I’ll be going off for a long holiday soon.  I was so very much in a good mood this morning, up until my eyes was feasted upon this “US colonising Malaysia through ‘liberal Muslims’, says preacher” 

My first reaction was to run to the toilet hastily to check the color of my ass. Is it white in color while the rest of my body remains sawa matang?  Relieved that I do not need to resort to whatever it was the late Michael Jackson allegedly resorted to get his skin tone even, I came out of the toilet feeling rather pissed.  

Let me take you through the article, and of course, with my comments ( in red)

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 28 — A Malay Muslim (I thought the first teaching in Islam is to do without the  race.  So Malay Muslim is kind of opposing to the fundamental teachings of Islam) preacher ( I can’t help but wonder how much he is getting per month preaching despite the Quran, which is the word of God stating in 30:31-32 ‘Follow those who do not ask from you any wage’) has accused the US of backing “liberal Muslims” (here we go…the “branding” tactic…so what should we call the non liberal muslims?  FundaMENTAL stone and whip loving brain dead Muslims who do not believe in basic human rights and let’s not talk about women’s rights?....are those the only two of our choices?) in an attempt to colonise Malaysia (and the movement of abusing and misinterpreting Islam as a religion for use of political advances is a better choice of colonism?) and other Muslim-majority(you mean the majority “Muslim” countries who are now mostly down the Mexico lane, even Mexico lane looks somehow perky?) countries today.

Mohd Hazizi Ab Rahman told a thousand-strong crowd(had kopi Tongkat Ali during the breaks?  Perhaps getting a erm…standing …ovation?) attending a symposium here on the “Malay Leadership Crisis” the world superpower is adopting a “soft power” approach to curb the rise of political Islam,(there you go…”political” Islam….it is only  “right” to be political as long as it is the Muslim politicking….haven’t we learn enough from political Islamic history?  Or shall I say, bloody Islamic history ….really…literally bloody)  which he said is posing a major threat to the US’ global influence.

“It’s not just the Shiah, there are many Islamic factions that is being used to make Muslims fight each other and bow down to them,”(aaaaaaaaaand….Muslims have not fault whatsoever in this fight?  I mean, aren’t we capable, based on Islamic history to screw ourselves up already without having to blame “others” for these screw ups?) said the preacher who called himself an analyst (?anal- yst….where he has his head stuck in his own ass and he analysed that) on moderate Muslims and “Americanisation”.

Mohd Hazizi described “liberal Muslims” as those who support democracy, pluralism and human rights and do not see those values as opposed to Islamic ones.(see what I mean when I say muslims are capable of feckin’ themselves up without any outside help? This is one brilliant example….He just screwed himself over in just this one sentence)

He said such “liberal Muslims” also value a democratic government that ensures good governance, instead of insisting on an Islamic state,(which do not support all of what he had just describe)  and would not mind if a non-Muslim were to one day take over the leadership of the country.(aaaaaand….the Muslims in the past did a good governing job?  Again…read the bloody Islamic history folks….unless you are haemophobia of course, then you will be better off reading the Utusan Malaysia)

But in order to safeguard Islam’s interests and that of its followers nationwide, Malaysia’s leader must be a Muslim, Mohd Hazizi insisted.(to safeguard Muslims from basic human rights, democracy, and all the good values that is “non Islamic” of course).

The symposium is jointly organised by two Muslim non-government organisations, Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (ISMA) and Pembina, and is held at the Dewan Seri Siantan here.

In the first dialogue session this morning, several Malay Muslim researchers had spoken about five threats against their the country’s dominant racial and religious community, which it identified as the teachings of the Shiah school of Islam, an alleged “invasion” of the Chinese, free trade agreements including the controversial  Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), Americanisation, and Christianisation.(they forgot one more threat…..they themselves…threat against cerebral death)

ISMA’s women wing had earlier this month urged the Attorney-General to file an appeal to stop the circulation of Canadian writer Irshad Manji’s book “Allah, Liberty and Love” in its Bahasa Malaysia version, calling it an attempt to spread “liberalism”. (I’ve got to admire Islamists movement though….they get women to agree to all the stupidity willingly….what is the word I’m looking for here…ah yes…masochism ….well…small price one have to pay for ignorance of course…)

