The Great Malaysian Brain Drain-Part 2

I've mentioned earlier that I shall dish this out to you in more bite sizes. 6 installments in all.

I've changed my mind and have decided to reduce it to 3. So this is the 2nd episode with 1 more to go.

State Ideology: Be grateful you’re Malaysian

Try putting yourself in the shoes of an 18-year-old. This young Malaysian born in 1991 is told that Umno was very generous in granting citizenship to his non-Malay forefathers in 1957. Thus as a descendant of an immigrant community – one should be forever grateful and respect the “social contract”.

Gratitude is demanded by the state while little is reciprocated. Under the NEP – and some say this policy represents the de facto social contract – every single Vice Chancellor of every single Malaysian public university is Malay.

Promotion prospects for non-Malay lecturers to full professorship or head of department are very dim, hence we have the dichotomy of non-Malays predominant in private colleges while correspondingly, the academic staff of public institutions proliferate with Malays.

The civil service is staffed predominantly by Malays, too, and overwhelmingly in the top echelons. The government-linked corporations have been turned into a single race monopoly.
Hence is it any surprise that almost all the scholarships offered by government and GLCs seem to be reserved for Malays?

Youngsters from the minority communities see that Malays are the chosen ones regardless of their scholastic achievement and financial position. Some are offered to do a Master although they did not even apply (but the quota is there to be filled, so these disinterested Malays are approached).

Our lesson today is ...

How the government apparatus conducts itself and the consequences of its policy implementation will upset an individual’s innate sense of justice.

The government pays about RM1.8 billion in annual salaries to teachers. A child is taught moral studies in class but he learns in life that adults condone and conspire to immorality by perpetuating the unfairness and injustice which impacts on Malaysia’s young.

On the other hand, the favoured group is given more than their just desserts without either merit or need. When one is bred to think that privilege is only his rightful entitlement, we would not expect this young person to pay back to society in return.

Our Malaysian education system has been flip-flopped, pushed and pulled this way and that until standards dropped to alarming levels. The passing mark for subjects in public exams have fallen notoriously low while the increasing number of distinctions have risen fatuously high with

SPM students notching 14As, 17As and 21As.

With top scorers aplenty, there will not be enough scholarships to go around now that the Education Ministry has decided to put a cap on the SPM, limiting takers to 10 subjects.


Once again, if you would like to read the article by Koon Yew Yin at one go, here is the link.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/breaking-views/32000-the-great-malaysian-brain-drain--koon-yew-yin-

The Great Malaysian Brain Drain-Part 1

The following article is by Mr Koon Yew Yin and appeared in The Malaysian Insider July 11, 2009.

Koon Yew Yin is a 76-year-old chartered civil engineer and was one of the founders of IJM Corp Bhd. He was also secretary-general of Master Builders Malaysia for nine years and a member of the Board of Engineers Malaysia and Sirim. Now he is proclaimed to be fully retired. And there is even a scholarship for higher education students setup under his name Koon Yew Yin Scholarship.

It is my opinion that all Malaysians should read what he has to say. And knowing (purportedly) blog readers, long articles turn them off. I am splitting his article into 6 parts and hopefully you can and will take the time to read them all.

JULY 11 – There is a boy I know who scored 10 A1s. His mother is a primary school teacher and Andrew has two younger brothers. His father, a civil servant, had already passed on by the time the son sat SPM in 2006.

Armed with his excellent result, Andrew applied for a scholarship to study mechanical engineering. The government rejected his application. Petronas rejected his application too. Can you imagine how disappointed and frustrated he was?

As soon as I learned of Andrew’s difficulty, I offered him financial assistance to do accountancy in Utar. He has been scoring top marks in every exam to earn a scholarship from the university. Although Andrew is now exempted from paying fees, I still bank him RM400 a month to cover cost of living.

I have given assistance and allowances to more than 40 poor students to study in Utar in Kampar, Perak. Andrew is typical of their calibre; he prefers to get what is his due on merit, and his university has seen fit to waive his fees.

On my part, I expect nothing from those that I’ve supported except for them in future to help young people in similar circumstances, and to hope that they will all stay back in Malaysia so that they can lend their talents to building up our nation.

There are others with deeper pockets who have extended a helping hand to our youngsters. One of them offers the cost of school and exam fees, hostel accommodation, RM5,800 a year for expenses, RM1,200 settling-in allowance, and transport/air ticket. Furthermore, the recipient is not bonded. In other words, the giver asks for nothing back.

I’m talking about the pre-university Asean scholarship extended to Malaysians by ‘the little red dot’ Singapore.

Of course, Singapore is not doing it for purely altruistic reasons. The country is giving these much coveted Asean scholarships to build up her national bank of talent.

Some Malaysians accuse them of ‘poaching’ the creme de la creme of our youngsters. I don’t look at it as poaching. Their far-sighted government is doing it in their national interest.

And why not? Singapore can afford it. It has three times our GDP per capita. On another comparative note, the GDP per capita of Taiwan and South Korea are 2.5 times and double ours respectively. Before the NEP’s introduction in 1970, the four countries were at parity.

The big question is why are we surrendering our assets which Malaysian parents have nurtured but the state neglected?

Tens of thousands of young Malaysians have left our shores on the Asean scholarship. I am not sure if Singapore is willing to give out the figure.

But I am pretty sure the Malaysian authorities do not give two hoots about this, whatever number they may have arrived at. If they do, there seems to be no policy change to stem the outflow.

