APRIL 22 — It’s been nearly a year since my lumpectomy and the stiffness that came on immediately after, still lingers.

My physiotherapist says my shoulder blade isn’t working like it should and despite stretches, exercises and supplements I cannot easily raise my left arm.

I thought that perhaps after my immunotherapy sessions stopped, the stiffness would ease some but apparently sudden onset menopause will do this to you.

As I figured I had nothing left to lose (besides money) I might as well try acupuncture.

There is a practitioner right around the corner, next to my regular GP but I decided to look online for more options and settled for a practice that had an all-female staff.

The whole endeavour would be awkward enough; being around women would be a comfort, especially ones who specialised in women’s health issues.

My acupuncturist/TCM doctor was very nice, super chirpy and rather young but seemed self-assured and wasn’t overly pushy.

I wasn’t sure what to expect besides being poked with needles.

The ensuing session was enlightening.

Thirty minutes, a handful of needles, and a small step toward moving freely again. — AFP pic

So, because my issue was with my left shoulder I would apparently not just be getting more needles but those needles would be attached to a current.

On top of said current, I also had a red heat lamp pointed on top of my shoulder area.

Speaking of needles, I had quite a few of them placed on top of my head, along both hands as well as my feet.

All the needles were inserted while I was lying down on my back in a sarong, and once the needles were placed, a call button was placed under my hand and an alarm set.

There wasn’t anything I could do besides lie down and wait for the 30 minutes to be done; it would have been nice to nap but getting zapped by electrically-charged needles made that a little difficult.

Could have been worse, really.

Someone I know had to see an acupuncturist first thing in the morning, had needles inserted into her head and then was told to just go about her day — with needles, I repeat, in her head.

I didn’t really feel much pain besides the sensation of pricking when the needles entered my body but they did feel uncomfortable when I tried moving my free hand around.

If you’re the kind who cannot sit still I don’t think acupuncture would be wise.

A week has passed since my treatment and the biggest difference is that lifting my arms is less of a hassle.

Yet I find I can somewhat simulate the sensation with my trusty TENS machine, that I forgot about, after no longer needing it once my chemo-induced neuropathy faded.

It’s easier to do my stretches now, my left shoulder blade seems to be more active and relearning to do the things it should have been doing.

In other news, I thought my neuropathy was stopping me from pressing on my aircon remote effectively.

No, the remote was faulty.

I suffered, a whole year, of jabbing the damn button multiple times needlessly but at least the replacement OEM remote was only RM18.

As I don’t really like having to travel for yet another health procedure I think my acupuncture experience will be a one and done, and I will instead continue my physio exercises, un-retire my TENS machine and maybe next month I’ll get my own red light therapy lamp.

I’d like to think the acupuncture treatment helped realign my neural pathways or maybe eased some residual inflammation but who knows, really?

What I do know is the pain has decreased, my mobility has improved and I would say it’s a nice complementary treatment to help manage side effects.

I was told at the centre that one of their clients was a Stage 4 cancer patient who was a regular, having acupuncture to help ease swollen ankles from regular chemotherapy.

That’s where I think alternative treatments should start and end.

It’s important to first see a doctor, get a proper diagnosis and only rely on things like acupuncture, reiki and the like to improve quality of life.

Sadly there are people who turn first to their herbalist, acupuncturist or masseuse for their health issues and only go to the doctor when it’s too late for it to help.

My acupuncturist says my Qi is strong (judging from my pulse) and overall I seem fine though my spleen is a little weak (according to my tongue).

As neither my acupuncturist nor my oncologist feel I need extra medication or therapy, perhaps I am, health-wise, in a better place than I realise.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 19 — The official answer is, of course, yes. The unofficial truth may be more lengthy.

Yes, but…

Since most university students are adults, it’s really up to them. We can’t be checking on every assignment submitted by every student. 

They paid their fees and it’s their education, so ultimately, they have to be responsible for the quality of their own learning. 

No doubt chatbots have made it much easier to submit “fake” assignments but, hey, even without AI detecting cheating isn’t fool proof because a student can simply ask another person to do their work for them.

And if you’ve got hundreds of students, how is it feasible for the lecturer to be checking everyone?

Of course, the option of making every student sit for handwritten exams is there (and this is still being widely done). But online assignments remain part of the course, and they cannot be removed entirely. 

And aren’t institutions supposed to move away from traditional modes of education and assessment?

The author argues that while institutions officially oppose AI-written assignments, practical constraints — from detection limits to cost and scale — make enforcement inconsistent, leaving responsibility largely with students themselves. — Reuters pic

Yes, but…

AI detection software isn’t cheap and their rates are rising. Institution funds are already tight, so sometimes we encourage lecturers and/or students to do their own AI checking and maybe submit a declaration of originality.

Furthermore, many foreign students (or students struggling with English proficiency) use AI platforms for translation purposes all of which “show up” as high AI use. 

Needless to say, it’s very hard to distinguish “co-pilot writing the student’s assignment” (bad) and “Gemini translating the student’s assignment” (neutral).

Yes, but…

Even if the AI-detection software flags some “inappropriate” use of AI there’s still the question of whether the student actually used AI to write that particular sentence or whether it’s simply an error on the part of the software. 

There have been many cases where such software claims that a paragraph wasn’t written by a human but in fact it was. Eg, simply run the Gettysburg Address through a few “anti-AI” programs. Chances are some portions of the speech will be flagged.

A huge problem with AI detection is that, unlike plagiarism-detection, it often cannot be “proven” that a student used Deepseek (or whatever) to write her assignment. 

With plagiarism, it’s easy: Anti-plagiarism software can simply list down the websites and paragraphs which look very very similar to what the student wrote.

With a chatbot, however, it’s almost impossible to prove that a student used said software to construct a paragraph.

Almost the only way to verify if a student wrote something is to conduct interviews with said student. 

This works very well especially for post-graduate students. But if the student numbers are very high (say, into the hundreds) it becomes impractical.

So, do educational institutions care about AI-written assignments?

It’s, uh, complicated.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 16 — The obvious issue plaguing our daily lives the past month needs no introduction.

I’d like to address the transportation and existential elements of the situation here in Malaysia.

A myriad times infinite is the actual number of things to examine related to the 15 per cent of global fuel not passing through the Strait of Hormuz currently which domino effects adversely affect the world, not limited to manufacturing across China or the prospect of the Republicans losing both houses in the November US Elections.

Fascinating as they are, tremendously important as they are over in the Middle East, our fixations are firmly domestic. To aid, some questions, which inadvertently forces more long-term reflections for the Malaysian people.

Do I need that drive?

Millions of government and GLC employees are holding conference calls — while they shoo away young children and other distractions from their makeshift workstation — at home.

Home is where the heart is, also where the office is until they tidy up the landmines and store up the rocket launchers around the Arab peninsula.

Private sector workers follow the beat of their management.

While the bulk of conversations revolve around fuel price, the actual worry in the medium term is fuel supply. It won’t matter how much the price is if there is none to sell.

This is where the government seeks to lead behaviour. Millions of litres of petrol are not utilised by millions of government employees daily if they are at home. Should they order out or can they do more of their bit to conserve by cooking their own meals?

Yesterday was day one of work from home (WFH) and the city traffic was about the same.

This is early days, of the effort to reduce fuel consumption. The current fuel supply uncertainty is not in Malaysia’s hands, how to respond to it, is.

Millions, private or public sector employees, make that decision every day, are they choosing restraint when possible?

It is really about perspectives, which is why it is a moral decision for the individual.

Do you drive back to Ipoh or Johor Bahru this weekend to visit the parents? It may not be an extravagance if care-giving is involved.

There are multitudes of examples and contexts, but the question still remains if a conscience still persists.

In this regard, moral leadership is necessary from the government. It may want to do less telling and find ways to get more Malaysians on board through persuasion.

Unfortunately, almost every government ever in this federation gets afflicted by the “Do as I say, not as I do” syndrome.

A man holds a fuel nozzle at a petrol station on March 25, 2026. — Reuters pic

Do I take before the others do?

Kiasu never went away.

Fuel shortage engenders the typical response in the masses: fill up before the others do. “The last one at the pump is a sucker!”

Psychologists have libraries filled with reports, publications and Hollywood-ready scripts on how the worst comes out of people when scarcity sets in.

In a perverse way, some may reckon, if oil is finite and the next supply uncertain, better use more of it now. Better do that coastal drive to Butterworth now, and not cry about it later. FOMO, fear of missing out.

Trust in each other is the building block of a country. Regrettably, three generations of politicians thrived on mistrust and made it the building block to their electoral victories.

Yet trust is necessary to curb panic and hoarding. So too profiteering, prices upped at the first opportunity.

I remember in the aftermath of the Japan tsunami in 2011 and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown which dislodged over 150,000 people. Yet, queues for food and supplies were orderly even if long and time-consuming. Looting was absent. A conscientious collective is unnoticed until tested, and reputations last a lifetime.

How would Malaysians score?

Where’s the bus stop again?

The buses and trains should be fuller if more in view of global predicaments choose public transportation.

Perhaps this will be a spectacular time to see public officials themselves using the system, presenting themselves as berjiwa rakyat.

There’s not much to add since the arguments are self-evident, the real resistance wall is indifference.

The trains and buses already run, jumping onto them does not add to the petrol consumption count, if anything it reduces cost per rider, and therefore the efficiency of public transportation.

Whose job to deliver steady supply of cheap petrol?

It’s less about politics and more about self-entitlement. We arrive from the back of a petrol-state past, with no state effort to correct our misguided notion of deserving constantly replenished cheap petrol.

Government facilitates, and in our present situation, Malaysia does not dictate to the world.

Even if there is a government change there is no evidence that the reactions will be different or that they have a better plan to deal with oil shortages. Some might whisper, looking at the alternatives available, they may worsen things.

Malaysians may need to readjust their expectations of the government, and demand more from themselves.

The sky’s not falling but we can be better

It’s not dire straits presently. There is every chance a solution soon softens the impact on Malaysia to a period of discomfort only.

Yet, every episode allows us as a country to be introspective.

Not touched here is food security vulnerabilities. Again, a myriad times infinite, the number of issues.

What Malaysians should ask — more of themselves even if they can demand from the government — is whether attitudes must shift from the lessons of the current crisis.

Would we all drive less because it is bad to consume so much fuel?

Would we ask a whole bunch of questions to ourselves all of the time to own more of our problems?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 15 — I have watched more anime in the last two years than I have in my entire lifetime; mostly because I now find Western storytelling very dull.

Whenever I see the Booker list I wonder which tale of midlife crisis/adultery/diaspora disenchantment but written to appeal to Caucasian high-brow tastes made it to the list this time.

My favourite recent read has been Taiwan writer Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue; I wasn’t sure if I’d like the fiction pretending to be non-fiction literary gimmick but it was entertaining and as someone who loves food, particularly Taiwanese food, it did not disappoint.

One of my hobbies is collecting foreign language books and books about learning foreign languages.

I feel they mock me sometimes, from the shelves.

One of the books is my Russian copy of The Master and Margarita, a gift from a friend who said she got it for free because the bookseller was amazed a non-Russian had heard of it, and wanted it.

There is still time for me to pick a language, pick a book and attempt to understand it in its original tongue but I am paralysed by the demands on my time and the bounty of choice.

So instead I procrastinate by watching anime.

I’ve just finished watching Kaya-chan Isn’t Scary and it has an interesting, and weirdly personally relatable premise (for me).

Little Kaya, a preschooler, is psychic.

She can see things others can’t, including monsters that mean her and her fellow preschoolers harm.

The teachers and her classmates see her as a “problem child” when all Kaya is trying to do is protect them from the monsters.

Kaya isn’t afraid of the monsters. Being psychic she has more spiritual power than even some spiritually-attuned adults and can ward off even the scariest bogeymen with a single punch.

(Spoiler alert) Then in one episode, Kaya meets a foe she cannot fend off, and one abetted, unwittingly, by adult onlookers who should have protected her.

Kaya meets a monster but he is an ordinary man who can’t resist trying to walk away with her, a child lost and without her guardians.

Despite her protests the other adults laugh and think she is just having a tantrum.

It takes her distant cousin who happens to be walking by to rescue her from her would-be kidnapper, who instead of showing remorse, admonishes him for not looking after Kaya better, before disappearing into the crowd.

Kaya’s cousin, also a psychic, then picks her up and tells her there are some monsters she can’t fight.

I found the scene harrowing because I empathised with it too much.

When, as a child, I was assaulted in a library I had thought even then, why is this happening? Isn’t this place supposed to be safe?

All children deserve to feel safe.

It feels unreal to read about the Epstein files, the recent report about a toddler being assaulted in ICE custody and the recent paedophile ring arrests in Johor, as well as widespread child sexual abuse in a children’s home in Selayang.

The crowd who feels the need to scream that “women can be sexual attackers too” need to quiet down because women being the perpetrators is the exception and not the rule.

Women are told to learn self-defence, to be careful who they go out with, where they jog, who they date, who they marry and when assaulted, always have to deflect the blame put on them for not “making better choices.”

Do children have the choice in deciding not to be fodder for paedophiles?

I was a little depressed post-cancer looking in the mirror, at my flabby abdomen, menopausal acne, sagging jowls but having had to endure strange men even trying to harass me at my front gate, it’s kind of a relief to be free of male attention.

So when I was back in Sabah for a few days (mainly so my mother wouldn’t decide to give me a heart attack by flying here) I felt nothing but irritation when a passing man on a motorbike catcalled.

It is not women who decided to cause the current West Asian conflict, nor are they behind the troubles in Sudan, and the Congo.

It is not women who keep making themselves the scapegoat for low birthrates, with men now outrightly suggesting that perhaps braindead women could be kept on life support to be used as surrogates or in Russia, women who refuse to have children will be referred to psychotherapists to help convince them motherhood isn’t a bad thing.

As though we are less than human, merely attractive breeding stock not allowed self-determination.

There are young women who are preemptively on birth control so if on the off-chance they are raped, they won’t likely get pregnant.

Serial killers? Mostly men.

Suicide bombers? Also men.

There is something fundamentally wrong in society for men to be so much more skewed towards violence and depravity, and we cannot keep making excuses and calling it “human nature.”

Do not look for bogeyman under beds or in closets; the real monsters have always been, in the flesh, men.

Stop blaming women for men being lonely or unmarried because the problem has always been with them.

At least you won’t have to worry about your cat or dog plotting to kill you.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 10 — So I woke up on Wednesday morning and saw some hopeful news on my phone: Both the US and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire as a sort of prelude to formal negotiations on April 10th to end the war.

Great! Yay!

Except about half an hour after I read the ceasefire news I also read that Iran had fired missiles into Israel and her Arab neighbours, Israel had fired back and – omg! – it looks as if all talk of “cease firing” was a very short-lived joke. 

A few of my friends even expressed concern that the continued rockets and hostilities – barely an hour (or less) after an official ceasefire announcement – was proof that this war could end up being a forever war.

Thing is, it’s guaranteed that many people who were at first joyfully anticipating an end to this war (and all the economic problems it’s been causing) must’ve felt their hopes dissipated.

Thankfully, though, if history is anything to go by we can be assured that the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday is a major (albeit fragile) first step towards ending this conflict. 

Because, believe it or not, most official ceasefires do not mean the warring parties actually cease firing.

Consider last year’s Asean Summit where President Trump and Prime Minister Anwar witnessed the signing of the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accord by both the Thailand and Cambodia prime ministers. 

This very formal and official ceasefire agreement, significantly, did not result in a complete cessation of hostilities (in fact, another ceasefire agreement had to be signed a few months later) but, crucially, it represented the first steps towards ensuring peace.

As of now – fingers crossed – the fighting has more or less abated.

First responders gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike in the village of Habbouch, southern Lebanon on April 10, 2026. A ceasefire in name, conflict in reality – even after agreements are signed, fighting often continues, underscoring how fragile the first steps towards peace can be. — AFP pic

Ceasefires are announced with fanfare: diplomats shake hands, headlines proclaim “Fighting Stops,” and the world breathes a tentative sigh of relief. 

The point is that skirmishes, violations, artillery duels, and opportunistic attacks often continue – often immediately. A ceasefire is rarely a true end to violence; it is usually a tactical pause dressed up as progress.

The fundamental reason most ceasefires fail to deliver lasting quiet is because they represent a suspension of hostilities, not a peace treaty. 

It does not resolve the underlying political, ethnic, or territorial disputes that caused the war. 

Without robust enforcement mechanisms – neutral monitors, demilitarised zones with real teeth, or mutual exhaustion – parties will obviously retain both the means and the incentive to keep testing and hurting each other. 

In fact, for the 2,200 plus ceasefire agreements made from the start of the 20th century up to today, practically all have met with post-agreement hostilities (see Note 1) but – crucially – this does not mean that the ceasefire was pointless. Whilst ceasefires do not mean a cessation of firing, the eventual peace could not have come about without them. 

Seen pessimistically, one could argue that hostile human nature will always find reasons to fight and not stop. But looked at optimistically one could say that without these ceasefire agreements, the wars would either get worse or be well and truly indefinite.

Ceasefires and armistices remain important.  They save lives in the short term, allow aid to reach civilians, create much-needed space for negotiations and buy political breathing room. 

Comprehensive agreements with verification teams and clear red lines tend to perform better than vague declarations. Yet total cessation of all firing remains extraordinarily rare. 

Announcing a ceasefire should never be confused with ending a war, but wars rarely end without one. It brings brittle (and often failed) anticipation for peace. But in times like these, surely even the smallest glimmer of hope helps.

Note 1: It appears only two ceasefires in modern history have resulted in practically zero hostilities in the short term: the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. These were rare exceptions where clear and strong mutual interests translated into genuine and sustained calm and stopped renewed fighting.

APRIL 9 — Destination currently reads, nowhere. He’s fading faster than expected.

It’s as though after being kicked out of Bersatu, Hamzah Zainudin stands in the parking lot, toying with his smartphone while it is on flight mode and pretending to book a ride.

Raised in Umno, to posture is second nature but the Larut strongman is steadily losing momentum by, well, just posturing.

The defiance shown after his sacking by Bersatu by having a gathering the day after with most of the party’s MPs in attendance was a strong start but two months are about to pass and few outside or inside Perikatan Nasional are aware what the leader of the Opposition is up to.  Or where he intends to go.

Everyone is fairly certain who he is against, however hardly anyone is aware what he is for going forward.

PAS have appointed a chairman for PN and by June, do not hold your breath, they’d appoint a new Leader of Opposition from their ranks.

When that happens, unless other developments precede it, he’d be without a party, a coalition or a meaningful position.

It’ll just be Larut in Dewan Rakyat, seated next to Muar and Bukit Gantang in the Siberia of the lower chamber. Political indecision is a career-killer even in risk averse Malaysia.

It probably makes a lot of people at Umno’s headquarters chuckle. How about them apples?

The author argues that Hamzah Zainudin’s post-Bersatu trajectory is marked by indecision and lack of direction, with his failure to articulate a clear political path risking his relevance as support within Perikatan Nasional wanes and rivals move to fill the vacuum. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

The Attrition Method

He had a charmed life in politics till about eight weeks ago.

Hamzah jumped ship from Umno in 2018 to a Bersatu chaired by Mahathir Mohamad. By the time president Muhyiddin Yassin’s crew ousted Mahathir from the party and as prime minister, Hamzah was already a senior figure in the nascent party. 

Appointed home minister in the pandemic Cabinet. When PN failed to deliver in GE2022, it was still an up for Hamzah as he was catapulted to become the coalition’s face in parliament as leader.

Last year in June, Hamzah worked with the leadership to prop himself up as deputy president, thanks to pliant Ahmad Faizal Azumu or Peja relegating himself from deputy to vice-president, to enable the manoeuvre.  And being declared at the party’s October polls as the unopposed number two was just a step away to the top post.

Thereafter, lead the party and coalition to GE16 and the highest office in the land.

That quickly? Can be if it is a charm offensive in tandem with an internal ouster of Muhyiddin. Dance with the committee while assassins wait in the dark with silencers.

Gathered statutory declarations (SDs) from 120 division chiefs asking for a polite leadership succession. To Hamzah it was stratagem, to Muhyiddin it was a hostile takeover.

A series of sackings and suspensions followed, culminating with Hamzah’s own axing.

Future researchers cannot claim it a misunderstanding, as there were elaborate and painstaking efforts to undermine the president with the active role of the Perak Man. A hundred-twenty division chiefs do not randomly submit SDs.

Traded blows, in the sick-bay

Hamzah knew a standoff was building from the year-end Perlis putsch which precipitated Muhyiddin and allies’ resignations from PN posts. Yet it seemed the only thing he was ready for was for Muhyiddin to hand over the reins rather than fight.

Both were bloodied by Hamzah’s sacking. The ex-deputy had 18 MPs but no  platform. They’ll wait but not forever. Politicians must consider options. Former Srikandi chief and Melaka chieftain Mas Ermieyati Samsudin has a state election in December, which determines her own political future. She backs Hamzah, for now.

Muhyiddin has perhaps six MPs including himself. While he can enjoy Hamzah’s struggle, he’d rue his party’s diminished stature. Even more so when there’s a global economic situation to rival the 2008 meltdown. Sitting governments are often punished and the benefactors will be the Opposition parties.

The Bersatu implosion forces PN to stutter as PAS is ill-equipped to step up due to its own deformities.

Surf conditions are perfect, and they cannot find a single surfboard among them to ride the wave to glory.

Panderers are Yellow Pandas

Knowing how Hamzah got to this predicament and PN’s preoccupations with being preoccupied explains the malaise. Yet, seeing Hamzah’s no-agenda method explains his own ineptitude.

The initial conversation was refashioning the inactive Parti Keluarga Malaysia, which unfortunately shares the abbreviation of the defunct Parti Komunis Malaya (Malayan Communist Party).  It seems Hamzah is less comfortable to speak about the PKM ties.

Days ago, he intimated he may opt for PAS membership.

He cannot just pack and leave one major party for another and expect seamless integration. The entry of ex-PKR leaders into Bersatu lent to the power struggles between him and Muhyiddin.

PAS is a 75-year-old party which has navigated itself firmly as a cleric led movement the last 40 years. How does a soon to be 70 quantity surveyor turned Umno-style corporate bigwig position himself in PAS? And does he also drag along his 18 MPs?

Being open to options in the first week was prudent. Not narrowing choices after two months starts to give a scent of uncertainty. Which then makes supporters nervous. Umno is aggressively seeking to recoup ex-leaders who bolted, that’s the majority of MPs with Hamzah.

If the new leader does not deploy a pathway to power for the followers, and the old grand party opens its doors, doubt seeps in.

Mas Ermieyati is the Public Accounts Committee chair and grassroots leaders in Melaka, Umno only get stronger with her back as Masjid Tanah MP. Ronald Kiandee is a six-time incumbent at Beluran and can up Umno’s appeal in Sabah and give a valuable seat  to tip the count on election night.

Umno rubs its hands with glee in anticipation in case Hamzah is a zero, they can become the hero and embrace old guards back into the fold.

While Hamzah has succeeded in the past, it has been on the shoulders of giants in Umno and Bersatu. Now, when the opportunity presents itself to him to kick off his own vehicle he displays more hesitation than enthusiasm. 

It’s fun being angry and rewarded for wild fury all the while, but leading at the top means having a vision.

Perhaps this was always beyond his pay grade.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 7 — As I write this I’m having a little pity party.

It’s been 11 days since I caught an upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) and I have yet to shake it off.

My brain has decided to go on an extended holiday and I am writing this by the power of whichever brain cell did not fit into the suitcase.

So I looked up why I’ve been so ill for so long and apparently thanks to the combo of post-cancer and being on tamoxifen, my immune system is as effective as the new Kelantan airport terminal at keeping motorbike racers out.

It might be years before my immune system gets stronger, and I also found out that another common experience post-cancer is URTIs taking a lot longer to clear.

Well, I guess I am never visiting any country in winter.

It also means that I need to be strict about masking again because it’s been a miserable week with my bedside table looking like a tissue sculpture installation of Mount Fuji.

Will I be well enough to endure the trip to Penang in a few days? We’ll see. At least I’m going by train, I’m not coughing (just leaking enough fluid to float a dinghy) and I still have Vinda tissue.

My housemate and I (this is not an advertisement) use Vinda because cheaper tissues tend to disintegrate when wet and Vinda wet wipes also make excellent mop pad replacements.

