Lawyers must constantly improve skills

By Roger Tan

The Bar Council will be advocating the CPD scheme at the 66th annual general meeting of the Malaysian Bar, and we, as lawyers, must not be averse to change.  

TOMORROW at the 66th annual general meeting of the Malaysian Bar, the Bar Council will attempt for the fourth time, after failing in 2003, 2005 and 2006, to introduce a mandatory Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme for all practising lawyers and pupils in Peninsular Malaysia.

Under the proposed CPD scheme, a lawyer will have to chalk up 16 CPD hours or points in each 24-month cycle commencing July 1.

A pupil, on the other hand, has to accumulate eight CPD hours during his nine months of pupillage 
(training). The CPD points can be earned from participating in a variety of CPD activities - ranging from attending courses and seminars, lecturing, writing law books and articles (such as this I hope) to attending Bar’s general meetings and activities in accordance with a set of CPD Guidelines.

This scheme will be implemented on a voluntary basis for the first two years. After that, failure to accumulate the requisite CPD points within the stipulated period may result in the lawyer not being able to renew his practising certificate for the following year and the pupil not being able to be admitted to the Bar.

In addition to this, the non-CPD compliant lawyer may also face disciplinary proceedings as this may be tantamount to a “misconduct” within the meaning of section 94(3)(k) of the Legal Profession Act 1976 (LPA).

It appears that the main reason why the Bar Council is advocating the CPD scheme is that other Malaysian professionals like architects, engineers, company secretaries and accountants as well as other major legal jurisdictions like Australia, Britain, Hong Kong, Ireland, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa and the United States all have a mandatory CPD scheme.

However, to me, there must first be in place a proper legal framework and infrastructure for implementing the CPD scheme before it is made mandatory. Perhaps, the Bar Council can successfully come to grips with these matters in a matter of two years.

In this respect, we have much to learn from Singapore how it prepares the legal profession there for the CPD scheme which is expected to be fully implemented by April.

Its CPD scheme will be administered by the Singapore Institute of Legal Education (SILE). No lawyer will be exempted as of right from the scheme, but those who seek exclusion from it may apply to a Waivers Committee established under the SILE.

For this purpose, the Legal Profession Act of Singapore (SLPA) was amended. Section 10(2)(i) of SLPA empowers the Board of Directors of SILE, after consulting the Singapore Minister of Law and Council of the Law Society, to make rules to “prescribe the requirements relating to continuing professional development that must be satisfied by advocates and solicitors … and the measures which may be taken to verify whether those requirements have been complied with and to enforce compliance with those requirements.”

Currently, our LPA does not have a similar provision, albeit it can be argued that such rules can still be made under section 77(1) LPA with the approval of the Attorney General.

Further, if Sections 32 and 10 of the LPA are not respectively amended, it may be unlawful for the Bar Council to deny a lawyer his practising certificate or prevent a pupil from being admitted to the Bar for non-compliance with the CPD Guidelines.

Further, it is arguable whether a resolution of the Bar of this nature can be treated as ‘law’ within the meaning of Article 5 of the Federal Constitution which provides that no one should be deprived of his life (which our courts have interpreted to include livelihood) save in accordance with the ‘law’.

In any event, it is hoped that before the CPD scheme is made mandatory, the Bar Council will resolve these issues as well as consider the idea of incorporating a special purpose vehicle wholly owned by the Malaysian Bar to administer the CPD scheme.

Apart from the above reservations, I would declare my support for a mandatory CPD scheme. In coming to my decision, I find support in the words of Singapore Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong and the then Law Society vice president Wong Meng Meng spoken on May 29, 2010 at a ceremony admitting 248 new lawyers to the Singapore Bar.

“The law is a profession of life-long learning and the best lawyers are those who learn all the time. Unless you work at it continually, it may still not be very much at the end of your career. A lawyer can never truthfully say that he has learnt enough, and the day he says that is the day he should retire from practice,” Chan said.

