Skip to main content

Kampar market

I love the Kampar main market. Well, there isn't any other. I love the simplicity of the sellers. I have intrigued by these women sellers who trade their wares which such intensity. I bet they have been doing these for years. The reason why I think Kampar is an amazing time capsule: old pre-war buildings and people. I saw a 1914 Long Banes clock on the preface of a building today which still works.

The town is three parallel blocks of buildings, no higher that two stories. All intersected by 100 metre lanes with names like Jalan Market, Jalan Masjid and etc. You have the obligatory banks and many hair saloons (I marvel at the wisdom of having one at every junction).

I love the choice of food you can get at the thriving food court next to the market. Not as segregated as you would find in most big cities and towns. Here people are fine selling their wares next to each other. People are of an older generation, you get the random toothless grin from perfect strangers. It is quite a nice change. I need to loosen up more, I guess.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dealing with illness

I arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia on 1st March 2013. This portends my second phase of the research. I must admit, I was verily prepared for Indonesia. Many upheavals and changes had left me quite emotionally drained. Nevertheless, the work must go on. I was instantly shocked at how much things cost in Jakarta. Well definitely not as bad as KL. However, it would be straining a limited stipend. Backpackers - 6 Degrees, Jakarta Fortunately, the gods of travel were kind to me which led me to 6 Degrees, Cikini Raya, Jakarta. It turned out to be a mixed blessing. I was very worried about the lack of privacy but I was pleasantly surprised by the pods concept available at 6 Degrees. Yes, even a curtain can make a great difference. Plus I was paying ridiculously affordable rates in one of the most expensive cities in S.E.A. Food - killed me Ah...food which was my undoing entirely. Fooled by a very fortunately experience in Yogjakarta where I had a smorgasbord of street food and survived. ...
1 comment
Read more

MAPARBEMPCO

During the 1970's, a land dispute between First Southern Land and the residents of Barangay Mapantig occurred. First Southern Land occupied all available tracts of land to the consternation of the residents of the area. People were driven away from their farms and some were even taken to court and imprisoned. Upon facing serious resistance from the company, the villagers gave up and some even moved to different locales in order to survive when the land was taken from them.  When the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform programme was implemented during the presidency of Corazon Aquino, the villagers saw an opportunity arising to get back their land.  However, the company applied for a deferment of 10 years which delayed further the implementation of the land reform programme. Finally in 1998, the Department of Agriculture decreed that the land being occupied by the Kenram Estate (the name of the plantation) would be subjected to agrarian reform. The residents who w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Learning to Mentor

Background I had a wonderful opportunity to attend a useful workshop organized by the Malaysian Institute of Management (MIM) in collaboration with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS). The workshop was entitled 'Women Mentoring Development Programme' was attended by over 40 women from various fields: civil society, small and medium level entrepreneurs, training and education.  The training was conducted in English by two master trainers who have had experience in mentoring women entrepreneurs. They presented a comprehensive workshop structure which included personal mastery, skills mastery and process mastery. We started with discovering our basic personality attributes to understand our prominent characteristics. We were introduced to a local developed personality assessment tool the LEONARD Personality Inventory. It was quite interesting to discover one's strength and shortcomings based on the analysis.  I am going to highlight some of the elements of the worksh...
1 comment
Read more