DRA - Final day!

Contributed by Rtr Jia Thiam

I was worn-out the moment I opened up my eyes. We’re supposed to be at the hall by 9.00am, but I was too tired to realize that. Somehow, I managed to drag myself out from my bed and headed straight to the cafeteria with Yiip Shaun. Way Wen were still fast asleep. I thought that I’ll be the only rotaractors left at the cafeteria. Nevertheless, to my amazement that there are others at the cafeteria doing their little business as if that they’re not late at all. I felt relief.

I rushed myself to the hall to hear the briefing. I was shocked to see an employee from 8TV eventually gave a talk about her career. The talk was short. Nevertheless, I’ve learned something new.

The speech giving session ended up quicker than I thought while the rest of the rotaractors exchanged email address and hand phone number with one another. Yiip Shaun told us that his dad wanted to leave Penang early. That leaves us no choice but to get ourselves pack as soon as possible. That means no lunch for us. The moment we load our luggage in to the car, Yiip Shaun dad asked us

Uncle: You guys don’t want to have your lunch?

Jia Thiam: Huh? (Thought you want to leave early. How to makan lar)

Uncle: Since you’ve paid for it, don’t waste it.

Jia Thiam: What about you Uncle? (So, you want to leave now or makan now?)

Uncle: Don’t worry about us. Just go have your lunch

Jia Thiam: Ermmm!

Something sounded very fishy. Anyway, we went for lunch and enjoyed them. I took a final glimpse at my surrounding and my newly-made friends, knowing that I won’t be seeing them, not until APRRC. We left Penang at 1.30pm and the journey took us hours to arrive due to the fact that Chin Ming was celebrated on the very same day. Cars filled up the whole road and that is when I knew, I won’t be arriving home early. We reached Klang at 11.30pm and had dinner after that.

My day at DRA is finally over.

DRA - Day 2

Contributed by Rtr Jia Thiam

I woke up surprisingly early knowing that I went to bed late last night. My stomach started making weird noise. That is when I knew that I needed food so badly. After settling myself, I went straight down to the cafeteria, in hoping that I’ll finally be able to treat myself to a nice breakfast. The food to my amazement was a delicious one with a variety of choice one can choose on.

Anyway, once my hunger has been satisfied, I headed straight to the hall for a Rotaract briefing. The briefing went on for hours without showing any significant sign that it will end. During the session, some of my newly–made friends came asking me,

A: “Why your Rotaract Club is so special ah? Got the word centennial at the back of it
wan.”
Jia Thiam: Yeah hor. I also don’t know

Sad to say that I have no answer to that question myself. Being a member of the club and not knowing how this club came about, truly putted me down to shame in front of the others. Nevertheless, I made an attempt to seek out the answer to that question by asking Rotaractor Hui Hui. Then I’ve finally realized that our club was chartered during the centennial year.

Rotaractor Hui Hui were one of the panelists during the session. When her turn has finally arrived, she stated that our club had our own club song- adopted from our Rotary Club of Port Klang Centennial. Way Wen and I were later requested to walk to stage to sing our club song. Singing in front of the mirror or in my bathroom is a norm thing to do but not on stage. I had butterfly in my stomach, yet I carried on. After we’ve finished with our songs, our club has instantaneously been recognized by many others for being the only club who went on stage to sing a club song. I was proud.

Lunch was equally good as well. But soon after lunch, we had our own Training program to attend. All of us went to our separate ways. As for me, I’ll be attending the Community Service Director training. I told myself that this will be a training I will never forget in my life. I made friends during the training and we even worked in pairs to come up with solution to a case study. Our solution will be analyzed by the trainees and pointed out on how we can further improve them. After hours have passed, the session ended. Way Wen wanted to treat himself to a nice game of volleyball with the other rotaractors where else I wanted to try out Jet-Skiing. As for Yiip Shaun he was no where to be found after the session ended. Anyway, we wouldn’t bother much and just carried on with our plan. Jet-Skiing have burn a deep hole in my pocket. Nevertheless, the RM25.00 spent will truly last in my memories. Thought that I never had enough, I went for a banana boat ride after that.


