Sybreon Ones Nought

Jiu Fen Street

Food, glorious food.

Well, that’s been the theme so far. After leaving the farm, we visited the famous Jiu Fen old street on our way to the hot-springs hotel. It is basically a narrow street filled with lots of random shopping and random food.

Our tour-guide introduced us to a quaint little restaurant that sold meat/fish balls, venison rice and drunken chicken. He also encouraged us to try a special ice-cream stuffed in a poh-piah wrap with sweet ground up peanuts.

After that, we just walked along the entire street from end to end, savouring all the random foods along the way and shopping for souvenirs.

When a funeral procession came through, everyone disappeared into the stores with their backs turned onto the procession. This reminded me of the traditional practice that we used to practice when I was a child, but no longer. I actually wondered what kind of person would have their funeral procession through such a busy street filled with tourists. It must’ve been the funeral of someone who lives in the area.

Anyway, we ended up at the Pause Landis – a posh feeling hot-spring hotel – in Wulai. I enjoyed a nice long dip in the hot water. It was nice to be able to just dip in the water, close my eyes, and listen to nothing. Dinner was exquisite too.

I’m looking forward to a good tomorrow.

TouCheng Farm

Bliss – one word to describe my experience at the TouCheng Farm, Yilin, Taiwan.

This was our first destination, upon landing at the airport. We would end up spending two nights here, partaking in the simple life on a farm filled with butterflies, birds, fishes and even boars. This is a school farm, that targets school students, yet is suitable for everyone from infants to old-folk.

I decided to skip many of the activities, which my niece and nephew joined, and just lazed around in the open, enjoying the cool autumn breeze. T’was nice to be able to just do nothing but stare at all the greenery for a whole day.

There were just the few families around, mostly Taiwanese ones. So, we were quite sure that this was not a typical tourist trap, since it was somewhere that locals went to and not just dumb foreign tourists.

The little pond was filled with fishes of various colour and size. An elderly gentleman showed his grandson how to fish with a simple reed pole and line, nothing fancy. The grandpa would catch the fish, show it to his grandson, and throw it back in.

A couple of kids chased after football sized bubbles, blown by their mother. The bubbles would fly a short distance, on the breeze, and then pop, sending shrill laughter down the hallway.

A little girl, rocked her mother who was enjoying a lazy nap in a hammock under a shaded tree. Something seemed odd with that picture but nobody complained.

A couple of three year-olds, barely capable of walking, ran around the gravel yard, chasing the few ducks lying around basking in the sun, and being chased around by their parents in return.

Food. Glorious food. There was a continuous stream of food, available at all hours, for free.

Though our meals were simple farm-house style cooked food, they tasted absolutely amazing. I had a difficult time trying to control my diet for this was only my first day and I had to keep something in reserve for the rest of the week.

I had a feeling that my Taiwan holiday was off to a great start!

Syariah Compliant Toilet Sign

This is absolutely cute! Spotted at UiTM Shah Alam campus.

Questionable SETARA 2011

Our local Malaysian ranking for undergrad teaching quality of local universities, SETARA, was recently released. I thought that it would be fun to check it out to see how things have changed since the last ranking exercise.

Some universities that improved tremendously from SETARA09 to SETARA11 are:

Binary University of Management and Entrepreneurship – vaulted from Tier 3 (Good) in to Tier 5 (Excellent).
Wawasan Open University, Open University Malaysia, SEGi University – parachuted in at Tier 5 (Excellent) from being previously unranked.
TATi University College, University Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan – moved into Tier 4 (Very Good) from being previously unranked.

Needless to say, I was shocked.

I don’t know the detailed criteria nor methodology that was used during the survey but it shocked me that some of the universities that made it to Tier 5 (Excellent) were not what I would have expected. Granted, I am no expert in local universities nor their standards but some of the results just beggar belief.

I’m not trying to single anyone out but, two of these Tier 5 universities are classified as open and distance learning institutions. I do not understand how they could achieve excellent teaching quality when the students are not even in the same room as the lecturer. I know that internet based learning is all the craze these days but even places like MIT do not consider their open learning systems at par with their in-house teaching, yet.

