almost obsolete. Yet in the midst of all the confusion, ‘blurness’, blankness and lost in the street of the academic world, some lessons stuck in this old head. Struck more like it. Using the lecturers’ terminology, there are some ‘take away’ points and I try to share as much as I can here, the important ones at least.

Economics and its world of demand and supply seems to play a very important role in setting public policies all over the world. Despite economics being an inexact science, people argue if it is even a form of science and add to that economists seem to argue among themselves to what is wrong, what is right, it’s prediction is the cornerstone of policy making. Prior to this, my personal perception is economics tend to look at facts, figures and tend to be ‘cold hearted’. More concerned about ‘efficiency’, the so called size of the pie  (share rather then ‘equity’, the distribution of the economic gains. Yet, the perception has slowly changed. More and more it can be seen in the pursuit of ‘efficiency’, distribution takes place. May be I am wrong but that’s how the perception has changed. Coming back to using economic arguments in policy making, hopefully someone can enlightened me to what extent it has been used in the process of policy making in Brunei.

Housing is always an important necessity no matter how we are. Recently, I had to opportunity to listen to how our neighbor approached this challenge. The take away points generated some raw thoughts.

The first one is about the DEMAND. Do we really know the actual demand on housing? Is the queue number the real demand? Is there anywhere we can manage, priorities and streamline the numbers to get the actual demand? Without knowing the real demand, we may end up building more than what is really needed. An aspect of this is the eligibility. Do we consider application from single person? Here, they based it on a family nucleus. A family nucleus is made up of minimum TWO person eg husband and wife, mother and kid etc.

Secondly is how can make use the houses to create assets for the recipients. Here, the ‘houses’ are treated as assets. Their value will grow in tandem with economic progress. The owners can cash in on the appreciation in value. Two important side to this is making ‘home ownership’ as the cornerstone and also allowing ‘right sizing’. Right sizing means upgrading or downgrading to meet the necessity.

The third one is ‘FORCED SAVING’. Everyone is ‘forced’ to save part of their income towards housing right from the beginning of their working life. Here, the figure is about 30% of the take home pay. This saving in most cases pay for most of the cost of buying the home. By the time the individual is allocated a house, he or she will have enough to make significant amount to pay for the house and subsequent payments.

An important aspect to all these is ‘financial savviness’ of the individual. The perception is that the general population is not financial savvy. Is this due to lack of education? May be educating them right from primary school will help. That’s for the future. How about for the current generation? We can’t force them to go back to school. The real question is the access to financial planning specifically in developing their individual ‘housing plan’ to meet their needs and within what they can afford. The individual will be more aware and understand more what they can afford and what needs to be done. Eventually he will have the ‘right’ expectation. The next question is who to provide this? Either we can leave it to the financial institutions or we face this head on. As we are responsible to allocate the houses, collect payments, we should be able to give financial advice. Financial advice given right from the day they submit their application.

The most important of all is we need to be pragmatic. Being pragmatic, able to evolve to meet the challenges and improve is the answer rather then to be tied up by rules and regulations. After all as the saying goes, rules are meant to be broken. Before they are broken, we can adjust to meet the demand of current time.

P.S. Is the academic world slowly infecting me? After re-reading this entry, it doesn’t sound like the usual me. Scary to think what will be the effect after 12 months of academic dose….

Time To Learn….

It’s been a while. Over two months this blog has be left ‘unupdated’, if there is such a word. Time was not kind. Not enough time to do everything. Prioritisation had to be done. Blogging seemed to be not among the top ten of my to do list chart. Talking of to do list chart, there is a lot ‘to do’ apps out there. But nothing beats the simple list. Easy to understand, simple to use and off course free. Unlike some paid apps, not user friendly and time consuming to use.

So, here I am sitting by the window overlooking the green surrounding in a foreign country. Taking a year sabbatical from my work and from life in Brunei. To quote one of the people I met “we are lucky and brave to be able to do this at this stage of our lives.” 

Moving into another country albeit a familiar one is not easy. Looking for accommodation and getting used to the transport system, bear in mind not having the luxury of the car we always took for granted. Walking, hopping onto the bus and up and down the trains. Add to that trying to jump-start this rusty brain to high-speed mode and process the enormous information that had to be consumed, digested and repackage into personal point of view. That’s the whole point of being here. To develop the ability to ‘having an opinion’. Sounds simple. Everyone has an opinion. It is human nature to have an opinion in everything. 

