Bangsa Ber-Pancawarna

In Australia whenever I met someone new who is a fellow SE Asian, or even from the Far East, and reveal myself as a Malaysian, he/she would invariably exclaim in delightful admiration: “Oh, you guys can speak several languages!”

Though I’d smile, and not without some considerable pride at our Boleh-ness, perhaps the one sole qualification worthy of being proud about, I would at the same time quietly cringe at our notorious mastery of colourful profanities in at least half a dozen or more languages/dialects, way way before I came to know of some bloggers and blog visitors, wakakaka.

So as a nationality, we are if anything quite colourful, not least in the manner in which we love to generously lace our speeches with those multi-lingual and grossly obscene profanities and vulgarisms. Mind, we’d spew out our favourite lubricities, not merely as insults (though there have been lots of these), but as everyday usage in adjectives, adverbs and nouns in our conversations, and of course we would argue, only to emphasize and/or enhance the points we want to make.

Sometimes we even aver that in using the most colourful ‘F’ word, we had meant it in a complimentary way, like “God, she’s absolutely f* beautiful” or in exasperated exclamations at our own predicaments or mistakes, like “Oh, now I’m truly f*”. Such is the versatility of the ‘F’ word that I need at least a whole post to demonstrate its wide ranging use, so I’ll stop its discussion here, reluctantly if I may confess.

In this, I wonder whether we are a wee like Australians who call their enemies ‘bastards’ but their closest friends ‘bloody bastards’.

But in further discussing the colourful nature of we Malaysians, I suppose we could perhaps start off with one of the tripods of our brand of democracy, namely, the judiciary.

The wonderfully remarkable Bench had demonstrated how they could turn black into white one day, and then white into black in another, as I had posted on 08 March 2010 in Federal Court ruling - black yesterday, white today.

Then I had written about the court declaring that Anwar's dismissal as DPM [by then PM Dr M] is lawful because according to our marvellous judiciary, the king, as a constitutional monarch, was required to act in accordance with the advice of the prime minister.

* above underlining and bolding/highlighting by kaytee

… while a mere month prior to this (yes, just around 30 days), the very same three judges who were also on the appeals bench to hear Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin’s appeal against the unconstitutional sacking of him as the MB of Perak and the associated appointment of Zambry Abd Kadir as the new MB by the Sultan of Perak, ruled that it was not necessary for a vote of confidence to be done in the state assembly as the Sultan can conduct his own inquiry to determine which party or coalition has the majority.

In other words HRH was NOT required to act in accordance with the advice of the menteri besar at that time, namely Nizar.

Yessirree, these three same judges - just as a reminder that they, together with two other, had just one month earlier, ruled the Sultan of Perak, even as a constitutional monarch, could ignore the advice of MB Nizar to dissolve the Perak Assembly – told us in a case of Anwar Ibrahim versus Dr M, that the Agong, as a constitutional monarch, was required to act in accordance with the advice of the prime minister (Dr M).

Either they were of a most forgetful nature (and to f* with stare decisis) or we could quote George Orwell who wrote in Animal Farm (Chapter 2, pg 11), that “Squealer could turn black into white” wakakaka. Now, didn’t/doesn’t that just confirm our affinity with colours and thus, our colourful nature?

Well, what next? Oh yes, there’s those Yellow Perils, our most feared fifth columnists, the local Chinese, who had often been accused of being red, wakakaka. Got it, yellow = red? wakakaka!

Of course I mustn’t let Pantai Remis assemblyman Nga Kor Ming get away with his disgraceful ‘metallic black person’ remark. But he had apologized though he bloody well watches his mouth.

I won’t go into the seditious BTN indoctrinations, the terrible Johor headmistress or the Interlok insults which raised our temperature to the upper red mark of the thermometer as these shameful black-marked issues have already been battered blue black in the various coverages on them. Nor would I mention those men in blue who should be wearing black arm bands for their questionable conduct and behaviour.

