A giggling gaggle of Doraemon ministers

Housing and Local Council Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin has been receiving a lot of mockery and brickbats ever since she chose the Jalan Othman wet market in my neighbourhood to show her presence in the front line battling the deadly Covid-19.

Why the negativity? In this trying time, we should be supportive. Give her a break.

It is comforting to know that, after her visit, patrons to the market could safely run/rub their hands on the encircling road surfaces, and not get contaminated.

But minister, what about subsequent days, and a stray contaminated person spitting or running his hand on the road? The management of my condo disinfects the lifts and common doors and areas four times a day. I suggest you do the same for the roads around the market during its daily operating hours for the duration of the lockdown.

And it’s good to see that you were there to do a job, and not to promote yourself like several of your colleagues in your tied-up coalition, with their ugly mugs largely visible on packages of food, hand-sanitisers, etc, that are distributed to those in need.

You just had a modest label "Menteri" stuck on top of your Hazmat suit, in case the slow-witted thought it was just an MBPJ officer hidden in the suit and dismisses the importance of the occasion and the need to keep our road surfaces disinfected.

Like the coronavirus, but in a positive way, the crowd who attended and watched you do your job would start “infecting” other people with your message of clean roads.

Yes, in defending herself, Zuraida (photo) reveals that she is clueless about what she is battling: “Thus far, there is no accurate formula on how this coronavirus spreads. One moment it’s coughs and sneezes, this and that, maybe it’s airborne and so on.”

One, I think she should be commended for her bravery for going into battle even though she doesn’t know anything about the enemy.

Two, it’s understandable if she has not been able to keep up with events. Every day our phones are inundated with dozens of expert advice, hand-washing guides, daily infection and death toll tables, mindlessly apped repeatedly, till it’s mental overload.

So, in case, you missed it, minister, the World Health Organization (WHO) says Covid-19 is spread primarily through respiratory droplets, which can be inhaled by anyone within one metre of an infected person.

The droplets, landing on various surfaces, can contaminate hands touching them, and if the hands touch eyes, nose or mouth before being sanitised... dang, dang, dang.

Note too, what Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases expert in Singapore who chairs the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated by the WHO, says about spraying roads: “The virus does not survive for long in the environment and people do not generally touch the ground."

Then it was the turn of the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, helmed by Rina Harun (photo, below), with a sagely advice for wives and working mothers that stirred up a hornets’ nest of stinging criticism.

From a modern woman’s point of view, the suggestions are outrageous - a woman, a wife being seen as a clothes horse, coyly giggling, a Barbie doll flirting with and seducing the husband to get off his fat ass in front of the TV and help with chores.

If they were honest, men would have no quarrel with the intent of the now aborted campaign – no arguing or nagging, no sarcasm about being a lazy lay-about. What’s not to like or approve?

The major obstacle: twenty-three years of experience tells this battle-scarred marriage veteran that if I were to suggest to my wife that the ministry’s campaign had merit, I would immediately be the focus of a broiling, sarcastic tempest, even if I were to concede that she didn’t need to wear make-up. I could also do without the giggling. That would get on my nerves

With MCO confining me? I am not sure police at a roadblock will accept the excuse of a volatile wife at home to justify my being out on the streets.

And I am totally baffled by the ministry’s choice of Doraemon, a cat robot from the 22nd Century, as a role model. I had to search the internet to acquaint myself with him. The cartoon characters that populated my childhood were Tom & Jerry, Mr Magoo, Popeye the Sailorman.

A robot? Okay. I can see the ministry considering a robotic wife equivalent to a wife amenable to commands.

But a cat? And not only a cat, but a male cat, a tomcat?

I listened to a bit of one episode dubbed in Bahasa Malaysia, where Doraemon had a gruff, raspy voice. The ministry wants Malaysian women to sound like Lauren Bacall or Eartha Kitt, voices cured in cigarettes and whiskey?

The campaign also reminded working women not to become too focused on their work and neglect their families.

Both Doraemon ministers should take heed, put the advice into practice and set an example for the nation – stay at home, put on make-up and your office-clothes, coyly giggle and teach your husband how to hang up clothes. Let us into your homes. Post videos on Facebook. It will be instructional.

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THOR KAH HOONG is a veteran journalist. - Mkini