Despite the many challenges, loneliness is up there, it’s been inspirational. Being in a group of over eighty people from over twenty countries is refreshing and an eye opener. I was told these are among the brightest people. Most are future leaders of their respective organisations and countries. One even aspires to be the President. I guess he is at the right place. Developing leaders is one of the primary aim of this School by equipping them with right skills and tools. Eventually, in a year’s time, all of us will not just go through this with flying colours, more importantly be a better leader. On a personal note, a better person.

As the Dean said in welcoming us “make use of everyday, every moment in the year to engage in learning.” That is the reason being here. To learn……

P.S.

One of the things I had to relearn again is cooking. The skills from my student life over 18 years ago are long gone. One mean cook had become a clueless one. Delicious multitasting recipes turned out into carbon even for the simple ‘talor dadar’. Fortunately food, halal food is plentiful. Prices are reasonable especially in the School. The famous Adam Road Nasi Lemak is just a few bus stops away. May be within this year I will go up to ‘reheating stage’ in the cooking skill level.  Thanks to the microwave and those Brahim pastes…….

Seoul to Seoul….

Back in Seoul. Just over a year ago was here for almost a week. The same this time. Last year gripped by the threat of their brothers from the north and the funeral of a well beloved ex President. This year, the threat from the northern brothers are still there but this time more of a fight over the sinking of the southern ship. By all accounts from experts called by the South, the north is guilty as charged. But the north disputed the south’s account as lies and fabrications.

We witnessed very deep and strong national fervor last year albeit a very sad one. This year, the national fervor is still here. But this time it’s on a happier note. It’s the World Cup. Both the north and the south are represented. Even the normally hostile north was over the moon when their southern brothers won their match.

Being in this soccer mad nation, you can see red everywhere. Red, the color of their football team. On a match day, people gathers at open space public areas. The Seoul Square in front of the City Hall packed. Streets apart from the vicinity of the Seoul Square very quiet. Here and there groups of people gathered around TV screens, big and small. Shouts in unison in the event of a goal by their team. Grunts in the event of a goal scored by their opponents. Shops are open but not that many people shopping. It is as if the whole city, the whole country for that matter, is on a standstill for ninety minutes plus the injury time and half time. Tonight was such night. But it ended in a big disappointment. Their team got thrashed 1-4 by the South Americans. Still the atmosphere was electric. I wonder what if their team wins. May be the whole place will be shaking!

P.S.

One of the speakers asked ‘why did we consume food through one hole but dispose it through two holes?’. According to him, that is the clue, the way forward for us to dispose of human waste. Two hole ‘toilet bowls', that's the way of the future, according to him……

Welcome Home World……

‘The waiting is over’… ‘Let the games begin’…. ‘Here we go’ ... are some phrases heard when the World Cup 2010 kicked off. 5 years of waiting, ,months of build up complete with the increase frequency of airtime given to World Cup promos and the catchy songs.

To football mad fans and to a certain extend non-fans it will be a month of change in routines. Need to be home early to catch the early games. Waking up middle of the night to catch the early morning games. To some may be the other  parts of their lives will come to a stand still. Some non-football spouses, majority of the female gender, will have sleepless nights too. TVs too loud and the husbands and kids shouting like crazy in the middle of the night. Add to that sound of popping crackers, kuacihs, cans and all sorts of must have paraphernalia for an armchair spectator.

64 matches in one month. We had 5 down 59 to go. In Brunei, for the ‘live coverage’ we have the choice of watching astro for those with dishes hanging on their walls, astro beyond for those who are into HD technology and last but not least the ever reliable RTB. RTB also offers HD. So far, in terms of quality of the pictures compared to the standard astro (I don’t have astro beyond, tempted to have one but don’t see the use of it), RTB got the thumbs up. For those fussy about details, it seems the pictures are five seconds earlier than those in astro.

