Malaysian mavericks

Reading this blog, you might think that I don't read Malaysian writers. I do but selectively. Let's start with A Malaysian Journey by my friend Rehman Rashid, whom I've mentioned in an earlier post. This self-published book, which first came out in 1993 and has had numerous printings since then, takes us with Rehman as he explores the country. His insights have the keen eye of a journalist and along the way, he gives us glimpses into his own personal journey. 

At the beginning of his book, he writes of the people of Malaysia: "Being in balance they resisted each other's defence, and each was compelled to recognize the other as an inescapable, ineradicable element of his own reality... Great streams of history, and of peoples, had for centuries met at that spit of land at Asia's south-eastern extremity. Sometimes they merged; often they clashed. But always they would move from then on together, whether they liked it or not, and something new and wonderful would emerge as they did so." It is a picture fixed in his mind as, after five years of living abroad, he returns to re-discover his homeland and heritage. 

Reality struck him as he moves around and towards the end of his book, his feelings couldn't be hidden as he  arrives by train in Kuala Lumpur, his destination: "To imagine any one of these characters, these stereotypes, smiling at another, saying hello, helping with each other's baggage, exchanging addresses, becoming firm and lasting friends... Such a mad and impossible fantasy. So be it. I had never been one for Utopian dreams; I was almost abashed at the emotions roiling within me as the train squealed and clanged to a halt at Platform Four. What have the masses ever meant anyway? Let them carry on as they will; their only relevance comes once every five years, and even then they've never been much of a bother to the half-a-dozen or so individuals who've always been the only people actually to run this country."

A decade later, in 2002, we see the country through Farish A Noor's The Other Malaysia - Writings on Malaysia's Subaltern History. Farish is described as a political scientist and human rights activist, and this book consists of some of his articles that had been published in the online news daily Malaysia Kini. The themes are wide-ranging, covering history, culture, social change and everyday life. 

Farish wants to take us beyond "a static and monological account of a nation (resulting in) the creation of a monolithic historical discourse with a two-dimensional historical subject at the centre... male, Malay/Bumiputera, middle-class and Muslim." In the chapter 'Many Other Malaysias', he sees the National Day parade as a good example of "the subtle but not-too-subtle inconsistencies and unstated biases that lurk within this national discourse... We see practically all the major and minor races and ethnic communities represented, but the way in which each ethnic community is given a place and role within it tells us a lot about our shared assumptions of which are the dominant races and which are not." 

The language is slightly academic in style but don't let this deter you. The reward is a broader insight into the undercurrents of Malaysian politics and society. In 'Of (misguided) Pride and Prejudice', he laments, "...this culture of slander and hate-mongering has become the norm in what is often called a traditional society steeped in its much-lauded 'Asian values'... We continue to delude ourselves with the claim that our social development and progress have been guided all along by the positive and praiseworthy values of Islam. But what kind of Islamic society, and what sort of Muslims, would indulge in the muck-raking that we have seen in this country over the past few years?" Sadly, ten years on, not much has changed or, depending on one's perspective, much has changed for the worse. 

Farish's 2009 book, Qur'an and Cricket - Travels Through the Madrasahs of Asia and Other Stories', is an easier read as it moves along like a travelogue, albeit one that visits Islamic seminaries from Patani to Pakistan. He says, "... my choice of research placed me in a situation where travel would be the order of the day; and where the nomadic life became my own." This particular research engulfed him for five years, during which "I've been to, and lived in, some of the grandest institutions of Muslim learning on the planet... However in the course of my research I've also visited some rather dodgy institutions... This other world of itinerant scholars and students, hidden and shut out from the rest of the world, retains for me an allure that straddles the frontier between the exotic and mundane; it stands as living proof that there is more than one world, and that here in the midst of the everyday are pockets of alterity and difference that few of us come face-to-face-with."

