Divorce statistics in Malaysia

It’s an oft-cited “statistic” (at least in Western countries): 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce. It’s a result of the weakening of the “traditional” family unit. People are more casual about their romantic relationships, which leads to lack of commitment to see through a lasting marriage.

How true is it though? Or more appropriately, does it apply to Malaysia?

Divorce as a topic has been in the news in the past few weeks. We have read about a growing concern about the local divorce rate. We discovered that one of the state governments has a small but successful program to sponsor a second honeymoon for couples thinking of heading to divorce. Based on the success of that program, they were considering expanding the program. Then we heard of another proposal for enrolling husbands in some sort of grooming course to better their appeal to their wives.

Strange and fantastic news indeed. So what feeds this fear on divorce rates? Is there some basis for this fear? Just how bad a beating is the institution of marriage suffering in Malaysia?

To do my research, I didn’t go for a primary source, such as the National Registration Department and/or Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (JAKIM), although my source did rely on those two sources. After searching online, I found a paper researched by Samuel Chan Hsin Chien and Mohamed Sarif Mustaffa, for the Faculty of Education, University Technology Malaysia, Johor. The paper’s main purpose was to discover the situation of divorce in Malaysia.

From the two primary sources mentioned above, the authors of the research paper have obtained statistics on registered marriages and divorces amongst Muslims (from JAKIM) and Non-Muslims (from NRD) for the years 2000 to 2005, with a breakdown by state. The authors reached two conclusions from the data gathered.

First, although the divorce rate has grown moderately over the five year period from 9.88% to 12.83%, this is still small compared to some developed countries such as the US (51%, 1998), Australia (49%, 1996), Canada (48%, 1995), and Germany (44%, 1997). I don’t know the source of their statistics for those countries, but it does fit the standard notion that 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce. Unfortunately, those are also old statistics, so the situation may have changed now. No matter. It’s not the direction I’ll be looking at.

The second conclusion the authors reached is that the divorce rate amongst the Muslims is keeping proportionate to the increasing number of marriages, but the situation is not the same with the Non-Muslims. With the Non-Muslims, the number of marriages actually declined, while the number of divorces doubled. This led to an increasing divorce rate amongst the Non-Muslims, from 2.63% to 7.19%. Whether this is a trend that continued beyond 2005 and still continues today might be worth examining in detail. Nevertheless, the divorce rate amongst the Muslims is still significantly higher, increasing from 14.71% to 15.51%.


Playing around with the data, I came up with a graph comparing the split between Muslim/Non-Muslim marriages and divorces. It’s instructive to note that demographically, the ratio in the population is roughly 60%/40% Muslim/Non-Muslim. Looking back at the graph, it appears that a larger portion of Malaysia’s Muslim population is getting married as compared to the Non-Muslim population. Still, more than 80% of the divorces in the country were between Muslim couples. Although the gap between share of marriages and share of divorces is shrinking, that’s still about 15 points higher than the ratio of marriages between Muslims and Non-Muslims.


An interesting side story arises once we examine the data breakdown by state. Considering the average rate of divorce over the years examined, we discover that the top three worst states in descending order are Selangor, KL, and Penang, all with an average divorce rate above 15%. The three best states in ascending order are Sabah, Kedah, and Johor, incidentally the only states together with Sarawak and Negeri Sembilan with divorce rates below the national average of 11.55%. So Sabahans have the best marriages, and Selangorites have the worst? I’m not going to touch that topic with a ten foot pole.

So what do the authors make of this state of affairs? What are the major drivers of divorce in Malaysia? Unfortunately, the paper does not delve into this issue, but instead cites “numerous foreign literatures” (sic) as stating that the top three factors that influence divorce are “1) infidelity, 2) no longer in love, and 3) emotional problems.” It’s very likely that those factors are inter-related, and possibly so with other factors as well.

Are these the main factors that play a role in the Malaysian context? I don’t know. I have not located any research that studies this. But if they do, does that mean those state programs we read about recently are on the right track?

