Send the Newspapers Down To The Toilet

I refrain myself from buying newspapers for more than a year. Except once in a blue moon.

I find the newspapers in Malaysia whether is in the Bahasa Melayu or English Language bore me to death. Misleading reports by foreign newspapers on Suharto past as President of Indonesia makes me more and more despise foreign correspondences.

The local newspaper a part from being boring, one of it full of adverts on every bloody page. Had it been a magazine, it would be known as Toilet Magazine.

This brings back to the days in the mid 70s when I use to run around in Kampung Maxwell, where PWTC is now standing. Every Saturday or Sunday Morning, I notice a Chinese Man, whom my friend call Apek carries a newspaper with him to the "jamban angkut" type of toilet. The newspaper, big spread, very thin with some colour on the front page. He walks to the toilet with a cigarette in his mouth and a small towel on his shoulder,

At the door step of the jamban, he will “menyangkung” for awhile, literally squatting, with both hands spreading the newspaper far and wide. Best part, if you talk to him, he will talk to you with a voice like that Granny in Snow White and the cigarette, refuse to fall from his mouth. What a Pro! If I do the squatting in the morning, I surely let go not only the cigarette, I will also let go whatever in my stomach there and then too.

By the time Apek got out from the jamban, the towel remains on his left shoulder, the cigarette still in his mouth but one thing is missing, its the newspaper. He could have left it in the jamban for others to benefit.

Many years later, I discovered the newspapers brought in the jamban by Apek are over a week old, only the advertisement pages gets into the jamban which explain for it being thin, the newspaper is practically use as Toilet Newspaper, in short, Toilet Paper.