Month: June 2019

Black Pants, Birds and how it all disappeared.

As you have probably known by now, I find the Unprincely Prince so fascinating the I’ve written about him a few times. Not so much of his cars, or football team or his other worldly possession, but rather his princely demeanour or lack thereof.

Recently my brother sent over a screenshot of the Unprincely Prince Instagram story. Here’s a screenshot of it courtesy of the Internet.

This is the Instagram Story that started it all. Kinda legendary.

It tells us of the history behind the palace’s garb. It also tells us just how exclusive they are and not to be worn by anyone else. It also tells us that they are the eagles and the rest of the worlds are just sparrows. It also tells us that many people don’t like Johor Palace and that many folks are saying lots of nasty stuff about them. Then it also tells us that he believes that many people are copying their styles and that many people wants to be be like the King. And lastly, it also tells us that the lowlife be just that, lowlife. Know your place lowlife, you should shouldn’t dream any taller than the lowly grass.

There’s a lot to unpack there. Like A LOT. The beauty of it though, the collective wisdom of Malaysian people as a whole have somehow came together to tell the Johor Palace that the Pipits can really flock together and agree on a common ground that would make the eagles scared shitless and disappear. So in today’s post, I’ll be sharing some of the stuff that I came across on the Internet and together with it I’ll review these rather exquisite postings.

First up is another tweet from the the Unprincely Prince.

Yup, there it is. Blamed the late Sultan instead of owning it.

As what is typical of a princes in many bedtime stories, they are usually so very full of themselves and doesn’t seem to understand the concept of accountability or ownership. As in this case, after he was called on it, he blamed it on the late Sultan Iskandar. How very predictable this Unprincely Prince is, really living up to his name. A leader would gladly own up his shit, but not him, he “passed the buck” to his late grandfather. And then, in the classic shoot-you-back-move he also blamed others for being ‘too triggered with his post’. What’s not to like isn’t it? Well, perhaps you’ll like the next one better.

Tweet captured by my brother as well. He’s a big fan of his shenanigans.

So at the height of the hullabaloo that he has created, he tweeted the above. In this tweet he elaborated and proved (rather unsuccessfully, do read on to know why) that Johor is the trend setter and that people are copying or at least following Johor in many aspect.

What tickled me was he started the tweet with ‘1 thing you can’t you can’t deny’ and ended it with, ‘well, I know I’m good all over and the best and the number one and everything else super, BUUUUUT you guys also special lah, semua special gitew kaaaannn’. We all know that the last bit was as condescending as condescending can be. But what’s more funny and really tickled my funny bone was his opening statement. That “one thing you can deny” bit. It turned out, that one thing was denied “en masse”. Here it is in all its glory.

I can’t fathom just how clueless the Unprincely Prince can be. Did he not know that our IC number state designation is in alphabetical order? We all know this when it was first introduced. I am from Kedah, I remember asking this question to my teacher back then how come Kedah is number two, we should be number one! (Yeah kids always like that, we always want to be number one, I wonder which other grown up nagoi like that, can’t really put a pin on it πŸ™‚ ). Just like that, his tweet got denied so hard. Sorry my dear Unprincely Prince.

Okay lah, maybe this is blown out of proportion by the Internet. As we all know, the Internet have this habit of blowing up stuff out of proportion. Also, maybe it’s true that it’s not him that is imposing these crazy belief, maybe it’s true that it was his late grandfather. However, the next tweet by a fellow Johorian kinda sealed the deal that his grandfather wasn’t to be blamed entirely as well.

So this guy was asked to not wear his raya outfit should he wants to attend the open house. To be specific he was asked to take off his sampin because he was wearing it together with a pair of black pants and a Teluk Belanga. I asked him who told him to take it off, he said it was the JMF (Johor Military Force). This can’t get any crazier than this. And here I thought that it’s just his grandfather doing as he said, apparently it’s still going on today lah. On to the next one.

Since we are talking about being first an all, I’d like to remind everyone that Johor was also well known to be among the first to agree in supporting the British through Malayan Union. Johor Palace have agreed on the basis of friendship in establishing the Malayan Union. Unlike other Sultanate who were coerced to agree lest they lose their position. You guys can read all our history books on this but let me hook you with with a refresher HERE. Here’s an excerpt.