I should take this opportunity to note that I, too, am now a statistic. I join the ranks of the many faceless ones people always hear about. Those supposed sad cases, or scandals. Now I know, there is nothing to be either proud or ashamed about. It just is. Adjustments are made. Life goes on. And no, I’m not interested in participating in a survey. Not now at least.

NaNoWriMo 2009 will have to take a pass

I had wanted to make time for NaNoWriMo this year, but other issues have taken on a greater urgency. I am now working more fervently on a non-fiction piece entitled “Curriculum Vitae”, as well as an accompanying fiction piece with a working title of “Handover Notes”. The fiction piece promises to be epic. :-)

Celebrating A’isyah’s 4th birthday

We had a small family celebration for A’isyah’s fourth birthday. I’m not really into big celebrations, preferring more intimate parties. So far, A’isyah’s getting similar treatment. Hehe. That might change as she grows older. I can’t say that I was never jealous of people having big, elaborate birthday parties as I grew up, and yet I grew to appreciate the smaller scale celebrations.


She actually had a pre-birthday celebration with her grandma in Ipoh, the weekend after Raya.



A’isyah was certainly excited on her big day, dancing around, waiting to get her presents. When it came down to it, she almost opened her presents before anything else. I had to convince her that the cake-cutting wouldn’t take too long. We sang “Happy Birthday” to her, she blew out all four of her candles, cut the cake, then ran from the table towards her presents. Hehe. I helped her open her gifts while the rest of the adults went to eat. I managed to get her to eat a bit, and try at least a bite of her own cake (a design that she had chosen herself over the weekend).



In the end, knowing that she was happy was worth it.

NaNoWriMo 2009 is just around the corner

November is fast approaching, and that means the month-long writing “competition” is about to start. NaNoWriMo is really a competition against yourself, and in my past two outings, I have failed miserably. Hehe. Heck, I didn’t even manage to close out my previous efforts as I had previously thought I could do. To be honest, that was because I didn’t make the time. After all, that’s what it’s all about. If you’re serious about it, you’ll make the time. You’ll set aside part of your day to writing.

I had almost given up on that. I was going to avoid the disappointment with myself and not participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo. I’ve only just posted the sum of my efforts from 2007, over at Self-RW, a grand total of five (mini-)chapters. Yay me.

But I will not be deterred. This year, I’ve decided to put some planning into it. I’ll see if I can come up with a framework for my “novel” in the next two weeks. That should help with the writing.

Malaysian drivers and the rain

You’d think with all the rain we get year-round, Malaysian drivers would be better accustomed to driving in the rain. It’s obvious we haven’t adapted to the conditions though. Not when you still hear about all the accidents that accompany news of a downpour.

This morning it rained. And on the way to work, I heard the traffic reports on the radio. There was mention of quite a few accidents on the roads around town. We’re talking multi-car pileups, and it wasn’t even raining that hard.

People just refuse to adapt their driving to the road conditions. If it’s raining, visibility will be poorer. You’ll need just a fraction of a second longer to react to the brake lights of the car in front of you. The roads will be more slippery, with pools of water here and there. Even if hydroplaning isn’t an issue, drivers will still make sudden moves to avoid puddles. You could see abrupt swerving, sudden unexpected slowdowns, and all sorts of impulsive driving.

What should you do? Slow down! Turn on some lights so other drivers can see you clearly, but not your hazard lights, please. Come on, people! It’s not that hard to practice safe driving.

It’s not about you. It’s about the other driver. The one who’s not as good as you. The one who swerved violently when you expertly dodged that puddle of water, and who then rammed into your mother’s car, just behind yours. Think about it.

So it’ll be ready after all

I was starting to wonder about the fate of the Meydan Racecourse. As confirmed by DubaiRaceNight.com, however, Meydan will indeed be ready for the 2010 Dubai World Cup. The Winter Racing Challenge’s probably gonna be held at a different racecourse. The Dubai International Racing Carnival will debut at Meydan, with a more compact schedule due to begin on 28 January 2010.

