ya lor...shit them. Here in sg also...the GY ppl in our neighbouring country keep buring thier forest... What can we do? Btw, kenny, have u decide if you wanna go to aus or stay in kch?

Not yet, I need to discuss the issue with the few people who might be affected by my decision.

then the burning sensation and the strong smell won't be teh same!

ya, agree

haiz... how about aroma scented joss stinks. more exx! but the healthier choice. Still, i'll feel sorry for the nose sensitive people. haha!

yes indeed. ur in deep shit (plz 4give my language) bringing up dis issue. no im not against u. u hav ur rites 2 bring up ur own opinion.

Totally agree

Agreed. Thanks for voicing this out.

maybe they're burning more jossticks so the ah kong and ah mah above will bring rain and punish the haze-makers 9 9!

of course it's necessary

Haze is really bad these days...

Agreed. Well, what do you want them to do? Imagine the joss sticks are burning and giving out smoke, when in fact there's not a spark of flame on it? I guess no one can beat religion, not even the haze.

kenny, deciding whether you want to go Perth or stay in Kuching is no big deal.. what the real question is, when are you gonna go circumsize??!

Agree shit on this. What the fuck are those people thinking? Use those smoke and hope the haze to be gone is it?

we should wait for the wind to change direction, when the wind is blowing towards indon, we shall set our forest on fire. its pay back time

oi... freedom of religion...oi...

Do they have joss stick when Buddhism/Taoism was founded? Btw, who invented this thing and when?

Hey dude, how about 網路拜拜 business ? Get a locaion/building with emission controlled smoke stacks . With webcams, hired personel and webpage, the users can burn joss sticks remotely....It's already happaning in Taiwan.

yeah, since we have electric candle now why not electric joss stick too lol

Its big, not big ass.

We will lose more if we burn our forest, they are assets.

I thought huge joss sticks are banned already???

can u find out who dawn yang's plastic surgeon is or not ah

our ancestors still need to eat even though the haze is serious now. so keep the joss burning!!

muahahaha...
weirdo~

Well, it's tradition, but maybe they should just make do with smaller joss-sticks, that would certainly help.

Sometime I do like our government. Every thing related to agama, bangsa & kebudayaan, they do quite dare to touch.

so many haze gong gong mah mah they can eat the haze what, why still need to burn eeeh.. different taste?

Hope ALL turns out well.

but it's the smoke people are burning it for. the smoke carries the messages people have along with it up to the heavens for the dead, i think. or something along that line. Haha.

EEEEEEEE!! KENNY HOW ABOUT SMOKER???SO HAZY SO SMOKER HOW? WILL U 'PARANG' THEM IF THEY SMOKE??BTW I AM A SMOKER.BTW HOW IS UR DECESION ON KCH OR PERTH? DO LET US KNOW. OK.

understood. and agreed.
well.. it's the time for smokers to save some money$$.
look.
take a deeeeeeeeeep breath.. and exhale.
smoking smooching.

Better go here and pray:

http://www.putuoshan.org.cn/lifo/

Btw just burned three small joss sticks at the Kuan Yin Temple near Bugis (Singapore) today... Does that count towards heavier pollution?

...

love love love... it is all about love!
we all love our country and where we live.
when things go wrong, our voice up shows our love

of course, it is neccesary! It is one of the Taoism's practices, we must respect others. By the way, that 1 in the picture not for Ah Kong and Ah MAh, it's for the GODs in heaven.

yes. on the night of mid autumn festival in singapore, people just happily burned... adults burned papers for ancestors n deities and don't know who. and children burned their lanterns. well done!

n i live in the heart of chinatown, just so convenient for me to view/enjoy the spectacular moment. i mean.. breathe in all the smoke.

seriously, i think even the deities n ancestors got choked by the smoke of the burning of papers and lanterns, in addition to the haze.

Maybe they want Heaven to "ter-rasa" the haze too so God can send more help down here.

... (Just Kidding)

ooi kenny...becarefull when u talk u know...wat joystick...RESPECT PEOPLE RELIGION~

Aiya Kch just not ngam you la, thats why I said better go to Perth than you won't smell of the burning joystick lor.Kenny why don't poke on other religous sure your blog will close down in a short time.

Nonsense, since when you heard before that burning joystick causes air polution?

Hey hey, cut him some slack . what he said in his post makes sense GIVEN THE CURRENT SITUATION. If it is contributing negatively to the situation , it does sound reasonable to PUT THE BURNING ON HOLD TILL THINGS CLEAR UP. Dont be so sensitive and cast labels on people buta buta only. Listen to what they are saying first.

