11. Hiking Checklist.

My own rough checklist for hiking

Hiking checklist

Cap. Helmet is caving

Spec, spare

Spec tie

Sun glasses

Mask : volcano

Warm clothing : cold mountain

Long sleeves shirt

Rain coat,

Whistle

Emergency blanket

Spares in car: T-shirt, tower, trousers, underwear, sarung, slippers, water to wash hand, shoes, baths,

Shoes

Gloves

Drinks

Food

Sweets

Headlamp, battery

Emergency kit: plaster, cotton

Salt, activated carbon, calsium, magnesium pill.

Knife

Match

Rope

Lighter

Permit: Emergency contact no.

Plastic bag,

Fly sheet

10. Open Challenge. Indian/Malay operated coffee shop.

For the reader of my blog, here is an open challenge to you. Can you show me “A coffee shop that is operated by a “pure Indian or Malay” owner in Peninsular Malaysia which operates likes a Chinese Coffee shop? Mixed parentages are not allowed. The main tenant/owner runs the beverages operations and sub-rented more than five stalls to other stall operators to sell other food like mee, rice, fried etc. Food courts are excluded. The main tenant/owner must operate in a physical shop lot. The most I have seen is about 2-3 stalls, one sell satays and others.

The first person who emails me along with the evidence such as photo, shop name and address location and other information? I will go there to verify it. Upon verification, I will bank in RM20 (twenty ringgit) into your Malaysian Bank account. I reserve the right to publish the given shop details and information.

9. 5 pillars for successful career in sports. 1st Oct 2018

From all I knew today 2018, I wish I could have gone back to early 1980 to tell myself about all these. Having known all these upfront may have made me a more successful sportsman rather than a not so successful athletic track and field runner. My personal best is 50.8 for 400m at the age of 23. In this article, I assume one has all the basic required resources needed such as coaching, sufficient funding etc. If you find this article useful to your younger child, relatives, friend etc, do forward them this article. I hope it helps.

First is Genetics:

When I first started seriously running in 1986 at 14 years old, I realized that I could never beat the school sprinter (Khairul and RizalSham) 100m. No matter how I train, I can never beat them. They have all the given genetics to do well. Khairul does not need much training, all he needs to do is keep healthy, not overweight and practice 2-3 weeks before the competition and nobody in school can beat him. So, I don’t have the genetics for sprinting, let forget it. Focus on some other thing.

Second is Effort:

Then I realize what if I run 400m like 100m sprinting. I was more than willing to take up the effort in endurance work. Finally, with 1-year training, I made it in 400m, nobody in school can beat me in it. I think this success is also the biggest mistake and attachment I have for the rest of my life and worst have indirectly prevented me from doing other events. I stayed in 400m until the end of my running career. The only innovation I made is genetics + effort. The effort part will automatically filter out 90% of the potential competitors because they prefer to “lepak” / do nothing. Watch TV etc at home.

Let do a simple calculation to illustrate my idea.

Let me assume there are 1,000,000 people around my age group. I will be able to beat 90% of them in 100m. So there are, 100,000 people within the same age group who can still beat me in 100m.


From these 100,000 people,  let said only 1% are willing to train for years and endurance work. My training years are 1986 till 1996. I have plenty of spare time to compete. Thus, I will be completing these 1000 people for years to come. Therefore, this is an easy qualification for me to represent the district or state school level representative in Malaysia.

Third is Skill

Back in 1987, I often visited Kg Pandan Sport complex. I saw Rabuan Pit, Ishtiaq Mubarak, Nur Herman Majid, Hanipiah Nasir, etc. However, I hardly talk to them. Going back in time, I should have at least approach them. I was just too shy and dumb ashes (period). One thing I observed in 1988, is that in High jump, hurdle, pole vault, throw event is usually dominated by the same group of people for a duration of 5 – 15 years depending on which athletic you are referring to. Every year you see the same person will the state event and he went on to compete with the same group of people from another state. Thus, skills may be another factor to consider

A 100m runner may be able to beat many sprinters if he trains consistently for years, but then he may not be able to beat Rabuan Pit. His best maybe around 10.8 or 10.9 in 100m. That the best he can do. However, for him to be successful if he could recognize it earlier, he could start training for 110m hurdles before the age of 15-16, then probably he may be able to perform as a 110m national hurdler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Schwarthoff

On average, if one perfected his hurdling skill, it will take about 3 seconds away from his 100m time. If he can run 11.0 in 100m, perhaps he can run 14.0 in 110m hurdle. It is the timing for gold medalist SEA games for 1987-1991.

