Sorry for not updating the blog. After hearing the news about Siti Nurhaliza, I was quite down. She broke the heart of all the guys in Malaysia. Last week I went to Papar and saw this girl. Like Siti, she really can sing man.
Not only that, she is the champion of the Gambus (a traditional musical instrument) competition.
Happily I thought I had found a “replacement” to heal my wound. Then the second heart broken moment came:
Just kidding lah. I don’t think she has married. The kid is not hers. She may like an old man like me (and Datuk K). No offense ok.
As you know, I like to take pictures of traditional costumes. But very often I was in a hurry and forgot to ask about their costumes (or they got a name that was very hard to memorise). If anyone of you can identify their ethnic group, please post the info here. Thank you in advance…
Finally it is over. Because of the Kaamatan month, I had been travelling here and there like a wild cat without a home. So many events that I could not blog them fast enough, end up you all reading the old news. Nevermind lah ok, after all, you read this for FREE, kan?
Many were asking me the hit statistics of MySabah.com. In case you are curious, here you go, below is the hit report for past 1 year. Ya, I know many blog do far more better job than me. Still happy though, coz I prove that 1 person also can do no less than the BIG web sites out there. I believe the photos of Unduk Ngadau Beauty Pageant brought a lot of traffic to my site. As you can see, almost 1 million hit in May!
MySabah.com has been running for a year (since June 2005). At first I just published a few photo galleries and invited my friends to see. Later I found that NOBODY really bothered to look at my photos. So I started my first blog in August 2005. Adding some comments about my trip, make it sound interesting, to attract the visitors to look at the photos. The traffic doubled after I started the blog, and it is still growing every month. Thank you for your support.
If this can bring me income, it will be a dream job… There are many web sites talk about Sabah tourism and most of them are more like a formal documentary or a bit too wordy (less pictures). Somehow I think my blog fills in what is missing, I mean something more on experience sharing and personal. I also feel great doing something that no others did before, so the world can see the beauty of Sabah in different faces and angle.
“Aunty, why do you keep tiger as a pet?” It was quite a shock to see this 10 KG super fat cat, La Kiah (means “Spider” in Hakka). He is 9 years old and lives in the house of my Tawau aunty.
Don’t be fooled by his look. He eats very little. He is also very active and still able to climb to the roof. He is so cute and adorable, but heavy. Hugging him is like carrying a sack full of rice.
I tried to shoot his picture from different angles, so you can see clearly how huge it is. For the first picture, I even put a 1-foot ruler next to him. Do you notice that the rice cooker looks so small next to him?
My story and photos about Tenom’s Pesta Kalimaran was out in the newspaper last Sunday (30/4/2006). Quite happy coz my article made it to the FIRST page this time. You can click the picture below to read the article. Sorry lah, it is in Chinese language. Why not in English? If you have been reading my blog, you all know my English standard lah hor. Actually I had submitted this article last month. From my past experience, it took about 3 weeks for them to appear on the newspaper. There are still two more articles pending, they may or may not print it. This week I will write another one if got free time.
It has been a long time I didn’t write for the newspaper. One of the main reasons is that it is time-consuming and I am not paid much. If I count my income on writing, you will see me chewing tree root and grass to feed my stomach. I just wrote for my interest. It feels good to got your article posted on the newspaper and read by thousands, isn’t it (next time should get my face inside the photo)? I just treat it as an “extension” of my blog. Well, just try to enjoy what I am doing.
Last year, I met a guy from Sandakan in a function. Once he heard my name, he instantly recognised me, and said, “Oh… I know you. You were the xxx who wrote this and that story for the newspaper. Well done man.” Wah, I got a fan, I got a fan! Haha, not a big deal, but feel great anyway, consider I didn’t write a lot.
I got so many dogs, now and before. The dogs that I love and miss the most are Lady and Macky. Even after so many many years, I still think about them occasionally. Both of them died in March, 3 months after they born.
Their father, Snowky, was my loyal childhood partner. We liked to call him “Soky” coz he was a bit “soh soh” (nut). He was quite bad temper but nobody really knew what he mad at. Soky also had a very bad habit. He liked to bury food. Whenever we gave him some food, he would go and buried them, and came back for more. When we saw the soil on his nose, we would know what happened to the food. He did a very lousy job on hiding food coz he used only a bit of soil and leaves to cover the food, so it was very easy to find it. We purposely dig out the food and placed at somewhere near him, then we hide at a corner watching him. When he saw the food, he would go and bury it again, in the same spot. When he walked away, we would dig out the food again. He would bury the food again. So this went on and on. At the end, we could see his eyes turned red and got really pissed off (and confused). So funny. Soky’s first wife, Dolly, was killed in an accident. Later Soky became really old and didn’t have any offspring, so we got him another wife, also named as Dolly.
