Shorties in the world, unite!

Anyone who knows me personally and is not retarded should be able to figure out that I lack in the height department.

Today, I’m going to write about my kind. If you are a shorty and happen to read this, you ought to be proud of yourself for we have been mesmerising mankind for as long as mankind itself, evident by countless folklore, stereotypical stories, movies and books and even anthropological studies.

What is it about us that interest so many people? One thing’s for sure, it’s definitely not due to romantic perception because to many uninterested suitors, short people are just plain undesirable, to put it bluntly. Don’t concur? Just ask Dopey, Grumpy, Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy and Sleepy! Snow White opted for a prince at their expense. Findings from numerous studies also lend credence to my view that women generally prefer tall men to be their partners because they are seen to be healthier, thus able to produce better offspring. Yes, humans may have evolved but we still maintain certain animalistic traits.

Recently, the current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy made news for the wrong reasons, which provided unwitting gags to the international community. His minders saw it fit to selectively ask short workers from a factory he was visiting to appear alongside him in a televised speech so that no one would be seen dwarfing him. That’s not all, at a D-Day commemoration; he delivered a speech whilst standing on a stool behind the dais. He probably did this because 2 other leaders who showed up for the ceremony, President Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown are taller than he is.

I find all these rather amusing because here’s a president of a country with the 5th largest economy in the world, yet he still feels insecure about his diminutiveness. Lest you think he’s the shortest leader in the world today, there’s a leader who’s even more modest in height and he is Dmitry Medvedev, the incumbent President of Russia.

If Mr. Sarkozy needs any inspiration from a fellow shorty, he should look no further than his compatriot, Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest shorty ever. This is an indisputable statement. In his heyday, Napoleon struck fear in many peoples’ mind, so brilliant a strategist he was that he conquered Europe and beyond until The Battle of Waterloo sealed his fate.

Napoleon was so great that he spawns a psychological theory “Napoleon syndrome.” According to psychologists, it’s a term to describe short people who aggressively over excel in their chosen fields to compensate for their limited stature.

Truth be known, the cynical side of me used to believe that successful short people was just mere coincidence and that height had nothing to do with achievements. In fact, I happily concurred with many studies that tall people have many advantages compared to their shorter counterparts in career advancement because short people tend to be viewed suspiciously and unfairly as being more untrustworthy. Then, something jolted me; the people who hold high positions in my company are not very tall. This discovery has started to raise my suspicion about the validity of such studies. Needless to say, I always bear the brunt of colleagues’ jokes that by the virtue of my height, I will be the next big thing in the company. Well, sorry to disappoint you jokers, but I am the exception to the company’s norm.

I would like to share an incident which I will never forget for its combination of sarcasm and humour was when a Chinaman remarked to me several years ago that there were only 2 types of people that he feared, The Hooked-Nose and The Shorties.

If you ever wonder whether I would consider going under the knife to increase my height, my answer is a resounding “NO” because I’ve always consoled myself that there are many famous short people who have made names for themselves, some of them are listed below, together with their height measurement:

• Danny DeVito (Actor)                                                     5’0”
• Edith Piaf (Legendary French Singer)                               4’8”
• Voltaire (French Philosopher)                                          5’3”
• Igor Stravinsky (Composer)                                            5’4”
• St. Francis of Assisi (Patron Saint of Animal)                   5’1”
• Pablo Picasso (Painter)                                                   5’4”
• Madonna (Singer)                                                           5’4”
• Deng Xiaoping (former president of China)                      5’0”
• Joseph Stalin (former leader of USSR)                            5’6”
• Martin Scorsese (Director)                                              5’3”
• Marquis de Sade (French Writer & Poet)                        5’3”
• Al Pacino (Actor)                                                            5’6”
• F. Scott Fitzgerald (Novelist)                                          5’7”
• Ludwig V. Beethoven (Composer)                                 5' 3¾"
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi                                     5’3”