You know how wet wipes often dry out because the seal often gets weak? I realised I forgot to close a Vinda wet wipe packet and lo, it was still moist and usable.

In a perfect world, I would use reusable towels but in my heavily immunocompromised world, disposables are the only thing between me and a mountain of pathogens.

My hips, knees and arms still ache. I still approach stairs with caution.

I have recovered enough of my taste buds that my spice tolerance has reduced; I thought I was getting better at eating hot food but no, my cancer treatment had just destroyed the surface of my tongue.

Some days I feel a little more flexible, and it feels less painful to get out of a chair or a car.

Other days all I feel is tiredness and a stiffness that threatens never to leave.

Healing isn’t a linear route; some days you’re the trainer, some days you’re the one in the Pokémon Center. — AFP pic

I wish I could give a far rosier picture of my post-cancer life but healing, I’m finding out, is something that will happen on its own schedule and not mine.

When I get to Penang I’ll probably avoid queuing (I had enough of all the lining up in Taipei, as delicious as the end results proved).

Maybe I’ll laze by the pool.

Or I’ll learn to play Pokémon Champions, the new game that I can show to the taxman to prove that I really am competing in e-sports, because it’s probably the only sport I can play without keeling over.

Competing in Pokémon e-sports is like chess...except you choose which pieces you will bring to the board from a whopping 1,028, with hundreds of possible movesets, conditions and strategies.

It’s very hard but maybe pitting virtual monsters at each other might be the kickstart my brain needs because lately I’ve been struggling to remember names and places — seeing them in my mind but the names fail me.

Life is dull and tiring now, especially with the conflict in West Asia as a backdrop, but I will remember again that saying I came across long ago, that the life you’re living might be someone else’s dream.

The least I can do is make mine a good one.

APRIL 2 — I have a friend who only got one A in her SPM, back in the 1980s.  

I met up with her a couple months ago. We talked about old times and I found out that, wow, nowadays she flies from Malaysia to France regularly as the regional manager of a medical organisation. (So much for “1 A in SPM” leading to sleeping on the street!)

Also, something she did made me realise how she was so successful despite a relatively poor SPM performance. Her superpower was one I absolutely don’t see often: Her listening skills. 

She spent more than 70-80 per cent of the time asking about me and our friends. Almost devoid of ego, she only talked about herself when specifically requested to or if a story made sense in the context of the on-going chat. 

She showed the entire group of us that she actually much preferred hearing our stories and histories as opposed to showing off what she’s achieved (which was hardly miniscule).

I’ll come back to my friend later but, before I forget, a big shout-out to everyone who aced their SPM results! 

Your hard work paid off, and your family and teachers must be beaming with pride. 

But if your results didn’t meet your expectations or you outright didn’t pass? That’s honestly not a bad thing either — it might just mean your future won’t hinge on academic scores alone.

Doing well in exams is awesome, no question. But don’t let your grades define you, and don’t let a disappointing result crush your spirit. 

But if your results didn’t meet your expectations or you outright didn’t pass? That’s honestly not a bad thing either. — Bernama pic

School can teach you valuable skills, but it can also stifle your natural curiosity or make you think “success” only comes from acing tests. 

It can trick you into believing learning only happens in classrooms or that high marks equal real-world readiness.

If you scored a string of As, that’s fantastic — celebrate it! But don’t let those grades become your whole identity. 

They’re a solid foundation, but life’s got bigger tests coming. And if you’ve been wrestling with studies from primary school to Form 5, maybe that’s a sign academia isn’t your thing. That’s not a flaw — it’s a hint you’re meant to shine somewhere else.

To the extent that the SPM still relies heavily (although not exclusively) on MCQs, these exams could end up being not much more than a memory game. 

SPM could thus take on game show vibes i.e. general knowledge/trivia, guessing, luck, fastest to the timer, individual memory, abstract and “useless” information, closed book, IQ, etc.

But life is more like a reality show isn’t it? The big winners all possess people skills, organisation/managerial skills, planning/forward-looking, negotiation/persuasion, relationship-building, conflict management, “open book”, EQ, i.e. people skills.

Treating education as a chance to develop our “reality show” slash relationship skills is quite an adventure. 

You end up forcing yourself to learn about things you probably never learn much about in school i.e. how people think, what makes them tick, how to cool down tense situations, why “soft power” may be more effective than its opposite (certainly a relevant theme given the situation in Middle East?), how to change minds to meet your objectives, and so on.

Truth be told, most people can ace a math paper but couldn’t haggle successfully over a basket of fruits to save their lives; people with such skills certainly have an edge.

Like my friend, the world has a lot to offer to anyone with great people skills and just about anyone willing to learn something new.

All the best to you.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 2 — Bizarre to say the least that the 80th anniversary of the Malayan Union yesterday went without mention.

That seminal moment in this country about to start its jog to independence whence neighbours claimed it in a sprint with a sprinkle of gunpowder.

Malayan Union would have rendered Jus Soli the law of the land. Citizenship as a birthright. If you were born in Malaya, by definition you were Malayan.

It would have formalised Malays as a demographic minority in the country.

The genesis of Umno is from there. The genesis of the “us versus them” also was formalised when the Malayan Union was upended.

Umno’s vision trumped Putera-AMCJA’s People’s Constitution recommendations via British complicity, in the form of the Federation of Malaya structure which shaped independent Malaya’s constitution.

Is Jus Soli or Jus Sanguine (birthright by parents or ancestral links) as a debate still valid in 2026?

Because most Malaysians born in the last 30 years are both delivered here — Sunway Medical Centre or Hospital Ampang, like that — and with both parents born here. Probably ushered in from the womb by doctors who were born here to Malaysian parents.

So much has changed, as time does to any society. Time melds people together.

Today, is it still “us and them”, or worse, “us versus them”?

It seemed in 1991 when Mahathir Mohamad in his tenth year in office declared Bangsa Malaysia as part of Wawasan2020 that the past of re-examining “us and them” was over.

It was symbolic since Mahathir was from the initial generation of Umno, the party that held on to “us versus them” as its raison d’être — reason for existence.

It felt that his generation came around to the fact it’s Malaysia first despite the past and that being Malaysian mattered more than other demographic details. From Padang Besar to Semporna, a nation of Malaysians.

The enthusiasm for Bangsa Malaysia was palpable. It did not last long. At the first sign of critics asking whether Bangsa Malaysia trumped Bangsa Melayu, the whole campaign collapsed.

No Umno leader, including Mahathir, and then vice-president Anwar Ibrahim, was willing to clarify the ascendancy of Malaysian citizenship.

It was a wishy-washy discourse of how kaum and bangsa are two separate constructs or interchangeable terms. It went back and forth with no conclusion that the millions who lived then and live still struggle to explain to others what did Bangsa Malaysia actually mean then, or even now.

It is poetic in that sense that Wawasan2020 is almost forgotten and that 2020 is more synonymous as the year of Covid19. Poetic indeed it was the year Mahathir exited unceremoniously for the second time as prime minister.

It was not reassuring that his replacement was Muhyiddin Yassin who in 2010 uttered the infamous lines which have followed him long before criminal trials: “I am Malay first, but being Malay doesn’t mean I am not Malaysian.”

The Malayan Union lasted just two years, but the fault lines it exposed have lasted eight decades. — Picture from Facebook/446

‘Us and them’ with concrete foundations

I have some good news.

Despite the online vitriol in a country infested with cybertroopers it is safe to declare “us versus them” is dead. There are no battlelines today between those whose great-grandparents were about to benefit from Malayan Union and those whose great-grandparents opposed the Malayan Union.

However, this remains a polarised nation. Hard to find a country as old as us and rich as us with the level of polarity present here.

So, unfortunately, “us and them” has not been weeded out. It renders us fragile, for events, developments, tragedies and mistakes are seen far more through the lens of race than polite.

Too many Malaysians preface their racism with the lines “I do not want to be racist” and too many present when it’s said stay silent.

Is that a fair summation?

Yes, if you consider the overwhelming number of times Malaysians threaten fellow Malaysians that “they should go back to where they came from” and an equal number of Malaysians bellow to their opponents “You are not from here too, go back also.”

The mistrust from the Malayan Union era persists.

The story of us

“Us and them”, will eventually morph into just “us”. It’s inevitable despite the best efforts of dissenters. What will be the first problem for the just “us” generation would be to worry too many have departed since they were too tired to wait for the “us” age.

There would be a time when those from a hundred years after Malayan Union who’d find the idea that there were Malaysians who opposed Jus Soli a century before an anathema. In the future, the past always appears petty.  Can we of the present countenance slavery which was common for several millennia? Yet, it was for a long, long time.

It is the speed of us getting there that is in doubt. Braver leaders accelerate shifts. Our passage to nationhood was stalled, not the least in the 1990s when Mahathir was unwilling to back Bangsa Malaysia with substance and his own political capital. He could have traded the title longest serving prime minister with a meatier title. Our own Lincoln, Ataturk or Mandela, only if.

The Malayan Union is a reminder that the best intentions do not yield without a ready population. It is a stark warning that prejudice warms up to more people than a conviction around principles.

It’s a reminder that when a system is rejected by fear and bigotry, that in the distant future when the system is forgotten like it was yesterday, the fear and bigotry associated with it and seen as the winner carries on as a stumbling block even in a different time.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 1 — Riddle me this: is it not disingenuous to be marketed all these promo airfares and travel packages in the middle of what is likely to be a very long energy crisis?

No, travel booking website, I am not going to book a vacation just in case they manage to negotiate a ceasefire.

Perhaps it was divine providence I followed the strange pull that drove me to book three trips with less than two weeks between them, with my last one happening next week.

Or I was just stir-crazy after barely being able to walk four metres during my cancer treatment without getting winded and now all I want to do is walk.

Yet the reality is this — the world’s never ending love affair with fossil fuels continues torridly.

Malaysia is more insulated than most because we do have a domestic oil and gas industry but our reserves can only hold for so long, and it’s simply not feasible to just “stop” exporting oil and using what we produce locally.

Finding out we sell the nicer oil and buy less nice oil for domestic use was certainly eye-opening.

That means we are still going to be affected by price hikes; I feel sorry for those who commute on the Labuan ferry because service has now been paused due to high diesel prices.

I remember during the pandemic people still foolishly thought they could travel and then ended up being stranded due to Covid-19 measures.

Being stuck in a foreign country with no confirmation on when you can return is scary and very expensive.

Hearing that many of those stranded overseas in the earlier days of the current conflict were not covered by travel insurance, due to war being a standard exclusion, I was just very thankful that I had never had any desire to visit Dubai nor fly onboard any of the Gulf airlines.

Yet I expect more tales of people being stranded while on vacation because there will be people who will travel anyway, whether due to non-refundable bookings or the knowledge that the “safer time to travel” might not come.

I hope that if you travel, you have enough savings or at the very least, enough to hunker down until you can evacuate if the war comes to your doorstep anyhow.

My next trip will involve trains and ferries and of course, a lot of walking.

Right now though as I’ve been sick with what is likely the flu, my walks have mostly been in the world of Pokopia, traversing seas, mountains and decayed buildings to build houses for the worst interior design clients ever — Pokémon.

After my upcoming train adventure. my only trips will be virtual. — Pokopia Screenshot 

You try building a house for a creature who decides roofs make things too “dark” and are only satisfied once you strip down your building to a door and one low wall made up of 10 stones.

I did end up crying a lot while playing, not so much because of the game itself (building homes for cute monsters isn’t that harrowing) but the writing.

The game doesn’t outright tell you what happened to all the humans, why all the Pokémon are left alone but instead you find little clues as you go along, playing the little missions, deciding which Pokémon would be happier rooming together.

It’s the little things, like how one monster keeps saying they hope that whatever you, the main character are doing, that it’s enough to persuade the humans to come home.

Ditto, the Pokémon you play in the game, is perhaps the saddest of them all — being able to mimic or shapeshift into anyone or anything, you instead choose the shape of the person you loved most, your human trainer.

When I get back from my next trip I hope I have enough stories to tell because I am rather tired of commentating on the state of the current world.

Mocking politicians has gotten stale now they’ve become expert at becoming self-mockeries so here’s to telling stories of travelling, recovering and mending my broken body and threadbare heart. 

At least we’ll always have Pokémon.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 27 — I left the mamak shop just before half-time last Sunday. The match didn’t appear disastrous yet; Spurs looked the more dangerous side, Forest could barely get one shot on goal in the first 40 minutes.

As I was walking home, I messaged my cousin and said this match could go either way but I was optimistic.

By the time I opened my front door, Forest had scored the first of three unanswered goals. As Hudson said in Aliens, “Game over man, game over!”

Last Sunday was the 15th loss in the Premier League for Tottenham this season. That’s two losses more than they suffered at this stage last year, where they achieved 17th position (yet somehow won the Europa League).

There is a very very real possibility that the Lily Whites may be relegated this year, not least given how they managed to let in three goals that day to a team that has changed managers four times this season!

The home fans certainly thought so, flooding the Tottenham Hotspur stadium before the game, embodying the 12th Man more than ever before.

Only to see their team crash 0-3 at home to a team positioned 16th in the league.

Tottenham Hotspur fans look dejected in the stands during the Premier League match against Nottingham Forest at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London on March 22, 2026. — Reuters pic

Now Spurs sit one sickening point above the drop zone. Ten home defeats this season. Six losses in seven league games. The great stadium, built on dreams of glory under Mauricio Pochettino and Daniel Levy’s restless ambition, has become a house of mourning.

Last year when Ange Postecoglou was overseeing defeat after defeat in the league, there was nevertheless a sliver of hope in that Spurs’ progress in the Europa League continued (albeit semi-miraculously).

Without fully believing it, the fans sort of told themselves that, okay, since we can’t get any more honours from the league, why not throw everything at winning a European trophy?

The rest, as they say, is history as Postecoglou brought Tottenham their first trophy in 17 years and also the club’s first European one since 1984.

Like some shocking Game of Thrones twist, Ange was fired barely two weeks after that glorious night in Bilbao, Thomas Frank took over and was asked to leave after eight months and here we are.

There is now no quasi-consolation over Tottenham’s terrible league form today as there was last season as barely two weeks ago the club was knocked out of Europe, losing to Athletico Madrid 7-5 on aggregate.

So what happens now?

There are seven games to go and nobody can say with certainty that Tottenham won’t leave the Premier League by the end of May.

Nobody knows what the central problem is, although there are many theories. Season-missing injuries to key players like James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski and a hundred others.

Lower wages which fail to attract better players. Poor managerial tactics. Non-committal management which appears more concerned with stadium revenue than team performance. And others.

As someone who’s supported the club since 2004 when Martin Jol took over — and the likes of Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane rocked the football world — I can only say I hope this nightmare ends fast.

For the love of God, get in some manager who’s fought tooth and nail in relegation battles and save this club from sinking.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 26 — Organ transplants are impossible in Malaysia, and our legislators share a large blame.

We have performed 3,106 transplants here. Which is a decent number if it represented 2025. It does not. It represents every procedure since 1976, or 50 years or half a century. Which averages 62 annually in a country of 34 million.

And at least 70 per cent of those are from living donors, mostly kidney and some liver. About 18 transplants from the deceased, like heart, lungs or corneas occur. It’s grim for those waiting for those types of organs.

Safe to say if there was a World Cup for organ transplants, Malaysia would not qualify for the finals.  

So, it is not inspiring to know, the compulsory adoption of MySejahtera health tracker, pumped up the donor list to over 400,000 but to no end. 

Almost half a million people say if they die others are free to have their organs, only to not know post-death, that’s not what happens.

Good news of record number of donors translates to not good enough because their wish — their last lasting contribution to humanity — is nullified by family. For here, an organ pledge is only facilitated with family consent.

A pledge is only facilitated if the family agrees also.

There, mystery solved.

Ramping up the donor list is a fool’s errand since the dead don’t get their way.  So around 62 people agree to give hope to strangers, which is wonderful, except only 62 strangers benefit. 

When there are over 10,000 people in the waiting list, they have less of a chance to have the winning number than those lined up outside lottery shops.

The Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad’s team in its usual ingenious manner came up with a winner of a solution, a public awareness campaign. Warisku, Hormati Ikrarku or My Family, Respect My Pledge. Launched in August 2025.

The masterplan: We’ll ask them, nicely. And wait. Brilliant.

It is doing the bare minimum to appear as though a real effort is being expended.

At this juncture, comparing apples and apples, gives perspective. Or organ box with organ box, though boxes without organs ever in them are not organ boxes, just merely boxes.

To compare, a short trot across the causeway.

Hota, eh Hota

Singapore’s Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA) 1987 was amended in 2004 to include the liver, heart, and corneas, and expanded to cover all causes of death, not just accidental death, and further amended in 2008 to include Muslims.

Therefore, all Singaporeans and permanent residents are donors. Tonight, 4.2 million people are present on the island as potential donors, except for those who explicitly removed themselves from the list. 

Opt-out and by choice one is relegated below those who remain put in the list. If you don't want to give, you won’t likely receive.

It is not a heartless episode, the steps to harvest organs in the eventuality.

Donors’ families are consulted but in general the process is not compromised.

The author argues that legal reforms are needed to ensure individuals’ decisions to donate organs are respected, reduce reliance on family consent, and allow more lives to be saved. — Freepik pic

Considering the chasm between the countries, Malaysians in Singapore with permanent residency, are strongly recommended to access the island’s healthcare if they require an organ.

Singapore’s legislators felt compelled to lead their people in the matter, rather than hope that one, people sign up to be donors they are automatically co-opted and second, not allow the system to disintegrate into paralysis because families turn reluctant.

All bioethics is heartbreaking by its very nature, but the Singaporeans chose the path of help rather than woeful indifference to not look bad.

Hey, family

One of the worst kept secrets about death is that the dead are incommunicado.

The living must cope. Few of us are spared the grief death brings to families.

To hand over a brochure to a family in their despair — the most suitable donor is a brain-dead person in the intensive-care-unit (ICU) — after discovery that the dear departed is a registered donor, is likely to be met with resistance.

Families are embroiled in their own pain and are too stricken to consider the plight of a different family.

The reaction to the knowledge that the person they loved — and now is no more with them — wants to part with his insides to help others cannot be other than upset.

Medical professionals can comfort them in the minutes after since the decision is out of the families’ hands like in Singapore, but it is a different kettle of fish to expect the doctors and nurses to persuade the families to respect the donor’s decision.

There is the delicate matter of time. Organs need to be removed within hours. Tissues (skin, corneas, heart valves) can be donated up to 24 hours after death.

The family has no time for these cold things since they are in the midst of funeral arrangements.

Which is why asking families to take the responsibility even though the individual has already decided is rough.

Don’t ask the family to respect the pledge, tell them they are legally obligated to oblige and morally beholden to the wishes of the deceased. Which is only possible if there is a Malaysian version of the Singaporean Hota.

It is a bridge too far in novice Malaysia to enforce an automatic opt-in but a first stage law can defend the opt-in decision.

The decision is better out of the hands of the family. If the donor made a wilful choice while alive, it should be respected by default, not debated in a hospital corridor.

A family is always many, and there will be enough who hesitate. Rational discussions are non-starters. 

A divided house would also result in the safer choice not to donate. It would have to be a family inundated with Vulcans to think of the recipient and his family rather than stay in their personal emotional roller-coaster.

In this hallowed chamber

This is Dr Dzulkefly’s second go as health minister, after a four-year gap.

If the bravest his ministry can offer to this predicament is a campaign, then excuses rather than solutions are the go-to for this government. 

To be absolutely clear, the other guys, those who claim clairvoyance and a monopoly over good, and ready to take over are just as afraid to moot bold policies.

Our politicians are mired in minimalism. They are happy to take all the credit but they will not do more than the absolute minimum in a brittle national political landscape.

These are matters that Dewan Rakyat is supposed to debate. Because it is a real issue suffocated by the fact a largely ignorant society only feels the pain when they have a family member in the 10,000 plus recipient list.

This is where leadership must emerge. In championing the practical even if it is easily manipulated by those wanting to score cheap points. 

To say families know best, or that living wills are western constructs which negate eastern values.

Yet, a Bill to allow donor pledges to have legal protections when they are activated is exactly the kind of legislative measures which reflect a progressive society.

Only allowing 62 persons a year on average the benefits of life-saving modern medicine disappoint.

It seems crude to be impersonal about the family of the deceased when they are distraught but if they are guided by the state through a firmer law, they can enable another family to avoid a death or suffering, when their family member is a successful organ recipient.

The advancements in medicine only quicken and our present policy on organ transplants and meek efforts to cheerlead people into being OK with it will yield very little.

MARCH 25 — I am not trained in economics, but it’s easy enough to deduce the compounding effect on prices.

Everything will cost more and people already struggling will feel the pain first.

Some of us will glibly announce we will start making our own coffee now but for others it’s a smaller portion of an already meagre ration of rice.

There is one small dim silver lining to Trump’s madness.

“It doesn’t affect me,” people say about politics, global affairs, everything outside their comfortable bubble.

We can’t stuff the genie of globalisation back into the bottle.

Perhaps some of us will finally understand that none of us will be safe from suffering until everyone is.

Maybe it is wishful thinking, to hope for a better world and better people to emerge from this world on fire.

Yet that is what I must believe.

We are a species defined by belief.

Animals do not need to believe in anything.

Even atheists believe.

Their dogma, believing this life is all we have and that there is nothing beyond the doorway of death, is still a kind of faith.

What I think is that too many of us are fixated on the end times.

An Israeli self-propelled howitzer artillery gun fires rounds towards southern Lebanon from a position in the upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border on March 20, 2026. — AFP pic

Every year I have been alive someone has declared the world is ending.

I guess God is also the god of procrastination.

We do not truly live in unprecedented times.

We have just forgotten that powerful idiots will constantly destabilise the world just because they can.

Since we can never be free of idiots, we can only free ourselves from our own idiocy, even if it’s just the little things.

A friend confided in me that looking back on when her daughter was small, she had been so preoccupied and stressed by things she now sees were just trifles.

The world’s troubles will affect us all in the coming months so perhaps it might just be what wakes us up, if we’ve been sleepwalking most of our lives.

It has been shown that in the hardest of times the best in us will still prevail, the way it did during the early days of the pandemic.

Let’s hope it doesn’t again take the worst of times to bring out the best in us.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 19 — Future democracy, just like pensions, will be paid for by those who play on the streets today.

Prepping those to lead the future is a grave matter.

Except here, in Malaysia, we beat our young blue and black until they lose the fire of defiance.

There’s a one-word mode preferred for our young, don’t. Don’t do, don’t be, don’t see, don’t dare. When in doubt, don’t. When action is necessary, don’t.

To be absolutely objective, it is brilliantly clear. No way to misunderstand the instruction. Inertia is the state’s enemy and our youth must avoid it like leprosy.

They are told, as I was told, as millions are told on a daily basis, growing up.

As are a student group in Universiti Malaya told to cease use of the university’s logo. In the Madani spirit, the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) steps in and asks for consultation between the parties. Universiti Malaya and Liga Mahasiswa Universiti Malaya (LMUM).

How would the negotiations be?

UM: We own the logo

LMUM: No university without students

UM: Register as a valid university organisation and then you can use the logo

LMUM: You won’t register us

UM: Yes, but you can apply.

Instead of negotiations, let’s do this. Let’s not negotiate. It is standard operation from those in power, to buy time. 

Keep talking about recognition and the dissident students would have graduated by then.

The immensely potent side of the don’t ethos is that time is a friend, not a foe.

The law is on the side of the university, since they derive their authority, appointment and funding from those who make the laws. 

The government backs the universities’ administrators in the whole, in exchange the administrators back the government. It is completely circular. 

In any given time, the university will be in the right, and the students in the wrong. The power dynamics are so one-sided it barely deserves a discourse.

The Universiti Malaya crest is pictured at the entrance of its campus in Kuala Lumpur on January 22, 2024. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

A super quick history of organisations

Liga Mahasiswa Universiti Malaya (LMUM) is an organisation I do not know much about, other than their limited press releases and their social media posts. Same also for New Gen or Umany. I don’t need to. 

As long as they adhere to the general principles of peaceful association, whether inside or outside the university, they have a right to exist. 

That’s not me, that’s the federal Constitution Article 10(1)(c). Nor is the government a referee to determine who deserves to avail Constitutional guarantees.

