The Yamaha Yahoo

Along with other pestilent lifeforms such as the Suzuki Samseng, the Honda Hantu, and the Kawasaki Koboi, the Yamaha Yahoo forms part of a noisy and noisome phenomenon known as the Nyamuk Nuisance. This has nothing to do with the health hazards of living in glorified swamps like Lower Ampang and the Pantai Valley where a totally different species of nyamuk (mosquito) proliferates. Still, the mechanised variety of nyamuk constitutes a definite mental health hazard to peace-loving members of the public. It can give senior citizens instantaneous heart attacks; cause decent folk to use indecent language; make even the most highly evolved souls experience temporary loss of wisdom and go berserk.*

Who are these Yamaha Yahoos, these Suzuki Samsengs, these Honda Hantus, these Kawasaki Kobois? By day they masquerade as innocent despatch riders, mechanics, store clerks, and junior civil servants. By night - particularly Fridays and Saturdays - they swarm out upon the highways by the hundreds, by the thousands, buzzing through the concrete jungle like a barbarian horde of runaway chainsaws... like a plague of motorised locusts.

Nobody knows what these virulent creatures really look like because they keep their faces well concealed beneath their crash helmets. But everybody knows why they do what they do: a bunch of small farts trying to feel big through massive mechanical flatulence. They're nyamuks... listen to that high-pitched whine produced by puny pistons firing away into the atmosphere without mufflers and exhaust silencers. Where's the bug spray? Ffffft!

I like bikes, especially big bikes. Owners of big bikes tend to cruise along as silently as possible - testimony to the vast reserves of power between their legs. But these pygmy hell riders bring out the genocidal urge in me. They even make me applaud the forces of Law & Order. As far as I'm concerned, that's about the only redeeming feature of the Nyamuk Nuisance: they give the cops a chance to look like Good Guys.

When I grow old I want to be a totalitarian leader and legislate a programme of scientific rehabilitation for these fiends-on-two-wheels. I'll have them all rounded up and put in a detention camp where every morning for 60 days at 6 a.m. these malefactors will be awakened by a chorus of lawnmowers and chainsaws operating at full pitch outside their cell windows. They will have no access to earplugs and their hands will be bound.

Could it be true after all that self-righteous rightists have more fun?


GLOSSARY
samseng - hooligan, ruffian
hantu - goblin, ghost, evil spirit
koboi - vernacular for 'cowboy'
yahoo - excrement-slinging ape-like creature with hairy anus (described by Jonathan
Swift in Gulliver's Travels)
nyamuk - mosquito

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*The Nyamuk Nuisance is quite indestructible, it would appear. Twenty years later, their descendants continue to wreak havoc on weekends - in big cities, small towns, even remote villages. However, they now go by the name Mat Rempit and the majority are rumoured to be on the Umno Youth payroll. Their secret mission is to harass women audacious enough to move around without male chaperones. Occasionally they'll snatch a purse or two. Well, at least they're contributing to nation-building by helping redistribute wealth and keeping the weaker sex in line.

The 4WD Phenomenon

Once upon a time meeting a Jeep or Land Rover on the road was an event. You always wanted to know who the lucky occupants of these vehicles were, living such rugged lives on the frontier. It could be a brave little band of policemen just back from a dangerous jungle patrol, or a group of young soldiers sharing a few jokes and a cigarette in carefree camaraderie; or some vegetable farmer taking his litter of mischievous kids to the village schoolhouse. Sometimes you might even catch a glimpse of trussed-up wild boar with nasty-looking tusks or a glassy-eyed crocodile - dead but still scary = and you'd notice the hunter's double-barrelled shotgun propped up against a mud-spattered window.

Then you grew up and became an executive and bought yourself an Isuzu Trooper or Mitsubishi Pajero. And now when another 4-wheel-drive pulls up beside you at the traffic lights, you don't bother to look. Because you'll only see a couple of overfed schoolkids from Alice Smith or Fairview smirking at you.

The 4WD* Phenomenon marked the beginning of the New Affluence when the decade brashly introduced itself as the Exciting Eighties. It was a time of entrepreneurial derring-do and corporate swashbuckling. Advertisements projected the up-and-coming young urban professional as a real man of action - equally at ease behind the wheel of a BMW or a 4WD. He could see himself powering over the mud-tracks of construction sites and oil-palm estates; he also had fantasies of somehow finding the time to take his girlfriend (or his photogenic little family) on wonderful camping trips in the wilds. Besides being a good investment, image-wise, the New Generation 4WD came with lots of nifty extras: plush seats, air-con, hi-wattage stereo (with turbo-bass), servo steering, power windows, the works. At last you could combine feeling comfy with looking rugged!

Only problem was, these trendy new 4WDs didn't come cheap at all. They were just like the high-priced Swiss knives you see on sale in department stores: you simply must possess one, hang the cost. But actually use it? And risk losing or breaking it? After a couple of joyrides along some old logging trail, most 4WD owners would begin to feel a little anxious about preserving the paintwork on their new toys. They'd experience actual relief when when they found themselves safely back on the toll highway.

The more determined outdoorsy types eventually formed their own off-road 4WD Club, organising group outings into trackless jungle and across the most terrifying terrain specially chosen for the challenge. A sort of Hash House Harriers on wheels, inspired by TV ads promoting adventure wear (but mainly sponsored by a tobacco company anxious to associate its product with rugged masculinity). Saturdays would see huge convoys of these modern-day cowboys in their tank-like vehicles with grotesquely oversized wheels, roaring through remote Orang Asli villages and churning up dirt tracks - just for the hell of it. Jungle-bashing taken too literally - makes one wish sometimes that the jungle would bash these upmarket Mat Rempits who prefer to conquer rather than appreciate nature.

Other 4WD owners, nonetheless, seem perfectly content to be seen cruising to and from Hock Choon supermarket with their families comfortably insulated in their air-conditioned Pajeros and Range Rovers from the riff-raff below. Yup, it's a jungle out there.


GLOSSARY
Alice Smith and Fairview - two exclusive private schools in KL.
Hash House Harriers - a cross-country runners' club started by afew expatriates aa a healthy means of working up a massive beer thirst. The idea proved so popular the HHH has now gone international.
Mat Rempits - Malaysian rebels without a cause on whiny motorbikes, many on the Umno Youth payroll (so they can be used to create havoc at political rallies and intimidate opposition voters).


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*In recent years the term 4WD (4-wheel-drive) has been superseded by SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle).