This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 10, 2017 - July 16, 2017

I am Fung Fung, an 18-year-old who is thinking hard about what to do in life. I’ve kind of decided on becoming a civil servant. Why?

It’s simple — it is an iron rice bowl. It’s very unlikely for the government to sack civil servants and the job comes with a good pension. Yes, I passed my SPM Bahasa Malaysia, unlike some medical graduates.

By the way, it’s my Thai friend Anong’s birthday this Saturday. She was born in July 1997 — an eventful time for Asians, to say the least.

Two weeks before Anong came into the world, the British handed Hong Kong back to China after having governed it for more than 100 years. How did the British get hold of Hong Kong, which has a natural shelter and deep-water port for ships, which they named Victoria Port? Why did China cede control of this territory?

Well, some blame it on one woman, Empress Dowager Cixi, who signed the Treaty of Nanking to end the first Opium War in China in the 19th century. The British got to rule Hong Kong under the treaty.

Cixi is remembered as a power-hungry empress who emptied the nation’s coffers with her extravagant spending. I doubt she bought any luxury handbags because at the time, there weren’t fashion brands in China. The empress also might have fancied jade and agate, not diamonds.

In short, because of mismanagement, China lost Hong Kong, and as they say, the rest is history. Hmmm! This may be a lesson for us millennials to learn — we must exercise financial prudence. I hope our government is aware of that too.

Back to my Thai friend’s birthday. Anong always says she was born in the midst of the “Tom Yum Goong crisis”. What’s that?

Well, it has nothing to do with the Thai dish. It was the Asian financial crisis, which wreaked havoc on the economies of almost all the countries in Asia. It originated in Thailand, which is why some refer to it as the Tom Yum Goong crisis. It’s just like the Boston Tea Party — it wasn’t an afternoon party. What was it then? (Read the history books, please!)

How did the Asian financial crisis happen? According to my research, the key factor was that Asian countries, particularly those in Asean, had a lot of foreign currency debt. When their local currencies were devalued, they were choked by their swelling foreign currency debt. Then, why the currency devaluation? Err! Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad blamed it on currency speculators. Asean countries also had themselves to blame as they did not have enough foreign reserves to defend themselves against the currency attacks.

I imagine the crisis as a giant monster with a big mouth and sharp teeth, which destroyed thousands of businesses and millions of jobs and caused a bloodbath in the stock markets.

Auntie Christine was among those retrenched. And I was told that Uncle Seng Heng’s investment in the stock market evaporated overnight and he had to sell his factory. Maybe because of that, grandma always says the share market is a place that cheats people of their money. (I think she may not be smart enough to understand the stock market ... shh! Don’t tell her this, please!)

Again, this is a lesson for us millennials — never borrow more than you can afford to repay. I hope our government has learnt that painful lesson too — not to issue government-guaranteed debt papers easily.

Many millennials, including myself, were not affected by the Tom Yum Goong crisis as it happened before we were born. But we do hope our government will continue to strengthen the country’s economic fundamentals so that when the monster comes around again, we are better prepared to fight back.

Disclaimer: This is neither a commentary nor a criticism. The writer is not responsible for the reader's assumptions. So, don’t take it seriously!

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