Do I need an MBA? Final part

I'm neither rich nor smart enough. I still need to count how much money I have as oppose a real rich person does not know how much money he/she has in the banks, stock markets or properties. And I don't have an MBA. The below opinions are purely based on my observations on people over the years. Other than speaking my minds, I do not have any other authority - so take it with a pinch of salt.

Having quoted some articles recently must make you feel that I’m against having an MBA.  I do not have a particular bias against MBA holders. I’m only feeling uncomfortable with people who are abusing others with MBAs.

Come to think of it, I’ve met people from Harvard or MIT(sorry for showing off here), yet they are down to earth and humble. Many of us think the rich are like those in TV drama that they are stuck up but many times they behave the opposite – frugal and humble. Surprisingly, it is easier to encounter nasty and abusive people who had just tasted a bit of power or money.  It's more likely they will want to show off or flaunt by showing their outward appearance, mostly by incurring debts.

When come to abuses, some of them think they’re a class above others. Or they think they’re smarter than others. Personality asides, B school mold them to be too stereotype, keep drawing same text book solutions to real life business problems.

They’re others trying to hide their insecurities with an MBA blanket. Just like many professionals in Singapore having a taxi license, many think they can go to business school to teach when they’re unemployed.

When you look into the 10 top college dropouts that I posted earlier, you will notice one thing. The obvious common thread is these people were already successful of what they were doing. They were so successful that they were having a hard time to concentrate full time studying. Their businesses are flourishing so much that causing them to dropout.

There are many reasons to do an MBA but there are also reasons of getting by okay without an MBA.

• You have done a basic business degree. If you’re already done a BBA or Management course, I think an MBA is waste of time and money. It will add more value to those with a technical degree.
• The key value to MBA is learning from your peers. Unless you are enrolling in a business school that attracts top talents, it’s unlikely that you are benefiting much other than killing time and earn you a paper qualification. I was once met with an MBA student from a prestigious B school in the US, she told me that most of her classmates are already highly successful and holding many important posts. The friendships and networking that come along with MBA are really valuable. Having a group of peers who are critical that come along with real experience running business will sharpen a person considerably. I was once heard a story some students pretending calling sick to avoid questioning time presenting their cases. Oouch!.
• A type who prefer to self-learning rather than going through a structured course. Once you enrol in an MBA, the world will not wait for you. The train will have to keep running according to schedules. Don't do it when you feel it's a burden and not a joy!
• You’re already highly successful in your career. Don’t get me wrong that a successful one should be conceited that they don’t need education. What I’m saying it is better to focus on your strength rather than diluting your resources.
• You work with organization that focus on results and you do not need any impressive paper qualification to sell yourself. There are organizations who will want to use your education to throw a bit of weight to get them consultancy contracts, etc - then an MBA is a must - non-negotiable.
• You work with bosses that like chairman Mao who does not care whether you are a white or black cat as long as you catch a mice. If you work for people who are full of themselves - it's either you find a new job somewhere or play along.
• Having insights of what motivate you to get an MBA is important. Technical skills enhancement? Security blanket? Insurance? A pass to climb corporate ladder? Peer pressure? A wrong motive may make you a worse person after earning an MBA. 

Last words, having reading Ben Graham Security Analysis will not guarantee us to be another Warren Buffett. Reading Job Steve biography will not help you to create another iPod, iPad or iPhone. It does help us to have more intelligent conversations, that's all. Able to carry out an intelligent conversation is not equal to results. Having an MBA will not guarantee us to be a better business person, analyst or manager. Search our heart and getting the right motive is probably the most important step before we start.

Do I need an MBA? Part two

Top 10 college dropouts

By JOSEPH LIN Monday, May 10, 2010

1. Bill Gates

2. STEVE JOBS

3. Frank Lloyd Wright

4. Buckminster Fuller

5. James Cameron

6. Mark Zuckerberg

7. Tom Hanks

8. Harrison Ford

9. Lady Gaga

10. Tiger Woods

Source: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1988080,00.html

The rising cost of education

There was a lot of noise when Pakatan said they want to cancel RM 43 billion PTPTN student loans(http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/04/20/student-loan-issue-has-little-impact-on-bn/), if they win. The main argument: it is better off to forgive the education debt of young generation than sinking the funds into corruption black hole by the current ruling government. The opposing camp is saying we are encouraging moral hazard. Both arguments have valid points, better use of funds vs. moral hazard. Forgiving the debts is only one off issue. The long term  implication, are we going to give free education to everyone?

