This article just popped up somewhere in my browsing. It makes sense and explains why I never liked salmon served at any place in the world, except the Russian Pacific coast. There you find tons of salmon, only wild salmon. And it tastes fantastic!
http://www.choiceandtruth.com/2016/05/are-farmed-salmon-one-of-most-toxic.html
Since that story when the Filipino guy passed away and doctor Sh. resigned, the Resort hasn’t find a new doctor. There is a Medical Assistant, a very nice Malay old man who knows what kind of pills to give in case of fever, high blood pressure or headache, but hardly ever heard about any holistic approach in medicine.
It seems to me so did all Malay doctors in the country who accepted the tips of western medicine without deep understanding what is the illness and what is the human health, in contrast with their Chinese colleagues. In the regular clinic or hospital you will be given a handful of antibiotics regardless your body type or previous medical history, and if it doesn’t help another antibiotic will be prescribed most likely with the same result until you get fed up and recover yourself. But in general you can choose your doctor and a kind of approach to you health.
At the Berjaya Hills Resort the employees don’t have any choice than to be treated by under qualified MA in any case. If your illness is beyond his knowledge you will be sent to an associated clinic or hospital in Bentong (a small laid back town nearby). But as it was mentioned earlier any trip out from Berjaya Hills borders is a complicated procedure that requires a few approvals and signatures.
So, with fever, fracture, sudden blood pressure problem, bleeding or allergic shock, you have to wait when your busy boss gives his or her permission to go to the resort clinic and find the MA who will decide if you deserve more serious medical help.
After that you have to wait when the Human Resource department approves your leave and organize transport to bring you to the hospital which is at least 30 minutes away. And more, you must be lucky to not get sick on Tuesday, the MA day off, or on weekend when HR is closed and nobody will take any care of you.
The transport department almost never has spare vehicles, thus most likely the Security department will drive you down to the town, if… if they are not busy, for example, collecting cash from outlets.
When a driver and car are ready, you will be asked if you have enough cash with you to pay at the hospital. The company for sure will cover these costs up to the amount agreed in you contract (unless you are a general worker who do not get paid medical help). To find the money will take another half an hour.
Finally, minimum two and a half hours later you will see a doctor. In most cases it is not critical, but if something serious happens you may become a victim of Berjaya’s poor management. And you can’t complain about the speed it provides you the medical help, not a word said about that in your contract. So, shut up and be grateful to stay alive.
Two-three times a year in the low season the management of Berjaya Hills Resort organizes big gatherings for the staff. These are ordinary corporate culture games with dull speeches, parties, awards, contests and similar useless stuff, but big bosses think that all these arise the corporate spirit in working migrants.
One of these events is Sport Games and one part of the Games is a Big Run. There are two sets of participants: common folk from mid-rank executives and below, and Heads of Departments who do not mix with the latter. For the HODs participation in the Run is compulsory with the threat to be fired or left without bonuses.
The distance is about 3 km which is not really much but considering the hills and heat it requires the certain level of fitness from participants.
Before the competition all HODs have to sign the Run entry form what cleans off any responsibility for any accidents from the organizer.
Usually the Run happens in March-April, so was in the year of 2014. That time there worked a Filipino man as a supervisor in the restaurants and F&B outlets. Named Danillo he was in his early sixties. Quite tall for a Filipino and a bit overweight he looked good on his position, but his athleticism and health condition were under a doubt – he smoked a lot.
The Run-2014 started, HODs did well showing their submission and happiness to be involved. Danillo came to the final line utterly exhausted. His face was dark red and the poor guy could not restore his breathing. The Resort doctor, a nice tiny local lady Sh., helped him to cool down and by the end all was fine – Danillo and other HODs went back to their duties.
Two days later around noon when the regular operation meeting was going smoothly and HODs went to the smoking break before the last round of meeting. Danillo lit a cigarette on the balcony at the meeting room. Suddenly he fell on the floor hitting his head on the balcony fence. Blue face, roar, and a few seconds later he was dead.
