DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY 

For 52 years after independence, Malaysia wasn’t that well known internationally. 

Then Najib Razak aka Fearless Leader happened. 

You might say Fearless put Malaysia on the world map. For a moment in time, we were the globe’s experts in international money laundering. Even Bernie Madoff bowed his head in tribute when no less an authority than the US’ Department of Justice declared Fearless’ 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) wealth fund the largest “theft” in world history.

Fearless et al helped invent a new word – kleptocracy – while whole forests had to be felled to supply the newsprint required to explain the fraud’s magnitude to the world. Books have been written. And a 1MDB movie has been made by Netflix. 

Hollywood might take a trifle longer as it was, apparently, smitten by the conspicuous extravagance lavished it by Fearless’ portly partner, the champagne-swilling Felonious aka Jho Low. Incidentally, the latter is the protagonist in Netflix’s Man on the Run.

You’d be amazed by how many friends a country’s money can buy. 

It is by way of this circuitous route that I’ve arrived at the reason behind my blog this week. 

I read, with some incredulity, that Malaysia’s overall happiness had apparently plunged since Fearless’ status changed from Former PeeEm to First Felon. 

This is the contention of one Lim Sian See, a social media influencer. Mr Lim said that Malaysia’s ranking in the World Happiness Report saw a continuous drop after Fearless was defeated in the 2018 general election.

Mr Lim said Malaysia’s happiness ranking had been rising throughout Fearless’ tenure. The index was introduced by the United Nations in 2013 while Fearless was leader from 2009 till 2018, at which point  the ”happy” people of Malaysia kicked him out.

It was therefore the same cheery lot that allowed  justice to take its course and, subsequently, consigned him to prison.

Ever the pedant, Mr Lim pointed out that Malaysia was ranked 56th in 2013 in the index and climbed to 35th in 2018, making it the second “happiest” country in Asean after Singapore.

Along those lines, Bhutan is the “happiest” country in the world. It may, of course, be entirely due to its yak butter but there does not seem to be many people queuing up to become its citizens.

Even so, Mr Lim is  convinced by his arguments.

“After Najib fell, Malaysia’s ranking in this index kept falling and was slowly overtaken by other Asean countries,” he said in a doleful Facebook post.

Based on the report, Malaysia dropped from the 55th happiest country in the world in 2023 to the 59th position this year.

In the 2024 World Happiness Report, Singapore ranked 30, the Philippines (53), Vietnam (54), Thailand (58), Indonesia (80), Laos (94), and Cambodia (119).

Even so, I’m amazed that Malaysia, at its 59th spot, continues to be as happy as it is.

After Fearless’ ouster, Malaysians learnt the following facts: 

We are among the most indebted countries in Asean with over RM1.5 trillion in debt. 

The 1MDB fiasco didn’t just cost us US$4.5 billion but US$12.3 billion due to accumulated debt taken on to service 1MDB’s obligations. 

The scale and scope of corruption in Fearless’ administration was frightening.  And trust agencies once deemed sacred – the Pension’s Fund, Felda, the Pilgrims Fund, the Armed Forces Pension Fund – were looted to cover up the fraud.  

Moreover, even after his conviction by three progressively higher Courts, Fearless never apologised to the Malaysian people. Nor has he shown any remorse.  

You’d be depressed, too, if you’d just learnt these facts. Indeed, I’d say most Malaysians are as happy as Felonious being informed the champagne had run out. 

But Felonious had never run out of champagne. He knew that all happiness depended on a leisurely breakfast.

ENDS

EATING YOUR WAY TO THE PRESIDENCY 

The English contribution to world cuisine – the chip. – British actor and comedian John Cleese

If you want to politically succeed in France, it’s not by way of the Lloyd George rule. The former British premier had suggested keeping one’s conscience “well under control.” 

Being pragmatists, the French were more than likely to agree on this but would have added diet to the mix. 

Egg-zactly, zey would have eggs-claimed. More precisely, they would have suggested an omelette.

Not just any frittata. No, it’s the one from Mont Saint Michel, an island off Normandy – a region in the north of France.  Specifically, it’s the one from the Restaurant de la Mère Poulard which has been serving the public since 1888.

Some background first. The French take their cooking very seriously. It’s like, to make a croissant from scratch, you have to first create the universe. It’s like that sort of grand. 

