why do we live for?

very touching. we cried.

think about it...

Goh Mia Chun at WIT conference.

Long live the romance of travel from WebInTravel on Vimeo.

http://www.webintravel.com/news/wit-day-two--igniting-the-romance-of-travel-on-a-wednesday-morning_698

visiting Malacca from a different view

It was a gathering for Samantha. 3 of her best friend came to Malacca to celebrate Crystal's birthday and at the same time, giving us a big hello after 2 and half years.

Malacca is situated about 2 hours away from Singapore as we always consider it as an 'easy to go' or 'not challenging' biking destination. After going round the world and now that we are back in this city, the whole perspective changed. This city became so colorful.

Next to Samantha is Leo, where we visited and stayed with him when we were in City of New York (USA, 2009).

Crystal's chicken rice shop.

at last, Sam is able to make up and dress sexy for the first time after 2 and half years. (above)

if not, this is how we looked like (below picture) in one of the country we visited, Pakistan. Our traveling suit.

Sam being dolled up during Crystal birthday. (picture below)

Sam being not dolled up during the trip. (below picture taken in Alaska, USA 2009)

We spend good times with Crystal.

Old building in Malacca. Was it Portuguese?
Old fort.
Very unique road sign with arabic, Bahasa Malay and english translation.

nice drawing we saw.
The above are real shoes made for the ancient chinese women where their feet were being tied up and not to grow more than 3 inches. In those times it was considered beautiful. This shop is one of the very last shop in the world to custom make these shoes.

Malacca also has a mix culture of race and religion.
An Islam building being a neighbor with a Taoist temple, in harmony.

This garden is built for a toilet in a tourist district.
It looked like an entrance of a resort but it is a public toilet.
a tomb stone as a decoration.

well, thats the public toilet i am referring to. the most beautiful toilet in Malaysia.

Crystal and her boyfriend brought us to eat our all time favorite food: bak kut teh.
See the mosque by the beach? this is the view from Crystal's apartment in Malacca.

chinese new year in singapore.

chinese new year in singapore

the first chinese new year during our trip we had was in india. feb 2008 where we were in a wierd city.

the second chinese new year we had was in Chile where we had a little steamboat with some other Canadian Chinese in the backpacker's hostel. (2009)

the third chinese new year we had was in Australia where we stayed with a few Malaysian friends and we celebrated a great chinese new year, (2010)

and today, after the hard work we did from August 2010 till today, all about trying to survive in Singapore, trying to set up my business from zero, trying to meet up with friends (which we did not), trying to be 'feeling home'; it's about this chinese new year.

we worked hard from day 1 since we came back. we neglected many friends even when we came back because the $ and greed had overtook love.

i did realized that because if $ did not overtook love, we had been seeing all my friends that we missed during our RTW.

Everyone is busy for this chinese new year. we spend alot of $ on unnecessary things like cookies and decoration. Actually, we felt that it has becoming more and more meaningless.

I start to look around, have we forgotten the needy?

I remembered the old lady staying with is son. She always collects old drink cans from rubbish bins. I knew where she lived and decided to gave some of our goodies to her. Guess, i am the first person after so many years of her life visiting her during chinese new year.

If everyone would be noticing and observing around our neighborhood for the needys, these people would be much happier with you around.

blog singapore

Sorry guys. i know it's a little disappointing. i want to tell you the last part of our trip where we ride with Honorable Tunku Hassan of Johor and the bikers night with him.

It's near Chinese New Year corner, 3rd of February for this year. I'm rushing for a few landscape jobs.

I got tired when I got home at 11pm. it would be a blessing if i can reach home at 8pm daily.

Waking up at 7am is a torture to me. It seems like 7 hours of sleep is never enough.

Where is my time with Samantha?

Where is my time with my friends?

There are still many friends that we wanted to meet after we come back to Singapore for the last 5 months.

We really regretted that one of our trip supporter, Hii Chun Hui, had passed away. We did not get a chance to meet up with him after we come back. he is a year younger than me.

why?

Is building up my business really that important?

Someone told me:

now you just started my business, it's already something positive that you have landscape jobs on hand. Being busy is a good thing, better than nothing. Else you have to work for somebody. It's always the most difficult at the start of the business.