I was soaked wet from head to toe. All the rotaractors just wanted to have their little fun at the sea. Hui Hui became victim and was thrown into the sea. Every single rotaractors found on the beach have been thrown into the sea EXCEPT Way Wen. He was fast enough to avoid capture. Anyway, you can’t tell others that you’ve been to Penang without actually tasting Penang sea water. Shortly after that, I went back to my room to have a quick shower. I badly need them right now. I was smartly dress on that night due to the fact that I’ll be attending a classy dinner.

Dinner finished quite late and everyone is busy taking pictures with one another. I later hanged out at DRR Chandra’s room where we treat ourselves to a game of card. Ended up, I slept at 2.00 in the morning.


(to be continued...)

One Two Ouch!

Contributed by Rtr Shunglee


three four, Ouch! That was exactly what I had in mind as I drove down to Klang that fine evening for an introductory class at the XXX dance club.
(don't eiyer me la! it just slipped off my mind but i'm confidently sure that the tutor's name was sohurtoe)

(the legendary Mr. Sohurtoe)

Also, did I mention tt i was initially going to catch the new airbus A380 there because of the traffic but i opt.ed to drive instead?
No thanks to the new 100ml of liquid per passenger onboard rule.
My bladder had twice the amount of that, thus i was unnecessarily denied from the plane.

One Up! for you MAS and nope, that's definitely not my thumb.

Now, a lil bit on salsa.
Its a sexy, dazzingly dizzy ditsy kind of dance that turns people on.
On a less obscene note, salsa is truly a leisurely fun activity for the modern society, a step-up from collecting stamps and coins.
If society had not evolved, where touching hands equals to adultery and marriages.. I swear i wouldnt have left the centre alive.
...psstt! our first lady hands very de smooth le ]=O

Fast forward a lil and we were all in 2 lines, face to face with our salsa partners. Previously, some had fantasized to dance with girls other than their spouses but... alas! they moaned, silently. There were also some who just grabbed anybody closest to them like a cold blooded brute *cough* *cough*JT

. de march
.. crane steps
... crab walk
.... gasing spin

Those were the steps tt was patiently taught to us and the names had been changed to avoid lawyers breathing down my neck.
Having said that, one of them already did, religiously, for this article that is.

Now.... cum to think of it hor, never in all these years have I ever hated being vertically challenged.
That night.. alas! I realised tt i coudln spin a girl without exposing every inch of my underarms.
However, I reckon this is not as bad as what the vertically blessed hated - being distracted by u n c o n t r o l l a b i l i n g l y counting dandruffs from their partner's scalp instead of dancing steps. evilLOLakakaka

yet despite all that,

due to the nature of the dance which promotes closeness, ignites passion and reignites lust, u can actually tell whether a guy and a girl is in an intimate fiery r/s.kudos! prez..you make us men proud !ppffwwwtit! err not saying that you have dandruffs diana your hair looks great but errr i think i better shuddup!... will you still betroth babyleeann to me? :( Nevertheless u can also tell whether a person is hum sup or te ko pe as well la. *cough* *cough*JT

. . .

@#$%* .. CLUB MEETING .. *%$#@ !!!
Darn! i knew it was too good to be true. The prez organised the salsa thing and asked me to just come and enjoy wor - konon la! Just like a cheap lying bastard politician *cough* *cough*lawyer.. he conveniently left out the bit about a meetingNABEI!!

Ae-nyways, *Fei Lin, pls insert boringminutes of meeting here.. if you dare la* otherwise, here's mine;

bla bla bla talk
bla bla bla eat
bla bla bla *end of meeting*

p/s: RAC PKLG should thank their lucky stars that I wasn't elected honorary secretary 06/07. To hell! with my own set of twinkies. It would have been more fun being the phantom cum rogue secretary. evil*grin*

Meeting's conclusion:
- This blog entry is my report. Take it or leave it.

- Loydd, stop slacking cos its time to take over my duties as 'comm'.. service director.

- Z chickenpox excuse is such an old trick in the book, your ageing cerebrum can do better than that! and..

