Those of us who live in Bolehland are truly blessed in that we need not have to read those fairy tales written by Enid Blyton, Han Christian Andersen, JK Rowling, etc, to feel the magic or experience flights of fantasy to escape harsh realities of the poor having to cope with increased cost of living, citizens living in fear from increase in crime as they watch helplessly at on-going rampant corruption and public mismanagement.

We are already living in our fairy tales. Take the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes as an example.

A parallel is found in the recent launch of a space tourist (though they insisted in calling him astronaut or 'angkasawan', he is really nothing more than a high-flying (no pun intended) tourist or 'pelancong'). Of course, Bolehland trumpeted him as the country's latest 'achievement' after forking out a hefty RM100 million (paid by taxpayers) to buy the ticket for the lucky fellow's trip into space.

I said he is lucky because he had been hailed a hero by the media (which is why I have stopped watching the news on TV and stopped buying newspapers in the past few days as mainstream journalists openly joined in gushing over the so-called 'achievement', even placing the space tourist on same footing as Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong) and he is sure of getting a 'datukship' when he returns to Bolehland.

From the loud blare of the trumpeters, one could be forgiven for thinking that Bolehland had actually acquired both the wealth and technology to build its own spaceship . Only a few citizens of Bolehland, like the young child who saw the emperor's nakedness, had ventured forth to point out "What pride?" to those gushing declarations of "He has made the nation proud" (as though he designed the spaceship, or invented a cure for bird flu, etc), or "at what cost?" when thinking of what the RM100 million could do for the rest of the citizens in need, e.g. install more life-saving equipment in hospitals, build schools or low-cost homes, equip libraries, etc.

The majority preferred to live the current fairy tale just as they have all these years been living to those other fairy tales fed to them by the leaders of Bolehland. As I am writing, I wonder what the leaders will cook up next. Maybe, they will make a deal with JK Rowlings to put up a co-author's name on her next Harry Potter storybook, and then claiming another 'achievement'?

And when a neighbour gave some friendly advice, pointing out that Bolehland could do better had it bothered to tap the talents of its minorities, instead of accepting the well-meaning counsel with good grace, the leaders of Bolehland cried 'foul' and lambasted the good neighbour.

Of course, in a way, I cannot blame the reaction of these Bolehland leaders since it really isn't a nice thing to be awoken from one's beautiful rosy dream to face harsh realities of poverty, crimes, corruption, public mismanagement, etc.