Islam is also the subject of a book by Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin who has earned a reputation in Malaysia as a controversial public intellectual. Published in 2010 and translated by U-En Ng from articles written in the Malay language, Islam in Malaysia: Perceptions & Facts attempts to separate Islam "from superstition, prejudice and blind adherence to self-serving 'religious' leaders." The 47 articles examine a range of issues, including apostasy, environmental conservation and religious leadership. 

Coming back to Malaysian politics and society, Teohlogy - The Word According to Patrick Teoh comments upon and asks questions of this country that we live in. He writes of what many of us are thinking and talking about when we are with friends - in a language that is authentically Malaysian. He tells it as it is in a humorous style that leaves you shaking your head and laughing your socks off. However, his stories, all of which originally appeared in Off The Edge, are also enough to make you angry. 

In one article, he writes about the lack of accountability: "Do you remember the big hoohah over speed limits for commercial vehicles? Hai-yah! Very easy only. Put that little blinking light on top of their roofs, which will blink and emit a beeping noise when they go over their speed limit. Okay, everybody must put okay?... So all the commercial vehicles installed the gadgets. And for a while it was nice to see these lorries with the little yellow pimples on the roofs and occasionally hear the tell-tale beeps. But it didn't last long. The lights stopped blinking even at 100mph. After some time, they fell off altogether. Nobody asks and nobody is accountable..."

This one should make us cringe: "We Malaysians love 'to use other people's buttocks as our face'. Don't look at me; it's an old Chinese saying. Anybody that makes it into the big time on the international arena, be it sports, the arts, entertainment, we are super fast in discovering in them a chromosome of a Malaysian connection. Hey, Miss Georgia 2006! Her father is Malaysian. Never mind that he's maybe emigrated for decades... Hot babe VJ, Paula Malai is now as Malaysian as nasi lemak since she married one of us. But even before that we laid claim to her beauty and talent, simply because she chose to be based here for reasons best known to herself..." 

Of politics: "We first practised People Power in the march towards gaining independence from the British... But life became so good after that that we began to relax. A little too much. And then we lost our sense of People Power altogether. We became dependent again. We were colonised again - this time by the people we chose to govern us... Our People Power came to such a state that eventually, things got bad again. We began to suffer a little bit of this and that and ask, 'Eh! What happened? How can this be happening one?'... We knew something was not right... (but) we had lost the ability to think, to do things for ourselves... And we went back to talking and grumbling in pubs, mamak stalls, restaurants or under coconut trees. But this time we added to our tokkok sessions the phrase, 'Haiyah! What to do?' Just before we ordered another jug of beer or glass of teh tarik."

Of course, Malaysians write fiction too - enough to fill another post.

Photo-break #13

Amir, a rider with our Riding for the Disabled - Bukit Kiara branch, posts a letter during the in-house Annual Gymkhana on 15 November 2011. 

Horsey tales - part 2

Being keen on horse-riding, I have built up a little equestrian library. But there's more to horsey tales than the 'what are' and 'how to' books I wrote about in part 1. In my young days, I had my fair share of teen-books about English girls and their horses living in middle-of-nowhere farms.

As an adult, one of my early horsey books is The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans, first published in 1995. Many of us know the title as that of a movie, starring one of my generation's leading men, Robert Redford. The book, a moving story about a girl, her horse, her mother and the man who brought them from the brink, generated a lot of interest about natural horsemanship and the training methods of people such as Monty Roberts and Pat Parelli.

I really enjoy those horsey books in which the stars are the horses. We must all have read Anna Sewell's novel Black Beauty, which brought tears to my eyes. Published in 1877, the book has been adapted for film and television many times. A movie that recently hit local cinemas is War Horse, based on a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo published in 1982. There are also books about real-life famous horses, such as Seabiscuit - an American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand (2001) and William Nack's 2002 story of Secretariat; both books have been made into films as well. Most of us would have seen the movie Hidalgo, touted as a true story when it was released in 2004. Soon after, however, it was found that the lead character Frank Hopkins was a fraud and his story a lie.