The CEO was in panic. She ordered to call a Resort doctor to give a professional help though it was clear the old guy was dead, nothing could help him any more. The doctor came and confirmed death from the heart attack. Then it was decided do not acknowledge lethal end at the Resort to not spoil its fengshui and the ambulance was called from the nearest hospital in Bentong (a town in 35 kilometres).
The ambulance was informed that someone fell from the balcony and got injured, reasonably the doctors arrived with crutches, stretchers and other stuff for trauma first aid, but found a dead body. The Resort CEO insisted to not register the death at the spot and sent the ambulance down to the hospital to make up the death during transportation.
The Resort doctor knew that Danillo had a swollen heart and bad cholesterol level. That run triggered the fatal process: a cholesterol lump torn from the arterial wall by the strong blood flow after the strenuous exercise started its way to the heart and reached it for sure. Poor doctor Sh. was told to keep her mouth shut. Two months later she resigned giving some personal womanish reasons.
Then Danillo’s wife came to take away her husband’s body to their home country. She worked at the Berjaya’s brunch in the Philippines and knew the Malaysian management. The Berjaya Hills Resort CEO clutched on her arm murmuring worming condolences and calming nonsense and didn’t let anybody from the resort employees approach the widowed woman.
The ugly incident was over. Officially aged overweight Danillo died from the sudden heart attack.
Next year the meek HODs, all as one, were at the big Humble Run again.
In the staff quarters and around there is enormous number of street lights. They are at the full blast on all night from 6 pm when the daylight is still bright until late morning, but who cares if it affects only the electricity bills that the Berjaya Hills pays. Asians in general do not have any awareness about the environment, carbon footprint or their own health, and if these issues ever bother them only when considered as expenses.
The resort pays electricity bills about RM160,000 per month. The amount jumped up on 60% in December 2014 from RM100,000 paid before.
So, what are those street lights in the staff quarters for? Despite of very thick curtains the rooms at night are lit so brightly that it’s almost impossible to sleep and one with the good eyesight can even read a book in the bed.
Apart from making you feel yourself like in a prison cell, they are supposed to deter thieves, as the resort management explains. Who are they, the thieves, if nobody than the staff members have access to the premises? Assuming that the Human Resource Department can not recognize bad guys and by accident employs people with impure intentions, there might be someone who steals.
It’s so tempting, at work you always find something unattended to take away: light bulbs for maintenance workers, chicken wings for kitchen workers, money for cashiers, and in the staff quarters drying on the ropes women’s panties for gays. That’s why the CCTV is everywhere and the lights are all night on.
Now seriously. One evening a girl from the 5-star Chateau front office finished her shift and went to change her uniform for the normal clothes. She left her handbag near her locker and went to the toilet. Meanwhile somebody came in the changing room and quickly went out. An hour later the girl discovered that about $100 had disappeared from her wallet.
The money was in a few notes of RM50. After investigation of the CCTV recordings carried out by security the same money crumpled in a tight roll was found in one low rank female staff’s room.
Was it returned to the robbed girl? No. The performance played by the security manager, named Kh., was inimitable. He put this money among a pile of other RM50 notes on the table in front of her and asked if she could recognize her money. Can anyone recognize the notes taken from ATM a few days ago? They all look same.
She couldn’t. She didn’t get her money back.
Every day there are three or four dance performances at the stage in Colmar Tropicale. The ballet groups come either from China or from the Eastern Europe countries – Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus. The dancers from latter region usually appear at the resort during busy time and are brought by so called agent of the Berjaya Hills. He is a Ukrainian pianist who’s working at the other hotel – the 5-star Le Chateau. He invites dance groups from the Russian-speaking world providing them three-month contract with standard conditions including accommodation, meals, wages, and visa support.
