DIFFICULT TO PLEASE THE CHINESE VOTERS. – PART I.
…MOST OF THEIR LIVES ARE MISERABLE BECAUSE OF THEIR POOR VERNACULAR MANDARIN SCHOOL BACKGROUND AND HOW THEIR MEDIA CREATES A NEGATIVE IMAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT AND THE MELAYU.
By Mansor Puteh
…AND NO THANKS TO THE FILMS FROM HONG KONG…AND THE OVER-PROMOTION OF THINGS HONG KONG BY THE MALAYSIAN CHINESE MEDIA.
THE CHARGE THAT THE CHINESE IN MALAYSIA ARE DESCENDANTS OF IMMIGRANTS IS DEPENDENT ON THEIR BEHAVIOR TODAY WHO BEHAVE LIKE THEIR ANCESTORS DID.
IT’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MELAYU WHOM SOME CHINESE CHARGE FOR CHARGING THEM AS SUCH.
In America’s Chinatowns, there are two types of Chinese – the FOB and ABC – for the ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ and ‘American-Born Chinese’. So the Chinese in America also distinguish the types of Chinese who are not the same.
And no thanks also to the small group of Malaysian Chinese film and video makers who are inclined to take the Chinese in Malaysia into the larger Chinese Diaspora for which they are still marginalized.
Besides, there are many Melayu who are former Chinese or who have Chinese ancestry; they are the ones who make the other Chinese feel like they are still immigrants.
Many of the Chinese left are petty traders and those who are in illegal petty businesses definitely do not want to vote for the government no matter what.
They speak a smattering of poor quality Melayu and watch too much programs from Hong Kong. They are psychologically more Hong Kong than Malaysia. But they have Malaysian citizenship.
Many of them conduct their business in such a tardy fashion by disregarding the law; they use their houses as factories and park their vehicles everywhere.
They read only the Mandarin newspapers and magazines and watch programs on television which are from Hong Kong mostly.
They live in a cocoon who do not know their immediate neighbors; the only Melayu and Indians they meet are those who come to their stalls where they are forced to speak in their bad Melayu.
But they get by simply because their numbers are big comprising of people with their similar backgrounds.
They don’t even watch local Melayu programs let alone go to the cinemas to see Melayu films. They probably know P. Ramlee but not the other actors because his name has been mentioned many times.
Their parents might have watched some P. Ramlee films when they were popular with the multiracial audiences in Malaya then. But not after that when the film industry in Singapura closed and the owners of the studios moved their bases to Hong Kong where they started to produce Chinese films which were also imported into Malaya and later, Malaysia.
This gave the Chinese in Malaysia a renewed connection with their Motherland; thus their fascination for things Hong Kong.
Because most of them are not well educated having dropped out of Mandarin school so early in their lives, they do not go by the normal way of conducting their daily lives or businesses.
They think they can operate their businesses and even factories illegally because they can bribe the officers, which may be a fact, to a certain extent considering how they have been in such businesses for so long.
Just how many of the Chinese and even Indians or the Melayu traders, for that matter, operate their small businesses legally, one never knows. But there are stalls everywhere.
The members of parliament and state assemblies in their areas do not seem to care; they also look elsewhere because they cannot take action on them because they fear losing votes from them.
This is what Malaysia and Malaysian politics have become; those who want to be elected to office must kow-tow to the needs of the voters who want to conduct their daily lives committing petty crimes and be allowed to do so.
They can never be satisfied with what they have and have been given. They want more. The start with getting a little bit of something but ending wanting for more and more of it.
Most Chinese temples started off as being a small shrine, which appears in the form of some joss sticks being put in a glass. It grows up to become a wooden shrine, and later a concrete one, until it is now a complex.
The Chinese in ancient Melaka was given a small piece of land the size of about ten feet wide, but they extended the land backwards. So no wonder all the houses along Heeren Street or Jalan Tun Cheng Lock in the city are very long but narrow.
The early Chinese community leaders first said they wanted to establish their own schools which were independent of the national schooling or Sekolah Melayu system. Then they start to demand to be given financial assistance.
