Land Below The Wind

I've been waiting for a blog entry by a team member of Hunters "R" Us on a particular task during the recent KK City Tourism Treasure Hunt which they won. I had the impression that he had intended to make an entry about this hunt, but perhaps he decided not to do so in the end. So I am blogging about it now.

Of the many tasks we had to perform that day was to collect a stamp from a marshal at the Gaya Street in KK City. However, before we can qualify for that stamp, we had to verbally translate an English sentence into Kadazan.

The sentence read something like this:

I love Sabah, land below the wind.

A very simple and straightforward sentence which would appear very easy to translate. I grew up in a Kadazan neighbourhood and I can speak quite a bit of the language too. But I found myself lost for words for the above translation! So I decided to call up my step-mother to seek her help. My step-mother is a pure Kadazan woman—Kadazan (Penampang dialect) is her first language and she still speaks it on a daily basis with her family members, friends and neighbours. I myself learned the language mainly from her, though I have lost some of it, having been out of practice for some years now.

The funny thing was that she was lost too! Isn't it very strange? A pure Kadazan, who speaks the language fluently on a daily basis, can't translate a sentence into that language! After she considered that sentence for some minutes, she gave something like this:

Guminavo zou tinau id siibo do tongus.

But she seemed uncertain. So I called up some other Kadazan friends for second and third opinions. I got something like this:

Guminavo zou Sabah.

and

Guminavo zou tana id siibo do tongus.

In the end, I settled for the one by my step-mother for two reasons. Firstly, from the little that I know about the language, it sounded like the most accurate. Secondly, some other Kadazan friends gave something very close to her version.

When that translation was given to the marshal, it was accepted and we were duly given the precious stamp. But I am not fully satisfied; I have since been asking some other Kadazan friends for the most accurate translation, and believe it or not, nobody dared to claim to have given me the perfect translation so far!

I suppose it's OK to translate "wind" to "tongus". However, "wind" in this sentence is intended to mean "bayu" in Malay, which is slightly different from "angin". I am not very happy to equate "bayu" to "tongus", but I may be wrong.

One of these days I am bound to bump into a tourist in the street who may want to ask for the same translation.

And so I'm asking any of you Kadazan readers out there who might be able to help us all with the translation. Once again, the sentence:

I love Sabah, land below the wind.

Stimulating News

Well, not that we've been informed of the source of the money for the economic stimulus as announced by the Deputy Prime Minister.

At a time when the so-called "Great Recession" is looming over the horizon, I suppose we could use that RM15bil stimulus. But although we are grateful for the RM15bil, we can't help wondering about:

1) Delivery System

In recent times, quite a lot had been promised to Sabah, but we've seen very little of those promises happening up to date. Mega projects worth billions have also been announced, yet hardly any of them had been initiated. If indeed we have those billions of Ringgit allocated for economic stimulus, then deliver them fast—we need the money now.

2) Distribution of Funds

On paper, RM15bil looks like a lot of money. I think many of us would be really happy if we can see RM10bil of those actually flows into the economy. Of the remaining RM5bil (adopting a very conservative estimate), I think it is safe to assume that will be lost—mysteriously—elsewhere. It remains to be seen if the ordinary man in the street will even feel the effects of the stimulus, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

3) Sustainability

If countries around the world are going bust, we just wonder how much longer our Government can keep pumping money into the economy. How much more money do we have to sustain this kind of economic stimulus?

Dirty Harry & His Doctors

These days, I rarely have the opportunities to actually spend the time to have a proper conversation with my dad, the playboy. Well, OK, perhaps it's not so much about the opportunities—maybe it's more like I'd rather avoid to have those conversations. We can rarely agree on anything, so whenever there are things that we can agree on, it would feel like a lotto strike. Of course since he's my dad, I still let him have the last say.

I don't normally give in very easily whenever I feel strongly about anything, and I'm sure most of my readers can see that trait in me. I try to consider the opposing arguments for as long as I can; and I'd expect that the other side would return the favour. But if the opposing side does not bother to consider my arguments, then I will gracefully withdraw from the debate. For I do not see the prospect of the debate arriving at anything meaningful.

