Where have all the Chinese gone?

THE numbers have finally hit home. For years, the country’s Chinese population has been decreasing steadily but now it’s officially recognised that Penang is no longer a Chinese majority state.

Last week, a Chinese newspaper highlighted that there were now 18,000 more Malays this year than Chinese in the state.

Quoting Penang Statistics Department director Wan Mohamad Noor Wan Mahmood, Nanyang Siang Pau reported that there were about 650,000 Chinese in Penang, making up about 43% of the total population in 2005, but this was expected to drop to 40.9% this year.

Read the rest of this week's On The Beat column here.

No need to tick off voters...

STAND-UP comic Harith Iskandar is the product of Malay-English parentage. He has acted in plays and movies speaking in Bahasa Malaysia and earns a living telling jokes, mostly in English with some Malay and Chinese words thrown in.

He has been telling his audiences that he plans to get married soon with a woman of Chinese-Indian parentage. “I do not know how our children will fill up those forms. I think they will have to tick every box – Malay, Chinese, Indian and lain-lain.”

The predominantly Chinese crowd in Petaling Jaya roared when he asked when Malaysians could stop having to state their racial background. Then he delivered his punch line: “But I am a Malaysian first.” His listeners were on their feet by then, which goes to show how much the issue had struck a chord with urban Malay­sia.

For the rest of the column, click here.

Sugar, spice and everything nice...

NEVER mind if it was only for a week but the voters in sleepy Hulu Selangor have never had it so good. Malaysians would know by now that a by-election is the best thing to happen after a general election in this country.

In a general election, the campaign is spread out across the 222 constituencies and media attention is focused only on certain areas, those regarded as hot seats with key personalities. Thus, a constituency like Hulu Selangor would not be on the media radar screen.

To follow the rest of my column, click here.

To follow live the Hulu Selangor by-election today, click here.

Treat the verbal diarrhoea

MALAYSIA is spending millions of ringgit trying to repair its image overseas but plenty of taxpayers’ money can be saved if our politicians exercise some self-restraint with their statements.

The foot-in-the-mouth disease seems to be rampant and many of us wonder why they even make these statements in the first place.

We are talking about politicians from both sides of the political divide whose astounding statements often make world headlines for the wrong reasons. Little do they realise the serious implications involved, including loss of foreign direct investments.

Read the rest of my column here.

Why harp on a non-issue?

IT’S strange that some of us should find it difficult to identify ourselves first by our nationality and then only by our ethnicity. Yet, when we are overseas, none of us, including the politicians, have any qualms calling ourselves as Malaysians first.

When we fill up the immigration forms before we enter a foreign country, they only want to know our nationality and the passports we carry.

Really, they don’t give two hoots about our race or religion. They may want to know our gender or marital status but beyond that, no country, Malaysia included, really wants to know more than is required.

This is from my On The Beat column today. To read the full comment, please click here.

Up close and personal with Stephen Hawkings

I had an exclusive interview with Prof Stephen Hawkings (his daughter Lucy on the right) in Cambridge last month. Read the story in the Star Online link here, here and here.

Not a good year for the big cats

The tiger occupies a position of prestige in many of our country’s symbols. As such, there are plenty of reasons for us to protect and conserve our tigers. Read my column here.