I mean, I can melt butter with the best of them, but so can a hot day.  Most people mix flour and water and make glue but a Frenchman with artistry in his soul and passion in his heart can make a little miracle: with those ingredients plus a little salt and yeast, he can make a baguette.

Toasted and lightly buttered, they go down a treat especially during breakfast. It’s highly prized by those sections of the French military with a sense of history. Throughout the 20th century, those humble bread rolls have sustained countless French armies marching their way towards surrender. 

But we were talking about omelettes and their impact on politics, weren’t we? 

That particular omelette was invented by one Annette Poulard, a master chef whom Michelin himself had his eye on.  She had been running an inn on the island and she created the omelette to cater to pilgrims visiting the abbey on Mont Saint Michel.

Apparently, guests could only reach the island by land during low tide and, as such, would arrive at all hours. Poulard would quickly prepare her omelette of eggs, salt, pepper and local butter so that her guests could have something to eat while waiting for a more substantial meal.

But the egg dish was as light as a souffle and just as delicious. Couple that to the French love for superstition – they’d been the ones who invented triskaidekaphobia to begin with – and Bob’s your Uncle! 

Actually, Uncle Robert had nothing to do with it but, over the years, a legend developed that those politicians who eat the Omelette de la mère Poulard would go on to be  President of France.

The legend dates back to the contest for the Presidency between Georges Clemenceau and Paul Deschanel in 1920. While in the running, Clemenceau visited Poulard but did not eat her omelette as she was unwell at the time. Deschanel, however, did and won the race.  

Since then, it has been noted that those who won all ate the omelette – such as Charles de Gaulle, who made a family visit to Mont Saint Michel in October 1957 before going on to win another term as President in 1958.

Nicolas Sarkozy actually launched his 2007 presidential campaign in Mont Saint Michel. Indeed, he thoughtfully chomped his way through several omelettes – you couldn’t be too careful – before going on to win his campaign.

But that was then and even urban legends, like old generals, have to fade away. Emmanuel Macron thought the whole superstition fowl and he refused the omelette, preferring another egg dish for breakfast. 

He thought boiled eggs were hard to beat. 

ENDS

EASIER SAID THAN DONE

I couldn’t believe my eyes. 

I rarely read the papers as it’s depressing.  But on occasion – this column, for instance – I must trawl for ideas, and you know what they say about beggars. 

And there it was. An item in Star Online, about the government contemplating an Act of Parliament to curb rent seeking. 

Imagine that! 

Do Malaysian business people know what rent seeking is? That’s like asking if the Ayatollah’s Muslim? They may not know its meaning, neither did they invent it, but they know the practice. In fact, they’ve taken it to Everest-like heights. Rent seeking is the practice of manipulating public policy or economic conditions as a strategy for increasing profits. 

Unfortunately, a pivotal public policy in Malaysia facilitates, nay, encourages such behaviour. 

Since 1971, the New Economic Policy has sought to uplift the country’s poorer Bumiputeras (indigenes and largely Malays) into economic parity with their richer countrymen. 

Where the Malay corporate and industrial community’s concerned, it’s taken various forms including quotas, licenses, permits, contracts, concessions, even outright grants. There isn’t any estimate, but many billions of taxpayer dollars would have been spent by now.   

They’ve been used to reshape industry. Take autos. In the 70s, it was dominated by the Chinese. The government decreed that approved permits (APs) would have to be obtained to import and sell cars in the country.

It created an effective monopoly. Cars became more expensive and the favoured few became very rich. 

One, so much so that he went into helicopters in a big way. At least, it demonstrated his entrepreneurial flair. 

The rest remain dependent on patronage and get outraged when their entitlement is threatened. 

Standout example: they weren’t happy campers when Tesla was recently allowed to import and sell its own cars without jumping through hoops – like having to go through an AP dealer, or Tesla having to sell some of its local equity to a Malay partner. 

The hoops, in the context of state protection from competition, are everything. 

Meanwhile, there are other items – from sugar and onions to flour and steel products – that require import licenses. It creates more “rents” – only selected businessmen need apply – and inflates prices.  

Under Dr Mahathir’s premiership, new rents were created and not necessarily for Bumiputeras.  At one point, the latest scheme for instant wealth creation were the licensing of independent power producers. 

