Putrajaya Floral Fest 2022

Launched in 2007, Putrajaya Floral Fest is held annually except for the two years' Covid lockdown in 2020 and 2021. 

Anjung Floria, the venue, was awashed with colorful blooms when a friend and I visited yesterday. This year's theme is orchids, with many unique varieties which yours truly haven't seen before. Apart from orchids, there are chrysanthemums, diasies, sunflowers and roses. But the majority are orchids and chrysanthemums. Even the bees and butterflies visited.

A cultural dance took place while I was there

Each year that the event is held, there are three winners in the theme categories. This year's winning orchids are the Rothschild's Slipper Orchid, Cattleya Orchid and Rhyncholaedia Digbyana, in the following order. (I'm not an orchid expert, it was Mr Google who informed me what the species are.)

1st prize - Paphiopedilum Rothschilddianum (Rothschild's Slipper)

2nd prize - Cattleya Orchid

3rd prize - Rhyncholaelia Digbyana

Date: 29 August - 4 Septemter 2022

Hours:  From 9am to 10pm

Entrance Fees: 

RM15 (Malaysian adults)

RM5 (Malaysian child 7 to 12 years old & senior citizen above RM60 years old)

RM100 (non-Malaysian adult)

RM50 (non-Malaysian child 7 - 12 years old & senior citizen above 60 years old)

Book Review: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

 

Outlander was first published in 1991 but I only came to know of it recently when a friend recommended the book. It is the first in the Outlander book and TV series.

Outlander is a story about time-travel romance between Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser. Claire is a military nurse who served in the World War II. When the war ended in 1945 she reunited with her husband Frank. They had married shortly before war broke out, and were separated for six years. They decided to take a second honeymoon in a village in Scotland where they were married.

It was in that village, up on a hill, where Claire was suddenly transported back in time to 18th century Scotland. There, she met and married Jamie Fraser.

That is the first issue I have with the book. Call it what you want, bigamy is still bigamy regardless of the time period. You can't argue that two hundred years ago Claire wasn't married yet. That argument is not valid because Claire wasn't even born yet at that time. However, the married Claire from year 1945 was the same person who married a second man while still being married. 

My second objection is the relationship between Claire and Jamie. Jamie is a guy who would be arrested and jailed today for domestic violence. But in the book, it was "normal" for a husband to beat his wife, and then get turned on by the beating and raped her. That is one SICK man, to say it's a normal in the 18th century is just a very poor excuse to glamourize domestic violence. 

My third grouse is that Frank, the legal husband, was not given more story-time. He was a gentle, affectionate History professor. I much preferred his personality to that of Jamie Fraser. But because the book was told only from Claire's point of view, there was no mention of a possibly distraught Frank searching for Claire. I wish the author had done a multiple points of view, I would have loved to know what went on in Frank's mind as he searched fruitlessly for Claire, and how the villagers took the disappearance of her, especially Mrs Baird, the nosy proprietor of the bed and breakfast where Claire and Frank stayed at.

Book Review: Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright & Bradley Hope

 

When Billion Dollar Whale was first published in 2018, it was hard to get a copy in Malaysia. It was not immediately available at local bookstores, neither could I find it online. If not for a relative in Australia who sent a copy to me, I would not have been able to read it. 

Wait....why am I reviewing a book that I read four years ago? That's because the law seems to have finally caught up with a few of the people involved in the financial fraud, and when I mentioned some details from the book to friends and acquaintances, I found to my surprise that many have yet to read the book. Neither were they aware of its existence.

Billion Dollar Whale is an account of Jho Low, a young Malaysian man who came from a relatively wealthy but obscure background to become one of Hollywood's high-flyers who mingled with the likes of Paris Hilton, Megan Fox and Leonardo DiCaprio, just to name a few. Well, perhaps "mingled" is a wrong word. He PAID millions in US dollars for them to hang around him at parties.

The book focused on how Jho Low siphoned US$4 billion out of Malaysian public funds. His flamboyance made the movie "Wall Street" looked like child's play. Unfortunately I do not remember enough of the details to write about them in depth (I read the book FOUR years ago!), but a couple of things stayed in my mind till today.

Jho Low used his time in Wharton to make friends with children from elite families. To appear like he's in their league, he rented yachts, luxury homes and cars and passed them off as belonging to his family. There was one luxury home he rented where he planted his family photos strategically around the house to further cement the lie. 

Another impression that lingered was that Jho Low might not like women very much. He might have surrounded himself with extremely beautiful women, but he did not seem to care for their company. 

For example, he would pose with them for the cameras, looking for all the world like he enjoyed their company but once the cameras were gone, he would sit alone or with other men, smoking or drinking. His interactions with them were more like a king with his subjects. It was as if he was telling the women that they might be highly paid sought-after celebrities, but they're nothing more than background setting to him.