I do know, however, it is mightily difficult to organise in Malaysia. Ask those who run from resident associations to cultural organisations to political parties. It is an exercise of pain, to bring Malaysians together even if it is for their own gain.

It’s a dual challenge, though interrelated. Firstly, legal.

The Postal and Telecommunications Co-operative Thrift and Loan Society Limited Company was the first co-operative society to be registered in the country, officially recorded on 21 July 1922. 

It’s been a trudge, to form associations, through the recession in the 30s to the second world war and then the march to independence. 

The deregistered Malayan Communist Party (MCP) mounting an armed insurgency in 1948 did not reflect too well about how societies aid public order. 

Two, the hiccups of the past and government conditioning, have institutionalised nationwide paralysis. People have completely morphed into inactivity since it’s dangerous to participate, and it’s safe to not participate.

We are generally people who want social evolution — better drains, trains and brains — without us rolling up our sleeves.  

Just look at our politics. Beyond identity politics, the adults cannot form arguments. Worse, they struggle to form sentences.

Which is why fidgety university administrators fear active students. They challenge our long established culture of praying for social progress rather than fighting for it.

It’s spectacular that despite every measure to demotivate them, trap their inertia and scare out of them any enthusiasm, these students came out wanting to stand for something.

In among the 20,000 odd students, small collectives of bold actors venture out to speak about their rights, their thoughts, deliver their demands and say they have as much right to own the university as those who run it.

They do so while the threat of disciplinary action hovers over them. It is magnificent to watch.

2050

It’s the future now. Malaysia is still around.

A round of troubles arrives with the adjacent turmoil. Threatening the long-term prosperity and durability of the country.

Those who were 21 in 2026, are 45 presently. They lead the country.

Who’d we from the past want to deal with those challenges? If we can choose today the future doers.

Those — from the legitimate student councils — who diligently accept guidance from the university administrators, relegate student issues as secondary to making the vice-chancellor and his adults happy their overwhelming priority, and take cute pictures with blazers when they collect commendation letters and medals from the university, or the rebels?

Those who drill themselves to stamp out all initiative, because this way the great leaders are not upset, or those who constantly have new ideas and stand by them?

Those who appreciate personal gain through the demonstration of repeated obeisance to university administrators, or those who challenge the university administrators at every turn over principles and general ideas of human rights?

The snivelling, whingeing and docile creatures of the establishment have always been celebrated here. They usually get titles. They don’t get ideas.

I don’t know whether any of the people at these upstarts like Liga Mahasiswa, New Gen or Umany stay the course or give in to the temptations of the easy road, because condominiums with swimming pools and business class holiday travels do not pay for themselves. But they have started on a journey which demands courage, versatility and cleverness.

The prime minister himself was a rebel in that university in the late Sixties and a firebrand activist in the Seventies. The deputy minister at MOHE, Adam Adli Abd Halim,  is a former leader of student agitators in his university and afterwards into a series of social issues.  

It can all go wrong, and most often life gets in the way. But to refuse the space or the chance to defend a place for the young, vibrant and loud today stillborns a better future for the country. 

Universiti Malaya does not need to be proud of them or understand them, but it can sense they have gumption. That’s not the worst thing to be associated with, as a university. 

That won’t embarrass the logo of the country’s oldest university, if anything, it gives it character.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 18 — I had my latest echocardiogram yesterday.

My immunotherapy drug Herceptin has a known side-effect of increasing the risk of heart failure, causing cardiac issues in every one out of four patients.

It is why taking regular heart scans is part of my cancer treatment protocol.

The good news is that my heart seems to be ticking steadily on, with no marked reduction of heart function nor were any abnormalities detected.

It is my last hospital appointment in the Hospital Kuala Lumpur specialist building.

I can’t deny I’m relieved because it means I no longer need specialist care for my cancer.

After this, it will just be regular monitoring and checking-in with the oncology department so if recurrence should happen (pray it won’t) I won’t be caught off-guard.

The Lord of the Rings films are screening again and last week I watched The Two Towers and again, Bernard Hill’s turn as King Theoden still moved me as much the first time.

Bernard Hill's performance as King Theoden was still affecting after all these years. — Film still from New Line/Warner Bros

“No parent should have to bury their child,” he said, playing a king recently woken from madness to find his only son has died before he could say goodbye.

It was a line that wasn’t in the original script, as the trilogy aficionados will tell you — Hill had heard it from a parent who had lost their child during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

I have not been a particularly good or attentive daughter; too wrapped up in my own personal struggles and hampered by the distance between where I live now and where I was born.

What I will not do is let my parents bury me; as imperfect as I am if I can spare them that one sorrow, to at the very least outlive them both I don’t think that is too much to give.

I say this not because I think I am particularly “strong” or “special” in surviving cancer.

It is because not long ago I said I wouldn’t bother seeking treatment if I had it because I knew it was tedious and expensive.

Yes, it certainly was.

The whole cancer experience is like being taken apart and put back together, beaten down to the point you don’t think you could get up again.

Yet you learn you can.

Being confronted with life’s fragility means you get a little less hung up on hypothetical futures.

Five-year, 10-year plans? I only think about short term plans and bucket lists.

Like watching the final movie in the LOTR trilogy later this week.

One of the interesting bits in Tolkien’s lore is that death is considered a gift bestowed upon humans; and yet humans resent the elves for being immortal.

Elves live long lives but that also means eternities to mourn, grieve and suffer. In JRR Tolkien’s mythos there is a weariness and sorrow where being an elf means that while you remain (mostly) the same, you watch the world and its people change around you.

That uncertainty of how many days you have yet to live and knowing that all things, including your life, must end makes each day more precious.

These particular lines from Tolkien’s Two Towers are particularly poignant for me these days:

“Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?

Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

Where is the harp on the harp string, and the red fire glowing?

Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?

They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;

The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.

Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,

Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?”

The world is burning and war festers, children dying if not from hunger, from shelling.

Would that I could with one giant hand destroy all weapons of war but that is a fantasy — in this reality all I can do is bear witness.

So I will live because my heart has refused to give up on me, as have the people in my life, I will live, because life is not guaranteed, not even for a millisecond.

Death will come when it is ready without even the courtesy of setting an appointment.

So in the meantime I will be busy with the business of living a full life, with a full heart.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 17 — Almost the only positive thing about the Covid-19 pandemic is that it pushed the idea of work-from-home (WFH) away from abstract theory and into hard reality.

WFH simply became a fact of life for companies and workers. When the pandemic ended, things went back to normal but six years later, we’re raising that question again — literally, as the Cabinet (at the time of writing) intends to moot the possibility of WFH for civil servants.

What everyone else is thinking with regards to the Cabinet session is why not extend WFH to as many sectors as possible not least because a) traffic in the Klang Valley has been murder of late and b) thanks to the Iran War fuel prices may skyrocket?

Well, why not indeed?

The sheer practicality and convenience of WFH arrangements (if the job suits it) makes the prima facie case for it an enviable one.

Many Malaysian employees and students see no reason why they can’t be allowed to stay at home especially if their jobs don’t require client facetime very often.

And with Zoom and MS Teams and what-not taking care of meetings, there is almost no reason to come to office if deliverables can be produced outside of it.

Furthermore, employers may gain an advantage by offering WFH as a perk. A frequent sticking point among Malaysian white-collar workers is this concern that bosses do not “trust” them.

A WFH arrangement more or less puts that idea to bed, leaving the ball in the employees’ court i.e.. “prove that your quality doesn’t fall with WFH”.

I personally know quite a few data analysts and content creators who, I’m sure, work even more efficiently when they do it from the comfort of their own bedroom or hall. I can’t say this is the majority of Malaysians but such folks exist for sure.

A still shows a video conference with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (top row, left) chairing a remote session with his Cabinet on March 31, 2020 in London. — AFP pic

What’s the downside to WFH?

Back in 2023, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in an interview with CNBC, suggested there were moral considerations involved in the entire notion of working from home (WFH).

Musk labelled Silicon Valley engineers a part of “laptop classes living in la-la land” not least because WFH folks like them usually expected others (especially service workers) to show up at work or be in the office.

If we go to a bank and expect to see someone at the counter — and if we’d be pissed if someone wasn’t — shouldn’t we apply those requirements to ourselves?

Do we want our entire economy to be a WFH one? Would we be glad if groceries, cinemas, restaurants, hair salons, cafes, hotels etc were all devoid of human personnel?

Thus, if these sectors of the economy still require people to go work from the office, how can other sectors demand WFH as a kind of entitlement?

Whatever you think of Musk’s perspective, I think the point he raises about the inevitability of service workers needing to leave their homes to earn a living needs to be heard.

Do I have the right to feel “robbed” of WFH privileges when so many others simply don’t have that option?

Many Malaysian employers in their late forties and older have spent too many decades working in an office to feel comfortable allowing workers (especially highly paid workers) to remain absent from office.

Many people associate “time for productivity” with “time in office” and, because they’re the ones paying out the salaries, they probably believe this debate is a waste of time.

Nevertheless, WFH may result in lower costs for some companies. Surely we’ve all heard of some start-ups which don’t need to rent office space because their team is 24/7 remote and mobile.

Also, I guess if fewer people show up in the office, this could result in lower costs for electricity, broadband and maybe even man-power costs if employees accept slightly lower wages in exchange for not having to commute every weekday.

Long and short, this debate will rage on whatever our Cabinet (or Musk) declares or doesn’t.

In the end, I guess the market will do the talking and that in the end is really how every final outcome will be decided.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 14 — It’s that time of the year again where everyone gets a little bit excited about the awards season and the kind of films that usually win these awards, and the end of this year’s awards season is coming with the impending arrival of the Oscar ceremony this coming Sunday, March 15 (or Monday morning for us Malaysians). 

If you’re one of those who love to join the various Oscar prediction contests out there, here are a few tips to maybe help you win a prize or two.

The end of this year’s awards season is coming with the impending arrival of the Oscar ceremony this coming Sunday, March 15 (or Monday morning for us Malaysians). — Reuters pic

Best Picture

If it was up to me, this year’s Best Picture award would be a straight fight between The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value, but since this is the Oscars we’re talking about, for a foreign language film to even be nominated in the Best Picture category is already a win. 

And just by looking at the sheer number of nominations scored, the clear frontrunners here are Sinners and One Battle After Another, but after sweeping the Best Picture award at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Critics Choice, Directors Guild and Producers Guild Awards, it is almost a certainty that this award will go to One Battle After Another at this year’s Oscars.

Should win: Sentimental Value

Will win: One Battle After Another

Best Director

The same reasoning for Best Picture should and most probably will apply to this category as well. 

In addition to the undeniable momentum that’s been building for One Battle After Another director Paul Thomas Anderson, there is also the small matter of Anderson not having won an Oscar before, despite having films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, The Master and Phantom Thread in his filmography. 

If there’s one thing that the Oscars love to do, it is to give an award that is long overdue to someone who’s long deserved it. 

While I have immense respect for the subtle craftsmanship displayed by Joachim Trier in Sentimental Value, Anderson has deserved to win this award for a while now.

Should win: Joachim Trier

Will win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Actor

Any one of the nominees should win this award on merit, that’s how good the performances have been across the board in this category. 

My personal pick would probably be Wagner Moura for his performance in The Secret Agent, but a commanding win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for Sinners for Best Ensemble and with Michael B. Jordan taking home the prize for Best Actor, this looks like Jordan’s award to lose. 

The fact that he played two characters in the movie should make things even more irresistible for the Oscar voters.

Should win: Michael B. Jordan

Will win: Michael B. Jordan

Best Actress

Probably the only “easy” category to predict this year. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) has won every major precursor award so far, sweeping up at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, BAFTAs and Screen Actors Guild Awards, all of which share members/voters with the Academy, so it would be a major, major shock if someone else took home this award come Oscar night. 

Sure, I’d love to see Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) or Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) take this home, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Should win: Renate Reinsve

Will win: Jessie Buckley

Best Supporting Actor

Probably the hardest major category to predict this year, as there hasn’t been any consensus choice or clear frontrunner in all of the precursor awards. 

I’d personally give this one to Stellan Skarsgard for his excellent turn in Sentimental Value, but his win at the Golden Globes was followed by zero nominations for Sentimental Value at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. 

The closest we have to any sort of momentum in the precursor awards is Sean Penn’s performance in One Battle After Another, which nabbed him wins at the BAFTAs and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, so the most logical choice is for him to win this one as well.

Should win: Stellan Skarsgard

Will win: Sean Penn

Best Supporting Actress

Another hard major category to predict, because the precursor awards have been split in this category. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) won at the Golden Globes and Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) won at the BAFTAs, but wins at the Critics Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards make Amy Madigan (Weapons) a very possible winner here, especially since the Oscars also love to reward veterans who very rarely get nominated. 

Madigan is now 75 years old, and this is only her second Oscar nomination, so the odds are very good that she’ll take this award home as well.

Should win: Teyana Taylor

Will win: Amy Madigan

Best Original Screenplay

As much as I loved the screenplay for Sentimental Value, this category has one clear favourite – Sinners. 

Sinners has won the Best Original Screenplay award at almost every single precursor awards ceremony, including wins at the BAFTAs, Critics Choice and Writers Guild Awards. 

Unless you’re a high-risk high-reward kind of person when it comes to betting, there’s just no way that this one will go to any other film except Sinners.

Should win: Sentimental Value

Will win: Sinners

Best Adapted Screenplay

One Battle After Another has dominated the precursor awards in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, with wins at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Critics Choice and Writers Guild Awards, so a win for any other film would be a major upset, even though a strong case could be made for any one of the other nominees. 

I’m especially fond of how beautiful and lyrical the script was for Train Dreams, but films this small very rarely win Oscars, so I’ll be more than happy with another win for Paul Thomas Anderson and One Battle After Another in this category.

Should win: Train Dreams

Will win: One Battle After Another

Best International Feature Film

This is another tough category to predict. Personally, I think it’s a toss-up between Norway’s Sentimental Value and Brazil’s The Secret Agent, both very different films that I love for very different reasons. 

However, with nine Oscar nominations including for Best Picture, that shows that there are enough fans of Sentimental Value in the Academy to make a win very likely. 

But, I won’t discount an upset win for The Secret Agent as well because it’s also a Best Picture nominee, and Brazil has a pretty good track record of wins in this category, so we definitely cannot discount the power of the Brazil block when it comes to votes. 

Should win: Sentimental Value

Will win: Sentimental Value

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 12 — Last week, a smackdown happened, but maybe it did not.

The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) walked into a large room. Imagine everyone is in the room, all of Malaysia’s citizens and migrants — legal, illegal or merely expatriates. About 35 million folks. It’s a well-lit room, so millions can see clearly, the proceedings.

CAS walks over to Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).

This is exactly a soap opera, so there’s a backstory. A pathetic one, I did say a soap opera.

When FIFA, the global overseer of football, accused FAM of fielding biologically and culturally — and I accuse emotionally — disconnected players, FAM got incensed. 

FIFA in its misguided and completely ludicrous notion of trying to be fair wanted to ensure countries just did not buy players to advance the fortunes of their national teams. 

Apparently, fairness is a universal thing and not really just a thing a country, actually solely Malaysia, gets to determine based on its historical baggage and demographical realities. 

Right can be judged by even strangers according to FIFA but FAM is a Malaysian institution therefore is completely entitled by Malaysian standards to feel aggrieved at anything anytime.

In FIFA’s defence, this is not new, the rule that a player even if granted citizenship by the new home country, has to prove a residential record or biological tie. 

Even the great Alfredo Di Stéfano who won five straight European Cups with Real Madrid could not play for Spain in 1953 because he was born Argentinean and spent most of his first living years there. He waited four years to play for his new country. 

So, FIFA and its ancient rules said that Malaysia had misled it when it approved seven players to play in the famous 4-0 victory over neighbours Vietnam on June 10, 2025.

When FIFA, the global overseer of football, accused FAM of fielding biologically and culturally — and I accuse emotionally — disconnected players, FAM got incensed.  — Bernama pic

This it said in September after an investigation. Malaysia appeals, FIFA’s appeals board listens. It says in November the evidence still points to cheating. Appeal overturned. Worse, it gives a glossary list of errors on November 18, 2025.

FAM remained unperturbed. As a Malaysian institution by definition ought never be wrong, the national association in charge of football is duty bound to show the finger to the world, in this case, to FIFA.

Where then?

When they go low, Malaysia goes high. The national officials gather in a circle, and speaking in tongues, they decide, to the CAS.

If window dressing was a sport, Malaysia would win a bunch of gold medals every Olympics. Going 15 rounds of nonsense, FAM files a police report as asked by FIFA in its written motivation. To complete the charade, all FAM exco members resign en masse.  

Malaysia’s love for CAS was unrequited. Rather than just agree with Malaysia, which is the polite thing to do, the court in Lausanne ruled in favour of FIFA. It was not a very difficult decision to arrive at. One side was peddling fairy tales, and the other side exclaimed, “Fairy tales!”

FAM never had a leg to stand on, but conceding last June or September or November or ever means the game is up. 

In Malaysia, the game is never up. Truth has to stand in line behind pomp, ceremony and imagined greatness of the special ones, who can only be celebrated not denigrated.

CAS is unfamiliar to the Malaysian way of life. It went with common sense, looked at FIFA’s information and made its judgement.

This was the disciplinary whack CAS gave FAM in the very public room last week, watched by all.

The gasps were palpable. 

In the minds of the sensible, usually an attribute that damages anyone applying to be Malaysian, the whole library, not just the book, would be thrown at FAM and everyone involved in the matter, even the janitorial staff. 

Instead, in the aftermath, there is nothing.

There are two dudes in the movie Dumb and Dumber. The audience are dumbfounded constantly on who is, well, dumber. Either one of them can figure out what actually occurred in the FAM situation.

But here we are in Malaysia. It is not possible to adopt Occam’s Razor or anything remotely intelligent. Everyone has to play along, to get along.

So, the 35 million people are asked to leave the room. Leave and do not think too hard about it.

This is between FAM and FIFA, FAM and CAS, FAM and the sports ministry, or FAM and destiny.

What it is not about is the Malaysian people.

We are all expected to look the other way. And in time, this won’t matter anymore. Slip into the cracks of history. There are enough international tournaments for Malaysia to fail to qualify for.

When the new sports minister gave us the advice to learn from the debacle when nothing actually is done, it dawns upon us. If there is someone to be blamed, then it is the Malaysian people.

Every time we win, it is due to our courageous, diligent and aspirational leaders. They have such imagination, such gusto.

Every time we fail, it is due to our limp, passive and morbid rakyat. We have no knowledge, no gumption.

One way to look at the diabolical outcome is to confront the truth that those who love to cheat got caught, and now must face the music.

Another way to look at it, the way our leaders want us to accept it standing outside the room, was that at least they tried to help Malaysia and failed, and our eternal gratitude should be to them for trying, unlike ourselves. 

In fact, we should punch out any doubt we had of our leaders. And the memory of doubting.

What smackdown? Everything is blissful here in heaven on earth. Even the football.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 11 — I came very close to having either a stroke or aneurysm last week.

This was mostly due to some very bad experiences with customer service (or more like, lack thereof), which made me escalate things very quickly.

My sister says I have a tendency to “go nuclear” on very short notice.

This is where I throw my father under a bus.

You see, when I was little, I remember us all going to have KFC in the middle of town.

This was when KFC still had metal cutlery, mind you.

My father was lining up for chicken and a tourist happened to come to the counter.

According to the author, sometimes, only sharp and forceful words seem to get people’s attention. — Pexels.com pic

Instead of serving my father (who was there first), the server immediately turns to the Caucasian man and asks for his order.

My father was not having it.

He immediately delivered a blistering lecture to the KFC staffer and the incident had such an impression on me.

Little me thought her Papa was very much justified.

Of course you should speak up, I thought, it is the obvious thing to do.

And that is how I have become very talented at getting into trouble by speaking up and also getting people into trouble, also by speaking up.

The other day I was in an establishment to run an errand that I thought would take just 10 minutes.

What I did not expect was to be completely ignored by the staff.

I’ll save you the long, tiresome account of what happened as it is really just another day of dealing with poorly trained retail workers, a bit of a malady in Malaysia.

CCTV proved that my anger to the point I was writing a terse email to Corporate Affairs was justified.

To their credit at least my email was acknowledged and at least I did not have to start screaming in the middle of the store — I was sorely tempted to, just because.

Alas, a courier service is apparently sitting on my package in a warehouse and thanks to AI agents there is no one to receive my terse email.

The next step would probably be escalating it right up to MCMC (courier services not doing their jobs is under their purview) but I will stay my hand for one reason — as soon as the package arrives, I’m returning it for a refund. 

To further raise my blood pressure to incredible levels, a Shopee seller is arguing that, after I complained about them being unresponsive, that responding to me faster (I just wanted an update, my good man) would not mean the package would arrive faster.

I could feel a blood vessel threaten to explode somewhere around my temple.

Then the seller insisted that there were customers who only got replied to after one or two days had passed and did not complain.

My response: their lack of standards and accepting less than the bare minimum of acceptable customer service is not my problem. 

To tell you the truth, I wish I was more amiable, the kind who used honey instead of napalm to win battles.

I have burned more bridges than most people walk on in their lives and sometimes, I regret it.

Yet I know that sometimes the only things people will respond to is fire and metal, in the form of words that cut and burn.

Let others more suited be the peacemakers; I have resigned myself to be the General of (justified) Karens who will wage war on poor customer service and government agencies that need a lot of yelling at before they release welfare funds for a late stage cancer patient.

We all have our place in the world and I guess mine involves a lot of yelling.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 8 — A few days ago, the Federal Territory Ministry announced an 80 per cent reduction in gym licence fees from RM50 to RM10 per square metre. 

This was ostensibly to tackle obesity. KL has an overweight/obesity rate of 40.6 per cent  the highest in a country where our belts are already dangerously bursting at the seams. 

According to 2025 data, 60 per cent of adults in Malaysia are overweight or obese; we’re like #1 in Asean.

Will reduced gym fees help tackle this problem? The research stats are not optimistic.

In the US, free or subsidised gym access often increases gym visits, attendance, and moderate physical activity levels, but benefits are usually short-term or limited to specific groups like hypertensive adults from minority communities. 

School-based interventions to increase physical activity were more effective, not least in curbing childhood obesity. Likewise, university rebate programmes boosted gym visits by ~20 per cent short-term.

Interestingly enough, in the UK schemes providing free leisure facility access increased gym  attendances by 64 per cent in a certain locality.

In Australia, nutrition labelling, junk food advertising bans, and improved food quality in public institutions are the most popular obesity policies, while exercise incentives are among the least popular.

Hence, unfortunately, cheaper gym access has little if at all impact on national obesity rates. 

The author argues that slashing gym licence fees is unlikely to significantly reduce Malaysia’s obesity rate, as research shows population-level weight problems are driven more by diet, lifestyle and public health policies than by gym access alone. — AFP pic

Sure, most studies show increases in activity or gym use, but these are not consistent, large-scale reductions in obesity prevalence or BMI at population level. 

Effects on weight are often small, short-term, or seen only in subgroups (e.g., those with hypertension or already somewhat active). 

Even exercise referral schemes (doctor referrals to subsidised exercise programmes, common in the UK) find weak evidence for sustained physical activity increases and inconsistent effects on fitness/health indicators like weight.

Then again, did we really need official research to tell us that Malaysia’s obesity problem isn’t going to be even marginally improved by cheaper gym fees (even assuming the gym operators reduce their fees in the first place!)?

In at least two of the previous companies where I worked at, the office buildings had a free gym. I recall out of more than a thousand employees, barely three were regular gym goers.

Think about your few close friends who have weight issues. Are they that way because they cannot afford the RM200-ish a month at the gym? How many would be excited if we gave them a year’s membership FOC?

Speaking of zero-cost exercise, everyone knows there are parks, jogging trails, hills, etc. Ergo, it isn’t fitness-centre costs that are holding back the battle on Malaysian obesity.

The same research which tells us subsidising gym sessions isn’t going to shift the national shirt size from XXXL to M also gives some ideas which actually help.

Taxing unhealthy (especially sugary) products is one. All those chips, buns, chocolate bars, processed meats, 8-teaspoons-of-sugar drinks, biscuits, donuts, candies and what-not need to be priced for the dangerous goods they are. 

Problem is, right now the stuff is way too cheap. The government should also clamp down on companies advertising tasty but crappy meals, although good luck going up against the big boys like KFC and McDonald’s.