- I demand that you pop 44 poxes to proof your innocence.

- - end of club related formalities - -


I have to admit that i was initially not comfortable with this salsa thing cos just like jumping jacks need wounded springs and evil marathon rabbits need duracell, i needed booze to shake my brittle joints
... but i was sober tt night :/ or rather, my hands had to be kept sober.

This is all thanks to the friendliness of the salsa tutor, mr sohurtoe and the rest of the participants who danced equally as bad.

SOo... I dunno about the rest of you but i was counting salsa steps instead of sheeps when i hit the sack that night. Ladies, on behalf of the guys, thank you for not leaving us with sore-toe/s.

And to the lovely beaus whom I had the chance to dance with, it was a great pleasure and i hope ya'll had an enjoyable night! ^^

.
.
.
.
.

ya! ya! same shiet applies for the rest of the guys as well la ..

S H U N G L E E


Editor's note: I was debating with myself whether to edit some language used in this article to safeguard the image of this blog. Well, I guess we cherish freedom of speech and respect creativity. So here it is, full text unedited. Enjoy!

1st Day of DRA 2007

Contributed by Rtr Jia Thiam

District Rotaract Assembly (DRA) has never popped up into my head all this while not until today. What is DRA? What are the activities held during DRA? These are the questions which I kept pondering upon. I had my first District Event during the District Rotaract Conference (DRC). I was uncertain whether should I register my name as one of the candidate. I was scared that my RM180 will go down into the drain after realizing that this money are better spent off to a sumptuous Sushi at Sushi King. I would have never taken part in such event, if it’s not for the constant begging from Rotaractor Way Wen. Somehow, I gave in to Way Wen’s request. Since then, I can’t pull back anymore; else others will just categorize me as a liar. During the final day of my DRC, I was telling myself, “Hey! It wasn’t so bad at all. I learn many new things. I’ve made new friends and I’m definitely joining the District Rotaract Assembly (DRA)”.


Thus, I had my first hand experience during the DRA 2007 held at Tanjung Bungah. The journey there seems like an endless journey. Time and tide waits for no men. I wanted to appreciate every moment I had, spent by making new friends at DRA. Anyway, the journey took us 4 hour plus plus. Upon arriving there, I take a quick glimpse on the surrounding of the hotel. The beach caught my concentration but I had with me, my luggage. That leaves me no choice but to get myself registered first. The registration counter was held in a small room, three storeys above the ground floor. After checking in, I was told that Way Wen will be my roommate while Yiip Shaun will be stuck with a Subang Rotaractor for the coming three days and two nights. After they handed over my room key, I head straight back to my room to check it out.

I was shocked to be given such a huge room enough to accommodate at least six more rotaractors comfortably. My room had a good view of the sea. What more could I expect but to felt grateful knowing that I’m going to enjoy myself for the coming three days. After settling down, I head straight down to the sea. Had a short walk along the beach with Way Wen and I finally went up to my room to have a bath leaving Way Wen behind. Shortly after my bath, Way Wen came back. Heard from him that he was playing volleyball with the other rotaractors. I was stunned for 2.56 seconds knowing that if I had not taken my bath, I would be able to mix around with the other rotaractors. Anyway, Way Wen had his bath and we headed down to grab our dinner. We had our ice-breaking session after dinner. Supposedly to be held by the beach but the weather changed for a sudden. Strong ferocious wind kept blowing towards us and we’re expecting a heavy rain. The thought of the next tsunami kept running through my mind. Anyway, Ice-breaking session was held in a room. Everything went smoothly till I received a call from Yiip Shaun that his pal was somewhere in Penang . We were later brought by his friend to else where to have a taste of true Penang local food.

To be continued...

Centennial RYLA Report - The Finale

Contributed by Rtr Harnniann


Click here to read Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3

Making New Friends

To be honest with you, initially I was very reluctant to join RYLA. I did not show any enthusiasm at all and I think that was felt by Eric too. The main reason was that I do not like mixing with strangers not to mention that I have to stay with strangers for 4 days! I am really content with my life and I thought with the current friends I have now, I have more than enough.