Talking about RTB, thumbs up to them for their effort to bring the matches live. After all not everyone has astro. If someone have any grouse about RTB coverage is may be about the ‘experts’. At the interval of the opening match, the experts, to use a local term, ‘mati-mati’ said the referee and his assistant was wrong for flagging the Mexican player for offside. This clearly showed the experts were not aware of the offside rule. Put it simply, the referee was right, the ‘experts’ were wrong! Read the rulebook again please.

Another craze that comes along with every world cup is collecting the ‘Panini’ world cup stickers. Six hundred plus stickers to fill. That’s almost $100 per album, if you are very very lucky and don’t get doubles or even triples. Apparently some stickers were hard to find. A sniff of the precious rare stickers leads to sms exchanged, facebook updates browsed and meetings arranged for exchange of stickers. We are talking about adults here! I suppose this will help the economy a bit. Generate extra sales. On a personal note, I just started to fill up the album. Just for fun and to get into the world cup mood, not that I need much of stirring up. Still 500+ to go ….

One good news that came before the World Cup kicked off, the continued suspension of our national  team from the world of football. I suppose it’s good news but since when a continued suspension is good news. But then again compared to expulsion, in the wilderness of the world football?  All the fans wanted is the BAFA saga sorted out one way or another so we can have our normal football season. Hopefully this will be a kick-start to Brunei returning to fold of world football and we can make full use of the facilities FIFA funded near the Stadium.

Despite not participating in  any international matches, Brunei’s ranking has gone up four places to 189. Joint 189^th with Afghanistan. We are better ranked than other well-known ‘powerhouses’ like Bhutan, Macau, Timor Leste, Andorra, San Marino and Papua New Guinea. That’s without playing. I wonder what will be our ranking if we fully participate.

Still fresh in memory the golden outing our national team at the Qualifiers for the 1980 Moscow Olympic. We were grouped together with the hosts Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. Brunei gave the bigger countries a run for their money. We defeated Philippines 2-0, Indonesia 3-2. Roslan Hj Suhaili scored a hattrick past the Indonesian keeper Taufik Lubis. Indonesia at that time was a powerhouse in this region.  At that time we had Ali Hj Ismail, Zulkifli Anis, Ak Zamani, Pg Tajudin just to name a few. We lost narrowly 1-2 to Japan. 1-3 to both Malaysia and South Korea. Look at what happened to Japan and South Korea now.

If we followed the example of Japan and South Korea, may be we will be in the World Cup Finals sooner than we think. Nothing is impossible……

P.S.

When we won the Cup, the Malaysia Cup not the World Cup, we were ranked 192. The year 1999 will be forever etched in the memories of the local football fans. That was the pinnacle. It felt we were on top of the world. 

A tribute, a celebration ….

Farewells are always sad. With the recent changing of the guards, a few of us decided to have what originally we termed as a personal farewell to our bosses. Gathering of people who worked closely with both of them before.

When the night came, those who were there unconsciously but unanimously made it into a celebration, a tribute and an appreciation. The beginning, not the end of the road.

Each and everyone present were asked to speak. Sharing experiences, conveying tributes, showing appreciation and off course expressing their deep sincere thank yous.

I was among the last one to speak. Being among the last gave the advantage of making notes. The early ones had to make do with impromptu speeches. Mine was a bit scripted. Notes made on the phone. If there is one thing I learned over the years from my boss is having written notes and keypoints helps a lot.

Decision to put the raw notes here as it was ‘scribbled’ was more personal than wanting to share it with the world. These words came from deep down. To put it here is one way to safely keep it, treasure it. The notes were definitely disjointed, may not make sense but these are the words uttered:

“Dear friends, i consider us all friends .. Pehin, Dato, Lets make tonight a not sad one.. I got selesma not crying... Lets make tonight a celebration & appreciation for Pehin's & Dato's achievements & our bonds.....I dont know what else to say.... Everything has been said... & i concur with all ..But i hope the story about names will say it all.... Continuing Theme tonight about names.. I consider myself still young yet i m worse off, very very bad in remembering names ... Until i bought a small book on how to remember names.. Thats how bad I am so very forgetful with names... But the impact of pehin & dato through the many highs and the few lows on me personally i m sure i will never forget pehin's & yb's names...tq pehin tq dato..tq for everything ... Everything realy means everything.. All the best wishes for pehin & dato.. Amin…..”