Sungguhpun tugas MacMichael dilihat berjalan lancar, namun pada hakikatnya ia bukanlah suatu tugas yang mudah. Hanya Johor dan Selangor sahaja bersetuju menandatangani perjanjian tersebut tanpa banyak bantahan atas dasar setia kawan. Manakala di Negeri-Negeri Melayu lain seperti Perak, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan dan Perlis, MacMichael terpaksa menggunakan kaedah ugutan sama ada tidak mengiktiraf baginda sebagai Sultan ataupun menggantikan baginda dengan calon Sultan yang baru. Sementara di Pahang, Kelantan, dan Terengganu MacMichael turut menerima tentangan daripada para baginda tetapi tentangan tersebut tidaklah begitu kuat. Oleh itu, laporan Willan ternyata tidak menepati harapan MacMichael

Well, yes, Johor Palace was in love with the Brits back then. So in love that they are willing to sell our motherland to outsiders. In the end, the rest of the Rakyat banded together and opposed Malayan Union, the very thing that the Sultans have signed. Go figure guys, the rakyat do know better than the Sultans. It has been proven then, it on this matter, it’s being proven again.

Now, obviously I’m not the only person who knows his history, many others did to. Just do a quick search for “Malayan union” on Twitter and you’ll get a bunch of tweets mentioning the same. Here’s a screenshot of the search.

A simple search on twitter will show you just how many remembers what Johor Palace did during the signing of Malayan Union.

I’m from Kedah and we have our own Sultan and Palace too. So I’d like to share something that I stumbled upon while all these is happening.

A rather good find on this. Writing on this topic made me learn about things I would never learned by myself.

It turned out that Kedah Palace’s uniform for its biduanda is kinda like that infamous Johor Palace Royal garb. It’s rather surprising, the same black pants, sampin and Baju Melayu combination. Although its Baju Melayu is with Cekak Musang instead of Teluk Belanga. To Kedah Palace, that garb is only suitable for the biduanda, not the Royals, just the biduanda. Good find Mr Khalid Ismath, it shows no matter how high an eagle may fly, there will always be something else that can fly higher. This teaches us to always be humble as we don’t always know what lurks above us. And since we are on the subject of the black pants, sampin and Baju Melayu, here’s another gem I found on the Internet.

I can’t credit this to anyone as I don’t know where it came from. Do tell me should you know so I can credit it properly.

The above tweet shows that all these talking about palace garb, helang and pipit, and whatever else it entails, are just jokes to him. What I hope is he didn’t find the Johor Palace a joke to him as well. If indeed he finds that the Johor Palace is a joke, there’s only one person to be blamed and that’s our very own bedtime stories Unprincely Prince.

It’s telling that after all the endless pipit tweets, and postings on social media ridiculing the whole thing, the Unprincely Prince finally realised that he has opened a can of worms that he found from his own backyard. Since then, he has deleted almost all of the above tweets. I wanted to link to his tweets instead of screenshots of his tweets, however they are not there anymore. The tweets by the Unprincely Prince have totally disappeared. I guess the collective wisdom of the Pipit can really make the Helang disappeared with its tail between its leg. The Pipit do have this immense power that no one can challenge, not even the Eagle, should the pipit all band together that is. So let’s continue to band together and show to the eagles, parrots, vultures or even the pterodactyl that they can never be above us. Let’s show them that the best place to be, is among us, living together in harmony.

Peace be unto all.

It’s That Time of the Year Again

Selamat Hari Raya to everyone. It’s a day to be with family and friends. If you are working today, we are forever in your debt.

Those enjoying the Hari Raya, enjoy the company and the food. Be careful and watch what we eat. We have all heard how Hari Raya have brought together with it gout, high blood pressure, diabetes and the likes. We are what we eat people say.

To those travelling, always be safe and make sure we all have enough rest before starting our travel. Remember to rest if you get tired and don’t force yourself to drive while tired or sleepy.