“If a lawyer thinks that he has absolutely not enough to learn then that is the beginning of his downfall. And that is also part and parcel of arrogance,” added Wong.

Of course, there are various opposing views to making the CPD scheme mandatory, for example, that there should be no interference with a professional’s independence and neither should they be forced and treated like children. Life-long learning is a personal choice and if the lazy and egotistic ones do not improve themselves, they will soon be consumed by market forces. In other words, one can lead a horse to water but one cannot make it drink! The scheme is introduced essentially to address the problem with poor attendance at the Bar’s annual general meetings and law seminars and conferences.

Also, compelling lawyers to attend courses cannot guarantee that they will be attentive during the entire exercise. The CPD points can be easily manipulated as there is no effective mechanism to ensure that members who sign up for the relevant CPD activities will stay on until completion. For practitioners from small firms and in remote areas, they are genuinely concerned about the costs involved and the accessibility to CPD activities in and near the areas where they practise. Most of all, it is not fair to say that those who are against CPD are not for continuing professional development when the whole scheme has not been thought through carefully.

Some of the above views are not without basis. But they are not new. The list will go on for those who are just not interested in it. They had all been employed in the last three mentioned annual general meetings to shoot down this proposed scheme. Of course, in the light of the last three unsuccessful attempts, had the Bar Council gone ahead to legislate and introduce it without first reverting to the members, the entire Council will most likely be hauled up to answer a motion of no confidence in an extraordinary general meeting.

But that should not mean that this time we should resign to fatalism as if we are flogging a dead horse simply because a voluntary scheme would never work. We must not be averse to change and must have the courage to show that we can self-regulate in our interest as well as in the public interest. To my mind, acquiring knowledge is just like drinking water. No doubt, there are bound to be teething problems in its initial implementation, but unless we bite the bullet and go ahead with it, we would never to able to realise its potential benefits.

In fact, this minimal means of maintaining and improving lawyering skills is hardly a painful process. In Singapore, in addition to meeting the requirement of CPD, a lawyer who now intends to practise as a sole proprietor or a partner of a law firm must also successfully complete the Legal Practice Management Course conducted by the Law Society. Section 75C of SLPA also states that only a lawyer or a legal officer of more than three years of experience is allowed to set up or join a law practice as a sole proprietor or a partner. Similarly, in most other jurisdictions, all new law graduates are also required to sit and pass a common Bar examination.

Favouring a mandatory scheme will show that we lawyers are committed to maintain and remain professionally competent in the public interest.

I am sure experience tells us if it is to be left to the individuals to undertake continuing professional development, little will be done. There is also no point to bemoan the declining quality of new entrants to the legal profession if we the current practitioners do not lead the way in raising the bar towards excellence.

It is for this same reason that we say lawyers practise law because we can never be perfect in it, and we have to keep on practising with the hope that someday we will become perfect in what we practise. Hopefully, that day will be day when we retire from law practice.

That said, the biggest concern now is actually how many lawyers will bother to turn up for the meeting tomorrow. With the 2006 amendment to the LPA, the quorum is now set at 500 out of 14,000 lawyers. It is anticipated that not more than 1,000 will attend, and by the time the vote is taken on the motion, there will probably be not more than three to four hundred lawyers left to make a decision that will affect all these 14,000 learned lives.

In those years before 2006 when it was mandatory to meet the high quorum requirement without which the new Council could not be formed to issue practising certificates, thousands of lawyers would somehow with the fine spirit of camaraderie make an effort to meet this mandatory requirement. But tomorrow, when attendance is almost entirely voluntary, will tell whether this motion will be killed for the fourth time or carried for the very first time. Let us hope that the insouciance and ‘tidak-apa’ attitude of majority of members of this honourable profession will not once again take the blame.

Finally, may all lawyers draw wisdom from these inspirational words of Maimonides (1135-1204) in the Daily Prayer of a Physician before Visiting a Sick Man: “When wiser men teach me, let me be humble to learn; for the mind of man is so puny, and the art of healing is so vast … May there never rise in me the notion that I know enough, but give me strength and leisure and zeal to enlarge my knowledge. Our work is great and the mind of men presses forward forever.”

