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This year’s MATTA Fair is not going to be called MATTA Fair because it is going to be a joint effort between MATTA and MCTA. Since it’s jointly organised by the two assosiations, it will be called MATTA-MITM Fair 2006 instead. Phew. That was a mouthful of hogwash gibberish and acronyms. Confused? You should be. Now just sit back while I demystify the matter by answering some (eight of them to be exact) common questions.

1. What the heck is MATTA?
MATTA stands for the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents. It was formed way back in 1975 (damn thing is older than I am), and now boasts of over 1900 members across Malaysia and quite a few overseas partners and affiliates besides. Like any self respecting association, its main objective is to take over the world. However, it hides it well behind a facade of noble sub-objectives such:

• Uniting, supervising and coordinating the activities of the members
• … yada yada …
• Read more about it at the MATTA fair website

2. So what is MATTA Fair?
Are you daft? MATTA Fair = Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents Fair. Get with the program. There are more important issues to deal with here.

3. Fine… If you’re so smart, then what the heck is this MCTA?
MCTA is the chinapek version of MATTA and stands for the Malaysia Chinese Tourism Association (NOT to be mistaken for OTHER ORGANISATIONS WITH THE SAME DAMNED ACRONYM and especially not for the Mombasa & Coast Tourist Association). They are so similar to MATTA that they decided to cut cost and ride on MATTA’s website instead. Just add Chinese to every other sentence and voila, MCTA’s website-cum-cheap. But to their credit, they managed to scrape together enough to set up a site for MITM.

Side note:
I’m sure that we all know by now that any domain name ending with .info is spam.

4. But the site you provided us doesn’t tell us anything about MITM
Now in case you didn’t read in between the paragraphs, go back once more and read the side note. Are we clear on that? Excellent.

5. So what IS MITM??!!!111oneoneone
Before I broach that topic, let me just say that Singapore is too close to Malaysia and some of their bad habits (such as Kiasu’ness) are rubbing off on us. Some years back, there was only one travel fair in Malaysia. That was the crowd-drawing, earth-shattering, jaw-dropping, runaway-success that was the MATTA Fair. We’ve already established that it was organised by MATTA. Three years back, MAS decided that it too wanted in on the action and organised the MAS Travel Fair (MASTF). Following that, MCTA got itchy in the backside and came up with its own version of MATTA Fair and MASTF, calling their brainchild the Malaysia International Travel Mart. You see how smart they are? They took MATTA’s idea, made it international and stole part of MASTF’s name.

6. Woah… What the heck is this MAS thing?
Threw you into a tailspin with that one, didn’t I? MAS stands for Malaysia AirlineS. They are Malaysia’s very own homegrown Airlines that is so deep in shit that when one of their representatives speaks, you can’t really tell whether its bullshit spewing from their mouths or just the general shit they are in spilling out. Look them up at their website. You might learn a thing or two.

7. And this MAS Travel Fair?
Which shell have you been hiding under? The MAS Travel Fair 2006 is currently being held in the cyberworld. It started on 17 February 2006 and will end on 26 February 2006. If you hurry, you might just get a good deal from it. Or you can just wait for the MATTA-MITM Fair 2006.

8. So are you going to tell us what MATTA-MITM Fair is?
All in due time. But first, let me illustrate just how daft some people are.

Definitions courtesy of Dictionary.com:
mart Pronunciation (märt) [noun]:

1. A trading center; a market.
2. A place where goods are sold; a store.
3. Archaic. A fair.

fair (2) Pronunciation (fâr) [noun]:

1. A gathering held at a specified time and place for the buying and selling of goods; a market.
2. An exhibition, as of farm products or manufactured goods, usually accompanied by various competitions and entertainments: a state fair.
3. An exhibition intended to inform people about a product or business opportunity: a computer fair; a job fair.
4. An event, usually for the benefit of a charity or public institution, including entertainment and the sale of goods; a bazaar: a church fair.

Do you see the similarity between the two words? Mart = Fair, Fair = Mart. Now if we took MATTA-MITM Fair and rolled it out to its full form, we get Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents - Malaysia International Travel Mart Fair. Mart Fair? The people who strung these acronyms together were either asleep during English lessons (can’t say that I wasn’t) or playing truant when they were handing out brains. Next time, suck your thumb less and open your eyes more.

But we’re not really here for an English lesson now are we? So bad English aside, MATTA-MITM Fair 2006, is touted to be biggest travel fair in Malaysia. The Mart Fair will be held at Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) Kuala Lumpur from 17 March 2006 to 19 March 2006. Among other things, they will be selling travel packages and flight tickets for cheap. It is usually a crowded affair with tons of traffic, and loads of sweaty ugly people. Go if you wish to lose your soul.

That wasn’t so hard now was it once you knew all the players and what all the damned abbreviations meant.

Okay, that’s all folks.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Good bye now. I have a life to go back to.

Abbreviated to kthxbai. That means SHOO!

Disclaimer:
The office vending machine was just restocked with some Iced Nescafe Mocha. I had a can and I swear its chock full of some psychadelic shit!