I’d like to wish everyone a safe and joyous Hari Raya and Maaf Zahir dan Batin.

Peace be unto all.

Of Labu Sayong and Sabu’s Ayoyo

The day was going along well. I had a few glasses of plain water from our trusty labu sayong. It kept the water cool and clean. I much prefer that rather than Coway or Cukoo. It has that signature taste you can’t get anywhere else. So to get he best of both world, I have the Coway feeding the water to the labu sayong and I’d drink it off of that. Although nowadays I’ve been having a bit of a problem, ants. I’d find ants in and around the cap edges. I guess they love that signature taste as well. If this keeps up, I’ll probably skip the labu sayong and drink from Coway filters directly.

Typcal Labu Sayong on the table. The water inside is cool and have this distinct taste I like.

After the drink, I got ready for office and head off. The traffic to the office was super smooth. The day was A-OK and thinking that Raya is just a day away, it’s looking like an oh-so-happy day ahead.

It went south pretty quickly after that, the few WhatsApp groups I am a member of suddenly starts giving out multiple notifications. I was thinking something bad must have happened, probably on the same level as the recent shooting in Christchurch.

Scrolling through the endless chat, I realised it’s something far worse than that. It’s what I’ve been fearing all this while, our Defence Minister, Mohamad Sabu or his rather his street name, Mat Sabu, speaking at an international forum. I’ve always thought he’s more suitable to be taking care of a more local issues than international ones. Probably because he’s so close to the ground and can really feel what the public is feeling. But alas, what I’ve feared have happened, so let me put it here so we can unpack it.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first. It’s his English. Now we all know English is our second language. We can’t write or speak it as fluent as our mother tongue. Going through my articles, you can see thousands of grammatical errors, wrong choice of words and whatnot. Having said that, his advisers or his aides, if they really are his advisers that is, should’ve advised him to just speak in plain Bahasa Malayu and use a translator instead. There’s no shame in that. We see countless great world leaders do it. The gender mistakes, the helter skelter English, and the humiliation can be altogether avoided. In fact, he can be seen as a proud Malaysian who insisted to use Bahasa Malaysia as it’s our national language.

I find it odd that his aides and advisers didn’t insist that he speaks in Bahasa. His forte isn’t speaking to such crowds at the IISS Asia Security Summit Shangri-La dialog. He’s a local man who commands a very good oratory skill speaking to the common folks, not to foreigners. The foreigners can’t understand his rather peculiar choice of words that the local folks finds captivating. The fader and mader, soft way and hard way, saluting him/her, these are words and phrases only locals can connect. If any of the dearest Mat Sabu advisers or aides are reading this. You guys failed miserably on this. You guys better take a good look at these turn of events, realise your mistakes and learn from it. And if you are reading this Bro Rafizal, it’s because I love you as a friend, him as a person and wants PH to succeed that I write this up.

Mohamad Sabu and his aides. looks like a lovely group of people.

Now that the elephant in the room is out of the way, let’s unpack some of the things he said. First off he sent his utmost regards to the Prime Minister of New Zealand. The choice of words again was rather peculiar but we’ve gone through that already. What really ticks me off was his comment that we share our border with China. That’s a factual error. He’s either jet lagged or just plain confused with his facts.

40th Prime Minister of New Zealand. She the world’s youngest female head of government having taken office at the age of 37.

Prior to that, he mentioned the kidnappings in and around Sabah waters. Paraphrasing, “We reduced the kidnappings as we works closely with Indonesia and Thailand”. Again, it could be the jet lag or it could be that he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Why Thailand when the topic is Abu Sayyaf and the Mindanao province? Probably the topic he’s covering that day is too hard for his to study by himself. He did say that he’s not a university graduate and in fact, he’s a dropout. I’m not one who dis folks without a university degree. Some of the greatest minds are university drop out. In my line of work, we thrive with folks who never set foot in a university. But they are all expert in their field, and my dear Mat Sabu, you just doesn’t look and act like one.

