First experience in selling house

In 1992 when I was still working in Penang, I decided to sell the compact design house in Taman Melawati in KL through a real estate agent. The agent finally got a buyer offering a price of RM118,000. The buyer paid up the 2% earnest money to the agent who informed me that the money would be kept by them as part payment of the agent commission. The buyer later paid up the balance of the 10% down payment and in the mean time applying for housing loan to settle the balance of the purchase price. I engaged a lawyer in Penang to handle the S&P agreement for me and the buyer had her own lawyer. Later I learned that the buyer was working as a clerk in a legal firm.


One day, while waiting for the buyer to obtain the housing loan, I received a notice from the buyer stating that she wanted the return of her 10% down payment back because my agent had given a misrepresentation of facts to her regarding the house. I called her up to find out more details. She was complaining that there were cracks on the walls of the house. I told her that all these cracks were not structural cracks and they were there all these while and she should notice them before decided to purchase the house. She claimed she just accepted what the agent told her about the condition of the house and she did not make any inspection of the house. I did not believe her story because she was staying in the same area and her house was just about 200m away. However I was still prepared to agree to call off the deal provided she agreed to accept that I should not be responsible for the costs of my lawyer's fee and the 2 % earnest money still in the custody of the agent as it was not my fault that she did not inspect the house which I did not believe. But she insisted to get back the 10% down payment in full. My lawyer advised me to settle with her. I did not mind to loose few thousands dollars but I could not swallow feeling being cheated or bullied. Being a clerk in legal firm she knew most people would prefer to avoid going to court as it would incur further legal fees and the outcome of the case would still be unknown. After that meeting with the buyer no further action was taken by the buyer for a few years and I thought she had given up trying. Then one day in 1996 the buyer took the case to the session court in KL and I was prepared for the long drawn battle in court with her. It was going to be costly and inconvenient for me as I was serving in Kuantan , Pahang at that time.

I engaged the lawyer in KL to defend me. The first hearing for the case was called and it was my first experience in court. I went to the court house one hour early waiting for my lawyer who did not appear as he had a punctured tyre according to him. He did not attempt to contact me to advise me what to do and I failed to appear in front of the judge that day, although I was in the court premise. I could have just lost my case for that and later I learned that the other party's lawyer was covering up for my lawyer to request for a postponement of the hearing.

Without any explanation my first lawyer recommended me to another lawyer and I was more than happy to change the lawyer after the earlier experience with him. This new lawyer always wore a pair of black gloves . She was friendly and ever ready to listen to my side of story. She always tried to make me feel comfortable to exchange opinion with her on the case. Every time before appearing in court, she always reminded me to pray to God and to address the magistrate "Your Honor". At first I felt very funny but later I got her message that judges were after all human being and their judgement could be influenced by impression and not totally objective.

The case took three to four sessions of hearing including one which was postponed after a long wait in court that morning only to be told later that the magistrate had a toothache. It was rather lucky for me the case took less than a year to close. One important tip that my lawyer did not inform me was that the magistrate needed to take down all the words said in court by both parties. I had to give my evidence in the way of dictation to the magistrate allowing him time to jolt down notes. Luckily  I had written down what I wanted to say in court the day before and I could occasionally refer to my notes otherwise my line of thought would not be that smooth and clear. My lawyer's approach was to show that the cracks were not a serious problem and the focus of our argument to the case was very technical which my lawyer depended solely on me . I had failed to convince her one non technical evidence which I felt might be useful for our case. At last during the last session of the hearing upon my insistence my lawyer agreed to produce this piece of information which was the receipt issued by the real estate agent to the buyer acknowledging receiving of 2% earnest money in custody for the purchase of the house.

Finally the verdict of the case was delivered and the judge ruled that the real estate agent had acted as the agent of the buyer as well therefore there was no ground on misrepresentation of fact as claimed by the buyer. The buyer lost the case with cost but I had no heart to claim the cost from her as the 10% down payment was just enough to cover the cost incurred by me. I had no heart to make money out of her misery. Furhtermore the price of the house by then had risen and two years later I managed to sell off the house without doing any touching up for a price of Rm 180,000 to an enterprising malay guy who manged to get my contact through land office , spent a little bit effort and money to touch up the house and sold it off at Rm240,000.

