A Suggested Birthday Wish

"May the winds of inspired joy breeze through,
May the veins of gratitude and belief flow,

May the gleam in your eyes echo and glow anew,

And may you celebrate the plenty from what you have sown."

#yongkevthoughts

Diversity on a Normal Day

 My normal routines here in Australia have a variety of meeting people of various backgrounds.

I do not think of race - only conscious of people with positive energy, people who inspire me, people who can teach me new things, people who change my mindset in a good way.

So in a weekend I can weed spray my bricked courtyard, having learnt safe techniques from an Anglo-Saxon.

Then I have brunch in a local eatery run by Italians.

I can chat with international students working in a fresh produce market before I go home to cook. I have my free to air tv on, just listening to the barrage of usa generated propanganda on news bulletins streamed in from the night before.  Know your friends, but know the manipulators better, lol.

I like to watch contemporary Asian movies, but films also reflect the problems, opportunities and attitudes in society.

I also love pottering in the garden and enjoy Indigenous, South east Asian and Euro origin plants and blooms.

Near dinner time, the Rupert Murdoch funded forces spew one sided news on the commercial channels here.  It is so liberating for me to realise I do not have to believe whatever is pushed to my ears.

Then to wind down, I look for views from a more multi polar political world.  No time to attend to distractions, diversions and disillusionment.

#yongkevthoughts

Blog 18th Anniversary - Oh Malaysia!

 Britain granted independence to Peninsular Malaya on 31 August 1957.  Here is one

of my previous write ups. 

As a child having a charmed life on Penang Island, this day was anticipated with much fanfare.  The lyrics of the National Anthem were reexamined in earnest.  Specials were screened at theatres and on telly.  No special cakes or delicacies were made though, even for a food obsessed society.

Neighbours did however come out in compounds to chat with each other.  English was still spoken with gusto - and everything Brit was still held with respect, much akin to parents in contemporary Malaysia still, having an embedded respect of university education in good reliable England.

I never questioned then what we were celebrating independence from. Sure, the history books said we were free from the yoke of imperialism, economic exploitation and rule by a foreign race.

But I could already enjoy the heritage of what Britain left behind in other positive aspects.  There was a Westminster based Parliamentary system.  We already had a royalty, from nine component states, left intact by colonial interests - in case anyone missed Queen Liz.  There were legal and governance systems already working in the Malayan Civil Service.

Transport infrastructure, education mechanisms and economic pillars were already well established, much better than in most newly founded nations.  There was a strong foundation of family, criminal, corporate and tax law like in Australia.

Friends of my parents, my classmates and neighbours relished in enjoying commonly shared values than focus on differences.
Socially, we immersed themselves in laughter, helping each other out and cultivating joint hobbies.

Gatherings were more spontaneous than formal, centring round fruit seasons, cultural festivals, good weather days and when people needed a listening ear.
In the classroom, there was a comradeship that transversed the boundaries of religion, ethnicity and class.

We valued the English language for its dominance in world trade. We learnt our respective mother tongues. By law, we learnt the Malay lingua franca.   In Penang, there was a Patois spoken that is still as colourful as in New Orleans, Papua New Guinea or in South Africa. 

Like in Sydney and Melbourne these days, we had access to several cuisines - and still do.   Friends of diverse backgrounds used to eat together at the same table, but I understand now they no longer do.  We picked up using the whole plethora of ingredients from well tried recipes from around Asia and Europe.

My Eurasian Uncle Cornelius exemplified the closeness of Malaysians when I was growing up.
He personified Christmas to me, with a joy from his Dutch heritage and his ability to make magic of a day when he visited.  Mum and our Sri Lankan neighbour' s wife made curries.   I still recall the beauty of furniture in the lounge when we visited Cikgu Iskandar.  I picked up bad words in Tamil, Hokkien, Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin and Malay - and they did have a punch which can hold their own in an ocker Aussie pub.

Soccer, badminton, late night suppers, jungle and beach trial walks, hide outs on Friday arvos after school - they all had no racial identification.  There was a strong underlying and unspoken bond of just being humans, of growing up and of connecting to society.

What seemed like benign bureaucratic practises - like of being identified by race and religion, instead of just being Malaysian - in retrospect, evolved into tools of separation, social alienation and discrimination.  Critics blame the colonial authorities for laying down the seeds of the current socio-political structure in current day Malaysia.   They cite the "divide and rule" strategy utilised to manage a diverse society like Malaya before independence.   However, once tey were their own rulers, the politicians of the day reinforced this policy, instead of applying fresh and innovative approaches like meritocracy,  equity and tolerance.

