Looking back at our Malaysian Records

Flipping through The Star paper, saw this picture and got amused.

I thought why not blog a trip down memory lane to look at the various Malaysian record breaking news as well as to commemorate the Merdeka day celebration.

Maybe, its better to start with the Merdeka news and pics.

The Star had a nice two-page layout to project the image of the 48th National Day with the theme:

"KITA ANAK MALAYSIA!"

Maybe, they should have added the word "SEMUA" to remind the political masters and communal politikus that everyone born after Merdeka, be they of any color or race, are Malaysians.

NST frontpage some facts - Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra announced the date of Independence; "Tun" title is the most senior federal title; the village of Wang Kelian is the world's only large-scale cave mining; Gunung Mulu is the largest cave chamber in the world; Malaysia has the world's lowest death rate for respiratory disease; Tanjung Piai is in the Continental Asia tip; K. Kangsar has the last H.N. Ridley rubber tree (which actually don't exist now); Malaysia has 65, 877 km of highway; Sabah & Sarawak has 60 sub-ethnic groups; Cinema came to Malaya in 1933 screening Laila Majnun; Bursa Malaysia is formerly known as KLSE and dates back to 1930 ...... what crabs!!!!

Malaysia Boleh once more - A secondary school in Kota Kinabalu had used old newpapers to make 277 Jalur Gemilang within 40 minutes by 1501 students and 84 teachers of SMK Sanzac- another great achievements for the Malaysia Guinese Book of Records.

Well, the students must have spent days to collect the old newspapers and have them crumbled and colored and prepared the gum to stick them. After that, they would have to take it down, wrap it up into plastic bags and then disposed it into bins.

In total, they would have lost 10 days of studies as the teachers are also involved in this project. That's education of our youngs.

Malaysia hopes to put a man on the moon by the year 2020 as part of its $25m space programme. Last Saturday, the first group from a shortlist of more than 800 would-be astronauts set out to run 3.5km (two miles) in a leisurely 20 minutes. But only 12 out of 31 taking part passed the test. Jonathan Kent wondered whether their performance might be linked to the local diet.

Prof Datuk Dr Mazlan Othman announced a programme to put Malaysia's favourite food Roti Canai into space. A team will be sent to Houston in Texas to find out how to process teh tarik (sweet tea), roti canai (flaky griddled pancakes) and nasi lemak (coconut rice) for consumption in zero gravity. All are absolutely delicious, but rather fattening (Jonathan reported).

Selangor has declared themselves as a develop state status this month. According to Khir Toyo, the Selangor chief minister, this declaration is important in attracting more foreign direct investments, especially those involved in information technology, to be channelled our way (into a few of the pockets) which in turn would contribute something in our economic growth.

Malaysia tallest twin tower mooncake standing at 6.37m. Pak Lah, the then Deputy Prime Minister and MCA President Ong Ka Ting were among those present at the festival to commemorate the record breaking feat. The tower finally collapse because it could not withstand it's own self-weight.

Malaysia had another world record for making the Biggest mooncake at the Sunway Pyramid in September 2000. The only problem they discovered was how to eat such fatty food. The guest at the Sunway hotel must have been having a terrible time as they are pressured to consumed the brick-like cakes in order to enjoy a 10% discount in their hotel bills.

3,000 people made 1,001 clay pots of sweet rice at Rawang, Selangor – It's a new Malaysian Record and probably a world record except that the food could not be consumed as it was overcooked and the rice used was found to have an expired tag.

Longest satay line made by student of University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jan 2004. So, you can understand how competent are university students in making satay. I just hope their degrees are not satay as well. Small wonder if we should find our graduates unemployable graduates as they are extensively trained in university by the top lecturers to make satays and to eat them as well; not corporate management.

The Tallest Fruit Tower was built at Tanjung Aru, Sabah in July 2003. Our fruit trees are just as tall, if not taller, but the fruits are not that many. Anyway, the fruit thiefs came at night and have them taken and sold to the wet market. The following day, there was a big discount for fruits at the marketplace. Hundred of those who work hard to make this project a success was seen buying the cheap fruits for home consumptions.

This is another record - Malaysia made the Longest ikan bakar (grilled fish) measuring 260m. 2,000 tilapia fish was used to prepare this occassion in Kuala Kangsar on July 2003. Now the river in Kuala Kangsar is barren except for some tadpoles, ikan sepat and peacock fishes. Maybe once a while, some tilapia may swim there to see if the fishermen are still alive and fishing.

This world record was contributed by a multi national corporation. The 3.3m x 5m pizza-shaped map of peninsula Malaysia was prepared by Carrefour Seberang Jaya’s salad bar department in October 2002 after they found quite some flour and salads are not sold and it is difficult to find a dumping ground for the expired contents.

Patriotic Spirit - In a show of love for the nation, 34-year-old cowherd N. Balu spent more than $2,000 to decorate his bullock cart with the Jalur gemilang and even had red stripes painted on his two bulls. This Jalur Gemilang procession organized by the State authority was held in Buntong, near Ipoh on August, 26, 2004. I hope Balu did not borrow the $2,000 from Ah Long or the Chettiah. Otherwise his stripe cows would had to be auction off to pay the debts.

Who says only Malaysia Boleh? President Arroyo of Phillipines make sure that Malaysians would also recognized her effort in the New Men in Black.

Hollywood are considering to make the third episode of the Men in Black and is waiting for the retirement of Arroyo soon. If she doesn't retire, then efforts would be made to impeached her so that we can have the thrid episode soonest possible.

