Festivals

Have you ever wonder what's life gonna be if it is without festivals? One word; DULL!

I've always enjoyed festivals. There are plenty of preparations to be done and all the excitement buzzing around you. In Malaysia, we have different festivals for different cultures and religions. In fact, the Chinese New Year just happened a week ago. It is the most important festival for the Chinese as it marks the first day of a brand new year in the Chinese calendar. Every festival has its importance. For the Muslims, we celebrate Hari Raya Haji, Hari Raya Puasa and Awal Muharram. The Indians celebrate Thaipusam and Deepavali while the Chinese other than Chinese New Year, they have Moon Cake-Lantern Festival and Chap Goh Mei. For some races, they would have Hari Gawai and even Harvest Festival.

Festivals remind people of the need to celebrate important events, to colour their lives and most important, to show what are their cultures and religions about. Malaysia is lucky to be a multi-racial country as we can experience different types of festivals.

As for me, I haven't gone back to my village for the last 5 years because most of my family, including grandparents and cousins live in KL. So every year, we celebrate at home without going back to our hometown. It’s kind of sad and boring because the environment in our village is indeed very different from the ones we celebrate here at home. I feel a bit jealous to some of my friends who celebrate back at their village. During the first week of Hari Raya, I only have a few friends to celebrate at home because I have to wait for some of them to come back to KL :(

But it’s not that kind of sad actually because most of my cousins are fun and enjoyable to celebrate with. They’re the ones that actually create a different environment every year and make it more enjoyable to celebrate and the best part of it, I will get some “Duit Raya” from them. However, festivals are not just about getting money but to celebrate it with family and friends by showing that it’s worth having a good time every year. That’s what festivals are for.

Animal Rights (Second Post)

(source from http://animal-rights-club.deviantart.com/)

I felt sorry for animal that have been violated, killed without mercy by senseless people! It is utterly unforgivable. Take example like the recent massacre of sea lions at the Japan coastline by senseless fishermen. Killing animals without reason has to be dealt with by the law that has been given which is animal rights. Nowadays, we can help animals by creating a campaign and donating to several foundations that stood by animal rights such as World Wide Fund for Nature or it's former name World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). These foundations stood by the law to prevent killing animals and violation towards nature.

I hate killers! They are so pathetic killing innocent animals just for their own enjoyment and for a quick buck. You know what i mean right? They thought everything wont come without consequences, well they're wrong to violate the law.

Animal Rights

(source from www.sodahead.com)

My topic for today is, what do we know about rights? People have rights, everyone have rights but some thought that only human have rights. Well they are wrong! When the term of everyone have rights, animals do so have too. Since the old age, animal always been used for source of food and clothing. People tend to use that as an excuse to kill more animals and sell them just for the fun and adventure plus making money at the same time, illegally. They forgot about their rights. There's a difference between poachers and hunters. Poachers hunt exotic animals illegally to make money. Their targets would likely be exotic animals that are on the brink of extinction such as the Penguins, Sumatran Tiger, Javan Rhino, and Amur Leopard. These are some animals listed in the top 10 animals on the brink of extinction. Poachers kill these animals to sell their unique skins and other parts including their very excrutiating meat to black market dealers that offer these poachers a high value of money.
Next, we can tell the difference between poachers and hunters. Hunters are abide with the law and they know about animal rights. Therefore, they only hunt in some places that is allowed by certain governments to hunt small animals such as deer or rabbits for fun and hunt for their meat. Hunters can only hunt on seasons that have been given to them only once a year. So we can conclude that people know that these exotic animals and all the animals in the world should be preserved for future purposes. Animals have rights for their lives, they're the same with us humans. So we should respect them and stop the violent killings on them.

Racial Harmony (Second Post)

From what I have written earlier, we can see that our country is making an effort to unite the people. But from a survey conducted by IPS News online, it was shown that the various races live peacefully but separately. How is that possible? From my point of view, this is because every race prefers living in the same community of their own race. They do not interfere in other races problems or lifestyle. I believe the leaders are trying to get all the races to unite and live as Malaysians, not just live in Malaysia peacefully. Sincerely I think this needs major effort and hard work. All of us have different perceptions towards others, some may like the idea but some may not. The first start is to make friends with people of different races. Get to know them and then try to tolerate and adapt to their lifestyles. This might sound easy but not everyone can keep up with this relationship for long. Arguments and misunderstandings will definitely cause problem to multiracial friendship but any problems arise should be solve as Malaysians, not as any specific race.
However the government policy certainly does not help in this matter. It can be seen from how they help the Malays in employment, education, scholarships and business to cheaper housing and assisted savings. This shows that the country has a favourite race, and this idea is not an ideal one for other races. In order to put everything back at ease, the government has introduced the concept of “vision school” and the National Service Programme. Although these two contributions are showing slow results, this might be a good step to One Malaysia.

As a good and responsible citizen of Malaysia, we also have to contribute ideas and efforts in making this possible.

Racial Harmony

Race. What do we know about race? There are a lot of races in this world. Many people have done so many things to create harmony between each other to contribute to world peace. In other words, to create harmony is not always that easy because some people dislike the harmony in others. They rather be with their own race. We as Malaysian should avoid this kind of attitude so that harmony could be formed. Nowadays people tend to look backwards and remember our fore fathers (Prime Minister) on how they create racial harmony. In Malaysia, there are three main races which are Malay, Chinese and Indian. As you know, government have done so many campaigns to unite our races as one such as the One Malaysia campaign. The objective of this campaign is to give birth to a new generation of understanding Malaysians so that racial harmony can be achieved. Leaders tend to remind people of the May 13th tragedy in 1969. It's where the unity between Malay and Chinese people had been broken because of political reasons. A lot of people died in that sad black history of our nation. We, Malaysians and as for my own reason, I seriously don't want history to repeat itself. In my opinion as a student, I can do my part by creating a whole new harmony such as having my own friends. In that matter, I have created my own network of friends of different races and culture. I, myself can do it, why can't others do the same? We are all Malaysians, we can set aside all the differences we have and create our own network of friends to target one and only one thing which is racial harmony. Life would be fun and happy if harmony is in our hands. Peace, no war!