I had one such debate with the playboy recently—it's about the lad, Kugan, who died while he was in the legal custody of the police. The story has again shown that our police has a strange way of conducting their business. Malaysia's police force is famous for many similar stories in the past. We have heard of a policeman who raped a teenage girl who was brought in for interrogation. Even the (former) top fellow in the police force has been known to beat up a prisoner. What's more, he did it in a most cowardly fashion—he ordered his men to blindfold the prisoner before he executed some Mike Tyson maneuvers on him.

Put yourselves in the shoes of the police personnel. You've just caught this guy who you're convinced is a bloody car thief. But he just won't admit his crime. You have strong reasons to believe that he is the guy you've been looking for. But you can't do very much if you can't get a confession from him—except of course if you beat the confession out of him. Would you adopt the Dirty Harry approach?

The playboy is of the opinion that the police should be allowed to use force to get the confessions from criminals. If they are not allowed to use force, then many criminals would probably escape the punishments they deserve. A lot of the police's efforts would go to waste.

I don't quite agree with his views. In life, a lot of the times we just can't take things for granted. Sometimes things may not be like what they appear to be. Some people may appear convincingly guilty, when actually they are not. I believe that everyone should be given the benefits of the doubt. Conduct your investigations as much as you like; interrogate exhaustively if you must, but not with physical force.

If we can allow police brutality, one of these days some of us may find ourselves in prison for a crime we did not commit, yet the police is allowed to beat a confession out of us. It always seems OK when it happens to others, but not when it happens to us. Furthermore, I am even willing to risk a hundred hardcore criminals escaping the gallows for the sake of sparing an innocent person the punishment of a crime he did not commit.

Apart from the possibility of convicting the wrong person, police brutality also opens the door to abuse. And unfortunately, our police force is known to be quick to take advantage of things like that. And even if they did conduct an investigation, we are kept guessing if the investigation was conducted appropriately.

In the Kugan's case, for example, police post-mortem found the death of Kugan as "being due to fluids in the lungs"; whereas a second post-mortem "found 42 marks, burns and contusions throughout the body. It declared that Kugan was beaten so badly that his muscle tissues broke down, made their way into the bloodstream and to his kidneys, causing them to fail."

The first post-mortem was conducted at the Serdang Hospital Mortuary; and the second post-mortem was conducted at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre. One has to wonder how the Serdang Hospital's doctor missed those findings during the first post-mortem.

Now all eyes are on The Attorney-General's Chambers. While we are waiting for his decision, the good doctor who conducted the second post-mortem probably needs to get round-the-clock protection, not by the police of course, because otherwise he would be the next person performing the disappearing act (we've had a couple of those in Malaysia, haven't we?).

In the mean time, I think Dirty Harry and his doctors should be prepared for a lot to answer.

BIM Returns

Listen up folks! The Borneo International Marathon 2009 is now open for registration!

It's still a long way to 11 October 2009, but yesterday I went round to their office at B625, 6th floor Wisma Merdeka Phase 2 to sign up for Mia and myself. I'll be doing the full course of 42km for the very first time in my life; whereas Mia will be running her second half-marathon.

It was nice to meet Shan again. It's been quite a while since the last time I saw her. She looked stunning with longer hair (grow it longer, Shan). I've always said that women should keep long hair; they look beautiful and sexy that way, don't you agree? Unfortunately, Mia cut her hair short just before she ran the Singapore Marathon last year. Gave me quite a shock when she came home one day with short hair!

Anyway, folks, it's time to sign up for the Borneo International Marathon 2009 now. Don't miss the early-bird rates. See you at the starting line at the Likas Track & Field Stadium on 11 October 2009!

First Time Flying

Thought this is an interesting photo forwarded by some friends recently entitled First Time Onboard The Plane.

Those forsaken safety belts are such a nuisance, don't you think? They can be very confusing to some people.

The Hunters Challenge—One In Five

In the post entitled "Handicap Treasure Hunters", I mentioned that I found some of the past questions by Hunters "R" Us were not very fair to the solvers. I had expected some of them to surface in The Hunters Challenge. And true enough, there were a few, but perhaps there is not much value to discuss them all at length here, since the major problem with this hunt lies in the other aspects such as the time restrictions, handicap issues, hardly any questions for new hunters, speedy presentation etc. However, for the sake of entertainment, I'd like to share with my audience, especially those who were unable to make it for this hunt, just one of the questions which were not meant to be solved.