Anyway, as I was stuck somewhere in Kajang for 4 days, I have no choice but to take the initiative to know some new strangers. I surprised myself. I did not know that my communication skill was really that good. Once I was used to shaking hands and starting a brief conversation with absolute strangers, making new friends seems to be a very easy task. All we need are a sincere smile and the burning curiosity to find out more about the stranger.

I have made a lot of friends in RYLA. You know why I had problem waking up in the morning? That’s because we chat all night at the foyer, in the bedroom (by the way, the rules say that boys are not supposed to go into guys’ room and vice versa but all the rules were badly broken). And throughout these chit-chatting, our relationship progressed from mere acquaintances to friends.

We took down the contact numbers and email of everyone, and we promised to keep in touch and probably organise something like a alumni in future.

My Observation, Feelings and Experience

I must give credit to the Organising Committee for they have done a fairly good job in organising RYLA 2005. Thank you. Nonetheless, I would like to take this opportunity to record some of my constructive criticisms.

The whole RYLA was too relaxed. I know we are all adults so that we should not be monitored like schoolboys. But there at least should be a balance. I opine that the Organising Committee had been too relaxed in time keeping. Or they themselves were late sometime. I hope this is something the next organising committee of RYLA could look into. Punctuality should be something RYLA emphasise most.

Ok, I am done with criticisms. If you were cautious, you would have noticed that some of my criticisms had been secretly embodied in the main body above. So, I’ll give the Organising Committee a break. Nice Job & Syabas!

As you all would agree that life is a journey. We are unable to determine the length of this journey but fortunately we have the freedom to decide the width of it. We have the freedom, the privilege to decide what we want to see, feel, learn, contribute in this journey.

If there is only one thing I’ve learnt from RYLA that would be: dare to take the sudden turn. I took my sudden turn here when I decided to wake up and drive to Permata on 24/3/2005. It significantly or maybe forever changes the path and route of my journey. Should I decided to go to work on 24/3/2005 and continue with my routine life, maybe I would still be the same i.e. being robbed of this wonderful experience and opportunity unknowingly.

Thank you RYLA!

DRA: We learn, We Interact and That’s it?

Contributed by PE Lee Hui Hui

I remembered my first District Rotaract Assembly (DRA) in HolidayVilla, Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur in year 2005. That was few months after my club obtained its charter. The venue was near to my place of work. So it was a blessing. But, it turned out that I had to return to office in the morning because of an urgent deadline.

And because of that, I missed my first group photo session after the opening ceremony.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself getting to know new faces from different club (although I feel odd at first fitting in)

Did I learn something there? Yes, I admit I did learn a lot about rotaract. For my first DRA, I attended the President/ President Elect/ Vice President Workshop with my club chartered president.

I remembered brainstorming solutions during the case study session. It is a norm for Rotaract club leaders to face problems like:

1) Inactive members and lack of participation in projects (Very common)
2) In ability to retain current members. (So common)
3) Difficulty in finding new members to ensure club continuity. (Common)

In DRA in Penang few weeks back, I attended the President/ President Elect workshop for the second time (because I did not hold any club office position for year 2006).

This time round, there was no case studies session (thank you GDL DRR Chandra and GDL DRRE Dinesh). What I had was more of an opinion sharing session by the incoming club presidents, president elects and vice presidents.

They do share the same doubts and fears like me. I would not know whether my fellow incoming board that went to the DRA training with me learned about such issues.

The common topics raised were lack of active members to commit and take up projects

I also listened to complaints by the respective district officers (who are also leaders in their club too) who raised issue like lack of participation in organized district projects and other interpersonal relationship problems.

What I can summarise is this = the survival of rotaract clubs purely depends on common factor – degree of interpersonal relationship among its members.

I was given the opportunity to be a panelist speaker in the morning plenary session led by PDG Dato Dr Low Teong. Title was how to build effective rotaract club. I spoke about from my club’s perspective on effective rotaract club based on email input from RAC Port Klang members.

