The difference between a Malaysian and non-Malaysians

I use Jalan Raja Laut to get to work everyday. So seeing busloads of tourists taking photos of Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad and hanging around Dataran Merdeka is a daily fare.

By now I can even tell if it's peak holiday season or not by the number of tour buses parked at the side. I can even differentiate the nationalities of the tourists. Currently I see a lot of Chinese nationals by the number of "touts" or beggars holding chinese placards asking for donations.

As for the “mat salleh” (as we call Caucasians in Malaysia), they normally do not follow the tour buses but walk in on their own. Occasionally I see a few of them on the Hop On Hop Off buses and would shake my head in disbelief as they love to sit on the open air deck under hot afternoon sun.

I also find a flaw in the design of the bus as the open roof thing, in my humble opinion should be in the front where the view is 360. Instead the front is covered until halfway and the rear is open. So imagine if you are a tourist on top, you cannot see what’s the attraction until you are beside it and then turn around and take a picture of it from behind.

In Hong Kong, the tourists double decks are without roof. In Singapore it is fully covered. In Malaysia, we like to have the best of both worlds. I supposed they feel that people sitting in front prefer air con and people at the back like the exhaust. I don’t know.

Anyhow I digressed. From my observation, I find that the one stark difference between Malaysians and non-Malaysians is non-Malaysians tend to observe traffic light. They will wait for the pedestrian light to turn green even though there are no vehicles approaching or all the vehicles have stopped at the traffic light.

 For Malaysians we will immediately cross the road without a second of hesitation. It is not so for foreigners. They will wait.

There is this particular light at the junction right between Dataran Merdeka and DBKL which is not very pedestrian friendly (possibly because the timing is off) as when vehicles stop, it still show Red for the pedestrian and before long it’s green for the vehicles and the poor tourists are still standing there waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green for them.

I know of a tourist who had similar experience a few years back at the Concorde Hotel junction wanting to get to Dang Wangi LRT station. She stood there for a good 5 minutes before she realized something is wrong and decided to cross when the pedestrian crossing light is Red but all vehicles have stopped.

Later walking past Wariseni before AIA building, again she needed to cross the road to get to the LRT station (at that time, there were still no pedestrian bridge) without the aid of any traffic light. This time she stood longer not knowing how to cross the road as most cars cruise at high speed on this road. She stood there until finally a Malaysian sensing her despair came and helped her cross.

So if you are a foreigner, when in Malaysia do as Malaysians do. Use your common sense at crossroads. Remember there is strength in numbers. If you see other people cross, follow suit. Don't just stand there and wait. Goodness knows how long you have to wait.

But if you are Malaysians in overseas, do as the native do and adhere to pedestrians rules. Pedestrians are not king where there are traffic lights. Just have to be patient and wait for the lights to change. After all, we don’t want to be labeled as uncivilized.

Malaysia - for the uninitiated

For those not from Malaysia, here are a few ways to describe Malaysia:

Malaysia is the country north of Singapore, south of Thailand. Many times I have to do this but thanks to Dr M foresight in building the Twin Tower, F1 Circuit and KLIA I have since encounter no such problem. Everyone seems to know or pretend to know where Malaysia is now.

Malaysia is a tropical country near the Equator and hence we have summer all year round except for the annual monsoon season every end of the year but this only affects those staying near the east coast.

Malaysia has 3 major races - Chinese Indian and Malay (alphabetically listed in no order of priority) as well as indigenous tribes or we called them “orang asli”.

With 3 races we have 3 different languages, 3 different radio channel, 3 different newspapers, 3 different schools, 3 different political parties and the list goes on.

We are a naturally safe country with no natural calamities save for the human induced ones like Highlands Tower. There are no earthquake, volcano nor typhoon.

We are world famous for our beaches like Sipadan, Sabah and is a haven for leatherback turtles who come here to lay their eggs annually though the number is decreasing drastically but our government is making conservation effort. Nonetheless during my recent trip to Kota Bahru in 2010, we were served turtle eggs for lunch. Ahem…

Malaysia have the largest cave in Sarawak. It is so big that you can even launch a hot air balloon in the cave.