You can’t take it too easy. You can’t just pretend to do it. You really have to do it proper. We had dozens of pretenders back in the day under BN. We also had Ali Baba who only knows how to swindle money back in the day. We had celebrities who only want to be famous back in the day. You have to do your homework, you have to burn the midnight oil and get it up to snuff, you have to get your people to read up and tell you how it’s going that day. People that can do the job, not just some guy who don’t even know where Thailand’s border is. You just have to buck the hell up and own this shit.

On the China bigger ships, it doesn’t matter if China, US, Russia or the damn aliens from Planet Zargon69 have bigger ships, bigger planes or bigger cojones. What matters is that we have the biggest, baddest, meanest muthatrucking soldiers, navy, paskal and etc. Just say that lah at least, make our lads land ladies in the force feels proud la sikit. If Mat Sabu can’t even realise that, he surely isn’t assisted by his aides and advisers.

Clearly his aides and advisers are not up to the standard that he requires. We have seen so many leaders fell because he surrounds himself with people who only serve to make him feels good rather than to make him proper good.

Finally, if he can’t wrap his head around the topics, if he can’t pick and choose aides and advisers that really works for him, if he can’t detect that his aides are just plain useless, it’s his damn fault. The buck stops with him. It’s what leaders are made of, buck that stops on their table. He needs to own the damn decision and be ultimately responsible for the screw up his aides and advisers did as his own screw ups.

33rd US President harry S. Truman kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office.

If he and the advisers are still on their high horses and ignore what the public think of them, then face the downfall very very soon. He might face the same fate as my labu sayong, just because of the ants feeding off the signature taste of the water, I’d throw the whole thing out. So please Mat Sabu, don’t go ayoyo again on us.

Thanks and peace be unto all.

Growing Old With You…

I’ve been thinking what I should do for the coming 14th anniversary of our marriage. Will it be the obligatory bouquet of flowers, the typical present (a handbag, show, phone, car and etc) and coupled with a nice dinner, or should it be another round of what I normally do, give my wife a nice big hug and tell her how much I love her after coming back from work.

Thinking about it, I think perhaps it’s more appropriate if I were to write about growing old with her.

Before I start, a friend of my wife told her that my writing on Mother’s Day didn’t mention her at all. Well, that’s because the queen of my life deserve a post of her own. The top two ladies in my life deserve a post of their own. Not shared between the two of them. And as always, my queen understood that. She told her friend, it’s Mother’s Day, so it was dedicated to his mother. Little that she know, a post is waiting for her.

When did I first met her…let’s see, it was probably around Apr/May 1998, in ITM Machang, Kelantan. We were going through Minggu Wawasan Siswa. Sort of an orientation week for all freshmen in ITM. The girls were separated from the boys. The only time we can see the opposite sex was when we were gathered in the main hall.

Aerial view of UiTM Kelantan in Machang. The place where I met the person I’ll be growing old with.

That was when I first saw her. She’s up on the stage, standing among the rest of the ladies that made up Class of 98. That was when I kinda got my first ever proper crush. Not a crush similar to the one I had on Meg Ryan, but a proper crush. She was probably 10-20 meters away from me up on the stage. You can’t really see her but there’s something in her eyes that drawn me to her. You could say she taught me the feeling of having a proper crush on the opposite sex.

Look at her, how could an eighteen years old not have a crush on Meg ryan in You’ve Got Mail

Five months in, we got to know each other pretty well. She’s the super friendly type while I’m the introvert type. We were on a bus going back to Kedah just after the first semester ended. We were together with a few more of our friends from up north. As the stars and planets aligned and our fate intertwined, the bus broke down and we were stranded somewhere in the middle of East-West highway near Gerik. With nothing else to do while we waited for the first light (and the replacement bus), we spent the night and the following morning talking to each other on the bus. It’s here she taught me how to talk to a lady properly and act like a gentleman keeping all 5-6 of us safe and helping each other.

We were stranded along the East-West Highway between Gerik and Jeli back in 1998, no smart phones, no internet. We only had each other company.

