The Chinese Dilemma

The Chinese people of Malaysia are seen as credulous people, morbid and carpe diem. They had been apathetic towards politics and spent all their energy focusing on the profusion of wealth or accumulation of abundance.

They practice pantheism and readily submit to materialistic subordination. In this life, nothing matter more than enjoyment which is indeed the foremost object and meaning of life. We look for the satisfaction of our desires in the future - to be rich, to be famous, and to be somebody in the eyes of everybody.

The admiration of others or reputation by themselves are their sources of pleasure.

But one of the chief difficulties in satisfying our desires is that we have to make choices, and include the choice of inflicting any amount of pain upon ourselves no matter how great the remote future gain is.

The Chinese had, over the decades preferred commerce and capitalism. Most prayed or adored Fok Lok Sau, the god of Prosperity, Abundance and Longitivity. They do not indulge seriously in politics and in the due course, left the political decisions to fate and destiny and others. They believed that money is far more credible than political influence, and their daily lives are geared towards acquisition of abundance of wealth, for themselves and for their generations to come.

But slowly, they have come to realize that sacrificing their political influence and dictates can, change their whole course of life, take away their accumulations, rights, freedom and opportunities, and even take away their dead bodies. Suddenly, they found themselves living in a world ruled with discretionary arbitrary dictates by coquettish despot who were guile and nefarious. Those who held power could even gerrymander and vacillate the rules, policies and even the constitution. They are found to be capricious, spurious, having puerile mindset, and are imperious.

Now, in order to participate in commerce, these Chinese will have to sacrifice a substantial portion of their ownings to others who contribute nothing, safe their name, creed and linkage. For those who are less prosperous, education for their children had become arcane and they suffers timorous uncertain agitation. Getting their children to universities had become arduous and beyond their ordinary means. But they can only cry, and thus cry in vain.

Under the surface of the current melancholy of peace and economic stability, there seems to be a strong undercurrent of genuine pessimism and disdain. They pout and sulk, and bears the feeling of acrimony.

Have we reach a state of Epicurean life where we have no faith in the past, no hope in the future, but could only await, quietly indeed, the natural dissolution of our body, so as to rest our souls under a stone of obituary?

In realizing this end, one has to use some means which may at some time be tiresome and we cannot be pusillanimous anymore. He who wants to get to some end without any positive and effective efforts defies himself.

Ok, let's get to other talks of the day.

I wish I could speak Mandarin, says Muhyiddin

Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has a wish – to be able to converse with fellow Malaysians in Mandarin, describing his inability to speak the language as a weakness.

He said he felt awkward when he listened to someone speaking in Mandarin or any Chinese dialect and could not understand what was being said.

He said that for this very reason he hoped the Malays would be more pragmatic when it came to language issues and urged them to learn Mandarin or even Tamil.

Muhyiddin said he would like more Malay parents to send their children to Chinese schools, which now had about 60,000 Malay students throughout the country.

More Chinese primary schools

More Chinese primary schools will be built in highly-populated areas, said Deputy Education Minister Datuk Hon Choon Kim.

Hon, however, declined to reveal the number that would be built or where they would be located (remarks: as probably he didn't even know about it as there was none in the plan too).

“Although I know the details, it should not come from my mouth (remarks: but he claim he knows of the details but his mouth has problem, probably suffering from ulcer)

“Wait a little while longer. The good news will be announced soon,” Hon said (remarks: ya, wait for the election time; that's soon).

For 50 years, the MCA is only capable to voice loudly in the hope of keeping alive the status of Chinese primary school; for all the rest are gone and cremated. You can put small prints of Chinese words on your signboard, but only small prints; the exception is Sarawak, the only state where you can see even road names in Chinese prints and big prints on shop fronts. You can't even built the statute of Mazu at Kudat.

If we can remember way back in the 1980s, MCA with Lee Kim Sai had to fought hard against the oligarchy to maintain the customary lion dance for the Chinese New year; it's absurd, but it's reality.

Some Indians are far luckier, not because they had Samy, but because they changed their name and spiritual affiliation and join UMNO. These groups have become the sons of the soils and had prospered while traveling along on the gravy train. Those others who would not seek such baptism of change had branded themselves under a new name, the Hindrafians.

But many of Chinese never saw a need to change their creed. They believed in the religion of Kautimism and Kantauism. So far they did it reasonably well because the oligarchy shared their core values and shared the same materialistic philosophy. So, they stayed pusillanimous, insouciant and nonchalant, while being desultory towards politics. But soon, they should pay the ultimate price of regression and atrophy.