Back To Tanjung Pinang

I am currently back in Tanjung Pinang. I came back on 20th Dec, to attend a High School friend's wedding. There were all sort of crowds in the wedding as Chinese and locals were invited. Foods are served in two varieties as well, chinese food and malay food, for the locals.

I was fortunate to have R attending the wedding with me, as most of the high school friends were not in town.

Will publish more of the details once I return to SG.

The Idol, Project Superstar, School Superstar, SuperBand, what these are all about

It is definitely not about their talents.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not saying that they don't have talent. I am saying that the shows are not primarily concerned about finding the talented people in Singapore. The show is about earning as much money as possible through fanatic, illogical, irrational crowds who think that they are supporting their idols/teams. The fact is, they are only supporting the.... Telcos...

Why am I saying this? Let's say, if the person is really talented in Singing. Who should be the best person to judge his or her skills? Music or vocal teachers, other professional singers of course. Why involve the ignorant crowd ?

If it is about popularity, then you need to involve the crowd. You should allow the crowd to vote only one per person. Why allow each phone number to vote multiple votes? The asian idol last night, one malay family spent (read: wasted) 700 SGD to support their idol, whoever he or she is.

No, it is not about talent. Nor is it about popularity. The organizer will say, it is about how the idol can make their supporters feel crazy about them, and crazy indeed to spend their hard earned money, to vote stupidly to their idol and indirectly enrich the pockets of the telcos and event organizers.

For that, I respect the way American Idol is being conducted, as compared to their Asian counterparts, and other similar competition that sucks phone calls in the name of support. You can read the entire details from the link here:
http://www.americanidol.com/faqs/

American Idol:
1. Call line to support your idol is open AFTER the performance
2. Call line is Toll Free, unless if you choose to send SMS
3. SMS and Mobile call is charged at STANDARD rate

Singapore Idol:
1. Call line is open DURING the performance, even before the contestant sing any song.
2. Call line is not Toll Free
3. SMS and Call is charged at Premium rate, 50cents, 60cents or more up, depending on how the Telco feel they should earn.

But, why is that so, that nobody ever protests about it?
1. The crowd never protest, because asian crowds are too ignorant. They buy whatever the organizer says.
2. The government and member of parliament kept quiet, because they are linked with the telcos. Come on, the telcos pay tax right? and the telcos are linked to a big company that is somehow linked to my big boss up there.

Hehe... what can I do? I am just a small fry who is able to write a blog to tell my readers about this truth. I hope that there are more people out there who shares what I think.

Asian Idol is Born

Idolatry is definitely a serious sin. Hey.. it is stated in the 10 commandments, and further, throughout the Bible, we can see the entire history of Israel, how they experienced countless rises and falls because of this thing called - idolatry. In the early churches, idolatry too, is a serious thing discussed by the apostles in their letters.

But.... let's see what we have today. Ever since the start of American Idol, a program that supposedly chose the talented singer - that can be idolized, this idol-thingie has swept the entire world, and the world is taking it. Yes, including the Christian World.

Why am I saying so? The way that the show is being commented. The way that each singer is being discussed. The songs they sung, the gestures they made. It is all over the discussion boards. Even in Christian communities, faithful and devoted church goers discussed about them too. The Idol, while it is a seasonal-temporal thing, has become the hottest topic.

How about the singers themselves? many of the contestants are Christian, and a lot of the times, the winners are. To prove their talent is one thing, but to be idolized by people, are they stealing glory from God, who gave them the very talent itself? Sure, they can argue that they cannot control every people. For Christian admirers, they can argue that they just 'appreciate' the talents of the singer, but are they really sure? For non-mature to admire them beyond the gods, it is just something that they cannot control, can they? If they can't control, should they continue to do it? Read Luke 17:1-4

Let's look at the entire show from another perspective.
1. Men, created by God, with an inner tingling and need to worship. The show, created an idol candidate for them. Thus, they are satisfied.
2. The contestants, with talents given by God, are giving their best. They can, either return the Glory to God, or swallow it whole for themselves.
3. What about the organizers, especially the Telcos?

