There must be plenty of surrealists amongst the planners and bureaucrats in the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ).
Wikipedia describes the surrealist movement thus:-
Surrealism is a cultural movement that started in 1917,[1][2] and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. Artists painted unnerving, illogical scenes, sometimes with photographic precision, creating strange creatures from everyday objects, and developing painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself. Its aim was, according to Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or surreality.
Works of surrealism feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works themselves being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement.
Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I. The most important centre of the movement was Paris, France. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, impacting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.
Below is an example of surrealist art featuring water flowing upwards against the force of gravity.
I was in the Petaling Jaya New Town Centre last Thursday 23 January 2020 to pay my quit rent and assessment.
It rained at around 7.00 pm and the rain water from the road was flowing down the wheelchair/disabled ramp onto the walkway in front of a shop facing Jalan Yong Shook Lin, across the road from the MBPJ headquarters.
To its credit, kudos to MBPJ for installing wheelchair/disabled ramps and in most cases in Petaling Jaya New Town Centre (and in other parts of Petaling Jaya), they serve walkways which are above to level of the road, so rainwater which falls upon them will flow down to the road.
However, in this case, the walkway in front of these shops facing Jalan Yong Shook Lin is below the level of the road, so water flows down from the road onto the walkway, but it apparently had not occurred to the MBPJ designers and planners who approved the installation of these ramps that they would have to be designed slightly differently for walkways which are lower than road level.
All that is needed here is to leave a gap in the ramp between the walkway and the road, and put a grating between the top of the ramp and the road to allow water from the road to flow into the drain, whilst at the same time enable safe movement of wheelchairs, trolleys and pedestrians on the ramp.
However, the designers and planners at MBPJ, as well as the officials who approved their designs, apparently did not consider these different real-world circumstances in the specifications issued to the contractor or contractors who built these ramps intended to make Petaling Jaya a "Liveable City".
Vision 2020 was announced in 1991 by Malaysia's then Prime Minister Dato' Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, in conjunction with his announcement of the Sixth Malaysia Plan, and it envisioned that Malaysia would become a developed nation by the year 2020 - i.e. now - and during those years in the run up to the year 2020, were added goals that Malaysia would become a "knowledge-based", "information-rich", "high-income" economy by today (year 2020).
However, we have examples such as this ramp where rainwater apparently is expected to flow up, similar to the water in that piece of surrealistic art above.
When it became apparent that Malaysia would not achieve the goals of Vision 2020 in the year 2020, Malaysia's now Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed announced a new vision - Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 (SPV 2030) on 5 October 2019.
The primary aim of SPV 2030 is "....to provide a decent standard of living to all Malaysians by 2030", though increasing the use of high technology in manufacturing and services industries, reduce the income gap between the top 20% (T20) income group and the bottom 40% (B40) income group, raise employee compensation as a percentage of GDP from the current 37%, reduce the level of corruption, increase the skills level of Malaysian workers, raise the level of investments in automation, reduce the income gap between different Malaysian ethnicities, reduce the gap in household income between urban and rural areas, reduce the gap in contribution to GDP between the Federal Territory and Selangor state on the one hand and other states on the other, increase the number of Bumiputra Professionals and so forth.
For the full details, you can view and download the summary of SPV 2030 from here:-
All well and good, or so it may seem but when Vision 2020 fell far short of its goals by the year 2020 after a run of nearly 30 years, can we realistically expect that Malaysia will achieve the grandiose goals of SPV 2030 within 10 years from now?
Sure, we may well have more people running around with their faces buried in their smartphones, engaged in unproductive social messaging and heavier indulgence and consumption of social media, more university graduates including engineering graduates working in gig economy jobs delivering food, as couriers delivering items purchased through e-commerce, driving e-hailing taxis or e-hailing motorcycle taxis and so forth.
Perhaps the government may want to legalise prostitution, since it is one of the oldest services industry, whilst smartphone and tablet app developers can develop prostitute booking apps. This will be in line with Malaysia's goal to become an information and services economy, with the nexus between smartphone apps (information) and prostitution (services).
The government may also want to legalise pornography, since Malaysians have proven themselves to be especially adept at secretly capturing and virally distributing videos of alleged sexual encounters involving leading politicians. I'm pretty sure that a Malaysian pornography industry will earn us a lot of foreign exchange, to make up for the loss of revenue from productive 'sunset' industries such as manufacturing which had left of neighbouring countries and perhaps newer emerging economies by the year 2030.
There also will most likely be more "smart" traffic lights which have broken down, more steps of escalators collapsing under people standing on to of them, more unsold properties due to a continuing massive property development boom, which may have a collateral benefit of forcing property developers to lower prices of their condos and apartments to affordable levels for most Malaysians. Also, most our industries will mostly still be as reliant on foreign labour unless those which can afford and have the more advanced automation and the more skilled workers to operate them will have put those companies, including many SMEs which cannot out of business.
I wouldn't at all be at all surprised that local authority planners in 2030 will still be approving design of ramps like the above, expecting water to flow upwards against the force of gravity.
Yours trully
SELANGOR SCHEISS
UPDATE:
I visited this location on the 18th of November 2021 and found that they had placed a wide metal grating at the top of the ramp which lets rainwater from the road drop into the drain below.
Not sure if the MBPJ read this blog post but whatever, kudos to them.
At least they have some brains.
SELANGOR SCHEISS
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