Malaysian Bar Headquater in Kuala Lumpur

The Malaysian Bar was established via a statute under the Advocates and Solicitors' Ordinance 1947. This ordinance was repealed by the Legal Profession Act 1976. The Malaysian Bar is an independent Bar with the objective of upholding the rule of law and the cause of justice and protect the interest of the legal profession as well as that of the public.

The legal profession in Malaysia has a membership of approximately 12,000 members with membership increasing by 10 -15% annually. An advocate and solicitor is a member of the Malaysian Bar if he or she have a valid Practising Certificate.

The Bar Council is made up of thirty six members who are elected annually to manage the affairs and execute the functions of the Malaysian Bar. Members of the include the President, the Vice-President, the immediate past President, the Chairman of each of the eleven State Bar Committees, one member elected by each of the eleven State Bars to be its representative to the Bar Council and twelve members elected from throughout Peninsular Malaysia by way of postal ballot.

Below is a photo of its headquater in Kuala Lumpur, near Medan Pasar (Market Square) and not far from Pasar Seni (Art Market):



You can see the posters that read "No to Corruption", "Stop the Patronage, Stop the Rot" and the third one I can't read. These banners were left overs of the Long March for Justice, which was triggered by the exposure of the now infamous VK Lingam tape. You can view the tape in the above post.

The reference "Patronage" is related to the current practice of the ruling coalition, the Barisan, where favors are dispersed based on political support, and which leads to corruption. The phrase "Stop the rot" refers to the decline of the independence of the Malaysian Judiciary and its reputation since 1988 when the then Prime Minister sacked the then Chief Justice Tun Salleh Abas and a few other just judges in a kangaroo tribunal. This has long been suspected by the public, but with the exposure of the VK Lingam tape where he was heard in a telephone conversation with what many said was the current Chief Justice, Ahmad Fairuz brokering the appointments of judges and the award of title.

Interesting travel blog site: An opportunity to promote Malaysia

This site, travel blog, is a very interesting site. It allows you to write a free blog about your travel, uses a WYSIWYG editor to prepare your blog so you don't need to know any HTML. To start a free travel blog, all you need to do is to click on "Free Travel blog" button at the top of the page. I don't know why RealTravel wants to make signing up to create a blog a 2 steps process, for in the next page, you will have to click a "Get your free travel blog" button. Only then can you sign up for an account. They could have made the process much simpler.

Anyway, I did that, sign in and created a blog Malaysia, truly Asia with descriptions of what you can find in Malaysia plus lots of links back to this blog.

However, RealTravel is not only about creating travel blogs. It also allows you to search for travel blogs. I tried searching using the search term "Malaysia" and found lots of blogs, and had a hard time finding the blog I created because there were too many and mine was probably deep in the result pages. So I changed tactic and used the search term "Malaysia, truly Asia" and got search result page for "Malaysia, truly Asia". My newly created travel blog was listed as the first result (at the time of publishing).

You can also use RealTravel to plan your travel at Plan your Perfect Trip with a FREE Trip Planner. You can try it out yourself if you are going on a trip, which hopefully, will be an intra-Malaysia travel trip. Let us not waste foreign exchange by going abroad when there are so much to see in Malaysia. As for me, I am staying at home. stuck in front of the computer, (probably just traveling a bit around the place where I stay as I attend to various things and to take some digital photos for this blog.

Dato' Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng, Actress

Photo by dreistreifen

What is Dato' Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng famous for?

Dato' Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng is famous for her roles as Wai Lin in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997 and the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000. Dato' Michelle Yeoh also acted as the graceful Mameha in the film adapation of Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005 although that caused a lot of controversies because some cannot accept having a Chinese acting as a Japanese Geisha.

Because of the fame she help bring to Malaysia, she was conferred the Darjah Datuk Paduka Mahkota Perak (DPMP), by Sultan Azlan Shah, the Sultan of Perak, her home state, in recognition of the fame she brought to the state. The award allows her to add the title Dato' to her name. The title of Dato' is the Malaysian equivalent of something like a knighthood. President Jacques Chirac also awarded her Knight of the Legion of Honour of France on 23 April 2007. She has further been honored by having a wax statue in the famous Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, Hong Kong.

History of Dato' Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng

Michelle Yeoh was in Ipoh on August 6, 1962. At the age of 4, her parents started her on ballet lessons. She was sent to a boarding school in England at the age of 15 and later enrolled at the London Royal Academy of Dance, majoring in Ballet. Tragedy struck when she suffered a spinal injury suffered during a ballet practicing session and she had to switch to choreography and other arts.