The license to carry out the Idol in one country is about 1 Million USD. It is a sure win business. And so TV stations are fighting for the right to run the show. The Idol, has become a brand name. As a popular show, the commercial slot is priced at the top. But there is something far more profitable than that. It is the sms and phone calls.

In US, I observed that the way that they conducted the Idol, is slightly different.
1. Viewers are prohibited to call or sms during the show, before all the contestants have performed. The MC especially stressed that.
2. Each call or sms is charged at standard rate
3. Each phone is allowed to make only one specific vote.

In Singapore, and the Asian Idol last night.
1. Viewers, are encouraged to call or sms, even possibly, before any contestant started to sing.
2. Each call or sms is charged at prime rate, 60 cents or more, compared to standard rate of 5 cents
3. Each phone is allowed to make multiple/unlimited vote.

The producer and telcos at the end of the entire show will:
1. give a bit fame or glory to the contestants and winner
2. satisfy the crowd by giving them an idol (Aaron and Israelites at Mount Sinai?)
3. earn a gross amount of money, legally.

Let's face it, if it is about talent, Professional jury should suffice. If it is about supporter, each person one vote should suffice. By allowing each person to vote multiple, it is about Money, and Money only.

The Idol that is in charge of and controlling the entire Idol program around the world, is not the winner. The master mind behind all of these, is Money, the great Idol.

Medan Trip - Day 4

Into the Day 4 in Medan. Things are getting more and more routine. By now, we have learned how to get to the Tuition Center from our hotel at Cherry Pink, by taking the number 6 public transport.

In terms of people to people, or I should say, race to race relationship, I think Medan is a much friendlier city compared to Jakarta and Bandung. In the latter, I remembered that the locals were always showing the hostile face to us. The You-Chinese-Don't-Belong-Here look. But I guess, in Medan, the Chinese composition is more significant, and thus the relationship is more cordial than hostile. Thank God for that.

For lunch, if I remembered correctly, we went to PizzaHut and tried the Shrimp Crust pizza that was advertised on TV every so often. The taste is good, well, but not that ohhh fantastic kind of taste. The service was splendid though. Much better than in PizzaHut singapore. Much more professional than the chop-chop attitude you get here in SG. We paid about 200k, for a 6 persons meals + a take away for 2 persons.

There was not much new thing to do for the elementary class. But for the intermediate class, we did something more creative and interactive. The classroom was transformed into a minimarket. We hang some clothes, jackets, utilities, books, medicines, and marked them with some price tags. The students were later provided with some bills, whereby they can use to buy the stuff in this minimarket.



The classes commenced and ended without much surprises. Dinner in a restaurant opposite the tuition center, jakarta food. Food was so-so and a bit pricey, with lots of mosquito bites. Service was lousy. We agreed that that is the last time we eat there. Total expense was around 180k.

End of Day 4

Let's talk about Education

I always believe that Media plays a critical role in educating the community. As such, it is very important for the Media to play the role well. A media that is concerned only with making money is not a good media. A media that continuously feeding the society with what they desires (crime, sex, sensational stories) is a very irresponsible media.

I am glad, that there are still some good TV programs in Singapore, in which they gave good and educational values and allows public to think, even to question government policies. One of such program is what I saw tonight: Shoot - You Hua Jiu Shua, meaning, if you have something to say, just shoot.

The topic of discussion tonight is about education and how to measure its success. There are two very talkative MCs, 3 well-known speakers and a selected panel from public to represent student, parents and teacher.

What is the final goal of education?
1. To educate the student to become a good person.
2. To educate the student to become a useful person.
3. To gain good grades so that they can become good and useful.

A good person can be translated into a person who is morally good, but not necessary smart. A student with a good grade does not mean that he will be good, and may not mean that he will be useful either. In reality, a student who has good marks in the school days does not guarantee that he will be a successful person in the future.

So, what is the most important? It is funny to watch the panels who have their own views and arguing their stand points.

