DAP Super-Idiot?

DAP's Hew Kuan Yau , nicknamed Superman but politically more of a Super-Idiot, has annoyingly 'proven' to the party's distractors-enemies, unwittingly but undeniably stupidly, that the DAP is apparently a chauvinistic Chinese party by his silly unmindful antics during the Sarawak state elections campaign.

Super-Idiot 

He has offended Malays with his reckless jibes regardless of his claim he was only directing his condemnations not at Malays per se but corrupt Malay leaders.

Even if he was indeed condemning corrupt Malay leaders, the Malays would still have taken offence because our political landscape is so dotted with racist bobby-traps and quicksand. Thus a corrupt Malay leader is still a Malay and f**k any Chinese for his or her 'racist biadap-ness' in pointing that out, regardless of the truth - only a Malay may do so against a Malay.

At this point, it's time to recall an uncle's story from kaytee, wakakaka, one I had actually mentioned about 4 to 5 years ago.

But first, a wee explanation on a Penang Hokkien curse which Penang women frequently use, namely, 'eow siew tay mia', which means in simplified terms 'a cursed short life for you', or what sweeties today would just exclaim in English as 'Die lah!' wakakaka.

Ayer Itam village 

The key word in uncle's story is 'siew', which by itself means 'life', and which is also a common Penang name for both genders.

Now, in those early days when Tunku was PM, there were mainly two major political parties in competition in Penang, namely Perikatan (Alliance, BN's predecessor, comprising only UMNO, MCA and MIC) and Labour Party. Labour Party subsequently combined with Ahmad Boestaman's Parti Rakyat Malaya (PRM) to form the short-lived Socialist Front - short lived only because most of its leaders were ISA-ed, in those Cold War and Konfrontasi days.

Ironically, the Labour Party was called 'goo t'au tong' or 'cow-head' party by Penangites, a reference to Boestaman's PRM logo rather than its own logo of a pen (representing white collar workers) and a hoe (representing the farmers or peasants).

It could be said the two leading Labour Party Chinese politicians in Penang were the fiery Cambridge-trained orator, Lim Kean Siew (younger brother of PG Lim), and the suave Ooi Thiam Siew, the latter at times Mayor of Georgetown. who spoke with a Pukka-accented English but also in fluent Hokkien.

Lim Kean Siew

in honour of a great son of Penang

Jalan Pinhorn is nearby, wakakaka 

In those days, apparently, pre-election campaigns whether for state, federal or Penang's city council seats were rather rambunctious, robust but rollicking affairs. Unc said the only police presence would be a couple of mata-mata in a black Landrover with huge tape recorder, and that was that, even in those Emergency days.

The campaign platform for the speakers would be surrounded by hawkers and spectators, adding to the colourful festive mood of the occasion. And non-politically, young men would be prowling the site a la Chap Goh Meh to meet equally young women, wakakaka.

Anyway, at one Perikatan rally, a MCA bloke, a guest speaker, got up on the makeshift stage to deliver his campaign speech in support of the candidate, and basically to attack the Labour Party, which in those days, as told by Unc, could even include sexist and racist attacks on the questionable propriety and foreignness of Lim Kean Siew's American wife, a shameful precursor to Dr Mahathir's 'opinion' of western women.

Unc told me that original Mrs Lim (an American - Lim KS subsequently re-married a Chinese, Pamela Ong I believe?) could also be Farish Noor's university mentor or lecturer or friend/associate. Unc had once read Farish writing about visiting (presumably) the former Mrs Lim, giving her a carton of cigarettes and having discussion on Palestine (she was like her former hubby Lim KS, an ardent socialist). Alas, like Lim Kean Siew, she has gone to a 'better place'.

Farish Noor 

So anyway, back to that campaign speech - our MCA kampung jaguh started off his support speech (in Penang Hokkien) by negatively attacking Lim Kean Siew and Ong Thiam Siew.

Unfortunately, due to his bizarre (for a Chinese) cultural insensitivity towards the Chinese, he thought he would be a smart-ass by using the Chinese curse of 'eow siew tay mia' as nasty puns to refer insultingly to those two Labour leaders, to wit, as Lim 'Eow Siew' & Ooi 'Eow Siew', a cursed play on their respective Chinese names of Kean Siew and Thiam Siew.