My colleagues knew about the case, one of them told me that he had to pay compensation over and above the 10% downpayment to the buyer and the late Dr Hiew always admired me for taking the trouble to settle the case in court. I still feel that the first preference is to settle the issue without going to court provided it is on an agreeable principle as it is costly as well as time consuming and energy sapping for taking the case to court and I do not enjoy seeing people loosing.

125 sue Government over floods

Today's (14 March 2009) Star paper reported that a total of 125 flash-flood victims in Taman Mutiara in Senai have filed for damages totaling RM 2.79 million against a construction company, a municipal council and the Government. This reminds me of a flood incident in 1995.

One day in 1995 I received a call from home in Penang informing me that my mum , already 70 , woke up and came down from upstairs around 6 o'clock in the morning and as she stepped down from the last step, not knowing that the house was flooded due to the heavy rain in the early morning, she immediately slipped and fell down. Thank God my mum was physically still strong and she did not suffer any injury.

My house had never been flooded since we moved in this neighbourhood in 1964 and the area had already been developed. Therefore no significant change of landuse that could have caused the flood to occur. I decided to make a trip home to investigate the drainage system. I walked along the drain starting from my mum's house going downstream. As I walked I looked out for any visible blockage of the drain. When I reached the outlet of the drain near the sea, to my horror a concrete wall was constructed across the drain. There was a multi-storey building under construction just beside the drain at this location. I got the culprit of the flood. I called up the engineer in charge in the penang municipal council . We knew each other when I was serving in Penang from 1986 to 1993. After some exchange of opinion regarding the matter, he explained that the developer wanted to construct a temporary wall to prevent his work being affected by high tide. We both knew that this wall had caused the backup of flow in the drain causing the flood in the upstream area and this was also not the way to solve the problem facing by this developer. Without offering any excuses, the council engineer assured me that he would instruct the developer to remove the concrete wall immediately.

The irresponsible,indifferent and sometimes ignorant, attitude of the parties concerned in the construction industry in this country have very often caused some of the floods that have occurred so frequently. It is high time the flood victims know their rights and with the expertise of lawyer and the drainage /flood mitigation engineer, the relevant parties shall be taken to task. Hopefully this will bring about the change in all parties involved in the construction industry to be more responsible and caring.

We Are A Big Family

Recently the Sultan of Perlis had expressed unhappiness that there are still some people trying to use the racial line to split the people. To me I have always believed that we are all a big family. In the family, we would help and protect our brothers and sisters who need help and we would not try to split the family. However we would not pamper our brothers and sisters lest they become too dependent and worse still start to take things for granted and capitalize on others kindness.

I have always held on to the belief that we should not be racial in our outlook. In 1980, when I was promoted to act on the senior engineer's post ( Superscale"G"), Hj Hosni was working with me as senior time scale engineer. In one of the pep talk session to motivate him, I told him frankly that one day towards the end of our career in JPS, I would expect that he would bypass me and become my boss but for the time being he should listen to me to learn and be ready for his future promotion. In the end Hj Hosni really overtook me to become Deputy Director General and another of my junior (joining service later than me) got the promotion to JUSA C post earlier than me although I was at that time the only one managed to pass the PTK 6 (highest level of competency test in government service) . In addition to that I almost missed my confirmation to the JUSA C post but finally got it a few months after my obligatory retirement. I believe there are a few fair minded fellow brothers in the civil service who have bravely spoken out for me. These personal bitter experience of mine did not distract me from the belief that we should not be racial in our outlook but to extend our helping hands to our fellow brothers and sisters irrespective of race. Malaysia would have a very bright future if we reject racial outlook.

When our fellow brothers need help I would be willingly extend my helping hands even though they may overtake me. But when enough has been done and I see that our fellow brothers have grown up strongly and confidently to face the challenge of the world , any further help extended or expected is a case of taking thing for granted or trying to take advantage of the kindness of others. I would disapprove of such attitude from our fellow brothers. Indeed now there is another group of fellow brothers in our big family who have been neglected and being pushed to the corner Now they have no choice but to demonstrate their frustration and despair through rally and ended some of them detained under ISA. If nothing is done to help them greater havoc may be resulted to this big family to nobody's advantage . Now I would expect that the fellow brothers who have earlier received gracious help from their fellow brothers and are able to stand on their own feet should now join hands to graciously bring up this new group of fellow brothers who are waiting in despair for our help. Although there is still reluctance and resistance from some of this group of successful fellow brothers to extend their gracious helping hand to this new group of deprived fellow brothers, I strongly believe that one day in the not too far future , for the sake of this big family, this group of fellow brothers who have succeeded would come to their senses and step forward to extend their helpful hand and at the same time confidently and proudly reject the helping hand which they do not really need it now.

