I am a lucky guy! Lucky to have been born in Sarawak, the Land of the Hornbills where there had never been a need for 1Malaysia to instill racial harmony among the people. Laidback, peaceful and beautiful. Lucky to have spent the first seventeen years of my life in Binatang (now Bintangor). Yes, the Animal Town where everybody seemed to ...

I was looking through the photos that I took at Taman Selera today when the one showing the dog really tickled my fancy and made me recall the old joke about who is the boss. So here it is….bear with me if you have read it. For those who have not read it before, I hope it will have you ...

I would rank “Stairway To Heaven” by English rock band Led Zepellin as my No.1 favorite rock song. It was released in late 1971 when I was in Form 2 at Kai Chung Middle School in Binatang but I was not a fan of rock music at that time. The song became my favourite when I was in Canada as ...

Ais kacang stalls are springing up all over Miri. I suspect the hot weather has something to do with it. And of course a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon when they see some ais kacang stalls doing a roaring business. It is a cash business that requires small startup capital. Ais kacang or ice kacang, popularly known ...

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. – Richard Steele, Tatler, 1710 It was during my primary school days at St Augustine’s Primary School in Binatang that I picked up reading as a hobby. I devoured books by Enid Blyton and immersed myself in the world of the Famous Five and Secret Seven. I would drop ...

2012 is now history. It will be remembered as the year of Gangnam Style. I turned 55 in 2012. I survived the Mayan calendar. As I start the first blank page of my new 365-page book, I pray that the book will be filled with great memories. 2012 has been a very memorable year.  For me, the year was filled ...

During the sixties and early seventies, I was a kid living in Binatang. Life then seemed to move at a snail’s pace, compared to life now. There was definitely much less stress then. Traffic jam was totally unheard of in Binatang as there were so few cars.  If a modern day teenager who grew up with the internet, smartphones, iPad, ...

Like Regina Brett in her book “God Never Blinks”, I sometimes felt that at the moment I was born, God must have blinked and thus missed the occasion, unaware of my birth at all. I felt like the poet who wrote that he was born on a day God called in sick. Shortly after my birth almost 55 years ago ...

“Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.” – Richard Bach Friendship is something we should treasure in our lives but often due to the increased demands of the ‘real world’, friendship often wanes and we slowly lose contact with ...

July 7 was D-Day for the Bintangkian Lau Peng Yu Reunion. Though I went to bed at almost 1.30 am, I was wide awake by about 6.30 am, after about 5 hours of sleep. As it was still early, I read “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest” for about 15 minutes before taking a quick shower. At about 7.15 ...