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Showing posts from February, 2014

My Hair Story

When I was a young boy, I used to sport a head full of thick hair.  It was so thick and coarse that the Indian barber I used to patronise as a boy had to exert little more pressure to comb my hair.  My late father had thick hair, my late uncle too.  Even on my maternal side, none is bald to the best of my knowledge.  Why am I bald?  Beats me, I have no answer either.  If there is any solace, my two younger brothers have also started to bald albeit at an older age. I started to notice receding hairline when I was in my mid 20s.  Did I panic?  Of course I was hell panicky.  The first thought that came to mind then was how to get a girlfriend if I am bald.  I was in the customer service industry and impression counts most too.  Svenson was the answer to my plight.  I was recommended a 10-course treatment that cost me a cool 4-figure sum and that did not include the special shampoo and condition which were charged separately.  It was heavy on my pocket as a young wage earner.  I did not

Not Always A Nasty Customer

As frontliner in the service line, we are likely to encounter nasty customers which is part and parcel of our job - like it or not.  Still on my good old days with KLM in the swinging 80s, such encounter was a norm to us and it remains so till today whoever that duty personnel is.  Suffice to say, our job was quite mundane but the different encounters at the check-in, arrival hall and boarding gate made our job interesting. During flight preparation for each departure, we used to assign seats requested by our passengers.  Some wanted buck-head seats for more leg space or to install bassinet for their infants, some wanted aisle, some window, some smoking and some non-smoking, so on and so forth.  In a full flight situation, it is definitely not possible to meet all requests and most passengers would understand.  It can't be helped when the first station and in our case, Jakarta took up most of the the popular seats and that left us with limited choices.  We used to be at loggerh

Multiracialism In Malaysia

Note from me: This article was taken from the blog of the 4th PM of Malaysia (http://chedet.cc/?p=1210) who penned his views on multiracialism in Malaysia.  I wish to state that I am not his supporter as most of his views are draconian to say the least.   Quote 1. Malaysia is a multiracial country. It is multiracial in the true sense of the word. This is because Malaysian nationals retain their identification with their countries of origin or where their forebears came from. In no other country with a large number of citizens of foreign origin do we see this retention of previous identities. 2. Initially, during the time of negotiation between the communities for independence, there was some expectation of assimilation into a single Malayan identity. But the resistance was too strong and the leaders gave in so as to get every race to support the quest for independence. Not only should the original identity be maintained but the language, culture and media of instruction in sch