RAT In Beer Glass Kebaya and Whiskey

The RAT in Beer Glass, Kebaya MAS and Whiskey
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright December 2021

Let me start by asking you to think of a word that remotely associates a beer glass with kebaya MAS and whiskey.

But before you answer that, here are some examples from my college days; blood, cheese, water. Or tennis, same, head. Finally, age, mile, sand.

If you answered blue for, blood, cheese, water, you are right.

For the next three; tennis, same, head; if you were to answer, “match”, you are right, too. 

In the third group containing, age, mile, sand; the answer is stone.

By now, you should get the idea that the fourth word is remotely connected to the three given. But the respondent must know the language and culture that gave rise to idioms implied in the quiz.

For instance, consider the word blue. Only if you were well versed in the English language and Anglo-Saxon culture,  would you see blue as a common link for blood, cheese and water. Not many Malaysians have heard of blue cheese or blue blood.

Similarly, for the second group, only those who play tennis would link it to match but not necessarily match head because the current generation does not use matches. For the last group where the stone is linked to the stone age, milestone and sandstone, you have to be linguistically competent.

The people who developed RAT or Remote Associates Test were interested in respondents to identify a fourth word that would link or associate all three given.

When I was in Graduate School I met a professor who was involved in Remote Associates Test (RAT). It was widely used for measuring creativity. They assumed creative people could easily make remote associations of words.

A high RAT score means you are innovative or creative. But, in recent years, it had lost its popularity as a reliable predictor of creativity partly because it was culture-bound. That is, you had to know the culture to do well in the test.

Now let’s go back to my original question. What is the remote link for beer glass with kebaya MAS and whiskey?

Do not get mad if I tell you that the remote associates for beer glass, kebaya worn by air stewardess and whiskey, is “haram”.

RAT is culture-bound. Only a conservative Muslim Malay would see the remote association.

So, what does that mean? Are Muslim Malays from PAS creative? Is this the only group that can link a brand new Carlsberg beer glass to traditional baju kebaya and whiskey with the Arabic word of haram?

Let me refresh your memory. There is a story, that went viral, about a poor man who offered his guest plain water in a brand new beer glass but was reprimanded for it as haram to do so and was asked to repent.

Similarly, for MAS airline stewardesses who wore baju kebaya, it was haram. An MP from PAS, said so, in Parliament.

In the case of whiskey, we know it is haram for Muslims to drink but for PAS it was “haram” to even use Timah on a label on grounds that it was remotely related to the Prophet and not tin in Colonial Malaya.

Now you see how absurd a RAT is. In this case, PAS is too rooted in religion and culture-making any RAT is irrelevant.

Perhaps, when a person is too religious, deeply immersed in his own culture, being able to associate words remotely is not necessarily a predictor of creativity.

Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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