Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 29 June 2015 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or is Malaysia generating more newspaper headlines overseas these days?
Headliner

It looks like we have another financial scandal. The story may or may not turn out to be true but this time, an Australian newspaper (The Age) has alleged that “a group of super-rich Malaysian officials” overpaid for an apartment block in Melbourne and then, well, etc. I must admit that I had never heard of The Age before but it joins a growing list of foreign newspapers in which Malaysia finds itself making the headlines. And not the good kind of headlines. There appear to be two consistent themes to these headlines: real estate and ever-encroaching conservatism. If we’re not buying extremely expensive apartments in the great world cities like New York, London and, er, Melbourne, then we’re demanding that gold-medal winners cover themselves. These two sets of headlines are being generated by the two economic extremes of society and the Malaysian middle rarely gets mentioned, which is probably as it should be, and yet it is the Malaysian middle that is being squeezed by the forces that generate these headlines overseas.

I want to live in a boring country that does not generate headlines overseas about financial wrongdoings or petty-minded conservatism. I look forward to being in a country that generates occasional headlines about genuine achievements in the arts, sciences, sports and, yes, business. Headlines that show that my country is not moving backwards but forward.

Dear Kam,
Did I read that right? Somebody has created a lamb-squid?
Horrified

How do you feel about eating genetically modified organisms (GMOs)? Does it frighten you or do you think it’s a valuable tool for feeding the world? I can’t decide. Recently in France, a lamb was sent to an abattoir to be slaughtered and it’s causing a storm of controversy. This particular lamb was never meant to be eaten. It had been genetically modified with genes from a squid. That’s right, a lamb mixed with a squid. Most of us probably find this absolutely horrifying. Why would anybody want to mix lamb with squid? Apparently, the idea was to give the lamb transparent skin so that its vital organs could be more easily seen. That sounds completely insane, which is why so many French people are now livid. The lamb was sent to the abattoir and somebody is going to eat its flesh. The flesh of a lamb-squid (which might be delicious with garlic). What happens to you if you eat a lamb-squid? But what happens to you when you eat a banana? Original wild bananas were from New Guinea and they were small, spindly and full of seeds, much like okra. Perhaps 6,500 years ago, they were crossed with another variety of wild banana to create plantains, which spread across Asia and arrived in Africa 2,500 years ago where Europeans “discovered” them. Modern bananas are huge and nothing but flesh. They were never mixed with squid genes but weren’t they also genetically engineered during the course of their long history? The same is true for virtually everything we eat.

There are currently no GMO meat or fish products and there are no GMO rice varieties being grown, although the internet tells me that some cunning entrepreneurs in China have been making rice out of plastic. I’m not sure about Malaysia but Americans are eating GMO foods whether they want to or not. Some 90% of corn comprises GMO varietals and it is being fed to livestock. It might take decades to discover the health ramifications.

I think I might be from the last generation to eat “normal” food. Now, everything is laced with additives, extra sugar, extra salt, corn syrup and so forth. There’s more food available and more choice but is it healthy? Foods today are so modern and it’s hard to imagine that our children’s bodies are any more modern than our grandparents’. My mother grew up in the 1940s eating food that came straight from the farm with no additives except for the manure from working horses. And yet she doesn’t have any romantic attachment to that “natural” past, even if I do. She grew up in a postwar age where it was told that science could deliver convenience and more of everything. Science delivered the atomic bomb and the promise of complete annihilation but it also delivered a degree of choice that would have been unimaginable for her parents.

And now we’re coming full circle. We are suspicious of science and especially big business. Are they really interested in providing healthy products? Of course not. They want to maximise profits, hook the consumer and hook the farmers. Big business is not looking out for us but who is? Personally, I don’t want to eat GMO foods because, well, I just don’t want to. It doesn’t sound right.

Dear Kam,
Yahoo! Gmail has given us “Undo Send”!
Control S

I know I’ve done it before. I have written an angry email only to instantly regret sending it. I can think of a few emails that have haunted me for years. Sometimes, I have sent an angry email only for all my righteous indignation to instantly evaporate as I imagine it being read. And then I have to send a stream of apologetic emails that only increase the shame. I really cannot bring myself to tell you what those emails were about except to say that I never knew I could get so angry about women’s figure skating. What was I thinking and how did I even find the email address of the Russian Olympic association? You might not want to write to them. Not from Malaysia.

Gmail has finally given the option to “Undo Send”. Now if you send an email and immediately start worrying about the imminent arrival of the Special Forces from a certain East European country, you can cancel it. Unfortunately, you only have 30 seconds to decide but that’s probably enough.

Reprinted with the kind permission of