The later Chinese community leaders then said they wanted to be given the permission to establish their own colleges and universities, so their students could enroll into it. But later they demanded to be given scholarships.
The Chinese start by asking for something small, but it often ends up becoming a lot more.
It’s the same with their so-called independent schools which started as shacks, but are now huge complexes.
* * * * * * *
Reporting on police activities against the criminals and raids on illegal establishments and similar reporting in crime programs on television maybe the cause of discontent amongst those who are affected, and they are mostly the Chinese with some Melayu and Indians.
Can’t the anti-vice and anti-criminal operations be conducted quietly and stealthily without bringing in the media to tag along?
Do the law enforcement officers and other authorities have to highlight their deeds all the time?
Where in the world do you see their police officers appearing on television almost every day?
No wonder we see many police officers becoming media heroes because of this. But does this help the cause of crime prevention and to prop up the image of the government in the long-run?
The media has therefore created unnecessary heroes from amongst the senior officers in the police force, but at what expense?
And where are the smart psychologists in this matter again?
Unfortunately, this creates a negative image of the police force and other law enforcement agencies which in turn affect the standing of the government in the eyes of the ordinary folks who see them as being vicious, since those who are hounding the criminals are the Melayu, while those who are often hounded are the non-Melayu, especially Chinese.
We see on television the many illegal business premises which are raided by the authorities almost every day, in the news programs and other weekly crime programs.
They create in the minds of those who are also not involved in them, because they have affinity with those who are. And most of them are Chinese with some Indians. There are also some Melayu traders who are occasionally rounded up.
Therefore, it is not easy for the government to get votes from those whose lives are miserable because of their own doing and for the government to do its job of cleaning the cities and countries of any criminal activity.
On the other hand, the opposition does not have to do all the cleaning, since they are not the authority. They can only raise their concerns in the parliament and state assemblies and get applause from those whom they claim to represent.
The opposition can become endeared to the disenfranchised crowd and voters by taking up their cases, some of which are clearly illegal ones.
However, now that they have managed to wrest control of some of the states and they are supposed to do the task of developing and cleaning them, they find out that they are now being targets of scorn by those members of the public and voters themselves, pretty much the same way the government had experienced before.
By Mansor Puteh
…AND NO THANKS TO THE FILMS FROM HONG KONG…AND THE OVER-PROMOTION OF THINGS HONG KONG BY THE MALAYSIAN CHINESE MEDIA.
THE CHARGE THAT THE CHINESE IN MALAYSIA ARE DESCENDANTS OF IMMIGRANTS IS DEPENDENT ON THEIR BEHAVIOR TODAY WHO BEHAVE LIKE THEIR ANCESTORS DID.
IT’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MELAYU WHOM SOME CHINESE CHARGE FOR CHARGING THEM AS SUCH.
In America’s Chinatowns, there are two types of Chinese – the FOB and ABC – for the ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ and ‘American-Born Chinese’. So the Chinese in America also distinguish the types of Chinese who are not the same.
And no thanks also to the small group of Malaysian Chinese film and video makers who are inclined to take the Chinese in Malaysia into the larger Chinese Diaspora for which they are still marginalized.
Besides, there are many Melayu who are former Chinese or who have Chinese ancestry; they are the ones who make the other Chinese feel like they are still immigrants.
Many of the Chinese left are petty traders and those who are in illegal petty businesses definitely do not want to vote for the government no matter what.
They speak a smattering of poor quality Melayu and watch too much programs from Hong Kong. They are psychologically more Hong Kong than Malaysia. But they have Malaysian citizenship.
Many of them conduct their business in such a tardy fashion by disregarding the law; they use their houses as factories and park their vehicles everywhere.
They read only the Mandarin newspapers and magazines and watch programs on television which are from Hong Kong mostly.
They live in a cocoon who do not know their immediate neighbors; the only Melayu and Indians they meet are those who come to their stalls where they are forced to speak in their bad Melayu.
But they get by simply because their numbers are big comprising of people with their similar backgrounds.