IPPs bought subsidised gas from Petronas and, if its former chairman is to be believed, the national utility was “forced” to buy its output. 

Its obvious drawback –  whopping costs to the state-owned utility – was all but ignored in the flush of new wealth creation and an excited stock market.

As a former reporter, I used to think that some people were there just to dream up new RS schemes that would be NEP-compliant. The trick was to have a powerful, and sympathetic, ear in government.  

It was thus that I got a tip-off in 2003 that cigarette and beer firms would be forced to affix security labels on their products to “deter smuggling”.  

It wasn’t surprising. Cigarettes and beer are heavily taxed ergo smuggling is rampant. It still is. 

The firms are easy targets as they are foreign-owned and their products, generally frowned upon. Full disclosure: I like beer.

The tipoff was accurate.  I called the company, and they came back with the old “it’s the Swiss technology” chestnut.

A search revealed that the firm’s chairman was a brother of a (then) senior Umno minister. Smoking gun. We ran with the story in the Asian WSJ the next day and I waited expectantly. 

It went over with all the thrill of a wet sponge. Talk of vanishing into a vacuum! No outrage, no heated denials. Boredom, it seemed, was the order of the day.  

It was just another day in Paradise.  

ENDS 

THE RELATIVITY OF CRIME

In the film The Godfather, Don Corleone cautions his hot-headed son Sonny against violence, pointing out there are gentler ways: “A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”   

There’s a moral in there somewhere, surely. 

For Marlon Brando, it was a line in yet another movie. But  for an Ex-PM and his substantial sidekick Fatboy, it may have been A Life Lesson to Live By.

Certainly, it’s one school of thought. Now compare and contrast our responses to malfeasance to those of the Japanese of whom the phrase “to a fault” must surely have been invented. 

Plot’s like this. Principal of junior high school in Japan needs pick-up. Been that kind of day. Enters self-service deli, pays for regular coffee, but presses button for “large” cup.   

He’s spotted. Flagrante delicto as it were. Such drama! Caught in Takasago,  seven-hours from Tokyo. Self- righteous, if you know what I mean. No sense of humour. Or mercy. It’s four days before Christmas.  

Rough justice is understating things. By February, he’s done and dusted, dismissed from work, his teaching licence revoked. No kidding – it’s what the  Asahi Shimbun reported. 

He’s also lost his retirement pay, about RM525,000. Nothing to sneeze at in a country with low inflation.

You have to feel for Ex-PRIN. He’s remorseful too, which is more than can be said of EX-PM: he’d  thought the truth was such a rare and precious commodity it had to be doled out sparingly.  

But I digress. Let’s go back to the ex-principal. At an interview, the 59-year old said he had acted impulsively and was “truly sorry.”

Ex-PRIN also admitted he’d done it 4 times before. In total, he’d underpaid Y$490. That’s not quite enough to bankrupt said deli: it’s  around RM15.56.

Did the punishment fit the crime? Even ordinary Japanese wondered. 

Dismissal is the most severe punishment for a public servant there. That’s followed by suspension from work, a pay cut and, least of all, a reprimand. EX-PM had thought a reprimand was fair in his case. He would have even settled for a pay cut but there was just no satisfying some people. 

But in Japan Ex-PRIN had been a repeat  offender. His dismissal, therefore, was deemed “appropriate.” 

Now what would the Japanese have thought of  Ex-PM having his 12 year sentence – for stealing over RM42 million from public coffers – cut in half?

And what would they have thought of senior Malaysian lawyer Zaid Ibrahim’s comment that RM42 million was “small change,” implying, presumably, that EX-PM had been hard done by?

He must think he was because he’s not leaping about with joy as well he might: a rubber tapper was recently sentenced to seven years for stealing RM77. 

Again, the Japanese might have asked: Would said tapper have the same chance of being pardoned on the not unreasonable grounds of, say, extreme poverty?  

OK, maybe not. It was the Malaysian Way: Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the St Regis.

For perspective, here are some facts for the Japanese to ponder. It’s about  1Malaysia Development Bhd, the state fund allegedly looted by EX-PM et al.  The amount stolen from it is estimated at US$4.5 billion while its total debt had reached US$7.8 billion at last count. That’s  RM48.4 billion at current exchange rate levels and rising as we speak. 

It’s certainly not “small change”. 

