Review: Honk, If You're Malaysian by Lydia Teh

Title: Honk, If You're Malaysian
Author: Lydia Teh
Year: 2007
ISBN: 983-3698-12-3

Honk, If You're Malaysian by Lydia Teh is a collection of idiosyncrasies of Malaysian life from the author's extensive observations over the years, working as an office secretary first and later a full-time homemaker. This book is in fact, a sequel to an earlier book released in 2004, entitled Life's Like That: Scenes from Malaysian Life.

This book tells the various aspects of Malaysian life and the quirky and out-of-the-ordinary situations happening to ordinary Malaysians. They are hilarious and most of us Malaysians would be able to relate to all those observations made by Teh in this book. For non-Malaysians, this book is an excellent introduction to the unique Malaysian aspects of life they might not be familiar with. It would help them understand and absorb the culture shock they might experience when arriving in Malaysia for the very first time.

Teh tells the various idiosyncrasies of Malaysians that often transcends the racial and cultural boundaries in a very enlightening and humourous manner, and that I, as a Malaysian cannot help but grin like a Cheshire cat when reading this book. As Malaysia is multi-racial country, these idiosyncrasies add more colour to the already colourful background and culture of the country.

Need I say more about this book? It is for those people who love to read about everyday humour of the normal man on the street and have a good chuckle about it. I am actually delighted to discover that there are good writers in English language in Malaysia. Lydia Teh is one of them, and I am very sure there are more of them out there waiting to be discovered.