About the highly regarded Chinese newspapers

 I was once very close with a reporter of a Chinese newspaper.

She worked for Nanyang Seang Pau and later Sin Chiew.

I asked her why she choose to work for the Chinese newspapers as the pay was quite low at that time, even when compared to the pay of reporters working for Malay and English newspapers.

She explained to me that it's because Chinese newspaper reporters are well respected in the Chinese community and that she believes she could do good for them in her role as a journalist.

I actually admired her a lot.

She was very tenacious, hardworking and idealistic.

One may questions why she was specifically focused on her community and not others, but I understand her position because I know where she came from.

Her father was a carpenter while her mother ran a small hawker stall. She studied in a Chinese school and graduated from a Taiwanese university with a degree in education.

Her family was relatively poor and she worked as a waitress for two years after school to save enough money to get enrolled in the Taiwanese university.

There was no government scholarship or PTPTN for her.

She's the one who told me that there are three most highly regarded institutions in her community - their schools, newspapers, and guilds. Those who work for the institutions were respected as they were not paid well, yet still choose to do good for the community with their work.

When I think of it, I really miss our chit chats back then as I learnt a lot from her.

Why I'm writing all these?

It's because I saw this report yesterday,

Guan Eng wins defamation suit against Chinese dailies

excerpts;

Judge Datuk Seri Tun Majid Tun Hamzah said in his judgement that the dailies had failed to get Lim’s side of the story before publishing the reports.

The dailies had previously told the court that they had sought Lim’s comment after the articles were published, but he refused to comment.

It was a press conference and the reporters reported what was said by the person who called for it.

Were they committing such a terrible thing for not immediately get Guan Eng's reaction that he has to sue their newspapers?

After all, they did try to get his comment after that.

Not only did he refused to comment but he also slap their newspapers with a legal suit.

Can't he cut them some slack, as I believe that the majority of Chinese newspaper reporters were ardent DAP supporters based on my conversations with them and their writings? 

Didn't what they wrote to a certain extent helped DAP won almost total support of the Chinese community in several past general elections?

Let's say Guan Eng or any other DAP leaders called a press conference and accused Najib of being corrupt, should the reporters immediately get Najib's rebuttal before publishing the allegations? What if Najib was purposely not available that day? Should they kill the story because of that? Should Najib then sue their newspapers because they didn't immediately get his comment?

I don't know lah, maybe the attitude of the Chinese community has changed.

Maybe they think Guan Eng did good by suing their newspapers.

Whatever it is, I hope that person who was close to me is not too upset by what happened to her once beloved newspapers.

She probably didn't expect a leader of the party strongly supported by her community is now capable of suing the Chinese newspapers over an error, which in my opinion was not so great.

I hope she's well, where ever she is now.

Finally, Umno starts to repair its image

 Umno finally get their act together and sidelined Tajuddin Rahman.

I have always believe that the guy was more a liability to the party in the overall scheme of things.

He may be popular in his local environment in Pasir Salak but not as the face of the party.

Umno really shouldn't keep such boorish and irritating people as its frontliners.

There are several others who are similar to Tajuddin.

I'm not saying that Umno should get rid of them altogether but it should really stop letting them shape its image.

One of the reasons Umno and its allies lost in GE14 was because people see it as being led by a bunch of stupid gangster-like figures who were most likely corrupt and racist.

That's why the Pakatan's campaign of Asal Bukan Umno worked.

Umno needs a new image with good and performing leaders like Mat Hasan, Hasni, KJ, Ashraf Dusuki, etc,

Of course, the media doesn't seem to like what's happening, as many of them don't really like Umno.

They tried to portray the sacking of Tajuddin from the supreme council as a big rift within Umno, which would split the party.

Well, as long as Umno members don't think that's the case, then it should be alright.

The party really need to stay the course and replace those who were actually liabilities.

It needs to do so across the board, and not just among those who went against the party leadership.

For instance, they need to push to the background personalities such as Puad Zarkashi, who has been busy propping himself to be a leading party man, including in the case of Tajuddin.

The media have been highlighting Puad's statements quite a lot lately as if his voice is the voice of Umno. Just check reports on him by FMT, okay.