The mistake I made is

1.     I lazy and lack of patience to learn hurdling. The drills involve jumping here and there around the hurdle with no particular reasons for maybe at least six months to 2 years before you start to win any medal at the state level. At the same time, I have to do my heavy intervals for 400m. Like 6x300m etc. I need to spare one hour per day, three days per week for the drills. I begin to doubt the initial ROI as I already got 400m mah.

2.       I also scared of falling down, hitting the hurdle.

Moreover, the coaches are right there at Kg Pandan. I just dumb ashes.

Let do a simple calculation to illustrate my idea.

From the remaining 1000 people, let said only 20% of them have coaches to teach them hurdling, effort to learn and patch up their skill for at least two years. Then, there are only 200 people left to compete against you. Thus, if you are a state-level 100m,400m runner, you almost upgrade yourself to be a national 110m hurdle or 400m hurdle runner (if you are willing to spend 2-3 years perfecting the hurdling skill).


Lately, in 2018, I got involved in swimming. I also found that swimming is very technical in nature.


Fourth is Interactive.

Track and Field event generally is non-interactive sports where individuals are competing against themselves. In interactive games, like racquet games. You decide to hit the ball in one direction. Your opponent has to pick it up. I read the book when I was 20+, “The WAY of a champion.”

Eddy chong wrote this. Maybe your badminton opponent can jump 2 feet higher than you to smash. However, he cannot jump 20 feet to smash. Then I realize how wrong I was sticking to track and field. Your opponent may have 2x your stamina, but in the game, if you can make him run all over the court. You can still beat him. Every moment, as one hit the ball, it’s a game of skill, effort and intelligent. Thus, badminton is more interesting.

Well, during my late teen years, I always read the review “How carl Lewis lost his 100m to Ben Johnson in 1988, as he turns to look at Ben when he ran?”.Carl eventually won as Ben Johnson cheated on the race by using drug. I also read the review “How Dr M. Jegathesan focus beat C Kunalan in 100 m 1966 Asian games”? All these are nice plus interesting but super short. Ten seconds and it’s all done. But when I come to think of it. It is no match compared to a simple badminton game between LCW and Lin DAN where every point count or how they approach the game every moment counts.

 Fifth is TEAM work

Lastly, sports that involve teamwork. Well, you can be an exceptional player, but in a football team, the whole game depends on everybody. You can have all the four qualities mentioned above; now you need other players to have the same qualities as you and most importantly, willing to cooperate with you to win the game. For example, CHINESE athletes are good in individual and two-person team games; however, in large team events such as hockey and football. They did not perform well as compared to Korea and Japan. In Malaysia, I do foresee team event is a bit problematic.


Conclusion

Maybe I should write more and explain further. In the first three pillars, most of the time, you can practice on your own. Hurdling drills, you can DIY. With youtube, you can learn the skill by yourself. If you can get a coach even better, or you can video your drills, jump, run, swim and send it to someone for review. With technology and some $$$, you can even get an Olympian to review your video. We Asians are small in size; without skill, you can never be an Olympic medalist. (period).Thus, in every sport, you must have at least the first three pillars.


In interactive sports, you may need to find a team to practice with e.g. Badminton club. You cannot practice with a wall. That is a major drawback, especially for rural areas where the sport is not popular. Thus like it or not, champions will come from city areas. In badminton, I do see some hope, however in other sports not much hope. I will explain more in another article.

8. Mountain Hiking (general experience)

Blog 8. 7th August 2018

Since small, I like to hike, but I was not given the opportunity to do so. There is no Internet access in the 80s and early 90s. Not much information about hiking is available for the general public.

In 1994, I managed to join some of my USM mates to go for some hike such as Taman Negara and Gunung Tahan. After graduating in 1996, I did not go for any climb even though I wish could. Perhaps, I did not really look for them and most of the time there is no advertisement. I briefly heard of Persatuan Mendaki Malaysia, but beyond hearing, I did not do much. If I actively search around, I should be able to find some. However, I can' t depend on my friend as there are not hiking kaki.

The main problem in 1996 – 2000 is I did not find any group or partners to do the mountain hiking stuff. Then I 2001, I saw my university student club OARS MMU organizing some mountain hiking activities, I just said I am interested and followed them to various hike in 2001 – 2005/06, I went to Gunung Korbu, Gayong, Irau, Brinchang, Gunung Batu Putih, Nuang, Ansi. I think that about it. In 2002, I managed to climb Mountain Kinabalu.

After that, when the old batch of the hardcore student left, the new group of students like leisure activities more. They like to go Pulau Pangkor,  camping at a waterfall and snorkeling kind of trip. No STIM. So I left them without much thought in 2005/2006. I think my last trip with them is on Gunung Batu Putih 2003-2006. I can't recall which year.

