We are more than halfway through the Chinese Year of the Rat and ...
... we have seen many instances of the Ox being taken for a ride by the wily and cunning Rat.
So when a few days ago I came across this :
...... you could knock me down with a feather. Are these a group of University students from China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong? Or Thailand? Not Singapore because there would be more labels in English. Besides there's the young lady wearing what looks like the hijab in the top left hand corner. Hard to tell if she's Chinese because of the mask and hijab, probably a Chinese Muslim? Or maybe a burung hitam terbang malam?
Aah! UMANY means University of Malaya Association of New Youth. Again that magic word "NEW" - must have come from the loins of Pakatan Harapan's Malaysia Baru (NEW MALAYSIA). Strangely enough, for students of a University in Malaysia, I can't see a single word in Bahasa Kebangsaan. Just a lot of Chinese characters,both literally and physically! Or perhaps they are exchange Chinese students from PRC or ROC. No? They are our very own Malaysians, born and bred and educated and nurtured in Malaysia.
2020 is truly indeed the Year of the Rats.
If they are proud to declare their stand with Thailand ...
Bangkok students attending an anti-Monarchy protest.
.
.... they should firsly go back to the University Library and check on that pose with the three-finger salute.
It is actually the standard salute for all Boy Scouts and Girl Guides from all over the world.
I should know because I was a Girl Guide from the age of 12 to 17.
And do these dinky (I am referring to the American English meaning of 'dinky' which is "too small and often not very nice") revolutionaries from UMANY realise that their copy cat salute carry this commitment - to the Monarchy and Country??
How many years of education have they had to get this far in their hunger for a qualification from a well known university in Malaysia? I somehow believe they are products of Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (Cina) Malaysia and they are probably more familiar and at ease with the tenets of Confucius than anything to do with the cultural norms of the imperialistic Ang Mo Kwai (Red face Devil) or the Malai Kwai (Malay Devil) .
The freedom of education : a Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina with their guardian Confucius in a multiracial, multilingual, multicultural, multireligious Malaysia.
Certainly they must have imbibed the Rukun Negara ..
..... and sang for umpteen times the National Anthem which ends with the last two lines "Raja kita selamat bertakhta."
Or have they been mouthing them with their index and middle fingers crossed behind their backs? (This finger gesture means you are lying with the option of asking Toa Peh Kong's (God's) forgiveness.)
Sad to say, this display by UMANY does not bode well for the future of unity and harmony in multiracial, multicultural, multireligious, multilingual Malaysia.
We have seen enough of such cankers in Malaysia.
.... and of course this too.
In Part II, I shall try to illustrate the pig ignorance of Malaysians where the history of this country is concerned.
Thanks to China for endowing us and the rest of the globe with such innovations like papermaking, printing, the compass, gunpowder and the piece de resistance - Covid 19!
Also, many thanks to the antics of this Made in Malaysia Geriatric Gang for "saving" this country.
These are just the Top Four. There are also the others in UMNO (and BN), DAP, Perikatan, PAS, Amanah and the whole caboodle in Parliament. Yo! and we now have Muda (a young party)and Pejuang (re-heated leftovers)
With them, " Empat gasal, lima genap" (four is odd and five is even).
The signs were there when I wrote this in March 2016.
The greatest squalid stitchup Malaysia has ever seen.
Oh Happy Days. A picture that must be kept in the family album and memoirs for all the great and good at that table.
As a member of the Geriatric Cluster I recall those nostalgic hopes, of such Great Expectations like wanting to be economically independent. That was the dream of my Abah's generation.
From my old primary school Malay textbook in the early 1950s.
And in a Chinese newspaper from the early 2020s we had what seemed to be a version of Wawasan 2020. A vision of another Great Expectation.
From Sin Chiew.
With 2020, there was no sight or smell of the great promise of Vision 2020. We had instead the trauma and drama of changing governments and shifting, shifty Prime Ministers and wannabe Prime Ministers. All these were staged when Covid 19 struck Malaysia during the first wave, the second wave and now the third wave of the pandemic.
But we are very fortunate and blessed to have Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, the MOH's Director General. He is the epitome of a son of our Tanah Air. And we are thankful for having him even though there are others, so-called anak Malaysia who show such contempt for his contributions. They are incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff, of recognising and respecting the DG who is NOT a politician.
To think this Pakatan Harapan politician got off lightly in Sri Rampai in 2019!
Still, - "Cometh the hour, cometh the man".
Datuk DG is that light at the end of our tunnel.
As for geriatric AsH, this is my dream.
