Final Exams

... and a wee bit late Report Annual Visit to POSCO's Gwangyang Steel Factory

The road less travelled
A map showing a train route from Seoul to Gwangyang

This week is reading period week. As a Budak Boy, I was constantly reminded by my old man when he was a Budak Boy in 1963-64 (when the Instructors and teachers were Smiths, Middletons, or Townsend - yeah former British colonial masters) the RMC had a compulsory rest period after class and lunch. I think it was from 1400H - 1600H before afternoon prep and then sports for another 2 hours. But during my tenure at the RMC in 1990s, the supposedly rest period was a time for you to receive hell or extra fatigue (punishments and washing your seniors dirty laundry)

So back to this school's so called Reading Period, it was actually classes and end of semesters lunch and dinners with your professors. I had a great time with my Middle Powers Aussie professor, doughnuts with my American Academic Writing professor and next will be with my Economic and Statistics professors. How great is that? Makan free. Woohoooo!

With fellow classmates, Sana Mangi and Stilson

~ Picture by Mangi

Let me begin my experience at the POSCO Annual Trip on 5-6 April 2012 to Gwangyang with 58 fellows from all over Seoul, South Korea by thanking the TJ Park Asia Fellowship for an outstanding tradition of "CAN DO" spirit 정신을 할 수 (jeongsin eul halsu) which I think Malaysia's fourth Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed's "MALAYSIA BOLEH" spirit was based upon in the early 1990s.

The journey started by meeting up with other Asia Fellows at the POSCO Headquarters in Seoullong, the southern part of Seoul. There were two buses waiting for all the scholars with smartly dressed drivers who looked like airline pilots rather than a typical bus drivers like we have at home.

I had the same experience during my trip from Canberra to Melbourne in 2002 (paid for by my brother-in-law then Captain Zamran Hashim who was an instructor at Australia's Royal Military College of Duntroon - thanks bro!). The driver welcomed us like an airline pilot with all the salutations you would expect from a Qantas Airlines.

But this time, the driver was quiet, probably it was not his forte to inform us.

Looks like an American greyhound bus

The smartly dressed drivers.
I am guilty of not knowing their names - as my old man always taught me,
everyone is important and has a role in this world 

The trip from Seoullong, Seoul to Gwangyang was going to be a four-hour trip with one stop at their R&R that is about 320km. Roughly about the same distance from Kuala Lumpur to Sungai Petani. The stop at Jeong-nam Service Center was a good one when I had the chance to taste our own Rotiboy there. 

Jeong-nam Service Area
Reminded me of PLUS Highway RnR in the 1990s but with more parking space

Rotiboy born in 1998 at Bukit Mertajam, Penang, Malaysia

The parking space was like an American strip mall 

I had a good sleep all along the way, with a glimpse of Korea's rural area which took two hours journey to see the other side of Korea naturally (that's how urbanised Seoul is). There were a lot of rice paddies which reminded me of my father-in-law who would have loved to see Korean technology in rice-farming. 

Rice paddy fields en route Gwangyang

And guess what received me after waking up in the bus? A good strong bridge that had the resemblance of Penang bridge, not that I was surprised as they were the ones building the Penang bridge in the 1980s.

Gwangyang or Penang?
Dia mai dahhhh.... 

I always had strong emotions and bonding towards Pulau Pinang as it was my first experience of handling with Assemblymen, Members of Parliament, villagers and town folks who always had to deal with my first job as an Assistant District Officer at Seberang Perai Tengah District Office or formerly known as Province of Wellesley during the British colonial era. So I immediately felt at home when I saw this bridge.

We arrive on time for lunch peak hours, and the hall where we had our lunch was packed with the locals. The lunch was prepared for the local community which I think is subsidized by POSCO, there were school kids, ajummas and ajeossi alike having lunch together. It was a typical kimchi and bab (rice) for me which tasted not too bad for my hungry stomach.

We were ushered for a briefing at POSCO's training center and due to security reasons there were no pictures allowed during the presentation, but this model I took was outside of the hall where we had our briefing. It was mighty impressive.

