The importance of Teachers!!

A friend of mine used to teach in a kindergarten in Malaysia but later resigned as the workload was very heavy but the remuneration was not.

The pay was so low that she had to look for other part time job to be financially stable.

This current state of affairs is totally unacceptable as it cannot be denied that pre-school days are the most crucial time to develop a child's mind and motor skills. However the quality of teachers for pre-schoolers are often second rate whereas in developed countries, they appreciate the necessity to have qualified teachers for pre-schoolers. Hence the teacher's take home salary also reflects this level of importance.

A direct consequences of low remuneration is the lack of pride in their job as the public generally perceived teachers of pre-schoolers as of lower qualification compare with teachers of higher education. And where there is lack of pride, one will hardly put in the extra effort in their profession.

We must remember that pre-schoolers teachers are the children' first teachers and the impression that these teachers leave on them will influence these children for life. I have an uncle who was a very studious student but when he was in primary school used to hate a particular teacher so much that he will leave the classroom and stand outside whenever this teacher enters the room.

Teachers have the power to break or make the subject alive to the students. I remember enjoying history more than geography purely because the teacher took the time and effort to make the subject interesting for us.

For Malaysia to progress we must treat our teachers better on all levels and not just for the higher education ones.

Reaching for the best!

How often do you find yourself especially during grocery shopping choosing the cheaper version of an item of similar origin and description?

I find that I do that many times especially looking out for on offer or on sale items.

This probably explains why nowadays items getting more and more inferior in quality be it in terms of food and electrical items.You notice how products of bygone years seem to last longer like for example my washing machine. Just recently changed it after it started to make funny sounds but it served us very well for more than 20 years.

That is because suppliers work around the budget to produce the items are prices that consumers are willing to pay. So packaging either becomes smaller, tissues became thinner, cotton buds become flimsier and foodstuffs are mixed with cheaper but alternative colouring, flavoring and etc.

Some suppliers even resort to mixing the quality products in the same box, eg. a box of colouring pencils, maybe the black and white will be good quality but the rest the quality are compromised.

I read before in an article in the newspaper that we must remove this "cheap mentality" in order to progress. It is because of us consumers always asking for cheaper goods, the suppliers have no option but to cut costs and in cutting costs, we are ultimately buying inferior quality products.

It was interesting that a friend shared that he educate his children not to consume too much chicken as there are too much hormones in poultry nowadays. He note that through this his children are smaller in size than their peers. Of a more asian-like size I suppose. Not only that his daughter does not reach puberty that early. It is of great concern that girls nowadays get their first menstrual cycle much earlier than those of our forefathers.

So when buying products, I think it is important that we do not sacrifice quality for price. This attitude will somehow overflow and affect the choices that we make in life too. I find that after years of doing this in some decisions which I made I subconsiuosly too do not choose the best but always reach for the second best even though I can afford it and deserve better.

So my final word is "what you pay, is what you get" so try to aim for the best in everything cos life is short and we deserve the best.

What's in a name...

It just struck me that in the world, humans can be divided into 2 categories of "those with surnames in front and those with surnames at the back". Do correct me if I'm wrong.

Examples of front surnames are:
namely chinese, japanese, korean, vietnamese

Example of back surnames are:-
namely american, british, european, turkish, indians, malays

Not too sure about africans. I think they belong to the back category.

Why can't it be the same everywhere? That's why is most immigration forms or any important forms, to avoid confusion, they will ask underline the surname.

The back surnames category can then be further sub-divided into those using the surname of the family or the father like the indians and malays whose surname is that of the father.

The indians names in malaysia have A/L (literally meaning "anak lelaki" / son of) and A/P ("anak perempuan" / daughter of) before the surname.
Eg, Rahman A/L Muthusamy ie Muthusamy is the name of Rahman's father.

Similarly the malays in malaysia practice is the usage of "bin" (for male) and "binte" / sometimes "bte" (for female) to distinguish the gender of the person which is actually quite convenient since you'll know exactly the gender of the person from the name only cos nowadays some names tend to be very unisex, not to mention their sexuality... (but I digress here).

However this practice of adding A/L and bin is not prevalent in India and Indonesia but only in Malaysia. One suspects that this was introduced by the british during the colonization days when they issue citizenship and birth certificates but if this is case, why were the chinese in malaysia spared from this "coding" since to the british, family surnames in front are not common to british.

Well I guess that's because chinese are a very stubborn group of people... a lot more stubborn than the japanese as most time I will get confused about the japanese names ie which is their name and which is their surname. That's because in the west media, japanese names are "westernized" and printed with their surnames at the back but in japanese local media, they revert to their original writing of surname in front.

So for Takuya Kimura which is the surname and which is name? Surname Kimura - Name Takuya. So in japan he will be knowned as Kimura Takuya.
So you'll expect the same thing for celebrity Aiba Masaki right? But turned out Aiba is the surname... gosh... Aiba sounds more like a name than surname to me. So it's pretty darn confusing to foreigners.

So why cant the japanese be stubborn and keep to their true identity as practice centuries ago and not bow to peer pressure, conforming to the western style of surnames at the back?

This will again bring me to a different topic. Conformity to the west standard. Having come from a colonized nation, I also grew up thinking that the west is the best but thankfully Asia is rising and rising fast!

So whether you have your surname in front or back, it does not matter so long as you know how it all started (ie whose your father, grandfather, great grandfather, great great grandfather (erm i think is too-far-fetched to know)) and don't be bothered about how the rest of the world wanted to call it.