One book that I think would make a great film, but a comedic one, is Michael Korda's Horse People - Scenes From The Riding Life (2003). It's a hilarious collection of stories about horse-riding and the people who do it. In Chapter 6: The Perfect Horse, Korda writes: "Most people spend years buying the wrong kind of horse before they stumble across the right one, which quite often turns out to be different from what they've had in mind all along. Many people - particularly those with plenty of money to spend and an exaggerated opinion of their own skill as a rider - end up buying a horse that's too 'hot' for them..." (My friends who ride at Bukit Kiara will nod knowingly if they read this).

In Chapter 8: Horse People, he describes a local competition: "As they walked their horses around the ring, their faces were set in an identical firm, polite smile as if to suggest that while they were taking this as seriously as could be, they were also having the time of their life - the precise expression preferred by judges in everything but those extreme horse sports, like the stadium and cross-country phases of three-day eventing, or serious jumping. In those classes, only a winning time and perfect performance - no refusals, no rails knocked down, gets you a ribbon, and a tortured expression, a look of terror, or a great splash of mud across your face doesn't count against you at all." (My riding friends would be able to easily identify with this).

Given my voluntary work with the Bukit Kiara - Riding for the Disabled programme, I find The Horse Boy (2009) particularly touching. The true story by Rupert Isaacson brings us along on his family's journey to the Mongolian plains to heal his son's autism. This book has also made it to the silver screen. 

An Arab proverb goes like this: The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears. Horse-riders would certainly agree with this.

Horsey tales - part 1

This post can be in danger of being too long so I'm writing it in two parts.

Horses are dear to my heart, even when I was a child. At that time, the nearest I got to horses was reading about them. My siblings and I indulged in much play-acting back then and I would always opt to be the character who rode on a horse. I met a real-life horse when I studied in New Zealand. During one of our short breaks, my best friend Christine Mullinder took me to her hometown Hastings, where we visited her uncle's farm and I came up close to one of his horses, even stroking its nose.

Horses went out of my mind after I graduated and started working. At age 45, having reached the pinnacle of my career path and becoming both jaded and disillusioned, I opted out of the rat race for an independent life as a writer. I also wanted to do some community work and, Alhamdulillah (thanks to Allah), I learned about the Riding for the Disabled Association Malaysia (RDA). Helping out with RDA involves working with physically and mentally challenged children in the outdoors and, bonus of bonuses, being with horses. I've been volunteering with RDA's branch at Bukit Kiara Equestrian Centre for about 12 years now; our Tuesday and Thursday sessions are one of the highlights of my week.

The courage and determination of our RDA children inspired me to take up horse-riding. I began with lessons, after which I moved on to renting a riding-school horse. This naturally progressed to leasing a horse on a long-term basis. I didn't know what got into me when I decided to take on Tarrant, a fiesty pony who was blind in one eye. He would spook at any little thing on his blind side. One year later, after many falls, I wisely returned him to his owner and was horseless for a while until I met Entin and her 16+ hands Warmblood, Armani. She wasn't riding anymore and wanted to give him to a good home - ME! At that time, Armani was already about 20 years old and past his competition days. I had him for about two years until he succumbed to severe colic. After losing Armani, I rode on Blue Eyes but a terrible fall, which resulted in breaking all the wrist bones in my right hand and a six-month recuperation, brought an end to my riding days. But I'm still volunteering with RDA-Bukit Kiara.

Armani and me

During those years of riding, I couldn't see a horse-related book without buying it. Quite soon, I had a decent little library of equestrian books.

One of my favourites amongst these books is What is my Horse Thinking? by Lesley Bayley, which helps you figure out what your horse is trying to tell you when it curls its lips, shakes its head or pushes back its ears. 

Another favourite is Heather Moffett's Enlightened Equitation. I was so taken up by her classical riding principles that I persuaded two horsey buddies, Datin Noriah and Cecilia, to accompany me on a study-cum-holiday all the way to her farm in the village of East Leigh in South Devon, England. 

A new and updated edition of this book was launched recently.

At Heather's farm - with Cecilia (4th from left), Noriah (6th from left) and others. 

Heather is the one in the striped top.