*The writer is a former member of the Malaysian Bar Council.

Jail for Hoslan, a former imam who thew slipers at judges

Court finds former imam guilty of throwing slippers at judges

 By M. MAGESWARI mages@thestar.com.my 

Feeling remorseful: Hoslan apologised to the judiciary yesterday for what he did at the Federal Court.

PUTRAJAYA: A former imam who created a stir when he threw his slippers at a panel of three judges during a court proceeding last month has been sentenced to a year in jail for contempt of court.

Hoslan Husin, 46, was found guilty on grounds that he had failed to give a sufficient explanation for his conduct.

Hoslan, who wore a green serban and clad in a black robe, arrived at the Federal Court at 9.35am without any shoes.

Chief Judge of Malaya Justice Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin inform-ed Hoslan that a show cause notice had been issued to him for contempt of court after one of his slippers hit a deputy registrar who was on duty in court that day.

Hoslan was said to have committed the offence during a proceeding in the Federal Court between 10.15am and 10.30am on Feb 22.

Hoslan’s lawyer, Karpal Singh, said “his (Hoslan) actions is indefensible but there are other considerations”.

When asked to give an explanation, Hoslan said: “This is a charge imposed on me. I am confused. From the very beginning, everything has been confusing.

“The case should be heard in a Syariah court and not a civil court. The sentence for an imam should be decided by a Syariah court if he is found guilty,” he said.

Hoslan then started sobbing. He bowed his head and covered his face.

In an unanimous decision, Justice Zulkefli said the Bench convicted Hoslan for contempt of court after he failed to give a sufficient explanation during show cause proceedings.

In mitigation, Karpal said Hoslan regretted his actions and was prepared to apologise to the court.

Karpal said Hoslan, who is an environmental officer, has seven children aged between six and 16 and aged parents to take care of.

Hoslan expressed remorse for what had transpired in court and apologised to the judiciary.

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IBM's New Optochip Transfers One Trillion Bits Per Second

By Alex Knapp, Forbes Staff

The Holey Optochip (Credit: IBM Research)

As Big Data increasingly becomes a part of our economy bandwidth becomes increasingly important. Not just wired or wireless bandwidth, either. When it comes to server racks and supercomputers, the internal bandwidth within a computer also matters a lot more.

IBM has made a big step forward in improving that bandwidth with their announcement today that they’ve developed a parallel optical transceiver – dubbed the “Holey Optochip” – that’s capable of transferring information at the rate of one trillion bits per second. That’s eight times faster than currently available optical components.

“We’re trying to deliver a component that looks like an electrical chip,” IBM researcher Clint Schow told me on the phone yesterday. “But it also had to be dense, compact, and power efficient. We were also focused on delivering it with components available today.”

IBM Paves The Way Towards Scalable Quantum Computing Alex Knapp Forbes Staff

For the prototype optochip, the IBM research team drilled 48 holes in a conventional 90nm CMOS chip, which then allowed for the placement of 24 receiver and 24 transmitter channels within the chip. Because it’s so compact, the chip is incredibly power efficient – it consumes less than five watts. And by using a standard CMOS chip, they’re able to bring the interconnects as close to the processors as possible, which allows for its incredible transfer speeds.

IBM’s next step will be to work with commercial partners to further refine and develop the chip. Even though the current iteration is only a prototype, Schow is confident that the development cycle for commercial applications will be short. That’s because all of the individual components of the chip are readily available, and the modifications can be performed without customized equipment.

“Part of the real advantage of this chip is that we put it together by using small tweaks in clever ways,” he said.

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Middle East Faces Tensions Between Online Child Protection and Internet Freedom

Larry Magid, ForbesContributor

Panelists talk about how to protect children without censoring the Internet in Qatar

I’m in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar for a two-day conference where representatives of government, non-profits and businesses from throughout the Middle East will join their counterparts from other regions to discuss “Promoting Online Safety and Cyber Ethics in the Middle East.” The conference is run by the Washington-based Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) along with ICTQatar. Sponsors include Google, Microsoft and Vodaone.