Public toilets in Malaysia

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi

I agree with the above statement-hook, line and sinker but no disrespect to one of 20th century greatest icons, I would like to proffer a statement of my own which reads like this:

“The greatness of a nation and its people’s civilisation is judged by the cleanliness (or the lack, thereof) of its public toilets”

Given a choice, Malaysians wouldn’t want to answer call of nature in any other places except their own residences or that of their friends’ or relatives’ due to the deplorable condition of our lavatories, capable of churning one’s stomach. This sets me thinking, why Fear Factor hasn’t subjected its contestants to use public toilets in this country. Yes, it’s that scary!

We may boast to the world for having the Petronas Twin Towers, a state-of-the-art airport and other great amenities but all these come to a nought, negated by our embarrassing public toilets.

We are to blame for the state of our toilets, which have made international news. We take painstaking care with our home toilets but neglect the public ones. To check this rot, it’s incumbent upon our Malaysian government to embark on a major campaign to change people’s attitude towards public toilets. Yes, been there, done that; but to no avail. However, we could have done better by teaching our schoolchildren the importance of toilet cleanliness and complement it with major publicity blitz in media.

Still, they will not be effective until we start to make do without squatting toilets with every new building that is built. Squatting toilet is ancient and has no place in modern society. It may be more hygienic for the user since we do not come into direct contact with the surface but sitting toilet can just be as hygienic if only proper aids are in order. Make sure either alcohol-based lotion or paper-based toilet bowl covers is readily available in order for users to apply on the sits prior depositing. In the absence of these, Malaysians resort to squatting on sitting toilet bowl and cause shoe stains to be semi-permanent feature. What will the foreigners think of us, that we don’t even understand basic decorum? For the uninitiated, squatting on sitting toilet bowl is highly dangerous because it will break under the squatter’s weight and leave deep-piercing wounds.

Our toilets are always flooded and the sight of water on the floor is ungainly. Anyone stepping on puddle of water leaves stains all over the toilet. Water should only be available at the urinal and basin, not in the toilet cubicles. Toilet paper is good enough. Recently, we see positive development as far as usage of water sparingly is concerned. If my memory serves me right, toilets in The Gardens do not have tap in the cubicles. It’s a good start. When we are left with no choice and situation becomes desperate enough, we will just use the toilets, sans water. If we are to travel abroad where toilets are usually clean, you will notice they do not have tap in the cubicles. Once incident opened up my eyes on how Malaysians approach toilet usage. A colleague was in the office and the toilet was clean but he chose to use the one in a petrol station instead, because it had tap whereas there was none in the office’s toilet. And to think of it, the toilet at the petrol station was filthier!

There’s another ugly side to Malaysians which we need to eradicate and that is, being selfish. After using toilets, some people do not bother to make sure the bowl is stainless for other users. We have a lot to learn from the Japanese who always have the next users in mind whenever they use public facilities. On my part, I make sure I won’t leave stains behind. If more Malaysians start shedding their selfish behaviour, I am confident thing will start to change for the better. Towards this end, we need to start doing our part.

Graffiti is also another thing which embarrasses us no end. I felt very angry that toilets in KLCC were defaced with graffiti of racist and sexual statements. To me, the culprits were downright uncivilised and had very poor upbringing. To be fair, lately, I don’t notice graffiti in KLCC toilets anymore. Kudos to the management.

Lastly, there is another thing Malaysians need to change and that is to treat car park basement as toilet. I have seen on numerous occasions, soiled baby diapers conveniently thrown to the ground! Another uncivilised behaviour.

Bouquets for the organiser of Miss World Malaysia 2009 Pageant?

They are more deserving of brickbats, actually. If they think by resorting to certain moronic stunts, they are able to generate good publicity, they have definitely erred big time.

