ello all! Welcome to the Wanderer's Homepage.
know that not many people read pages like these. In fact, you are visitor number only. I am Alfred LOW Chong Beng and I'm glad you stopped by to peruse my contribution to the incredible amount of junk on the WWW.
| mmm, what can I tell you about myself? Well, to start off, I was born in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia way, way back in 1973. I'm an Australian Permanent Resident and call Perth, Western Australia home. Most of my family is there, including mum, dad and little sister. Perth is a beautiful city but is quickly becoming more metropolitan. Nothing compared to the rat race of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, though.
|  Perth's skyline. |
 Petronas Twin Towers in KL, the tallest building in the world. | 'm back in KL to work at the University of Malaya. The university is very different to those I have experienced in Australia. Very different. I have yet to find anything very positive to say about the university and sometimes I downright oppose their management decisions. Becoming very commercialised. Sadly, this is becoming the norm for universities in Austalia as well as Malaysia. In this cynical age, where accumulation of wealth is of prime concern and the pursuit of knowledge is secondary. It is a regrettable situation. The crests' of the universities that I have been educated in are listed below. Click on crest to visit the respective university's homepage.
| ||
| 
| 
|
| The University of Western Australia Perth, Western Australia, AUSTRALIA. | The University of Tasmania Hobart & Launceston, Tasmania, AUSTRALIA. | The University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, MALAYSIA. |
 nyway, take a look at where I work: the Institute of Postgraduate Studies and Research. I'm a Research Assistant conducting research on prawn ecology. This basically means that once a month, I go out to catch prawns in mangrove waterways. We've worked in the Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve and have now moved on to Dinding River. Both are in the state of Perak, Malaysia.
|  Institute of Postrgraduate Studies and Research (formerly Institute of Advanced Studies), University of Malaya. |
 Here Liz and I are using the YSI 3800 to measure water parameters before going fishing. |  ell, once the prawns have been caught, they are brought back to the lab and barbequed. Just kidding! What actually happens to the prawns is that they get frozen until they I get around to examining them. Examination entails defrosting, identifying (so far, we have found about 14 species of prawns), measurement of carapace length and weight, and finally, determining of sex and sexual maturity. After that, we barbeque the suckers.
|
ou may be asking yourself, 'Why does he do all that?' If not, skip the rest of this paragraph. Well, the current thinking is that prawns use the mangroves as nursery grounds. We are trying to prove that the baby prawns do use the mangroves for a specific purpose.
| ell, so much for my work. I'm really into cars. Wheels, an Australian magazine, is my favourite car mag. I would love to
| ||
| get a sports car, but so far, no luck. Right now, I'm driving a Volkswagen Beetle. Thats right, the Hitler-mobile. Well, I'm grateful that my particular car was not manufactured when Hitler was around. Nope, mine was made all the way back in 1970, which makes it older than me. Sometime during its life, somebody had an idea to do it up, tried to make it sporty. They didn't succeed. I've |  JJ 141 The Beetle from Hell. Click on the photo to enlarge. | seen many Bugs around that look great, but so far, this one is more of a worry than anything else. The thing has, in the words of another, "Tried to kill me", not to mention broken down so often that if the mechanic gave frequent flier points, I would have gone for a trip around the world. Twice. Still, having disparaged the car, it has proven useful as basic transporation (very |
| basic). If I had the money, I would not mind doing up the car. First, I would replace the suspension because right now, it feels like the car has bricks for its suspension. Next would come an air-conditioner. In a climate like Malaysia's, an air-cond is almost mandatory! And the list goes on...Maybe some day. | ||
hats all for now. As with the rest of my webpages, they are forever under construction and will always be changing. So check back and see if anything has changed. Thanks for your time.
