Chow YN – Page 3 – A Learning Journey

Revisiting a 2010 story on Malaysians’ Water Usage & Conservation

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Commentary:

This article was first published in March 2010. In view of the current water supply disruption experienced by folks residing in the Klang Valley, I think that a reminder to be mindful of water conservation and careful usage is timely. Commentaries based on more updated findings etc. are inserted in the article below and highlighted accordingly.

As most of the newspaper articles cited in 2010 are no longer easily available online, luckily, I have curated the originals and shared these from my Google Drive.

Interestingly, the National Water Services Commission (Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Air Negara – SPAN) has published water consumption data overall for different states in 2015 and 2016. For 2016, the overall domestic consumption was 6,495 million litres per day (MLD), a rise of 217 MLD compared to 2015’s figures. Thus with a population of 31.634 million in 2016, 205.32 litres per capita was consumed per day in Malaysia.

It seems that we are still way ahead of our neighbours in our excessive consumption of water! It seems we had moved only slightly (less than 20 litres per capita per day) since 2010 when this figure was 225 litres per capita per day!

Water Consumption 2015 – 2016 (source: http://www.span.gov.my/index.php/en/statistic/water-statistic/water-consumption-2017)

Water Usage & Conservation: How do Malaysians fare?

written by Chow Yong Neng at 2010-10-17 12:34:50, revised at 2011-12-29

On the Sunday’s edition on 3rd Oct 2010, the New Straits Times (NST) published a very interesting headline article on how wasteful Malaysians are in our usage of water. The article drew mostly from “The Domestic Water Consumption Study”, which was a research collaboration between the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) and the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry.

The most striking fact that came out of this report was that on a daily basis the average Malaysian, despite our lower industrialised status, is using 225 litres of water, which is 71 litres (or 45%) more than our Singaporean cousins (at 156 litres) and a whooping 135 litres (or 135%) more than our Thai neighbour (at 90 litres). [The same message on our excessive usage habit was highlighted again in March 2011 in the Star.]

A look at the water usage data as depicted in the pie chart of the NST article revealed 17% of the usage of water is indeed wasted on leaked pipes. Now what the article did not reveal or it could be that the study did not have sufficient coverage of, is how such leakage have been classified. As without a detailed knowledge of the the types of leakage, it will not be possible to gauge how much of the 17% wastage can be saved by the consumer. This is because the leakage could have occurred in pipes and water conducting system from the source prior to the supply getting through to the households. However, the author thinks that a large proportion of this wastage could have been due to leakage that occurred inside the households. And the bulk of those affected may not have any of such knowledge as the sources of leak may be due to pipes that are buried in the gardens or on pavements leading to the house. Thus to stem this leakage, a lot of focus should be placed on educating the public on how to spot these leakages.

(Image source: http://www.nst.com.my/articles /Wat-erwaste/single)

The article also quoted Fomca’s President, Datuk N. Marimuthu’s comment that Malaysians waste a lot of treated water to flush toilet and that a dual-flush cistern system can save up to 60 litres of water per day for a household. However, realistically speaking, many people who are living in older houses or apartments will have the single-flush cisterns and the re-fitting of these will only be possible if there is a need to replace the cistern system and dual-flush system can only be attractive if the price of installation is equal or cheaper than the traditional single-flush system. Thus on the “toilet” front, what can we, as consumer who are environmentally conscious can do? For a start, there has been many ideas on saving cisterns water by putting in a small plastic bottle (a used shampoo bottle, preferably 500ml or less) that is filled with water and put inside the cistern. This will mean that the amount of water to fill the cistern is reduced because the volume is now partially occupied by the shampoo bottle. This may not be applicable in some cases where your cistern is not easily accessible….but with the shampoo bottle trick being a sort of “one-off” project, this should not be a deterrent to anyone with the initiative!

The separation of treated water for drinking and untreated for toilet flushing will surely be the way forward but it will require substantial policy change and political clout to compel those in designing and building houses and apartments to install such systems. Of course the authorities controlling supply of water will also have to be in the position to supply both treated and untreated water in their systems. The second factor is more difficult to achieve as it will require substantial reconfiguration of piping of water and installation of new piping systems.

So how do we find a way to save water usage on flushing toilets? Or more specifically, how can we have two supplies of water, one treated and one untreated for flushing toilets? In Malaysia, the only economically viable solution to have treated and non-treated supplies of water is to collect rainwater. Again, this collection of rainwater to be used as untreated water for flushing toilets can only be viably applied to new housing projects and commercial developments as it again involved having the necessary changes to the infrastructure to collect, store and distribute this second source of untreated water. However, having said this, it is still possible for those living in landed houses to do some collecting of rainwater for washing cars and for gardening. In this case, health and safety considerations have to be invoked so that the very act of saving water usage does not result in the spread of mosquitoes that leads to diseases like dengue fevers! There are many examples of innovations using basic tools and materials: a collecting tank (covered), some pipings to convey water from your rain gutters, a crude filter to remove debris (dead leaves and related stuff) and simple fish tank water pump to pump water up to a second tank in the roof or similar high places….then all you need to do is to wait for the rain to come to fill your lower tank.

Malaysians are car lovers, so it will be a great achievement indeed if we can persuade car owners to use recycle or untreated water to wash their cars! This, the author thinks will deserve another study to determine.

A few years ago, it was shown that in Japan wash basins are routinely piped in such a way that they can feed the cisterns of toilet directly with the waste water. This means that the water used with the wash basin (in most cases are for washing of hands) will fill up the connected cistern tank of a toilet thus reuse the water at least once more. Thus if we adopt the same idea in Malaysia, it will definitely contribute towards a substantial reduction in the demand for treated water to flush toilets. With clever re-positioning of the waste water outlets to feed a cistern (which may involve re-positioning of the cistern as well), this idea can be easily implemented.

