This was in the news not too long ago.

Apparently, some station in Korea wanted to import our local TV shows to their country.
The information minister is very happy because he hoped Malaysia can do to Korea what Winter Sonata did to Malaysia.

Now, I’m all for exporting Malaysian-made content to the world. I think we have pretty creative people in the entertainment industry and I’m sure we’d be able to come up with something that Koreans would like.
Besides, how difficult is it to write a storyline to cater for Korean tastes anyway?
All you need to do is make sure someone cries every 5 minutes.

The hardest part, I think, is finding the type of actors that Koreans would enjoy watching.
We all know that Koreans are very used to their male actors looking like sissy girls and their female actresses looking like ghosts. Finding suitable actors for the job in Malaysia is definitely not gonna be easy.
Surely, it is not gonna work if our version of Winter Sonata looks like this.


Unless we wanna give them horror shows lah.

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My father never had a university degree.

He didn’t even have a college diploma for that matter.
No, it wasn’t because he didn’t care about education.
My father was one of the strongest advocates of higher education when he was alive. In his high school, he graduated at the top of his class. He was yearning so much to enter university, yet he never had the opportunity to do so.

My grandparents’ kampung in the 1950s

It was unfortunate that back in his days, there were no universities or colleges in Sarawak. Back then, the only option to further your education was to travel to big cities like Kuala Lumpur or Singapore and live there for 3 years before you could come back with that elusive piece of paper.
Coming from a poor family background and as the eldest child in the family with 4 siblings to support, leaving home for studies was simply too much a financial burden for him to carry.

Growing up, my father always emphasized to me how important it was to complete my university education.
He knew that he had to work twice as hard to get to where he was.
He knew that getting a university degree would put us head and shoulders ahead of everyone else. That’s why he spent a whole heap of money to send his three kids overseas. It is a financial sacrifice he had to put up with, because he knew that in this day and age it’s virtually impossible to survive in a job market without higher education.

But times have changed.
For one, universities and colleges and “university colleges” have been popping up all over the country left, right and centre. Within a short span of 3 years, I saw no less than FIVE institutions setting up their campuses within Kuching city alone.
Families are getting wealthier.
Parents can now afford to send their children to not just KL, Singapore or Australia. But to far far far away places like UK, USA and Mars (in the future).

But there was also one major change back then compared to now. Education has now become very commercialised.
Because there are not enough spaces in public unis to go around, many private education institutions suddenly appeared.
These private unis and colleges provide education, but in actual fact they are run very similar to business entities. Students pay school fees. In return, they receive a service in the form education.
Yes, just like public unis, these private institutions provide education. But no one can deny that their ultimate objective is to generate profit for their shareholders.

You see, everybody wanna make money these days.
But what if I told you that there is a private university in Malaysia that is actually NOT FOR PROFIT?
Would that be hard to believe?

It is not unreal. Such an institution does exist.
Malaysia’s first and only non-profit private university is Wawasan Open University.
Established only less than 2 years ago, the uni is funded not by the government, not by the rakyat’s taxes, but instead by charitable trusts, corporations and donations from the public.
To start with, a substantial donation was made by the family of Yeap Chor Ee, a banking tycoon who founded COCONUT BANK in Penang.

Mr Yeap, now immortalised in the form of a copper statue in front of the Wawasan Open University campus

Although Wawasan Open University is officially our 18th university, it functions unlike any traditional learning institutions most people are used to.
The university is truly a first of it’s kind in this country.
Wawasan Open University is an open distance learning university.

At a distance learning university, students are not required to physically attend classes. Instead they are expected to learn independantly through study materials provided and using of video-conferencing, instant messaging, online forums, e-mails and phone.
If needed, they can look for support or attend regular tutorials which are provided at their regional centres in Penang, Ipoh, Melaka, JB, KL and Bandar Utama.

WOU’s Penang regional office

The one big advantage this form of studies could bring is that working professionals or homemakers might find it easier to fit part-time studies into their schedule. By learning at home, these adult learners can still get a degree without going to classes.
The downside is that when it comes to distance-learning, A LOT of self-discipline is required on the part of students.
No one is gonna stop you from reading kennysia.com or update your Facebook if you’re supposed to be reading your course materials online. But hey, you’re the one who’s gonna suffer when exams come around!