Likewise, lowering the price of healthy food (eg, vegetables, fruits, lean fresh meats, sugar- and salt-free snacks, etc) ought to help, especially if these are coupled with health promotion/marketing programmes (not least in schools).

Needless, like charity, fitness begins at home. As parents, how are we modelling health and vigour to our kids? Do we encourage our children to work out and eat well and in moderation, and to have an active lifestyle the way we push them to study and have good manners? 

Or are we usually sedentary, scrolling our phones non-stop and stuffing ourselves with karipap all day?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 5 — How do they see it, and how many will show up, which way will they choose?

Coalition partner’s impatience probably turns 2026 into an election year.

Speaking of an election, the usual chatter is about parties and candidates.

As in, wonder if certain coalitions are on the precipice, and fear if the grand unity friendship instituted post GE15 persists then all surprises are doused.

Within these umbrellas, or outside them, sit candidates who hope to be leaders.

That’s the supply side, how about a view of the demand side of the equation, the people who cast ballots. How do voters see it, and how many voters will turn up, and which way do they cast their votes?

A ballot box sits on a table at a voting centre during the 15th general election at Sekolah Kebangsaan Seksyen 17 in Shah Alam on November 19, 2022. — Yusof Mat Isa pic

Voters filtered

In this age of AI-dominated media, perception likely drives attendance and choice.

Yet old truths remain profound. Two angry online accounts are not as valuable as the single voter who turns up. 

Voters choose based on few issues, often one. Voters are very fickle. They are risk averse in the general and are unfortunately not as invested in the process as the politicians and their parties.

Today the discussion focuses on those who show up. While everyone interacts online with political information all year round, the power is totally in the hands of actual voters.

Turnout evens out the effect of a larger youth share of registered voters. Less than half of those below 35 are expected to vote, and 80 per cent of those above 45 are expected to vote. Essentially, those above 40 have a firm grip on the election outcome since they’d assiduously vote.

So, what do these likely voters look at? Again, this is from the vantage point of the average voter.

Economy (or am I going to feel pain)

There is a trade war ongoing in the world, but Malaysia is doing A-OK. If the ringgit marches up anywhere close to RM3.50 to the dollar by nomination day, the government will chest-thump from here to Tawau.

The Rahmah grocery credit is welcome among families, so are the various handouts to Malaysians. 

There is a culture of entitlement, and handouts are expected and therefore not necessarily rewarded with votes for the party in power. Yet, critically, they are expected.

This is not a financially disgruntled country, not yet. Not in 2026 or even 2027.

The economy is about perception. Look at the US. President Biden shepherded a good economy in 2024 but too many voters felt things were too expensive. Trump benefitted from perception despite positive economic findings.

Malay insecurities

Perikatan Nasional will seek to find a way to build a narrative of Malays being left out in an economy built for others.

But here is the kicker, these do work with a section of Malay voters, however, they have the opposite effect on other voters. 

They did max out the fears in 2022 and there is a sneaky feeling that shouting about oppression when they are engulfed in their own internal power struggles, that includes PAS, Bersatu and the ex-Bersatu troops, begins to sound hollow.

There’s the elephant in the room. DAP ministers have hardly put a foot wrong.

Despite misgivings about the insistence on UEC, Chinese schools and passive racism, there is a limit to goading.

It did not go down well that Jamal Yunos asked Teresa Kok to open a pig farm in her home a week before Chinese New Year. He was cross that the court forced him to auction personal effects to pay legal fees owing to her.

The economy and race-relations are interconnected, and Pakatan is ahead on this.

PM choices to pick

GE14 ended the debate about the value of a presumptive nominee to be prime minister.

Pakatan naming Mahathir Mohamad as its PM candidate took away stress.

No talk of whether Bersatu’s President Muhyiddin Yassin helms in case of victory, or PKR President Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to hold the post — as she is keen to do — till Anwar Ibrahim arrived back.

After the votes were counted on May 9, the wait was when Mahathir swears in, not if others are vying to be prime minister.

Average voters do not care generally whose name is on the ballot. They want to know how their choice impacts the selection of the prime minister.

Anwar is the head of Pakatan. Vote in enough Pakatan MPs and Anwar remains as PM.

No one is PN’s chief. If there are enough PN MPs, this will lead to many late-night meetings between PAS, Bersatu, ex-Bersatu and perhaps even Umno to discuss.

While hardcore PAS folks are just ready to leap into polling stations to tick the moon, swing voters may hesitate.

This is the clearest lead for Pakatan. Anwar is Pakatan’s only candidate. PN has six months to get its act together which is adequate but the noise emanating from inside the coalition does not assuage concerns.

A myriad of others

There are multiple issues which may impact voters but PN does not fancy them. Throws all its chips into identity politics. Pakatan can only beat who is in the ring. PN is the only viable large coalition.

Meanwhile, Hamzah Zainuddin is party shopping with Parti Keluarga Malaysia the key target.  Though, it is very clear that the leader of the Opposition has never run solo before, and news reports speak of the 13 MPs backing him, rather than 19 a week ago. 

As Zuraida Kamaruddin found out with her Parti Bangsa Malaysia, support is fleeting when the idea is absent.

Umno, in six years of jumping in and out of bed with PN and Pakatan, has lost its own sense of destiny. It gives an old mansion feel when it goes completely melancholic about nostalgia. 

It helps not that Najib Razak is missed by the base, a sizeable number loathe Zahid Hamidi as president, another part wants Mohamad Hasan and Johari Ghani to rise as top two and one part fantasises about Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar and other rejects to sweep back into the party.  

To top it all, MCA and MIC are perpetually sore dual anchors slowing down the Umno vessel. 

In June, Rafizi Ramli promises a reveal. Hate to be the wet blanket, however, Rafizi is prone to overestimating his promises. It might be a New Age solution no one — for probably sane reasons — has heard of before.    

Syed Saddiq Syed Rahman announced this week he is staying out of the Muda party election. He wants full acquittal from the Federal Court before returning. 

A new party built by the personality of its founding president without its symbolic head is just kidding itself.

To the voters, PN is too entangled, Umno lost in time, Rafizi an acquired taste and Muda is restless.  

Maybe DAP is not completely loco to ask for joint polls this year end. The competition threatens to give them a walkover. 

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 4 — Five days after I turned 48, the Pokémon franchise turned 30.

Why yes I do feel positively middle-aged now thanks very much.

To get me out of the house (else I would rot under the blankets) I have picked up Pokémon Go again and now must make the daily trek to collect Pokéballs and catch random monsters along the way.

So if you happen to be around Petaling Jaya and hear a disgruntled woman mutter “Get in the ball you little s***,” at her phone that’s probably me.

I have also added new people to my game friend list, getting nice in-game postcards from as far away as the US and Germany.

Sometimes at odd hours of the night I get invitations to storm the castle...I mean, do a Pokémon raid.

Raids are battle groups where you use strength in numbers to take down a particularly powerful Pokémon.

It’s harmless, wholesome and a great way to make friends or bond with fellow players (like the one who lives with me).

Aggression is an inescapable facet of human nature.

There is a reason why martial arts, shooting ranges and video games exist — to excise the aggression in our DNA that, in some people, is more volatile.

Manners evolved, I think, as a way to ensure unchecked aggression does not lead to our mass extinction.

Yet the spectre of war has not lessened.

I miss the old days when beauty queens would breathlessly say they wished for “world peace.”

So do I, Miss Colombia, so do I.

It’s 2026 and the US has decided that the rules of engagement are now dictated by the President’s whims and fancies.

Congress buy-in? Who needs that when the GOP is content to look away from the bombs, inflation and the Epstein files?

The upcoming Pokémon Pokopia game is the best reviewed Pokémon game ever and releases worldwide on March 5.

Yes, I did preorder a copy.

The game’s premise is that it mixes Pokémon with elements of the popular Dragon’s Quest and Animal Crossing games, set in a dystopian future where the humans have all disappeared leaving the Pokémon bereft and bewildered.

Reviews are already out and Pokopia looks set to be a strong contender for Game of the Year.

The upcoming ‘Pokémon Pokopia’ game is the best reviewed Pokémon game ever and releases worldwide on March 5. — Picture via Nintendo website

It’s telling how much cozy games — games that differentiate themselves by providing a relaxing experience — have become a huge genre now.

The world is on fire and people are looking for a safe haven wherever they can find it, even if it’s just on a gaming console.

This week too TGV is screening the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring, which is my second-favourite film after Return of the King.

J.R.R. Tolkien, whose books were the source material for The Lord of the Rings films, experienced war as a soldier.

He watched people die.

He saw the horrors of war up close and in his books the people he saves most of his admiration for are not the great warriors or powerful wizards.

In his words, Tolkien’s greatest affection is reserved for the hobbits.

On his deathbed, the dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield says to hobbit Bilbo Baggins: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, the world would be merrier.”

If only we lived in a world that cared more for children’s lives than for oil reserves.

No matter how hard the world gets, we still have stories, books, songs and yes, video games that let us remember what it is to love the world as a child does — for all its bright wonders and possibilities.

I just hope mankind gets its act together because as it is now, this is a world where fewer children are being born or living to adulthood... because we forget that this world is not just for our present but for them, our ultimate hope and future.

To hobbits, to dreams, to the joy of catching Pokémon and to the hope of better days even in this current darkness.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 1 — It’s all Spotify’s fault. Each time you create or listen to a playlist there’s this option of allowing the app to play hits from outside the list.

Before I knew it, AI-generated songs had taken over my playlist — literally before I knew it.

I was enjoying my regular evening walk with my earphones and Spotify blasting into my head. Two songs by a certain artist, Room, came on. I liked them, didn’t think much of it, added them to the playlist and moved on.

A few days later, an absolutely soul-groover, Midnight By The Shore, by Harusoupe (I swear I thought it was some Korean or Japanese band at first) stopped me flat while on the LRT. 

What an awesome guitar and bass line, very hip, so smooth I couldn’t help but sway in the train-car.

I went to Harusoupe’s page in Spotify, skimmed through some of the music, found another fantastic song Almost Told You Tonight which I’ve since listened to a million times.

But one thing left me curious and after checking with Grok I realise this is the first red (or should it be green?) flag that a certain band/artiste and their songs are AI-generated: There’s next to nothing in the “About This Artist” section.

AI-generated songs had taken over my playlist. — Reuters pic

My suspicions were more or less confirmed when I ran Room and Harusoupe through Grok and asked AI itself if those two were AI musicians. 

The answer was Yes, very likely. Why? Because there is no clear real-world presence or human identity and many folks on forums like Reddit and even YouTube were convinced the music was AI generated.

Grok’s reasoning (that selected bands or singers are AI) itself reflects an interesting irony in that it’s hard to be 100 per cent certain that a piece of music is AI-generated. 

Somehow AI musicians rarely explicitly declare themselves. As if keeping people guessing is part of “machine consciousness”?

When I found out these four songs were (quite likely) AI made, I confess some ambivalence hit me. 

Are my musical tastes so low and cheap that I can be duped and impressed by music sliced and pieced together by a bunch of pattern-recognition and data-organising programs? 

Are we humans so easily drawn in by lyrics ‘written’ by a software which has fed on millions of songs, by a “voice” conjured up by an impersonal voice-mimicking app?

Sure, AI-generated music has been around since the mid-50s but the advent of ChatGPT and the like have super-charged their quality and popularity. 

As with education, writing, video (cue Seedance and those Jackie Chan vs Thanos videos!) and a lot more sectors, music’s realm will soon be AI-overshadowed (if not AI-dominated).

Consider that Deezer reports more than 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded daily and tagged 13.4 million AI tracks over 2025.

Spotify has removed over 75 million “spammy” tracks (many AI-related, like short clips for royalty farming or impersonations) in the 12 months leading up to September 2025

AI music generation tools like Suno generate north of 7 million songs daily, equivalent to Spotify’s entire catalogue every two weeks (!).

And there I was being tripped up by only four songs. Soon, not unlike the case with phone calls from unknown numbers and a lot of online news, our first thought will be: Is this stuff real?

I guess, just as in the other areas, a few fundamental questions spring to mind: How important is it for music to be created by a human? What is “real” music anyway? 

What about individuals mixing electric with humanly created music? Something like a grandmaster playing chess with a computer? Centaur artists anyone?

In the meantime, I’ll tell myself it’s fine to enjoy Harusoupe. But Taylor Swift and Michael Bublé better up their game.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 28 — It’s been a pretty slow February when it comes to big new movies in Malaysian cinemas, with the exception of those targeted at the Chinese New Year crowd, of which we had quite a few. 

With no big Hollywood movie in sight throughout the month, it’s really been up to genre films to stir up some excitement for me to go to the cinema to watch some films, and I basically had to wait almost a month to compile the ones I’m most excited to talk about and share with all you dear readers out there.

Some of these have already been released on digital, with probably only two titles still playing in local cinemas, so you can just pick and choose however you want to watch these movies, if they sound interesting to you.

Workers clean a movie theatre in Bukit Tinggi, Klang on March 3, 2021. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

Blades of the Guardians

Hands down the biggest movie to open in February, at least for those of us in Asia, where names like Yuen Woo-Ping, Jet Li, Wu Jing, Nicholas Tse and Tony Leung Ka-Fai are big enough to excite us the moment the film’s poster and trailer dropped. 

Despite the number of underwhelming duds he’s had recently, like The Thousand Faces of Dunjia and the pointless sequel Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, the now 80-year-old Woo-Ping is back to doing good things again with this one. 

The narrative, as is the case with most wuxia movies, is at once simple and convoluted, with plenty of characters popping up that the audience will struggle to remember.

But no one comes in to wuxia movies expecting story first, because we’re all buying tickets to this to see the fights, and even though I still think some of the iQIYI movies, like the Eye For An Eye films, Black Storm and Blade Of Fury, are better in terms of the fight scenes, Blades of the Guardians is still one of the best wuxia films in recent memory. A solid 7 out of 10 entertainment, now we wait for the next instalment!

Send Help

Whenever a new Sam Raimi (director of the original Evil Dead films) film rolls into town, you can bet that I will be one of the first to rush to get tickets to watch it in the cinema. 

Even when doing a big Hollywood blockbuster like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he’s managed to slip in elements that made fans love his signature style, which in that particular case was zombies. 

His new film, Send Help, will particularly delight fans of Drag Me To Hell with its mixture of gore and dark comedy.

Putting a toxic male boss, Bradley (a deliciously frat bro performance from Dylan O’Brien) and a mistreated female employee, Linda (Rachel McAdams giving what’s probably her finest performance yet) together on a remote island after a plane crash, the film plays like a gloriously loony mash-up of Swept Away, Triangle Of Sadness and Six Days Seven Nights. 

One of the most entertaining films you’ll see this year, this one’s a blast!

Whistle

When it comes to horror films, formula and familiarity is very much a given, and are widely accepted by fans of the genre, as long as the films are delivered in an exciting enough manner. 

This is definitely the case with Whistle, the latest film from The Nun director, Corin Hardy. 

Clearly inspired by the Final Destination franchise, this is another one of those teens-die-because-of-curse films, with all the formula and familiarity one will come to expect in its plot. 

The curse this time comes from blowing an ancient Aztec whistle, in which a group of teenagers who dared each other to blow the whistle, take turns to die in creative, agonising ways. 

Sort of a mash-up of Talk To Me and Final Destination, the surprisingly creative kills here ended up making this wholly predictable movie quite worthwhile. Definitely stream this one!

Primate

Johannes Roberts is definitely a second- or third-tier name when it comes to modern-day horror directors, but his is still one I’ll always look out for because even though not everything he touches turns to gold, he’s made enough enjoyable movies, like F, Storage 24, the 47 Meters Down films and The Other Side Of The Door to make me look forward to whatever his new project may be. 

Primate is another solid banger in his filmography, a movie about a pet chimp gone wild because of rabies. 

Paced like a rollercoaster with only the bare minimum of time spent to set up the characters, Roberts takes full advantage of the film’s R rating by showcasing plenty of jaw-snapping, head-crunching, bone-crunching and even face-tearing violence, delivering a snappy, muscular and efficient thrill ride, making this a B-movie that has no right to be this slick and this good.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEB 26 — Here’s the government agency we really need, the “Simply Put” agency.

To fight the country’s deadly epidemic, garble. Which pads poor, probably criminal, deeds with complexities, data, updates, timelines, decimal points and acronyms. 

As it is, the landscape’s littered with promises of action, study, research or review.

The Auditor-General’s Report 1/2026 on the 2024 Federal Agencies’ Financial Statements had issues with my university, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). 

Dewan Rakyat talked about it this week, and the Deputy Minister Adam Adli — himself in another lifetime experienced serious disagreements with university administrators — assured a degree of action, study, research and review. 

Apparently, a cooperative was collecting fees and receiving other payments for services the university ultimately provided. And then the university was shortchanged by about RM50 million as reported inside the auditor’s findings.

It involved the Master of Education (SPEND) and Postgraduate Diploma in Education (DPLI) programmes.

The payments originated from the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) and Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF). These are postgraduate programmes, the students seem to take loans from the national fund or use up their retirement benefits. An investment into their future. It also tells us these students are Malaysians.

Now the question which was never entertained.

The university teaches, supervises and hands out the certificates on the stage at DECTAR (Dewan Canselor Tun Abdul Razak), why did it not just handle fee payments directly?

Why the middle man, this cooperative? This Koperasi B-5-1788? Only belatedly the public is informed that the operating name is Koperasi Siswazah Bangi Bhd (KSBB).

KSBB manager Muhammad Hafiz Md Saad said the 2017 initiated partnership has since generated RM90.56 million in revenue. For the university or the company?

By the lack of funds funnelled back to the university it appears the company gets the better end of the deal. 

The full report must have mesmerised the minders at the higher education ministry since the deputy minister told Dewan Rakyat UKM won’t use KSBB to collect fees anymore. In fact, the university has started to—in stages—collect the fees directly since last year.

The payments originated from the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) and Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF). — Bernama pic

This before any mention of five university employees on the cooperative’s board as chairman, secretary and treasurer. No report of university staff members moonlighting in the cooperative’s janitorial services. 

Nor that the finance ministry never approved the wonderful relationship since 2017, which renders the whole enterprise a non-starter. 

If the auditor-general did not report these discrepancies, what is the chance the relationship with Koperasi B-5-1788 AKA Koperasi Siswazah Bangi Bhd (KSBB) would not have gone on swimmingly well till 2037?

It was not like UKM Treasury Department was livid and banging on KSBB’s door every other Wednesday to collect arrears. And this at a time where all public universities scramble for funds to keep the lights on since Putrajaya is not shovelling more money their way. 

The whole UKM ecology which includes KSBB was in Zen harmony until the auditor-general probably flagged it to UKM treasury last year before the submission to Parliament this week. 

Be mindful that the auditor-general’s report a year ago flagged about the non-functioning RM22 million radiotherapy machine at UKM’s hospital [Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz (HCTM)] due to an incompetent supplier. Twenty cancer patients were affected by the non-availability.

UKM is in its own world of mess.

When the information is gift-wrapped already, the decisions are easy. Except this is still Malaysia. Suspensions and terminations of individuals are yet forthcoming.

The auditors are coming, in a bus

It is thankless, auditing the Malaysian government.

Along with the agency to say it simply, we need another to keep track of every impropriety, so that it is not lost in the mist of time.

Every auditor-general report is filled with gems — OK, horror stories. The reaction? Outcries, expected denials and conciliatory statements.

However, no registrar of which reports have been resolved.

So, one agency to explain to us plainly, and another to keep score of eventual outcomes, no matter how long it takes to get a sensible resolution.

It is a huge win when the auditor-general unearths mistakes because the office cannot possibly track everything. 

It is a RM400 billion budget for Malaysia these days, with ministries, agencies, departments, boards, commissions, authorities and regulators from Padang Besar to Semporna.

It chooses to sample based on high-risk, high value and a history of transgressions. It cannot look everywhere. If UKM is looked at, then x-number of the other twenty-one public universities get a no look this time.

If the auditor-general had to peruse all financial activities conducted by the government throughout the year with a fine-tooth comb, most of its staff will probably quit or die of aneurysms. 

They carefully choose where to look. They track down the financial information and act like detectives, without the glamourous cars, casino trips and tuxedos, to figure it out. It’s not easy to reconstruct the past using only numbers. 

They do, these superheroes.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 25 — This year is a whimsical convergence for our multi-holiday celebrating nation.

Ramadan began on the second day of Chinese New Year; I’m sure Chinese Muslims were relieved there was a day’s gap between the reunion dinner and the night before Ramadan.

The current social media trend of “becoming Chinese” is mildly hilarious, with people declaring they now drink hot water as it is the healthier “Chinese” way.

I will never be a fan of the Chinese government’s overly repressive Big Brother tactics but I must admit that it is winning the culture war.

South Korea has marketed its culture globally and perhaps it is now China’s time.

Yet I would rather resist Beijing’s notion of Chinese-ness, too entrenched in pushing Mandarin and Han customs.

Visitors walk beneath an installation of Chinese New Year lanterns along an alleyway in Kuala Lumpur February 5, 2026. — Picture by Raymond Manuel

It annoys me to hear about dialects like Hakka and Cantonese struggling to survive when their tones were the sounds of my youth.

I only have to hear someone exclaim very loudly ma kai (what) to recognise the very particular dialect of Sabah Hakka.

The Chinese diaspora in Malaysia have a storied history and over the years, have adapted in ways that have affected not just language but their cultural traditions.

Like recently there have been various fun videos of Sabah lion dance troupes engaging in all sorts of antics including spinning on top of poles (like furry helicopters) and dressing in indigenous costumes.

@mdomsb When culture meets culture - no agenda, just Joy#chinesenewyear2026 #multiculturefamily original sound - MDOMSB

@ctudungsarung

soo cuteeeeeee

Helikopter - Fazlija

It has been particularly fascinating to witness how local Chinese creations such as lion dances on tall poles and the 24 season drums have become unique mainstays of our national culture.

Which brings me to the topic of another video making the rounds, of Malay men singing their own made-up lyrics celebrating CNY and Ramadan being so close together, to the tune of that hallmark CNY tune 恭喜恭喜.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Muhammad Noor Tijany (@_donjany)

It’s entertaining, joyous and hearkens to the simple sentiment of enjoying our shared holidays.

As tiresome as it is to forever be always having discussions about race and national identity, I think it’s important to be reminded, and to remind each other that you can be both Malay/Chinese/Tamil/Punjabi/Malayalee/Kadazandusun/Iban/Melanau/Eurasian/Nyonya etc etc and fully Malaysian.

There is too much chest-thumping about being something “first” when we can just be many things at the same time. 

The friction that comes from having so many peoples in one land is something that we will just have to deal with, but I think the only way we can move forward is to learn to enjoy the things we can share.

When the pandemic happened, Malaysians showed that we can share our burdens and work together to ease our collective suffering.

Yet now we are no longer under national house arrest we devolve again to the same other-ing rhetoric.

The kids call it FOMO or fear of missing out but I think part of the friction between the many peoples is the (false) notion that the other side has it better.

Live long enough and you’ll learn that the grass is green on both sides of the fence. It’s just the smell of the s**t is stronger on your own side only because it’s closer.

Dengki (envy) is also a strong part of our local culture because too many of us are still stuck in a scarcity mentality, believing that for someone to prosper, someone else must have less and it shouldn’t be us.

I wish Malaysians could see what other people see when they come here, all the things they wish they had where they came from.

Americans, for instance, marvel at our being able to pay with QR codes everywhere while they need to rely on cumbersome apps.

Maybe you can’t share a plate of char siew with your Malay neighbour but there’s still tea, oranges and kuih kapit you can enjoy instead.

While open houses aren’t nearly as commonplace now as they used to be (I blame the economy) now more than ever, in this time of global instability, I think Malaysians need to cultivate open hearts that will remain welcoming all year around.

The world is hard enough; we shouldn’t let our hearts forget how to be soft.

We can be mad at each other, then once we’re done, find the nearest mamak for some teh tarik and complain about the government like the true Malaysians we are.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 19 — Very few Chinese folks will say this out loud but during Chinese New Year, there’s one thing which will scare the living horse lights out of us i.e. the 20 questions relatives ask during gatherings: “Your school results how?” “You director in your office already ah?” “When you two getting married?” “How come no children yet?” “Why no sons?”, ad infinitum.

