Ah Boy's Scribbles

about the younhg guides training again, today, we followed Michael Cheah who is a reknown Baba of Penang and one of the few who REALLY knows, appreciates and is proud of his own culture. I must congratulate him and thank him for conducting such an interesting and very informative walk around the Peranakan Mansion.

Along this walk, a friendly German lady started a conversation with one of my friends which I later joined in. I got to know that she was extremely disappointed at us, Malaysians. The reason why? Because we dont even appreciate our own heritage and our culture. She had a friend in KL and she didnt even know a single bit about Malaysian heritage while the German lady knew more than she did. What she was trying to point out was we, havingthe chance of being exposed and bathed in this rich culture and enviroment filled with our own heritage where one can hardly find anywhere else in the world, dont even appreciate the fact. We seem to be ignorant of the heritage including the living culture, the traditional trades and somehistorical buildings that are supposed to be our treasure, identity and responsibility.

Sadly, the state government would seemingly, rather spend millions of ringgit on those obsolete, meaningless "monuments" or piles of scrap metal which are usually obscene and depict the male genitals. Just take a look at Pitt Street, the bumpy roads and the objects lining the pathway- a useless cement ball joined to another "pole" (which really really looks like a penis complete with the foreskin) by a curved metal( seminal vesicles i suppose) and eventually the pole connects to another ball. So, its shape can be roughly seen as " 0I0 ". Ok, if they didnt really mean to line the streets of Pitt St with testicles and penises and lets say I am looking at it at a wrong perceptive, suppose to say it is based on a "pervertic" mind, what about the Pinang monument at the end of Beach Street, and lets not forget the Hibiscus. The public has criticized this "obsession for male genital like monuments which equals to a sheer waste of money and no historical value" through the mass media but unfortunately they are building more of these. This year 2007, in december, I think, they are building yet another monument at Gurney Drive. Come on lah, they are surely better ways to increase expenditure of the country and at the same time increase somebody's "side income".

Why dont they build monuments depicting the leaders of Malaysia, for instance, Tunku Abdul Rahman or maybe the statues of Francis Light or something that has VALUE....

PS:I shall update more on these tomorrow when I am better armed with memory in the camera for more photos and stories to tell.......