Lion City fattens kitty, M'sians get petty
opinion
The reluctance of Chinese Malaysian swains to join the Cupid Club is quite understandable - they are all exhausted from the world chair-hurling championships.Organisers for Sunday's Wanita MCA love festival say that all the places for women are taken, but eligible bachelors are hard to find.
It should not be too difficult as statistics show that there are nearly two men for every female in the 25 to 29 age grouping. Perhaps, organisers should scour the hospitals in the wake of the chair-hurling antics by MCA youth members.
Malaysia got thrashed in hockey and lost out to the UK in the junior squash world championships, but has at last found a sport where it can be the world champions. Even lawmakers in Taiwan, acknowledged as the most pugilistic MPs in Asia, would be wary of tackling the MCA Youth team.
The nation should certainly introduce chair-hurling as an annual competition with Singapore, with the certain prospect being better at it than the island republic. Even the Wanita MCA Cupid Club seems to be a copy of Singapore's attempts at matchmaking.
Currently, there seems little let up in the rivalry between the two neighbors. In the latest slanging match, a group of university students in Johor Baru became an overnight literary sensation with a book listing the cardinal sins of the invaders from across the Causeway.
A university project, with each student listing the 10 worst attributes of Singaporeans visiting Johor Baru on shopping sprees, ended up as a runaway best seller.
Among the perceived peccadilloes of the Singaporeans, arrogance and braggadocio tipped the personality flaws. The students, who didn't like to be looked down upon as the country cousins in the shanty town across the Causeway, were annoyed by the constant punching of calculators by Singaporeans and upset at the constant cries of 'everything is so cheap'.
Singaporeans were cited as reckless drivers, avoiding prosecution for traffic offenses by nipping back over the Causeway and bad sports on the golf course. Most of the membership of Johor's health spas and golf courses, with fees too high for Malaysians, are Singaporeans.
There is also a growing number of Singaporeans dashing across the Causeway to take advantage of much cheaper healthcare.
Premiership league
Needless to say, the book didn't go down very well with the media in Singapore, provoking considerable debate. However, resentment at Singaporeans does not stop more than 60,000 Malayasians travelling daily to the island republic, as salaries are three times higher than in Johor.
Malaysia now has the added grouch that the gap in the two economies, in terms of quality of companies and international reputation, if not size, is becoming a chasm. Singapore's policy of boldly stepping on the regional and global stage, with its major multi-nationals replacing the Japanese as the M&A; carnivores of Asia, is a stark contrast to the attitude of the inward-looking Malaysian Government.
The aggressive moves by Singaporean companies to look beyond their own shores to ensure survival in an increasingly competitive global market have further separated the island republic from the Southeast Asia pack.
Singapore, despite announcing a technical recession, is now in its own division. In British soccer terms, Singapore is the Manchester United of the premiership league, followed by Malaysia, heading up the first division. Thailand is now competing in the third division along with the Philippines and Indonesia, while the rest of the South-East Asian pack are languishing in the fourth division.
The gap between Northeast Asia and Southeast had been well documented. The development of Taiwan, Japan and South Korea has been in the hands of multi-nationals that have become household names worldwide.
Japan boasts the likes of Sony, Honda, Toyota, Toshiba and Mazda to name a few while South Korea has Hyundai, Samsung and LG. Taipei can chip in with Acer, Formosa Plastics Group, Tuntex and Evergreen.
Organisers for Sunday's Wanita MCA love festival say that all the places for women are taken, but eligible bachelors are hard to find.
It should not be too difficult as statistics show that there are nearly two men for every female in the 25 to 29 age grouping. Perhaps, organisers should scour the hospitals in the wake of the chair-hurling antics by MCA youth members.
Malaysia got thrashed in hockey and lost out to the UK in the junior squash world championships, but has at last found a sport where it can be the world champions. Even lawmakers in Taiwan, acknowledged as the most pugilistic MPs in Asia, would be wary of tackling the MCA Youth team.
The nation should certainly introduce chair-hurling as an annual competition with Singapore, with the certain prospect being better at it than the island republic. Even the Wanita MCA Cupid Club seems to be a copy of Singapore's attempts at matchmaking.
Currently, there seems little let up in the rivalry between the two neighbors. In the latest slanging match, a group of university students in Johor Baru became an overnight literary sensation with a book listing the cardinal sins of the invaders from across the Causeway.
A university project, with each student listing the 10 worst attributes of Singaporeans visiting Johor Baru on shopping sprees, ended up as a runaway best seller.
Among the perceived peccadilloes of the Singaporeans, arrogance and braggadocio tipped the personality flaws. The students, who didn't like to be looked down upon as the country cousins in the shanty town across the Causeway, were annoyed by the constant punching of calculators by Singaporeans and upset at the constant cries of 'everything is so cheap'.
