Reality of Brunei Married Life?

It's been a while since I posted something humorous. Luckily someone gave me this and I think it's hillarious as a reflection of the reality of our our day to day married life here in Brunei. I believe the original must have been in English and someone somewhere modified it. So, my apologies to the real owner of this thing (email me and I will credit you) and my apologies whose lingua franca is

What did your grandad do during the World War?

Sometimes hidden treasures can be right in front of you and you don't know it. Each of us has a history of unique personal experiences that makes us who we are.Last Sunday, my wife and I visited her elderly uncle. It was our 15th Hari Raya visit there and other than fulfilling our duties, I guess we just went there to say hello, how are you and bye. We normally stay for about 15 minutes tops. My

Hari Raya Cards

I promised my sister I will talk about Hari Raya cards sometime before the end of Hari Raya. Even though theoretically speaking Hari Raya is the whole of Syawal but by next weekend, it will be practically over. So I thought this is as good a time as any to talk about it.We received two more Hari Raya cards from members of the Royal Family - this time from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and

Brunei's $15.9 billion GDP: Good News and Bad News

The latest issue of Brunei Economic Bulletin (BEB, volume 4 issue 3 & 4, July 2006) issued by the Economic Planning and Development Department of the Prime Minister's Office, contains several interesting information about Brunei Darussalam’s economy. There are good news and bad news.Let me start with good news. The BEB wrote that the GDP statistics has been revised. Well, actually this is not new

Please forgive me

On the second day of Hari Raya, my family and I went to 15 houses of colleagues, relatives and friends. We started at about 8.30 in the morning and did not come back until about 9.30 in the evening. It was continuous visiting and we only stopped for prayers at my parents' and my mother-in-law's house. That number I was told, is average and I know of many other families which did a lot more visits

Hari Raya Tribute to the Royal Family

The Hari Raya visit to Istana Nurul Iman is probably the only one in the world where the monarch and members of the Royal Family actually stood to wait for the public to come and greet them which numbers almost 40,000 daily for three days running. Someone emailed me whether I can scan the current photo of the Royal Family which was handed to us as a gift during the first Hari Raya. I looked at

In the Name of Education by Z Junaidi

One of the first thing that intrigued me when I read the entry on Monday 23rd October 2006, was not the Hari Raya the blogger had spent all his life, but rather the loneliness he had to endure all the while. All - in the name of education. I had a rather similar upbringing. I ‘left’ my KB home before my 12th birthday to live and being educated in the so-called Science School. It was 1979. We were

Silaturrahim during Hari Raya

Sometimes we pay lip service towards one of the aims of visiting each other during Hari Raya which is to extend silaturrahim. We take that for granted as most of the time that is what we happened. We visit each other's houses and see the same family members, the same friends and so on. Nothing new in that. Very seldom do we get to see more than that. This Hari Raya, I thought the same thing will

First Day Raya at Istana Nurul Iman

I am not going to write much at all today. Yesterday morning was the first day for what RTB described as state dignitaries and diplomats to greet His Majesty and the Royal Family at the Palace. I am pretty sure that I am not in the category of a 'state dignitary', but I was there all the same. I thought I will upload some of the more interesting food scenes during that reception (I will try to

First Day of Hari Raya

SELAMAT HARI RAYA to all readers. I am not sure why you all are here this Pagi Raya browsing through blogs when you should be out visiting your parents, your elders, your relatives and your friends. So to discourage people from spending too much time reading blogs, I am just doing a very short entry today.When I posted this, it is still a couple of hours before I have to go to the mosque for the

Selamat Hari Raya to Everyone!

