Last night, over dinner, we were talking to a couple of friends about our Langkawi project and the conversation turned inevitably to the question of money. Anim, Pari-Pari's Ms. Moneypenny has, over the last few months become quite the expert, having spent hours braving traffic jams and patiently waiting for bank officers to come back from their tea breaks and prayer breaks, medical leave and goodness knows what else can cause absence from their posts.
And what we have discovered, in our naivete, is this: if you need money, chances are, there is a way to get it.
Malaysians are a funny lot. Many of us are disgruntled citizens, always moaning about the wastage of our taxpayers' money, the bloat of Government coffers and those of the corrupt. Yet, many of us have actually done little to try and get hold of some of that funding ourselves, including Anim and me.
Until now.
We've decided that since our tax dollars are already going to unscrupulous hands, we might as well get our hands on some - so we can use it the right way.
This is, as I was telling my Mom this afternoon, how we fight back at the system.
On one of her recent visits, Anim met with a Government officer who generously dispensed advice on how we could apply for matching grants to help us get up and running. And he said, "You know, 89 per cent of those applying for these grants are Chinese. The Malays, they're just too lazy!"
Apparently, even the exercise of obtaining three quotes from one's supplier is considered too much of a hassle for some of our Melayupreneurs to bother!
How la, to do business like that???
This reminds me of an incident that happened about a week and a half ago. At 7:45 am on a mid-week morning, 15 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, I got an SMS.
"Ms Karina, this is Pakcik Mokhtar, the man who showed you the piece of land you bought. Congratulations on your purchase, but I also know you're actually a land broker your self and have since sold the land to someone else."
Five minutes later, another SMS came from him: "You should give me some commission, since I was the one who originally showed you that plot."
It amazes me how people seem to think money is something that should be given in return for zero effort. I've always had to work for every cent, so I don't understand this mentality. Even if I was a land broker in this instance, I hardly owed the man anything, since the land already belonged to me.
In the end, we contacted our lawyer who advised us to just sit tight. But not before I had got out the wrong side of bed a little too early for my liking and spewed out curses for the next three hours.
It's a wonder Athena, our live-in Boxer hasn't tried running away from her Evil Mommy yet.
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