Festivities are wonderful but I guess being interrogated on some of the personal aspects and decisions in one’s life in the middle of one’s entire clan can be daunting.

Asking about each other’s lives — especially after having been apart for a year or so — is no doubt a part of what it means to be family. 

In the best-case scenarios, it’s not so much “20 questions” but “20 ways to reconnect”. 

In fact, it’s not uncommon to have cousins, uncles and aunts proudly pour out their latest achievements, plans and dreams together with the Chinese tea, orange juice and cookies.

Maybe it’s all the cookies and laughing and food and fireworks which make extended family members think the young fellas they haven’t seen in a year will feel perfectly fine being asked questions they’d block social media followers for even raising.

Maybe it’s tradition which flies like a “Free For All” flag so much so that every query can be posed without fear of a lawsuit, every intimacy probed with impunity.

Like a friendly police interrogation?

Maybe that’s why the people being questioned answer macam stress sangat.

Festivities are wonderful but I guess being interrogated on some of the personal aspects and decisions in one’s life in the middle of one’s entire clan can be daunting. — Bernama pic

We say our studies are fine (and throw in how Maths is our favourite subject hoping the questioner hates it).

We say maybe we’ll tie the knot in a few years’ time (and joke maybe she or he could have second thoughts).

We say we’re too busy to have a kid (just before saying, “Oh hey, your children look wonderful!”)

We say this, we say that, we say anything while simultaneously willing the spotlight to shift away from us.

Ironically one of the surest ways to avoid these awkward “firing squad” moments is to have an actual problem. 

No relative does something as insulting as ask a divorcee whether or not her ex-husband still contacts her. Likewise, only someone ignorant would ask a woman with a failed pregnancy about family plans.

Yet who knows, with social media being what it is, maybe CNY today and tomorrow will see fewer “20 Questions” and more family members simply staring at their phones and mumbling something about US politics or TB or whatever. 

The tragedy of Facebook and Instagram is that fewer of us care to speak face to face, which could mean minor redemption to young couples or adolescents simply hoping to make it past lunchtime without having all their existential decision-making becoming headlines.

Thankfully, most people still care about each other’s feelings to not be unnecessary busy-bodies. 

Also, with rising sensitivity and political correctness today I suppose everyone’s more likely to think twice before turning a family gathering into a police inquiry?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEB 18 — One lie I tell often is that I do not have regrets.

Like anyone, I have many. Sequestered into the corners of my psyche, sometimes mixing themselves in as discordant notes in the daily songs of my days.

What I wish I could do is thank every single person who has helped me, whether with words, actions, donations or even irritating me enough to make them column fodder.

I would like time to stand still so I can have more moments and less shame in telling everyone who has gifted me their kindness, resources or their ability to annoy, how I am truly grateful and that I will always struggle with feeling that it is undeserved.

All the doctors, nurses, support staff at all the hospitals I attended, whether Assunta, Universiti Malaya Medical Centre and KL General Hospital, I am so thankful for your care. 

Literally I would not have gotten this far in this strange journey without all of you and also those who have supported this column and kept me writing it. 

Thank you, I love you. Truly.

Now that we have gotten the maudlin sentiments out of my system, we come to the announcement that this is the final instalment of the Cancer Diaries.

No, not even cancer could come between me and this column there will be plenty to write about and many things to explore besides disease.

I said goodbye to the oncology daycare ward on Lunar New Year Eve. — Picture by Erna Mahyuni

Not as much current affairs or politics because I think at this stage of my life I would rather write about things that are bigger than me than continue to be stuck within the narrowness of certain issues, to give way to fresher voices on certain topics.

All things must end in time; after all, my last day of active cancer treatment came on the eve of Chinese New Year.

My birthday is, I gleefuly remind friends, on February 22 and I am a cheap Emperor of the Day so will be happy for tribute in food.

Self-aggrandisation aside, I had planned to come earlier to the hospital to check on some other appointments, like my next mammogram.

I was out the door at 10.30am but silly me, locked the grille while my house keys were not in hand but locked inside the house. 

Because I live to entertain (even not on purpose), my clownery meant being trapped on the porch until my brother could come rescue me with a spare key.

This left me no choice but to take a Grab to HKL instead of taking my time with public transport and oh, did I laugh when I saw the licence plate of the rideshare.

XXX(censored for privacy)1978. 

My birth year. 

I guess the heavens like reminding me of the occasional futility in trying to control everything.

On the way, for the first time, the hospital actually called just to check if I was going to come in.

Was it because the next day was a public holiday or were they afraid I was going to do a runner? Who knows.

This time It didn’t take very long for me to get a number, be seen by an oncologist, and then jabbed very quickly for my usual IV placement.

I was out the door before 3pm, the oncology ward wasn’t even full, I even made a new friend.

So I had time for a little thrift shopping (paid 5 ringgit for a Pokémon Ichiban Kuji mug) and then a modest celebratory dinner of roast duck.

Not fancy Irish duck or Peking duck, just a good old local raised duck. 

Next month I have my last echocardiogram for a while and each time I feel the same trepidation, wondering if my heart has managed to hold up through a long course of treatment.

Yet there is no point in worrying, no way to forestall what may or may not happen to my heart.

It is good enough that I have made it to my 48th year when my birthday arrives on Sunday.

Throughout this cancer journey I knew there was no path but forward, no running away, only towards the oncoming day.

The last six months have been full of a strange grief and loneliness but perhaps it is just the shedding of a snake’s skin as spring beckons.

My gardenia plant has already blessed me with three large beautiful blooms, likely out of pure terror after I pruned off most of its branches last month leaving it looking like an ayam togel (featherless chicken).

I feel like an ayam togel some days with this unruly mop of hair regrowth on my head, menopausal acne and walking like the Tin Man.

Perhaps I might not feel beautiful but I am a lot more appreciative of being able to wake up to a new day, and mobile enough to walk (albeit very slowly) to the LRT to have duck.

There are still many, many follow-up appointments in my future and I will never truly be free of hospitals.

But at least I have finished the first draft of a book and hope to finish the second draft before I run away to another country for a couple of days.

Truth be told, I am not really in the mindset of soliciting publishers or agents; maybe I’ll just put up the book on Ko-fi on a pay-what-you-want basis but that bridge will be crossed when I get to it.

The last year has been heavy, many tears and tribulations were endured but now I will run (hobble) towards the future and the promise of cake.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 12 — The Sungai Besar Umno legend is true to form. He raised money yesterday by auctioning a towel and a pair of sandals, marking the closest Gandhian act by a Malaysian politician. Though Jamal Yunos is much more than a politician.

Let’s bring readers up to speed.

Court officials stormed his Ampang Jaya home last month because he owes legal fees which kicked off this episode. He lost a defamation case and paid RM300,000 as ordered by the court in 2022. Unfortunately he did not pay the legal fees, which prompted the raid.

They seized– or detailed 14, depending on which news report to be trusted – items at the residence for an auction at a later date.

Suitably incensed, Jamal declared he’d auction off a pair of sandals to raise the RM66,000 demanded. And by George, he did. Except he added a towel from his infamous visit to the Selangor State government building back in 2016 over a water supply shortage in the state.

Sungai Besar Umno division chief Datuk Seri Jamal Md Yunos speaks during an interview at MSekin Wonderland in Sekinchan on July 12, 2023. — Picture by Hari Anggara

On that visit, he wrapped one towel around his waist and draped one over his shoulder. Obviously everyone had one question, what was under the towel?

Anyhow, Jamal has secured the amounts necessary and according to him will pay the plaintiff. That would be Teresa Kok, the veteran DAP Seputeh MP.

It would not be Jamal to just go about paying and leave it be.

He said Kok should rear pigs in her residence with the money. He added, to be incendiary, she cannot do so however unless her property was outside Selangor.

There is a developing kerfuffle about pig farming in Selangor and Jamal being Jamal, which is to say highly unoriginal, dragged in the controversy of the day and hopes Kok nibbles.

Kok has only one recourse in this matter, and it is not to become a swine herder.

She should invite him over for Chinese New Year.

Perhaps all he wanted was an invite, and was hinting at it in a roundabout way.

Wishing his favourite Kok would stand up and say, “No Jamal, I cannot have my dwelling swelling with hogs when the year of the horse is upon us. Say, what are you doing on Tuesday? Swing by my place for some mandarins.”

Rather than have a tired rehash about race relations, nationalism and multiculturalism, I’d rather have Jamal and Kok seated together on the festive day. That would be a great photo op for DAP and Umno in these heated days of hate ‘em till you make it.

He can bring along the two splendid characters who bid for his prized possessions. The Koks can make space for these special individuals. According to Jamal, Negeri Sembilan and Sabah dudes paid equal amounts for the towel and sandals respectively to raise RM66,000.

Actually, why not?

Use the holidays to bring people, even foes together.

If a towel and pair of sandals can rake up RM66,000, Malaysians are likely to throw in a fortune to see Jamal and Kok share tea in a civilised manner.

Jamal is a stage-four lung cancer survivor and showing humility days before Ramadan begins by sitting with his nemesis to fundraise for cancer patients would be a political coup.

I spent yesterday evening walking around the city visiting Peranakan eateries to figure out how to better the race situation with Chinese New Year on my mind.

Since they, the Peranakans, are the Chinese who took the country into their hearts perhaps the answer might be in the ondeh-ondeh or bubur cha cha they gave us.

It perpetually perplexes me that the country cannot navigate a week without asking are Malays at risk or the converse, will the Chinese overwhelm.

And rather than a complex solution involving 15 White papers, small actions can speak with greater sincerity.

I get it. Jamal was not enamoured that authorities poured into his home and treated him like a man too broke to pay a court fee. He is an Umno division chief, a man of means.

But does he also enjoy knowing the lasting memory he has in the hearts of Malaysians is tottering around a government building in his towel? A life cannot just be meme material.

His party and Kok’s party have been in a partnership for three years.

There’s too much history to go back in time and untangle the past. Though there is still enough goodwill for them to walk in the present to a room and take a picture together, since it is Chinese New Year. And by doing so, allow Malaysians to have a glimpse into the future.

And even if all that is gobbledygook, wishy-washy filth, they can still earn a few ringgit for cancer patients. No one walks out of that a loser.

All of this begins if Kok, rather than take Jamal’s pork bait, tries to penetrate his seemingly impregnable world with kindness. And for Jamal to relent to Kok.

I’ll leave that to them then.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 11 — Next week is my final immunotherapy treatment.

Annoyingly as I write this I am ill; nothing serious, just my sinuses and immune system colluding in making me miserable.

The sensation of feeling like I am drowning in snot is unpleasant.

Yet there is still so much left to do — a kitchen that needs reorganising, racks that need assembling (once a broken part replacement arrives), a backyard that needs tending, a guitar that needs refurbishing and restringing — and my to-do list grows ever longer.

Lunar New Year is also around the corner; I tend to spring clean three times at the beginning of the year, once at New Year, before Li Chun (the coming of Spring) and before Lunar New Year.

Then for the rest of the year I let the dust bunnies form secret societies in every corner of my house before I begin the cycle anew.

I am also doing some long-form writing in my spare time but it seems I must take a break from that as well and spend more time walking and napping instead.

The to-do list grows, even when the body slows. — Pexels.com pic

The body will make demands and I would do well to listen even if there seems to be too many things that need doing.

Satan, or the annoying stray ginger tom that heralds his arrival with loud yowls multiple times a day, has learned to quiet down a little.

He no longer screams at midnight or right around when I am about to fall asleep so I have been dozing a little better.

My body is aching and stiff, things I could remedy by moving more and gasp, exercising, but being ill puts a dampener on things.

I fear the Universe is conspiring to turn me into a gigantic angry marshmallow.

While I write this in good humour now, just last week I was drowning in as much sadness as I am now struggling with phleghm.

I thought I was coming into my cancer journey with my eyes wide open.

Yet no matter how much I read, prepared or how I steeled myself for what was coming, there was always something that caught me off-guard.

I’d seen so many stories, heard them personally from my “cancer friends” about the toll the disease can take on your mind.

Glibly I thought that I’d endured so much already in this life — how different would this sadness be in comparison?

I learned that this was the equivalent of standing on the edge of a beach at high tide thinking that you can easily take the waves coming at you just because you know they’re coming.

You can dig deep into the sand, close your eyes, brace as much as you want but you won’t know how you will endure until the water finds you.

Yet the paradox here is that this raging sea of emotion that is called grief is inside, not out.

You can no more run from the waves of your own feelings than you can reach into your chest to take out your still-beating heart.

I tried to fight the sadness and yet it came for me anyway, unrelenting and inescapable like the waves when you stand at the meeting of sand and sea.

As I near the end of my cancer journey you would think I would be overjoyed.

Instead the sadness finds me over and over again.

Perhaps I am grieving, belatedly, for all the things that have changed.

I remember looking at myself a day or so after I’d had my head shaved and thinking, “Oh, I am so ugly.”

These days I still look into a mirror at most once a week and take a selfie once a month because it’s hard looking at the face and body ravaged by age and the indignities of chronic illness.

Yet I am thankful that my body did its best despite having such a melancholic and easily tired master.

I am still at the end of it all more grateful than I am grieving but for now I’d just like to stop coughing, please.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEB 5 – The ringgit rises and Malaysians are eager to travel to flaunt relative affluence. 

Here’s a question, do not salivate, do not pack the bags yet, who runs these desired destinations? Whether by flight, oceanic voyage or bus, are these cities governed through local elections or not?

Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Cebu, Chiangmai, Delhi, Lahore, Tokyo, London, Paris or New York? 

Have a good think before answering. Rattle the head sideways, tell you what, screw columnists and their tricky questions, use AI; Gemini, ChatGPT or perhaps Claude?

They are. Run through elections.

But surely there are exceptions, nations with sanity who do not madly, unthinkingly rush into becoming freely elected cities. 

That would be cities in one-party nations of China, Vietnam and North Korea, for Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi or Pyongyang. 

But we hate communists, absolutely abhor them. Umno politicians have built their whole careers spewing their hatred for commies and their commie ways which threaten to humiliate, decimate and annihilate our sacred ways. 

There is nothing worse than adopting a communist mindset. It is the number one objective for the true Malay nationalist patriot, to keep Malaysia communist free. 

We won’t trust those city elections by commies with only party approved candidates. Damn communists!

That leaves us with Singapore and Brunei. Only one is a travel destination, and not an aspirational destination for Umno leaders.

So, who to follow when deciding on local elections? Because every sane city in the world elects its leadership, with different styles and methods, but the bottom line, elect. Not appoint, elect. 

A slew of Malay nationalists here oppose elections in a zeal akin to assuming Kuala Lumpur residents deciding their city management means killing the soul of Kuala Lumpur. 

What a very weird way of looking at representative government. In their minds, they have to protect Kuala Lumpur residents from their own foolishness. 

But they are completely convinced that all the cities named above are competently run, actually wonderfully run, that they would like to visit them.

That they let their children study in them, safe and reassured their children are not in elected asylums.

It’s the who, not the what

Umno, PAS, Bersatu politicians are not opposed to elections, because their parties hold elections, and they are elected at the state and federal levels.

The study by International Islamic University is commissioned to independently validate what a world already knows. 

They are not about to crack the code. It’s political cover for DAP, so that an election in Kuala Lumpur has academic backing, not just the backing of political parties.

Which is why Malay nationalists urge studies into the split public schools system, meaning the existence of Chinese vernacular schools and the UEC examination system. 

You dare question appointed mayors, we will question Chinese schools and UEC!

This country is so stuck in 1950s trepidations and haunted by ghosts of the past that what we desperately need is group therapy rather than academic research. 

The real opposition is not to elections but the ethnic compositions of city leaderships at the end of elections.

It is the spectre of a Chinese mayor for Kuala Lumpur. Which is Armageddon minus the pyrotechnics for them. Inconceivable, impossible and indecent. 

They feel Kuala Lumpur residents, even if the majority of them are Malays, are going to vote for a Chinese. 

That’s it, that’s what we are really talking about. All the smokescreens and euphemisms are reduced to the fear of the yellow wave. 

As long as Putrajaya appoints the KL mayor, he or she will not be ethnic Chinese.

Kuala Lumpur voters are capable of electing the worst kind of mayor, just as Putrajaya is likely to continue appointing mayors few Kuala Lumpur residents know. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

KL the new Gotham City

Former MP Puad Zarkashi fears cartels and gangsters will run Malaysian cities if there were free city elections. 

Somehow, if civil servants are appointed and hold no direct accountability to Kuala Lumpur residents but to the politicians who appointed them, they will be eminently capable and corruption free. 

Corruption happens when things happen in the dark and are done unquestioningly. Corruption in governance directly correlates to transparency, auditing discipline and judiciary oversight. 

People do not steal less because they are good people with great values, people do not steal if the likelihood of them being caught is extremely high. 

Elections keep those in power in check. Which is why the first six prime ministers diligently warded off fair elections and administered through the bloated institutional corruption being fought today. 

The path to reform was the ending of BN monopoly of power in 2008, and BN’s fall from power in 2018. 

Private sector corruptors hate elections because they bring uncertainties. They prefer a fixed power structure they can appease to garner privileges. 

Better buy out the same guy in power for decades rather than needing to try to buy out all the guys in position to win power. 

Worse, forced to witness each proceeding winner highlight the corruption by previous administrations, dragging the private sector corruptors along in their fall.

This city of floods, empty buildings and dirty night markets

As a grandchild of Kuala City Hall garbage collectors and market cleaners, let me weigh in. 

Nothing like local knowledge, eh?

They wake up early to be out serving the city, for decades. They are dead now. 

Kuala Lumpur voters are capable of electing the worst kind of mayor, just as Putrajaya is likely to continue appointing mayors few Kuala Lumpur residents know.

An elected mayor has a more direct relationship with the electorate. This is not an earth-shattering reveal, this is just the normal thing that happens in normal democracies.

Why fight the world on this?

Why are so many people who do not suffer the city traffic, never rue the long waits for transit buses after their train rides, never cringe when it rains in case their car floats in a parking lot or dinner is under a bridge, want to tell KL what it needs?

Why are so many adamant KL has to avoid modernity in order to preserve imaginary race symbols?

Why disallow Kuala Lumpur folks the right to argue among themselves about what is best for them rather than allow prime ministers from different corners of the federation determine their leadership?

Maybe these politicians won’t answer while they are in team-mode inside Malaysia. 

Maybe when they travel out of the country, to any of the thousands of elected cities from Ankara to Wellington, they can look out of their hotel windows and realise the cities have not burnt themselves to the ground. 

This does not have to go on in perpetuity because opponents have in them the ability to play out fears in regular Malaysians. 

Stop being alarmists. Start being humans who appreciate democracy.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 4 — Shouting “M*****f*****” as I rolled gracelessly out of a car was not how I wanted to make an entrance.

Especially at a wake.

My oldest friend’s father died and so I decided to go to the wake, which was held in a place that was on an incline, and when I got out of the Grab car I was somewhat disoriented.

Thus I tumbled out the door, revealing to everyone present just how big a potty mouth I have.

I lay there on my side in pain and mortification but was helped up by very nice people.

Why was this so familiar? Oh yes I also had a bad fall last year, also had a bunch of very nice people coming to my aid, but I sadly have not yet learned to roll like a stunt person instead of a toddler having a tantrum. 

Still, I did wish I could sink right into the ground, never to be seen again until everyone who could recall the incident had made their own ways to heaven.

Pride comes before a fall as the saying goes.

As I sat mulling this column, the thought came that for me, shame was a luxury I could not afford and dignity is not a gift I have been given.

In summary I am but a shameless clown in the scheme of things.

At the hospital I made my nurse laugh when I pulled my IV pole along sideways as though it was a mic stand.

Make sure you always have plasters and a little antiseptic ointment with you because you never know when life decides you need a life-affirming tumble. — Freepik pic

A sense of humour is probably necessary right now because I am again limping along, struggling with my bags though I carried less than five kilos with me, bruised with a myriad of cuts on my hands, knees and elbows.

Even coming back from my quick not-for-leisure trip was a farcical end to the long weekend; I’d booked an airport cab thinking that paying a little extra would get me home quicker.

Instead I got into the car to have this irritable gentleman start nagging me for not giving my address at the booking counter (I’d asked if they needed it and the woman waved me off, saying I could just tell the driver directly). 

He ranted on and on about how my failure to do so would make it hard for him and sitting there, exhausted, as my flight was delayed due to a seat malfunction, I told him that I didn’t have to put up with this and marched right back to the counter.

The ride company said no worries, we’ll get you another car.

Sadly that was not the end of it.

I go out and the ranty driver is now making a scene, arguing with various members of staff and of course, my new ride is yet to arrive.

It all made me unhappy and uncomfortable having to wait out there for another car while this dude was raging just a metre across from me.

While I do agree in a way that all this could have been avoided if the woman at the counter had just taken my address it was still an awkward and ridiculous situaion.

Regretably I ended up making a scene of my own.

It took five minutes of some anguished ranting and my declaring that if they won’t refund me I’ll consider my money lost but I would still be filing a complaint (somewhere).

I got my money back and took a much cheaper Grab (with an amiable driver) home.

It’s 2026, you would think that in Visit Malaysia Year things would be a lot smoother at our main airport.

Imagine if it was a tourist in my shoes — being lectured by an airport cab driver for something that wasn’t their fault.

Even getting a Grab is a bit of a confusing affair.

Grab cars aren’t allowed on  Level 3 of KLIA, which meant I had to go down two escalators to go to Level One,

At KK International Airport, Grab cars also have to pick up passengers at the furthest door away from arrivals.

My legs are a long way from being recovered so I can imagine the trek would be even more tiring for someone with bigger physical challenges. 

I will probably be spending most of February recuperating from the fall and trying to strengthen this still-weak body. 

In two weeks I will also have my final immunotherapy session and my veins will get a nice long rest from being poked and prodded.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is to make sure you always have plasters and a little antiseptic ointment with you because you never know when life decides you need a life-affirming tumble.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 3 — All over Malaysia, tuition centres remain busy.

After-school classes have been the favourite approach for parents to help their children excel in their studies for many decades now.

One report noted that the average Malaysian student spends six hours in supplementary tuition per week.

This is especially so in schools where the class sizes are too huge; it’s a statistical trope that larger classes produce higher failure rates.

Yet I wonder how long the appeal of private tuition will last, not least in an age of AI.

How does the advent of Gemini change the way students learn? Does the ubiquitousness of the smartphone change any equations?

Are additional teachers still “necessary”? How do these developments affect tuition centres?

According to the author, there are also numerous reasons why tuition centres may face a drop in demand in the future. The most obvious answer is the presence of the Web and the (literally) infinite number of online learning and/or personalised learning websites and apps out there. — Pexels.com pic

Given that such centres are run more or less the same way they’ve been run since the 1980s, what could happen to the demand for their services?

A time-tested, but fragile (?), institution

Tuition may still be relevant for some so-called time-tested reasons.

Oh, my child doesn’t fully grasp Physics so hopefully the tuition teacher can communicate in a way the school teacher couldn’t or proffer new insights into more difficult concepts.

Or my boy is struggling with Maths so an extra two hours a week of drilling those differential equations surely can’t hurt.

Or I absolutely believe that academic excellence is the key to my daughter’s future, I want to ensure she comes out among the top in her school, thus giving her extra classes is the best way forward, if only to strengthen her studying skills and, of course, her grades.

These sound like valid reasons and, ultimately, a student’s academic journey (at least up to 21 years of age?) is largely in the hands of his or her parents.

Also, given how most Malaysians still valorise academic performance it is unlikely tuition centres are going to be closing en masse anytime soon.

Having said that, there are also numerous reasons why tuition centres may face a drop in demand in the future.

The most obvious answer is the presence of the Web and the (literally) infinite number of online learning and/or personalised learning websites and apps out there.

From Khan Academy on YouTube to Coursera to the open FOC courses uploaded by universities, it would appear that the need to be taught by (yet another) human being approximates the need to buy any more DVDs or CDs.

And now with Co-Pilot and Grok leading the way, it’s hard to imagine why a generally “smart” kid would need to attend yet another physical class in a tuition centre teaching the same subject just covered a few hours earlier in school.

I suspect more parents today, unlike those of yesteryear, will look online for solutions especially given the rising cost of everything.

I mean, if my child can learn profitably from, say, Udemy, why would I need to pay a few hundred ringgit a week to a tuition teacher?

