I have lost count on how many cups of coffee that I already consumed per day during those meetings just to keep me awake. But after 3 days, I feel very sleepy and even the strongest caffeine couldn’t help me anymore.

One day my concentration is completely zero and I have no choice except closing my eyes and zzzzzzz……i guess it was not my lucky day,after a while, I wake up abruptly because I have a dream of “jatuh longkang”. Can you imagine that? Everybody in the meeting was laughing at me until one of the managers said..

“He has a 2 months old baby at home”.

With only that short explanation….everybody said…” Ooooooo…you can take a rest. We understand” and believe it or not…my sin of sleeping during the meeting has been forgiven as easy as that!! Oh my God!!

Ever since that day, I have repeated the same excuse just because I needed a nap. And..nobody complains!! Hahaha.. I am working among very understanding and considerate people..

I never thought of exploiting my baby for my own good before but..it just happened and I think it is not so bad!

When it is 5.30pm, I now have another fatherly trick to use… I have to pickup my baby from the babysitter. So, I must to go back early!! See you guys tomorrow!

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He is actually a very funny guy. He laughs a lot and shockingly he is Metallica fan just like me!! He played guitar and even have his own band when he was younger. Not only that, he also knows a lot about other famous bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple etc quite well! I never met any Japanese that enjoys heavy metal before. This is the first time. Since I never heard Metallica song in Japanese accent before, I asked him to sing one song for me. Then he chooses to sing “Sad But True”. Fuuyyooo…he is really one cool Japanese although he was actually ruining that song pretty well!!

While working with him, we have to drive to our vendor almost everyday for 7 days. It also means that free expensive western lunch for me everyday. Haha!! At one time, while driving back from Malacca, my handphone was ringing with Space Cop Gaban’s theme song. He was quite shocked and asked me how do I know Gaban / Gyaban / Gavan? I told him Gaban is very popular in Malaysia about 17 years ago. He told me that in Japan, Gaban gained popularity about 25 years ago and he wondered why there is almost 8 years of gap!! Here is what I told him…

It is normal for Japanese to retire in Malaysia because in Japan, not only that the cost of living is very expensive but there are also too many monsters around, stepping on big buildings and killing people! Same goes with Space Cop Gaban, after retirement from the Space Police Force, he chose to retire in Malaysia and now maybe he can be found in Mont Kiara with Ultraman Hayata and Masked Rider! It is actually a sarcastic joke but he loved that joke so much and he couldnt stop repeating it and laughing all the way to back Bandar Baru Bangi. He kept on singing the Gaban’s song and offered me to translate this verse..

Wakasa Wakasa tte nan da
Furimukanai koto sa
Ai tte nan da Tamerawanai koto sa
Gyaban! Abayo namida
Gyaban! Yoroshiku yuuki
Uchuu Keiji Gyaban!

This is the translation that I got from him..

Young…young…what is young
No regret
Love.. what is love..
Never hesitate

Gaban..good bye tears
Gaban…thanks for your bravery
Space cop Gaban..

To me the song sounded like a rock song but the lyrics is so much of a love song…
EEmmmm….no difference with our own rock bands at that time.

Now I wonder…. if Gaban really does exist and retired in Malaysia, he must be the first person our Angkasawan should seek for advice..

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Then, how about me? Am I going to be the last survival in the history of Sony Trinitron DY designer? Yeah..it should be like that. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad about that. I have been sitting at my desk with nothing to do for almost 6 months now. The only thing that I managed to do is surfing the internet and off course..blogging! …I have no problem with that though.. But since I changed from an active worker to a sluggish one, my weight has increased tremendously to 70kg…I realized that I have to take action as soon as possible before it’s too late…I don’t want everybody to be confused about who is actually pregnant??..me or Diyana??

However, since then, my boss called me for a meeting and he told me that 2 departments; TV Tuner Design and TV Design have approached him for my service. He asked me to choose and I decide to be transferred to TV Tuner Design.

All has been finalized…and starting from 1 August 2007, I am no more an endangered species. My DNA has been manipulated and a couple of microchips have been implant into my brain to make sure I can survive in this new digital world. As the species that has been genetic manipulated, I am a little bit nervous about my future. I can’t walk yet …can’t talk yet and can’t write as good as before!…. I have to learn everything again about walking, talking and writing…Fuuhhh….

