A Hot Year Ahead

By Sarawakian

As you read this, the 15 days of Chinese New Year would have ended on the 3^rd of March 2026. The fire horse galloped majestically with a chaos of weather change from the 17^th of February onwards. We had the weather change from hot to cold and even flooding.

Interestingly, this is also the first year in a series of three years where the fasting month prior to Hari Raya Puasa would be days apart from the 1^st day of Chinese New Year. This year, it is also a day apart from Ash Wednesday where Christians start their fasting before Easter.

From 2029 till 2031, we would be celebrating Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Puasa within the days of the same week. The Kongsi Raya is back again since the same 3-year series occurred from 1996 till 1998.

This year seems to be rather lukewarm for festive shopping atmosphere as it looked like all shopping centres have started to ease festive decorations and events. The same could be said of retailers. This is rather sad. Most decorations within Subang Jaya shopping centres have started to be rather boring and devoid of cultural and emotional connection. We have now seen Chinese New Year whilst those who have also just put up the Hari Raya ones show the same lack of spark to induce the feeling.

Subang Jaya is seeing a lot of active movements on the ground, especially on the part of newly minted councilors. What they were doing was exactly what we wanted them to do before. I was joking with my kaki kopitiam the other day in USJ 11 when we discussed how the new councilor has addressed the issue of the damaged bus stop recently. It showed that MBSJ seems nonchalant about being urgent and took more than the required months to fix. Nevertheless, credit where due, at least they are starting to be a bit more initiative-taking.

My kaki kopitiam and I would still not want to congratulate our current ADUN who has only woken up to help the rakyat’s needs in Subang Jaya. This person has never been on par with the previous ADUN. If we even compared her with the days of the “Blue Dacing” person, even he was better. Two terms and only now seemed to have woken up.

It is election preparation time, I am sure. Based on the past, it is unlikely the party would place the incumbent to contest in the same constituency for more than 2 terms. Only the “Blue Dacing” fellow had 3 terms from 1995-2008. Let us hope to see who this will be before we decide on our power to vote. There are no permanent friends nor enemies in politics and business. What is common is the power. Yet the power they yield is because we, the voters, gave that to them. We should never forget that. That is why voters must vote and vote wisely.

What we hope to see is more community engagements in Subang Jaya. We lack this even with the management of issues in SS15 commercial areas. For decades, this has not been solved completely. The momentum stopped post 2018 elections to be honest. The back lanes, the clogged drains, the rats, the owls that came and go, the food waste initiatives that came and go, the cooking oil initiatives that came and go, the street art ideas that never happened, the side lanes and back lanes safety and security initiatives never took off.

The main change we saw was the creation of a new MBSJ car park building which was built too small in capacity and the new apartments around the vicinity. Taylor’s College has left the area and only INTI remains. Commercial shifts and education offering shifts have made SS15 rather forgotten.

Deaf ears because of poor local governance. Excuses from political seats and those who aim to be in the same seat of contest seem to take precedence and importance. This is at the expense of what the community really needs for infrastructure and improved living conditions.

We can scream and shout. We can write articles and notes to air our grievances and dissatisfaction. But that would mean nothing if we ourselves did not continually harp on them until the noise cannot be ignored. This should be amped up running into the next election. We all know that parties and incumbents are never safe anymore since 2008.

We did it before when voters changed the norm of belief that goliaths cannot be taken down nor challenged. 10 years after being mauled, the goliath was defeated completely. The next 10 years of which this would end in 2028 should be the time where we decide if there were any unique movements in the duration that were done in the positive to warrant the opportunity of a chance for them to be considered again.

Subang Jaya is starting to age, and we do not have enough infrastructure to cater for this. Pedestrian walkways, public toilets, physically challenged facilitation and even public medical care are seriously critical. We have excellent private medical facilities but affordability to medical care is a red flag. We do not have access to affordable medical care as private sectors are commercially driven. Insurance premiums have gone up.

There are not enough passionate medical personnel very soon as the medical profession within the country needs a serious look at. The government seemed to have forgotten Covid-19 and the lack of public community attention. Frontliners showed what was lacking but nothing really done to address this since then.

Subang Jaya is now seriously in danger of being another hub of foreign population expansion. Even kopitiams have been overtaken. Public sanitary and landscaping have been overtaken. I am not trying to create xenophobia, but this would be a significant issue if left unguarded.

How do you all like the new street lighting poles put up by the local government to replace working street lighting poles? We wonder who approved this plan and the procurement. We wonder if this exercise was more important than placing lighting in places without lights instead.

We entrusted our tax paying money to them to do this. Are we ok? The heat is increasing in Subang Jaya.

I wish all Muslim readers a Selamat Bulan Berpuasa for this period and Selamat Hari Raya Puasa in advance.