COMMENT | For most Malay Muslims - and Muslims in many countries really - pork is the ultimate no-no, regardless of how pious you are or even if you partake in other no-nos like alcohol.

It is because, from a young age, it has been drummed into us that pork is the filthiest of filth.

It is such that when it comes to dining, the idea of eating at a household or establishment where pork is cooked would cause such Muslims to recoil in fear, even if pork was not on the menu for a particular meal.

So when I fell in love with a non-Muslim Chinese woman - who I've now been married to for over a year - such thoughts of course reared its head when the time came for me to have dinner at her family home.

In Malaysia, the understanding that most Muslims have is that anything that comes into contact with a pig or its meat, must be...