Guides to bringing up children, good parenting, How to be good parents

Last month, the month of November in 2018 my youngest son managed to graduate in nuclear engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia or UTM in Johor. At the grand convocation, he was also awarded an excellence award by the University Alumni Association. Even before the graduation ceremony, he was offered to do a Masters in Management and Gas program at the same university for which he did not even apply. Recently, he was also offered to do a Masters in Nuclear Engineering by Tsinghua University, one of the best universities in China. The offer comes with a full scholarship and a job offer after graduation from the Chinese Nuclear Corporation Agency. Seeing the achievements of my youngest son, I could reflect back on how I have brought up my children. I just want to share my experience in bringing up my children and the things that I've done or acted upon.

I remember one of the things that I did as a parent is to stress on three important subjects which were Mathematics, Science, and English. Every time when guiding or advising the children, I would always emphasize the importance of these subjects. I really made sure that my children were good at Mathematics. When they were young children, I would always teach and guide my children how to add up the numbers in the license plate of cars. I would also do calculations and other mathematics types of activities. In a long journey to Melaka or to Kedah, I would reward my children with special prizes if they managed to answer all my mathematics questions. With the rewards, they would be very thrilled and would try their best to answer the questions. The prizes did really motivate them. I believe because of my pieces of training, all my children were good at Mathematics. My eldest would always able to win money prizes for answering mathematics questions posed by the teacher in his school. I still remember vividly how my eldest son would smile gingerly with a few ringgits that he held in his hands after coming back from school. I could see his grins imbued with satisfaction.

The same thing with English subject. I would do presentation activities while we were traveling in our car to other places. I would create situations in which they had to give presentations depending on the situations given. All would have to talk in English with no exceptions. At hotels we stayed in, I would also always ask my children to call the hotel reception for extra pillows or towels and all these had to be done using English. I would also make sure that they all spoke in English with the hotel staff when checking in or out and I would observe them from afar. In short, I would encourage them to use English whenever communicating with people at banks, hotels, and restaurants. I myself never taught them English at home, I also seldom communicated in English with my children but I got them to use the language at the right places and situations. I think it worked as all my children were able to communicate in English fluently and all of them managed to get A+ in the subject.

My children not only loved Mathematics and English they also did very well in the science subject. I remember when they were kids I would regularly take them to the zoos in Melaka and Gombak to see the animals. I would get them to see for themselves the animals and learned about them. I would also take them to secondary jungles and places where there were plants and I would share with them things that I know about- the plants and animals. At home, I would talk about insects and other living things. I remember my youngest kept several caterpillars he found in a container until they became beautiful butterflies but he did not want to release the butterflies. But finally, I managed to convince my youngest to let go of the beautiful insects to the wild. He cried but later he felt so happy.

Other than making sure that my children were immersed in Mathematics, Science, and English, I as a father would always make sure that they did not miss their daily prayers. Even though I seldom go to the mosque myself for the daily payers, I make it a point that they always be grateful to Allah and that they would never miss their obligatory prayers. I would instill in them good moral values as well as religious values. All my boys were able to recite al Quran and all the necessary after prayer doas and all would be able to become an imam at any jumaah prayers. The sad thing is that I myself when I was young, was not able to do what my children were able to do. I still remember the day I really rotan my eldest for missing his Friday prayers for no good reason. That was the only time in my life that I really spanked my children and I regretted it so much.

One thing about bringing up the children is that I did not punish them or give any physical punishments to my children except for that one unfortunate incident in which I rotan my eldest for missing his Friday prayers. I don't believe in physical punishments as I went through that myself as it was very painful physically and emotionally. My dad who was a police officer had a very regimented and disciplined upbringing of children. He would always resort to physical punishments to get us to listen to him. I could still remember how he would hit us with the police issued belt and we would be crying in pain. In one instance, he hit me with papan rehan, a wooden plank where you would put your Quran on it, so hard that the wood just split into two. I could still remember that day and on that day itself, I promised myself that I would never do that to my own children. True enough, I have kept my promises. I have never resorted to physical punishments to teach my children. I would only shower them with unconditional love and care.

With the grace of Allah, my children turned out to be quite okay according to my own standard. My eldest son is now a doctor serving in a remote hospital in Negeri Sembilan. Occasionally, he would come back to my home in Bangi. He is already married to a girl from the state of Selangor who is working as a doctor in a hospital in Putrajaya. They both have a son -my grandson now aged 3. My second child is a daughter who works as a lawyer in a legal firm in Bandar Baru Bangi. She's now specializing in Conveyancing and now doing her Masters in law in Intellectual property. She hopes to have her own firm in a few years time. And my youngest has just graduated from UTM and also doing his masters. He's also applying to further his studies in Korea under the KAIST programme. Alhamdullah ...for all the blessings.