Japanese water conservation wash-basin-on-cistern (Image’s source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gjones/4398413098)

The author still remember as a young kid of 7 or 8 years old visiting Singapore for the first time in the 1970s that his aunt was keeping water used for washing clothes and using it to flush the toilet. It was his first experience of water conservation & recycling! But the modern lifestyle in urban Malaysia nowadays with automatic washing machines for clothing which accounts for a massive 22% of water usage in the country being a reality, it will take great innovation and a lot of education and political will for us to change this lifestyle to cut down that 22% usage to something more respectable. Firstly, it will need the policy makers to compel manufacturers of white goods to re-design their washing machines to consume less water and to do some recycling. But this may not be easily implementable or will only make an impact if the current crop of washing machines are replaced, which will take at least 10 years. The current designs of washing machines do not make it easy to harvest the water discharged, especially the those automatic washing machines. This is because all machines demand that the user place the discharge hose flat on the floor or directly into the waste water discharge hole in the sewage system and the collection of this water is very difficult indeed, unless one is placing the machine on a platform a couple of feet higher and let the waste water drain into a water tank or build a waste water tank below floor level. Putting these practical issues aside, it seems that the best potential for Malaysians to reduce the use of water is to recycle the washing machine water for flushing of toilets…..even if we can half the 22% usage to 11%, that is still a great deal of water. Perhaps it may be the most obvious way for the authorities in Malaysia to tackle water wastage issue, but the structural changes to new home designs (which is relatively easy to implement and “green-design” is helping to sell new housing projects) and some clever innovations on how existing landed property owners can easily and economically adopt such changes are badly needed. However, with many households in the country having relatively low water bills, the immediate incentive for any of such measures is difficult to be demonstrated.

One question that lingers in the mind of the author is: why Malaysians are so wasteful when it comes to the usage of water? Is it because of the cost of water supply being so low? Is it due to the fact that we are spoilt by our being fortunate enough to have abundant supply of water and have no notion of conservation of water? Has the experience of water rationing in 1998 lost from our collective memory? All these could be, in singularity or collectively be the reason(s)!

Perhaps we all should look at Malta where there may be an impending water crisis by 2025 to realise that if we do not do something now, eventually we will have to face the same problem. The fact of the matter is that the Maltese currently only uses 76 litres of water per capita [this figure was revised upward to 135 litres per capita per day in 2013]. Even with re-distribution projects being in place to pipe water from Pahang, the Klang Valley (according to the most optimistic statement coming from the current Menteri Besar) will be in water crisis by 2019, 6 years ahead of the Maltese!

How long more are we to be taken for a ride?

I sympathize with fellow Unifi subscribers who also subscribe to Astro’s satellite TV broadcast and like me, are forced to pay for an IPTV service that they clearly do not need. I think it is about time the Malaysian Communications And Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism (MDTCC) look into this unfair practice of TM. It is because TM has a sort of “captive” market where it provides the last-mile for most household’s internet service that it can afford to mistreat subscribers like me, forcing us to pay extra for IPTV, that we have no option to terminate, providing substandard selection of channels and gets away with it.

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I was working on a WordPress project on my computer for a friend-cum-client on a hot afternoon very recently. Suddenly my mobile phone rang.
The caller ID showed that the call was from somewhere in the Klang Valley. I picked up my mobile phone. The conversation, conducted in Bahasa Malaysia went something like this:
“Mr. Chow, you are a current subscriber of Unifi internet service, correct?” asked the lady caller. She went on the identify herself as calling from Telekom Malaysia. I did not catch her name.
“Yup, I’ve been on Unifi since 2012,” I replied.
She then went on to try to sell me an “upgrade” to my current Unifi broadband internet service.
“It costs only RM10 for you to upgrade from your current 30 megabit package to 50 megabit,” the lady said.
“I don’t need an upgrade, I want to stop my subscription to UnifyTV because my contract is long over and I do not need this IPTV service and don’t want to pay for something I don’t use,” I replied firmly.
“Mr. Chow, you can’t. The IPTV subscription comes packaged with your Unifi broadband service, you just can’t detach it” she replied.
Needless to say, I was not too pleased with the information. There was no sale for her!

Can’t detach IPTV subscription from broadband’s

In fact 3 months before this, I did go and downgraded my IPTV subscription from RM50 per month (the “old” Jumbo pack) to the cheapest package of RM30. I wanted to terminate my IPTV service but I was told by the counter staff about the same thing – my broadband subscription is packaged with the IPTV subscription.
Consumers like me are shackled to an IPTV subscription that we do not want. In that occasion, after filing in my complaint of being forced to pay for a subscription where there was a periodic cancelling of channels with no replacement channels for my subscribed package (the latest incident happened in July 2017). I was told that someone “senior” from Unifi will call me to discuss the matter within three days, their “standard operating procedure”, I was told by the young man. Customer service is never TM’s strength. The call from this “senior” person, needless to say never materialized! I was none the wiser on the rationale for being shortchanged (sudden reduction of IPTV channels) and unable to detach the IPTV subscription.

Was told detaching IPTV possible at end of contract

I sympathize with fellow Unifi subscribers who also subscribe to Astro’s satellite TV broadcast and like me, are forced to pay for an IPTV service that they clearly do not need. Worse, there is no explanation from Unifi of why even after the initial contract is over that we still have to pay for something that we do not need? I was given the impression when I subscribed to Unifi in 2012 that upon the cessation of the initial contract, we would have the option to terminate our IPTV subscription. Clearly this has not been the case.
The stability and speed of my so called “broadband” internet can only be described as “patchy”. For a 30 megabit line, one would have expected a relatively stable bandwidth at all times. No such luck. Every evening, one of my security webcams will have its “status light” blinking. This means that it is working but having trouble connecting to the home wifi network. I doubt upgrading to 50 megabit will solve the problem.

No longer “shackled” to home phone number! Now can switch!

If not for the fact that I would have to live with a change in the home telephone number a few years back and the fact that Maxis broadband internet’s performance reputation near my neck of the woods is not stellar (in fact it is not much different from TM’s!), I would have switched already. Time dotCom which has been giving a much bigger bandwidth in Penang (where I lived for 2 years previously), if it eventually decides to make the effort to extend from USJ 6 to my neigbourhood of USJ 9, will surely get me as a subscriber. The house phone is seldom used anyway so it will not have much of a disruption if the telephone number is changed or if we do away with it altogether!

