Category — Malaysia

Cookie was getting spayed today and, while The Wast and I were waiting at the vet’s for the operation to finish, two Chinese men walked in. One of the men wanted some medicine for his dog. The receptionist told them to wait while she got a vet. Here is a bit of their ensuing conversation:

Dog Owner: I was having some work done on my house and one of the workers was Vietnamese. My dog was so scared of him! Wouldn’t go near him.

Friend: (laughing) Really? Why, ah? Had he been to your house before? Did he kick your dog?

Dog Owner: No, he’s Vietnamese. He’d been eating dog meat and my dog could tell.

Friend: How? Looking at him, how can you tell if someone’s eaten dog meat?

Dog Owner: It must be the smell of the dog meat. Once you eat it, somehow the dogs can smell it on you and they won’t go near you. They’re terrified of you.

Friend: Vietnamese, ah? But I thought it was the Koreans who ate dog?

Dog Owner: Vietnamese, Korean. Even Indonesians eat dog.

Friend: Wah, really?

Dog Owner: There’s a tribe called the … (now it could be Datak or Patak or something like that. I don’t know Indonesia and I’m working from memory here so apologies if I got this wrong). They eat dog at special ceremonies. Actually, they eat cat too! Cat at the beginning of the year, dog near the end.

Friend: So, both dogs and cats run away from them?

Dog Owner: (laughing) Yeah, lah!

And all this time I was thinking, hey I thought it was you guys who ate dog! (Bruce Lee munches on one (spit-roasted and looking a bit tough, to be honest) in the park scene of “Fists of Fury”. And there’s also a mention of it in the Jean-Claude van Damme flick, “Bloodsport”.)

While J and I were waiting at the vet’s for Cookie’s operation to finish, a man walked in with a puppy. Again, not on a leash and not in a cage. The man was a Buddhist monk and he answered all the receptionist’s questions very abruptly before walking outside with the puppy and setting it down. The puppy started scampering all around (there are automotive body shops next door, so it was obviously a safe environment to do that) while the monk lit up a cigarette.

Living in Malaysia again has hammered home a point about religion. Whatever you know, or think you know, about Buddhism gets knocked for a loop when you start living in Asia. Buddhism isn’t a religion here, it’s a business. And the sooner you realise that, the quicker you’ll not be shocked when monks start inviting themselves to your home because they want to see what’s inside, shaking down grieving families for as much money as they can get for necessary “rituals” for the dead, and expecting preferential treatment because of the type of clothes they wear.

As I mentioned before, belief in God is supposed to be one of founding principles of Malaysia. (Gardenia brand bread. Wrapper. Read it.) Yet I have never met a population that’s so dismissive of animal welfare, so selfish, so arrogant, and yet so ostentatiously religious. Whether Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist or Muslim, they’ll all rabbit on about God’s goodness, but they’ll let their pets starve, beat them at the slightest provocation, abrogate the slightest responsibility for their welfare and think themselves superior to atheists like myself.

And it’s not just pets. Where’s the morality in forcing your choices onto your children? Of expecting blind obedience based on nothing more than your age? Of dismissing or physically pushing children out of the way merely because they’re children? Where’s the morality in skimping on your child’s education due purely to the reason it’s a girl? Of lauding your wastrel sons to the heavens while disparaging your daughters?

The treatment of pets is only the last in a long line of purely selfish and misogynistic Asian behaviours. I cannot stand the Malay men who expect me to let them go first anywhere just because they’re men. They think they’re so damn superior? Well they can suck up some grace and damn well wait till I get through that door. For the same reasons, I refuse to give up my MRT seat to a Chinese man of my age. And I will sit next to an Indian man taking up more than one seat on public transport and push his leg over so he doesn’t have things his own way. And do you know what each of those men do in such cases? They don’t say a word. They may glare at me, as I glare at them, but they don’t dare open their mouths. Such is the manner of true bullies.

If this is how fellow humans are treated then, women and children, what chance do our silent fellow members of the animal kingdom have? Asian values? Give me a fucking break.

