“WE agree for what it's worth that the affairs of 1MDB were run along the lines of a Chinese coffee shop in Petaling Street,” said the prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram in court Tuesday. I beg to differ. What rot! A Chinese coffee shop indeed!
On the contrary, 1MDB, MAS, Felda and a host of other failing and failed entities need ASAP the services of retired Chinese coffee shop owners to return them to profitability. I urge the government to contact the Coffeeshop Owners Association to locate them without further delay.
It is a matter of great urgency now that we know that highly qualified Finance Ministry officials have ascertained, without a shadow of a doubt, the monthly difference between leasing a Vellfire and a Perdana is RM2.80 – a wee bit more than a cup of coffee at your kopitiam.
As to Vellfires, I bear no malice towards these gas-guzzling monstrosities. Their innards come with tender mercies their occupants may or may not have. But their external appearance riles me. A good friend reckons it is “macam peti ais besar” (like a big ice box). I prefer calling it Hellfire. Yes!
But whatever I told you, there is no better example of sound and prudent financial management than a Chinese coffee shop. They have survived wars, invasions, recessions, and even the recent pandemic without a government bailout disguised as a restructuring exercise.
If the hometown coffee shop your father frequented is not around anymore, you can bet your bottom dollar it was closed by the owner after he weighed all his options knowing half his children have migrated and the remaining ones are engineers, doctors, and accountants.
He most probably sold out his unencumbered corner lot for a few million and is now a globetrotting grandpa or playing mahjong with his buddies from morn to dawn while an Indonesian maid looks after the every need of his Ah Soh and himself. Well done, Boss!
Only the ignorant, the government, or a public prosecutor cannot see the reasons for his success. His coffee shop, a model of efficiency, was open seven days a week like forever. Contrast that with others in the trade. Sometimes open and sometimes not. Damn! Why can’t they open it?
But our Chinese coffee shop owner knows the difference between a customer and clientele. From a customer you earn a margin, but from the clientele you get a steady cash flow that will sustain your shop in good times and bad. The regular customer makes all the difference!
At the cashiers, the contrast is even more glaring. Unlike the utter confusion of an Indian or Malay shop where you are asked how many thosais, idlis, nasi lemak, and kuih cekodok you had eaten when not being watched, Ah Joong the boss coolly says “RM2.80 only Boss”.
And you will not get a FOC packet of peanuts out of Ah Joong when drinking late into the night with your buddies at the neighbourhood corner coffee shop, which is allowed to sell every brand of brew, except Timah soon, to which Ah Joong, his eyes afire, says “N**mah!”.
When the day is finally done, he wears his glasses and sits behind the counter with utmost concentration, adding up the cash and matching them to all manner of bills and chits between more muttering and cussing which the Cantonese of this country call “flowery language”.
When the takings are good he is all smiles, but if not he wears a scowl as foul as Hellfire. Yes! But whatever, don’t expect a free round of beers on the house or other freebies like in 1MDB or the GLCs where turnover has often been “mistaken” for profit. For many years now. Aiyoh!
So why not do away with all those foreign consultants in Putrajaya whose fees start with millions and who are never around when sh*t hits the fan, and instead recruit the retired Ah Joongs of kedai kopi fame and ply them with titles, starting with a Datuk and ending with a Tan Sri?
For those not following the 1MDB-related goings on in the courts day in and day out, I admit all that stuff is the kind of talk you may overhear in a coffee shop, warong, or tea stall. You can blame the customers in the shop for all this but never the owner.
And to add salt to our injuries, hearing of billions going into the pockets of a bunch of crooks, we are now told that actually there was a sharp ex-Chinese coffee shop owner called Jho Low who ran Kedai Kopi 1MDB with a few shop boys with names like Najib, Hazem, and Sharol.
As they say, facts can sometimes be stranger than fiction. I predict the smart aleck who opens a chain of halal kopitiams called Kedai Kopi 1MDB will be our next unicorn.
Bravo! – The Vibes, November 12, 2021
Murale Pillai, an ex-planter and entrepreneur, feels the country must go back to basics to rediscover the magic of its yesteryears
