MALAYSIANS want twice former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to reveal the identity of the new shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur which he accused of making him feel as if he was in China given “all its signboards are in Chinese with English translations” and “nothing at all in Malay”.
“So is this Malaysia? Or have we become a part of China. I was told that some Chinese TV (stations) refer to Malaysia as Little China. Why?” he rambled in a recent Facebook post under the heading “Shopping Complexes” which has since attracted 3,700 comments, 18,000 likes and 2,600 shares at the time of writing.
“Because among the Southeast Asian countries Malaysia displays the Chinese characters all over; large and prominent. Must be because we have so many Chinese visitors. But translation in small characters yes. But our national language is Malay.”
This is when the curiosity kills the cat syndrome creeps in with netizens challenging the one-year short of being a centenarian statesman to perhaps name-to-shame the said shopping mall.
And here goes the second-guessing game of the ‘culprit’ which ranges from Lalaport to IOI City Mall, Sunway Velocity Cheras, Mitsui, Starling Mall, Sunway Gizza, to name a few.
A well-travelled commenter who perhaps is aghast with Tun M’s racist rant decided to school him that apart from Little China, “Little Arab”, “Little Manila”, “Little Myanmar”, “Little Nepal”, “Little Bangla” and “Little Indon” have also sprouted in Kuala Lumpur with his once “Look East Policy having made certain parts of Mont Kiara Little Tokyo”.
A few commenters teased Tun M as to why his rant was written in the language of the imperialist instead of the national language, insinuating that his social media post is intentionally directed at a particular target audience.
Another commenter recounted the Bumiputera-operate Malakat Mall in Cyberjaya “which had 100% BM signboards” but unfortunately had shut down in end-July this year, four years after its grand opening.
But at least Tun M has his fair share of supporters:
One netizen summed up best when he surmised that Tun M whom he reckoned as “playing with emotions again” deserved a fair share of the blame, too, for allowing this to happen when he could have taken some remedial action during his 22 years and two months stint of helming the country. – Nov 19, 2024
Main image credit: Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad/Facebook
