Kota Kinabalu

Kota Kinabalu, capital city of Sabah, the Land below the Wind. It has seen tremendous changes over the years. When I set foot here forty years ago, it was just a small town with narrow trunk roads. Today it can boast of flyovers and dual carriage ways.

Where previously shops were located in double storey shophouses along the streets, today there are several large modern shopping malls, with more in the pipeline. There is the UMS, the university which has an enrollment of more than 10 thousand students, both local and foreign and many colleges have sprouted to cater for the demand for higher education.

The standard of food has also improved. I remember when I first came to Kota Kinabalu or by its moniker KK, there was only satay kerbau, no satay ayam. I found the food hardly palatable then but today, there are a few commendable restaurants that serve delicious fare and also offer fresh seafood. Some hotel restaurants have fare to titillate your tastebuds.

There are also many hotels to cater to those who have different

budgets, from 5 star to 1 or no star. Many tourists come to KK

because it is a beautiful small city with lovely beaches and closeby offshore islands where they can

indulge in water sports or even walk underwater, holding onto a rope to watch the denizens of the sea and the beautiful corals.

The proximity ( about one and a half hours' drive ) of the highest mountain in South East Asia, Mt. Kinabalu, a world heritage site, offers a different kind of experience altogether. Those who are fit can climb the mountain and view spectacular sunsets from the peak. In fact, there is a mountain race each year where participants come from different countries. I believe the record is less than 4 hours to run up and down the mountain. The ordinary person will require 2 days to climb up to about 12 thousand feet and spend the night in the resthouse before ascending the summit in the early hours of the morning. After watching the sunrise, he will then descend the mountain with a certificate that vouches for his conquest of the mountain. There is also a golf course on its slopes for golf enthusiasts. Tight fairways and hilly terrain make for challenging play. Make sure you have plenty of balls before you begin your game!

Within Kota Kinabalu itself, there are 3 golf courses where tourists can play, the Sabah Golf & Country Club, the Kinabalu Golf Club and the Sutera Harbour Resort. In fact the Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese have said that it is much cheaper to fly to Sabah to have a holiday and play golf than playing in their respective countries, so prohibitive are the costs of the sport. No wonder we see so many Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese tourists.

They come for the golf, the food and the beaches. Travelling by air is very affordable now with the advent of low cost carriers that compete for the tourist dollar. Some offer free seats while others offer very low fares. It is the customer's market as he can pick and choose the airline with which he wants to fly.

Every Sunday, the main street, Gaya Street, is turned into a pedestrian mall (from 6:00 am to midday) where one can choose from a plethora of goods to buy. There are a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, flowers, clothing and bags, plants, herbs, puppies, kittens, birds, aquarium fish, local cakes and pastries, gardening tools and fertilisers, top soil, different types of rice grains ( hill rice, brown rice, etc ), trinkets, antiques, seashells and pretty white corals, handicraft, music cassettes, cds, etc., etc.....

There is even a station along the five foot way where nurses will check your blood pressure for a nominal sum that goes towards some fund. Coffee shops along the street do a brisk business as people go for their favourite local breakfast of noodles, cooked in different ways.

For those who have not been to KK, this is a lovely place to visit and to relax. It will be a holiday you will not forget for a long time.

Goodbyes

Goodbye! Bye! See you again! Voices ring out at leave taking, confident of meeting up again. What if there is no more meeting up? What if your number has been called and out of the blue at that? Friends look at the obituary, shocked into silence at the unexpected departure of someone they had met a short time ago.

If there's an illness, there is time to prepare for the imminent goodbye. There is time to rally round the invalid, a time of sharing and bonding albeit a sad experience, knowing that with each day, the time available reduces by the hour. Sometimes the loved one is able to communicate, sometimes communication is impossible as she lapses in and out of consciousness, a drug-induced stupor.

Watching a loved one waste away into skin and bones is painful. We can never know the extent of her suffering or pain. How can we ever presume to know what she is feeling? Sometimes a light touch is agony, as in the case of bone cancer.

It is no surprise then that family members often shield the invalid from visitors as privacy is jealously guarded. We do not want outsiders to see the extent of our loved one's suffering and debilitated appearance. It can be a brutal shock to see the difference between a robust healthy person and the skeletal frame that she has been reduced to.

Yet we should allow friends to say their goodbyes. It is presumptious of us to prevent our loved one from seeing the friends who have come to visit. How can we tell whether or not she wishes to see them? At least her friends can see her for the last time and if there is a need, to make their peace. Goodbyes have to be said. There should be a closure.

