Plastic scare

At the backyard of my house is a wiremesh basket in which my family has been tossing in discarded plastic containers, mostly mineral water bottles.
After a while we send them to the recycling centre. Mundane stuff. But looking at the filled wiremesh basket recently, i realised that there was an awful lot of plastic containers just one family has been throwing out.
Now multiply that thousands no, million times more. And how many are simply discarded and end up in garbage dumps? And that's just the plastic bottles. What about plastic bags?
A scary thought.

On the go

Colourful and candle lighted paper lanterns light up the night of the mid autumm festival as these children parade around their neighbourhood park in Kota Kinabalu.
It is good to see simple pleasures like these persisting.

By the wayThis is a short post as it was dispatched to blogspot via my hand phone where typing out a message is definately not a walk through the park (pun intended).

Nature's water park

A stream flowing down the Crocker Range in the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu serves as a wet playground for these children as their parents harvest their orchard nearby of durians, mangosteens, rambutans among others.
The cool, clear water of the stream flows for about 10kms before pouring out into the South China Sea.
Along the way, it becomes a convenient open sewer as it flows past pig and chicken farms, industrial and commercial areas and riverside squatter colonies and has been described as one of the most polluted waterways in Sabah.
And it continues unabated. This will be one of the legacies these children will inherit.

That time of the year

Come ever September 16 the annual question of how old exactly is Malaysia will be on the lips of some politicians and arm chair historians. See here , here and here. These are some of the more recent stuff on the subject.
Did Malaysia come into being on Aug 31, 1957 or Sept 16, 1963? Does this question actually matter at this point?
I think the question is repeatedly being asked from this side of the South China Sea as it reflects dissatisfaction as to how both states, that agreed to become part of the federation as equal partners, are being treated today.
It may not be too far fetched if I say that many Sabahans - due to Umno's overwhelming presence in the state - as well as Sarawakians can't shake off this feeling that both states are now subservient to Kuala Lumpur.
In the end, are Sabahans and Sarawakians feeling that they got rid one colonial master off their backs only to eventually find that another has taken its place?

Happy birthday Malaysia.

By the way, it's nice to be back after a short break due to blogging block (as in writing block).

Simple pleasures

A ball and a stream were all the things that kept these three children occupied as their parents took part in the festivities of a wedding at a village in the interior Sabah district of Keningau.

Simple pleasures like this still keep these children busy unlike their urban counterparts who at the slightest hint boredom will whip out a hand phone or ipod or mobile playstation game set or any other electronic gizmos to keep them occupied.

Is this a defination of progress?

Happy birthday.

This is one of the few posts with no pictures. But I've updated this blog and added the Malaysian flag on the right panel.
It is a little tribute to the country where I was born, raised and that has been good to me and my family.
Though I often wonder where this country is heading to, I know that I will be calling myself a Malaysian for a very long time. And proudly so.

Happy birthday Malaysia.