About a year later, we became closer together. She got a boyfriend of her own at the time. I always believed that I got a chance if she’s not yet engaged or married. I subscribed to this “best man wins” philosophy at the time. As she later realised, having me trying to be nice to her and trying to win her heart, probably made her situation with the boyfriend very difficult. She later told me that, it’ll never happen between us and to stop doing what I’m doing. She’s got a boyfriend and she chose him instead. Aaannnddd, that’s when she taught me how to face the horrors of rejection, sadness and bitterness.

Interestingly enough, the next few years were a period where I would look at her from far and keep the feelings to myself. We remained friends throughout and as luck (though I believed it to be my charming personality winning her over in the long run instead of luck. haha) would have it, the relationship with her boyfriend didn’t work out. It was then that I learned from her the true meaning of “playing the long game”.

Around 2001, we were studying in UiTM Arau, I learned another thing from her, that’s driving a car. Believe it or not, I got my driving skills from her nd no one else. We would be spending our afternoon and evening together in her car, around the beautiful streets of Arau, Perlis. She would let me drive her around, teaching me how to drive properly. To this day, she continues to correct me and scold me whenever I didn’t drive the way she taught me. Yup, imagine having this strict JPJ Officer next to you throughout your life, forever and ever and ever and ever, while you are driving. Aren’t I lucky? Lucky right? Right? Right? Anyone? Someone?

Typical scenery driving around Arau Perlis. I wish I have a photo of this scenery just before harvesting season. It’s oh-so-romantic as my wife would say.

Sometime in May 2014, both of us were in Kuala Lumpur, living the Malaysian dream of working in the heart of the city, I received a call from her, told me her mom and dad are in town. They would like to have lunch with me. I still remember my spider-sense were tingling when I heard that. But being in love, it has blind-sided me and I ignored it. I accepted the invitation and met with them in a restaurant somewhere near Jelatek. It was then I was asked the big question. Her mom (she’s one of the kindest human being I’ve ever know, al-Fatihah…) asked me, “So, you guys have been friends since the days in Kelantan. I believe it’s time to make it official. Don’t you think?” And that’s where I learned from her, not to ever, ever, ever, ever let myself ignore my spider-sense when it’s tingling. Hah!

Spider-sense is tingling!

On 3 June 2005 (3/6/5. 365…how can I forgot the date lah my dear) , we tied the knot. It was the happiest day in my life. Despite all the screw ups that happened throughout our wedding receptions, the thought of “I will now be able to grow old with her”, made me the happiest man alive on that day. It was then she taught me that a song doesn’t have to be popular to be your song.

So here it is Intan Suhara, it’s been some time since I sang this song for you. It wasn’t that great when I sang it to you back in the day and it sure won’t be great today. I was never the artistic one, it’s always been you. So I’ll let Adam Sandler have the honour to do it.

Happy Anniversary Intan. Thank you for all the love, kindness, support and most importantly, thank you for all the life lessons Alia, Danial, Ayra and of course, yours truly have learned from you.

Being Critical, Being Objective and Calling a Spade A Spade

I’m been busy the last few weeks, only managed to catch up on news the last few days.

This one catches my interest. I have long since wanted to write on this topic. The news was on our Education Minister, Maszlee Malik. There are several articles on this (See HERE, HERE, for video see HERE) and he said the following:

“Matriculation is just a road to university, just like a diploma, STPM and so on. But the matriculation programme gives the chance for the poor to advance their studies at the pre-university level.

“If we want to change, if we say in ‘Malaysia Baru’ there is no need for a quota system and so on, then we must also make sure job opportunities are not denied to bumiputera just because they don’t know Mandarin,” he said to a round of applause. 

“We should not look at such issues in isolation – we harp on (the quota system in) matriculation without considering that people are being denied jobs because they don’t know Mandarin, for instance. 

“If we can make do without all that, if we can give equal and business opportunities, then we can talk about being fair to all.”

Education Minister Maszlee Malik with students of SJK (T) Sungai Ara in Penang. (Photo: Bernama)

These two have nothing in common. First of all, matriculation program is a government program. Together with it comes the quota policy.

How can a quota policy by the government be linked to what the ignorance private sector (the ignorant and possibly racist employer) do? Is this particular government policy a result of what the ignorant private sector is doing? It’s like, the government decided to raise the interest rate due the the increased number of blue-coloured car on the road. These two have nothing in common.

