Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Visiting

So my in laws were coming here. First, we have to get a visa for them. Now in most other countries, getting a visa merely requires the applicant to go to the embassy, fill up a form and perhaps show them your airplane tickets. That is not the case here. The potential visitor has to have a local sponsor, to sponsor their visa here. Being expats ourselves, my beloved's company has to sponsor his parents and apply their visa on our behalf. Here.

Now you'd think we could go to the relevant office to apply it ourselves. No no. In his company there is a special department labelled "Government Relations" who deal with such things. And you'd have to deal with them.

There is something about the local culture here that they are adversed about telling you the bad news. So once the offices reopened after the 2 weeks AidilAdha holidays, he spoke to them on the Monday to ask for the visa.

"Insyallah Wednesday," they said.

Of course Wednesday came and they then said, "Well it will be the following Monday the earliest."

La di da.

And there is only one direct flight from KL. Only on Sundays.

So Monday came and we got the letter confirming that their visa has been approved. We faxed that letter back to KL.

In KL, they contacted the Embassy, hoping that they could get the visa stamped on their passports. Opps. No they said, they have not received a letter of notification yet, so they cannot issue the visa.

Huh? Shouldn't all this information be computerized?

La di da. A few more days of frantic phone calls, pacing the floor etc. Finally they got the visa on Friday. Allowing them to fly here on Sunday.

Just so you know, there are no tourists here. Tourists are not welcomed here. And only our respective parents will be allowed to visit us here.

*sigh*

bersabarjelah

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad your in-laws are coming to visit you and S. Bolehlah main masak-masak with your MIL! :) Have fun!

Leen AshBurn said...

Oh dear, I hope things will be OK from now?

Anonymous said...

my yahoo died on me, can appear on msn aje... oh well... salam maal hijrah!

Lollies said...

tulah dia. leceh sungguh

i thot u quit blogging. phew

maklang said...

Maam,

KAt tempat lollies gak ke? Weird nye immigration sana. But I thot nak gi US was difficult.Rupanya ade lagi tempat yang lagi terok!!

Ir. Hanafi Ali said...

Huhuhuhu.

elisataufik said...

I'm bringing my mom over sometime end of april or early may. Orang cakap takdelah susah sangat since i have a 'medical condition' and boleh dapat surat doktor (i'm gonna beranak mah...).
I thought it'd be much easier for the husband's parents? no?
But you know what, sometimes it's not the process that takes a long time. It's the people..
Taufik pegi sendiri when he was working on our visa and it only took him a few days.. sebelum tu berminggu-minggu.. silap eja nama lah, silap birth date lah, silap borang lah.. macam2..

Sunfloraa said...

CK, yes yes I duduk goyang kaki while MIL masaks. I bangun je dah siaps semua hehehehe.

Leen, yes Insyallah everything will be OK :)

Rosse, laaaaaa. Thanks for the pants :)

Lollies, hehehe when i have the time and get the inspiration :)

Maklang, tak saya di tgh padang pasir hehe di saaaaudiiii :)

Trust wahh amacam di kertiih?

Elisa, Insyallah it should be OK, just have to apply in advance. As for me, the problem was due to Hajj season, they stop issuing visitors visas for Muslims from Syaaban.

And you are so right! Often its the human error.

Unknown said...

suflora,
phew...I thought you quit blogging. have a wonderful time with you IL

Anonymous said...

List of racial discriminations in Malaysia, practiced by government as well as government agencies. This list is an open secret. Best verified by government itself because it got the statistics.

This list is not in the order of importance, that means the first one on the list is not the most important and the last one on the list does not mean least important.

This list is a common knowledge to a lot of Malaysians, especially those non-malays (Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, Tamils, etc) who were being racially discriminated.

Figures in this list are estimates only and please take it as a guide only. Government of Malaysia has the most correct figures. Is government of Malaysia too ashamed to publish their racist acts by publishing racial statistics?

This list cover a period of about 48 years since independence (1957).

List of racial discriminations (Malaysia):

(1) Out of all the 5 major banks, only one bank is multi-racial, the rest are controlled by malays

(2) 99% of Petronas directors are malays

(3) 3% of Petronas employees are Chinese

(4) 99% of 2000 Petronas gasoline stations are owned by malays

(5) 100% all contractors working under Petronas projects must be bumis status

(6) 0% of non-malay staffs is legally required in malay companies. But there must be 30% malay staffs in Chinese companies.

(7) 5% of all new intake for government police, nurses, army, is non-malays.

(8) 2% is the present Chinese staff in Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), drop from 40% in 1960

(9) 2% is the percentage of non-malay government servants in Putrajaya. But malays make up 98%

(10) 7% is the percentage of Chinese government servants in the whole government (in 2004), drop from 30% in 1960

(11) 95% of government contracts are given to malays

(12) 100% all business licensees are controlled by malay government e.g. Taxi permits, Approved permits, etc

(13) 80% of the Chinese rice millers in Kedah had to be sold to malay controlled Bernas in 1980s. Otherwise, life is make difficult for Chinese rice millers

(14) 100 big companies set up, owned and managed by Chinese Malaysians were taken over by government, and later managed by malays since 1970s e.g. UTC, UMBC, MISC, etc

(15) At least 10 Chinese owned bus companies (throughout Malaysia, throughout 40 years) had to be sold to MARA or other malay transport companies due to rejection by malay authority to Chinese application for bus routes and rejection for their application for new buses

(16) 2 Chinese taxi drivers were barred from driving in Johor Larkin bus station. There are about 30 taxi drivers and 3 are Chinese in October 2004. Spoiling taxi club properties was the reason given

