Eco-Tourism

Its another sad day for Malaysia. Some dumb ass has decided that the destruction of corals and endangered marine life will promote eco-tourism. Wondering what the fark was going through these dumb ass's heads when they were thinking about building a marina on Tioman Island. For those of you who don't understand what the fark I am talking about, here is the email and news I have been reading:

Subject: Fw: Tioman Island - Natural Environment soon to be damaged!!!To Friends of the Nature,Today, we got to know about the building of Marina Project over TiomanIsland. Tomorrow, who knows in the future whether the mountains or coralreefs will be there anymore....Tioman Island - once voted as the top 10 most beautiful island in the worldis currently being developed to be "eco-tourist" center similarly toLangkawi Island. They have already made it duty-free island, and plans areunderway to build a 2km airport. The govt intends to make it a one stopshopping island....On a start, the Marina project spans 127,000 sq metresand is expected to provide yacht docking areas, an administration building,water breakers and a cargo jetty which is expected to be 30m wide at thetip and stretches 175m into the sea. The marina will threaten the survivalof more than 200 endangered giant clams, 300-year-old corals and othermarine life which thrive within it.What the govt officials do not realise is when we have structuraldevelopments, these developments must be taken to adapt to the islandsenvironment, and NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Examples are like the Maldives,Palau or even Pangkor Laut. What the local tourism need is not anotherhustle and bustle of a city like Langkawi. We would like to see the beautyof the coral reef and its marine life - sting rays, moral eels, pufferfishes, nudi-branches, angel fishes; and the beauty of the forests - ourwonderful rainforest (dipterocarpus) trees - the tualangs, keruing, sepetirand many more.Malaysia is fortunate enough to be located at one of the world's topbiodiversity area. Traveller's come and visit our country to see howbeautiful our natural environment is. They don't want to see huge airportsand big marina. Who cares about them - they probably have much more betterones in their country. We don't want another CITY in an island. We visitthe islands to relax and enjoy the wonderful atmosphere...I don't normally forward much mails around but i would appreciate you toforward this around to your friends to create an awareness. I make this anexception cos I am a nature lover and would like to see to the conservationof our Malaysia's natural enviroment. For more information on the aboveissues, do check out the following sites :-1) The Star Newspaper Online - Tioman Dive Sites set to be destroyedhttp://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/9/6/nation/8833465&sec=nation2) Malaysian Nature Society - report on developments on Tioman Islandhttp://www.mns.org.my/marine.php?op=display&id=1023) Department of Environment, Malaysia....damage done to coral reefshttp://www.jas.sains.my/jas/batukarangtioman.htm

The email was written by Mr Tom Chan, I believe is a Malaysian Nature Society Committee Member.

I have to agree with him. I am not much of an environmentalist but I do love the sea. Tioman, once voted top 10 most beautiful island. Once voted? So what happened? How did we lose the ranking of being top 10? Do these bunch of morons know what eco-tourism is all about? Best part of it all is, if you read the comment by WWF in theStar's article ... they need to study the enviromental impact. Helllllo??? What impact? I farking pile into your house, you tell me what's the impact! What kind of moronic statement was that?

Same story with the fire flies. I was there a few times and each time I was there, its a totally different experience. Its like watching christmas trees light up.

All I can say is, they keep thinking that destroying and building new structures will promote the tourism industry. They should build but they have to find better ways to go about doing it ...

Handicapped!

The woes of being handicapped. No, no, I am not in a wheel chair or in crutches or anything like that. But I am quite handicapped. Why? First of all, I have picked up some injuries playing games and hiking that I am quite sure I can qualify for tax exempt for handicapped people (in my country, handicapped people has certain advantages when it comes to tax). The worse of my injuries are my knees. My left knee went through a anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction but surgery farking failed! So I am still walking around with a left knee which is worse than before surgery! My right knee is suffering from cartilage wear and tear as a result of my left knee. I have sprained both my ankles so many times that I have lost count. To top it all off, I have injured my back badly before in a sparring session. Until today, this back injury continues to haunt me. This are the "handicappedness" which I have picked up. Not to mention my blurrness too!

But wait, there's more. I'm born with two more "handicappedness". I'm color blind and tone deaf. According to doctors, my color blindness is limited to shades of red and green. But I think there is more than that. Tone deaf doesn't help with my social life either and I have avoided karaoke joints as much as I can. But karaoke seems to be part and parcel of everyone's entertainment and many times I was asked to go karaoke with my colleagues, friends and even clients. With my colleagues and clients, usually its in decent karaoke joints and everyone ask me to sing and when I sing, I sing like William Hung! Damn ... its quite an embarassment when everyone in the room laughs! To make matters worse, karaoke with friends would most of the time mean in some dodgy joint some where and even the guest relation officers laugh at me! Don't understand how some of this old Ah Bengs can sing their lungs away when they sound like William Hung! When I tell everyone I won't sing 'cos I sing like William Hung, they just said, "yeah, we want to hear ..." Bastards!

Color blindness is another woe of mine. Good thing I have a secretary who will stop me from going out of my office with mismatched ties. Kinda funny everytime she stops me and tells me my tie don't match with my shirt. Shopping for clothes is another problem for me. I have resorted to reading the labels on the shirts and slacks that I want to buy but not every lables carries description of colors. What's wrong with all these garment companies?!! Don't they know there are color blind people out there? And nowadays, reading labels won't help either. White is no longer just white. Pearl white, emerald white, sperm white. What da fark. White is white! Same shit with black colors. And every other damn colors out there. And if you ask for any of the sales persons assistance, they always give you this cock look. Man, I feel like slapping their eye balls out of their sockets.

I used to have my girlfriend help me out with my clothes when it comes to shopping. Now that I am single, my mum helps me out with it but only to a certain extent. With all the lightings in the malls and my mum being 65 years old, she can't even see the colors properly!

Know something? Whenever I tell someone I'm color blind, the response is, "really?" What da f...?!!! You think I like to tell everyone I am color blind? And the next question is always standard text book question ... "how do you see the traffic lights or how do you drive?" And I always have a standard answer, "Top light means stop, bottom light means go, middle light means farking step on it!"

Then some genius would ask, what about lights installed horizontally? Idiot! The light on the outside means stop. The inner light means Go! Middle light still means the same, farking step on it!

So next time someone tells you he or she is color blind, don't ask stoopid questions about the traffic lights. You should be asking what happens when my girlfriend wears a flaming red lingerie .. will it still excite me? And the answer is, hell yeah ...