ENDS

THE MEN OF MANY FACES

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” – US writer and statesman Benjamin Franklin

“In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity.” – German statesman Konrad Adenauer

“All you need in this life is stupidity and confidence, and then success is sure.” It was the writer Mark Twain who made the observation over a century ago but he never meant for it to be taken seriously. 

But there is a rocket scientist in Damansara Flora in the greater KL area who did, apparently.  Said RS had read somewhere that going viral on TikTok could get you money for nothing and chicks for free. 

To be sure, there is going viral, and then there is, well, going nuts. Like hydrogen, there is a great deal of stupidity out there and RS had drunk deep, and copiously, at said well.

He had no criminal record to speak off. To rectify that matter, he set fire to an auxiliary police cruiser and all but drew a map for the police by filming the act on his phone and sending it out to that great Cloud in the sky. It did go viral and that, as they say, was the rub. 

No chicks for free, that’s for sure. Perhaps a little grim and stern fish, some gritty rice and an opportunity to meet a former Premier. 

That’s why you can never underestimate human intelligence too much. 

Nor can you underestimate human greed for that matter. Jibby and his stout sidekick, Fatboy, proved that above and beyond their call of duty. That’s well known of course, but no, I’m just talking today’s newspaper here. First my eye fell on the story of the ambitious RS with delusions of adequacy, and then there were the  three who allegedly looted a charity for Palestinians.

It took two hours for the interpreter to read the 164 charges prosecutors slapped against the trio for money laundering, criminal breach of trust and cheating, involving over RM45 million in funds meant for Palestinians dispossessed by the war. 

The trio’s hearts bled so much for those poor folk that they allegedly bought houses, shop-lots and land. As a further mark of respect, they bought 131 kilograms of gold bullion.

Fatboy would have understood: you can’t have too much. He knew because he’d tried. 

There was only one problem. They might have been a couple of chapattis short of a curry lunch because all the purchases were made by a single company which had but three directors.  This was usually the moment Poirot would have muttered: “Sacre bleu!”

No prizes for guessing the three rocket scientists on said board.

My friend Cletus came up with a beauty yesterday. He’d been reading about the preacher man Ebit Liew, whose case of  sexual harassment is currently pending before the courts. 

Cletus thought the name should correctly read as A Bit Lewd. 

You’d never have guessed though. He was normally clad in proper clerical garb right down to the white skull cap and pious goatee. 

But to read the testimony of the disconsolate female witness on the stand in today’s paper, it appeared that the old chestnut may have been true. No, it wasn’t a gun in his pocket and yes, he had been happy to see her. 

Allegedly, of course.

ENDS

KILLJOYS OF MALAYSIA

He made us all one true religion, Edith, which he named after his son, Christian – or Christ, for short.  – Archie Bunker, in the TV sitcom All In The Family  

The other day we met up with Y, one of my wife’s friends, who’d flown over from Kay-El with one aim: to see Coldplay perform live.

He’d booked a hotel room and, since he was in Singapore with his wife, he might as well stay a few days. The concert tickets were S$200 (RM694) each so what the hell?  

“We haven’t been here for ages anyway,” he told us cheerfully.

The British band had agreed to play six January concerts in the city-state: all in the same venue, a rare concession that underscored the island’s marketing skill.  It made good business sense. All the dates were booked solid, and it drew fans from as far away as New Zealand. 

That’s the way to do it. 

It was the Arabs who came up with the saying: “the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on.” This commonsensical notion was largely true for Malaysia in its first 50 years or so but not so much now. Every time any barking starts, the country staggers, stops or even reverses course altogether.    

The Islamic Party of Malaysia, or Pas, is largely responsible for this. It, quite seriously, sees itself as the moral watchdog of the country and its outraged yelps against concerts – or anything remotely entertaining for that matter– is costing the country dear: the number of Malaysians like Y who went south to hear Coldplay is anyone’s guess.

Where concerts are concerned, Pas has developed a Pavlovian response: object, object and then, still object. 

Why? 

Why not?  would be the correct response in The World According to Pas. 

Take the upcoming Ed Sheeran concert in Kuala Lumpur. The baby-faced English singer-songwriter is scheduled to perform here on February 24.

It’s too near Ramadan, Pas winged. Not really: the start of the fasting month is almost 2 weeks from the date. 