Social media and Arab Spring

I came to moderate a panel on the impact of social networking where speakers from Facebook, Yahoo, Aljazeera and OfokSystem talked about the role social networks like Facebook and Twitter played in Arab spring. Although conditions on the ground in Egypt, Tunisia and other countries were responsible for the unrest, social networking provided a vehicle for protestors to spread the word and organize protests.  There was a general consensus among the speakers that the best path for governments going forward is to encourage openness and a free flow of information lest other leaders risk following in the footsteps of ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.
David Gross

The conference’s opening sessions featured a discussion between FOSI CEO Stephen Balkam and  former U.S. ambassador David A. Gross, who took delegates on a walk down memory lane about the history of Internet regulation in the U.S. and Europe.

Balkam asked Gross to comment on the tension between the tendencies to want to protect children via Internet regulation and government imposed filtering vs. wanting to promote free speech.

“Every parent naturally as a matter of biology as well as intellect wants to protect children,” said Gross. “A lot of these issues are variations of an old theme with each country wanting to make its decisions in their own way based on their own culture.”

But what’s different is that kids are often more tech savvy than adults. “The extraordinary and maybe unprecedented twist is that technology and Internet related technology seems to be more intuitive for young people than the adults who are making the rules.”

Gross said that the Internet does not lend itself to being heavily regulated by government but instead “a more organic multi-stakeholder approach that includes government but also schools, parents, non-governmental organizations and corporations “coming together to field their way through it.”

Changes over time

Gross pointed out that the difference between the nineties and now “is that the issues are more complex,” thanks in part to cloud computing and the rise of international companies like Google and Microsoft.  Also, the discussion, which used to be between Europe and the U.S. is now “a conversation that is truly global which means that the complexities have gone up enormously. Instead of two players you now have 100+ players,” he said.

Recognizing cultural differences among countries, Gross does not advocate a one-size-fits all policy.  “Ultimately there are going to have to be accommodations and how these things get resolved will fundamentally determine the economic well being of many countries.” While this may seem daunting, he’s optimistic that it can be worked out. “With technology and clever policy making everyone will be able to live within their own set of rules.”

In the past, said Gross, “what your future would turn out to be depended mostly on who your parents were and where you were born but, because of the Internet, that is no longer the case.” Access is truly global and truly open, but the danger, he added,”is from those who will shut that down.”

The conference is being held in conjunction Qitcom 2012, a technology exhibition and conference that features technology companies from around the world seeking business opportunities in Qatar and neighboring states.  Forbes lists Qatar as the world’s richest country while the CIA World Fact book estimates Qatar’s per capita GDP at $102,700.

While Internet safety advocates and tech professionals were meeting at the FOSI and Qitcom events in one part of the city, eight heads of state from the Arab region, government ministers and Arab tech industry leaders were participating in the Connect Arab Summit to talk about expanding technology opportunities in the region.

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Google+ Games: Positive Signs and Open Critiques

Tomio Geron, Forbes Staff

Google+ needs to make many improvements to its games platform, according to developers and Google itself, but some developers see good early returns and large potential with the platform.

Google+ is the “social layer” on top of everything the search giant now does, and games are a key part of Google+, said Punit Soni, lead product manager, Google+ Games and Mobile. Soni spoke about the future of the platform and took suggestions from developers in a session Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Google plans by next year to bring together all of Google’s different gaming services: Android, Chrome Web Store, Google+, Native apps. ”Our vision for games centers around the idea of one Google,” Soni said. “Next year we will not be talking about Google+, Android, native client. Next year we’ll just be talking about Google games.” This would create a simpler way for developers to make games across the various Google platforms.

