OF A KELANTANESE, A SRI LANKAN, A MOROCCAN, A MALAYSIAN WHO NEVER LEFT UK AND CHEF WAN

It had just been reported to me yesterday that Chef Wan is in London for some TV show and interviews with a few magazines. And of course a few non-profit organizations will seize this opportunity to haul him for some cooking demonstration in the pretext of charity drive.

One confusion yesterday will definitely made his day. The organizer, a Kelantanese lady requested for a transport for Chef Wan from his rented apartment to the location. The request was made to a Sri Lankan supervisor who is in charge of transport arrangements.

Her request sound like this "Karunanithi please send a driver to pick the CEH".

The Sri Lankan then called the drivers room and a driver "Mohammed please go to this address, go to apartment 24 and collect a CHEAR".

The driver then asked "How many chairs". The supervisor said "Only one". The driver responded "I need a messenger to come with me because there is no parking at that address. I cannot leave the car. The messenger can go up the apartment a collect the chair"

The supervisor said "Bring Mat Salleh then". Mat Salleh is a Malaysian, born in the the UK and cannot speak even a word in Bahasa.

So both of them left for the address. When they arrived Mat Salleh went into the building, passing Chef Wan who was standing there and rang the apartment.

"I lived here" said Chef Wan. "Oh hello" said Mat Salleh, "I am here to collect the chair".

"It the chef, not a chair" said Chef Wan, "and I am the Chef". "No" said Mat Salleh, "I suppose to collect a chair".

By now Chef Wan had heated up. Not only they were late, now they want to carry him as a chair to the car.

Mat Salleh called the Sri Lankan supervisor informing that there was no chair there, but an angry-looking guy who kept on repeating that he is the chef. The supervisor then called the lady Kelantanese organizer for clarification only to find out that it was actually a chef to be picked up, not a chair.

On his way to the location, Chef Wan grumbled in his usual Cik Kiah style while both the Moroccan and Malaysian just kept silence.

He will probably tell this tale in one of his show later, I guarantee......

THE MALAYSIAN CURRENCY CRISIS, HOW AND WHY IT HAPPENED - A SUGGESTED READING

Well,well. Do you think that I am going to suggest a newly published book to read? Maybe later, but this time I would like to suggest you to read The Malaysian Currency Crisis by the former Malaysian PM.

For those who have not read this book, I suggest you to go and get one. It explains what is the Asian Currency Crisis 1997-1998 all about and how wrong the decisions made by the former DPM cum Finance Minister which almost brought us to total collapse.

Ironically I haven't heard a single refute from the former DPM nor his famous threat to bring the former PM to court on the issues raised in the book. Or probably there were that missed my attention. Or there were none to bring the whole truth from his viewpoint.

I finished reading the Malaysian Currency Crisis in one day (it is a small thin book anyway). I had read this book afew times over and over again.

I had also read Anwar Ibrahim's Asian Renaissance. I read up to 6 pages, closed the book and kept it in my bookshelf until today. Never open it again.

The self-proclaimed Renaissance Man just couldn't come close to the stature of the Grand Old Man or a Statesman to be exact.

... AND HERE IT IS, ANOTHER SUB-PRIME CRISIS

Right after the rattle of sub-prime mortgage crisis seems to subside, another sub-prime menace is already here, waiting for us in the horizon. This time a much bigger sub-prime crisis, the credit cards debts estimated at US$915 billions. We will have to accept it now that the US is heavily indebted. The Americans are living their 'American Dreams' on the borrowed money. Unlike the Euros, the US dollar is not back-up by gold reserves. It is back-up by the words 'In God We Trust'. It is a matter of time the crisis in the US would burst wide open. When thats happen, we will go down the drain with them.

On top of that, the petrol price is keep on rising, as a result of weak US Dollars. Petrol price is quoted in US Dollars in the world market and if you remember Dr. Mahathir had many times suggested for petrol to be traded in the Euros, a suggestion that fell into deaf ears. Now we are paying for the price.

