Our Shameless/Shameful Love for Western Culture

Last Tuesday, we shamelessly watch as Chelsea fought Malaysia in a exhibit football match. The majority crowd are Malaysians shamelessly wearing Samsung Blue T-Shirts and showing placards of Blues worship.

They've waited hours for the boys in blue to pop up at the hotel and play at the Shah Alam stadium. And what did the Blues gave us in return? Nothing.

Eric Samuel of The Star's Sport Section wrote: “Most of them just walked past, with their ears plugged into their music. They didn’t seem to have much time for us, even though some fans were waving flags and cheering,”

We even welcomed them with elaborate Sarawakian cultural dances, and again the face of John Terry ignored them.

“From their faces, they must have been thinking, ‘Aiyoh what-lah, coming to this sakai (savages, a derogatory term for the orang asli) country’. At least stop and admire the dances for a little while-lah,” chips in another StarSport writer.

Is this how the Chelsea football team treated us? With lack of respect for Malaysian fans?

And if they disrespect our people & customs, why are we still treating them like gods?

I'm not bashing any Chelsea or EPL fan. Infact, i'm a Man United an. But unlike me, most Malaysians go around and worship their favourite EPL player like they're the second reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Andrew Sia who wrote a similar StarMag column, said "why do we so slavishly indulge in this West Worship, while receiving so little love back from our idols? Are we so lacking in self-worth?"

To answer the question: Yes, we are lacking in self-worth. And what's worse is that we do not realise it. For example: When Yasmin Ahmad's Mukhsin was released in 2006, it was sadly beaten in the box-office by Date Movie, which is by far the worst Hollywood movie ever made. If a touching Malaysian film like Mukhsin was beaten by a dumb film filled with fart jokes, then we Malaysians should be ashamed of ourselves.

And talking about football, the reason why Malaysians have total god-like support for EPL is because of our football team. Ever since the death of legends like Mokhtar Dahari, and the 1991 football match-fixing scandal that has cause the major shift in FAM, our team has gone from No. 60 in the FIFA ranking to No.192 last year. Malaysian football has become abysmal. The problems? unpaid players’ salaries, bankrupt state FA’s, politicians hogging posts, lack of grassroots development and bookies fixing matches have been dragging on for years. And the racial polarisation of the Malaysian Football team has caused a lack of multiracial support four our football development.

Therefore, we have a third world football mentality. Heck, we also have a third world infrastructure. I you remember 10 to 20 years ago, The Shah Alam stadium was the most beautifully done stadium in South East Asia. With a shape like a durian half-opened, it was lauded by critics as a work of art. Now, it looks like a piece of shit. Bad management, decaying walls, dull colours and smelly toilets have destroyed this stadium's reputation. It's no wonder why Mr. Scolari kept on moaning & bitching about the poor conditions of our stadium, especially when he's handling a team where his players are paid $670,000 per game.

But that's the small part of worshiping the West. It goes far beyond that. We treat Europeans & Americans like Kings when they travel to Malaysia. Besides the Petronas Twin Towers, most of our buildings in KL are copied by the West. And while there are rape cases happening in universities like Limkokwing & UM, we send off Mat Rempits from Rembau to prestigious British universities like Oxford. And while crap like Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love" keeps playing in your iPods & your Sony Ericsson/Nokia Xpress Music phones, i am still waiting for someone to play Hujan on their iPod. Infact, whenever someone tries to play that annoying Leona Lewis song, i'll take my imitation MP3 player and play an ambient song from Ibiza or Hujan's "Pagi Yang Gelap" because that song makes me more Malaysian than a sleeping Prime Minister.

But even if we’re going to worship the Western culture with the Leona Lewises and the Chelseas, let’s at least worship them properly. Let’s revere not only the external stuff, like their football players, but also the deeper substances like the professional sports management, youth skills development and corruption-free leagues that has allowed great players like Beckham, Ronaldo & Terry to emerge. So that one day, we will have players that can storm the World Cup, as South Korea & japan did in 2002. And we must remember that Malaysia can also produce good quality exports, like Hujan, Yasmin Ahmad's films, Bass Agents, the Satria Neo and the Petronas Twin Towers.

Because if we don't, then we'll be stuck with douchebags in KL & Subang playing annoying Western music wearing a Chelsea Jersey while our patriotism will fade away in a whimper.

NOTE: I'm pretty sure that i have some vocab & spelling mistakes in my post. And yes, i do dislike Leona Lewis. And if you think that i've stolen bits from the StarMag article, well to be honest i want to write my own view of this subject and therefore don't be misled.