COMMENT | So folks, did you enjoy the relaxing Chinese New Year weekend slowly inching for hours on highways, to and from a reunion with family?

Over the past week and over the next, thousands of chopsticks lancing into slices of salmon and strips of colourful this-and-that, tossing them into the air to symbolise a year of further bounty and plenty.

It was an inauspicious start with the fuss over the white ang pows of Petronas and the rooster barking money.

Don’t sensationalise the issues, we were advised. Small matter. Just an honest mistake. (Better than a dishonest mistake, I suppose.)

Let’s say storm in a teacup. White ang pow? Okay, Petronas knows better now.

The rooster barking? I will take it as another illustration of the decline of the country’s education that someone can go through a dozen years or so of school, a few of college or university, and not be able to tell a fowl from a dog.

That’s what you get when you dumb down education. Dumb clucks.

But the Valium platitudes during this period (with the obvious eye towards the looming elections) about Chinese contributions to building the nation, the continuing sharing of the growing economic pie - sorry, don’t work anymore.

And it’s not about the Chinese. It’s about Malays, Indians, and the many ethnic blood-streams that vein our land. Everyone has contributed.

Two elections ago, a member of the cabinet (now ex), said Prime Minister Najib Razak would like to know how to regain 20% of the Chinese vote.

I mailed him four pages....