Day: January 29, 2014

(2014 Chinese New Year message in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, 29th January 2014)

Happy Chinese Year of the Horse to all Chinese Malaysians and increasing number of Malaysians of other races who also celebrate the Chinese New Year.

This is the unique characteristic of the Malaysia Dream, where an increasing number of Malaysians participate in the different ethnic and religious festivities as they are Malaysian events although they belong to other races or religions.

This why during my Chinese New Year visit to Johor, covering all the 5 Parliamentary and 13 DAP State Assembly seats apart from Jementah (which I will make up during the Chinese New Year period), I also wished Malays and Indians “Happy New Year” and distributed oranges to them signifying that regardless of race, religion, region or political beliefs, we all belong to one Big Family – the Malaysian Family!

Malaysians should seek to establish greater Malaysian Oneness from all different ethnic and religious festivities – based on the great values and virtues taught by all the religions and races. Continue reading “Call on Chinese Malaysians to work hand-in-hand with Malaysians of other ethnicities to ensure a successful, progressive prosperous competitive nation where there is place for every citizen under the Malaysian sun”

Carolyn Hong
Jakarta Post
January 27, 4014

First, it was kangkung (Chinese water spinach), then came sotong (squid). And together, these two cheap food items made for an unfortunate two weeks for Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak.

It began when Najib lashed out at critics two weeks ago for blaming the government when food prices go up but not praising it when prices come down. He made the argument that the government could not control market forces, and used kangkung to illustrate his point.

It was an unfortunate choice that immediately stirred a backlash on social media. Kangkung is seen as a cheap vegetable that grows in unappetising places like drains.

Najib’s message was soon lost as netizens invented a huge range of jokes – from McKangkung burgers to kangkung-fuelled cars – to mock him for apparently asking them to downgrade their lifestyle.

Last week, sotong came into the picture as he sought again to explain market forces. Speaking at his monthly address to the finance ministry, Najib reiterated that the government could not control the price of every food item.

“When it is the monsoon season, prices of fish go up and even vegetables,” he said. “I had used the kangkung as an example of the supply-demand principle. My favourite foods are kangkung and sotong.”

This addition of sotong to the dish proved irresistible to netizens as “sotong” is colloquially used to refer to a person who is confused or weak, triggering a second round of jokes. Continue reading “Kangkung? Watch it fry in cyberspace”

In my first Open Letter in 2014 to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on 8th January 2014, I urged the first Cabinet meeting to send our a clear and unmistakable message to end the national drift and loss of leadership and direction to create an united, harmonious, just, and competitive and great Malaysian nation.

I zeroed in on the nation’s quintuplet of national crisis which warranted priority and immediate attention by the Cabinet – nation-building, economic, educational, security and anti-corruption.

In my second Open Letter in 2014 to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on 22nd January, I posed the question whether the Barisan Nasional leadership is prepared to work with Pakatan Rakyat leaders to ensure that there could be no repetition of May 13 riots in Malaysia?

I lamented that the Najib administration had in the past fortnight remained
“leaderless, headless, clueless and rudderless” and the government’s “aimless drift” had worsened with “no resolution in sight for the quintuplet of five crisis”.

I am writing this third Open Letter to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet before the Cabinet meeting today to welcome the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that he will bring Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s idea of a “national consensus” to the Cabinet. Continue reading “PR’s patriotic olive branch to PM and BN – to love and save Malaysia to preserve and promote unity, harmony and tolerance and ban spectre of May 13 to cobwebs of history”