I know. Distance learning have always sounded a bit dodgy, but really, it’s just mindless paranoia.
If you noticed, traditional universities especially in Malaysia has always been “spoon-feeding” information to students. A lot of students rely way too much a lecturer or a tutor to be physically there for them to learn something.

With distance learning, students have to learn on their own. But they’re also allowed to make contact with the lecturer or tutor online if they have trouble understanding course material.
And this concept have proven very popular overseas. In Wawasan Open University all courses are fully recognised in Malaysia, so there’s nothing much to worry about.

The most attractive thing about studying at Wawasan Open University is their course fees.
The fact that it is non-profit means its fees are significantly cheaper than at other universities.
Just to give an example, a typical bachelor’s degree in e-Commerce may cost up to RM50,000, while at Wawasan Open University it is around RM17,000.
If both can offer you the exact same qualification in the end, which one would you choose?

I call Wawasan Open University the AirAsia of university education.
It’s cheap, it’s convenient, it’s very accessible because almost everything is done online.
Already in their second year of establishment, and the university is offering eleven bachelor’s degree programmes in the fields of business and science, as well as ce-MBA and ce-MPA for postgraduate students. More is of course expected to come.

The oldest WOU student is 71 years old!

Honestly, I love the idea of a non-profit university, I love the concept of self-learning, and Wawasan Open University encapsulates both.
True, most Malaysians may not immediately warm up to the idea of an open distance learning university.
But I reckon for anyone who have self-discipline, Wawasan Open University is most definitely worth a shot.

If there is one university that is able to provide the type of higher education my father was financially deprived of in his younger days, this must be it.

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After spending 5 years in the professional workforce, I finally concluded that fresh graduates who complained that there’s not enough jobs for them in Malaysia must be either: (1) really lazy, or (2) complete morons.

A quick search using popular online job search website Monster.com.my revealed that there’s as many as 79 listings for jobs requiring less than 1 year working experience.

Monster.com is a global online career and recruitment search engine graduates can use to find suitable jobs not just in Malaysia, but throughout 50 countries where it has a presence in. Worldwide, over 7 million job searches are performed on Monster’s search engine everyday.
With more than 80 million resumes on file, it is also the largest global resume database in the world. And that number is rapidly increasing everyday with aggressive recruitment campaigns like these.

According to Monster.com, there’s as many as 39 jobs in Sales, 39 jobs in Engineering and 35 jobs in Accounting in Malaysia.
A lot of these jobs are at prestigious high-paying jobs in reputable companies. Some are even multinationals such as IBM, Tyco and BMW.
More jobs are available for you if you are willing to relocate out of Malaysia, to work in countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Thailand or India.
Surely out of all these, there’s must be at least one position that fits?

It seems to me like the reason there’s so many fresh grads in Malaysia still not able to secure a job is because many of them think way too highly of themselves.
I’ve seen it before. A bunch of rich kids fresh out of Uni walking into the interview room demanding for the kind of salary that even a manager with 10 years experience are ashamed of asking.
One look at their resume, I struggle to find a reason why I should be employing them.

A lot of fresh grads complained that no one wanted to employ them because they don’t have any experience under their belt.
I’m not saying that finding a job as a fresh grad is easy. I’ve been there before. Yellow Pages in hand, cold-calling all 50 engineering companies in my area pleading them to take a final-year engineering undergrad as their intern.
Finally one company accepted, and I went to to intern 6 months for an engineering testing lab free of charge just to gather enough work experience for me to apply for a better-paying job.

After my internship, I worked my backside off for another company for 2 years. Time and time again, I prove to them that I’m a valuable asset to the company that they cannot live without.
I made no demands and my starting salary was meagre.
But eventually they’re happy to double my salary in 2 years because I made myself so integral to their company that if I were to leave them, the company would suffer a loss far greater than what they are paying me.

Look at mah OLD SK00L PC!

Now that I am in a position where I interview and employ people to work for me, all I can say is that some fresh grads should really keep their egos in check before they walk into the interview room. Until they can fend for themselves on the proving grounds, they have no right to ask for ridiculous benefits.
You’re not a student anymore. You are a professional. No longer are employers interested in how many A’s you could score in your exams.
Above all else, the number one criteria I’m looking for is how hard you’re willing to fight to help us reach our common goals.

