Local Monopoly hits the scene

The Star, Wednesday, January 20, 1993. By A. Asohan.
The long wait is over, and the Malaysian version of one of the world's most popular game, Monopoly, is finally here.

It was a major project (coming up with a Malaysian version), and was announced last March, when the public was invited to suggest names and properties that should go on the board.

A questionnaire was also mailed to writers, editors, housing developers and agents for their suggestions as well.

By May, hundreds of entries were received, and a panel of judges made up of housing developers and agents began its selection process.

The criteria was a combination of the similarity between the original London names and local streets, plus the value of the properties.




Some choices were obvious, like Telekom Malaysian and Tenaga Nasional, both of whom probably won't be too happy about their respective worth.

Unfortunately, some pretty good suggestions were dropped. Somebody suggested using bus terminals instead of train stations, since the former is the dominant mode of public transport here.

A suggestion the makers really should have considered was changing the tokens so that they were more Malaysianised. The public suggested a Sang Kancil to replace the terrier, and a Nyonya-style slipper to replace the boot.

Other suggested tokens were the wau, top (gasing), keris, sampan, minibus and so on. Pity this wasn't done.

Here we have it.
So, what does it look like?

Well, Waddington's has opted to do it for the travel edition, a more subtle way of smoothing the game into everyone's budget.

Travel Monopoly: Malaysia Edition comes in a nine-inch square box adorned with local cartoonist Reggie Lee's microcosmic look of Malaysian society, and containing all those bits and pieces we would expect from a Monopoly set.

There are two rules booklets, one in a Bahasa Malaysia and the other in English . A Mandarin version was promised at one time as well.

The tokens are the same as the English version, but made of poorer material - plastic. Indeed the flimsy board and box all give the impression that this was a very rushed affair. Everything, including the cards, are made of soft cardboard.




Nothing has been laminated, and even the currency would look like photostat copies if they weren't in colour.

All this for the Travel version, which is supposed to be even more durable than the regular version?

On the plus side, Monopoly: Malaysia Edition ended up being more fun to play than regular Monopoly, if only because it was fun and to make fun of hapless fools forced to buy Chow Kit Road instead of Whitechapel Road.

It was also fun to compare local and international versions - Pudu Jail instead of just plain old "Jail", Gurney Drive instead of Old Kent Road, Bangsar instead of Oxford, and Jalan Sultan Ismail instead of Mayfair.

Indeed, to say that Malaysians don't care for local products is not true in this case.

As we struggled to take photos of the set out in the corridors of The Star office, we managed to gather a crowd that could have rivaled a movie shoot.

A lot of excited people kept on asking: "Hey! Is that the local Monopoly? Where can I get one? How much does it cost? Wow!"

Only to disappear fast when they found out that there isn't much of a price difference between this and the imported version.

And that price is too obscene for us to print here.

But the reception of Malaysians are indication enough that if Waddington's took the time and trouble to get it right, a lot of people are going to go for it.

The ball's in your court, chaps.