Will the power that be take action?

I think it is about time the Malaysian Communications And Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism (MDTCC) look into this unfair practice of TM. It is because TM has a sort of “captive” market where it provides the last-mile for most household’s internet service that it can afford to mistreat subscribers like me, forcing us to pay extra for IPTV, that we have no option to terminate, providing substandard selection of channels and gets away with it. None of the other two major competitors, Maxis and Time force their customers to pay for an IPTV package.

Mushrooming of private schooling options in Malaysia, what are the pitfalls?

With the much longer duration of stay compared to college students and that the greater impact of early education on a person’s development, it is vital that children, especially those enrolled in learning centres outside the purview of the Ministry of Education, be given better consumer protection. Hence tighter governance of these learning centres is badly needed.

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My article on private school education in Malaysia has just been published in Feb 2018 edition of the Selangor Journal. In this article I posed a few considerations that Malaysian parents of school-going kids must think through if they’re contemplating on “going private” and opined that “more choices need not necessarily lead to better options”

The difference in governance between school and college sectors

I think because historically there have been a multitude of political implications due to policies on higher education, this sector is very tightly controlled by the government where there are six notable Acts of Parliament governing the industry, namely:

The Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996 (ACT 555 which has been amended a few times with the latest version being published since Dec 01, 2015);
The Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (latest revision: 2012);
The Malaysian Qualifications Agency Act 2007 (latest revision: 2017);
The National Council For Higher Education Act 1996 (latest revision: 2006);
The Educational Institutions (Discipline) Act 1976 (latest revision: 2006); and
The Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional Act 1997 (latest revision: 2006).

In contrast, after an extensive search of the website of the Attorney General’s Chamber of Malaysia, I could really just find the Education Act 1996 (latest revision: 2012) which governs the entire pre-school, primary to secondary school sectors.

Tighter control over private schooling?

The proliferation of private schooling options over the last five years has resulted in Malaysia having 423 such institutions under the purview of the Ministry of Education. I think the governance of these 423 institutions is well set out in the Education Act 1996 and the many guidelines etc. that have been developed over the years. It is the mushrooming of homeschooling centres and tuition centres offering foreign secondary school curriculum that seem to escape the radar of the power that be.

Even for the higher education sector which has six laws governing it, there were many notable instances of the consumers (parents and students) being short changed. Thus for a sector like the homeschooling and iGCSE tuition centres that has been very loosely governed, in my humble opinion, there will be cases of the consumers getting a raw deal soon.

Longer duration of stay of the schooling sector

Higher education players typically have their students studying with them for between 2.5 to 5 years and their students are technically young adults, most of whom are aged 18 and above pursuing diploma (2.5 years in duration), pre-university (1 to 1.5 years in duration) and degree (3 – 4 years in duration). As young adults, college students are much better than their younger counterparts at schools to fend for themselves and to know their rights and obligations of the institutions of higher learning that they are enrolled in.

In contrast children will receive typically two years of preschool education, six years of primary education and at least five years of secondary education, making a typical duration of stay in the private schooling institutions of 13 years, that is 2.5 to over 5 times the duration of stay at the higher education sector.

Hence with the much longer duration of stay and that the greater impact of early education on a person’s development, it is vital that children, especially those enrolled in learning centres outside the purview of the Ministry of Education, be given better consumer protection. Thus higher rigour in governance of such private homeschooling centres should be considered by the power that be. Unlike physical goods, you just cannot undone or “return” inappropriate schooling received!

[You can get a hardcopy at selected Giant Hypermarkets and the town council office (I couldn’t get hold of a copy as yet!). But if you want to read it now, you can download a copy here: http://bit.ly/SelangorJournalFeb2018 ]

Learning to “read” classical Chinese paintings

This piece was extracted from one of the final assignments of a Massive Open Online Course, China Humanities: The Individuals in Chinese Culture from Harvard University that I have just completed successfully. In this essay (which this post is derived from), I tried to interpret the painting named “Fish and Fish Hawk” by Zhu Da (朱耷) (1626-1705). I was elated when my essay was one of the work picked up by Professor Peter Bol, the lead academic for this MOOC for the final discussion of this course!

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Learning Chinese humanities from the best

This piece was extracted from one of the final assignments of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), China Humanities: The Individuals in Chinese Culture from Harvard University that I have just completed successfully. I have gained immensely from this MOOCs, learning from top professors from Harvard (and free too!). One of the intriguing new knowledge that I picked up is from Professor Eugene Wang who introduced to us “how to read” classical Chinese paintings.

In this essay (which this post is derived from), I tried to interpret the painting named “Fish and Fish Hawk” by Zhu Da (朱耷) (1626-1705). I was elated when my essay was one of the work picked up by Professor Peter Bol, the lead academic for this MOOC for the final discussion of this course!

**The interpretation of Zhu Da’s “Fish and Fish Hawk”**

I have chosen Zhu Da’s “Fish and Fish Hawk” or more simplicisticaly translated as “Bird and Fish” painting. A image of the painting (shown below) can be found here: http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/painting-zhu-da-fish-hawk.php

What’s depicted

At first glance, this painting seems to show a hawk, which is interpreted as fish hawk by some, as a predator eyeing a fish swimming away from it (to the bottom left of the painting). The fish, with its eyes focussing upwards, seems to be aware of the imminent danger but it is pretending not to notice the fish hawk and thus making its escape as unnoticeable as possible but to no avail. The sense of helplessness on the part of the fish is evident. The fish hawk in fact has spotted the fish long ago and could pounce on the fish as and when it wishes! The predatory hawk is perching on a tree devoid of leaves, reminiscent of the “Cold Grove” style which in this case showing that the season could be late autumn or early winter. Thus it seems odd that, firstly a fish would swim to the surface in cold weather and secondly, it is also unusual to see fish hawk seeking prey, not in warmer weather but in the cold, desolate landscape.

