Year End Thoughts

It is that time of the year again. Some people just reflect on things past. Others reflect and then resolve to change things. For me, it is another year completed and for which I am thankful.

So thanks to you Malaysia, your faults, warts and all, notwithstanding. You are still a great place to be living in.

The economy has been resilient enough to give us a decent living. With this comes an affordable lifestyle that includes travels up and down the country and visits to complexes, malls, etc. for shopping, entertainment or just relaxation. And the best part is that we can do all this without having to be unduly worried about any colour-coded security warning.

In our day-to-day living, we can do almost anything we want. From what to eat to what to wear. From what language to speak to what culture to practise. From what religion to follow or not follow at all. And there are many many more, important or trivial.

We all have our complaints about governance, corruption, justice, human rights, etc. But on the balance of things, the good state of the economy, the relative peace and stability and the basic freedoms we are enjoying tip the scale towards Malaysia as a country we can be proud of.

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

Christmas Thoughts

At last I have completed my Christmas shopping. It was such a chore having to crack my head on what presents to buy for each and everyone in the family, each with their different interests, likes and dislikes. Not to mention the traffic jams and human “jams” I had to go through, one on the way to the mall and the other in the complex itself.

And to think I am not even a Christian and neither are my children and grand children.

But then again, the religious significance aside, isn’t Christmas also about a wish for peace on earth and of goodwill to all mankind.

So what better way to express this than starting with one’s own family – getting together to love and to give. In the larger scheme of things, I can see fellow Malaysians of different races and faiths visiting and mingling with one another at Christmas “open” houses to cement or renew friendships. I also see charitable organizations, the church groups in particular it being Christmas, visiting the disadvantaged and the aged with gifts to spread the joy. All in the name of peace and goodwill.

Come to think of it, these kind of universal values exist in most of the major religious or cultural festivals celebrated in Malaysia.

Muslims celebrate Hari Raya Adilfitri to mark the culmination of Ramadhan, the holy month for contemplation, self-restraint and purification, noble aims too for any decent human being. Besides the obligatory prayers, "this festival marks an important time for Muslims to unite as a family in the exchange of love, blessings and forgiveness" (from here).


The Buddhist Wesak festival isn’t just about marking the birth of the Buddha, his Enlightenment and his Departure. Ven. Dr K Sri Dhammananda in his article (Celebration of Wesak) said “This is how we should celebrate Wesak: use this opportunity to reiterate our determination to lead noble lives, to develop our mind, to practise loving-kindness and to bring peace and harmony to mankind.”

And when Hindus celebrate Deepavali, it is to remind them of “the return and coronation of Lord Rama after a 14-year exile to Ayodhya after his victory over evil in the form of Ravana.” (from here).
Or simply the triumph of good over evil, a universally accepted fact.

This is the beauty of our country. Come any festival, after the respective obligatory prayers and other religious observations, people of a particular Faith can celebrate with all and sundry. After all they are celebrating peace, goodwill, love, forgiveness, kindness, harmony and goodness.

So stay SECULAR Malaysia. It is the only way open for us, Malaysians, to thread the common ground together towards fulfilling our shared values and hopes amidst the diversity of our respective faiths.

I leave you with this refrain from the song “Joy to the World” –

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the people everywhere you see
Joy to you and me

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

THE OTHER MALAYSIA - the one with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies

I style my blog as "Thoughts and Comments on things Malaysian". But things Malaysians were too depressing to blog about these last few weeks - road accident deaths, murder of a young lady, massive land slide, spat between Minister and ACA Director, proposed changes to EPF……….

But then I remember there's the Other Malaysia (to borrow a phrase from Farish Noor) - the one with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies. So here I am blogging again, in a lighter vein, on things pleasantly Malaysian culled from my weekend reading.

What's in a name?

The Bard answered, "Nothing". He continued that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Ah, he definitely has not been to our shores.

