Cheng hates ties

Warning: Rant follows.

I've been a salaryman (I suppose gweilos would be more familiar with the term 'white collar warrior') for 3 years, all of it in Malaysia, and every day of it, a little voice in the back of my head did speak to me. His name is Doubt. He is the best friend and worst enemy to every empiricist, and one of the first things he said to me when I started work in Cubicle Land was this:

Cheng, why the fuck are you wearing that tie?

Malaysia, in case you didn't know, is hot. Absurdly so. It is hot and humid, and even more so in Kuala Lumpur. By day, the temperature does not drop below 30C. By night, anything less than 20C is practically an Act of God*. It is a land of glass, steel, concrete, sweltering heat, torrential rain, rabid greenery, plague-bearing mosquitoes, diabolically unhygienic (but tasty!) food, monster cockroaches, the most tasteless Chinese diaspora on the planet**, and for some odd reason, the local white collar community seems to think that the necktie should be part of the "proper" dress code.

"But," the sane among us will protest, "It's really, really hot here!"

"No problem!" retort the fat cats, "We'll simply turn up the air conditioning until every indoor space is cool enough for ties and blazers to be worn!"

You. Fucking. Cunts.

Epic double facepalm fail does not begin to capture the idiocy of Malaysia's white collar class in wasting obscene amounts of electricity in cooling office buildings so that ludicrously overdressed cubicle jockeys and their feckless bosses can sit in comfort, admiring their silk ties.

Just what is the point of the necktie? And in asking this question, I ask it from the point of view of someone living in the boiling tropical hell that is Malaysia. Does it look good? Is it pleasurable to have something wrapped round your neck when it's hard enough to breathe KL air as it is? Is it some sort of phallic symbol? "My tie is more expensive than your tie, hahaha"? Is there a certain masochistic appeal to having to fish the wretched thing out of your coffee or your soup? Does it provide protection from the strangling fingers of disgruntled*** employees?

I will concede that, in more temperate climes, it does actually look pretty ok, and some people can pull it off pretty well:



But seriously, wearing a necktie in Malaysia is just stupid, and wasting energy cooling buildings so that shallow minded idiots can dress themselves up in the height of Western/East Asian fashion, made for climates at least 10-25C colder, is astronomically so. It's at least as stupid as people calling themselves "pro-life" and going to church to shoot a doctor. Maybe even more so, because that adds up to a LOT of energy that could be put to better use for reasons far more noble than mere vanity.

How much energy, exactly? Ooh, there's question I'd like to see answered. Not by the Malaysian community on Yahoo! Answers, obviously, coz damn, they're inept, inane, inarticulate, insipid and a complete fucking waste of time.

Hmm. Done ranting. Happy kitty sleeping on my mouse is stealin' mah rage...

* Ahahaha... Did I take someone's name in vain?

** Go ahead. Go to Sungei Wang Plaza and try to prove me wrong.

*** I love how the word 'disgruntled' has shifted in meaning from "slightly miffed" to "homicidal apeshit mad".