[Watch] Can Lah! Harry Kok Exports Malaysian Chaos To The Streets Of NYC

Malaysian puppet Harry Kok went to New York and taught strangers Manglish on the street — and somehow that was the most Malaysian thing to happen in the Big Apple ever.

Facebook: Harry Kok Siew Yok

In Brief

Harry Kok, a satirical Malaysian puppet, hit the streets of NYC teaching New Yorkers classic Manglish phrases like "relax lah" and "can laa".
Created by Ryan Matjeraie, Harry Kok's name is a brilliant Cantonese and Hokkien pun meaning "Crispy Roast Pork Who Talks Rubbish".

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On a Manhattan pavement, Harry Kok Siew Yok was teaching New Yorkers to say relax lah.

Not as a bit.

Not ironically.

Except — entirely as a bit, because Harry Kok Siew Yok is a puppet.

Specifically, he is the creation of Malaysian media personality Ryan Matjeraie: a satirical comedy character whose very name is a Manglish pun layered inside a Cantonese food order.

Harry Kok — a riff on talk kok, Hokkien slang for talking nonsense and Siew Yok — crispy roast pork.

Together, the name is essentially Crispy Roast Pork Who Talks Rubbish, which is, by most accounts, an accurate description of the everyday Malaysian he was designed to represent.

And there he was in New York, running strangers through the starter pack: “mak kau hijau, ya lah, don’t worry, diam lah bodoh, ekcelli, your fadder’s road, can laaa, damn bad siaa, boss boss”, and watching them get it anyway.

The energy was universal.

The vocabulary was very specifically somewhere off the LDP.