The reality is free education does not exist around the world.

http://www.mohe.gov.my/educationmsia/education.php?article=study

As parents, we cannot depend on what politicians will do. It's too dangerous to put well being of our children in their hands. We need to prepare for the worst case scenario and waking up to the hard reality. At some point of time, we need to know that there is no one to help us or our children will have to resort themselves to borrow even before they can earn. The education inflation cost is very real. 18 years from today, it is going to cost RM 160 k to study in Malaysia, RM 455 k ~ RM 500 k to study in Australia or Britain. To achieve that, parents need to set aside RM 400/month ~ RM 1,300/month(assuming 6% p.a. return) the moment your child turns one year old. You probably will set aside even more if you start later. 

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/9/18/business/7048908&sec=business

If you are in the late 20s or early 30s, RM 400/month ~ RM 1,300/month can be burdensome if you already have house and car loans. It is even harder if you yourself already have RM 50 ~ 100 k of your own education loan hanging on your neck. 

The solutions are really difficult. If parents and children were take 100% of the responsibility, they will be forced into a corner -- no where to run. On the hand if the government was to give free or minimum tuition fees, that will only lessen half of the burden. Individual will still need to cover the living costs. Parents: please don't overlook this area in your saving plan on top of your retirement planning. 

My personal opinion  is to strike a balance between individual responsibility and better governance from the government. We will save and invest our ass off but the government must do their parts. Stop the bloody leakages and corruptions, raise the quality of education and lead our country out from middle income trap. 

The worst nightmare parents can have is invested a huge sum of money in their kids' education but their children cannot even speak proper English or think for themselves. It is also a nightmare for parents if their children cannot find a decent pay job simply because there are not enough high value added jobs. 

We are not asking what the country can do for us, we certainly will do things for our country. When we do our parts, can the present government do their parts???

The next society

Among many so called management gurus, the one that I respected the most is Peter Drucker(1909-2005). I don't why I think of him today as I sit relaxedly in my hall on this labor day.  Perhaps it's a good day to think about some issues that are affecting all salaried men. He saw a few things happening in the developed world:

• the rapid growth in the older population and the rapid shrinking of the younger generation.
• people will have to keep working until their mid-70s.
• those over 50s will work as temporaries, as part-timers, as consultants, on special assignments and so on.
• borderlessness, because knowledge travels even more effortlessly than money.
• upward mobility, available to everyone through easily acquired formal education.
• the potential for failure as well as success. Anyone can acquire the “means of production”, ie, the knowledge required for the job, but not everyone can win.
• industry and agriculture sector tend to shrink over time as the country transitioned from developing to developed status

• Since the second world war, manufacturing output in the developed world has probably tripled in volume, but inflation-adjusted manufacturing prices have fallen steadily, whereas the cost of prime knowledge products—health care and education—has tripled, again adjusted for inflation. 
• Multinationals now tend to be organised globally along product or service lines. The multinationals of 2025 are likely to be held together and controlled by strategy.

If you are interest in the full article, please visit http://www.economist.com/node/770819 and http://www.economist.com/node/770861

There a couple of things are worrying me.

• As the developed countries shifting their economy structure from manufacturing and agriculture to services, this has benefited many of us. What ever that we are enjoying now may not last another 20 years. 
• Our country is still relying very heavily on manufacturing and agriculture.
• We probably should have learned that as our government is trying to transform our economy to service based,  manufacturing and agriculture sectors need to increase their productivity by three folds. If not, good luck to those in these sectors.
• Pushing towards service based economy without knowledge workers is probably making things worse. Take Philippines for example, the quality of life is terrible even though it has high percentage of services/GDP.

Source:http://www.adbi.org/files/2010.09.07.wp246.asean.services.sector.growth.rebalancing.pdf

• A country can only enjoy high quality of life when their knowledge and productivity rise accordingly and not oversimplify thing. Killing manufacturing and agriculture sector and replace them with service sector is a stupid move.
• Don't get wrong that I'm anti-service sector or pro-industrial or pro-agriculture. Rather, I'm trying to make a few points. Productivity is not simply squeezing more with more working hours.  Most people think productivity is moving up making products with higher value added. The key to unlock productivity is knowledge and innovation. If you look at chart below, you will notice countries with high patent activities are Japan, USA, China, South Korea, UK, Germany, etc.......