The future for this big family would be bright only if everyone in this family does not harbour on racial line, not greedy and sincerely wants to see that everyone in this big family is strong, confident and successful. Our challenge is not from within but from the world outside Malaysia but first we have to be united , care and love our fellow brothers and sisters irrespective of race, religion and class.

Are people becoming more cruel?

Phuah sent me an email the other day with the message: "Are people becoming more cruel?"

One week ago, my younger brother, cheong, in Penang was confronted by two robbers as he was walking back from his office to his apartment about 200 meters away. As the robbers got near him, they suddenly pushed him causing him to fall flat on the ground. He was lucky that his head did not hit any sharp or hard object. There were many instances reported in newspapers that the victims of snatch thieves went into coma when they hit their head on falling down and died. While lying flat on his back one of the robber held his legs and the other searched his shirt pocket. Fortunate for him at that moment, the two robbers spotted a police patrol car coming. They had no time to search his back pocket for the wallet. Before running off, the two robbers pushed him down the 2 meter deep drain just beside him. It was fortunate that the drain was not full and my brother managed to hold on to the handrail and landed in the drain with the feet first. He escaped with only some bruises and lacerated wound.

I'd two encounters with robbers many years back. The first incident happened in 1975. As I was walking along a deserted side lane in Paramount Garden to get my motorbike, two young men caught up with me from behind and demanded some money. I was taken a back but still managed to mutter in faint voice asking them how much they wanted. They demanded RM 30. I immediately realised that I'd more than that in my wallet and if they saw all the money I had in my wallet they might grabbed all of it. What should I do? Run or gave in? Realising that I could neither fought back or out run them, I decided to hand over the money to them but pondered how I could pull out my money so as not to alert them that there were more than RM 30 in my wallet. I took out my wallet and slowly and carefully pulled out RM30 so that the rest of them in the wallet was not exposed.The two young man just took the RM 30 and quickly ran away to join a third accomplice waiting in front. It never occurred to me there was this third accomplice. I just realized then that this third accomplice was there to watch out for police and also to block me in case I tried to run off. It could be said that these three young men were more scared than me and were in a hurry to leave the scene.

The second encounter happened about five years later in 1980. When I walked out from the cinema in Chow Kit KL and made a phone call at the phone booth in front of the cinema, suddenly a youth blocked me from coming out of the booth and warned me not to do anything foolish because he had a knife tucked at his waist. Not realizing the danger, I just instinctively wanted to confirm he had a knife as claimed and without hesitation I just stretched my hand to touch his waist and felt a handle-like hard object. I chose to believe he really had a knife. I surrendered all the cash I had, not much just about Rm50. ( Dato Liew Chook San,one of my close friend and colleague, used to laugh at me how could I felt comfortable to carry such small amount of money in the pocket. He was right as I was embarrassed in a few occasions for running short of money.) The young boy was not satisfied and demanded for the gold ring on my hand, which cost around Rm80 at that time. I decided to try my luck and told him that I could not hand over this ring to him because it had sentimental value as it was my wedding ring. To my surprise he just nodded his head with approval without hesitation.

Whenever I narrated these two personal experiences of mine to my friends, without fail all of them found it very amusing and unbelievable. According to the police to whom I made the report, these robbers were drug addicts. I suspect the robbers who preyed on my brother were also under the influence of drugs or pills. But why the behavior of the robbers today and robbers then are so different. Could it be due to the effect of pills and drugs these days which are much stronger than the drug of yesterday ?

Getting more spiritual?

A few days back while having our (liew, syner, lee and me) evening tea at the cafeteria in Technology Park Malaysia(TPM), Liew asked me that after my two recent "death" threatening experiences am I not seriously becoming more spiritual? I think he means attached to a religion and follow its teaching faithfully.

