Life is like a bag of chips – full of air and all mashed-up.
Hot sunny afternoon and terrible traffic - a fact of life for anyone commuting between Gombak and Sungai Buloh everyday - had me thinking about... ice-cream. So I stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way home and get me one, plus a bag of spring onion and garlic flavored potato chips. The ice-cream was gone in about 30 seconds, but I didn't start on the chips until I got home, work clothes off, on my bed.
Ever noticed that the chips sold here are labeled “For Sale In Malaysia Only”? I wonder why that is; maybe the government subsidizes junk food too like they subsidize everything else from sugar to rice to petrol. It wouldn’t a surprise, really. Those big-shot junk-food manufacturers could very well be extremely well connected. Or, perhaps the chips sold in this country have some special ingredient we don’t want foreigners to have a taste at. Why else, then, that they only put “permissible flavorings” and permissible colorings” as the ingredients? We Malaysians only have to trust the Man that whatever permissible chemicals they put in there are actually edible and don’t give you cancer. Mind-control drug? Funny too, that the packaging also has labeling in French, for something meant to be sold only in Malaysia; perhaps for the benefit of our Vietnamese guest workers. The Indonesians can read Malay, while the Bangladeshis and Myanmarese can read English. We Malaysians love our guest workers.
The first week of every semester is time for us lecturers to play hide and seek – hiding from students appealing to join your class. It is “add and drop” period, when students can add and/or drop classes. Much of it is done electronically, but students would always want to join the classes that are already full to the brim, which are blocked by the system. Why? They’ll give you a million and one excuses why they absolutely need to register for a particular class; some are valid, most are just loads of BS. In my personal opinion the system is simply being abused, and most of these students never bothered to plan their studies.
Sigh… reminiscing the days when lunch was a tub of Ben & Jerry’s.
Funny that I was thinking of ice-cream too... But that was because the ice-cream van was beside the bus during the red traffic light. :-)
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was in S'pore, I bought some 'twisties' there. Funny to read the label which says - For Sale in Malaysia Only.
ReplyDeleteI had an ice-cream again yesterday, and had this one guy staring at me while I ate it on the sidewalk. Maybe I just ruined his diet.
ReplyDeleteMalaysia and Singapore should be one market.
Sev.. I am also intrigued by that sentence...I wonder why? Could it be that it is a controlled food item in other countries? And the label is there to avoid Twisties being smuggled out of Malaysia...like our sugar!
ReplyDeletep.s. Sev, you may know me as hellbringer at Gempur Wira
Welcome, HB!
ReplyDelete