• We all may have heard that Samsung has taken over Nokia as # 1 hand phone maker in the world recently.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/04/28/three-areas-samsung-will-focus-on-to-avoid-smartphone-complacency/ 
• This came no surprise to me if we look at their efforts they put into R & D and number of professors that they produce. This is also a country that has high % of industry in their GDP composition. Industry made up 39.4% while services made up 57.6% of GDP. 
• The next country that has tremendous potential is China by just looking at the number patent activities that they engaged. As China is transitioning into more service based economy, I think they can continue to do well because they have laid strong foundation in knowledge-based economy.
• If we look at Japan, they seem to have very strong innovation foundation but unfortunately I do not know why they have lost two decades and going into third lost decade. One of the  theories that people put forward was dysfunctional politics. Dysfunctional politics have hindered them to take serious reform.
• I am getting more and more worried about our country because we have not invested much in R & D, automation(instead of relying on cheap foreign labor), declining education system(despite of many perks nowadays), getting a bit of Japanese dysfunctional politics virus, etc................
• The Economic Transformation Program actually is nothing more than a marketing program. They just repackage what is already there. I will comment more later on.
• All these have serious long term impact on our KLSE.

Your Penang Chief Minister Net Worth

Our Penang CM and state exco members declare assets. You will never see this in the mainstream media. Based on what was reported in Malaysiakini(http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/186395), I attempted to summarize it into a table. He did not mention what funds he was invested in Amanah Mutual Bhd and Public Mutual Bhd, so I have to assign a range of low and high of NAV of funds offer by these two companies. The estimated net worth is between RM $ 680 - RM 740 k.



Your Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng will turn 51 in coming December, is a bachelor of Economics from Monash University, Australia. He is also a qualified accountant. This is what your Penang Chief Minister sacrifice for you. If he stays in private sector, he is easily a millionaire today.

Will Barisan people dare to do the same?

P.S. Between flooding you with depressed views of stock markets, I've decided to write something are more important than just talking money. I know many of you have been sticking with me through thick and thin whatever I write, I hope this will be beneficiary to you.

A small step

When contents on the web are increasingly getting under appreciated, read F.O.C., I finally decided to pay. I subscribed myself for 3 years subscription for MalaysiaKini.

It's a small step to support people who believe in

justice,

human rights,

democracy,

freedom of speech

and good governance.

Have I turned myself into a rebel teen? A rebel without a cause? No, I'm a rational person and I don't like to leave money on the table. I'm also a person who would rather make myself fat by eating all the dishes on the table than sending it into a garbage bag. It's business.

It's an efficient business model actually. If you turn to the mainstream newspapers, most of them are filled with gossips and advertisements. What is making me even more sick seeing journalists tailing a group of politicians, trying to tell us either they are busy or doing something good for the country. Please-lah. Also, what's the point of maintaining a big group of people to run around to cover local happenings that will not interest people like me. What if you let a group of volunteers to do coverage for you? Then you focus your energy on big things, not the small things.

I find the columnists are well qualified and more importantly they write critically without fears. A number of them are highly successful and they care more of spreading the ideals and right things than the need to write the pleasing things to keep their jobs.

It's a small step to support media independent.

By the way, I concur with our Penang CM's view that the GE will be delayed slightly because of the latest development. He thinks the GE may be called in June or September. What does that means for the local market? I think the government has more to lose. Trying to take credit by spinning Anwar's acquittal story of judicial independent is like trying to make lemon juice out of lemonades.

The Felda listing met with resistance is also not going well for Najib's government. If they mis-manage that, they can kiss good bye to the grass root support. The longer they delay, the sweets in the mouths will melt fast. That will lead to increasingly stronger headwinds and uncertainties. I'll still opt to stay out of the market for a while though I've a shopping list of gems that I want to buy.

Negara-Ku?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z51N0mjn3kM

The possibility of Anwar going back to jail troubled me a lot. Just don't know why. His personal suffering is one thing, perhaps the future of Malaysia is truly troubling me. Time is running out for Malaysia.

Forget about the separation of powers. Forget about the judicial independent. Talking about pricing in? Just look at the picture of the crowd, taken yesterday night. They priced in 100% that Anwar is going back to jail today.

