How far will you go to prevent people from sticking advertisements on your wall?

Stroll down any street and you’ll probably find a few common ‘stick no bills‘ signs on the walls or pillars alongside the street.

I guess the shopowners are just too tired of people sticking ads for sexual treatment pills, MLMs, and even Along (loan shark) services, on their private walls!

In my opinion, ads about Along services clearly dominate over ads about other services, Alongs nowadays are so professional that they provide all sorts of ‘offers’ like low interest rates, receive cheque instantly, and so on…! Their ‘marketing agents‘ made sure that you will always see their ads anytime, anywhere!

So, let’s say you own a mamak stall, and you want to stop people from wallpaper-ing your store’s walls with Along services and ubat jantan promotions; and they are definitely not going to stop just because you put up a ‘stick no bills‘ sign, what are you going to do?

Here’s a shopowner who did a very effective job in making sure that his walls are free of ads. Instead of just a ‘stick no bills‘ sign, he added a warning below:

It says: “Warning, do not stick any advertisements, wrongdoers will be prosecuted or beaten.’

Now that’s an extremely effective sign! You stick ads, you will be beaten up! It’s even scarier that being prosecuted!

To the Chinese, Chinese New Year is supposed to be all about prosperity and generosity. Giving out Ang Paus has always been a united symbol of both prosperity and generosity as we are ‘sharing the prosperity‘ (Money, actually…)

However, although the stock market is booming in early 2007, the size of Ang Paus are just as constant as ever (if not shrinking)!

To make the situation more outrageous, check out this copy of Sin Chew Daily on the first day of Chinese New Year. On the first page, it says:

“Learn About Financial Management From the Pig*“!

(The “Pig*” is actually the Pig character from the famous Chinese story “Journey to the West”, I just can’t think of how to translate the name.)

Maybe I’ll just use the Chinese translation of the Pig Character’s name, which is Zhu Ba Jie.

For those who do not know, Zhu Ba Jie is the infamous lazy, perverted, greedy, no-action-talk-only and sometimes dumb, character in the story. Now we are going to learn Financial Management from him, how about that?

Just to clarify, I have nothing against the story or the characters, just pointing out the facts here =)

Looking inside at what Zhu Ba Jie has to say about wise financial management during this Chinese New Year, it is really maddening, or disturbing, to say the least, to see this:

It says: “The current ‘market price’ for an Ang Pau is 2 Ringgit.”

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… You got that?

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2 Ringgit… 2 Riiiiinggittt… 2… Ringgiiiitttttt…!! May that figure haunt your dreams tonight!

It is acknowledged on the newspapers that people should give 2 Ringgit Ang Paus!

The Ang Pau price 10 years ago was 2 Ringgit, and now it is still 2 Ringgit! Damn! Haven’t the married adults heard of inflation? 2 Ringgit could buy you some stuff years ago, but now the value is really so small that an RM2 Ang Pau is almost, I think, negligible.

Undeniably, most relatives or the people who know you will give you a lot more than an RM2 Ang Pau, but for the not-so-familiar people, it’s 2 Ringgit, period.

Yes, I know that giving Ang Paus is just a symbol of goodwill, and I do not despise people giving RM2 Ang Paus, because it is really, sad to say, the ‘market price’ now. But you know, maybe I’ll appreciate it only after I get married, when it’s my turn to give out Ang Paus! Hehe…

This actually happened yesterday but I didn’t have time to blog about it, so here’s the replacement!

Japanese culture lovers, you’re gonna love this! The Japanese Cultural Society (JCS) of MMU has organized a Carnival of Japan in MMU! This is truly not an event that you can see everyday!

In my opinion, the Japanese culture influence in Malaysia, especially among youths, is mainly caused by… anime! That’s right! Japanese animated cartoons, anime! I don’t know if referring anime as cartoons is correct, but I daresay if there were no anime in Malaysia at all, the Japanese cultural effect here would be a lot less, which will also take away a lot of colours in many of today’s youths’ life.

But OF COURSE no one should ever stop anime from coming to Malaysia! As their distinct character illustrations and story plots are just so lovable, that it is almost certain that most youths will embrace anime as part of their lives for certain periods of their age. I did, last year! =)

Anyway, back to the carnival…

Right at the entrance of the canopies, you’ll find what they call ‘Love’s Board‘

It’s very nice ’cause all the love and flower shaped papers have love messages written on them… How meaningful! I think it’s there because it was Valentine’s Day yesterday.

All over the sheltered outer compound of the carnival were stalls selling different sorts of goodies. There were Japanese foods, souvenirs, chocolates for V day, and even a stall where you can fish all you want in 30 seconds from a tray… Using a totally torn net!

Glen bought an egg that if you crack the tip and water it as though it were a plant, a small single-leaf plant will grow out of it with the words I Love You printed on the leaf! Amazing huh? I wonder who he wants to give it to… Hehe…

To add to the Japanese atmosphere, most of the JCS working staff and members were dressed up in Japanese outfit!

Inside the exhibition area, you’ll see what all the fuss is all about. There’s a huge collection of Japanese stuff on display and if I’m not mistaken, they were sponsored for display by an authority in Japan! Forgot which authority though…=)

Here’s the main exhibition area:

There were Japanese cuisines, costumes, paintings, figurines, pot plants, traditional games, and miniature traditional houses on display.

I liked the miniature houses the most ’cause they are sooo nice and real! And there were like around a dozen of them, if you liked miniature art, I think you might just want to rob them from the carnival!

I think most of you will recognize the toys in the image below as they sometimes appear in anime or Japanese TV series.

They are called Kendama, basically each of them is made of a ball attached to a two-sided hammer by a string. You’ll have to swing the ball from the top to land once on each side of the hammer, and then swing it again to return to the top. I tried it and I can tell you it’s DAMN difficult!

Overall the carnival was fine although it was extremely hot to be directly under the sun with canopies as shelters only, but everything else was very exciting and nice!