As a child in Malaysia, I vaguely recall a night curfew imposed in Penang, due to riots and social disorder.  Such tools of social and political control can be primitive in looking back, for now there are other covert or other more effectivs tools of political manipulation, corruption in theft of state funds, mass cajoling of the emotions of voters and gerrymandering of electorate borders.

Malaysia's ideal democratic practices have sadly been whittled or hijacked as the nation moved to the 21st century.   There has grown a culture of dependency on state hand outs to a majority of its denizens, who dominate the military, civil service, universities, police, banks and economic or trading monopolies.  The growing emphasis by a series of Prime Ministers since the 1980s in linking political power with financial kleptocracy measures has taken a severe impact on the nation's vibrancy and future prospects.

Malaysia is a land of abundant resources, scenic landscapes and potential.  It has been the less than desired management by its leaders that have now rendered it less attractive for investment potential than its nearby neighbours if Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore.

My birthplace has petroleum resources, agricultural wealth, manufacturing capability and strides between China, India and Australasia.  Yet some key factors continues to suppress its future potential - leadership, mindset, history and inertia.  Blame shifting has also been a characteristic of its past.  Soon there may be no one else to put the blame on, apart from themselves.

Before the arrival of Covid, the seeds of problems and embedded issues have nor been resolved. A pandemic only amplifies the weaknesses and rifts already raging in a nation.

So far from the evening equatorial thunderstorms, smells and sights of a colourful street and the chatter of boyhood mates, I reflect - can Malaysia turn round a corner?

#yongkevthoughts

My Fav Home Cooked Dishes

 I gradually and unsuspectingly fell in love with home cooking...

and appreciate  more of the ingredients and local produce here.

My fav dishes whipped up are, in no particular order:

1.  Linguine in pesto sauce with prawns.

2.  Fish curry Straits Chinese style.

3.   Stir fried rice vermecilli with lamb slices.

4.   Rissoto with seafood marinara.

5.    Sourdough toast with smashed avacado, marmalade preserve.

6.   Yoghurt or gelato or ice cream with a variety of nuts, blueberries.

7.    Roast pork belly with crackle, the meat marinated with Chinese five spice powder.

8.    Salads in season with dressing.

9.    Herbal Chinese soup with goji berries, chicken on the bone, red dates...

10.  Penang creamy chicken curry.

#yongkevthoughts

Cook and Tasman

 Not the founder of Australia,  James Cook was a celebrated English captain funded by the English crown to sail around the world. 

Cook did command three extensive sailings around the world but met his untimely end in Hawaii, where he was killed by the natives there after getting involved in a misunderstanding with the community there.

James Cook never set foot in Australia or New Zealand.  He sailed around the Aussie coast, even passing by the Wollongong coast, and watched things from afar but in the safety of his well furnished ships. 

Cook had Joseph Banks on board - this was the botanist who later recorded much of the flora and fauna in Australia and drew detailed drawings of plants or animals.

James Cook had his underlings come ashore at Botany Bay NSW, near Sydney Airport today. These underlings are celebrated today as landing on 26 January 1788.  To the many Indigenious people around Australia today, that was Invasion Day for them. 

The British colonials denied the existence of around 200 Indigenious nations in Australia when they arrived - and constitutionally declared the land as empty - Terra Nullius or " land legally not belonging to anyone".

The Australian continent was exploited by Britain in the 18th to 20th centuries as, amongst varied purposes, a place for agriculture, initially sending unwanted people, an empty land to carry out nuclear experiments and as an alternative climate wise to colder England.

The Federation of Australia was created in 1901 by these colonists and the rest is history.

ANZAC forces were utilised to fight the wars of Britain and the USA in the 20th century.

Abel Tasman the Dutch explorer had already mapped the coasts of Australia long before the arrival of Cook.  He was also the first European in 1642 to map some part of the coast of NZ - west part of North Island.

In 1769, on the first of his three world wide voyages, James Cook was the first European to circumnavigate around NZ.

The British colonists signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Maori chiefs on 6 Feb 1840 - this forms the basis of the National Day for contemporary New Zealand.

A few months later, William Hobson declared British sovereignty over a place called Russell, leading to wars between the colonists and Maoris