I’m writing all this because Cookie had a fall down a flight of stairs a couple of weeks ago and, much to my surprise, she broke a leg. We couldn’t figure it. It was onlya tumble but Sausage has had falls from higher heights (like the time she decided to jump out of J’s arms and timed it all wrong) and not injured herself. What went wrong with Cookie?

We rushed her to a vet who specialises in treating such injuries. “This injury is very rare,” he said. I wondered why that was because there seemed to be a huge body of papers and information on tibia fractures in dogs. (Of course I did an internet search the minute I heard the diagnosis.) The vet didn’t say much during the initial consultation, but he opened up during the second visit (the actual surgery) when we told him we’d only had Cookie two days before the injury had occurred.

We mused out loud that we thought Cookie’s muscle condition was poor for a bull terrier of five months of age. (It wasn’t for nothing that J referred to her as his “cow on chopsticks” when he first set eyes on her.) The vet agreed with our remarks and further suggested that she had not been fed very well.

“Having a bully with this kind of injury is highly unusual,” he said, “because, of all the breeds, bull terriers are the most muscular. If you and a bull terrier collide, you’ll feel it, not him! And usually, there’s enough muscle mass to cushion the dog against fractures like this. But not in this case.” He frowned down at a Cookie just coming out of anaesthetic.
“How old is she again?” he asked.
“Five months.”
“Ah. It would have been very difficult for her.”
I didn’t follow him. “Difficult?”
I couldn’t understand this. We had pedigree papers for her. She had champions in her bloodline. What could possibly be difficult?
“Well, for a start, she has white socks. Do you know what white means to a Chinese? Mourning. Chinese don’t like buying dogs with white socks.” (Fyi, the vet was Chinese.)
“They’ll have problems buying any bull terrier in that case,” J remarked dryly, “as all bullies have white socks.”
“And she’s old.”
“She’s five months old,” I repeated.
“And getting to the end of being a saleable puppy,” he added. “Do you know what breeders do with the puppies they can’t sell? They stop feeding them.”
“They starve them to death?!”
The doctor nodded. “This dog was very lucky to find an owner so late in life.”
“They just starve the puppy?” I repeated. My mind just didn’t want to take in that picture.
He nodded. “Of course.” He shrugged. “That’s what they do.”

That reminds me of Hieronymous, a beautifully natured Birman kitten that I was thinking of buying last year. (You could tell I wanted to buy him because I’d already named him in the pet shop!) Hieronymous was also getting a bit long in the tooth, and a polydactyl at that. I think that’s why nobody bought him. His extra toes. The things people are superstitious about here will astound you. The problem was that I wanted a discount on him because he was not up to date with his vaccinations, not microchipped and also not desexed. The deal fell through because the owner refused to drop the price. Absolutely refused … except by $10. By this time, it became a matter of principle. A $10 discount???? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be insulted. So I walked away.

I always wondered what happened to Hieronymous after that failed transaction. Unfortunately now I think I know. As J says, the breeders/owners here are so greedy that they’d rather kill the animals in a terrible fashion rather than discount the price or even give away the pet once they become “unsaleable”. There’s also no sense of responsibility. If the breeders incorporated desexing as a condition of sale, it would stop a lot of the stray problems that plague this country. But that, of course, costs money and spending money, it appears, is not the responsibility of such breeders. They only seem to like receiving it.

So, even though we paid money for Cookie, J and I realised that what we had on our hands was a badly-fed, almost completely caged “rescue”. A puppy that had never had an opportunity to roam, that was resigned to being crated twenty-three hours a day, and was terribly under-socialised. She didn’t even know how to chew when we first got her. It still makes me angry thinking about it.

Stay tuned on Monday for conclusions.

Because keeping a dog in your house or allowing them to touch you is haram (essentially, forbidden) in Islam, Malays don’t have dogs as pets. The potential for slipping into sin is too great. But they do keep cats. Malays love cats. Malays love cats so much they refuse to desex them. They want the whole world to be full of cats. They let their precious Persians wander around freely, getting knocked up by every available tom in the neighbourhood, but that’s understandable because it’s God’s will, right? Who are we to interfere with Nature?

