COMMENT My childhood Christmas in a sleepy snowed-in Austrian village was all about the gifts. When I left for college, returning for Christmas became more about meeting the family in person as the rest of the year it has been only through a computer webcam.

This year, instead of seeing those loved ones for Yuletide, I got to see Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

He probably wasn't aware or cared about my presence as much as I did about his. I was one of hundreds of attendees of a ‘Christmas open house’ in Kajang on Dec 26...