The Year 2011 at a Glance

2011 was probably one of the most eventful years in my lifetime. The good gets better and the bad gets worst. Here are the eventful periods of 2011.

January
I spoke at the 11th edition of Kuala Lumpur’s Pecha Kucha at Delucca. Thanks Niki Cheong for the invite.

February
I wrote an article entitled “Right to Privacy in Malaysia:Do we have it?”. It was later published by Malaysian Insider.

March
I appeared as a guest on NTV7’s Breakfast show to speak on data protection and social media laws.

I also appeared as a guest on BFM Radio to speak on social media laws.

April
My house was burgled. We lost cash and an old Nokia 8850.

May
I attended the International Trade Marks Attorneys conference at San Francisco. Cycling around SF was the highlight of the trip.

June
www.xes.cx hits 10 years.

July
July marks the second Bersih rally in Kuala Lumpur. I was part of the Bar Council’s observers. I witnessed how Malaysians, all of races, were united. I was also unfortunate to witness police brutality.

My blogpost on Bersih and live updates were read by thousands of people.

August
Got my third payment from Nuffnang!

September
I wrote an article entitled “All Lawyers should have an iPad!”. It was published on LoyarBurok and stayed on as one of the most read article for few weeks.

I also launched my bLawg, FoongChengLeong.com.

October
My firm sent me to Chiang Mai to attend the Multilaw Academy. It was a wonderful experience to meet lawyers of various countries. I had so much fun there.

November
My firm had a company trip to Phuket. I made my tuxedo through their well known one-day service.

December
This month was probably the worst month of 2011. Grandpa and my friend, Jessie passed away.

I was also hospitalised for suspected dengue for 3 nights.

The only plus point was that I had a fat bonus.

2012
2012 is going to be another eventful year. I got married, moving to a new home and setting up my own law firm soon. I can’t wait to write another blogpost to reflect on what had happened in 2012!

Hospitalised

I was admitted for suspected dengue fever in December. Few days before that, I had fever and throat infection. My neighbourhood doctor initially diagnosed me with throat infection and gave me antibiotics and tons of other medicine for it.

The medicines didn’t help and on the 3rd day, I fainted in the toilet. Fortunately, I picked myself up (few minutes later) and went back to sleep.

On Saturday, I had muscles and joint pains. I immediately thought of the advertorial I wrote for Ministry of Health regarding dengue fever. It struck me that I may have dengue fever. I quickly went to see the same doctor and he referred me to another clinic to do blood test. My result shows that my white blood cells are dropping. I was immediately referred me to a hospital.

I packed my clothes and got admitted to Pantai Hospital @ Bangsar. My strength was slowly fading away.


At the Emergency Ward


Had to live with this throughout my stay


Although I could walk to my room, I was wheeled to my room. Awesome.

I was on the drip for three nights. The drips worked well.

I felt much better after the first day. The rest of the nights were just resting and eating. Many friends dropped by with gifts.


Even Doraemon came.


Food was just so-so. Quite bland.

Many of them were surprised that I looked well. I guess my early diagnose helped a lot.

I wouldn’t know the seriousness of my sickness if its not for my dengue advertorial. I wouldn’t be able to recover fast if I hadn’t detect it early.

Many thanks to A and friends and family who visited and well wishes!

TMPC – Marriage Preparation Course

As some of you may know, I tied the knot last week.

But some of you may not know that my wife and I went for a marriage preparation course – which was held every Saturday. The course lasted 5 sessions.

I’ve heard of marriage preparation course but I always thought its some sort of religious thing. When AL (my wife) proposed the course to me, I told her if someone starts preaching about God to us, we will walk out straight away.

But there was no preaching. We basically need to sit in a room to watch a show by a couple by a British couple, Niki and Sila Lee. The show will touch many aspect of a couple’s relationship. Topics such as conflict resolution, defining roles, handling finances, dealing with parents and in laws, anger management and so on were covered. In each topic, there will be an interval where couples can sit down and discuss things. For example, AL and I discuss on the roles we should play when we move into our house. I have agreed to pay most of the bills whereas AL will do most of the housework.

This course also gave us the opportunity to discuss on things we would never discuss on. For example, we discussed on the things we love or dislike – which we have never sat down to discuss – we have always been assuming.

The discussions are done privately. There is no need to discuss anything in the open or with anyone else.