And….I’m so sorry with WWF because DY Design is now extinct!!

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I arrived Tan Son Nhut Airport in Ho Chi Minh City about 4.30pm. The driver was already there waiting to pick me up and drive me to the hotel. His name is Mr. Minh and they pronounce it “Men”.
He then drove me to hotel at Ho Chi Minh City center, Rex Hotel. It’s a nice and beautiful 4 stars hotel.

The hotel was located in front of People’s Committee Hall near Saigon riverside and about 7km from the airport. However, it took almost 40 minutes by car because of too many motorcycles crawling about the streets!!
The best thing about this hotel, they offered free WIFI in every room!! That’s really great because I can get connected with my Diyana for Free every night!

There is not much change about HCM City since my last visit. Everything is completely the same. The road full of motorcycles…sound of unstoppable honk.. and anywhere you go, there’ll be kids that would try to sell almost anything they have at 1 dollar price and the men that offered a bike ride around HCM City.
They’re so annoying and at one time, I nearly got hit by the taxi in attempt to get away from them.

I stayed there for 4D3N. Everyday, the driver will pick me up at 7.30am ( 8.30am Malaysia time ) from hotel to Sony plant that was situated about 5km away. It sounds near however sometimes it takes close to 1 hour of “snail” driving. The city was so noisy with motorcycles honk and almost all of them look stressful. Even my driver looses his cool at one moment. He came out from the car and has a quarrel with the biker. It’s quite scary.

Most of the food in Vietnam were cheap.. however, this didn’t apply to me because Halal food was expensive! My lunch was normally rice with fish curry and Coke that cost me about RM10 ( 50,000 Dong Vietnam ). It almost the same cost of 1 week lunches for most Vietnamese. Can you believe it????? Halal food can be found around the mosque area in Dong Du road, about half km from my hotel. There’re 3 restaurants at that area that were known to serve Halal food. The restaurants were Bombay and Four Season. Another one was a stall behind the mosque. That stall was the place that I normally take my lunch except Friday afternoon because the stall was close due to Friday prayer. There was not much choice available at the stall. They only serve curry…fish curry…chicken curry..prawn curry…and all taste the same!

That stall also is the place where I unbelievably meet my ex-Zabahan friend, Tugie. It just proves how small the world really is since I never know that Tugie was in Vietnam and he also didn’t know that I was in HCM City.

The most popular product of Vietnam for tourists was actually lacquer products and also Vietnam silks. All that stuff was really cheap and beautiful. Luckily, Diyana was not around!! If she was there, I believe that we would need at least extra 2 baggages!

To buy some stuff for souvenirs, I went to HCM most popular market called Ben Thanh market. This market situated about 15 minutes walk from my hotel. It’s open at 7am and close around 6pm. It’s centrally located and popular with tourists; it sells everything from fake Nike shoes to silk Ao Dai (Vietnam traditional long dress). This is one of the best places to pick up conical hats and ao dai. The market and surrounding streets make up one of the city’s liveliest areas. Everything that’s commonly eaten, worn or used by the Saigonese is available here: vegetables, meats, spices, sweets, tobacco, clothings, household items, hardwares, coffee powder and souvenir worthy items. Known to French as Les Halles Centrales, it was built in 1914 from reinforced concrete.
While shopping here, don’t forget to bargain!!…they will start the price normally more than 4-5 times higher than actually price. For example; when I wanted to buy a shirt, they started the shirt price at 13USD. However, after hard sought bargain, I managed to get it at USD1 per shirt. What a huge different!! If you don’t have enough Dong currency, they will happily accept US dollar at flat rate of 16,000Dong = 1USD.

Although I considered myself as a good bargainer; however..I don’t know what to buy there..hahaha… I hope one day I can brings Diyana along to Ho Chi Minh City!

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My first visit was on 30 May 2004 for technical meeting. First, I had to go to TV Design Dept in San Diego for introduction presentation and after that to Tijuana, Mexico for test run. It’s a really busy 1 week trip for me.