Video tape

Yup, still buying them. I’ve got an old Panasonic NV-GS35 camcorder. It’s a pretty decent video camera, bought at a PCFair in 2006.

This is a PriceWatch entry, so I’m just entering details here.

Item: Mini DV video tape, 60 min, pack of 3
Brand: Panasonic
Price: MYR 45.00
Date of Purchase/Survey: 02/10/2009
Place of Sale: MidValley Megamall
Comparison: Dubai, 03/05/2007 (pretty much the same price)

Let’s talk about friendship

The October 2009 company newsletter – the newsletter’s second issue, following the inaugural September 2009 issue – will have a theme of “Friendship”. The Editorial Board has invited staff to contribute an article of not more than 300 words on the topic. I have two reasons for not submitting to the newsletter. First, I’d rather write to a wider audience anyway. And second, the deadline’s passed. Hehe.

It’s a good topic for the internal company newsletter, especially since the majority of the staff is in Dubai, separated from family. Friendships, especially workplace friendships, take on a whole new significance for them.

“You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends.” Our friends, then, are a reflection of us. After all, if you choose your friends, then your selection must say something about your priorities and personality. Why would you choose a friend who is incompatible or only serves to introduce aggravation and grief into your life? And yet, we need variety. How would we discover anything if all viewpoints we encounter reflect only our own thoughts? Good thing then that we don’t have complete control over our friends.

There are many flavours of friends we collect in our lives. There are those long-term kindergarten friends, the ones we grew up with in the neighbourhood, and have maintained a relationship over the ages. It’s possible this friendship has morphed over the years, but some bonds really do last. The same can be said of all the school friends we make, from grade school to middle school, and onto high school. These are the people we spent the majority of our time with during our formative years, in a feedback loop as we formed our unique personalities. A select few will graduate with us to adult life, but most will fall by the wayside as lives separate, geographically, spiritually, philosophically, politically.

Friendship in adult life gets more complicated, and usually more fulfilling. Your university friends are the ones most likely to last your lifetime. These are the friends who slaved over assignments and reports with you, who participated in clubs and associations with you, who ranted against professors with you, who partied with you, who cheered at sporting events with you. For most people university was the first period away from home, so it was a big deal. You had to be independent, and were going through that experience with others who were also in the same boat. Some people were insular during this period, only making friends from those in the same course as them. Others threw the net wider, and made friends studying other disciplines. But your classmates from freshman year are most likely to be your closest friends.

And then there are the friend “also-rans”. There are the acquaintances at work, some of whom genuinely became friends and stuck around in your life even if you moved jobs. There are the friends you made online, some of whom you even meet IRL. This last group is probably the only group of friends you actively sought out, and not people who evolved into friends through circumstance. However, most of them would remain as acquaintances, or fellow hobbyists.

The other friends we have to ask ourselves about, to be certain they are friends, are the ones we meet through circumstance. These are from all those other groups; the friends from school, from work, and so on. Brought together by our situations, we sometimes find out that we’re only friends as far as we remain in that condition. Move schools, swap courses, move to another country, change jobs, and we may find that we no longer connect with our old friends.

“Friends come and go, but true friends always stay.”

True friends are those who stick with you, even after circumstances change. Don’t belittle “only friends” though; they’re valuable because they lend you a social life, and they introduce that needed variety into your life. Your circle of true friends is probably smaller though. The Internet and social networking doesn’t change this dynamic. Keeping in touch with your friends does not equate to connecting with them.

People change. People grow. Your true friends will grow with you, and accept you as you change. Treasure these people.

Typhoon Ondoy

The big news for me this weekend wasn’t Tiger Woods not winning The Tour Championship but still winning the FedExCup (though that was a great story; and lest we forget, Phil Mickelson had a great final round, winning the Tour Championship in style), or Lewis Hamilton winning his second F1 race of the season (and Jenson Button still edging teammate Rubens Barrichello for championship points). No, the big news for me was Typhoon Ondoy, internationally known as Tropical Storm Ketsana.

