Any self-respecting Malaysian would know that the first step to being a legal contributing factor to the infamous Malaysian traffic jam (or was it strawberry?) is the Undang class. Which is what I attended today. Yes, that dreaded five hour ordeal of boredom. Or at least that's what every single person I talked said it would be like. No, you don't have to pay attention because he's just going to drone on and on about things you wouldn't bother knowing, and yes you can do your homework, sleep or even watch a movie. I, however, beg to differ. Because you see, my lecture today was rather different in nature to the standard issue Undang seminars that most poor souls have to put up with. I shall now explain how.
Our lecturer started off the day by making sure that everyone had clocked in using their thumbs, and repeatedly stressed the importance of clocking out once we were done because if we didn't we'd have to go through the whole damn thing all over again. What's so significant about this then? If you're a proper Malaysian you will know that typical government workers are never this thorough. In fact, most of the time they're not thorough at all. It was his attitude that really impressed me. Because I thought most brownies had the same 'tidak apa' attitude. So anyway, after that was done he made us introduce ourselves to the class, one by one. The whole process took about half an hour, and during that time I felt like I was in primary school all over again. It was then that I felt really appreciative about having a Malay-sounding name. Because, well, most of them have trouble pronouncing Chinese names properly the first time. Anyway, then it was my turn to introduce myself. I went 'Nama saya Shum...' and then everyone turned and looked at me. And you can probably imagine why. Heh.
Now here's the interesting part: Mr Shukri, or Mr S as he liked to be known, started off the day by showing us some really interesting videos. Videos demonstrating the exceptional skills and stunts our venerable Mat Rempits were capable of doing. Amont the usual wheelies and whatnots, one of the more unusual (at least to us) stunts were like when this dude was bloody standing on his bike and controlling the whole thing with his feet. And another pillion rider was bending over and literally sweeping the road with his head. This was the first part of the videos. And then things got really graphic: he started showing us videos of accidents. Real ones, not those made up videos by the JPJ. The first one was of a motorcyclist who obviously wasn't very aware of what was happening behind him getting rear-ended by a prime mover. Poor sod got separated from his bike (the things don't have seat belts, see) and went UNDERNEATH the huge wheels of the truck. This wasn't so bad, and by that I mean not too graphic. The most vomit-inducing picture was the one with a rempit whose body was literally split in half, guts lying all over the road. The most disturbing one, I feel, was the one where they showed a fallen rempit, still alive, blood everywhere, with his leg bone broken and PIERCING through his thigh. I nearly puked when I saw this one. Now the reason Mr S showed us such graphic picture was simple: he wanted to send us a message, a very clear and somber one. And I imagine you would be smart enough to be able to figure out what that message is.
After the first video session he started with the more regular stuff, with bits of humour thrown in every now and then. What I liked was that he didn't try to cover everything but just explained the important stuff, the ones he knew were most likely to come out in the test. And he showed us more entertaining videos between explanations. What made this particular class so different from any run-of-the-mill seminar was that the class of over 30 burst into laughter every five minutes, and this clearly demonstrates how entertaining our lecturer was. And about two hours into the class, he could see that some of us were obviously in dire need of some standing up and walking about. So what he did was to make us stand, turn to the right and.........rub each other's backs. I'm not kidding: Look!
However, entertaining as this class was, it provided a clear demonstration of some of the nasty habits unique only to Malaysians. Example: About an hour since the start of the session, a cell phone started ringing loudly. It belonged to a fat, brown hoodie. Now what was so extraordinary about this was that instead of reaching into her hand bag and silencing the offending phone, she repeatedly kicked said bag underneath her chair, picked it up and then clutched it tightly in her hands. I haven't the foggiest why she did this and neither did everyone else. Really, I was dumbf***ed. I assume it was because she thought squeezing her bag would somehow soften her flashy ringtone. But this was slightly acceptable, but only in the tiniest degree of acceptance. Because it is sometimes natural for us to forget to tell our phone to be quiet. What was infuriating was the fact that she didn't bother silencing her phone after that incident, because it rang not once but two more times. I'm not joking. I think her hood was preventing her brain from breathing and working properly. If she had one that is. To my dismay, however, it turns out that a lot more in the class were brainless imbeciles because a few more phones rang throughout the class. It's like as though the first ringing phone wasn't enough to serve as a reminder for everyone else to tell their beloved tellies to shut up. There was even this one time when two phones rang at the exact same time! I was like 'OMGWTF MR SHUKRI DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS' but I think he was too nice to do anything about that. Pity.
I shall now take the time to explain to you why having an exceptionally high metabolic isn't always a good thing. Let's get into some biology now, shall we? When someone, say, me, has the aforementioned metabolic rate, he or she has to eat more because the normal amount of food simply isn't enough. To say that I'm a big eater is an understatement, and all my mates will verify that. I need colossal amounts of food because my body digests food very, very quickly and therefore I need to chuck more eatables into my mouth to prevent my stomach from eating itself. And when my body digests food at a faster rate than 'normal' people, more waste is produced and therefore I produce more poop per unit time, or p/t if you like. Which means that my butthole gets a good working out, sometimes up to four times a day. And this is a bad thing, which I found out the hard way today. I felt the need to empty my bowels, halfway through the class, and I just shat right before coming! I was trying desperately to wait till I got home, because who in their right mind would want to use a Malaysian public toilet?
But all was in vain, and I had to pay a visit to the cubicle of doom. Which surprised me because it wasn't so bad after all. It was relatively clean, there was not much to smell BUT someone had stolen the toilet seat cover so I had to sit my poor butt on the cold, hard ceramic toilet seat.
During lunch I paid another visit to the feared restroom, this time to use the urinal and I found this:
It was at this point that I nearly gave up hope on the salvation of our kind (but I shall tell you that I'm not your typical Malaysian). Someone actually pooped in the friggin urinal! Yet again, I was dumbf***ed by the sanitary abilities of Malaysians, but then I thought: What if the culprit was someone like me, some poor sod who desperately needed to relieve himself but was unfortunate enough to visit the restroom at a time when all the other cubicles were occupied? Maybe he hadn't a choice? He had to relieve himself someway. But then again it could just be some idiot trying to be funny.
So anyway that's how I spent my day, watching locally produced gore horror movies and analyzing the nasty little habits of Malaysians. Before I go to bed, I want to tell you that the next time someone says 'For God's sake' to me I shall assume that you're trying to tell me that God is indeed an alcoholic. Goodnight and wet dreams.
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