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Target : 5,000.
Have you read the petition to His Majesty the Yang DiPertuan Agung to ask for the establishment of a Royal Commission to look into and stop the rot in the judiciary and to return the judiciary to the rakyat?
To read the draft petition in English, please click HERE.
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Updated on 1/11/2007
Subsequent to ths post, Mr. Lawrence Ding of Pizza Hut engaged readers on issues that arose in the course of discussion.
In fairness, Mr. Ding’s posts are now linked HERE, HERE and HERE for ease of reference for readers who might come upon this post well after discussions on these issues have long closed
______________________________________
Someone sent this to me by e-mail yesterday.
I’ve reproduced it below.
No more Pizza Hut for me.
_____________________________
Hello everyone. I have some interesting news.
I was in Pizza Hut (Sunway Pyramid) yesterday and suddenly my friend showed me the bill.
The bill contains normal things la (number of person, bill. number and what is ordered). But, what shocked me is that they had space called ‘RACE’.I guess since we were all wearing tudung, they labelled us as 0, which means MALAY. Later, when we went to pay…we had no service charge and no tax charge.
Still in shock, I peeped into another bill in the counter. In that bill, under the race space, it was labelled as C (which I guess means Chinese). That bill had service and tax charges!!!
I started investigating. One of my Sri Lankan friends was labelled as Indian it seems and she also had to pay service and tax charges a few weeks back. What I’m wondering is that…does anyone know about this? I find it rather strange that they charge service and tax charge using racein Pizza Hut, out of all the places!
WE SHOULD NOT GO EAT AT PIZZA HUT!
The People's Parliament 
frankie
October 17, 2007
Strange, why the race column?
lulu
October 17, 2007
http://www.usj.com.my/bulletin/upload/showthread.php?t=14465&highlight=pizza
QSR Brands Bhd’s group public relations deputy general
manager, Rosniza Baharum, says: “It has come to our
attention that there is a malicious e-mail alleging
that Pizza Hut does not charge five per cent
Government tax and 10 per cent service charge on a
certain race.
“We would like to unequivocally state that the e-mail
is a hoax. It is mandatory to charge the taxes for all
dine-in customers. But, we do collate our customers
information of group size and race, inter alia, to
better understand our customer profile and dine-in
habits,” he said.
——————-
the issue was brought up last year, and after the hoo-haa, pizza hut blacked out that column.
i do believe that it was used for marketing purposes as they have to charge the tax regardless of who you are else their books wont balance
yh
October 17, 2007
this is outrageous, if it is true. no service and govt tax for one race and taxes for the rest. this cant be true. insofar as i know, service tax by the govt is race blind. unless of course, pizza hut malaysia decides to subsidise the tax. even then, i am sure that “YUM’ of US which is the licensor for Pizza Hut brand would not agree to such discriminatory practice.
Mohamad Fadhil
October 17, 2007
If you decide not to eat at a particular restaurant based on an email story from an unsubstatiated source, it’s your choice. But hey, I feel sad for you. The least you can do is to allow Pizza Hut the room to make a reply. If you can encourge Ipoh Selatan registered voters to contact their SPR officer, why can’t you make the same effort to verify the story with PH before you decide to make the post?
Some time ago, I received a forwarded e-mail of a similar nature, the original author is of course, unknown. It tells the story of a well-known Muslim religious personality purportedly witnessing that the slaughterers of chickens at a well-known fast-food restaurant did not perform their early dawn prayers before starting work. The implication of this is that since the slaughterers are not practicing muslims, then the chickens were not slaughtered according to religious requirements therefore making the chickens not halal! No doubt, your PH email would be landing in my inbox pretty soon.
So who’s propogating the race issue, my friend? Would a copy of my receipt at PH showing that I paid for SC and 5% tax be of interest to you?
Mohamad Fadhil,
If I chose to not eat at PH because of the story, yes that would be silly. Verify first, I agree.
The photos speak for themselves.
‘Race’, in the top right hand corner of the bill, even taking the explanation of QSR, requires waitering staff to continue to categorise people according to race. This is unhealthy and unethical, in my books.
It is also demeaning for customers who, unbeknownst to them, are being categorised for the outlet’s own strategy development. I think this is insulting.
The story does not jive with the fact that all such eateries are required by law to levy a service tax and this is probably already worked into the computerised billing system.
Helen Ang
October 18, 2007
According to the e-mail & the scanned bill, the ladies in tudung were categorised ‘O’, which is a blood type.
To get a job as a Pizza Hut waiter, you need to possess some Krypton-like ability (such as Superman’s x-ray vision) where you can visually ‘scan’ customers on the blood that runs in their veins. Mebbe A, B and AB types can’t stomach too much cheese, you see.