The female cat will bear perhaps four litters a year, bringing all those adorable kittens into the world. The owner might try to give as many away to friends as possible, but how can she do that with all of them? Ah, it’s God’s will. Of course, the mother cat will suffer from exhaustion from the constant breeding. And uncontrolled breeding can lead to a host of serious diseases, including feline AIDS and several cancers but, if that happens, it’s just God’s will, isn’t it? But how the Malays love cats, have I told you that?

Isn’t it strange how God’s will is so often the cheapest way out of a problem? And even if a cat dies, well with all those by-blows getting traded around like sampler containers of moisturiser, another adorable one will come by soon. It’s all up to God’s will and practising any kind of responsible pet ownership is both an affront to God and to Nature…not to mention costing some money, know what I mean? Bugger that.

But, in the meantime, everyone should know that I’m bowing to God’s will by allowing my un-neutered cats to wander freely, spreading their seed as God intended. I’m so spiritual and religious I could almost canonise myself.

Wondering what prompted me to write this little series on pets? Tune in Friday.

ASIDE: You’re probably wondering why keeping dogs inside the house is haram? It’s because it stops the recording angels from entering. If a recording angel (as opposed to an angel of mercy or an angel of death) enters the house, the dog will alert the members of the family and it seems that rec. angels are a bit like the CIA in that regard … they don’t like other people knowing what they’re doing. So, if a rec. angel sees that a house contains a dog, he will tend not to enter and thereby announce their presence. Why is this such a big deal? Well, it appears that recording angels are the clerks of God and take down all the deeds of the family members for later judgement. As with Roman Catholicism from what I can remember, Muslim angels are all male too. Not a female amongst them. Natch.

It’s been a flurry of visits to the vet recently so I’ve had a chance to sit back and observe how pet owners behave towards their animals. Now remember that the very fact that a human is at the vet’s with her animal means that that human is more animal-aware than the average Asian. You’d think that’s a good thing…until you actually start watching.

First off are the owners who bring their dogs in without a leash or collar. Oh no, getting into arguments in the waiting room with another dog, risking the anxious animal running off, securing them so they don’t disturb the other pet owners …. none of this is their problem. It’s up to everybody else to break up the fight, catch the dog or move to another seat, where you could be out of luck if the waiting room’s full. The owner will just sit there and watch you, or call someone on the phone and chat while all this is going on. It’s the servants who show the most care, probably because they’re afraid they’ll get beaten to within an inch of their lives if anything happens to the Shih Tzu while on its annual vaccination visit.

Then there are the owners who behave inappropriately. A small toy poodle is in the waiting room. A German Shepherd comes in, pulling his owner behind him. The poodle is obviously dismayed and starts yelping. What’s the proper reaction? (Of course the poodle isn’t on a leash, take that as a given.) Yes, of course. Hit the poodle. Did you guess that one right? I’ve seen it done with such smoothness, it’s almost art. One fluid move, reaching down to slip off a shoe and then whacking the anxious dog across the nose with it. The last time I saw such grace was watching some old man fiddle with his katana.

What about the breeders who come in with their puppies for vaccinations? Oh I saw a beauty last week. A wiry Chinese man came in with a dirty, torn plastic laundry hamper, the top secured by a large piece of cardboard and two bungee cords. At first, I thought that he’d found an animal on the road and this was the only container he had spare. Oh, how naive am I??? This man was a breeder, bringing in two Staffordshire pups for their shots. Each animal has to be weighed upon check-in, and this man delved down and brought up a puppy the way you’d bring a crab-pot out of the water. One hand in to grab the scruff of the neck and pull up. No holding of the puppy’s rump. Oh no, that’s for wimps! Just dig out the puppy and dump it on the scale. Get the weight and dump the puppy back into the basket again. Doesn’t matter if it hits the side. Doesn’t matter if it catches a hind leg as it goes in and yelps. Just flick that offending limb out of the way and get the other puppy. This man’s obviously important and has better things to do than actually — ha! ha! — coddle an animal. After all, aren’t they costing him money?

