Multiracial neighbours

Today, as i read Anas Zubedy's uniquely conscientious efforts to recolour May 13th (as he calls it),  I somehow, thought about the forms to fill in for setting up Rukun Tetangga(which is now under purview of the Unity Department).  One of the requirements was to list out the percentage of the different races that resides in our area.  

Hence, this photo caption.  Here is a Malay (Indian Muslim i believe) and a Chinese-run coffee shop as its neighbour.  This is good, i said to myself. There is multiracial integration.

Nonetheless, within our residential, it is not so. In SS22A,  we only have a handful of Malay families and Indian families.  We are predominantly Chinese.  It is funny how residential areas progressed to set a disparity in the racial distribution of the community.  And it will become a pattern for intended house buyers for this area too.  One Malay family may say that there too many Chinese living in this area and hence may not consider this most welcoming.

I fear this is some form of polarisation.  When i was growing up, my parents  had a Singhalese neighbour who married a chinese wife. He had 16 children who in turn married other races as well.  There was fun in that family, big and like a melting pot of everything, they were still Malaysians. It was nice to have different race neighbours.  We can learn much about their cultures, beliefs and practices. It is always good to be able to learn their good values and adopt it in our lives.  

But why then, is our area predominantly a chinese area?  Did See Hoy Chan(/Paramount garden) group only targetted at Chinese buyers when they were developing this area? Was this development more appealing to Chinese? if so, why? 

As Anas Zubedy, launches his book "Have a Meaningful Malaysia" to unite Malaysians,  I cant help thinking that we should also find a way to make more races of Malaysia to stay or live together in a community. 

Here's  hoping for unity of community without disparity.

DJROA Activities for the Month of May 2009

A short note to inform that DJROA will be organising the following:

•  17 May, Sunday 7pm @ HEALTH TALK ON LIVER at DJROA Centre

FOC for DJROA Members. Non-Members = RM5

-----------------------------------------------------------

• 22-24 May @ 3D/2N PANGKOR ISLAND TRIP

DJROA Member=RM270 per pax (3-4 paxs to a room) or RM320 per pax (Twin Sharing)

*Non-DJROA Member Add RM20 per pax

Package includes:

- Air-conditioned bus ride to and from Lumut

- Ferry to and from Pangkor

- 2 Nights stay at Sea View Hotel

- 2 Breakfasts, 2 Lunches and 2 Dinners at hotel (inclusive of 1 BBQ dinner)

- 1 Lunch at Sitiawan

Full payment must be made upon booking and non-refundable to cancel. Priority to       

         DJROA members and on a first come first served basis.

 

For Registration, pls call Joyce Wong at 016-655311 or DJROA Centre 03-77299098

        (9am-12noon) 

 

What on Earth were they Thinking Of?!

I happen to drive out and found the site of this RORO bin for the renovation works ridiculously positioned on the road.  What was the contractor thinking about.  Look at how much space they took up on the road. Imagine the width of the road when the opposite house owner decides to park their car outside as well.  In the end, the passerby has to squeeze through.

Also the contractor's workers often post a concern for neighbours around. Do they stay in the house during renovation and if they do, do they walk around our residence night time when they are not working. Are they scouts for potential thieves? or can they potentially  break in your house?  Can they observe your schedule and know details of you. 

Hard to say and unfair to blame. But that thought does cross my mind.  So for now,  the Security Committee is looking into getting the contractors for renovation to record the details of their workers coming into our residence.  This would include records of their subcontractors as well and any other and their profiles as well. A temporary pass will then be issued to them.

Let us hope when this is done,  we are able to identify those people who are working at the renovation and hope we can monitor their movements instead of the vice versa.

Just when you let your guard down

  And i thought i was vigilant. After the break-into my neighbour's house about 1 month earlier, i would stay awake till about 4am and go to bed,though i would take a nap between 9pm-12am.  This routine was daily, until last night when i was feeling really tired and went off to bed earlier.  LO AND BEHOLD! my laptop got stolen when i woke up in the morning.  And the crime took place without the criminal even (literally) breaking into my house.  

 No doors nor locks were broken. No damage done except the one broken window pane.  Difficult to imagine how he could have stolen my laptop right. Incidentally he managed to get hold of my camera too, so i could not post any images.

