Singapore - BH used to be ‘bapa‘s paper‘ read by the head of the house; a PMEB said. ‘Even my wife reads it (now), especially during weekends, for the shopping and eating.‘
The hackneyed ‘come a long way‘ was much in evidence at BH‘s Achiever of the Year Award 2007 dinner at Ritz-Carlton.
A member of the community said: ‘The Singapore Malay is proud of achievement on his own. If in Malaysia (success) would have come with government support, you get less satisfaction with a handout.
‘Malaysia has more ‘gotong royong‘ spirit, it‘s not about the individual.
‘Here we are also more English-oriented today, and that means we have lost some of our Malay language skills.‘
The times they are a-changing, and how. The first issue of BH in July of 1957 carried three advertisements - Embassy Records; Capstan cigarettes and Red Lion, the lemonade of choice of actress Maria Menado (famed for her Pontianak role).
Now pick up Berita Minggu and ads abound on sihat (health) and cantik (beauty), education, where to take your graduation photos, bridal, wedding buffets, crystal, travel, car, property, kindergartens and prostate pills.
And the ad that says it all - Roza Sure Bagus one-stop solution (housing woes).
Singaporean London-based fashion designer Ashley Isham, 29, received his award from the guest-of-honour, SM Goh Chok Tong.
Isham thanked his mother Madam Rokiah Abu, a part-time tailor, for her support. He rushed to hug her, gotong still very royong in the Malay community; it‘s about family, it‘s about greeting each other hand-to-heart.
‘Little India still looks like Little India, but Chinatown no longer looks like Chinatown,‘ an Indian media person puffed at me at the Tamil Murasu 72nd anniversary lunch.
He was illustrating one of the main traits of the Indian - ‘Passion!‘
He reminded: ‘Indians have made cultural, intellectual and structural contributions to Singapore. Don‘t forget our forefathers built the infrastructure, roads!‘
More exclamation marks ahead as two others piped in.
‘Indians in Singapore are a minority but have throughout punched above their weight,‘ said one.
Said another: ‘Our contribution is much larger than our size suggests.‘
A travel agent told me that Singapore Indians will say they are Singaporeans when in India and Indians when in Singapore...
‘Don‘t you do the same in China?‘ He had me there.
We retreated to the curries, fish head and vegetable and mutton and chicken and biryani and poppadums.
A Chinese lady publisher, said: ‘I never miss any TM event. I can be sure of a good lunch.‘ This was followed by a debate about the origins of fish head curry. Singapore, not Tamil Nadu.
Join any two, three Indians and it‘ll be a lively learning curve. Amazement at non-Indians who ask if real life is like the movies, especially the singing...
Father who insists son wears chapal (sandal) out and removes it at home and speaks Tamil at home and English outside.
How television is spoiling the language, culture and attitude.
Why parents must make it compulsory for their children to attend temple.
First question you ask of prospective son-in-law: what has the boy studied.
I studied the Bollywood/
Kollywood page of TM and deduced that the action was all happening on the 4th floor of the Textile Centre in Jalan Sultan.
But you will need half a day, all the films are at least 3 1/2 hours long.
Source: www.newpaper.asia1.com (6 Agustus 2007)