The alphabet ‘C’ is the category of Cryogenics. Pizza Hut is data gathering on this bunch of people in its customer profile-demographics survey in order to plan its marketing strategy for the year 2080 … when these moneyed customers will have returned to life.
So Pizza Hut is actually a company with long-term vision and should be lauded for the nature of the ISO-cert training that it is providing its service staff.
ee
October 18, 2007
and if there is a party of 10 that has a mix of different races together, how are they going to collate an accurate data of customer preference? anyone with good common sense can deduce that putting a category of race in a receipt can by no means provide even an ounce of fair statistical data to go by. that argument put forth is too thin a justification. too many holes.
after asking around about this matter, there were a few people who agreed they knew their friends encountered the very same thing. to be fair, there is not much hard proof that shows that such blatant racism was practiced, but i think the message to every citizen of Malaysia is that RACISM and DISCRIMINATION can not, should not be accepted. either by active acceptance or apathetic inaction.
alliedmartster
October 18, 2007
OK, I think it may have gone a bit too far! I cna’t imagine a fast food outlet not charging taxes! They are audited of course! As for the race thing? I buy the explanation by QSR. But arent they going a bit too far?
Does it matter if a chinese, malay, or indian is spending on their food? If its anything to go by, they should look at the demographics of their customers through age!
Its time the govt do something about this race thing before it gets out of hand. I am an anak bangsa Malaysia, MALAYSIAN. I think of myself as nothing more than that. PERIOD. And I urge you to do the same. STOP identifying yourself by race!
ladyRP
October 18, 2007
I’m getting my Chinese, Indian, Malay n Caucasian friends together for “makan besar” at Pizza Hut AND
ask for different bills!!!
Kenny Law
October 18, 2007
Well, we only saw the race column. In fact, there are other establishments out there in Malaysia that still collect race information without your express permission for marketing reasons most likely (To Guess shop, I peeked at your computer screen when paying).
As for this Pizza Hut case, the pictures aren’t a hoax, but the assertion that orang Melayu are not charged service and government tax is probably BS. Pics or it did not happen 🙂
arianrhod
October 18, 2007
its not just pizza hut that implements this. KFC practices the same policy. you know, i encountered a person that asked me “what did my race contribute to this country when independence was achieved? the malays did all the work…”. i would have to say freedom of speech because, as the policy practised by Pizza Hut clearly demonstrates open racism, i DO NOT have the RIGHT to question it and that is really heartbreaking.
animah
October 18, 2007
I once filled in a form for a famous catfood brand. There was the ubiquitous race column. The salesperson said they had it for statistic purposes so I told the salesperson that my cats were darah campur. That completely left her stunned.
I patiently explained to her that cats had their own preferences which were completely unrelated to the race of the owner. She saw my point but said that it was in the form.
L’Occataine also has a race column in its form.
I suggest that we keep pushing back whenever we see outlets or products referring to race. It has become so entrenched, that they do this without thinking. Keep challenging and keep the pressure on. Some of them will change.
ee
October 18, 2007
If Guess shop collates individual purchases according to the race, that is acceptable. Because that would provide fair and 80% statistical accuracy of individual shoppers that helps them to understand on the shopping trends. It would be hasty to condemn all surveys where products or surveys are sensitive to individual preferences and then it makes sense to see a certain demographics by race can or cannot be a factor to that.
Times are changing. People are more educated about rights and equality. It was stupid for QSR to allow a collation of data this way, even if their intentions were not meant to appear discriminative but this is a wake up call to companies like that to THINK and put a seriousness in strategies they implement. Because doing a stupid like that will bring repercussions and they should be ready to accept the consequences of their actions and not blame the situation on other people for spreading malicious lies.
carboncopy
October 18, 2007
This note have been around for sometime. I found out about it last year.
I have independent confirmation that they collect race information of customers, but have still yet to verify the tax part.
matmerah
October 18, 2007
Don’t you think this is a knee-jerk reaction? Did you get any response from the chain before deciding to not go on the strength of one email you received?
Rationality! That’s what is needed!
YB Maya Minah Black
October 18, 2007
OH. MY. GAWD!
So what do they do when there is like a multiracial table?
do they determine it as the race that takes out the money first?
as a member of the so called people’s parliament en. harris you should soooo check it out first!
P.S. has anyone heard of menu profiling by race before? i might love my leathers but i love my statistics too….
*makes a whipping sound — whoopish*
Being resposible is like the hallmark of a great MP, right muchkins? 😉
One should immediately realise that this is an irresposbile hoax….someone gag me alreadyy!