One parent, argued that school marks is the most important thing. If his children failed to get perfect, he will try to find out, whether it is because the child is lazy, or stupid, or careless, or teacher never teach, and make sure that the child will get perfect mark next time. He used the school mark as the sole measurement for the child's success.

One of the MC, says that the most important thing is to let her daughter be happy. Whether she gain good marks or not, as long as she is happy, that is ok. But if she performed really badly, she will tell the daughter to keep quiet.

The primary 4 student was exceptionally good. He said that each person is gifted differently in terms of intelligence. You should know your limit, and if you tried your best, and reached your limit, even if it is not 100 mark, then you should be contented. To overstretch yourself beyond your limit will only make you be unhappy.

The student further said that intelligence is not everything. You need to be morally good. If you are intelligent but morally bad, you end up become an intelligent criminal, which is not good at all for the entire society.

One other parent agreed that each person is gifted differently. You cannot force the kid to study if they cannot. Rather, you can try to understand how the children can best learn a subject flexibly, eg. from discovery channel, go shopping, etc to teach about science and math.

Another parent chose to educate her children at home, by herself, because she saw the flaw in Singapore's education system. She prefers to teach at home, while educating the children on the subjects, she can continue to teach them moral issue of what is right or wrong, those that is perhaps missing from a performance oriented school system.

The teacher commented that, the most important thing is the learning process, and not the subject itself. school mark is not everything. However, that does not change the fact, that the students performance is used as a guide to measure the teacher's performance, the overall students performances in school is used as a guide to measure the school's performance. The Ministry of Education used the performance to grade every school.

The issue arises, that if only school result is important, what is being done to teach about moral to the student? what prevent the student from cheating to gain good marks? how the teacher teach the student in order to cultivate a habit of learning, instead of gaining high marks?

The situation in Singapore, indeed, is not much different from Indonesia. MOE grade and reward school with good results. Students with top results are rewarded and in the news, newspaper. School in turn fight to perform well, forces the teacher to in turn forces the students. The difference is only, in Indonesia, Medan, the headmasters themselves cheated, not the students.

If I were to have a child in singapore, should I educate them here? or maybe I should ask my wife to educate my children at home? I do not know.

Medan Trip - Day 3

It seemed that my sore throat was getting worse by the third day. Why? Almost all the food that I ate during the meals were hot, spicy and fried food. Thank God, I brought my bottle of Actifed and Serrareptiose to reduce the swelling of the throat. I managed to survive the entire Medan Trip with better health condition than when I arrived. Despite of the food.

The third day in Medan was slightly different. The Coordinator spent the night in the tuition center with the other 2 staff workers there. This is the picture of their small and cozy room.
It is non-aircon, but it is free!!



At around 12 pm I guess, SW arrived and we left the hotel and took a taxi to meet DBS for a sumptuous lunch in a Batak eating place. The price on the argo was 15k, but the driver asked for 30k.

That lunch was my first encounter with the famous local food, BePeKa (Babi Panggang Karo), which means roast pork Batak Karo style. The seven of us managed to finish 1.5kg of roast pork, which is very different from Chinese roast pork. The fat layer here was sometimes much thicker, juicier, and err... more sinful than over in Singapore. See how we enjoyed the food!!




The entire meal was actually very simple. Plain rice, bowl of soup, mixed vegetable, BPK, and a small plate of stuffed pig intestines. The entire meal was cost... er.. I don't know, because DBS' wife was too fast to grab the bill and paid everything for us. Thanks DBS!

We returned to the tuition center taking a public bus for a first time. The price was 2500 per trip, similar to that of Tanjung Pinang. But the route was as confusing as in Singapore. The bus can stop anywhere though, since there is no bus stop.

We continued our routine of preparing for the lesson and teaching in the class. At around 8.30 pm we left for dinner. Because we were still hungry (this is not true) and we wanted to taste Martabak Bangka (that is true), we walk for about 2 km from our hotel to reach a Martabak Bangka stall, and ordered a special Martabak with cheese, chocolate and milk! The price was 28k for the whole martabak.