Treasure 4:

Collectively the below products hold the key,
To identify which one from the five you need to get me,
Sort out the clue and bring back what is due.

And the above lines are followed by 5 pictures:

First picture:

A wafer chocolate named TIMEOUT, I believe by Cadbury.

Second picture:

A box of cereal named HONEY STARS, by Nestle.

Third picture:

A packet of TWISTIES snacks/crackers.

Fourth picture:

A packet of bathing soap named IMPERIAL LEATHER.

Fifth picture:

A packet of chocolates named MILO NUGGETS, by Nestle.


And this was how the the solution was explained by the CoC:

"Collectively the below products hold the key"

"Collectively" means all those pictures (or rather those products shown in the pictures) taken together (collectively).

"hold the key" means, in cryptic way, contain something (key) which can help to derive the solution. In this case, it may be a letter or letters found within the names of those products.

"To identify which one from the five you need to get me"

Tells the solver that those letter (s) found within the names of those products are needed to identify which one of the five items to submit as treasure.

"Sort out the clue and bring back what is due."

Means all those loose letter (s) which were extracted from the names of the products are to be sorted out, literally, to form a sentence; and that resulting sentence in turn is the instruction for which item is the required one.

You follow so far? Capital! We shall now proceed to the next step.

Now let's deal with the first picture—TIMEOUT. From this name, we need to extract (products hold the key) only 2 letters, i.e. ME.

Second picture—HONEY STARS. From this name, we need to extract only 3 letters, i.e. ONE.

Third picture—TWISTIES. From this name, we need to extract only 3 letters, i.e. IST.

Fourth picture—IMPERIAL LEATHER. From this name, we need to extract only 3 letters, i.e. THE.

Fifth picture—MILO NUGGETS. From this name, we need to extract only 3 letters, i.e. GET.

Fine, we have now extracted the required "key" for the riddle:

ME—ONE—IST—THE—GET

But that is still not the end of the story. We now need to sort out these 5 words in the correct order to form a valid sentence, i.e. GET ME THE IST (first) ONE. And so, we simply need to bring in the TIMEOUT chocolate (which is the item shown in the first picture) for the 5 points. voila!

The solution makes perfect sense, you see. And it is extremely hard to find any holes in the explanation. However, when this riddle was conjured up, the setter forgot to look at it from the solver's point of view.

Now let's look at the riddle from the solver's point of view (assuming that he does not know the intended answer).

This first question we must ask ourselves is whether it's reasonable to expect the solver to realise that he needs to extract some letters from the names of the products? Here, the answer should be "yes". I think an average solver would know the significance of "products hold the key".

Next question—is it reasonable to expect the solver to know how many letters to extract from each word (s)? The answer is "no", since there is absolutely nothing in the clue that would suggest anything about the number of letters to extract.

Next question—is it reasonable to expect the solver to know that he needs to sort out the results of those extractions to form a sentence? Again the answer is "no". He might have to sort out those loose letters to form a single word or words, for example, that would give a hint—indirectly—on which item to bring in.

So with this in mind, how would the solver know that he has to extract only ME from TIMEOUT?; how would he know that he has to extract only ONE from HONEY STARS?; how would he know that he has to extract only THE from IMPERIAL LEATHER?; how would he know that he has to extract only IST from TWISTIES? The universal answer for these questions is: by guessing through the process of trial and error.

If the solver had the luxury of time during the hunt, then I might have a different opinion about this riddle. He can then invest those precious minutes to try out the letters one at a time, and then try to form the all-important sentence for the ultimate solution by trial and error. However, under the circumstances of the hunt, that was not really possible.

It follows then that this riddle was not intended to be solved. If anything, it was a mere guessing exercise of choosing one in five. Mathematically speaking, that works out to be about 20% (choosing 1 from 5 possibilities) to strike the correct item. Therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that the percentage of strike for this treasure was also about 20%. Check out the statistics in A Hunter's Tale. It's a bit difficult to see, but one should be able to spot T4 on the graph.