I filled up my car this morning and got shocked that the price today is £1.01 (around RM7.00) per litre. It was £0.69 when I arrived in the UK. A more than 40% increase. So brace yourself for an evitable rise of gasoline price in Malaysia, which is happening very soon or latest right after the anticipated General Election.

A PRICELESS GIFT

My definition of priceless is something that money cannot buy. Eventhough I have the money but if there is no price on the thing I wanted to buy, I still couldn't buy it. And so I have this gift, such a priceless which I keep very close to me.

I lived in Iraq quite sometime ago, during the time when Saddam Hussain was alive. I can say that from a few Arab countries that I had visited, Iraq is the most special of all. Iraqis look rough, just like any other Arabs, but they are the nicest Arabs to me. I travelled to Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco (although Egypt and Morocco are in the North Africa, but they are also of Arabs stock) and Iraq and its people are always close to my heart.

Iraq is a land of plenty. No only she hold the second oil reserve in the world, but the land there is so fertile with Tigris and Euphrates river run accross her. For me Iraq should be one of the richest country in the world. But alas, like being cursed for hundred of years, life in Iraq remained difficult as though being damned by the curse of the black gold she owned.

History had shown how the ancient Iraqis had repelled the Roman Empire. I won't be a surprise if they can still repel the Americans and the British in the present time.

While I was there I befriended this old man whom I called Baba Aziz. He was the head of the community where he lived, at the outskirt of Baghdad. I was going out socially with his daughter, well as a friend, but not as a special, although in the beginning I had this idea to have her special. The Iraqis like to bring their friends home and I was introduced to her family, to her father. He introduced himself as Aziz and I called him Baba Aziz since.

I was amazed by his fluency in English, nothing compared to my broken language. A very polish and respected gentleman. He was 63 years old that time. We spend hours talking everytime we met. I didn't have to talk much because there was so much to hear from him, the great civilization of Babylon, the cradle of mankind and many more things about Iraq. All I had to do just lent my ears. I learnt that old folks will love you if you just be a good listener. Thats what I did best. There was so much experience to share from him.

Whenever I go to see him, I will bring a carton of Malboro cigarettes, although I am not smoking. His daughter had warned me not to bring cigarettes to him, but she could not say much as her father was so happy to have my company and nobody will stop him from smoking while I was around. He told me that he just want to smoke as there is not much left for him in his life anyway.

One thing about Baba Aziz, he always hold a tasbih (prayer bits)and this one particular tasbih has never left his hand. It looked like being made from a rough glass.

On one of visit, he held my right hand and put this tasbih into my hand. He asked me to keep it. He told me that this particular tasbih is very special to him and it was made from the windscreen of the Iranian fighter jet that was shot down during the Iran-Iraq war. A piece of the fighter windscreen was given to him by the Iraqi government as an honour because his eldest son, a commander in Iraqi military was captured by the Iranians and he had not heard about him ever since. He sent the piece of the windscreen to the tasbih maker and since then that tasbih has never left his hand.

I told him that I cannot accept that gift as it meant so much to him. He may want to keep it close to him all the time. He insisted and that he had already accepted me as his son and he want me to have it. I was so touched and so honoured to inherit that gift. I finally accepted it.

The new war broke out as a result of Saddam's invasion on Kuwait and I had to leave Iraq. I was in a real rush and I couldn't say goodbye to Baba Aziz. Iraqi telecommunication system was heavily bombarded and I couldn't call Baba Aziz at all after I left Iraq. I had totally lost contact with him.

I do not know his condition now. Is he is still alive in Iraq's present condition. He must have suffered a lot. I pray for him and his family to always be in god's protection.

And I still miss his company so much. I have been keeping the tasbih close to me all the time. A priceless gift that I always treasure.

MALAYSIA'S NEXT TOP MODELS

No, no. They are not America's or Britain's next top models. These girls (except one) are the newest Malaysia's next top models and they had visited me and my family on the second day of Hari Raya.... :)




No lah. Two of these pretty girls are my nieces. They came all the way from Manchester and Liverpool together with their friends during second Hari Raya to London and visited their long lost uncle. I felt so blessed.

Whats more, they posed under my appple tree too. Now the apple tree also felt so blessed.



And a few of their poses (one below) will surely win awards.




