Riot in...Malaysia?

AlJazeera report on Minorities in Malaysia struggling with inequalities

A riot just broke out in Malaysia today. I read it on BBC. A part of me was saddened yet another part leaped inside. Finally! I thought. I love this beautiful country I was born in. Yet, I hate it. Mostly, because of the way it is governed.

AlJazeera report on Malaysia's New Economic Policy on Mar 29, 2010

I've never been fond of privilege based on color over merit but that was what I, including many of my other Chinese and Indian friends endured all throughout school in Malaysia. This was the result of the enactment of the National Economic Policy in 1972. Instead of uniting the three main races - Malays, Chinese and Indians raising the financial status of Malays to their counterparts, it's been abused and used as a crutch to bring slow and eventual corruption and inequality to every facet of the society. Even for admission into local Universities, there's a 3 to 1 mandate of Malays for every Chinese or Indian student admitted which meant that a Malay student with grades three times lower than their Chinese or Indian counterpart would have a greater chance of entry. It's utter (pardon my language) bullshit. 


I think Malaysia is the only country where affirmative discrimination...more endearingly called affirmative action which is meant to extinguish the social, political and financial gap between the races, actually widens the gap thereby causing more rift, strife, jealousy and worst of all, inequality among the very people it's intended to help. 


The need for equality is essential for a country's economic progress because it means assessment of qualification based on merit. In a country where the qualifying factor is the color of a person in the name of religion (Muslims in this case) as opposed to merit, the country has no where to go but down as it implodes on itself. In the case of Malaysia, many of the able and qualified citizens left (and continue to leave) the country for greener pastures. In this case, Australia, Singapore, America and Europe. The resulting tragedy is the massive brain drain over time, taking the best of their own people away and contributing their knowledge, resources and ideas to countries where it is not only valued but benefitted by those countries.


Malaysia is actually classified as a 'Democratic' country. Doesn't this mean that the people are free and independent to have a voice, separate of the governing bodies of the state, judiciary and legislature? Then we can conclude that the people have outlets to vent these thoughts and frustrations? Do the people have a voice? Not really. The invoking of the Internal Security Act (ISA - an act revived from the old British colonial days) allows the government to imprison and place any individual under detention without trial. The first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman announced on the day Malaysia gained independence from the British in 1956 that, "the ISA would never be used to stifle legitimate opposition and silence lawful dissent". Well, it looks more like Malaysia has regressed rather than progressed since then. It's a joke when I look at websites where local Malaysians banter back and forth on the injustices of the political system. Far from being sophisticated and complex, it's more like childish babies crying personal attacks void of facts, "Bodoh!"(Stupid or Idiot), "Tamak!" (Greedy pig) and "You are ultra kiasu!"(You're a loser).


When I was in college in Michigan back in the late 1990s, I remember Malaysian friends saying the Prime Minister then, Dr. Mahathir was travelling to the colleges in the United States with a high ratio of Malaysian students, petitioning for them to return to Malaysia after graduation, guaranteeing enormous tax breaks on houses, cars and business opportunities. In other words, he was well aware of the brain drain from the country with the best minds from the country accepting scholarships into foreign countries and emigrating, never to return to Malaysia again or contribute to a second world country  desperately needing local talents to help propel the country into a first world country status. The result? He was snubbed. Hardly any positive outcome came out of it. The graduates were not convinced they would receive true equality or an improved lifestyle. Instead, they felt that the whole premise of it justified even more privileges based on preferential treatment of one class of graduates over another (in this case, foreign educated graduates over local Malaysian graduates). 