-.- He's stating facts, what's so offensive of the religion? It calls for some changes towards the burning practice. We must change with the world, or else at the end of the day, we're just killing ourselves. How to extend life expectancy like that?

Not only joss sticks...Pasar Ramadan also contribute mah...with all the Satay and chicken wings burning... read here for details

Those big joss sticks arent tat common in SG anymore... at least tats wat i see so far...

but i think they shld invent those less smoke ones... cos e normal josssticks ve e 'less-smoke' ones so why cant e big ones be e same?

couldn't agree more, kenny.

so don't burn anything la...better still. and another thing hor, everybody start walking or ride a bicycle. like that no more air pollution lor.

what is ridiculous is the comment made by indonesia's vice president, he said we should be fair on this issue and shouldn't complain too much since their forests have benefited us with the oxygen they produced...

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061015/kyodo/d8kourlg0.html

bloody stupid right, brushing aside the fact that it's causing so much health problem and polluting the air, i'd rather had their forests removed once and for all to remove the haze at the cost of their so called valuable oxygen, as if our forests didn't contribute to their "oxygen volume"

Well, think it's pretty safe to bet that there's no such types of burning in Perth!

errr.... thank got Miri dun hav o___o not so serious.... lol.... ermm im gonna shut up now...

ei, in this country, rules and regulations on air pollution is excluding religion activities la.

Read Environmental Engineering.

~Enjin-ni-yeh~

hahaha... SO TRUE!!!

i dont think there are enough josssticks to make a diff to the haze kenny...

i think our Ah Gong and Ah Mah also will understand...right?

sei man.the haze is really worsening by the day.please people,be more considerate!

thanks for voicing it out Kenny =)

i don't think the Ah Kong and Ah Mah in heaven are environmentalists.

When you're dead... it really doesn't matter when you believe in. Because you're dead. You can't think. You have no more opinions or thought or free will. Everybody left is pandering to the ideal of.. nothing.

in s'pore, the outdoor burning of joss-sticks of a certain size is banned. For believers, the buring of joss is important, but the sponsorship of large joss is only a sign of wealth-competition between the rich donors.

*Recites* Bai gong gong bai gong gong

I think some of your jokes here not welcomed...please respect your elder.

Burning joss stick is not that significant compared to forest burning n pollution from industrial/ public transport.

It's juz a part of culture.. or perhaps we human shudnt have culture n shud just live in stone age .. no pollution will happen .. no development!

Pretty good post Kenny, short & simple. I can't agree more on this issue. I am very sure the Taoist deities (if they do exist) will forgive the people if they don't burn these huge joss sticks, given the current haze situation.

kenny, i really like you, i mean your entries. they brighten and bring smiles to my mundane, boring and sucky days. thanks.

hey there. i can't stand all this bickering. i think kenny has every right to say what he wants on his blog. its his blog anyways. and its not like his comments on the current haze situations are disrespectful. some ppl here are just over sensitive emo asses.

quote : "With all the haze that's enveloping our cities right now, is it really necessary to burn big-ass joss sticks for our Ah Kong and Ah Mah in heaven?

Someone's gotta come up with environmentally-friendly smokeless joss sticks dammit."

he didnt bloody say anything bad about buddhism. well, not as far as i can tell. he asked whether its REALLY necessary to burn josticks, not suggesting that it should be banned. heck, it was just a rhetorical question. furthermore, i think the idea of environmentally-friendly joss sticks is a pretty good idea hey! very viable. ((:

I suggest that all cars in Malaysia and Singapore keep their engines running all night. The engines will suck in the haze and burn the smoke particles...

Stop flaming the poor joss sticks! (pardon the bad pun XD)

Actually, what we are practicing today isnt Buddhism. It is more skewed to Taoistism and consist several aspects of Buddhism. Lets call it Bud-Tao-hism, which I also think almost all of us Malaysians embraces.

Ignorance and apathy I find is the key weakness in our country, sometimes we dont see therefore we dont know and sometimes we see but dont do anything about it. We cant change overnight, but at least reduce the impact and accustom to the situation at hand.

Everything starts from home. For things to change, you must change first. Thank you Kenny for creating the awareness.

Nowadays you can go online temple to pray. Hm... must start circulating templates at temple now.