They like Puad to be the image of Umno - irritating and unpopular.

Do remember that when Puad won the Rengit seat during the BN's landslide victory in the Johor election earlier this year, he did so with a significantly reduced majority. 

The former Umno's Rengit assemblyman Ayub Jamil had won the seat amidst BN's defeat in 2018 with a majority of 4,172 while Puad only managed 1,920.

Really, Umno has better leaders for its image than Puad.

The party also needs to replace those who clearly failed to perform in the run-up to the 2018 defeat.

For instance, a state party leader who lost his state seat, parliament seat and the whole state should not remain as the face of Umno.

Umno would be stupid if it continues to prop up such a failure as its top leader.

Well, maybe such a leader can still be fielded again in his constituency where he lost in 2018 but don't lah try to put him to contest a safe seat to make sure that he could remain as a top Umno leader.

If the guy had contested a seat such as Pasir Gudang, let him stays there instead of sending him to Mersing or Kota Tinggi where he has a better chance of winning.

Errr, I think the Umno leadership can understand that.

Anyway, for now, I still think Umno and its BN allies will do well in the next general election, especially if it's to be held very soon.

Their opponents, whether Pakatan, Perikatan, Pas or any others, are too much in disarray now to repeat their victory in 2018.

About Bon Odori and visiting a Shinto temple

So, the religious people are now saying that the Bon Odori celebration is haram for Muslims.

Sigh.

And all these while I thought the festival is celebrated here just for fun and enjoying Japanese stuff.

Never been to one despite it being actually celebrated here over the past 30 years, but I wish I had, now that as a Muslim I'm no longer allowed to do so.

I wonder how many of those Muslims who had been to the Bon Odori celebrations here over the years have actually lost their faith in Islam.

Well, I once visited the famous Kiyomizu-dera temple in Kyoto and am still very much a Muslim.

I found that the scenic Shinto temple more of a tourist attraction than a place of worship, actually.

It was fun walking up and down the hill where the temple is located while shopping for authentic Japanese stuff at the shops along the pathways.

I saw quite a number of Malaysian tourists, including girls in tudung wearing rented kimonos posing around the temple complex for pictures.

It was late autumn and the scenery was fantastic.

After the trip, I had a chat with my Japanese friend and asked why the temple felt more like a tourist attraction than a place where people worship their gods.

He laughed and said in Japan, religion is categorised the same as entertainment as the majority of Japanese don't take religion too seriously.

The guy, who is a political analyst said that was why at first he was baffled with how religion-based parties in Malaysia could do so well.

Personally, I don't find the Bon Odori celebration here is a real threat to the faith of Muslims who took part in it.

It's more a cultural rather than a religious thing. A bit of a cosplay Japanese party, really. 

Many Malaysians love the Japanese culture and it's an event where they could express their fondness of it.

At least that's how I see it.

Of course, the religious people see it differently.

I guess, the religious authorities will after this tell Muslims more firmly that it's haram to join in the celebrations of Deepavali, Christmas, etc.

Well, they are the experts and being a Muslim, I would try to abide by such a fatwa as much as I could.

Hopefully they wouldn't ban me from celebrating Chinese New Year because that would give me quite a bit of a problem.

Lets support the young lawyers

 While the Malaysian Bar was playing politics yesterday with this move

Bar to hold protest over ‘judicial intimidation’

its junior members were doing this

Young lawyers call for binding rule on minimum wages

excerpts:

Vince Tan, another member of the YLM, said that the financial abilities of smaller firms should not be an excuse to not pay pupils a fair minimum wage.

“The Bar needs to stop listening to some council of elders or cartel monopolising the legal profession,” he said as young lawyers make up a majority of the Bar.

He said smaller firms should not take in any pupils if the firms could not afford to pay them a minimum wage.

Yeah, they talked so much about justice and stuff but at the same time refused to even pay minimum wage to their pupils.

Let's not even talk about the bullying junior lawyers have to endure at the start of their career.

This has actually been going on all the way back through the decades, something like a tradition of the legal profession.

Very similar to all the nonsense we heard about the medical profession.

They bullied the juniors and many of the juniors later on became bullies themselves.

