Leaving the place of the darndest things

Well, the time has come to bid farewell to Subang Jaya... for now. Returning home after living overseas always seems to give mixed feelings. On the one hand you're obviously excited to be going back to what you know and miss. But on the other hand, you're leaving a place you've just begun to feel apart of.

Before leaving I managed to acquire (with the help of a friend) a book which I first saw in a book store in Borneo; Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things. It just goes to show that I've still got a lot to learn about Malaysia. Not that I know that much, but I was just surprised to see a book like this even on sale.

Here's something I definitely wouldn't have heard someone say on the street. Selangor Chief Minister Mohd Khir Toyo said, "Malaysian men are easy to service. [Their] libido lasts only five minutes. A shorter period would mean more customers and that makes it more lucrative for the sex workers to conduct their activities here." This was supposed to explain why there are foreign prostitutes in Malaysia. Coming from a country where an aggressive handshake can have an effect on your political career, this sort of comment seems otherworldly.

Whilst it seems Australians can be very sensitively politically correct about charities, political correctness didn't seem to bother one Malaysian politician. Kelantan Chief Minister, Nik Aziz Nik Mat is quoted as saying, "Only women who are not pretty (kurang rupawan) should be employed by the State government, as these women would not be able to get rich husbands who can support them financially."

From my experiences these quotes don't represent the views of the Malaysian population but are more of a very tenuous link. Speaking of tenuous links, try figuring this out:

"All bloggers are liars, they cheat people using all kinds of methods. From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women. Bloggers like to spread rumours, they don't like national unity. Today our country has achievements because we are tolerant and compromising. Otherwise we will have a civil war. Malays will kill Chinese, Chinese will kill Malays, Indians will kill everybody else."

And all because of bloggers.

Skip to the end: I left KL and read a book about Malaysian politics.