DISCLAIMER: Gabriel and I had this conversation early in the morning when Gabriel was tired and could not bring his full faculties to bear on the conversation.
DISCLAIMER DEUX: this is presented in unexpurgated form, with only slight grammatical corrections, hence the free flow may be disconcerting and ranty to plough through. Let's see how long this post stays up before the heavy hand of the censors crack down!
DISCLAIMER TRES: more to follow on the nature of insecurity:)
Gabriel: Hilarious. Malaysian country bumpkins are flaming me. Hehe
me: whatever makes you feel warm and cuddly at night
Gabriel: wth is this: "Kalau saya terpaksa makan sos tomato dengan seribu kilogram mee saya, tentula aya akan pengsan..."
me: (sic) i will faint if forced to eat tomato sauce with my noodles
Gabriel: almost no one gets it typical. haha
me: mocking the culinary practices of other people is a common expression of bigotry and jingoism
gabriel: you don't get it either
me: really explain it to me then
Gabriel: the point is not that malaysia sucks (I freely admit that) but that malaysian chinese engage in reflexive, unthinking, visceral cheat-beating and my theory as to why this is the case
Gabriel: as I observed: A: South Africa has the highest rape rate in the world. B: You're racist/rude/narrow-minded! / You have a brain the size of a pea! / You're trying to undermine South Africa! / South Africa bashing! / Your country sucks too! / Have you ever been overseas? / You're saying that all blacks are rapists!
me: turn it around - do you wonder why singaporean chinese also engage in reflexive malaysia-bashing? (like yourself)
Gabriel : to us it's a parlor game not defending national pride and we raise genuine points most of the time rather than "I hate wanton mee with ketchup"
me: it's the same way when i mention that singapore is a sterile mean-spirited kiasu nation r: your toilets stink! / malays are all over the place! oh, and mocking the malaysian guiness book of records is a valid point for superiority?
Gabriel: yes, but that's usually from the "heartlanders" even educated malaysian chinse launch into this sort of shit it's called snide asides not main points. and the malaysian (no guinness, thank you) book of records is a valid point the malaysian exception
me: this is stupid you're just as asinine as those singaporean bashers you purport under your guise of rationality to "engage" this is just you baiting people becuase it's how you get your kicks. stop it
Gabriel: *shrug* as you wish "the rest of the world refuses to listen to us, so we'll do it the malaysian way" "LU SAKIT MANA?" what's this
Me: the tomato sauce in wonton mee is the singaporaen exception then? Hurh besides, if you don't get the joke about tomato sauce, you're just plain dumb. Many educated singaporeans have just as stupid arguments as many educated malaysians. I don't see malaysians as having a monopoly on bigoted nationalistic jingoism
(sic) You are sick in the -?
anytime a malaysian-bashing or singaporean-bashing post comes up, hordes of idiots crawl out of the woodwork to toss jingoistic comments on either side it's nescient and stupid and your lame baiting of people under the guise of intellectual dissection do you no credit face it, both sides are as ridiculously stupid when it comes to this question, thanks to nationalistic jingoism. you're just lying to yourself when you purport to make this some kind of pseudo-intellectual psychoanalysis of the malaysian chinese psyche - it's just you baiting and indulging in the kind of nationalistic bashing that gives you your jollies. it's stupid, feeble, transparent, and i've had to put up with people like you all my life.
Gabriel: that's rich.
Me: *grins* and for the record, i admit the malaysian book of records is a hideous embarrassment to Malaysia.
Me: put it this way - there are lame things that we can laugh at each other for no reason (same way how americans mock canadians for their accents and how everyone else mocks the british for warm beer) do you think cross-border jingoism is something any nation or population has a monopoly on? like I said, i don't deny that won ton mee in tomato sauce is a puerile fact to be sneering at (heh). but at least i take it in good fun. you insist on self-righteously coming up with some objective comparison of stupidity that tars the entire Malaysian chinese community while neglecting that examples of such behaviour persist on both sides of the causeway. in other words - you're just as much of an irrational bigot as those mats posting on your comments page, just with better grammar.
Gabriel: this is the faux equivalence theory
Me: and yours is the faux amour propre condition. so much for your distaste for apologetics
Gabriel: as I said: as you wish. as everyone should know, I entertain no delusions about singapore either
Me: "ooh i am not a bigot kneejerk reflexive basher who gets glee out of lame attacks i am simply a rational intellectual who is trying to prove empirically and scientifically the complete superiority of my way of life and the inferiority of the people across the border with elaborate, measured rhetoric"
Gabriel: this is the straw man
Me: *amused* "malaysian chinese are insecure and hence they use stupid arguments to bash us when we singaporean chinese are always rational and have good argumetns to prove malaysian inferiority". right. straw man.
Gabriel: misrepresentation
Me: fallacy of composition
Me: why is human nature so obsessed (by and large) with converting others to their point of view?
Gabriel: because people believe that they are right and others should not wallow in ignorance
Me: true, but distinguishing whose right is righter is tiring, no?
Gabriel: it's just like my brother in law's faux equivalences though to your credit yours are a bit more ambiguous and take more time to deconstruct
Me: *bows to an honoured opponent* same way how your elaborate rhetoric and pretense at intellectual rigour lend a self-righteous air of superiority and reasoned debate which conceal your bigotry, particularly when most kneejerk responses to your assertions are indeed stupid and puerile.
Gabriel: see? faux equivalence
Me: cognitive dissonance
[Ed in lieu of suspicious omission: that's rich again :)
Gabriel: about the only valid malaysian point is that singaporeans are nastier.
aiyah I don't want to talk about this]
Me: nastier covers a hell lot of territory
don't forget a far more boring body politic and a less entrepeneurial culture - those are not so much valid points as they are preferences though.
you could take a lesson from this:
"We will be victorious when we have mastered the world and crushed all the other races beneath our heel! As they have tried to crush us!"
"So how does that make you better or different from the other races you despise?"
"We do not seek to be different. Or better. We merely seek to be triumphant."
Gabriel: huh