A Child on the Peak

The way up to Adam's Peak is really a challenge when the cold wind blows and the dark midnight confused our vision on our next steps.  Thousands of local people as well as tourists climbed this holy peak in order to have a head-bow on the scared footprint that believed to be the first footstep of Adam for the Christians and Muslims, Buddha for the Buddhists and Shiva for the Hindus.

The journey has to be started in the midnight in order to catch the ceremony and the magnificent sunrise. Parents have being carrying their children up to this peak despite the cold night. Children are helping the elderly to climb the stairs as well. There are around 5 thousands step before you reach the top. This particular child had been on his father's shoulders since we met them half-way on the journey up. Until the top, his father carried them effortlessly. Standing in front of them when we were queuing up for the scared moment to see the holy foot, I took a shoot on the innocent child with his amazing pair of eyes that I loved so much. 

These eyes of the child has the deepest memory of mine throughout the journey to the top.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 2012

Fireworks has always been one of the amazing things during the Chinese New Year. Sarawak has always being the most happening state in Malaysia that celebrate this festival. Of course, those Chinese villages and towns in West Malaysia will have a amazing celebration as well.  

This photo is taken during the Chinese New Year Eve, in the midnight. This is the moment all the people have been waiting for after the Reunion Dinner. People will blast the sky open once the clock hit 12 !

 I was waiting for this moment as well but to hit my camera button to shoot for the timelapse. 

And this photo gives me an experience where the fireworks exploded near-ground and I ran without taking my camera along ! 

My camera shot the explosion and this is it !

THOUGHTLESS LECTURERS

Malaysia Education is always in her crisis state. Even in the tertiary level, lecturers have "unique" attitude. They are always the best in their field. They graduated from foreign country, we graduated in local university. So, the difference is they thought they know more than us. Maybe they don't use internet on  the MacBook.

Recently, i have being contacting with the school top managing level directly regarding a job agreement between us.  Thing goes like hell !  All of them think themselves are super genius and talk pointlessly. What i learnt from this job is we should learn to talk and not to do.

Craze for power is the main corruption in the school management.
They pay no passion and interest on the student.  Titles and position is what they want in order to gain an increment in their salary.

One of them teach design theory, good class ( a basic guide for us to explore more) but a bad job communicating with him. He's too ego to me, he cant accept new ideas and too conventional to me. In fact, he likes to use the word - "sophisticated" for everything, everytime.

They advise us to think out of the box ???!!! But they don't understand what's outside the box.

The crisis is growing, the show is getting more interesting.

There are some respectful lecturer in my heart. But, most of them are.............

A MEETING AT PRIME MINISTER OFFICE

APRIL 2011, had a meeting with a special bureau of Innovation at Prime Minister's Office.  We get to know first-handedly the innovative products that the government will help to commercialize them.  We had students from universities around the country and we can speak out whatever is in our mind regarding the products enlisted in a booklet provided to us.  The students are from different kind of fields, ranged from economy, architects, planners, computer science, mass communication and even lecturer-to-be.  The most attractive product is a photovoltaic cells coated layer which can be applied to windows in order to decrease the heat gain in the interior and absorb the free solar energy and store them in the batteries.  This product can be really useful for the poor in rural area to gain the free energy.  A product like this has such a good potential to be invested and improved to the next level which we cant even imagine.  Of course, there are lots of green products out there in the market.  However, some of the students think it is a waste for the government to spend money on this kind of product as she think the products can only produce a small amount of energy.  While another student from the economic field suggested that Malaysian government should innovate the petroleum industry to boost up the GDP of our country instead of wasting time and money in the infancy of green technology.

From my perspective, it is clear that Malaysian students spend too much time fighting for better grade and forgot to think out of their fields.  What comes out from their mind and mouth is what they have learnt in their particular field without considering other aspects.  The government call us the Y-generation.  The question is, how can Y-generation governs the country to a better level if the professions from different fields just think of the benefits of their own fields despite the importance of integration of the knowledge to form the balance in life.  What I expect from the meeting in the PM's office is a solution in progress to make use of all knowledge from all the profession to tackle the problem faced, tackling the problems in every aspects.  This is a damn hard job, but at least, we try, better than doing nothing.

The worst thing in the meeting is when the speaker conducting the meeting agreed with the economic student regarding the matter of innovating the petroleum industry, praising him a talented student in the economic field.  Perhaps, talented but not innovative. Malaysia, from the bottom level of the social to the top, is still ignoring the environmental issue.

LYNAS BRAVO ? Coal plant in Sabah Bravo ??  Coal plant in Mukah Bravo ??  Boleh ?

Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity, a  nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing organization building simple, decent, affordable housing in partnership with people in need.  This time, DNA (Design Network Architects) together with the Habitat, helped the poor in Kampung Tun Haji, Kuching, Sarawak. Although a simple shelter, it meant a lot to us and the poor. To be part of the process is the best part.  A 6 hours laborious brick-laying job can be fun with whole bunch of architectural students from (imported) west malaysian and east malaysian, under the lead of the person-in- charge, Eric from the Habitat and the architect, Min from DNA.  Good job, good experience.

 Take a break in the middle of the job with bananas brought to us by Min. 
 (Min with his cellphone behind the bars...)

Bricks laid by me and Freddie. A screw every 3 courses and keep the bricks straight to the orange line, a finger height between the line and the brick for every new course. Curve surface of the bricks always faces downwards.

Every profession needs to help the unfortunate ones in the society in order to create a balance in it.  Malaysian is always unaware of this,  social status is not about driving big cars, living in big houses, helping the poor is the main part of it.