The next thing we knew, those of us overseas started hearing rumors of how Dr. Mahathir was now perpetuating cronyism in his travels overseas. He was now making diplomatic trips to select countries to promote Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In order to attract FDI, he promoted the country by bringing with him a personal possy or what we called cronies of local businessmen with whom he showered favoritism in distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks etc. to close deals with any interested foreign parties. Naturally, this resulted in an elite class of corrupted businessmen who received preferential treatment over others, blurring the lines of transparency of government decision making, further eroding the very necessary need for progress based on merit. The result, an economic boom which benefitted the select few over the masses. I remember one public annoyance created in the early 2000s when I was visiting back home. The government had awarded major local construction projects for transportation systems in the capitol of Kuala Lumpur (KL) They were first touted to relieve the increasing traffic jams, install a superior subway system which allowed busy commuters access to every corner of the city like the neighboring super efficient country of Singapore. In reality, since the contracts were awarded to companies based on favoritism over experience or know-how, the masses had to suffer massive delay in completion of road projects, causing more traffic jams, and subways lines which never intersected logically facilitating convenience and only went through select places where most of the rich cronies lived rather than through places with high traffic where public transportation was desperately needed. The privatization of the transportation system, benefitting again the select few who were rich enough to buy over the government bodies passed on the cost of building of roadways to the commuters who now pay excessive 'toll money' to travel round the city on the highways. There are many more examples that makes my blood boil.


On that note, it's also a widely known fact that 90%o  the taxes paid in the country are paid by non-Muslims. Malays are allowed tax rebates, oftentimes evading tax completely by making a offering to the needy called zakat under Muslim law . That basically translates to the Chinese and Indians supporting the Muslims' lifestyle. To add insult to injury, Muslims are allowed a 10%-30% rebate on the prices of property such as houses or cars. Where is the justice in all this? It's mind boggling. I cannot imagine the revolt that would happen in any other democratic country if this was the status quo.

The Bersih movement united Malaysians worldwide on July 9th 2011

This new Bersih movement shows the Malaysians on the motherland are no longer sitting back and complaining but are willing to now publicly rally for the equality and fairness for the people for better inclusion, more governance, transparency and push back the entrenched incumbents holding on to power. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for the pseudo democracy Malaysia touts and perhaps the government will start putting its money where its mouth is. It's been long coming and I hope this means Malaysia will finally find its way to standing with the rest of the other democratic nations as an equal.

China's Golden Week

October 1st is China’s National Day where they celebrate the founding of the country by Chairman Mao. And this year, the 60th Anniversary is being greeted as if it was the most grandiose affair of the century. Banners welcoming this day are set up outside many office buildings and public places. The television is bombarded with constant programs like variety shows, documentaries and TV series and old war movies depicting how far China has come in the lat 60 years and broadcasting the pride of the nation. The Chinese flag is hung outside homes. Many make plans to spend the day watching the live morning broadcast at their grandparents and catch a glimpse of the nighttime fireworks display on the streets outside. Nearly everything comes to a complete halt as all government organizations come to a standstill. Other than the 1 week long vacation Chinese people get during Chinese New Year, this is the only other time when they get an entire week off from work. It's heralded as 'The Golden Week'. Security is at its highest alert. It’s proudly regarded as being twice or trice times more of a celebration than the Olympics last year. In the past couple weeks, volunteers, various groups and thousands of high school kids have been rehearsing for this big day. Fighter jets have been have been zooming past the sky holding practice on days where the normally hazy polluted sky is clear. The number of security guards has tripled in the city center particularly in areas within the 2nd ring road.


These rehearsals about twice a week for the last month of so has led to many people being inconvenienced as many roads and public places are closed off from 4pm to 7am the next day for the rehearsals in Tiananmen Square. People unprepared of uninformed about the rehearsal days are left to take alternate routes home from work or just going home from shopping. Buses are all commissioned off the streets to bus the participants to the rehearsals. Cabs were one in a million to catch as the number of passengers quadrupled. Subways stops were closed off. Many have had to resort to walking most of the way home. Needless to say, it add two to three hours to their commute to get home. The inconvenience afforded to the public could be said to be rude and selfish at best, especially when taking into account the lack of information and preparations offered as alternative routes. With that in mind, it amazed me how little people complained and somehow just took it with stride in respect to the rehearsals welcoming this day. In fact, many who had the opportunity to see the army tanks rolling past the streets to get to Tiananmen Square in the night boasted about it and showed off pictures they had taken on their cell phones.