Eureka, cried the Clerics’ Council of Pas – its highest policy making body – in the triumphant, and Ancient Greek, tones of a Holmes getting his man. 

Apparently, the shady Sheeran was a sinister subversive who surreptitiously supported scoundrelly syndicates like the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. 

Who would’ve thought? 

Harumph, said Khairy Jamaluddin in the dismissive manner of a Grandmaster about to checkmate a lesser mortal. 

A former Health Minister, Mr Khairy revealed that Pas had never “aggressively” pushed for concert bans when it was in government between March 2020 and November 2023. He went on to say that when push came to shove, the matter was raised only once and that, “timidly” too, as a question during a Cabinet meeting. 

In short, zilch, zip and nada. 

Now, who would’ve thought? 

The party’s spiritual adviser confirmed Mr Khairy’s opinion in a backhanded sort of way. He said as it was in government then, the party had more “pressing” matters and issues that “needed our immediate attention.”   

He did not reveal what was so “pressing” that it needed the party’s “immediate” attention. Indeed, any Malaysian worth his salt would be hard pressed to remember a single policy, issue, or idea, that Pas articulated, floated, or espoused during its two-odd years in power. 

It was zip, zilch and nada all over again. 

ENDS

WHO RATES OUR TEACHERS?

There is actually a law  governing academic research. It’s like a Murphy’s Law for academics and it’s called Hanggi’s Law. 

Clearly, the good Hanggi had time on his hands because his axion states “the more trivial your research, the more people will read it and agree.”  

Close but no cigar. 

An academic paper on Malay maritime history – trivial, not to mention staggeringly boring by any yardstick – by two University Putra Malaysia (UPM) researchers has not met with agreement. 

Instead, it’s being questioned with its two researchers accused of misrepresenting facts about Malay maritime history.

The allegations go to the heart of intellectual integrity in some Malaysian universities and echo repeated accusations that the  history in Malaysian textbooks is often rewritten to suit the Malay political narrative.  

Among other things, the paper seemed to suggest that the ships used by Malay sailors during the Malacca sultanate were comparable to their counterparts from China or Portugal.  

Serge Jardin, a French historian who’s co-authored several books on Malaccan history, criticised the duo for misrepresentation. He called it “a shame,” asking darkly:  “How low can academics go?” 

Among the points he noted in a Facebook post, Jardin alleged that an image used in the UPM paper to show a model of a Malay Jong (a type of sailing ship originating from Java, Indonesia) was, in fact, a Foochow Pole Junk (a type of cargo vessel) from China.

If plagiarism is a mortal sin in academe, misrepresentation isn’t far behind. But instead of saying it would “investigate and get back,” the university defended the duo.  

UPM said the article complied with its policy of being peer-reviewed but added blandly that social science and humanities studies were often “open to interpretation.”

In response, the French historian called the university’s defence “a joke.” He wasn’t laughing though.

According to the NST, Monsieur Jardin challenged the expertise of those who conducted the blind peer review for the duo’s paper, saying UPM’s defence could be easily disproved. 

“How is it possible for an expert not to see the difference between a Chinese junk and a Malay jong?” he asked, adding, “Have you ever seen a Malay boat with a pair of eyes at its bow? That belongs to the Chinese culture.” 

There were more questions. 

“How can a maritime expert confirm the galley (ghali) was used in Melaka, in the Sultanate of Melaka fleet, before the arrival of the Portuguese and the Ottomans in Southeast Asia? There is no historical source to sustain that affirmation.”

But the Frenchman’s most damaging allegation was aimed at the duo’s choice of publication.

Jardin questioned the journal, saying it was a “pay to publish” journal and that its publisher, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, was listed as “predatory” in Beall’s List.

Beall’s List, originally created by University of Colorado librarian and researcher Jeffrey Beall, is a widely used and referenced list that identifies potential predatory publishers and journals.

“UKM (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) has even put up a list of predatory publishers/journals, which can be found on its website,” said Jardin, adding that the journal – used by the duo – appears on the list.

“‘It is not recognised by UKM but is good enough for UPM?” he questioned. 

He isn’t the researchers’ only critic. James Chin the Head Of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania dubbed the research “bunkum.” 

The debate is unlikely to die down. But higher education in the country needs to be reviewed. There are questions about our tertiary education. Too many PhDs, unemployed graduates… The hits just keep on coming.  