My house has an outside patio after the dining hall and a sliding door (grilled and perspect/glass door) separate the outside patio. The glass door can be pushed out of the groove and slide open to the end.  Once the thug did that, he pushed a long rod thru the grillwork and shoved my laptop off the console table in dining hall. The laptop fell to the floor where he kept shoving it to the grill door.  There is a gap between the grill door and the wall at the end of the sliding doors. The thug moved inch by inch the laptop to that gap. And there it is, that's how my laptop exited my house without a break in (in the literal sense).

Though only from the compound, the damage was done.  With my laptop, the precious photographs of my little boys went along.  I can only guess the thug(s) must have come in from the belukar flanking roads 6 and 8. So be on the alert my neighbours. 

Also i did the mistake last nite by forgetting to take my laptop upstairs. So dont leave any thing (especially the portable ones) visible for them to pry.

Here's hoping everyone will be safe from these hopeless creature of earth who steal and make life miserable for people.

A More Efficient Guard

On Thursday, April 30, I showed a photo of a guardhouse with door left open and no one in the guardhouse.
If you drive pass Road 4 today, you will see a different and a more efficient guard in Pondok B. Much to our benefit, at least this guard looks up at the traffic that passes by Road 4.
The other guard who had exercise a poor discretion to leave his post with door left opened has since resigned. There are members in our security committee who will take turns to ensure that we some form of monitoring is done on the guards.

Are you a Resident? (Part II)

I am referring to my post on Sunday 3 May 2009 particularly on the rules and regulations of public roads. When i highlighted these rules and regulations, i wanted to show that there are also guidelines to allow limited barriers too as everyone would know that obstructing traffic is not legal.

The one guideline indicates that it is important for the majority of the residents agree to have the barrier down. In fact, it is the opinion a certain lawyer who has written articles on gated communities, that there should be an overwhelming support from the residents for the barrier to be down. Well, I have been informed that this Selangor guidelines now allows 75% instead of 85% support from residents.

So, my posting is actually to encourage us, residents, to garner more support among ourselves to close the barrier gates even during daytime off peak hours. And we should especially encourage They are the ones that may be stopped by our guards to query.
No dissent = no or less problems reports to the authorities. .

My thought is that It would be a good way to screen whoever is coming into our area. I hope all of you share my thoughts too. Thanks.

Are You a Resident?

Ever wonder what the security guards do when the barrier gate comes down at night? Have a look at this video clip. Here we see the guard on duty stopping a car that is entering. The vehicle is not from our residence. This, the guard can recognise when he does not see the car sticker each resident in ss22A who subscribe to the security services in ss22A, put on their cars.

The guard stops and questions the driver as to the destination and he lets the vehicle in. Of course we say it is good to screen the entry of vehicles. On the other hand, are we holding up traffic? Does this violate any rules and regulation? Here are some regulations that you can look into :

(i) Section 46 (1) of Street Drainage and Building Act 1974

(ii) Section 80 of the Road Transport Act 1987

(iii) Sections 62 and 136 of the National Land Code 1965

(iv) Town and Country Planning Act 1976

Basically all of these regulation states that any attempt privately doen to restrict or regulate public spaces without the approval of the relevant authority is illegal. Any attempt to close, barricade or restrict the access of a public road, drain or space, there may be a contravention of Sections 46(1) of Street Drainage and Building Act 1974, Section 80 of the Road Transport Act 1987 and Section(s) 62 and 136 of the National Land Code 1965.

In addition, provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act 1976 may also be violated where guard houses are built in the public land or road shoulders.

IN Selangor, the Housing and Property Board and the local authorities allow guard houses to be built based on certain guidelines amongst which include:-

· Applications made through the Resident Association (RA) only;

· Consent by 85% of the residents;

· Agreement must be made between RA and local authority;

· Guard house without a barrier are allowed and the location should not obstruct traffic (situated at road shoulder only);

· A written consent from Local Authority and Land Administrator (LA) for the construction of guard house on reserved road/vacant land must first be obtained;

· Appointed security guards must be registered with Ministry of Home Affairs or with other relevant agencies;

The authorities do sometimes “turn a blind eye” to allow some form of limited barriers so long as it is backed by an overwhelming support of the local residents and it does not deny access nor unduly obstruct traffic.

