Posts
This post was supposed to have been written two days ago on Wednesday. However, due to circumstances beyond my control (favourite excuse of politicians and public relations personnel!) including technical hitches, I can do it only now. So, as you read it, please imagine that it's July 15. Thank you.
Time flies. Without realising and as if it was only yesterday, my blog is two years old! Yes, on 15 July 2007 I started Sikmading's Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. To the best of my memory, I had along the way made a couple of promises (especially on New Year's Eve) that I would TRY my best to blog everyday or at least every other day. I failed to keep my promises, but are promises not meant to be broken? Ha ha, what an excuse!
But, who cares? I might not have blogged regularly and my blog might not have been the best or won any prize, but at least I provided my fellow Sabahans and Malaysians with a blog on our beloved State of Sabah, nicknamed 'Land Below The Wind'. For that matter, I provided the World with a blog on this Borneo state. I helped popularise this east Malaysian state in cyberspace or borderless world, free of charge. For that, I should be given a Datukship (PGDK) compared to those less-deserving! After all, I'm just one step below the Datukship (ASDK). Ha ha, what wishful thinking! No joke no fun, as they say.
Actually, it's not just my blog's anniversary. July 15 WAS also the birthday of (the late) BERJAYA Party or, in the Malay language, Parti BERJAYA. Please see the press clipping above or go to my blog archive and click 2007. Yes, in 1975 a new political party was formed in Sabah which would change the course of the State's history until the mid-1980s. Within 9 months of its formation, BERJAYA swept to power; defeating the USNO-dominated Alliance Party which had ruled Sabah for 9 years since Independence in 1963. What's in a name? BERJAYA means success in Malay.
But BERJAYA's success did not last long, and 9 (months) is not always lucky. In Chinese, apart from nine it also sounds like long-lisitng. But it also sounds like dog! BERJAYA lost to an even younger party, the Sabah Unity People or PBS (less than 2 months old) 9 years later in 1985. And, believe it or not, PBS 'lost' (through defections) to Malaysia's ruling National Front (BN) coalition also 9 years later in 1994! However, the UMNO-led BN managed to break the 'zinx' and has been in power in Sabah for 15 years now! For the record, both USNO and BERJAYA have been dissolved or de-registered. But the irony was that USNO, one of Sabah's oldest party formed in preparation for Independence in the early 1960s, outlived BERJAYA by a few years! BERJAYA was dissolved in the late 1980s while USNO was de-registered in mid-1990s.
To conclude, I don't want to make any more promises which I may not be able to keep. But suffice for me to say that the 2nd anniversary of my blog hopefully will spur me on to blog more regularly from now on and, hopefully too, to continue with the BERJAYA story which I started two years ago. Many of my visitors had urged me to carry on but I explained that will depend on my having the time to get (and money, the photostat that is not cheap) the resources from the archives.
Hopefully too, it will spur me on to continue with the pilgrimage story (Trail of St Paul, Turkey) which was stopped temporarily. Again,my fellow pilgrims have urged me to continue, although we are now safely home. And although by now most of them have got my photos, they say seeing those pix in the Internet is something different. They can tell and show their friends and relatives all over the world about it.
To conclude a second time, we thank God that we are safely home and so far none of us have contracted the much talked-about H1N1 (which our Information Minister insisted should be called Swine Fever although our Health Minister had repeatedly said the disease did not come from pigs).
About two weeks after our return, a local daily newspaper reported that one of the then 4 Sabahans who caught the flu had just came back from Turkey! You can imagine our phones that day! We were busy answering calls and reassuring our callers that none of us was the patient concerned. He (or rather she) turned out to be a teacher in Kudat who had arrived from Istanbul a week later than us and who was not part of our entourage. Looking back, the $75 that we each spent on the jab at Dr Tan's before the trip was well-spent.Thank you Lord, for protecting us, including the safe journey home; what not after receiving news of the Air France plane crash while we were in Turkey!
Cheers! Aramaiti! Yoku boti!
Time flies. Without realising and as if it was only yesterday, my blog is two years old! Yes, on 15 July 2007 I started Sikmading's Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. To the best of my memory, I had along the way made a couple of promises (especially on New Year's Eve) that I would TRY my best to blog everyday or at least every other day. I failed to keep my promises, but are promises not meant to be broken? Ha ha, what an excuse!
But, who cares? I might not have blogged regularly and my blog might not have been the best or won any prize, but at least I provided my fellow Sabahans and Malaysians with a blog on our beloved State of Sabah, nicknamed 'Land Below The Wind'. For that matter, I provided the World with a blog on this Borneo state. I helped popularise this east Malaysian state in cyberspace or borderless world, free of charge. For that, I should be given a Datukship (PGDK) compared to those less-deserving! After all, I'm just one step below the Datukship (ASDK). Ha ha, what wishful thinking! No joke no fun, as they say.
Actually, it's not just my blog's anniversary. July 15 WAS also the birthday of (the late) BERJAYA Party or, in the Malay language, Parti BERJAYA. Please see the press clipping above or go to my blog archive and click 2007. Yes, in 1975 a new political party was formed in Sabah which would change the course of the State's history until the mid-1980s. Within 9 months of its formation, BERJAYA swept to power; defeating the USNO-dominated Alliance Party which had ruled Sabah for 9 years since Independence in 1963. What's in a name? BERJAYA means success in Malay.
But BERJAYA's success did not last long, and 9 (months) is not always lucky. In Chinese, apart from nine it also sounds like long-lisitng. But it also sounds like dog! BERJAYA lost to an even younger party, the Sabah Unity People or PBS (less than 2 months old) 9 years later in 1985. And, believe it or not, PBS 'lost' (through defections) to Malaysia's ruling National Front (BN) coalition also 9 years later in 1994! However, the UMNO-led BN managed to break the 'zinx' and has been in power in Sabah for 15 years now! For the record, both USNO and BERJAYA have been dissolved or de-registered. But the irony was that USNO, one of Sabah's oldest party formed in preparation for Independence in the early 1960s, outlived BERJAYA by a few years! BERJAYA was dissolved in the late 1980s while USNO was de-registered in mid-1990s.
To conclude, I don't want to make any more promises which I may not be able to keep. But suffice for me to say that the 2nd anniversary of my blog hopefully will spur me on to blog more regularly from now on and, hopefully too, to continue with the BERJAYA story which I started two years ago. Many of my visitors had urged me to carry on but I explained that will depend on my having the time to get (and money, the photostat that is not cheap) the resources from the archives.
Hopefully too, it will spur me on to continue with the pilgrimage story (Trail of St Paul, Turkey) which was stopped temporarily. Again,my fellow pilgrims have urged me to continue, although we are now safely home. And although by now most of them have got my photos, they say seeing those pix in the Internet is something different. They can tell and show their friends and relatives all over the world about it.
To conclude a second time, we thank God that we are safely home and so far none of us have contracted the much talked-about H1N1 (which our Information Minister insisted should be called Swine Fever although our Health Minister had repeatedly said the disease did not come from pigs).
About two weeks after our return, a local daily newspaper reported that one of the then 4 Sabahans who caught the flu had just came back from Turkey! You can imagine our phones that day! We were busy answering calls and reassuring our callers that none of us was the patient concerned. He (or rather she) turned out to be a teacher in Kudat who had arrived from Istanbul a week later than us and who was not part of our entourage. Looking back, the $75 that we each spent on the jab at Dr Tan's before the trip was well-spent.Thank you Lord, for protecting us, including the safe journey home; what not after receiving news of the Air France plane crash while we were in Turkey!
Cheers! Aramaiti! Yoku boti!
No comments:
Post a Comment