Saturday September 26, 2009
Setting the record straight
Stories by LOUISA LIM
What would you do to go down in history? A whole lot if you’re a Malaysian, it would seem. The man behind the Malaysian Book of Records tells us how he managed to get our nation into a record-breaking frenzy.
A primly-dressed aunty accosted Datuk Danny Ooi as soon as he stepped out of his office for a lunch appointment. Eyes wide and face red, she breathlessly exclaimed, “Datuk, Datuk, my son is a very young poet! He’s here to perform for you!!”
Then, she glanced my way and got even more keyed up.
“Are you a journalist? Oh good, good! My son will be receiving Malaysia’s Youngest Poet award soon. I hear you’re a poet too!”
Judging from the look on Ooi’s face, however, this was just another day at work. His expression stayed impassive, like a statue’s.
Ooi, 54, is the remaining founder of Malaysia’s own Book of Records. It was a lifelong infatuation with the original Guinness World Book of Record’s biggest, fastest and tallest that prompted him to start the Malaysian version in 1990 with a few friends.
“I’d buy all the Guinness books when I was young but the idea to begin a local version didn’t really occur to me till I was 40 or so,” he reminisced.
Datuk Danny Ooi with Malaysia’s Youngest Poet, Gloson Teh, 11. “Then one day I thought: ‘Why not create something Malaysians can be proud of, a record book they can call their own?’ I’ve heard of so many Malaysians pushing themselves to the limits. They’re in the limelight for one second, and they’re gone the next.”
Unfortunately, the company got off to a shaky start. It lost about RM1mil in capital within the first year. As a result, his partners fled the apparently sinking ship, leaving Ooi to manage on his own.
“I had to look for the past achievers, and it was very difficult because nobody remembered who they were. Then I had to study the Guinness book closely and make a few tweaks to the guidelines for each record category. This is to ensure that all record breakers could be listed in line with the rules and regulations. It took me three whole years to compile a list,” he said.
The result was phenomenal: the book, once it was published, generated a huge buzz. Companies scrambled for ad space. Funds began to roll in. The mini empire that Ooi had built from scratch now boasts a TV show with RTM, six editions of hardcover books (with a seventh one in the making), and, if all goes well, a multi-million ringgit museum next year.
“We’re one of the few countries to have our own record book,” said Ooi.
“The other countries are India, Poland and Indonesia. Singapore will be coming up with one soon. I think it’s important to inform people about the oldest man or the tallest building. It’s something to be proud of!”
Gimme my (big) break!
Today, we were right where it all started, the headquarters of Malaysian Book of Records (MYBOR) in Kuala Lumpur.
The chatty mother, who introduced herself as Grace, had led us to her son, Gloson Teh. She proudly proclaimed that he had self-published a book entitled Creative & Funny Poetry for Kids early this year. When we approached, the baby-faced 11-year-old looked up at us from behind his laptop. He had just finished composing an on-the-spot poem.
“Gloson is going to recite his work for you, right Gloson?” she asked, before turning her attention to Ooi again. “I hope we can receive the certificate on 09-09-09.”
The boy cleared his throat and, with an amazing display of showmanship, began: “My dad’s obsessed with elephants, he wished one was his pet . . .”
He stamped his legs and flailed his arms as he uttered his lines, before moving on to the poem he had just written, My Kitty’s Adventure. Evidently, this wasn’t his first gig.
“Actually, my son has appeared on RTM,” said Grace. “It all started when I submitted his poetry book to the prime minister’s office. We got a call from him shortly after that, inviting us to his home. Gloson performed for him, and all the media was there. That was also when we met someone from MYBOR, who asked us to apply as a record holder.”
Charming and unusually gifted, Gloson had mastered the Internet when he was seven, and has been blogging since he was 10. Incidentally, it was in the virtual world, rather than the real one, that he had found the source of his inspiration.
“I was surfing the Internet when I came across some funny poems by Dr Seuss and Kenn Nesbitt. I found them fun and entertaining, so I began writing poems too,” he said.
“With funny poems, you can use your imagination and write about cats, hats, mats, rats, bats and a new blue shoe. But coming out with a great ‘funnytabulous’ idea is quite difficult.”
Pretty soon, Gloson realised that he had produced enough poems for a children’s book. At his mother’s urging, he took two months off from school just to provide the illustrations for each poem. But now that his book is complete, he is working on an audio version — another one of his mom’s ideas.
“With it, toddlers who aren’t able to read will be able to appreciate my poems too,” he said.
The fact that a mere child could speak like an experienced businessman was a tad unsettling. However, this hard-nosed behaviour isn’t unheard of in Ooi’s line of work. I was informed that there are many who are determined at making a name for themselves, and they will stop at nothing to get it.
“It’s called highly-driven,” corrected Ooi. “There are other parents who are equally, if not more, aggressive. They just want the best for their kids.”
You don’t want to do that...or do you?
Record-breaking attempts in the country are currently at an all-time high, so much so that a 2006 article by online magazine Wired stated that “Malaysia might just be the world record holder in holding records . . . from the inexplicable (most faces captured on a phonecam) to the outright banal (first independent tyre-testing facility), not a week goes by without a record-setting event somewhere in Malaysia.”
Nonetheless, Malaysia isn’t running out of records to surpass. According to Ooi, 70% of records currently held are in the human achievements category. As such, there are numerous gaps left in categories like architecture and transport.
Ooi receives 10 to 20 applications from aspiring record breakers every week, 5% of which are rejected because they are a little too ambitious for their own good. He has specially appointed a three-man research team to sift through applications.
“This yoga guru came to me saying he wanted a record for most time spent staring at the sun,” Ooi remarked. “I said, ‘No way, it’s bad for your health.’ Same goes for stunts that involve staying awake for days, or living in a box with snakes and scorpions. We usually suggest to these applicants other records that they could break,” Ooi revealed.
He said his number one moment occurred in 2000, when a group of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) students successfully carried and mounted Malaysia’s flag to the Great Wall of China.
“It was the longest flag I’d ever seen, and it weighed two tonnes,” Ooi said. “It took them about four to five hours to hang it up in the freezing cold, but when they finished, I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I’d never felt so proud of my country before.”
However, not everyone agrees with Ooi and his records. There are those who scoff at his knack for celebrating trivialities like “Biggest Roti Canai” or “Longest Dodol”.
Ooi, however, begs to differ: “It’s not as easy or as lame as it looks. Baking the tallest cake, for instance, requires an extraordinary amount of coordination and teamwork. Like, how are you going to bake it? How do you make sure it doesn’t topple over?”
These naysayers, Ooi claimed, are the ones who sit back and do nothing.
“Let’s see them break a record, any record,” he challenged. “There are, after all, some Malaysian record holders who have gone on to be world record holders, like 18-year-old Low Yee-Ming, who recently broke a Malaysian Record and Guinness Record simultaneously for balancing a football on his head for 11.1km.
“But, please, if anyone is interested in achieving something, let it be positive. We need to encourage others to strive for excellence.”
o The sixth edition of the Malaysian Book of Records is available at most leading bookstores for RM88. For more information, visit www.malaysiarecords.com.my or call (03) 9283 8877.
Related story:
High achievers
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