In Malaysia, where you not only have to contend with different languages but also different dialects within the same language group, names are a big thing. A slip in selecting one can be disastrous.

Rachael Philip writing in NST Nuance(By any other name)gave this example, "Kunji and Kunju, popular terms of endearment meaning “little one” in Malayalam, meanwhile take on a completely different connotation, one that is phallic, in Tamil." And if that was bad, just consider the plight of the Hokkien lad going by the name "Lim Boh Kok". He will be forever explaining that Kunji or Kunju's little one is very much present and was never absent in him.

No laughing matter, this name thing. According to Rachael, "the Buddhist Missionary Society of Malaysia and the Malaysia Hindu Sangam finally have also decided, in 1998, to hand over to the NRD their lists of names which are deemed “undesirable”.

Parents nowadays take more care in naming their children. They involved themselves in the whole spectrum of considerations. From meanings, to phonetics, to numerology, to current trends and a myriad of other considerations.

But still there are "gems", like the ones a certain Mr. Tan used for his children - Tan Seaway, Tan Highway and Tan Freeway. Quoting Tan Seaway aka Vincent from the Nuance article mentioned above -

“It was my father actually. He thought it was really funny.”

Generally a serious man, his father, Vincent says, in a burst of inspiration, came up with Seaway.

“Then he got carried away and continued with Highway and Freeway. It’s a running joke with him.”

And what if he had more siblings. Vincent had this to say -

"Vincent gleefully adds that if he had more siblings, another brother perhaps could be christened Subway and a sister Noway, at which point he lets out a loud guffaw."

Feng Shui

Or Wind and Water, the ancient Chinese Art of Geomancy, has always been with us Chinese Malaysians. But nowadays, most Malaysians would have, at least, heard about it. Often it creeps into conversations, like "Wah, dat fellow business so good lah. His shop surely got good Feng Shui." or the reverse "Aiyo, since I move into my new apartment really bad luck, man. Feng Shui bad lah."

Believe it or not, Feng Shui can help. But you have to first sort out the true practitioner from the charlatans. These days all sorts of advice are floating around, in the name of Feng Shui, which sometimes border on the ridiculous.

Anecdotes abound, but I particularly like this one. Shareem Amry in her weekly column, Aside relates thus -

"There is, for example, the matter of the dragon seat of power, which is simply the chair that faces a household’s main entrance. Being in the direct path of all the chi that theoretically flows into this door makes this a formidable chair indeed, so one friend spent several sweaty minutes re-arranging her furniture so that one of her chairs would be positioned correctly.

Unfortunately, no one in her family has since been able to claim the chair as their own.

In this house, the dragon seat of power is almost always occupied by the family cat"

Sea Games

And so Malaysia collected only 43 gold medals from the recently concluded Vietnam Sea Games. Way below what we achieved at the 2001 Games when we were host and topped the medals standing. This has always been the trend, the host nation garnering the most medals. And so Vietnam was the "champs" this time around.

One significant thing to note about host countries is their prerogative to include in this multi-sports carnival, traditional games. Vietnam chose Shuttlecock Balancing, Fin Swiming (whatever games they are) and Chess. No prizes for guessing who got the most gold in these three games.

So, despair not Malaysia. We will get our own back when we next host the games and it may be soon as Singapore had decline to host the 2007 games, Philippines having agreed to be host for 2005. Any one want to train for "Beca Racing" or if you are not so physically inclined, what about "Congkak"? To apply read on.


Blogging all this I feel much better.

MID-WEEK THOUGHTS

Spare a thought for Journalists

On a recent trip to Singapore, a relative gave me a booklet titled “Lee Kuan Yew at 80”. It was published as part of LKY’s 80th birthday celebration and contained 80 of his quotes on various subjects. It took me all of 15 minutes to read it through and that was that. I did not think of the quotes anymore, until Monday morning that is.