Indeed, I would argue that a key skill schools (and maybe parents?) can impart to students is simply the ability to self-learn.

It’s the whole “teach me how to fish and I eat for a lifetime” philosophy applied to academic studies.

Perhaps this is something kids can ask Deepseek’s help with, eg, “Guide me in the next few weeks on how to improve my own learning.”

Another reason why tuition centres may eventually fade away is that most such centres essentially play the same “game” as schools i.e. their absolute top priority is helping students score as many As as possible.

The key difference is they employ different tactics to excel in this same game.

However, more and more leaders and companies recognise the superficiality of formal education grades. Nobody ever ever excels as an employee or manager or director by virtue of “having scored 10As” in his/her SPM.

In fact, as everyone knows, top academic credentials are at best a foot in the door to a good job and are practically irrelevant when it comes to achieving corporate KPIs.

In our national education system, let’s be honest: The #1 “studying method” students up to Form 5 (and maybe a little beyond) adopt is — surprise surprise — memorisation.

That’s the truth. Ninety-nine per cent of Malaysian students do well in their written non-Maths exams because they’ve learnt to memorise the best and lengthiest answers to exam questions (see note 1).

And tuition centres are more often than not an extension of such learning.

But rote learning (which is what memorisation essentially is) is almost completely useless in the corporate world!

Therefore, training a student to excel in rote learning right before she enters college and university (let alone the world of work!) where rote learning is almost irrelevant is like teaching a would-be marathon runner how to speed-walk. Or preparing for Wimbledon by playing badminton.

So will or can tuition centres shift from teaching students “how to score higher in Science” to “how to become better leaders to team-players”?

Note 1: Even with Maths, the key to success is somewhat similar to memorisation; it’s called, uh, repetition.

No top scorer in Additional Maths has achieved said accolade without doing and re-doing certain exercises in the textbook over and over again.

This kind of skill is hardly a bad thing in itself; it’s just not (as per my argument) what a lot of the working world demands.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 31 — Even with the proliferation of streaming, it still looks like the standard industry practice of having a slow January in terms of big movies is very much in place. 

Oscar hopefuls are usually released in November and December, and December will also usually see a last big push for box-office hits because of the holiday season, which then leaves January and February as a bit of a void (and more of a dumping ground for studios to release movies they don’t really believe in) before some of these Oscar movies get re-released around March due to the hype that surrounds them because of Oscar fever.

One would have thought that this pattern wouldn’t apply to streaming platforms because of their subscription model, but things have looked the same because there really aren’t any big, star studded originals being pushed by them during this time as well. 

It looks like genre movies are coming to the rescue again because the more interesting films that are being released right now are still genre movies, like the recently opened Send Help, which I’ve yet to see but hopefully will be able to write about next week.

Here are three new genre movies, one playing in cinemas and two on streaming platforms, which I think deserve to be watched, especially if you’re a genre film fan.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

Just around six months after the release of 28 Years Later, which was one of my favourite genre films last year, comes its sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta, whose previous films include the Candyman sequel from 2021, Hedda and The Marvels. 

And just like how radically different 28 Years Later was from the first two films, The Bone Temple is another radically different entry in this increasingly interesting franchise, this time following our protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams) after he was adopted into the Fingers gang led by Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), with another story running concurrently involving Dr Ian Kelson (a superb Ralph Fiennes) and his relationship with the Alpha zombie Samson (Chi Lewis-Perry).

DaCosta brings a darkly absurdist and surprisingly gory sensibility to this new film, and it works beautifully to bring out the film’s main thesis – as scary and dangerous as the zombies/infected might be, humans can be far more evil, as evidenced through the antics of this tracksuit wearing Satanist gang called Fingers. 

A scene from ‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’, the sequel to ‘28 Years Later’, starring Ralph Fiennes as Dr Ian Kelson. — Screenshot from YouTube/Sony Pictures Entertainment

It is, again, a beautiful film, and while not as heartbreaking as 28 Years Later, still breaks your heart in its own little way. 

I look forward to whatever left turn that writer Alex Garland and producer Danny Boyle has in store for us in the next film!

The Rip

Quietly released this month and quietly climbing to number 1 on the Netflix charts with an impressive 40.4 million views during its first week, it has remained number 1 on the US Netflix charts in its second week and remains in Netflix’s Top 10 across 93 countries. 

Pretty impressive achievement for a low-key old school cop thriller directed by Joe Carnahan, if you ask me. 

Having built a reputation as a solid genre craftsman, especially when it comes to cop thrillers, I was sorely disappointed by Carnahan’s last film, the pretty terrible Shadow Force. 

Thankfully he’s back to his solid best with this one, bringing back memories of his excellent early movies like Narc, Smokin’ Aces, The Grey and even later ones like Copshop.

Headlined by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, this actually plays like an action movie that people would want to see in cinemas instead of on streaming. 

Playing Miami cops placed in a situation that practically begs for any member of their team to be corrupt, Carnahan expertly sets the whole thing up to induce paranoia even for the audience, and when the action bits start happening, the excitement never drops. 

With Jaume Collet-Serra and now Carnahan making mid-budget Netflix action movies, let’s just hope that they’ll get to make more of this in the near future, because I’m definitely not complaining.

Mother Of Flies

The Adams Family (father John Adams, mother Toby Poser and daughters Zelda and Lulu Adams) have been quietly making their brand of DIY, homemade films since 2013, and quite a few of these have turned out very good indeed, like their breakthrough film The Deeper You Dig from 2019 and what I think is their best film to date, Hellbender, from 2021. 

Their last two films, Where The Devil Roams and Hell Hole saw them stretch out a bit to make larger scale films with outside collaborators, but their newest film, Mother Of Flies is back to “family only” mode again, and it rips!

Continuing on the path they took with Hellbender, which involved witchcraft and mostly shooting in the woods with striking and artful visuals, this film tells the story of father and daughter pair Jake (played by John) and cancer-stricken Mickey (played by Zelda), who go into the woods to seek out a healer named Solveig (played by Toby) to try and cure Mickey, after science and modern medicine has failed to cure her and doctors have given her only six months left to live. 

A small, homemade film that doesn’t feel cheap at all, its evocation of Nature and evil is just as striking as what we saw in Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist or Robert Eggers’ The Witch, which makes this one an awesome lo-fi achievement.

JANUARY 29 — How many temples do they need?

About three in four Malaysians are monotheistic in background, so they are bound to wonder, how many facilities or spaces the Hindus in the country need for their places of worship?

The cute answer would be as many gods there are in the polytheistic universe, millions.

That is, however, a public policy nightmare considering there are X number of Hindus from the 2.5 million Indians in the country, mostly located in the west of the Semenanjung.

Which is why it is a cyclical issue arising in different localities.

There are practical considerations, like temples which were originally inside estates which over time have turned into suburbs as a natural result of city sprawl. 

There are legal shortcomings for small temples built by people long dead but supported by communities without documents to back their claim to the temple land.

While respecting property rights is central to the issue, it is necessary to remember there are faith-based objections, monotheists who are convinced society is better served with fewer polytheistic altars. 

File picture of Dewi Sri Pathrakaliamman Temple in Jalan Munshi Abdullah in Masjid India area, Kuala Lumpur, March 20, 2025. — Picture by Choo Choy May

Which is obviously the point where the diligent direct us to Article 3 of the Federal Constitution without having the care to add that the Article limits itself also to not transgress on other parts of the document. Cue, furious debate.

In this week leading to Thaipusam, which unintendedly turns out to be a celebration to remind the diversity of the nation, temples are worth a conversation. 

It also reminds us the potency of electorate math as Perikatan Nasional-run Kedah adds Thaipusam as a holiday in a potential general election year.

The Indians, especially the Tamils, are known as temple building people.

But do they deserve all the temples they want, wherever they want in the Federation of Malaysia?

It is very complicated but not getting stuck into it also invites disagreements in cycles.

Relocations, regroups and ends

The unpalatable truth is that the total number of temples has to drop. It’s not just demographics, it is practicality.

Indian cities themselves have problems dealing with temples built by their citizens. It is not possible to govern those cities while allowing altars in the middle of roundabouts.

In multicultural and non-Indian majority Malaysia, concessions and accommodations are absolutely necessary.

The various Indian-based political parties — which are not in shortage— have to rein in the enthusiasm and not just aim for cheap political points.

It cannot be one battle after another.

A temple, like all places of worship, is valued based on its social utility to those who access it. Which is why both the Batu Cave temple and the Maha Mariamman Jalan HS Lee which owns it are critical pieces to the community.

In my own locality, a temple saga played out. The temple which my late father chaired was demolished by the Kajang Council in the 1980s, then it was erected again. It went back and forth through four decades before relocating nearby with legal recognition.

The elephant in the room is the lack of leadership over the issue. No one wants to be on the wrong side. To ask the community to curtail and accept a drop in the number of temples risks losing political capital. 

Any Indian leader in an Indian-based party or multiracial party like PKR and DAP intimately know it is political suicide to be critical about temple numbers.

But they must realise, status quo cannot persist. They can either take the lead and produce equitable outcomes, painful in the short term but more importantly permanent in the long run, or lead the charge in squabbles with only reprieves as best outcomes.

They can use this Thaipusam to tell all the parties interested in Indian votes, that the community would rather have 100 temples’ statuses clarified positively than have free train rides to the one temple in Batu Caves.

A sensible process also translates to the end of X number of temples. A vibrant multicultural society has limits and no group gets it all their way. 

The land of temples

There have been temples on these lands for thousands of years, regardless of the identity of the builders or congregants.

It is the unease with the past which renders the debate even more intense.

Being a nation this long, it is time to be sensible about the matter with self-assuredness.

There are lessons from across the straits in Indonesia. Writers are never tired of referring to that country as the most populous Muslim country in the world. And it is.

It is also a land at ease with its past. Aside from Hindu Bali, there are thousands of temples in Java sidling millions of Muslims on the island.

Modern day realities may mean in Malaysia the total number of temples drop but there will still be temples, and modern day Malaysians have to come to terms with that.

It is not an accident that the Thaipusam celebrations across western Semenanjung capture the imagination of locals in numbers, and global media for its exoticness. 

I sound like a used car salesman to add Visit Malaysia Year 2026 is ongoing and visitors pour down fortunes on all Malaysians, not just those who look like me. 

Locals, that’s what all of us are. Some of us go to temples and most of us don’t. But all of us, locals, nonetheless. 

Look at temples as our strength as much as it is our unique problem to solve and the outcomes do not have to be a punch to any of our faces. 

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 28 —  I had my second last immunotherapy session at Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) this week.

The doctor noted as much, asking if I’d checked in with general surgery and if I’d scheduled a mammogram yet.

After my final session next month I will be getting my prescription refills at the old oncology building.

It’s a relief that In less than a month I will no longer be a cancer patient in active treatment but at the same time I feel some trepidation and some melancholy, as again I enter a new phase of life. 

Getting this far is something I’m grateful for but I will always be haunted by those not as fortunate.

Last week I came across a posting by a young woman about her sister.

She had died recently, January 18th, a bone cancer patient at HKL some years back but she was a Sibu-born native.

Oh, she was so young, I thought, looking at the obituary notice.

The thing about cancer is that the treatments, and choosing to go through them, is hard; you must endure what feels like death to try and bargain for more time from the Reaper, all the while the pain testing your resolve.

Yet it seemed she had dearly wanted to live.

In a separate post, her sister wrote: “My sister has been fighting cancer since she was 14 years old, and every step of the way has been extremely difficult. Chemotherapy, surgery, rehabilitation, she was never without pain or fear, she just never chose to give up.”

Born on March 10, 2003 and sadly dying just a couple of months before what would have been her 23rd birthday.

Yet I did not first learn about her from her sister; instead a local website, one of those that specialises in “viral” stories had posted about her on Facebook.

So I dug around a little until I finally found the original source — a Facebook post.

She had bravely endured bone cancer while still a young schoolgirl but her last few years seemed to have been filled with despair.

In the post there are snaps of police reports she made against her father and stepmother, screenshots of WhatsApp conversations and also pictures of her in a hospital bed, holding up letters she had written to her father.

She alleged mistreatment, recounting various incidents and accounts of suffering.

While I cannot independently verify the truth of her stories, written in Mandarin, printed out and signed with her initials and IC number, what is plain is that she was unhappy.

“爸爸，你就那么希望我死吗？(Dad, do you really want me to die?”)

Getting better does not erase the memory of those who suffered in silence and wanted, above all, to be heard. — Unsplash pic

Reading that rent at my own heart.

I could not fathom ever saying that to my own father because whatever frictions I have ever had with him in the past I have never doubted that I was his daughter and that he loved me.

How much anguish must she have been feeling, how much despair was she in as she lay dying?

How alone did she feel, in that loneliness we must all endure when Death waits for us in the hallway?

It is not up to me to judge her treatment by her family because that should be left to those with the power to verify the truth of what happened, and if there is any action that needs taking.

What I can do is bear witness to her suffering and her misery.

Of all the things she wanted, it seemed that what she wanted most was to be heard, even at the end of all things.

Cancer did not break her spirit but her unhappiness at home did.

How many other patients are out there needing places of security and comfort?

Where are the social workers?

Where is the training for police to refer those who feel unsafe to places where they can find refuge?

Why must we hold onto the mindset of “other people’s children” when in reality we should see them as all our children? 

If a child is unwell, we should all care if the ones who were tasked at keeping them well fail.

If she had been one of those cases that had gone viral, if she was a known face and name, would she be safe now?

Would she be smiling and living out carefree days as a young 20-something instead of writing anguished letters from her deathbed?

The most recent update (according to her sister in a Facebook post on January 24)  is that likely due to how far her story has spread, the police have opened an investigation into this young person’s circumstances.

Rest in peace, brave girl. I hope wherever you are, pain can no longer find you.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 22 — My Shakespeare’s a little rusty, but if I recall correctly in Hamlet the prince staged a play to “catch the conscience of the King.” 

The protagonist used art to draw out something very specific from life.

I’d like to suggest that Jackie Chan has been trying something similar for the past nine years or so.

I (and everyone else) first noticed it in The Foreigner (2017, director Martin Campbell). 

Chan’s character had just witnessed his daughter being killed in an IRA terror attack. His sorrow and pathos (not to mention wrath channelled against Pierce Brosnan’s character) was something Chan fans have never really seen before. 

One could even say that the main pulse of the movie was precisely the anguish of a parent experiencing unimaginable loss, and everything else was just a prop to that.

Then came Bleeding Steel (2017, director Leo Zhang) where there are very poignant scenes of Chan’s Special Forces character secretly watching over and protecting his daughter to keep her safe from a biomechanical bad guy. 

Crucially, Chan’s character cannot reveal his true identity to her because that would expose her to danger. The few scenes where he weeps “from afar” over his daughter made me sit up: Could there be something beyond cinema here?

Around this time news emerged of the broken relationship between Chan’s real-life daughter, Etta Ng, and himself. 

Born out of wedlock from Chan’s affair with former beauty queen Elaine Ng, Etta has never considered Chan her father at all; she has for many years refused to have anything to do with him and even accused him of homophobia.

I couldn’t help but do the Math. Recalling those high-emo scenes in Bleeding Steel (where Chan demonstrably loves his child but can’t really go “near” her), I began developing a hunch that perhaps the real Jackie Chan was trying to do a modern Hamlet gig by reaching out to his daughter by way of his favourite art-form.

Still, I didn’t think much of it. I mean, it was only two movies which could hardly be said to mean much. 

Then in 2023 the same pattern happened so many times I’m happy to bet two movie tickets it’s not a coincidence.

The Chinese New Year hit Ride On (2023, directed by Larry Yang) saw Chan as an ageing stuntman trying to save his beloved stunt-horse from being taken away. 

In the process he also connects with a long-lost daughter and, through many tears (and replaying of old stunts which, I suspect, is a way of showing how much he’s suffered for his craft so a bit of slack cut for parental neglect would be welcomed?) seeks forgiveness for being an absentee dad.

That same year Chan made a movie with John Cena called Hidden Strike (2023, directed by Scott Waugh) and yet again (!) there are scenes where his daughter berates him for abandoning her and, yet again (!), Chan’s character tries to explain that his professional responsibilities were critical and yes he failed as a parent but he wants to make amends.

By this time, I didn’t need any more convincing. I believe the world was being treated to a case of an ageing superstar using his cinematic influence to reach out to an estranged loved one.

Jackie Chan in a scene from ‘The Shadow’s Edge’. The author argues that Jackie Chan’s last decade of films — filled with repentant fathers, estranged children and emotional pleas — reads like a six-movie message to his real-life kids, a cinematic attempt at reconciliation playing out on screen long before it happens in real life. — AFP pic

His two latest movies in 2025 drive this home.

The Shadow’s Edge (2025, directed by Larry Yang) also has a young police woman rebuking a father-figure for neglect and this proxy-dad (played by Chan, of course) trying to explain how he tried his best to protect and be there for her.

Finally, we get to last month, where Unexpected Family (2025, directed by Tai) gives us Chan as an old-timer suffering from stage 2 Alzheimer’s and who longs for his son who’s abandoned him. 

I’m 200 per cent sure he made the movie with his real-life son, Jaycee Chan, in mind. 

It simply cannot be a coincidence that news of the father-and-son strain came out barely two weeks before this movie about a father longing for his son’s return and forgiveness.

That’s six movies in less than a decade where we have Jackie Chan playing parental figures with major regrets over the past treatment of their children or wards, in order to get the message through to his real children that he still cares for them despite his past mistakes. 

It’s practically a movie script.

From recent news about the possibility that Etta may be reconciling with her dad, I’d say Jackie’s work has hopefully paid off. This six-act drama could have a happy ending. 

If so, I’m sure Chan will tell you that his children’s love is worth more than any form of professional success he could dream of.

Then again, he’s probably been saying that since 2017, hasn’t he?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 22 — A peculiar advantage from my fairly disadvantageous career trajectory is that I still deal with interns. 

They do not enjoy dealing with a relic. The low perceived value of the organisation and its mission mean the interns are not the cream but rather the broader average.

Two things are generally revealed about them, as they struggle to deal with non-repetitive tasks. That they are generally allergic to math and science, and that they hate history classes. In and out, every batch teaches me.

Their lessons ached within me, reading the prime minister’s announcement that undergraduates must endure recalibrated mandatory Malaysian history classes.

Apparently, too many young Malaysians emerge from 11 schooling years shallow or ignorant about our Constitution and the story of Malaysia.

They want to drill in the lessons in university when they are pursuing a degree in engineering, food technology or graphic design. This is the solution, to them.

Outrageously indifferent

Please forgive me if I do not shout Eureka in the street reading about this ingenious solution to manipulating the young to be subservient to the state’s strict interpretation of the past. 

There are reasons why history lessons in schools fail to tantalise the students. And accentuating technological shifts are going to turn the latest effort by the government to screw in our students’ heads right into a farcical exercise.

Firstly, history is critical to the development of a person.

Who we were, tells us about who we are, and guides us to who we should aspire to be. 

Then why my cynicism?

The author argues that forcing undergraduates to relearn state-approved Malaysian history will not fix decades of disengagement — and that only open, critical, debate-driven teaching can build genuine understanding in a generation raised on freer information, not indoctrination. — Picture by Miera Zulyana

It stems from why generations of Malaysians detest history lessons. Our history lessons stifle free thought which is to a child of this century, weird ass. 

They live in a time where nothing is straightforward yet they have to swallow the official and two-dimensional state version. Marks are for memorisation, not for opinions. 

In impolite language, the state wishes to indoctrinate the next generation.

Perhaps, it is wholly appropriate to update our education ethos in how to engage students in the history classroom.

For starters, I asked AI (ChatGPT) about its opinion about history education, with this question, “How accurate is the history taught in Malaysian schools?”

The machine falls into deep introspection and answers in 14 seconds. The following bits, telling:

“Reasonably accurate on the basic timeline and headline events, but it is not designed to be a neutral academic survey. It is explicitly a nation-building subject — and that purpose shapes what is included, what is emphasised, and how sensitive episodes are narrated.”

The shorter summary would be, sneaky indoctrination.

There is less space for uncertainties and obviously no contradictions.

Even without AI, students live lives and in life they quickly observe uncertainties in all relationships and responsibilities, with contradictions a norm. 

Yet, these young adults must believe on face value that the past was completely clear cut without question marks?

And if they were passive and disinterested by the time they take their SPM, somehow when they are older, experienced and rebellious in their late teens or early twenties they would obediently adopt the official version?

There is an opportunity here though I am 150 per cent sure the government will spurn it. 

It’ll be happier to have 10 per cent more input stuffed into our young people’s heads through additional telling sessions in university rather than engage openly with young adults and enjoy rigorous debate about the past with an awareness they may reject the official version.

If in three years of Large-Language Model AI, revolution in education is rife, how much more independent learning builds in the years to come in the age of machines?

Mat Kilau and Chin Peng killed those in British uniforms

Imagine that is on a slide during the undergrad required history class.

Will upset some. Parallelisms are atomic in historical discussions.

But our history is complicated and the upside of antagonising discussion points is to draw people into sharing their perspectives.

Are discussions resolved? Of course not, that’s not the purpose. It is finding out whether civil discussions can be had in the present about the past which informs us how sturdy Malaysia is after almost 70 years. 

Also, if they are incendiary, these classes will be exciting at least.

Far better than what will transpire with the new plans. More staid classes which students assume are an unnecessary detour in their journey to a degree. 

History, whether we hate it or not, never goes away. Contentious history lurks in the shadows, forcing second guesses among proponents and detractors.

The PM’s insistence

The rejig of history for university students underscores the prime minister’s fears that the students do not get it.

And if they do not get it, and it is bad when they do not get it, using the same method from primary and secondary schooling in the tertiary level will only trigger more resistance.

The indoctrination method is from the old century, applicable only in North Korea and Iran, synonymous with controlled states.

Malaysia, whether our politicians acknowledge it or not, is stepping in the direction of freer information.

The appreciation of our history cannot be forced anymore, and certainly not beaten into our young. 

The best option left is to invite them to the discussion as empowered participants, which is also incidentally the way knowledge is championed in the international universities Malaysia wants to follow.

It is a scarier and less guaranteed path, and probably frightens a vast number of lecturers unaccustomed to open and frank exchanges.

But it is a path of purpose, not a public relations stunt.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 21 — Every so often someone reaches out to ask me questions about public healthcare, questions that I do my best to answer.

A woman said her relative was facing charges of RM22,000 per immunotherapy session and would need 36 sessions for their lung cancer.

I thought my RM10,500 for two cycles (where I opted to take only four cycles) was frightening enough.

Another friend with cancer has been prescribed medication that would cost RM7,000 per month as maintenance post-cancer treatment and was told her risk profile was higher due to multiple factors.

I am lucky in a sense that my medication is not as prohibitively expensive as it would have been just a decade ago. 

Yet newer, more effective treatments come with large price tags and there are many cancer patients out there who would have a better prognosis if they had access.

It isn’t right that money should determine your chances of surviving cancer.

If I hear someone say something like “Oh, Malaysia can’t afford it” I can point at the ridiculous wastage and questionable expenditure well-documented in the annual auditor-general report.

Recent corruption exposés have also shown more rot than even I anticipated; MACC will be very busy.

As I reach the final stretch of my cancer treatment, with just two more infusions left, I keep thinking about how the public healthcare system and its workings are still too opaque.

The author asserts that newer, more effective treatments come with large price tags and that it isn’t right that money should determine your chances of surviving cancer. — Unsplash pic

WIth the noise around using gen-AI for everything including replying emails I would rather see us fixing the far more essential — digitalising records and giving patients information on their options where funding is concerned.

Why can’t I look up easily what cancer medications or treatments are available in the public healthcare system? 

Why is there no single point of reference for me to look up for cancer patients wanting to know their options?

I have tried in my free time to compile the data but the information is scattered and I have found my assumptions or what I thought to be reliable narratives debunked by patients I have met.

My own physical challenges still dog me; attempting to assemble a kitchen table on Monday left me sore and aching all over, with the added indignity of my efforts all being for naught as some parts were damaged in transit making the whole structure unviable.

Goodbye RM200 and hours I will not get back.

My tabby cat, ever the critic of my decorating attempts, has also declared the cupboard unfit by, of course, peeing on it.