Ketsana started attacking the Philippines on Saturday morning, 26 September 2009, but people were as yet unaware of how bad it would get. Consequently, business went on pretty much as usual. It was only later that day that it became obvious that this storm was going to be more devastating than normal. Ketsana was historically the worst storm to hit Metro Manila in recorded history, and dumped more rain on the city than Hurricane Katrina did on New Orleans.

I only found out about it Saturday night, and I immediately turned to the net for news. Electricity was out in many parts of Manila, and the phone lines were mostly down. SMS’ took awhile to reach, but at least they made it through. Calls were difficult to place, but at least the Internet was up.

Clean-up’s gonna take awhile, that’s for sure.

Reminds me to be thankful that Malaysia is safe from most natural hazards. Sure, we still suffer from floods, and landslides, and even took a hit from the Asian Tsunami. But Malaysia doesn’t get anything on this scale.

Who? Sara. SARAwho?

Well, looks like I’m now showing up on the SARAwho blog aggregator as well. Thanks, boringest, for the add!

I had earlier written about my search for local blog aggregators, which took me to SARAwho. Of the ones I reviewed, it was the only one with a regional reach, although how regional is up for debate.

I’ll admit, even though when I do visit the site, I don’t click through most of the links, it’s still useful as a snapshot of the current conversation. There’s something appealing about the simple presentation, with only posts within a set timeframe showing. It focuses your attention only on what’s current, instead of sending you scrolling through post after post until you notice that you’re reading posts from a couple of days ago.

Only wish there were more regional blogs on SARAwho though. That would make it more interesting.

North-South traffic over the Aidilfitri weekend

Even with the government declaring last Friday a school holiday in the hopes that people would stagger their exodus from urban centres in general – and KL specifically – traffic on the highways was still terrible over the weekend. Due to work, I only left KL with my family on Friday evening. We were headed up north to Ipoh, which usually takes just over two hours on the North-South Expressway. We made it on the highway just before midnight on Friday, and immediately we realized it was going to be a long night. There were many cars on the roads, and every rest area was full, with long lines leading into and out of them. We didn’t notice any accidents, which was a good thing.

A good four hours plus later, we pulled into the driveway of my grandmother’s house in Ipoh. I collapsed on the couch after arriving, awakening soon after for sahur.

The return trip on Tuesday morning was much easier by comparison. Traffic was standard, so we made it back in normal time. I guess people haven’t started returning to KL yet, which explains why it was so easy getting parking this morning.

Post-Raya in KL

It’s the middle of the week, and the day after two days of public holiday, but life hasn’t really returned to normal yet in KL. No surprise really. I’m sure lots of people extended their leave. I know a few people at the office did. I don’t mind the slower pace. It was even easy to find parking this morning on normally-packed-by-0900 Jalan Riong, beside the NST office.

Who still sends Hari Raya cards?

I have received one greeting card this year, and that’s a standard issue card that KLCC Property Holdings Bhd provides to all its directors. One such director then gave cards out to all the Muslims at our office.

The last time I gave out cards was 5 or 6 years ago. Actually went out to buy some cards, and then addressed them to a small group of close friends. I actually remember one year getting cards, addressing them, and then forgetting to deliver them! Not all, but some. That was probably the catalyst that got me to join the crowd with SMS greetings instead. They were instant, you could be sure the recipient got them in time, and it was easy to make sure you sent a greeting to everyone. I’ve always found ASCII art captivating, the way simple, repetitive icons can combine to paint a picture. I sometimes re-sent some of the more interesting SMS’ that I received.

The advent of social networking gives us the latest iteration in the evolution of the Hari Raya greeting. You have a few options. You could tweet a greeting to all your followers; or set a new Facebook status message; or for something more flashy, post a picture of a greeting card and tag all your friends. Heck, with this last method you could even segregate your greetings. One picture per group of friends!

I’ll admit that this year, as usual, I don’t have any cards to give out. It’s not that I don’t care; I have a much smaller circle now anyway. But I’m afraid of being thought gauche for sending out SMS greetings, although that would still reach (slightly) more people than an FB status greeting.