Airlines have spiked up their tickets to double the regular airfare during this time as people try to take the opportunity to travel during this time. I’ve been told that people are going to be packing the streets like sardines during this whole week of National Day celebration, so it’s better to stay home. For security purposes, Beijing Capital Airport will be closed from the night of September 30th until the morning of October 2nd. All flights will be re-routed elsewhere.


Whilst older women here like having dogs as pets, Beijing men in their 40s and above enjoy rearing birds. Every evening, they release the birds from their cages for a couple hours. The birds know to come back at sundown. This National Day, for security purposes, bird owners are not allowed to release their birds from their cages from the night of September 30th to October 2, in the event that that someone attempts to outfit them with spy cameras.


The Chinese government are going to make every effort to make this day glorious even if it means altering nature. According to the weather forecast, it will be a rainy October 1st in Beijing. But in order to make the celebration go on as planned, the authorities will apparently be using their usual rain initiation technique to instigate the clouds to rain on September 30 so that the festivities will continue under the backdrop of clear blue skies.


The sad part is, the ordinary people themselves will only be able to witness this parade in Tiananmen Square from their TV boxes at home. As the entire city is on high alert, many streets and subway stations will be closed between 11pm on September 30th and 9am on September 2nd. People living within the 2nd ring road stock up the fridges with food to prepare for the National Day ‘quarantine’. Ironically, the only people allowed to watch this grand parade are people in the military class and government officials. If you ask any Chinese why they aren’t allowed to be on the streets celebrating this glorious day of the birth of their country, the answer you’ll get is, “There’s too many people. What if a bomb goes off?”. Sounds a lot like a bunch of silly bull*__* propaganda the government sells in the newspapers and such to scare the people from participating in an open ‘proletariat’ assembly in a public place if you ask me. But then I’m just a foreigner in this country so what do I know, right?…or do we foreigners realize something they are brainwashed to believe, all to the advantage of the ruling class?

One Child Policy

In class today, we talked about the One Child Policy conundrum in China imposed about 25 years ago. Seems like there’s a growing concern among the older generation about the newer generation. I found out that when women look for a job, one of the requirements that they have to answer to is whether they’re using this government issued birth control ring that is inserted in the women’s uterus every 5 years. If they do not, they will be rejected because of the risk of consequences imposed by the government on theat company. If a woman is found pregnant for the second time, there’s a lot of paperwork and hassle that the company has to go through to explain the situation. And apparently, the government then takes the women’s salary. So it’s a lose lose situation for all.

Since parents are only allowed one child and have to pay a lot to have more, parents lavish all their love and attention on that one child. In today’s Chinese  average income family, both parents work, leaving the child in the care of the grandparents. So that one child enjoys exclusive attention not only from the parents but from both sides of the grandparents as well. This is resulting in a generation who are apparently spoilt, self-centered, selfish and not willing to give and take as they’ve never had to do it growing up.

For example, there was a recent publication in a local magazine about summer school trip where Japanese and Chinese children went for a week’s camping trip up in the mountains. When it got cold at night, it was easy to tell between the children from both countries. The Japanese kids knew to get the warm clothes from their backpacks to cover themselves. The Chinese kids just moaned and complained that they were cold and didn’t know how to keep themselves warm.

Here’s another example. My friend just had her friends over at her house and they brought along their 7 year old child. When the child went from one room to another, his mother chased after him to either take his coat off or put in on for him when he complained that the room was too hot or cold. The walls in their house is covered in pen markings. This is obviously an extreme case of a spoilt child but it closely exemplifies the new breed of Chinese that is now becoming the new leaders and workforce of China.

The divorce rate in China is also increasing rapidly. Quite a number of chinese people have mentioned one of their suspicions to me. Unlike the older generation with bigger families where the males were taught give in to their sisters or the older ones to give in to the younger siblings, these children in the last 20 years or so have grown up not having to share, or give in to one another in the course of an argument. But to take and own what they have to their fullest desire. Of course, this cannot be applied to the whole generation. But it’s definitely a prevalent concern and a topic that is not foreign to people here. Obviously, the major concern is the ability of the newer generation in the office setting in terms of negotiation and ability to cooperate with one another, once the older generation is gone.

