Slow Motion

I have just read an article sent by my friend. Not to said to copy cat.. but i have to thank the writer:

An interesting reflection: Slow Down CultureIt's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalize processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in another words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm, has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.


In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". Congratulations for reading till the end of this message. There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this globalize world.

Flood

It is heard that the recent change of wind direction (so called angin monsun) will cause the northern part of Malaysia to have thunder storm and great flood. Just like what it occurred last month at the southern Malaysia, including Johor, Terengganu, Kelantan, Melaka etc. And following as some conversation note between me and my cousin:-
Cousin: heard got storm coming and might cause flood in Penang.
Me: What! How then? We’re staying just near by the sea side. If flood comes, definitely our cars will be spoiled…
Cousin: Yeah…
Me: hmm.. Then park at Queensbay car park. The upstairs’ car park should be safe.
Cousin: Yeah. But that car park not going to open at night, right?
Me: Shit! If flood come, my most valuable thing in Penang will be destroyed.

Yeah.. that’s true. All the natural disaster brings damages. Malaysia are quite lack of safety awareness, especially upon flood, haze, tsunami etc. We are lucky that we do not have earthquake, wars, and volcano’s effect etc. But, as a human, we should really have that awareness. When I read though those newspaper, citing how the NGO helped those flood victim at Southern region, that’s really touching. One of friend, studying PHD in UTM, volunteered to help the victim there, has prepared some fund to restore back the messy situation. See... life is full of care.

I understand the feeling of being a victim in flood. I did encounter that kind of experience before when I was a kid. It was a terrible experience. As usual, the whole family was in sweet sweet dream and suddenly, I heard my mum’s shout for help. It was a flood and the water level already reached up to the knee level. We immediately woke up and help to lift all the stuff up and locate them to a taller position. We were panic, dismay, scared and surprised. Pity to my little white dog that her body was shivering. We then called our relatives to come and save us. This was considered still ok. The most torturing part is that we need to clean up our home. The muddy ground which looked like coffee color. The flower which all die in one night. The comic book which no longer looked like books, but yellowish smelly papers. Chicken that we feed also die. Shit!!! The loss is uncountable pain to us. That’s why I can understand that felling. I just hoped for a peaceful life. No more such painful experience, okay?

By the way, I lose all my comic books at one night. I was so addicted to read comic books and I was planning to have my own comic one day finally. And that flood cause me to save my money (not to buy comic) and give up that hope. Perhaps, that was good also. I am now an engineer not a comic artist. Haha…

New Year

Wow… it has been a few days I didn’t open up my blog site. Main reason being is that I was back to my hometown for the New Year. Yeah… this is my super-favorite place. I was born here, study here. So much memory here…
It was a four day holiday. Considered long… and the clock showing 10.23pm at night gives me a feeling of super reluctantly to work on next day. The lazy worm crawling in my mind… and please if you know any method (crazy, stupid, smart way or what-ever), please get it out of my mind!
A new year means a lot. I do have a plan and want to achieve something this year. In fact, it is surprising when some of my friend further studies into Master. Yeah.. A man graduate today and stop learning is doomed to fail. It is true in fact. So, do you have a plan? We have heard a lot bad news over the past year. I do hope there is more good news awaiting. Come on. 2007. Another tough year. Keep on the good work and be excellence.

Holiday in KL

Wow.. it has been awhile I didn't update the blog. I am currently in KL having my holiday. Things are good where I have my most relaxing holiday for the year. It has been already one and half year I worked after graduation, but yet have a good holiday. So, it is time for a self-reward. I came here with my girl-friend. We have happy moment here and I appreciate her very much ;)

For me, KL is still having changes. Look at the highway built. We can more and more projects under execution in Subang, Sunway, Puchong etc. Along the journey, there are project 'pemlebaran lebuh raya'. Now, I realized most of our tax payer's money is used for this. It is good in a sense that the traffic is smoother and hopefully, yes it do serves its purpose. haha...

Let me tell more about myself. I was a student from University of Nottingham Malaysia, graduated in year 2005. I used to work out some part time job when study such as selling laptop, pendrive, car perfume(funny! A guy selling perfume), books etc. Looked great right? Of course, I was assigned to different places. For examples, Mid Valley, Plaza Damas, Sunway Piramid, KLCC was my job location before. Wow.. and today I went to these places, make me recall how 'strong' I am. haha... I do not mean to bluff how great I was. But, it makes me recall how many times I used to lost in the journey( not familiar with the road here) and today I can reached this places easily. Anyway, I considered working these part time job as my personal development process too.

Dream and Vision

I recalled back to my secondary school time where I was about to take the SPM. By tradition, our student was quite weak in Add. Maths. This has triggered some alarm to the top management of our school, looking forward for some best solution. Here's come one day, the whole batch of science stream student was asked to gather in the hall. When we are about to step in the hall, the WestLife song ‘I have a dream’ was played. To us, it was a surprise wondering why our teacher suddenly treated us so good. No need study, no boring lecture talk… some more, we were entertained by this wonderful cheering song. In fact, it was quite popular that time (it was year 2000).