Finally, Dolly delivered two puppies. We were so happy for Soky. We called them Lady and Macky. They were so adorable. I fed them and played with them every day. They were so cute when they ran to me for milk. But after 2 months, they still looked very thin and small. When we wonder what went wrong, they started to have serious cramp occasionally. The doctor said Soky was too old so his puppies were very weak too. They may not able to make it. I felt sad but I thought they were strong enough to make it. Every day after I back from school, the first thing I did was to look for them, hug them, and saw if they were ok. I loved them so much.
The cramp attacked them more and more often. It was such a pain to see the lovely puppies suffered every time. One day, I was playing hide and seek with Macky in the living room. It looked so energetic and chasing me excitedly. Then it hide under a chair. I was waiting but didn’t see him coming out after me. I went and had a look. I saw him struggled painfully. It was heart-breaking to see him dying. I cried helplessly. But nodody could do anything, Macky had stopped breathing. I sat at his side for hour and didn’t believe that it had left. I was really down until my mom told me that Macky had gone to heaven. Lady also died one week later. Week after they passed away, I still missed Macky so I drew a picture of it, and kept it until today. I still feel sad when looking at their photos.
I considered a few times before posting this. I am a guy so I don’t really want everyone sees my “sentimental” side… Well, they are so important to me so I decide to include them in my online diary.
Last night I went to a Chinese wedding dinner. As usual, you would find shark fin soup in every Chinese wedding dinner, and even important dinners. Shark Fin soup is a “traditional” (or must-have) dish in Chinese wedding dinner. I have been eating it for many year without questioning. After I learned that millions of sharks had their fin cut away from their bodies when they were still alive, I found the soup disgusting and I refused to eat it. This was the first time I said No to shark fin, in the future I will do the same.
My action surprised other old Chinese sat at the same table. When they knew my reason, they just haha then continued to enjoy the shark fin. They even finished mine. I know in their mind, they think, “This guy so stupid lah. Shark Fin is expensive and delicious but he does not want to eat.” Apparently there was no sense of guilt in them. All is done in the name of “tradition”. I will try my best not to attend Chinese wedding dinner that serves shark fin. If I do attend, I will not eat shark fin. This is not an act of boycott or something. Just like you can’t force a vegetarian to take meat, you also can’t ask me to eat shark fin. It is my choice to exclude myself from contributing to the cruelty of killing innocent animals.
I know I myself alone cannot do much. But at least I started to send a message “Not everyone loves shark fin.” I am deeply dismayed by the fact that Chinese is always associated with killing of sharks, tigers, rhinos, and many other endangered species, and even friendly animals such as dog and cat. I always hope I can do more. In the future, if I have children, I will educate them to love the nature, animals and environment, and of course, eat NO SHARK FIN. As one says, “The killing will stop when there is no buying.”
Below is a real reflection of a Chinese wedding I got from:
http://www.seashepherd.org/longline/longline_shark_finning.html
I found the interesting tree at the left in the heritage village of Sabah Museum last Saturday. Probably I am dirty-minded, I find that the tree is very “sexy” and reminds me of something stimulating. 🙂
Talking about the Sabah Museum, I remember I went there in 1987 to look for a geologist. This was because I found a few stones that looked like fossil (See picture below. Click to see the larger photo). Long before the movie “Jurrasic Park”, I already loved to learn about dinosaurs. Early in high school, one of my ambitions was to become a fossil hunter and my dream destination was the Gobi Desert of China, a potential place where we could find fossil of undiscovered dinosaur species. Unfortunately, after knowing my target, my parents said, “What use to become a fossil hunter? No money one. You can eat fossil meh? Become an Engineer / Lawyer / Doctor lah, make $$$ bah.” (Sadly speaking, nowadays, there are still many Malaysian parents brainwash their children like this.)
After reading all the books about fossil and earth history, I knew that it was impossible to find the fossil of dinosaur because Borneo island did not exist during the dinosaur time. But I hope to find the fossil of seashell or fish. All my friends laughed at me, “You ini shock shock lah. There is no fossil in Sabah!” I went to a few mountains, dig around based on the tips written in the books, and found a few pieces of fossil. The geologist confirmed what I found was seaweed fossils. He even gave me a limestone with shell fossil on it. (I tried to find more fossil later, but I always got the similar and incomplete fossil. After I went studying overseas, I stopped this hobby.)
I displayed all the fossils in a science exhibition of my school. I didn’t win any prize, but I was happy because I proved to the people, who laughed at me, that they were wrong. From that time on, I understood if you wanted to be different, you got to prepare to hear many sneered at you. That’s why Galileo is the scientist I like the most.