My first story was when I was at Los Angeles International Airport. Once I’ve arrived in LA at Tom Bradley International Terminal ( near Terminal 3 & 4 ), I had to take a flight to San Diego at domestic terminal ( Terminal 7 ). The aeroplane was really small. To go to the terminal, I need to take a shuttle bus. I was not sure which one is the actual shuttle bus since all buses looked the same to me, I just sat outside the airport cursing my boss that sent me to the US alone. Then, came a girl towards me. When she’s about 5meter away in front of me, a black man came, pushed her aside and put a gun at her neck! He said something about this being his territory..don’t try to get passenger at his territory. I was scared to death!!! I was the only witness and it happened barely 10 steps away from me.

Luckily, nothing happenned after that because that girl took a smart move by simply going away.I didn’t take the shuttle bus after that.But I just walked all the way to Terminal 7 about 1/2km in distance.
#1. Proud to be Malaysian !! Our country is a safer place to live.

Once the meeting at San Diego TV Design Dept was over, I’ve gone for lunch with one of the designers in US. His name is Dave Discher.

During our conversation, he said that he respect me so much because I’m from Malaysia. I was really proud to hear that and yet I asked him why. His answer was because he heard that only 20% of Malaysia population can read! So..to be an engineer means I was a very very very intellectual and respectable person in Malaysia.

I know if Diyana was at my place she would automatically vomit blood right there and then. Should I still be proud? Yes, I do!!
#2. Proud to be Malaysian !! Our GENERAL KNOWLEDGE is better than an American.

The next day, I went to Tijuana, Mexico for a test run with Dave Discher. He was driving a sporty Celica that costs him only USD10,000. He said that its one expensive car!! I said nothing about that!! no comment!! we can only get Kancil for that amount of money.
#3. Proud to be Malaysian !! Kancil owners in Malaysia are richer than most Americans.

After meeting at Tijuana, I went to lunch with Dave, Jorge Ocampo & Enrique Gonzales. Ocampo and Gonzales are Mexicans engineers based in Sony Baja California. I remember Ocampo asked me a popular question. Where’s Malaysia??? Before I answered the question, Enrique offered his answer first. He took a piece of paper then drew a nice Peninsular Malaysia map. I felt really pleased to be a Malaysian because at last there is Mexican that can draw a really nice Malaysia map. Then, he drew one line in the middle and another one line at South Thailand. His explanation of the map was…the top side is Thailand, bottom side is Singapore and Malaysia in the middle!!!!! Malaysia is smaller than Singapore????….
#4. Proud to be Malaysian ! Malaysians are better in Geography than those educated westerners .

After lunch, I went to the gents with Enrique. In the toilet, he brought out a tooth brush from his pocket & brushed his teeth. It had been their habit to brush their teeth each time after they have a meal. So, everybody brings toothbrush and toothpaste in their shirt pocket. Soon after breakfast and lunch time, the toilet will normally be full because everybody want to brush their teeth.
#5. Proud to be Malaysian !! Although most of us only brush our teeth 2 times per day, hey! Malaysians are better in geography!

What do you think?

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I arrived at Sony at 7.50am..and after that..went straight to CTV line that was located in a different plant. The test run supposedly started at 7am and I promised to my boss that I was going to come to work at 6am..!! so,practically I was late for about 2 hours!!..hahahaha..

Everybody kept blaming me throughout the day because of that…some claimed that their production schedule had to be revised for the whole month…and some complaint because they’re late for breakfast !!…come on…it’s Saturday !!!..I dont know how to work on a Saturday! Since I had no answer for them, most of time I tried to change the conversation topics to politics and sports!.. luckily, most of them were Chelsea fans, thus opening up a conversation about Premier League had instantly shoo them away..!

The test run finished around 4pm. I got back to my Vaio…and compiled all the data from the test run. About half an hour after that, my Japanese advisor came to my desk and talked about an interesting software that he just newly installed called IP Messenger. He enjoyed it so much and talked a lot of fancy things about that software. The truth is.. IP Messenger is such an old software that I already have uninstalled a couple of years ago. Since he liked it so much, he made me to install it to my Vaio too.

Once I was done, he sent me a message..

“Hoi, you ba-ka!”

There’re 2 other Japanese behind him at that time. All of them were laughing…

Since I didnt understand Japanese..I didnt know what so funny with that message. so i replied..

“Hoi, you ba-ka Japanese!”

When they saw my message, all of them looked at me differently. The look on their faces totally changed.No laughing this time! I didn’t know why, so I explained to them….