I suppose our East Leigh trip is one proof that horse-people are a 'breed' apart. No one else would think it's fun to wake up before dawn, drive to the stables in the wee hours of the morning, take her horse out come rain or shine, spend the rest of the morning holding his lead rope while he munches away at the grass, and then go home sweaty and with horse-hair all over. No one else would spend much of her hard-earned money on things for her horse instead of on herself. 

Photo-break #12

When performing my Umrah with my sister and her family in March 2010, we were invited by my brother-in-law's acquaintance to visit a madrasah  in the hills of Makkah. The lanes in this area are so narrow and steep that our taxi-driver wouldn't take us up (apparently, no taxi would). So he dropped us at the foot of the hills and we had to hire a local guy to drive us to the madrasah. It took a lot of skill and guts, as well as patience, to drive in this area. There was a lot of waiting by the side to make way for oncoming traffic, reversing and moving forward. An interesting and unforgettable experience!

All (almost) about arranging books

In our previous home, in which we lived for about 18 years, there were just not enough shelves for my very many books and they had to be crammed together on top of one another.

Not my books, but this was how they looked like on the shelves in our previous home.

When we moved into our new home about three years ago, I made sure that we have enough shelves around the house. What fun I had opening up the many boxes and then arranging and rearranging my books on the shelves. It took several days and at the end of it all, I got the books fairly organised.

The TV in the family room upstairs has bookshelves right, left and above it - my fiction and travel books are on the right, while the non-fiction and Islamic books are on the left. Above the TV are our Holy Qurans and books that have been autographed by their authors. The shelves in our home office are for my business, English language, including dictionaries, and work-related books. To-be-read books wait patiently on the shelves in the master bedroom, where there are more Islamic books.

In the TV room downstairs, I have my special edition books as well as big/coffee-table books on art, interior decor, house design, decorative painting, photography and horses as well as horse-riding. Here are also my Malaysian Encyclopedia volumes and other books on Malaysia. I also have a few coffee-table books in the living room. And don't forget the cookbooks in the dry kitchen/family dining area.

Other than their general location, there's no method to arranging my books. The most I've done is to have books by the same author together. So if I'm looking for a particular book, I have to scan all my shelves to locate it.

It appears there's more to arranging books than just putting them on shelves. Interior designers apparently like using them as design statements, especially in living rooms. I wonder whether guests would be allowed to take one of the books and flip through its pages.

In the set-up below, large books are stacked up to make a table. Not what I'd like to do - my books would get dusty and dirty and water from the vase might drip onto the top book. What if I want to read the book at the bottom? Those books look heavy!

I discovered that there's a rebellion of sorts in the book-arranging world. People are asking, Why must books be arranged vertically on shelves? Why can't they be placed horizontally?

When you have hundreds of books, you might consider a simple classification system. Mine is about as easy as it can get - organising them by broad genres. They could be arranged alphabetically by their authors' names, which would help in finding a book by a particular author. But I think it would involve quite a bit of work when new books are added to my collection because I would have to move books along down one shelf and onto the next one and the next one. Lately, there is a trend towards arranging books by colour. I've had a look at the spines of my books and they don't seem to come in such a rainbow of colours as in the picture below.

So for the time being, I'll just keep it simple...

Sharing memories

You and I have unique personal histories. We and members of our family may go through the same event but we will perceive and experience it differently. We are part of what goes on within our family and social circles, yet we are also participants in the world around us. How we and others respond to every happening, every day, make up our individual lives, add to our memories and contribute to our histories. Wouldn't it be brilliant if we could share these through writing (and hopefully publishing) our memoirs?

A memoir is neither an autobiography nor a biography. A memoir is not the story of your whole life; it is how you remember a specific event, experience or particular period of your life and the impact on you and others. You might then think: my life is so boring, who would be interested in it? Nine out of ten people lead normal and seemingly mundane lives but underneath it all, there are struggles as they try to find meaning out of their existence.