I’ll settle for a multi-pronged approach. To those who really matter, you’ll hear it from my lips. To others, you’ll read my words. The thought remains the same. May Allah accept your honest fast. Eid Mubarak! Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri! Maaf Zahir dan Batin.

And drive safely on the roads.

Pet peeve: Inconsiderate boors who park on main roads and hamper traffic

That was a long one, but deserving of a long title to describe this bane of road users. You know the type. Those people who only consider their own convenience, other road users be damned! They like to park closest to building entrances, not minding if they take up most of a lane which should be used for moving vehicles, i.e. a traffic lane and not a parking spot. It used to be that the front entrance of Bangsar Shopping Centre was a showcase of such boors. These people would park at the curb, blocking traffic so that those cars crossing the traffic light from the Damansara Heights direction would have to squeeze into one lane. It was a constant menace and no doubt contributed to the long lines crawling up the hill to the intersection in front of BSC.

Well, sometime back, BSC decided to be responsible and put up no parking signs, complete with chains, alongside the curb on Jalan Maarof, to remind motorists that they should not park there. Unfortunately, some people can’t for the life of them imagine why they should be barred from parking there. After all, it’s so convenient to park your car there and pop in to BSC for a bit of shopping or a nice two hour steak lunch, say. Moreover, it’s such a hassle to actually have to go into the underground parking, which is so crowded anyway.

I figure that must be their thought process.


Take this example, spotted just yesterday by yours truly while waiting in traffic on the opposite side. He parks his BMW by the curb, gets out, and starts to make his way into BSC. A security guy comes up to him, obviously indicating that he can’t park there. He doesn’t pay much heed to the security guard. Another security guard joins the first, and the two proceed to remind our motorist that he can’t very well leave his car by the road-side. Our BMW-driver seems upset, and gestures dismissively to the two security guards, turns his back to them, and goes his merry way.

I managed to get a snap of his car too.



Then my light turns green, so I don’t get to see the finale for this little show. Somehow I suspect it was a muted denouement. After all, what could the management of BSC do? Call for the car to be towed away? Perish the thought!

Ending self-imposed exile

It’s been close to a year since I took my blog private, by stopping to ping PPS. Since then, I’ve ceased to utilize PPS altogether. I even checked out other blog aggregators to continue finding interesting posts to read. Now that I’ve decided to come out of the woodwork again (so to speak), I signed up at blogged.my and will start pinging there. It seems to be a fair bit easier to ping there than PPS used to be, although it would be much easier if I were using Wordpress.

So why am I ending my self-imposed exile now? Probably for the same reasons I started pinging PPS: just to share my voice.

Hello, world. Again. :-)

Massively multiplayer...Monopoly!

Eh?

I just found out that Hasbro has been working on a massively multiplayer online game version of Monopoly. And here’s the cool bit: it’s based off Google Maps, so you’re dealing with real streets in real cities, all over the world! And for additional oomph there will be SketchUp buildings that can be used in the “game”.

The game is called Monopoly City Streets, and there’s a blog at Blogger here. It’s unclear whether this is an official collaboration with Google, or Hasbro is just utilizing all Google tools for this game.

At the moment, this game will run for four months only, ending in January 2010. This promises to be fun!

When you’re driving, pay attention to those traffic lights

This is a timely public service announcement. As the Malaysians Unite For Road Safety Day approaches (090909), I’d like to share a tip: no matter what, always pay attention to the traffic lights. It seems simple enough, but not enough people obey them.

And then there’s the case of two traffic lights in succession on a stretch of road, too close to each other. That can lead to the situation I found myself in last weekend. On the way back from a Ramadan bazaar in Bangsar, I stopped at a red light at the corner of Jalan Maarof and Jalan Bangkung. I was there a couple of seconds before I noticed a car approaching in my rear-view mirror. It was moving far too fast, and I thought it was your typical Malaysian driver who would stop dramatically right behind the car in front of them. He was coming too fast though, so I pressed down on the car horn, but it was too late. He rammed into me.



