Back from break..

Yes, Sembang Kedai Kopi is back...there is something i wanna share with u all..enjoy!

Why Does It Always Rain In Malaysia

for a while now, the higher echelons of our political hierarchy have had a new rationalization when things screw up. and the rationalization is this : irresponsible, lying bloggers.

the latest in the fine art of blameshifting that many of our executives seem to be particularly adept at, is our Tourism Minister claiming that the ‘para blogger’ are creating a negative misconception of Malaysia and that all bloggers are liars.

he attributed mudslinging bloggers as one of the causes of a slow flow of tourists into the country despite it being Visit Malaysia Year 2007. apparently we should be singing praises about Msia in an attempt to lure tourists into our beautiful multi-racial, multi-ethnic country that is rich with culture and heritage and history. nevermind the fact that our multi-racial feelgood happy-clappy diversity is as real as the tourist brochures get, and that our govt has a habit of wrecking heritage sites that have such potential as tourist attractions, and the unspoken rule of our historical archiving is that the less-than-glorious parts should be forgotten and never brought up.

Tourism Minister said :

“Our airports are jam-packed daily, the occupancy rates at hotels are high and, furthermore, we are not only concentrating on Kuala Lumpur; the tourists visit other parts of the country.”

airports are jampacked. so? occupancy rates at hotels are high. so? not only concentrating on KL. so? how about not coming up with ridiculously plebeian defences, and actually doing something about the sad failure that is called Visit Malaysia Year 2007 (VMY 2007)? Tourism Minister, here is a newsflash : the tourists that are in our country right now have absolutely no flipping clue it is VMY 2007. the reasons they are here are reasons unbeknownst to us, but as a recent poll in The Star would have it, they are most definitely NOT here for the effectiveness of your campaign in their respective countries. they have no idea it exists. that means VMY is a failure because you people have no marketing savvy.

he also said : “With only one ferris wheel at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa drawing a huge crowd there, what are these people talking about VM2007 being lembab (slow)?”

it is no secret that i hate the stupid eye on fucking malaysia. spending 30 million of public funds on a stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid ferris wheel that will be dismantled by the end of the year is the most ridiculous proposition at tourism enhancement i have ever seen. and with 30mil, you’d think they’d use that money on an attraction that’s UNIQUE and not something that was ripped off another country’s attraction. and what the HELL does he mean that because the ferris wheel draws a crowd, it means VMY is a success? hello but have you not realized that everyone going to that stupid monstrosity are LOCALS???

and dont even get me started on the joke that is the idiotic RM1-for-15 minutes jamban in the middle of our city. it’s making us an international laughingstock, thank you very much tourism ministry. is malaysia so backward that self-cleaning, hygenic and presentable bathrooms have to become a fucking tourist attraction? shouldnt that be the state of toilets all over the country instead of a few strategically-placed glamourized Porta-Potties? how about putting the money that went towards those plastic huts into wages for the people who clean our public toilets? how about putting that money into TOILET ROLLS for our public toilets, for goodness’ sake? and how about not charging RM1 while you’re at it?

i dont know about y’all, but i cringe everytime i read travel guidebooks that say ‘guard your belongings; pickpocket and theft cases are abundant in Malaysia’. if our rampant crime rate is not a secret to the guidebook writers, surely it is not a secret to the people of Malaysia and the government. do something about it lah can or not. and while you’re at it, can we look into the corruption problem as well? yah yah elect Pak Lah and he’ll eradicate corruption in Msia. his service is going into 4 years now, but last month a cop wearing a “Aku Polis Anti Rasuah” (i am an anti-corruption cop) button on his lapel tried to fish for a bribe from my dad. fuck off and die lah, you teabreak-loving currypuff-eating criminal in a crimefighter’s uniform.

