COMMENT | So the other day, Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming got snappy with a journalist.

You’ve probably seen the clip by now. He was talking about the new campaign called “I Lite U”. It’s a campaign about brightening up public spaces in Kuala Lumpur.

Then, during the press conference, a journalist from Utusan Malaysia asked him why the campaign name was in English and not in Bahasa Malaysia.

I thought it was a normal and reasonable question. Nobody shouted, nobody accused anyone of crimes. It was literally, “Why English?”

Nga replied that it was for tourism, something about global branding and how English is more internationally appealing, which, I thought, was a fair enough answer.

But then, things got...