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The Star Online: Metro: South & East

Tanjung Piai needs more public amenities and tourist attractions
Joyous shouts of good fortune fills the air at Chingay celebration
Abdul Ghani: Johor Malays fear PAS for extreme religious views if they govern state

Tanjung Piai needs more public amenities and tourist attractions

Posted: 10 Mar 2013 08:11 PM PDT

TANJUNG PIAI: This area attracts tourists from around the world who throng Tanjung Piai National Park to experience the thrill of being at the Southern tip of not just Peninsular Malaysia but Asia.

Tanjung Piai is the only Ramsar wetlands in the state, which has a lot of mangrove and is diverse with marine and migratory birds.

Known for its fishing activities and seafood restaurants located on stilts, Tanjung Piai is located along the coast of south Johor.

The Tanjung Piai constituency, made up of Pekan Nenas and Kukup, is about half an hour drive from Johor Baru via the Skudai-Pontian highway.

Usually at the mention of Pekan Nenas, people will instantly associate the place with pineapples and pineapple plantations.

With the many resorts and homestay villages in the constituency, the tourism sector in the area has boomed over the years but locals feel that more can be done not just to develop the sector but also spruce up the area including adding more facilities and amenities.

Traditional Chinese Medicine shop owner Teo Giak Song, 46, from Kukup, said the area lacked other leisure attractions for tourists to enjoy during their stay there.

Teo said on weekends especially, he noticed between 20 and 30 tour buses making stops at the Kukup bus station, which is next to his shop.

"This is a good sign and shows that domestic and international tourists are visiting our area.

"But other than going for boat rides to look at the mangrove forest, fish kelongs and karaoke activities at the resorts, there is hardly much to do for tourists here.

"I believe that the tourism sector can be expanded with the building of more attractions, which will in turn benefit other businesses as well," he said.

Teo, who has been operating in Kukup for four years, suggested attractions that are more focused on health and a person's wellbeing.

"If rightly done, more tourists are expected to arrive in Tanjung Piai in the coming years as people would want to escape the 'urban jungle' and busy city life for a solar solace by the sea," he added.

But not many people know that the Pekan Nenas was not its original name. The town was initially called Batu 27, according to bakery owner Noorhaza Mardikon, 40, who grew up there.

"It was because many people ventured into pineapple harvesting few decades ago and there were also many pineapple processing plants and production factories for the fruit that the name was then changed to Pekan Nenas," she said.

However, Noorhaza said these days many pineapple harvesters have switched to oil palm and rubber plantation as these commodity items fetched higher prices.

"We now rarely see pineapple farms along the roads compared to before. It's a shame because our town used to be unique and true to its name but now Pekan Nenas is slowly losing its identity," she said.

She said Pekan Nenas could be developed into a pineapple town with rural industries and pineapple crafts to attract more tourists to the area.

Other than that, she hoped that more wireless village programmes would be established in Pekan Nenas to enable children to keep up with technology.

"Furthermore, children nowadays require help from the Internet to look for information to complete their school projects and having free wi-fi would really be useful," she said.

Mother-of-three Fizah Mat Nor, 39, said there was a lack of recreational parks for her family to spend quality time together during the weekends.

"There are not many places or parks where we can have picnics or just spend time together.

"We usually have to take a 30-minute drive to Taman Universiti in Skudai, Johor Baru for a picnic at one of the recreational parks in the residential area there," she said.

She hoped that there would be a waterpark in the area for children and adults to have fun instead of travelling to Johor Baru or Desaru.

She also said that the roads in Pekan Nenas have improved a lot, as they are much wider and systematic.

"But the road along Jalan Ulu Choh is quite smelly especially for those who travel by motorcycle as there are chicken farms nearby," she said, adding that she hoped that the farm owners would be more hygienic to lessen the foul smell.

Fizah also said that there were more shopping alternatives for housewives like her who usually compare prices of goods before doing her weekly marketing.

She said before the hypermarkets opened, she usually shopped for goods at sundry shops and the local market where the prices were quite high.

Meanwhile, I. Sara, who sells cendol along Jalan Sawa in Pekan Nenas, brought up the issue of rising cost of items and said that more Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia should be opened there.

"There are a lot of poor people living here and while there are many hypermarkets opening up, I feel that the Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia will provide more convenience for the villagers," said the 44-year-old.

Sara, who has been selling cendol in a makeshift stand for the past 15 years, said she preferred to conduct her business by the roadside, as most of her customers are Singaporeans.

"Tourists from Singapore usually love the feeling of sitting at the side of the road while having their cendol, which is why I never thought of moving into a hawker centre all these years," she said.

Taxi driver Koo A Ta, 67, who works around Kukup, said not much had changed in the past five years.

"The difference can only be seen if you compare this place with how it was 10 years ago.

"The current bus station used to be a body of water, which underwent land reclamation projects and now there are shop lots, holiday resorts and housing areas here," he said.

Koo said floods affected residents there about three times a year especially during the monsoon season.

"The water would reach knee level when the tide rises at year-end and our livelihood are affected as well because the taxi stand, located next to the bus station would be flooded.

"The drains are clogged and sewer is damaged, which probably contributes to the poor water flow," he said.

He also hoped that the taxi stand would be upgraded with a connected shelter for customers coming from the bus station.

