Melting Pot Malaysia

Has anyone noticed a slew of foreign television programs coming to our cable networks lately? Since I was hit by a spell of sheer ennui last night - and since there was nothing particularly tantalizing on the other channels, I surfed through several of the aforementioned foreign channels to get a taste. To my astonishment, we not only have Middle-eastern pseudo-belly dancers and Venezuelan viragos raging at each other, we also have teary-eyed Filipinas and squabbling Taiwanese families.

Seems like we are truly becoming quite a cosmopolitan place. If I hadn't gotten a clue from the veritable United Nations roster of names that comes through the hospital admissions, I'd have gotten that just from the sheer variety of channels that we have here. Wouldn't surprise me if we suddenly had a channel catering solely to the wandering Inuits.

What amuses me about the channels is the surprising lack of subtitles. Always makes me wonder how the regular Malaysian viewer is expected to understand what exactly is going on - or have all my fellow Malaysians suddenly turned into multi-lingual geniuses ( fluent in Tagalog, Thai, Portuguese, Arabic etc. ) when I had my back turned? Surely the channels aren't broadcasted solely to cater to the foreign workers? Although I'm sure we have some genially benevolent bosses around, I seriously doubt that the average salaried foreign worker would have satellite dishes installed in their cramped cellblocks - not to mention that it would seriously interfere with the makeshift shower that they've installed just outside.

I could write a whole article about makeshift open showers and hot, half-naked foreign workers but I won't - since I'm trying to maintain some semblance of decorum.


Just imagine me under a shower...
So while watching a sentimental Vietnamese tearjerker, my father and I started making up wild stories for the tragic family - in lieu of having the true subtitles to guide us in our interpretation. Yeah, it's obvious where my wacky reprehensible sense of humour came from. So the simple conservative Vietnamese family drama ( at least that's what I was cheerfully informed later by Big Bicep Barry, a surprisingly cunning linguist ) soon turned into a heaving emotional pool of licentiousness, homosexuality and murder as the protagonists wept and wailed over their torn ao dais.

Barry : It was a story of a son finding his long-lost parents.
Paul : Seriously? I thought the guy was having an affair with an older ailing woman and his slutty sister was sleeping with the lecherous neighbour.
Barry : It's not Wisteria Lane.

Thought I liked my version better. Maybe that's why they leave out the subtitles.