I dream of my father's and grandfather's preserve before their world was battered by adventurers and 'cuckoos' and 'raptors'.
Aaaah ... another Covid 19 Sunday is upon us. This morning the two geriatrics decided to live dangerously by firstly, getting out to enjoy a typical Malaysian (albeit a 'Malayan' ) breakfast and secondly by indulging in an unhealthy diet of Tosay which I reckon is anathema to the health-conscious, pro-active gym-attendees SYT in our urban enclaves.
This was recommended for "Anak Malaysia" as selected by the Malay Mail :
It is a breakfast which you 'construct' for yourself after a hard Sunday morning at the gym. It is made up of .....
steel-cut oats.
I got this information from the internet. The price is in US dollars, I reckon it is about 5 times the price of quick oats, if you know where to buy it in upmarket KL. But it must be worth it because we are told that cheaper instant oats are too starchy, rolled oats need cooking while steel cut or pinhead oats are "nutty, chewy, full of fibre and beta glucen".
fresh fruits like blueberries (a super fruit), kiwi fruit or bananas. Note the first two choice are imported and no way can Macik Limah afford it to feed her family for breakfast. What about our local betik?
goji berries. Auntie Siew Fong would be mystified. "Ada jual di Giant tak?" She would be uncertain if she can afford it, even tough goji berries are "rich in antioxidants and would protect our eyes." She reckons carrots would have to do for the children's eyes - and maybe make them spend less time gawking at their mobile phones and TV.
matcha powder ..... well, Auntie Meenachi and Auntie Siew Fong and Macik Limah would be completely lost. Even this GOG (Grumpy obstinate Geriatric) who has been on this planet for over 76 years and lived in about 5 urban centres (west and east) had to search the internet (her eyes are not too bad despite being deprived of those goji berries). Now; matcha is aka powdered green tea which can be dusted over your hifi breakfast bowl. Besides the "colour is quite appealing" when seen against all the other colours in your bowl!
Honey or maple syrup as a topping. Our three Malaysian Maciks again would find the latter out of their league. They would, for a healthier choice, opt for gula melaka syrup.
Finally drizzle over with virgin olive oil. "Sudah lah. Aku tak kuasa 'nak layan 'ni semua", said Macik Limah and Mak/Tok Ngah AsH.
So what did we have for breakfast this morning? It would turn the stomachs of the SYTs, standing around in their sweaty gym outfit partaking of their ultra healthy breakfast.
What we should have eaten:
What we did eat .... for our naughty breakfast and lunch.
Some of our SYTs may have lost touch with the names of the above cuisine. For their benefit; at the top is Tosay with all the yummy sauce and below is our old fashioned nasi lemak.
All very, very corrupt and wicked.
Here's our favourite Sunday morning haunt (somewhere at AU 4) sans the workout at the gym.
You can just see our two packets of nasi lemak at our favourite table.
In my last posting of Sept 30 I promised a sequel to the comment about how my Tanah Air, Semenanjung Tanah Melayu, (or 'Malaya', its Latinized version )needed antibiotics from an "extraordinary people" from a component state in Malaysia to rid us of our 'infection'. This state has also been sanctified as the "soul of Malaysia".
But as Malaysia is undergoing the throes of a difficult second/third wave of Covid 19 infections, I think I should wait for a calmer and more reassuring time before I proceed with my response.
Here's a nice song 'Blueberry Hill', to go with your bowl of super breakfast.
Many moons ago after a hiatus of 18 years when the Labour Party was left in the political boondocks, Tony Blair of the Labour Party won the General Election of 1997 and held on to the reins of government until 2007. But, not before smashing Iraq (with his sidekick George Bush) and bringing chaos to the Middle East in 2003.
He was young, a groovy guitar-toting Prime Minister, just like the young and not so-young entourage Ministers of Pakatan Harapan when, with the guidance of a geriatric Ex-PM (ex-BN too) they smashed the corrupt Barisan Nasional in the 2018 General Election.
Tony Blair declared a New Labour Party to differentiate it from the outmoded old Labour. The young Turks in Labour weakened the influence of the Trade Unions, ended the commitment to the nationalisation of the economy and substituted it with the Free Market and stronger ties with the European Union.
Pakatan Harapan had a new clarion call too, transparent, clean, multiracial, multilingual, multireligious, multicultural and may I add multi-kelentong agenda. But with that came their multi-curdling great Hurrah: MALAYSIA BARU, NEW MALAYSIA!!