To share with you my opinion regarding this question, let me narrate the two anxious but interesting experiences. The first incidence occurred about a year before my mandatory retirement from government service i.e. some time around September 2005. One night after eating a hard boiled egg after dinner I felt discomfort in my chest and the neck, the feeling of tightness around the chest and neck. I had this feeling before but it normally lasted for a few minutes. But this time the feeling just won't go away after an hour. I started to ponder was it a sign of heart attack forthcoming. Two weeks before this incident I suddenly felt breathless after walking from my office to a coffee shop about 20 meter away and I was thinking to myself that I might have some problem with my heart. Back to the feeling of discomfort in my chest and neck, as I started to get worry the discomfort feeling get intensified. I tried to calm myself down and decided to get to bed. Suddenly the thought of a heart attack happening in my sleep spurred me to face reality and I decided to go to hospital nearby to seek doctor's advice. After an endiogram was done, it was confirmed three vessels were having blockages of between 50 % to 70%. I were put on medication while waiting for a bypass operation in about a month's time. One morning, the same discomfort feeling struck me again, I decided to go to the hospital specialised in heart to get a second opinion. The doctor after reviewing my case suggested to do an endioplasty procedure on me in the afternoon on the same day. After the doctor explained what he proposed to do on me, to my surprise I was rather calm and without hesitation I just asked the doctor to give me a minute to call my wife to inform her my decision to go for this procedure. I were put in a two beded room to wait for the procedure in the afternoon. As I had nothing to do I started to send sms to inform my friends and relatives whom I thought would give me positive wave energy but not sympathy. Then one patient was sent to share the room with me. A nurse gave him some tablets to take. One or two minutes later another nurse came in wanted him to take the same tablets. How could this carelessness happen ? I'd been quite calm and composed waiting for the procedure in the afternoon and now this carelessness of the nurse had shaken my confidence a little bit. But I told myself I could do nothing but to leave it to God that no mistake would happen in the afternoon. I calmed myself down immediately. Although I always indicate my religion as Buddhism in all occasions but I must confess I only go to Buddhist temple once a year during Weesak day. I believe there is God but The God is the same God for all religion and I also believe God is in the heart of every person. That means I've to try my best to cultivate good values and be a good person. Living in this imperfect world it would be very difficult to be a perfect person. But at least I have to be as good if not better than some of those who follow strongly the teaching of their religion except that I do not go through the religious rituals.

Back to the hospital bedroom, I was pushed to the operation room for the procedure in the afternoon. I was not put to sleep and was conscious throughout. Not long after the procedure started I heard the lead doctor exclaimed to his team member : " What! you have put this in?". I suddenly felt cold and getting nervous and started to realize that I needed God to control all those involved in this procedure do not make mistake at this moment. This was the first time that I seriously thought of getting help from God but I found myself having difficulty to pray to God because I've not gone through the religious rituals. Finally my believe that God is in my heart save my agony. Since God is in my heart I just left every thing to Him and I became calm again. Of course the procedure was smooth and successful and I was discharged the next day. Thank God.

The second incident happened during this Chinese New Year eve. After the dinner, I suddenly belched out a mouthful of fresh blood. Of course I was stunt for a moment and after that started to rationalize what could have happened. I actually expected some internal stomach bleeding because for the last few months before this, on and off I had black stool and I had it again for a few days already before I belched out some blood. But if I went to hospital immediately I would be celebrating Chinese New Year in the hospital and it would spoil my family member's mood. Except for the belching of that mouthful of blood, otherwise I felt perfectly alright; it might not be that serious and I could afford to postpone it a few days . I listened to my own body and finally decided to monitor how my body felt for the next few days. In the second day of Chinese new Year, I belched out a mouthful of blood again; this time there was a piece of blood clot, measuring about 2 inch by 0.5 inch. I told myself I should not delay seeking medical advice any further although I still felt perfectly alright. Not wanting to give false alarm to my family members I quietly sneaked out of the house and went to the nearby hospital. The doctor wanted to ward me for further investigation. I went against her advice and promised to come back the next day after my daughter going off to Penang. The next day I went back to see the gastro specialist and he suggested to do an endoscoping to check the condition of esophagus and stomach and I was told that I would be put to sleep while the doctor wass doing the endoscoping. On hearing this I felt a little bit chilled because I heard of a case from my doctor friend one patient died on operation table recently because of anasthesia overdosage. Once again I kept my cool by leaving everything to the God in my heart. Thank God I was safe. The scoping showed that I was having serious ulcer of esophagus. Looking back, I acted quite bravely throughout the whole episode. Where did I get the strength and courage from? I think it was my believe that we do our very best effort the rest leave it to the God Whom I believe is in our heart.