Pakatan Harapan government 2018 : How they stack up?/ The weaknesses of th ePH govt

The Malaysian government is now run by Pakatan Harapan, a coalition of parties that include Parti Bersatu, Amanah, Dap, Warisan and PKR. Malaysia nowadays has moved to a new two-party system pretty much like that in the United States with its Democratic and Republican parties. Previously,  the country was run for more than 50 years by a coalition headed by UMNO together with MCA, MIC, PBB and a host of other small parties from Sabah and Sarawak, states in the Malaysian part of Borneo. The new govt of Pakatan Harapan or popularly known as PH  has run the country for more more than 6 months already and they have done a number of things but mainly going after corrupt politicians mainly from UMNO namely people such as the ex-PM Najib Razak, and Tengku Adnan who was was secretary of the BN coalition. In general, I'm quite satisfied with the prosecution of the corrupt players but there are a number of things that have been done by the present government that are not to my likings. As such,  I would list and elaborate briefly the weaknesses and the flaws that have been done by the new government headed by the octogenarian  Mahathir Mohamad.

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One of the weaknesses that is being committed by the present government is the implementation of the ineffective SST tax regime. Previously the tax system was running using the broad-based tax system known as the GST, a tax system that is widely used by most countries. The system was so effective in collecting revenues for the government but the new govt by PH  decided to do away with the system and replaced with an old ineffective tax collection system. As such,  the revenue collected by the present government is now very much less as compared by the previous govt. This year they were only able to collect only slightly more than 20 billion ringgit whereas in the previous year more than 40 billion ringgit were able to be collected. As such,  a lot of good programmes that were implemented by the previous regime were not able to be implemented or continued by the present government because of the shortage of income. A lot of these programmes are actually helping the poor people or the B40 groups, especially those in rural areas. Because of the lack each of money, a lot of these programmes have been stopped or temporarily suspended and these really have impacted the poor deserving people. I really hope the present government would revert to the more effective GST system and would be able to collect more revenue to implement programmes to help the people. But I doubt the present government would be able to do it. I would definitely vote for a government that implements a good and effective tax collection system in the coming BE 15. If the PH continues with the tax system, a lot of good existing programmes that are helpful to the people be stopped.

Another weakness of the government is appointing ministers who lack the experience in running the country. Most of the newly appointed ministers are young, idealistic, and still in the opposition mode. These people who have been appointed to hold such important jobs have no substantial experience in running the government. Most of these ministers are young naive and really inexperienced to run a piece of bureaucratic and complex government machinery. They have come up with a number of trivial policy statements that have impacted the country as a whole. Some of them would just come up with untested policies that could only be churned by undergraduates instead of ministers. One good example is the Minister of telecommunications, a DAP member of parliament from Jelutong. He would come up with a strong clarion call of asking Telekom Malaysia to bring down the prices of unifi or broadband fees like what the opposition would.  These blunt and unnecessary orders have resulted in selling pressures on the company stocks and have resulted in the company losing billions of dollars and the high value of the stocks have been wiped out. Yes, the intention to bring down the price of the internet is good but the fact that the call has been made public and made a number of times have resulted in selling pressures. The minister could have done this rather quietly and in a professional manner than trying to be like a Robin hood and trying to show that he is doing everything to help the people. His blatant ignorance and his lack of experienced have made this GLCs losing billions of dollars.

The same applies to this person called LGE. His negative statement unsubstantiated allegations have brought down shares of blue-chip companies in Malaysia. Every time he opens his wide mouth, the KLSE shares would come down. He seems to have forgotten that he is now running the government. His mode is still in the opposition mode and which does not gel in with the system of running a government. I really hope that the Mahathir government would bring more experienced people running the ministry instead of getting the novices who just do not know how to run a govt. The people are running the govt machine using the opposition mode which does not gel nicely with that of running a govt.

The third weakness of the government is to continue harping on the weaknesses of the previous regime headed by Najib Razak. All statements nowadays by the ministers of PH govt centered on the wrongs that have been done by the previous regime. If these things are done briefly to show how the previous UMNO govt has been doing is not necessarily that bad but doing this incessantly after than half a year really reflects badly on the represent govt. It shows that the present government has no plans at all. They have no strategic plans for the country. They don't know what are the things that the country needs to delve into. The PH govt now is really in disarray without any meaningful plans, The present government is only good at talking bad about the previous govt with having good plans of their own. I really hope this blame game will stop and the PH govt would lead the way in coming up with good effective plans for the country.

