'We love James Brooke.'
'He united us.'
'He stopped head hunting.'
And piracy?
The Malay guy who I'll call Frank nods.
He's nearly crying.
Such an outpour on a white guy kinda blew me away too.
'He's in all our hearts.'
I was wondering why I was feeling so welcome.
'Borneo is 1000 times better than Peninsular Malaysia.'
I couldn't argue with it.
It's mostly Christian, then Muslim.
And not many Indians.
'We like it that way,' says the guy who sells Viagra at one of the busy street corners in the tourist area. He is Malay but has married an Iban lady.
This place is really speaking to me.
They don't particularly like terrorists too.
They abhor them.
Frank sees me smoking duty-free cigarettes that are brought under the counter.
"Why not, if it's good for the big boss to siphon off billions of dollars, then all the more reason why we should indulge.'
He was smoking Parkway. I had just bought a carton of it.
He's not a government agent.
Nor Fatima and her fiance I met the other night.
Borneo has its way. And they are proud of it.
If you are white, you might actually genuinely be welcomed.
We have the 'White' Raja of Sarawak to thank for that one.
And I'm really indebted. Trust me I am.
Frank works for the tourism board. And Fatima is in charge of issuing I.D cards.
I told him I found a hotel that doesn't charge me the ten Ringgit GTS tax.
'Good for you,' he says. 'It's another unnecessary tax imposed by our government.'
He says the tax initially covered local tourists too, ' but we kicked up a stink about it until they quickly dropped the idea.'
Meanwhile, an announcement is going to be made at the end of Chinese New Year celebrations, falling on a full moon for the date of the upcoming election.
How do you know?
It's floating around in government offices, says Frank, who loves nothing better than a good bitch about his government.
'He united us.'
'He stopped head hunting.'
And piracy?
The Malay guy who I'll call Frank nods.
He's nearly crying.
Such an outpour on a white guy kinda blew me away too.
'He's in all our hearts.'
I was wondering why I was feeling so welcome.
'Borneo is 1000 times better than Peninsular Malaysia.'
I couldn't argue with it.
It's mostly Christian, then Muslim.
And not many Indians.
'We like it that way,' says the guy who sells Viagra at one of the busy street corners in the tourist area. He is Malay but has married an Iban lady.
This place is really speaking to me.
They don't particularly like terrorists too.
They abhor them.
Frank sees me smoking duty-free cigarettes that are brought under the counter.
"Why not, if it's good for the big boss to siphon off billions of dollars, then all the more reason why we should indulge.'
He was smoking Parkway. I had just bought a carton of it.
He's not a government agent.
Nor Fatima and her fiance I met the other night.
Borneo has its way. And they are proud of it.
If you are white, you might actually genuinely be welcomed.
We have the 'White' Raja of Sarawak to thank for that one.
And I'm really indebted. Trust me I am.
Frank works for the tourism board. And Fatima is in charge of issuing I.D cards.
I told him I found a hotel that doesn't charge me the ten Ringgit GTS tax.
'Good for you,' he says. 'It's another unnecessary tax imposed by our government.'
He says the tax initially covered local tourists too, ' but we kicked up a stink about it until they quickly dropped the idea.'
Meanwhile, an announcement is going to be made at the end of Chinese New Year celebrations, falling on a full moon for the date of the upcoming election.
How do you know?
It's floating around in government offices, says Frank, who loves nothing better than a good bitch about his government.