But in closing I should talk a bit about the red, green and white of ang pows, which incidentally translate into ‘red packets’ (red for luck, as it is an auspicious colour). Yup, we're now on the topic of Ibrahim Ali's peh-pow (white packets) which he doled out to his MCA-marshalled Chinese visitors during Perkasa Chinese New Year Open House.


Some like Kee Thuan Chye has latched onto Ibrahim Ali’s faux pas to give vent to their ire at the UMNO-Perkasa inconsiderate and very colour-conscious mentality against the 'nons', as may be read in his Malaysiakini article White ang pow: The state has failed us.

Kee does have a point because Malays in adopting the Chinese custom of giving out ang pow (lucky money) on festive occasions such as New Year and Hari Raya, are known to have used green packets, employing the Islamic colour to mask or modify the Chinese auspicious red, where red is often seen as either mainly Chinese or communist (or both wakakaka), though red happens also to be part of the UMNO colour - well, explain that! Anyway, it’s not as if the UMNO-Perkasa mob had been unaware of the colour significance of ang pow.


But quite frankly I am giving Ibrahim Ali the benefit of the doubt for his unthinking faux pas, in gifting peh-pows (white packets) during Perkasa’s Chinese New Year Open House. Those envelopes in a taboo-ed colour (white for death) were a definite no-no for Chinese on a supposedly auspicious occasion - white is very sial (unlucky, ill-omened) on Chinese New Year. I’d put it down as a monumental f* up by his aides and I would even stretch my neck out to opine it was not a deliberate oversight.

The Ibrahim bloke is quite a colourful personality, in fact so colourful he’s known to be a political chameleon, brown one day, green another, yellow sometimes and who knows, even white or black as the situation warrants, in the same variety of tones as possessed by many types of frogs, wakakaka.






But I do blame Collin Tiew, that MCA Sri Desa Branch Boss who collaborated* with Perkasa in the latter's Chinese New Year Open House, and then when the hot steaming poo hit the fan, denied in mealy-mouth fashion that he didn’t know this or that, in fact virtually everything, and that he was acting in a welfare capacity and not as a MCA member.

* in the very meaning of the word as known during WWII

He even daringly attempted a black-into-white transformation when he proclaimed 'I've been made victim of Perkasa CNY open house'. A$**h*le!

Chua Soi Lek has a lot of explaining to do regarding the cozy arrangements between Perkasa and one of his MCA branch chiefs.

Now, don’t tell me that Collin Tiew wasn't aware that the MCA had in recent times criticized Ibrahim Ali in his Perkasa role of vilifying Chinese Malaysians, and that the latter had unwittingly but uniquely unified the Chinese in MCA, Gerakan and DAP in opposing his insults & threats to the Chinese Malaysian community, …

… in exactly the same way as another ‘Ibrahim’, namely Anwar Ibrahim who, as Education Minister in issuing his unacceptable policy of appointing non-Mandarin trained headmasters to vernacular schools in 1987, had also uniquely unified Chinese Malaysians (MCA, Gerakan and DAP and Dong Jiao Zong), which then led to the launch of the infamous Ops Lallang.

I'm not sure whether it was true what I heard, that Anwar’s face had then turned white at his education ministerial ‘too clever by half’ policy which nearly conflagated the nation into red-tainted racial riots a la May 13, though I also heard Dr M patting him on his shoulder and coo-ing “Ta ape, jangan khuatir”, wakakaka.

Then was also when a young Najib believed that beneath Chinese yellow skins was red blood, but without realizing that red was in fact the universal colour of blood, including his, or for that matter, that of any race, nationality or creed, and even for those so-claimed blue blood!

With Ops Lallang, Najib’s face was a rosy pink like the cat which licked the cream because he was teflonized, while Lee Kim Sai, the MCA Youth Chief, saw his face turning black because he wasn’t, wakakaka, which explained why, just prior to the police dragnet, he was sent away to Australia for a facial.


We Malaysians are certainly a Bangsa berpancawarna - hope my Bahasa term is correct wakakaka.

Read also: Secret of Ang Pow’s