Rant & Raves

Reader Beware! This is a very long post and if you can’t take criticism, please get the fuck off my blog and read something else less constructive.

Merdeka, roughly translate to Independence Day [here]. Tunkul Abdul Rahman declared our Independence Day by yelling, “Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!” on August 31st, 1957 [more history of Malaysia here], so this year we are celebrating the biggest Merdeka celebration so far.

“Hooray! It’s a national holiday! That means no work!” a friend of mine proclaimed.

“Yay! Holiday!! Wooohooo!” another friend chipped in.

“Wow! Long break! No need to work! Yay!” another friend proclaimed (Merdeka is on Friday, so the break will be from Friday till Sunday).

Sadly, this is true. To a lot of the people in Malaysia, Merdeka Day is just another holiday which we don’t have to work and can rest at home. Hell, the normal working class will be thrilled with 3 days break and they can bring their family and kids (if they have any) to go travel, or just rest their mind and soul after working hard. For business person such as myself, it doesn’t make a damn difference as I can take off whenever I want. But it is bad for my business as that means no one will be working, and I am still paying the staff even for holidays!

Anyhow, have we lost our patriotism to such a low level?

Do anyone really care about the Merdeka anymore? Do we really feel that patriotic? Maybe, if there is a national crisis.

Of course, you still see some really patriotic person hanging those mini flags on their car. The most I have seen on the road had around 30 flags. But I am talking about a lot of the people that I know of that don’t give a hoot about patriotism but viewing the Merdeka Day just as a holiday.

As a nation, there is no denial that Malaysia has progressed a lot over these 50 years. But there are things that I personally will wish the politicians can improve on.

I am not saying that I don’t love Malaysia. Hell, I love Malaysia as this is the country where I grew up and this is the country where I am finding a life. But nothing in this world is perfect, so my rants and raves here are mainly for the things that I find, in my humble and very personal opinion, that could improve upon. I don’t claim that I am right, but you can’t prove me wrong either.

So here goes the list…

#1 Stop being Satisfied
“We have the cheapest oil in the region”, “We will be sending the first ASEAN astronaut into space” or more interesting, “We are going to build the world largest plantation company [Synergy Drive, anyone?]“. Look around us, and we fair better than a lot of nations. But compared to Singapore, we are still a developing country and yet Singapore, with virtually no natural resources and it is not even visible in the World Atlas, has already achieved Developed Country status many years back. So stop bullshitting yourself and start to work hard on progressing the nation. If Singapore can achieve a Developed Country status years back, I don’t see why Malaysia can’t do the same, many years ago.

#2 Stop Bullshitting Yourself
Gosh, this will be long… Okay, there are too many bullshits in this country that I can’t possible talk about all of them. Please remember that typical Malaysians are not stupid, so please keep those bullshits to yourself and try not to make us a fool. We know. If you want to compare that our stuff as cheaper than U.S, for example, find stop the fucking currency exchange and look at the income level versus the price, and you will see the damn obvious difference. You think Malaysians had not gone oversea before? Your writer here as gone to the U.S and stayed for 7 years, and this writer has been staying in many countries before, so stop bullshitting yourself. Thank you.

#3 Be Decisive
At one point, they change the teaching of science and math to English because they feel that our nation’s English level is low. But now because the students can’t cope, they are changing it back to Bahasa Melayu again (Malay Language). Oh please, can you please make up your fucking mind? Rome is not built in one day, so it takes time to see the results. Dammit. Go get some experts, pump up the educational level so that the Malaysia graduates can compete globally. You want to be a global country? Then start with education!

#4 Improve Our Education System
Please refer to above.

#5 Don’t Waste Money
This item is actually related to #3 above. For example, due to indecisiveness of the government, the Bakun Dam could cost us hundreds of millions, if not billion [here]. First of all, we have to ask if we really need a fucking dam. Why build a dam if there is no use for it? Is it for certain individual’s personal gain? I can’t say for sure. But one thing for sure is that this dam will cost us, the taxpaying citizens, money. We should put these money into good use, like building the country, improve the infrastructure, and improve our lousy education system. How about spending RM90 millions to send an astronaut into space to perform Teh Tarik? [here] [meaning of Teh Tarik here]

#6 Stop Wasting Resources
Do you notice how many people it takes to change a street lamp bulb? My count last week was 12. Yes, 12 people to change just one fucking street lamp bulb. One person was manning the truck, one person climbed up the ladder, and another 10 person were hanging around, maybe watching out for incoming traffic or something.
And how about our petroleum? Yeah, they can keep digging it out from the ground, and they think they will not run out of it. Hey, gold from ground sounds like a good deal to me too. But (look at #5) stop wasting those resources (the country make shitload of money from petroleum) can ya?

#7 Stop Wasting Time
Yes, stop wasting time on small issues. Remember the Negarakuku controversial? [here and here] Oh come on, it is only a teenager singing out his experience when he was growing up in the country. Is that something wrong? Can you prove that he was wrong in his experience? Can you prove that there is no corrupted police in the country? Because if you dare to say that, trust me, you will be the Joke of the Century topic.
Don’t you guys have a country to run? You are so free to dig into small matter like these?
Stop wasting your time on things like this please. Look at the big picture! Our country needs a lot of fucking improvement! So get back to work! Dammit!

#8 If You Want National Champion, Let Go
Some politicians were joking that why couldn’t Malaysia have more than one national champion? Do we even have a champion? Oh wait, those politicians weren’t joking, were they? Proton, even after being protected for so many years (and we citizen suffer by paying 200% to 300% tax for foreign car so most of us had to purchase a Proton car at the price of those foreign car before tax, but with extremely inferior quality) and yet, they are loosing shitload of money, and announced that they need a partner to save them (the Volkswagen thing, anyone?). Or how about Malaysia Airline? Being the only player in the country, they lost billions upon billions. Yet newcomer like AirAsia can come up as a winner. So the government gave the trunk route back to Malaysia Airline to protect them, again.
If I were to spoon-feed my children, I don’t think they will learn how to hold a fork. So please let them be a business entity and let them compete with the best so they can grow. Stop protecting them because when you are protecting them, they will not grow. By the way, your job is to run a fucking country, so stop running those companies as well. Just concentrate on your job, please.

#9 Stop the Feel-Good Shit
Yeah, big announcement that some investment firm invested billions in this country. Yea, another one about our country is doing really well, and the inflation is very low. Too bad, the man on the street can’t feel the same and can’t agree with those bullshit politicians. In constrast, a lot of them feel that the economy sucks and inflation was creeping up. Still want to insist on the statistic numbers that you crunch out? Talk to the man on the street, or better, stop being politicians for one day, and don’t draw those fat cash in your bank. See if you can feel the inflation and the so-called good economy. Better yet, I can crunch an increasing inflation rate (using the trusted Excel, of course) in 10 seconds flat.

#10 Respect the Citizen, and the Citizen Will Respect You
Please refer to all the points above. An average uncle or aunt in the street can tell the difference between the truth and lies. So please treating your citizens as some stupid ass. Respect us. Tell us the truth. When you guys talk about transparency, mean transparency in the system and everything, not about seeing the citizens as transparency.

#11 There is Only One Race: Malaysians
I sometimes don’t understand why the need to have different policies for different race. New Economic Planning (NEP), anyone? [By the way, interesting read on NEP here] Is it too much to ask the government to treat all of us, irregardless of our skin color, religion, features and etc, the same? We just want to be Malaysians, but why the need of different policies?

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I am tired already. If you have something you want to add, please feel free to do so.

Please be reminded that the comment you put in is your sole opinion and if I find your comment is too radical, I will remove them without prior notice.