Gwangyang Steel Plant on reclaimed land

After the briefing of Gwangyang POSCO's steel making processes we also had the opportunity of visiting its plant and observing the steel plates being formed with ultra heating processes all done by electronically-controlled machine - and imagine, Korea does not have natural iron ore on its soil!


They imported it mostly from Africa.

The weather was nice, 15ºC with soft winds blowing in our faces, and what did we do next?

A presentation on our experience in Korea indoors. pfttt... And who had to present on behalf of good old KDI? Yours truly. 

I had fun listening to my colleagues presentation of their experience in Korea, and as most of them had been here for more than a year it was easier to share their thoughts and enrichment they experienced here.

I truly appreciated their presentation and wish them all the best in their studies here.

As I was the first presenter, I did not know what to expect, so I had all my other colleagues, Mahmudbek, Nurlybek, Nurgul and Linh to come up with pictures of their experience here, and I wish to congratulate them for their teamwork and support in assisting me to present on behalf of KDI School.

You guys ROCK!

Food Glorious Korean Food

~ Picture by Nurgul

Trying to act serious but the pictures are of us having fun.... studying or partying?

~ Picture by Nurgul

After a day's journey, we made our way to Baekwoon Mountains, POSCO's training center located 45 minutes from Gwangyang. I was hungry and tired and looked forward to the dinner. As it was dark, I could not enjoy the scenery outside the bus but the roads reminded me of Cameron Highlands and Fraser's Hill in Pahang, Malaysia.

Leaving Gwangyang to Baekwoon Mt.

The dinner was superb!

Healthy food. Salmon, mushrooms, kimchi, prawns,
at the rear are beans bab with FRIED prawns sweet and sour sauce! FRIED yeah!

I had three helpings, and it was a good night to end.

The guys had fun in front of my room, I really wanted to join them but was too tired and sleepy (and old) plus the bed was alluring me to lie down pretty early.

A bed beside the fridge

Waking up early after Nurly did his Subuh prayers, I went out the training center and was surprised by the British influence here in Korea. Ever since I step into Korea, it was difficult not to notice that everyone speaks with an American accent (or try to sound like one), so when I saw an English cottage-theme building, I was either surprised or maybe nonchalant to view a part of British here in Korea.

It felt so Ye Olde British - its as if Winston Churchill slept here dear laddie, old chap...

British version of Eagle's Nest (okay too many World War II movie) - Bed and breakfast anyone?

The day was planned for a visit to Nagan Fortress and Folk Village until noon. A living village with history of its own dated way back in 1600s.

But I have to end here as my Analysis of Marketing in Public Policy and Quantitative Methods professors would expect me to do my best in my final exams. "CAN DO" spirit!

Good luck to all Master Public Policy and Master Development Policy colleagues!

We CAN DO it!

View at Baekwoon Mountains from our lodging

~ LIFE ‎

"When you rise in life, your friends know who you are! 
When you fall down, you know who are your friends."

A friend in need is a friend indeed

Ilhan with his cousin Akimi (USJ, Umar Rais' wedding)

~ Picture by Zaidatul Hasnida

As fas as I am concerned this was the longest week I have felt in years. The mid-term exams filled up the week like there is no tomorrow. My paper was Quantitative Methods (QM), statistical for business and economics. Having a background in Industrial Chemistry and postgrad diploma from the National Institute and Public Administration of Malaysia (INTAN) and the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR), Kuala Lumpur certainly did not help me at all in doing my calculations.  Even with my High School to undergraduate level Modern Mathematics and Additional Mathematics did not prep me well to sit for this exam. 

However to off-set this feeling - I was somewhat relieved that I was not the only ONE. 

You could hear, gasp, sighs, and arghhh....! literally in the exam hall. One of the students gave up early and dashed out of the hall in 30-minutes of the two-hour exams shaking his head in disappointment. I felt sorry for him, but then again I'm not his professor. 

Even with my Toyolnomics - cheat sheet that was allowed during the exam was unhelpful. I stared at my notes for about 5-minutes and scanned over and over again looking at which formulae is applicable in the solution needed. I did my utmost best and hope that at least I get sympathetic (pathetic) points.