"When it rains, customers would get drenched because there is no proper facility," he added.

Meanwhile, security guard A. Vijayamani, 39, hoped for more low-cost homes to be built in the area so that people like her with no family could have a chance to own a property.

She also said that it was difficult to look for houses to rent in Pekan Nenas.

"Many people who moved here bought their own houses while house owners who let their houses charge high rental from RM800 to RM1,000," she said.

She said it took her a few months to find a place to rent and finally gave up and moved in with her colleague.

Besides that, Vijayamani said there was a lack of bus and taxi services in Pekan Nenas.

"I expect this place to enjoy more development in the future and hopefully the public transport system will improved to elevate Tanjung Piai into a modern town status," she added.

This general election, both Barisan Nasional and the opposition will be trying to outdo each other to win over the 51,258 voters in this constituency.

Joyous shouts of good fortune fills the air at Chingay celebration

Posted: 10 Mar 2013 08:06 PM PDT

Johor Baru: The chants of Huat ah! and Heng ah! (good fortune and luck) reverberated the city of Johor Baru as thousands of people including tourists lined the streets of Johor Baru city to watch the deities from the five main Chinese dialect clans on palanquins were paraded along a 10km route in the annual Chingay procession.

The event, involving more than 19 colourful and brightly lit floats and various lion and dragon dance troupes brought the Chinese New Year celebration in Johor to an end on the 21st day of the Lunar calendar.

Devotees kicked off the procession at 7pm at the Xing Gong temple in Jalan Ulu Air Molek and covered streets like Jalan Yahya Awal, Jalan Ibrahim and Jalan Wong Ah Fook.

Besides the usual creative dragon dance designs such as the straw hat dragon, water lily dragon and dragon made out of aluminium tins, there was also a running theme of snakes on most of the floats in conjunction with the Year of the Snake.

IT consultant R. Ashwen, 28, who made a trip from Cheras, Kuala Lumpur to watch the procession for the first time, said the spirit of Johoreans impressed him throughout the whole parade.

"I have never heard of the procession prior to this and I was surprised to see so many devotees and people from all walks of life who are willing to stand for hours just to watch the event.

"This shows that the cultural belief is still strong here and I also chanted 'Heng ah!' along with my girlfriend in hope of getting good luck and fortune throughout this year," he said in a jest.

Technical consultant Hazanah Amizan, 29, said she was amazed that the heavy rain prior to the start of the event stopped just in time for the procession.

"Just an hour before the event there was a heavy downpour and I doubted if the procession would go on as planned.

"But my friend, who has been to the parade every year, said that the devotees usually pray for good weather before the parade and miraculously, the rain stopped just before the procession started," she said.

Meanwhile, lecturer Ma Muk Chi, who came together with 14 of his students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong to do a study about the Chingay procession for their Department of History documentary, said: "We wanted to do research on the procession as the Johor Chingay is something unique to the state and even the Chinese-predominant Hong Kong do not have such a grand celebration.

"We specially made a week-long trip to Johor Baru to take part in the elaborate five-day Chingay celebration as we heard and seen many photos about the event before and had to do a documentary of the event.

"I am glad that we were lucky enough to make it this time around to experience the culture and religious elements of the procession, from the street cleansing ceremony on the 19th day of the lunar month right till the return of the deities to the Johor Baru Ancient Temple on the 22nd day," he said.

Abdul Ghani: Johor Malays fear PAS for extreme religious views if they govern state

Posted: 10 Mar 2013 05:30 PM PDT

JOHOR BARU: The Johor Malays are "fearful" if PAS takes over the state due to the party's extreme views on religion said Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman.

He pointed out that over the last few years, several PAS leaders have come out with religious statements that contradict Islamic values.

Abdul Ghani also said that the Malays in Johor are different from other Malays in Kelantan and Terengganu and would not support PAS.

"Our mindset are different and many Malays here are scared if the Opposition becomes the Government, it would mean that PAS will implement its extreme views on Islam in the country," he said.

He said this at the Johor Gerakan Chinese New Year open house held here recently.

Abdul Ghani, who is also the state Barisan Nasional chief, also chided PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub for contesting in Johor for the general election despite the latter, who is the current Kubang Kerian MP.

He added that even though being a local born, Salahuddin knows that he would not get the backing from the Malays, which was why he is banking on the support from the non-Malays.

"Salahuddin, who wants to become the next Johor Mentri Besar, had never contested here and he knows that he is facing a difficult time here in the general election as the state is a strong Umno and Barisan bastion," he said.

On the recent spat between Johor DAP chief Dr Boo Cheng Hau and his PKR counterpart Datuk Chua Jui Meng over the Gelang Patah seat, Abdul Ghani said it showed that there was no unity in the Opposition.

"It is not the state Barisan's right to comment on their feud and let them fight it out among themselves," he said.

Meanwhile, Abdul Ghani also said that Barisan was the right choice for the rakyat to choose in the general election as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has led the way for the country to become a high-income nation by 2020.

He added that Johor was a good example of economic transformation that have changed the landscape of the state due to several projects including Iskandar Malaysia.

"The prime minister has delivered on his promises and introduced many transformation programmes to help the rakyat socially and economically.

"Barisan will guarantee a bright future for all Malaysians and if the Opposition wins then our development and future may be at stake," he said.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Isnin, 11 Mac 2013