China the new world superpower?

China's complex history with its contradictory and conflicting stances and politics is well known. From the fact that they really seem to have a strong dislike for the Japanese because of the wars of invasion and brutalization without apologies, yet not apologizing for the millions of their own that were killed by Mao's leadership, down to criticisms of their human rights violations and environmental issues. Yet the brighter part of the picture is that there does seem to be a sincere desire to improve the living standards of its people and play it's part in the global scene. The reason being, just in the last week that I've been here, I've seen things that I've never even seen in wealthy first world countries like the States. All public places in residential buildings have sound activated light fixtures that turn on only if there are people around. I was in a mall today where I saw for the first time, energy conserving escalators that slowed when not used and speeds up just as people steps onto it. Plastic bags sold in the supermarkets are more often than not the thin type. Many of the restaurants use thin recycled cardboard boxes rather than styrofoam containers. All supermarkets charge extra for using their plastic bags. Many of the restaurants use plastic reusable chopsticks than the paper ones. Elevators in my residential building are reduced to half at off peak times of the day in order to conserve energy. Now, I can see how many people back in the States and perhaps elsewhere would groan about this being an inconvenient or 'cheap' style of living. But then doesn't that also mean that we're living our lavished lives more and more irresponsibly all for the sake of 'having everything we want at our fingertips'. How is it that America which constitutes only 4% of the world population contribute to 25% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions every year - the highest of any country in the world, and more than China, India and Japan combined. Americans use 50 million tons of paper annually - consuming more than 850 million trees. For every action, there is a consequence. What will it take for us to change our 'recklessness' ways and mindsets?

On the other hand, national broadcast of any foreign media is not allowed across China. There's widespread censorship of violent, sexual or political elements in movie theaters and gaming such as Xbox, PS2 and Gameboy are completely banned. I seem to be unable to reach major blogsites like Blogger.com, Xanga.com. Youtube.com as well, which is a pain because I think I was addicted to it in living in the States. Hopefully, this blog won't be blocked by the Chinese government one day. But if it does, then I guess it's Plan B...life finds a way. However, over lunch today, I learnt a couple very helpful things from Mrs. Ma's daughter, Sarah who's a local Beijinger. She shared with me about a whole slew of websites that will allow me to download international shows like Saturday Night Live, Ellen Degeneres Show, UNCENSORED movies and tons more from websites I've never heard of in my life. It was a great relief to know that I won't be completely sheltered from all forms of media from the western world. There seems to be a extremist protectionist governing style here despite a deep hunger and love for foreign media among the masses, especially the younger generation. From my discussions with my Chinese friends in the short time I've been here, it's become very apparent that Chinese fans stream live shows eagerly online and for example, knew immediately that Sean Penn's speech for winning the Oscar for MILK was completely censored from local broadcast, as concepts of freedom and homosexuality are topics not allowed to be discussed openly. 20 years ago, there was a law that enabled gays found convening together in public places to be jailed but today, it has laxed into something that is just not talked about. Though there is no religious reasons for opposing homosexuality here as in the States (as it's generally an atheist society), the younger generation generally see homosexuality as something to empathize about and feel obligated to 'help' by introducing gay friends to members of the other sex, whilst the older generation have a hard time accepting it. Ling Bai, a famous chinese actress who co-starred with Richard Gere in Red Corner (1997), a movie exposing high levels of conspiracy and corruption within the Chinese central government administration, was thereafter disallowed to have any of her movies viewed within China. However, despite the fact gaming is not officially allowed, gaming equipment can be easily purchased in hyper marts geared towards electronic goods here. A double standard? You bet. As much as I think that excess gaming has somehow desensitized the American society to violence and has started to become an unhealthy epidemic among our children, I can slowly understand why there is an internal conflict among the younger Chinese generation about their government. It's a love and hate relationship. They seem to be a very informed public audience aware of the widespread corruption and double standards practiced by the government and yet feel powerless to change it. Yet I believe they unwittingly ARE the catalysts of change in their country and have yet to realize their potential. As much as I want to criticize the Chinese government for these and many other reasons, it causes me to consider the recent Blagojevich corruption scandals splashed all over our newspapers recently, the ludicrousy of our recent Bush government bureaucracy which was allowed to perpetuate and prevalence of our nationwide child sexual molestation epidemic contrasted with the (supposedly) insufficient funds for enforcement vehicles. Are we really that different? Do we really have a right to point our fingers first?