Call me devoid of humour but I genuinely do not find anything remotely funny with one of their promotional clips for the pageant as it reeks of blatant sexism and is so disrespectful. As a matter of fact, the clip is in bad taste and only seeks to tell the whole world how they sorely lack in finesse.

In the clip that is uncalled for, a man is seen walking around in public with a leash held by a woman. Who would have thought that in this day and age where women have achieved greater emancipation, some people have to ruin the good work done by their sisters in the past by coming up with this pathetic and demeaning clip?

I am very sure had the clip been made in such a way that the woman was on the leash held by the man, numerous women’s groups would have been up in arms, raised hue and cry and condemned in the strongest terms imaginable what they see as an attempt to cast their kind as social pariah. If you want respect, you have to earn it. Regretfully, the public is deafeningly muted on this clip. Shame on you, really!

Many years ago, Samantha Schubert appeared for a Bufori advertisement saying something along the line of "I don't care who you are, but if you drive a Bufori, I am all yours." The clamour for it to the ad to be axed was very loud and clear but this time around, people pretend as though the clip is innocuous. What double standards.
Could it be that powerful people are behind the organising of this pageant? I don’t rule that out.

Anyway, I’ve never been a fan of beauty pageants in our country. In two particular pageants, I prophesised before pageants started proper that Elaine Daly and Andrea Fonseka would win and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s so predictable.

Suspicious? I leave it to your wisdom to judge.

Here's the offensive clip:

Malaysian Road Users

Those familiar with the world of literary need no introduction to Robert Louis Stevenson’s successful character, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which suffers from split personality. It was so successful that today, the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” means someone who displays good and evil personalities alternately.

In Malaysia, we can find a lot of Jekyll and Hyde on our roads and mind you, they are not fictitious. Generally, we are friendly and warm by nature but the moment we are behind wheel, a different personality takes charge. Incidents of road bully have taken place but would these bullies have vented out the same if they were not driving? Quite unlikely.

Reasons are aplenty on why people lose their cool easily when in their vehicles. A minor incident on the road could be the final straw which breaks the camel’s back after a stressful and difficult day for the vehicle’s occupant. I can think of only 3 factors which lead them to run amok momentarily. The knowledge they are inside the vehicle, hence chances of escaping are higher and that they are anonymous to the “offensive” party. These theories of mine found an ally with a trained psychologist several years ago when he theorised the same in a local newspaper.

To solely blame the person who resorts to road rage is unfair because there are times when other road users can be very annoying and I would like to share with you, certain species found on Malaysian roads.

The “road-hoggers”
Road hoggers like to test other people’s patience by driving at leisurely pace, hogging the express lane as a result, and refuse to give way to other drivers who want to overtake. Some of these selfish imbeciles actually don’t see anything wrong with their antic as long as they keep to the speed limit. If it makes them feel less guilty, they can justify it that way but really, is it very difficult to give way to other people who are in a hurry? People might be in a rush due to emergency, all right?! Congested highways during long festive season can be partly attributed to the road-hoggers. A few years ago, an engineer was killed in the same year he was supposed to get married. What did he do to warrant his premature death? He hogged the express lane and refused to budge, drawing his killer’s ire.

The “scared of sunlight” aunty
I notice this is a recent trend. While waiting for traffic light to turn green, these drivers will take shelter under tree branches and leaves. In doing so, they leave a wide gap in front, between their cars and the line. At times, the gap can be so wide that 2 more cars can fill it. What is the implication of this selfish act? When light finally turns green, less cars behind can drive through before the light changes colour. How to spot this category of drivers? I don’t think it’s an unfair generalisation but majority are aunties who wear long sleeves to cover their arms. Some of the more paranoid ones are spotted wearing sunglasses and hats as well. This is my advice to them: “Numbskull, if you think sunlight can melt you, don’t drive until sunset and if you must drive when it’s scorching hot, don’t bloody take shelter! “

The Indicator-phobic No. 1
These drivers like to make other drivers wait in vain at a junction. They are about to turn left but will never indicate to the waiting driver their next move. The result is a frustrated driver who waited for nothing. I wouldn’t want to date this category of driver because she might do the same to you while you are on the bed, expecting something good as she sexily strut her stuff away and the next thing you know, she leaves the room. Frustrated, ain’t it?