How I “read” this painting

I think “Fish and Fish Hawk” is an important Zhu Da’s work as its hidden meaning could depict the life story. Zhu Da, as a direct descendant of the royal family of the former Ming dynasty living under the shadow of the Qing rulers has to tread very carefully in order to survive and not present himself as a threat to the new rulers. In fact, his bouts of seemingly insanity and his seeking of a monastic life for 40 years are his ploys to present himself as a harmless, eccentric or even mad and thus “worthless” descendant of the former royal family and hence he poses no threat to the Qing rulers at all. All along, like the fish in his painting, Zhu Da knows that he will be under the watchful eyes of the officials of the Qing rules as depicted by the fish hawk. After around 40 years of such “play-acting”, and perceiving that the Qing government’s lack of interest in him, Zhu Da only dared to leave the monastery to live a life as an artist. Zhu Da’s use of 八大山人(ba da shan ren) or “mountain man of the eight greats” gives two interpretations, both serve to cement his personality and political predicament. Firstly, as pointed out by some commentators, if one views Zhu Da’s signature of 八大山人 written vertically on his paintings, the words laughter (笑） and cry （哭） can easily be depicted. Secondly, by using the term 山人 (mountain man), he is telling those monitoring his actions that he is resigned to a rustic life, a life in the mountain, literally speaking and thus poses no threat to the Qing government at all!

In this painting, it is obvious that the predator, fish hawk represents the power-that-be or one of its functionaries which is watching over the scene tightly, even during the winter months!. I think Zhu Da depicts himself as the prey, the fish which is trying its best to get away quietly from the predator, but fully aware of the fact that he is not out of danger as yet. The fish hawk could strike at any moment!

As traditionally, fish hawks have been used by fishermen to help them to catch fishes. The presence of the fish hawk could also depict that the predator is under the “employ” of the Qing ruler, it is han jian （汉奸）, a traitor among the people!

Relevance to present day

This painting is relevant to life today as many people, inclusive of people living in seemingly democratic nations are feeling just like Zhu Da did… where “big brother” is always watching. In our case, the surveillance for perceived threat to the power that be is extended now to social media realm and virtually all electronic communication too. We also feel like the fish, wanting to escape but not able to do so quick enough, knowing that if we make the wrong move we could be in serious trouble! The desolate scene depicted by Zhu Da also signifies the economic hardship felt by the poor denizen of the world, with a high unemployment or underemployment, income that has not really rise up for ages and real inflation eating daily into the living standard of the people.

Final thoughts

Obviously I am not an expert in classical Chinese painting but merely a very junior learner. I shared my work with these intentions:

Promoting lifelong learning via MOOCs.
Informing my readers about this free (well auditing is still free) learning from a top university & top professors.
Encourage more people, especially those who are Chinese Malaysians who, like me, do not have a good grasp of the Chinese language, culture or humanities to take up this MOOC in the next offering (in fact this MOOC is open till Mar 2018 and you can still enroll and complete it if you work hard, like me!).

After this MOOC, I will now look at Chinese paintings, or more like “reading” these with a different mindset!

The simplest of solutions may be the best

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I have made it a habit to routinely scan the feed of the business social medium platform, Linkedin for updates, news and sharing of articles etc. from my 500+ contacts. It is amazing what you can learn from your Linkedin contacts these days. One of the many learned friends from Linkedin platform who has consistently sharing great articles is Jason Schrott, CEO of Gateway Education USA. I picked up lots of updates, reviews and news about higher education, especially in relation to higher education sector in Asia by simply reading what Jason has shared! It is therefore not surprising that this article was inspired by Jason’s latest post about Greek universities using blockchain technology (aka the technology that drives the now almost ubiquitous cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin) in order to secure the authenticity of college testamurs.

A novel way to use blockchain technology

The Greek universities, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Democritus University of Thrace and Athens University of Economics and Business embark on this open source pilot project using blockchain platform in order to provide a transparent system for their graduates to proof the authenticity of their academic credentials electronically and securely. The article also mentioned that with the use of this technology, not only will the authenticity of the testamurs issued by these three universities be secured, prospective employers and just about anyone wishing to authenticate the academic credential of graduates of these universities can do so electronically and thus will no longer need to contact the respective universities for assistance, saving time and resources.

During my stint helming a university college from 2015 to 2017, I faced precisely the same problem of how to secure the authenticity of the testamurs issued to graduates from fraudulent usage. We received almost two to three enquiries per month from prospective employers and companies doing background verification of candidates for employment. Without a good and foolproof system of systematically checking and verifying academic credentials issued by my institution, the very reputation of not only the institution but that of all the alumni and current students would be in jeopardy.

Microdot printing is great but expensive & not easily available

I remember learning from a former colleague who ran a high-tech printing firm about the magic of microdot printing technology whereby authentication codes etc. can be easily hidden among the letters and symbols etc. that are usually printed on a document. However, after two weeks of relentless, but fruitless search for a vendor with this technology (and I was subsequently advised by the same ex-colleague of the high cost of the security feature), I had decided to abandon this technology all together.

A tried-and-tested “offline” method

It was around January – February, in early 2015 that I suddenly remembered what I had to do in order to officially graduate from my alma mater, Queen’s University of Belfast. I have a better memory of this process than most people as I happened to have to go through the same process three times during my eight and a half years of studies at Queen’s, for my Bachelor, Master’s and PhD degrees! The process was simple, a graduand will only be recognized as a graduate if he/she register his/her academic attainment at the Registry of Queen’s. All graduands are obliged to seek out the services of the Registrar (or his/her authorized deputy) who will verify and authenticate a graduand’s academic records and attainment before allowing this graduand to sign on a big book (two feet by one foot in size) which serves as the roll of graduates. The entry will only be valid if the signing by the graduand is witnessed by the Registrar who will countersign on the relevant space. Thus a graduand will be deemed to have graduated if she/he has completed her/his entry into the roll of graduates successfully. And it is this roll of graduates which is the definitive proof of one’s graduate status. Hence this process is totally “offline” and will not be subjected to “hacking” as the roll of graduates is kept securely by the Registry.

