Kung Hi Fa Chai!!

Around the corner from where I am the line formed to buy the Nasi Kandar 'Beratok' (line-up) is loaded with the late night or early morning customers with fancy cars lining the street mostly from outstation. The now quite famous outlet annexed to the Main Gate of the Kapitan Kling mosque is where it is happening for those who enjoy Penang's specialty, the nasi 'Kandak' Mamak. This morning there were a mixture of late night party goers and early morning workers headed for whatever business that lay ahead for them and down the road on Chulia Street towards the Weld Quay, El Kapitan and Kassim Mustafa are aslo doing brisk business at this wee hour in the morning. Towards Armenian street the Chinese are busy setting up what looked like the entrance into 'China Town' getting ready for the show of another ethnic Chinese celebration, a part of the New Year activity but more so than ever. It often makes one wonder if all these is to please the Gods or to attract tourism or is there much difference anymore in the intentions.

I woke up in the middle of the night after a good few hours of being wiped out by two Actafest Panadols which helped me to be oblivious to the mosquito invasion of my body. It is an invasion and and already the talk of the village if not the city, this infestation by the most infuriating of insects, the mosquito. Like, Hey!, suck my blood, but why the obnoxious whine around my ears to announce this keeping me awake all night and not to mention the intch you leave behind! If mosquitoes can carry deseases, this city is up for a rude awakenning and so far the health department is playing the usual denial and how come we dont know about it attitude. Someone will write in th papers soon enough to complain but usually action will be taken only if the Chief Minister deem it necessary, usually when his wife gets the itch or his children comes down with malaria or better yet Dengue or whatever new illness that is going around related to mosquitos. The reactions towards this infestation would be 'the fogging' and the spraying of chemicals which is hoped would scare away these tiny tyrants from one area into another and carried out by the MPPP after receiving orders to do so from higher ups which is usually is slow in coming because they usually are not affected by the phenomena. These are the people who sleep in airconditioned bedrooms!
Where I live is the Sungai Pinang and River Road enclave, the situation isgetting from bad to worse especially with the drainage system or the lack of it. The drain running along River Road is the breeding ground for all walks of insect and rodent life, not to mention the fermentation of filth and decay. It is an insult to human intelligence and public health violation of a magnitude worthy to be considered a disgrace to the City and its Management. The small tributary of the Sungai Pinang River that runs its course close by the Tamil school and the low cost housing better known as 'Flat 100 ' and later crosses Petani Road is a n environmental insult to man and other sentient beings that walks or swim by it. Its is eternally black with brackish water and often at high tide is loaded with garbage and flotsam that one could almost walk across on it. This pehnomenon is not recent, it has been this way for God knows how long and who cares!Why??!!

We salute the city for its World Heritage status and all the efforts to create a better place for tourists using this image but, hey! When are we going to address the real issue that has been swept under the rug by just about every administeration that comes to spend every dime and penny out of the city's coffer to better their life and their image? The rivers on this island are in dire need of a major clean up! Wake up!, before the rude awakenning. When shit hits the fence in the form of deseases and loss of lives due to uncotrollable epidemic no amount of politicking or religious fervor and fatwas can justify our negligence. Tourists will steer clear of this island and the World Heritage Foundation will be made to look like fools who failed to see the coruption and rape of the environment for the existing old colonial structures that has incurred millions in the form of renovations and they sit useless still for lack of what to do with them now that they are brought back to life. These buildings are now even being argued over by the different groups of city managers who has their own ideas or lack of what to do with them other than turn them into hotels and museums.
I know I sound like a dark crusader banging his head against some mad bugger's wall over issues that is being addressed unknown to me, (hopefuly). But this is part of my blog it is a note to me and what i see happening in my city during my tenure as a citizen on this planet in this city. It is my right to yell and scream so long as it helps to vent my personal frustration for God knows it does no good to yell at City Hall, it has more infestation and corruption than it can handle already despite all its upgrading and facial uplift. It the meanwhile, I will just have to keep a good supply of Fumakilla and Shelltox in my home and make some Japanese rich as a king from the products.
Islam says that cleanliness is next to Godliness and I believe just about every other faiths and religions believe so too, but when I look into the small river everytime I walk along it to Farok's restaurant or to get my hair cut at the Flats I feel revolted to my stomach, I feel angry and disgusted at the hypocrasy that is infesting the government and its bureaucracy and I fell helpless for it seems like ther is no end to our tendency to degrade nature through our negligence and sense of priority. We would rather build sand castles in the air and claim ourselves a great city while beneath us the waters are coruppted like a cancerous blood waiting to bust into the surface and diagnosed as terminal, and then we react! The addage "prevention is better than cure" has long been deleted from our vocabulary to be replaced by development is a sign of prosperity!
Kung Hi Fa Chai!!