Melentur Buluh...

Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim asked the federal government to allow a small number of non-Bumiputra to be accepted into Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM). Just 10%... Well I think it is a good idea. Most of my brethren haven't learnt the meaning of "Masyarakat Majmuk" in Malaysia. I don’t think he betrayed our people, but instead he is doing us some good.

I thought we Malaysians, and Malays particularly supposed to be the most tolerant people in the whole wide world. It's true. It's written everywhere. In the media, in school text books - we often hear that our country is praised for its "Masyarakat Majmuk", a role model to other countries.

But you can almost see it in their faces, the ones that marched objecting the proposal on the basis of “Malay Special Rights”. I can almost smell stench of hatred, those racist faeces all over their skin, and their eyes shows fear. I am really ashamed of what my brothers are doing.

What is there to worry? Everybody deserves to learn. What’s wrong with learning together? Why can’t we be as one as Malaysian. Or are they afraid of a little competition?

Are my people facing extinction? Why do we need all this special rights? Sure it comes handy when purchasing a house… but that’s about it. And yes, ASB! But I feel like we all are a bunch of losers and I can brand ourselves as “Orang Kurang Upaya”. We need shelters and help from the government to stay intact. Why can’t we do it ourselves like our Chinese brothers? They don’t need special rights and they managed to drive those shiny BMWs easily without government help. For that I respect them.

Just a week ago, I went for a coffee break with a colleague of mine. He’s a Chinese. He mentioned to me about how his cousin having a tough time with his girlfriend’s family. The girl is a Malay. He asked me why is it so difficult for them to accept it. So I asked him, “Bro… look around us. Tell me which table has few fellow of different races sitting together?” The answer is one. It was our table.

A couple of years back when I was studying in Malacca, I was sitting in a foodcourt with my girlfriend who is also a Chinese. A Malay salesman came over to our table to make a sale of his socks. I reject the sale. And then he asked me,”Brother, you are a Malay right? Why are you sitting here with a Chinese girl?” Before I said anything, my girlfriend told him off,”Sir, I love this man coz I know he will take good care of me by not selling any stinking socks to feed me.” The guy went away disgusted.

I also remembered about this guy in the university asked me,” Are you Malay? If you are… why are you hanging out with those Indians and Chinese?” It’s like as if it is a crime for me having friends of different creed. Well maybe he don’t understand about “Masyarakat Majmuk” at all because he came from one of those rural Malay kampong. I heard he never seen Indian and Chinese in his Kampong before except on TV.

Majoritiy Malays are afraid of knowing others. All they know about is about them, themselves. They expect others to know them, but they resist of knowing others. Sounds like we all are a bunch of self centered selfish fellows, aren’t we? So, infusing a little “Masyarakat Majmuk” into UiTM is not such a bad idea at all. In fact I feel, these kinds of things should start from young, from Kindergarten. Like the Malay sayings – Melentur buluh biar dari rebung. If not we end up like the Socks-Salesman-That-Talk-Too-Much or the Ignorant-Student-From-Malay-Kampong just like whom I mentioned just now.

Cheap Thrill

I haven't been writing anything here since the first time I made this but I guess I am just a lazy-arse bloke. But lately I became and angry-lazy-arse bloke.

Recently I took my beloved 2nd car (i seldom drive her) for a spin and i realized that taking a spin is costing me 41% higher. Well that's just bad ain't it? It's like having sex without the ejaculation. I felt happy all the way from the 1st to the last gear... I could almost hear her scream for more - till we arrived to the gas station. Yes - the pump billed me RM180! At that moment - I knew, there's something wrong with this country. Aren't we an oil exporter? Don't we import cheaper petrol? How can we be paying a price same of those high grade petrol? Well the questions can go on and on.. it'll never end.

It didn't bother me as much when i filled my daily driven ride - an extra RM30 wasn't that bad, as so i thought... come to think of it an extra RM30 a week gets me RM120 a month and that means it could pay off my office parking ticket for a month! And that's A LOT!

After 2 weeks or so, those cheap lunch in LG1 doesn't seem to be cheap at all... everything is extra 15cents to 50cents worth. *Sigh... So does anything else, everything from electricity bills to toilet papers. It's like what they said - we are experiencing the domino effect - as one falls, it will walls onto another that collapse onto another.... That reminds me, a friend's Mom recently said on TV that the inflation rate in Malaysia is 4.2%... she thinks we all dumb ka? Maybe 4.2% for her and the other goons sitting up there.

They said that our petrol is way much cheaper than our Asian counter parts. Hell, i don't see them produce any oil, do you? They should compare us with those other countries that is on par with us, countries that do produce oil. Even Nigeria selling petrol at 0.13cent per liter (if not mistaken).

