Can you find Malaysia on the map? Asks “UK regulator”
Pakatan Harapan people somehow have this opinion that anything that comes from the UK is the best, which is why Clare Rewcastle Brown can write anything in her Sarawak Report and Malaysians will treat it as kitab suci. Hell, even Mahathir said Pakatan Harapan’s GE14 election manifesto is not kitab suci.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Ask Malaysians about any country in the world and they can give you a lecture on that country’s history and geography. Ask a British about Malaysia and you first need to ask that person:
Do you know Bangkok?
Yes.
Do you know Singapore?
Yes.
Okay, Malaysia sits in the middle between Bangkok and Singapore.
Be prepared for questions such as “do people in Malaysia still live in houses on stilts?”
Can you find Malaysia on the map?
The reason for this question is because many sailors who came to Malaysia through Port Kelang back in 1945 have seen Pulau Ketam, which is a community that lives in houses on stilts, so they think everyone in Malaysia live in houses on stilts.
When my mum first came out to Malaysia, then still called Malaya, just before Merdeka, everyone thought she was crazy. Isn’t she worried about being eaten by tigers or being swallowed by crocodiles?
My grandmother on my mother’s side returned to England after visiting Malaysia back in the 1960s to tell ‘horror stories’ of mini crocodiles climbing the walls. These mini crocs, not yet fully grown to adulthood, were called ‘chichak’.
This is a “typical” Malaysian home
But my grandmother was a working-class woman from Pontypridd, a town about 12 miles from Cardiff in Wales. This was basically a coal-mining town. My grandfather worked in the railways and they lived in a council house. So, it is quite understandable that their general knowledge was very basic. But to imagine that the more so-called educated British are no more knowledgeable than the working-class is quite baffling.
In our neighbourhood there are about 20 or so Chinese families and we all get on very well. Since the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic the Chinese fear leaving their homes.
When they go out to buy their provisions, they rush to the supermarket and back as quickly as they can to avoid any ‘incident’. In the UK, racist attacks (both verbal and physical) against Chinese have tripled over the last three or four months. My wife sometimes offers to go shopping for an old Chinese couple living three doors away, who often send over bread and red bean pau they bake.
Yes, this couple is like family and my granddaughter calls them po po (grandma) and gung gung (grandpa).
British never ask where these condoms come from or look for Malaysia on the map before slipping them on
Anyway, many in the British government still can’t find Malaysia on the map. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Lim Kit Siang keep saying that, because of 1MDB, Malaysia is world famous. Apparently, this is not true.
Many Brits do not seem to know that Malaysia is a leading rubber glove producer. We also used to be the number one condom producer but I am not sure if we still are. And do these Brits not know that everything they buy in England is made somewhere in Asia?
Pakatan Harapan people somehow have this opinion that anything that comes from the UK is the best, which is why Clare Rewcastle Brown can write anything in her Sarawak Report and Malaysians will treat it as kitab suci. Hell, even Mahathir said Pakatan Harapan’s GE14 election manifesto is not kitab suci.
My grandma during her visit to Malaysia in the 1960s (with my sister and mum)
And our house in Bangsar, which was actually on stilts