In a Reader's Digest article, writer Jeannette Walls describes a memoir as "handing over your life to someone and saying, This is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it. It's honestly sharing what you think, feel, and have gone through. If you can do that effectively, then somebody gets the wisdom and benefit of your experience without having to live it." William Zinsser, in his essay on memoir-writing, calls writers 'custodians of memory', and he goes on to say, "That's what you must become if you want to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into."

I am a fan of memoirs and they fill up a few of my bookshelves. What do I look for in a memoir? Writing style, of course; an endearing story; and wit. One memoir that fits the bill is Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, in which he relates the difficulties of his childhood in Ireland. The book was published in 1996 and won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize, an American award for achievements in journalism, literature and musical composition. McCourt writes in the present tense, which gives the book immediacy, and through the eyes of a boy. One paragraph goes like this: "The rest of the dressing is easy, the shirt I wore to bed is the shirt I wear to school. I wear it day in day out. It's the shirt for football, for climbing walls, for robbing orchards. I go to Mass and the Confraternity in that shirt and people sniff the air and move away."

If you like watching BBC's natural history programmes, you would know of Sir David Attenborough, a naturalist and broadcaster who has been to almost every nook and cranny of the earth. He tells of his many exploits and adventures in Life on Air, first published in 2002 and written in a style that's charming and rather funny. Of a trip to Borneo in September 1957, he describes the jeep that he and his group were to travel in: "It was an elderly machine and had had an eventful life. The voltmeter on its dashboard, according to the name on the dial, had started its ife as part of an air-conditioning plant. There were strange improvised wires snaking around its cylinder head. The horn was sounded by touching a place on the shaft of the steering wheel, specially scraped clean of paint, with the bare end of a piece of flex. The process not only startled those ahead but also shocked the driver - literally though mildly."

Imagine a secret book club held at the writer's house, where she and seven former students would gather once a week to discuss forbidden books. The house was in Tehran and the writer was then teaching at the University of Tehran. First published in 2003, Reading Lolita in Tehran is not only about novels read by the group of young women, it is also about their personal stories and that of the writer, Azar Nafisi. Set within the context of Iranian politics, the book provides us glimpses into life in Iran in the 1990s and earlier. 

What they did was against the law and at the beginning of the book, the writer reveals, "I often teasingly reminded my students of Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and asked, Which one of you will finally betray me? For I am a pessimist by nature and I was sure at least one would turn against me. Nassrin once responded mischievously, You yourself told us that in the final analysis we are our own betrayers..."

At one of the Big Bad Wolf sales, as I was trawling through the rows and piles of books, I noticed one that looked interesting. That it was first published in 1942 intrigued me and I was further attracted by the description of the author, Beryl Markham, as someone who had spent much of her life in East Africa, who had been a horse breeder and trainer before she turned to aviation. In September 1936, she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. Her book, West With The Night, is a memoir of her life in an Africa that no longer exists and of her flying adventures. It is a beautifully written book and full of humour. 

She writes of the roads leading out of Nairobi in the 1930s: "On a map they look sturdy and incapable of deceit, but to have ventured from Nairobi south toward Machakos or Magadi in anything less formidable than a moderately powered John Deers tractor was optimistic to the point of sheer whimsey, and the road to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, north and west through Naivasha, called 'practicable' in the dry season, had, when I last used it after a mild rain, an adhesive quality equal to that of the most prized black treacle."

Blogging about your life, the people around you and the events happening about you, is a form of memoir-writing. In 2003, Wan A Hulaimi started a blog about his days of growing up in Terengganu under his pen name Awang Goneng. His nostalgic look at those 'yesteryears' attracted a large following, prompting a publisher to put his collection of memories into print. The book came out in 2007 and has been enjoying good sales. Awang Goneng has a new blog Kecek-Kecek. 

The details in his writing lead you into the scene, making you feel as if you're right there as it unfolds. In a passage about Ayoh Wang, who makes brassware, Awang Goneng tells us: "This was hot work that made your shirt cling to your body in a glue of sweat, but when the temperature reached that height, Ayoh Wang would pull off his white top and issue directions dressed only in his batik. He'd have slung on his shoulder, by then, a long piece of east coast regulatory wear, the batik lepas, of hand-painted local cloth that made a head gear or body wrap on a rainy day, or simply just a handy bit of all-purpose material."