I suppose guessing is OK too, but it takes away the satisfaction of actually solving the riddle. Of course, that is my personal opinion. I'm sure some of you might have guessed correctly and will not lose sleep on how you arrived at the solution.

The Hunters Challenge

"... the Hunters Challenge is a joint-effort of 4 great minds in the sports. I somehow have the impression that they will be all out to outdo each other by creating something outrageously impossible. On the other hand, it is also possible that they will be able to check each other’s products to ensure that they’re sound. So in that case the hunters may find quality questions in the Hunters Challenge. I personally think this latter scenario will be the likelier one, and I am therefore keen to try them out."


The above is a paragraph from an entry I made a few days ago in this blog under "Handicap Treasure Hunters". Some of you might have noticed—at least two of you certainly did—that the blue portion was the original text; whereas the red portion was added later. I'd like to say that it is not my habit to lie when I give my opinions on anything, but in this particular case, I made an exception. Although I said that I believed the team members of Hunters "R" Us (HRU) "will be able to check each other's products" to be the likelier scenario, that was a lie. Actually, I was still convinced that they would be all out to outdo each other to create something outrageous.

But first, let me explain why I had lied.

Shortly after "Handicap Treasure Hunters" was posted, I received several emails and text messages from concerned friends. Apparently, that post was very damaging to the hunt, and those friends were convinced that I might even scare away some new teams. Furthermore, I later found out that some elite teams were also considering withdrawing from the hunt because of their dissatisfaction with the time handicap as well as the tie-breaker issues. I was told that they were then still sitting on the fence, and there was concern that after reading my post, they might just be pushed to the wrong side of the fence.

The purpose of "Handicap Treasure Hunters" was solely for discussion and/or debate only. And while I did not know that I had such an influence on the hunting fraternity, I did not wish to be the one to spoil the show for HRU. There were other reasons too—for one thing, I have made the hotel reservation and purchased plane tickets. If the hunt was cancelled somehow, I'd really be disappointed. The other reason was that I felt that HRU deserved a chance to prove themselves, and it was rather unfair to withdraw at the eleventh hour. But above all of those The Hunters Challenge was dedicated to Vincent Woo, a good friend who's also a team member of HRU. I therefore decided to change a bit the tone of my post.

But now that the hunt is over I am free to comment and criticise once again. In fact, I will be brutal when I think the occasion calls for it! Before I proceed any further, however, I'd like to mention here that there is nothing personal in my comments and criticisms. The team members of HRU are all my good friends, and I am sure they know that I have no ill intentions in my comments.

At this juncture, I'd like to draw my readers' attention to an open letter addressed to the so-called Grand Slammers posted in A Hunter's Tale a few days prior to the hunt. In it HRU sought to justify their rules and regulations; and also gave an insight to their goals in organizing The Hunters Challenge. Incidentally, a few days prior to that, someone suggested that we initiate a kind of report card to grade all CoCs' performances. In fact, it was suggested that the report card be introduced during The Hunters Challenge itself. I didn't think that was a very good idea, because I foresaw that the results wouldn't have been very impressive.

Looking at The Hunters Challenge from an overall point of view, I would say that HRU has failed badly in its objectives. And if there was indeed a report card, then I'd say they probably deserved an F; and it's not even a marginal failure.

Let us now have a look at the more specific aspects of the hunt (I invite comments from those who may have the opposing views):

"The hunt is designed from the beginning for completion in 4 hours."

I am not a Grand Slammer yet, and I am sure no one can deny that HRU is a very, very strong team. But had they hunted yesterday, I would have bet my bottom dollar that they could not have finished the hunt within 4 hours too. The team Cryptically Challenged, helmed by none other than Alex Hoh, won the hunt convincingly with 78 points out of the total 120 points. That works out to be 65%—an embarrassing performance by a grandmaster team (Sorry, Alex, I don't mean to offend you). Even such a well-oiled hunting machine had to drop several tail-end questions to survive that 4 hours 30 minutes time control, in a hunt originally designed for 4 hours. Needless to say that most, if not all, of the other teams dropped the tail-end questions too.