Throughout the  5 years leading us, both of them had achieved a lot. But to me the greatest testimony of all , the greatest achievement of all is the strong bond between them and the rest of us. That, to me is priceless and lasting. More than anything else……..

The New Guard …..

Today , the announcement a lot of people, if not everyone was waiting for, came.  His Majesty the Sultan dan Yang DiPertuan Negara Brunei Darussalam in his titah this afternoon announced the new Cabinet Ministers line up.  Details of the appointments can be read here.

To the new guard, we say congratulations and welcome and wish them good luck, all the best and all the success. To the old guard we show our appreciation and say thank you very much, we wish them all the best in their future undertakings, good health and happiness.

On a personal note, today’s announcement means some ‘uncertainties’ but exciting time ahead. May be it is the same for others who share the same position. The weeks, in fact months of speculations ended with today’s announcement. Some of the speculations were spot on. Some did not materialise. That’s the nature of speculations. Many uncertified pundits. Everything was analysed. Rumors flying around left, right and centre. Some were outright outrageous. Nevertheless, it added to the ‘suspense’ feeling. In fact we can feel it in the air.

Somehow, it died down a bit when no announcement came last week. Then came lunch time today. SMSes started coming. To quote a friend, it was raining messages (hujan labat!). Everyone searching for radio and TV to confirm what the sms conveyed. The radios and TVs confirmed it but no timing was mentioned. Form then onwards, our ears on high alert glued to the radio.  The old TVs with the ancient antenna, which was seldom switched on, suddenly, became the centre of attention.

Work must go on. Yet the mind and the head were focused on the impending announcement. Two o’clock passes, three o’clock came still no announcement. SMSes and phone calls ‘belatupan’. Even old friends who had not called for a long long time rang up.  Came Asar time, the mind set for the announcement to come around five o’clock just like last time.  Suddenly, at the end of the doa after Asar azan, appeared His Majesty on TV. The rest was history…..

P.S.

To my boss, congratulations and all the best wishes and success in the new portfolio. We had our sad farewell too. Thank you Dato. You have been great to us. We will always treasure your advice, guidance and most of all your kindness and generosity. You can always count on us as your friends.

To whom it may concern .....

P.S. Need I say more? ;)

Rankings....

Brunei came 63^rd in the Network Readiness Index (NRI) 2009-2010. But what does it mean?

NRI measures the propensity for countries to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communications technology. Propensity, to those who does not have access to any dictionary, means simply ‘tendency’ or ‘inclination’. It is part of the Global Information Technology Report published by the World Economic Forum and INSEAD, an internationally renowned graduate business school and research institution. The full report can be read here.

The NRI is a composite of three components: the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community, the readiness of the community’s key stakeholders (individuals, businesses, and governments) to use ICT, and finally the usage of ICT amongst these stakeholders. It covers 133 economies from both the developed and developing world accounting for 98% percent of world’s GDP.

Sweden with a score of 5.65 is the Numero Uno, the most networked economy in the world. Our neighbour, Singapore with a score of 5.64 came a close second. Brunei’s score is 3.77. Among the high-income countries, Brunei is ranked 44^th out of 46 economies. At least we are better than Kuwait and Trinidad and Tobago. Among the notable countries that are above us are Vietnam, Thailand, Tunisia and India. Just below us is Azerbaijan.

Let’s dig deeper into the report. Assuming being ranked in the top 40 as doing well, the report indicates Brunei has a good ICT infrastructure especially with very strong support from the Government. Our education system is ranked highly especially in the quality of maths and science education. We also have an ICT friendly taxation and legal framework.

Surprise, surprise, we are outside the top 100, infact ranked 127 out of 133 on the time required to start business and ranked 128 in the number of procedures to start a business. Sounds familiar! Remember what was reported in the Ease of Doing Business Index? May be there is a miscommunication on this. As I recalled, in the Ease of Doing Business Index published by the World Bank, we got the very low ranked due to the part left unanswered by the survey respondent.

Other areas where Brunei can improve are the need to have more competition and in the creative and technology exports sector. May be somebody has looked into this. I do hope the incubates at the iCentre can rise to this challenge.

