It appears our brethen and sistas up north are easily and deeply impressed by Singapore.

On Oct. 11, Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Maliki Osman put up a Facebook post about him hosting a group of Malaysian journalists at his weekly Meet-the-People session held on Oct. 10.

According to Maliki, the journalists were able to have "a first-hand experience of how MPs in Singapore connect with their residents".

This was an experience which they found "interesting and enlightening".

Suffice to say, one of the journalists who had been present for the meeting -- Chak Onn Lau -- was impressed enough to write a lengthy article that was then published on Oct. 29, gushing about the entire affair and wondering if it could be replicated in Malaysia.

Article summary

Here's the gist of how the Malaysian journalists came be to in awe of Maliki and the Meet-the-People practice, which was imagined as such:

"In our heads, was a guy in a suit, walking around with a plastic smile, shaking hands and exchanging short pleasantries with the people in his community, while he casually asked about the problems in the community, and would address the crowd through a loudspeaker about how he would solve them."

Initially:

• The Malaysian reporters were not looking forward to meeting, admitting that it drew a "collective groan".
• Expectations of how the meeting would unfold were low as they were under the impression that the entire session would simply be for show.

However, these impressions were turned on their head once the session commenced as they were blown away by:

• Maliki's knowledge of government bureaucracy and various laws.
• The patient manner in which he conducted the session.
• His multilingualism, as he spoke Hokkien, Chinese and Cantonese besides English and Malay.
• How each case was processed administratively.

Accordingly, the article details that the journalists became even more impressed once they found out that:

• Such sessions were conducted by other MPs as well, including current Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
• That the practice is not a law but a policy enacted by the late Lee Kuan Yew himself in 1963.
• That it was originally conceptualised by David Marshall when he was Chief Minister of Singapore.

The article further noted that "each MP will also try to knock on the door of every household in their constituency between elections", although most Singaporeans have characterised it as an "awkward affair".

Chak then called Singaporeans "an alien species", which contributed to the surprised reactions of Singaporeans to the Malaysians' amazement that MPs in Singapore work so hard.

Maliki the family man

The article also highlighted Maliki's busy schedule, pointing out that:

• Maliki mostly sleeps only four hours a day, from 2am to 6am, clearing his emails before he does so as a matter of personal policy.
• And that he also works on weekends, where he can be required to attend up an estimated six or seven events

For the journalists, this intensity is made even more acute by the fact that Maliki is married with two children and that his wife has acknowledged that he is "married to (his) job".

As such, the article concludes that while the Singaporean MPs remain the "highest paid government servants in the world", "none of the eight Malaysian journalists at the session felt it was excessive after what they had witnessed".

Malaysians react positively

Most commenters on the article also became enamoured with Maliki and the practice of Meet-the-People sessions in general.

One commenter wondered if it was even feasible for such a practice to be implemented in Malaysia, citing transparency and geographical size as the biggest challenges:

But perhaps the biggest reaction came from why the article was subsequently edited to reflect that within Malaysia, some of their own MPs did it as well, as acknowledged by the article's author Chak:

Meet-the-people sessions in Malaysia are conducted by the Democratic Action Party (DAP)

According to the amended section of the article, which comes before its section on Maliki's schedule, an MP from the DAP got in touch with Chak to inform him that the MPs of the DAP conducted such sessions.

These sessions were held on Wednesdays, and were called "surgeries" where residents were required to fill in a form stating their problem and then get to meet with the DAP MP for 15 to 20 minutes.

Chak added that this information "was a pleasant surprise for us", given the reputation of Malaysian government agencies and political leaders as "let’s just say... inefficient".

In any case, it would appear that Maliki has definitely won over some hearts in Malaysia, with Chak undoubtedly being one of them, considering that he left this comment on Maliki's Facebook post:

Top image from Maliki Osman Facebook

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