I know Hari Raya mood is definitely on as the number of readers to this blogsite has dropped dramatically over the last couple of days. Last Saturday, the number was 449 and yesterday it was 455. The last time it was this low, I have to go back to August. Anyway, blog reading is probably pretty way down everybody's list during Hari Raya. And blogging is also way down my list judging by the

Last Minute before Hari Raya

After the beautiful posting yesterday following the expert posting by our guest bloggers over the last few days, today's posting unfortunately will not be as beautifully worded. For those who wants to continue to subject raised by Abu Iman, Abu Iman and I have talked about it and we will be opening up another blogsite which will be catering to the needs of the ummah especially Bruneians very soon

One World, One Ummah by Abu Iman

2 days to Eid - subject to the sighting of the moon this Sunday.If it isn't sighted, we continue an extra day of fasting and abstaining ourselves from our nafs. If sighted, we will celebrate Monday as the 1st day of Syawal, the month of Victory for Muslims all over the world.Ramadhan will be over soon. I am sad to see it go for I know not if I will ever see it again. I pray Allah accepts my

The Month of Spending? By Kamal Muhammad

What is the first thing that come to our mind when it comes to Hari Raya?Is it the sound and sight of firecrackers?Or is it the green package that the youngsters get from the elders?Or is it the cakes and the new attires which we bought especially for Raya?Or is it the opportune time when we can check out and make our move to the person whom we have admired for so long? (This is also a hint for

Melayu - Origin of the Word

In the comment chatter box, I noticed that there have been a number of remarks about MIB and the citizenship, and even the relevancy of MIB in the context of the religion. If you are expecting today's topic to be about MIB, let me apologise in advance. I am not an expert to speak about the topic but I can point you to a couple of seminar papers available on the aseantourguide.com website that

A La Carte or Buffet for Sungkai? By Kamal Muhammad

Hunger, tiredness, thirstiness, all add up to one thing - a desire to end one’s salvation. I do believe breaking fast times are the most look forward to times during the Ramadhan month (apart from the Lailatul Qadar of course). It is the time when we all regain our energy and end the physical and spiritual restraint exercise.But one may wonder whether it matters how we break our fast. Do we

T'kidum

How many people in Brunei have seen this? When I first saw it on the magazine shelf at Pustaka Remaja two Sundays ago, I thought, wow! A Brunei own comic book. That's a first. It was reasonably priced at about $4.90 but I thought compared to other comics from Malaysia and especially from UK or USA, $4.90 is nothing, besides talent has to be paid for and when it's Brunei own talent, we have to

The Brunei Escargot and Other Discoveries

A lot of Bruneian Muslims on this second last Sunday of this Ramadhan took the time to visit the graves of their loved ones. There is of course next Friday and Sunday when the cars will overflow whatever limited spaces there are available at the carparks next to the cemetery. It happened to us last year when we visited our grandparents' graves in Kuala Belait. I remembered saying why was it that

A Historic Moment to Remember

About three Fridays ago, Pehin Goh launched a pictorial book entitled 'A Historic Moment to Remember’ a book that was commemorating the Chinese New Year celebrations at the ICC which was attended by His Majesty and members of the royal family earlier this year. I read in BB that I can get hold of the book for free and finally managed to get hold of it yesterday. When I looked through the

Rimba Horticulture Centre

I was out in Rimba yesterday at the Horticulture Centre. Previously I used to go there every couple of months searching for plants and flowers to add to the collection at home. Sometimes it's just simply to buy earth, fertilizers and flower pots. Over the last year, I have been too busy to do that and I noticed lately that my plants growth seemed somewhat stunted and before being accused of plant

The Fiscal and Monetary Review (Again?)

I have been neglecting my main library at aseantourguide.com to the point that visitors on a daily average there has dropped lower than at this blogsite which is a first (553 for the aseantourguide.com versus 629). The aseantourguide.com as the main library used to average around 1,000+ daily. The last time I updated anything was the royal wedding pictures and helping to host the Brunei

Sports Tourism in Brunei

I was at a meeting yesterday discussing the next Hassanal Bolkiah Asean Youth Football Tournament (HBT) to be held sometime next year. This tournament was initiated as part of His Majesty's efforts to bring the youths of ASEAN countries together through football and is the only one in the region to do so. It was meant to be a biennial affair and kicked off in August 2002. However the second HBT

How prepared are we?