Is that so important? what we are concerned now is that what we want in our life?

what good do we do to the society by being so busy?

what about our loved ones?

For those that are not in Singapore, let me introduce the popular Singapore Dream to you which is the 5C:

Cash

Credit Card

Condo

Car

Country Club membership

It arose as a popular joke based on certain truths attesting to the unstated Singaporean cultural ethos of materialistic obsession and aspiration to achieve these things in order to impress others, both socially, economically and sociologically. - extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_C's_of_Singapore

Let us get out of this rat race first.

We want to publish a book: base on the inspiration we got from the 30 months trip.

I need a sleep now......

How we got our bike out of the Malaysia customs.

From 29 november 2010 posting:

So now… we are at risk. We paid him 3 million rupiah, we leave Indonesia and he could retain the bike in Indonesia for sale or even ship to other countries. We do not have any proof.

16 July 2010, the bike is supposed to arrived in Malaysia. We called that Orchid Shipping contact number given to us… it was not Orchid Shipping. It was not a correct number.

Oh no…

When we reached to shore of Malaysia, we knew that we were home. Everything looked so familiar. Never in our 2 and half years, we would feel so confident on what is ahead of us.

Hope Too is behind us. We took a few big boxes with us to Malaysia. With our full riding gear on, I have to move 2 aluminium cases, 1 red bag, 1 tank bag and that excludes our own helmet and riding gear. Look at the picture. If there is a trolley, it would be an easy job.

Entering the Malaysian custom, we feel the smell. The local custom officers were very stern about Indonesians coming into Malaysia. We felt the difference. As I entered the land of Malaysia, I wanted to get a white card, an immigration card to be filled up but the office is in a mess because I was the only one on the ferry that needed this card. The wait was about 30 minutes for the officers to get me a card as I requested if not, they will as me to enter Malaysia without the card, then I would have big issue when I exit Malaysia.

Port Klang is very new to us. Local said that the nearest budget hotel is walking distance. Yes, I walked for 45 minutes with my full gear and certainly lost some fluid from my body. First time ever, we stayed in a Malaysia hotel! We felt so homely!

Dinner was served by Chinese; Hotel was handed by Indian; Custom office was controlled by Malay. This is Malaysia!

We had our first bak kut teh (pork rib soup) and set for the night.

The next morning, we phoned that ‘Orchid Shipping’ and it happened to be a household number! No such number for shipping agency! The moment of cheated came to me.

THOSE OFFICERS MUST HAD CHEATED US! THEY TOOK OUR MONEY AND KEPT THE BIKE!

We quickly went to the address given by the taxi. Luckily the office exists! There is still Hope Too.

Sam videoed down the process of Hope Too being unloaded and suddenly the security officer came and raised his voice on us: blah blah blah.

He was certainly rude and bossy. We have to kept our humble, knowing that our motive here is just to get Hope Too out. Look at the video.

After the bike landed, we found that Hope Too was vandalized with some spray marks. Maybe they are too friendly. They tattooed their boat name onto Hope Too. Oh no, Hope Too was molested on boat when we were not around. I was angry but have to keep cool.

It was the first time that the port officer handed a Singapore registered motorcycle from Indonesia to Malaysia. He didn’t know what to do. We have to follow him to talk to his boss. We have to tell his boss what to do too but at the same time, respect his authority. His boss was very nice, giving us his name card, saying that if we have any problem, just call him. He was really a boss.

Here we go, we came back to Malaysia without having a stamp on our carnet (CPD).

Along the way from Port Klang to Malacca, we met a singapore bike and happened that he was Sam, a senior biker that I knew I him 10 years ago. He was the first Singaporean biker that we met.

Sam and I were so excited to reach Malacca. When we reached Crystal’s chicken rice shop, we knew that we made it.

reply to comments about the tree issue.

Alientyc said...

i am just as sad as well whenever I see this happen. Trees were cut down in many areas too due to the new mrt circle line. you are brave to sit there but don't endanger yourself. 
solutions to the problem? public education and awareness.

@iPad

Alientyc:

What I am doing is not endangering directly on my life. It endangers my job because i am in this industry. The contractor on site will hate me, town management will list me under...