It seems nothing special in that, but every time European dancers face serious problems with their visas. As a rule, a group of five-six stunning girls and guys arrive to Malaysia as tourists, and the standard entry pass gives them 30 days of stay in the country. The inviting company, as per the contract obligations, must ensure that their business visa is secured and up to date. But it never happens.
The dancers work first month under the ordinary tourist pass which does not allow any employment or business activity, i.e. illegally. Then the pass expires, the company does not make a move to extend it or to legalize their work here.
Later, when the pass overdue grows up to a month the company management uses it against the dancers. Their passports got confiscated by HR department allegedly to secure the visas and it lasts until the very end of the contract. The dancers are not allowed to leave the resort, because they don’t have neither valid visas nor passports and may get into trouble if stopped by police. Any their complaint about extra working hours, living and working conditions, or demands to provide visa and return their passports, the company meets with the threat of deportation.
Starting from August of 2014 and till now two Slavic ballet groups met the described problems. Actually they worked all their three months illegally, were at some point arrested by the Berjaya Hills, and got their passport back only together with the return tickets on the day of leave.
And some more details… The company controls every step the dancers make at the resort, sometimes prohibiting them from using the local transport and other facilities. It limits the food the guys eat, and it should be mentioned they give three performances a day in the 30-degree heat plus rehearsals twice a day, that requires plenty of energy. Any their complaint will be turned over as insubordination and the group can be fined for that.
The salary is never in time and the delay can be over three weeks. Once girls stopped to perform just because didn’t have money to buy tampons. The resort management refuses to provide any medical and transportation help in case of injuries, saying that they are not VIPs to pay them so much attention.
So, the more I observe that the more I’m sure in the kind of racist attitude of Berjaya’s management.
In its desire to control everything and everyone the company implements new and new restrictions. Though it’s time to make clear that here the only one person takes decisions. This is CEO, Teh Ming Wah, a woman in her fifties, who sets the rules. She made a brilliant career from masseur in an ordinary spa directly to the CEO of Berjaya Hills Resort. We won’t discuss what so amazingly propelled her way as we know very little and can only guess, but the matter of fact that one needs very different knowledge, personal skills and educational background for both positions.
Driven by the fear that workers of all levels may run away, steal, kill, talk, get pregnant, be smart (and even smarter then her), gossip, laugh, like each other, be friends, have own opinion and better taste, be free and happy, the CEO invents more and more rules to harness everybody.
Here is one of the recent stories. One girl from Le Chateau Front Office had a boyfriend in Kuala Lumpur and asked permission to go there in the evening after her shift. Next morning for sure she would come back to work in time. Girl’s application was rejected, she was not allowed to leave the resort for nights at all. The reason is simple: a woman in her late menopause can not tolerate a young pretty girl living full life.
I’m working outdoors, so do the other five people at our department. Every day it’s more than 30 degrees, burning sun, dusty and all nine working hours there is no place to hide in the shade. Half of the time there is no drinking water for the staff, we all have no choice but drink the tap water. It’s quite clean but terribly chlorinated and has bitter chemical taste. Processed water in large 20-litre bottles not much better, it tastes awful. When I asked what is actually about normal drinking water here, the HOD’s answer was – bring your own. No comments.
Food for the Berjaya Hills staff is another big issue. At lunch we have it from the Golf Club restaurant. It’s pathetic: burnt, oily, disintegrated fish or chicken, veggie that look more like silos, and of course rice. Very often it looks like leftovers reheated with some spicy sauce. Once the chicken was literally rotten, the pieces were kept for a few days till they stank, then given to the staff. All our guys (hard-working and nice, by the way) had diarrhoea next day. Poor things, they hadn’t recognized that offensive smell under the generous amount of chilly sauce. Happily I’m a vegetarian.
