Holiday shoppers, does one enterprising business have the gift for YOU: What better way to celebrate the time of giving, family gatherings, and of course – Jesus’s birthday – than with some Jho Low-themed Christmas thievery goods.
No, we don’t mean in a Grinch-who-stole-Christmas type of way. Jho doesn’t really have the lankiness to pull of Grinch; we mean in an actual Santa Claus way where retailers Apom in Bangsar Village Shopping Center are asking you to have a “Jholly” Christmas with 1MDB-themed holiday totes, tees, and mugs.
Feel weird? Yeah, so do we – and it seemed we weren’t the only ones:
Kelvin Long, one of Apom’s owners (it stands for “A piece of Malaysia”), told Malay Mail that the brand was simply designing products around the zeitgeist. “After Billion Dollar Whale was published, there have been a lot of sentiments about Jho Low,” said Long.
That’s certainly one to put it mildly, considering he’s the central figure in what investigators say is a multi-billion-dollar heist that pilfered Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund for what appears to be mostly personal gain, including a luxury yacht, private airplane, and financing a Hollywood film.
For some, it’s too much to cast such a malevolent figure under twinkling holiday lights, including Hannah Yeoh, Malaysia’s Deputy Women’s Minister. Ms. Yeoh didn’t think that the association was that funny:
Others were more forgiving, pointing out that it was a bit of wordplay, and no one can deny that Santa Claus hasn’t already reached peak commercial existence:
Tacky? Yes. Not funny? A bit funny, lah. Opportunistic? Hey – in the words of one of our favorite Tweeters out there:
Cari makan, y’all!
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