Out of about 30 teams hunting, only 4 teams passed the hunt, i.e. 60 points and above. Check out the results in A Hunter's Tale or Mike's blog. The results speak volume. Grandmasters in the likes of Jayaram Menon, Liong Chian Min, Lim Soo Khian, Adrian Wong, Dominic Roche and some others, all failed to at least achieve the 60-point passing score.

"We have tuned the level of difficulties and distributed them so that the three main categories of hunters (newbies, regulars, Masters) will find treasure hunting challenging and yet enjoyable."

Personally, I love the challenge of very, very tough riddles. But to really enjoy those riddles, I want to be given sufficient opportunities to attempt them. I think most of the elite hunters can agree that the quality of the questions in The Hunters Challenge was very high. That's a real shame because easily 20% to 30% of them, especially the last few, went to waste because the hunters just simply had no opportunity to attempt them.

I think HRU has achieved the "hunting challenging" part of their objective, but I doubt that many new hunters found the hunt "enjoyable" at all. A new hunter I spoke to after the hunt said they practically gave up after the Q5. That's how seriously HRU had misjudged the level of difficulty for this hunt.

"We do not want to make it overly easy - ending up with just a quiz on the road hunt. We all know how that usually end up as a race."

Quite the opposite is the truth—this hunt became more like the Chinese New Year hunt which objective inter alia is to poke fun at the regular hunters with miserable scores. This hunt turned out to be tougher than the SunHunt Masters. The elite teams, I'm sure, were made to wonder which particular questions were the easier ones intended for the new hunters which HRU sought to attract into the sport.

"We have NOT created a handicap - which by definition means that the better teams will be disadvantaged just because they are good."

I have discussed this issue to some extent through exchange of emails with some friends before the hunt. It is now time to bring the discussion into the open.

As far as I am concerned, whenever there is a difference in the hunting duration allocated to different teams, then that amounts to time handicap no matter how one looks at it. There are 2 possible scenarios. One possibility is if the questions are very easy. In that case, all the elite hunters (both the Grand Slammers and TOS masters) can finish the hunt way under 4.5 hours and then rush like mad to the finish station for submission. Then the new hunters, knowing that they won't win anyway, can make use of the extra time to at least attempt the questions, if only for learning purposes. The other possibility is if the questions are super tough—which was the case in this hunt—and the Grand Slammers are disadvantaged on account of insufficient time.

Before the hunt, HRU seemed to suggest that the regular hunters could finish the hunt well before the 4.5 hours time control. KK Chai, in a reply to Alex Hoh under the "Handicap Treasure Hunters" post, challenged Alex to prove him wrong (that the hunt could be completed within 4.5 hours). Hence they're not disadvantaged in terms of time. As events had proven beyond reasonable doubt, this was most certainly not the case. However, for the sake of discussion, had the questions been very easy and the hunters were indeed able to finish the hunt in, say, 4 hours, then I fail to see why bother coming up with the different hunting time. I don't believe that the elite hunters will take their sweet time to only reach the finish station at the last minute, just because they had 5.5 hours. If they had finished the hunt in 4 hours, I'm sure they would all rush like mad to the finish station, even if they had 5.5 hours to hunt.

Therefore, in my humble opinion, the time handicap (yes, it was a handicap) was an ill-perceived innovation by HRU. If it had achieved anything at all, it had only attracted unneccesary objections from the elite hunters. Besides, I don't think it's such a good idea to introduce more handicaps into treasure hunts—but especially not this one.

"We have instead "de-stressed" those who have come to enjoy the hunt in true spirit by taking away from them the challenge of "racing to the finish" in time. For 30 questions, that would be about 2 minutes extra per question - not a lot if you look at it that way."

I'm sure there were strong teams which were unaffected by the time constraints. But this is what I can say for my team—we had 5.5 hours hunting time, and we were all very stressed up because of the time factor. Maybe the Grand Slammers did not mind dropping some questions, but I was kinda disappointed for not having the opportunity to attempt them—win or lose aside.

"We have also added half-an-hour more to make it 4.5 hours for GS teams. This was more to cater for unfavourable traffic conditions that may happen in a spot or two."