Her ascent to fame began when at the age of 21 in 1983, she won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant. She represented Malaysia at the 1983 Miss World pageant in London. Michelle Yeoh caught the attention of a film production company called D&B Films when she appeared in a television commercial with Jackie Chan.

In 1997 when she was based in Hong Kong, Michelle Yeoh was chosen as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine.

Dato' Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng career path to become a famous actress

The start of her acting career probably can be counted from the time when she appeared in a television commercial with Jackie Chan which caught the attention of the film production company called D&B Films of the D&B Group which was run by Dickson Poon who later married Michelle Yeoh. D&B Group managed the Charles Jourdan brand in Hong Kong.

Her acting career started humbly in a few commercials for Charles Jourdan together with well known actors Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat which led to offer of a film contract. When she married Dickson Poon in 1988, she retired from acting at the insistence of her then husband Dickson Poon. Their marriage did not last long and they were divorced after 3 years. Michelle Yeoh returned to acting in 1992 with her comeback movie, Police Story 3. Police Story 3, incidentally, was partly filmed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Although Michelle Yeoh has had no formal martial arts training, she used her dancing skills to do many of her own stunts action and martial arts movies such as The Heroic Trio in 1993, and the Yuen Woo-ping films Tai Chi Master and Wing Chun in 1994, and of course the famous movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It can thus be said that she followed the footsteps of Jackie Chan who is famed for doing his own stunts.

Dato' Michelle Yeoh even have her own production company, Mythical Films which produced her first English movie, The Touch in 2002, the first film Michelle ever produced. The Touch was a romantic action adventure where Michelle stared as an acrobatic circus performer. The Touch was released in August 2002 in Asia and was Hong Kong's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002. The Touch won the Best Co-Production Film at China's Huabiao Awards.

Personal life

As mentioned earlier, she had married to Hong Kong businessman, Dickson Poon, but divorced 3 years later. She is currently dating the French Chief Executive Officer of Scuderia Ferrari, Jean Todt. Talk is rife that they will be getting married soon.

Poll: Should the term of the current Chief Justice which expires on Oct 31 be extended to a period of not more than 6 months?

The current Chief Justice of Malaysia, Tun Ahmad Fairuz bin Dato' Sheikh Abdul Halim, who was implicated in a secretly taped phone conversation involving prominent lawyer VK Lingam has applied for a six month extension after his compulsory retirement in Nov 1, 2007. There are rumours that the Yang di-Peruan Agong has refused to sign the Chief Justice's extension, but now news are filtering out that his term will be extended by 2 months.

The Malaysia Bar Council has made an online poll Should the term of the current Chief Justice which expires on Oct 31 be extended to a period of not more than 6 months? and has allowed the public to cast their vote.

Why don't you let your opinion be known, surf over there and cast your vote? You do not have to reveal your identity.

Talk on space technoloty, exploration, aeronautics research and space center practices by Robert "Hoot" Gibson

Retired NASA astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson will be sharing his experience about his astronaut days.

Date: Sunday 20 October 2007
Time: 10am to 12pm
Place: Dewan Serbaguna SS3 (SS3 Multi-purpose Hall)
Address: Road SS3/14, 47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Contact: 016-242 0713
016-314 4991
019-388 6122

Background information on Robert "Hoot" Gibson:

• 1978: Selected by NASA


• August 1979: became an astronaut
  
• 1984 - 1995: flown 5 missions - STS 41-B, STS 61-C, STS-27, STS-47, STS-71


• Completed a total of 36 1/2 days in space


• December 1972 - September 1994: served as Chief fo the Astronaut Office


• March - November 1996: served as Deputy Director, Flight Crew Operations


• 27 June - 7 July 1995:
  
  
  
  • commanded a crew of seven-members (up) and eight-members (down) on Space Shuttle mission STS-71
  
  
  • first Space Shuttle mission to dock with the Russian Space Station Mir, and involved an exchange of crew
  
  
  • The Atlantis Space Shuttle was modified to carry a docking system compatible with the Russian Mir Space Station
  
  
  • It also carried a Spacelab module in the payload bay in which the crew performed various life sciences experiments and data collections
  
  
  • Mission duration was 235 hours and 23 minutes.