According to the NGO, the government’s initial ban on Manji’s book had been successful in preventing the spread of “liberal Islam”, which she described to be solely based on logic, advocates “ijtihad” or independent reasoning, and puts Islam on equal footing with other religions.(the usual tactic of idiots with power…no capability of intelligent discourse, just ban whatever it is they can’t argue intelligently…end of story)

The ban has since been lifted following a High Court ruling on September 5.(lift it, ban it…doesn’t really matter…ever heard of free internet downloads and better yet…Kindle?)

The Malaysia Islamic Development Department (JAKIM) has frequently warned Muslims nationwide against liberalism, with an official sermon for the Aidilfitri celebration in early August warning of a conspiracy by “enemies of Islam” to manipulate them through ideas like secularism, pluralism, socialism, feminism and positivism. (of course all this is bad for Islam the religion…although it is exactly what “Islam the Deen” is all about though…do ponder what the difference are)

The recent spotlight on Islamic decrees by Malaysian authorities on its followers as well as on non-Muslims has led to heated debate over their enforcement here, with some groups deeming certain provisions under religious law to be regressive while others have voiced concern over a worrying trend of overt Islamisation in a multicultural country.

There you go…the word of a preacher himself. 

I have nothing else to say except…cause and effect.  Look at the so called alleged “Islamic” countries all over the world.  Apart form Turkei who are progressive but ironically not regarded as “Islamic” country, we can all use our god given brains to sit and ponder what exactly went wrong.

But what are we doing right now here in Malaysia is exactly the opposite.  Instead of learning from the history of Islam, we instead follow the path towards their doom.  If there is one phrase I hate most is “ Apa boleh buat, sudah taqdir”.  This word is blasphemous because one blames God for all the wrong things they do yet hoping it to become right against the law of the universe or for the right things they were supposed to do but didn’t.

They say a journey to a thousand miles begin with the first step. Some just continued from the first step, but unfortunate on the wrong path.  They follow without thinking because apparently, thinking kills faith.  But do stop to ponder on KIND of faith that is killed?  I’m of the opinion that thinking kills most religion…but not the good deen.  If you do not understand what I’m saying here, maybe you need to reflect on your path.  Are you on the present path by chance or by choice?  Think about it…Yes…think….

Naturally…here comes my favourite surah

10:100 It is not for a person to acknowledge except by God's leave. He casts the affliction upon those who do not reason.

Aren’t most of the so called alleged “Islamic” countries are undergoing what I would call “God’s affliction”?  And here we are ....in our Malaysia Boleh spirit, ready to join the club of doom....

Say Something Nice : Why it's kewwwwwl to be a Malaysian Reason #5....( I think..)

It’s three o’clock in the morning and you woke up from pang of hunger.  You’re lazy to cook but that darn hunger refused to let you go back to George Clooney or Pamela Anderson or whoever you were having that intense interaction with before you were rudely woken up by the pain of your tummy wanting some food.   Being in Malaysia, you can just jump into something decent to wear, or if you are too lazy, jump into the car in your jumpers (and later claim that you sleep-eat..that’s a medical condition where you sleep walk and search for food to eat) and get to the nearest food stop.  Mind you, it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and we get food cooked for us, hot and lovely and not just from the microwave of 7-eleven.

You’d be surprised that in most other countries, you will be forced to either cook yourself some meal to entertain your hunger, or just go back to sleep hoping that whoever you left in your dream was still waiting for you.

This is one of the kewwwwlest things when we are in Malaysia.  In most part of Europe for instance, malls are closed on Sundays and if you are lucky, opened half day on Saturdays.  Maybe it’s a good thing whereby people are forced to bond with family instead of spending time at the mall where it is full of distractions, but imagine what this could do to one’s sanity should one is trying to run away from baaaaaaaad relationship. 