We have the tallest mountain in South East Asia though many who have climbed it dubbed it one of the easier mountain to climb.

But to me Malaysia is famous for the most number of public holidays! It is inevitable since there are 3 major races and each demand their holidays to be accorded the same respect so it is no wonder that we have been having one holiday after another for the past 2 months or so.

It has been said that many expatriates loved Malaysia for this same reason. Not only were there local customs and festivities, we recently also had a Friday declared a public holiday because our football team won a match with Indonesia on Indonesian soil. Since it had been more than 20 years I reckon since we last won any major match, the government felt that this was worth celebrating.

So thank you for the off day but pity those who needed to do banking or worst still those who had to renew their passports as financial institutions and government offices were closed on that day.

I had the privilege of going to Jakarta in January 2011 and during one of those cab rides, a friendly driver was pointing out places of interests to me. Then he pointed out the huge Jakarta football stadium. This he said was the stadium which Malaysia won the match in. I candidly asked if there were any commotion after the match especially if there are any ill-willed against Malaysians but good thing for us there were none.

Malaysia is not always on good terms with its neighbour Indonesia especially when cases of Indonesians maid abuses hit the front page. The most recent and gory case was the one in Penang who endured countless physical and sexual abuses. When her injuries rendered her incapacitated, the employer then had the gall to dump her far far away from the house hoping she cannot find the house.

During the hype of this media frenzy, again I had to go Indonesia. I was quite reluctant to go as at the same time a major Malaysian singer called off her concert in Jakarta for fear that the Indonesians might boycott or worse still create chaos as there was a “Hate Malaysians and all things Malaysia” sentiments then. So once there whenever asked where I was from, I answered Singapore.

But after a while being there, I realized the majority of the people are just normal people. Not extremists as I fear.

To sum it up, Malaysia is famous for being very friendly. Being taught English since elementary school has made it easy for us to communicate with foreigners. So To Know Malaysia is To Love Malaysia, the good and bad included.

No Pain no Gain? No Pain no Lose is more like it!!

Malaysia recently made it to the top of the list of most number of obese people in Asia. Malaysia ranked 6th after Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Meaning we are No.1 most obese nation amongst ASEAN countries.

That’s not very flattering but those who is try to lose that 3kilos would know that it is very painful and hard work.

Somehow everyone knows of someone who is trying to lose weight or am personally trying to lose that extra weight. It is so difficult to do so in Malaysia with all the cheap and readily available food.

The number of holidays and festivities does not help either. There are just too many weddings, new year (4 official new years as we have one for Malay, Chinese and Indians on top the annual new year on 1 Jan) and the usual litter of birthdays.

So there are plenty of excuses to eat eat and eat. The sad part is according to a show on Discovery Channel, obesity is a vicious cycle. The more you try to lose, the most likely you will gain it back and maybe even more.

So starvation is out of the question. So how do you do it? Apart from those who are blessed with the ability of eat without gaining a single kilo, most of us struggle with this issue.

Currently I am trying this method which I HOPE will not take me into a roller coaster cos I am just changing my lifestyle.

I used to skip breakfast and have heavy dinner cos I just cannot resist my mom’s cooking during dinners. I also believe that mom’s cooking are more nutritious so I will save my stomach for it.

Now I reverse it by taking heavy breakfast/ lunch and having little or no dinner at all (sigh… goodbye to my favorite mom’s specialty). Even if I do eat dinner I am eating the vegetables and not the meat or drink the soup without tasting the chicken. And who is enjoying all these meat? Well none other than my pets at home. Haha...

So far I have manage to lose like 2-3 kilos. Hopefully I will continue to see further reduction and this weight loss is here to stay.

Will update the blog on the progress of the weight loss in the future. So fellow victims of low metabolism, do not lose heart - just lose weight. I know that tagline sounded super cheesy but patience is the key ingredient to losing weight. Set realistic goals where you expect results in months time and not days / weeks like in The Biggest Loser.

I believe that it is when you slowly lose the weight that is when you can keep the weight off for good. Another one of my favourite tagline is “Hunger is your Friend”. Sleep hungry and you will wake up to a smaller stomach.

It not easy but who say weight lost is easy. Remember No Pain No Lose!