A bit on Lim Kang Hoo

As you may noticed by now, KL-based Johorean bloggers A Voice and BigDog have over the past few days been relentless in pursuing the The Ghost of Johor story, which was triggered by a posting by prominent blogger Rocky of Rocky's Bru.

One name, which emerged above all else from those posting is Datuk Lim Kang Hoo.

As Rocky, correctly pointed out, not many people from outside Johor would have known who the hell is this Datuk Lim....well, until these last few days lah. By now the man is probably a household name, I guess.

The Ghost of Johor postings by my senior bloggers, as far as I am concerned, made Lim sounds like some nefarious figure who somehow had gain control of people at the highest level in Johor in his evil grip. That he can do and get whatever he wants at anytime he desires. Some sorts of a super triad godfather.

Well, I don't blame the other bloggers if they have that impression of Lim. The man is indeed very close with people at the highest places in Johor,  he is not very handsome and he has a gang of aides whom I think look very much like some Petaling Street pirated DVD peddlers.

But from the little bit I know of Lim, he is not totally as bad as all that. Well, I guess, I am going to get flamed for saying that but that's my honest opinion of Lim. To those who think I am being paid by Lim for writing this - you got it wrong, period.

Ok, I had met Lim a couple of times and found him to be quite a funny man. He doesn't speak much...well probably that's because his Bahasa Malaysia and English are not too good...a bit like me, actually.

But the man do have quite some sense of humor. He also seems to be a humble guy as he was very comfortable hanging out with a lowly nobody like me. There is completely no airs about the man. If he is not some sorts of a tycoon, Lim would probably be a fishmonger at a wetmarket, and would still be very much at home being that.

Well, Lim, like most other "good" Chinaman businessman, never really talked about his wheeling and dealings, especially not with a blabber mouth like me. Business is business ma, socializing is completely not the time to talk about those, unless of course if the socializing was meant for business purposes.

Ok, this Lim fella, as far as I know is completely apolitical. He only keeps tab of the political happenings because he need to know them due to his business. All that matter to him is his business...and of course his family and a few other things.

If given the choice, he would rather not have to know about politics. Give him a nice dinner, a glass of nice wine and then talk politics with him for five minutes, and the man will be snoring. I am not kidding you. He will really sit there, eyes closed, mouth a bit opened and snore. If not careful he would fall off the chair. Datuk Lim, if you are reading this, don't be angry ar, you are really like that leh.

I did some checking on Lim as I was quite curious about how come he got to get all those sweet deals such as the Danga Bay thingy. What I found out was that the Chinaman is simply a cunning king of gambler.

 He took some huge risks and came out on top. Guess he reads things better than anyone else and placed his chips all on the right bets. He invested in things no one else wanted and he befriended people who initially do not yet have power. Among his crazy investments include buying land under the sea and reviving a failed shopping complex with bad fengshui. All these somehow ended up well for him.

Well, a bit on the Tebrau Teguh issue, which details you all can read at A Voice's blog. My reading is that, the whole thing became extra-sensitive because Lim the Chinaman was involved. If Lim's name is Ali or something like that, things would not have been so bad. I don't want to go into too much details into that as I don't want that issue to have all sorts of versions. Everyone have their own versions, isn't it?

Anyway, what I think about the issue doesn't really matter, I think.

I am posting this just to put it on record what little bit I know about Lim Kang Hoo. Nothing more than that. Oh, also. like Shrek the jolly ogre, Lim also has his Princess Fiona....very charming liao.