One other area we did not score well is ‘buyer sophistication’. Are they serious? I thought we Bruneians are quite up to date with the technology and we are crazy just about everything ‘the latest’. Look at how fast we change our high tech gadgets, our mobile phones, our laptops, our computers, our TVs and many more. Even the products not launched in other parts of the world will reach us in just few days. How can they say we are not sophisticated? May be our inclination to buy ‘grade A’ copies aka pirated / not original alternatives had a say in this. May be….

In another ranking done by Speedtest.net, Brunei is ranked 146 out of 178 countries in terms of download speed. At an average 0.91Mb/s, we are the tortoise compared to the top ranked South Korea at 33.97 Mb/s. In ASEAN, only Cambodia is ranked lower. Singapore is ranked 31^st at 8.47 Mb/s. Even Rwanda at 3.74 MB/s and Mozambique at 1.96 Mb/s have faster download speeds. Hopefully the new Brunei International Gateway project through the Asia-America Gateway due to be completed in 2011 will help us move higher up the speed league. May be we can sit next to the Maldives in the top 50 ……

To summarise, as the familiar phrase written in the school kid report books, 'Well done but there is a lot of room for improvement'.

P.S.

How do you measure success of the awareness campaign on fuel subsidy? It is not easy and results definitely will come overnight. May be the results can be seen in the coming months or years in terms of fuel consumptions. Any significant drop may point towards a more efficient usage of fuel and more people moving towards ‘green’ lifestyle.

But the TV news seemed to think the massive drop in fuel sales, 85% if I heard correctly, meant the campaign was a success. How can that be? Isn’t it obvious people will not buy petrol on that day? Isn’t it obvious people rather wait till the next day to fill up their tanks the day after? It must be obvious that the sales figure would drop massively when price are double or even tripled in the case of diesel. The drop only points to the fact that Brunei population is a ‘savvy’ and knowledgeable group. They are quite aware to the rise and fall of their daily necessities.

Choices…..

 The last week had been eventful. Had some time off. Some interesting items in the news. Some of us were waiting for some big news that never came, for now.

One news that made headline was the so called destruction of the mangrove area, the habitat of the proboscis monkeys aka Bangkatan. One side claiming we are destroying the Bangka tan’s habitat. Another claiming we have done everything we can not to disturb the Bangka tans. Who is right?

My guess is, nobody is 100% right. Both have sound arguments. One looks after forest and its habitat. Bangkatan is an endangered species. Apparently they can only survive in Borneo and not many of them left. Being rare, and their habitat in Brunei is accessible within a short boat ride, it became a tourist attraction. No wonder the tourism people cry foul when they heard of the clearing of the mangrove area.

On another side are the people trying to alleviate flooding. I am not going to bore everyone with the technical details. Suffice to say they need to widen and deepen the existing river. They did their environmental impact studies and proposed mitigation actions that have minimum impact on the mangrove vegetations and the habitat of the Bangkatans. In short, leaving their habitat on Pulau Luba untouched. The few Bangkatans that ‘migrated’ across the river now must move back to the island.

So the choice goes down to either helping thousands of people in the flood prone area or the few Bangkatans? It is not an easy decision but an obvious one. Choices had to be made. That’s a fact of life.

Talking about choices, another recent headline was the introduction of new regulations on the type of number plates for cars. I may have missed it but I did not hear any explanation on the need to change. Please correct me if I am wrong.  Everyone must change before the end of the year.

Apparently, at the moment only two companies are licensed to produce the new number plates. Lucky them. In the next few months it will be a windfall to them. At $38 per car and with around 180,000 active vehicles in the country, that works out to be almost $7million within 7 months. Cool $1million per month. That’s not including the new cars, around 20,000 annually. I wonder how much is the investment to set up  the number plate business.

Today is Energy Day in Brunei. SOS is the mantra. Switch Off unused lights and water heaters. Set the air conditioner to 24C. Hopefully, we do this not just today but everyday. Make it a habit.  We can make the choice and start saving energy and other green initiatives.

We will also be paying the commercial rate for our petrol today. Double the normal rate. Overheard some complaints already. Nobody likes any price increase. It’s human nature to want everything on the cheap or free whenever possible. Long queues seen at some petrol stations yesterday. Imagine if the increase is for a longer period. May be next year we can try this out for a week especially during long weekends.  Wonder if the queues at the border crossings will be as long.