Punit Soni of Google+ Games and Mobile

Soni, in an interview after the session, said that Google is focusing on listening to developers and responding to their concerns. “If there’s anything I want to talk about it’s that it’s a humble platform,” Soni said. “The platform is learning from people who are the experts in the industry.” That point was emphasized by Google holding a panel with developers who were encouraged to raise their critiques or suggestions for improving the platform.

Soni explained the company’s strategy in launching Google+, saying it was a careful and measured approach. Google launched its games platform in August 2011. The company was “relatively conservative” in not deluging users with gaming invites. It later slowly added in virality–the ability to easily invite friends and request help from friends in games. In contrast to Facebook, Google has been more cautious on virality. For example Google+ has kept its overall news stream separate from the game stream, which includes notifications for games.

Google also focused on a small set of game developers with 16 games at the start, which has drawn some criticism. It was “quality over quantity,” Soni said. Google is not ignoring smaller independent developers, he said. “For us, it was a small curated group of partners to experiment and learn and iterate together. From that perspective it’s easy with more established players. But by no means are we closed to indie or smaller developers. Many have cool ideas and we welcome the opportunity to work with them.”

Soni also listed what Google learned from the launch. First, the platform needs to be responsive to both people who are gamers and people who don’t like games. Secondly, the line is blurring between mobile and desktop, and Google has much in the works for mobile gaming. “Mobile is really, really key,” Soni said. “We have a few things in the repository that’ll make compelling mobile gaming.” Finally, Google needs to make continued small improvements.

Google+ Launches Long Awaited Games Platform (Updated) Tomio Geron Forbes Staff 

Kabam To Launch 'Godfather' Game Exclusively On Google+ Tomio Geron Forbes Staff

The upshot: Google+ needs to make some significant upgrades and those changes are in the works. As far as what’s coming next, watch for deeper integration with other Google channels, new technology such as Hangouts, native clients, mobile, improved distribution for developers, better game discoverability, and improved payments.

Google+ now has more than 100 million monthly active users and 50 million daily active users, the company announced today. Google+ users spend more than one hour a day on Google products (How much of that is actually on Google+ proper is not clear because Google hasn’t disclosed that). The search giant is now seeing 5-10% uplift on ads with “social annotation,” which means things that friends have clicks as “+1″ or shared in some other way.

Mike Blanchette, manager of platform operations at Disney unit Playdom, launched two games on Google+ when it launched in August, City of Wonder and Wild Ones, and launched Gardens of Time in December. He’s happy with the Google+ platform but says the platform needs better ways to acquire users. Right now it’s not easy enough for people to discover games, he said.

One problem is notifications, which are the hooks that bring friends into games. Right now people have to click back and forth too many times to collect gifts from friends, Blanchette said. The other question is with Circles, Google’s groups. Blanchette was hoping that these would become a tool for people to share with other gamers. But that hasn’t quite happened yet, he said.

Google+ Launches Long Awaited Games Platform (Updated) Tomio Geron Forbes Staff

 “We’re left now with a potential for a really massive gaming community,” Blanchette said. “There are really promising early metrics for time on site on Google Plus… Engagement has been really good. Communication channels have been really good. It just hasn’t panned out for the (user) acquisition portion.”

 

Kabam To Launch 'Godfather' Game Exclusively On Google+ Tomio Geron Forbes Staff

 

Massive virality or social connections with friends are not necessarily required to have successful games, said Dan Chao, lead game designer at Funzio, which launched two games on Google+, including Kingdom Age, which launched last week. One of the big differences from Facebook is that Google+ takes a 5% fee on transactions compared to 30% on Facebook, he said. In Kingdom Age, Funzio focused on a high monetizing, high retention game, that put less emphasis on virality. Funzio is seeing higher average revenue per user on Google+ than other platforms, at least in the two games it has so far. Also, it only took Funzio about two weeks for three engineers to port a Facebook game, Crime City, to Google+.

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The shame of the game

Stories by NATALIE HENG star2@thestar.com.my

Games are bad only when the line between entertainment and obsession is breached.
 
