Malaysian time - another aspect of the third world mentality

I always hate Malaysian time although I am a Malaysian. It just does not make sense, and I do not like to be made to wait. Being made to wait for a very long time without a valid reason just pisses me off. I have been brought up by my parents to be punctual for any functions or appointments I have to attend to and to respect other people's time.

Thus, I'm always early for any functions or appointments I need to attend to. This is because I take into consideration of the factors that would affect me travelling to the place of the function or appointment. Being very strict about punctuality has seen me almost always never late for any functions or appointments I need to attend to. If I am late for any functions or appointments it would have been due to unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances.

An excellent example of Malaysian time would be Chinese wedding dinners. These dinner functions are notoriously well-known to start extremely late; anywhere from one up to three hours from the time stated in the invitation card. The idea of it is that the bride's family should arrive "fashionably" late for the dinner function so as not to be seen as being impatient for it to start or being plain greedy about the food to be served.

Whoever came up with this idea about Chinese wedding dinner starting late could be a moron to the boot, and has no respect and do not value for other people's time. This trend could possibly have spilled over to the other aspects of Malaysian life and thus, causing many Malaysians to get into the habit of not being punctual for functions or appointments they need to attend to.

As Malaysia will be a developed nation in about nine years' time then this mentality about being on Malaysian time should be discarded altogether. Otherwise, we will be a laughing stock, especially to other countries as this actually portrays that our reliability is very questionable in nature. It definitely does not bode well where positive impressions on Malaysia are concerned.

A Malaysian writer, Lydia Teh has termed Malaysian time as Malaysian Rubber Time or MRT in her book, Honk, If You're Malaysian. She was further quoted in this book as saying "MRT can be deadly". It shows punctuality is extremely essential in every aspect of our daily life.     

Malaysian kiasu-ism - an aspect of the third-world mentality

The irony of me being a Malaysian - I don't indulge in the third-world mentality Malaysians are well-known to possess. But I do it without meaning to off and on. Not that I deliberate want to do it. I was at the supermarket in town this morning doing my usual weekly grocery shopping. What I saw was an out-of-the-ordinary scene.

There was a very long queue of people at the redemption counter. I was wondering why, when it came my turn to pay for the items I had picked out at one of the check-out counters, I found out that the supermarket chain concerned was offering a few selected items for the price of RM 1, which was really dirt cheap to the boot.

What amused and baffled me was that Malaysians would go all out to get dirt cheap offers at supermarkets and hypermarkets. Worse still if there is no capped limit to the number of items they could buy, a possible stampede would probably ensued! However, thank God that the supermarket chain management had decided  to cap the limit to one unit per item per customer for this particular one-day offer. Thus, the long queue at the redemption counter.

It is actually not a very bad thing to be kiasu at times as this would help us become globally competitive. If we do it the right way and with the right kind of attitude and mentality. But not over trivial matters like open house buffets and supermarket/hypermarket special offers. Not to mention and top on this list would be driving, and Malaysians are extremely well-known for their devilish antics on the road; that is why the fatalities pile up sky high, akin to or worse than those countries at the height of civil wars.

Being kiasu - doing it the right way, you would reap the benefits from it but doing the wrong way would result in ruined first impressions and damaged reputations. Maybe it could be a good thing if we can take the good leafs out of our neighbouring country's book on how to be kiasu the right way.

SPM Results - Good or bad it may NOT determine your future career path

It is the time of the year when all Malaysian 18-year olds are receiving their end of high school public examination results, better known as Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia or SPM. Yup, SPM is often viewed as a high school student's future decider, as in the direction they will take where their career path is concerned. For the excellent achievers, there will be not much problems for them to decide what career to take up. Usually it would be the average and below-average students who would face more issues in deciding the career path they want to take.

However, as I was scanning the newspaper this morning, I noticed that some excellent achievers are also faced with the dilemma in deciding their career path. Often, the traditional career choices would be medicine, law and engineering. These career choices often give the idea to students and their parents that they would provide job security, big bucks and the so-called glamour attached to them. Out of the three reasons, most likely job security would be true and the latter two are most likely just disillusionment due to very stereotypical views about the said careers.

Choosing a career path after leaving high school is never that straightforward as most people would perceived it to be. Even for excellent achievers, let alone the average and below-average achievers. In fact, in the real world out there, many people I know are pursuing careers they would NEVER EVER dreamed of doing. But there are also people I know who are pursuing their careers of their choice.

At the end of the day it boils down to TWO most important factors when it comes to choosing the right career path after SPM - they are PASSION and INTEREST. If these two factors are not present when deciding a career choice, then it is better not to pursue it, as it is just a waste of time and effort, which are better off being used to pursue a career of choice. 

Big bucks would often be THE pull factor for a particular choice of career but without passion and interest, it would be just a job an individual would love to hate but he/she does it because of the money. This would defeat the purpose of spending the time and effort being trained for the job. Sad to say from my observation, this is the reality in the Malaysian job market today, a severe mismatch of job talents in many industries and areas of expertise, not to mention in the civil service.  Also, there are still some industries and areas of expertise that are not being properly explored, developed and be matched with the right talents.

At the end of the day, ideally all of us should be doing what we have passion and interest most, but if it doesn't turn out the way we hoped it to be all is not lost yet. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, there could be a silver lining behind those grey clouds hovering over the career/job we might hate doing.

And to those SPM-ers of 2010 - congratulations to all of you, all of you deserved a pat on the back for all the hard work you have put in regardless the results you have obtained. I hope all of you will have a successful future in the career of your choice.