Gripevine

Dorian Gray had it good. He stayed young and golden while his portrait aged, tucked away in an attic. The rest of us unfortunately must contend ourselves with the very REAL fact that age we must or perhaps not... Almost every skin care brand in the market today touts some kind of anti-aging benefit. From erasing wrinkles to providing non-sugerical facial lifts. All from a jar of cream or a tube of serum and at pretty affordable prices too. Do these products really work? will mature women regain the elasticity of their sagging skin, will laughs lines disappear? will younger women retain their youthful looks with prodigious use of anti-aging products? I am a cynic, I don't buy the whole anti-aging ballyhoo. I am all for skin care ranges for mature skin, considering that the needs of our skin changes as we mature. However I do not believe that the promise of youth lies in a bottle or a facial mask packed with anti-oxidant properties. The most these products can do is to alleviate the ...

When you say the word 'sweatshop' what usually comes to mind is some obscure factory in either China or the Indian subcontinent where poorly paid overworked workers toil away under inhumane working conditions. These oppressed lot would usually be poor rural folk who don't have many other options available to them in making a living, hence their willingness to put up with such poor working conditions and a meager amount of money. Such sweatshops however do not only exist in countries where the percentage of those who live below the poverty line is high. After much observation, I have come to the conclusion that there is much of the 'sweatshop syndrome' that exist in Malaysia's white-collar sector. ( I am sure harsh conditions do exist in the blue-collar sector too, but for the purpose of this posting, I shall stick with the white-collar sector only). Is the term 'sweatshop' to harsh? I don't think so. Beneath the veneer of air-conditioned office...

Dishonest, rude and criminal Malaysian taxi drivers now have a new god. Said god being no another than Minister in Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz. Yup that bright spark of the BN government actually came out in support of a fare hike for cab drivers. Under the new ruling, starting fares for taxis would increase from RM2 to RM3 for the first kilometre. And what made the bitter pill even harder to swallow was his moronic statement that those who take cabs are actually financially sound! now how would he know that? did he hire a research firm to conduct an in-depth study on the income levels of those who commute by cabs, before the new ruling was put in place?? Obviously not I reckon! which explains why he's been a minister without a ministry of his own for so.....long.....hmmm. Why we take cabs I say this on behalf of all other frequent cab commuters out there. Although we would love to all together avoid having to contend with rude cabbies, we have no choice b...

As someone who depends on public transportation to get around, I have taken my fair share of cabs. And let me tell you that getting into a cab in this country and particularly in KL as this is where most of my experiences have occurred, is sort of a gamble because you literally don't know what you're getting into. Ok let me elaborate, after a decade of hopping in and out of cabs, I have narrowed the 9 different types of cab drivers one might encounter when taking a cab. To be fair to the nice cabbies who are out there to make an honest living, I shall start of with the positive stereotypes first. 1. 'The nice uncle' Usually Malay or Chinese who are very fatherly (sometimes they speak of their kids, but since they are nice I don't quite mind the chatter). Even if they are not familiar with the place you want to go to, they will make a genuine effort to find it without loosing their temper and being rude or charging extra fair. As you get off they say 'thank ...

Sometimes I wonder if there are aliens amongst us. These aliens look normal enough, like everyday people they trudge about this busy city. They drive cars, lorries, trucks and motorcycles, they wait at bus-stops, they walk on the pavements, they use pedestrian bridges, well in short you see them almost everywhere and there is not a thing that distinguishes us from them, except of course for one characteristic that sets them apart from us normal people. They spit in public. It is a habit more than a need, and they have no qualms doing it literally in your face! I imagine they have bigger saliva glands than us. Nope in fact they have several of these glands that constantly emits a substantial portion of saliva that threatens to flood their mouth and choke them, which is why they constantly spit about. When your mouth is constantly flooding over with saliva all the time, you just don't have the liberty of waiting till you get to the washroom, the need to spurt that extra liquid ou...

For most singletons like me, living in apartments and condominiums is the ideal. You have more space then you would have renting a room, and you do not have to bother with tending to a garden and all the little extras' you would have to bother with if you live in a house. Besides apartments and condominiums are much more affordable as landed property becomes more expensive, especially the nearer it is to the city. So just like every other KLite, I wholeheartedly embraced the concept of apartment living. I almost bought the dream sold by property developers who produced enticing colourful brochures of gleaming high-rise facades, beautifully landscaped gardens, Olympic sized swimming pools and interiors that were designed to look like hotel suites. The message being that you could buy this dream for prices ranging from only RM145,000,/RM160,000/RM180,000/RM200,000. Which is quite affordable for a middle class Malaysian. What these developers failed to tell us is that upon buyin...

What does it mean to be a woman in Malaysia today? On the surface it all seems rosy doesn't it? We can earn degrees in whichever field we choose to, we can get good jobs, buy our own property, drive cool cars, wear nice clothes, dye our hair, hang out with friends at cool and funky restaurants and clubs, smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish and the list goes on. So does that make us a liberated lot? Do you think we are oh so lucky as compared to our sisters in other parts of the world? Luckier than the little girls in some African countries who have their breasts ironed when young so as not to appear an alluring target for would be rapist. So rife is rape in such societies, that desperate mothers resort to mutilating their daughters in such a manner as a means of protection. Luckier are we than the victims of female infanticide in rural India? Luckier than the women in Basra, Iraq, who get shot on the streets for not being 'appropriately clad'? I think not. On the su...