Look East Policy

When Dr. M suggested the look East policy, he was actually asking us Malaysians to glance our eyes upon Japanese looking people like me.

Now, a lot of Malaysians like sushi and watch anime.

Dr. M himself opened his restaurant, 'The Loaf' which is based on Japanese technology in bakery.

More importantly, there are a lot of Japanese half breeds like i am. I am Japanese, not Jawanese, and you are not.

Proton cars, yes, they are like me, half breeds. Malaysian cars with either Mitsubishi designs or engines complementing them. Mixed marriage. But if this machine fusion is an indicator of how a Japanese and Malaysian human marriage would turn out, then i suggest you not to tie the knot with any Sakura, Kukiko or Kaoru. Just read all the testimonials of Proton users and you will be left wondering what would be the fate of your children. Better not and never.

Reading Prof. Dzulkifli Abdul Razak's column this morning, i keep thinking, 'what are the cultural artefacts could we really classify as Malaysian culture?". Our cars are not really Malaysian 100%. Chinese and Indians brought their culture from their mainland. Now the Malays are accused of shoplifting Indonesian culture by some journalists who go by the name of either Susilo, Wijayanta, or Markisa.

Now, attempts are being made to culturalize our kuih muih to become some sort of national identity or emblem so that some day, some Englishmen who bear the names of either David, Beckham, Michael or Owen (yes, the ones who ruled our country) will never claim those kuih muihs were invented by them.

"Kek Lapis Apollo tu, I yang buat tau," will probably be some of the stereotypical lines you may here from some Victoria, Diana or Margaret who had learned to prepare such cuisines while they colonized our land.

It is a well known fact that the English, while colonizing the land of Muthusamy, Ramalingam and Chandra, discovered that the locals were playing a game called poona. The English took it back to England, reburbished it and renamed it badminton.

What will be the fate of our kuih muihs? Only time will tell.

But knowing Malaysia, as the Prof testifies, these are just mere attempts that will never transpire.

Our dreams of seeing "karipap (R)" or "karipap (TM) will never see the light of day.

All i can say is, the Malaysian culture is a complicated culture. Even in the Islamic lifestyle of ours, there are a lot of cultural mix up which could still be traced until today.

Now, we go back to Japan.

According to Dr. M's blog, the Liberal Democratic Party, the party which had been ruling the country since post world war 2, lost against Democratic Party in the recent elections.

Since we like to learn from the Japanese, will there be any changes in the political sphere of Malaysia?

And so, in the end, could we hypothesize that the policy was successful?

PS : The title was meant to promote my blog to some 3rd or 4th graders who are finding out what the real 'Look East Policy' is all about for their History assignments.