We walked another 2 km to return to the hotel and enjoyed our hard-earned martabak. I didn't eat much though, coz it was too rich and eneg... Then we rested for the night

A side note on the night sky in Medan, it was beautiful. I can see the stars and constellation, not much difference from what I saw in Taiwan the year before. Orion, Taurus, Canis Major were clearly visible. I wished I brought my constellation guide with me.

The Truth About Cats and Mice

Cats and Mice are no new animals to us. Cats are the predator and Mice are the victims. Since young, we have watched tonnes of cartoons about the fight between Cats and Mice, such as Tom and Jerry.



In most rural places, such as villages, where mice remain as house pests, cats are always kept as house pets to keep the pests away.




However, in today's modern cities, cats as house pets have lost their function to catch mice. Why? Firstly, the houses are too clean and mice are no where to be found. Secondly, they are too well fed, and there is no need for them to find food themselves. I would call those domestic cats as dumb cats, as they remain ignorant, lazy, even when they see a rat running in front of them.



On the contrary, mice are still afraid of cats. Regardless of how lazy the cat is. A recent study in Japan has succeeded in removing the 'fear' in mouse. They found out that mouse is afraid of cat, because of their smell. The smell of cat is being processed in their brain as something fearful and they need to run away. The scientists, through genetic engineering, has removed the part of the brain which translates the smell of cat into fear, and TADAAAAA... the result is a new breed of mice that no longer fears cat.



That is a good news for those mouse living in big city where the cats have lost their interests in chasing mouse. But... it may not be a good news for those mice in villages. Regardless of whether you fear the cat or not, the cat is capable to kill you.

However, this invention has perhaps let us catch a glimpse of the situation during the Creation, where all animals live in harmony. Just imagine, a world where dogs, cats, mice live in peace without fighting. Isn't it a great world?

Medan Trip - Day 2

About Cherry Pink Hotel where we stayed:
1. There is no hot water for shower
2. There is a morning call everyday at 7 am, where the hotel boy will serve the breakfast.
3. Breakfast ranging from fried rice, homemade burger, porridge, other stuff with a cup of tea.
4. Aircon was not really working, and it can turn off automatically

I could not really sleep during the first night, maybe because of the aircon, too tired, or the noise of the two locomotives somewhere nearby :). I was not really feeling well, due to flu two days earlier, but still, I managed to sleep at around 2 am.

Rise and shine. After breakfast, and cold shower, at around 9 am The Coordinator arrived at our doorstep and we need to prepare for the English Lesson later. Altogether, there will be four classes, 1 intermediate and 3 elementary levels. We went through the lessons to be covered for the day.

We left for lunch at a Minang Restaurant near the hotel at 1. The food was splendid, and the price was cheap. We paid 71K rupiah for the sumptuous meal. I tasted ox brain for the first time, and hmm.. it was good, but I would consider before eating them again hehe.

Below is the picture of the tuition center where we taught. It is named C4 solution. Character, Competency, Comprehensive and Creative. The naming were... err not so consistent, but it was a good start. Notice the wording 'Privat Less' was also incorrect.





When you enter the blackened glass door, you will be greeted by the administrator, who stayed there. This is the place where student pay the fee, and collect their materials.



Currently there are no courses open yet, due to lack of demand. The eight teachers that the tuition center employs are giving private tuition to the students home. Our intensive english course is the first course to start in the building with an overwhelming response of 33 students.

Below is the picture of the situation in the class when we teach. This is the picture of the elementary class started at 4 pm.



This is the picture of the elementary class I taught. There are 10 hardworking students. The class starts at 6pm and ends at 8pm


At night, we went to a restaurant opposite the tuition center for food. How hungry we were, and how we enjoyed the sate padang and other dishes.

We went to hotel by Becaks, which costs 7000 per-ride for 2 persons.

End of Day Two. Well not really ended, because we still enjoyed some chitchats and watching tv shows, Indo Versions of Deal or No Deal and other stuff.

Medan Trip - Day 1

Sunday Morning(2 Dec), 9.30 am, we (I, DL, SW, HCS) departed from BBPC in a cab to HarbourFront. We took a ferry to Batam, and from there, we took MandalaAir to fly to Medan.