The Indicator-phobic No.2
Whereas Indicator-phobic No.1 doesn’t like to use their car’s indicators, Indicator-phobic No.2 doesn’t like to see you putting on your own indicator to notify them of your intention to change lane. Upon seeing your indicator lights up, he will accelerate to close the gap, thus depriving you the chance to switch lane. Funnily enough, when you don’t put on the signal and just change lane, Indicator No.2 will not close the gap and all is well.

The Interceptor No.1 & 2
Imagine yourself driving fast on the express lane and then suddenly, the car on your left swerves into your lane. How about his cousin, Interceptor No.2? He is at a junction and upon seeing your car approaching, drives out nevertheless and to compound matters, do it slowly. I think I need to change my brake pads sooner than later.

The Red-Light Beater
This usually happens when the roads are deserted after midnight. You waited because the traffic light signals you to. When it flashes its green light, of course you heed it but lo and behold, another car just whizzed past you from a different direction, narrowly missing your car by inches. This jackass not only endangers his life but yours as well. If you are a female and reading this, I strongly advise you not to date this kind of driver because who knows what he might still want to do even after telling him you are having period?

The Line Lover
Lines on the road serve a purpose and drivers should confine themselves within the line, not on it. Yet, we have drivers who just love to drive their cars in the middle of the line. Consequently, other drivers don’t have enough space to overtake, either from right or left side.

The “I have the time in the world” drivers
You have been scouring high and low for a parking space in the mall for minutes and your movie is about to start. Suddenly, Lady Luck smiles at you or so you think. You know for a fact that Pak Cik and his family are going to leave as they put all their groceries into the car but they are oh so refine that they have to do things very slowly from opening the boot to getting their arses into the car. When their car finally moves out and you get your chance to park, you realise your movie has just ended.

The Tortoise Pedestrians
This particular species like to take things for granted. Either they think your car will be damaged extensively upon coming into contact with their bodies or they have every reason to believe you don’t dare to knock them down.

The Queue-Jumpers
You approach a long line of cars because traffic light is red and like any civilised drivers, you wait but as soon as the traffic light turns green, Houdini-like drivers suddenly appear out of the blue and put on indicator to tell you they want to cut in ashamedly. They think that by just putting on indicator, they can be forgiven for acting uncivilly. Strangely, these queue-jumpers could be Indicator-phobic No.1 & 2 respectively, at other times.

The Mellow Yellow Drivers
These drivers know there are many cars in front of theirs and traffic is moving bumper to bumper. Still, they will drive into the Yellow Box and block you from turning right into another road. They have this mentality “If I’m going to be caught in a jam, you should too”

The Union of Punters and Busybodies
Many a time, traffic jams are avoidable but owing to this category of drivers, they have to slow down to look even at the most minor of accidents. I wouldn’t be surprised that these drivers’ favourite pastime is to look at paint drying up. Punters, on the other hand, like to take advantage of other people’s misfortune. These drivers won’t even lift their pinky to help the accident victims.

Apart from the 12 kinds of species stated above, I am very sure there are many others I might have overlooked. I hope our Transport Ministry will compel learner drivers and present driving licence holders to undergo a new sensitiser course so as to make our Malaysian roads less stressful to drive on. When this becomes a reality, road bully incidents are bound to decrease.

Singaporean? MY FOOD!

Out of duty as a Malaysian, I feel it is necessary to lend my voice into the tussle that is taking place pertaining to whether Singapore or Malaysia has the rightful claim over certain types of food as its own.