It’s not that there are not enough jobs out there for fresh grads.
The jobs are there. Monster has such a huge database of them.

Question is, do you have the right attitude for the job?

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So, the CLEO 50 Most Eligible Bachelor Bash is happening this Friday night at Zouk KL.

My mother is confused. She has been asking me what’s this whole “CLEO 50 Most Eligible Bachelors” thing-a-ma-gettin-jiggy-wit-it is all about.
Well mom, the easiest way for me to explain is that it is exactly like a Miss Malaysia beauty pageant.
But for men.

Yes mom, your youngest son is joining a beauty contest. He will be one of the 50 finalists fighting for the title of Malaysia’s Most Beautiful Man. Not exactly what you picture your fattest son might be doing 10 years ago, but sometimes in life, we need to face some difficult questions.
Questions such as, “WHY IS MY SON JOINING A BEAUTY CONTEST?”

It’s not like I expect to win anything, of course. I know what I look like. I look in the mirror every morning and I know I ain’t pretty.
But in a way it’s good, because the only chance I have taking part in a CLEO 50 Most Eligible Bachelors is in Malaysia. That’s because our Malaysian CLEO is much tamer and toned-down compared to the other CLEO magazines around the world.
If I were to compete in CLEO Singapore, I know I could never get in anywhere near the Top 50.
That’s because I’m gonna have to pose like this.

If his name is Daren Tan (with one ‘r’), my name is Keny Sia (with one ‘n’).

Or worse, in CLEO Australia, like this.


Holy cow.
Luckily this is CLEO Malaysia, and luckily I can still keep my clothes on. All of it.
Luckily.
Anyway, like I said, I have no chance in hell of winning the title of Malaysia’s Most Beautiful Man this Friday.
This year’s list is full of ACTORS and SINGERS and NEWSCASTERS and MALE MODELS.

#16 Adrian Loh

How is a BLOGGER gonna compete with all these people?

#41 Owen Yap

Those profession by default are already pretty high up on every girl’s sexy list. Compare that with me who lists his profession as an “IT Director/Blogger”.
Go ask any girl if she’d like to date a blogger, and I gerengtee you she’d laugh until her teeth fall off.

#3 Ebi Kornelis

Fine, with competition like that, I’m not gonna win the CLEO Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year title. I had high hopes becoming Malaysia’s first fat bachelor, but I know that’s not gonna happen.
The only way I could win is if I talk shit about the other Bachelors, but the thought of 49 Bachelors going after me with their stick… a stick this Friday night is pretty scary.
So I tried winning people’s votes over with witty answers during my Q&A, but I don’t think that worked out either.

Since I can’t win the big Miss Malaysia prize, the least I could aim for is some subsidiary title, correct?
There are five categories up for grabs: Bachelor You’d Have Coffee With, Best Groomed Bachelor, Most Adventerous Bachelor, Bachelor You’d Get Hot & Sweaty With and Bachelor With Sexiest Eyes.

#11 Prem. This is what Bruce Willis would look like if he’s an Indian

Out of those five, the only two subsidiary titles that don’t require any physical beauty is “Most Adventurous Bachelor” and “Bachelor You’d Have Coffee With”.
Obviously, knowing my uhhhh… physical shortfall, I thought those are the titles I’d at least have some chance of winning.
Besides, I reckon I’m pretty adventurous with coffee – I once drank hot coffee on the plane that was shaking like crazy. It was very adventerous.
Anyway, online voting is now closed and the results are out.
For the five subsidiary titles of CLEO Bachelor, the winners are:

Bachelor You’d Have Coffee With: Ebi Kornelis.

Best Groomed Bachelor: Ebi Kornelis.

Most Adventurous Bachelor: Ebi Kornelis.
(The most daredevil thing he’s done is parasailing in Sabah because “the wind is very strong”)

Bachelor You’d Get Hot & Sweaty With: Ebi Kornelis.

And Bachelor With Sexiest Eyes: Ebi Kornelis.
Look, I am not bitter about losing, but this is ridiculous.
Not only did Ebi Kornelis win all five subsidiary titles, he won with an amazing high margin of at least 40%. I won’t be surprised if he takes out the CLEO Bachelor of the Year title this Friday.
But seriously, who the heck is this EBI KORNELIS guy?!