The principles taught by this course are fairly simple. A course like this is like an investment to his/her marriage. A good marriage leads to a good life. If one is having a terrible marriage, his daily life would be terrible too. Of course, marriage is no bed of roses, there will be downs and these principles are great reminder to couples to stay on course.

The teaching of this course has some Biblical references. It was fine with me so long I don’t need to raise my hands and sing Christian songs. There are some parts of the teaching which AL and I don’t agree but they don’t force you to follow it.

This course is conducted by a group of volunteer couples. These kind couples spend their free time guiding young couples to a successful marriage. I find them very selfless.

We were also assigned a “support couple” to guide us. Our support couple, Jit and Karen, kindly invited us to their home to have dinner. We were extremely privileged to have them advising us on how marriage is like.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is the food provided. Food is prepared by a daughter of one of the volunteer couples. Every week there will be different stuff and I must say that they were all fresh and delicious!!

I would highly recommend any couples to go for this course. It is highly beneficial. I am sure a lot of ladies would be interested and the men will groan in despair. I went in on an open mind and came out with an enlightened one. It is well worth it. You can have a million dollar business but nothing compares to a good successful marriage. It is the best investment one would have.


[Source: http://rglongpre.ca]

Would you want to spend your life like this or spend a few thousand dollar on divorce lawyers? By the way, If you don’t mind the latter, call me, I can do the divorce for you!

For information about the Marriage Preparation Course, go to the following:-

Blog: http://tmpc-my.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Marriage-Preparation-Course-Malaysia/

The course dates for 2012 are as follow:-
Run 12 – 11, 18, 25 Feb, 3, 10, 17 Mar
Run 13 – 9, 16, 23, 30 Jun, 7, 14 Jul
Run 14 – 22, 29 Sept, 6, 13, 20, 27 Oct

Other Reviews:-
BangsarBabe – Part 2, Part 4

Taylor’s Business School

Few weekends ago, I attended Taylor’s Business School’s Open Day at their spanking new lakeside campus at Subang Jaya. I must say that the place is impressive. It’s large and spacious. Landscape is beautiful.

The campus is adjacent to a small shopping mall with plenty of restaurants. The campus has its own cafeteria and there are many stalls scattered around the building. Kids nowadays have so much in store for them.

But I wasn’t there to see what they have for kids. I was there to see what they have to offer people like me – the working class.

Taylor’s Business School is offering postgraduate programmes which include the following courses:-

1. Master in Management
2. Master in Finance
3. Master of Business Administration (Bristol MBA)
4. PhD in Business

To me, the Bristol MBA is the main attraction. I’ve always heard of people pursing MBAs but never knew about the benefits of an MBA.

The Bristol MBA is a collaboration with the University of the West of England (commonly known as the Bristol MBA). The minimum duration to complete this program is 2 years and the maximum is 5 years.

The Bristol MBA is one of the elite few programmes in the UK to be accredited by the Association of MBAs. It is fully taught by academics from the University of West England and is supported by Taylor’s faculty. The programme is aimed at individuals aspiring to hold senior management positions.

While attending the Open Day, I had the opportunity to interview the Dean Postgraduate Business School, Dr Thomas Thornborrow.


Dr Thomas Thornborrow

Dr. Thomas was a soldier serving in the British Armed Forces. For years, he was trained as a soldier but eventually retired from being one. That is when life became difficult for him. He never had a proper education during his army days and was bouncing from job to job. After years of bouncing around, he eventually got himself a degree and an MBA. That is when the path of success was paved for him.

After years of teaching, he moved to Malaysia to run a foreign university’s postgraduate programme, which became a success within a short period of time. He subsequently joined Taylor’s Business School to run their postgraduate program. This is one story in which an MBA could set someone’s life onto the path of success.

I was very interested to know how an MBA could be useful for work. Dr Thomas explained to me that an MBA programme teaches one how to be an all round professional.

He said that jobs nowadays are now very sectorial. If you are in human resource, you are only exposed to the human resource job scope. I agree with him. This is quite true when you are in a large organisation.

By going through an MBA course, one will be exposed to other fields and skills. By the end of the MBA programme, you will know how, for instance, to read financial reports, develop a deeper understanding of behavior of individuals, teams and various organizational levels and appreciate the skills needed for effective management of human resource. It’s the same for strategy and operations management and developing an understanding of issues such as globalisation, the international economy, corporate governance and policy frameworks. You also get to understand how the impact of new technology and the social and demographic influences on the world of work and business. These are basically, the whole external and internal workings on how to run an organization.