The recent RM 500 Bantuan 1 Malaysia and RM 100 for every student made me very angry. My face is like a cooked lobster -- very red with steam over my head. Talking about borrow "sword to kill somebody", this is it. I am not angry with the needy people but needy people got bribed and giving one vote to make the current ruling government stay made me angry. You and I are funding our own enemy, without ours consent.

Fortunately, they are still a few good men around. Unfortunately, these "young men" and "young lady" are already getting into 60, 70, 80 years old. I suppose they have seen what was Malaya look like. Those born after 80s can only hear the great old nostalgia stories.

I believe the educated camp needs no further selling. It's the grass root level needs to be converted. It's an uphill battle I know. Giving up is easy. Walking away is easy. Turning back is easy.

As I research more about Mr. Koon, my admiration and respect for him is growing stronger than ever. He is a good role model. Talking is cheap. Transforming aspirations into actions are very expensive. Stepping outside our comfort zone to do something is very uncomfortable but something has to be done.

By Koon Yew Yin

1. I am not a politician. But I know politics is very important because it affects you and your children. I want to help you win the coming election. I have already donated RM100,000 during your last dinner to celebrate Lim Kit Siang’s 70th Birthday, a few months ago. (Admin note: RM100,000 donated to DAP Perak)

I put my money where my mouth is. Many people would grumble and complain about BN government’s corruptions, abuse of power and Chinese cannot get university places and also employment in the civil services, etc but they dare not come forward to support Pakatan Rakyat to change the Government.

I hope my coming forward openly will encourage many people to show support. Your party needs money and I hope you all will donate as much as you can afford.

2. You must bear in mind that the population of the non Malays is relatively small, even all non Malays vote for the PR and without Malays winning some seats, Pakatan Ryakyat cannot control the Perak State Government or Putrajaya. After tonight’s dinner, I would like each of you to make a serious effort to make friend with at least one Malay and convince him to vote for PR.

3. I wish to remind you that in the last Gen Election, PR won control of Perak, but lost control because a few frogs jumped over to BN. On your table you will read my article ‘Restore democracy to Perak: appeal to Sultan Aslan Shah’, but the Sultan did not dissolve the State Assembly as I requested. In the next election, you must make sure we can win a lot more seats to regain control.

4. Many of you would have heard about UTAR in Kampar rejected my Rm 30 M donation offer to build hostels to help students because the MCA leaders who own the land outside the University campus do not want me to disturb their very profitable rental business. There are 12,500 students and each of them pays Rm 200 per month and the total monthly rental income is about RM2.5 million or RM30 m a year. They cannot build fast enough to cater for the yearly students increase. Remember the greedy MCA leaders will continue to suck your blood.

5. MCA has been in the BN government since Merdeka more than 54 years ago. Did MCA ever dare to criticise UMNO to protect non Malays’ interest? Now the World Bank has reported 2 days ago that a large number of non Malayshave migrated to Singapore, UK, Australia etc due to unfair treatment. 4 of my 5 children have gone out of the country to find work. I am sure some of you and your friends have children migrated overseas simply because we are called ‘PENDATAN’, visitors.

6. I have given scholarships to 80 poor students whose parents are earning less than RM2,000 per month. If you know of any poor parent who needs scholarships please contact my assistant Dr. Jeffrey Yee, 012-5286696. He graduated with a PhD from Cambridge, He will address you in Mandarin.

Thank you

Source: http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2011/05/07/rm30-million-donation-rejected-and-scholarship-for-the-poor/

Be fair

If the car import tax is so high, why our streets are flooded with Mercedes, BMW or Audi?

Because they can afford it.

How can they afford it?

It's because they have a good paying job or their business is making good money.

If that is the case, Penang manufacturing hub must be well alive?

Si, Senor.

Why?

Look at this chart -- labor cost comparison.



The original reason of putting manufacturing plants in China is no longer compeling. Originally, western companies put up plants in China were to take advantage of low wages. Unfortunately, the low wage advantage is dissapearing fast. You have people commited suicide and organized strike demanding higher wages. Dong Tao, Chief Asia Economist for Credit Suisse said 'This is the beginning of the end of an era for China as the world's factory'.

Income growth is their priority. They want to move up to higher value added manufacturing activities. They will continue to raise minimum wage.