TAKE a peek at the iPad, iPhone or any smartphone that belongs to a parent, and chances are you’ll find screen upon screen of game apps. A lot of these apps were downloaded onto the device by their tech-savvy kids. And most of these parents may tell you that their children and teenagers are hooked on mobile, computer or interactive games – at home, out in the malls or during outings with family or friends.

Apart from these downloadable ones, there are also multi-player video games at home and an array of free games on social networking websites like Facebook, which is frequented by the kids as well. The gamers are indeed spoilt for choice.

Parents may be resigned to such widespread availability of games as an inevitable part of modern life, but when play becomes extreme, the obsession will undoubtedly be detrimental to the development and well-being of the child. It’s therefore absolutely essential for parents to monitor the young ones’ gaming activities before the situation gets out of hand.

© San Jose Mercury News/ MCT

To be sure, gaming itself is entertaining and harmless if it’s done within limits, and controlled. Being addicted to video or online games, however, is a serious matter.

Keith Woo should know. It stole a huge chunk of his youth until one day when he was 24, a near-death experience jolted him into reassessing his life.

Getting off the game wasn’t easy; he had spent seven years playing a text-based multi-player online role-playing game called MUD (Multi-User Dungeon).

That aside, Woo had done it all – everything from first person shooter games like Team Fortress and Call Of Duty to massively multi-player online role-playing games like World Of Warcraft.

The years of relentless MUD gameplay culminated in Woo’s online character being at the top of the virtual food chain. To maintain his leading status the lad would neglect his studies for a psychology degree and spend an average of 14 hours per day slaying fictional monsters in his student accommodation in Subang Jaya, Selangor.

“I really messed up college ... I skipped classes and handed in late submissions,” he confesses in a recent interview in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Game for it: Nick Foong (left) and Keith Woo from Generasi Gemilang often help youth and their parents tackle gaming issues. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star

 

Woo’s experience is every modern parent’s nightmare.

“My parents would get upset and make a lot of fuss and noise about me gaming both at home and outside,” admits Woo. But for him, it was the ultimate form of escapism. As a sanctuary of high adrenaline and excitement, the realm gave Woo a skill and prowess – and respect – amongst the online gaming community that he reckoned was more than he could ever achieve in the real world.

Today, Woo, 28, has turned his life around. Escaping serious injury in a car accident early one morning after a gaming session at a cyber cafe with his friends, the young man had asked himself: what has gaming ever really done for me?

For years he had been running from personal problems – in study, financially and with regard to his relationship with his family.

“I realised, you know, my parents weren’t going to be around forever, and what would happen then?” he recalls.

Getting on the wagon, so to speak, was a difficult process. He received a great deal of flak from the game’s online administrators when he requested to delete his character and block him from playing. They asked him: “Why don’t you just cut down on your play time?”

“I said to them, ‘That’s the problem, I can’t. I keep coming back, I keep playing, I can’t stop; you guys have to help me stop.’ ”

Red flags

The former gaming addict now works full time with Generasi Gemilang, a non-profit social welfare organisation, where he is a leader for its cyber wellness programme. Part of his job is to reach out to both youth and their parents through workshops, talks, courses and counselling. He teaches parents about video games, and even how to play them, and educates young people about cyber wellness.

He doesn’t blame video games for his past addiction. He hasn’t even stopped playing them. The difference is that, he has a balanced life.

“Gaming is recreational for me now,” he explains, adding that important things like work and having a non-virtual social life take precedence, which is what “cyber wellness” is all about.

“It’s about the positive use of the Internet and having a healthy, balanced life,” concurs Nick Foong, Generasi Gemilang’s head of cyber wellness. “The Internet and games are here to stay. We all love our social media, it’s there to enhance our lives but it should never be the centre of it.”

Though Foong, 42, can’t say for sure how serious the scourge of gaming addition is in Malaysia, he has encountered enough cases in his line of work to know that it’s cause for concern.