And there is, of course, a question about the quality of faculty, its research.  

Or do we need foreigners to check?

ENDS

THE MAN ON THE RUN 

Whenever I see the Most Wanted lists, I often have this thought: if we’d only made them feel wanted before, maybe they wouldn’t be wanted now. –  Comedian and singer Eddie Cantor.

A joke being sent around yesterday gave me pause.  

It showed a picture of the former leadership of Malaysia’s once-ruling United Malays National Organisation clustered around its former leader, Najib Razak.

In the photograph, they are convulsed with mirth not least because Najib, his head thrown back, is laughing, presumably all the way to the bank. 

And a caption above reads: “Iswaran took what?? Football tickets?”

To the average Malaysian, the joke is painfully self-evident. On Wednesday, Singapore’s ex-Transport Minister S Iswaran was charged with 27 counts of bribery and corruption involving more than S$384,000 (RM1.34 million). It included over S$160,000 (RM560,000) in event (football, the theatre) and flight tickets from, billionaire Ong Beng Seng.

The alleged transgressions pale beside Najib’s epic theft from 1MDB, a sovereign wealth fund he set up when he was premier. The exact quantum of the loot isn’t clear, but the sums were heroic and in the billions. In contrast, it made Mr Eswaran’s alleged wrongdoing almost pointless, even vaguely Winnie-the-Pooh’ish. 

That was the joke, but it could be on us. Such was the scale of the 1MDB plunder that it’s inspired books and even a 2023 Netflix documentary – Man on the Run – gripping enough to scream Malaysia’s name on to the world stage. 

By cracking down on its powerful, even for misdemeanors, Singapore sends out a compelling message about its values. Would that we might do the same. 

Not even close. There are those who are currently agitating – or secretly hoping – for the First Felon’s early release. 

Jibby has so far served 17 months of his 12-year sentence for corruption, and he faces more charges in three separate criminal trials. Even so, he has seemingly had enough and, through his lawyers, has indicated he wants out through a royal pardon. 

And, no kidding, it’s being taken with all the gravitas of a Lord Denning argument.   

When it comes right down to it, it could boil down to education. Najib’s co-conspirator in the 1MDB saga is the Man on The Run himself, Low Teck Jho, a corpulent crook who’s now on Interpol’s list of wanted fugitives. 

Nevertheless, he is a very rich fugitive. Add to that, educated: the substantial swindler was reportedly an alumnus of the Wharton School of Business, one of the most prestigious business schools in the world: its finance programme is widely considered the gold standard internationally. 

It must have been, for the paunchy pilferer hit on the idea for a sovereign wealth fund to steal from. We will never know but perhaps he was inspired by Dr Mahathir who, when he was premier, often exhorted his countrymen to “Think Big”. 

Jho Low went one step further. He Thought Galactic enough to grace the screens of Interpol and end up as a plausibly deniable guest of the virulently anti-corrupt Communist Party of China. 

It all goes to show the truth of what Theodore Roosevelt observed over a century ago: “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.” 

ENDS

MANNERS MAKE THE MAN 

I learnt the lesson on what goes where in a formal dinner setting the hard way – by screwing up.

It was some time in the mid-1990s and the foreign publication I was working for was due to host a dinner for then-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim. I’d been busy ferrying the boss from Hong Kong around Kuala Lumpur for most of the day and was properly starved by the time dinner rolled around. 

I was seated next to the country’s then-Attorney General, the imperturbable Abu Talib Othman.

Metaphorically speaking, however, I was between a rock and a hard place.  The rock was starving while the hard place couldn’t remember which of the side-plates of bread rolls belonged to me. 

I waited an anguished couple of minutes hoping someone would initiate proceedings, but no one did. It was a 50:50 thing so the odds were reasonable that I wouldn’t make a hash of it. 

But I did. As the tortuous minutes went by, I resorted to the old eeny-meeny-miny-mo trick and devoured the roll on my right. 

After I came to, I noticed that everyone was buttering, or eating, their rolls except the good Tan Sri on my right. Upon my questioning look, he indicated, with the merest tilt of his head, the roll sitting forlornly on my plate’s left. 