Much as I admire Singapore for its achievements since gaining independence 44 years ago, I don’t think they are rich, culture-wise. After all, history shows how they benefited a lot from things Malaysian. For a start, many of their former ministers in Lee Kuan Yew’s early cabinet were Malaysians, not to mention their bureaucrats and professionals as well. This is the truth.

Lest we forget, we came up with the idea of conquering Mount Everest, bringing in giant Ferris wheel, hosting big sporting events like the Commonwealth Games and F1 race. Then, they just conveniently took the cues from us.

Speaking of Mount Everest, I read somewhere that one of their climbers was actually a Malaysian. That aside, they also have a peculiar habit of naturalising foreign sportspeople to represent the country and when these foreign born achieve something notable, they make a big hoo-hah. Remember how they raved enthusiastically about their women table tennis team that won silver medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics? The players, Li Jia Wei, Feng Tian Wei and Wang Yuegu were all born in China

With all these, it gives me reason to believe that they too, adopted Bak Kut Teh, Nasi Lemak, Hainanese Chicken Rice and Laksa. Admittedly, what they have been doing well in recent years was their Government’s relentless campaign to promote these dishes internationally as their own while we sat back and did nothing about it.

Now that Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen finally sees the need to identify these dishes as our own, I warmly welcome this publicity that she is generating and stop Singapore in their track to always claim they are the originator of the dishes. I say it’s better late than never.

However, if they are still adamant that these dishes originated from Singapore, I don’t think we should waver in staking our own claim. It’s still a win-win move for us, rather than allowing Singapore to be the sole claimant. After all, both countries do share a lot of things in common. Why not, share credit on food as well?

Vernacular Schools, Boon or Bane?

Of all countries in the South East Asian region, Malaysia is a distinctive case where there are 3 different streams of schools in its education set-up, catering to the respective major races. Naturally, this phenomenon doesn’t sit well amongst some people with misplaced feelings of nationalism who see this uniqueness to be a great impediment to solid nation-building but as a dispassionate observer, I strongly disagree on their premise.

A case in point, I am a product of national school where medium of instruction is in the majority language, Bahasa Malaysia. No doubt, I had an early head-start in socialising with students of various races and we became good friends, thus giving me a better understanding of fellow Malaysians. Looking back, I enjoyed my schooling years very much.

During that time, I was a discriminatory child for I grew up showing contempt to the Chinese educated students due to their overall weaker command of English and Bahasa Malaysia. On top of that, I was under the mistaken belief that they had a less than worldly view of things. Only after leaving school, did I realize my puerile thought had no basis because in reality, these students are made of sterner stuff particularly in areas of resilience, discipline, humility and most of all, character. Additionally, their arithmetic skills have been acknowledged to be far superior to their national schools’ counterparts.

Back to those who oppose the presence of vernacular schools on the pretext of it being a stumbling block to greater national unity. Either these critics are genuinely ignorant or choose to conveniently ignore the bigger issues affecting national cohesiveness. While in school, I wrote countless of essays espousing the greatness of our country where people respect each other and we live in perfect harmony. I admit I was very patriotic; not that I’m any less, nowadays. However, I received the first dose of reality tinged with shock and bitterness upon discovery that the intake of students into local higher institutions of learning is not based on absolute meritocracy. Students who performed less admirably were readily admitted into universities at the expense of their peers who scored better by the virtue of the race they were born as. Not only that, MARA institutes of learning are virtually filled by students of a particular race. And to think of it, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Therefore to say with the abolishment of vernacular schools, greater national unity can be achieved is just a misleading notion. Eventually people will still feel aggrieved when they leave school, so long the root causes are not fixed.

