Sunday, August 23, 2009

Letter to Ambassador Jean Todt

I got this in the mail the other day... Art Harun is hilarious!
Some GT-R bits in there too.... *laughs* Enjoy!




FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009

Dear Mr Todt,

I am an average Malaysian busybody. And also a petrol head. I am about
to shower on you the usual Malaysian hospitality.

On behalf of all average Malaysians, I would like to congratulate you
on being accepted by our Government into the Malaysian 2nd Home
scheme. I could see that you are well pleased as your application was
approved "faster than a Ferrari", to borrow your words. You see, our
Government is very efficient. If they want to. That is. But frankly Mr
Todt, that was not fast enough. Because Ferraris are not that fast.
You should have said, "faster than a Nissan GTR". Now, that would be
damn fast!

May I welcome you to Malaysia, your second home. I am sure you will be
pleased to bits to be here. Frankly, you will feel at home here. There
are so many Ferraris on the road here. And they all drive within the
speed limit, namely, 110. But of course they forget, the 110 shown on
the Ferrari's speedometer is in mph. At the F1 track, there are also
many Ferraris, although, quite strangely, some of them could be seen
resting in the gravel trap at turn 13. I don't really know why.

You may want to know what an "average" Malaysian is. Allow me to
describe. Average Malaysians are simple men and women. In the good old
Great Britain, they might be referred to as "the simpletons". But you
must remember, in Malaysia, there are 2 categories of "simple" people.

First, there are simple people with entitlements to a lot of things.
Like flying first class on tax payers' money. Like making technical
trips to Disneyland, Dubai or where ever. Like staying in Presidential
suites at 5 star hotels and being driven in a limousine rented for
more than RM2000 a day. These are simple people with entitlements and
also with simple tastes.

The second category are the simple people without entitlement. These
are people like myself. You can meet these people on the streets of
Malaysia, in the LRT, LCCT or at the Central Market in KL. Their
Disneyland is in Ulu Kelang. Their Presidential suite is in their own
terrace houses. And they are driven daily in buses which also,
sometime, double up as mobile caskets!

I was looking at your picture with your pretty girlfriend the other
day Mr Todt. Gosh, you look old! But don't fret. In Malaysia, you can
get easy and cheap treatment for your old look and start looking
younger by the day. You just have to eat what most simple men eat in
Malaysia. We call it "tempe" (pronounced "tempt-pay"). Eat that stuff
dude. You will look younger in no time. But it won't make you any
taller though, sadly. Or any longer, for that matter.

If you are feeling a tad tired in bed, fret not Mr Todt. In Malaysia,
we do not take viagra. We take a herb called Tongkat Ali. I tell you.
We have Tongkat Ali coffee. We also have Tongkat Ali tea. Even Tongkat
Ali isotonic drinks we have. The other day, I even saw Tongkat Ali
toothpaste. Although I must confess that it escaped me as to the exact
functions of the Tongkat Ali in a toothpaste. Soon I heard, Petronas
might have a Tongkat Ali premium fuel for cars like your Ferraris.
Perhaps, with that fuel, your Scuderia or Maranello might be able to
be nearer to the GTR's tailpipe on the track. Just perhaps.

There are several things which you cannot do in Malaysia Mr Todt.
First of all, you cannot, ever ever, mention the name of a certain
dead Mongolian woman. No. You cannot do that. You see, I am not even
mentioning it. Not only that. You cannot read about her too. Or hear
news about her. No, you cannot. Remember that.

If you did, you might be arrested and put in the lock up. Oh no. You
wouldn't want that to happen Mr Todt. In the lock up, you might turn
crazy and beat yourself with certain blunt, hard, but flexible (let me
repeat that, "but flexible") object. This may cause lacerations and
deep wounds on your body. But again, do not fret Mr Todt. Because if
you do not suffer from an "underlying acute myocarditis", you will be
okay. Meaning, you won't die. You will only die if you have that
condition. Otherwise, you may continue to whack yourself silly with
the blunt, hard but very flexible object and nothing will happen to
you. You might froth in the mouth, like the first time you saw Ms
Yeoh, but you will not die. Don't worry.