We waited for some time and finally the Penolong Kanan appeared on the stage. Guess what he is trying to tell? 250 students and one teacher in such an environment! Huh… I hardly recalled how he spoke, but the rough means was

‘I understand that you guys (mean we) are going to leave the school after graduate. But each one of have great potential to content for your brilliant future. Talk is easy but first you must have a dream! With those dream, I believed you could passed the SPM, you could passed the Add. Math, and those dream I want you all to be a GOOD MAN in our society’

Yeah…funny huh? Man with a dream makes success most of time. But remember, still it is most of time. Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Steven Spielberg and etc. We do always see them appear. They looked so powerful, so charming, and so genius-minded. They do have a dream. But for me, as an engineer, there should be amendment made to balance up the formula. I would introduce a term called Vision and it is given by:-

Vision = Dream + Action

A man with dream… yeah... you can dream! But is dream enough to makes success? Worst still if you are day-dreaming? The people mentioned just now did spend a lot of time on their job and thus they have today. And that’s called action. This year, I am 24 years, hopefully, I could be climbing up and achieve those that I dream for with my real hand effort. Thanks to that teacher as well which played me that song. So much memories and it remind me well.

So, you want to dream only, or you want to be Man with vision?

Is it good?

If you possess a car and drive in Penang, it is pretty sure you encountered the same issue like I am. Since the news of stolen chipset from a giant company ever breakout, most Penangite are suffering from the terrible traffic jam all along Costal highway. Candidly, it is pretty tiring to drive recently under such ‘torturing’ condition.

Meanwhile, no more good news bought to us, but thanks to the ‘Top’ level management telling Malaysian that most of the toll rate will be adjusted and again raised. It is indeed a bad news to most of us, in fact, all Malaysian. To tell you more, I was a student pursuing studies there and had my internship in Freescale. That was one of most frequently used link-way to the company. An in-and-out journey in the so-called highway link will cost you RM3.00. Wow... for a student, this is definitely expensive. I do take another alternative, which is the Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong (LDP) and it costed me RM 1.00. With the recent raise, Kesas Highway is charging RM2.20 and totally RM 4.40 for in-and-out journey. LDP on the other hand cost RM1.60. That’s really a lot. We were taught that the highways are meant to improve the traffic flow, but it seems not functioning as it was expected. I do write up in my essay in SPM exam, obviously, I think I am not gonna write that again!

Someone told me that we, the tax payers in fact are paying a double tax. We do pay for what is asked for annually in April, but almost paying for the ‘low maintenance high cost’ toll. In fact, it is true.

I remembered back to my University life, we were taught about strategy management. There are a few strategy adopted. For instance, those that provide low cost yet acceptable quality material include Giant, Carrefour. Those that provide good quality and expensive price include BMW, Mazda, Rolex and etc. Ironically, most government related company is categorized into those could hardly produce good quality but still request for expensive price. It is not difficult to point out. We have seen MAS, Proton and now we have our toll.

The internet service provider could hardly improve the line service. House and cars are expensive. Disappointing flight service. Terrible traffic jam (seems like no body plan anything to improve that. How depressing it is!!!

HK Star

Have you all ever heard a girl called Janice? She has a really nice vocal and I am really fascinated with her voice that gives me so much comforts, imagination and surprise. Tell you what... I listen to her song in my car recently and yet have plan to eject from the CD player. Just imagine how hard you found someone that suit your taste and you never thought of leaving it. And that's true for the musical world these years. You hardly found a song played in Radio for more than 3 months. Worst thing is that after 2 months, the songs just disappear and you start to chase for another new album/ artist. Unlike those old days, when those song(Jacky Cheug, Andy Lau, Faye) could appear in the chart for more than 3 months. Still remember a musical chart, called RIM? Jacky Cheung's album has been the champion for almost half a year. Super history and unbeatable. Those new artist could never repeat that again. I would said, I have a lot connection to Hong Kong. Yes!!! She owns a fantastic entertainment industry. I have been watching their TV series, movies and song when I was born. Cantonese is my mother tongue and some much influence was just embedded in my heart. Their citizens are super great people. Have you imagine that they have no natural resource, but with their "HK" mindset, the state appears to be shining marble in Asia in 70s. Most stars was born. Leslie, Anita Mui, Jacky Cheung, Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Alan, Sam Hui and lots of them... Their song, movies are companion in my youth. Wow.. Can you imagine that? However, when it comes to 90s, things changes with Taiwanese and China become stronger, HK seems falling. Star falls. Sadly! Back to the main topic, I just wanna recommend two of the artist found in HK and YES!!! They are good singer; both have a nice and strong vocal - Janice and Yong Er. Hopefully you like them. They could be shining star one day.

Janice (卫兰） - she sang the pop song, ' Tai Guo'. More new song in her latest album. Wow.. amazingly, some Malaysian that don't really speak cantonese choose her song while participate the singing cantonese when were asked to perform cantonese song on stage. Recommended song: 离家出走, 大哥.

This is another girl called 泳儿. Nice and powerful vocal and a bit like Faye Wong.The wide range of vocal gives her a big space. She is a Singaporean in fact. Recommended song? 告白,感應，巴不得。

You might not agree with me. But this is just what I wanna share. Believe it or not? They are shining now.