A few days ago, my phone went beeping with this SMS from an unknown number.
Needless to say I was quite disturbed that things like this is happening in our own backyard, especially in Saujana Carpark which is located smack in the middle of the city centre. Apart from some petty burglary cases, serious crime such as kidnapping is still considered relatively rare here. My only consolation was that it wouldn’t be too difficult for people to spot a green Proton Wira with a Peninsular Malaysian car plate number in Kuching.
But a couple of hours after I received that message, I was sent YET ANOTHER SMS about the same incident.
Immediately, I smell a rat. Not just any rat. A big fat juicy rat.
Because this time round the SMS claimed that the girl is kidnapped from a different carpark. But therein lies the problem. There’s no such place called “Parade Carpark” ANYWHERE in Kuching!
So I asked around online and as it turned out, not just me but tons of other people had received similar SMSes. Some got “Subang Parade Carpark”, others got “Ipoh Parade Carpark”. But the plot is still largely the same: some 18-year-old Chinese girl was kidnapped at some mysterious unidentified carpark in a green Proton Wira aeroback bearing the car registration number WFE 2365, and message ending with a plea to “forward 2every1”.
Then yesterday as I was flipping through old newspapers, the penny dropped. Or as my Mandarin teacher would say, “water drop stone come out”.
Turns out that the abducted girl had already been rescued ages ago. The SMS was one day late. And best of all, the carpark in question was Ipoh Parade Carpark.
What I wanna know is, how the hell did “Ipoh Parade Carpark” become “Parade Carpark” become “Subang Parade Carpark” become “Saujana Carpark”?
Damn, we are so hopeless playing this game of Chinese whisper. Either that, or there are lots of stupid 18-year-old Chinese girls walking around in empty carparks waiting to be kidnapped.
But never mind that. Because what really irked me was the fact that there are people actually forwarding these SMSes to their friends. If it’s a forwarded e-mail, I can understand because e-mail is free. But come on lah, why are these people, happily wasting 20c per SMS to forward the SMS to everyone in their phone book? What is going on?
Then hor, some people even find the time to delete the word “Ipoh Parade Carpark” and replace it with stuff like “Subang Parade Carpark” to confuse people. OI, VERY FUN IS IT?!
THEN there are those who forward these messages WITHOUT EVEN READING IT. If this thing is happening in Ipoh, keep it in Ipoh. If it’s happening in Subang, keep it in Subang.
Why forward me an SMS about a girl who got kidnapped in Ipoh when I’m staying 1000km away in Kuching? What do you expect me to do?
Because I’ve completely sworn off writing anything to do with race, religion or politics here, I’m gonna plug blogs that do those stuff and kick ass in the process.
Seriously, I like Otto’s take on multiculturalism in Malaysia. Why do we always pride ourselves in being made up of Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans and so on, when a foreigner would just look at us and go “meh… Asians.”