Singaporeans were cited as reckless drivers, avoiding prosecution for traffic offenses by nipping back over the Causeway and bad sports on the golf course. Most of the membership of Johor's health spas and golf courses, with fees too high for Malaysians, are Singaporeans.
There is also a growing number of Singaporeans dashing across the Causeway to take advantage of much cheaper healthcare.
Premiership league
Needless to say, the book didn't go down very well with the media in Singapore, provoking considerable debate. However, resentment at Singaporeans does not stop more than 60,000 Malayasians travelling daily to the island republic, as salaries are three times higher than in Johor.
Malaysia now has the added grouch that the gap in the two economies, in terms of quality of companies and international reputation, if not size, is becoming a chasm. Singapore's policy of boldly stepping on the regional and global stage, with its major multi-nationals replacing the Japanese as the M&A carnivores of Asia, is a stark contrast to the attitude of the inward-looking Malaysian Government.
The aggressive moves by Singaporean companies to look beyond their own shores to ensure survival in an increasingly competitive global market have further separated the island republic from the Southeast Asia pack.
Singapore, despite announcing a technical recession, is now in its own division. In British soccer terms, Singapore is the Manchester United of the premiership league, followed by Malaysia, heading up the first division. Thailand is now competing in the third division along with the Philippines and Indonesia, while the rest of the South-East Asian pack are languishing in the fourth division.
The gap between Northeast Asia and Southeast had been well documented. The development of Taiwan, Japan and South Korea has been in the hands of multi-nationals that have become household names worldwide.
Japan boasts the likes of Sony, Honda, Toyota, Toshiba and Mazda to name a few while South Korea has Hyundai, Samsung and LG. Taipei can chip in with Acer, Formosa Plastics Group, Tuntex and Evergreen.
Singapore is the only Southeast Asian country to currently have multi-nationals that are equally well-known. Singapore has made news in the region with the likes of Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Singapore Telecom (SingTel) vying for Air New Zealand and Optus of Australia.
SingTel and Singapore Airlines, listed among the top ten Asian companies in a survey of top regional and international business magazines for more than a decade, represent only a few of a growing number of Singaporean companies that are aiming to become international giants.
Singapore's banks, the Development Bank of Singapore and the United Overseas Bank, have been on major acquisition drives throughout Asia.
Few expatriates outside of Malaysia could come up with the name of a single Malaysian bank. The island's brokerages are among the most aggressive in the region. Singapore brokerages have widespread interests in Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Only Japan and Hong Kong rival Singapore as a financial market.
Recently, Singapore has announced a 'big bang' in its banking sector with new licences being offered to foreign banks. The telco sector is also being opened up to foreign competition.
Too far ahead
Singapore has quietly been expanding its regional interests long before the latest outcry by several Australian tycoons at the island's predatory moves. The Singapore government, with its many investment arms cloaked in secrecy, has built a huge empire of regional investments.
Singapore, with investors making major inroads into the US recently, is one of the biggest investors in Asia, along with Taiwan and Japan. It recently took top spot in Thailand over Japan and the US.
The island's expansionist mood accounts for Singapore, in sensing a new international trading trend, now being a forerunner in Southeast Asia for signing bilateral trade deals with its main trading partners.
Malaysia, with its head in the sand, more concerned about internal political developments, has watched on, arguing loudly that free trade deals give the West a back-door entrance to the Asian Free Trade Area (Afta).
Malaysian companies are too busy unraveling massive debt to have much time for looking offshore. It is hard to find a single company that can be said to be a household name. Malaysia Airlines, floundering in red ink, cannot be mentioned in the same breath with SIA.
The national car, Proton, is not that high up the wish list of overseas drivers. Petronas, the owner of Asia's tallest buildings, has exploration interests in Indonesia and China but Malaysia's Telekom, slow and unwieldy, is preoccupied with the domestic market.
Maxis, the telco group, is the only carrier looking overseas, seeking to break into the Singaporean market. YTL Power, which owns a third of an Australian power utility, is seeking to build plants in Singapore. Tenaga can boast of being Southeast Asia's biggest power utility, but little else.
Malaysian entrepreneurs have a reputation in Asia for moving into a country, signing up big deals and then not following up. Cambodia is still waiting for a Malaysian hotel and casino development to go ahead.
The country does have aggressive entrepreneurs, but they are mainly in the property sector. There are four Malaysians, including sugar and Hong Kong media baron Robert Kwok, in the Fortune 500.
By the time corporate Malaysia wakes up, Singapore will be too far ahead to catch up. Singaporeans snapping up diapers at Johor Baru supermarkets are the least of Malaysia's worries.
ALICE WONDER is the pseudonym of a leading Australian newspaper's senior correspondent based in Malaysia who has 25 years experience as a journalist, 18 of them in Asia.