I was not given a chance to bid my dearest friend goodbye. All contact was forbidden and it was a most painful experience, not knowing how my friend was faring although the last time we spoke, he said he was feeling much better. However the reedy sound of his voice told me otherwise. My strong and healthy friend had been sapped dry by the disease in his body. I knew it was only a matter of time but I could not reach him again after that brief telephone conversation.

I only heard of his passing from another friend and the shock was so great it literally floored me. The beautiful timbre of his voice had been stilled. My heart bled for the loss of my classmate. Memories of our youthful days flew before me like a slideshow...... I could not believe he had passed on. It was hard, very hard to hide my grief but I had to for ours was a very special relationship. All along we never said goodbye because we knew there was always another time. Even this final goodbye where he shed his earthly form is not goodbye as he still lives within my memories. We will meet again for there are unresolved issues between us. It is a matter of time.

A time to love,

A time to live,

A time to say goodbye,

A time to die.

A time to meet again

In the great beyond,

There you wait,

There will I come.

Back at last!!

My good friend and golf kaki (golf buddy) has come back at last!! She had returned to Taiwan last December and is now back in Kota Kinabalu.


She is most happy and relieved to be back as she missed the open spaces and good air quality here. We couldn't wait to return to the golf course where we usually have our morning round of 9 holes.

She says the atmosphere in the area where she lives in Taiwan is not conducive to restful sleep at night and by day the noise of the traffic and the crowds make her realise how beautiful Sabah is by comparision. The open spaces, the quality of life always make her want to return to Sabah whenever she is in Taiwan.

This morning we had our round of golf but not the full 9 holes as we wanted to take it easy on our first day's game after a long layoff of three months. It was a beautifully cool morning, the ideal weather for golf. The fairways were quite wet and the grass quite long as there had been heavy showers every afternoon lasting for a few hours. It's quite difficult to pull a trolley with a bag full of woods and irons plus balls, on wet ground. It was a very, very enjoyable morning although my ball did not go very far for the first few holes. The grip, the stance, addressing the ball etc..... these were rusty already.

However Tina got her game in place very quickly and had a decent score.

Me?????? Don't ask!! I played more like a newbie to the game. Anyway it's more for the exercise.

The doctor said that brisk walking builds bone density and this is why we complete our 9 holes in less than one and a half hours!! Our balls are always on the fairway so we don't waste time looking for them and we walk very fast, pulling our trolleys. This lets us build up strength and I believe it also helps our cardiovascular system.

Our home course, the Sabah Golf & Country Club, is very beautiful and it is a walking course although a buggy track has been built to accomodate those who wish to use buggies. When the weather is hot, and the fairways dry, we are able to take the buggy on course. This makes playing 18 holes a pleasure as the course can be very taxing if you walk all the 18 holes as it has very undulating fairways.

Walking uphill is no joke when you are pulling a trolley

with a bag filled with 14 clubs and at least 6 balls.

On certain holes, it is quite easy to go OB ( out of bounds) or lose the balls in the ponds. When the ground is wet, the ball can get plugged and can't be seen if the grass is long.

After a round of golf, we usually feel very fresh, despite being tired. We usually go our different ways after cleaning our equipment and rinsing the mud from our shoes, cheerily looking forward to another round the next morning. We tee off as soon as there is enough light to see where the ball lands, the only two early birds of the fairer sex. The rest are the male of the species, most of whom also pull their own trolleys. There are less than a handful of caddies at our club but that's no problem as buggies are available.

How safe are we?

A few days ago there was a report of a horrendous attack on a housewife by her live-in maid. She was napping when the maid attacked her with a stool and pestle, breaking a few of her ribs and cracking her skull before stabbing her with a knife. Her left ear was almost severed. After the attack, the maid left the house to fetch the twin boys from school!

This lady is very lucky to survive her injuries. Her wounds required more than 100 stitches at the hospital and the maid has been arrested for attempted murder.

Malaysians are in the enviable position of being able to hire maids to do the housework and mind the children. The majority of households have a maid, whether or not the lady of the house holds a job outside the home. Maids are obtained through recruiting agencies thus they are total strangers when they come into your home.

Come to think of it, having a person who is a complete stranger in your home is risky and also foolhardy. We know nothing of her character and her predispositions, yet we put our home into her charge and our precious children too. In households where both husband and wife are working, they have no choice but to trust the maid to perform the tasks that they are entrusted with. If they have an elderly person in the home, they are very lucky as the maid can be supervised.

Some take their maids and children to their in-laws' homes so that there is an element of supervision and their minds can rest easier that their children will not be abused in their absence. Minding small children can be a trying experience, especially if they are very precocious and hyperactive.

Others install hidden cameras to monitor the maid.