And being a woman, especially a woman of Islamic religion, I guess we are relatively very much lucky that it is relatively safe to get into the car at 3am and get your warm food.  In fact, Muslim women here are lucky to be allowed to drive.  Then again, I can’ t blame the Saudis for banning their women to drive.  I mean, if women have to cover their whole body from top to bottom, some may have just forgotten to poke two holes through their hijab in order to see where they drive towards, and this can be detrimental to one’s safety.  And that's just me saying something nice to women in such attire.  Trust me when I say, I can say reeeeeelly not so nice things.  Hmm..maybe I should join the "Say something relatively nice Campaign" instead of "Say Something Nice"...but......I'm trying...

One of the things I missed most when I was overseas, is eating under the stars on a pavement.  In some countries, eating out on the pavement like the mamak stalls or the Chinese Hawkers could mean you are eating your last meal.  Some angry citizens with weapons in their possession may just decide that there are bored and would love to go for a bullet spray, just like that.

Here in Malaysia, we tend to take for granted of how lucky we are that this country is still relatively safe and that we are blessed with many resources and people are still willing to work until late morning to serve us food.  Of course the security can be improved for the better.  To some extent, complaining and demanding for a better service from the police force is basics.  But we need to remember that as rakyat, we need to be proactive in improving our security system.  How?  For that, I have to torture you with another story.

I grew up in a community where we take care of each other, without having so much to rely on the police force.  If we see strangers with suspicious behaviour  hovering around, we will alert each other and investigate.  We do not turn our back on such things just because these suspicious characters are not on our compound. 

When I have my own house, I noticed after some time, I’m one of the few people in my neighbourhood who actually bother to get up and investigate when I hear noises from neighbours’ houses.  My house alarm went off once in the early hours of the morning, and only my immediate neighbour bothered to call to find out what is going on. The rest of the neighbours probably assumed it was false alarm, or maybe do not bother because it was not their alarm that went off, did not so much as peeped to look at what was happening.  They are just contented on paying money to people I coin as “The pizza delivery security wanabes”. 

Why I call them that, is because I notice that they will just past by every hour (on schedule ergo predictable) without even really bothered looking around.  One early morning, after coming back from clinic that I was on-call, I stood at the gate locking it when I noticed this pizza security flers passing by,….they did not even noticed that I was standing at the gate and looking at them, to see whether they so much as look at me.  So for those who are relying on such services, here’s a free advice ; Don’t sleep too sound, you may one day wake up to a knife poking your rear end.  

Bottom line, before we open our mouths to complain complain complain about the system around us, take a look at ourselves in the mirror.  Do we have something nice to say to ourselves?

#SaySomethingNice: Why it is kewwwwl to be a Malaysian. Reason #4

We get to appreciate the jokes only Malaysians can.

Of course other countries have their own personal jokes so to speak, but think about it…more races, more stuff to joke about. And since we comprise of variety, naturally the humour is in abundance. I’m married to a non Malaysian and although we share many things including humour, it will take some time for him to digest Malaysian humour that only Malaysians like you and I can appreciate. For instance; my spouse do not understand it when I told him that here in Malaysia, the subtitles of a film can be hilarious. I have seen the translation of “We start from scratch” translated as, “Kita mula dengan menggaru”. And then, only Malaysians, with the exception of the MCKK (Malay college Kuala Kangsar) boys of course, will laugh at the term “ Mc Gay Gay”. I got this from watching the Comedy Court boys perform a stand-up comedy. They are hilarious I tell you. Then remember that beautiful Petronas Deepavali ad, where the bunch of Indian boys dressed up like Afro American, not to mention tried to sound like one goes, “Phatty…phatty” alerting the other boys that their “Phatty” or and Indian word for “Grandmother” although the others did not get the warning thinking the guy meant “Parteeey”. I mean this one:
 

 I mean, how can my hubby laugh at the word “Batang Berjuntai”. And then, there are names to fool around with. I’m sure you all have heard of the classic joke. It’s about a shop in Ipoh called “Wee Kian Fatt”. Across the road however, there was an alleged similar shop but only called, “Soh Kian Wee”. How beautiful is that , tell me. We also used to joke about names. Zakaria, Soh Long Kok. One of my patient name is “Butt Chin Chuan”…I promise you that was how butt was spelt. Then there was a “Wong Shit Moy”…again, I’m not kidding. These people exist. In Sabah, the Pengarah Jabatan Arkib Negeri Sabah was named Datuk Datu Tigabelas Datu Zainal Abidin. Too bad his father was not Tan Sri Empatbelas..otherwise it would have been cool to be called 13 anak 14. Here’s another one. My kid’s friend’s name is …get this…”Fakhim”. Kids call him “phakker" for short....

