Monday, March 29, 2010

Haw-T’au-Ngeow-Ch’oo-Boey or Tiger-Head-Mouse-Tail

Once upon a time, in a land once known as the Boelay Kingdom, there lived a mythical creature known as Haw-T’au-Ngeow-Ch’oo-Boey. Translated into English, it means (literally) Tiger-Head-Mouse-Tail, implying the creature was ferocious at one end of its body but timid at the other. In modern political parlance, the creature would ‘act tough for show at one end but cringe at the other’.

As we expect with mythological creatures like the dragon, phoenix, unicorns, griffins, etc, they only exist in stories.

But then recently many people spotted a Haw-T’au-Ngeow-Ch’oo-Boey in our local neighbourhood.

Its Tiger-Head made a lot of noise against a hunter named Mahathir but alas, the noise was in Chinese, which means those who don’t understand Chinese won’t be offended. So Tiger-Head tried to show it was brave but only to those who understood Chinese.

Meanwhile its Mouse-Tail obviously didn’t roar but instead made a manja melodious mewing sound (in English) to those Tai-Kohs who didn’t join the Perkasa hunting party – it lauded them. Yes, as we know, ‘lauded’ in English means ‘praised’ or ‘extolled’. Wah, so sweet! Good boy lah!


Unlike its Tiger-Head, it made no mention, let alone criticism, of the hunter named Mahathir.

So it’s a clever creature, making two completely different responses on the same incident. Act tough on it to a particular group, but act bodek-ish to another.

That’s the Haw-T’au-Ngeow-Ch’oo-Boey for you, or as Chinese would say of its roar-mewing, 'hoe knwa boe hoe cheah' (good to look at, but lousy in taste/substance) wakakaka.

But enough of mythological creatures, go get yourself educated by reading Malaysiakini’s Gerakan slams Dr M's 'disgusting' speech at Perkasa AGM.


Meanwhile, over at DAP HQs, when asked what was their reaction to the hunter Mahathir, a DAP man replied 'cheah par boe eng ah?' literally meaning 'having eaten, so busy?'.

In idomatic terms, it implies 'don't we have far better things to do?'.

8 comments:

  1. sinocentrism morons!

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  2. Your Haw-T’au-Ngeow-Ch’oo-Boey can be better expressed by the term "Boe-Lam-Par" or in English, "no testes"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eh..are you talking about Ting Bho Lampar of Gerakan ?

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  4. Haiyah KT you another one. You keep referring us to Mkini to read stuff but we are barred unless we are subscribers.

    This being Bolehland every spare sen is being sucked up by those oily fat cats to be utilized for building palatial homes in Klang, Shah Alam, and elsewhere. So, common folks like your readers are reduced to subsisting on only one and a half meals a day, and our kids have to go to bed hungry every night. So where got money to subscribe to Mkini?

    What I am saying is why not you paste the Mkini story in your blog. But, of course, there is the little matter of copyright infringement. In consideration of that, how about providing a short summary of the Mkini report in your own words to whet the curiosity of your readers?

    Thank you and cheers!

    Pauper

    ReplyDelete
  5. extracts only or I would be infringing copyrights:

    quote
    1 Gerakan, 2 statements

    Teng's strongly worded criticism of Mahathir's speech appeared in the Mandarin version of the statement, issued by Penang Gerakan.

    In the English statement, Teng made no mention of Mahathir but lauded Umno leaders who had distanced themselves from Perkasa's activities.

    "This is (a) very clear (sign) that Umno under Najib is committed to transforming Umno into a party which is moderate and champions the rights and welfare of the Malays, as well as Malaysians on a just and fair basis," said Teng"

    unquote

    wakakaka

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  6. Hey you folks whining about having no access to Malaysiakini:

    Go read Malaysiakini Malay version here lor... it's FREE!

    So don't be chauvinistic -- that's not the Pakatan way -- brush up your Malay and dig into the news.

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  7. well said , matey, I shoudl have thought of it myself - ay malu lah, wakakaka

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  8. maybe dap leaders should all start writing in BM and English.there are quite a lot of chinese- only blog in the dap .sinocentrism-dap party.

    ReplyDelete