Since Friday, I have been at PWTC. Was helping out at the JPA Scholarships booth for MCA, to share some of my experience with fellow Malaysians who want to know more about the scholarships. Haven't met that many interested students. Occasionally, there would be interested parents coming along to ask questions.
Why I am doing this? To me, this is a good way for me to give back to community. I am lucky to get scholarships to study abroad, so now, it is a great way for me to give back to community. Why shouldn't I? After all, I have spent so much of taxpayers' money on my education!
MCA has put up 35 booths on the 9 Point Party Platform, to showcase various aspects that MCA has put in efforts over the past few years. A long list of MCA leaders have visited the booths, and often, they really spend time at the booth, chatting with us and try to find out more from us!
YB Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting, MCA President led a delegate to visit the booth on Friday afternoon, around 5pm or so. Dato' Seri did spend a few minutes at the booth to know more about the JPA Scholars. Dato' Seri even told us that he had sent 1,773 emails to Chinese JPA Scholars to reach out to them! That's no easy feat! Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting has definitely put in a lot of hard works in ensuring that JPA Scholarships are obtainable by fellow Malaysians, including Chinese community. He has brought up suggestions to Cabinet and eventually accepted, including the idea of providing guarantee JPA Scholarships for those students with at least 10A1s and with family income less than RM1,500. Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting fought this policy, not just for the Chinese Community, but for all Malaysians, irrespective of races!
Besides Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting, other VIPs who have visited the booth, included YB Datuk Liow Tiong Lai, YB Datuk Ong Tee Keat, YB Dato' Ng Yen Yen, YB Dato' Fu Ah Kiow, YB Senator Datuk Lee Sing Chooi, YB Wong Nai Chee etc.
Talking about this event, Youth'08, it is a great initiative by Youth '08 led by Joel Neoh. I got the opportunity to meet up with him during the Traffic Jam (the bloggers' gathering). Over there, Timothy Tiah, Founder of Nuffnang was there too!
Besides these celebrities, I got the opportunities to chat with Su Ann , whom I have chatted before on Gtalk several times, but never really chatted face-to-face. She reminded me that we have met before during Malaysia Student Leaders Summit. Sorry, Su Ann (or fondly known as pinkpau) for not able to recognize you. But hey, I did drop by your blog station at PWTC leh! :P Good Luck on your university applications~!
Christopher Tock from UKEC was there too, and had a great chat with him. Met Nicholas Chay, who was formerly from Accenture and is now with Nuffnang! Thanks to Ern Sheong for dropping by too! Saw Kenny Sia there, but didn't get the chance to approach him.
Guess I must have left out some names of people I have met. Really sorry.
I would also like to thank a long list of JPA Scholars who have willingly volunteered to be at the JPA Scholarships booth, as well as sharing on stage. Thanks a lot!
Thanks a lot to Kok Siong, as well as those from Lifelong Learning, led by Quek Ngee Meng, Sue, Hellen, Mavis etc.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Youth '08 & MCA 9 Point Party Platform Expo
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11 comments:
Hi Chen Chow, while I appreciate MCA's effort in promoting higher education and scholarship, I would like to point out that it's grave violation of privacy when OKT sent out emails to 594 Chinese JPA scholars' email addresses. Yes I was one of them and I was not too impressed.
The first point of contention is that MCA is misappropriating JPA's email address book for its own political gain. Our contacts should NOT be used for political purposes. Sending such email to us is as ridiculous as putting "yet another Barisan National's project" on a public hospital - it's a federal government project, funded by the people's taxes, and to say that it's something we should then be grateful to BN for, is ludicrous and is mocking our intelligence in our face.
And oh ya, in our contract it also says that all scholars should not be involved in political dealings. Oh well, who doesn't know that it only applies to the opposition parties.
The second point is, the person who sent the email failed to BCC the email addresses, causing all 594 email addresses to be exposed to every single recipient. I would like to recommend some basic privacy education to the person who sent the email. When you have already misappropriated JPA's email address, the least you can do is to expose the list. Shame on that guy.
A post in education malaysia blog regarding this very letter:
Link
To anonymous, the intention of your comment is bad and not feeling grateful at all of what the good leader like the President of MCA is doing for the country. I know that you are linked with Tony Pua and Kian Ming Ong who are DAP members who only know to write destructive blog to damnpen all the good deeds that have been done by MCA. Opposition parties do not have the man power (how many members are there in DAP?) nor resources to contribute constructively to this country, so have to resort to dirty trick by confusing people with destructive blogs. When crisis (Nature or Man made) fall into this country, THINK carefully which party the victims will seek for help?MCA or DAP? certainly is MCA. MCA will help the people to go through the crisis because MCA has the resources and well orgarnised networks, while DAP and other will just keep quiet and waiting MCA to make mistake!
Gratefulman,
It beats me how you managed to divert the topic from blatant violation of privacy to "destructive blogs to confuse people and dampen MCA's greatness".
Please learn to answer to or counter criticism with valid points, instead of bringing us to different arena. It's strawmen at its very worst. Instead of saying "Tony Pua and Kian Ming Ong are DAP members and hence by default are only trying to nitpick on MCA", try to actually answer their criticism instead of resorting to poisoning the well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
I certainly know that MCA has the intention and resource to help the country, but the overall orientation and the goal is not going to work in the future. Even when I support the opposition's check and balance, it doesn't mean that I parrot and support everything they say, nor do I think that they should become the new government overnight.
Try to appraise your own action. To make the hasty conclusion of my "link" with the blog owners when I was only raising valid points from their blog, indicates something. Please answer to criticisms instead of resorting to the politicians' old trick of diverting attention and poisoning the well - it doesn't work on us.
Anyway, gratefulman, did you even read the first sentence in my post? I said I appreciate MCA's effort. I was only disagreeing with the abuse of JPA list and the disregard to privacy.
Talk about reading out of context.
Who is diverting the topic now?
Aren't we in the topic of MCA 9PP and Youth '08?
You are the one who trying to divert us to the other link by KMOng and KKPua which are accommodating rude comments like:
"Wow, OKT kissing asses of umno racists and now reckons that the Chinese scholars should do the same." by -anonymous-
It is a same to read on with this kind of remark who don't respect a leader in a community and as well as your own self.
Your enemy is not MCA or Ong Ka Ting, is yourself who are full of hate and negative feeling!
My topic was "the blatant violation of privacy and the misappropriation of JPA student list for political gain".
And I was referring to the post, not the comment.
If that comment in educationmalaysia blog somehow vindicates that Tony and Kian Ming's evilness, then by the same vein, Chen Chow is also one of the anarchist, since he allowed my "evil" comment?
Your logic astounds me.
And you haven't answered to my criticism: violation of privacy and misappropriation of JPA list.
Also, Chen Chow reads Education Malaysia (refer to his reading list on his blog sidebar) and always corresponds to the evil people, as showed by the mention of his name in some posts in that blog.
Oh my god, Chen Chow is so evil!!
Typo: somehow portrays Tony and Kian Ming's evilness
'You are the one who trying to divert us to the other link by KMOng and KKPua which are accommodating rude comments like:
"Wow, OKT kissing asses of umno racists and now reckons that the Chinese scholars should do the same." by -anonymous-'
Wah, Gratefulman, you are indeed very grateful that you have lost your ability to think. Poor you. Answer 'Anonymous' question. Show that you are not one of those BN leaders who have the standard comment 'ada agenda politik sendiri'.
Btw, Congratulations! you possess every quality to be a BN leader! A star in making...
Chen Chow,
Didn't have much time to chat with you over the 3 days in the Exhibition. Hope you guys had a great time.
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