Time will tell if the maid turns out to be trustworthy or otherwise. There have been stories of maids who stole, who abused the facilities in the home and worse, whose abusive behaviour has been recorded on camera. Swopping stories of their maids is a common topic among women at any gathering

We had a very good maid once. She worked for us for about 12 years before she finally returned to Indonesia. She ran the house very well and we could go on holiday without any worry as she was absolutely trustworthy. After her we had a few maids but none could measure up to her. Some of those who passed through our home were horrors. They stole, they lied, they abused the use of the telephone. The last one we had, spent most of her time on our landline, running the bill up to more than a thousand dollars. We had gone on holiday and our daughter who works full time trusted that the maid would do what she was supposed to do. Unfortunately that was not the case as on our return home, we found that she had sacked the maid.

It was only later that we discovered that the phone bills were missing. She had disposed of them and when we got a notice that our phone line was to be cut, we found out the maid had been making many phone calls during the day while she was supposed to be working and one call to Indonesia had cost more than RM400. Just that one call!! The rest were to mobile phones. My houseplants had withered as they had not been watered at all. This maid had been with us for two months and she left us with a very hefty phone bill.

Now we have decided that we will not have a maid. My daughter tells me that there is substantial savings in the consumption of food and other household items. We used to run through 10 kg of rice and a 3-litre bottle of cooking oil every month. Now the same lasts us at least 3 months!! I am puzzled as to how the extra person could amount to such a difference!

That aside, the issue of personal safety is really a cause for concern, now that there are cases of maids abusing their employers. One case was that of a maid abusing a senile old lady under her care. She hit the old lady's head until her eyes were swollen and there were also bruises on her.

One can never tell when a maid will turn violent. I'm sure many people will not rest easy at night after reading of the housewife's traumatic experience at the hands of her maid who had been working for her for almost two years. She certainly didn't anticipate such a horrific attack.

As my friend shuddered and said, " You dare to employ a maid now????"

Salute Housewives!

The past year, I've been in a role that I never thought I would find myself playing........ that of a housewife.

I had been working for the greater part of my life as an educationist and housechores were not my domain. Neither was cooking and serving up meals for the family. However, life took a different turn when my daughter decided that we were better off without a maid that was more trouble than a help.

I eased into the role of keeping house and rustling up meals for the family. Mind you it is not easy juggling the chores plus having my own time for the things that I like to do. Getting up early to start the washing machine and then off to the golf course for my morning round of 9 holes. It is a pleasant surprise to find that the clothes are already hanging on the lines when I get home, either the work of my super efficient daughter before she sends her children to school or my spouse after his morning walk.

A bit of tidying up the house followed by a leisurely breakfast while skimming the newspapers...... then preparing the stuff to boil soup for the evening meal. After that, it's going online to check for email and forwarding interesting reads to other friends.

What next?Donning my hat and sunglasses, it's out into the back garden to bring in the clothes that have been baking in the very hot equatorial sun, folding them and bringing them upstairs where later each family member will pick up and keep their own clothing. Know something? Shh..h.....I'm very lucky to have a spouse that does the ironing for me!! He he he! Bet some women will be envious! So that's one chore less.

Then it's time for lunch. We usually lunch out as it is too much of a hassle to cook just for two people. Besides, I do not have a great reportoire of menus and will definitely run out of ideas on what to cook if I have to cook twice a day. After lunch it's getting the Star newspaper. I don't know why we get the Star only at lunch time while the New Straits Times is readily available in the morning. Sometimes we get it only at around 3 pm. Not many places sell it either. Hubby insists on the Star.

By mid afternoon it's time to prepare for dinner after which we go out to fetch the grandchildren home from school. They attend Chinese medium school and three times a week school ends at 4pm. They also have school on Saturdays. So need you wonder why the children from Chinese medium schools fare better than their counterparts in the national type schools?

These are the mundane tasks that repeat daily and I must say that they are certainly less than what most housewives are doing. They would not be playing golf in the mornings but would be busy cleaning the house and preparing lunch. Besides the ironing would also be part of their daily workload. Knowing how tired I am by the end of the day tells me that other housewives would be totally exhausted as they have so much more to do than I. My daughter does all the washing up after dinner and cleans the kitchen daily. She is a very helpful and loving daughter and she gets someone to come in for a few hours each week to do the heavy chores of mopping the floors and cleaning the windows and toilets. So thankfully I'm spared these backbreaking chores.

A housewife's work is never done. The umpteen things that need her attention, the cleanliness of the house inside and outside.....all these she does without complaint day by day, without remuneration which any other worker would receive monthly. Child rearing is another of her responsibilities. I've seen mothers waiting with their children for the school bus in the early morning and then waiting by the roadside in the afternoons to receive them when the bus drops the children off after school. Rain or shine, they wait patiently for their little ones.