What the idiot did in front of hundreds if not thousands of Chinese spectators, right at the very start of his campaign speech, with his insulting Lim 'Eow Siew' & Ooi 'Eow Siew' was to effectively, insultingly and unforgivably curse the entire clans of Lim's and Ooi's, comprising not an inconsiderable number of Chinese in Penang.

With his unthinking too-smart-by-half pun on the 'eow siew tay mia' curse, he truly f**K himself, MCA and the poor MCA candidate kau kau, well, at least as far as the Lim's and Ooi's and their friends and sympathizers were concerned.

Lim Kongsi (Clan House) 

My Unc was staggered by the immediate withdrawal of a large section of the crowd, almost everyone save MCA members. Of course not all who left the scene were Lim's and Ooi's, but the Chinese in Ayer Itam village were not only mortified but outraged by such a shocking barbaric vile condemnation of the Lim's and Ooi's to cursed short lives, and from a Chinese politician at that.

By the guest speaker's insensitive choice of words, it became a case of MCA opening its big mouth and putting its own foot into it, and of course subsequently regretting that action which led to the immediate loss of many votes in that election. It was what Penangites described as 'ma-hwa ay tork kannon kau-giah gai' (very drastic ricocheting effect of MCAs vile venom, or 'MCA shooting its own foot').

In more recent times, about 4 years back, failing to learn from MCA's history of that monumental Perikatan f**kup in Ayer Itam, the Gerakan committed the same sin against another Chinese clan in Penang.

In its eagerness to attack Lim GE on his rental property (which issue today has been resurrected), Gerakan alleged the owner of the rental property, yes, the same business woman Phang Li Koon, had untoward business connections with the CM, implying CM Lim was involved in corrupt practice. By default of its allegations, Phang Li Koon was allegedly also corrupt.

So Gerakan-UMNO attacks on Phang and Lim were not new but a four year old affair. Hmmm, since BN loves to dig up and re-use archaeologically archived accusations, I wonder whether UMNO will now also resurrect the fabrications about Lim GE's young teenage son molesting foreign females, who he didn't even know nor ever met and who live several thousands of kilometres away across two huge oceans? Wakakaka.

That Gerakan vile 'bamboo' (if you're Chinese or know about Chinese idioms you'd know the meaning of bamboo or bamboo pole, wakakaka) triggered off an angry response from the Phee clan, with a threat of legal action for defamation against Phang, one of the clan's members.

40 of 100 Chinese surnames which account for 85% of Chinese

goodness I can actually read 15 surnames tho' Lim is not among the above, wakakaka

The surname Phang and Phee are the same in written Chinese, in the same way as Ooi is to Wang, Ng is to Wu, Beh is to Ma, Teoh is to Zhang or Cheung, Tan is to Chen or Chan, etc - oh, it's just the wicked Chinese confusing non-Chinese wakakaka - but seriously, it's a result of different regional pronunciations of the surnames. Sometimes the differences between the earlier Wades-Giles and the current mainland Chinese pinyin Romanized spelling systems also add to the confusion.

Clan advisor Phee Boon Poh warned Gerakan to cease and desist from libelling the character of an innocent business woman whose only alleged 'sin' was to legitimately rent her property to Lim GE.

Phee demanded that Gerakan stop imagining others were like BN in having dodgy 'business links' when in Phang's case and their allegations about the tender for Taman Manggis, it was clear they couldn't find any evidence or substance, yet had persisted in their wild allegations - they still are, wakakaka, though this time UMNO has joined in.

The now-vanished TMI had then published Penang clan card played in row over Guan Eng’s house about Gerakan's insulting allegation.

1000 surnames text 

So aeons ago, the MCA in an attempt to attack its political opponents, had instead insulted the Lim and Ooi clans just prior to an election. Then in similar reckless misdeed Gerakan, in a desperate attempt to attack Lim GE  (in this regard it's still desperate, wakakaka), had also insulted another Chinese clan just prior to GE-13, through its reckless and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption against Phang Li Koon and Lim GE.

And déjà vu, today we have (ironically) DAP's Hew Kuan Yau committing a far worse sin, that of offending the Malays.

As George Santayana said "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I wonder how long it will take the Malays to forget this vile and stupid DAP faux pas, especially with many pro-BN batu-api's reminding them, wakakaka.