Here’s another one… the word “Sifat” means “virtue” in BM yet it means “butt” in Chinese. Hahaha…I’m amazed Jakim, Jais dan kawasan kawasan yang seimbecile dengannya did not ban the Chinese to say “Sifat sifat Allah”. They got to ban the latter word to be used by non-Muslims…although there was no need in the first place. Then I used to joke with my Punjabi friends by saying “Tey riiiii maa kasih”. For the benefit of those who do not understand a word of Punjabi, “Tey riiii maa” means “Your mother” but in an expletive sense of it. So we use to greet each other , “Tey riiiiii ma …kasih”…then would giggle after that. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve forgotten to pen down.

And then there's Ilmu Hisab....it became less interesting when it was changed to "Mathematics"...maybe failure in marketing....should have left it as "Ilmu Hisab"...sounds more alluring to especially curious kid.

I use to study close by home for some time, so much so, I like to say that “When people say ‘I’m homesick’ it means ‘they miss home’, but when I say I’m ‘homesick’ it means ‘I’m sick of home’….”. But there was a time when I was overseas and I was truly missing home. One of the stuff I missed was how we are as a society. Sure…sometimes we step on each other’s foot, hey, nobody’s perfect. But it’s home. Remembering jokes like this is just so …exclusively Malaysian.. I leave you with my favourite video, that only Malaysians can truly appreciate….it’s an old video, but it’s just….let me put it this way…I will cry buckets if I watch this when I’m far away from home…
 

#SaySomethingNice : Why it's kewwwwl to be Malaysians. Reason #3 We have more sources to become creative

If anyone were to doubt the creativity of Malaysians, just run a poll and discover how creative Malaysians can become when coming up with saaaaaay…..excuses: Excuses for being late for work, excuses when getting caught by the traffic police. I once came up with “Datuk, saya bukan sengaja tinggalkan driving licence ni.. Tau je lah kan orang perempuan suka tukar tukar beg tangan, nak matching dengan kasut dan bajulah katakan”, then I went on and on and even talked about where I shopped and there was a sale at where I shopped for the bags and shoes up until the “Datuk” got totally fed up and let me off the hook. And that was just me, a doctor, species famous for being one of the least creative people around. Of course this is not our fault. We went to the Medical School and everyone knows that that is where people go to, to have their creativity murdered.

Speaking of being a doctor, I can vouch that Malaysians are creative with excuses judging at how we come up with some while desperately trying to obtain MC (Medical Certificate…..ya…like no one knows what MC means…even the foreign workers are catching up with this…) for example. Here’s one, “ I had a nasty fight with my boss and now every time I see his face, especially on Mondays, I feel nauseated. The best thing is for me to stay away from the office”. Creative isn’t it? Oh, and here is my favourite, “I have such a bad diarrhea and I’ve sharted (a term for accidentally shitting while farting) and I now I have no underwear so you’ve got to give me MC lah doc.” Needless to say, doctors are forced to come out from their comfort non-creative zone to become creative in answering these types of excuses. For the former I’d tell them, “Should I give your boss MC too? I’m sure he feels the same about you especially on Mondays” and for the latter, “Some of your colleagues are running around the office without an underwear, judging from the office scandals circulating and they seem to be doing just fine at work. I’m sure you can manage just this one day”. Okay…confession…...I’ve never said this (the latter), but it was on my mind okay. See why doctors don’t sound creative? Half of our creativity stops at the tip of our tongues, due to professionalism.

If anyone is still not satisfied with only the doctor’s testimony on how creative Malaysians are, then they should look at the Mat Rempits. I suspect that initially, these Rempits were just trying to be creative with ways to gamble their lives. The motorcycle was just the manifestation of this. And shuffling (no ..I don’t mean the shuffling done in places like Genting Highlands)….yes…I mean the dance shuffling where one get down and…well..shuffle. Malaysians for your information, are known for our own brand of shuffling.