His talent is singing, playing guitar and MAKING IKAN BAKAR.
For someone like than to be able to win all these subsidiary titles, his ikan bakar must have tasted really really really good.
I don’t wanna say it, but could there be some *cough*vote-rigging*cough* going on?

I dunno. All I know is that BERSIH should stop campaigning for “clean and fair elections”, and concentrate on more important things like campaigning for “clean and fair CLEO Bachelors”.
If not, then I think this year’s competition is gonna require a new name.


Ikan bakar, anyone?

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You know what I find utterly annoying?

CLEO Magazine’s 50 Most Eligible Bachelors.
EVERY YEAR, CLEO magazine runs a list of who they think are the 50 most eligible bachelors in Malaysia.
EVERY YEAR, they attempt to destroy the self-esteem of ordinary men of the streets by spreading glossy photos after glossy photos of impossibly good-looking men flashing their million-ringgit smiles across their magazine pages.
EVERY YEAR, we have to put up with all those college girls, DROOLING and FANTASISING and GIGGLING among themselves silly as they go through the list of CLEO Bachelors like it’s some sorta Male Meat Sex Menu to order from.

This is how a typical conversation between two college school girls is like when they go through CLEO magazine’s 50 Eligible Bachelors.
Paris Tan: OMG. Like, do you have, like, the latest issue of, like, CLEO Magazine?
Giselle Chia: Yeah! Like OMG. It has, like, the 50 most eligible, like, bachelors in it!
Paris Tan: OMG can I have a look, like, please please please?
Giselle Chia: Yeah, come see see! *pulls out a copy of CLEO Magazine*
Paris Tan: OMG! Look at this one! He’s so cuteeeeeeeeeee.
Giselle Chia: Him? He’s ok only lah. Come I show you which one I like best. *flips pages* Nah, this one!

Paris Tan: OMG! You’re right! He’s damn hot. I want this one already!
Giselle Chia: Cannot! He’s mine! Choose your own one lah, come on!
Paris Tan: Haha ok lah. You can have him. Then I’ll choose this guy instead.
Giselle Chia: Cannot! He’s mine too!
Paris Tan: WTF? But I thought you already chose that one?
Giselle Chia: Ya lah. But this one for marrying, and that one is for shagging. *giggle* *giggle* *giggle*
Paris Tan: Bitch! Ok lah since you’re my bestie I’ll share him with you ok?
Giselle Chia: Ya sure sure! So I’ll have him Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and you can have him Thursday, Friday, Saturday ok?
Paris Tan: Ok deal!
*giggle* *giggle* *giggle*
Oi! What do you think us guys are? Toys for you girls to share and compare and pass around one is it!
Goodness!

I remember speaking to Mia last year about how this CLEO is objectifying men with their 50 Eligible Bachelors list.
She could only roll her eyes at me and go, “Well, but you guys have been doing the same thing with FHM for so many years. I’m sure you guys also compare among your guy friends which one of those FHM models you wanna shag and all that.”

But… it’s different!
“You’re just jealous of the guys lah, is it? ;)”

Jealous? No. I’m not jealous.
I mean like, sure, all those CLEO Bachelors are good-looking lah. Model type lah. Handsome lah. Eligible lah. That’s why girls like them lah.
And maybe I secretly think that guys being treated as eye candies and sex objects isn’t such a bad thing. I mean, which guy wouldn’t wanna be the object of desire of girls right? Shallow, but it’s true.

I know lah I’m too chubby to be considered “eligible”. Whatever man. I’m not jealous.
Really.
Ok lah, maybe I’m just a littleeeee wee bit jealous of all the attention they’re getting from the girls.
Just a little.
But please. How sissy it is for MEN to compete in a MALE beauty contest?

It’s like if any of they win, they’re gonna have to wear a tiara and sash saying “MR CLEO BACHELOR OF THE YEAR.”
Then go parade around in their underwear.
Seriously. Which self-respecting male would join a competition like that? I don’t know, man.

Hey look, WHO IS THAT!

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This is the BERSIH Rally, last year on the 10th November.

40,000 Malaysians of all races took it to the streets of KL to campaign for free and fair elections.
It was a largely peaceful protest according to many people who were there. However, the police saw fit to fire tear-gas and water cannons towards the crowd.
Many see the police’s heavy-handed tactics as unnecessary.

