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Tiger is amazed at the way people choose names. If they just did a little bit of homework, they could save themselves and others quite a lot of embarrassment. Tiger dearly wishes Proton had done its homework when it chose the name Suprima for its latest model. Tiger’s image appears on Proton, as many of you all will know. Where’s Tiger to put its face now?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. And a Suprima by any other name would still be …vinyl underpants? It pains Tiger to say this, since a brother’s impressive scowl adorns the grille of Proton cars – but do you get the feeling that Proton blunders more than any animal in our jungle has the right to?
And Proton somehow gets away with it, when only the cutest kitty cat should ever hope to. Maybe it is because Proton is the favoured pet of that man who dresses in a safari suit, like the old hunters used to. Except that he doesn’t wear knee high socks.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad with the Proton Suprima S
But Tiger digresses. As is usually the case these days, it was the online world that exposed the gaffe. The news of the secret new name for Proton’s secret new model leaked (pun intended) last week. A clever person, whom Tiger would very much like to be friends with, took the not-secret-anymore new name and ran a complex procedure known to some of us as a Google search.
Here’s how it works (for the benefit of those people in Proton who may not know): go to www.google.com . Then in the little box that pops up below some cute cartoonish etchings, key in “Suprima”. Hit search. You are in. Now that there are a heap of stories on the new Suprima S (where “S” stands forrrr…..), you’ll find your info on the other Suprima, on page 2 – with lots of pictures of vinyl underpants. For men and women. To the people in Proton, Tiger has only this to say, “Duh”.
Sources tell Tiger that the clever chap who revealed the leaked name’s duality managed to do this on his handheld device, while attending to basic human needs. Most appropriately. It took him a matter of seconds to find, albeit in German, comprehensive advertising for adult diapers.
Now you don’t have to worry if like Tiger you can swear fluently in 27 languages but can only converse politely in Malay, English, Hokkien, French, Tamil and Latin (those Catholic brothers made an impression). Those Germans thought of everything. There is a convenient English translation to their homepage.
Never let it be said that Tiger has anything but the utmost sympathy for those who need adult diapers. But that doesn’t excuse Proton. In fact nothing and nobody should ever excuse Proton for all the sins you as a people and we as tigers, have suffered for it.
Taking on the name of a company that takes care of human plumbing glitches is simply not okay. Producing pretty crap cars (refer various Clarkson reviews) is also not okay. Producing crap cars for nearly 30 years is so not okay. Tiger is baffled that Proton has been allowed to persist till today.
In fact, of the many sins that have been inflicted on the people of Malaysia, Proton must be the worst. But for all you people who think you have suffered in the name of Proton, remember, your species does not adorn the hood of this car.
So, how pray tell, did Suprima happen to Proton? A kitty kat Tiger is well 
acquainted with says “sh** happens”. And, yes kitty, it does. And Tiger understands. Who hasn’t experienced that piece of gristle in a decaying antelope an elegant tiger should have left for the hyenas? So, what was the piece of gristle that caused Proton its Suprima?
Word on the street is, the top brass at Proton thought the name “Preve” (the last Proton model) was just too…something. Un-Malaysian? French? Affected? Requiring of an accent? Well, that was a decision made by the old team at Proton and so the new team decided they wanted more of a local flavour. Local, but sexy, denoting vigour and glamour, Malaysian in a way that Malaysians can only dream of being. And so they came up with “Suprima”. I know. Duh again.
Tiger would love to be a fly on the wall when Proton has its post mortem on the selection of the name Suprima. But Tiger is conspicuously endowed in more ways than one
and would find it hard to be invisible. However, Tiger does know from experience that the jungle is littered with the carcasses of those with good intentions who thought they knew better, or allowed ego to stand in the way of market research, dipstick polls and surveys.
Such little things, like the opinions of the majority, matter. And no matter how much cleverer one may think they are than the majority, they need to back down in the face of popular wisdom – even if one thinks it is not wise to do so. With Proton left exposed as the butt of current jokes, its leadership needs to examine their collective and individual derrières to establish culpability – who deserves the hardest smack …without the benefit of a Suprima to cover their rear ends?
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Con Cent is an intrepid observer of Malaysian life. Con, as Cent is fondly known, prefers to remain ageless, raceless, genderless, agnostic and apolitical.
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