Currency Gallery What? by Zaki Mohidin

Ever wonder how a B$10,000 looks like in real life? Or where our polymer notes come from? Or even what your parents/grandparents are talking about when they’re going on about Duit Pisang masa zaman Jepun?Then head down to the Currency Gallery at Brunei Currency & Monetary Board, Ministry of Finance where you can find an interesting exhibition on the history and development of Brunei currency from

Jurnal Darussalam

My good friend, the Deputy at the History Centre kindly gave me the Centre's latest publication yesterday, Jurnal Darussalam. The journal is published once or twice a year filled with articles written by historians or other writers writing about history related to Brunei. There are only two publications which I refer to whenever I write about the history of Brunei, this one and the Brunei Museum

As the Future Catches Brunei

When I first joined the agency, my PS showed me his favourite book entitled 'As the Future Catches You' written by Juan Enriquez, a Harvard Professor. It's a very interesting book, the typefonts different on every page and every few sentences and every few words, sometimes certain pages only have a few words but most importantly emphasising the important materials and points that are discussed

Fasting Month Charity Blues

I was still seething about espeed yesterday morning at the office when my secretary's assistant intercom me saying that there was someone who wanted to speak to me. She said that it's a Pengiran and he sounded as if he knows me very well. Well, one third of Bruneians are Pengirans so that's no help whatsover. Anyway, I asked her to put him through and there was this guy pretending as if he knew

espeed, faster connectivity, affordable pricing???

For those who were searching for an early posting this morning, my apologies. Or rather I shouldn't even be apologisig for someone else's problems which is espeed2 provided by our newly corporatised Syarikat Telekom Brunei Berhad or TELBRU as it wants to be popularly known. I lost the connection sometime at about 4.30 this morning when I came back after sahur trying to connect to blogger to

The Crescent Moon - the Islamic symbol?

You know, it's interesting how one symbol or icon is sufficient to represent one particular group. The Christians have the cross, the Jews have the Star of David and the Muslims have .... did you say the crescent moon and the star?It is surprising that the crescent moon and the star have become the Muslims' symbol. I remembered being taught when I was young and even now to stay away from the use

Moon Sighters versus Scientists

Nobody sighted the new moon last Friday and that's why for Brunei, the fasting starts today. Though not being able to sight the moon was known way in advance and many people already commented that we won't be able to see it. Some people ask why bother? Some countries have done without it and relying completely on what they called hisab (calculations). Some have gone halfway, using hisab but still

Surprises at the MIB Forum

The MIB forum organised by the titled persons of Brunei for His Majesty a couple of nights ago was interesting in many ways. I know many of you who were not at the UBD Chancellor's Hall think that you have already seen one MIB Conference, this one would be just like that. Surprisingly, no. There were a few things that I found very interesting despite the forum ending at about 12.10 am.The first

Happy Teacher's Day

It was Teacher's Day yesterday, a good day for some teachers, at least a holiday for all the others. My 6 year old loves the holidays. He wished everyday was a Teacher's Day. Actually it is not yet Teacher's Day, Teacher's Day is tomorrow but because later tonight we will be sighting the moon and tomorrow maybe the start of the fasting month, hence teacher's day celebrations held yesterday. But

Situation of Rice and Sugar Supply in Brunei

The 19th coup in Thailand's modern history does not seem to affect the financial market very much. I think the Baht went down by about 1%. Most of the finance people I talked to said that ever since the uncertainty of the current government, all the risk factors have already been factored in, so when the coup did come, it was more or less expected. So, why am I talking about Thailand's economy if

Cars at Kampung Ayer

I really pitied the guy who accidentally reversed his car into the river from the parking lot in front of the Bubungan Dua Belas at Jalan Residency. Luckily he managed to escape from the car and was able to swim to safety. It still took the fire and rescue people a few minutes to find the car even though they had complete diving gear. Imagine if he had been in it, those few minutes would be the

Brunei Textile Stores as Tourist Destinations

Yesterday I was invited to open and attend an Islamic finance conference organised by a Malaysian bank. During the break, I had the chance to speak to a few of the bank's executives who flew in from KL the afternoon before and had to fly out again by the afternoon of the conference. So in the short few hours that they had, the ladies executives went out shopping. I have always been proud to point

The Pope and the USA

I don't normally like to write about religion and politics. Both subjects are difficult to handle and I am not an expert in either one of them. However both do come to prominence every now and then and the last few days, the Pope and Islam has been the focus on every newspaper in the world.Pope Benedict XVI caused so much anguish in the Muslim world and at first refused to apologise after his

Can we have Food Security in Brunei?

Recently, I got engaged in a little, yet very interesting, discussion with Mr. BR about the notion of “food security” in the context of Brunei Darussalam. Interesting because of two reasons. First, food is abundant in Brunei. All you want to eat is available in this country. But Brunei imports most of its food. (Well, I guess most of us know it already). Second, food security is far from being a

Islamic Banking in Brunei

I was sitting next to someone from HSBC Amanah Bank last night during dinner. HSBC Amanah is the Islamic Bank of HSBC operating in the middle east. They have been very influential in being at the forefront of Islamic banking there which surprised me completely when I first heard it. According to this person who is currently based in Riyadh, the banking system in Saudi Arabia up to about five

Brunei Man's Best Friend?