One of the people whom I have high respect in the Art world is our very own Indian Classical dancer, Ramli Ibrahim. Of course he’s not the sun of Ibrahim Ali the …oppppppppppppppppppp….chop…I just remembered that I this is a campaign to say nice things. I’ll practice reticence then. Moving along... I mean, how cool is it to have a Malays dancing the Indian Dance. And we have many other artists who cross their culture in performance, for instance , Alley Cats, Vince, Francisca Peters, Jaclyn Victor and many more.

 It would be nice to have Malays singing Chinese or Indian songs more. Then again, even though the Malays hardly travel outside their comfort zone when it comes to performing arts, (I guess it takes too much effort to learn other languages. After all, if we stick to Bahasa Malaysia, then automatically we will understand English…that’s two in one twin pack), Malays do enjoy being in the K-Pop stream for instance. And of course we have many Malaysians who are berjiwa negro and indulge in soul from the getto brada hood and yo yo wassap bro kinda art…nowadays we have especially Malays and Indians talking like they are from the getto. Suddenly Jais becomes Jay, Mohanan becomes Mo etc etc etc…with braided hair and tattoo all over the body that is so kewwwl that their own grandmother would not even recognize them when brushing shoulders.

Although we have the tendency to preserve our cultural heritage, we could, if we wanted to, be very creative when exploring the realms of fusion, be it fashion or culinary for instance. Food of course, apart from the Peranakan’s, had taken flight with fusion creativity. We have for example “teh tiga lapis”, durian cake, Milo+Hollicks+Kopi drinks which I read a comment made on Facebook, that if
tea was added to the recipe, the drink should be called “LickMiKoTeh”. (see, we are even creative in our marketing strategies). This is of course excluding the “hal ehwal semasa” dishes like the time when Anwar case was hot, there was, “Sodo Mee”, wait, what? There wasn't ? Oh, pardon me, there should have been then. I remember eating Roti C4 at one time. I remember this roti quite well, not only because of the name but also because at the end part of my digestive system, the one that is not involved in copulation of the French kind, had an explosion the very next morning. I remember thinking, “If this was America, I would have sued that mamak right down to his underwear”.

And then there’s the interesting method of the making of teh tarik and roti canai, where food are tossed up in the air and more interestingly, landed back where it is supposed to land. Trust me, it requires good skills to perform these. I remember attempting tossing my roti canai and I did it too high, and well..there must be something wrong with my dough mixture too, because next thing I remember, I had to look for a ladder and climb it to scrap the roti canai off my kitchen ceiling. Imagine if we comprise of only one single entity, we won’t be blessed with all the privileges in a form of Mamak stalls, Peranakan culture and the Yusuf Tayooooooooooooooooooooob advertisement. Oh yes….brace yourselves to another yet new culture. The Arabinization of Malaysian Muslims. Who knows, one day, we will have roti panjang John with Shisya coming out between those long roti…..endless possibilities folks…endless possibilities…

SAY SOMETHING NICE CAMPAIGN : Why it's kewwl to be Malaysians Reason #2

We have the chance to be eclectic.

Ever wonder how it would be like being born and raised in a country where from the day you wake up to braise the dawn till the day you say good night to the only people you come to contact with who have the same look, dress the same way, cook and eat the same food, sing the same kind of songs? I don’t know about you, but THAT sounds boring to me. It would probably be living in The Matrix just minus the handsome Keanu Reeves. Maybe that was what our government had in mind when they came up with the tag line “Endless Possibilities”. To be honest, if I may be allowed to digress a little, I had a little panic attack with the term “Endless Possibilities” when my ears were for the first time feasted upon them; because judging from some of the scandals involving some of our politicians in the past, the word “Endless Possibilities” could well mean…..well…endless possibilities, but FOR Whom? That is an Endless Possibilities for the Rakyat to worry. Still..let's give them the benefit of the doubt now shall we.