Now that Pakatan Harapan are also swimming in the political slime of their own making (just like all the rest of Malaysia's political parties, including those in Sabah and Sarawak, to be fair), we the rakyat are introduced to another political feel-good-slogan : POLITIK BARU by the PKR Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil. I can't wait to see this new prescription for this defective country.
Shall we be given a NEW EDUCATION policy that sees the end of vernacular schools and the compulsory change to English language for Science and Mathematics? Shall we see something daringly new and revolutonary (as befitting the once-NEW and radically brave Pakatan Harapan government) like the nationalisation of the economy and the imposition of death duties so as to guarantee a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth. It did Britain a lot of good to help it recover from a broken country at the end of the Second World War. It will not entail any kind of blood- spilling revolution like that carried out by the Malayan Communist Party after the Second World War to ensure that everyone will be equal, that we are all equal under our skin 💪 - (Tee hee hee giggles AsH) - "to each according to his needs and not to his wants". Bang goes Capitalism, Entrepreneurship, and 'Good Capitalism' as well.
Nevertheless we shall persevere, what with all the NEW political parties mushrooming around us, catering to all shades of grey and white and black. The catch phrase is "I can do it better (and cleaner) than you". Even MP Charles Santiago could tell the DG of Health a thing or two about how to handle the rising cases of Covid 19!
Oooops. I must include this.
Here's an all-inclusive, updated version for MALAYSIA BARU.
My Tanah Semenanjung does not need any antibiotic from any judgemental filthy rich "anak Malaysia".
There will be an instalment coming soon on how Malaysia can once again become God's own country, but which God are the kelentong men thinking of? Or perhaps it's Mammon?
By yesterday evening (Saturday 5 September) this was just about all we had left of our water supply.
The black container is almost half-full plus another half-bucket.
We also had a bucket of water in the kitchen for drinking water and washing-up plus a laundry-basin full in the bathroom. The spouse and Ash, since late Thursday, had carried about eight buckets of water upstairs for toiletry use.
Prior to this at about 11 am on the same day, our nephew Shah delivered these.
Most of the supermarkets had run out of bottled water. He was at Great Eastern Mall when he saw a big stock of bottled water. I cannot guess how many he bought, but enough to supply his parents and sister, Pak Ngah and Mak Ngah and his family of five.
Bless you Shah and thank you for your kindness and generosity.
When this sturdy young man and Water Boy came to our house yesterday, I recall that 1981 photograph of us in the Boon Lay flat. That cheeky grin is still with you today.
I tried to understand why the Klang Valley was brought down to its knees when we were deprived of our right to water in the richest and most developed State in the Peninsula. This answers it all.
The Victims are on the left and the Perpetrators are on the right.
I remember reading this poem/proverb when I was in Secondary School and I now find it very apt for understanding and explaining why things get botched up the way they do. All it takes to do a task properly is to plan and prepare ahead and to keep on eye on the details.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Today, looking on at the political jiggery-pokery that's going on in Malaysia, I thought I'd take liberties and commit poetic licence by re-jigging the poem to fit this country which, after the premiership of Tun Razak, has been led by the likes of people akin to the "Emperor's New Clothes".
The missing crucial ingredient in this Tanah Pusaka is not a nail or any other tool. It is lacking integrity, an element sadly deficient in a nation which boasts so many highways, cars, universities, mosques, churches, temples, schools, people with PhDs, tycoons, CEOs, international bankers, mega-billionaires (both men and women) AND a Parliament!
Here's my take.
For want of integrity the direction was lost.
For want of direction the probity was lost.
For want of probity the leadership was lost.
For want of leadership the morality was lost.
For want of morality the cause was lost.
For want of a cause the Tanah Air was lost.
And all for the want of integrity.
To add salt to the cut, the authorities and the media - in referring to the areas affected -constantly mention the number as being 1.2 million consumer accounts.
How disingenuous! We who live in Klang Valley are not just an accountant's digit. For every consumer account there would be an average of at least five human beings living with that account holder. Multiply 1.2 million by 5 or 6 or 7 !! How well they camouflage and massage the figures - no integrity
Malaysia Boleh and Malaysia Baru has transmogrified into Malaysia Boh Liau and Malaysia Ilek.
Have a glorious Malaysia Day from all the residents of Klang Valley.
Top left : Ros and AsH at the Pavillion in the grounds of Tugu Negara. Top Right : A similar sense of affection and friendship, though of dissimilar age. Thank you Dorah, for capturing that moment for posterity.
As for the picture on the right and the caption below, it came from an article in a magazine of picures of children and their quotes which I had cut and pasted into a Scrapbook that I kept during my years of teaching in Brunei from 1978-1984.