Hey Kenny,

Not gonna comment on that, I let others comments la. But I'm flying back later this week for Raya. MISS KUCHING!!So come visit la, I fatten u up a bit hor...:)

i tot they already did?? they came up with electric ones...

yeah i agree some ppl are wayyyy to sensitive & don't seem to be able to read the whole post & THINK. Kenny meant that burning the huge joss sticks at this time will CONTRIBUTE to the haze NOT CAUSE it. Do aho's

not ah kong ah ma lah..
not those so called "gods" meh?

Greetings Kenny....:D Just dropping by your interesting blog through Dancing Queen...I'll be back.

its culture and religion
kenny dont be like xiaxue

In fact there are already electric joss sticks being used by the vietnamese...we see plenty of them being used in vietnamese owned shops here in Aust. Not sure if it comes in hungry-ghost sizes though. Then again, it would probably be cheaper to burn real joss than lighting up big-ass electric ones.

This is the first time i felt that i could totally agree with Kenny...:)

Geez, what's with the multiple posts? Very song click post a few times is it.

Well, it's been like that for decades. But seriously Kuching is much better now.

Jackie Chan and Uncle :

" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"
" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"
" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"
" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"
" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"
" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"
" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"
" Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao"

Hmm.....what you have said is deemed sensitive and may incite the people. You are therefore asked to retract your statement and apologise failing which the appropriate action will be taken.

Sounds familiar, isn't it?

Hmm i tot there was smokeless joss sticks invented long ago? maybe too expensive to use. on general ppl r still v traditional... What to do?

"we should wait for the wind to change direction, when the wind is blowing towards indon, we shall set our forest on fire. its pay back time

Posted by: Sebastian at 15 October 2006 11:30 PM"

totally agree about it being pay back time, but dont burn the forests or our economy will probably die. get all the rempit bikes and burn those instead.

the one really suffering here is mother earth.

oh my poor poor earth.

Farking is also contagious-gas-polluted-environment-hazard beside haze. Yeah Kenny, remember NZ recently?

Then stop burning joss sticks lar, they are just some sticks that light up fire, won't do anything else but to polute the air even more. So give it up!

Smokers are a big problem, ciggies prices should go up more more more! Smoking should be discouraged.

Oh Kenny Oh, Malaysia is definitely not a place for you. Perth is.

lets all created big ass fans and start blowwwing the haze away!!!!!!!!

kill 2 birds with one stone leh!
i: bye bye haze!
ii : byebye stuffy hot air.

:)

NAH!!! *Middle finger* to Indonesia.

Yeah lah. They should do something better. Like, go to hell. HAHA. I'm high, sorry.

Burning jossticks is part of people's tradition. Burning Indonesia is not. So there.

errr..
yeah that area always like that.

i bet the tourist are like "whoahhh stupid malaysians!!"

When I was working in one of the government departments in Singapore, I got so many complaints from irate people around this time every year about the "haze". Fingers were always quickly pointed to the Indonesians.

Our data actually showed that those Indonesians have not been burning their forests in those years. So I suspected it's all the joss-stick burning that is contributing to the haze.

Thanks, Kenny, for having the balls to say what I couldn't.

kenny,
i'm very offended by ur post. this is our tradition and not our fault that the haze has worsen..

pls respect others' religion..

Fuck you Kenny,

It isn't funny playing with other's beliefs. Show some respect please. May be some mad dogs will chew off your rotten coconut for good.

I where got make fun of your religion or beliefs?

It is also my religion ok!

Don u think there's a much better way than burning joss stickc? I think if pray for them(ah kong n ah mah) is much better leh. Btw, my ah mah is christian so i don need to do so. Phew! thank God i not one of the ppl who's "contributing" to the haze. wait till haze over lo. only then burn joss sticks. (after that haze come back again. ==")

aiyo, so uptight for what? it's not like the end of the world lah, Cempaka. Maybe you need to relax a bit...maybe smoke a few ciggies or some weed

Despite my dislike of the smell of the joss-sticks; I think they are the least of our environmental problems..... It's the "Clear-cutting" or so called 'care-free(less)' forestry in Sabah & Sarawak being the No. 1 issue....

Bet Indonesians will point finger to Malaysian companies in Indonesia cultivating palm oil for clearing their land. Bet the Indonesians could be saying, "It's not within our control-mah, they want to clear their land by burning, who are we to stop them?" Bullshits!!! Prosecute them-lah. WTF.

Yea chinese need to be more open minded

Visit Malaysia Year 2007 should be change to VISIT MALAYSIA HAZE YEAR 2007.