Postgraduate studies lecture hall

This MBA will open doors to other sectors and you could easily move up the corporate ladder. For example, if you’ve been a chemist for 5 years and now want to move to management, an MBA will help.

If you are an entrepreneur or wish to be one, you can learn many new skills; in particular, marketing skills.

Dr. Thomas advised me that the best time for one to pursue an MBA is when one has 5 years working experience (although not compulsory) i.e. when someone is around 29 years old. However, there is exception in this rule, i.e. when one has business experience.
I posed the Malaysian problem to Dr Thomas. In Malaysia, when one starts work, he or she would need to buy a car. By the time he is in his late 20s, he would be saving for a house or already has a mortgage to pay or a family to feed. How does one step out from the workforce to be a full time student?

His answer was “priorities”. One has to sacrifice time for this. But since the recommended time to do a MBA is late 20s, one would have some savings to sustain some period without a salary. Also, the long period to complete the Bristol Masters program would help one to take a break from studies to get back to work.

An MBA course has great networking opportunities. Having a good bunch of classmates is very important. If you have read about the 28 year old Malaysian millionaire, Low Jho Lo, you’ll know that he credited his success to the people he met when he was in business school.


Postgraduate studies lounge. Looks like a good place to network!

Further, 45% of Taylor’s postgraduate programmes students are foreign students. One can be exposed to many different cultures. In addition, the lecturers will ensure that the students are exposed to all these different cultures. It’s like a forced networking session. Dr Thomas told me that one of his classmates is now a senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture in Pakistan.

Being in the legal profession, I am certainly very interested with this MBA course. With an MBA, I would have no problem understanding complex organisational issues. I would love to take off time to obtain an MBA and apply what I learn in the legal profession.

The total cost of the MBA is in the region of RM60,742.00 payable in 4 installments.

For more information on Taylor’s Postgraduate Studies, please visit their website at http://www.taylors.edu.my/en/university/schools/business

Taylor’s Business School I Taylor’s University
No.1, Jalan Taylor’s, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor
DL: +603 5629 5716 I Fax: +603 5629 5749
URL: www.taylors.edu.my

Phuket, Thailand 2011

My firm had our company trip to Phuket, Thailand. We were there for two nights. It was rather short and we didn’t get to do much.

We stayed in Club Med, Karon, located far away from the night life district, Patong. Phuket is unlike the Thai beach resorts I visited before such Krabi and Koh Samui. It’s like Penang minus the tall buildings.

The highlight of this trip was the 24 hours tailoring services. I went to this shop by the name Andaman Boss Tailor. This place was recommended by Richard Wee. 3 of my colleagues, Eu Jin, Sara and Conrad also tagged along.


Guai lous with too much money to spend..

I got a tuxedo, two pair of pants, one shirt, a vest and a bow tie done for RM650. The price was a steal.

It was done within a day and we got our tailor to come to the hotel to do the fitting and even to deliver our suits. Service in the shop was excellent. Price is negotiable.

The quality of the suits was acceptable. For a one-day job, I don’t expect top quality. In fact, when we wanted the tailor to do the work faster, his answer was, “I can’t do a good job if I don’t have enough time”. I used the same line on a client to ask for more time and they gave me my extension. They even commented it was a good reason. The things I can learn from a tailor!

The only problem with this tailor is their reliability. They were not punctual and worst part of all is that they forgot my bow tie. They didn’t send it to me although they promised me. If you happen to be at Andaman Boss Tailor, please ask the owner, Kancha, where the hell is my bow tie.

Address
1 Bang-la Road, T. Patong, A. Kathu, Phuket
Tel: 086 953 1464 / Fax 076-342879
Email: andamanbosstailor@yahoo.com

The other thing I did out of the ordinary was taking one of the motorcycle taxis back to my hotel. I haven’t been on a motorcycle since high school and my balls shrank to a size of a peanut when I was on one.


Further, one of my arms was holding a bag and my arm was holding my iPad.

I didn’t have the chance to enjoy the beach. But from afar, the beach doesn’t seem attractive. Also, I didn’t see any remanences
from the tsunami attack years ago.

Overall, Phuket is just so-so. It’s a tourist trap. I guess I won’t make a trip to Phuket on my own anytime in the future.