A couple of weeks ago, there was this long debate in the media about what to do about stray dogs in this country sparked by dogs attacking a little boy incident. The debate spilled over to the comment box on this blogsite. I refrained from writing as both LSM and Maurina already did beautiful pieces about it and Unharm6187 wrote a few paragraphs worth about it in the comment box (I am surprised

Brunei's Perfect Disaster

It finally happened. I remembered writing about it way back in May about the future of Brunei water and electricity. Water and electricity supplies can fail and water supplies did fail big time last week.So, on Monday, my first day back at work, I happened to be chairing a meeting where both the head honchos of public works and electrical departments were also presentand naturally I asked about

More Origin of English Words

Continuing my series on the origin of English words for us Bruneians. Sometimes you can't imagine how certain English words came about for us to use here in Brunei. Before you think how clever I am writing today's post, I have to admit that I got this article from one of those circulating emails. So, thanks to whoever it is that wrote this. So, the next time you are washing your hands and

Post 9/11

PS. Yesterday was 9/11 and much as I wanted to write about it, I thought of all the atrocities committed in the name of fighting the war against terror since then, I decided against it. I even refused to post about it on 9/11 but preferring today 9/12 as a small but token gesture against the current military incursions as even in the fight against terrorism, the end does not justify the means.

Spoon-fed Bruneians?

In my post sometime last month entitled "Turning Brunei into a Nation of New Ideas", there were a number of very good opinions. But I thought I will just turn to three which unfortunately were all written by anonymous commentators, so I can't credit whoever it is that wrote in the comment box. But if you recognised that among these are your comments and you would like to be properly credited,

Please excuse my son from school

Yesterday for some reason (you know how it is, a fragment of your memory suddenly came), I remembered the time when I was staying at the Brunei Students Hostel in Singapore. The Hostel catered to Brunei scholarship students which stayed there studying in various Singapore schools from about 1955 to about 1983 if I am not mistaken. About 10 best Brunei male PCE students and the Arabic students

What matters most

There may be days when you get up in the morningand things aren't the way you had hoped they would be,....that's when you have to tell yourself that things will get better.There are times when people disappoint you and let you down,but those are the times when you must remind yourselfto trust your own judgments and opinions,to keep your life focused on believing in yourselfand all that you are

Why I want a Wife

While researching for one of my posts, I came across this article written by a Judy Brady who was a free-lance author during the 1960s and wrote many articles on women's movement. This piece entitled 'why I want a wife' was written by her in 1971 and became a classic of feminist satire. It's a very interesting read and this is America in the 1970s. I don't know about you but in some sense it is

Learning from Vietnam

One of the downside to blogging about Brunei when you are overseas is that you can't do it. I tried but I don't have any reference materials with me and it is not exactly cheap calling someone to confirm on certain things. Yes, there is an amount of work involved in writing a post and all these have to be ready before I write it. So, I thought I will spend a little bit of time talking about Hanoi

The Ubiquitous Press Statement of International Meetings

Greetings from Hanoi. Today's post is not about Brunei per se but just a little information guide to those who are curious as to what ministers and officials actually discussed when they go overseas attending international meetings. Attending international meetings sounded so glamorous but in reality, it is anything but. Though if you speak to my colleagues in the foreign service, they find the

18th UBD Convocation

Congratulations to all who received their degree, diploma and other certificates yesterday from His Majesty and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. This year's crowd of 1,072 students is slightly smaller than last year's 1,103. This is UBD's 18th Convocation since it held its first convocation way back in 1989.UBD has indeed gone a long way since His Majesty first announced the establishment of

Brunei-Vietnam Relationship

Hanoi International Airport is very different compared to the one that I used before. It now has aerobridges. The last time, we had to walk down the stairs and across the tarmac. The airport building is far more modern now. This is my fourth visit to Vietnam and the third to Hanoi. The first time was sometime in 1998 when my father was the Ambassador here, the second was an official ASEAN meeting

Raison D'etre

I was asked yesterday shouldn't I be concentrating on more important things than blogging and the commentator noted that nowadays since many people carry laptops and he raised the the possibility that I was blogging during office hours when I should be working? Questions like these are defining moments. To me, it does raise a very fundamental issue as to whether I should continue this blogsite.

The Brunei International Airport

If you notice, there was this rather long comment on this site's comment box:"... i agre (sic) about the airport - something needs to be done. The area where friends and family are cut off from passengers (the check in area) is ridiculously short. Nowhere in the world have i ever been to an airport with such a silly rule; non-passengers can NOT enter the checking in area BUT they CAN check in

Paradox of Our Times

Today we have bigger houses and smaller families;More conveniences, but less time;We have more degrees, but less common sense;More knowledge, but less judgment;We have more experts, but more problems;More medicine, but less wellness.We spend too recklessly, laugh too little,drive too fast, get angry too quickly,Stay up to late, get up too tired;Read too little, watch TV too often;and Pray too