As always my left shoulder is still stiff and unco-operative but I find it easier to lift heavy objects, my knee issues go away quickly after a good mobility session and I can walk but move like an old car, needing to start slowly and only being able to walk fluidly once I am sufficiently warmed up.

Getting up from a sitting or lying position is still a bit of a production.

It involves gritting my teeth, a sharp inhale, followed by loud exclamations, mostly cursing.

(In funny news, my sister visiting from the US apparently did not know the meaning of a certain Hokkien swear word as she had learned it from... Malay speakers)

Yet I still live in hope; once my immunotherapy ends, I hope my body will respond better to my attempts at getting it more limber.

My younger “cancer friend” has been snowboarding in Japan to celebrate the end of her own active cancer treatment and looking forward to my own planned celebration (which will mostly involve browsing strange bookstores and squinting at street market signs) keeps me motivated.

I have been lucky enough to have, quite literally, bought myself more time with the help and support of both friends and strangers. 

There are people out there who need championing, government departments that need prodding and fried chicken that still needs eating (a shop that specialises in my favourite kind has opened less than two kilometres away from me). 

So I will wake up and marvel each day at how my still-shaky legs get steadier, little by little and as the Year of the Fire Horse approaches I ready myself to meet it, to dream of the day when my own weak, slow gait will quicken into a canter and then a gallop.

Onward to hope, forward with purpose, ever willing to seize each incomparable gift of a day. 

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 16 — One of my cousins was pretty bad at school. Teachers used to make him stay back all the time.

Today? He runs about three businesses dealing with car repairs and owns half a dozen homes. 

Another distant cousin who was known in school only for his height now zips back and forth from Jakarta to his multi-gazillion dollar home in Glenmarie.

Almost everyone I can remember from my SEA Park secondary school class — not just the top-scorers — are now accomplished professionals, most of whom are based overseas.

Enough of my family and relatives. I have a church friend who barely scraped through his SPM. Today he’s a Chief Tech Officer for some insurance company. 

Another friend whom everyone feared would fail his IGCSE exams is now the managing editor of two online newspapers. 

An ex-student of mine, a Pakistani girl, who was always struggling in Year 8 History recently got a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering.

These stories go on and on. I strongly suspect you’d have quite a few of your own to tell. 

As in, you pick the top five or six people you know doing very well today — were they excellent students in school? Likewise, try to recall those friends of yours who celebrated each time they passed a subject in Form 4 or 5 — how many of them are “in the dumps” now? Chances are, they’re doing generally well and living normal lives, no?

A teacher interacts with students at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Jalan Kebun in Shah Alam on January 3, 2023. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

The point is, the popular notion that performing very well academically (or the opposite) is a strong predictor of anything substantial in life and career is quasi-B.S (and this isn’t just my opinion, see note 1). 

Am I saying that academic results are completely irrelevant so maybe let’s scrap school entirely? Well, no. 

School is an essential part of our children’s formative years, so it simply wouldn’t be smart to abandon or dismiss it. 

It’s in school that much of our character is formed, our socialisation skills are birthed and our identities negotiated. 

For all its flaws, we can’t chuck aside formal education as an institution without a good replacement.

Nevertheless, we can ensure our children participate (and even excel) in school without “demanding” unrealistic grades from them. We can nurture the positive effects of schooling (eg, friendship, learning, etc.) whilst jettisoning the negatives (eg, academic pressure and comparison, report-card-as-identity-marker syndrome, etc.).

The future is opaque. Our predictive skills are terrible. Our children’s brains are still developing (all the way to 25 years and beyond) so their interests and skills may remain latent even long after they get their “golden key”.

With the advent of A.I. the situation is even more messed up and uncertain.

We simply do not know how our girl will think 20 years from now, so maybe we should lose the 24/7 helicopter parenting on homework and tuition and what-not? 

We simply do not know which areas our boy will develop an expertise for when he’s older, so maybe we needn’t go ballistic if he brings back a less-than-stellar report card?

We simply do not know what paths may open for our children once they learn to decide for themselves and begin interacting as adults, so maybe let’s quit comparing our kids with their cousins all the time?

Given how different our teenagers will develop and mature, maybe parents (especially Asian parents) need to learn to CHILL OUT when it comes to our kids’ school results.

As parents, perhaps we need more patience and understanding. We should focus less on micro-managing their academic performance and more on guidance, encouragement, imparting principles, warning against dangers, etc.

Give our children and young people space. In time, they will do us proud.

Note 1: See Borghans, L., Golsteyn, B. H., Heckman, J. J., & Humphries, J. E. (2016). What grades and achievement tests measure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(47), 13354-13359 and Kautz, T., Heckman, J. J., Diris, R., Ter Weel, B., & Borghans, L. (2014). Fostering and measuring skills: Improving cognitive and non-cognitive skills to promote lifetime success. 

As per the conclusion from Consensus.app (which aggregates academic papers on requested topics), “Academic excellence is a moderate but incomplete predictor of later success; cognitive skills matter, but personality, motivation, context, and opportunities add substantial extra predictive power.”

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 15 — “Jangan sampai bangsaku tiada negara.” Mat Kilau allegedly said this before he died in 1970. 

A centenarian by then certainly since the Pahang uprising ended in 1895. Raised in Jerantut’s Pulau Tawar, he raided a Kuala Lipis British facility in 1892.

Don’t let my people turn stateless. (Or should it be race instead is today’s hopefully vibrant discussion.)

Plastered on a shoplot’s side wall, along with a drawing of Mat Kilau and possibly Datuk Bahaman, by the main thoroughfare Jalan Besar in Kuantan. I’m seated in a café opposite and Menara Kuantan 118, the town’s main attraction is perpendicular to the wall.  The past and present converge without ceremony.

On a fine breezy day, when all of Umno Pahang leadership is already in Kuala Lumpur for a general assembly underway.

Two physical spots, the immersive Kuantan Riverbank, and the less impressive Gombak River for the delegates to view from the café at Umno’s World Trade Centre in the capital. East Coast, West Coast.

And lately a new intellectual spot, cerebral only, ex-DAP MP Ong Kian Ming publicly announcing his intention to campaign for fellow ex-MP and minister Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar till he becomes prime minister. Ong will humbly accept a Cabinet position in that eventuality.

Will get to those chums later. Including the itch Khairy feels not being at the assembly since the party sacked him.

What to make of Mat Kilau’s sentiments?

The mural on the Lian Lee Store along Jalan Besar, Kuantan, on January 14, 2026.

Bravado outside, dried goods inside

Perhaps begin with the shop which gives the wall for the graffiti. The Lian Lee store sells dried seafood. Wonder what they thought when they painted on their wall about people losing their land?

We are children of our time, as Mat Kilau was of his time. He defended a monoethnic existence from Western imperialism at a time fresh migrants settled into burgeoning economic zones. 

While the British interfered with sovereignty, feudal lords and taxation, they also intended to end slavery and indentured labour. 

Pahang in the 1890s was not an egalitarian and equal opportunity space. Present Pahang has chinks, but it is monumentally more equal today. 

Also, before the twentieth century there was not even a semblance of Malaysia or even Malayan identity. That comes much after Mat Kilau, Maharajalela, Dol Said or Tok Janggut. 

More so after the First World War through colonial meet-up points courtesy of his majesty’s government, like the campuses of Malay College and Sultan Idris Institute, for men from the various states to get acquainted with each other.

Clearly for Mat Kilau, the “them” here are the British and their machinations. But how to decipher his attitude to a cosmopolitan Malaya?

It is certainly unfair to expect a treatise on what is a Malayan people or further down a Malaysian people from Mat Kilau or other rebels, as much as asking bandit but folk-hero Ned Kelly about the genesis of the Australian state.

Malayan nationalism is much newer. Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM) felt race limitation was an anathema. Unfortunately, insurgency switched places and Umno swapped leadership in the independence march.

Just look at Britain itself.

Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, West Indians, Nigerians are English over time by the simple action of being in England — or Scottish by being in Scotland long enough, eh Humza Yousaf — therefore if sensibilities did prevail here, Chinese, Indians and probably Burmese, over time are Malaysians. 

Got to keep them separated

But it was not politically expedient for Umno, since keeping people divided increased disproportionately the chances for the Umno elites to stay unopposed by newer arrivals and hold dominion over the established Malay underclass. 

Norms were defied, even if that continually fractures our society, as long as it keeps the power balance to the ruling class.

Malaysia continues to be a dissatisfying project for its inhabitants if they are continuously expected to oppose each other incessantly inside the project. 

Egalitarianism is dead centre to foster a shared identity. There are no alternative options, none that has worked anywhere in the world in the history of functioning societies.

The people who ran this country had the education and worldliness to know this, they did also know that a large number of people in the country were ignorant of the need to promote egalitarianism to preserve the nation. Therefore, they went with the option, how to stay in power as long as possible while their immediate circle thrived.

He has a plan, it uses crayons

Which brings us back to two British educated lads who want to capitalise on the present rather than subvert it. Like concert organisers. Bring a bunch of A-listers together and sell tickets, or in this case win votes.

What do they want to sell to the people,is what Malaysians might ask.

Khairy has said enough times that his heart is with Umno, the party that is determined Ong is not local enough to be in it. But for Khairy and Ong it seems these are just details, they’d work around it.

Which brings us to the insidious proposition to reset the country.

When a smartphone is overrun by problems, the usual nuclear option is to factory reset, to bring it back to how it was when it left the factory, a rebirth, therefore functions without kinks.

Malaysia came out of the factory problematic. A factory reset fails to address all fundamental flaws in it. Like is being Malaysian the most important thing in Malaysia?

Khairy’s obsession – Umno – does not think so. Which ensures dysfunction in the Semenanjung and entices Borneo states to go their own way as much as they can under the protection of MA63.

So how do Ong or Khairy reconcile their fundamental contradictions?

Ignoring them seems to be the plan.

There are not that many leaders in their age-group, as such in time, the torch has to be passed seems the strategy.

Just focus on getting Rafizi Ramli and everybody else out of favour with Perikatan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan, Barisan Nasional, Gabungan Parti Sarawak and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah and collect them under the label “latest force”?

Last I checked, it takes 112 MPs to name a prime minister.

Ong cannot win a pizzeria coupon in Bangi running against DAP, even if he was a two term MP there.  

But to be more instructional, Khairy could not beat an ex-MIC leader in urban Sungai Buloh four years ago because he ran as an Umno candidate against a PKR one. 

The beliefs of the actual persons mattered less, as voters saw Umno as the past and PKR the reliable present.

If Khairy and Ong want to step away from Mat Kilau’s narrow nationalism of his time, and also Umno’s persistence with a “separate but somewhat equal” country means unity dictum, they have to do that: step away.

And present a different vision.

Not rely on name recognition to sell more like in TikTok Shop.

Otherwise, they are not changing the game, just preparing to fill a natural leadership void. To be the next generation of British-trained Malayan leaders, know where to buy the best fish and chips in London.

Vision, gentlemen. Not nostalgia for a time that never existed.

Being brave about what “our people” constitutes will bleed votes before it convalesces and raises the bar to win votes.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JAN 14 —  When the comic strip Dilbert first came out, it was so relatable to anyone who had ever worked an office job.

Dilbert, Dogbert, the Pointy-haired boss — Scott Adams created a cast of characters that were so true to life, the comic strip becoming a balm of sorts to the weary office peon.

So it was disappointing when the world eventually discovered Adams was pretty much a piece of s--t.

Adams was virulently racist, as his posts on X seemed to prove, while also frequently sharing misogynistic and sexist viewpoints on the platform as well; a living caricature of the worst of US Conservatives.

When he was diagnosed with prostate cancer of course he decided to again thumb his nose at the establishment and refused the standard medical protocol for the disease, instead choosing to take ivermectin, Joe Rogan and the anti vaxxing community's favourite cure-all (never mind there was no evidence that it cured more than a bad case of worms... in horses).

In an undated file photo, Dilbert (left) waits for his turn while creator Scott Adams (right) takes aim at the 14 ball at his home in Blackhawk, California. — AK/LJM pic

By the time he figured out that his so-called informed choice was a terrible one, his cancer had progressed to a late stage. 

He even begged the Trump administration to put him on the priority list for an experimental cancer treatment.

US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr had even reached out to him on X, saying that "the President wants to help."

It's tragic and also rather enraging that Elon Musk's DOGE and Trump himself had cut off funds to various cancer research and funding endeavours, likely harming hundreds to thousands of Americans, but would give special priority to someone like Adams.

I had no shame about jumping from private to semi-public to public healthcare, going wherever I thought my chances/funding would be better and I think that if it's within your capability to get a second opinion, it is wise — so you can at least have some peace of mind.

Yet all through my treatment I was approached by faith healers, given links to purchase soursop leaves and sent "magic" cancer-curing bark but I had read enough about people who had more money than sense spending it all on "alternative" treatments and only seeking actual doctors once it was too late.

Adams' death might at least serve a higher purpose, which is to be yet another example of what happens when you don't listen to your doctor when the C-word comes up.

I chose to believe my oncologists, chose to look at the thousands of cancer patients who had gone down similar paths to mine and unlike Adams, lived to tell the tale.

With just two more immunotherapy sessions remaining, I am now preparing for my transition to "normal" life and being a former cancer patient.

Yet that normal will not be the normal I once knew.

My much hated activity — exercise — will now be my daily companion because research has proven that it will lower my chances of a cancer recurrence.

I did not take the deworming medicine; I will never take any dewormer that isn't sold at a local pharmacy.

If it seems callous for me to remember Adams this way, when I once had a collection of Dilbert books and knick-knacks, I think it is far worse that public figures mislead the public about making the best decisions for their health.

Goodbye Scott Adams. I wish you had lived a better life so you would have had better things written about you when you died.

Say no to the worm medicine, kids.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 10 — Thanks to the rapid growth of streaming, we’ve been hearing about the death of physical media for at least five years now, if not more. 

And while it’s kind of true, in the sense that there no longer exists a culture of people going to DVD or video stores to rent movies, be it from local stores or big chains like Blockbuster or Video EZY, things have simply gone more niche and boutique these days.

There are tons of new releases this year that I simply couldn’t keep up with, mainly because of the prohibitive costs of purchasing and shipping some of these physical media releases from overseas, but of the ones that I did manage to get, these are the ones that I loved the most and was most excited about in 2025.

The Beyond 4K Deluxe Edition (Grindhouse Releasing)

Lucio Fulci is my all time favourite horror director, and The Beyond is hands down my favourite Fulci film. 

I’ve owned at least three different Blu-ray releases of this film through the years, but this new six-disc release from Grindhouse Releasing is undoubtedly the most definitive one yet. 

Offering three different cuts of the film, a gorgeous new 4K scan, and even a reimagined new score (which is what you’ll hear on the Composer’s Cut of the film), hours and hours of special features, a 100-page booklet, all housed within a beautifully designed hard box, this will keep Fulci fans everywhere busy for weeks.

The Killer (HK Cinema Classics)

Shout Studio’s new sub-label called HK Cinema Classics has been hitting one home run after another throughout 2025, from their release of City On Fire to Peking Opera Blues and then two legendary, crowd-favourite films from John Woo, The Killer and Hard Boiled. 

At first I was convinced that Hard Boiled would be the one making my list here as I’ve probably re-watched it more times than any other Woo film, but one look at this new release of The Killer, a three-disc package that not only delivers a beautiful new 4K scan from the film’s OCN, but also contains an informative feature length documentary on Woo and plenty of other interviews as well, this has to be it. 

After years of having to make do with watching sub-par transfers, this is the one to get.

Albert Pyun’s Captain America (Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video)

As a kid, I remember watching the 1992 Captain America movie, directed by Albert Pyun (of Cyborg, Nemesis and The Sword And The Sorcerer fame) and thinking that it was boring, lame and looks cheaply made. 

I wasn’t wrong, but it turns out that there’s a whole back story behind the film’s making (in short, the film was taken away from Pyun and was finished without his involvement) that there’s even a mythical Director’s Cut of the film that is supposedly far superior to what was released back then. 

This new official release is the closest thing we’ll have to that, as it contains a new 2K scan of Pyun’s personal work print version of the film, and you know what, even within this unfinished form, it’s already a much better film, a soulful exploration of time and memory that’s as far away from the 90s cheese that the original release was.

There are tons of new releases this year that I simply couldn’t keep up with, mainly because of the prohibitive costs of purchasing and shipping.

Miracle Mile – Special Edition (KL Studio Classics)

I have such fondness for the 80s cult favourite that is Miracle Mile that I already own two previous Blu-ray releases of this film. 

It is such a unique and original film that I can re-watch it again and again, without losing any of the joy, euphoria and ultimately hopelessness that I always get while watching it. 

This re-release by KL Studio Classics sports a new 4K scan of the film’s 35mm OCN and is so jam-packed with special features that it has to be sold in a 2-disc Blu-ray package. 

This re-release also adds new English Hard of Hearing subtitles, which wasn’t on their first release, which definitely helps us viewers to appreciate the film more!

Cannibal! The Musical (Degausser Video)

Before making it big with South Park, directors Trey Parker and Matt Stone made a name for themselves with this irresistible low budget musical about convicted cannibal Alferd Packer. 

I’ve loved this movie from the days of VHS, and to finally see this on glorious HD, even if it was finished on video, is a revelation. 

This release offers two versions, one is a 4K scan of a 35mm film print and the other a brand-new digital restoration from the best surviving Betacam tape master, and personally I love how vibrant things look from the Betacam tape master. This is one that I’m sure to return to plenty of times in the future.

Batang West Side (Kani Releasing)

Cinephiles the world over know how long films by Filipino auteur Lav Diaz can be, so to even expect them to be released on home video is not something that I’d hold my breath for. 

Imagine my delight when, out of the blue, Batang West Side, his almost mythical early film from 2001, shot on 16mm in the USA with a running time of 301 minutes (that’s five hours for you!), arrived on Blu-ray courtesy of the fine folks at Kani Releasing. 

The 2K remaster looks wonderful, and this absolutely essential release should be a treasure for any cinephile out there, especially if you’re interested in South-east Asian cinema.

Running On Karma (Eureka Masters of Cinema)

One of the most unique and original films in the filmography of both Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai, Running On Karma gets a really nice special edition release from Eureka Masters Of Cinema, with a new 2K restoration and two very informative commentary tracks by East Asian film experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto. 

There aren’t too many special features here, but the film itself and the gorgeous new transfer is more than enough reason to have this in your collection.

Panic Room 4K Steelbook (Sony)

After years in DVD purgatory, finally this underrated masterpiece from David Fincher receives a worthy high-definition release. 

An expertly crafted home invasion thriller, armed with one of the best “oners” (one-shot/long take) in film history, the film’s slick camerawork and tastefully classy production design truly shines with this new 4K scan of the original negative, and this release basically destroys every previous release out there in terms of quality and clarity. 

Even the steelbook packaging itself is elegantly designed, conforming to the tone and style of the film. A very well considered studio release, this one.

The Maiku Hama Trilogy (Kani Releasing)

Fans of 90s Japanese cinema will have lots of fond memories watching these Maiku Hama films back then, and the always cool people at Kani Releasing has done us a favour again this year by releasing this trilogy, consisting of The Most Terrible Time In My Life, The Stairway To The Distant Past and The Trap, on Blu-ray. 

These same films were also released in the UK by Third Window Films, but since I’m more of a Region A guy, this release is the way to go for me. 

Beautiful restorations, and if you’re a fan of detective films and Seijun Suzuki, this one’s a no-brainer.

Iron Angels I-III (Vinegar Syndrome Archive)

What a time it is to be alive now for fans of Hong Kong action films. As more and more boutique Blu-ray labels enter the game, more and more previously obscure action films are being unleashed into the world, and that is always a good thing. 

Similar to Royal Warriors and She Shoots Straight, these Iron Angels films are great examples of the “girls with guns” genre that once ruled Hong Kong cinema in the early 90s. 

Packed with loads of crazy stunts and action set-pieces, this two-disc set from Vinegar Syndrome sold out its limited edition of 5,000 units in less than a day, if I’m not mistaken, and I’m just glad that I managed to score a copy.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 8 — Does he call Low Chee Leong for drinks?

This is what struck me, thinking about Akmal Saleh. My friend, not Low Chee Leong, had Akmal under his supervision when the Umno youth chief was completing his residency at Ampang Hospital, and was the first to raise his name to my attention several years ago.

He was below everyone’s radar until he became the party’s youth boss in 2023.

Which is why I asked him, Akmal who, when he enquired.

My friend, not Low Chee Leong, said Akmal was generally mild-mannered. Not known for the histrionics he is synonymous with today.

Let’s bring Mr Low into the conversation then. He is Akmal’s deputy in his rural development, agro and food security portfolio in the state administration.

Melaka is smaller than Hulu Selangor, not sure how much rural upliftments are necessary. Though, I did overpay for durians in Alor Gajah two years ago.

Which probably explains why Akmal has oodles of time to express shock, horror and disgust at how his race, religion and nation are insulted in equal measure all the time, everywhere in the federation.

From demanding KK Mart stores close down because HQ ordered tone-deaf socks and brought a mob to teach a Kepala Batas shop owner over an upside-down flag, there is no day that passes where Akmal fails to feel insulted on behalf of millions of Malays. It must be purgatory for his therapist.

But I wonder, during the time he is actually in Melaka, does he call Low for a drink?

To socialise with his deputy, to talk to his new bud since 2023. After all, Low is from DAP and Akmal might get a better insight about his sworn enemies if he spent time with a colleague donning the rocket on his sleeve.

Low also is from the mother of DAP seats, Kota Laksmana, part of Kota Melaka parliament.

Which leads to my initial assessment, Akmal probably has no real understanding of race relations except reeling off line after line from canned Umno fixed propaganda from 60 years ago.

Yes, before shouting at me for being premature, know that I punished myself by watching Akmal’s entire speech at the Umno Youth special convention on January 3.

In order to speak about him accordingly, I needed to hear his whole messaging, not just the soundbites picked up by nefarious agents.

Umno Youth Chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh speaking at the Umno Youth special convention on January 3. — Bernama pic

I have to admit, it is a skill. A fine skill to speak for 75 minutes and avoid any specifics or depth of analysis.

He appears more general practitioner than in the conveyor belt to be part of the next world class liver transplant surgery team at Universiti Malaya. Incidentally, where the KK Mart which incensed Akmal is located.

And it was painful, the listening. And I had to endure some majorly shambolic speeches from speakers from all over the world during my days as a debate judge in university, in my spotted past. Akmal is a different class, to be charitable.

Which led to other questions.

Like did Akmal grow up in multicultural Melaka, and sip in the air of multiculturalism growing up? Chill at Mahkota Parade and Dataran Pahlawan.

He was still in primary school when the last millennium ended, so probably has no living knowledge of reformasi and the time his party president Zahid Hamidi was imprisoned by the Mahathir Administration. Zahid was Umno Youth chief then.

It was not Malacca High School or St Francis Institution for secondary education. His parents parcelled him off to STAR Ipoh, the boarding school with an almost monoethnic student population, back then.

He is wired to think about race before country. Which was evident in his speech, or worse, it is conflated. His cognitive dissonance disables him from seeing his putting a wedge between Malaysian passport holders based on their ethnic disposition actually harms the natural coming together of people organically.

Meaning, even if people are completely different in every dimension possible, if they just stayed in relative peace near each other, they begin to see each other as people.

And maybe, just maybe, they’d like being near each other.

That is if there were no firebrands around to stress or shriek about how one group is being tormented by another in a literal hell on earth fashion.

He thinks being race-oriented on steroids is being patriotic. That screaming at fellow Malaysians and making them feel less at home is actually somehow raising a Malaysian utopia.

Or that he feels a Malay utopia is the same as a Malaysian utopia.

Or he cares not to read about Thomas More.

He is a victim, if you ask me.

A victim of a context free highly politicised narrative of the past, which he as a millennial just regurgitates from his exposure to Biro Tata Negara which would drop by STAR in those days, just to calibrate the students to the struggle. Party struggle, they mean.

Speak about the end if these brilliant students do not stand up to threats, plant the seeds of devotion to a cause, which is the party.

Umno took him in a long time ago, without him realising it, so it may be harsh to condemn him for being who he is today.

I’d like to tell him this.

Nationalism is about commitment to form a nation. There is no Malay nation, only a Malaysian nation. We decided that a while back.

Umno’s leaders should have recalibrated the party and absorbed sister parties into a single fabric a while back.

