Ladies & Gentlemen, we have safely landed…
ART HARUN
Ding dong…a very good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, we have safely landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Welcome to Malaysia.
The local time is 5.35pm. The weather is slightly cloudy with the usual monsoon rain expected in about 30 minutes time and the current temperature is 34 degrees Celcius. For those who think that the rain in Malaysia is similar to the rain in Paris, London or New York, please note that our monsoon drains are 8 feet deep and 4 feet wide and run for hundreds of kilometres. They cost 30,000 Malaysian Ringgit per foot to build and 30 million Malaysian Ringgit to maintain per month. We take our rain very seriously, Ladies & Gentlemen. And you would be well advised that our rain is nothing, repeat, nothing compared to the rain in your country.
A bit about Malaysia for you. Malaysia is truly Asia. We have the Talibans in some states and government agencies. Please do not ever ever bring with you a Bible in Bahasa Melayu, the national language. Sorry, I have to be more specific. No Bible in Bahasa Melayu is allowed in Peninsula Malaysia. Eh, sorry, I have to be more particularly specific. No Bible is allowed in Bahasa Melayu in the Peninsula Malaysia other than the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, our capital and Putrajaya, our administrative capital. In the states of Sabah and Sarawak, Bible in Bahasa Melayu is kosher.
By the way, Bahasa Melayu is also known as Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Kebangsaan. As to why it has three names, let’s not get into that or otherwise you all would never disembark this plane.
By the same token, please do not use the word Allah if you are not Muslims unless you are in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya or the states of Sabah or Sarawak. So Ladies and Gentlemen, beware of the state boundaries while in Malaysia. For example, if you are in Kuala Lumpur going towards PJ Hilton, do stop at the Kuala Lumpur/PJ boundary to throw away your Bible in Bahasa Melayu, if any. And stop using the word Allah too. As a rule of thumb, you would know when to do that when you exit a toll plaza, if you use a highway, that is.
So, as I was saying, we have the Talibans. Then we have the Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and various races from the Indian sub-continents. Venture along the Bukit Bintang areas at night and you will see many Chinese from China, Vietnamese, Myanmarese and Cambodians, all of them women. Somewhere in Ampang, you will see many Koreans. Venture into some of our private colleges which teach English – without students although there are many student names on the register – and you will probably see some Iranians. And that’s apart from the thousands of Indonesians, Thais and Philippines here.
We are truly Asian, indeed.
Speaking of Talibans, if you happen to be an American couple of 60 years of age or more, please be careful while in your hotel room. Your room may be raided at 3am and both of you dragged in a hearse or kereta mayat to a religious agency’s office for “khalwat.” After finding out that you are not Muslims, you would be duly released.
So, don’t worry too much about it. It is part of our effort to give you a full “Malaysian experience”, an experience which you will not forget and will ever remember.
Thank you for flying with us, MAS, Malaysia Air-Asia System, ooops, sorry, the Malaysia Airline System. Here at MAS, we give a lifetime warranty that Malaysia will not turn into an asylum. This lifetime warranty is good for 10 days or until you go completely insane, whichever comes first.
While in Malaysia, please do not hesitate to drive around. Rent a car, like our national car, the Proton. Mind you, Proton gives a lifetime warranty that it’s power windows will work. The lifetime warranty is good for 10 years or until 250000 km, whichever comes first. A double lifetime warranty that all four tyres will continue rotating is also in the pipeline, we heard.
Do switch on the television set and watch our national channels please. The contents are guaranteed to be inoffensive by the Minister of Information himself. So you can watch all the programmes without being worried that any of them might offense you, your wife or girlfriends, your kids, your mother or anybody. All offensive programmes, including advertisements or public announcement service have been removed. Do not worry.
However, there might at times be some black & white video clips of half naked men in a towel in a hotel room waiting to have sexual intercourse with a nice little sex worker during prime time. That is not offensive. So please do not be offended by that.