An aghast understanding dawned, and I swiftly transferred said roll to the right. He picked it up and calmly began buttering it while initiating conversation on the perils of journalism in the region. Such was his aplomb that no one at the table noticed and my blushes were spared. 

That’s class for you, the courtesy of a true gentleman, or as Twain observed, “the noise you don’t make while eating your soup.” 

It takes an experience like that to drive the lesson home for life, and I’ve never forgotten the BMW rule for formal dining ever since. It stands for “Bread, Meal Water” which is how said dinner items should be positioned before you, going from left to right. 

Even so, the polished, good manners displayed by bygone generations seem to be going the way of the dodo. Standing up for a woman or holding the door for one can sometimes be viewed negatively because of New Age sensibilities brought about by feminism and gender equality. 

But there are those who’d argue that politeness is half good manners and half good lying, like the guy who disguises his boredom by learning to yawn with his mouth closed.

Of course, all this refers to the Western norm of good breeding. It is wholly different in other cultures which may be one reason why the writer Paul Theroux had occasion to remark: “The Japanese have perfected good manners and have made them indistinguishable from rudeness.” 

The observation may have stemmed from his first visit to any ramen joint in 

Tokyo: all that slurping is blatantly at odds with the “noise you don’t make while eating soup.” 

But it’s de rigueur in Japanese culture where the sedentary slurper slurps and having slurped, moves on to slurp some more.  

Omar Khayyam might think it bad form, but the poor sod hadn’t supped nor slurped ramen. 

Even so, even Omar might have disapproved of Homer Simpson; “Look Marge, you know it’s rude to talk when my mouth’s full.” 

ENDS

HAVE YOURSEF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin. – Comedian Jay Leno

You have to feel for people like Charlie Brown, the nicest born loser you could ever hope to meet. Especially when he confesses that he’s developed a new philosophy on life. “I’m only going to dread one day at a time.” 

But even Charlie Brown must have felt better around this time of year. I mean, it’s the most wonderful time for a beer. OK, no more puns. They really do sleigh some people.

I used to think Manhattan’s Little Italy used to look lovely on Christmas Eve –  its cold and frosty ambience, its red and green lights going twink-twink-twinkling. Then I saw Singapore’s Orchard Road with its mile-long fairyland of lights and I was suitably impressed. The extravaganza  goes on for over a month. 

But for sheer spectacle, there’s little to beat Rebecca’s kampung, the Portuguese Settlement in Malacca. The residents there are all Catholic and so every home attempts to strut its most festive stuff, all the Christmastide you could think of in one place. The result is nothing short of  breathtaking, a carnival of light and colour that envelopes the entire village. Indeed, it gets a bit much, to the extent that it’s often clogged with camera-toting tourists gawking at the locals with all the curiosity one associates with zoos. 

Most people have good memories associated with Christmas. But for Bill “Bah, Humbug” Maher, it’s “about family and memories, and the looks on the carolers’ faces when I set the dogs on them.” 

I loved the film The Grinch.  It fairly dripped Yuletide, with its abundance of snow, red and green presents, eggnog, mulled wine, and sleigh bells going ring-ring-ring-a-ling; all set to rhyme and presided over by the cantankerously funny Grinch, marvelously played by Jim Carey. It must have resonated because it became the highest grossing Christmas film of all time. 

You might say that the season isn’t just a day for us, it’s more of a frame of mind. There’s something about entering a mall and seeing the Christmastide,   hearing those familiar carols, that cheers me up. When Raisa was very young she used to bounce around with excitement. 

Not any more though. She’s pretty blasé about it now although when she used to live in Austria,  the pictures she sent back to us about Christmas in an Austrian village with her in-laws, looked straight out of the home of Cindy Lou Who in  Whoville.

We still continue with our “traditions.” The tree gets trimmed on the first day of Advent – two weeks ago – and the house becomes redolent with the smell of pineapple tarts just around now. Even the government radio stations play an carol every now and then.

We leave for Portugal on Tuesday where we will link up with Raisa, Hannes and our grand-dog, Wally, an affable and cute-as-a-button Coton.

It will be moderately  cold there but if last winter was anything to go by, it promises to be nice with afternoon temperatures rising to 19 degrees. The food is great, the prices are reasonable and it will  begin to look a lot like Christmas. 

Until then, have a lovely little Christmas and may the New Year be a better one for everybody.  

ENDS