Back on track. I think Malaysians have come a long way stepping out from our stereotype beings. I recall those days when I hear people grumbling, “Ish..Cina ni, rambut jer yang lurus” (“With Chinese, only their hair is straight”) and I doubt they meant straight in a heterosexual sense of it. Then, there’s “Melayu layu” and “India suka mabuk”.

Well, today, we have all the bad and the good traits in a Muhibbah proportion. We have Melayu, India, Cina suka mabuk together gether, which is one form of Muhibbah.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mean this in a bad way.  History had proven over and over again, that it was the sober ones who screwed the world up. I don't recall any world war started during the Happy Hour.  Although I must say I am a little bewildered with drunk Malays who can drink like a fish but stay away from pork like it's the plague. Or lately, we have our Chinese brothers joining us in the world of crime. One has to wonder, how bad is the economy when a person with the progressive China-man gene starts to turn to robbery. And since this is a "Say Something Nice Campaign", I will give concession to a Muhibbah Organized Crime by not commenting on what could be a Muhibbah form of alleged Organized Crime. So okay, not all Malays learn to make money like the Chinese by joining UM...politics.

Imagine, from the day we were born, we were/are exposed to so many cultures. All one has to do is to pick and choose what one wants to keep as his/her virtues. Maybe what we see in society today, good or bad is the fusion of the choices we pick from those virtues. Being eclectic is one of the virtues that serve as a stepping stone towards an evolution of mankind, and not in retrograde. Even the Pak Lebais recognizes this form of progress.  Although they like to insist on going backwards in many issues especially when it comes to women matters, still, they chose to drive the car instead of riding the camel to what they claim as "work".

If our forefathers the cave men chose to only stay in the cave and wear those hideous fur wrappings they call the closet, we would not be watching reality TV full of designers in the making for instance. (hmm...on second thoughts, maybe they should have stayed in the caves). Then again, some of the people of "civilization", some women may still be stuck with the Cave woman closet.  To women's defense, being the more superior being, although silently, we would attribute to the skimpy dressing to preparing for global warming. Or worst, if humans do not have the urge towards trying something new or progressing, we would all be talking Shakespeare English and I would not even bother writing these articles if so.

While it's a norm to want to preserve our culture and heritage, being eclectic is another type of culture that is worth giving some importance to. And where better to start than to be exposed to many cultures, religion etc, in someplace like Malaysia...

SAY SOMETHING NICE CAMPAIGN : Why it's kewwwl to be Malaysians Reason #1 :

We get many holidays..wait...I should sound more excited...let me add some exclamation marks..here we go,...We get many holidays!!!!!  Depending on which side you are on, some may even say far too many, of course the employees will claim we could do with more. Well, we have many races with many religions ergo many holidays. That plus our annual leave makes quite a decent number of leave from work. This is of course excluding self-created holidays from MC (Medical Certification) or perhaps the kind of holidays we get when the incumbent government take a big win in the General Erections..oops, I mean General Elections (which haven’t been happening lately and I doubt will happen in this near future) or Malaysian almost obsolete football team take on Manchester United on a friendly match and accidentally won (or if we employ a couple of Banglas with offensive body ordor that really pissed those Mat Salleh's off until their concentration derails and they score their own goals.....) and of course etc etc etc.  If the state of confusion be made into a religion and is called “Confused-cius”, we will have a few more days of leave. I said “a few more days” because I suspect that Confused-cius, , may hold quite a majority number of disciples.

Yes. Festive seasons and holidays.  It is fun going back to Kampung and Malaysians are such a high spirited lot that we could even take the traffic jam almost every festive season, created by mostly our tolls. I mean, we Malaysians celebrate EVERYTHING, just give us half the chance. The Malays will in a split second congest the highways and tolls heading for Kampungs during Chinese New Year, sometimes the Chinese will have to wait for the traffic to clear off and head back to their respective Kampungs just in time for the Pre Chinese New Year dinner. The Chinese are very competitive lot but unfortunately they cannot beat the Malay record timing of getting into the car to head out of town towards the Kampung when any holidays are declared.

