Essentially, that is what this man is saying. His words, to be exact, were:

The ban on foreign flavoured advertisements and models with Pan-Asian looks featured on private television channels, newspapers and billboards will continue to be enforced. [emphasis are mine]

So people who are of mixed parentage, even though it states that “Malaysian” on their passports/birth certificate, are foreign? Never mind that they have been born and bred here. Never mind that they pay taxes (as opposed to some very “local” people who don’t). Never mind that in today’s world, people are no longer just marrying their own kind.

With globalisation, easier movement and the Internet, it is becoming increasing normal to meet, date and ultimately marry someone of a different race, culture and religion. Someone once told me that blood purity doesn’t exist anymore – it ceases to exist since the turn of the century when people started moving around and intermarrying with the locals in places where they moved. These people later went on to form melting-pot-like societies in place like the US, Australia, Europe, France, Canada and so forth.

In a country like Malaysia where we have a fairly good mix of races, we can expect this – intermarriage – to occur on a regular basis. After all, one Malacca sultan took on a Chinese princess as his bride eons ago. Why should it be any different now?

It is a mockery to the very idea(s) of multiculturalism and open-mindedness for a Minister of Information to sit on his arse and declare that all models of Pan-Asian looks were to be lumped into the foreign category (and thus carry the whole concept of the budaya kuning, the Western decadence and imperialism and so forth) just like that. You would assume that with all the information he has at his fingertips, he would be open-minded enough to look at things rationally and thus move along with everyone else in the business (and in the world).

One blogger commented that the models were upset.

They are really hurt, I believe you agree too nothing wrong to be born like Pan-Asian look, right?

Wouldn’t you be as well if you were told that the face you were born with is too foreign and you therefore cannot be employed because the government thinks that you’ll spread some Western influence on the people (who ironically have access to nearly EVERYTHING on the Internet and etc)?

Many years ago, when I visited Thailand, I remember pondering on how almost all the advertisements feature Pan-Asian looking models. (Tata Young became very popular partially because of her Pan-Asian facial features.) The Thai, if I am not mistaken, find Pan-Asian men and women very attractive and therefore are more likely to purchase a product that is being sold by a pretty little Pan-Asian. Never mind that in actuality, a good majority of Thais look nothing like their TV counterparts. Never mind that Thais are pretty religious and conservative in some sense of the word. (I really do not want to talk about the irony of a Buddhist-majority country attributing their major source of income to the sex trade.) But you do get what I mean, don’t you? And the Thais aren’t even having a tourism year like M’sia.

Our motto is “Malaysia Truly Asia” and we pride ourselves on being multicultural and so forth. I would have preferred it if our ministers should came out openly and said that they were racists and narrow-minded bigots. That would have been easier to deal with. This overly huge amounts of hypocrisy is what I cannot put up with. =.=

Also, what exactly is a Pan-Asian look? How do you know if someone looks Asian? So what about Eurasians? Is there a difference? What about those of us who marry non-Western counterparts, eg Indians or Malays or Orang Aslis? Will their children be called Pan-Asians or is it something else altogether?

Sometimes I don’t understand this country.

We seem to be so fixated with labelling each other that we forget that while the external packaging is different, the internal stuff is the same. We all have dreams, hopes, desires, emotions… We seem so hell-bent about holding onto tightly to our old ways that we forget about making room in our palms for new ideas, solutions and methods. We care so much about superficial packaging that we forget about the quality of the item itself (read: I’m referring to the things like fixing our education system, transportation network and etc). We sell ourselves short ALL the time and we don’t even realise it. We celebrate passiveness at the expense of proactivism. We mock the very idea of being the only species capable of intelligence by championing hypocrisy, laziness, rudeness, bigotry and so forth and we even welcome such mockery.

Best part is this: when someone from outside our circle tries to show us that we are wrong politely, we denounce them and we make it personal.

Who is the one with the budaya kuning here? Who is the one who is decadent, barbaric and uncivilised?

Hmpr.