Early History of Royal Brunei Malay Regiment

[Today is the annual anniversary of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces. Nobody knew why it is always on 31st May every year. That is the date of the announcement of the formation of the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment, even though it was technically formed much later when everyone had undergone training. I wrote this article for today's Brunei Times.]During the Second World War, when Brunei was already an

Brunei's new Cabinet Ministers Pictures

Courtesy of Brunei Times

Brunei's new Cabinet Ministers

The Cabinet as announced on 29th May 2010:His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei DarussalamPRIME MINISTER, MINISTER OF DEFENCE, MINISTER OF FINANCE His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah, the Crown PrinceSENIOR MINISTER AT THE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE His Royal Highness Prince Mohamed BolkiahMINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE YB Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji

Capitol Cinema, Kuala Belait?

Today I need the help of people who lived in Kuala Belait in the 1950s and I really do need your help as this postcard if it is not showing The Capitol cinema of the 1950s in Kuala Belait means that this postcard is worth nothing to me.According to most people I talked to, the cinema in Kuala Belait was called the Capital. But when I checked Shaw's Website, this is what it says "In Sabah and

Muara Wharf 1920

This is another of the 'Brooketon' postcard. This one shows the old wharf at Muara Beach. Most people have forgotten that before the current port at Muara, the road in front of the shops are actually goes to the water edge. But because of the Muara Port, the road stops near the walled portion of the Muara Port.In those days, Muara exported coals. So the coals will be brought down to the wharf

Muara 1920

This is the other postcards I mentioned the other day. This is a postcard of Muara in the 1920s. Muara as you know was known as Brooketon until the 1920s. Up to the 1920s, the British treated Muara as if it is a different administration. Rajah Brooke managed to buy the concession to mine the coal at Muara in the late 19th century. Rajah Brooke even though was only a concession holder administered

Diangdangan Bujang Sigandam

[I wrote this about two weeks ago and submitted it to be published last Monday on Brunei Times. Something happened, they did not receive the story and my article was not published last week. I resubmitted and got it published yesterday. Many people my age would recollect the radio drama we had in those days when we had no television sets whatsoever.]There are times when events while being

SOS

1.(S)witch (O)ff Unnecessary Lights2.(S)witch (O)ff Water Heater When Not in Use3.(S)et Your Air Conditioner Temperatureto 24 degrees Celsius or at least 1 degree Celsius Higher than Usual

Cipkalak

Yesterday, I was sitting in the National Housing Committee. We were going through the appeals of quite a number of applicants who had earlier been rejected because they had a piece of land under their names. The rules of the housing program is that no one who is given a house under the program should have no land of their own. Of course, that does not stop many people who technically had no land

Natives on Buffalo

The other day I talked about 4 of Brunei postcards from the 1920 era. I won another two on ebay but getting these two were the hardest. I got a rival who wanted these two postcards as much as I wanted to and he pushed me all the way to about US$800+ for one and US$400+ for the other. I will save showing these two postcards until last.What I wanted to show was this postcard which I purchased

Probocis versus Human

One of the difficulties working at the Ministry of Development is that we are constantly faced with issues of trying to meet the expectations of everyone. Interestingly enough we looked after infrastructure and physical development but at the same time we are also responsible for the environmental issues.Lately, a growing concern voiced on the internet over a project at Damuan River. A number of

The Cabinet 2010

The talk of the town has focused on what the next cabinet will look like and for most of us at ministries, guessing who our next bosses will be if he is not retained. Let's look back at previous cabinet changes. (Apologies, I simplified the names and titles and they are not listed in correct order of protocol)+++++1984The first cabinet in 1984 was quite small.Prime Minister, Minister of Finance

Sungai Kedayan circa 1920

This postcard, believe it or not is close to 100 years old!This postcard issued around the 1910s/1920s of Sungai Kedayan in Brunei around the same period. I first saw this at one of Brunei's antique dealers who specialises in books and maps. He was selling it for around B$600.00. That postcard has been there with him for so long and I knew it quite well. Anyway, it finally popped up in ebay and I

T'kidum (Recycled)

Someone asked in the box about Brunei cartoonists. I remembered I wrote about Brunei cartoonists way back in 2006 and so I thought I will repost it. Of course, everyone knows that my favourite is Cuboiart and you can go to his website at here. Here is my old 2006 post:-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,

Commenting on the Comments

I have not been keeping up with the comments on the CBox. So I thought I will spend time answering some of the latest comments.+++++10 May 10, 21:01Din: Mr BR, how much did it cost to 'print' a Bruneian coin with a face value of 1 cent during the reign of Sultan Hashim?BR: I wish I knew. No, I have not gone that deep into researching about it but it is certainly a subject that I may visit one day

This is Radio Brunei

[The Managing Editor at BT asked me whether I could do an article on Radio Brunei as they just celebrated their 53rd Anniversary. It brought back memories. In the early 1990s I used to be a part time English newscaster on the English Channel or what the RTB now called Rangkaian Pilihan. In those days, there were only 3 of us, Charan Kumar, Ideris Ali or me. If anyone was ill, then one of us has

Houses at Meragang and Tanah Jambu

Last Saturday, we had three different ceremonies to lay the foundation at the huge Meragang/Tanah housing project. Many people got lost searching for the areas but it is not that difficult to find. You can enter to access the sites via the Muara-Tutong highway or via Jalan Bunga Kebun near Kampong Kapok.The first one was the project to build 361 basic housing at Meragang to be done by Thong and

Cinemas and Movie Memories of Brunei

[I wrote the following article for last Monday's Golden Legacy column on Brunei Times. Regular readers of this blog would realised that this article is a combination of my recent (about 2 months back) entry on the one and only Brunei movie and an old entry (about 3 years back) entry on cinema memories. I have incorporated some of the comments on those entries as part of the article as well.]HOW