Long Before Little Healthy Garden.

Once upon a time, I was even thinking of opening a mamak restaurant! But I was always reminded to do what that I can do best. As far as my life goes, it always evolve. There is nothing wrong to evolve as my mind can never be stopped to think. As long as I stay with one wife, it is fine to change my lifestyle and business plan that suit present time and my age.

1984, I was than an employee or simply a worker. I worked hard and made to sleep on cement floor. Once I slept in a pig sty in Singapore. Say that again, SINGAPORE ! I was free, single and daring like everybody else. I took foolish challenges… and not a word more.

1988. I was 28 and decided on another decision that almost ruin my career. I came to the real unkind and greedy world of business. Decided to run my own farm is nothing of being an entrepreneur but more of being a farmer. So, what does it means to be a farmer ? A crown was cast for me to sit on my head. The crown was round, but my head was a square. It took 6 years before I was thrown out from being a farmer and wake up to know that what was with me were not real. A believe that was not suppose to be. But it was real.

1994. The real world begins. Unemployed. Jobless. Homeless. Penniless. Married. How did I managed to find a wondeful woman to be my wife? It will be another story.

1996. I met Clement Chan, one creative architect and the birth of “Lakescape Integration”. My first company for lake design and management.

1999. I discovered myself. Moved into my first house with the address no.1999. That year, I stretched my talent and experience to the limit as to be sure that it was actually me, the real person with unique and creative talents given by the Almighty and believe in it. Not that silliness to become a farmer but an artist with a round head and not square. Hmmm… but not that bad running around with a square head for 15 years!

Read and visit to launch soon :: http://aquariusponds.webs.com/

Catfish…once from the drain?

Asian catfish, ikan keli

Ikan Keli or catfish, one that is not truly attractive and the Chinese once called it, ‘the fish from the drain’. This slimy scaleless fish began to be a part of the Chinese restaurant menu somewhere in the late 80s. During that time, the demand for catfish shot up due to economic downturn and those eating out couldn’t really afford the pricy prawns or crabs and therefore opted for catfish as the cheapest form affordable for the plate.

Clarias macrocephalus, the freshwater walking catfish was very common in Malaysian market in small towns and villages. Mostly trapped in padi fields and sold in the market at a very low price. This specie has a slightly larger head length than the other specie Clarias batrachus which is the common one in Thailand.

Due to a very high price for a plate of cooked prawn, the demand for catfish in the restaurant prompted us to breed more catfish instaed of udang, the giant freshwater prawn. That was the year 1989 when I was still a farmer.

Breeding catfish is not for anyone. Catching them with bare hands can be a very painful experience at times. Accidental jabs followed by excruciating pain from the catfish spiky spine while handling this fish can truly make a devil out of you. Artificial breeding requires some hormonal injection to the female fish and later, stripping them out for thousand of eggs is nothing attractive but mainly for the purpose of production and profitability. Not very nice.

Later when there was a limitation to production of local catfish, one easy to breed and fast growing specie was brought into Malaysia, the Clarias gariepinus from Africa. This specie is fast growing and gigantic if compared to the local ikan keli. Once cooked and tasted, I can assured you that even hell broke loose, will never ever eaten this fish again.

Today, I still have Clarias macrocephalus on my plate cooked with chilly paste and fried hot and deep enough to give you a heart attack. Once the so-called fish from the drain is actually a good source of  protein for the diet particularly those from the wild rather than from the farm. Beware to choose smaller and slimmer ones and not the fat and fleshy one when you are going for a catfish dinner party.

Catfishes are not recommended for garden ponds or even in recreational lake. Maybe they are meant to be in the drain.

Where Ayer Matahari ?

Entrance ..

Finally, it was decided that we are to move our office.

For more than 15 years our office address at Taman Sri Serdang was a puzzled to many. Frequently asked by visitors, “Mana?” or where! No punch line or heavy weights in our address but a humble location at Seri Kembangan, once a notorious china town.

In the early 80s, Taman Sri Serdang was not even in the map. For those from Universiti Pertanian (UPM), their regular ‘hang-out’ place could only be at Seri Kembangan or it was known then as Serdang Lama (Old Serdang). The only shattered looking cinema was inviting those days but need to be cautious when trying to get a ticket. You have to fight your way through for a movie ticket. No one knows then what queing is all about.

