Stephen Hawking

Prof. Dr. Stephen Hawking died on 14 March 2018 in Cambridge. He was said to be the greatest scientist since Einstein. I won't say any more about him here as so much is written on the internet. See BBC obituary

However I did attend one of his lectures. On 16 Sept 1994 he gave a talk at the PWTC in Kuala Lumupur, Malaysia. A friend gave me a ticket so I was lucky enough to get a seat. There were more than 3000 in the audience, the biggest turn out for a scientific event.
This photo is taken from The Star

A filepic of Hawking, on stage in KL, facing the 3,500 audience just before delivering his lecture at the Putra World Trade Centre in Sept 1994.

KL taxis worst in the world

So what's new!!!!!!!!! Anyone who uses taxis in KL would know this!

Many of the vehicles are in appalling condition, old wrecks, dirty, smelly with poor air con. Sometimes the driver smokes between ride.

There are however some new taxis on the road. But sometimes those are scary for a different reason. Some of the drivers now use mobile phone aps. Although the phones are usually mounted on the dashboard, some drivers spend so much time looking at them that they forget to look at the road.

This report in The Star 2 July 015 "KL cabbies the worst, says UK taxi rating site ".

Silvered langur monkey in Kuala Lumpur

At dusk I heard the birds shrieking in the trees outside my kitchen window and to my huge surprise I saw a monkey sitting in the tree. It was eating and seemed unconcerned by the birds. Unfortunately it was getting dark and I wasn't able to take great photos.

I assumed it was a long tailed macaque but when I looked at my photos, I realised it is a silvered langur, Trachypithecus cristatus. It was on its own. I have no idea what it is doing so close to the city as normally these monkeys are found in coastal or rivers. There are plenty at Bukit Melawati at Kuala Selangor and those are a tourist attraction.

 

 

According to the IUCN Red List it is 'near threatened' and only occurs in Peninsula Malaysia along the western coastal strip.

 

 

 

 

Lim Lian Geok memorial, KL - Chinese educationist

Some time ago, when I was taking photos in the Kwong Tong cemetery in Kuala Lumpur, I made a point of looking at the Lim Lian Geok memorial. This is at the start of the cemetery near the Alice Smith School. At that time I didn't know anything about Lim Lian Geok, who is regarded as the most revered Chinese educationist in Malaysia.

In April 2015, Hong invited me to join him on a visit to the LLG memorial in KL, so I readily agreed. This memorial is at LLG: 89 & 91, Jalan Maharajalela in KL, not far from the Chinese Assembly Hall.

We were given a tour of the exhibits about Lim Lian Geok, housed on the 4th floor. The displays were in Chinese, Malay and English.

Lim Lian Geok, (1901-1985) was a revered Chinese educationist and was the pioneer of the civil society movement in Malaysia.

He arrived in Malaya in 1927 but then went to Java for a while and also back to China.

trunk with clothes used by Lim

 

He was a teacher at the Confucian School in KL from 1935-1961. In 1951 he was active in the protest against the Barnes Report that wanted to abolish Chinese and Tamil schools. This led to the formation of the United Chinese Schools Teachers' Association and Lim became president from 1953.

Extract from the Barnes Report / Education Ordinance 1952

In his Hari Raya Aidifitri message in 1956, he said "Every ethnic community should be accepted as a member of this nation's family, equal in their rights and in their national duty. They should share the nation's abundance and stand together to face all challenges in building a strong and sound nation."

At that time he was a supporter of Malay mother tongue eduction.

He wanted all citizens of Malaya to be united and work together to build the nation. He advocated that Malayan Chinese must be loyal to the country and the Chinese school text books must reflect the true situation in Malaya.

Lim was aware of the socio-economic disparity between ethnic groups and that those groups lagging behind was due to the colonial government's economic segregation policy. Believing in equality he urged the government to address this difference.

He was opposed to the 1960 Razak Report and 1961 Education Act that required all secondary schools to teach in English or Malay.

As a result, his citizenship and teaching permit were revoked by the government due to his strong
opposition against conversion of Chinese secondary schools. 54 out of 70 Chinese schools converted to 'national type secondary schools'. However he refused to return to China.

When he died in 1985 his funeral procession in KL was the largest ever seen for any Malaysian Chinese. He was honoured by the Malaysian Chinese.

In his honour, the LLG Cultural Development Centre was set up. One of their objectives is "To promote mother tongue education and foster traditional ethnic cultures".

The last part of the display is a long way with 'cartoon' pictures depicting the history of Malaya during Lim's time -

See more on the LLG Cultural Development Centre.

Christmas 2014 at Mid Valley & The Gardens, KL

The Christmas 2014 decorations arrived in Mid Valley and The Gardens at the end of Nov.

The Gardens decorations are quite elegant, reminding me of an old fashioned type Christmas. However it also resembled a fashion show

 a designer dummy !!

 

 

Mid Valley in contrast had a fun theme, called 'Christmas Fairy Tails'.

Before the display was completed there were some wagons, however these don't seem to be in the final version.

The trees are very colourful but it was also nice to see traditional fir cones and red berries.

The Fairy Tails -

These scenes are also very colourful but are more like spring than winter with huge bluebells
and other flowers

sunset over Kuala Lumpur

There were some gorgeous colours on the clouds just before sunset this evening, 6 Oct 2014. The haze had finally cleared quite a lot.

But the next day the haze was back, thick and smelly.

Sunset over KL in May

On 5 May 2014 there was a wonderful sky during sunset. Where the sun was sinking the sky was an orange colour. On the opposite side in the east the sky was still quite bright. In the middle it was really dark.

These are panorama shots taken on the camera

The camera then got confused and would no longer take a complete panorama, it kept stopping when the light/dark contrast got too much