Posted on 9 February 2009 @ 10:30 in Ramblings
Malaysian holidays are pretty well spread out throughout the year, with a day for almost every month, except towards the end of the year when there’s a concentration of holidays. In fact, today, the 15th day of Chinese New Year (also called Lunar New Year) marks the end of the festive holiday “season” in Malaysia that began with the Muslim Hari Raya Puasa at the beginning of October 2008, and included Deepavali (Hindu “Festival of Lights”), Christmas, (Western) New Year and Chinese (Lunar) New Year.
By “season”, I don’t mean a long stretch of vacation time uninterrupted by work. Malaysian holidays (either “national” enjoyed by everyone in the country, or “state” enjoyed only by people in a particular state that celebrates that holiday) are usually just one day or at most two. The one-day holidays would be Christmas, (Western) New Year, a Sultan’s (head of State) birthday, etc. But Hari Raya Puasa is a 2-day holiday; so, too, is Chinese New Year. That’s when offices and schools close for a “break”.
These holidays are given by the Government and are usually called “public” holidays, even though there are some that are only for people of specific states (in which case they are called “state” holidays), but generally, all Government given holidays are known as public holidays.
As noted earlier, before I interrupted myself, the longest stretch is towards the latter part of the year, from around October through to January or February the following year. It feels like a long stretch because often, we’re just back at work before it’s time for another public holiday.
Such holidays are often turned into long weekends, altho this is not collectively enjoyed by everyone, but only by those who decide to create the long weekends by taking time off between a holiday and a weekend (but only if they feel their workload is light enough and they have enough vacation days to do so). So, if there’s a holiday on a Tuesday, they might take time off on the Monday in-between and thus have a 4-day break (Saturday – Tuesday) instead of just one day (Tuesday). This can also happen if a holiday falls on a Thursday; it can even happen if a holiday falls on a Wednesday, and people apply for either Monday and Tuesday, to extend the previous weekend, or Thursday and Friday, to go into the coming weekend.
All this may sound confusing to a non-Malaysian, but it’s pretty much second nature to Malaysians. It’s all part of time management.
It gets more interesting if holidays are close enough to create even longer holidays. There’s a recent example. The Chinese New Year holidays this year fell on 26 and 27 January. There was a smaller public holiday on 1 February – Federal Territory Day, enjoyed by people living in various FTs, including Kuala Lumpur, the capital. Most people returned to work on the 28th, but some living in one of the FTs took time off on the 28th, 29th and 30th, and ended up having an 8-day break, enough to go away for an overseas tour or something.
There’s more. When a holiday falls on a Sunday, the next day is a replacement holiday. 1 February was a Sunday, which made 2 February a holiday, too, which meant those who carved out the 8-day break from the two holidays returned to work only on 3 February. Actually, it was a 10-day break, because 24 and 25 January, the two days before Chinese New Year, fell on a weekend.
There’s actually a reason for all these extended holidays at the end of the year. Most 9-to-5 office workers have to clear their vacation days by the end of the year (some are allowed to clear the days by the end of the following first quarter, or the end of January in the new year, which they do because they usually don’t get compensated if they don’t), so the various holidays at that time of year allow them to clear their vacation days, and string together a longer break between public holidays.
Today, 9 February, is also a holiday, for most of the country. Today’s holiday is for Thaipusam, a Hindu religious day that features pilgrimages and the performance of thanksgiving rites for vows fulfilled. However, not many people took time off on the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th for an even longer break. Well, maybe some did.
After today, the next public holiday is on 9 March, to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. And after that, it’s 6 weeks to the next public holiday, which is Labour Day on 1 May.
While most people take extended holidays at the end of the year, I used to take mine at a different time. When I was working, there were years when Labour Day and the Buddhist Vesak Day holidays fell close enough (usually within a week of each other) for me to take time off between them and fly off for my annual vacation somewhere. But that was just me.
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Day off
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Posted on 18 December 2005 @ 23:38 in Ramblings
Most times, I usually know what I’m doing. This afternoon was not one of them.
I’d gone to my sister’s after visiting mother and sending my brother to meet his taxi for the airport. I was hoping there’d still be lunch left, but I couldn’t even get into the house. There was no parking for my car – not inside the house compound and not anywhere outside the gate. Yes, there was a space almost near the top of the road but I was too lazy to walk that far. Just as well, too, cuz soon after I got home, it started to pour.
A while later, I thought why not HN as there was a gadget I wanted to check out there. So I got into the car, and within minutes drove myself into the thick of a jam headed for One Utama. What was I thinking of when I thought of going to HN on a Sunday afternoon one weekend before Christmas? But I was stuck in it, and couldn’t turn back, so what could I do but sit it out and crawl it through? Must’ve been a good 15 minutes or more before I cleared that part of Bandar Utama and was finally headed towards Ikano Power Centre.