It’s really a question what makes the kitchen management to chose such low quality ingredients, create such poor unbalanced menu (I wonder if they have any clue at all what the balanced menu is) and cook so bad for all levels from general workers to executives. Traveling around South-East Asia for two years I’ve got food poisoning three times: twice at the Berjaya Hills executive dining and once in its pizzeria ‘La Flamme’. The test discovered Escherichia coli in the salad dressing, what makes one wonder if the local traditional toilet culture is really smart or the company hires people who don’t know how to wash hands. One of ways to get E.coli is oral-faecal… and it’s at a four-star resort.
Malaysia is full of foreign workers. Mostly they are non-skilled low-paid from neighbouring overpopulated and undeveloped countries. Usually Malaysian employers treat them in quite poor and unfair manner.
Being a foreign professional I expected to meet a different approach to myself then to Nepalese guards, Filipino waiters or Indian cleaners. But Berjaya Hills doesn’t make any difference. Any foreign worker is a threat to its reputation or well-being because they run away, steal motorbikes and do drugs, despite of the fact that not less than 70% of its staff are migrants who do major work there.
They keep the resort facilities functioning, clean and nice. They smile to you after 12-hour working shift. They humbly accept demands to work overtime without any reward, eat every day plain rice and burnt spicy chicken, drink excessively chlorinated tap water. Any complaints from migrants are usually rejected as unnecessary and unimportant.
And one more thing – all migrants have their passports confiscated by the Berjaya Hills Management.
The company tried to do the same trick with me. After my working visa had been confirmed and I had given my passport to the Human Resource department to submit it to the Immigration Office, the happy HR clerk brought my new ID card, copy of my visa and my passport, but refused to return me the latter. It’s the company’s policy, any foreigner must leave his or her passport for security reasons at HR. Are there any exceptions for European nationals? – No.– All this conversation happened in front of the elegant Resort Manager and my boss.
‘You must!’ said the RM, telling the story how he worked somewhere in the Middle East and his passport was withheld by his employer. ‘Why do you worry about it? Relax, it’s normal for everybody here’, said my boss nicely.
They underestimated me. I took out my phone and looking for my embassy number announced that I’m going to inform my country representatives that my passport was stolen by the Berjaya Hills. The RM’s dark South Indian face turned deep purple. He shouted that I can’t do that and must obey the company’s rules.
No, I must not. And anyone must not in this situation. There are other rules that above any company rules. In every passport of any country there is a statement that the passport belongs to the country that issued it and a holder is granted the right to use it and obliged to take care of it. A holder has no right to pass it to anybody unauthorized. That’s it!
I was bluffing at that moment, I didn’t have the embassy phone number and couldn’t make a call there. The most interesting part of that story, how scared they were that I know what to do if my rights are violated. And even more scared that I was really ready to act.
One day later those idiots returned me the passport.
The big respected Malaysian company with a name meaning “success”, hired me. The contract was signed a few months before my join trip. I’m from east Europe, a foreigner but not new for south-east Asia.
After long tiresome flight over a half of the continent we landed in Kuala Lumpur. It was 5 pm when someone from the company staff in the executive rank met me at the airport and hurried to drive somewhere else to pick up another person. We reached the Resort around 11 pm. Nobody offered me even a glass of water don’t mention a normal meal, though accordingly to the contract all meals provided. Well, 24 hour fasting could be good for my health.
The room at the staff quarters was new, big, clean but smelly from the cheap paint on the walls, and the large TV exuded carcinogenic chemicals. No towels, no soap. One bed sheet and hairy synthetic blanket on the bed. No duvet case or anything to put between my skin and that scary ugly blanket.
I’m quite experienced traveler and always carry a small kettle to make tea, a mug, face towel and some shower gel and shampoo. Finally I managed to make myself comfortable in a silk dressing gown. Ah, there was a fire alarm on the ceiling beeping hysterically every 30 seconds, but I was so tired that fell asleep quickly.
Later I was told by my boss I have to be extremely grateful that I have such a wonderful room for private. Usually mid-rank staff lives on shared basis. Strange lah, that building with single private rooms was on two thirds empty.
The core of Malaysian hospitality 