Taman Sri Serdang only existed in the mid-80s. We moved in to our Lot no:1999 unit in the mid-90s. A bare simple house with 3 rooms and an extra land space with a triangular shape. Over the years, I renovated and created an ‘open shower room’, added 2 more rooms with one spiral stair to the top. One fish pond with a stone carved bird sculpture with a tea room adjacent to it. Laterite bricks cladded wall and a main wooden gate. Truly, it makes a good surrounding and we ran our errants in that little ‘office’ until we decided recently to move on.

The retired landscape architect walked into my office, scanning all he could from the floor to the roof of Lot no 1999. Climbing up the spiral staircase, opening and closing the hand made wooden doors and windows, touching all that he likes in the open shower room and finally gave me an offer to take over the house. His calm wife looked around and uttered the magic words, “The pond, I like the pond.”  SOLD.

Balinese, Indian and Thai mixed outlook.

Goan laterite brick wall of Lot 1999

So.. where ? Where should we sit in our next office meeting? The design for our new office outlook still reflects the epitome of Ayer Matahari (See top image).  I decided on earth brown coloured face with greens within still in our language of artistry. The ponds with birds and pots are a natural attraction as meant to be.. but believe me there are more surprises ahead. So watch out for our new office launching. At the meantime, the clock is ticking to launch our website at ‘www.ayermatahari.com’ .. get ready.

Surveys: Lost and Found – Yamashita’s Gold

Another morning walk into the unknown. Lost in the wild.

The late Prof Dr Ang Kok Jee assigned us to do a water budget survey in the state of Perlis for a commercial scale freshwater aquaculture project in 1980. We were all over the smallest state of Malaysia tracking, dipping, recording into all rivers, lakes, wells and other water source areas known to us. Unfortunately, the study results concluded that there was not enough freshwater for the aquaculture project. In Perlis, bordering Thailand, you can purchase fresh mangoes from RM2 for 10 pieces to RM3 for a basket of mangoes! Unexpectedly, during that survey period, we were staying in the same hotel with the once famous local band..”Quinary M” and had chance to meet Marzuin the lead singer.

Dr Philip Arumugam made us worked from sunrise to sunset and moonrise to moonset for the lake 24-hour survey on the water quality fluctuations and plankton migration. Dr. Hishamuddin was with me through out the survey period. We started in the evening making our way to the middle of the lake on a small boat with our equipments and repeated the whole process every 2 hours.  By 3 – 4 am in the morning, we couldn’t really tell the digital figure on our water quality meter screen either its number 8 or 3. Truly a few doses of black coffee didn’t really helped. We were lucky enough to be able to paddle back the boat to the lake edge! The survey continued to the next day and we almost killed our own spirits when we were, again, right in the middle of the lake at 1 pm under the brightest and the hottest sun. Our red-swollen eyes (from the lack of sleep) didn’t helped much either. But in the end it was all done  for the sake of  plankton migration and water quality fluctuations.

In 1997 I was invited to join the team from USM to explore the riverine communities in the newly opened forest reserved in northern Perak. “Nobody has ever surveyed this area before,” said Dr Mahsur, the leader of the exploration team. “We will leave at 7 am and should be back to our station before 5 pm.” he continued.

So, true to Dr Mahsur words, we left at 7 am after one small packet of nasi lemak for breakfast and we were still in the jungle the same day at 12 midnight! We were lost ! No direction back to our camps and too tired for anything else that we just squatted by the river banks allowing any leeches to stroll pass or tax a bit of blood for free. It rained the whole night when we were wondering about with no lights till we decided to stay put in the middle of no where. We were found by a small team of soldiers the next morning at 7am and gave us a packet of nasi lemak each!

If only Dr. Mahsur could have said, “We will leave at 7 am and should be back to our station the next day at 7 am with a packet of nasi lemak!”, then probably he should have qualify to be the real Merlin of all time.

Never missed any invitations to explore and survey the unknown and once I came to believe and actually joined a group of fools to explore a jungle looking for the lost gold hidden by the famous Japanese General Yamashita, The Tiger of Malaya. Why not?