Toyolnomics 101

Getting out of the hall after two hours - I had about 30 minutes to spare before making my way to Itaewon Masjid.

I surfed my Facebook and came to this perfect picture to underscore my feeling towards my QM exam:

Hell yeah

Haha....

Alright, now to rewind the week that was. Returning to excellence!

On Wednesday (28 March 2012), POSCO TJ Park Foundation held its annual POSCO TJ Park Prize Ceremony Award for outstanding citizens of the world in their contribution for the betterment of the society. 

This year's award was given to three fine recipients - two Koreans and one from Cambodia.

POSCO TJ PARK SCIENCE PRIZE

Jin-Woo Cheon
BSc. Chemistry, Yonsei University, PhD University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

Professor Jin-Woo Cheon is a world leading authority on synthetic nano-chemistry. He has pioneered and established nano-medicine, an interdisciplinary convergence area, by combining the fields of nanoscience and medicine for the first time in Korea.

Professor Cheon became the only Asian senior editor of Accounts of Chemical Research, an American journal of chemistry that is among top 1 percent with respect to the citation impact factor. He is also an editorial board of member of Nano Letters and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), demonstrating Korea's academic prowess in science and leading the field of synthetic nanochemistry.

POSCO TJ PARK EDUCATION PRIZE

Jong-Moon Kwag
Principal of Hangyoere Middle and High School

Joon-Moon Kwag, principal of Hangyoere Middle nd High School, has presented a new paradigm of education in Korea throughout his life-time endeavours to afford underprivileged youths education that promotes their creativity and upright character through nights schools and alternative education programs. He is also an educator who takes the initiative in helping young North Koreans defectors adapt to life in the South and giving them new hope. 

He has set a shining example to the educational community, which had previously taken little interest in alternative education, much less recognizing it. As a strong advocate for young North Korean refugees, Principal Kwag is expected to continue to make unwavering efforts to empower and help them self-develop and realize their dreams for the future in a safer environment.

POSCO TJ PARK COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT & PHILANTROPHY PRIZE

Somaly Mam
Founder of AFESIP, Cambodia

Born in 1970, when the civil war broke out in Cambodia, Somaly Mam began life as an orphan in extreme poverty. At 16, she was sold to a brothel and subjected to horrible treatment and exploitation. A few years later, she escaped the brothel and briefly stayed in France. She then returned to Cambodia and worked as a voluntary Khmer interpreter at international organizations, where she met many women and girls who were enslaved just like she had been. From that moment, Somaly Mam began rescuing victimized women with the belief that she had to stand up for them.