Yesterday morning was spent at my wife's cousin's house attending her daughter's funeral. She passed away the night before due to lungs failure. She was not even 40 yet and she left three young daughers, the youngest barely 7 years old and the eldest in Primary 5. Her husband told me the lungs failure occurred because of complication in her diabetes.I keep on seeing the television health adverts

Old Age Pensions in Brunei

Last night's announcement during the Nuzul Al-Quran celebration by His Majesty of a 25% increase in old age and handicapped pensions marked the 8th time this pension has been increased since it was first introduced in 1955 by our 28th Sultan. When it was first announced in 1955, it was the first time that the government has enacted a government funded modern welfare system. Though last night's

'Nuzul Al-Quran'

Tomorrow is a public holiday for everyone of us here in Brunei regardless of race and religion, and in other Islam countries in the world a well. We will be celebrating Nuzul Al-Quran. There are some among us including those who will be going to the ICC later this evening who do not know what Nuzul Al-Quran is all about with some of our younger readers even asking 'apakan nuzul ani sebenarnya?'

Helping the Brunei Needy

A couple of years ago I was staying at my uncle's place in Batu Pahat, a town in Johor for my cousin's wedding. The one thing I discovered at his house was the amount of name cards and flyers at the bottom of his mail slot. When I looked at them, they were all about providing loans. These are not the normal bank loans. These are the illegal loans from loansharks. According to my uncle, he cleaned

The Much Improved RIPAS A&E

My mother had an unfortunate fall down a couple of steps the other night. It was a bad fall and her head bled profusely and that she also had bumps on her face. We rushed her to the Accident & Emergency at RIPAS. At first I was thinking whether we really should go to RIPAS as my previous experience with the A&E Unit is that you might be better off anywhere else but there.My last experience was

Hari Raya is Coming....

I received an invitation from my bank asking me whether I want to skip October's loan repayment. I wasn't sure what the promotion was, maybe Hari Raya. Though they get to charge a bit more interest for extending the loan for an extra month and probably some other administrative charges as well. They did indicate some form of charges will be required but they did not say what the rates are going

Brunei's National Library

I received an email from a Bruneian studying at Robert Gordon University yesterday asking me to write something about the library. In fact, this is not the first time I have received requests about writing about the library system in Brunei either through the email or through the comment box. My problem is that the last library I went into was during the four months executive program stint at the

Why do Brunei drivers slow down at accidents?

When you are driving to work and you noticed that the traffic slowing down, much much slower than usual, you automatically assumed a few things. One is that there is a police road block up ahead or or there is some major roadworks up ahead or there is an accident up ahead. If it's the police or roadworks, usually you would start to do a little curse something along the line, couldn't they they

Brunei Radio Stations vs London Capital FM

A couple of months back, one of my friends messaged me and asked me to write about the radio stations in Brunei especially after Kristal Radio pulled off the London Capital FM and Capital Gold stations off the air. I told him I am not so sure whether I can do that as I don't listen that much to the radio since they pulled off those two radio stations either and since I no longer drive my car to

Misconceptions about Brunei

I found this interview conducted by Devin Galaudet in the In The Know Traveller website. I thought I will retrieve it and let you all read how the Brunei tourism is sold outside Brunei and maybe invite a few comments from readers, if you were to be asked to be the Brunei spokesmen as to what you would actually say:-I must admit I had more than a few misconceptions about Brunei Darussalam before

Brunei History Books

On this Sunday, I thought I will talk about history books of Brunei. Someone mentioned the Hussainmiya book on my post on the History Centre's publication Jurnal Darussalam.Hussainmiya wrote three books so far, one is a semi-autobiography of our 28th Sultan, Sultan Haji Omarali Saifuddin published in 1995 entitled "Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and Britain: The Making of Brunei Darussalam", the