So we should salute all housewives. These wonderful women and mothers who multi-task work very hard so that family members have hot meals to come home to and unwind after a day's work. Their love for family is the oil that keeps the wheels of family life going smoothly. Sunday March 8th is International Women's Day. It would be good to recognise these unsung heroines who are often taken for granted.

Relationships

Relationships.......that's what life is about....mostly..I guess. Come to think of it, our relationship with our parents is already established when we are still in mother's womb. Have you seen an expectant mother? Did you notice how radiant she is, eagerly anticipating her baby's arrival? During the time she nurtures her baby in her womb, she would have spoken to him/her countless times. Even dad-in-waiting.... he would have joined her, talking to their baby as he strokes his unborn child through his wife's swollen belly.

We strike up relationships during childhood, school days, college days, at workplaces and even wherever we happen to be..... shipboard romances, holiday trips...etc . Some of these relationships thrive and last a lifetime, others fizzle out along the way. It takes time to build a relationship.

There are friends, and friends......those who will stand by you through thick and thin, and those fair weather friends that disappear once you are in need. How true the saying, "A friend in need is a friend indeed".

Relationships go through ups and downs, be they sibling relationships, family relationships, boy-girl relationships, adult relationships.

During adolescence boy-girl relationships can be agonising or up in seventh heaven or plain rocky like a boat in the swells of the sea. Whatever, these experiences stand us in good stead as we mature into adults and enter into relationships with the opposite sex, one of which will ultimately end in matrimony.

Dating is a fantastic experience. Have you dated and found yourself in trepidation, waiting for your date, wondering if the plans you've meticulously made for the evening will come to fruition? I remember in my younger days, while I was in post-secondary school, it was a condition ( terms & conditions laid down by dad!!) in my family, that if any of us ( my sisters and I) had a date, ( usually going to the movies, in those days ),we had to have a chaperone in the form of a little sister. Some of my friends were good; they adhered to this without any fuss. However there was one guy ( this was in my university days... my dad was ultra conservative!!! ) who objected to my little sister going along and he kicked up a fuss with the result that I refused to go out with him. It was just a movie...!!!! And my sister would sit with me, so what was the big deal?
Anyway that spelt the end of that friendship, even though he tried to apologise with chocolates and flowers through third parties.....heh,heh! Hey, a girl feels insulted, you know.

Speaking of flowers and chocolates, I remember while I was at college in the UK, my local date ( read "Ang Moh" or Mat Salleh ) surprised me by giving me a posy of flowers and a box of chocolates when he came to fetch me for an evening at the theatre. I was impressed. My Malaysian dates never gave me flowers nor chocolates when we went to the movies. However we did have supper after the movie and usually "tah pau" ( bought a packet of noodles ) back for my mum and siblings.

Relationships that end in matrimony are the beginning of another phase of one's life journey. Having tied the knot most couples expect their marriage to last a lifetime, until death unravels the relationship. Sometimes it is not always "happily ever after". In the distant past, whether a marriage was solid and successful or otherwise, divorce was not an option. There was stigma attached to one who has been divorced, especially the female spouse. Society was chauvinistic then. However these days, divorce is very common.

Should a relationship not work out, both parties simply opt out, sometimes with disastrous consequences if there are young children involved. I wonder if either partner ever thought of the impact divorce has on their children. Granted one party has custody and the other, visitation rights but what of the child's psyche? He has known from young, the stability of a home with two parents, the security of knowing that mum and dad are always there and all of a sudden, this is no more. The fear, the insecurity, the anxiety that assails him and the fact that he has no words to verbalise his feelings and fears damage him and negatively impacts on his development and growth. All too often we have encountered youngsters from broken homes, whose potential has been inhibited. These youngsters have been shortchanged by their parents who could not sustain a loving relationship nor a working one.

Relationships have to be nurtured. Even those that appear solid can be the worse for wear and tear. I just read a woman's magazine that offered suggestions on how to put the "oomph" back into jaded relationships. Top of the list is "our time", just for the two people involved. It suggests a getaway to a place that will bring back the romance of earlier days, such as an idyllic beach resort & spa where one can relax and romp as in a second honeymoon!

Another suggestion was to surprise your spouse with little acts of thoughtfulness to show that the flame is still alive. Better still, saucy romps in the bedroom after the kids are in bed, of course. The rest is left to one's imagination. Excitement and anticipation will be key under the circumstances. However, there is always the niggling "what if..". What if my spouse doesn't react the way I anticipate? What if...... and so it goes. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. There's only one way to find out. Do it!!! And bring back the magic and the stars.