You want more?

Deo Govindasamy was the first person in the Malaysian Book of Records to walked backwards for 30km from Batang Kali to Genting Highlands on July 1, 2000. For that effort he was awarded an honorary PPS; not Project Petaling Street, but Pelahan-pelahan sakit. He has not walk forward since.

Multimedia University then decided to do the same and got hold of 1,843 participants in Cyberjaya to walked backwards at the same time for a distance of 3.8km. Most of the graduates who participated in the event had their results upside-down and had to walk the exam again.

Sultan of Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah and Richard Curtis completed their journey across China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Germany and France within 43 days using Ford Saloon Model B in 1997. That car is now lying in Sungei Besi, kerlingbotol shop.

Longest karaoke marathon organized by Nestle Products and Giant TMC started on Sept 9, 2001 which began at 9am and ended at 9pm. There were 553 participants. At the end of the event, each participants has to pay their own bills because the fun starts after 9pm and the organizer checkout at 9pm sharp.

Malaysian Mountaineering association members M. Magendran and N. Mohandas are the first Malaysians to have reached the summit of Mt. Everest on May 23, 1997. Both of them did not received their Datukship because it was reserved for swimmers only.

Malik Mydin swim across the English Channel and was given a hero welcome back to Malaysia. he then received his Datukship.

Lennard Lee, a medical student at Cambridge University, successfully swam non-stop across the 33.6kmwide English Channel in 9 hours and 45 minutes on Tuesday. Lennard, 20, has become the second Malaysian to achieve the feat after Datuk Abdul Malik Mydin, 29, from Penang, who made it in 17 hours and 35 minutes on Aug 3 last year. Lennard did not receive a Datukship but the Prime Minister of Malaysia gave him a letter of commendation and an ang pow enough for him to pay his medical bills because he suffered some minor injuries when the sharks bite his ass.

In year 2000, the same day as today, Pearl International Hotel made the tallest ais kachang which is 2.5m and 380kg, using 20 blocks of ice. The event attracted a lot of attention and draws large crowd for the day. Unfortunately, the coffee house could not serve ice-lemon tea as the ice is used up. Customers were told to take the free ais kacang or alternatively get hot drinks.

Hairstylist Lloyd Yeoh became the first Malaysian to trimmed the hair of Irene Song who was hung upside down. The hair-cut was completed in 2 minutes and 45 seconds. After that Irene was seen walk upside down for a few steps.

On Sept 10, 2000, 30,000 drinking straws were linked at Mid-Valley Megamall in KL. For every straw linked, 30 sen was donated to three orphanages. The orphans were so intrigued by the event that they decided to use the money received to buy 40,000 straws.

Alfred Ho, was named the first blind singer in the Malaysian Book of Records to have recorded two EP vinyls in the 1970s and has since recorded three more albums. This encourage Stevie Wonder to learn singing and became the legend of the music world of the blind.

Zainal Adzmar Mohd Ariff became the man who performed the longest non-stop whistling lasting 23.7 seconds on September 5, 1998. Since then he had not whistle because he was question by the police for sexual harrassments when the 300-odd lady audiences complaint that the whistling affected their libido.

R. Letchemanah was the first in the world to pull an airplane by using his hair. He used his hair to pull a 32,5 tonne Boeing 737 over 16.9m at the Sultan Aziz Shaha Airport in Selangor on September 30, 1990. The Boeing plane had till today needed a manual push in order to take-off. Letchemanah had retired and opt to be bald so that he won't have his hair pulled by his wife again.

Malaysia set a world record for the most trees planted simultaneously on October 15, 2000; a total of 110,461 trees planted at 152 locations around the country in conjunction with World Habitat Day. Unknown source reported that those trees were no more in existence as some were cut down by Bandaraya for causing nuisance to traffics and all others had died after only one week thereafter.

On April 21st 1998 a group of 23 Malaysian parachutists successfully landed on the North Pole from 200 feet above the sea level at a freezing temperature of 50°C. It marked another milestone in Malaysia’s quest to create the New Malaysian with a spirit of ‘Malaysia Boleh’. It was later found that they landed somewhere near Argentina.

Alex Yoong became the first Malaysian to drive in Formula 1. He achieved tremendous success in his first and only season when his car came in No.11 in Melbourne and No. 13 in Sao Paolo, Brazil out of 22 cars which had started the race. For your information, 12 cars collided with each other in Melbourne at the first chicane and 9 cars did not finish the race in Sao Paolo. In San Marino race, Alex did not lose to anybody (he did not race as he was out of the qualification time).

Michelle Yeoh became the first Malaysian and first Asian to co-star in a James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. She has since then decided to take part in formula 1 and is partnering Ferari team as a personal advisor to team director Jean Todt. Rumours had it that she is marrying Todt but she denied it. probably those rumour-mongers are blind; she prefers Michael Schumacher.

Rathakrishnan Vellu, no relationship with Samy Vellu, set a new world record by pulling two KTM Commuter trains weighing 260.8 tonnes over 4.2 metres with his teeth at the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station. He was crown the Raja Gigi by the then Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who watch his act. Since then, he had no need to visit the dentist; he has lost all his teeth.

PLEASE NOTE:

The pictures are real and the records are authentic. The narratives are spice up to generate the fun of reading. Please enjoy reading but treat the narratives as fictions. Happy Merdeka day!