If there wasn't any love there would be madness.
In 1983 I took the first of my two trips to India, accompanying the spouse on his research work during his sabbatical.
I was not prepared for the poverty that existed in India. More so when one noticed the obscene gap between the rich and the poor. The poverty that surrounded me was quite overpowering and so despairing that you almost lose your sense of humanity. When a group of child-beggars gathered around me at Bombay's Victoria Terminal ......
with their big doleful eyes saying, "help me, I need food", I broke down and yelled,
"Go to Rajiv Gandhi!" He was then the PM of India.
That was my breaking point after being constantly confronted and assailed by the poor, especially the children and women on the streets of Bombay.
Having a bath on the street.
Got back to my job in Brunei, and I just had to take a picture of this billboard along Jalan Gadong on my way to Maktab Perguruan Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.
Polo has been described as the Game of Kings.
When I got home to my flat at Anggerek Desa, the very next day, I wrote this poem which took me just about ten minutes to write.
With the odour of shameless poverty in India still reeking in my psyche, I wrote of "the hungry Child (who) dissipates into an echoing hunger and craves for carrion's share". In my memory I recalled a scene at a railway platform of a comfortable-looking Indian resident throwing his unfinished bhaji to a beggar squatting at the side of the wall. The beggar grabbed the leftover. It was like throwing rejected food at a stray dog!
Abah would get us the Straits Times Annual every year. One picture from the early 1960s (I think) stuck in my mind for years, that of an exhausted, weary and weather-beaten fisherman from Dungun with his catch, which I think could provide just one meal for his family and a liitle more which his wife could turn into kropok to bring in some cash. I finally managed to get to Dungun in 2019 and from what I observed in that fishing town, I reckon the children of that fisherman have done quite well in the space of 59 years. But of course, the Malaysians on the 'multiracial' West Coast and especially the urbanites, have progressed by leaps and bounds in comparison to the Malays on the East Coast. Today, the child who wrote that little quote about love and madness ......
........ might think the world has become a lunatic asylum. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just a cynical and pesimistic AsH who has seen too much and been too long on the road.
But something wonderful was in store for AsH.
When I started blogging in 2008, I encountered several like-minded spirits, good souls like Ros and her daughter Catharsis aka Dorah. Early this year we met up with Dorah and just a month ago we had the pleasure of the company of her Mak and Abah, Ros and Kadir. Dorah has been like a guardian angel, and a lady-knight in shining armour for us during the Covid 19 MCO. But after several months of knowing her she has turned into our "me duck" ( a term of endearment used by the good folks of Leicester). As a result I think she is going quackers hoo hoo!
On Sunday 20 August, Ros and Kadir and Dorah took the two geriatrics for a Malay breakfast at Nasi Lemak Tanglin followed by a stopover at Tugu Negara. We are not one for monumental structures but I must say it was quite breath-taking.
I just wish Abah and his mates, the LEP (Local Enlisted Personnel) in the RAMC or Royal Army Medical Corp of the British Army could have seen it too. That generation sacrificed a lot before, during and after the Communist Insurrection from 1948-1960.
Left:Ros and Ash. Right:Their (In)significant Other, Iain and Kadir
And so, we got home to Setiawangsa to partake of hot lemon tea brewed by a genuine English bloke.
We had a warm cosy tea-chat on the verandah facing Iain's garden.
He was quite chuffed about how Ros and especially Kadir, were the only guests we had who really appreciated his "wild garden", a habitat for birds, toads, tree shrews, butterflies and our nerdy cats.
Kadir, my favourite 27 year old kampung rotan chair and Ros; with Rusty in the background getting narked with all these 2-legged creatures interrupting his kip.
But Dorah landed herself in hot soup/tea :
Ooooh , you're in trouble.
She had nicked Uncle Iain's personal Union Jack mug!! Even AsH has to ask his special permission just to clean that tea-stained mug. One day that mug might be classified as racist because of the (late Empire's) flag. After all the BBC have banned quite recently the lyrics of "Land of Hope and Glory" and "Rule Brittania" for the Last Night of the Proms.
On that day, thanks to Ros and Kadir and Dorah we savoured the meaning of that quote.
Merdeka and Freedom would be futile if we cannot translate it into friendship, sharing and respect for one another and the values that each one of us hold dear.
Here is a fitting image to end this posting.
With the Tugu Negara behind you, my generation is passing on the baton to you and your generation of kindred spirit to preserve and protect what your forefathers and foremothers have sacrificed and upheld for their future generation.