I believe vernacular schools are needed by Malaysia more than ever, now that China and India are on the rise. Malaysians need to be at least conversant in either Mandarin or Tamil to engage with the citizens of these 2 rising giants because we will reach a point in time when these two nations will present us with business opportunities. One may argue that Hindi is spoken more widely in India but who is to say with certainty that when India advances as a whole, its Tamil Nadu state will not progress accordingly? With our sizeable communities of Malaysians with Chinese and Indian descents and the vernacular schools they are educated in, we will have the edge over our other Asian neighbours when China and India finally make their mark at world stage. Therefore, it makes economic sense to maintain vernacular schools in Malaysia. As it is, the younger generation of Vietnamese and Thais can converse in Mandarin. Given the high stakes, surely we don’t want to be left behind.

Let’s be reminded that we are now paying for our past mistake in relegating the importance of English language when in the past, our earlier generations possessed better command of the language, thanks to English medium schools, which have now been confined to the history books. I doff my hat to the Malay and Indian parents who have the foresight to send their children to vernacular schools. They are doing a great service to their children and I am embarrassed no end whenever young Malay children speak flawless Mandarin to me and I am unable to reply! Being multilingual has many benefits and numerous studies done have confirmed this. I don’t believe at all that by being educated in vernacular schools, they will turn out to be less Malay. In fact, more and more Malays are sending their children to vernacular schools.

To further allay our fears, compared to the Pre-Independence years, our vernacular schools have ceased to adopt the syllabuses of the countries of origin. Instead, what we have now is a uniform syllabus with emphasis on nation-building. The only difference lies in the medium of instruction.

For the sake of pragmatism, let us not cast a bad light on vernacular schools anymore.

Till Death Do I Treat You Well

I was pleasantly surprised that instead of brickbats, my last post entitled “Idiocy of Chinese Traditional Wedding” garnered support from readers. Emboldened by this positive development, I am going to shift my attention to Traditional Chinese Funeral.

Those who have lived here long enough will notice that among different communities in Malaysia, Chinese funeral is the grandest of all. Actually, this is something I’m not proud at all since I see no logic whatsoever why it should be held on a grand scale, complete with burning of effigies.

The only happy people are probably the deceased’s next-of-kin and without shadow of a doubt, the undertakers and sellers of prayer paraphernalia who will laugh all the way to the bank. You see, death equals big business, at least to the Chinese community!

I know not only do I sound highly offensive but insensitive as well for stating that the surviving family members are contented, safe in the knowledge they have sent their loved one on his final journey with much fanfare.

Really, is there a necessity to spend so much money on a funeral? It is not that the person lying inside the coffin knows a pompous send-off takes place in his honour. I will tell you what is more practical, it is giving first class treatment to the deceased while he was still alive and not only when he has croaked.

Below are some possible reasons why a majestic funeral takes place:

It is believed that an elaborate funeral will benefit the deceased’s descendants
This beggars belief, how can the deceased bless his descendants if during his lifetime, he was not well-treated? There are even some who expect their dead relative to give them sudden windfall by performing acts of miracle i.e. combination of numbers appearing so that the living can place bets at the gambling outlets.

It is an opportune time to show off the surviving members’ wealth
It goes without saying that grandiose funeral requires a lot of money and by holding one, it is a form of advertisement to tell others, “Hey, not only am I rich, I am also filial.”

Don’t want to be haunted by the deceased
I know this sounds funny but it is a possibility, nevertheless; especially those who didn’t treat the deceased well while he was still alive. So, by performing a grand send off, it is hoped past deeds are forgotten.

Apart from the above, I remain unconvinced that anything we burn here as offering to the dead can be transferred to the netherworld. However, credit must be given to the makers of such prayer paraphernalia for their ingenuity. If you have seen satellite dish, decoder, laptop, modem or designer handbag made of paper, you will understand why I applaud their ingenuity. It never fails to amuse me whenever I come across these things in the shop.

When it comes to death, I can relate to Buddha’s teachings better for it stresses simplicity when holding funeral and in order for the deceased to gain merits in the netherworld, it is incumbent upon the descendants to perform acts of kindness.

On hindsight, I would think money should be better spent on donating to the needy, instead of lavishing on funeral.