Zahid Hamidi, the most popular Malaysian Minister in INdonesia right now?

Apparently at this moment, he is.

I managed to catch glimpses of him on TVOne (if I am not mistaken) yesterday (Wednesday 210 March 13) talking about the what the Indonesians referred to as "Konflik Sabah".

In general, I was not too pleased with his performance. I thought at times he was edgy and may be a bit emotional when answering to the female host, and I would have preferred him to be a bit more composed.

May be cool and composed.

"This is NOT a conflict. IT is an intrusion. IF anyone were to come to Indonesia and claim part of Indonesia as their own, would you call it a conflict or INTRUSION?"" he asked the host.

Ya, intrusion, came the positive reply from the host.

He was berating to the host in an apparent displeasure since the Indonesian media are referring to the situation in Sabah as Sabah Conflict. OK, fair enough I guess, but he could be more tackful but at the same time forceful.

To me it appeared that he was agitated

The female host was not in hard-hitting mode. She was simply asking questions; questions that many Malaysians would be asking of our own government. She let him off easily. She was too sweet to be a hard hitting anchor.

"Why claim now? What's the point of the referendum in 1963? They are only claiming it now because in the both countries, we are in election mode. There is a mid-term election in the Philippines and Malaysia is having one too. There are groups in both countries that would want to embarrass the two governments," so claimed Zahid.

He did not elaborate these two groups. I am sure he could not back up his own claim.

I don't know what he was doing in Indonesia, and how did he appeared to telly at around 11 am in the morning. I am not even sure if it was live or was recorded earlier. I am not sure, and I was not really interested to know.

Fast forward to 8 pm on the same day at Lumire Hotel in Senen at the end of my discussion with a potential partner.

"Hey, do you know that the Malaysian Minister of Defense is a Javanese? Apparently his mother is one, and he even spoke Javanese on telly this morning," he excitedly told me.

 

I shaked my head, telling him that I did not know that, but noted that in Bagan Dato', his constituency, there are many Javanese.

 

"Just imagine, a Javanese holding the important post of Minister of Defence of Malaysia," he further exclaimed.

 

I am sure there is no implication to that statement.

"Khir Toyo is also a Javanese, right?" someone I knew for more than a decade asked. "That's to obvious," I replied.

But I am sure they would all want to dissociate themselves from him if they knew the real and infamous Khir Toyo.

 

But noting from his excited voice about Zahid Hamidi, I was more amused than worried. I told him non-chalantly that Najib and his father Razak are Bugis from Sulawesi. But how did we go so wrong in our relationship with our big brother neighbour?

 

What I did not tell him is that technically I am a Minang from Bukittinggi.

 

May be I shall reveal that later, and get him to sign on the dotted line?

EPILOGUE

"So what were you doing in Jakarta?" the immigration officer at Sukarno-Hatta was asking as my exit question.

"Öh santai-santai sama teman-teman," I said truthfully. Ï have had dinner and tea with friends I knew for more than 19 years now and another for may be 16 years respectively.

"Ini, saya bawa balik 2 paket emping belinjo," I showed him my carry-on bag.

He was amused.

Sensing that he was chatty, and can take jokes with visitors like me, I told him that all my friends in Jakarta were lamenting that I did not bring them bawang. May be I should have. I could have easily carried 15 kg of bawang merah and bawang putih,

Apparently they are in short supply and it would cost at least Rp100,000 for a kg of the real namesake of the two step sisters.

I could have paid for my trip down south from the profit of selling the shallots.