Hopefully, out of this, our people appreciate better our energy and the subsidy we are getting. Around $200 millions of subsidy annually. We are a lucky lot indeed. But the more important thing is for us to start living responsibly. Realising our resources is limited and scarce. By doing this, we may just secure the future of our future generations.

Sadly, subsidy if not appreciated, admittedly, in most cases will make us ‘misbehave’ and ‘irresponsible’.  

We are lucky .....

A few days ago, a big group of us together with the bosses went on a road trip to Ulu Belait and Tutong. Checking progress of a few projects. Kargu, Bang Taong, Buau, Sukang, Biadong and Merangking are among the stops. Longhouses were visited too.

At one of the longhouses, got talking to an old man. About life in the ulu. They seemed to be contented with the life, peaceful life. In the conversation, what struck me most was what the kids went through to get their education. At least two hours walk just to reach the school! The roads were only accessible on a four wheel drive cars. Five in the morning, still in darkness, surrounded by thick greens, they are ready for their two hours daily trek to school. Five in the morning in bandar, most of the kids are still in the dreamland, blanketed, in their air conditioned rooms.

Two hours to school, another two hours heading home. Four hours total. By the time they reached home these kids must be tired yet they endure this daily. That’s the spirit, RASA KAN BELAJAR. For kids in bandar, if can, they want the cars to send them up to the class room doors! Even people live near the school send their kids by car.

May be we need to change this. Need to make the kids feel a bit of hardship. May be the will appreciate how lucky they are. May be they will not take things for granted.


P.S.
On a flight to the Lion City, listening to old songs, feeling melancholic, savouring my rare time off from work. Almost halfway on the flight, with almost empty stomach, saw the stewardess smiling pulling the food cart. In my head, here comes the best part of the flight. Food! I love airline food despite being less tasty lately. As the cart approaches, the heart beats eager to know what’s on the menu. Longing for the days where they gave out the menu at the beginning o the flight. To us who flies on 'kelas kambing' we no longer have the privilege. We can only intu-intu and subok subok to those in the Business Class who knows in advance what they will be having. Back to food cart. It now stood next to my seat. The lady serving the guys in front of me. Then it moved slowly to the back. May be she was going to the back to get some food so I thought. Minutes passed by yet not food in my view except those of the passengers nearby. Finally saw the cart approaching but sadly it passed by me right to the front serving drinks to others. I sense something not right. I felt annoyed a bit. How could they keep me waiting for my food, my highlight of the flight. Losing my patience but still cool, pressed the call assistant button. A guy came politely attending to my call. Food, where was my food, I asked. Surprise surprise, the lady missed me! I must have gotten the invisible effect I read in the Invisible Man story. It is not as if I am off small built. She apologised albeit belatedly. Me more disappointed than angry. Appetite spoiled. Food not even half eaten. A couple of her colleagues apologised for the mistake. Apologies accepted but my highlight was robbed. Contemplated to make an official complaint. On second thought I better not. I may end up labelled a spoiled adult behaving like a kid who lost his sweets. May be I am ...

Balikpapan, Kota BERIMAN ......

Balikpapan, a city famous for many things. Also famous in Brunei for the wrong reasons especially during the time, not so distant ago, where we used to have direct flight from Bandar Seri Begawan to Balikpapan. Even now there is a place in Brunei known among the locals especially the older members of the public as Balikpapan. Don’t ask me why.

Here I am, first time at Balikpapan, not knowing what to expect except the stories of adventure or rather misadventures of some of our countrymen (I stressed men) here. To arrive here, we have to do a round trip via the Lion City and it took us almost 10 hours. No more direct flights. Some alleged the stopping of the direct flight was due to the misadventures of our countrymen. The more plausible reason was may the very low passenger count. I heard the original intention was to use the direct flight as a link to Australia.

After almost a day here, Balikpapan indeed is a delightful city. With the typical colors of the Indonesian cities I had visited but without the traffic jam. Last night, I heard the Governor saying something about Kota Balikpapan known as Kota BERIMAN. Must be a very religious city, I thought. Not surprising as on our walkabout, we heard quite a number of the call to prayers, the azan. More about the BERIMAN part later.