To me various religions are different paths to reach God, the same God. I asked one same question to Christian and Muslim friends who were considered quite knowledgeable in their religion: " Would God rather reject the one who believe there is God but not attached to any religion and try his best to be a good person all his life than to accept a Christian or a Muslim or Buddhist who did not try his best to be a good person". Both of them could not give me an answer. What I am trying to say here is that my believe that "God is in my heart but it is not necessary for me to attach to a specific religion" is also a way to reach God. However this is a very lonely way not like Christians, Muslims or Buddhists they have their fellow brothers and sisters to help and support them along the way. I am respectful and receptive to all religions but it is just that my character prefer a lonely journey guided by the God in my heart. To me it would be unbelievable that there is only one way to reach God.

Everything on earth has energy with different form. Human soul, I believe, has energy in spiritual form. The soul leaving our body after death of physical body will advance to the after-world at different plane depending on the energy level of the soul accumulated during our life time. The more good deeds, good values, and all good and positives things we do and acquire, the more spiritual energy our soul will accumulate. However I believe that since God love and care for all his children, the after-world irrespective of which level or plane that our soul go to would definitely be an exciting and wonderful place to go to. The difference between you and me is how closer we will be to God when our soul finally leave our physical body. Therefore to me death is nothing to be scared of but to be anticipated and prepared. But I am still keeping an open mind whether I will continue to reach God lonely or to reach Him with the support of fellow brothers and sisters of a religion. I leave it to the God in my heart.

To my son who is now studying in Ohio , when you read this post I am already alright so do not be disturbed. Ok? Sorry for telling you through the blog because we just do not want to disturb your study. Dad and mum love you and "jie jie"(it means sister)

My First Posting

I reported duty to Mr Cheong Chup Lim , who was the Assistant Director General of Planning. He told me I''ll be sent to Urban Drainage Unit which was headed by an Australian Consultant engaged under the Pahang Tenggara Town Draiange Planning and Design Project. Later I learned that the Unit was also to handle urban flood mitigation projects and to publish an Urban Drainage Planning and Design Manaual. The Consultant had two engineers stationed in the Unit, Peter and Kenneth V. Lewis. After a few months Peter went back to Australia and did not come back again. Kent Lewis was with us untill 1978. Besides Peter and Kent Lewis, there were three local engineers: Mr Lau Kim Paik. the late Mr Lynder and the contract engineer Mr Lim Peng Weng.. A few days later my University classmates Chang Siew Hong joined me but he left to join City Hall about two months later. Chew Chai Huat and Ekuang Ngan who were graduates from Singapore University reported to the Unit about a month later. Liew Chin Loong graduated from UK joined us about three months later. Liew and I later became brother in law. How it happened will be an interesting story to be told later. About a year later Seet Wai Lin and Ng Cheek What came in . By then Mr Lim had finished his contract with the deprtment and left to join local council of Penang Island; whereas Mr Lau and Mr Lynder who were senior engineers in their early thirties were promoted to assume more responsible posts. Kent Lewis left the Department in 1978 when he finished his contract.t. Thirty years later we had a reunion in 2005 with Kent Lewis who came to take part in Ironman Race in Pulau Langkawi.

For those of us just starting the career we could only start off with motor bike as a mean of transport except Liew who bought a second hand car not long after joining the Department and he was also the first to get a steady girlfriend, Teh Ah Yeow a fresh technical assistant, who later became Mrs Liew and my sister-in-law i.e. sister of my wife. Huh! interesting ! right? How it happened? I shall narrate it in future posting provided my wife, Kim, give the green light. What I can tell you now is that the way we met is like those you used to see in Hong Kong movie. OK I'll stop hear.