Then there were some other priorities coming along the way, ding dong here and there without any goal on hiking, time passes just like that it's one decade already in 2017 until I first joined KL hiking group in July 2017. Aiyah, why didn't I find them earlier? The group was created in 2011. I missed six years of trekking. Now old already, there are many actions which physically challenging for me to do. On top of that, I "may not have sufficient time" to do anymore. Nevertheless, I still try to gain as many hikes as possible now.

Here is some of my mistake

In 2004, even though I no longer joined OARS, I still heard my friend go for various mountain hiking trips. Nice to hear, but at least I should have asked them the following questions.


"How you find such groups?", or at least thick skin a bit, "can I join U?" when is your next trip? What is your plan?.
I did not ask any of these questions at that time.

Mistake 1: if curious, be bolder, ask them. Find out the root of the problem — the source of entertainment, etc.


In 2012, I saw my student in facebook with some mountain hiking picture under KL Hiking group. At that time, I did not know it was KL Hiking Group. I even complimented him on the hiking. However, I was not curious enough, and I did not ask how to join them. I think over the years that was the biggest key mistake.


I also not so fortunate to have a "KUIH REN", secret teacher or someone wise who pointed me the way, to said, "OK you join this group, that group, this website etc". One fine day in 2017, accidently I browse the web and found KL Hiking group in meetup.com, and now after one year, I think I went for about ten hikes with the group already. Probably there is more than that; when I browse further, I saw many Facebook groups as well.


Then in 2017, I overheard some conversation in KL hiking group, now most forest needs permits to enter. Wow! I did not recall I need any forest permit to go to Gunung Brinchang and Irau back then in 2003. Damn, I have missed the biggest thing in a lifetime as far as hiking is concerned.


Back to the future in 1996, If I determined enough back in 1996, I can set up a website on hiking and now it will be very successful in term of organizing trip but may not be making $$$. Well, the chance is odd. However, the very least I can do from 1996 till 2002, if I could find a group of friends from my OARS MMU contact, at least I could hike various mountain while I'm still fit and would have covered many mountain sites. Alternatively, the very very least, I could have joined KL Hiking group in 2012.

Back then there is very little phone coverage, no GPS, no permit, just cowboy and enter the forest. Find your way in and out if you are lost good luck. You may need some ARMY survival skills to find your way out.  Many parts of forests are untouched. I just missed the boat. Now virtually every mountain you stated, you throw a stone, someone in town/housing estate had climbed it before.


The next level of skill is the GPS trail. Well, I heard GPS since 1996, but my mind is still "KATAK dalam tempurung" as far as GPS is concerned. Until, one trip in 2018 Trans Jerling where ALEX told us to download the GPX trail file into my handphone. Now my mind gets wilder.

Now if you are lost in a forest, then you are a fool because most routes there are available in GPX file uploaded by various hikers. If you deviate 20-30 m from the GPX trail, the handphone will tell you. Now, it more difficult to get lost as long as you keep yourself in the given trail and GPX trail. As long as I can get 1-2 friends to go with me, with GPX file alone in a mountain you never been before I will dare to go. Just scout around the GPS coordinate, I'm sure we can reach the destination. Just a matter of time.

Now, whenever I see someone (known/unknown/close or not close) whom I get to chat with them. I will introduce them to meetup.com and various hiking groups. At least they know where to go and why. The rest is up to them. The very least is that I don't want people to be like me. I want to strike them hard in their mind as far as hiking is concerned, just like Steve Job did to ex-apple CEO John Sculley when he tried to recruit him from Pepsi Cola. "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?".


In one of my friendly community meeting, one very outspoken person Mr. ABC tell us his hiking story." Here and there the story is still limited to Gunung Ledang only". Then, a very introvert people came along and spoken about his Gunung Tahan trip. Suddenly he becomes very excited and outspoken. The whole group got excited, listening to his story. Based on his experience and the way he spoke, Mr. ABC ends up keeping quiet only. The adventure that you have been through will stay forever in your heart, once the moment of sharing appeared, just by merely talking about it, the joy it brings to those who never been is tremendous. OK, get some adventure, there will be someone to listen in time to come when you share.

Despite all these talking, remember these words "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."……

Well, you join certain hiking groups, there are paper trails laid by the leader, just follow the trail you won't get lost 95% of the time. Other than tiring and boasting that wow I climbed Mountain XXX within XXX time. In case you left behind, there is a sweeper to make sure no one left behind. However, is there any adventure other than a hard walk and climb. For me it NO.

