Not too long ago, I was with my nephew in Selangor. A shop with the name Magic Boo caught my eyes. I thought that was a strange name and commented that Chinese don't name their shops the way they did in the good old days, citing old fashioned names like Heap Huat, Sin Guan Heng, Aun Tong, Soon Lee and the likes; names that bear auspicious Chinese words. My comments drew chuckles from my nephew. I did not cite names like Dream World or Wonderland which appeared later in the 90s or names like Sri Larut and Maju Jaya. I wonder if my nephew would chuckle the way he did if I did that or narrate to him the latest story about the Municipal Council officers in Muar, Johor, instructing Chinese shop owners to erase the red Chinese characters on the pillars of their shops which bear their shops' name as the Chinese words were bigger than the ones in Malay. What a twist to the story about names of Chinese business premises.
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