“Baka in Malay means…when your family is Japanese..you came from baka Japanese “
hehe,actually it’s really hard to explain the real meaning to them..so, I tried to explain it in the simplest way. I guess that was the best comprehensive explanation that came out in my mind. If I were to use the word heritage, they would probably think its advance English Literature,so i’d better not.

My advisor kept quite after that and continued with his work.

Later that day, I checked in Japanese-English Online dictionary….

“Ba-ka” means ” Stupid “

Ooops….

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Both guys have very different personalities. Morita-san is a really funny person that always regards himself as “a gentleman” and greet me “Pagi pagi” every morning. He is quite good in English & Spanish because he has lived in US & Mexico for more than 5 years. So, communicating with him is not as hard as with any other Japanese. However, Wada-san is a more quiet person that most of the time sits in front of his Sony Vaio and minding his own business.

Yesterday afternoon, right after my department Action Plan Meeting for fiscal year 2007, I had another meeting with our division representative to explain our previous design progress & our department decision in certain matters. So, after the earlier action plan meeting, Morita-san asked me if I had also prepare presentation materials for the next meeting. I replied “No!” because he’s the one that should have it taken care off. I had been really busy preparing for action plan meeting, and he knew it!!

He’s totally shocked with my answer…his face turned red but he didn’t say anything. The only thing that he did after that was focusing on his Sony Vaio and opening almost all folders and checking all of his emails. I didn’t know what he’s trying to find…maybe the presentation that he never prepared!!! hehehe!

As the meeting started, he kept focusing on his Sony Vaio. He looked under pressure. I couldn’t tell whether he was preparing for the presentation at the last minute or was he preparing for the excuse. However, when it was our turn to present…I put the projector cable to my Sony Vaio and slowly open my presentation. He seemed confuse at first but then..I could see the sign of relief very clearly on his face. hehehe! Actually, I had already prepared the presentation a week before and I just loved to see him loosing his cool (gelabah giler).

After the meeting finish, we went back to our main office. He slowly came from behind…swing his leg above my shoulder and strangled me. It looks harsh to most people..but for me, it’s a normal joke from my Japanese advisor that I have already got use too.

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The meeting normally takes more than 3 hours and at times it takes a whole day.
For me, I just have to sit through it. It’s an obligation without any responsibility. They do not even care what I do during the meeting. However, sometimes they can still be kind enough to ask me a simple question..”Ok ka??”.. or “Understand ka??” and what I do is answer “OK naa..!!” or “Hait !!..Wakarimashita”.

It doesn’t matter if I actually understand or not!.. the most important thing is to give a positive answer. If I say I don’t understand; they will try to explain to it to me. With their communications methods of Japanese English with sign language; they will confuse me a lot more and also can take up an extra of 1-2 hours of sitting there listening to them chatting.

If I choose to say that I don’t understand; I just say it sarcastically “Kuah-kari-ikan-masin” ( actually, Wakarimas-sen means I don’t understand ). It’s a pretty good joke that of course they don’t understand..still, I can be proud of my stupid joke & smile about it as they go on with the meeting. Their egos will stop them from asking me further about my suspicious grin!! hehe

If I really want to ask them a question just to remind them that hello I am still alive here, I must make sure that it’s not a difficult question and they already know the answer. If I ask the wrong question & they don’t know the answer; they’ll try to answer it as confusingly as possible to make sure that they appear smart and they will explain it until I give up or until it’s already past 5.30pm and say “I understand!!!”

I’m not sure either i like it or not. If the time is still 8am ~ 5.30pm…it should still be fine even though it means i would be wasting my time there doing nothing for the whole day and listen to them talk. I may not understand word by word; but I definitely know most of their conversation is not about work but golf.

However if the time is past 5.30pm.. i really feel like committing hara-kiri..puuiihhh..

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I really believe that WWF should have come to catch and label both of us as ‘rare species’. They must put us side by side with the Panda bear before it’s too late.

On top of that,WWF should take care of me a lot more because I’m a lot younger than old Murata-san. He’s already 57 years old !! I hold higher chances for survival and can live longer.hahaha..

However, I have accepted the fact that WWF does not even bother to save our species because the world nowadays loves the new hybrid called LCD.

This new hybrid is not friendly with us at all in fact they eat us designers one by one in silence and wipe out our population. Shockingly, we seem to love being eaten by this new hybrid and I do hope I’ll get eaten soon and officially mark the completion of my species extinction..yeeaaahhh..

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