Looking at them, I think they really have a quality to model. Except they are now serious students in various disciplines.

I wish them all the best and one day to contribute to the country.

1 AUGUST 1990

1st August 1990, a date not to forget.

Gonzalez and I were travelling from Kuwait City to Baghdad. The total distance was 800km and we were travelling by 4x4 Mitsubishi Pajero. It was scorching hot at 45˚C, but luckily the car's Japanese made air-conditioned worked very well to that kind of heat. There was a 2km no man's land between Kuwait and Iraq borders, which mean if anything happened to the car after crossing Kuwait border, we wouldn't be getting help from either Kuwaiti or Iraqi authorities before reaching Iraqi border post.

After crossing both borders, we drove on the Iraqi Primary Highway to Baghdad. It was a five lanes very wide highway with an extra emergency lane. A total of six lanes going and six lanes coming back. I had never seen this kind of highway before. Our two lanes North-South Highway would look just like a country road to them. The distance between one filling station to another was 300km and we had petrol stored in jerry can in case we ran out of it. Saddam Hussein had used his oil revenue to build a super Iraqi Primary Highways connecting Baghdad to the borders of Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi and Jordan. I had been in the US and I can guarantee that even the best highways in the US couldn't match these highways. According to intelligent reports, Saddam Hussein would use the highways as a landing airstrip for his military aircrafts during the war.

While on our way we saw a lot of military trucks on the opposite side heading to Kuwait border. It was quite normal to see convoys of military trucks in Iraq. But the number this time were higher than normal. This time they also had the mobile hospitals in the convoys.

We reached Baghdad at almost 8.00pm. I was so tired and slumped myself in bed like a log. Woke up next day just to hear the news that Iraq had invaded Kuwait at the early dawn of 2nd August 1990. A different version of the Iraqi TV had announced that Kuwait had return to Iraq and they were celebrating. Had Gonzalez and I delayed our departure to another day, we might had been caught in the invasion.

As for the military convoys that we had witnessed, to the layman like me there was nothing to be alarmed for these quite normal military movements in Iraq. But for the military experts, they probably would detect something amiss when the mobile hospitals were involved that time.

For me, I was just there, in one part of the history.

THOSE DAYS......

Well those days, ha! ha! ha! For some unknown reason I remembered an incident that had happened in a once upon a time when I was studying in ITM.

I was so skinny those days. The side effect of being skinny and unattractive was very obvious, no other than not being able to attract a girl. I got used to it and not having a girlfriend was quite okay to me. I knew my look very well, it was so pathetic and I better stay away from trying to market myself, it won't sell.

But one night, my luck was about to change. I had borrowed my friend's motorbike to go to the library that night. Those days the students do not need to have a license to ride motorbike in ITM. When the library closed, I rode back slowly to my hostel, enjoying the night breeze. Half way I saw a girl waving in front of me. I looked behind me and there was nobody there. The girl was definitely waving for me. I stopped the bike near her and I can see that she was very beautiful. She smiled and asked me if she can have a ride to her hostel. I was very delighted and obliged straight away.

She climbed to the motorbike and I rode slowly towards the girls hostel. I started asking her name, her course, her year and lots of questions. She was so friendly and asked quite a lot of questions about me too. It seemed that she was interested in me and I felt good.

The ride was actually very slow but it seemed so fast to me. Well when you are in a company of a beautiful girl, of course time just fly. When we reached her hostel, she climbed down the motorbike and thanked me. Smiled and she dropped a bombshell. She told me that she was desperate for the ride because she urgently need to go to the toilet. She thanked me again, told me that she already had a boyfriend and ran quickly inside. I paused and was gutted, but I took it easy.

On my way back to my hostel, I couldn't stop thinking on why she hadn't been frank on her misery. Had she been frank, I would have sent her as fast as I could and saved her from all the suffering she had to endure on holding it on my slow ride. I would surely rush probably to save my friend's motorbike in case she couldn't hold it.

And why she had to tell me that she already had a boyfriend? The answer I had probably she want to make it clear to me in case I bumped to her again later. Girls.... I really don't understand them.