They even bullied and cheat their clients too.

Well, if a young lawyer is well connected and from a rich family (possibly with parents who are senior lawyers) then he/she would not feel much of such tough life, but if he/she is a nobody, then it's a different matter all together.

I don't know how much they pay a chambering student these days but it's definitely below the RM1,500 minimum wage.

All these bring me back memories, actually.

Back then after I got my LLB, they were paying a chambering student as low as RM300 per month.

As I wrote before, I didn't do my CLP despite passing my law exams with honours because I ran out of money.

Yup, I paid my way through law school with the help of my family and had no scholarship or student loan.

By the time I was supposed to prepare for my CLP, I really have no more money.

I actually borrowed some money from my uncle for my CLP tuition fees but decided to drop out when I realised that I can't even pay the exam fees without borrowing more.

After all, on top of having to pay for my studies, I still need to pay my rent and food.

The thought that even if I pass the very difficult CLP with one try, I will still have to go another year as a chambering student slave made me decide to postpone the whole thing.

Told myself to work first and get enough money so that I won't starve doing my CLP and chambering.

I did get a job, which I hated so much at first but later on learnt to love.

By the time I had saved enough money, I realised there's no need for me to continue with my once dream of becoming a lawyer.

After all, during my studies, I came to know that the legal profession was not what I used to think it was.

No need for me to go through more shit just to join it.

Well, I'm not trying to discourage others from becoming lawyers but I do hope they know the truth about what they are joining.

If they are still good with it, then I wish them all the best and hope they would be better lawyers than their seniors.

Anyway, I hope the young lawyers will get what they are fighting for, which are decent pay and better treatment from their seniors.

Pakatan's Sri Lankan nightmare

Looks like this is what the Pakatan people want,

Johor PKR man tells people to take to the streets over soaring food prices, weakening ringgit

Yup, they want people to go to the streets and kick up a ruckus so that our country would end up in a mess like Sri Lanka.

I have also saw their comments on that on social media.

Just like the one previously made by Lim Kit Siang.

Rioting, looting, burning of homes of prime ministers and ministers, and even public lynching.

Is that what we want?

Yes, the country's situation is not so good but does it need to get worse with such protests, which could easily become riots?

Do we need to undermine investment confidence in our country some more with such insanity?

Honestly, I think these Pakatan people are getting desperate that they wanted to start some sort of unrest in order to stay relevant.

Hopefully the authorities could act firmly against them before they start such nonsense.

We don't need such things as we and the rest of the world are recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.

After all, ours is not the only country facing the current problems. This is actually a global phenomenon, exacerbated by the economic fallout of the Russia-Ukraine war.

The way I see it, everyone need to stay calm and let things settle down.

I'm quite sure everything will be alright sooner than later if we just bear with the problems just for a little while longer.

I really don't think we need to start a street protest because there's a lack of chicken supply in the markets.

I'm sure the prices will stablise again once the supply chain, disrupted by the pandemic is back to normal.

Anyway, are there starving people yet in Malaysia?

Not yet, right?

Really guys, is our country heading towards the mess such as in Sri Lanka as Kit Siang said?

You see, this is why I dislike the Pakatan people more than the BN people.

People like Kit Siang and that PKR man who called for street protests are willing to go overly dramatic to incite people for their political expediency.

Also, remember when that DAP's Selangor exco falsely announced that a group of Muslims had attacked a Hindu temple, leading to the rioting which killed fireman Adib?

All that just so that they could stay relevant, especially among their people.

Quite disgusting, actually.

DAP's glamorous Malay personalities

The Malay Mail has highlighted DAP's only elected Malay in the party's central executive committee over the past two days.

DAP needs give-and-take to move past race barriers, says party’s sole elected Malay official

Be the change you want to see, Young Syefura tells those criticising DAP as Chinese chauvinists

It basically revolves around the participation of Malays in the Chinese dominated party.

Unfortunately, this Young Syefura is not a very deep thinking person.

She ends up putting the onus on proving that DAP is not Chinese dominated on the Malays.

Malays should join the party so that it would not be too Chinese, she concluded.

Hello, people join a political party because of what it is lah, not because they are trying to change it.