All in all, it turned out that all the panelist speakers (IPDRR Jamie, DRC and incoming DRC and myself) got the feedback from the audience what we have presented does not match with the current situation faced by the district rotaract clubs.
(I don’t have to mention this, but I am sure readers will know what I mean)

In a nutshell, it ain’t a blue sky picture! And it is a reality.

And this case, why are we attending the DRA? Is there a common solution to solve human relationship issue?

Problems will never get solved if there is continuous bickering. Projects will never be executed if members don’t want to do it.

In this case, the DRA is just a platform for us to gather, learn, have fun and that’s it?

I had to make this sweeping statement => Have anyone ponder to put the knowledge to good use by serving well and building relationships?

In essence, joining a non profit organization like rotaract is actually one of the ways to learn to build relationships, formed new friendships and be a better person and leaders in our own field.

We have to learn to give and accommodate with members that come from different background, age group, financial standing, personality, beliefs, attitude and culture.

It is never easy building and strengthening human relationships. It is never easy being a leader because being human, leaders can make grave mistakes.

As I am writing this article I realized I am still learning.

I will bear in mind to learn how to adapt to difficult situations and face potential setbacks.
Nevertheless we as rotaractors must always strive to be a better person and hoping someday we are able to see the blue sky picture i.e. strong and effective rotaract clubs.

Centennial RYLA Report Part 3

Contributed by Rtr Harnniann

The Morning Physical Workout

You know what was the most challenging thing in RYLA? Yes, to wake up at 6.00 am in the morning. Well, I didn’t wake up exactly at 6.00am but I was not late for the physical workout. The first physical workout was fun. Our instructor was Puan Nini. We did some light aerobic then we had breakfast. The first physical workout was attended by most of the participants with the exceptional few still sound asleep waiting for the morning sun.

Well, the second day physical workout was of a different tune. Only half turned up. I am sorry, President. I woke up at 6.50am. I thought I was very late. But when I rushed to the foyer, wow, our instructor was sitting on the staircase waiting for the participants to slowly drag their fatigue-beaten bodies down the stairs (I was sure only physical body as their mind and soul were still in the bedroom). This time only half the participants turned up. The physical workout managed to continue despite the odds but the fun factor was short-lived.

If that sounds bad enough, wait till you see the third and final morning workout. Ha! President, I know there is no excuse for this but I have to admit that I woke up at 9.15am. When I woke up, I sensed no urgency at all because all (yes ALL!!) my roommates were sleeping with two actually snoring. I took my time cleaning up myself, again without any sense of urgency. When I walked to the dining hall, there was no breakfast left. That did bother not me as I still have a lot of food in my goodies bag. So, I walked slowly to the auditorium. I saw a few participants still chatting at the foyer.

When I reached the main entrance of the auditorium, one organizing committee (a Rotaractor) ushered me into the auditorium and said the speaker was waiting. It was 9.50am now. You guess how many were in the auditorium? We have almost 100 participants in RYLA and not even 10% were in the auditorium. It was a very embarrassing scene for the organizing committees, especially the Chairman. The speaker was not sure whether to start his talk or wait for others.

Later I was told that only 5 members attended the morning physical workout. I felt guilty. Our instructor Puan Nini had to wake up 4.30am to drive all the way from Ampang to Kajang and here, we participants chose to ignore her and buried our heads under the pillows (yeah I had two pillows).

Ha! This is the real story of RYLA which I am certainly sure that you won’t read it from the newspapers or any club’s bulletin. I am being very candid here.


Our Presentation

Basically every night after dinner, we did not have much to do. Remember I told you that we were divided into 4 groups? The Red team called themselves RedBull; the Green called Green Goblin; the Orange called Trinity United. Of course my team was the Bananas and our motto was “Banana Rules!!”.

After dinner we have to get into groups and discuss about our presentation. Ok, what was the presentation all about? Each team was given 20 minutes to perform a play which will send positive message to the youth. So given my drama background, many ideas started popping up in my mind (ooh, I forget to mention that I was the President of the Drama Club in Hin Hua High School. Ok, ok can’t I blow my own trumpet for awhile?)