Then what is the philosophy of adventure? You are tired and hungry+ thirsty and you reach the end of a trail with virtually no trail to go. What are you going to do?

The real adventure begins like this. OK this is Mount ABC where you have not been before, here is the starting point. Don't use your GPS. Use compass only. You with a group of friends, go and find/scout your way up the mountain. That the real adventure. However, the number of reasonable adventures/trips will go down day by day as you climbed many more mountains. Thus, for any reasonably hard hike, once you found a friend, just go.
OK. Until here. Have a good hike.

7. Origin Point Medicine. 16th July 2018. (Posted Date).

 Written about one month back.16th July 2018



As I was listening to youtube in 2015-2016, I accidentally came across Origin Point medicine video. The speaker spoke about Alternative approaches to medicine in deep Mandarin language, which I can only understand 30% of the words, then one of my colleagues came into my room for lunch. What a co-incident? Oh, You also listen to this fellow arh? He is Dr. Zhang Chao Han. Etc. (forgotten what my colleagues mumble already). Since he is so energetic, there must be something behind it, so during the lunch carpool, I asked him about Dr. Zhang Chao Han’s story. In summary, what he told me was Dr. Zhang ‘s wife was diagnosed with cancer, he with full faith begin western medicine treatment for his wife, when western medicine failed, he begins to try on Chinese medicine, which also fail miserably, so he decided to find the source of his wife sickness and found origin point medicine The main thing that got me hooked was “The doctor said his wife only could live for 7 days, Dr. Zhang manages to extend her wife life by 7 months”. Had my colleague did not come into my room on that day, I may have a delay of 1-2 years in learning origin point medicine.



I think if you want to know more about Dr. Zhang Life's story, you can read the link below.

http://origin-point-medicine.org/dr-chang-chao-han-story-part-1/



So, since strong evidence was given to me on such good alternative treatment in medicine, I begin to search for all his lectures contained in 18-21 hours of length on Origin Point medicine. However, the lectures were in Mandarin, which I could only understand 30% of it. So, I managed to find a set of videos with the Chinese subtitle written in text. I then use the google translator website to translate each of the mandarin characters to English. Then while I listen to the video, I read the translated English texts. There my understanding improves till 60 – 70%.



This whole effort took me about 2-3 weeks of my time. I finally convinced about this approach and began to tell my love one. 90% of them do not believe me. Only 2-3%, believe in it and practice it, the 7% believe in it but do nothing about it.



Upon having learned about origin point medicine, I was slowly removing my dependencies on the Western drug. Antibiotics were the hardest things to remove, especially when I have a throat infection. I think it takes about one year to eradicate it. I think since 2016. I hardly take any western medicine at all except for probiotics and mineral supplements. Even if I got some minor infection, it would get resolved in 1-2 weeks without medication. If it gets bad, I will go for origin point treatment which consists of



a)    Drink hot stuff like concentrated ginger drink

b)      Apply ginger powder on a specific part of the body

c)       Body massage at a certain critical point in our body

d)      Heat treatment on body, neck

e)      Exercise

f)        Soak at Hot spring.

Initially, the English Training Classes for Origin Point Medicine was conducted by Brother Raymond Wong in 2016 with various Buddhist Society in Malaysia. I did attend the training. Later on, now there are English classes offered by the Origin Point Medicine Malaysia section.

For more information, you can refer to this website below.

http://malaysia.cchysd.org/



After learning this, no regret not taking any medical courses such as medicine, pharmacy, etcetera.

I have many relatives and friends. Many I already recommended Original Point Medicine to them. Since I am not RICH, my influence is limited, I already distributed CD and booklet to them back in 2016 FOC. For many of us, your influence level is dependent on how rich you are, what car you drive, where you stay, what profession you do. Well, I can count at least 5 of them already dead. One of them with a funny look at my face (with some lol in his heart), my son is a doctor he can take care of me, the last two years he passed away due to sickness. I give him the DVD he said the DVD  player is not working. Another friend, I told them, I seen many cancer cases in my relatives, all of them died once their cancer recurring. Why not try origin point medicine, well they did not listen and proceed with Chemotherapy. Then later, in 2018, one of them passed away.



So if I got cancer, I would not do CHEMO, I will stick with ORIGIN POINT MEDICINE. Well, I said enough, the rest is up to you.  ORIGIN POINT MEDICINE is something which you can learn, practice to live a healthy and fruitful life for yourself. If it is useful, share it out. Last but not least, I also told Alex KL Hiking about it in early 2018. He did attend the class in July 2018 at Kajang and said it OK and good. Well, if you knew him, you can ask him for confirmation. OK.

