The Daily Brunei Resources

Today we look at some more place names in Brunei to look at the origin of the names of those places. The following are derived from the Brunei Museum Journal 1996/1997. Two rivers in Temburong named Sungai Nagalang and Sungai Peliunan are two place names which come under descriptive names in a Brunei toponym (toponomy is the study of place names). Both come from Murut words. Nagalang comes from the word 'galang' (standard Malay - gelang) which means circular bracelet. Peliunan comes from the word 'liun' which means circling around, most Bruneians use the word 'beliun' which can mean circling around or to make a u-turn. These two are considereded as descriptive because these two rivers as do most natural rivers meander in a loop or loops. Another place name in Temburong is Batu Apoi. Batu Apoi takes its name from Sungai Batu Apoi. Where does the word Batu Apoi come from? Quite sometime ago, a Murut longhouse once stood beside that river. According to their legend...

The change in temperature from -5 celsius in Seoul at 6 am and at 3 pm, it is 35 celsius in Singapore was something I could do without. But it is something we have to go through in conducting our official businesses. Here I am typing this in sunny Singapore and by the time most of you read this, I would have been back in my office scrambling trying to finish my work as I will be away on leave again on Monday and I have to rush to Lumut this evening for my cousin's bersanding ceremony. Yesterday, I went to my usual food place Nasi Padang at Scotts and found that it has gone out of business and so was the Indian food place in the next stall. My colleague said these two have closed for a while now. What happened to the Malay/Muslim food business in Singapore? Even the Malay food stall at the foodcourt in Terminal 2 at Changi Airport was the only one not open when we wanted to have breakfast there. I was reading the BB this afternoon about how Brunei's Indian run shops are facing ...

When we got in into Seoul for the Asian Bellagio Economic Experts Meeting at about noon yesterday, I was quite surprised to see many policemen with guns, shields and anti-riot gear positioned all over the city. I didn't realise that the Korean workers are having a huge rally and demonstration arguing against the on-going negotiation for the Korean-USA FTA (free trade agreement) for three weeks starting last week. The city almost came to a stand still as there were many people - those in the demonstration, those trying to stop them, those trying to watch and those that just want to get out of the way like us. The irony is that to start the Korean-USA talks took quite a while. The sticking point was because of Korea’s ’screen quota’ system, requiring local cinemas to project a minimum number of hours of Korean films. If agreed, the implications of the Korean-USA FTA will stretch far beyond Korean movie houses as the agreement would open the entire Korean economy to US corporate penet...

A few days ago when I wrote about the history of Istana Manggalela , a Tun Teja, a History teacher put up two very long comments about history but one in particular strike me as something I would like to pick up, namely the similarity between the three countries about the legend of a poor boy, who went abroad to better his lot in life. After many years, he achieved success, married a noblewoman and became the captain of a huge ship, forgetting his humble roots in the process. One day, in order to take shelter from an impending storm, his ship happened to berth near his birthplace. His ageing mother recognising him rowed out in a canoe calling out to her long lost son. He was too embarrassed to acknowledge her. She was very depressed and placed a curse on her unfillial son whereupon a storm appeared capsizing the ship and transforming it into rock. In Malaysia, this is known as the tale of Si Tanggang , in Indonesia as Malin Kundang and in Brunei as Nakhoda Manis . Each and every single...

I'm sure you've visited people in the hospital before. And I'm sure you have your own etiquettes while visiting the ill. Being around a hospital environment this last week made me see that us Bruneians sometimes have our own rules of visiting the sick. Rule #1. Visiting as soon as you have heard a loved one or friend has been admitted Us Bruneians tend to spread the news by word of mouth. I once learned that my second cousin was getting married from an office colleague whom I had just met a couple of weeks. And because of this most effective form of communication, patients have yet to warm their bed when before they know it they already have visitors. This just goes to show how caring our society is. It probably also stems from the belief that everyone will have their turn to get sick so it's best to visit those that are sick before you yourself need to be visited. Rule #2. Bringing giftbaskets or 'buah tangan' Sometimes us Bruneians are just so generous that we...

The temperature was 5 celsius this morning and yet all the snow along the ski runs here in PyeongChang are artificial. There were some snow falls during the last week but it will be next month I have been told before the real heavy snow comes. PyeongChang is a poor place which made it big time - it used to be a potato farming area. It wasn't until the nearby village of YongPyeong turning itself into a ski resort 25 years ago, that PyeongChang County became wellknown. Phoneix Park the ski resort I am in at the moment itself became a ski resort place about 20 years ago. The county is a part of the Gangwan-Do province. The interesting bit about this province is that this is the only province which got chopped into two along the 38th parallel during the Korean War. So, some parts of the province is in North Korea. The border I have been told is less than 30 minutes ride away. I haven't had time yet to go out and see the place - the meeting and then the official dinner have taken th...

Greetings from the City of PyeongChang, South Korea, one of three candidate cities competing to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. I arrived here yesterday evening to lead the Brunei delegation, not for the Olympics, but for an ASEAN+3 Finance meeting here. PyeongChang is a four hour drive from Incheon, Korea's International Airport. After a 7 hour flight and a 4 hour drive getting here, I am wondering why on earth would the Koreans want to host the meeting in this rather remote mountainous city. But having seen the beauty and of course, the possibility of reminding delegates of the upcoming Olympics vote for the 2014 Winter Olympics, we all know why we have to come here. Oh by the way, this place is also where they filmed most of the scenes for the Korean drama Winter Sonata (don't tell me you don't know what that is...) The facilities at the hotel is of course similar to what most hotels would provide except that they have a few ski resorts nearby. The Korean technology is on...