A few months ago I blogged about an incident at a Malaysian hotel where some Chinese guests were outraged by being handed out hotel dining cards that had a picture of a pig on them - indicating that they were consumers of pork. It was indeed a grave misunderstanding - local Chinese would have understood, but the mainland visitors did not - similar to how baby food in sub-Saharan Africa did horribly until makers realized that Africans generally put pictures of the food on the bottle... In any case, I felt in general that the growing power of China in Asia and the World would eventually spell changes that Malaysia may need to make with regard to discriminatory laws against its own Chinese minority.

It seems, on this holy Islamic Day of Hari Raya Puasa, celebrating the end of Ramadan fasting month, that Malaysia has slipped out a rather interesting announcement - that henceforth, all international airports in Malaysia would carry messages in Mandarin as well as in Bahasa and in English (as well as occasionally in Japanese). The fact that Mandarin has not been an official language despite almost 40% of the population being Chinese has been very significant (with reasons dating back to the Chinese Communist insurgency in the 1950s). But could this change, in response to growing throngs from the mainland, be the crack in the door? Perhaps the Malays may finally start to take a long, hard look at their country, and ask why they legislate affirmative action for themselves with their Bumiputra laws (to the economic detriment of the Chinese) when they constitute over 50% of the population. Mr. Badawi, give your people a fishing rod instead.