China plans to increase its minimum wage by at least 20 percent annually in the next five years, more than doubling it by 2015, to increase spending power and consumption, the South China Morning Post said, citing Huang Mengfu, a government adviser.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-20/china-to-boost-minimum-wage-20-annually-in-next-five-years-scmp-reports.html

At 20% rate, labor cost in China will surpass South East Asia's in 5 years. They have just lost Calvin Klein last year.

China’s rising labor costs prompted Top Form International Ltd., a bra maker for Calvin Klein, to pick Southeast Asia for a new factory, adding to signs of a reshaping of the economy away from export-tied regions.

“We’ve halted plans to open a fourth factory in China,” Eddie Wong, group managing director and co-founder of Hong Kong- based Top Form, which also supplies brands including Maidenform, said in an interview yesterday. “We can consider other cities in China but it’s only a matter of time before wages will rise again and it will get more expensive for us.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-21/china-loses-as-calvin-klein-bra-maker-moves-factory-plan-to-southeast-asia.html

Our current Penang government is doing a good job to take advantage of this trend. Our CM, Guan Eng said his team is working off their butts to attract investment. This is how they market Penang.

But Malaysia has a host of additional competitive advantages in the new manufacturing race, from logistics to geography. The island of Penang, for instance, has wide roads, a steady stream of university science graduates, an efficient power supply and a modern airport from which goods are flown around the world. "From Penang, we can get our products anywhere in 48 hours," says Purushothaman of National Instruments, which is currently building an $80 million factory close to the airport.

In addition, Penang has inherited the British legal system from its former colonial masters, which gives those doing business there a degree of comfort. "If you look at the region, companies feel comfortable with the intellectual protection measures and legal system in Malaysia," says Lee Kah Choon, chairman of Invest Penang, a government-run investment-promotion agency. "Whereas in China, they're very uncomfortable that whatever is introduced there can be copied."

The importance of intellectual-property protection is echoed by a wide range of technology executives who operate in both Malaysia and China. Almost universally, there is unease about the latter's commitment to copyrights and patents. "It's not as transparent as we want it to be," says Steven Siaw, a co-founder of Penang-based Vitrox Corp., an 11-year-old tech start-up that produces automated vision-inspection systems and has a presence in China. "There's a certain degree of respect for intellectual-property rights in Malaysia. We want peace of mind."

"We're paranoid about intellectual property," says Atul Bhargava, managing director of Intel Malaysia. How paranoid? Consistent with its global practices, Intel severely restricts media tours of its Penang factory lines: permission is rarely granted, and cell phones are always banned, lest illicit photos be secretly snapped. Any employee who leaves the firm is told, in a less than collegial fashion, that any proprietary work done at Intel does not leave the building. "You have to make sure there is a firewall," says Bhargava. Malaysia's commitment to intellectual-property protection, he says, is one of the reasons Intel employs roughly 10,000 people in Penang — the semiconductor firm's single largest bloc of workers outside the U.S.

Penang's recent economic momentum will continue, claim senior government officials. "We've worked our butts off to get investment in," says chief minister Lim. The effort appears to be paying off. National Instruments, Citigroup and health-equipment company St. Jude Medical are all poised to significantly increase their Penang headcounts over the next few years. Online job postings in Penang, according to Kuala Lumpur — based Jobstreet.com, soared 80% in 2010 over the previous year. According to Chook Yuh Yng, Jobstreet's country manager, postings for this year are looking pretty good too.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2065153,00.html#ixzz1OHVBoAK3

The fact that they bring in St. Jude, National Instruments and Honeywell, we all should applaud Guan Eng's team initial success.

If his team continue to govern for the next few terms, we will see Penang will be a different today's Penang.

I know we have some problems created by a minority group(Umno-Putra) to take advantage of Malaysians but I'm optimistic that this will be resolved in the future. If not in GE 13, it will be one of the GEs. I want to appeal to Malaysian who resides in overseas to be fair when making statements. After all said and done, we all should not forget our root.

Why am I still a Malaysian, in Malaysia?

If you are rich, it does not matter who and where you are. Your wealth will bring you freedom of movement and freedom of doing something good for humankind. And please don't get me wrong. I'm not rich but I've enough to survive comfortably till I'm six feet under. I was not educated overseas. My family was not rich enough to send me to overseas. I still remember that I got very sicked of sending my friends to airport when I was a teen. Neither I belong to the class of creme de la creme and not smart enough to be given an overseas scholarship. I was not given even a local scholarship, I need to borrow to complete my studies. In other words, I'm the stupid one that left behind in Malaysia.