I took charge of the presentation and I suggested we had a brainstorming session to come out with more ideas. After 15 minutes we finally have our original story: in a dark gloomy night, a Santa Clause (who actually was Colonel Sanders) suffered identity crisis. He walked along Jalan Petaling and a VCD seller approached him to offer him some porn VCD, he declined. Then a transsexual approached him and asked him whether he wanted “it”. Again he declined. Suddenly the Santa Clause pulled out one big banana and said, “Young man, you can resist anything!” (that’s actually the message we wanted to send out).

After some discussion we thought that the story was really bad and uninteresting. So, we came out with this idea:-

First scene:-
Tang tang tang tang! Banana Network 8.09pm news. Two newscasters reporting news. The first news was crime: there’s a Green Goblin in town destroying banana plantations!
Green Goblin came out shouting, “ha!! Kill all bananas!!! Hahaha!!!”
A passer-by called Peter Parker for help. Spiderman came to rescue. When spiderman reached the scene, spiderman said to Green Goblin, “What?! Don’t you have something better to do then destroying bananas? You bodoh lah!” and spiderman swung away.
Green Goblin started crying and said to himself, “oooh….. Green Goblin so bodoh!!!”

Second scene:-
Back to the newscaster, now it’s time for sport, reporting live on Formula One.
Two pit stop crews waiting at the pit stop for the car to come in. One team was Banana team and the other was RedBull team.
Ok, now come the Banana team car dashing into the pit stop lane and then sped out from the pit stop with full throttle after just 6 seconds stop. Wow! Impressive!
Then, there come the RedBull car (I was the RedBull driver). It was so slow!! It took a few minutes for the crew to change the tyres and pump petrol. What a stark contrast!

Third scene:-
Again it was sports news, reporting live on the Champion League between Banana FC vs Trinity United.
The players of Banana FC were smartly dressed, look good and burly. Hey hey, the Trinity United players were all acting like retarded players. After kicking off, the Banana players were in total control of the game. The poor Trinity United players couldn’t even find the ball!! So, Banana FC trashed Trinity United 15-0.

Yeah, we played joke on all the other teams and we did have fun. In all our scenes above, we projected the Banana Superiority and depicted others as inferior or even retarded. So, as expected, after our performance we were booed by everyone. Some participants took it personally and shouted at us. “What about fair play and respect?” “Other than making fun out of us, what are the messages you want to send to us?!!” Those were some of the remarks thrown at us when we walked down the stage. I knew some even went to the extent that they complained to the Rotarians. The atmosphere was quite tense and hostile then. But we, the Bananas stood united. All the effects on audiences were purposely and intentionally inflicted. We offered no apology.

I learnt something very valuable. If we can all stand united and deeply believe that what we do is right, we can achieve anything under any form of adversity. I am very proud to be in Banana team as my team had shown tremendous unity throughout and we really had fun even though we were hated by everyone. I honestly think that other people hated us because they envied us. We were the ones making most noise during lecture; we were the ones shouting our cheers when our team members performed while other teams sat quietly.

(to be continued)

Centennial RYLA Report Part 2

Contributed By Rtr Harnniann


RYLA Starts

After the unnecessarily lengthy, boring, and no fun at all opening ceremony (which I do not want to waste much time elaborating), the RYLA 2005 started at last. We had ice breaking games, which again was extremely childish and uncreative. We were asked to get to know 5 persons in 30 seconds then later we have to find out 3 things he likes and 3 things he dislikes. Uurghh!

After the ice breaking (I hoped it did crack the ice berg), we were divided into 4 groups: the red, the green, the orange and the yellow. I was the yellow. Each group will come up with the group name, group cheers and group leader.

It is worthwhile to state here that the only two youth exchange students, a Canadian and a Brazilian were both in my group. As everyone was very shy and unimaginative, it took a long time for us to start talking. But one medical student broke the silence and suggested we called ourselves “yellow, yellow dirty fellow”. How lame is that?! So, I said what about “Bananas”? To my surprise, the Brazilian boy said that was a good name and everyone just concurred. So that’s our name, “The Bananas”.

Since the Brazilian boy is the tallest among us so we picked him as our leader (another sign of being uncreative and unimaginative).