With a large number of Muslim population, I was told at least 70%, this seaport city on the eastern coast of the island of Borneo has a good mixture of people. The population of over 600 thousands is a mixture of origins from Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, Jawa, Sumatera and Kalimantan.

My boss commented last night the name Balikpapan is unique and in some ways romantic. If I heard him correctly that is. I decided to look it up. The official website of Kota Balikpapan had two versions of the origin of the name Balikpapan.

One version is during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Idris in 1739. The sultan ordered the communities around a bay area to contribute building materials for a new palace. The contribution is in the form of 1000 pieces of timber tied together into a raft. Upon arrival at Kutai, 10 pieces were found missing. These missing pieces were thought to have refused to be part of the contribution hence the phrase ‘Baliklah papan itu’.

Another version was from the people of Suku Balik, better known as Suku Pasir Kuleng who migrated to the current location of Balikpapan. This group originated from the family of Kayun Aleng and Papan Ayun and was known as ‘Kuleng-Papan’. Kuleng in Pasir Balik dialect meant ‘balik’ hence the name Balikpapan.

Coming back to the BERIMAN part. I thought it was about religion. Infact it is an acronym and it stood for ‘BERSIH, INDAH & NYAMAN’.

More info on Balikpapan can be found here.

P.S.

While having breakfast, I heard a story about how some Indonesians are ‘crafty’ and how it takes a lot of patience living here. There is a local saying ‘if you can make it difficult, why make it easy’. From experience, it's not an Indonesian phenomenon, it's everywhere......

Rumours & Speculations…

Throughout our live, no matter what we do, where we are, who we are, we can’t run away from hearing rumours and speculations. All aspect of life affected by rumours and speculations. The stock market, price of goods and services and many others. The nature of rumours and speculations no matter how far fetched they are, they will always get attention. One rumour which is not connected to another speculation, will somehow be linked through creative out of the box or shall I say out of this world thinking. A small one sentence rumour can become a full paragraph or even a few pages of text after passed on from one ‘uncertified pundit’ to another. Reminded me of the Mossad’s motto "Tell people big lies often enough and they'll believe it.”

How we deal with rumours and speculations, how we handle them, how we analyse them and the conclusions we draw from them will somehow dictate our success in life. Some people make a living out of analysing rumours and speculations. Bookies, futurist, market analyst. May be even this skill is essential to those aspiring to go through MBA , economics and related courses.

In the old days, we have the newspapers, radio and the dumb box we called TV as our main sources of information. Now, we have the sprawling reaches of the world wide web as the main source. A movement here, a shift there, a shake here, a rattle there, with a click of a button, the whole world knows about it. Be it tweeted, facebooked, four squared, you-tubed and more other internet medium not just the social networking sites. Rumours and speculations are also on the same ride. Spreading faster than wild fire. As fast as the lightning I guess.

Gone are the days of privacy, the cushion of time to tone down an impact of the news be it the truth or a mere rumour or speculation. Harnessed the right way, we can do many good and wonderful things with it. Use it the opposite way, we can do untold damage, intentionally or not.

I am definitely digressing a bit here. What started as a thought about certain rumours and speculations that is snowballing as we approached May 2010, let me to think about how rumours and speculations affected every part of our lives. Ending up with a piece of unscripted, unplanned piece of writing. All that came to my head I typed down. So if this entry looked disjointed, my apologies. Not that I am such a planning sort of person. Not planning is planning to fail, I read somewhere. But some may say, not planning is also planning in some way. Planning not to have any plan.

What are the rumours and speculations I am referring to here? A lot of people realise it is already May 2010. Almost 5 years from the appointment of current line up of Cabinet Ministers. People on facebook (who does not?) got a reminder of this when a well known blogger put up a survey on the performance of the ministries a couple of months back.

Sharing and spreading the rumours and speculations about this story is not what I have in mind. So many of them, we can’t tell which ones are from reliable source or which ones are not. Some are credible some are far fetched. Very interesting to hear if you keep your ears open to these ‘uncertified’ pundits. What is more interesting how people arrived at the speculations. Some even went to the extend, may be jokingly, is to do a survey of the well known tailors in town. Who ordered a more than normal number of suits, are the ones with aspirations or strong belief they will be appointed. Far fetched yet plausible?

Enough of that. … we just wait and see….