Monday morning Jeff Ooi blogged on the sacking by Al-Jazeera of Yvonne Ridley, the senior editor of its (Al-Jazeera) English language website. Apparently, the lady had been very critical in her articles on the justification for the Iraq war. This coming after DKL’s dismissal and news of changes in the Star, brought to mind this quote by LKY published in the booklet –

“Some are naïve enough to believe that freedom of the press is sacrosanct and unlimited. Freedom of the press really means the freedom of the owner, the man who owns the newspaper, who hires and fires the journalists” (Lee Kuan Yew at 80.Singapore Press Holdings Ltd 2003. pp60).

Which then triggers my recall of another quote, this time by our Tun Dr. M, which sort of clarify “owner” for LKY –

“All the Press is controlled. If not by the government, then by the journalist themselves, the editors, sub-editors, advertisers and owners.” [Cruez, A.F. & Loh, D. (2002, June 3). PM: Don’t glamorize criminals. New Straits Times.pp4]

How true! But the irony of it all was that the “owners” were the two ex-PMs themselves, whether directly or indirectly and whether intentionally or by default. And the consequences we all know too well.

To be fair, the Press in Singapore and Malaysia was very much controlled even as far back as pre-independence days. Said Zahari, a political detainee for 17 years in Singapore, said in his book, Dark Clouds At Dawn: A Political Memoir, that “all sorts of pressures were put on the leadership of the Utusan Melayu to support colonial government policy in Malaya and Singapore….the Utusan Melayu was told to stop criticizing (sic) government policies”. Tan Sri Samad Ismail, a reknowned journalist was a “casualty” of these times. He was detained while holding the post of Deputy Editor with the Utusan for his alleged ties with leftist leaders and organizations. And the forerunner of the strictive Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, was actually the ordinance introduced by the British, the Printing Presses Ordinance 1948.

And also control of the Press is not peculiar to our neighbor and us. It happens in other countries too, even the seemingly very democratic countries of the West. In the aftermath of the September 11 incident, attempts have been made to curtail free flow of information even in the bastions of democracy, the US of A and United Kingdom. Only today I read, in this article by Farish Noor, about the American Media being warned not to show images of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably, as Washington tries "damage control" of its unpopular Iraq and Afghanistan policies. The British were known to have put off the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act it adopted in 2000.

In these developed countries there is another dimension to this control of the Press, that exercise by the Media Moguls. Have we not heard stories of, arguably, the greatest of them all, Rupert Murdoch. Malaysians would remember Andrew Neil, the former editor of the Sunday Times of London, who apparently lost his job because of an article he wrote about Mahathir and corruption some years ago. Murdoch, the paper’s owner was at that time interested in expanding his business in the Far East, and antogonising a leader of a potential country to penetrate was a “no no”. Betsy R. Vasquez writing in the Moderate Independent said, ”His assault on free speech and free press is world-wide. But truly, Murdoch doesn't care about free speech or anything else - he just uses any means to try and get more money for himself,….”

So, in circumstances like these, spare of a thought for journalists, especially our local ones. They are not back-boneless per se but made to look like they are because of the constraints they have to work under.

Shaila Koshy, in a speech she gave on World Press Freedom Day in 2002, gave this humorous but insightful example of what goes behind the scene, so to speak –

Scenario one: Reporter comes back with story, briefs the editor and writes the article. The editor clears it for use but it is not published as an editor higher up the food chain decides the article may put the papers publishing permit in jeopardy.

Scenario two: Reporter comes back with story, briefs the editor and writes the article. The editor junks it without consulting other editors as other similar stories have been junked.

Scenario three: Reporter comes back with story, briefs the editor but leaves out details that he/she notices is generally censored. Unsurprisingly, the article makes print!

Scenario four: Reporter comes back and tells editor there was no story.

“Yonder, sat a Fourth Estate more important than them all (the nobles, the clergy and the commoners)”, uttered by Edmund Burke in the House of Common in 18th.century England and referring to the journalists in the press gallery will remain an ideal.