will we ever stop waiting?

sir norman frank sisson passed away in ipoh yesterday, after waiting 17 years to be a malaysian citizen. he apparently never got an answer, at least while he was alive. ironically, after no action was taken on his application for over a decade, a decision to grant his citizenship was made in a day, after his plight was highlighted. but his wish was granted only after he passed on. his citizenship is just a useless piece of paper now. like our driving licence.

the immigration department said there were no records of his application. maybe.

or there could be another theory.

his application may have been posted but never delivered. the pos laju messenger said there was no one at the immigration department during working hours on a working day, so he left a postcard there, for the letter to be collected from the post office. as there was no directive for staff on how to act on "mail could not be delivered by pos laju" postcards, it was not collected and destroyed after three months. a two-day crash course was held at genting highlands the following year on the matter, with speakers from pos laju and the immigration department. it was decided that pos laju staff go beyond the post box on the ground floor. only if the office door is locked can it be concluded that the office is empty. it was also decided that a similar approach be adopted for residential areas. an expert will be flown in from bangladesh to pursue the matter further.

or the citizenship application was actually delivered within 8 days by pos laju to the immigration department in 1989. it stayed in the mail room for two weeks because the staff were attending a seminar in kuantan. upon their return, they wanted to act upon it immediately but the officer-in-charge was on her yearly maternal leave. she returned during the fasting month, and despite working thoughout lunch in the month, could not clear her in-file. she retired in 1993, before completing her in-file.

there was a revamp of the immigration department after that. the new director-general made new plans and promises which were highlighted daily in the newspaper. after six months, they began applying for iso standards. all immigration departments were renovated nationwide. new counters, new computers, new carpets, new slogans, new mission statements.

the waiting time for passport applications was brought down from indefinitely to six months, with only 3 visits and 18 hours of lining up. it was a long process, but the results can clearly be seen today. if you apply for a passport now, you can get it within two days. you only need to go through an extremely simple process:

*line up to get a form for rm1
*fill it and line up again to get a number
*wait for your number to be called, 35 seats available for 246 people waiting
*return after two days and line up to hand in your slip and id
*wait for your number to be called
*collect passport and pay rm2 for your plastic cover
*return and log into airasia.com

after all this was settled, files of applications received for citizenship were ready to be acted upon. a directive was sent out after a two-month celebration on 30 years of excellence in the immigration department.

it may have been swiftly decided that applications which have been kept for more than six years be filed away. these will only be acted upon if a follow up call is made by the applicant. however, calls received will only be cross-checked against applications which are being processed.

as the days passed, new staff were hired to replace existing ones who were promoted. priorities remained, and time had to be spent on training new staff on how to make plastic flowers out of straws. staff also had to cater to the growing in-house demand for avon, amway and tupperware order, as well as the booming krepek business.

files kept being pushed further back. as file cabinets were full, some were lined up along the staircase, marked sulit. while sulit can mean confidential or difficult in the malay language, it only means diffficult in indonesian. hence the indonesian cleaning lady thrashed all files as she wanted her job to be easy.

good luck to those who tried to apply for malaysian citizenship, and to those who are still trying. one word of advice ... ease into the application slowly, and be patient. dont set deadlines. practise with a streamyx application.

god bless sir norman

brain damage

the lunatic is in the hall.
the lunatics are in my hall.
the paper holds their folded faces to the floor
and every day the paper boy brings more.

pink floyd - the dark side of the moon (1973)

space for roti canai, or roti canai for space?

our deputy science, technology and innovation minister announced in a local daily that there will be no teh tarik or roti canai for our malaysian astronaut when he is up in space next year. this was a follow up to the national space agency director general's suggestion last year that our astronaut bring along roti canai and teh tarik to share with other astronauts at the international space station.

ok. got it. but what i dont get is the importance of the issue and the news value attached to it. do we really need to discuss the matter? dont we have better things to talk about? i enjoy my teh tarik and roti canai too, but i dont engage in national conversations about it. i have better things to think about. like why are we sending the astronauts out anyway? but lets not talk about that.

we have to think of the future. not of space travel, but of the event which will be held when we bestow the astronaut with a datukship upon his return. the advertisements which will appear in newpapers congratulating him, the nation, our leaders and the astronaut's neighbour's cat. the nationwide roadshow to be held to bestow praises on ourselves, where the cabinet should firmly decide to serve serve teh tarik and roti canai.

by the way... this piece of earth shattering news was reported from a press conference at the launch of a student aid 2006 pan malaysian pools programme, where 150 pupils from five vernacular schools received a mere RM100 each from the circus.

wonder what the students are going to do with all that money. they should get a financial planner, and invest wisely. if they are smart, they might make it to space too. or, with the amount they received, just space out on teh tarik and roti canai ...

i finally blogged

after thinking about it for more than a year, i set up my blog today. it actually took me 15 months to do something that needed ten minutes of my time.

why the blog? well ... i find it hard to sleep at night. while the body suffers from the daily beatings in life, the mind continue to wander. why was someone so short tempered today? why did the people i meet have so narrow viewpoints? why are we using less sense now? why is our judgement always biased? why so little laughter in our lives?

why do we talk so much? why dont we listen more?

im going to stop thinking so much. at least i'm going to try. im going to write them down from now on. i will. i must.