seriously. do the people in our tourism ministry travel? are they so saturated in politics that they no longer know what tourists look for when they go out to see the world? come on lah even an 18 year old girl knows what she wants to see when she travels. when i go to Indonesia i look for pisang goreng. when i go to Hong Kong i go shopping. when i go to Vietnam i check out the totally vibrant street life and culture. when i go to Singapore, i totally appreciate the user-friendly public transport system. so……… Malaysia oso got pisang goreng wat. our shopping is one of the cheapest in the region. our street life and culture is thankfully still very much alive. and ok so we dont have a user-friendly public transport system, but we can work on that! see, just do all these things lah. and talk more about nasi lemak. i swear to you, nasi lemak can bring in tourists by the THRONGS, man.

and how about revising some of the restrictions on foreign artist performances? we should hold more concerts! invite more performers! stop estranging international artistes ala Pussycat Dolls and Ang Lee! the Rainforest Music Fest in Swak is cool and all, but it is just not enough. do they not realize that music and the arts were the old black, are the new black, and will always be black! have more showcases and people will come, it is that simple. look at Bangkok .. they know that. look at Singapore.. they know that. yeah i oso know that, that’s why i’m spending a whole week there in two days time for the Mosaic festival, spending Singaporean dollars and buying Singaporean goods and raising Singapore’s GDP. the truth is you can always harp a lot about nationalism and shit like that, but at the end of the day, consumers can only have so much patriotism. we are consumers just as we are citizens. if you dont deliver, then too bad lah, we go across the causeway lah.

and what are they DOING to our night markets and wet markets? i wonder if they realize such things are what make us quintessentially south east asian, and that tourists love to see this sort of thing? why is the bangsar pasar malam, a place brimming with Malaysianness, turning into a DBKL-blue-tent and plastic-table abomination? why do they want to raze wet markets to build high-rise buildings that have bad architecture anyway? people dont travel out of a concrete jungle to see another concrete jungle.

also, if the govt is really so intent on spreading the good word about Malaysia, i honestly see no better way of doing that than via our local filmmakers who are definitely kicking ass in the international arena. but what happens to Yasmin Ahmad? she gets flak about being pencemar budaya. what happens to Tan Chui Mui? they dont give her funding for her movies. what happens to Amir Muhammad? they ban all his movies. WELL DONE LAH GOVT. I’M SURE WE LOVE THIS TEMPURUNG WE ARE UNDER.

what else what else. oh yah. our taxi drivers. but no need to say anything lah that one, you dont know meh, now they trying to clamp down on errant taxi drivers by sending undercover officials on taxi-riding sprees. very effective wan, you dont know meh. that’s why over the past week all these cabbies still tried to charge me RM 30 from mid valley to my place and tried to tell me at 10 freaking PM they have the right to impose midnight surcharge. damn effective these govt strategies! dont simply criticize!!!

and speaking of criticism. of course bloggers got all the shit lah. first of all, what is wrong with critique? why cant you deal with it? as executives, you’re supposed to make us happy first and foremost. if we are not happy, are you not supposed to do something about it? why are you shutting us up? not enough izzit you gag the mainstream media into the pathetic state it is in now? secondly, it is the media’s job to inform and to educate. well surprise surprise and i wonder why, it seems our mainstream media doesnt do a good job of that. so can you blame the information-hungry masses for turning to the internet for their education? can you blame them for finding on blogs what should be in our newspapers in the first place? our PM said at the Asian Media Summit 2006 : “the media must present different sides to a story, dismiss half truths and foster critical thinking so that people can be more informed in their daily lives”. yeah listen to your PM. how come when bloggers present different sides of a story and dismiss half truths, it’s not critical thinking.. but they are told that it is all lies and irresponsibility? oh and of course they are told to ‘check their facts’, as is the popular harumphhh of our ministers, keris-waving, one-eye-closing or otherwise.

okay i’m getting too angsty. it’s just that it’s so aggravating to read about the ministry who gave birth to VMY 2007 (which is a joke) condemning bloggers simply because they arent getting the results they want. Tourism Ministry, if anything, bloggers are the ones putting Malaysia on the map. when we write about our daily lives, people all around the world can become acquainted to Malaysian lifestyles in a way so real and personal, it surpasses all marketing campaigns. and that is something your farcical ‘Malaysia Truuuulyyyy Asiiiiaaaaaa’ ads will never be able to achieve.

source : quaintly.net