Swimming Gala

Yours sincerely ( y s) helped to organise a Swimming Gala for the Royal Kedah Club on the 25th of April, 09. The last swimming gala was held twenty over years ago. The dilapidated pool did not entice the organisation of such event until the new pool was completed last year. As the secretary, y s was involved in writing numerous letters and petitions for the new pool.

Here, you can see the wading pool for the children. The response was overwhelming for the children's events. These days, parents would go to all obstacles to expose their children to new challenges and experiences. It is very easy to market products and service to children. Some companies have exploited this with emotional marketing. They even do it when the child is still in the womb! The latest, y s, guesses is Stem Cell Banks.

The Kiddys' Treasure Hunt was fun to observe. These priviledged kids had had already so much possessions lavished on them, the menial things thrown into the pool for them to hunt could not lure them to put their head under water! Anyway, the parents were the ones overtly excited and could not hold their reserves.
This was the briefing session before the plunge. These children could swim like fishes. All had been thoroughly coached and intensely motivated by their parents who were watching over them like hawks. This is something I missed in my childhood. The closest I came to were marbles, kites and discarded bald tennis balls which we picked up over the fence of the District Officer's lawn tennis court on the way home from school.

Y s spotted this cute little nymph who was all geared up for the gala, floats and all.
These were some of the mens' competitors, almost averaging 60 years, but who could still paddle 100 metres speedily. Btw, there were three doctors in attendance! Just in case. Who knows?

The organising committee who had worked very hard to put pieces of the gala together. The Swim Captain, seated in the middle, is Mr Choy Ming Swee, very amicable and humble, pleasant to work with.
This is how a jubilant winner looks like. All smiles from ear to ear. You should see the mummy's and daddy's smiles. "Number two only loor!!! Mummy might scold loor!!!"

Retirement is also expanding you circles of friends in all age groups and walks of life.

Now, y s has swimming, squash and also golf "kakis."

How can one be tired and bored with retirement? Y s is busy living every day that ends with "y."

Birthday's effects

Look at my Callaway!!!

The harsh reality has set in, yours sincerely ( y s) is now 57 only. I like to add "only" for it somehow makes you feel that you still have not fallen into the rut of the aged, the "warga emas" or those in the sunset years, rainbow years, golden years ; and a horde of other terms coined to make you feel nicer. Don't fall into the trap. Look hard into a good mirror. You are what you are.

Guess what I got from the better half for my 57th? A pair of Callaway golf shoes! O la la !!! Better half has gone to the extent of getting my measurement secretly and driving to Darul Aman Golf Club to purchase them. I love the straps which are meant for lazy people. When I first wore them to the club yesterday, my new found golfer friends eyed them enviously. Know what ? "Gaya mau, tak tau main lain kira."

To top off everything, she signed up a golf pro to coach me. ( I had been talking about getting a golf pro to coach for a year but never got close to one so she had to initiate it.) Sometimes when the better half is so nice to me, I start to wonder what is on her mind. I got the feeling it is an Alaskan Cruise which she has been talking about for a long time. This will be her birthday present. What birthday? She will kill me if I blog her age, as you know.


This is a card from the second daughter who is still studying. Wonder whether she really meant all the adjectives on the card. It warms the heart. Thank you Esther.

This is a card sent by the elder daughter last year, also full of well meaning adjectives which are enough to make an ordinary father feels like a superman........"up...up.... and away....." The card she sent this year is still in the post. I hope it is not lost in the post like many of our overseas mails. Something is wrong with our postal system! Thank you Adeline and Bert.

So, this is y s all dressed up and ready for his golf lessons, very excited about it. Even dreamt of driving the golf balls the night before. Felt like when my father first bought me a Dunlop badminton racquet when I was in Standard 3. I slept with it. Do not think that we played in the hall! Forget it! We played in the open with the wind and the breeze. The net was only a gunny string tied between two coconut trees, but we had a whale of time hitting the plastic shuttercock with red rubber base. When we were chosen to play for the school and progressed into the hall, the plastic rubber head shuttercock, really did give us good training in powerful, thunderous smashing.

Today, instead of feeling 57, I feel 45, going for golf. One of the ways to keep young is to learn a new skill. Don't you think that retirement is spending time on the rocking chairs. Y s is busy living !!!

So, one more out of my "Bucket List."