It pizza hut sweeties not pizza hate! 🙂
Rastaman
October 19, 2007
Dear Haris,
In a country known as Bodohland, anything can be profiled without the objectives made known.
It is a fact that we are fast attaining to become the laughing stock of the world.
This race thingy is fast becoming a norm than an exception.It is played by our politicians and they holler louder when the elections are around the corner.
I have been to PH in Singapore and have not seen the god damned coloumn.Well,they are as multi racial as we are.And as such comments on statistics and demographics is nothing but loads of bullshit.
PEOPLE WHO STILL TALK ABOUT RACE (AFTER 50YRS OF MERDEKA) SHOULD BE SHOT POINT BLANK.
Rastaman.
Lawrence Ding
October 19, 2007
Dear all my friends whom I have not met,
but came across through the circulation of this malicious mail alleging that Pizza Hut Malaysia practises racism, charging sales and service taxes only to certain races and discriminating against others.
Just want to assure you and all your friends that this is a hoax and hate mail that has been going round since mid 2006.
In Malaysia we do not need anymore of such nonsensical and irresponsible lies through the email.
Thus, if you could please re-circulate back to those who has been propagating the hoax and hate mail, we are doing ourselves a favour by telling the truth.
Pizza Hut Malaysia is a Public Listed company and we are bound by law to collect the 5% sales taxes and we also have a 10% service charge on table service as all dining restaurants do.
There is NO service charge if you do a take-out/ takeaway order.
We will never ever deviate from the law of our land. Should we do anything as accused in the hoax and hate mail, we will be asking for big trouble.
At one time, we were collecting some info about our customers to see what is our customer profile so as to help us serve them better.
However, some malicious people have turned it into a hate mail. So it is a lie and please do not believe in the hoax and hate mail.
I am the Senior General Manager of Pizza Hut Malaysia and I am assuring you and your friends that we are also a franchised company from Yum! Restaurants International, another Public Listed company in the US. We are law abiding and honest company.
Final note, I think it is really grossly unfair and unwise for Haris Ibrahim to post a hoax mail (complete with pix to make it look real) on your website without checking its authenticity.
Someone once said that if we kick-around a lie around long enough, people will believe it as a truth.
Haris Ibrahim, efforts like this will undermind your very credibility that you are championing!
Your help to just circulate this to your friends will be greatly appreciated.
In addition, I have also attached our official statement for your attention.
Thanks for your help
Write me! lawrence.ding@pizzahut.com.my
Lawrence Ding
Senior General Manager
Pizza Hut Restaurants Malaysia Berhad.
Mobile: 019 329 8687
Direct : 03 2732 8383
WillieB
October 20, 2007
Beautiful, simply beautiful! Yes, fight this race profiling for as long as you can and as hard as you can! Beat the generations of politicians in Malaysia who have nutured this policy of cut, divide and rule arrogantly! Pizza Hut should come out with an apology for using insipid methods to collate information. I believe Helen Ang’s analysis as the truth!!!!
halim
October 20, 2007
Yo Lawrence, thanks for the explanation. Customer profiling is fine, maybe you can post an announcement in your outlets to this effect, explaining your rationale? Cmon people, lighten up.
Helen Ang
October 20, 2007
Halim,
Profiling is NOT fine b’cos with Pizza Hut, the company did not ask the diner about his particulars in an open manner & with the customer’s willing co-operation.
As others have pointed out (read Animah’s satire), race classification in this regard can’t be helpful by much.
What PH did was have its staff gauge the colour of our skin & make value judgments — which means having the waiter stare at you trying to figure you out if your looks or the way you dress (including non-Malay Malaysians in tudung) defies easy pigeonholing.
I’m with Haris on this one. Lawrence Ding complains that M’sia is “very race sensitive”, thus shifting the blame for the disaffection with PH to the complainants instead.
Clearly PH’s corporate outlook is part of the “race sensitivity” problem & not contributing to its solution.
Salaam, with a smile
Keith Rozario
December 31, 2007
I’m categorised as Indian and receive sms’s regarding Tamil movies and songs from Maxis. While my supplementary line that has a Chinese name doesn’t. This is the same thing, what’s really funny is that I can’t even speak Tamil and don’t watch Tamil shows. It’s really funny, because I consider these sms spam because it’s totally unsolicited.
shakuntala
November 19, 2010
Counter Racism in any form….by steadfastly wearing the very attractive black and white SABM T-shirt.
So cheap…..with a clear message.
Try and buy one for yourselves and for others in the family.
The more Malaysians wear it, the merrier will our country become, for the future.
Slowly, steadily and surely let’s win…..for the HUMAN RACE.