No one in our car was hurt, even though it was quite a knock. When I got out of the car, the young driver also came out, looking quite sheepish. I’ll admit I was babbling at him, admonishing him for not noticing the red light, and then switching to asking if everyone in his car was alright. We pulled over to the side road to talk through things.

His car:



Our car, from the rear:



And from the side:



As you can see, it wasn’t so bad. The bumper dropped, and the rear door was jammed shut.

Of course, the front of his car was totaled:



This is what happens when you don’t pay attention to the road. If I had been in the outside lane, I may have moved to the side. But I can’t be certain, because it all happened just too fast to react.

I noticed in that second before the impact that he wasn’t looking in front. His face was turned and he was chatting with his girlfriend in the front passenger seat. Since the traffic light just before had been green, he must have assumed the next one would be green too. It could have been worse though. I'm not sure if everyone in his car was wearing seatbelts, because I noticed a crack in his windsheild. His girlfriend may have knocked her head there, but there was no obvious injury. The girl in the back though (his sister?) had her kneed jammed into the back of the driver’s seat, and said it hurt. I advised them to get everything checked out.

Good thing we bought food at the bazaar. We got back home in time to break fast, although rice had to be cooked at the last minute. As for them – well, I noticed there was a lot of spilled McDonald’s food in the car which they had to dump. And I’m not sure they made it home in time, because when we parted it was already almost 7pm. On the phone, I don’t think he shared with his dad just how bad the damage was, since his dad told him to drive the car home...

52nd Merdeka

Malaysia will be celebrating its 52nd year of independence on 31 August 2009. That’s 52 years of self-rule, free of the colonial overlords.

I have to stop and think about that for a moment. As someone born, if not in, at least as a citizen of, an already free nation, I take that freedom for granted. We are the masters of our own fate, but who exactly is this “we”? Who are the ones in charge now? Who do we look to for leadership? Where do we get our direction from?

More importantly, who is responsible? We have to stop thinking “someone else”, and start accepting “us” as the answer. What do we want the country to look like? We need to decide, and we need to speak up, and we need to act. We shouldn’t take things for granted. And we need to remember that “we” includes many peoples from many backgrounds. The challenge is taking these differences, allowing for these differences, while still forging ahead as one.

Here’s hoping that we can all be reasonable, be responsible, and move together as one.

1 Ramadhan, 1430H

That’s tomorrow’s date in the hijri calendar, and it marks the start of the fasting month for Muslims. Now since the hijri calendar is (sorta) a lunar calendar, and the start of Ramadhan coincides with the observation of the new moon, the fasting month begins on different days depending on which country you’re in. Some have actually started today, and some won’t start til Sunday.

Ramadhan is the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, promising rewards for the devout Muslim. I won’t go into all that, as I’m hardly the best tutor for the subject. Here in Malaysia, though, Ramadhan also coincides with the most amazing culinary delights of the year. It’s not uncommon for people to feel that you get the best foods during this time of year. From the street bazaars offering the (seemingly) unique Ramadhan and Aidilfitri fare, to the buka puasa buffets in all the top restaurants and hotels, all the best foods Malaysia has to offer make their appearance during this month. Seriously, when else are you going to find lemang in the streets? And that’s just one example.

I definitely go to the pasar Ramadhan whenever I can, to stock up on foods for the breaking of fast, or for sahur the next morning. As for the buffet treats, I haven’t tried many of them. Not that that’s necessarily because I’m at the mosque performing tarawih. Sometimes it’s just too much bother. You definitely have to book for those buka puasa dinners, cos the seats go quickly. And finding a surau for maghrib prayers can sometimes be troublesome.

That’s ok though. I figure I’m not really missing out. I shouldn’t be gorging myself on delicious foods for an hour after a full day of fasting anyway. It’s not healthy. Everything in moderation.

Here we go then. One month – 30 days – of testing your discipline, reflecting on your worthiness, appreciating all that you have, and enriching yourself.

Ramadhan Kareem! Selamat berpuasa!

I read, I write

And I share too! :-) I just started a new blog here, where I'll be sharing some of my writings.