And speaking of tolls, another cool thing about being a Malaysian is that we don’t really have to queue up like those boring Brits if we don’t want to. It’s not like any good Samaritan will come up to those people who cut queue and tell them off, something along the lines of, “We are in a hurry too dear”…or “I think your Kindergarten teachers had left out the alphabet Q from the syllabus because you sure look like you haven’t heard of it”. My favourite is “Kambing biri biri kat UK pun reti beratur….”. I mean, look at the LRT system for instance. We save time simply by rushing into the LRT the very moment the door opens and well, the people from inside will HAVE to now hurry up to get out. This is definitely less time consuming. Fantastic! 

And oh… look at our tolls. Some people may go about 35km an hour but one can roughly estimate the distance of approaching a toll when we notice the sudden speed increase of the vehicles for no apparent reason…well, not apparent until we reach the toll of course. And well, the Smart Tag was created again to save time, although it is rather unfortunate that it is a misnomer because frankly, the Tag is the one that is Smart, the user…not so. Some of the users are so not smart, that it beats the purpose of having a fast lane rendering it fit to be renamed as “Semak Tag” or “Schmuck Tag”. It can only achieve the title “Smug Tag” when all the users are idiot-proofed.Oh but I have digressed.

As for those who are left in KL during the festive seasons, we truly appreciate the non-traffic jam situation so much so that we will almost be in tears when it is time for the people to head back into KL. I’m sure the KL rodents share the same sentiments as the KL-ites.

And THOSE are just the official holidays. Let me start on what I’d like to coin as “hidden holidays”. Notice how sometimes in your say, telephone bills for example; there are “hidden charges” that only a person with the skill of observation paired with high index suspicion would notice. Well, MC to me can be categorized as “hidden holidays”. Based on experience, and I do blame the General Practitioner for enabling this (due to business competition of course), MC (Medical Certificate)is viewed by majority public as the answer to mostly problems that have nothing to do with being sick, which is what the MC was originally for. MC is like a Superhero, the answer to man’s problem. Leave not approved, no problem, get MC. Fed up of work, get MC. Child falls sick, parents take MC. Jet lag and feeling lazy to go to work after a long holiday? Ah, small matter, take MC and call it a short break to recover from a longer one.

Now….see how cool it is to become Malaysians? We get to use up all our medical leave privileges to solve all of our life’s problems. That’s what I meant by we have abundance of holiday.

So there you go… the first reason why it is cool to be a Malaysian. I’ve got a couple more articles to go and for those who are used to my writing style, you will inevitably notice how much effort I have injected into behaving and abiding to the “Say something nice” campaign. (Only you will agree that this is me being nice).  My mom use to tell me, “If you have nothing good to say about something, then don’t say anything”. Pffft!! We hardly listen to what God says…what makes moms think we listen to them. But hey...you must believe me when I say I'm trying... ...Click here to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.....

SAY SOMETHING NICE CAMPAIGN : Why it's kewwwl to be a Malaysian

I once had a conversation with my sister in law who resides in the UK after marrying her cousin who is a PR there. Merely trying to strike a polite conversation, I must have asked her more than once about her return to residing in Malaysia. Irritated, she snubbed me, “Why people kept asking me this question? I mean, what is so great about Malaysia that I want to come back?”. It’s not so much as what she had said that was hurtful, but rather how she said it. At that moment, I was just stumped. I wanted to just hurt her back by saying, “Well, what is “great” is that although you do not have a drop of Malay blood in you, and majority of your family strongly forbids marrying outside of your own kind yet because you speak and even though broken Malay and profess Islam as a religion, you are granted the Bumiputra status hence the really fat account in your ASB”. But I withheld my tongue of course. I don’t really care for the racial sentiments, after all, I am...well, if you insist on stereotyping; a Malay who married a Punjabi and this would be a testimony that I can’t really give a damn about racial issues. No, it is not the race issue that bugged me. It was the hypocrisy.

So what is cool about being a Malaysian anyway? I can write a book about why it is not cool to be a Malaysian, but at some point in life, we have got to learn to stop whining at what we don’t have and learn to appreciate what we do, before losing those too. This is of course and arguable statement, but I believe in staying positive. We are allowed to still whine about what we don’t have, as long as we do something to change it. To keep us healthy while waiting for changes to materialize, it won’t hurt us to stay positive and grateful with the good side of things.