Map to SS3 Multi-purpose Hall, Petaling Jaya, Selangor

If you do not know how to get to Dewan Serbaguna SS3 (SS3 Multi-purpose Hall, here is a map to help show the way. Some wordings (landmarks) are not clear, so text on white background has been added. If you can't see it properly, click on the map to enlarge it:

Kuala Lumpur Terry Fox Run

There will be a Terry Fox Run in Kuala Lumpur. For those interested, details follows:



Just in case the details are not clear to you in the mini poster above, here are the date, time, location, contact detail:

Date: Sunday, 4 November 2007
Time: 9.00 am
Location: Taman Tasik Perdana (Lake Garden)
Contact No.: 03-5630 6774
Email: organizer at terryfoxrunkl dot org
(replace "at" with @, "dot" with . and get rid of the space)
Photo by © Gail Harvey

Taman Tasik Perdana (Lake Garden) is behind Muzium Negara Malaysia (National Museum of Malaysia) situated along Bangsar Road. Museum Negara itself is opposite KL Sentral. To help you find the landmark, below is a photo of Muzium Negara Malaysia:

Muzium Negara Malaysia (National Museum of Malaysia)

Photo by superciliousness under Creative Commons license

Who is Terry Fox?

Here is some background for the Terry Fox run for those who do not know who Terry Fox was. Terrance Stanley Fox, better known as Terry Fox, was a Canadian famous for the Marathon of Hope, a cross-Canada run to raise money for cancer research. It was a very unusual run, for Terry then only had one leg. His other leg was a prosthetic leg. That run is now celebrated internationally every September and considered as the world's largest fund raiser for cancer research. So Kuala Lumpur is a little late in organizing the run, but it is still great someone took the trouble to do so.

Terry Fox was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 1977 at the age of 18 after feeling pain in his right knee. Osteosarcoma is a form of cancer that often the cancer starts at the knee, then spread up into the muscles and tendons. The only way to treat Osteosarcoma at that time was to amputate his right leg several inches above the knee. After amputation, he was fitted with a prosthetic leg.

Terry Fox then decided to run from coast to coast 3 years after losing his leg with the objective of raising money for cancer research and called his run the Marathon of Hope. He hoped to raise $1 from each Canadian citizen from the run.

Marathon of Hope

The Marathon of Hope began on April 12, 1980 when Terry Fox started by dipping his leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John's, Newfoundland and intended to eventually dip it in the Pacific Ocean at Victoria, British Columbia. He intended to run about 42 km a day, the distance of a marathon. Unfortunately for Terry Fox, before he could finish his run, X-rays showed a lump the size of a golf ball in Terry's right lung and another lump the size of a lemon in his left lung. The tumor was bone cancer which got into his lung via the bloodstream.

By then, Terry Fox had already ran 5,373 km or around 37.5 kilometers per day through Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. Because of the unfortunate development, Terry Fox was thus forced to stop. However, that is not the end of the story for the CTV television network organized a telethon to raise funds for the cause. Celebrities around Toronto were invited to participate, and the event raised millions of dollars.

Terry developed pneumonia in June of 1981 went into a coma on June 27. He died on 28th June, 1981, just a month short of his 23rd birthday.

Another way to help promote Malaysia?

This blog was created to help promote Malaysia, my country, but just writing about Malaysia in this blog alone is not necessarily the only way to help promote Malaysia. One can also help promote Malaysia by writing about Malaysia in other blogs or websites or online hotel booking sites, preferably with a link back to this blog. I found this interesting online hotel booking site Welcome to Accommodation Line! which claims fast and secure access to over 30,000 hotels in 120 countries! And you know what. Malaysia is included. Don't believe me? Click on the logo and see where that leads you to.

Accommodation Line also have a blog AccomoBlog. I see they have Categories in its left sidebar which list Australia and New Zealand, Europe, North America and the World, but no Asia. I also noticed they allow visitors to leave comments. I think I am going to add my comment to let them know that Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent with more than 60% of the world's population. While there is disparity between countries, Asia have some of the world' fastest growing economies. Some even predict that Asia may overtake the West one day in the future, if governed properly. I am going to say that it is a mistake not to include Asia in its Categories. I may even offer to write an article on Malaysia for their blog so that they can add a category "Asia" which will link to a page containing all posts on countries of Asia with Malaysia included. I think I am going to make that comment in one of the posts in the categories Archive for the ‘World’ Category. Then let us sit back and see what happens after that. Hopefully, we get some positive result.

Time to visit Australia

I have close connections to Australia. My sister and family migrated to Melbourne after the May 13 racial riots and are still there. I have 2 nieces and a nephew studying in Sydney. I have a former colleague who migrated to Perth. I have a supportive fellow blogger in Queensland. My sister and family have come back to Malaysia to visit us numerous times. I am a bit ashamed to admit I have yet to reciprocate. My brother-in-law (father of my nieces and nephew in Sydney) has been pestering me to accompany him to visit Australia. I am pretty sure they will be going to witness their children's graduation from the Universities. Maybe it is about time to visit Australia.

