The Malaysian Insider today has this story, ‘Pakatan wants heads to roll over 8TV Ramadan ad‘.
According to its report, the advertisement suggests that the Chinese girl (main character — here’s hoping this exposure will successfully launch your acting career on Planet Malaysian First, dear) was not properly dressed during an outing to the pasar Ramadan.
The 8TV ‘public service announcement’ was to signal the message “Do not wear tight and revealing clothes” in public during fasting month.
“In the next scene, the same girl is seen wearing a baju kurung [sic] and is greeted with smiles by the people in the bazaar,” reported the news portal.
The 8TV ad consists of three segments uploaded to YouTube. The ad suggests that the said English-speaking girl (note that she’s a Bangsar Malaysian Anak Bangsa and NOT from vernacular school, okay) was “loud”, “obnoxious”, “greedy”, “eating in public” and “inappropriately attired”.
The adjectives within quote marks above (taken from the 8TV ad itself) stereotype the Chinese ethnicity. This is also the worldview of the “multiracial” production crew that prepared the storyboard and filmed the ad.
Three Malay characters — so cute waaah, just like an ancient Greek chorus delivering homilies — then proceed to advise those who do not observe puasa to learn how to behave themselves when in the company of Malays who are fasting.
“Please understand and respect the significance of Ramadan” is the lesson of the month.
So when the Chinese girl — the quick learner that she is — immediately turns over a new leaf, for example, in learning not to point with the index finger as with Malay custom, as well as learning to wear a baju Kedah instead of singlet and mini skirt, she gets nods of approval from the Muslim community.
Insider later carried a follow-up story headlined ‘Media Prima pulls out ‘racist’ Ramadan ads‘ saying how the TV station pulled the plug on the ad after complaints by non-Muslims surfaced in the social media.
The scenario is this: Pakatan and their leaders the likes of Lim Kit Siang (who want 8TV heads to roll) are taking offence because they object to the way the Chinese girl is being condescendingly trained to behave and to dress ‘acceptably’.
Now my question is this: Pakatan MPs and state assemblywomen had before this already trained themselves to behave like good girls.
And these well-behaved ladies (from left: Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching, Bukit Lanjan Adun Elizabeth Wong and Subang Jaya Adun Hannah Yeoh, collectively known as the Selendang Squad) who are the much lauded role models to their electorate, eagerly turned themselves over without even any need of prompting from public service broadcast reminders. Clap, clap, clap.
So why is Pakatan only now making a fuss when it is the Umno-controlled TV monopoly doing the same?
After all, the illustrative models of the Good Behaviour training module are identical.
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Although the Ramadan ad has been taken down by 8TV, other YouTube users have put it back up again. An anthology of the three segments has been compiled by an account holder going by the handle ‘YummyChaSiuPork’ (video clip below).
Helen Ang 
Religions are designed to keep women backward. Maybe the men should wear dark glasses so that they cannot look at women.
Agreed, but with the arrival of Islam, previous religion that make woman as sex slave are liberated.
I am just curious, is this really what the Islamists and Muslim look forward? I meant that three stooges.
Hi Helen, great to find your blog. :-)
There is a big difference between the lady MPs dressing ‘accordingly’ and the moral guideline preached by the 8TV ad. Firstly, the MPs were either attending official functions or visiting mosques. It is understandable and in good faith, to be dressed appropriately.
Unfortunately the girl in the ad, Chinese or not, is deemed ‘insensitive’ by the way she dressed in a public place, a bazaar. That is so wrong.
Hi HH,
Glad you’re visiting.
(1) I too would dress appropriately, e.g. when I attended prayers for a friend’s father in a Sikh temple, I put a veil over my hair. It is good manners for a visitor to cover up when in places of worship requiring this. But Nie Ching, sad to say, was purely politicking when she did her mosque rounds. She even declared starting her own very determined surau-hopping campaign — that is until the S’gor religious dept stepped in by banning her.
(2) As for the other politicians, Elizabeth was photographed in a PAS venue/when meeting Nik Aziz, neither of which qualify as a mosque or a religious occasion. Hannah is a cheap publicity seeker and I needn’t say more.
(3) In my opinion, the ad featuring the over-acting Chinese girl was a deliberate slap down of the Chinese community by the TV station (you can read my full article here — 8TV Ramadan Ad Is Chickens Coming Home To Roost).
(4) I also think the 8TV ad is sick. However, just as sick is the showboating by the Pakatan pollies. When LKS and the rest display outrage over the ad, they’re in effect saying: Who are 8TV to dictate to Chinese women what they can and cannot wear in public as considered decent?
The question is should Chinese women stop wearing sleeveless tops in a non-religious or non-formal setting (e.g. formal would be NRD and other govt offices dealing with the public), which is also your implied point regarding moral guidelines and Muslims dictating to the rest of the country.
The point of my posting is the shameless double standards of Pakatan to be complaining now when they themselves earlier set the example of not only covering up to the toe but wearing tudung to boot.
Were the occasions genuinely requiring them to do so? The answer is ‘No’. Nie Ching was not photographed in tudung because she was inside the mosque. She was photographed with the surau committee presenting a cheque.
So obvious is DAP’s resort to all sorts of gimmicks to court the Malay voters. However, in their desperation to win over this electorate at any cost, they don’t give a toss about minority rights being eroded.
It’s quite simple really: Those who support the 8TV ad can now simply turn around and say ‘Leadership by example’. “If the Chinese, Christian wakil-wakil rakyat you have elected to represent you can eagerly wear tudung without even our (Malay-Muslim) prompting, is it that hard for you to stop wearing sleeveless blouses when you are around Malays/Muslims?”
Helen,
Though I understand your (and Shuzheng) pov perfectly but don’t you think this is how we shall progress in the long term, to give up something and gain back something?
I am still pondering the road ahead, I uphold diversity and I send my kids to CIS, I am less hypocrite compare to most that fight for mother tongue language, including the bunch of idiot from DAP, but I think I have to see thing from a wider perspective, I mean our Malay/Muslim friend viewpoint. Just like some who mention, our constitution is not cast in stone, our future generation should be more open and move toward an equilibrium.
Just asking.
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Dear Hua Yong,
I understand where you’re coming from. I also get it as to why the DAP supporters are willing to bend over backwards to fish Malay votes.
However from what we can see that has unfolded, the gains are only for DAP themselves to consolidate power and enjoy the fruits of power. For their desire to wrest control of Putrajaya.
Hindraf and the Indians have clearly seen the above situation — how they’ve been cast aside and their fate worse in the Pakatan states than ever under BN. Click this report on an Indian DAP assemblyman being thwarted by his own colleagues when he tried to help his community.
“Give some now to acquire longer term gains” is one strategy but can you trust DAP? Some might have noticed their hypocrisy but on top of that, they’re just plain dishonest. As such you cannot expect them to be ethical and attempt to reform the system — look at all the kowtowing they’ve done to the PAS agenda.
I’d go by the experiences of Iran and the French revolution. No doubt the popular uprising got rid of the corrupt Shah but there’s been no successful turning back from the theocratic state of Iran today, is there, despite the discontent among the younger generations?
In 1789, France saw the storming of the Bastille and the ouster of the monarchy but what followed was the Reign of Terror. The behaviour of the Pakatan rabble today is already in our face. Never have the MCA and Gerakan politicians and supporters stooped so low and so viciously to attack and gag their critics.
In a mere three years, there have been too many indications of how tyrannical Pakatan is capable of being. Let Pakatan check and balance the ruling party but as Uthaya has said, no blank cheque for Pakatan. No way!
Helen