Proverbs used to push their points across

THE two leaders, both English-educated, showed off their proficiency in Mandarin by quoting two classic Chinese proverbs that raised a few eyebrows.

MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek cited the saying “ba zi mei yi hua” to chide Lim Guan Eng for making empty promises.

The proverb literally translates as “not even the first stroke of the character eight has been drawn”, implying that nothing has even taken shape yet. The Chinese character for “eight” is one of the simplest as it only has two strokes.

Dr Chua attributed this to describe Lim’s so-called successes over many things even before there was even a sign of progress.

He cited an example of Lim promising to build low-cost houses in Penang, but until now not a single one has been constructed.

“You must focus on fulfilling the promises because many of the promises you made are still unfulfilled,” he told the Penang Chief Minister.

Lim, for his part, used the proverb “si liang bo qian jin” to describe how he managed his state.

The saying literally means “four ounces to push back one thousand pounds”. This can be taken to mean that the Penang Government was using as little money as possible to get maximum returns.

“This will ensure that we have revenue every year,” he said.

Lim said the state managed to do that through four ways – having joint-venture projects with private firms that benefited the people; through open tenders to reduce cost; earn revenue through innovation and new ideas and to save money by rejecting corruption.