When the rice has become spilt porridge
Could not resist doing the translated bit for the title. And I wrote this in some comment a few days ago, and today I'm feeling this pain again!
I'm almost resigned to the fact that we have the problem of a very weak country. And to add to the problem of our ailments, we have entire generations of citizens who are bent on protecting the subsidy-based system that is synonymous with what is known as Malaysianism.
Our education system, in the first place, as the economists seem to love to say, distorts reality. When you segregate young people according to race, they grow up unable to survive in a real-world context. Hence when people finally get thrown into the working world they’re shocked (some people have never used a pair of chopsticks in their life, and others actually go around discussing how disgusting it is that some people actually use their hands to eat their food).
Secondly, the ‘meritrocracy’ system and a scholarship system to allow the ‘poor’ education opportunities, or to create a ‘fairer’ demography in the various professional field has distorted the reality. So you have groups of people thinking that because they get straight As they’re able to fly through life (that’s why crazy PSD students INSIST on going overseas no matter what), and others who just because they had to slogged through Form 6 and didn’t get to enter bumi-exclusive colleges, they actually believe that they’re better than the UiTM malay kid who scored straight As… we go into the office space suspicious of everybody else, and we live in little bubbly worlds of make-believe. THe irony is none of us are THAT good anyway.
Plus we have survived and even thrived the past 50 years on a low-wage system, causing a severe brain drain… we have genius, sponsored Malaysians opting to migrate and start new lives overseas where the pay is better and the transportation system is better,so what’s left and what remains in this country is literally the ’saki-baki’ that’s not that great in the first place. So even if we wanted to ’start over’, we don’t have the ingredients to start over. And if we throw out the low-wage system, we’re going to lose our foreign investors who came here in the first place because we offered low-wage workers (which also meant they could overlook some of our misgivings, i.e. engineers, accountants, doctors, lawyers, professionals who aren’t that good anyway).
And finally the worst thing is this, because of a pathetic and misleading education system that has ‘worked’ for the past 50 years, we have at least 2 generations of youthful Malaysians who believe that just because they have a degree they have the right to be paid high salaries and they have the right to demand better working environments, and they have the right to demand for better employers- and you already see the problem, people would rather pay a premium to import foreign workers, and we have our own children, graduates yes and NOT working but lepaking around expensive malls. And then when they can’t do anything, they get absorbed into some retraining thing, get paid allowances (subsidies, anyone), and we’re left with just that. A HUGE SORE in the body called Malaysia that just isn’t going to go anywhere, anytime soon.
Can't resist this one also: And then to top it up with the 'I'm so great mentality' that Malaysians just love to have (a huge part thanks to our hugely egoistic ex PM the dear Tun with his Malaysia Boleh mantra), we have judges who keep a grudge and choose to allow a wound of humiliated and fractured egoes to fester over 10 years, and turn up in court to tell a juicily memalukan tale of how his previously fantastic ego was shattered so shoddily at 'boot camp'. And then of course our crazy border-side petrol station owners who bitch about how the axing of subsidized petrol to foreigners will cause them to loose business (selfishness, anyone?), and people going around screaming 'blatant lies' without producing any physical proof to dispute the lies…
So, sekarang nasi dah jadi bubur, mana nak cari nasi baru ni?
June 27th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
When the cooker is not working, whatever you cook will be bubur.
Keep on looking for nasi with a broken periuk, you cook nasi, get bubur loh.
June 27th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I suspect that someone’s gonna say the same thing again 50 years from now.
June 27th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Well, you can’t always blame the periuk either. If the person cooking the rice knows of the broken periuk but just lets the “cooking cycle” completes its cost then you cant blame the cooker entirely. Cooker are tools, not humans. Cookers don’t make decisions, people do.
well, ‘bila nasi dah jadi bubur’, u still have to wait for the process where the bubur becomes ‘berak’ or bubur dibuang, and then wait for the next cycle where you grow padi again, before you attempt to get nasi again.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
sam, so the solution is continue cooking with the same tools?
June 27th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
it’s amazing someone even contemplated the possibility of blaming a periuk… amazing.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
50 years from now?
lets say it everyday..
June 28th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
It’s an expression of deep regrets.
I guess the emotive sense is that the rice was never cooked properly; too much water; some clumsy cook anxious and langgar the pot over and that would be more appropriate.
Compliments of Mahathir denoted the second; that he was, when in office, a man in a hurry. But by training, he would have known 2 things; fix it if it’s broke (cut off the diseased part) and two humor the patient and get paid for it.
Mamak humored us a lot; deceived many of us. He didn’t cut the non-bumis completely, he humored and used them and obliterated their sense of self-respect. You wonder if, that was what had happened to Eric Chia.
How could we have been deceived? Maybe we asked for it! But largely civil society was swept off its feet. On the other hand, consider the mud and filth in how things were done. How could we have ever tried to know when OSA was the menace? If that’s not enough they expertly “cooked” all kinds of thing to sembah the Mamak.
Let’s face it. The guy was and is a mean bugger. He is obviously disappointed with mother or father figure.
Imagine the twin towers! He is lying down, sunning himself in this great and fastastic tropics and tells the world, or whoever that “figure” is and says, “F@!%k you!!! Everyone has got one. I have two!!!”
I can’t think of anything more appropriate!
June 28th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I came back to Malaysia to give it a go. I have a great career going here but I’ll be jetting off and never to look back the moment I get my PR.
Why?
Plainly because it is rubbish here. Nevermind the wages and the quality of life, it is just bullshit when I get treated better and fairer in a foreign land.
Enough said.
Good for you. Good for Malaysia. More, better, richer, (add another -er here) is a always somewhere else.
June 29th, 2008 at 12:09 am
The Unknown: Bye bye, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Cheerios!
June 29th, 2008 at 1:26 am
The Unknown, I’m glad you’re having a good life.
June 29th, 2008 at 3:45 am
be prepared for crack down..
1st DSAI +RPK.. next, ….
shud we try and fight
or shud we start packing bags?
June 29th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Depends on what you mean by “fight.”
If it’s binding the wounds and injuries of those who will be caught in the open fire, I am for it.
If it’s throwing our lives in to take in the damage in the place of others, I am for it.
If it’s trying to help the country to remain stable amidst the chaos, without compromising on the cleansing process, I am for it.
June 30th, 2008 at 6:47 am
The world has become a very small place with improved technonologies and tools. Mobility of labour came with that and now people with skills in demand can move anywhere in the world without much difficulty. Malaysia is but a small place in the world context. If you are able to move, then move. You will see a much bigger place than malaysia. better wages, better work hours (although taxes can be pretty high). for those unable to move, good luck…
where to look for ‘new’ rice…well, minishorts, you are right…there is no ‘new’ rice. perhaps the next generation? although there might be not much for them either if the current trend persist.
so back to square one…move if you can. malaysia is always good for holidays.
I pretty much finally said what you said right? So you left adi ah? No need to come back for holidays lah… you won’t enjoy anything in a place you have so much to complain about.
July 12th, 2008 at 7:20 am
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