rumah pecah: 2008

I was at the wet market last weekend and saw how a fishmonger slaughter a live freshwater fish. He pinned the wriggling creature to the ground with his left hand, and with his right, whacked its head hard, knocking it unconscious. Then he shoved a piece of wood inside the fish’s mouth. With one end of the piece of wood jammed in its mouth and the other end held by its killer, the poor fish couldn’t get away. Then the young fishmonger began to de-scale the fish with a scraper. After less than a minute of that, he removed the wood from its mouth and tossed the fish to his buddy who then sliced the still-alive fish open and removed its guts. With a piece of wood shoved down its throat, it must be terrible being a fish.

It must be equalling tough being a frog. The frog seller grabs the frog by its body and whacks its head against the chopping board, stunning it motionless but still alive. He then snips off its toes, turns the frog over, slices its stomach and peels off its skin, all in less than a minute. One can still spot the heart beating weakly.

It must also be tough being a bird, even a performing parrot. This bird had been performing at the Ecopark of the Bukit Merah Laketown Resort for years and had been trained by its trainer to count cards. Star of the show for kids? Yes, but stardom didn’t help. Last year, when the Bird Flu was it its worst, the performing parrot was stuffed into a plastic bag and burnt alive (with all its exotic feathery colleagues).

It must be tough being an honest cab driver, especially now during Visit Malaysia Year 2007. To begin with, you spend money installing a meter in your cab that you don’t use, although you know you are supposed to use it. Because most of the other cab drivers don’t use their meters (preferring to fleece and fry their passengers instead), you are expected to follow suit. If you do not conform, you get ostracized by your mates and they don’t welcome you into their circle anymore. You get shooed away if you try to join them for teh tarik. Yet, you know it’s wrong not to use the meter.

It must be tough being a Mat Rempit (illegal motorcycle racer). You have a miserly paying day job working as a low level employee where even the nasi lemak girls don’t take a second look at you. Your salary is hardly able to sustain your smoking habit and you know you will never become rich. Your only possession is your motorbike, from which you derive the only entertainment in your life - racing at night, or performing stunts to impress girls. Wow, while your Chinese friends waste their lives playing Counter Strike in cyber cafes, you get to be admired by the girls. If only your boss could see you, he wouldn’t think you are just an unmotivated office boy. So you spend all your savings on a cheapskate black jacket and on souping up your bike, to make it run faster, roar louder, but no matter how fast it runs and how loud it roars, it will always be outrun and outroared by another bike. So you lose face, and sometimes you even lose your girl in a race. During those rare occasions when you win a race, the police suddenly appears and the party is broken up before you can collect. Worst, the police confiscate your keys and you have to push your bike 7 km to the nearest police station.

It must tough being a goldsmith robber. To begin with, you must always carry a hammer in your bag, to break the glass cases with, and that thing is cumbersome and heavy. Then you can never be sure if the in-house CCTV is functioning or it’s just there for show. Also, there is the security guard to take care of. It’s alright if they employ an old gizzard because you can always outdraw him, but sometimes they employ an out-of-job marksman. Then assuming you and your mates manage to grab the loot and run, you can never be sure whether your mate manning the getaway car is still waiting there with the engine running or he’s distracted by some Siti lookalike. Or you forget to rehearse getting inside the car, and in your haste to get away, end up with two people trying to get in by the same door, banging each other’s heads. Worst, there could be an off-duty cop around and he puts a bullet into somebody’s head. What if it were the driver’s head that he put the bullet in? Who’s going to drive the car then? Alright, assuming the rest of you get away from the scene of the crime without being shot, change cars, change clothes, change Mykads, and drive non-stop all the way to the Thai border, how can you be sure that there would not be a police party waiting for you because the guy who was shot was stupid enough to be carrying his hotel door card, and if that’s not bad enough, he could be carrying his handphone with your number stored in it.