They don’t even watch local Melayu programs let alone go to the cinemas to see Melayu films. They probably know P. Ramlee but not the other actors because his name has been mentioned many times.
Their parents might have watched some P. Ramlee films when they were popular with the multiracial audiences in Malaya then. But not after that when the film industry in Singapura closed and the owners of the studios moved their bases to Hong Kong where they started to produce Chinese films which were also imported into Malaya and later, Malaysia.
This gave the Chinese in Malaysia a renewed connection with their Motherland; thus their fascination for things Hong Kong.
Because most of them are not well educated having dropped out of Mandarin school so early in their lives, they do not go by the normal way of conducting their daily lives or businesses.
They think they can operate their businesses and even factories illegally because they can bribe the officers, which may be a fact, to a certain extent considering how they have been in such businesses for so long.
Just how many of the Chinese and even Indians or the Melayu traders, for that matter, operate their small businesses legally, one never knows. But there are stalls everywhere.
The members of parliament and state assemblies in their areas do not seem to care; they also look elsewhere because they cannot take action on them because they fear losing votes from them.
This is what Malaysia and Malaysian politics have become; those who want to be elected to office must kow-tow to the needs of the voters who want to conduct their daily lives committing petty crimes and be allowed to do so.
They can never be satisfied with what they have and have been given. They want more. The start with getting a little bit of something but ending wanting for more and more of it.
Most Chinese temples started off as being a small shrine, which appears in the form of some joss sticks being put in a glass. It grows up to become a wooden shrine, and later a concrete one, until it is now a complex.
The Chinese in ancient Melaka was given a small piece of land the size of about ten feet wide, but they extended the land backwards. So no wonder all the houses along Heeren Street or Jalan Tun Cheng Lock in the city are very long but narrow.
The early Chinese community leaders first said they wanted to establish their own schools which were independent of the national schooling or Sekolah Melayu system. Then they start to demand to be given financial assistance.
The later Chinese community leaders then said they wanted to be given the permission to establish their own colleges and universities, so their students could enroll into it. But later they demanded to be given scholarships.
The Chinese start by asking for something small, but it often ends up becoming a lot more.
It’s the same with their so-called independent schools which started as shacks, but are now huge complexes.
* * * * * * *
Reporting on police activities against the criminals and raids on illegal establishments and similar reporting in crime programs on television maybe the cause of discontent amongst those who are affected, and they are mostly the Chinese with some Melayu and Indians.
Can’t the anti-vice and anti-criminal operations be conducted quietly and stealthily without bringing in the media to tag along?
Do the law enforcement officers and other authorities have to highlight their deeds all the time?
Where in the world do you see their police officers appearing on television almost every day?
No wonder we see many police officers becoming media heroes because of this. But does this help the cause of crime prevention and to prop up the image of the government in the long-run?
The media has therefore created unnecessary heroes from amongst the senior officers in the police force, but at what expense?
And where are the smart psychologists in this matter again?
Unfortunately, this creates a negative image of the police force and other law enforcement agencies which in turn affect the standing of the government in the eyes of the ordinary folks who see them as being vicious, since those who are hounding the criminals are the Melayu, while those who are often hounded are the non-Melayu, especially Chinese.
We see on television the many illegal business premises which are raided by the authorities almost every day, in the news programs and other weekly crime programs.
They create in the minds of those who are also not involved in them, because they have affinity with those who are. And most of them are Chinese with some Indians. There are also some Melayu traders who are occasionally rounded up.
Therefore, it is not easy for the government to get votes from those whose lives are miserable because of their own doing and for the government to do its job of cleaning the cities and countries of any criminal activity.
On the other hand, the opposition does not have to do all the cleaning, since they are not the authority. They can only raise their concerns in the parliament and state assemblies and get applause from those whom they claim to represent.
The opposition can become endeared to the disenfranchised crowd and voters by taking up their cases, some of which are clearly illegal ones.
However, now that they have managed to wrest control of some of the states and they are supposed to do the task of developing and cleaning them, they find out that they are now being targets of scorn by those members of the public and voters themselves, pretty much the same way the government had experienced before.
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