Don't misbehave or else...

Short story from my dad:

My dad was serving as a civil servant in one of the more rural states in Malaysia just before I was born. It being a rather small state, everyone new everybody else. One of my dad's friends was a very senior state civil servant.

This civil servant liked to have a drink every night after dinner. And he used to invite my dad over to join him. The only problem was that his alcohol tolerance wasn't overly high, and when he was drunk he could become somewhat rowdy.

As a senior civil servant, he had a handgun (gun laws in Malaysia are extremely restrictive. It's extremely difficult to get a license to own a handgun) and he wasn't shy in waving it when he was drunk.

Usually the drinking would go on until it was fairly late, and my dad would try to excuse himself saying that he needed to get to sleep in order to work the next day. At that point, the senior civil servant would whip out his handgun and tell my dad, "You stay and drink. Or do you want me to shoot you?"

His wife wasn't too happy about her husband's drinking habits, and my mother told me she'd come to visit her the next day in tears. There were instances when he was so drunk, he couldn't find the bathroom before going to bed and he would open the closet and pee into it.

During one of our yearly festivities, my dad held an open house for visitors to come and join in the celebrations. At that time, my grandmother had come down from another state to join us as well. It was during the open house that she met the senior civil servant.

My dad laughed as he recounted the incident. The senior civil servant was sober and very gentlemanly but he did have an odd way of thinking at times. Whilst chatting with my grandmother (who was a very sweet, small little old lady) he told her, "Auntie, if your son ever misbehaves, you tell me and I will shoot him" whereupon he took out his handgun and put it on the table.

According to my dad, my grandmother's eyes virtually popped out when he'd said those words and showed her his handgun.

Thankfully, he never did use the handgun on anyone.

Old Boys Gathering

My dad told me a story about when he was helping to organise a gathering for his college old boys. Bear in mind that during my dad's time in college, there was a very solid racial mix of students (unlike what you find in local universities these days).

Anyway, my dad attempted to contact each and every old boy around his year by phone. Many of whom he had not spoken to or seen in decades. One of the people he called up was this Malay chap. Midway through the conversation it went on to something like this:

Dad: So will you be able to make it for the gathering?
Malay chap (MC for short): Will there be liquor served at the gathering?
Dad: Yes. You know how it is, it's a large diverse group.
MC: Then I won't be attending.
Dad: Why?
MC: Because they're not respecting our religion. You know when I went to the United States for a delegation visit my hosts respected me. They made sure that our meals were all pork free and that no liquor was served.
Dad (who is utterly flabbergasted by MC's attitude by now): Tell me, would you want beef to be served at the gathering if you were able to come?
MC: Yes, of course. I like beef.
Dad: Then aren't you disrespecting the religion of the Hindus there?

MC was utterly annoyed at that statement and shortly after rang of.

The point of this article? Religious understanding can be severely underrated in our country. A case of "My religion is better then your religion. You should kow-tow to my needs before yours."

Highly depressing isn't it?