No To Longer BM periods: The Overwhelming Racism of Dong Zong

The United Chinese School Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) in its 61st AGM again displayed the unabated ‘kiasuness’ of the group. All the while, this organization has been demanding all sorts of unreasonable, unpractical, even impossible things from the government just to satisfy their racist needs. They make it clear that they wouldn’t be happy until their demands are met in total. Tolerance and understanding, or even sense of respect, just don’t seem to exist in their dictionary and vocabulary. Patriotic, nation-building, practical even factual reasons and explainations by the government would only fall on deaf ear.

And we can only shake our heads in disbelieve when they now complaining about the longer Bahasa Malaysia (BM) periods for standard 4-6 in Chinese primary schools. Presently, BM takes 6 periods of the timetable and will be increased to 9 periods beginning 2014. Of course, Dong Zong opposed to this, claiming it is too much. Too much of what? Too much Malaysia? Are they afraid that their kids would become true Malaysians?

The Ministry must have a very good reason to propose the increase of BM periods in Chinese schools, and it is not hard for us to see the reasons.

Just ask around some simple questions like how many times do you walk into a salon and have to repeat yourself three or four times just to tell the Chinese hairdresser what you want to do with your hair because she has trouble understanding BM, and her English is worse.

And I remember accompanying a friend to a car showroom and the Chinese salesperson couldn’t give us satisfying information of the specs or the procedures of purchase because his BM and English sucks!

And have you ever experienced anger of dealing with Chinese officers, supposedly at Executive or Managerial level, but they can’t convey the message through because their BM and English is terrible and you ended up screaming at them?

These are Malaysian Chinese for God’s sake, and how dare they even call themselves Malaysians and even claim to have the rights to an equal treatment as Bumiputeras?

And yet, Dong Zong insists on remaining totally detached from the Malaysian ground. Chinese schools, Chinese teachers, Chinese language, Chinese, Chinese and Chinese are all that matters. Ironically, they would never admit to being hard-core racists.

Don’t they have some integrity to at least not be hypocrites too?

It is official that Dong Zong is clearly blinded by racism. They failed to see that this blind racism is not going to benefit the Chinese, or the country – which I don’t think they give a damn about. Whereas, in order to survive, all races must learn to live together and in order to live together we must be able to communicate well with each other.

Even their original motherland, China, is aware now that they have to acknowledge the existence of other countries and other races. China is now extending its hand to others, opening its market and reaching out. The country managed to ‘conquer’ the world to some extent. But already, it is experiencing setbacks.

Believe it or not, China companies may have profited a lot from business all over the world but they could or should have profited more should they practice openness in learning other languages and culture. The Chinese may not admit it, but there are great many deals lost due to language problem. Wrong shipment, wrong instruction, wrong translation, wrong interpretation can be very costly. Customers from other parts of the world are pissed-off and reputation is not good for China. Apart from that, the Chinese may not know that they are being laughed at, ridiculed and cursed by customers and even their own employees around the world for their mistakes that are caused by miscommunication. Sooner or later they will start to feel the effect and consequences of their ‘don’t-care-less-about-others’ attitude.

As Malaysians, we have the chance to witness first-hand, this ‘kiasuness’ of the Chinese. The problem with being a ‘kiasu’ or arrogance, is that you tend to lose touch of reality and ended up losing a lot more.

Dong Zong may think that the Chinese are strong enough and don’t need others in order to make profit (if not survive) but they forget that they would not lose anything but may get more profit should they blend-in with others. As an example, my friend who wanted to buy the car that I mentioned above, just bought one from a Bumi company after the frustrating experience with the Chinese car dealer.

Bottomline is, Dong Zong has to choose whether to hang on to their roots in China or to start planting new roots in Malaysia. In other words, Dong Zong has no choice but to be less Chinese and more Malaysian, or stop harping on equality, or better still, give up their citizenships. Whichever way, they can’t have everything their way. You win some and lose some, that’s what life is all about.

It is hard enough for this country to build its own identity, and many of us are still struggling to ‘identify’ our identity. So let’s not entertain Dong Zong who is doing nothing but trying to deviate us away from our noble cause