My industry is small. Everyone can be my customer. What I am doing clearly affected my name in this business. I may lose my job but I want to do some change in Singapore. I am sorry for those that are in this industry that I had put so much trouble in.

What I am doing now has affected everyone’s relationship in the industry.

I am not looking into the technical part on why that 2 trees at my estate has been crown reduced. I am looking at the 3 main points I mentioned on the posting below, especially point number #3.

I noticed that when I talk to fellow industry people about this matter, they discuss to me about very technical things. Some agree and some may have extra ideas on it. Tree maintenance is a balance between science and art. Some may find that doing it this way is good and the others on their way. Both methods served the same IMMEDIATE solutions.

See: http://www.treesaregood.com/treecare/pruning_mature.aspx

But it may not be correct because those trees at this website origin are not the same as in Singapore.

Many of our industry players do not see the big picture. Their big picture is limited to their business and earnings.

That’s why I am sad.

Trees don’t tell lie, only human do.

Trees will need to make way for human’s better standard of living, example: introduction of building structures.

When it comes with comparison on a human life and a tree, of course… we do not need to mention... you know the answer.

Here is a picture I took during my round the world trip. It’s extracted from a book and I found it meaningful. Bottom of my heart, I would like to share it with all of you.

wait, it's not finished. just after i posted this, i went to the same coffee shop to have my lunch, i notice that the owner of the coffeeshop has a few large potted plants standing on the grass. 2 pots of bamboo and 2 pots of Juniperus.

The bamboo stands about more than 5 meters tall. top of the bamboo is always shaking because of the minor breeze. i ask myself: there isn't much wind right now. what if there are sudden wind speed approach, as described by those 'expert' that broke the trees? why didn't the coffeeshop owner cut the bamboo down, do the same 'crown reduction' as the trees i mentioned? then the wind will not topple these potted plants. then i move on and take a closer look:

He is a genius!

They are cutting all the trees at orchard road.

Police came, i gave them my IC. I had a lecture from them.

I am disappointed with the truth. They are doing the right thing but I’m just disappointed. Really? Please read on.

In this year, there are a lot of fallen trees in Singapore. Largely due to the change in weather condition. Heavy wind and flash food contributed a lot to it. The trees by the roadside has grown for so many years and is suiting itself to the usual wind speed and water supply. Suddenly, when a stronger wind attack the tree, the branches fail, fall and hit human or property. So, many property management is concerning about this problem and it concerns safety of human life. So these property management is issuing orders to prune down all the branches to make safe, just in case any strong wind attack, there will not be human casualty, property damage or any ‘case’ to attend.

As an ISA (http://www.isa-arbor.com/) certified Arborist, I do understand more about trees and it’s defect. The trees were being pruned down and were left with 20% of leaves, as compared to 1 hour ago.

Their reason of pruning:

They want to make safe.

So what will happened leaving 20% of the leaves? I do not bother to explain much here. In years to come, the management will need to remove the tree. So why spend money to prune the trees now?

‘but if we remove the big trees and plant the small trees, we will recive a lot of complaint from the public;

So, what is the reason of planting small trees? It is to hope that one day these small trees will grow bigger and provide shade, provide oxygen, take in carbon dioxide and help to green the earth. So when these trees are big, the management will ask contractors to prune or to remove because it is not safe! Then the cycle continues…

Why not think of a long term solution? Management is spending money on contractors to do unnecessary jobs because most management do not know what trees are. When they give money to the contractors, the contractors will do the job because the contractors are given reward ($$$)!

The contractors know that by reducing 80% of that tree foliage is not a long term plan for the property owner/management.

The contractors know that by taking 80% of that tree foliage has reward to feed the company expenses.

Sam and I were having breakfast at my neighborhood coffeeshop and saw some contractors pruning these 2 healthy trees. I approached the supervisor of the team and asked why they want to prune these 2 trees. His answer was the standard answer from EVERY contractors, plus, he fold his arms and look at the sky when he talk to me (as a member of public).

He added: if you have any enquiries, please call the town council directly.

I went to look for the town council contact number, called and wanted to talk directly to the horticulture officer on why is he pruning down these 2 healthy trees. The officer was not around. The receptionist took down my contact and they also want to know my full address when I just call to question. Are they doing any record on me?