So write a blog; one day it could become a book!

Photo-break #11

When our German friend Flora Siegert came to visit, my sister Zawiyah, son Amir and I took her to Batu Caves on 22 January 2012. Flora climbed the 272 steps up to the caves while we wandered amongst the pigeons.

About bookends

Their purpose? To keep your books upright. Their use started in Europe in the late-16th century when books were produced in enough quantities to be stored vertically on bookshelves. Previously, not many people had books and those who did had very few, so these were just stacked on top of one another on tables and other flat surfaces. By the 1870s, bookends had become household objects.

You would think that bookends are just practical pieces of wood, metal or plastic but they're not! Collectorsweekly.com describes them as "punctuation marks on a shelf, proclaiming the importance their owners place on the tomes in between." People actually collect them and there's even a Collector's Encyclopedia of Bookends.  Antique and vintage bookends are being auctioned on eBay for hundreds of dollars (American). There's certainly more to bookends if a library, the Mosman Library in Sydney, Australia, felt it fit to hold an exhibition, 'Bookends: Another Chapter', in April-May 2011.

Here's a sampling of interesting bookends I googled:

Glass bowls that do more than just keep fish.

You can, of course, use real books.

For comic-buffs.

Vintage bookends.

If you like making things, you might want to try turning old vinyl records into cool bookends:

Items around the house also make attractive bookends and you don't have to spend an extra cent for them.

I don't own any special bookends. I use the types you can buy at a stationery shop. Often, I would just stack the last few books horizontally, thus keeping the other books on the shelf upright. The only special pair of bookends I have are a pair of brass horses' heads given by a close friend. 

It began as a spare parts shop...

One day in the later part of 2005, I received an e-mail from an ex-client asking if he could give my contact number to the chief of a Malaysian multinational corporation. Of course, I said 'yes' and soon after, I was in the office of Dato' Abdul Halim Harun, Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of UMW Holdings Berhad. And he told me a little story.

Dato' Halim had been given a copy of the corporate history that I wrote for the Commerce Asset Group, Of People And Principles, and he wanted to commission such a book for UMW. But he had no idea how to get in touch with me. One evening, he was at a wedding reception and seated beside him was a gentleman. As they spoke and got to know one another, he found out that the gentleman was from Commerce Asset and had been involved in the book project. That was when he asked for my contact number and that was how I got to write Turning Points - The UMW Story, which was published in 2008.

A big project like this had to be top-driven. Dato' Halim championed it but, being a busy man, he placed it in the hands of Suseela Menon, UMW's Company Secretary and Executive Director of UMW Corporation Sdn Bhd. Together, they monitored the book's progress while I worked directly with Farida Mohd Salleh and Zalina Zainal Abidin of the Group's Public Affairs Division as well as Yap Teck Ming, a longtime employee who knew the organisation's history and people who had been working there from the early days. They helped me with the research and set up interviews with numerous individuals. 

The book traces the company's growth from an entrepreneurial family business to a public listed company, which then developed into one of the country's most successful conglomerates. Of course, companies don't exist in a vacuum so I set the book within the context of Malaysia's historical and economic development. The UMW story is an amazing one that began in 1917 when Chia Yee Soh, the Group's founder, set up a small automotive spare parts shop named United Motor Works. It was a dream come true for someone who had toiled away since he was 14 years old, initially as an apprentice in 1902 and then foreman, in a bicycle shop in Singapore. Thanks to his business acumen and hard work, the company spread its wings into then Malaya; while one son took charge of the Penang office, another, Eric Chia (later to be accorded the titles of Datuk and Tan Sri), went to work in Kuala Lumpur. 