Malaysia is optimistically indifferent to the continuous brain drain, little caring that it is detrimental to our aspiration of becoming a developed country (I hate to say this) like Singapore.

Should you want to read the whole article at one go, this is the link.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/breaking-views/32000-the-great-malaysian-brain-drain--koon-yew-yin-

Pink Pot Cactus

Somebody has enthusiastically launched this project 3 days ago. See who that was!

I guess finally my retirement plans are on track.

http://www.pinkpotcactus.blogspot.com/

Collide - An Acoustic Cover by Jeradyne

I was rummaging through some older stuff and I came across this clip and I listened to it again.

I could have posted this earlier and completely forgotten about it. If it happens, I may forget and do it again next year.

Jeradyne did this eight months ago.

I think this is a credible effort. It is certainly different from the original one done by Howie Day. The feel is different. Howie's has quite a bit of sadness in its interpretation.

Jeradyne's version is more easy listening, whilst Howie's would be a sound track for an imminent breakup.

Well .... did I get it wrong?

Once again, if you are viewing this on facebook notes, please click on the link for my original blog post to access the video clip on youtube.

http://canonmalaysians.blogspot.com/2009/11/collide-acoustic-cover-by-jeradyne.html

Went to Sek Yuen instead

We had to eat lunch earlier today.

Seeing we have not gone to the Pudu FishHead (Sisters) place for a while, we went.

True enough, it was a bad idea. The police can easily declared the large number of people waiting as an illegal assembly and arrest those hungry people.

A little disappointed, we went to the nearby Sek Yuen restaurant instead. My father in law used to have his birthday dinners in this place. Ya, this is an old restaurant.

So everything is old here. The waiter, peeped in to see the cook, the lady manager, the male cashier and myself, all old. Pictures on the wall. Some old and some new ones taken to purposefully depict old angles in black and white. They have no cabinet like structure for hot water to refill you cha. Instead the hot water is obtained from the kitchen in a large kettle. The old male cashier has this big abacus on his table to ring up your bill.

The men all wore white pagoda thin and smooth collarless T-shirts. Naturally their hair were combed back slickly with hair cream keeping them in place.

There was a music station on, playing only old Shanghai style Cantonese songs. I wonder what station was that.

The food. We ordered the famous pipa duck, stir-toss choy sam and local sauce/oil cold bean curd.

Took this picture after we started eating.














The choy sam was excellent, sweet and juicy, not oily at all. The duck was good. Drier than the Paramount Sunrise version. I understand here, they still use wood to cook the duck. The duck was a bit chewy though.

The bean curd was horrible. I have never tasted coarser bean curd than this. No hint of sourness here though. Not cold at all, the way I like it.

Here is a picture of some of the fellow people who provided the ambiance today.

Najib Speaks with Forked Tongue

Kee Thuan Chye (born May 25, 1954 in Penang, Malaysia) is a noted Malaysian dramatist, poet and journalist.

Kee graduated from Universiti Sains Malaysia in 1976 and received his masters in drama from England’s Essex University in 1988. Kee served as literary editor and occasional film reviewer for the New Straits Times, arts columnist for Business Times, theater columnist for New Sunday Times, and was associate editor in charge of the English column, Mind Our English for The Star from 2001 till 2009. Publications featuring his articles and reviews include Asiaweek, Far Eastern Economic Review, and Asia Magazine.


It is my opinion that what Kee Thuan Chye said in his following article should be said over and over again. It is obviously wrong to be a racist and a racist government need to be brought down.

Please take some time to read the following posted in Ronnie Liu's blog, Colour Blind. Kee Thuan Chye's article was on October 18, 2009.

http://colour-blind.org/wordpress/?p=1231

Have you heard of the song "Suasolito"?

Yes, this is another one of those posts for the older folks. Well, for the younger set, this can be a converstion piece to start bonding with your dad, uncle or auntie.

In the seventies, there were quite a number of bands locally. Some people may remember The Strollers, Grim Preachers, October Cherries, Teenage Hunters, Ash Wednesday etc..

Also there was an awesome band from Singapore then called The Western Union Band. Their biggest hit is this one. Suasolito.

I heard somebody sang this song last evening. It must have been more than 35 years since I've heard this song. It is a good one .. considering ..

If you are viewing this via facebook, please click on the link for my original post as facebook does not support youtube here in Notes.

http://canonmalaysians.blogspot.com/2009/11/have-you-heard-of-song-suasolito.html




It is a pity that the lead singer Chris Vadham has passed away in 2007.

Can't Remember Phil Collin's Farewell Tour

I do not remember Phil Collins did a farewell tour in 2005 culminating in Paris.

I seriously do not think you can picture Phil Collins with hair as in this photograph.

I first heard him when he did the haunting "In the Air Tonight" when I was pretty young of course. I was impressed then naturally. I used to play a bit of drums in a school band then. This guy is just 2 years older than me.



















This is how he looks like now. Still a good looking bloke sans hair.

Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, keyboardist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for English progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist,

He has won seven Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and two Golden Globes for his solo work.

I came upon this farewell tour gig via somebody's introduction.

If you are reading this on facebook notes, please click on the following link as facebook notes do not support Youtube.

http://canonmalaysians.blogspot.com/2009/11/cant-remember-phil-collins-farewell.html

It is very easy to like this performance. It has got slick beats/percussion, a chorus crescendo towards the end, audience participation, a great number of people in the hall and it has Phil Collins on drums and then singing "Take Me Home".

It should make you feel good.