Graduating Today?

This morning, lots of people will be coming out of ICC with brand new degrees and diplomas. I was going to do a short piece about the History of UBD and found that UBD has already publicised it in its website, but just in case, you have not read or seen it yourself, here it is with some additional notes.The idea of establishing a university of Brunei Darussalam was first raised during a

The Story of Two Books

I bought two books this week. One is a normal price or rather, locally Brunei priced best seller book and the other is an old almost antique book which cost five times more than the other one. When I look at Amazon, the price of that best seller was almost half but I guess with postage etc, it would probably cost close to what our local bookstores are selling. Anyway, I am talking about Dan

RBA's Boeing 777?

According to The Washington Post compiling news from Indian newspapers on 26th October 2009, amongst them The Indian Express, Royal Brunei Airlines will finally be acquiring her Boeing 777.Remember the continuing saga about Boeing 777? About 2 years ago, RBA was supposed to have leased a couple of Boeing 777. Brunei Times in its 18th June 2007 news wrote that "... reports on the internet (

Brunei - now a big fish!

The Oxford Business Group reported the following on 26th October 2009:+++++Brunei Darussalam: Diving In at the Deep End26 October 2009Brunei Darussalam is steadily building on its reputation as an Islamic financial services hub, making up for lost time and developing a credible sharia-compliant banking and financial sector. Though the Sultanate has long offered Islamic financial services,

A Sad Year

This has been a very sad year. This year I have already seen my aunty, my uncle, my grand uncle passing away. On Saturday, it was the turn of my dear mother in law. I remembered when we were busy by the bedside, my phone rang. I did not recognise the number but when I answered, it was my 9 year old son. We had left him at my sister in law's place.He asked, 'Babah, banar nini nada lagi?' (Dad, is

Puspa Hotel - Short History

The winner of Saturday's post of what happened to this hotel is my good friend, Mr. Haji Awang. Unfortunately he only texted me so his note was not available to readers.Anyway, before Puspa Hotel was built, it was the site of a factory. The factory was producing bottled softdrinks called Snowman. Most probably the factory was built soon after the war and the factory lasted until the 1960s. That

Puspa Hotel

I am just wondering who remembered this? Be the first to tell the world what happened to it.

Chinese Temple in Brunei Town

There seemed to be a rush of entries yesterday about the development in Brunei. For today I thought I will look at the Chinese Temple. I wrote about the old Chinese Temple a couple of years back and received interesting comments. The original Chinese Temple is not at its location in front of Sungai Kianggeh. It was originally at the wharf. During the early 1950s, you can still find the old temple

Building Brunei in the 1950s

I recently received a note from a Mr Sun-Hoo Foo which talked about my books, the Golden Warisan Volume 1 and 2. But most importantly he was talking about his father which I took the liberty to quote as follows:-Your article 7 on the Mosque in the Capital is most interested to me, since our family is tied most closely to the construction of this magnificent mosque. My father Foo Hong was the

International Airport

[Brunei International Airport around 1970s]I had to hunt high and low for this postcard. Eventually one was offered on ebay together in a package with postcards of the Logan Airport in Boston which I used to use when I studied in the US and the Minneapolis-Saint Paul's (MSP) Airport which is an interesting airport as it is surrounded by Minneapolis, St. Paul and the suburban cities of Bloomington

Two Bridges Over Time

[Clifford Bridge or also known as Jembatan Rangas]This is a postcard of the Clifford Bridge or is popularly known as Jembatan Rangas. This one was built in the 1920s replacing an older wooden bridge. This bridge is still in existence today. If you happen to be crossing the river into Bandar, you can see the old bridge on the left. It was just left there. The bridge was very narrow and only

Brunei, Male Only Policy?

More than twenty years ago when I went to UK, I had a hard time explaining where Brunei was. Ten years later when I was studying for my Masters in the USA, it was the same problem. But I thought recently with our disappearing act in the 2008 Olympics and our recent run-in with BAFA/FIFA saga, many journalists, especially sporting ones would have realised where Brunei was. Apparently not so. In

Brunei No.1

Oxford Business Group's Report on Brunei on 9th October 2009 are as follows:+++++Brunei Darussalam: Praise and Pointers9 October 2009Brunei Darussalam's economy has received somewhat mixed reviews in two internationally recognised reports, having been rated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as the number one country globally in terms of macroeconomic stability but also well down the rankings when

Zero Poverty

Yesterday's ceremony when His Majesty handed out the zakat funds to those who are needy certainly marks a new chapter in Brunei's history.I was sitting on the stage watching from the back seeing the faces of all those receiving the zakat funds. Certainly a number of them deserved to receive the funds. A number of them were in wheel chairs and a number of them too had difficulty walking.

Brunei's GDP 2008

I got this book from my colleague at PMO yesterday. It is Brunei's 2008 Annual National Accounts. What is it?It is a publication by the Statistics Department of the Economic Planning and Development Department of the Prime Minister's Office. It tells you what Brunei's GDP is. This one tells you what the 2008 GDP figures look like.First of all, the statistician corrected the growth rate of 2007.

Brunei Money Defects

This was in the cbox ** salwa: Mr BR, i discovered a print defect on our Brunei $1 notes. I compared it with one another, the defect one has a low upper sides and longer on the right hand sides. ** Actually I am not surprised. I remembered sometime in November 2006, one reader sent me a newspaper cutting of a news written in the Miri Daily Newspaper. Not many Bruneians came across that paper as

Constitution of Brunei Darussalam 50th Anniversary

Not many realised that on 29th September 2009, Brunei Darussalam’s Written Constitution celebrated its Golden Anniversary of 50 years old. This news from RTB:-The Brunei Written Constitution and Brunei Agreement was signed on 29th of September 1959 between Brunei Government and the British Government at the Lapau Building, in Bandar Brunei. Through the declaration, the status of the country has