A promise is a promise and a  number of promises pledges made by the PH govt government have not been implemented. This is another main weakness of the PH govt. The PH govt made a lot of pledges like abolishing the tolls, paying for the PPTN loans, reducing the price of petrol and a number of other things. But most of these pledges are not kept by the Mahathir government. If they continue ignoring these pledges and not helping the people I believe they will have a hard time in convincing millions of people in the next GE 15. It's not impossible that the PH govt will be defeated like Umno in GE 14. And it is not impossible for UMNO to make a come back again to run the country in 5 years time as what LDP in Japan has done. It all depends on the remedial actions to be taken by the PH government. Personally, I don't have faith that the present govt will fulfill their pledges. All these pledges are really empty pledges for the purpose of winning the votes. The people soon will get tired soon and it is not impossible that they will throw out the govt as they did of BN.

Will continue...

The best restaurant in Bandar Baru Bangi 2018, Restoran sedap Bangi 2018

I have to admit that there are many good restaurants in Bangi or in Bandar Baru Bangi. New restaurants in Bangi are mushrooming and the uncompetitive ones would just close down. Choosing the best restaurant in Bangi is no easy task as there are many of them. Some are really good and some are just mediocre.Some restaurants have a lot of good dishes but in some cases only one special dish. One restaurant is Bangi that I would consider the best restaurant all round in Bangi for the year 2018 has got to be Restoran Umai in Seksyen 7 Bangi. I will elaborate on the reasons for choosing it as the best all-rounder family restaurant in Bangi.

The main reason Umai is the best restaurant in Bangi is that when you order dishes like nasi goreng paprik , the cook in the restaurant would prepare it fresh. The restaurant would not serve you pre-cook dishes and scoop it out from the container to serve you. So what you get in the restaurant is freshly prepared dishes that you have just ordered. My favorite dish that I always order depending on whether it's for lunch or dinner would be "Sup tulang "(RM 8). The soup is given in a reasonably large bowl with 4 - 5 quite big pieces of tulang with a reasonable amount of meat still attached to the bones to be heartily consumed. The meat, as usual, is not that tough and sometimes would be easily fall off from the bones. The soup is also delicious with enough condiments and beautifully decorated with freshly cut fresh green. onions.

In the evening when I have no appetite to eat rice or to go for something heavy,  I would go for mee rebus umai (RM 5). Wow, the mee rebus is really delicious. The sauce is really thickened and flavourful with not  much of dried shrimps taste. It is probably one of the best mee rebus ever. The gravy I believe is thickened with sweet potatoes instead of potatoes and nicely balanced in flavor with a tinged of sourness. The portion given is quite large and filled with yellow noodles that are drenched in boiled water briefly to retain its chewiness. Every ingredient in the bowl works perfectly to complement each other.

 Another afternoon dish served at the restaurant is Laksa kedah (Rm 4.80) . Like the Mee rebus the laksa served at this restaurant is better than the infamous laksa telok kecai. The fish gravy served is just perfect and not too spicy. If you need more spice , just order freshly cit cili padi. It works well with th enoodles. The laksa in the bowl is also not too soft or too hard and just perfect to be savored with the quite thick fish sauce. Sad the laksa bowl is not served with otak udand which would have made the laksa perferct.



When inviting friends to enjoy the dishes at the restaurant don't forget to order cucur udang. The cucur udang at the restaurant is prepared fresh by the cook. They will only fry the fritters when it is ordered, so you will get your cucur udang served hot off the oven or the belanga. The best thing about the cucur udang is that it is served with two types of sauces ie, Kuah kacang and kuah cili. The kuah kacang is the real satay type of  kuah kacang and not the half- baked typed sauce. With a cup of air teh halia and the freshly prepared cucur udang your afternoon with friends is just about perfect. You just cannot get this kind of combination in Bandar Baru Bangi.

The restaurant also serves nice nasi goreng paprik seafood, char keow teaw, cucur kodok, lempeng pisang. The service is generally quite good but there are times when there are too many customers around and your order will either be just lost or the food order will be very much delayed. I would give this place 8/10 * for overall recommendation. Cleanliness gets 6/10 *, and service 5/10 *. Overall the good taste of the dishes and reasonable prices and a variety of heavy and light dishes offered make it the best overall restaurant for the year 2018.

IOBA friends, Ibrahim school friends, Sekolah menengah Ibrahim, Stayin Alive 1979

The years in Sekolah Menengah Ibrahim, a so-called premier school Sungai Petani, were really filled with fun and doing naughty things. As young adults, we were not worried about our future and were so happy doing crazy and useless things and not understanding the ramifications or consequences. 

