Malaysian Politics & A New Kind of Humanity

It was, from the start, unlikely that many would find the below presentation totally agreeable, but I appreciate the feedback nevertheless (from ROH Merdeka 2008 participants and non-participants alike).

Some responses raised to the idea that peace-making, reconciliation and forgiveness must be the Church's defining role (in politics and all domains of life) included:

• Jesus has many facets, not merely the suffering/dying one e.g. His Temple action
• The Church also has a prophetic role to play i.e. Christians have a responsibility to rebuke the world as the Biblical prophets did - attempted response here
• "Love thy enemy" doesn't apply to societal/institutional evil (e.g. we are not called to love apartheid) - a teenie-weenie response of sorts here (argument still to be developed)
• One doesn't tell an abused wife to 'love her husband'
• The book of Revelations was filled with tirades against Rome (e.g. it labeled Rome a beast) - attempted responses here

A good friend even said that whilst he wouldn't mind inviting Ahmad Ismail (who made racist remarks against Malaysian Chinese) to dinner, he would also call UMNO to fire him.

Can you add (or counter-respond) to the above? I'd love to hear more.

4Ls' of God

Glenn Miller, arguably the best online Christian apologist today (certainly the most verboise and intellectualy vigorous one) posted a very rare entry in his letters section.

This one includes what he calls the 4Ls' about God: The living, loving, laughing and lamenting God.

Revival

Preachers not only have to be good teachers; they often need to be watchful psychologists.

The average church worship service can be - let us agree - very dull at times, no?

The music doesn't connect. The message is overly stratospherical (unintentionally, of course - God forbid the preacher would leave out down-to-earthiness and everyday relevance, right?). The congregation's attention isn't there. The passages sound like Greek and Hebrew (smile). Everyone's in outer space or yawning their way there. Heck, even the pews aren't friendly.

The point is: States are value-neutral. There is nothing sinful or evil or godly about how people feel physiologically wherever they are (even and especially in church). If they're tired, they're tired. If they're moody, then they are.

But - unlike 95% of preachers in the world - one doesn't need to remain helpless. Preachers needn't do nothing if they're aware that they're "losing" their audience. Think about it: it only takes a FEW minutes of the service time to:

• get people talking to each other (about the sermon, about the day, about one thing God has impressed upon their heart in the past 24 hours, etc.)
  
• get people to write down two things they like best about the sermon on post-it notes and exchange them w each other
  
• get people to find out one interesting thing about someone he doesn't know very well
  
• get people to massage the person on the left / right
  
• get people to play a quick game or do a quiz

These activites (and others like it) take up little time, are not at all 'ungodly' and helps revive a tired congregation's spirits. Given that merry hearts doeth much good, why shouldn't these be encouraged (more) in church?

Unfathomable

If you're a Malaysian driver, you'll be an irony on wheels. Because it's unlikely you'll have too much trouble:

• waiting about an hour to get cheaper gas
• waiting almost half an hour to get to some super-cool shopping mall or nightlife area 
  
• waiting more than an hour (or a few) at the garage to give your car a new body job
• driving long distances, which could take you about two hours, to eat at some famous restaurant (or 'restaurant')

You'll endure jams, queues and other manner of long lines for the trivialest of reasons. Time 'stands still'. 

But if some dude cuts into your line on your way to work - an urban tragedy as it eats into an incredible twenty seconds of your mission-critical schedule - you feel like shit.

That's twenty seconds of fuel, twenty seconds of moral right to be car at no.X position on the road, twenty seconds of wasted waiting. You've been cheated and you want your pound of flesh, only you know there's next to nothing you can do about it.

Except blast your horn and mutter (loudly) that some people are impossible to understand. 

Face to Face With Malaysia

I've only done two 'politics-related' presentations my whole life. One's - titled Agents of Reconciliation - over here, another's the below.

It was something I prepared for the young adults group. Slides 7-17 is mine, everything else is Tricia's. I kinda like slide 17 (smile).

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: religion society)

A third presentation will happen this Saturday at the ROH event.

The New 4Ps'

Giant Gaffe

It's the holidays. So why give your customers any reason to wish they were somewhere else?

The Giant superstore in Kelana Jaya must have about twenty check-out counters. This evening, the fourth day of Hari Raya, there were barely three counters opened.

The queues were snaking like an ants on a sugar grab.

Of course everyone knows the store's (mainly) Muslim workforce was depleted. Everyone, however, wouldn't care - not when they have to wait half an hour to pay for their groceries.

Giant has been opened for many years. And this isn't the first staff-diminishing holiday it's endured. So it's unfortunate that no real planning was done to anticipate and address this problem via, maybe:

• giving the waiting customers a 10$ coupon for their patience (so what? at least you'll guarantee they'll come back and positively word-of-mouth you)
• enforcing a '10 items of less' rule for peak holiday hours (if they want to buy more, they'll need to line-up twice/thrice, sorry)
• minimizing the staff-force in other areas and channel them to the counters (I swear I saw at least two or three staff hanging around not doing much...)
• closing the place for a day or two! (no one will blame ya; I think this is the option most stores in Singapore take during hols)
• request more staff to stay back (I personally don't like to see junior staff missing out on the holidays, but somehow Giant could find people to man the fruit, the meat, the packaging sections - what's up with the cashiers?)

Still, well...I guess it's always easier to make the customers wait...and wait...and wait.

K-Town

Was in Ampang's famed Korea Town last night. If you haven't been there, no prizes for guessing what the no.1 kind of business, which takes up a good 90% of the town's 'industry', is. (I don't actually have to say it, do I?).

The question is why so many. 

Granted it makes local tourists like me go ooh and ahh and everyone has a good time saying how difficult it is to find the 'best' place but loving the trial-and-error anyway.

Granted nobody complains about a lack of choice and every operator is pushed to excel.

But why, if you're gonna start a business, would you open almost exactly the same kind of shop next to not one or even two other identical ones, but more than three dozen in a very small area?

Is the market so huge and vibrant one expects customers by the (multiple) truck load to come overflowing into the community? (At this point I'd have to say that the evening activity in KoreaTown Ampang is nothing like that in ChinaTown Melbourne let alone London or San Francisco)

Is every other business taxed less? Or are start-up costs the lowest? Or do the K-biz folks feel that one 'cannot go wrong' with food?

The answer, I'd surmise, is related to the last question. K-restaurants have huge margins. Heck, three slices of cold pork can rake in RM30-40 in revenue. One doesn't need many customers a month to break-even. And I suppose when you're a food operator in an alien country (whatever else you might say about your 'second home'), the less risk the better. Maybe the fact that so many restaurants are even surviving proves the point.

Furthermore, indeed, no newcomer to K-Town should ever miss the food. There is frankly no point in going if that's the case.

And yet...I wonder...couldn't there be more grocery stores? More bakeries? More K-boutiques? More K, period?

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Malaysia's No.51

According to the Heritage Foundation, Malaysia ranks #51 in economic freedom. That's 50 countries scoring higher (incl. Czech Republic, Bostwana and Trinidad & Tobago) and 111 scoring lower (incl. Italy and Greece) on the following principles:

• The establishment of the rule of law
• The principle of private property
• The acceptance and encouragement of private wealth accumulation
• The mitigation of government interference and regulation
• The promotion of free trade 

And in case you're wondering where Singapore is, Blogpastor, well you're at #2.