Some of the other Tier 5 universities are virtual unknowns. Again, I do not claim to know all the universities in Malaysia (there are just too many to keep track of these days) but some of them are total unknowns. Some are even the butt of many jokes on education quality in Malaysia, the kind of university that you would not want people to know that your child was attending.

Furthermore, more than half of the universities ranked are of Tier 5 level while there is only one university at Tier 3 (Good). I would have expected something like this to be more normally distributed as it was in SETARA09. When I see such heavily skewed results, I tend to question the accuracy of the study. Something just does not smell right to me, statistically speaking. It’s highly improbable that the majority of institutions is Excellent.

Brings to mind an XKCD comic:

My personal opinion of this is that some of these Tier 5 universities must have gamed the system. I do not blame them for doing that though, as the SETARA rankings affect many aspects of a university including fees. Nobody would want to pay top dollar to study in a Tier 4 university when they can study in a Tier 5 one for cheap. So, I expect some of these virtual unknowns to raise their fees next year!

I hope that the MQA would take the effort to toughen and tighten the criteria for ranking in the next exercise. We need a ranking system that truly reflects the teaching quality of local universities. It would serve as a useful guide to parents, only if they actually trust the accuracy of the exercise. I don’t think that any parent would agree that more than half our local universities are Excellent!

I think that a lot of people who see the list would think and start to question the SETARA rankings and methodology. While I agree that there are always flaws within any sort of ranking system, when this happens, it will become more fodder for local coffee shop talk. We know that some of these Tier 5 universities deserve to be there while others are downright questionable.

Personally, I’m not going to even bother with SETARA11. I’ll stick to the more normally distributed SETARA09 rankings for now.

Political Dinner

OK. I’ll have to admit that I’ve never attended a single political fund-raising dinner in my life. In fact, I’ve avoided them like the plague. However, I was invited to attend one tonite, by a friend, and I thought that I should just go to experience it. Boy, was it an interesting experience.

The venue was huge – a Chinese restaurant capable of catering to probably 150 tables at least. The food was your standard Chinese eight course dinner fare. Being a standard Chinese dinner, it started late, well past the agreed upon hour. Then, the food came out slowly as well. Each dish was accompanied by a half hour political speech from current and would-be politicos.

While the food wasn’t great, the speeches were certainly entertaining. And the way that they arranged the speakers – it ended with a climax. I learned so much about Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary tonight that it has put a damper on my plans to buy a Honda CR-Z hybrid. So, I guess that I’ll need to shop around for something else to buy then. Damn!

Now, this was a fund-raising dinner organised by the DAP, with participation from both PAS and PKR representatives. What first surprised me was the fact that this was held in a non-Halal Chinese restaurant with pork dishes served during dinner. While the Muslims had their own table with separate food, it was interesting that the PAS leaders would even grace the event with their presence. I have many Muslim friends who would not blink an eye when consuming pork but this was certainly atypical PAS.

Another thing that I found interesting was the racial rhetoric. Some of the speakers could openly say that they do not see race, and then proceed to classify the races, all within the same sentence. I found that thoroughly ironic. However, at least they are clear on their different position vis-a-vis that of the incumbent coalition.

However, the most amazing thing that I found was that the people were there to listen. Almost everyone stayed through to the end of the dinner, which ended just before midnight. Some of us jokingly said that we should have just had some McD downstairs instead. However, the restaurant was packed right up to the end.

And the most interesting thing that I got to see was the Ubah video. Man, it had much better production quality than the Janji Ditepati music video. It was also far more meaningful and heart-felt. I honestly think that they should buy a national spot and air the damn thing. It’d win them the elections.

PS: Besides the interesting speeches, I got to meet some friends – new and old ones. I had an enjoyable time sitting at my table.

K-Pop: 2NE1

I found out that it’s actually pronounced like “21” instead. In my opinion, they don’t fit the typical k-pop singer mold. That said, they’ve got some songs that I like.