Migrant workers

An American friend, Neal who had been here to adopt a chinese baby 7 years ago, asked me if the juxtaposition of the extremely advanced living standards and the extremely low cost agrarian lifestyle still exist side by side today. The answer is yes. Manual labor still seems to the primary form of construction here in China. Men use shovels and axes to dig trenches for pipelines to build their office buildings downtown, laborers use feather dusters to clean building exteriors, donkeys to carry building materials, brooms made of branches to clean the roads. One day, the children of these 2nd class citizens are going to be educated enough to not want to do these kinds of jobs. Outsourced to private companies or other new immigrants. Just like the way our 1st and 2nd world countries have evolved. 

Discrimination everywhere

As superficial as it sounds, the truth is in China IT MATTERS whether you’re an asian with dark hair and yellow skin or a caucasian with blond hair, blue eyes and white skin. Outer appearance determines your experiences here in China, regardless of whether you speak the language.

I was waiting for a friend at Guomao today and decided I’d strike up a conversation with the janitor cleaning the floor at the subway station and the guard, a boy looking no older than 17. This is how it went:

Me: Why aren’t you using the cleaning machine to clean the floor?

Janitor: Because it won’t clean between the grooves like this one here.

Me: Wow, that looks so hard.

(she keeps on scrubbing while the Guard smiles sheepishly with me)

Guard: Do you think you could do that too?

Me: No way. I don’t think I can stand squatting like that and scrubbing. It’s just too hard.

Guard: (smiles)

Me: How long does it take you to scrub the floor like this?

Janitor: 8 hours

Me: Wow! That’s a long time!

Janitor: Yes, I have to use this much soap water to scrub with. Then when it’s gone, I don’t have any more to wash with so I have to clean it with this amount of water, then clean the soap up with this mop.

Me: Are you two from Beijing?

Janitor: (she immediately replied incredulously) Of course not! If we were from Beijing, we wouldn’t be doing these jobs, would we?

Guard: (laughs sheepishly)

Me: Oh! I didn’t know. Sorry. I just came from America. Where are you from?

Guard: Gansu

Janitor: Henan

Me:(Turning to the janitor) So do you enjoy this job?

Janitor: Yes, I do. (Then a long pause before saying) But I have to work 12 hours a day. From 9am to 9pm! It’s long. 

Then my friends came to so bid them goodbye but in that short amount of time, I discovered a little bit more about migrant lifestyle here. I keep getting surprised by how willing people are to talk when I initiate it.  I guess discrimination exists everywhere in every color and form.

China during the Cultural Revolution 1960s

Ma told me a little bit about life in China during the Cultural Revolution in 1966. I think I understand how some Chinese may harbor resentment towards the government. Members of the elite or educated were considered the lowest classes of all and were persecuted daily for it with verbal bashing. They were shunned by all, left alone and people threw things at them when they passed by. Children of the learned were treated likewise. No make up was allowed. Neither was accessories, music, dancing or self enrichment of any kind allowed. Many committed suicide fro the daily bashing. Many more were killed. Mrs Ma said she did not have any friends as a child and does not remember a time when she experienced happiness as a child as her parents were academics and were therefore the lowest of all people. She only remembers the sky being a shade of grey. I am really glad my forefathers had long left China by then. It's ironic that today, members of the government now reap the benefits of the most opportunities and experience the highest standard of living in today's China.