She founded the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007 to support organizations committed to eradicating human trafficking and to provide victims and survivors with a platform to regain a voice in their lives. The Foundation also runs awareness and advocacy campaigns around the world to shed light on an end to modern-day slavery.

~~~

The three recipients have one thing in common - service above self.

You can say the Professor of Chemistry probably came from a well to do family and had everything he ever wanted given to him on a silver platter - but to spend hours and hours of your time doing research on how to use nanoparticles into a patient's blood vessel so that they attach to cancer once detected and then treated is called (phew..!) PASSION. 

As once a chemist himself though not on nano-tech, but on explosions (yes, my thesis was about chemical explosives substances and tests from the Israeli science journals). I got lonely in the laboratories and chose public policy over chemistry. 

Some say I wasted my scholarship doing my science undergraduate degree but I preferred the Harvard professor who gave a talk earlier in March on education - to prepare an engineer, he must not only be good in Mathematics and applied science, but he must also be a musician, having the sense of arts and creativity that will make him a complete engineer. 

When I see most of my colleagues in the management and administrative fields such as I, who have degrees in Mechanical-Civil-Electrical Engineering, Biotechnology, Environmental Science and even Science Fisheries and learning new areas to equip themselves as policy-makers, a wise decision to recruit them.

They'll become better analysers/thinkers (not to say graduates in Economics, Accounting or other non-science field as unimportant, but they do have added advantage though).

The second recipient, an educator who started his own school to accommodate the underprivileged Koreans and setting an alternative education such as vocational and technical schools. 

In Korea, as my Korean friends informed me - their university graduates are inflated. South Korea sees a 3,000,000 rate of unemployment who are highly skilled but not enough work to give them. Yesterday during Academic Writing class, I explained to my Korean classmates of the blue-collar vacuum that Malaysia is facing but is currently addressing it. 

We have Institut Kemahiran Bina Negara (IKBN) National Institute of Skills, IKTBN (National Institute of Higher-Skills) as we do not want Malaysians who have degrees with 3.96 CGPA but do not want their hands dirty handling engines, being electricians and repairman. I gave the example of industrialised countries who have professional blue-collar jobs and get paid highly by the hour. 

Sooner or later, countries like mine will have to pay higher price for someone to replace our Astro decoder/satellite dish (which is about RM100 now - US$30/35,000 Won) or plumber, wiremen etc.

The last but certainly not the least of the recipients - is my inspiration, Somaly Mam. No college degree, no family, nothing. She said that she did not have a proper name when she was almost five or six years old. 

Her parents were missing or killed and at 16, she was sold as a prostitute. How do you beat that? She picked herself up, went and learned to speak French - she could have just stayed in France and enjoy all the welfare benefit the French government gives out to their people. Lived a comfortable life, maybe have a French husband and stayed content.

NO - she returned to Cambodia and became their saviour. This did not involved millions of dollars or highly connected people, but through her hard work and dedication. She cried when she gave her acceptance speech and I felt sad that she had to go through all of the traumatic experience, but moved on to become a key player in eradicating modern-day slavery. She is indeed an inspiration for the empowerment of woman in my region.

I wish to congratulate all of them and hope that their efforts will be exemplary to others.

POSCO Center
Ms. Lee (Student Affairs) and Ms. Nurgul (POSCO Asia Fellow)
Two-months without haircut. NEW Record!

~Picture by Nurgul

~~~

LIFE PART II

I missed two wedding occasions in my family this year. The youngest daughter of Paman Hasmoni Salim and Che Hay Rahil Abu Bakar - Mrs. Siti Halimah's wedding was last February and my other cousin, Mrs. Nadiatul Sheema which was held yesterday, Uncle Norahim's daughter. 

Congratulations Limah and Sheema! Selamat Pengantin Baru!

Cik Limah with hubs - welcome to the family!
~ Picture by Halimah

Sheema and hubs - met him once at another cousin's wedding...
~ Picture by Shariffuddin Abdul Rahim

Weddings in Malaysia are huge events not only for both families where the house of the parent's bride and groom have tents and lightings, catering and such, it also involves the whole neighbourhood and community as roads need to be closed 2-3 days prior to the wedding day. Wedding cards and invitations can easily exceed 1,000 for a wedding reception from 12.30 to 4.00 p.m.

Families in Malaysia are extended until, I don't know - from the Malacca's sultanate perhaps!! Hehe... 

In Kedah, north of Malaysia on my wife's side, it gets more complicated. Every one is PakLang (Uncle Lang), PakNgah (Uncle Ngah), PakLong (Uncle Long), Pak Menakan (general uncle) etc.

Everyone is a family by marriage even if its your 10th cousin! As they say - distant smell-smell (direct translation of bau bau bacang)

In all, March was a good month. April will be great. May is M-A-L-A-Y-S-I-A spring break.

I got a great package from my old friend Khairul Anuar @ BUNGA (FLOWERS - lousy nickname for someone who represented Johor's state (south of Malaysia) martial art athlete and a varsity rugby player) who despite his busy schedule doing his PhD in Nuclear Physics (yikes!) took the time to buy my favourite stuffs at Walmart. 

He is one of the perfect example of when you fall down, you know who are your friends - we had our ups and downs during our uni days and he had also given me confidence in my career as well. 

Thanks old friend. (do I still need to pay this? Haha) OK.. OK I'll maybank2u soon.

Bunga's package from Rolla, MO USA - thanks brother!

And to reminiscence my schooling days when you don't do your homework, fail in your duties, did not clean your room, your shoes are not shined or all of the above.

Running the college parade square should make up for it....

Run Boys RUNNNNN...!

Picture by OP Chan Jun Kwan ~ Commandant Boy 2011

And thank you for reading.