Speaking of being worried, are you worried about your safety in
Malaysia? If you do, just call the Home Ministry. It will organise
your detention under the Internal Security Act, in order to protect
your safety. You can then wine and dine in a dimly lit dungeon. A
blunt, hard, but very flexible, object might be given to you for
further safety. By the way, while we are talking about safety, you may
not want to go anywhere near a place in KL called Chow Kitt. That
place, mind you, is so unsafe that even a police beat was closed down
because the police were feeling unsafe!

Do you like reality TV Mr Todt? If you do, Malaysia is the place for
you. You can choose from an array of reality TV shows. We have all the
reality TV shows from the US and UK. But if you prefer local ones,
there are also a hell of a lot.

The thing is, Malaysia - the whole Malaysia, that is - is a reality
show by itself. But the voting takes place only once in 4 or 5 years.
The current reality show started on March the 8th last year. The
voting will take place within the next 4 years or so. But sometime,
just to test the ground, there will be "mini-voting". Just to allow
all Malaysians a chance to show their voting trend in the big one in 4
years time. So far, we already had 5 mini voting.

Ask Ms Yeoh. She might be able to tell you who is leading in this
reality show. But then again, this show is so full of twists and turns
that you will never know. Just sit back and observe Mr Todt. I am sure
there is no other show on earth which is better than this Malaysian
reality show. In fact, this blog, and this whole business of you being
accepted into this Second home thingy is also a part of the show!
Wooo....you are now an actor Bro!

One more thing that you might notice soon Mr Todt is that we are
obsessed with the phrase "social contract". Everyone is talking about
it, including me. But nobody has ever seen it. Nope. Nobody. I will
leave it to you then to surmise whether we, Malaysian, are a
hallucinating and delusional lot.

Then there is the mainstream mass media. These are local TV channels
and local newspapers. You can of course watch the news on these
channels. Or read them from the local newspapers. May I suggest
however that after you had done that, please read the same news on the
internet. You will find there are differences between the one which
you read in the newspapers or watch on the local TV and the one which
you read on the net. You are of course at liberty to believe which
ever version you like. You would not however be wrong to opine that
Malaysian journalists are a schizophrenic lot.

You might not be used to some of our concepts here Mr Todt. In your
country, you pay taxes. Your Government then use your taxes to provide
amenities for you and all citizens. However, in Malaysia, despite your
taxes, you still have to pay tolls for using the highways and pay
money for some people to take care of your sewage, for example. You
pay duties on your cars and also road tax to use the same. You pay
fees for broadband services but you only get slow internet connection
and when you ask the provider what the hell is going on, they would
say sorry Sir, the speed is on best endeavour basis. Well, sometime,
when you are tired, you might just say best endeavour my fu@#ing foot,
you cheats!

You will find, Mr Todt, that in the corporate world, Malaysia is quite
unique. For example, we have a monopoly business making a 900 million
loss! The CEO of that company then became CEO of the year!Then we have
a government fund management company whose investment shrunk by 10
billion and instead of raising questions, their fund portfolio is
increased by 10 billion too! Then we have a company which cannot
deliver ships which they were supposed to build for whatever billions.
In your country, the buyer of the ships would terminate the contract
and sue the pants off of the ship builder. But here we give extension
of time to the builder and voluntarily increase the price of the ships
by a couple more billions! And until now the ships are nowhere to be
seen. Then we have some kind of a port service area built for
gazellions but it is not utilised.

Yes Mr Todt, we are a bit different from the others. Perhaps because
we take Tongkat Ali.

May you enjoy your stay in Malaysia Mr Todt.

yours sincerely,

H. Art

ps if you must know, Ferraris are lame!

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