6. Athletics. Malaysia High Jumper. 17th June 2018

In this article, I am going to talk about athletics.

According to Internet search data, I obtained the data for Malaysian High Jumper, the main information is their height and their personal best,

https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/lo/loo-kum-zee-1.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hup_Wei

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauraj_Singh_Randhawa

I then draw a table below, jump above jumper height

	Personal Best – Jumper height
Loo Kum Zee 1.76m	2.24 - 1.76 = .48
Lee Hup Wei 1.80m	2.28 - 1.80 = .48
Nauraj Singh Randhawa 1.93m	2.30 - 1.93 = .37

According to http://www.scholm.com/eng50.asp list updated in 2014, there are 50 jumpers world wide since 1968 (beginning of Fosbury Flop style) who jumped 50 cm above their height. Let assume by 2018, there are 55 jumpers. Let assume jumper need some years to optimize/perfecting their style, let assume the style is already optimized since 1978, so now it is 2018 about 40 years, with 55 jumper jumped above 50 cm. I think Loo Kum Zee and Lee Hup Wei, had already approaching their personal best limit. There are among the top 100-200 high jumper in the world since 1978, if you consider height difference. As far as their skill (Loo Kum Zee and Lee Hup Wei) are concerned they are world class, why they did not get a medal in Olympic or Commonwealth, it’s because their height is not tall enough.

If you do an analysis of jumper height and their personal best, most Olympic medallist jumper high is at least 1.90 meter and the average jump above jumper height is around 0.40meter.

If you consider current time, they are considered world class if you consider height difference.

If Nauraj Singh (need to improve his skill) can improve his technique to be around 0.42 meter above his height, then he can do 2.35 ( a medallist in Olympic). In high jump, jumper height does matter. In many sports, size does matter, a simple calculation will show everything. TQ for reading, spread this info around.

5. How freshness affect taste?17th June 2018.

From a simple conversation with a noodle stall operator I come to know about this.

The owner operates a CURRY MEE stall, I asked him why he no longer provide cockle (kerang) in his mee. His said the supplier give him spoiled Cockle, his customer complaint so he no longer give cockle to his customer as he cannot guaranteed the freshness.

I thought he can always buy from the market, boiled, peel off the shell and remove the dirty and serve it fresh to his customer. He said better buy the “ready peel cockle” as less work is involved. Now I understand. The same applies to Chow Keow Tew noodles. So one of the benchmark for these noodles, is that the stall operator must buy cockles from the market, boiled, peel off the shell and remove the dirty and serve it fresh to his customer. It is difficult to gauge the amount of cockles needed in 1 day. Thus, sometimes you will get overnight or multi night cockles (refrigerated), well that affect quality. Well, that why sometimes it’s nice sometimes it not nice. The same applies to prawns.

Let me go to the extreme side, well if you want good tasty food, must spend a lot of time making your own ingredient. E.g. A noodle operator made their own noodle before serving it to their customer, Nasi lemak operator make their own sambal. Most operator will find out which is the best sambal supplier, best tasting sauces and get it from their supplier and start cooking. Where got time to make their own SAMBAL or Special sauces. Maybe some specialized shop do it.

How about PAU and Bread? Every coffee shop got PAU in a machine correct? How many days the pau are there? Well, some people make $$ by dedicating their effort in opening up, pau shops selling fresh pau. There is one in Sri Kembangan and Dengkil. The same applies to Bread, which is made daily. Well, the taste and quality should be better than what you get from the machine or supermarket. Agree. So if price does not differs that much I will get it from a pau shops.

How about fruits? Due to logistic and commercial reason, the fruits we eat is not riped when it was plucked, so that it can last longer. What we buy it from the supermarket and eat it ‘s taste is always one to two grade below the best.  I wish there is an orchard which sells road by the road side. All the fruits must ripe on the tree before it is served. E.g Banana, papaya, mango.

Let goes to one extreme, let said I am a millionaires, I want total food quality/taste control. So I buy a farm, rear my own organic chicken/pig/cow/lamb/goat/fish, control what their eats. Then I also grow the plants such as sawi, cucumber and taugee for  the chicken rice shop. Later, I open a shop which sell chicken rice where the chicken is supplied from my own farm. I have 100% end to end control over the taste and texture of my meat. I guess nobody have done that yet in Malaysia. I do hope someday someone will as Malaysia have sufficient land to implement such scheme. Pls don’t ask me to do it, spread the ideas surely someone will take it up one day. I do hope to go to such restaurant b4 I died. If u know one let me know ok.