While on a walk around a very established and salubrious suburb of JB a couple of days later (very little litter on the side of the road), I chanced across several houses with guard dogs. That’s the security deterrent of choice around here. Do you know how hot it gets in Johor? On an average day it’s 33 degrees Celsius (90+ Fahrenheit) and eighty percent humidity. If you have a dog you want to guard your house, let’s say a full-sized poodle, where would you put it? That’s right. You’d stick it on a short metal chain outside your house in full sunlight with only a square of concrete to rest on. Sitting right next to the road all day is exactly how you’d treat a shaggy-coated, highly intelligent, prone to neurosis, animal. What does such a beast need quality of life? Isn’t it enough they have their lives?

Malays are thinking they’re getting off scot-free because they don’t have anything to do with dogs. I’ll deal with them next time.

The kids and I were enjoying nasi ayam (chicken rice) at the local Medan Selera (food court) recently and I chanced upon some local TV channels while we were eating. And this … this thing appeared. There were sanitary napkins in the shape of flowers receiving blue drops of rain from the sky to a happy tune. While women smiled at me from the TV screen, I was told to “Have a Happy Period”.

WHAT???!!

First, the facts. It appears:

the campaign “Have a Happy Period” was created in 2005 by Ms Denise Fedowa who was a VP at Leo Burnett Chicago … According to a report in Adweek, research shows that consumers are telling the marketers to be transparent and frank in their communications.

Now look, you can be “transparent and frank” in your communications, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be incredibly and utterly stupid as well.

Have a Happy Period??!!

Are they serious? While there are hormones coursing through my body telling me that decapitating yonder Perodua driver would be no great loss to the species? While there is something not usually meant to be there between my legs, rubbing against the tender flesh of my inner thighs while I walk? While — and I hate to be explicit here, but think of this and “happy” and tell me it works for you — I can feel fluids from my body being expelled on a schedule that’s sporadic and panic-inducing? While my Fallopian tubes mourn the loss of a potential life by sending aches through my bloated abdomen? While all this is going on, for DAYS at a stretch, you are telling me to Have a Happy Period, Whisper? Oh, and just for the record, it isn’t blue and it doesn’t have the consistency of spring water, m’kay?

Sure, why don’t we also have ads about a thick armoured invertebrate burrowing through a passage and pressing a button at the end and tell men to Have a Happy Prostate Exam?? Or little elves in wee little harvesters, running down fields of mangrove roots telling men to Have a Happy Shave??

This is beyond frankness into complete patronising bullshit. And what if we don’t have a Happy Period, Whisper? Then I suppose it’s All Our Fault, isn’t it? Why don’t men get patronised like this in commercials? This isn’t far above the ole Christmas gift suggestion of buying a new vacuum cleaner for The Little Woman. I had thought we’d moved beyond this, but evidently not. And, just to add insult to injury, we have a woman to thank for this priceless piece of inanity. Thanks Whisper, I’ll know what brand NOT to touch next time I’m at the supermarket.

COMPETITION UPDATE: Both winners finally got back to me! Congratulations Christy M and Ted C! Your packages will be out in the mail this week.

It’s been a while since I last blogged about our mini bull terrier, Sausage. Because Maria is such a sucker for dogs, she’s been bugging me to take pictures!, take pictures!, so here I am.

Sausage is now 11 months old and is about as big as I think she’s going to get. She may add another kilo or so of weight to the 10.2kg she already sports, but I think we’ve got what was advertised … a pocket-sized bull terrier.

Just because she’s small, though, doesn’t mean she lacks any of that bull terrier stubbornness, er, spirit. Here she is in her favourite room of the house, the wet kitchen, where she attempts to cajole snacks out of anybody who makes the mistake of opening the fridge door:

And, just to show you that she really is a mini, here she is with Squeak, our adorable Maine Coon boy. Squeak tips the scales at a little over 9kg:

Just like the cats, Sausage also likes to keep comfortable. Whether it’s in the coffee lounge (don’t  you love that sideways look?):

or the library:

I’m not sure how to remove the flash without making her look like she has abyssal pits for eyes, so I’m just leaving that photo as is.

Recently she, in her usual zeal, decided to go haring around the front yard and ended up ripping up the front pad under her right paw on some concrete. We took her to the vets, where she would’ve snapped everybody’s hands off if she wasn’t already wearing a muzzle and I wasn’t restraining her. I told the vet staff that she’s an absolute darling at home but am not sure if they believed me! You believe me, don’t you? The kids now call her Sausage With a Skip. Or Skipping Sausage.

