I sulk more than Hasmah, PM says
In a radio interview with Hot FM, Malaysia’s prime minister admits that he is more emotionally expressive than his wife.
However, away from the seat of power and government departments in Putrajaya, the prime minister has a playful side to him, and is prone to sulking, as his dear wife, Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali says.
Expressing a sentiment that many other husbands can relate to, Mahathir has admitted to often feeling “annoyed” at how long his wife takes to get ready for functions.
“I’m always on time, I do not like being late, so when I am ready to go and she isn’t, I get annoyed.”
“It’s not fixable however; I have long accepted the fact: that she will take longer than me and I must wait for her,” he lamented during an interview by radio station, Hot FM this morning.
However, the man has a bit of a reputation of being a rather pampering patriarch, spending what time he has with his grandchildren and spoiling them rotten.
“I play with my grandkids. They are different from my own kids, who were not particularly playful.
“My grandkids show me more love than my own kids do, and I have 18 of them. Sometimes I forget their names, but they are close to me and hug me when they see me.”
While willing to show his softer side to his family, he is still very much the strict and independent man he was even when young.
“My first job was selling goreng pisang I sold all sorts of things in Rabu town. This was during the Japanese occupation. We were poor and there were no jobs available. I was not a doctor at the time.”
Back then, his family of civil servants were all jobless. His older brother had lost his job and his parents did not receive a monthly pension.
In dire straits, Mahathir was more than grateful that he could earn a small income selling goreng pisang.
Spilling even juicier details of his childhood, the prime minister said that he was once bullied by a student who extorted money from him, depriving the young Mahathir of the meagre income he made from selling balloons.
“I used to sell balloons: one balloon for one sen. Three balloons for three sen. So there was this ‘friend’ of mine, who used to drag me to the canteen, and force me to buy rice for him.”
“And I was terrified of him; he was big. So back then, I was bullied. And this boy’s name was Hussin, a neighbour’s son,” said Mahathir.
Speaking about employment, he said everyone should work with passion and not only work at a job for monetary gain.
“I valued spirit. I didn’t care about wages and for me, it was alright to earn low wages. If we have a passion for work, we work better. If we only care about the money, our performance will be poor.
“We do work to earn money, but when you’re passionate about your job, your interest in your job is apparent,” he said in a message to the younger generation.
Besides his love for horses, the prime minister also loves cars and related a daredevil drive he embarked on once from Singapore to Alor Setar, which he described as thoroughly entertaining.
“The highest speed I have reached is 180km/hr, sometimes even more than that. But when my wife is in the car, I drive slowly.”
“I bought a car while studying in Singapore. I drove it from Singapore to KL, KL to Singapore and then back to Alor Setar.”
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“It was a fun drive though there were times at night when my feet hurt from having to press down on the pedals one too many times.”