The biggest this, and the longest that.

Typically Malaysian that is, always telling people (and the world) what is the biggest this and the longest that in the country. The disease has now come up to Kuantan Town (Malaysia).

Behind the East Coast Mall (a local shopping complex) there are rows of shop houses they call Malay Town, Chinese Town and Indian Town. Why they call that I do not know.

I just found out today that in the Malay Town they have placed a big log, which I am told is one of the biggest log found in the State of Pahang (one of the 11 Sultanate State in Malaysia), the market price is about RM20,000.00 (USD 1 – RM 3.5 currently). It is now horizontal but I heard that there is a plan to erect it vertical. When will they do it, I wouldn’t know.

And in the Chinese Town, I discovered a big dragon made from empty aluminum drink tins. Empty tins? Like every thing here, everything seems to be empty. I am told that the dragon had broken a sort of record, for it being the longest dragon made of empty tins. Sounds empty to me.

And in the Indian Town, I have not discovered anything ‘big’ or ‘long’ yet.

Apartment surprise.

Surprise, surprise …………… someone decided to trim the trees in our apartment square. Not a very good job, but then trees were trimmed. I don’t know what woke up the Management to do that. They also planted new shrubs and new mini flowering plants. A good initiative.

Unfortunately however they have thrown the cut branches into the neighbouring land, making a mess just outside the apartment fencing. Have they got permission to do that? Does the neighbouring land owner know about what is happening on his land? Does the Kuantan Municipal Council approve of this throwing of ‘rubbish’ onto the neighbouring land? I don’t know.

And also unfortunately, the Management have not repaired the childrens’ swing in the childrens’ play ground nor have they look at the dangers on the edges of the apartment’s swimming pool.

Leisurely Sunday morning in Kuantan Town.

Its all happening within a 1 km radius, all these activities.

When you walk down by the esplanade at Kuantan River you see people fishing, some lucky to have a catch and many just go home empty handed or just mere small fishes. Its only a pass time anyway.

When you walk pass the town padang (field) you may see some football (soccer) matches about to be played. And the players warming up. You may even see an old man doing his morning tai chee.

In the shop houses in town you may meet or see people in the Indian eating houses enjoying their morning mean, ‘roti canai’ is their favourite. In the fruit market bananas supplier busy replenishing his bananas supply. And in the wet market fishmongers putting up their fish for sale. Nearby in the Chinese stalls, they are busy eating their breakfast of noodles.

And near the town man stadium they have the Sunday market. You can buy most household things from the market, but mostly confined to food and clothings. You might see some medicine peddlers busy talking into the microphones, trying to attract customers to buy their medicines.

Kuantan town, a leisurely Sunday morning town. Or you may spend your day by the beautiful beach about 5 km from the town centre.

we don't even know, who they are!

There are 2 categories of people that we seem to see in the apartment complex that we do not know who they are. One are the people minding the gate, and another, people who come in and out of the apartment compound, visiting, using the pool and sometime making a lot of noise at night.

The gate minders consist of a couple of Malay persons whom we know, they have been working there for quite a while. And there are also other people whom we do not even know where they come from, some say from Bangladesh, some say from Nepal, some say from Myanmar or whatever country they come from minding the gate. They all seem very strange and I personally have doubt if they can actually do their job properly. From what I observe, they do not even speak good local language. So how to expect them to mind the gate?

Worse still are the people whom we do not know, who come into the compound or using the swimming pool (for free). To the best of our knowledge, they are not tenants, may probably be related to tenants or friends of the tenants. But they seem to be freely roaming the compound as if they own the place. And some of them do not even behave properly as Malaysians. Imagine, some of them are Malay (Muslims?) swimming in the pool (for free) and making sexual advance to each other in the water. Most inappropriate. They do not realise that good families are staying in the apartments.

All in all, there is no control over access to the apartment complex and to its facilities (whatever that the apartment complex has). The non-Malaysian gate keepers are hopeless, and should not be there. And the Management could not careless, they are only interested to collect the monthly RM 150 maintenance fees (and we do not even know if there are the management cronies who do not pay such monthly maintenance fees). We have no knowledge of the income and expenditure of the apartment complex despite most of us paying the monthly maintenance fees religiously. (What alternative do we have really?)