Malaysia should enter into the Guinness Book of Records for the longest affected haze country in any countries combined. Year in year out for a decade already. Seriously, no joke.

Haha, agreed with you mate.

Let tsunami come to Indonesia to help them to put out the forest fire. ACT OF GOD soon.

WTF, haze every year in Malaysia. Indonesians will smell their haze in hell.

Kenny, don't blame ah long ah mah in heaven temple or anything like that lah, blame the indonesians buggers.

Ya-loh, ah kong ah mah temple, smoke emission from vehicles and factories, people smoking and farking doesn't form a haze-mah. Haze is form by Indonesians .

Man , what does it take for people to have abit more sense of humor ?

Kenny,

In my opinion, burning joss sticks even though it's now hazy is not THAT bad. It's the tradition, the religion, the beliefs. I think you should highlight on the forest fires, the open burning, the factories, and even minor things like the smoke from exhaust from big trucks and lorries. I even feel we should blame it on smoking rather than joss sticks.

stop blaming the indonesians. take a drive around malaysia and see how many people care about their air quality.

we are getting complacent. i hardly see anyone who bothers. no one wears haze masks anymore. we treat it as just another season.

students still smoke like industrial sectors outside of monash university in bandar sunway.

trucks, motorcycles, and old cars spew out copious amounts of thick black smoke everytime they accelerate in taman puchong.

smoke stacks at factories emit plumes of smoke day and night in usj. more so during the night as they're less likely to be caught.

OF COURSE the press has to say it is the indonesians. what do you think they should say? the government? the private sector? nonchalant malaysians themselves?? hah. crazy ah they point the finger back at us. they would run out of business..

WHAT'S THE USE, MY MUM DOESNT KNOW WHAT'S THE MEANING OF "POLLUTION"...... HOW SHOULD MY ANCESTORS KNOW?

Chinese tradition just wont be the same without smoke.

Gotta have smoke. Lots and lots of em XD

hey guys,i think kenny has a right to say what he wants to say and I don't think he's insulting any religion or beliefs (plus he said it's HIS religion too)-so just please,look at it from a diplomatic point of view.

I think,Kenny-your post deserve a good compliment on stating the facts- and I love LOVE your post =) so keep it up aight ;)

terrible hazeee

kenny you knn ccb ! how can you even suggest that ? this is one of few chinese few customs being allowed to be practice here. what do you want eh ?

Religion sucks. Big time. All of them.

There I said it.

Plus Malaysians wishing death to their neighbours just for something trivial as haze are morons too.

"we should wait for the wind to change direction, when the wind is blowing towards indon, we shall set our forest on fire. its pay back time

Posted by: Sebastian at 15 October 2006 11:30 PM"

Grow up Sebastian! this ain't pillow fight

HAHAHAHAHA someone suggested smokeless josssticks... then whats the @point of the josssticks...

latest news.. haze in indon caused by deer hunters...

i so totally agree with you...i'm sure the ah kong and ah ma would prob want the grandchildren to have clean air too right?

Alo Kenny,

Please leave religious thing out of your writing...u'll hurt many people ya know...

You think haze is a trivial matter? Wait till your family die of inhaling haze or get some diseases of some sort.

Stop blaming the indonesians? It's been a decade already. We are still experiencing haze year in year out. We have suffered enough already. The excuses have been the same yearly. Talk only, no action. Now you think you have a better solution to stop the haze once and for all. If you have, GO AND DO IT.

hey neat deepavali theme.

Maybe Indonesia should hand-over Sumatra and Kalimantan to Malaysia. Then Malaysia can make sure there is not haze indefinitely. Hehe.

Hey Kenny, I always love your post, I wonder why some people are easily offended as I totally understand what you meant there wasn't to offend any religion. No sense of humor, huh?
and please update us with regarding your decision, will you back to Perth?

actualy.... dem hazy, but.... Dont burn things for granndy means no respect, unless government give free education and free medical service + another RM500 per month. mayb they will contemplate to forgo the josses. .

hey u dumb ass, this is extremely offensive!

hey u dumb ass, this is extremely offensive!

im amazed at the comments u are getting kenny.why are so many ppl so sensitive?where is their sense of humor hey.and most of the negative comments come with very ah beng-ish inslults.maybe its an ah beng thing,which suddenly makes me realize how many ah bengs read ur blog ((:

What's wrong with Ah Bengs reading and posting Kennysia blog? Better than some idiots like MALAY FOR MALAYSIA post.

sigghh.point proven.too many over-sensitive ppl here.whatever happened to our open-minded society?and for the record,mr ah beng(what a queer name to give yourself,no?),i did not say there was anything wrong with ah bengs reading/posting on kenny's blog.it was just a random statement.and if ue super emo ass cant take it,go whine somewhere else.cheerios ((:

since malaysia government has no ball to ban indo haze over malaysia, lin pei also burn joystick, see who can produce more haze, til semua mati kokok

Speak for yourself joel. I'm sure u have nothing better to do than like those ah bengs who are typing on Kenny's blog just to prove your point.