The definition of being addicted to gaming, he says, doesn’t depend on the number of hours spent playing, it relates to whether the habit is disrupting a person’s normal life.

Neglecting important things like school, work, and personal hygiene are some of the signs. Disturbances in the sleep cycle, reclusive behaviour, self-isolation and uncharacteristic behavioural changes are also major alarm bells.

Woo recounts a typical scenario where things have begun to go downhill.

“Shouting at my parents, for example, or throwing a huge tantrum when asked to stop playing, skipping meals, or lying about my video game usage.

“One or two such incidents here and there are probably normal. But if you notice them happening with uncharacteristic frequency, there may be a problem.”

Dealing with it

Before you throw your child’s console out the window, take a deep breath and resist the urge.
“The thing we recommend not to do is to just turn off the game and get the child all excited and angry,” says Foong.

There is usually a lot more to a gaming addiction than the game itself, he stresses.

“Games are not inherently bad, it’s how the individual uses (or abuses) them.”

Aside from being “fun”, research suggests that some people get hooked because games offer a source of self-validation or positive reinforcement for things lacking in other areas of their lives. Rewards, personal freedom, a sense of control and a connection to other players, to name a few.

Rewinding the clock on Woo’s addiction offers an insight into why he, and many other youths, are more likely to cross the line between a healthy amount of recreational game playing and obsession.

The first signs of his addiction appeared in secondary school when he would head straight for a cyber cafe after class, play until six or nine in the evening, and continue gaming into the early hours of the morning.

In school he would talk about the game at every opportunity, and he was usually so tired from playing the night before that he couldn’t concentrate in class. Worse, at the time he was having a lot of problems at school; he wasn’t doing well academically nor socially.

“But when I found out I was good at Counterstrike, I suddenly became a person that was really recognised.”

For him, gaming was also an excellent way of running away from family issues.

“By immersing myself in the virtual world I could disassociate myself from reality. I could forget my problems, feel good about myself, and feel like I was achieving something,” he remembers.

He made it to college but his problems persisted; he continued to avoid dealing with them. He would be so engrossed in the world inside his computer that sometimes days would merge into one another, and the only breaks he took were for food and going to the toilet.

In Woo’s case, the reasons for developing a gaming addiction are evident.

But Foong points out that banning the game only deals with the immediate symptoms, and not the underlying causes. In today’s technology-driven society, such a “solution” also poses practical problems.

He says there will come a time, in college, for example, where laptops are necessary. In most neighbourhoods, there are also cyber centres scattered in convenient locations.

In the end, he notes that “banning” video games may end up being counter-productive, and may increase the likelihood that, in order to feed their addiction, the person you are trying to help starts lying about their game usage.

In a bid to enforce their “ban”, parents often ask how they can check on or monitor their child. The truth is, there is no easy solution to this.

The only real way of ensuring their children are spending as much time as they say they are is trust, which comes from having a healthy relationship with them.

“It won’t be easy and the problem won’t just go away overnight. You have to be committed to helping them and accept that it may take time.”

It is interesting to note that some psychologists see “addiction” as a kind of attachment disorder, with humans being driven by an inherent need for pleasure and gratification. When people are unable to establish these things through interpersonal relationships, they hypothesise that we turn to substances and eventually become addicted.

Nurturing parenting, on the other hand, has been correlated to high self-esteem in children, which is said to reduce the risk of addictive behaviour.

In other words, if a long-term solution is what you’re looking for, the objective should be about building trust with the child, so that you can help them with their problems.

Spending time with them is the first step, says Foong. In addition to building a bond, it serves to directly help cut down the number of hours spent gaming.

“Rules without relationships will always lead to rebellion. And when I say spending time, I’m not just talking about the token dinner.” Quality time could be in the form of one-on-one sessions, watching a movie, doing sports, washing the car.

“Find out what the child is interested in doing; doing that regularly will help to break the routine habit of gaming,” he advises.

Bonding sessions

Foong also suggests parents step into their child’s shoes and learn about the game. This will help them understand what is so appealing about it, and also provide a common ground where they can connect and bond with their child.