The Talks

After lunch, we had our first talk. Before I go into the talks, I wish to say that from here onwards, everyone pays punctuality only lip service. Time is no longer of the essence. There was no usher, no enforcer to tell us it’s time to drop our fork and spoon and rush to the auditorium. So as you can imagine, everyone took their own sweet time to have lunch, dessert, fruits or even enjoying a small chat with new friends while our speakers were patiently waiting for us in the auditorium.

The talks started 15 minutes late and from there onwards none of the talks for the next 3 days were punctual.

As you probably can tell from the schedule, RYLA offered us a great deal of talks with a variety of topic ranging from as trivial as knowing ourselves to issues as big as racial harmony. However, there are only a few talks worth highlighting here.

Our very first speaker was Mr. Paul Jambunathan a.k.a Fishy Jambu. He is a psychologist by profession. His topic was “who am I?”. He talks about knowing ourselves, our emotions and our feelings. One thing I like about his talk was that he wanted us to be different. Not to follow blindly. He gave an example of himself. Had he followed his father’s advice he would end up being a doctor. Not to say that being doctor is not good, but more importantly, being a doctor is not something Jambu wants or enjoys. He wants to be a psychologist. He listened to his inner self, defied all the advice of the elders and dared to be different. So, I learned to be different.

Dolly Kee is a woman you seldom if not never see walking on the street. The way she wears, conducts herself and speaks is impeccable. She is so unreal. She speaks on “Image Power”. This was what she said, “image is not a way to fool others, but rather a communication tool to express our strengths, attributes and attitudes. It is therefore vital that we take charge of all these “image tangibles” and make them work for us instead of against us”. She did some demonstrations to show us how important image is in our society. Unfortunately, I feel that she had spent too much time focusing on the wrong issues. We all know that image is important so by looking professional it would help us in giving other’s a good impression of ourselves. But she missed the bigger and more important picture. She didn’t touch on “how” to wear professionally. Her main focus was on “why” to wear professionally. What a waste. She was an interesting speaker who caught her audience’s attention. She started her talk by asking. “do you trust me?” It was a very bold question. Nevertheless, lucky for her, some of the audience actually said yes.

I was given the task of introducing the only speaker in uniform—the ex-OCPD of Klang. I am quite sure some of you may have heard of him already. He is now the head of the Prosecution and Investigation Studies, Royal Police College, Cheras. His topic was “youth and crime”. The highlight of his talk was when he showed us picture of a human body badly slashed, chopped, sliced, cut, severed whatever words you want to call it in a gang clash using power point. Then he asked us whether we are ready for lunch. Come one man! There went my appetite. The pictures he showed were really ghastly and I bet you could not find them in any newspaper. But I guess the picture served its educational purposes. Now, everyone would think twice before engaging a fight blindly. Oh, one more thing before I leave our ex-OCPD alone, during Q & A sessions, someone asked him how many people he had killed. He asked us to guess. So we shouted numbers like 2, 10, 25 and 28. I was stunned in disbelief when he told us the actual number. During his career as a policeman, he had shot dead 169 people (here’s the catch: he didn’t say criminals or bad guys). From the manner he told us, I guess he feels proud about it.

Apart from the above talks which I specifically highlighted, we had speakers who talked on racial harmony and Rakan Muda (both were disasters from the start and I failed to see the relevancy); who talked on chairing a successful meeting, managing personal and club’s funds, organizing successful club projects etc. Ok, speaking of successful club projects, do you all know what are the criteria of a successful project? The key word is “originality”. Why? Come on now, folks. That’s food for thought.

I have some comment about the talks. I also voiced this out during forum time at the end of RYLA. If you look at the schedule, it was really tight. And worse still, we were all confined in the four walls of the auditorium and had to be seated like schoolboys. Further, there are some sessions which had 3 to 5 talks in a row with short coffee breaks in between. Please bear in mind that the majority of the participants were people like me who had left school for a number of years. And to ask us to sit down for a few hours listening to speakers after speakers without any form of physical activities is unwise. Another word to describe this scenario is “torturing”.