In 1977 I applied to do a postgraduate study in Delft, Holland. During my Chinese New Year vacation i.e Jan/Feb 1978 I'd to cut short my holiday in Penang to rush back to KL as I received a telegram from the Department wanting me to sign certain documents as I'd been nominated for the postgraduate course mentioned. When I went back to the office the next day I realised that I was only put as a reserve to Zamali who was one year my junior in terms of service. I think Phuah was in the training division and he would know the rationale of the selection. I never asked him about it until today. Of course I did not get it. Few months later in the same year I got my promotion to act on a senior time scale post. This was the second fateful turn of event that changed the course of my career life. Before this I was contemplating to leave government service after the three years mandatory service with government department. But now with this promotion I gave myself another two years. If I got my next promotion to superscale 'G' I shall be contented to stay and serve the Department until mandatory retirement age of 55. During that time my senior who were on supersclae "G" had owned car and house and I thought that was good enough for me. Looking back now this was not a very ambitious target, right? Anyway I really got my second promotion to act on superscale 'G" in early 1980. With this two promotions I started to commit myself to get married , pay for downpayment for house and and get car loan and continue to support my family and siblings. With theses commitments I became very cautious wanted to venture out in the private sector. In addition I was enjoying job satisfaction for being entrusted with great responsibility: I became a state director at the age of 36 which was considered very lucky. By the time I realised I had hit the ceiling and wanting to go into private sector, I was in a very awkward position as I technically became not so hands on and yet not so well connected to get job for any company. The only wayout for me if I wanted to advance myself was to add value and create opportunities for myself. The story is getting too long I shall stop here until the next posting

Where shall I start? Ok may be I shall share with you how I ended up as a government servant until I reached mandatory retirement age of 56. I really "sold" myself to the government.

I graduated with civil engineering degree from University Malaya in 1975. At that time we, engineering  graduates have no choice but to serve in government department/agency for 3 years unless we could prove that we could not get any offer  from the government departments/agencies.  The most popular government department that most of us like to join was Public Works Department. But during the year I graduated, PWD would only take in scholarship holders. So for me PWD was out. Department of Irrigation and Drainage was then the first to offer me an attachment post with an allowance of Rm500 or was it Rm 550. Those days attachment post was offered as an interim measure to get us to start working while waiting for our final year result. Incidentally DID was not new to me because I was having my third year practical training in DID at Sg. Besar ,Selangor. The first day I came back to campus after finished the practical training I met a classmate Tan Ah Chye . We were exchanging notes about our training experience and I still remembered vividly that I told him 'even if I've to die I would never join DID". Never did I realized that this was my first lesson in career life : " always leave room for yourself  to maneuver". There was nothing wrong in the Department. It was just that the nature of civil engineering works undertaken by DID then was not that 'challenging' to me. I dreamt to get involved in the design and construction of tall buildings, dam, highway and gigantic structures.

 As I was eager to join my elder brother and sister to help out my family of 11 siblings and one of my younger brother would be depending on me to support him in his tertiary education very soon, I quickly grab the offer. In the first  year  while waiting for the Department to offer me the permanent post, I had two opportunities to work for Housing Development Board (HDB) in Singapore. In the first instance, HDB offered me a hydraulic engineer post and I turned it down because I was still harbouring on the idea of becoming a structural engineer. In the second interview I managed to convince HDB to offer me a structural engineer post. At this fateful moment DID finally got through all the bureaucratic  processes to offer me a permanent post. For whatever reason I remembered it was not a very difficult decision for me to accept the DID's offer because Malaysia was still my choice to develop my career. If you asked me had I ever regretted taking such decision, I can truthfully and without hesitation to tell you that I was not until early nineties when things had changed and I  could see then that I had reached the ceiling in the Department although there were still a few levels to go. Regretted not because I did not join HDB. Regretted because I had given my best years of my career life to the Department and got myself caught in a situation that I had not much market value then outside the Department. ( I shall explain this in future ). Trying to get myself out of this despair situation, I enrolled myself for a part time MBA course which I managed to sit for all the examination except the course project. At this critical moment, I was transferred back to Head office in KL for reason only known to my boss who later apologized to me privately in his room for such a move though still keeping the reason of transfer to himself. Out of curiosity I wish he can tell me the reason one day although nothing can be changed now. 

I think I am fated to cross path with HDB. Never did I expect that some twenty over years later  in 2003/2004 we met again but this time we were fighting it out over the issue of Pulau Tekong Reclamation, which was quite an experience. Unfortunately i could not write on this matter very much as i might unknowingly divulging official secret information.

I'll continue my story in the next posting.