The upshot of a damaged paw is that she’s now quickly learnt a new trick using it. Yep, cute begging!

It’s pathetic really.

But that’s not the end of the post. My good friend Maria is doing an incredibly generous thing. From now till the 8 June, she’s holding a competition. The prize is a copy of my upcoming book, IN ENEMY HANDS. All you have to do is:

1. Email Maria (at ‘mariazannini AT gmail DOT com’)
2. Put “What’s My Name” on the subject line
3. Tell her what my dog’s name is

This is a more-than-generous addition to my own competition to give away 2 full promo kits at this blog. Thanks M! Gotta love friends like that!

Man, I’m pooped and I haven’t even begun my promo push yet! Monday already and I really don’t know what to write.

J and I were discussing the sophistication of voters this morning and how a complete reluctance to even talk about politics leads, in my mind, to a lazy and uninvolved populace. I wanted to expound on this in a post, but it’s way too big for just one and I don’t have time for the moment.

I read in the papers that the Malaysian ringgit has appreciated and will continue to appreciate across major currencies. What does this mean for Singapore, besides the fact that the hordes to come over and buy up everything in the local supermarkets will find their Singbucks don’t go as far as they used to?

Malaysia is also in the top ten of competitive countries (list of 58, from memory). Switzerland put the list together and — oh surprise! — Switzerland is also in the top ten. Well, I suppose when you define the entire game, you’re entitled to include yourself in the winner’s circle, right?

There is talk that the subsidies on oil, sugar, flour and petrol in the country Must Go! Prime Minister Najib has a fine balancing act to contemplate. If the government phases out subsidies (and I can only see unsubsidised sugar in this diabetes-rich country as A Good Thing), a lot of people are going to be pretty upset. The only way he can make this work is to somehow encourage higher wages to offset the subsidy cuts or risk a semi-skilled drain to Singapore. The raw argument goes: why earn RM1,500/month in Malaysia when you can earn SG2,000/month in Singapore? (SG1.00 = RM2.30) Well, for one reason, RM1,500 buys you a helluva lot more in Malaysia than SG2,000 buys you in Singers. The smart ones will live in Johor and commute to Singapore and join 65,000+ other people doing the same thing. But what does this mean for Malaysia?

And, in writing, well I’m working on a new novel, so it’s just slog slog slog at the moment and — eek! — June next week. Back to my writing machine. See you Wednesday.

When people talk about civilians and World War Two, the focus inevitably shifts to Europe and heroic tales of the French Resistance, as if they were the only party of resistance fighters (aka terrorists) in the War. Not a lot of people even think that Asia suffered predations as well, so I was happy to see an article in Sunday’s paper and even happier to note that it was about an Eurasian woman, Sybil Kathigasu.

Born to Indian and Irish parents in Indonesia, Sybil was brought up in Malaysia (Malaya, as it was then known) and was still there when the Japanese marched in using their own version of a blitzkrieg back in 1941. As the newspaper article puts it:

[Sybil]…endured unimaginable torture under the hands of Japanese soldiers. Her fingernails were ripped off with pliers and her legs scalded with iron rods … She suffered damage to her spine and skull after a severe beating by thick bamboo sticks. None perhaps was more torturous than witnessing her six-year-old daughter, Dawn … being hung from a tree over a fire.

… Sybil died aged 49 in Britain. And old wound on the jaw sustained from the kick of a Japanese boot had brought on a fatal bout of septicaemia.

Click on the image below to enlarge and sorry about the patchwork nature of it. My scanner is only A4 sized.

Although we have always been a very small part of the population, I’m proud to know that Eurasians were an active part of the resistance during the War. My paternal grandfather, for example, also used to keep a radio set (the possession of which meant an automatic death sentence). My father told me of one occasion when a Japanese patrol decided to do a random check of houses. They went from room to room in the family home. When the officer opened the door to one of the rooms, he saw a radio set in there that my grandfather hadn’t had time to hide yet. There was a frozen moment before the Japanese officer closed the door again and left the house.