ULTIMATELY, I FEEL THAT IT IS ENTIRELY UP TO THE RESIDENTS IN THE COMMUNITY TO COME TOGETHER AND DECIDE IF WE BACK THE IDEA OF SOME FORM OF LIMITED BARRIER. SOME FORM OF PREVENTION THAT MAY FURTHER REDUCE CRIME RATES IN THE RESIDENCE. WE CAN THEN WORK WITH THE RELEVANT AUTHORITIES ON THIS.

Our barrier gates both at Road 1 and Road 4 are only put down at night. Do we want to consider that for daytime as well? Obviously we do need to consider the traffic stalling behind when we stop to ask vehicles as to their intended entry and their destination in our residence.

For Road 1, we have the school admission and dismissal times to consider as the traffic flow during these times becomes terribly hectic with cars triple parking along Road 1 in itself. These are the times that we could not possibly close the barrier gates because there will UNDULY OBSTRUCT TRAFFIC.

Other than these "peak hours" we can actually consider closing the barrier gates. Should we take a poll on this?

Being Good Neighbours

Last night i went out for a makan with 2 neighbours and i wondered what makes good neighbours. I remember growing up in Damansara Utama and the kids in the neighbourhood would gather every 5pm to play in the park. We were play pals for a long time. Sure, we had our arguments, plenty of which we would end up saying " i dont want to friend you." (good grammar aside). But eventually we would get back and play together. So i guess, there was an objective in our bonding together.....PLAY.

And setting aside our differences was much easier because the urgency to play was more important than our pride lest if staying at home and being bored out of our pants was more exciting.

Funnily, the balance of scale tips to holding on to our pride as we get older. Our pride becomes more precious. " So what " we would say, "it is just another friend. We can make more new friends...."

Now that we are adults, we would rationalise things and say lets work it out. So in the context of being neighbours, would this make you a good neighbour when you try to work things out after a disagreement or a dissatisfaction. Or are we not so good neighbour for the mere fact that we do not agree on doing things a certain way or another?

Are we good neighbours when we give unsolicited advice to other neighours on how to run their household better or we are the good neighbours for not rebuffing the neighbour giving the unsolicited advice?

Are we the good neighbour when we proceed to do physical things for our neighbour when they call for our help or are we not such a good neighbour if we were the ones calling on the neighbours for help ever so often.

Are we better if we were to help our neighbour scoop the dog poop from his frontyard. Are we good neighbour when we dont throw our cigarette butt in our neighbours side of the fence/house (no offence to dog owners or smokers intended). Are we good neighbours if were were to pick up the garbage left by our contractor on our neighbours side?

Does your neighbour's gift of souvenirs from holidays to you mean you are a good neighbour? Does cooking for your neighbour mean you are a good neighbour?

What makes us good neighbours? i guess its the perennial principle of life " Mutual respect and understanding". These are things that cannot be seen or touched. These are things that are felt by the heart. Some will take a longer time to feel it, others will take almost immediately to warm up to you and like you as a neighbour.

I personally think getting to know the neighbours' character and personality is finding how you can treat your neighbour. Mutual respect and understanding towards them eases you into liking them. So liking your neighbour makes you a good neighbour eventually. If you dont like your neighbour, no matter what they do, it will always seem wrong. It starts when you start finding fault or getting angry with your neighbour and it will consume you and finally you just dont like your neighbour. AND that is the start of you definitely not being a good neighbour.

I had the opportunity to start with not liking my neighbour whose house is like a "belukar" in its garden. And i hated the mosquitoes that bred from there and there was even a cobra that came into my backyard from his house to which he denied vehemently. Sometimes in the middle of the night, he would pound away scraps in his backyard. He avoided everyone and never gave even a glance to any neighbours.

But over the years, and through some communication, knowing his personality made me see how to treat him. Today, if he drives by in this car and if he sees me, he would wave to me.

and today, to all those neighbours around SS22A, who take their morning walks route passing by my house and smilling to me, and for all the neighbours who would greet me and talk to me, i say thank you.


I like my neighbours and hopefully, they like me too. And just as when i was a little girl, i have neighbours that band together for a common objective, to make the community a better place.