More cars on the main road, many of them signalling their intention to turn into Mutiara Damansara towards another crazy shopping area – that of Ikano / IKEA, The Curve and Tesco. I thought about the parking situation and knew there would likely not be any available in any of the three. So where did I go? Burger King across the road from Tesco, almost at the other end of where HN is located in Ikano.
After a hearty lunch at BK, I started on the long walk to HN – across the road to Tesco, through the Tesco car park, in and out of Tesco, short walk to The Curve, past Borders (was tempted to go in but didn’t), down the corridor, left turn, past Secret Recipe and Starbucks, out into the open and cross the road to IKEA. Once inside IKEA, I walked into Ikano, took the escalator to the first floor and finally arrived at HN.
HN was crowded, too, with its 2nd anniversary celebration sale that included a selected range of items on offer at just 2% of their retail prices. Most of the items on the info poster at the entrance had the “Sold Out” sticker stuck across their box – I shudder at the thought of the probable mayhem when each item was announced as available for sale at their appointed time. Fortunately, none of that happened when I was there.
So I made my way to the gadget counter, and saw the item I’m thinking of getting. Unfortunately, there was no offer on this item at HN; instead, it sported the same price as indicated on the official web site. Oh well …
All that walk for nothing? Not really. I went down to Cold Storage and got the sweets my niece had asked for. She’d recently started on a regime of a bitter Chinese herbal concoction that she is able to drink with the help of a sweet. Not any sweet, but Fox’s, specifically Fox’s Crystal Clear Fruits. There was plenty of that at Cold Storage so I stocked up on her behalf.
So my long walk to Harvey Norman was not in vain after all.
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Posted on 5 July 2005 @ 23:17 in Ramblings
I’ve heard it said that if you smelled something too directly, the smell goes to your head and stays there so that you continue to smell it from memory, even tho the actual smell is long gone. Can anyone confirm that? Sham?
I sure hope so cuz I’m smelling shoe polish wherever I am, even places where there shouldn’t be that smell.
What happened was I spilled some shoe polish in the car on Monday. I was in a hurry so I ran the shoe polish sponge over my shoes while in the car (after arriving in the office and not while driving). It was an old bottle and the sponge fell off and a bit of shoe polish dribbled out. Quite a bit, it turned out, since the car still reeks of it, and I’ve been getting a good whiff of it everytime I’m in the car. I know, I know – I should’ve wiped it off the first chance I got, but I didn’t, so now I’m paying the price for it.
I even smell it in my little room at work (yes, I have a little room at work, altho it’s “borrowed” , cuz we’re in a different part of the building while our usual place is being renovated, and we’re supposed to move back there middle of this month, to an open-space department … but I digress).
Where was I? So, yah, okay, first time tomorrow morning, before I go to work, I better wipe off the shoe polish stains.
I still smell the shoe polish. I hope it isn’t killing off the cells in my brain.
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Posted on 1 July 2005 @ 00:27 in Ramblings
Goodness, it’s past midnight, which means it’s the start of another new “year” for me.
Another new “year” ?
Well, there’s the regular new year, 1 January. And then there’s the new year for work. You see, where I work, our financial year begins on 1 July, and for work reasons, I have to think “new year” on 1 July.
Actually, there’s another reason why I’m celebrating new year on 1 July. It gives me another opportunity to start afresh, to make amends (or try to) for things I meant to do but never got round to doing in the past six months. Things like resolutions. Not that I made any. Cuz I knew I wouldn’t keep them, so why bother?
I guess I just like the word “new” and the opportunity to scratch what’s come before and start on a clean sheet.
Not that I want to scratch everything that happened so far this year.
I’m just letting my fingers loose on the keyboard and trying to write a weblog entry. Not that what I’ve written so far is rubbish.
Don’t mind me. I think my senses have gone to bed. And now it’s time for the rest of me to follow.
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Posted on 26 May 2005 @ 12:06 in Ramblings
Yup, especially when in the hands of the wrong person!
Audrey from GT Heritage had called yesterday to say that she was a little worried about mother. Apparently, mother was showing the Parkinson’s like stiffness that we’d earlier managed to overcome with an adjustment in her medications.
I next called Dr R to let him know and he made a suggestion that I duly called to tell Audrey. I also asked her to keep monitoring mother, and that I might go over after work to see mother.
All well and good after those three phone calls. Or so I thought.
A while later, my handphone rang. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the caller ID.
GT Heritage.
Had something happened to mother since the earlier calls? I pressed the answer button.
Me: Hullo?
Unfamiliar voice: Apa? Siapa tu? (What? Who’s that?)
It was Grace, one of the residents who’d recently learned how to use the redial button on the cordless phone in the office. She’s forever using the phone to call her children.
*relieved*
I later called Audrey to tell her about the “surprise” call. She said they really have to put the phone somewhere higher where Grace cannot reach it.
A few Sundays back, while at GT Heritage, Betty’s handphone rang. She looked at the caller ID.
“GT Heritage? But I’m here.”
Yup, Grace again.
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