Green Fest 2008

To be honest, I have no idea what's the name of the event. Some said Green Day (woohoo!), some said greenfest and some said The Star Environmental something something day which i considered it too long.

Do you have a favourite sleeping environment? Like a comfy bed with dim lightings and such.
For me, as long its a heavy raining weather, even sleeping on crooked tree stump will be fine. IT HAPPENED AT 6AM WHEN I NEEDED TO GET MY BUTT UP AND TO BUKIT KIARA.



That's probably the ultimate bummer for the entire day, thinking i should get there earlier as there are joggers who crowd the place even as early as 5-6. What do you know, its still raining when i arrived. Except that i still see joggers when i'm there! Seeing various age group people all holding their umbrellas and starting to jog.

Let see, bout the station for the BRATs/P2P, i think it was the biggest and best location among all the other stations.
Guess what, the crowd was rather poor on that day, compared to last year's at FRIM. Probably cause FRIM its quite a cramped up place and everyone will surely pass by all the stations. Unlike this where places are all scattered around.



Ever got harrassed by those credit card guys at shopping malls? Dying and begging u to sign up for their credit card promotions? I was one of them during the greenfest. Practically hogging and blocking the road so that people will enter our station (thats why, who ask to get such big ass station)

Let see, there are few things set up at the station.

If you see a whole group of people sitted in a circle, inflating and creating somethin out of those slim but long balloons. Those are the production team for the balloon selling. They worked like in some China factory filled with overwork and underpaid laborers. Coz they seemed so tensed up making it. Well...Phui Yee seemed to be so proud of her achievements of being able to make a more 'complex' shape one after another :)

Then there's this facepainting booth (or a table filled with brushes and watercolour). Somehow I ended up helping here. My job was to get experimented on my arm with weird drawings no one else could figure and walk around outside hopefully to pull a few customers in.
I was asked to shout "Facepainting for 2 Ringgit!", but somehow i don't feel right doing that. For someone not having a single drop of paint on his face but everything on his arm.

Finally there's the P2P booth. Its quite nice to see our tshirt designs from last years' p2p get printed out and to be sold. There's coasters, ringtones and reusable chopsticks. Yes, THOSE reusable chopsticks that you all love to poke fun at me.

Oh yeah, then the P2P came up with sketch as well. Its quite funny when they resemble their sketch like a routined show. Remember how the dolphin shows get announced in zoo? 'Next show at 11.30'. Yeah, they actually held up the board and started shouting bout the starting of their sketch.

Nevertheless, it was a nice sketch. Besides being rather too quiet, the messages from the sketch is actually quite strong and direct. Oh yeah, we just love to make fun of the tree man. lol. You know, the guy with branches sticking out from his back and made it to front page with Datin Jeanne Abdullah :D

All in all, I had fun with the other brats and p2p-ers. Meeting new ppl and working with them and such. Despite the terrible weather.

Oh yeah, speaking bout the weather. I went home and showered. As i was rubbing off the painting off my arms, i was thinking:

"Why wouldn't this design comes off easily?"
"It suppose to, since its only water based"
"Wait a minute, everything did came off"
"Oh crap! I got sunburn and on the arm as well. The design was stenciled on my skin by the sunburn!!!"

Crocodile drew by Sheena


Tortoise/turtle/random shapes drew by Ilyas


Anyway, I'm off to Phuket tomorrow and I'll have a lot of fun there! :D

Reusable Chopsticks

It might be a good thing...or not, but yeah, my silly face came out in the papers.

It was Wednesday's Star 2, Youth 2 section. Here's the online article, of course without my face. Since it might be wasting its bandwidth :P

http://thestar.com.my/youth2/story.asp?file=/2008/4/23/youth2/21017660&sec=youth2

In fact, alot of people doubted my statements in the article. lol.
Let me ask you a simple question, how often do you see me using disposable chopsticks or eating noodles at hawker stalls?
Cause chances are, you will always see me online or at the mamak stall :)

Haha, I'm sure you will have a chance to see me using it sooner or later.
But of course, I did use it from now and then

And let me reason it out to you why its such a bad idea to use disposable chopsticks.

1.) Ever noticed how white all the wooden chopsticks you saw at Sushi King or those nicely packed plastic packed ones in Ming Tien or any hawker stalls?

Yeah, those are bleached completely to make it real nice and presentable. Unlike the solid,heavier ones you have at home, as those actually looks more natural (by looking at its 'veins' as well, or whatever you call that :P).
Actually plastic chopsticks are bad as well, I tried cooking maggie with it, at one point it got so soft and actually bends almost 50 degrees. So immediately I straightened it back again before rinsing it with tap water (Imagine a blacksmith forging a sword)

2.) Not all chopsticks are made from bamboo trees. As expected, in order to meet its demand for its mass production (now I'm speaking like a true economist, woohoo), companies will need to rely back on wood.

So this is the environmental part of it, the more disposable chopsticks they made, the more trees being cut down. Simple sense rite? Same goes for Rhino Horns and Elephant Tusks.

3.) Some disposable ones are really quite disgusting. Its very easy to tell how low the quality of some chopsticks, having some with fine strips falling off from it. While tryin so hard to peel off the excess, at one point, you will realise its just gonna go on and on forever.

Here's a 2 of the many blogs i found regarding bout the bleaching process. I'm not sure where the images orginally taken, but probably the rest of the bloggers just copied it (in exact orders and description as well!). Oh well, as long you all understands it :)

http://www.xiaoyenzi.com/2007/11/chopstick-alert/

http://rojaks.blogspot.com/2007/09/disposable-chopsticks-you-may-wanna.html

One of the biggest users and contributers (no prize for guessing) will be China, followed by our other 2 famed east asia countries.

"In China alone, an estimated 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used and thrown away annually. This adds up to 1.7 million cubic metres of timber or 25 million fully grown trees every year. To encourage that people use and throw away less, in April 2006 a 5% tax was added to the price of chopsticks in China. This measure is part of the first tax package in 12 years." Wikipedia

"A 2006 Hong Kong Department of Health survey has found that the proportion of people using serving chopsticks, spoons or other serving utensils has increased from 46% to 65% since the SARS outbreak in 2003." Hong Kong Department of Health survey

They are aware of the situation, since they used far more than any other countries in the world. But of course I'm not pointing fingers to them, since they have a mass population. But it could pose a threat if it continues on.

Some facts and figures
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5152661/Chopsticks-LIFE-CYCLE-STUDIES.html

Plead by China Environmentalist
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19203227

Beijing Hotels rejected the usage of disposable chopsticks
http://www.chinacsr.com/2007/10/12/1748-300-beijing-hotels-reject-disposable-chopsticks/

Just to named a few websites, as there are tons of websites regarding the outcome.

And another 2 videos I found





So one of the most common solutions will be bringing our own pair of chopsticks, hence, there came this idea of bringing the reusable chopsticks to Malaysia.
Ok, maybe its out in the market before this. But doesn't matter


They are selling this during The Star Enviromental Fest in Bukit Kiara on June 8.
It cost rm18 or rm20. Not too sure bout the pricing as I was quoted for RM18, so you people can get it from me if wanted to.

Alot might be saying its expensive and stuffs, but we are not forcing you to buy! Its just a solution for not using disposable chopsticks. As long you say no to disposable chopsticks, we're happy to hear it and thank you for making an effort to help the environment :)

Thanks for reading my post, so as a reward (no,i'm not giving away free reusable chop since i don't technically make them), here's a video that we, from Star Youth made and acted in. Yeah, its very very silly. But heck, it was fun doin it :)