THE PRIME Minister, Mohd Najib Abdul Razak’s kangkung story has been so widely discussed, lampooned and satirized that I need not add a word more.
Bloggers, their debaters, the news portals, the facebook and twitter account holders have done such a fine job that it leaves no room for me to put in my two cents worth of thought.
Still I do not want to miss the opportunity to contribute my two cents worth of something in praise of this humble plant.
So let me talk about kangkung and what we can do to honour it. Wikipedia’s entry describes kangkung (Ipomoea aquatica) as a semi-aquatic tropical plant grown as a leaf vegetable. It is found throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world, although it is not known where it originated. This plant is known in English as Water spinach, River spinach, Water morning glory, Water convolvulus, or by the more ambiguous names "Chinese spinach", "Swamp cabbage" and "Kangkong" in Southeast Asia.
By what name it goes, kangkung is easily the most widespread plant and the most loved vegetable in our country. It is so popular that it inspired a song aptly called “lenggang-lenggang kangkung”.
Kangkung is easily grown on the ground or in pots. But there is a species that grows wild in rivers, streams, irrigation canals and ponds.
Wild Kangkung is Free
And since the PM linked the falling price of kangkung to the cost of living and the fact that the government deserves to be praised for it, my brain went into overdrive thinking how to scientifically validate his assumption.
So I asked my young French-trained Malay economist if a cost of living or inflation indicator could be developed around kangkung price to create the kangkung index? To make it sound clever and classy, we can choose to call it Ipomoea Aquatica Index.
And since kangkung is also consumed in many Asian countries, it can even be treated as the Asian version of the Big Mac Index to compare purchasing power parity of their respective currencies.
I had rejected from the outset the temptation to call it “indeks tipu” (cheating index) although among the Johorians, I was told, kangkung is sometimes called sayur tipu (cheating vegetable). That’s because it may look a lot when fresh, but once cooked the mass is greatly reduced.
My French-trained economist friend told me he consulted his economist friend and together they come up with the following explanation (in the Malay language). See how linguistically versatile some Malaysians are?
Read more: Datuk A Kadir Jasin Blog
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