Even if they compare us to our neighbor below, i really do think our petrol is much more expensive than theirs. Our neighbor got good public transport and their spending power is way much higher than us. Even their income per capita is exceeding us. Again I ask, do they think we are stupid?

I know this is old news... but it brings me to a point. All this happens due to one reason - the government. Mismanagement of money and corruption in that organization made us lose billions of RM - and when it recedes, they start to take away our subsidies. Thus made my happy weekend rides into a wallet-burning fiasco.

As long as anybody can take over, and let me have a cheap thrill on an empty road (while trying to avoid the authorities)... I'll vote for that party.

Scrapping Our Cars To Fuel Proton?

"A proposal has been made to national car maker, Proton, to start the voluntary scrapping of cars that are 15 years and older.

In the proposal, owners of such cars would receive a RM5,000 voucher in return for their cars and the voucher can be used as a down payment for a new or used national car (Proton or Perodua)."

RM5K for scrapping my car and getting myself a national car?? Heck, no... Well If they could only take off the 300% tax they imposed on imported vehicles, then this would probably sound very reasonable. But, then again it will only remain as a dream.

So for my equation : 1989 Nissan S13 Silvia = RM5000 + (local cars that I can afford : Proton Gen2 / Proton Neo / Perodua MyVi) + 5 to 7 years of monthly installments. I rather stay away from troubles and stick with my old faithful car.

I have to be honest, I am not a big fan of national cars except for the younger brother Perodua, but this doesn't mean that I am not patriotic. The Japanese loves to buy their own (Japanese) cars for the reason that their cars are built of built of high quality and standards, unlike our domestics - seriously our cars are dreadful in terms of technology and design (like the pre-historic Iswara). If they (the domestics) weren’t backed up by Them, it would have been conked out long time ago.

Ok let's say I trade the S13 with the newer Iswara (because I dislike loans and tis car have the lowest installment rates after Kancil) :

1. I would still get the infamous “power-window” problems after 3 months of purchase. The S13 is almost 18 years old, and I never had any power window issues.
2. Less power. The Germans will always be at my back, honking and flashing their HID lights at me. S13 got 3++HP – I can say bye-bye to those rich people who thinks they own the road.
3. Pre-Historic engine - The Iswara might be new but the engine is 10 year older than mine. I will be running on carbs (this is bad for the environment and not fuel efficient at all). S13 runs on injections!
4. The car is very Uncool – it’s just another means of transport. I won’t treat it as a work of art, no esthetic value at all (I am a designer by the way.. and designers love lovely lovely things). It is an example of how far are we from the current trend – 20 years behind. The S13 might be 18 years older than the “NEW” Iswara… but people still drools at it.
5. For the past 7 years, I haven’t heard any of those dreaded rattles and squeaks whenever I took my car for a ride. I heard the domestics made plenty after 3 years!
6. I’ll be paying a large sum of money for the next 5-7 years every month. With the S13 – No Installments – fully paid!

The way I see it, all these nonsense is proposed because not many people are buying Proton these days. Perodua are doing well with the MyVi! It’s a nice car to drive and esthetically pleasing. They (Proton) are in a critical situation and just finding a quick fix on the ordeal by bribing us with a voucher worth RM5K. It’s just like selling your soul to the devil and fuels them to produce even worse cars.

Who are really going to benefits all these? - The domestic car maker! They’ll give 5K voucher for each car we scrap, and they’ll earn a lot more by selling us their junks and leave us with debts for the next few years.

Okay, maybe I bashed a lot on Proton, but I think Perodua can go further than the older brother. So maybe there are still some hope for the domestic car market.

But, I guess I’ll stick to my old nice antic car anyway...

First Entry

Well, this is my maiden entry - There's no fireworks in the sky, and no goodwell wishes.

What I hear are just faint keyboard taps in the background. Everyone is busy, i am not too sure what they are doing and I am here - writing this, switching the internet explorer tabs between this entry and some posting from We Like Women <- yeah! some porno group my friend setup. He actually made some money out of it - lucky bastard. Why am I blogging? I heard They are going to control the blogging activity in the country. Control? Based from experienced, I could say that things that are need to be controlled, taste better when it is a little bit out of control - for instance driving and sex. They control tv channels, newspapers, magazines, etc.. and now they wanna control the internet? Register all the Bloggers? The internet is the last few places on Boleh-Land for Free People like us can breathe freely. The way I see it, They shouldn't be afraid of the blogs unless what those political blogs say are true.... which I think mostly are indeed true. Isn't this a Free Country? Isn't this a Democratic country? Why can't we aired our opinions freely? What's the difference if somebody think about all these nonsense and sensible thoughts, and let them out or keep it for themselves? I mean people are still gonna think about it anyway right? So why am I blogging? Like a pack of cigarettes... my parents won't allow those, but it's nothing wrong.... why am I smoking?