So what is cool about being a Malaysian then? Actually, the main question you should be asking me is, “Why am I driven to point out what is cool about being a Malaysian? Let me share with you my little experience.

I once backpacked around Bali and I can understand why Bali is a major tourist attraction. Personally however, one of the hundreds of reason why I love being in Bali was the fact that unlike in my own country, the question they asked concerning where I was from just stops at “Where are you from?” It never got past that question after I hand them my answer, “I am a Malaysian”. People are contented with that One Answer as though they are part of the One Malaysia campaign. There were no more questions beyond that One Question. No: “Yaaa…but what are you? Are you a Malay, Chinese, Indian Malaysian or mixed from those or dan lain lain?”. And folks, it felt REALLY REALLY good to be able to just answer it the way it should be answered by all fellow Malaysians when such question is posed upon us, “I am a Malaysian”. Full stop.

To further make you understand how that felt like,again, try to reminisce the moment when our badminton hero Dato’ Lee Chong Wei fought in finals against China’s whatshisface. Do you recall how, how it felt like, for that just one moment, when we all forgot that we were Malays or Chinese or Indian or Dan Lain Lain ( I put it in capitals on purpose to signify that minorities are important too, although if I were to list them down here, I will not have time to complete my articles), and for that particular moment in time, we were all, simply just Malaysians.  Tell me that didn't feel good to you.

Well, my hope is that my articles will create the same sentiments when together we laugh or cry or hate something about Malaysia. Or not….. So what is going on with Malaysia these past few years? Well, here is how I view it. Malaysia is just a new civilization as compared to the countries valued with a long history of civilization. We are basically teenagers in the eyes of history. To me, what Malaysia is undergoing today, is just a growing pain. And like most teenagers, we throw our tantrums (what better way than to protest in street protests..although I’m quite taken aback that we Malaysians did not protest against the catastrophic Jerebu caused by amongst them, a few fellow Malaysians as I was under the impression that these protests were for the better future of Malaysians. There should be some kind of protest since there will not be many people to comprise the future should majority die from lung problems or accidents from poor driving view) before everything settled down again and we get distracted with our latest shopping complex etc.

I smile when anyone voice out their worries about Malaysia becoming something like Egypt. Well, for one, Egypt comprises of really frustrated people without jobs and most have nothing to lose. People without anything to lose are, needless to say, dangerous people. Malaysia has poor people but categorized as relatively poor. You can still catch sight of an Astro dish sticking on their rooftop if you look close enough. So after the tantrum throwing, block a couple of major roads in the process (although feeling smug and proud of that because apparently that showed the humongous turn out for support, never mind a few people suffering from the outcome of medical delay), we go back home feeling relieved that our anger was heard (and well, it is important to show some anger of course) and flip through the latest Ikea Catalog and plan for our next holiday trip. I don’t think Malaysians are prepared to lose their lives in street protests unless probably some Rempits who risk their nothing-to-lose lives on the road doing unthinkable stunts anyway. We are too spoiled and we certainly know that we’d be dumb if we lose our lives for a couple of spiteful politicians who can’t get along with each other. We are too smart for that. Besides, do you think those angry politicians will themselves gamble their lives if they need to put it on the line?  I don't think so.  Politicians do what they do best, employ the tools to do their dirty jobs.  I’m sure we can agree with this even if we have many issues we don’t agree upon, right fellow Malaysians?

Then again, I may be wrong since there may be enough gullible people to get together and start a riot. Those who probably think that one cannot live without inflicting pain on ourselves. Can’t blame them, as Paganism is something that is deep rooted in So let’s go through this growing pains together but not forgetting that despite all the tantrums, there is love among us the Rakyat and that was why we felt any anger in the first place. Not loving this country will only make us feel….indifferent. So let’s get angry when we need to get angry and show them we are angry in a way just enough to get the job done, but not enough to cause self-destruction. You think we can handle this Malaysians? I think we can. ...Click here to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.....