I told the receptionist if there is anyway to stop the contractors right now? Because they are removing life. The receptionist just said she will let me know as soon as possible.

Pruning tree is not like removing any structure or fixture. Once it is pruned, it cannot be replaced or fixed back. Money cannot buy back the same health of the tree again. Their action must be stopped immediately.

It is like seeing someone being attacked, beaten up and you know that the victim has to be saved and the attacker has to be stopped immediately, and you call the police and the phone operator at the police station says: sorry, the police in-charge is not around, when he is back I will ask him to give you a call.

Then who is going to stop this crime?

Well, I am not saying that it is a crime to cut away 80% of the foliage of these 2 healthy trees. So I took a chair, went into the ‘keep-out’ area and sit under the tree so that the workers can stop cutting the tree.

Te supervisor came to me, shouted at me and used some 4 letters behind my back to ask me to get out of his work area because of safety issue. I ignored him because my intention was just to stop them from cutting more on these 2 healthy trees. He really got angry and he called the police. I sat down there but the workers were still working on the tree but they threw the pruned branches to the other side so that the branches will not hit me. I know that I am causing inconvenience for them to make money.

The police came. Ask me to stepped outside of the area because of safety issue. I gave them my Identity Card. They are coming to help me because of my safety. I tried to explained to them why am I doing this but their understanding towards trees are minimal. The police also give me a Q&A, trying to enlighten me in his way. He mentioned something like: if your hair is long, do you think you need to cut? when i tried to argue this theory against tree pruning, he interrupted me by saying: JUST ANSWER YES OR NO. They just know that their job was fulfilled, they know that they have attended the complained call and they have done their duty. I told them about trees and their understanding about it is limited. I just have to obey the law enforcer. The team of police left after having a talk with that angry supervisor that made the call and I heard them laughing together before they left.

The conclusion of the whole settlement is that I want to meet the person that made the decision to prune down these 2 healthy trees and yet stop whoever that is doing the pruning job on these 2 trees.

The manager of the contractor company came. He is also in his anger when he talked to me because he feel that I am giving him trouble for unnecessary things. The manager also gave me the standard answer, just like what everyone did.

Then the person that I wanted to see came down. He is from the town council. He’s knowledge of trees is good and he knows a lot of science to it. That is the correct person that I want to talk to BUT what I want to hear is not about the science about pruning the trees. I want to know:

WHY ARE THEY PRUNING MORE THAN 80% OF THE FOLIAGE ON THESE 2 HEALTHY TREES.

I did not spot any dead branches, defective branches or defective attachments from what they had removed. It is all healthy branches.

es.

Healthy branches were removed.

Size of healthy limb/branch as big as this was being removed. i didn't see anything wrong with it and yet, they remove it. it took years and effort to grow the tree.

The town council arborist told me it is because of safety issue. (Same like everyone’s answer).

Strong wind will blow and these smaller branches will break and hit this and that.

So I asked him, is there someone in your organization that can determine which particular tree to be pruned and how much to prune?

He said yes, they have their own team of arborist to do assessment.

Arborist that is doing trees assessments are very conservative. They are like doctors. Doctors will not guarantee patient of 100% recovery on any treatment. So that is what I meant by conservative.

So, these arborist, to safe keep their job, they will suggest to prune all the trees. In this case, these arborist are saved. But in some cases, these people will feel that some trees are ok not to prune BUT their superior, being the director of the organization, not trained in trees but trained in decision making and responsibility handling, will tell them off to prune off all, just in case…..

he is applying an ancient evil Chinese general quote:

Better to kill by mistake rather than to let one escape

So now you see the big picture?

Why do they do it? I give you a summary:

Tree workers: they are paid by the company.

Tree contractor company: they are paid by the Town management to do it.

Law enforcer: no comments and I do not want to comment.

Town Management: They have to safe keep their job in case public accident happen and they can show that they have done their job.

Then what is my point of all these troubles? My point is that everyone just want to keep their own job alive, able to get reward and use the reward feel good about themselves, forgetting about what is right and what not, forgetting about moral values.

I am not saying that pruning 80% of that 2 healthy trees is forgetting about moral value.

