YOURSAY | Scoring political points on communist-themed restaurant

YOURSAY | 'It's irresponsible for an Umno leader to suggest a communist movement in Penang…'

Police not tickled by Penang restaurant's 'humorous' communist theme

The Way Home: It is utterly irresponsible and drastically misleading for Umno supreme council member Mohd Razlan Rafii to suggest the existence of a communist movement in Penang over the mere display of wallpaper art depicting Chinese motifs with the purpose to attract customers.

Targeting such an essential food outlet, particularly during a period when available resources should be productively utilised to safeguard the health and safety of our citizens during the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, would be considered not only highly irresponsible and mischievous, but has the potential to invite unnecessary condemnation that such action was racially-motivated because its owner is Chinese.

Living in a multiracial society, the onus is on the apparently opportunistic Razlan to realise that better understanding and matured sensitivity should be exercised to ensure that the harmonious cohesion between the different races in our country is maintained and not for anyone to selfishly engage in a nefarious agenda to score political mileage at the expense of innocent businesspersons of another race.

BusinessFirst: Odd. Parody is treated as a great offence in restaurant decorations, and shadows of LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) are treated as threats to national security.

All this, while some who are associated with IS (Islamic State) and their families are flown back at the expense of the rakyat from places like the Middle East.

Let's not even begin to talk about the hypocrisy of whether a parody exhorting others to patronise a Mao Zedong-themed restaurant can be problematic when Malaysia has good relations with China.

All this, when there are other problems like how corruption is rife in Malaysia or the challenging fight against Covid-19 and issues like “where is the vaccine”?

Twelve percent of Israel has already been vaccinated. Is it God’s will that we will be exposed to the virus for longer or is it human incompetence?

I cannot help but feel that this is just a tightening of the screws on Penang. First, cancel projects. Then prosecute leaders. Next, stop iconic activities like the ferry and finally, this, to demoralise the populace.

IndigoKite6964: Although it is not illegal, it is distasteful, especially for those of us who lived through the Emergency involving the armed revolt by the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). The living memory still exists and I believe these youngsters just overdid it.

Nonetheless, China is officially a socialist country with communist elements. This was announced by Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Although Mao is still highly regarded by the people of China, his memory is slowly but surely being crowded out by socialism and the highly capitalistic bias of modern China.

Nonetheless, our Malay leaders found communism halal when they sucked up the money thrown at them and former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak could not get enough of them, including China in many deals throughout the entire country.

If Najib had his way, there will be no issues with this Mao-themed restaurant in Penang.

Blueeagle: What idiots. Hunan cuisine is also known as ‘mao jia cai’ or ‘Mao family cuisine’ since Mao’s home province is Hunan.

There's a famous chain of Hunan cuisine restaurants called Mao Jia Cai. They even have some outlets in Singapore with its signature red decor featuring images of Mao.

Pandak: This may seem trivial to most people. But, if you are old enough to experience the Japanese occupation and the communist movement in Malaysia when atrocities were rampant (or actually read Malaysian history), you may find the police action somewhat understandable.

Business with China yes, why not? It only makes good business sense. But if you’ve worked in China for a while, you will notice why Malaysia is a better place to live in. Even the CEOs in China are afraid of their communist government.

Joe Lho: So when are the police going to raid all Japanese restaurants for ‘promoting’ the Japanese occupation? When are they going to raid western restaurants for ‘promoting’ Western values?

Iphonezours: Malaysia has yet to reach a matured state to really distinguish between creative art and reality.

Our largest trading partner is communist China, we are getting vaccines from communist China, we are getting loan assistance for railway projects from communist China, we welcome hordes of tourists from communist China, etc.

It’s better for the police to focus on real police work - eradicating all the spoilt apples in the force when they are perceived to be corrupt.

Spinnot: Can Chinese tourists and businesspersons bring Chinese yuan banknotes to Malaysia? After all, a picture of Mao is printed on one side of the banknotes.

Vijay47: This is truly cooking up a storm, a spicy serving of tasty life in Malaysia these days. One side of the dish reflects our best friends from across the South China Sea, the other side houses “dangerous infiltrators” out to take over the country.

When they sell food with or without horse meat, they are mortal enemies. When their trains along the east coast bring wagon-loads of money for politicians, they are our ‘ho pang yeow’ (good friends)!

It is said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Maybe. Then again, there is food and there is food. Non-halal food passed off as halal seems to be not that big a problem. Kangaroo rules, okay?

And right across the street, a restaurant selling rice, meen kolambu (fish curry), and kozhi varuvel (fried chicken)? Watch out, the LTTE have landed!

Show some people a pair of chopsticks and they literally see red!

Quad: First, it was festive greetings, then displaying greetings on cakes, and now posters. Why are the politicians and authorities going after such petty stuff when we have bigger issues to tackle?

Is this all part of distraction and diversion tactics to keep our selfish politicians in their positions?

Rupert16: The country is now being run by leaders who are so fearful of everything except corruption.

It looks like this is a tactic to divert attention and/or to use communism, which is no longer politically relevant in our country, as a bogeyman to prep the Malays for the 15th general election.

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