Maszlee needs to be more objectives. Don’t mix being objective and being emotional about the situation. He was right in the beginning to state the reason why matriculation program was setup. It’s due to the imbalance in university enrolment of bumi and non-bumi students in science scream courses. He should just stop there and it’s enough to both get the non-bumi to understand and the bumi to give him a round of applause.

Secondly, he shouldn’t be doing the immature tit-for-tat move. Those are kids stuff. Is he the type of person who can’t think and only know how to react impulsively. You racist? Ok lah, I pun racist lah. You pukul eh? Ok, I pun pukul la. You kick me? Ok then I kick you la. You stab me? Ok then I stab you back lah.

These are kids stuff. People who can’t think objectively will react emotionally. We can’t have people who can’t use their head properly be our ministers. We had enough of that back in the days.

If we really want to have a New Malaysia or Malaysia Baru, we should abolish the policy favouring bumi versus non-bumi and have a new policy that favours the less able or the B40 instead.

If we really think about it, who are the B40? What is the racial distribution of B40? The answer will be the same, the majority will be the Bumis. Huge majority will be the Bumis. Don’t believe me? Check the statistics for yourselves. Let me share some, HERE and HERE. You can get more, just google and read them up.

A diagram showing breakdown of the B40, M40 and T20. Taken from http://www.dosm.gov.my

We all know which race is the poorest, we all know who are the farmers, fishermen, low level government servants, low level policemen/women, low level army/navy/airforce officers. In case you don’t know, a good 80-90 percent of them are Bumi. So it goes without saying that the policy based on income level benefits the Malays and Bumi the most. If together with the Bumis we have 10-20 percent non-Bumis, it’s all good for unity right? All of our less able Malaysian get taken care off. ALL of them, ALL of the less able be it Malay or otherwise, ALL of them Malaysian . That’s good. That’s the ideal situation. It can’t get any better than this.

Here’s another reason why we shouldn’t have a race-based education policy, take the example of MARA scholarship, or MRSM or Sekolah Berasrama Penuh (SBP) enrolment. Since the BN days, these are places reserved for majority of the Bumi. The problem is, not many of the enrolments are from B40 families. It became the places reserved for the Malay elites. These people are probably already in the higher M40 and T20 and yet still get a place in the above places. It’s been abused to no end.

The famous MCKK. One of the many Sekolah Berasrama Penuh.

Nobody stopped them because it’s not against the policy. The policy is for the Malays and Bumi right? They are Malays and Bumis, so nothing is wrong right? Wrong!

We have heard so many stories of the rich Malay elites getting MARA scholarship and getting into SBP/MRSM. It’s disheartening that nowadays we still see only 70% of MRSM enrolments and 50% of SBP enrolments are from B40 group (See HERE). We should either have more from B40 or use the surplus budget to spend on other things for B40. Not spend for non B40 or those Malay elites who can afford all manner of things already.

Now if we do it based on income levels, the Malay elites can no longer enrol in the above program. So we will end up with more budget per students or we can include more from the less able or less stellar result to be enrolled. Give them special care to better educate them and we will end up with more bright people in the country. So, let’s do away with race based education policy. Let’s do it based on income level. Let’s start to do the good things and good things will come to us. It’s what Allah have said in the Quran.

If we spend our wealth in the way of Allah, we will get more and more. Spending for the wrong Malays, who isn’t supposed to be there in the first place isn’t called spending in the Way of Allah.

We need to spend the money wisely, if it’s for the poor or B40 groups then let’s do it as such and Allah will give us more to spend.

We need to always be objective, even more so as leaders. So Maszlee as the Minister of Education has to be objective in this part. As much as I’m a supporter of PH, I need and I want to be critical. When you love something, you always want the best for it. So you tend to be critical of it. I believe Maszlee should be more objective and not make that stupid comparison. He’s wrong to make that comparison and unbecoming of a Minister. So, I am calling a spade, a spade. Nothing more, nothing less.

Peace be unto all.