Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

On Saturday, I came across a very interesting programme on the National Geographic Channel. It features American actor Jason Scott Lee “going native” in Malaysia. Jason visits a silat master to learn something about this ancient art of self defence. He then stayed with a Malay family, celebrating Hari Raya with them. He doesn’t speak much Malay, the family treats him like one of them. Grandma even buys him a nice Malay outfit and Jason quit obliging sits through a prayer session at the village mosque.

After a sad goodbye, Jason flies off to Sandakan in Sabah, lives with another family at a homestay, goes monkey-watching, cooks a meal for the family he stays with and bids them another farewell. He then proceeds to climb Mt Kinabalu. On the summit, Jason is close to tears as he contemplates how nice, open and trusting Malaysians are.

And I hope Jason would just leave Malaysia that way - with fond memories. Too often, romantic travellers fall in love with an exotic and unfamiliar place where people are quite unexpectedly nice. The spectacular scenery, the tasty food, the smiling people, all make poets out of smelly, long-haired backpackers who have turned their backs towards the sinful cities.

But imagine staying just a bit longer. You are not a novelty at the house anymore. People start to ignore you. Without the language, conversations get boring. Imagine yourself running out of money. Imagine the owner of the house running out of money. Imagine your wallet or his wallet going missing one day. Imagine accidentally breaking something valuable… imagine the homestay becoming your home. Will it not become just like your home, complete with sibling rivalry, generation gap, disharmony, fights ….?

And Malaysia certainly has its fair share of conflicts and social disorder. Can Jason Scott Lee claim to have an answer to all these problems? Just let the Chinese and Indians stay at Malay homestays and everyone will be nice and trusting towards one another?

Even the most optimistic person would know that things are not that simple when you can’t just touch and go at a place called home.

IDEM stands for International Dental Exhibition and Meeting. Big event held from today, 4th April (guess not too many Hongkong dentists will be attending) till Sunday. You can check out their “selling points” on this website:

http://www.idem-singapore.com/

No, I’m not attending and it’s definitely not because of the inauspicious 4 and 4 thing. Here are my reasons:

1. I’m not a fan of any of the speakers
2. It’s much too expensive (patients please note that your dentists need to pay for these conferences)
3. I’ve already got enough points (which is the main reason why anyone pays to go to these things)
4. My appointments are full on Saturday (you and our regulators in government service may not know what the private dentists are sacrificing)

Nevertheless, I’ll perhaps drop by at the exhibition this Sunday. When it’s time to leave, the suppliers/exhibitors wouldn’t want to carry any goods back. A clearance sale is sure to take place and that’s when I might go bargain hunting.

My apologies to my friends who don’t have enough points. I know it’s kind of boring sleeping alone during the lectures. I’ll be leaving for Korea on the 10th to attend a course that is far more relavant to my practice. Never mind the points. At least I’m learning something useful. If only our number-driven regulators realise that.