The past is what haunts Akmal and leads him to misplace his patriotism.

I wonder how it was for Akmal during the SEA Games last month. Did he cheer harder whenever a Malaysian stood on the podium or regulated his cheering based on our countryman’s ethnicity?

Was he also keeping a keen eye on how our medallists held up the flag, in case they insulted him with them accidentally holding the Jalur Gemilang the wrong way! And the socks they were wearing.

I said Akmal should hang out with Low. The man is 25 years older than Akmal but being from Kota Melaka he might be able to offer stories which differ from what is fed by his Umno seniors.

He might tell how his parents, Low’s parents, felt in 1963, the year he was born and Singapore months from being inside Malaysia. And their fears, being part of the Straits Settlement, to see Singapore go its own way away from Malaysia in 1965.

Distress is not the property of any race in Malaysia, as much as the affinity to enjoy being Malaysian without it being questioned every other day in the country.

The real insult is to think of a country in black and white, or brown and yellow. The real shame is to not feel that underneath that all is just Shylock’s red.

Better call Low, Akmal.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 7 — Sometimes you need to accept that the Fates will laugh at your best laid plans.

Since I have two immunotherapy treatments this month and family in town, I thought I would get the My50 rail pass (excellent value) for all the train trips.

My planning last Monday did not take into account a Grab driver pulling the old trick of “getting lost” multiple times on the way to my place thus forcing me to cancel, my disorientation at getting to the HKL stop (l got lost) and then a heavy downpour on the way back home, leading me to take shelter in the nearby snack shop.

Looking at the receipt for all the snacks I bought, it probably would have been cheaper if I’d just taken a Grab to/from the hospital.

I also still got caught in the rain walking home so arrived soggier than a bread pudding. 

In the ward, I also found out that someone who arrived just a little after me was turned away and told to come for her infusion the next morning instead. 

So I dodged a really large bullet and was lucky to even get my immunotherapy done.

I did feel grateful that I spent “only” four hours at the hospital this time but despite bringing my own blanket to keep warm, socks and layers, the nurse still pronounced my hands cold as ice.

The newer younger nurses this time around were kind and rather sweet; I did wonder where the usual male attendants were, and if they were doing well.

I am but just one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, that the staff see every day but for me they were my lifeline and I will always feel nothing but gratitude for their care.

Moving forward, instead of trying futilely to hoard pennies I will make my decisions based on the preservation of my health and the best use of my time. 

I am but just one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, that the staff see every day but for me they were my lifeline and I will always feel nothing but gratitude for their care. — Bernama pic

My 17 cycles of immunotherapy will end soon, with my final Herceptin infusion being the week before my birthday. 

I plan to take a solo break again, at a place more accepting of downward escalators, so I would rather avoid spending on frivolities here so I can feel less guilty when spending on frivolities elsewhere.

Maybe one day I’ll go to Japan but not this year as it will take me at least two years of saving up before I can afford more than a return trip to Narita Airport and browsing the airport’s shops.

So alas, I will see Tokyo only in my dreams for now but the thing about cancer is that it takes a hammer to the fragile walls of your complacency so you can ask yourself: what do you really want to do now?

At the moment, I just need to go where I won’t be reminded of hospitals, needles and my own fragility.

I’ve never been much of a traveller, preferring the comforts of home, but lately I feel my mind and body need to be reminded that the world is so much bigger than my pain and fears.

The world itself is a terrifying place if all you read are news headlines but conflict and suffering are both tales as old as time.

It does not mean we must find false comfort in apathy; magical thinking does not wish the bad things away.

Instead, I will think more deeply of finding meaning in the everyday and remembering that every second of life is a gift.

Rather than live in constant fear of the cancer coming back I will just move forward, to find purpose and joy, seeking grace and ways to perform acts of service, because life really is too short if you consider all that you could do with it.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 7 — “The culture of distraction isn’t even experienced as distraction because it’s just how we live.” — Sherry Turkle

There is no question that online distraction is a new sort of epidemic today.

From staring at celebrity videos for five hours to watching 20 straight movie trailers on YouTube to infinitely scrolling Instagram influencer photos, many people today spend their entire days hooked on things which really don’t matter i.e. we’re just into 24/7 distractions.

The concept of distraction matters because it represents a subtle evolution of the social media addictions we’re already battling in society.

In the past, many people also spent many hours on media, but these normally involved focusing on topics which they considered important (eg. politics or their jobs or their health or their families and so on) i.e. these are areas of some consequence to our lives.

I mean, even people who doom-scroll usually do so because they’re concerned about a certain socio-political issue, right?

But today we’re inundated with trivial matters or mere entertainment which have the power to hook us in from dawn to dusk.

Nobody can seriously justify watching shop-lifting or accident vids for half a day as time well-spent, can they?

I used to find it mind-blowing that an uncle in the kopitiam can spend eight hours monitoring the share market on three devices. But I understand that’s his “job” so he sort of has no choice.

However, nowadays it’s more like this same uncle will be using up half the day staring at TikTok videos of Chengdu apartments which rise to the clouds or some new submarine the US Navy developed which can reach the Mariana Trench or 10,000 monkeys fighting Godzilla or Pattaya trans-women trashing up a customer who refuses to pay them or yet another AI video of Donald Trump break-dancing or what-not.

There is no question that online distraction is a new sort of epidemic today. — Picture by Hari Anggara

TLDR: In the past, entertainment, the trivial, the inconsequential, etc. didn’t have the power to consume our entire waking life. Today, media life appears to revolve around nothing but self-amusement.

Such media keeps us logged on from morning till night. People will watch videos of things which have absolutely nothing to do with their lives for hours and hours… and nothing else. For hours.

As an educator I see first-hand the effect this has on students who spend all their time on campus and classrooms scrolling through sheer trivia.

Their sleeping time renders them quasi-vampires, they can’t pay attention to anything beyond short-form vids, their social skills diminish to zombie levels and of course one inevitable result is the aggravation of our national mental health crisis.

In short, many of our young people are literally being distracted to death.

In even worst cases, it’s obvious that certain forms of entertainment and online sub-cultures are a menace to society, wrecking the lives of innocent people.

Anti-distraction tactics

What follows are some ideas (some simple, some hard, all beneficial in their own ways) to help us reclaim our time from what are essentially meaningless and pointless media distractions.

I suspect if we can save even ONE hour per day of our time from watching nonsensical material that could add up to quite substantial advantages.

So here goes:

First, find a role model. Perhaps learn from people like Telegram founder Pavel Durov who spends many hours a day working out and who actively refuses to own (let alone use) a phone.

Even Elon Musk generally spends most of his waking hours working and he only scrolls his X feeds during his toilet time (!).

Secondly, be cognisant of going into a trance-like state online. Watch yourself, “stand back” and be aware of those times when you’re being sucked into watching moon-dancing or parkour videos for longer than you know you should.

Three, plan out your day to be as productively healthy as possible, and do it before you log on to Insta or X or whatever. Eg. schedule the first two to three hours of your day working on assignments or deliverables, then maybe look at your favourite influencer for only 15 minutes during lunch.

Then spend two hours after lunch studying something, followed by dinner then, okay, perhaps 30 minutes scrolling X. Or something like that.

Fourth, since it’s the new year, find a new hobby to be passionate about. It could be anything from swimming to MMA to dancing to reading Dan Brown novels to creating videos on Canva, etc.

Anything that focuses your mind and channels your energy so you don’t waste four days a week sitting on the couch staring at woman-eating-a-2kg-steak video.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JAN 3 — While I do enjoy the cerebral and intellectual challenge of watching arthouse films, which often take up most of the space in my annual favourite films of the year list, when it comes to cinematic junk food, there’s nothing that can even come close to replacing the pleasure that I get from enjoying the often extreme and bizarre sights that are on offer in genre films, whether they’re horror films, action flicks, sci-fi headscratchers or gonzo shockers.

There’s a particular kick that these films offer that can rarely be found in other movies, and if I’m being honest, at least half of my annual movie-watching time is spent watching genre films, which is why I think they deserve a separate list all on their own. 

Some of the films on this list are pretty obvious by virtue of being big box-office hits, but I hope you’ll discover a few new favourites here among the lesser-known ones.

Weapons

Without a doubt the most talked about horror film of 2025, Weapons is a deserved box-office hit for writer-director Zach Cregger, banking around US$269 million (RM1.09 billion) worldwide from a pretty modest budget of US$38 million. 

An unthinkable mash-up of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and George Romero’s The Crazies, Cregger builds the film from an almighty hook (17 kids wake up at 2.17am and mysteriously disappear from a normal suburban neighborhood, running out of their houses with arms outstretched) and goes to some really crazy and disturbing places with it. 

Fun, scary and chilling, this is a new horror classic from a very, very promising horror talent.

The author maintains that ‘Weapons’ is a deserved box-office hit and a new horror classic, showcasing Zach Cregger as a highly promising talent through its bold, disturbing premise and confident execution. — Picture via Facebook/Weapons Movie

Deathstalker

Remember when the Conan movies became huge hits and suddenly everyone wanted to make their own sword and sorcery epic as well? 

Remember how cheesy those movies were? Also, remember how fun they were, despite (or because) of all that cheese? 

Well, my favourite Canadian nutjob, writer-director Steven Kostanski (responsible for the immortal classic that is Psycho Goreman, Father’s Day and Frankie Freako), has decided that now is the time to bring back the glory days of sword and sorcery movies by remaking an old classic from 1983, Deathstalker. 

Except, that this is a remake in name only, meaning that Kostanski is using only the name and character of Deathstalker, but is telling a totally different story. And it rocks!

28 Years Later

Never in my wildest dreams would I think that I would cry buckets when watching a movie in the 28 Days Later franchise, but a scene towards the end of this first film in a planned new trilogy, had me sobbing like a baby. 

If you expected more of the same raw, handheld zombie horror that made 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later the hits they were back then, you’ll be deeply disappointed with this one. 

But if you’re open to a new adventure, this coming-of-age film wrapped around a zombie apocalypse film is one of the most earnest, emotional and deeply affecting viewings you will have. I can’t wait for the new film to arrive this year.

Ghost Killer

Kensuke Sonomura is one of my favourite action directors currently, and it’s quite thrilling to see him try his hand at a new element with his new film, Ghost Killer, as he tries to deliver a supernatural action comedy in which the high concept is that a hitman, who was betrayed and murdered, finds himself able to possess the body of a young woman, which leads them to work together to avenge his death and also take down a gang of criminals. 

It’s a pretty slight plot, but the real reason anyone wants to watch a new Sonomura movie is the action set-pieces, and there are plenty of outstanding ones here, with lead actress Akari Takaishi (of Baby Assassins fame, if you’re an action film geek) proving truly up to the task. 

Both funny and exciting, this is a low budget action gem that more people need to discover.

Jimmy & Stiggs

By now, writer-director Joe Begos has carved a singular niche in the American indie horror scene, producing gore-soaked, practical effects driven love letters to horror sub-genres from the 1980s with enough knowledge, technical expertise and personality to make the films instantly recognisable as a Joe Begos film. 

Jimmy & Stiggs is no different, a neon soaked gorefest (like his film Bliss) that now pays tribute to all those paranoid alien abduction movies from the 1980s, but infused with the sturdy, John Carpenter-like action set-pieces that made his films VFW and Christmas Bloody Christmas such a blast.

Final Destination: Bloodlines

The most brilliantly conceptualised horror franchise in cinema history returns after a 14-year absence with Final Destination: Bloodlines, and it’s like the franchise never left. 

This latest film feels every bit as fresh, exciting and fun as the franchise’s first film, and it is definitely also down to directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein (who made the outstanding Freaks a few years back), who understand the beauty and simplicity of this franchise’s concept and the crucial need to not meddle with things too much. 

People come to these movies expecting a standout opening set-piece where a series of gruesome deaths are avoided, courtesy of a group of main characters, and then enjoy the rest of the movie witnessing how death catches up with these characters (or in this film, their bloodlines).

Influencers

When a low budget indie flick, especially when it’s a low budget horror movie, hits two home runs in a row after producing a sequel that nobody expected, one simply has to take notice. 

Influencer was just another movie streamed on Shudder a few years back, albeit with a brilliant enough concept (psychotic girl takes over an influencer’s life and accounts while on holiday in Thailand) to have gained enough of a cult following to enable a sequel being made. 

Now set in France, the US and Thailand, writer-director Kurtis David Harder returns with a bigger and badder sequel, featuring the same characters as the first movie. 

An even more savage critique of influencer culture, this has so many twists, turns and catfights that it’s a blast from start to finish.

The Exit 8

First person video games very rarely get translated well into a feature film, but this Japanese film from director Genki Kawamura definitely makes it look easy. 

If we’re talking about purgatory movies this year, for me it’s a toss-up between this one and It Ends, and The Exit 8 wins by virtue of being a bit more inventive, and a bit more disturbing than its competition. 

It’s a simple concept, a man is lost in a labyrinthine Japanese subway tunnel, and the only way out is by spotting its anomalies, and Kawamura brilliantly stages the whole thing so that the audience can’t help but to also obsessively look out for these anomalies as the film goes on, and on, and on. Brilliant.

Baby Assassins 3: Nice Days

What started as a cute and slight film about two cute girls hanging out, trying to earn their keep as contract killers has now, by the third film, evolved into a legit action movie powerhouse, armed with a series of jaw-dropping action set-pieces that would even make the John Wick franchise blush, with the chemistry being built in the first two films effortlessly making us feel cozy with the two main characters, as if we’re hanging out with them now. 

After two pleasant films, I did not expect the kind of excellence on offer here, whether in the form of the superb fight scenes or the emotional depth on offer from the two main characters. 

I guess third time’s the charm after all.

Predator: Killer of Killers

Who even knew that there’d be an animated Predator movie one day? And who would even expect that animated movie, Predator: Killer of Killers, to be one of the finest Predator movies we’ve seen yet in the franchise’s long life? 

I know there’s another film, Predator: Badlands being released in 2025 as well, but as much I enjoyed that one, Predator: Killer of Killers is the easy winner. 

An anthology of three stories that shows three humans — a Viking woman, a ninja and a WWII pilot — facing off against the Yautja, the movie tops this all off with a rousing climax that ties all these different plot strands together, and I just can’t wait to see where director Dan Trachtenberg takes the franchise after this.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 2 — Every Malaysian cinema-goer is familiar with what I am about to complain about: exits out of the individual halls.

You’ve just spent two or more hours enjoying Vin Diesel blazing down the highway or Tom Cruise doing parkour in mid-flight. 

The credits roll, the hall lights come on and everyone gets up to leave the hall.

But what does “leaving the hall” entail? What sort of post-movie exits do  nine out of 10 Malaysian cinemas treat their guests to at the end of each screening?

No, you’re not going back the way you came. There are guys blocking the front exit, saying you can’t go out that way. 

You have to head towards the Exit doors on the left or right which are at the bottom of the theatrette-style hall.

And here’s where the “fun” begins, the kind you wish you didn’t have to experience after a wonderful night of drama and excitement.

I’m referring to those crowded walks through (usually) poorly-ventilated “tunnels”, with everybody half-praying that a stampede won’t happen. 

I’m talking about walking down numerous flights of (very) narrow and poorly-lit stairs, wondering after each flight, “Where’s the exit to the mall?”

Is there some reason why so many of these exit corridors resemble the Cu Chi Tunnels which the Vietcongs used to hide in? Must these exits always look like secret escape corridors diamond thieves use after a major heist?

The author argues that Malaysian cinemas undermine the movie-going experience by forcing patrons through cramped, poorly lit and uncomfortable exit routes — a jarring finale that feels unsafe, unnecessary and wildly out of step with the glamour promised at the front door. — Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri

It’s such a contrast to the lounges and carpets and lights and Ooh La La vibes you get at the entrance. 

The dazzle, the ambience, the service and smiles, the popcorn, the attractive posters, the screens, the fancy doors, etc.

But when you exit it’s practically the opposite.

No fancy lights (and sometimes barely any lighting at all), no carpeting (plain cement most of the time), often no air-con, only old movie posters (if at all), no smiles (in fact, zero “personal touch”), heavy-set doors (which you’re concerned may fly back and smash the dude behind you), only trash cans, etc.

When we exit those “tunnels”, everyone is 200 per cnet relieved when they reach the mall outside because, uh, it feels like you’ve just escaped Alcatraz.

Yes, yes we know these exit areas are the back side of the mall; it’s simply part of the building’s interior and technically it’s no longer part of the cinema. 

But still, c’mon.

Would it kill the cinema to just allow folks to leave via the front door? Or to put a bit of deco along the exit corridors? Or to not subject their RM25-per-ticket patrons (especially some warga emas) to a gruelling four flights of narrow stairs which bring a 20 per cent chance of falling?

Now wouldn’t that be a dramatic end to a blockbuster.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JANUARY 1 — Happy New Year!

I initially wanted to spread the feelgood holiday cheer to everyone, as people laze over a long weekend to get ready for a great productive year ahead. 

Maybe urge patriotic resolutions or direct people to a nearby animal shelter to hug a domesticated pet feeling unloved. 

Buy hungover revellers coffee and impart common sense like, “Do not leave your date at the countdown party.”

That was until Malaysians were informed they would wake up in 2026 with the country’s main Opposition bloc leaderless. 

All the fuss kicked off a week earlier: as a Christmas present, PAS sacks three Perlis assemblymen. Fair enough, since they backed Bersatu reps’ effort to dislodge Perlis MB Shukri Ramli. 

To match the drama, Muhyiddin Yassin resigned as Perikatan Nasional (PN) chairman while holidaying in Madrid, effective today. 

Who said the conservative “values first and last” PN did not know how to stir up some festive year-end excitement? Someone must have said PAS and Bersatu are boorish and boring towards the year end as the rest of us amble into a place of fun or two. 

Perlis is the time, is the place, is the motion

Three PAS state assemblymen in Perlis whose positions were automatically vacated following the immediate termination of their party membership. — Bernama pic

It’s incredulous that this much trouble kicks off in an area filled with less than two-thirds the voters in Bangi. 

Perlis, three parliamentary seats totalling less than 200,000 voters is what preoccupies a nation currently. Though it is the 15 assembly seats inside them which bring us to this FUBAR. 

Big trouble in little Perlis. 

Instead, it should be the picture of stability because 14 seats, or 93 per cent belong to the dark blue of PN. PKR’s Gan Ay Ling is Indera Kayangan’s rep, she is also the the only elected rep in Perlis not from PN. 

She is incidentally the leader of the Perlis Opposition. She chats with herself in the house when she is unsure. It can get lonely. 

Whatever they smoke in Kangar, it inspired the five Bersatu reps to talk three PAS reps to sign statutory declarations requesting a new menteri besar. 

Like requisitioning new stationery, these SDs. They object to their own party’s anointed MB. PAS HQ was not impressed. Not impressed at all. 

PAS President Hadi Awang summarily sacks Saad Seman (Chuping), Fakhrul Anwar Ismail (Bintong), and Ridzuan Hashim (Guar Sanji). Which also means the trio lose their assembly seats. 

PAS doubles down. At first, Speaker Rus’sele Eizan announces the seats vacant and asked the Election Commission to hold elections. 

But yesterday he said the three seats would remain vacant and there would be no by-elections as the state assembly is set to automatically dissolve in two years.

Rus’sele said the decision was made under Clause (5) of Article 55 of the Perlis State Consitution and communicated to the state Election Commission (EC) the day before, The Star reported.

That’s a lot to process for a nation on holiday evading mistletoes and eggnog to skip sin. 

Yet, it is hit by “I Quit Day”.

If you leave me now, you take away I don’t know what

Bersatu President Muhyiddin picked up his passport from the courts on December 15, to head out to London, Madrid and Dubai. 

A sojourn to get medical assistance and connect with family. Makes me less convinced he had anything to do with the Perlis shenanigans, and Larut is far closer to Kangar than Pagoh. 

His judge expects Muhyiddin’s passport back to custodial care by January 5, 2026.

A tedious and frankly unwelcomed criminal corruption case denies him travel on other days of the year. 

His travel schedule reads Madrid after Christmas, I’m guessing that’s where he was when Bersatu’s Abu Bakar Hamzah was sworn in as the new Perlis MB. 

On a balcony overlooking the resplendent Spanish capital, a family member with the temerity to interject may have reminded him that in a year where nothing went right for Bersatu, the party got some power while he was out of the country. 

Whether he got an internal jolt or was unamused by PAS leaders’ taunts that PN was better under them or just fed up, most observers are unable to decipher his December 30 quit decision, to vacate the PN chairmanship when 2026 begins. 

But he’s not the last to quit.

In what appears a co-ordinated stratagem, one by one PN state chairs leave. Azmin Ali quits in Selangor, Faizal Azumu follows in Perak, as do Johor’s Sahruddin Jamal for Johor, Negeri Sembilan’s Mohamad Hanifah Abu Baker and Sarawak’s Jaziri Alkaf Abdillah Suffian. 

The PN state chairs not to quit are from PAS or Melaka’s Mas Ermieyati Samsudin who is from Bersatu.

It leaves a lot to reconcile or enough reasons for PN to self-destruct in 2026. 

What was a year to close ranks and prepare for a general election turns instead into an existentialist crisis. 

Akmal wants to have a word

The Unity government of Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional prefer to be interested observers to PN’s implosion but they have a hothead inhouse in the form of Akmal Saleh. 

The Umno Youth Chief talks up Muafakat Nasional, the stillborn cooperation between PAS and Umno after GE14 2018-2022, a few days before a youth congress to discuss what Malay supremacy should look like.

Whether he gets Umno stuck into this muck is what party president Zahid Hamidi will watch for without time for irony. 

As it stands, it’s a thousand questions raised with answers as distant as economic growth in Perlis. 

I’d venture to say, those in Perlis looking for inspiration may be better served by waking up today on the Thai side of Padang Besar. 

More foot massages than foot in mouth syndrome dominating the scene.  

It appears the Perikatan Nasional folks have started their countdown to New Year much earlier than the rest of the world, or even Kiribati. Look that one up, one place with less people than Perlis. 

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

DECEMBER 31 — Happy New Year! 2026 comes for us all tomorrow.

The Chinese Lunar Year will also transition from the Snake to the Horse (my birth year) in February and because my life is cosmically entertaining, an actual snake did come to my door over the weekend.

My security camera showed me walking to my door from the front gate and a snake slithering from the garden towards the entrance.

At first I thought it was just a plain, black snake but I noticed specs of gold along the side and then... it reared its head up.

My house visitor was the very venomous monocled cobra — and for the briefest of moments we had a standoff.

It looked at me, I looked back, then it turned, deciding to slither off and making its way along a wall then into a drain. 

Of course I took a picture because it seemed just too outlandish a tale to share without proof.

I had a choice; to quickly go buy some sulphur to dissuade the snake or any other of its kin from accessing the house or close my door and reflect on the oddness of it all.

The snake must come before the horse, Chinese astrology-wise and I am, technically, a horse.

A monocled cobra decided to visit the author before the end of the Year of the Snake to ring out the old. — Picture by Erna Mahyuni

Maybe my ancestors were signalling to me that a new year is coming, and a change of energies will follow.

Or maybe the snake was hungry and there was wildlife for it to chase (a rat or mouse, maybe?) so it might be time to look around for (ethical) mouse traps.

I’m not squeamish. I find wildlife fascinating and while venomous cobras are not to be trifled with, at least they don’t get rabies and a cobra is not likely to chase me as I am not a small, delicious rodent.

An online acquaintance said he would have run if he were in my shoes.

I did prepare to run in case the snake got aggressive but like most things in my life, whether criticism or cancer, I faced the snake head-on.

It was a bit unnerving to have my sanctuary visited by such an unexpected guest, so I skipped trying to make myself dinner and ordered Japanese curry rice.

As I write this I have the beginnings of a cold, including a low-grade fever and a nose that is persistently leaking (like our nation’s coffers).

My left shoulder is still refusing to co-operate with my wellness agenda but at least my hands are less stiff, my joints a little more co-operative and I am optimistic about things getting better once my immunotherapy ends by February.

I hope that in 2026 I can still stay brave, no matter how scary the future is, what with the looming possibility of cancer recurrence, the Malaysian government collapsing (again),  the global economic slowdown and the increasing likelihood of new world wars.

May you also find courage, and support, when you need it and also make sure you know the number of your nearest fire station in case you too, like me, have a snake coming by to bid you farewell.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.