The story of UMW in Malaya/Malaysia from the late 1950s to the 1980s is synonymous with the story of Eric Chia. He was a larger-than-life character who, due to his physical size and intimidating personality, struck fear as well as respect in those around him. UMW became a big player in heavy equipment as well as motor vehicles during his time and it was also on his watch that the company was listed on the stock exchange. Eric Chia was aggressive in business, which proved to be his undoing when the boom years turned to gloom in the mid-1980s. UMW was mired in debt and would have become insolvent if one of its main shareholders, Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), had not come to the rescue. Of course, this meant loss of control by Chia of the Group he had built up over the decades. 

With PNB in the driving seat, UMW moved to the next stage of its development, that of a corporation that grew to become what it is today - a Malaysian multinational with interests in automative; equipment; manufacturing and engineering; and oil and gas, which are spread across more than 90 companies in 13 countries. Truly a Malaysian success story. 

Tan Sri Datuk Eric Chia passed away in 2008 and UMW's top management dedicated the book to him. I would have liked to interview him for the publication but various things stood in the way. 

In his foreword to the book, Dato' Halim declares the reason for initiating the book: "It is essential that (UMW's) history be recorded so that the thousands of people employed by the UMW Group, now and in the future, will know how UMW developed into a corporate organisation with a distinct culture..." Chairman Tan Sri Datuk Asmat Kamaludin, in his message, sees the book as adding "to the store of knowledge that currently exists on Malaysian corporations."

It was in the spirit of lifelong learning that the UMW Management Series was subsequently conceptualised; a series of books "- some illustrating 'successes', others illustrating 'misses' - with the hope that in sharing our experiences, we are helping those within our organisations as well as people beyond our boundaries to better appreciate the trials and tribulations of doing business in an ever-changing world." Those are the words of Dato' Halim in his foreword to the first book in the series, UMW-Dennis Specialist Vehicles Sdn Bhd - A Bumpy Ride, which was launched on 29 September 2010, a day before he retired from UMW.

Writing the book for UMW, as well as the one for Commerce Asset, showed me what it was like working with people who are truly professional. Not only that, in both instances, the employees tasked with the project were committed and ensured that I had whatever materials were available. Interviewees were helpful with information and forthcoming in their responses. And as the project progressed, top management often checked to see whether I got what I needed. 

On a personal level, such books are dream projects because they have allowed me to contribute to the knowledge that we have on the people and organisations that make up our Malaysian society.

Photo-break #10

The lion dance is very much a feature of Chinese New Year celebrations in this country. Took this photo at the Chinese New Year Open House of the Manchester United Supporters Club on 29 January 2012.

"Please use a bookmark..."

... this is what I tell someone I'm lending a book to. Usually, I would also provide the person with a bookmark from the many that I have. I can't stand it when a person folds the corner of a page ( a dog-eared page) to mark where he has stopped reading. It shows to me that the person doesn't love books. Incidentally, it also bugs me when anyone flips carelessly through a book, especially a coffee-table book, causing the pages to fold or crumple.

There is more to a bookmark than you can imagine. It has a long history, going back to ancient times although the earliest examples found have been from the medieval ages. Just like stamps, coins, fridge magnets and a hundred and one other things, bookmarks are being collected as a hobby. To keep the hobby manageable, collectors are advised to focus on a theme, such as leather bookmarks, advertising bookmarks or those from a particular period. One collector in Lithuania gets bookmarks from around the world, including Malaysia. Another goes for antique and vintage bookmarks because of their high quality.

There's really no reason not to have a bookmark to use with your book. Bookshops give them away for free. You can easily recycle those greeting cards in your drawer into bookmarks just by cutting the prettier parts into long rectangles. If you don't have cards, you would surely have used envelopes - just snip off the corners and you would get instant bookmarks!

A much nicer version, which takes a bit more work, is an origami bookmark.

If there are 50 ways to leave your lover, there are 50+ ways to make your own bookmarks - the crafts-inclined can do it with fabric scraps, gauge wire, ribbons, beads, elastic cording and even paper clips. So... there really is no reason whatsoever for someone to tell you, "Please use a bookmark."