I love trees. I do understand some trees do create safety issue but they need to be assessed by professional with good moral and ethic values. These assessors must be balance between safety, ecology control, ethics and monies reward. Look at the trees at orchard road.

If the property owner wants to plant a tree to give shade, then I think it is not correct because by looking at the cases at my neighborhood, they had prune down the trees because they only love the wood. Really? If they want to have shade for the public, they can do something else like building structural canopy.

But if they want to plant a tree because of ecology issue like making the city looks greener or giving more carbon dioxide with oxygen exchange, then they should really think about how to sustain all these trees! Just look at Orchard road.

Imagine they are doing the same thing at orchard road, the management will sure get a lot of complaint from the top people and got their job unsecured.

So you see? Why are the trees different in orchard road and the trees different in my neighborhood? They have the same size and species of trees but they are being treated differently. WHY?

Orchard Road.

Orchard Road.

My neighborhood road.

Orchard Road

My neighborhood road.

Orchard Road tree.

My neighborhood tree.

Does some road has higher budget for trees assessment?

Maybe people in orchard road is worth more than my neighborhood.

So from the above pictures, we can see that size is not an issue, it's how the council manage the trees! The trees at orchard road are much bigger than my neighborhood but yet, they could maintain it at a proper level and at the same time, provide shade, control the amount of birds. but look at my neighborhood. now the birds are homeless.

Imagine the management is going to prune the trees in orchard road, same 'hairstyle' like my neighborhood tree.

What we need to solve this issue is not to prune away or remove everything when decision makers are unclear of which tree is really safe/unsafe to keep. .

1) We need to strengthen the trees to defense against external destructive factor instead of removing/prune down the trees in case of external destructive factor.

2) The public must be educated about the benefit of trees in our life.

3) Make transparency: Why is the decision made on action done on such act. It should start from policy makers, to town management, to what factor made them to prune down a tree, to their future plans they have for the town, to expenditure and investment. I didn't know our town council invested in funds until the Layman Brothers fell in 2008. by making transparency, the public are more aware of what is happening and feel being part of the council.

There was a time when the government advertise on TV on how to throw rubbish. They showed household rubbish were thrown into a plastic bag (from supermarket) that was easily installed in our household bin. when the rubbish bag is full, the actor took it out, tied it and throw it down the bin. then below, the big bin collector will be more easier to clear the big bin. so what happened after this? when we go to supermarket, we will request for more plastic bags because we were 'educated' this way. The TV/poster informed us that we have to put our rubbish in these rubbish bag. So, what happen when we need more and more plastic bags from supermarket? you know it better...

So, do we need to tear down all the high rise building in Singapore because there might be earthquake next year or wait for the first earthquake to happen then we settle it?

The western way of solving problem is direct and fast but do not solve the root of the problem. Is our environment forcing us to adopt the western way of solving problem?

example: a guy always have headache and he took panadol (a brand of pain killer). It really works for the first stage of the headache, it's fast, cheap and effective! but during later stage, he found that eating 2 panadols a day do not help the headache, he increase to 4, then 8. When 8 panadols does not solve the problem, he went to see a better doctor, then the doctor prescribe a stronger type of pain killer. In the end, his mum changed a sleeping pillow for for to sleep and the pain is gone but ended up, he got liver problem because overdosage of painkillers.

If you are a property owner reading this,

If you are a council leader reading this,

If you are a tree contractor / arborist reading this,

If you are the policy maker reading this,

Please help to think of a big picture on how we, Singapore, can go towards a better Singapore.

We can built a better home, we can built a better earth.

WRONG!

So what if we can built a better home where the earth cannot be rebuilt as it is already depreciating.

When i took this picture, they had already started the pruning and removed 20% of the foliage.

This is what is left after they prune. A piece of wood and some leaves.

After they left, Sam and i took a walk around all the trees that they have pruned. Its sad. They pruned down 80% on some and crown lifted some. They worked on all the trees except this one that is in the planter box. 100% untouched. this tree is also quite hugh and it is near the playground where the target rating is much higher than the rest. I heard a passer by giving remark that they did not prune this tree because they are not paid to do so as it belongs to another management. i do not know how true it is.

Please give me some comments.