Cheers.

good idea man....

Why question what happened to our open-minded society? Do we have an open-minded society in the first place? I thought you knew it long time ago. That's why Kenny could be heading to Perth, ain't Kenny?

Oh give it a break already.

I notice with much regret that there are SO many humourless people who come to this blog. It's not just this post too. So many bigots and narrow minded people who can't live with the fact that Kenny's opinions and views are not the same as theirs.

Disagree all you want people, but there are proper ways to do it. Name calling, swearing and jumping to conclusions only makes you look like morons.

That makes you one of the morons too as you have just resorted to name-calling. :)

Anyway, cheers mate, I get your point.

Last year, the haze was during the Horny Ghosts Month and the temple near my house was burning a whole lot of bigass giant josssticks still, so I made a complaint with the municipal council and they issued a warning to them. So far, no more bigass giant josssticks still today (one year already) =) Woohoo!! I'm chinese btw.

the tradition of joss stick are a symbol of 'treating' the chinese gods/deities/celestials/aeon/buddha to a treat. like yumcha.

as much as its already an embedded part of the chinese culture, truth from fact is that the smoke is not essential. =) but burning brings smoke...so...

indoor?

If you think joss sticks are causing haze, read the stupid remark by the "honourable" Vice President of Indonesia...

LOL.

As far as I remembered, the first time I encountered this haze problem lies back in 1997 (the year I took my SPM). At that time, the situation is very bad, until the SPM is to be delayed (but didn't reached the critical stage yet, so in the end proceeded as scheduled).

Today, 2006, 10 years after, Indonesia still have this problem with burning. 10 years is not a short period, surely if the Indonesian government does care about this matter (whether just to save their own citizen or avoid giving their neighbouring countries the haze trouble), this problem, if not solved, will be greatly reduced. But so far, from the situation at hand, which is a fact that the haze problem is still serious, even after 10 years, I really doubt Indonesian government' efforts in solving this problem.

Worse yet, they started to give off alot nonsense excuses to divert the blame for this problem. (http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061015/kyodo/d8kourlg0.html) The Indonesian government might as well says, "Our country's tree has provided oxygen for the benefit of humanity in this planet. Without our trees, humans and all other living beings would have been extinct long ago. All other humans other than Indonesians are so ungrateful to our country, if not for our trees, would you even be alive? If they want the benefit, sometimes, when something bad happens, they shouldn't feel bothered".

In my opinion, what they have been doing so far is like someone who doesn't know to swim jumped into sea, and just before he/she died, pulled whoever nears them to die together, going along the lines of "satu tak rugi, dua ada untung" mentality. Want to die, also go pull other nearby people die together with them.

fuck you!!!!

I thnk burning joss stick shld not be blamed for adding burden to the already hazy kch...we shld look at the source of the cause. Burning joss stick for the Ah Kong or Ah Ma is our tradition. If you want a less hazy kch, i thnk someone shld talk to indonesia.

stop driving cars, making lemang beside the road and why not... abandon things that are related to fire... then again kenny... think b4 u post... it might make someone on the other side of the earth... unhappy... why didn't you put a picture of a road side lemang stall in the first place? this is not clean sense of humor... cheers...

Kenny keep it up! love seeing those humourless folks runing their mouth!! good way to pass my time HAHA!!!

why don u blame the source of the haze then? if it's not for it, we won't hav haze anyway. ppl have been burning josstick for centuries and are they contributing to haze problem ever since then? think la. to stop burning josstick during haze? can u stop eating during haze? asked yourself. it's religion and we hav to respect that.

but open burning is definitely something that should be stop. we definitely cant blame on indonesian alone too. if you drive all the way from kuching to sabah, you'll definitely see open burning of forest. SO WHO TO BLAME?? figure it out yourself with your intelligent brain.

We are the company in thailand that produces the smokeless joss sticks and gum benzoin in low cost price(price not different from general joss sticks). If we can help your environment in the country please feel free contact us at Fax. 662-804 8217 or aisleberley@hotmail.com