Everything was normal, until when we arrived and I realized that we did not land on the commercial airport. The original airport caught fire the night before and we had to make do with the airforce airfield. We arrived at around 3pm local time.



After waiting for 20 minutes, finally, our contacts at Medan arrived to fetch us. We took the Kijang and were driven to Perkantas office, the Tuition center and also our Hotel (CherryPink) where we would pitch our tent :)

Medan, the Capital City of the Province of North Sumatra. The city where a lot of Medanese Chinese get their bad names from. The province where the Batak people originated from. It is the 3rd biggest city in Indonesia, but it still has many problems such as electricity and water shortages. For a moment, I thought my hometown Tanjung Pinang (Capital of Kepulauan Riau Province) was not too bad :)

In the evening, we joined our friend DBS and had dinner in a local chinese restaurant, the "Acek Botak". Food was good, especially becoz we are hungry. The price? it was around 150k for 6 persons. Expensive for locals, but still reasonable.



After dinner, we took 3 becaks to go to our hotel and stay for the night. The hotel was quite high tech for the wireless hotspot, however, it is very unhygienic and service was so-so. There were cockroaches and towels were dirty, bed were in bad condition also (can feel the spring protruding). But it was good because it was relatively cheap, only 180k pernite for 3 person, or 10 dollars/person/nite.



Well, that's the end of Day 1 in Medan. It was a tiring day, but it was fun.

Mobile Telecommunication Monopoly in Indonesia

I was in Medan for more than 1 week. One of the most enjoyable entertainment was "The Dream Republic" or "Republic Mimpi" shown on Metro TV.

In one of the segment, the topic being discussed was again, the monopoly of the Mobile Telcom business in Indonesia. The issue was about a company T from Singapore owned, directly and indirectly, share in two of the biggest mobile telcom company in Indonesia, namely Telkomsel (35%) and Indosat(42%).

From the show, I came to know that both Telkomsel and Indosat makes up to 90% and more of the mobile users in Indonesia. Regardless of what company T says, they controlled the major share in Indonesia's Mobile business, and through their internal policies, have caused Indonesia's mobile phone bills to be one of the highest in the world.

I am glad, that the Supreme Court in Indonesia has passed down the verdict to company T, that they must pay some fine, and relinquish the share in one of the company. One the other hand, Telkomsel as the leader of the Mobile supplier need to adjust the fee to 15% lower than its current rate. Other operators will follow to adjust in a healthy competitive market, rather than the current 'fake' competition.

Indeed, leader in the market (Telkomsel) sets the trend. You control the two leaders, you control the whole market.

Let's zoom in to Singapore. There are 7 taxi companies in Singapore. But in effect, all except one of the 7 companies are under the umbrella of the same company T. Ignorant public may see that it is great, 7 companies form a good competitive market, but hey.. it is the same mother who controls the different children.

Recently, one of the companies has raised the taxi fare. Flag down price is now $2.8 from previous $2.5, and other rates are adjusted as well. That company, comfort delgro, which controls 3 taxi companies, are quickly joined by the other 3 companies who say that they will adjust their price accordingly.

The move is a response due to the rise of oil price. However, the way that it is being carried out, uncontested, and quickly followed by everyone, is a good indication and prove that the move is an orchestrated move, directed by the single command center.

Whatever happen in Singapore, it is the other country that I cannot care more. I only hope that KPPU will maintain its stand and kick the a$$ of the company T out of Indonesia.

Medan... here I come (2 - 10 December 2007)

I will be in Medan from 2nd to 10th December 2007 and there will not be much update in the period due to lack of internet access.

The purpose of going to Medan is to help a friend, as well as to visit the Lake Toba, which supposedly house the biggest volcanic mountain in the world. One disputed to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs years ago.

During this period of time I will rest, teach, read some books, write some poems and of course, pray! Yes! there is no such thing as praying too much! but of course prayer without action is something we need to avoid :)

May God bless this trip.