Why didn’t the Japanese officer do anything? Had he lost faith in the war? Maybe he didn’t care one way or another? Was he was sick of all the killing? All I know is that if it wasn’t for that Japanese officer, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here writing this now. It was also just as well that my father’s family didn’t live in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, where the Japanese ruled with a much tighter fist. My maternal grandfather talked about walking through the city, past streets with the heads of resistance fighters (or just anybody who displeased the Japanese) rotting on top of long stakes. I’ve seen photos of it and it’s a gruesome sight. One can only imagine what that smelt like in the tropical heat.

It seems that everyone was forced to bow whenever they encountered a Japanese, officer or soldier and, as my grandfather bowed, he always made sure to mutter something like: “I can’t wait till you’re dead, you Japanese bastard.” If any of the Japanese thought he was insulting them, it would have meant beheading on the spot from one of the katanas that the officers used to wear, but he couldn’t help himself. It used to drive my grandmother crazy.

Ah, I wanted to talk about Sybil, but it looks as though I’ve ended up talking about my family. I know I have new blog readers here and you have to know that my favourite topic to discuss is politics and resistance to the prevailing dogma, which a lot of you may not like. But, bearing in mind what I’ve said, I hope you understand. I have no choice. It’s in the blood.

POSTSCRIPT: What happened during WWII, more than sixty years ago, has a direct bearing on who I am. I wonder what the grandchildren of Iraq and Afghanistan will have to say in the next sixty years? But how many writers have we already lost? How many artists? How many engineers? How many scientists? These are people whose gifts will now never help humanity heal, feel or progress.

So I missed blogging again yesterday. To be fair, I had an excellent reason. My Monday is the US’ late Sunday, so I was on board at the Carina Press blog, and also monitoring Facebook and Twitter in case anyone popped in to ask a question or make a comment about my new book. It was hectic and a lot of fun, although quite draining, especially as I hadn’t caught very much sleep the night before.

(The one thing that surprised me was the wonderful reaction to my Carina blog posts. (The first dealt with the similarities between historical and s-f romance, and the second was more straight intel about my book.) I have to admit, I was a bit anxious about my posts. IN ENEMY HANDS is not a zippy, fun read. It’s about terrorism, torture, injustice…and romance. It’s set in a universe that’s not a nice place. Yet the comments on both posts were thoughtful and encouraging and I’m blown away by the support I was given. Thank you to all who commented.)

After North America slowly snoozed its way into Sunday night, it was still Monday here, and a public holiday for a lot of those working in Singapore. Labour Day! With the kids at school, J and I spent a rare morning together. We deliberately didn’t read any of the news to do with demonstrations around the world, went to our favourite Indian Muslim makan (food) place, Habib’s, and stuffed ourselves with thosai (a flat pancake made from ground rice and black lentils … masala for J, kosong (empty) for me), fried chicken and fish cutlets, washed down with Habib’s iced lemon tea, which is the best I’ve ever tasted. I filled myself with so much food I couldn’t face anything else till 8:30pm last night, and then only had a snack!

Now it’s my Tuesday, which feels like a Monday, and I’m wondering if it’s really that necessary to continue to have 5-day working weeks? Surely if one segment of the population moved to 4-day working weeks, and we harvested the unemployed pool so that other people could work 3-day working weeks, wouldn’t we be able to have, for example, banks and government departments open seven days a week? You wouldn’t have to rush to renew your licence or register a business or post a letter. You could do it during “your” weekend at your leisure. With other people working the other three days, there also wouldn’t be so much pressure at the supermarket. It would even out the traffic a bit as well, wouldn’t it? Budding writers could take a 3-day job, which would leave them with some steady money coming in and four days when they can concentrate on their writing AND devote some time to their family. Someone should do a study.

But, before that quasi-capitalist utopia comes into existence, we’re still at the 5-day working week, the beginning of May and a busy busy time ahead. Next week sees the release of the “Cougars & Cubs” anthology from Total-E-Bound, but more of that on Friday. And I’ll be appearing at so many places around the blogosphere that you’ll be sick of my very name.

Tomorrow, a news round-up from my part of the world.