That 30 minutes more hardly meant anything at all. After the hunt, I mingled around with some of those Grand Slammers, some of whom were active CoCs themselves, to exchange views. And one of the topics of discussion was of course the hunting duration. The consensus was that this particular hunt needed at the very least 6 hours for proper treatment of all the questions. Although I am not a Grand Slammer myself, I am inclined to agree with their view.

It is also worth mentioning here that a couple of those Grand Slammer teams decided—just for the fun of it—to continue hunting for an hour after they had submitted their answers. They did this to find out if there would have been any difference in their performance had they been given 5.5 hours hunting time. In the end they only managed to solve 1 extra question. So this should give you an idea of the questions we had in this hunt.

In all this, I am most concerned about the new hunters, especially those hunting for the very first time. To those new hunters who told me that "this is the first and last time" and "never again", I sincerely hope that you would change your minds. Let me assure you that not all hunts are like The Hunters Challenge. In fact, The Hunters Challenge is one very extraordinary hunt! Please give us another chance to make you fall in love with this beautiful sport.

So now that I have commented on the hunt from the hunter's point of view, please allow me to share with you what I think went wrong; and what might possibly be done to remedy the situation for future hunts, if any.

I think one of the most common problems about setting hunt questions is that of "blindness". I have had some experience approaching hunt questions both from the solver's and setter's points of view; and I can tell you that they're not the same at all. HRU imposed upon themselves a certain kind of "standard" and I believe they were psychologically influenced in their role as a CoC to produce nothing less than extraordinary questions.

Speaking from experience, when one approaches the riddle from the setter's point of view, he is unable to see or appreciate the nature of that riddle from the solver's point of view. Since he is already aware of the intended answer, his focus will be on that answer, and only that answer alone. Therefore, he is "blind" to the fact that there are many other possible answers within that sector which could cloud the mind of the solver. He forgets that the solver has to work from several possible angles, and then try to fit whatever he can find within the sector. The solver probably has to do that on trial and error basis several times before he finds a perfect fit. But of course there's that problem of spotting the answer too. While doing all those, the solver is also under immense time pressure etc. These elements when combined together will cause more time consumed before one is finally able to arrive at the required answer. It's not as simple as just crack the questions on paper and spot it the next second within the sector. As any hunter will tell you, quite a lot of the time, you will require some time to spot the answer even if you can more or less guess what exactly you are looking for.

Looking at the riddle from the setter's point of view, it is easy to assume that the answer is easily solved and then quickly spotted, even if it's in a sector of about 500 metres containing 1,000 signboards. But nothing could be further from the truth.

It's for these reasons that whenever I clerk a hunt, I'd send out my team members (running on 3 and not knowing the answers to my questions, of course) for a "test drive". It is from their score that I can adjust my questions. Incidentally, I consider them of average standard at best, so I've found that the outcome of my hunts quite consistent and usually well-balanced between the regular and new hunters. I have also noticed that the same approach was also adopted in last year's Kiwanis Hunt (this was announced by Grandmaster Cheong Foo Seong during the presentation). Over the last few hunts that I have clerked, the top teams managed to get almost full score, against the bottom end of new hunters around the passing marks of 50%. I consider that as being fair enough in an open hunt. But I'd be really worried if the regular hunters can't even reach the 50% mark!

I am sure that there are many ways to achieve a well-balanced concoction of hunt questions, and I am sure there are many of those in KL. One such hunt that I myself had joined was co-clerked by Liew Kok Seng and Dato' Ramesh Rajaratnam, i.e. the AMC Hunt. Many of the elite hunters were there that day, and there were some new teams too. But no team got perfect score in the end, and there were a number of easy questions too. And if I'm not mistaken, the time control for that hunt was 5 hours. I'm fairly certain that everyone had fun and at the same time found the riddles challenging too.

In the case of The Hunters Challenge, perhaps the team members of HRU got a bit carried away with innovation in the questions; or in the hunt as a whole. Innovations are good and I welcome them. But I think they should come gradually and not like the explosion of an atomic bomb.

For whatever it's worth, I hope if there is another Hunters Challenge on the horizon, the setter will make it more accommodating for the new hunters. As for the die-hard elite hunters, I'm sure they will all be there, rain or shine!