(17) 0 non-malays are allowed to get shop lots in the new Muar bus station (November 2004)

(18) 8000 billions ringgit is the total amount the government channeled to malay pockets through ASB, ASN, MARA, privatisation of government agencies, Tabung Haji etc, through NEP over 34 years period

(19) 48 Chinese primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000

(20) 144 Indian primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000

(21) 2637 malay primary schools built since 1968 - 2000

(22) 2.5% is government budget for Chinese primary schools. Indian schools got only 1%, malay schools got 96.5%

(23) While a Chinese parent with RM1000 salary (monthly) cannot get school-text-book-loan, a malay parent with RM2000 salary is eligible

(24) 10 all public universities vice chancellors are malays

(25) 5% - the government universities lecturers of non-malay origins had been reduced from about 70% in 1965 to only 5% in 2004

(26) Only 5% is given to non-malays for government scholarships over 40 years

(27) 0 Chinese or Indians were sent to Japan and Korea under "Look East Policy"

(28) 128 STPM Chinese top students could not get into the course that they aspired i.e. Medicine (in 2004)

(29) 10% place for non-bumi students for MARA science schools beginning from year 2003, but only 7% are filled. Before that it was 100% malays

(30) 50 cases whereby Chinese and Indian Malaysians, are beaten up in the National Service program in 2003

(31) 25% is Malaysian Chinese population in 2004, drop from 45% in 1957

(32) 7% is the present Malaysian Indians population (2004), a drop from 12% in 1957

(33) 2 millions Chinese Malaysians had emigrated to overseas since 40 years ago

(34) 0.5 million Indian Malaysians had emigrated to overseas

(35) 3 millions Indonesians had migrated into Malaysia and became Malaysian citizens with bumis status.

(36) 600000 are the Chinese and Indian Malaysians with red IC and were rejected repeatedly when applying for citizenship for 40 years. Perhaps 60% of them had already passed away due to old age. This shows racism of how easily Indonesians got their citizenships compare with the Chinese and Indians

(37) 5% - 15% discount for a malay to buy a house, regardless whether the malay is rich or poor

(38) 2% is what Chinese new villages get compare with 98% of what malay villages got for rural development budget

(39) 50 road names (at least) had been changed from Chinese names to other names

(40) 1 Dewan Gan Boon Leong (in Malacca) was altered to other name (e.g. Dewan Serbaguna or sort) when it was being officially used for a few days. Government try to shun Chinese names. This racism happened in around year 2000 or sort

(41) 0 temples/churches were built for each housing estate. But every housing estate got at least one mosque/surau built

(42) 3000 mosques/surau were built in all housing estates throughout Malaysia since 1970. No temples, no churches are required to be built in housing estates

(43) 1 Catholic church in Shah Alam took 20 years to apply to be constructed. But told by malay authority that it must look like a factory and not look like a church. Still not yet approved in 2004

(44) 1 publishing of Bible in Iban language banned (in 2002)

(45) 0 of the government TV stations (RTM1, RTM2, TV3) are directors of non-malay origins

(46) 30 government produced TV dramas and films always showed that the bad guys had Chinese face, and the good guys had malay face. You can check it out since 1970s. Recent years, this tendency becomes less

(47) 10 times, at least, malays (especially Umno) had threatened to massacre the Chinese Malaysians using May 13 since 1969

(48) 20 constituencies won by DAP would not get funds from the government to develop. Or these Chinese majority constituencies would be the last to be developed

(49) 100 constituencies (parliaments and states) had been racistly re-delineated so Chinese voters were diluted that Chinese candidates, particularly DAP candidates lost in election since 1970s

(50) Only 3 out of 12 human rights items are ratified by Malaysia government since 1960

(51) 0 - elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (UN Human Rights) is not ratified by Malaysia government since 1960s

(52) 20 reported cases whereby malay ambulance attendances treated Chinese patients inhumanely, and malay government hospital staffs purposely delay attending to Chinese patients in 2003. Unreported cases may be 200

(53) 50 cases each year whereby Chinese, especially Chinese youths being beaten up by malay youths in public places. We may check at police reports provided the police took the report, otherwise there will be no record

(54) 20 cases every year whereby Chinese drivers who accidentally knocked down malays were seriously assaulted or killed by malays

(55) 12% is what ASB/ASN got per annum while banks fixed deposit is only about 3.5% per annum

There are hundreds more racial discriminations in Malaysia to add to this list of "colossal" racism. It is hope that the victims of racism will write in to expose racism.

Malaysia government should publish statistics showing how much malays had benefited from the "special rights" of malays and at the same time tell the statistics of how much other minority races are being discriminated.

Hence, the responsibility lies in the Malaysia government itself to publish unadulterated statistics of racial discrimination.

If the Malaysia government hides the statistics above, then there must be some evil doings, immoral doings, shameful doings and sinful doings, like the Nazi, going on onto the non-malays of Malaysia.

Civilized nation, unlike evil Nazi, must publish statistics to show its treatment on its minority races. This is what Malaysia must publish……….

We are asking for the publication of the statistics showing how "implementation of special rights of malays" had inflicted colossal racial discrimination onto non-malays.

Roving Soul said...

erk?

hi SF... hope you are ok. Guess busy taking your ILs around (reason for not being able to post anything)

Anonymous said...

human book,

Shooooh! Go away!

If you're not satisfied with Malaysia, go & stay in China or India. Or try England. See how much POWER they will let you have.

This blog is not people of your attitude.