I expected more outdoor activities like rock climbing, canoeing, tug of war, sports etc but what I got was classrooms, meeting rooms, conference rooms and auditorium. At first when I looked at the program called “Rakan Muda”, I thought we were going to have fun doing some kick a** activities. Instead, we have some Timbalan Pengarah schooled us on the background of Rakan Muda. Sheer disappointment.



(To be continued)

Centennial RYLA Report (Part 1)

Contributed by Rtr Harnniann

During last club meeting, I promised to publish the report prepared by me 2 years ago about the Centennial RYLA I participated for members' reference. Here it is.

Good evening, Rotary Club of Port Klang! I really appreciate the opportunity extended to me in allowing me to take part in RYLA 2005 held at Permata, Kajang. Now, it’s pay back time. As a sign of my appreciation, allow me to share with all of you briefly my experience, observation and everything else in RYLA 2005.


The Beginning

At first, President Michael (as he then was) really did give me the expectation/impression that he will hold my hand and bring me to attend RYLA so I had nothing to worry about. Hey, obviously I was wrong.

I did not know the exact location of Permata, Kajang though I downloaded the map from the RYLA website. One day before RYLA, a Rotarian (the name I could not remember) called me and asked whether I need transport. I thought this could save me all the hassles so I said yes, I need transport. But her reaction was rather surprising, “har? You need transport ar?... you cannot drive there meh?” I said I can drive if necessary then she happily asked me to drive over there just following the map. I thanked her anyway for the hospitality.

I started my journey at 8.25am and without much problem I reached Permata at about 9.15am. After getting clearance from the guards, I observed that there was no sign at all to tell me where I should go! I didn’t even know where to park my car. So I guess I’d have to use some common sense. I parked my car under one big tree, took my luggage and walked to the auditorium. I tried the auditorium first as I thought the open ceremony would take place over there. I was wrong. There was no one there. Then, I tried the sport centre as I thought they would need a big space for registration, gathering and also briefing. I walked all the way under the hot sun only to find out I was wrong again. No one was there.

I got lucky the third time, it was the hostel. I guess I was one of the early birds to be there. I saw a few young (and not so young) people wearing the same shirt hanging around at the foyer. I approached one young man and informed him that I was there for RYLA. Without a smile he said nonchalantly, “tell them your name and register yourself.” Wow! President, can I go home now?

Fortunately the young Indian lady at the registration counter was very friendly. She asked for my name and gave me a file, a bag of goodies and a RYLA t-shirt. She also handed over my room key to me. My room was D35. I headed straight to my room to check it out.

My Roommates

I was the earliest to get into the room so I had the privilege of choosing my bed. It has 4 single beds but I think for economical purposes they put two mattress on the floor so that it could accommodate six persons. I chose the one next to the window. After a while, my roommates started to check in one by one.

Now, let me introduce my roommates:-

First, we have Chandra (Now DRR Chandra). He is a friendly man from Bayu Perdana Klang but he is from Rotaract Club of Bangsar. He owns his own business in Bayu Perdana dealing with computer software. Next is Thaya. His business card suggested that he is a negotiator. What’s that? He explained, “I do real property”. Oh, a real estate agent who calls himself a negotiator.

Then we have Wah. I could easily tell that he was not very happy to be there. He spent half his time in RYLA talking on his handphone, can’t wait to get out I guess. Later I found out that he was there because he was chosen by his company for training as part of the ISO requirements. Ok, now we have two late comers. One is Imran and another is Scott Lee. Imran has a wonderful athlete body and he plays professional hockey. Scott Lee on the other hand is a man of few words. You know, the silence is golden type.

The Hotel and Facilities

When I first reached Permata I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had this impression that I was going to some place like the national service camp. But I was dead wrong. Permata is something like a resort or villa with swimming pool, nice greeneries, sport centres, tennis court and great view. Once I settled down, I called Eric Yap, my boss to tell him how excited I was. Now that the Rotary Club of Port Klang had sent me here for vacation! I told him I am going to enjoy myself here and he told me that I had no idea what I’ve gotten myself into. Well, he was right (or at least partially right).

To be continued...