He recounts how this really helped to build a relationship between a niece and her aunt after a family tragedy thrust them together.

“The aunt wanted to find out how to connect with the niece, who would usually come home after school and spend hours playing MapleStory, so we advised her to learn the game. Woo taught her the basics of the game.”

Foong asked the aunt to take her laptop into a public space, the living room, and play it.

“When the niece came in she said her usual ‘Hi’, and then ‘Wah, you play MapleStory!’ The niece sat down and they talked for almost 45 minutes, just about MapleStory.

“Eventually, they started talking about other things too, like school, her teachers and her friends.”

Bonding is an important exercise.

“It’s about earning trust, most often parents won’t approach the issue through conversation. It will be an interrogation, which, for teenagers especially, won’t work,” says Foong.

Once a bond has been established, the next step is to find out what motivates the person, so that a productive alternative to gaming can be found.

In the case of 17-year-old gamer Brian (not his real name), his mother discovered he had an interest in learning to play the guitar and bought him one, signing him up for classes.


It worked. Brian took to his new hobby and now spends fewer isolated hours at his computer while he practises his guitar and meets up with friends to jam.

Foong stresses that once the foundations of a relationship have been established, it becomes easier to address the gaming issue successfully.

“Boundaries and limitations to the number of gaming hours per day should be mutually agreed upon by both parties. If a child has had a say in setting their own rules, they will be more likely to stick to them.”

As much as most parents would love to hear it, however, there is no universal benchmark for how many hours of gaming per day is acceptable.

“The situation shouldn’t be judged on how many hours are spent playing, but whether they have managed to balance between gaming and other important activities.

“Each person’s time management skills may differ, but when a person finds time to play games, to study, to be with friends, to do sports, to be with family, that’s what we should be aiming for.”

If you suspect that you or someone you know has a gaming problem, there are a number of websites that offer advice: try www.video-game-addiction.org or On-line Gamers Anonymous at www.olganon.org.

How do you control your children’s gaming activities? Or, do you? E-mail us at star2@the star.com.my.

The fear factor in property

Rehda said some people are buying as they are worried prices will go up
 By THEAN LEE CHENG leecheng@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Property developers and consultants from Penang to Johor are generally bullish about the residential property market and do not think there is a bubble.

They are of the view that there are two types of buyers, one who is buying out of need and the other out of fear that prices would go up further. The speculative element which was evident a few years ago has dissipated.

Real Estate and Housing Developers' Association (Rehda, Penang) chairman Datuk Jerry Chan said: “Buyers have money which they would like to park somewhere.

“Sales this year have been better than last year, driven by fear rather than the speculative element,” said Chan who is also group managing director for Penang-based Asas Dunia Bhd.

Chan was commenting on a report Debunking the property bubble myth by CIMB which said that talk of a property bubble was overstated as the sharp rise in residential property prices over the past few years was confined to selected areas.

“Affordability is near its all-time high and prices have to surge 50% to 100% before affordability falls to pre-Asian financial crisis levels,” the report said.

The report said it was surprising that residential prices had not risen at a faster pace as new supply had fallen significantly over the past few years.

Chan said tourism was also very big in Penang and if China and Indian nationals were to buy in Penang, it would “turn the market upside down.”

“So I foresee Penang prices would continue to rise because of inadequate supply of land, not because of inadequate developments,” he said.

In the Klang Valley, Reapfield Properties Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Gerard Kho said domestic demand for residentials was expected to be strong until the middle of this year.

Managing director for the Khong & Jaffar group of companies Elvin Fernandez said “it is not a question of whether there is a bubble or not but whether prices in certain areas are tied in to fundamentals or not.
“And we know in certain hot spots, they are not,” Fernandez said.

In Johor, KGV International Property Consultants Samuel Tan said the state was undergoing a transition because of the Iskandar Malaysia factor.

“New houses entering the market are priced a lot higher than three years ago but the market is accepting it,” he said.