Four policemen arrest one PKR’s Tian Chua

The actions of BERSIH were damned to hell by the newspapers. Despite all that, the Election Commission eventually caved in and used transparent ballot boxes and indelible ink for this election.
Nevermind the fact that RM2 million worth of indelible ink was not used at the last minute.

During the protest, Malaysia made international headlines when our delusional Information Minister stutter and stammer his way onto Al Jazeera news.

In what can only be described as a “The Zam Rap”, Zainuddin Maidin, fondly known as Zam, blasted out against the interviewer, uttering such famous phrases as, “You think that we Pakistan, we are Burma, we are Myanmar!”
And, “You-you-you-you are here with the idea, you are trying to project, what is your mind!”

Fast forward to the 2008 Elections. Zam suffered a heavy defeat and lost his parliamentary seat to PKR. Even Tun Mahathir laughed at him, saying that “the way he was campaigning was really funny, telling people to look at his face and how it doesn’t change.”
Because he is no longer an elected MP, Zam must therefore step down as Information Minister.

His face finally changed

I say good riddance. He was never good at that job anyway. Among his many achievements in his 2 years, Zam has called bloggers stupid, suggested classifying bloggers as ‘professional’ and ‘non-professional’, and managed to say with a perfectly straight-face that Malaysian news media is not biased.
Of course now that he lost, he’s probably gonna say that the election is not fair.
Maybe next time before the next elections, we might see Zam in the news again like this.


“You think that we Pakistan, we are Burma, we are Myanmar!”

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Disclaimer: kennysia.com is politically neutral and does not endorse any political party.

When you see a certain white-haired fella on the front page of The Borneo Post so many days in a row, you know election fever in Malaysia has well and truly heat up.

One of the things I observed this General Elections is how both sides of the political spectrum are trying very hard to woo the votes of young Malaysians. In fact, I think they are trying a little too hard.
That is understandable. After all, young ones like us make up a large percentage of swinging voters. This is especially true in the urban seats. Votes from the diehard fans of both parties will cancel each other out, and it is the decision of the swinging voters that will ultimately decide who will win this election.
In short, young voters are very important to the political parties. But when I see what the SUPP and the DAP are doing to appeal to young voters, I LOL-ed. (That stands for “Laugh Out Loud”, you old fogies.)

First, it was Barisan Nasional’s SUPP that released, of all things, a rap song to launch the attack on DAP.
I kid you not, it’s a political election rap song. And a far better one than the one I did for my friend Jeff Ooi a few months back. Still, don’t expect to hear the song anytime soon on Hitz Top 30 alongside Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent.

Here’s the lyrics of the Chinese rap song, roughly translated into English.

WHO SAYS vote rocket will bring development?
WHO SAYS vote rocket will bring in the funds?
WHO SAYS vote rocket will bring down fuel prices?
WHO SAYS vote rocket will change people’s lives?
WHO SAYS SUPP can’t change everything?
WHO SAYS, WHO SAYS, WHO SAYS, WHO SAYS!
WHO SAYS, WHO SAYS, WHO SAYS, WHO SAYS!

Now if you think that rap song sounded familiar, that’s because there’s a good chance you might have heard it from a certain telco prepaid advertisement.

Talk about originality. I wonder how that is gonna attract young voters.
Now, before everyone start laughing at the SUPP and accusing them of piracy. Let’s just say the DAP isn’t any more creative.
DAP’s tagline for the 2008 General Election is “Just Change It”.

Dunno why when I look at this banner I suddenly feel like exercising leh.
But then DAP decided to go one step further. They decided that it’s not good enough to just attract young voters. They must also appeal to little children who have are not yet old enough to vote.
Which is why for this General Elections, in order to appeal to young children, the DAP has released a limited edition soft toy of their official mascot for kids.
They called “The Rocket Kid”.

As a toy for little kids, this mascot is just so… wrong.
I’m sorry, but that just reminded me of one very happily smiling red-coloured penis.
Suddenly, DAP’s election campaign becomes an erection campaign. Some more they had to make the “rocket” go through a blue hole. Maybe that’s just their subliminal way of saying “Oi! Screw you, blue-coloured party!”

Very suggestive to hold it like that woi.

One thing for sure, I hope that “thing” doesn’t vibrate.

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