Some Observations

Yours sincerely ( y s ) noticed this two headed snake in the newspaper recently. Y s cannot help thinking of some of our local politicians, especially the most senior one who has been barking lots of racial slurs to incite the people to distrust, insecurity and hatred. Sometimes one wonders what motivates such person, who has already sinfully enriched himself and his family, to want to further wreck havoc to the already precariously peaceful nation.

Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. (King Solomon, Book of Proverbs.)
No one is fool enough to choose war instead of peace. For in peace sons bury fathers, but in wars fathers bury sons.( Herodotus ) The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

Y s was following this car near Tanah Merah in Kelantan (Where else do you expect to see such scene?) for not less than ten kilometres and the driver seemed to be oblivious to the little who poked her heard out of the window to feel the wind on her face.

No wonder we often heard news reports of children falling into cauldron of boiling"pisang goreng" oil, drowning in bath tubs and even pails (sic...) , losing fingers and thumbs, and eyes to fire crackers ( This is a must comes Hari Raya ) , just to list but a few.

People who handle other people's money are required to account for every cent. Are children less valuable?

Y s noticed this at Sg Petani. You can form your own conclusion.

Our " OKU " ( Orang Kurang Upaya) or the disabled are a pitiful lot. Efforts have been established to ensure their convenience but some from the general public usurp these priviledges.

Among a few "pantangs" y s holds strongly to is using OKU's facilities. I secretly believe that those who like to usurp these privildeges would one fine day be transformed to be OKU in whatever way so that they can really use the facilities to their heart's content and openly !

Y s spotted this at Jalan Langgar, Alor Star. Leave it to you to spot the oddity. The ladies would be glad to know that there is such garment!

The Chinese All Souls' Day

This is the resting place of yours sincerely's ( y s ) father at the "Tiger and Dragon Hill" on the way to Kuala Krai in Kelantan. He was an immigrant from the Fukien province of China. He came in his blue Chinaman's trousers and white Pagoda brand T-shirt, and a one-way ticket to make it or break it. Well-built, good looking, hardy, thrifty and industrious , and a sort of a rough diamond with a thunderous temper, he and my mum had raised the six of us. Alas! In his fifties, he had to fight teeth and nail with Cancer and lost to the latter.

Yours sincerely had not been back for the Chinese All Souls' Day for 30 over years. He was caught up in the great issue of ancestral worship and Christianity. The extremists would even equate your mere presence as partaking and which they claim would cause others to stumble.

Coming of age, at 57, y s puts his foot down and draws a thick and bold line bewteen participating and attending. By all standards, y s would utterly fail the Confucian's filial piety test. Honestly speaking, the matter has always pricked my conscience. This year y s and his better half made a trip and it was rewarding. It was full attendance of the other siblings. We were accepted even as observers. It is a family institution in itself, bringing family members together at the very least once a year. The family, afterall, is also central in Christianity.
One of the gifts offered was packets of cigarrettes since he was a chain smoker when he was in this world.
This is the younger generation, the grand nephews and nieces, who are learning the custom to perpetuate it.
Everybody chipped in in whatever duty one could do. There was no complusion or ordering. Somehow you knew what you should do. This creates the bond and holds the family together.
Of course, the finale was a "Nasi Kerabu and Laksam" feast at a stall beside the Chung Cheng National-Type Chinese School at Jalan Kelocor (Kind of a funny name) . The "Nasi Kerabu" or "Cow Jump" (Btw no cow and no jumping) is healthily delicious. It is rice cooked in herbal juice and eaten with a variety of cut and chopped up vegetables, and also fried desicated coconut.

It was a decision made in good judgement.

57th Birthday - one year down retirement lane

" HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME ! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME ! HAPPY BIRTH TO ME, ME ME, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEE." I always enjoy singing Happy Birthday to me. Going to 57, eh! Who cares? They say that if you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Anyway soon there will be no space for the candles.

A mug to remember the working years.

Time flies. Everyone says so. Actually the world is still rotating at the same speed ever since it existence , so who flies? We !!! Either you fly and soar, or stay put and rot. One thing you cannot recycle is wasted time. Those who make the worst use of their time are the same ones who complain that there is never enough time. Time like money, you can either spend, waste or invest it !