Needless to say, I emulated my alma mater’s process and only spending a few hundred ringgit to “custom-make” a few volumes of the “big book” (my version was a bit more modest in size, about 1.5 feet by about 1 foot). Although this created a tried and tested system of using a physical roll of graduates, it still did not solve the problem of how to ensure the authenticity of our academic testamurs issued to graduates. Without the use of microdot printing technology, fraudsters can still reproduce almost identical testamurs or if blank testamurs fall into the wrong hand, it would be like giving away an “open cheque”! Thus, I had to ponder how I could solve this problem without spending a lot of money which would not endear myself to the Board of Directors!

Finding the “hidden Mickey” – that’s the key!

When my children were growing up, they liked to watch Disney cartoons on TV. I remember one of their favourites was a cartoon that had a very participatory feature called “spot the hidden Mickey” where viewers are given scenes from different cartoons and their job was to spot any sign of the classic Mickey Mouse’s head, symbols etc. “Why don’t I put in a “hidden Mickey” in a different spot for each year’s testamurs?”, I told myself.

Thus I quickly talked this over with the lecturer who produced all the artwork for the institution and we decided to “hide” a hidden message within the watermark of the testamur’s design. We would change the “hidden message” every year and “hide” this in different spot thereby replicating the key security functions of the microdot technology. However, this is still not fully secured as anyone who has stolen a “blank” testamur of the relevant year can still defeat our security feature.

Employing the embossing method with a unique seal

The final security feature was in fact, the simplest. All testamurs have to be embossed by a seal of the institution, that is the ‘standard practice” in all institutions. This embossing is usually done on a big circular shape on the testamur itself. However, anyone with the “right” determination can spend RM200 to “clone” our seal. Thus I needed something more. I went on to seek the help of an expert in Chinese calligraphy, none other than the head of my institution’s School of Chinese Studies, to create a text of the institution’s name in Chinese using a font that is not easily emulated. We then made another smaller seal with this Chinese calligraphy. This second seal would not have a “fixed” spot on the testamur but rather its position will be rotated among a number of “possible” locations, which will be different for each year of issue. To top it all, we would be having the Registrar or authorized Registry staff handwrite the graduate’s student identification number at the back of the testamur.

The system created and employed by my former institution cannot be fully “automated” as in the Greek universities’ using a blockchain platform. But, unlike our Greek counterparts, Malaysian colleges cherish the opportunity to network with prospective employers who need to contact us for verification/authentication of our graduates’ credentials. We also need to get as much information on our graduates employment prospect as possible and the best people to have the answers are these prospective employers!

The simplest solution is the cheapest and most effective!

Thus, by spending just around RM500, I created a simple solution that could defeat most but the very skillful forger. We do not have to rely on high technology solely to provide a solution. To guard against calamities, I had put in a process of taking photographs of the roll of graduates each year and storing these in the cloud, relying on Google Drive with access shared by key staff only. As Google “never forgets”, I think even if our roll of graduates is lost in a fire or a flood, the records are securely kept in the “cloud”. In my case, the simplest of all solutions is the cheapest and may be the most secured too!

Is PTPTN out of the woods yet?

My former senior colleague, Mr. Yeap Boo Yam, formerly the Chief Editor of the online news portal, theantdaily.com had kindly invited me to contribute one article to the relatively new publication, The Selangor Journal recently.

Mainstream press missed the forest for the tree

The topic of my article was a commentary on the performance of the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) where I noted this was glaringly missing from all mainstream reports when figures on PTPTN were released. Everyone seemed to be fixated by the magic 410,500 bad debtors who never repaid a single sen! No one cared to notice the tremendous difference that the stringent (or more like “industry standard practice”) debt recovery efforts coupled with the barring of bad debtors leaving the country had on the debt collection figures.

As a student of higher education management, I started to collect historical data on PTPTN’s performance and was able to pull these out to compare PTPTN’s performance for the last 11 months. The funny thing is, why PTPTN could not publish a report card regularly and why do we have this seemingly odd “11 months” data rather than a yearly figurs to make comparison more valid?

PTPTN’s fund is for local studies only

Lately, there has been some talk of, in view of PTPTN’s greater recovery of debts, to consider giving loans to Malaysians for overseas studies. In my humble opinion, this is beyond the scope and duties assigned to PTPTN. PTPTN’s main role is to make sure that the playing field, as far as access to higher education is concern is made as level as possible for all eligible Malaysians. PTPTN’s main mission is therefore to ensure that qualified student should not be kept out of universities or colleges because he/she comes from an underprivileged background. We have collectively 500 plus colleges and universities (both private and public) providing academic diploma, degree and higher level studies where most, especially those in the private sector are chasing after students.

College “seats” are not being filled up. Partly this is due to a cut back in PTPTN funding in November 2014, especially severe for the private sector. I feel that the priority is to maximize PTPTN’s pool of funds for local tertiary studies where the cost of degree studies is a fraction of what you can buy overseas (principally in the West). Anyone aspiring to study overseas should be free to do so but at his/her own financing. PTPTN, I feel should be reserved for students who are enrolled in local institutions of higher learning ONLY! One needs not go overseas for a degree if one does not have the financial means to do so since there are plenty of local alternatives, many are just as good academically as their overseas counterparts.

Putting my money where my mouth is

My wife and I practiced what we “preached”, we paid for our son, Leland’s entire 3 years of studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln using our own savings. Leland found work on campus to help pay for some of his expenses to help to lessen our burden. If for whatever reasons that we were not able to fund this, our son could have had the option of remaining at SEGi University to complete his Bachelor degree, after all, our son was awarded a full tuition-fees waiver as a scholar of SEGi University in 2013. The fact that we “broke the bank” in so doing (the US$ went from US$1=RM3.20 to touch US$4.50 at its peak during our son’s studies, adding 40% to the total cost) was a consequence that we had to accept and had to bear in order for our son to experience living and learning in the USA. We are still “nursing” a “sizable” bank overdraft and we still owe my elder sister for the US$9,000 that she loaned us! That is the price we had chosen to pay (and the kind help we received from our sibling). We would never expect PTPTN to help us in any way at all.

The Selangor Journal – a ‘hot’ item!

It seems that The Selangor Journal is an hot item at the various distribution points and I could not get hold of a copy till Mr. Yeap gave me one today! A photograph of my article is provided below.

The difference between interruption and interference?

As managers, we should worry more on the outcomes or outputs of a project or a task. We should leave it to the wisdom of our team members to figure out how to accomplish that. We should interrupt to check on progress, to offer guidance or just a give a word of encouragement. We should never interfere in how our team members get the job done or if they are doing it “in our way”.

When I was young, my family sometimes had more than one dogs in the house. I would always be fascinated by the behaviour of our dogs during feeding time. I learned animal behaviour & instinct at first hand: when it comes to food, dogs do not take kindly to interference from any party, me, the young master, was of no exception. I tried experimenting on our dogs feeding sessions by either taking a portion of the food from the feeding bowl of one dog and putting it to that of another dog’s or taking the bowl of one dog away and adding more food. In either cases, the interruption in their feeding frenzy or the interference by redistribution of food portion were rewarded by growling of the affected dogs! I learned the basics of dog’s feeding behaviour: neither interruption or interference were tolerated!

How do human handle interruption and interference in learning?

Personally, especially during the time I was teaching college students, I welcomed interruptions from my students during lectures and especially during laboratory classes. When I was a university student, I would like my doubts on a topic being taught by my lecturer cleared up as soon as possible (preferably during the class but in most cases I had to “ambush” my lecturer after the session had ended). Often the abstract concepts being taught would require a grasp of the key facts before one would be in the position of understanding the entire topic. Thus as a lecturer, later in life, I really did not mind being interrupted during class, especially if the interrupter had questions / doubts related to the subject matter. However, I would not take it too kindly if someone interfered with my teaching such as talking loudly in “competition” with my attempt to have the class’s attention or similar noise pollution from the next door classroom.

Interruption is good, interference is a devil!

When I worked as the assistant to a tycoon, I often received a 3-lines memo from him to put together a business proposal. The deadline usually was two weeks. It would take me a few days of desk research to gather the required information to commence work. I would not write a single word until I had constructed a concept map of the business proposal and find ways to interrupt my boss’s schedule (by stealing a couple of minutes in between his appointments) to get a confirmation on the outline and key expectations of my boss. Next, I would commence working on the financial projections of the proposal and would, if anomaly was found, seek further guidance from my boss. Although I was given two weeks to complete the business proposal, I normally would have on hand up to half a dozen more “cases”. It would be my boss’s habit to check on progress regulary. Usually three to four days after the confirmation of the concept. Again, I welcome the interruption as it gave me a chance to reconfirm the direction of my work and to allow me to suggest modifications / additions if appropriate and most of all to seek help if I could not find sufficient information. Because of this “structured” way that I worked with my boss, who often would tell me that I had not two weeks, but seven days to get the job done (due to external factors), I rarely had to work too late to complete my work and often did so ahead of time.

My boss, being a good manager, had never once in the nine years that I was with him, interfered in my work such as telling me how I should commence my work, how I should write, etc.. Instead, he was only interested in the end result, that is a good business proposal, the “path” that I took to get this done was immaterial to him so long as I produced the “goods” in good time and in the expected quality.

When I became the leader of a university college a few months after my stint with this tycoon, I adopted the same strategy. I would assign projects and tasks to my team but would not interfere in the course of their work. I made good use of my personal assistant to interrupt and check on progress for me. I would roll up my sleeves to help if anyone was stucked. My team soon learned to adapt to my working style and most would volunteer to update me on progress or to seek my guidance if they faced obstacles in their work. What I could not tolerate was someone sitting on an assigned task, making excuses for their incompetence, sheer laziness or their lack of a sense of responsibility. I am glad to recall that, for my two-years stint, I had only really given two individuals a good dressing down on their lack of professionalism.

Black cat or white cat, it makes no difference!

I think all managers should learn to appreciate these wise words of the great Chinese stateman, Deng Xiaoping, “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.”

As managers, we should worry more on the outcomes or outputs of a project or a task. We should leave it to the wisdom of our team members to figure out how to accomplish that. We could interrupt to check on progress, to offer guidance or just a give a word of encouragement. We should never interfere in how our team members get the job done or if they are doing it “in our way”. We must always remember that there are more than one ways to skin a cat. We should never “sweat on the small stuff” but always have the big picture, i.e our goal, in mind!

There is no certainty in life, but you can make things more certain!

Urgent things may not be important but must be taken care of “urgently” such as the kettle boiling! But important things, though must be made more certain to be done on time, may not be urgent enough for one to drop everything, especially “urgent things” to do. “By-the-way” things are really not urgent and not important so that you will do this only if you have made certain that the important things and/or urgent things that you are supposed to do are “made more certain” of happening!

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When I was studying for my G.C.E “A” levels in a small English town of South Shields, in the North East of England back in 1981/82 I asked my chemistry lecturer, Dr. Ian Chalmers this question, “Dr. Chalmers, how sure are you that this will not come out in our A levels examination?”

I learned very early on that in national examinations, adherence to the syllabus when setting examination questions was the standard practice and hence I studied only what was in the syllabus! Thus when Dr. Chalmers decided to skip a small part of the Chemistry syllabus, I was naturally anxious.

“Mr. Chow, in life, death and taxes are the only certainties!”, answered Dr. Chalmers smilingly. This was really eyes opening for me, back then as a 19-year-old.

Of course my ole lecturer was right, nothing is certain in life but you can do something to make it more certain! In our case, I guessed correctly that the bits that Chalmers missed would not be asked in the examination for some reasons and the only way I would be more certain to do well was to study harder, which I did and scored a respectable Grade B!

It is important to distinguish something that is urgent,from those that are important and finally those that belong to the “by-the-way” category.

