“Brainless” – DAP MP Wrongly Translates ‘Brain Drain’ to ‘Longkang Otak’ in Parliament, Gets Ridiculed

A discussion about an ongoing major problem affecting our country in the Dewan Rakyat unintentionally turned rather humorous yesterday (3 June) thanks to the utterly wrong choice of words by a Member of Parliament (MP).

This is after Sibu MP, Oscar Ling Chai Yew posed a question to the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories) Dr Zaliha Mustafa on what measures are the Ministry taking to address the brain drain issue in our country.

Sibu MP incorrectly translated ‘brain drain’ to Bahasa Melayu as ‘longkang otak‘ in Parliament

Sibu mp, oscar ling

Posing a written question in Bahasa Melayu, Oscar Ling directly translated the term ‘brain drain’ to ‘longkang otak‘, which is an incorrect term in our national language.

The DAP MP was then corrected by Dr Zaliha at the start of her speech, saying that the correct Bahasa Melayu term for ‘brain drain’ is ‘hijrah cendekiawan‘ rather than ‘longkang otak‘.

The de facto Federal Territories Minister asserted,

“I would like to correct a term used by Yang Berhormat Sibu. In this question, the term ‘brain drain’ is translated as ‘longkang otak‘. That is a literal translation.”

“The term introduced by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is actually ‘hijrah cendekiawan‘, although some call it ‘penghijrahan bakat‘, but that is not accurate.”

Dr zaliha mustafa

For reference, the Sibu MP’s full question is as below,

“Oscar Ling Chai Yew (Sibu) requests the Prime Minister to state whether the Ministry is planning to overcome the ‘longkang otak‘ (brain drain) issue by decreasing the choice of private universities (IPTS) offered for JPA-LSPM scholarships.”

“What measures are taken to increase the quality of public universities (IPTA) to be on par with IPTS to curtail longkang otak?“

Watch Dr Zaliha’s answer to Oscar Ling’s question below:

Malaysians took to social media to ridicule Oscar Ling’s mistake 

Naturally, such a faux pas made its way to social media where many Malaysians ridiculed the Sibu MP’s blunder. 1 of those who did so was X user @IamRahimyRahim who posted a screenshot of the question and asserted,

“I cannot brain this. In our parliamentary Order Paper today.”

In the replies, one commenter sarcastically said that this new ‘term’ coined by Oscar Ling was really cute.

Meanwhile, another commenter said that from the school level up to Parliament, people don’t know the proper reference to use for terms.

Besides that, a commenter found the irony of the brain drain mistranslation as the Sibu MP allegedly didn’t even bother to spend a few seconds to check the proper term with the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP).

This is because 1 of the reasons why Malaysian professionals leave the country is because they can’t be bothered to deal with people who can’t even do simple research.

So, what do you guys think of the rather humorous mistranslation of brain drain by Oscar Ling? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Also read: Dr Akmal Says Non-Bumiputeras Can Get More Matriculation Spots Only if They’re Fluent in Malay