Might As Well Change The Country’s Name

Sydney Morning Herald: Malaysia’s best-known destination for street food has been renamed, in a surprise re-branding that has created an uproar among the dozens of traders who sell local delicacies there.

Jalan Alor, which comes alive at night with more than 100 stalls selling everything from chicken satay to frog porridge, has been renamed Jalan Kejora by city authorities.

Critics say the change is pointless and will only confuse tourists, who nightly flock to the crowded street in the capital’s Bukit Bintang district.

In the Malay language, jalan means “street” and alor means “stream”.

Kuala Lumpur mayor Abdul Hakim Borhan said the plan to change the name to Kejora — Malay for the planet Venus — was made three years ago as part of a re-branding exercise for Bukit Bintang, which translates as “Star Hill”.

“Other roads in the area will soon have new names, and they will all be named after the stars to create a new image,” he was quoted as saying by the Star daily.

But Bukit Bintang parliamentarian Fong Kui Lun, from the opposition Democratic Action Party, said the move has created an outcry among Jalan Alor’s traders.

“No notice, no explanations. They just replaced the street signboard and the only explanation we got from the mayor was in the newspapers,” he said Tuesday.

“For 50 years this street has established itself as a very famous hawker centre, it is almost a heritage to city folk and to just remove the name is a very uncalled for and irresponsible act by city hall.”

Many of the traders have named their stalls after the street, which has existed for more than half a century, and yields more than a million results on the Yahoo! Internet search engine.

Comments: Its a very small issue, but it yields many more glaring poor-decision making in people. Why even bother to change the name? Kejora is Venus in Malay, what fking resemblance to Venus has Jalan Alor got. I guess they wanted it to be all stars, following Jalan Bukit Bintang, which is parallel to Jalan Alor… in which case, you’d be better off to call Jalan Alor the Uranus street.

A rebranding exercise? This shows that some people have got too much fking time on their hands. You really want to spruce up the area: clean up the garbage, have better lighting in the alley ways, lock up all pirated DVD sellers every night till they cry “mommy”, remove all touts and beggars … any one of the above would have been fking marvelous compared to fking Kejora.

Its not even a “colonial name”. On that side topic…, I am already very dismayed with the way we have changed most “colonial streets” into local personalities. We are building new streets everyday, there are plenty of streets to name the local politicians and personalities. How we regard these “colonial street names” tells us a lot about ourselves, how confident we are in our identity, and comfortableness in ourselves. You don’t need to brainwash your own people into thinking certain things never happened - they did. By having the colonial street names, we are not saying we are proud or salute these personalities, but rather that we remember how we got here, the pain and suffering, the trials and victories, we need not like the antics and doings of every colonialists but we remember lest we forget. Bring back the Hume Street, Swettenham Road, Hugh Low Street, Birch Road, etc… not that we liked them or worshiped them, but like it or not, they were part of us. Replacing them is akin to the Japanese rewriting world history, … that Japan never lost the war or that the Nanking massacre never happened.

Street names are more than just names you can throw out. Its heritage, its historical, it has immense contextual meanings, its about identity … Mr Mayor, how would you like it if I were to rebrand you as Encik Selamat Datang, its a thought and I am fking sure it would be a sensational boost to tourism. Please guys and gals, go do something useful

source : Malaysia-finance Blogspot