Around 1997, I was serving as a senior staff of a college in Klang. We had a collaboration with an independent Chinese school and were summoned by our director to meet him at his office in the business district of Kuala Lumpur (KL) for a 3 pm meeting on this collaboration. My team member JMJ whom I had instructed to get the college’s vehicle so that we could all carpool to KL was to be the driver. Traffic condition in KL of the late 1990s, due to the construction of the Twin Towers and monorail, was chaotic. I waited over an hour for JMJ to pick me up from my home in USJ en route to KL, a trip that would have taken just 35 minutes during off peak hours. By the time he picked me up and reached our director’s office, we were an hour late. JMJ, upon my questioning told me that he had to wait a long time for one of our colleagues somewhere in Klang who was just hitching a ride to KL with us! In this case JMJ did not think rationally, he did not know that his and my presence on time at a meeting with one of our “boss’s bosses” was both important and urgent and hence to be made “as certain as possible”. Instead, he concentrated on the “by-the-way” hitch hiker resulting in yours truly, as his superior, having to take the brunt of the rage from the director of the college.

So when my wife told me that she would send me to take the LRT to my usual weekly visit to my client at 10 am after her yoga class at around 9 am (or it could be 15 – 20 minutes later, she said) each Thursday, to be more certain of my reaching the client’s place as promised on time, I declined. I rather leave the house much earlier, at 8:15 am, walk 18 minutes to Taipan LRT station so that I would be more certain of reaching Kota Damansara via the Lembah Subang LRT station and feeder bus T807 before my appointment!

Thus, urgent things may not be important but must be taken care of “urgently” such as the kettle boiling! But important things, though must be made more certain to be done on time, may not be urgent enough for one to drop everything, especially “urgent things” to do. “By-the-way” things are really not urgent and not important so that you will only do this (such as giving a lift to a colleague en route to an important meeting) if you have made certain that the important things and/or urgent things that you are supposed to do are “made more certain” of happening. Quite a mouthful, I must admit!

I hope after reading this, my readers are more able to classify tasks / things to do etc. into these three categories and treat them accordingly.

A juggle between studies and on-campus jobs

How does a college student balance studies and part-time work? This is a story of Leland Chow who went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on a shoe-string budget and how he managed to get on-campus jobs to save enough fund for him to visit different parts of the USA without bankrupting his parents!

Commentary by Chow Yong Neng, PhD.

My son, Leland Chow wrote this piece for Han Chiang News in October 2015. I am republishing this here as most of my readers would not have had the chance to read this. Although he does not have to suffer the anxiety I had when I was at Queen’s University of Belfast (counting pennies & wondering if I had enough ££ to pay my tuition fees), I always reminded Leland that our budget was limited and he has a younger sister whose higher education cost would be much higher than his (she being 4 years younger). Hence Leland had to budget well & make the best of his time at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (UNL). If he wanted extra funds for trips or gadgets, he would have to earn it himself. UNL’s Global Laureate Scholarship which covered 60% tuition fees for Leland made possible for our tiny budget (made 40% smaller due to the devaluation of the Malaysian Ringgit since 2014) to stretch just enough to cover over two years of studies for Leland.

Well Leland has completed his studies in December 2016 and he had made several trips to different parts of the USA during his time at UNL, all paid for from funds he made working on campus. His is a classic example of how students pursuing tertiary studies can make the best use of their time and not bankrupting their parents!

Leland returned to Malaysia in late July 2017, after trying for months looking for a job in the USA without success. Currently he is back in the USA for two weeks to attend TwitchCon 2017 at Long Beach, California (a convention for broadcasters on the Twitch platform). This trip was made possible by the funds raised by Leland’s community of Twitch fans and friends who pooled together over US$1,500 for him.

Leland’s first journey to the West was in August 2014, I had written an article about how much work and preparation one has to do if one is planning to go to study in the USA.

By Leland Chow

Malaysian Ringgit has been very volatile for the past few months, causing the currency rate between the Ringgit and the US Dollars to hover around RM4.40 (until recently, where it dropped to around RM4.20). Hence, when it was time for my parents to send the money for my tuition fees, they had to face the burden of the weakening Ringgit and sent less allowance, telling me to be thrifty although most of my money is usually spent on food. Fortunately, I have not faced a huge financial burden in terms of allowance as I do have on-campus jobs here.

I currently work as a tutor and a campus tour guide in the university. As an international student in the US, I can only work up till a maximum of 20 hours per week when classes are in session, and 40 hours per week during holidays, including summer. However, as both of my jobs do not require that many hours to work, I could easily fit the both of them in my schedule without any worries. Therefore, I work as a tour guide during the day and a tutor by night.

As a campus tour guide, I give tours to prospective students and parents around the campus, where I have to walk all around campus, show them important buildings, and the essential purposes and usages of the buildings. I am generally not an active person; hence, the tour guide position suits me best as I get to do some leg exercises early in the morning! Besides, I have to also walk backwards as a campus tour guide, which seems very unusual at first, but can be easily mastered after a few tries.

On the other hand, as a tutor, I give advice and provide help to students in a learning community. My main focus is the lower level Math classes, but I also tutor Finance, Economics, and Communication Studies. In order to tutor a subject, I have to obtain an A in the subject, and also maintain a 3.5 GPA. This is different from other tutoring positions on campus, as the tutors here (at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, UNL) only tutor students in the William H. Thompson Learning Community, which is a learning community for students in the Susan T. Buffett Scholarship (set up by the wife of the investment guru, Warren Buffett who happens to be an alumnus of UNL).

During the past summer, I worked full-time on campus as a conference assistant for the university. As most residence halls were closed during the summer for students, conferences that take place also required accommodation for its guests. Because of this, the residence halls were converted into conference halls for guests to stay throughout the summer. I worked at the front desk which mainly involved checking guests in and out, answered questions, ensured their safety by conducting rounds around the conference halls, and most importantly, made sure that guests were satisfied with their stay at the university.

All of these positions require me to possess different skills and qualities, and I believe I have learned a lot taking on these various jobs. Some people might wonder if I am able to balance my academics and work at the same time. I can confidently say that I can.

