Today I'm recovering from a hectic 3 day Eid Adha celebration just like many others. On Thursday night, I spend the evening at Masjid Putrajaya, the administrative centre of Malaysia doing the usual stuff on the eve of Eid Adha. After some prayers, I listen to talks and got home way past midnight. In between I marvel at the beauty of the grand Masjid since it was my first time there. The aircond concealed within the columns just like those at the Al-Haram in Saudi Arabia. Situated by a lake, the cool air, the beautiful tiles and marbles, vast surrounding provides an almost perfect ambience to worship God. It has got a nickname the Blue Mosque of the East and its really (plural) awesome. The Government must have spent millions to build, and millions more for yearly maintenance utilising taxpayers money and since that was made for everyone's use I don't consider that wasteful. If I can save 10 sen, I will, but if I need to spend RM 1000 to achieve an objective, I will too. Change comes at a price albeit the opposing views that consider its spending as wasteful. Due to the opposing views change must be managed and planned.
On Friday my wife and I decided for a weekend drive and visiting. After visiting our eldest daughter who is at boarding school at the Raub, a small town about 150 kilometers north east of Kuala Lumpur, we took the jungle road leading to Fraser Hill and passing small towns of Teras and Tranum. Raub, Teras and Tranum are situated on Titiwangsa Range and together with other small towns at around 25 kilometers apart, the ambiance feel like those small towns at the Hills of Cotswold in United Kingdom or Adelaide Hills in Australia with Fraser Hill being the main tourist attraction. I'm glad to see that change is not needed and instituted at such places and time seems to stand still. Almost every town is situated beside a natural stream. After a bite of fried banana and a hot local coffee at Fraser Hill we started to descent. I saw a few orange eagle, part of migratory birds resting and enjoying the sun here escaping the harsh winter of their homeland that are China and Russia. Those birds comes to Malaysia and many made their way to Indonesia starting October and will fly back home starting March. We pass the construction of a dam along the way to Kuala Kubu Baru. The dam is to solve the water shortage for some areas in the Selangor State now. I'm sure there are a lot of legal and illegal expats working there. Just like the migratory birds they are making changes either to escape harsh environment back home and to enjoy a better life here. The construction of the dam is helping them and their families. If not they wouldn't be here. If we don't construct and provide jobs for bricklayers, a child in Acheh in Indonesia or Dacca in Bangladesh may not have breakfast before going to school. Gone are the picnic areas but that has to accommodate for water needs of the more urban people. I reminisced those days when I and a friend used to bring our families there and watched our kids jumping off into the cold stream. Change also means we may have to forgo a certain situation to accommodate the needs of a larger population. For that reason change is needed and justified. We stayed overnight at a motel in the countryside.
On Saturday morning, after Kuala Kubu Baru we entered the North South Expressway at Tanjung Malim and exit at an ex-mining town of Gopeng before proceeding to Batu Gajah. Gopeng and Batu Gajah about 200 kilometers north west of Kuala Lumpur, were a major tin mining areas about 50 years ago where Malaysia used to be a major exporter of tin in the world. The local government seem to have spruced up the Kellie's Castle and the Kinta river that flows beside it is very clean. Nowadays the towns of Gopeng and Batu Gajah are transforming themselves into tourist and education centres. I guess the tin mining activity has finally gone into the history books. Fortunately tin miners now can turn to mining oil or involved in tourism and education. Since there was no objection from locals and other stakeholders, the change must have been instituted with the approval of all the stakeholders with minimal resistance.
We had tea with an uncle who retired at Batu Gajah and headed back Kuala Lumpur thereafter. We purchased some honey guava at Tapah for the other kids (they seem to have their own agendas nowadays). We arrived Kuala Lumpur around 9.00 pm and received news that Dubai World is having some trouble...
Dubai World is like our very own Khazanah in name. With the oil wealth, they build the world's tallest building, a ski resort in the desert, man made islands and invest in properties from New York to Last Vegas. The strategic pressure points was the revenue from oil now account for only 10% of gross domestic product and dwindling and thus Dubai need to be transformed. However it is being transformed into a major metropolis within a very short period of time. To achieve that and with a population of only around 500,000 they import expatriates 5 times their population. They also finance the development with debt. With that comes the risk for the change which may result in pitfalls of the change plan. When the world economy slowed, demand for their properties and revenues from tourist dwindle. With less demand means less revenues than projected. Thus Dubai World is now seeking their debtors to reschedule or defer payments of their loans. Like any other slowdown, Dubai World will certainly emerge from its recession, but in meantime they will need to learn the risk especially the unsustainable debt and deal with the breakdown in the change process.
Message about change between the lines above are bolded.
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