Panic buying

Yesterday 16 March 2020, the Prime Minister of Malaysia announced a Movement Control Order that is intended to curb the Covid-19 virus outbreak. The Order would be effective tomorrow 18 March 2020 and last up to 31 March 2020.

I do not intend to go into details of the restrictions contained in the order. Just to note that it did spark a spree of panic buying among some citizens in this country. While the government has gone to great lengths to assure the people not to panic (provision stores and markets would be allowed to operate), there is no way to prevent certain segments of the community from hoarding stuff as if the world is about to end. In some ways, that is understandable. For the majority of Malaysians, it is a situation they have never faced before. Uncharted waters. Unknown territory, We are human beings after all... we fear the unknown.

Earlier today I decided to drop by a local supermarket to see the situation for myself. I chose to go to Tesco at Setia Tropika which is actually not our normal place to shop for groceries. I thought that maybe this relatively smaller supermarket would not be a target for hoarders. How wrong I was.

The rows and rows of empty shelves were quite astonishing. Many of the essential items are sold out. Tesco had run out of stocks to replenish.

I picked up the few items I need that are still available. At the checkout counter, I asked the cashier when the panic buying happened. She said that it was yesterday evening. It was crazy.

Well, the actual 2-week restriction period will start tomorrow. I'll probably make a quick trip to Larkin wet market to see if there are some people still in panic mode.

Fresh vegetable section

Canned food

Total wipeout of toilet rolls. Only kitchen towels left

Just a few bags of rice remain

Frozen foodstuff all but gone

Online impostor

Social media can both be a boon or a bane. Very useful at most times but can be dangerous too.

A few days ago, I received an early morning whatsapp message from a friend. He's checking to see if I had actually sent him a Facebook Messenger request to connect. I quickly replied that it was not me and thanked him for letting me know.

I then went to my Facebook account to put up a status informing friends that my account has possibly been cloned and for them not to respond to any message from this fake account. A few minutes after that status update, some friends replied that indeed, they had received message request from someone suspicious. I then did a Facebook search on my own profile and true enough, there was another account using my name and photo but without any personal details. It was created about 12 hours earlier.

I made a report to Facebook about this fake account and my report was acknowledged by them via email. The next day, I did a similar search and found out that the fake profile is no longer there.

What do such impostors do with these clone accounts? From the feedback that I got from friends who had been similarly cloned, one trick that these impostors use is to send messages to other friends on our list with request or appeal for financial aid. Some trusting friends would mistakenly think that we are actually in need of such help and therefore would send the money.

Anyway, it was a good thing I managed to act quickly. I again sent a whatsapp message to the friend who gave me the heads-up. It's good to know that I have friends who check up on me once in a while.

Whatsapp and Facebook. Two social media platforms that I depend too much on.

Screen capture of the impostor's attempt to connect with a friend

One local destination a month (2nd edition) - Part 1 : Tikam Batu, Kedah

Once in a while, I take the rural roads rather than the highways when traveling. This is especially true if I'm in no particular hurry and have no fixed duration to reach my destination. In such instances, I would be on the lookout for interesting places to stop.

We were in Penang in early January to visit our besan (my daughter-in-law's parents). While up north, I decided to make the short trip to Sungai Petani in Kedah to visit an old friend whom I've not seen since our student days in the UK. This friend is recovering from some ailments and had been out of work for a number of years. I had actually visited him a few years earlier but at that time, he was in the CCU of Sungai Petani Hospital so I did not actually manage to speak to him at all.

From Penang island, we took the ferry across to Butterworth. I decided to head on to Sungai Petani on the old Federal Route 1. The main objective was to make a stop to see a rice harvester machine that is being used as a prop next to the welcome signage at the Kedah border.

Mesin Padi Tikam Batu is located just after Merdeka Bridge that spans across Sungai Muda. This river forms the border between mainland Penang and Kedah.

According to media reports, the rice harvester and signage was erected by Majlis Perbandaran Sungai Petani in February 2019. It is quite a novel idea and I appreciate the council for making the effort. The location is perfect, with wide paddy fields in the background. Although not quite a tourist destination, I hope the council would maintain it well.

I stopped by the location only for a few minutes and regretted not looking at the machine in detail. I would have loved to know the manufacturer and specifications, even though the harvester could be just a mock-up. Online searches have not yielded any details.

Welcome to Kedah, the premier rice-growing region in Malaysia. Visited on 02 January 2020

Rice Harvester

Maisarah and her grandfather...

What does a doting grandfather do when he gets to meet his adorable granddaughter?
He takes selfies with her...

And what does the grandfather do when he has a collection of selfies over a period of a year?
He compiles them into a still video which he would repeatedly view without feeling the least bit bored...

Tempat jatuh lagi dikenang...

We made a short trip to Kuantan the previous weekend. The main purpose was to fulfil an invitation by a former teacher to attend the wedding reception of his son. As always, we took the opportunity to visit other places as well. It was a packed weekend of activities but truly a memorable one.

I am not going to write about the whole trip but just an initial short post. A visit to Kuantan would almost always mean a stop at my former school, Maktab Rendah Sains Mara Kuantan. Although I spent only two years there, it was my first experience of boarding school. A lot happened in those two years. The many friendships that began there have seen the test of time and most relationships have grown stronger till this day.

It has been 40 years since I completed my secondary education at MRSM Kuantan. The students there today call me `Pakcik', which is actually nice to hear. The school has evolved too, although at one time, MARA had plans to re-locate it or shut it down but the dedicated effort of some alumni managed to make the authorities change their mind.

I believe the school still produce quality graduates with respectable attitudes. I am proud to have been a product of this school and I hope they are equally proud of their former students too.

This signage structure had been erected for some time now but it took me a while to realise that "MRSMKU' has two meanings

At the main entrance signage wall. The motto on the school badge is not the original one as coined by a former student

Footnote : My first post on MRSM Kuantan was in August 2008 - An east coast education