Those fun-filled activities were participated by my classmates who included Art Tarzan or his complete name was Azhar Azizan or Art Harun. This friend  I think is from Yan or Baling and he was staying in the school hostel which was situated at the far end of the school compound. In the 5A1 class, which was known as the noisiest and one of the worst classes and purposely placed next to the main office, Art Tarzan would always sit not far from the intelligent boy Towkay or Sulaiman Daud. I was sitting not very far from the always smartly dressed Zaini Hashim, whose father was a Yang Berhormat of Merbok constituency or Ujang, the son of a soldier stationed at Kem Lapangan Terbang. Tarzan who would always shout out in the class for no apparent reasons was given that name by yours truly, was really smart and clearly smarter than me in the class.  However,  academically in the class exam, he was always second to Towkay in terms of academic performance. Leman or Towkay would always secure the position as "numero uno "   and Tarzan would grab the second slot consistently. I was always number three and would go down to number 10 depending on my performance in the class exams. I was the type that was not very consistent is my academic performance unlike Towkay and Art Tarzan. But somehow during the high stake examination of MCE, I was able to create an upset and managed to get grade 1 whereas Sulaiman only managed to obtained grade two together with Art Tarzan.

Based on the results I got the chance to further my studies overseas whereas Art Tarzan, Leman and Ujang continued with Form 6 in the same school. I heard Tarzan did quite well in his STPM examination and managed to further his studies in Law at the University of Malaya and later would become quite a successful lawyer. Later in the years, Art Tarzan was more involved in social issues and now very heavily involved in politics. In Ibrahim school, he was the type that was quite sentimental but always full of drive to achieve his goals. He would also enjoy life so much and would always be stuck with his favorite guitar. One song that I always remember him singing was the song "Please don't go".  I discovered somehow later in life he was a bit jealous of me at least based on my observations. He would see me as a competitor even though in real life he is always successful. All the best to you Art Tarzan. 

Another good friend of mine is Hidayat Fahmi who was known as Dayat and who was one of the students in Form 5 express class, the smart boys class. He was really close to me outside the school environment. We would be very active in our residential areas doing many boys things like building a tree house in the Paya Bakau and building a sampan in the dirty river not far from our homes. We would also be fishing for mud crabs and lokan and would cook them. Wow, life was so fun with Dayat. His father was a Bahasa Melayu subject teacher driving a rare BMW 2002 in Kuala Muda. In life, Dayat was really handsome and standing quite tall amongst my friends. When he was a young adult, he looked very much like David Cassidy the actor cum singer and had a fair colored skin with hair that was quite brownish in color. He really looked like a Mat Salleh at a glance. His good-looking was a magnet amongst girls in Bakar Arang and some of the Convents school students. Girls students were just crazy for him. His handsomeness made me realize how "ugly" I was. During those years also I was made to be aware of my physical nonattractive look. I would always compare myself to Dayat and questioned God for creating me not to be so handsome.

We were very close and we would even hold our hands together while walking together. There were no sexual connotations at all but it reflected how close the relationships were during our childhood. Dayat and family stayed in Rumah Murah Bakar Arang, a small two-room low-cost terrace house, where I and my family also stayed with 7 siblings. Dayat's house was the opposite of the house of Mak Wan, a tall lady who was really a classic "Makcik bawang " who had a son by the name of Mukhlis. The family life of Dayat was a bit in disarray because his father had married another woman in Kota Kuala Muda and Dayat's mother was the one who was taking care of the family financially. Dayat and I would sometimes cook our lunch together as he was quite independent and left to fend for himself. I remember one dish that he cooked that I learned till now was "sambal telor ", in which to or three eggs were cracked open and slowly cooked in "sambal tumis ". The dish was simple but really delicious when eaten with freshly cooked rice. Dayat however, did not do quite well academically even though he was such a potentially bright student. The fact that his family life was so disorganized and from the lack of parental guidance could be the reasons for him not doing too well academically. I heard at present in life he is involved in selling Jati furniture in Sungai Petani. He brings in Jati furniture that he imports from Indonesia. I also heard that he got divorced and later remarried. I don't know where he lives exactly but occasionally I would see him appeared in the facebook promoting his furniture.

I really have to thank Dayat for being my really good friend. I also have to apologize to him for not being such a good friend to him especially during the years when I was sent to the States. I did not get in touch with him as frequent as I would like back then. Life for me that in the States was so challenging and communication was bad because of the lack of internet and communicating using the telephone was exorbitant. Well, that's just could be a flimsy excuse. I know that he was not very happy with me. But what I really want to say is that I'm truly sorry for treating you that way Dayat. You have been a fantastic friend to me. I don't think I would be able to get a friend as nice as you are.