Dear reader,Thank you for visiting this blog on the WordPress server.
For the past year, I had been penning my thoughts here but effective mid-July, I have moved my blog to its new home at ssquah.activeknights.org
Please click here to take you to the new home of It’s All In The Planning!
Regards
Quah, Seng-Sun
Penang, Malaysia
I wrote this article today in the JobStreet Blog in my capacity as the Content Manager. It’s a shame if I do not reproduce an extract here because privacy of personal data is suddenly becoming a big issue in Malaysia, all because some politicians found themselves on CTOS Sdn Bhd’s blacklist of names.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
Do more than belong: participate.
Do more than care: help.
Do more than believe: practice.
Do more than be fair: be kind.
Do more than forgive: forget.
Do more than dream: work.- William Arthur Ward (1921-1991)
Every now and then, we are reminded about the unresolved inheritance issues affecting all the races in this country. No one is immune.
Just today, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohd Nazri Aziz mentioned again that the estate value of deceased Malaysians that remained unclaimed due to unresolved beneficiary issues has reached RM40 billion.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
When you are attending a job interview, you are always told to be on your best behaviour.
What this usually means is that outwardly, you are expected to dress right for the interview and mind what you do and say. You are also expected to know your employer by understanding their market and what they do. And of course, you are expected to know your own stuff well.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
The Securities Commission in Malaysia has introduced a new regulation called Single Pricing Regime (SPR) which goes into effect today. What this means is that from today onwards, there will only be one price - the Net Asset Value (NAV) per unit - quoted for selling and redeeming unit trusts.
This regulation has been expected in the unit trust industry for some time.
While it poses an additional challenge to and increases the level of competitiveness for the fund management companies and their consultants, it should be a move welcomed by investors because there is now greater transparency of the charges paid by the investors.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
Yes, it is now official. The legal suits that Rockwills Corporation and OSK Trustee had been hurling at one another have been settled amicably. Both parties have agreed to withdraw them.
I was having dinner with the branch manager of a local unit trust company last Wednesday when I asked her why certain funds cannot be purchased with an investor’s EPF savings. After all, EPF had been allowing its members to withdraw from their Account One to invest in unit trust funds but I’ve seen just too many new funds that just could not get the green light from EPF.
“It’s just not us alone,” said the branch manager, add that all the fund managers in Malaysia are now facing the same difficulty with EPF.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
Recently, I heard about this Taiwanese artist who has become an inspiration to many people in this part of the world.
Hsieh Kun-Shan paints with his mouth, having learnt this skill after losing both his arms and a right leg to a horrendous factory accident when he was 16-years-old. He’s now 48, so that accident must have happened around 1975.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
Before you speak, listen.
Before you write, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you invest, investigate.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try.
Before you retire, save.
Before you die, give.- William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
Many of you will realise that most of the articles I write here, in my It’s All In The Planning blog, are concerned with various aspects of financial planning - be it investment planning (while you are still alive) or estate planning (usually undertaken some time after you are dead) or something else.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
Do you think it is really possible to clean up the state of Penang, or for that matter, just Penang island?
If the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) is to be believed, it’s possible. MPPP president Datuk Zainal Rahim Seman said on 5 Jun 2007 that all he needed was six months to make this a reality.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
My sister-in-law called me this morning to tell me the good news.
The title deed to her house in Simpang Ampat, Penang, was finally with her. It had been a patient wait of almost five years to complete the estate administration process after her husband’s death.
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
The top 40 wealthiest Malaysians according to the 4 Jun 2007 issue of Forbes Asia magazine:
- Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien, 84: US$7.6 billion;
- Ananda Krishnan, 69: US$7.4 billion;
- Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, 90: US$4.3 billion;
Click here to read the rest of this post on my new It’s All In The Planning blog.
The Malaysian chess scene was poorer on 16 May 2007 with the passing of Dr Foo Lum Choon.
Junior chess players will not know who he was but older chess players will recognise Dr Foo as a pioneer among Malaysian chess players and organisers.
Dr Foo was 90 years old, long retired as a medical practitioner, when he passed away in Kuala Lumpur.
For many years, he was the president of the Chess Association of Malaysia, the precursor of the Malaysian Chess Federation. He helmed the CAM until it was deregistered in 1973.
In all my years associated with this fine game, I have managed to play with him only once in a tournament game. That was in 1974 when the MCF organised its first national closed chess championship at the FAS building in Kuala Lumpur.
I remember him well because in that tournament, he was the most senior among the players. He was a mild-mannered, eloquent, soft-spoken gentleman of the Old School and always with a smile on his face. But I’ve also heard people mentione that he was rather set in his ideas and obstinate to a fault.
At a crucial point in our game I was faced with a rather difficult choice. Inexperience told on me because after having decided on my plan, my hand lifted the wrong piece on the board and left my queen opened to immediate capture.
I glanced up at him and he smiled at me. He was willing to let me take back my move but I saw no point in playing dishonourably and I immediately resigned the game.
In that tournament, he came in second behind Choo Min Wang who is considered as Malaysia’s first national champion. The top four players from this event were supposed to qualify for the Malaysian team at the inaugural Asian team chess championship in Penang later in the year but both Choo and Dr Foo declined to play. I was sixth in the national closed event and thus, managed to find myself in the Malaysian team in 1974.
Dr Foo cast a great influence on Malaysian chess. In 1972, he led the first Malaysian chess team to the Chess Olympiad in Skopje. In 1974, he played in the Chess Olympiad in Nice. Malaysia did not send a team to Haifa in 1976 but in 1978, he went to Buenos Aires with the national team. His last appearance in the Malaysian team was at the La Valletta Chess Olympiad in 1980.
For a long while, he maintained his clinic in Jalan Pudu, Kuala Lumpur. He was always ready to whip out a chess board whenever chess players visited him in his clinic and he could go on and on to discuss chess with them. After he gave up his practice, he opened the Sakura Restaurant where he reputedly served the best nasi lemak in town. I never tried it.
I was speaking with Larry Parr, former editor of the US Chess Life magazine, a few days ago and he told me this little anecdote about Dr Foo.
It seemed that immediately after the Second World War, as a young medical officer, Dr Foo chanced upon a communist base in the jungle. There, he saw a big photo of a man with a moustache (Stalin) and another big photo of a bearded man (Marx). And there was a dismally small photo of Mao.
Immediately, Dr Foo guessed that the Malayan Communists were fighting for the wrong cause. Who or what were they fighting for? People they’ve never met before? It was clear in his mind that they were heavily influenced by the foreign communists.
So this was the Dr Foo we knew. He’s now dead and with him, a chapter in Malaysian chess history has ended.
[Note: One of his sons - Rudy Foo - was a rather well-known local tennis player.]