For a retiree, the days are long but the years are short. A year has whizzed by since I was given the Golden Handshake and driven home. As I always say, at 56, I still have pimples and not ready for retirement. But life on the left lane is pleasant. You get to enjoy the scenery and are never in a hurry to arrive. After a year of bliss, I will never trade it with anything in the world.

The better half has always been worried that I may weaken and fall sick. She cannot bear to see an over-tuned 5000 horse powered engine coming to a halt, fearing that it would degenerate. The engine has never been halted but is just running at idling speed. In this way, it lasts longer!


Of course, when you retire, you get out of the rat race and learn to be contented with less cheese. But what the heck! You don't need so much cheese in your late fifties, anyway.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. Aristotle once said that "Happiness depends on ourselves." How true! People are just as happy as they make up their mind to be. I like what Burton Hills says about happiness. " It is not a destination. It is a method of life." Moreover, nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. Foolish people seeks happiness in the distance but the wise grows it under their feet. And hold it in your own hands.

"May we never let the things we can't have, or don't have, or shouldn't have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have. As we value our happiness, let us not forget it, for one of the great lessons in life is learning to be happy without the things we cannot have or should not have. ": Charles F. Kettering.

If there were a thing I regret for not having more is not money ( You cannot have enough of it anyway) but children. How I wish I could go for more picnics with them, fly more kites in the hot afternoon sun, play more badminton and tennis, watch more DVDs etc. They are our earthly possessions we can take with us to glory. Sometimes we are so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up. They grow up and out of the home very fast. Too soon you have to cope with the empty nest syndrome. And you know that they are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they are going. The greatest gift you can give to your children is to love their mother a lot and try not to understand her at all.


There is an important skill one has to master after retirement : how to live with a spouse who now has a full time job looking after the husband but at half pay! Afterall God created women beautiful and foolish: beautiful so that men would love them, foolish so that they would love the men.

Retired husbands are like wine - some turn into vinegar, but the best improve with age. Yours sincerely prays that he belongs to the latter.

For in the final analysis, after you have clocked out of your office for good, or putted the last hole on the most pircturesque and challenging course, or showed your last Ace at a gruelling card game , drunk the last glass for the road at a long drinking session, etc etc , and you come home, you leave behind everything but still have your best friend, your wife. That is why it is said that the wife is a gift bestowed upon man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.

Small balls

Yours sincerely ( Y s) latest craze is with small balls - squash and golf. The former has nothing to do with Nicole David. I have never watched this young lady squashing away in real life or on tv, short of only seeing her on some gigantic bill boards. She looks .... eer... fierce and mean, and very energetic. She has made the nation proud. The latter has always mysterified y s on seeing well-dressed grown-ups with irons walking around the golf course, hitting a small ball into small holes. And each time one them does it right there is applause and cheers. Living near a golf course, this scenario is also happening under the glaring, burning sun. Y s thinks he has to check them out before life expires on him.

The attraction for SQUASH is the brand new squash complex at Royal Kedah Club. It is very inviting. The morning session is practically empty and y s has the whole complex to himself, even the car park. See the picture !

This is yet another blessing of your retirement - the freedom to do what you what, when you want and how you want. No bells to beat. No bosses to please. No colleagues to tolerate. And no pupils to bear. Who says that retirement is simply rocking on your armchair? There is a whole new world out there waiting for you!

Squash is a very strenuous game and half an hour of it is enough to wet your t-shirt. The sauna-like environment in the complex also adds to your sweat. But it is very rewarding, especially when you have to change into a dry shirt before going home and show the wet t-shirt to the better half. It also helps in your co-ordination and foot work. If you can manage a long volley, you can practically feel the heat on the ball. ..opps....I mean the squash ball. The "piick...poop...plop....piiiicck..." sound of the ball volleying against the walls is sweet music. It turns into a dance if you synchronise your volley.

Y s managed to have this shot taken this shot when a good friend joined him one morning, just one morning only and then he dropped out, as expected. Young people have no consistency. They falsely think that they own health forever without giving health its due interest and dividens. One has to find time to exercise or has to find time later to fall sick.

This is y s latest investment. The same brand used by Nocole David, it seems. If only the same brand of racquet makes the same player, then the world is made of fools.

Btw, y s has contacted the golf pro coach, starting lessons soon.

ViVa Life. One more off the Bucket's List.