1. Dropping papers in the busy street to see if anyone would help.
2. Checking to see whether sale assistants would say the magic word “thank you”.
3. The number of times someone would hold the door for someone else.
(Source: the SUN dated 22/06/2006)
When I heard about this piece of info on national news last night, sad to say, I was not surprised at all. What do you expect, especially from most Malaysians. I am a Malaysian too, but I am not afraid to admit to the lack of courtesy among many of us. The surveys involved certain areas only, if they have included the Malaysian drivers as their statistics, we would probably be ranked FIRST! I am sure most of us are very well aware of the rude and obnoxious attitudes of Malaysians drivers. Moreover, having road bullies is like a norm. It is definitely a serious illness.
If you talk about common courtesy in Malaysia, I could probably come up with many real life experiences. For example, using public transport i.e LRT can be frustrating as well. Those sitting would normally be too engrossed in napping to notice the heavily pregnant ladies or the old folks. The alarming part is having projects like “minggu sopan-santun” and “minggu berbudi bahasa” for the adults. Why do the Government need to have all these projects to teach and educate the adults?? All this awareness should be instilled in kids when they are very little. Not when they are all grown up :P Something must be wrong somewhere, parents should play a role in educating their children to be courteous and nice to people. The word "thank you" should be used often in their daily lives. Once I gave up my train seat to a pregnant woman and instead of getting a simple thank you…she actually ignored me and gave me that indifferent look!
As for holding doors, I keep telling myself, do not expect much. To get a simple thank you or a smile from someone is pure luck, expecting them to hold the door for you is a dream come true! So for those of you living especially in the UK/US, enjoy the moment! You will definitely not get it here :P. However, not all Malaysians are lacking in common courtesy.
As for having New York as the most courteous city, I am also not surprised. Been there a couple of times and having had many personal sweet memories there. New York is where the people are genuinely caring. As busy or dangerous as New York can be, you still see people giving up their seats on the subway, saying “hello sweetie” or "YO dude” when you are in their shops, no pushing and squeezing while getting on the bus, holding doors for one another etc. They are not all that nice and rosy but they are civilized in many ways. Their good and caring gestures are so natural.
So for us to be a developed nation, we need a developed “rakyat” as well. It is about time we scrape the RUDE word which is normally tagged to Malaysians. We need to be more civilized! Oh well, like they say “melentur buluh biar dari rebungnya”…..not when it is too old :D
6 comments:
we are super nice to foreigners but yet rude to our own people
hahhahaha...we are no.4
I'm not surprised..ppl are so selfish now..
one thing though, for those in the US, saying greeting/thank you is an auto reaction, they don't necessarily mean the words.
but here in Malaysia, when you hear it, the people usually meant it. i guess that's why Malaysian don't really say thank you, i guess the thinking "why say it when I don't mean it".
agreeing with you that berbudi bahasa should be inculcate when we are kiddies, dah besar ni a bit hard lah nak dilentur buluh nih.
my 2 cents lah.
I hate malaysian drivers! 95.9% are rude, road bullies and etc
ain't that right...
it took me by surprise when i learnt most of the courtesy from my visit to the states. yup they hold doors, let you thru the zebra crossing, even cars at the opposite side of the road have to stop when a school bus stops. i thought they are really wonderful people. yet they still praise us when making friends... according to many foreigners i've met, we Malaysians are very warm people simply because we don't put that thick walls as barrier between friends. hmmm... ya ka...
gravt kills,
I agree. Look at how the cabin crew treat the locals as compared to the foreign passengers :D
blackfeline,
Singapore No;4 ?? Wow.
kepala angin,
Yeah you have to mean it to say it out loud. But if a person deserves a smile and a thank you...why not. I still think Malaysians should change their mind set. To late to start with the adults..:D lets target the younger generation.
Thank you for your 2 cents :)==>hopefully it is not to late for me :)
nzn,
Yikes I know, they are the worst, encountered a few of them on the road and the thot of that gives me teh goose bumps.
toughcookie,
It is so true la Cookie. They are courteous and helpful in their own ways. They don't try too hard to impress. The thing I like best abt them is even though they are living in a busy/dangerous/high crime rate city like NYC, they still have the time to queue and be helpful to the rest.
As for M'sians being friendly, yup it is a known fact but sad to say nowadays people are just selfish. Sigh!
Post a Comment