For instance during last summer, I worked a full-time position and took 2 classes at the same time. I managed to obtain As for both subjects. This shows that with good time management skills, we can succeed both in academics and in work. My on-campus jobs also work around my class schedule and club meetings, so it is easy to study, work and play without sacrificing a lot for any of them.

Finding an on-campus job is definitely not difficult. It just requires some effort and time put into the search. I highly suggest talking to friends or professors, or even looking up at the campus career services website. These methods have helped me in finding on-campus positions, and I believe many people, especially my fellow Malaysians here, would agree with me on this.

Cover photo from http://conferenceservices.unl.edu/conference-assistant-staff (the author was situated on the 2nd roll, the 4th person from the right)

Is the new Google Sites functional enough to replace the “old Sites”?

The 10-months-old revamped Google Sites still has a long way to go to match the functionalities of “Classic” Google Sites that it is supposed to replace. “Classic” users will be very reluctant to migrate due to the lack of functionalities in “New Sites”.

When I first ventured into the freelance consulting business, I had to watch my budget. Back then (in 2007), Google was very generous in providing a cheap domain name registration and just launched Google Apps (which is known as Google Suite now). For US$10 a year, not only could I get a domain name registered, I was given a suite of web apps that were great for a start-up consulting business like mine. I had, three domain names registered and did up all three websites using Google Sites, slc2u.org, powerof3consultants.com and ~~slc4u.org.~~

In fact, you do not need to register a domain to use Google Sites, anyone with a gmail account has access to, and is able to publish his/her own website using Google Sites. It is just that, without your own domain, you will need to rely of Google’s assigned domain, something like, https://sites.google.com/view/testing-new-sites/home which is not easy to remember and hence not great for business usage.

Google Sites Classic was simple but functional

Although “Classic” was not as flexible as WordPress (that has to be hosted by a web hosting company and costing a lot more), if you compromise a bit, you will be able to live with its shortcomings and utilize its many features (which are free!). “ Classic”, though a bit fiddly , does have many useful features, among other things, it allowed a website to be created, mapped to my domain relatively easily. It did not like “scripts” to be inserted but if you are just needing a simple website to do business with, “Classic” will do. There were also a lot of “gadgets” created by users that conferred greater functionalities to websites created using “Classic”. Sadly, many of these once powerful gadgets have now faded or no longer functional.

Revamped Google Sites to replace the aging “Classic”

Just over 10 months ago, on Nov 22, 2016, Google announced a full revamp of the Classic Google Sites )”Classic”). A TechCrunch article infer that “New Sites” “is now a product people will want to use. It finally feels like a modern applications and not like the last vestige of Google’s old and forgotten design principles.”

As I was content with “Classic” for the past 10 years, I did not bother to check out the “revamped” Sites till now. It is not “scientific” of me to take TechCrunch’s words for the truth and thus I spent some time tested “New Sites” out.

Test driving “New Sites”

As my web hosting deal for one of my domains hosted with Mochahost will end in November 2017, I had decided, a few days back to migrate this domain name mapping back to Google Suites and what better time than to test drive the “New Sites”. Though “New Sites” has many user-friendly features, I had discovered that it was more rigid in many ways compared to “Classic” and decided to revert to “Classic” to hold the landing page for my domain name. Nevertheless, I had set out to give the functionalities of “New Sites” a good checking over.

To show how the functionalities of “New Sites” work, I had to bring my readers from this blog (hosted by WordPress.com) to my “New Sites” hosted by Google Suite. Readers will see for themselves what I meant when they visit my test site.

I suggest that my reader visit my test site first then return to this article to see if you agree with my take on “New Sites”.

The Good of “New Sites”

Very easy to use.
Integrate almost seamlessly with other apps in Google Suite (Sheets, Docs, Slides, Calendar and Form) and other Google’s apps such as YouTube, Maps etc..
Dynamic adjustment of image size.
Ability to put text box anywhere and mix this with images easily.
Each section / segment of a page can have its own background colour (but only yellow) or image.
Via “Embed URL” you can create a “frame” in your website and embed another web page so that your users will not need to navigate away from your site.
Much neater looks and feel compared to “Classic”.

The Bad of “New Sites”

The ease of use of “New Sites” does come with a price…. Editing flexibility and functionality are curtailed.
You have virtually no choice of fonts (well you can choose only three each from the six themes available). At least “Classic” gives me 6 different front & I can apply any font to any section independent of each other.
You cannot change the colour of the text font or highlight your text.
Captions for images are not integrated into the image and you cannot use a different font for captions
A lot of functionalities of “Classic”, especially to do with domain name settings etc. are either missing or hidden from users when you are using “New Sites”.
No choice of whether you want sitemap or not.
Features of “Classic” such as using a page as a Web page, Announcement, List, or File Cabinet are missing, restricting its use. Announcement is especially important as some use it as a news page or even blog page.
No “gadgets” available, thus I could not for instance RSS this blog to my websites if I migrate to “New Sites”.
Sites are now stored with Google Drive and not their own dedicated storage under Google Sites (sites.google.com) as in “Classic”. If like me, you have thousands of files in Google Drive, organizing files for “New Sites” is that much harder.
And the list goes on…..

Who/when one should use “New Sites”?

Because of the ease of use of “New Sites” coupled with its almost full integration with Google Apps, “New Sites” will be great for situations where one will need to put up a website quickly.

For example, a lecturer or teacher will be able to put up a site to share with her/his students images, links and even full Google Docs / Sheets. A social group can easily embed a Google Form in “New Sites” for instance to let members register for an event. “New Sites” is also very useful when a company’s usual website is suddenly nonfunctional (DOS attacks or problems with the web hosting company) and an emergency site has to be put up.

Should “Classic” users migrate to “New Sites”?

TechCrunch mentioned that Google may want all “Classic” users to migrate to the “New Sites”. Will I be willing to do this? At present, my answer is ABSOLUTELY NO!

Well not until all the existing domain name handling and editing features of Google Docs (or at least the old “Classic”) can be made available to users of “New Sites”.