I came to Malaysia not by choice. It was my parents choice. But, after growing up, I do have a choice: to stay in Malaysia or to follow my grandparents' footstep to search for much greener pasture. The trouble was I could not define what is greener pasture. Is greener pasture define as avoiding harm like May 13, 1969? Or similar case of Indonesian Chinese being persecuted in 1998? Or to be a millionaire? Or to be a saint, providing care to the needy? Or to satisfy my ego that I belong to the developed world?

Is the repeat of May 13 a fat tail event? To me, it's just another political risk. I will equate that risk similar of the repeat of 9/11.

Unless I want to be a Prime Minister or a top government servant, the rest is pretty much up to me. In life, I prefer to be lucky than smart. I can adopt Napoleon's philosophy easily, he prefers lucky general than brilliant generals. I also believe the harder and more miserable they(yes our fucking government) make our lives, the harder we'll fight back. Every adversity is an equal or greater opportunity.

We have Malaysian non-bumi billionaires like Robert Kuok, Ananda Krishnan, Lee Shin Cheng, Teh Hong Piow, Lim Kok Thay, Quek Leng Chan, Lee Kim Hua and Vincent Tan.

We also have Filipinos Chinese billionaires like Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, Andrew Tan, John Gokongwei, Tony Tan and George Ty.

We also have Indonesian Chinese billionaires like Micheal Hartono, Robert Budi Hartono, Peter Sandakh, Low Tuck Kwong, etc......

Why these entrepreneurs succeeded, despite of fuck up environment they are in? It's seems like a very low correlation between individual net worth and corrupt government. These are old fashion folks will rise up early in the morning while young folks are still on their beds trying to recover from hangover. They took the risk and with a little bit of luck on their side, they made it. They also hire a lot of people much smarter than themselves.

Idealism sometimes does not work in the business world or wealth building.

I still have not answered why I'm a Malaysian, in Malaysia. I was lucky that I started my career with a multi-national company that has a branch in Malaysia. In other words, the competitions were not that keen because smart people were not interested in my job. With disciplined approach, I compounded my saving at a reasonable rate. With a little bit of luck, I've achieved my financial goals and freedom.

I'm comfortable with the political risk that I'm taking, for now. As I grow older, I embrace the concept of global citizenship. I don't have to spend all my time in Malaysia. I can be in China, Japan, America, Britain, Spain, Australia, Timbuktu, India, Nepal, Brazil, Argentina, etc....... In short the world is my country. If I really care without pretending like pharisees, I should spend my time, money and energy to reduce international imbalances. It's the poor and unfortunate that I need to serve not the strong and powerful. It's the corrupt one that I need to fight.

In every 5 years or so, since I'm not happy with the ruling government, I can fuck them by voting against them. If each and everyone of us are doing the same, there is where we will make our voices heard. And that voice is getting louder. BN, ignore at your own peril.

Good morning Malaysia

Still could not sleep and now is 2.30 am here in the US. This is the second night that I'm in the US, still struggled with jet lag. I had barely 2 hours sleep yesterday. Got up 5 am and jogged around neighbourhood. Surrounded by pine and maple trees, occasionally greeted by a few deers. It's a very beautiful environment that may take me an hour to describe it. But you may still won't be able to get the picture. Damn, I forgot to bring my cellphone with camera. To work around that, I plucked a branch of maple tree and some grass to describe how refreshing is it when you are surrounded by green.

May 24, 2011


Air traffic turned upside down yesterday due to tornado in Chicago. It was a havoc when I traveled from Philadelphia to Boston. Did not reached hotel till 2.30 am, a delayed of close to 8 hours. We Malaysian take things for granted. We don't have to deal with uncertainty and natural disasters. Everyday looks the same, sun will show up every day. That makes us lazy and do not want to plan ahead.

In Japan, their people will have earthquake drill very frequently. In Disneyland Japan, their cast will do daily drill -- makes it one of the safest place in the world. They know that they can be attacked anytime and any day. That's why they are much more prepared mentally and physically than us.

Not all people behave the same. I don't like folks in the Philadelphia. They are very rude. When I went jogging in the morning, cars will still turn when the pedestrian light turn green. When I was in New Jersey the other day, cars will slow down when they saw me but in Philadelphia, fast cars like Ferrari or street cars will move faster and won't give a damn about me.


Just some random observations while on the road.

May 26, 2011