Perhaps my first stop should be Sydney. My brother-in-law have been telling me how great is this Hillsong Church in Sydney and why I should pay that church a visit. Perhaps I will even synchronies the visit with one of their children's graduation. Then pop over to Melbourne to pay a long delayed visit to my sister. Not looking forward to Melbourne's infamous weather though.

I will need suitable accommodation if the visit really materialized. I now have the convenience of Internet unlike the days when I was traveling around Europe 30 years ago. Now I have the convenience of booking in advance my accommodation via sites like hotels in Sydney. I am now a humble pensioner and will have to go cheapskate (meaning cheap hotels). Perhaps I should try sites like cheap hotels. May get a good deal there.

It is always good to get some information about the places you intend to visit and Sydney looks like a pretty reliable site to get the information I seek.

Since retiring, I am tied to the computer and the Internet, and loath to travel. Let's see if this visit will ever come to pass.

Relocate to paradise Hawaii?

I am 57 years old, probably too old to relocate anywhere. I am staying put but younger, more mobile Malaysians have that choice. If I can turn back the clock, I might just relocate to paradise Hawaii.

Why? Malaysia is a good country to live in, also in my opinion, a nice country to visit, so please if you are a non-Malaysian, do not let this post discourage you from visiting our beautiful country. It is a food paradise, available round the clock at at very reasonable prices. It has good infrastructure like good roads, highways, clean piped water (relatively speaking), except for some major serious incidents in the past, relatively peaceful, free of natural disasters like earth quakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, etc. It has a year round warm weather which I like because I don't need to spend money on heating in winter (and contribute to more usage of electricity or fuel combustion, thus global warming) and I have a high tolerance level, allowing me to do without air conditioning and usually, also the fan. See Environmentally Friendly sleeping. There are nice beaches, snorkeling and scuba diving sites. The country is racially and culturally diverse making it a mini-Asia where you can experience all the 3 major cultures of Asia plus Portuguese and native cultures. We don't have problems as serious as Burma.

However, since the former Lord President was sacked by a kangaroo tribunal in 1988, the independence of the Judiciary has been in question. The suspicions of Malaysians have been reinforced by the release of the now infamous VK Lingham tape which triggered the Malaysia Bar Council to organize a March for Justice to hand in 2 memoranda to Prime Minister. See Long March for Justice (click BACK button to get back to this page). From past experiences and from current statements and actions by those in power, things are not likely to change unless the Monarchy are brave enough to step in.

Further, although it has been agreed that while Islam shall be the official religion of the country (then Malaya), but that should not be taken to imply Malaya is not a secular state (essentially saying Malaya, now Malaysia is a secular state) when we first won independence from our colonial ruler, the United Kingdom, conservative Muslims have been pushing hard to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state and there is what they call creeping Islamization (implementation of an Islamic state by the back door). See Should non-Muslims have a say in Malaysia becoming an Islamic state? (click BACK button to get back to this page).

Many Malaysians, and not just non-Muslims or non-Malays are very unhappy at the situation in the country. I am in touch with some. Some may want to relocate to another place to escape an unhappy situation (I am staying put). If you are one of them, a good place to consider is paradise Hawaii. It has the same year round warm weather as Malaysia, it is also multi-racial and multi-cultural, it has beautiful beaches, and if you are ethnic Chinese, there are also a sizable Chines population in Hawaii. There is even a China Town in Honolulu, the capital city of Hawaii.

If you do have the intention to relocate to paradise Hawaii, you will obviously need a roof over your head. Hawaii real estate can assist you to find your dream home. They have a MLS (Multi-Listing Service) search box on their site and they say they have specialized agents in all the Hawaiian islands to help you find the best Hawaii homes and condos for sale.

There are 8 main Hawaiian islands of which Oahu is only the third largest, but the most populous (approximately 71% of Hawaii's population) plus the capital Honolulu is located there. Because of its large population, it is often referred to as the "Gathering Place". There are full of business, restaurants and activities on Oahu Island. If Oahu is your target, there is a site Oahu real estate devoted to help you find properties on Oahu Island.

Malaysians will probably feel very at home at Kailua on Oahu Island (there are actually two Kailua in Hawaii, one on Oahu Island and one Kailua-Kona on Hawaii Big Island). There are a variety of restaurants offering Thai, Mexican, Italian, Hawaiian, Pacific Rim, Japanese, Chinese, Steak and Seafood at Kailua, Oahu. And as you know , Malaysians are gluttons of food. Kailua boast of the Kailua Bay and the Kailua Beach, a beautiful award winning beach excellent for swimming, wind surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking and sailing. Sounds attractive to you? Then let Kauai real estate help you locate your ideal home.

There are other islands and locations. By all means browse through the sites above and find what suits you.