If a political party doesn't seemed to like someone like you, why join?

Okay, maybe DAP offers some nice ideals, but its practices may not reflect what it preaches.

Last time, one would argue that DAP was never given the chance to run the country thus can't prove itself but after 2018 that no longer applies.

They and their allies were in power for 22 months and what was the result of that?

They simply imploded.

DAP turned out to be so inflexible, causing its Malay-dominated allies to bail out as they were losing the support of their base. 

Many DAP personalities treated the 2018 Pakatan victory as a win for their communities against the perceived tyranny of the Malay-Bumiputra majority.

And their supporters behaved the same as they waged a racially toxic campaign in the social media against the Malays.

Remember the comments made by several DAP leaders and their supporters about the death of fireman Adib back then?

And then they blamed Umno for allegedly playing up racial sentiments, causing the defeat of Pakatan candidates in consecutive by-elections as if that party has all the while been hiding the fact that its struggles were for the betterment of the Malays.

Not enough with that, DAP people went to social media accusing the Malays of tolerating corruption.

If the Malays are so okay about corruption as alleged, how did Pakatan manage to win in 2018 by peddling the idea that Umno leaders were all corrupt?

Because DAP and gang got all the Indian votes, is it?

Guess these people never learn - you can't go around insulting people and get their support.

Recognise and rectify your own flaws before blaming things on others.

And how about the Malays who joined DAP?

I believe that some were true idealists, but others were just into it because they were seeking personal glamour or due to their unhappiness for not having a place in mainstream Malay politics.

The idealists will get tired of it all after realising the true nature of DAP (unless they are really dense), the glamorous ones will disappear after defeat in the next election (unless they get involved in some marital scandals) and the unhappy with Malay politics ones will fade away after not given a freebie position in DAP (unless then given a role by Umno to whack DAP).

As for Young Syefura, let's see where she would be after GE15.

Her state constituency Ketari has 47 per cent Malay voters, 45 per cent Chinese, over 4 per cent Indians, and over 2 per cent Orang Asli.

BN is likely to field a MCA candidate there.

If she loses, I think she would disappear despite her DAP CEC membership.

Hopefully she would not end up like another glamorous DAP young Malay personality Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud.

Better disappear for good than being remembered for the wrong reasons.

Debates are just for entertainment

Someone yesterday asked me to comment on the Anwar-Najib debate.

Honestly, I'm not interested in debates.

They were just talking and nothing really can come out of talking.

As expected, after the debate those who support Anwar said he was the winner while those who were on Najib's side said their man was the one who won.

It's actually like watching football with no goal posts.

They were just dribbling around with words and got nothing really tangible to show.

If I really want to compare between Anwar and Najib, I rather check their track records on what they had done as leaders.

Just look back at what happened in the country over the past 20 or 30 years and see what those two had been up to.

What were their contributions?

How about you all?

Do you like things after Anwar's Pakatan took over in 2018 or was your life better during BN rule led by Najib nine years before that?

Try to be honest about it and put aside your racial and other prejudices.

Isn't that better than trying to compare those two by their mere words?

I did watch the debate but that was because it's my job to monitor such nonsense.

I really don't feel like commenting on it because I think it would be pointless.

Anyway, someone clever made this and I have to more or less confess that it's basically how I saw the debate went,

You can change the name of the sinking ship from Sapura to Malaysia if you want.

But, did it change anything?

Not really, okay.

Then again, that's just me.

I'm not easily impressed by anyone's oratory skills or what they call charismatic persona.

Most conmen have those.

Most leaders in history who were known to give fiery speeches and charismatic are bad or even outright evil.

They were that or later proven to be incompetent as all they were good at was talking.

The good ones were instead almost always those who talked less and instead focused on the works that needed to be done for the people and their country.

I don't know about you all, but if it's up to me, I rather for this country to be led by people who can actually do their job well rather than just talk well.

Well, if you all still like being entertained by the debate, then I hope it's worth your time.

It's pure entertainment and that's about it.

Me, I rather spend my time for that watching a good standup by Dave Chappelle or Bill Burr.

At least I can get a proper good laugh that way.

Ciao.