Research

It triggers me to write about this when I was discussion something about roads on the Penang map that I am working on. One of the contributors asked me why was there a road named J Maxwell on the map while in actual it didn't exist. The map showed there were roads running parallel to each other but actually there was only one. So being in a good mood I decided to gave him a small lesson on the contemporary history of Penang. There was road called Maxwell road before KOMTAR and Prangin Mall were built. Maxwell Road was given way to development when the authority began phase 2 of the KOMTAR construction and later on the Prangin mall. It used to be very busy with open air bus terminal, cinemas, hawker centers, wet market etc. The city folks of George town regarded it as the center of activities. It ws also served as a junk pier for loading and unloading stuffs from ships and the mainland. You see, the one who asked the question was young. He doesn't know this tiny piece of history. It's quite ironic that he has to rely on outsiders like me who is not from the island itself to tell him this. I wonder what has those social science students done in their time when they were doing their course in the only university in Penang?
Research has not needed to be engineering related. It can be anything. Doing a report, finding clues or to understand the history of one place is also called research. And it doesn't neccessary need powerful mainframe computer power to come out simulation in order to understand the history of Penang. It just needs a dedicated group of academics to spend some time to run through archives in the library, talk to the old Penangites to come out the very thing that I was telling my friend.
Wake up Malaysians. If you still have that kind of spoonfeeding and passive mentality, the Vision 2020 thing will remain to be a vision. It won't happen ok?

Note: My friend who asked me about what happened to J Maxwell pointed out that he was not originally Penangites but from somewhere else. My apology for the error.