m'sia s'pore

One of the perennial questions that always exists in my head, other than the often cyclical quest on the human nature and the purpose of life, is whether it's better to live in Malaysia or in Singapore. I am often reminded of how unhappy, how stressful, how no-life s'poreans generally are. (Check this out). But then again, when i think harder, i recall that life was exciting and meaningful for me (as a student, as a waiter and as a teacher). Of course i admit that the macro environment in s'pore is generally more competitive and stressful, but that does not mean that at a micro level happiness and purposefulness are hard to attain. Singaporeans are notoriously labelled as cold and bland, but i have found quite a number of very nice and very interesting friends there. While people often comment about the long sour faces MRT commuters in s'pore perpetually put on, this phenomenon is not uncommon among the higher echelons of malaysian society. The difference lies only in the fact that a larger portion of singaporeans belong to that stereotype. It is only a matter of time before cities like PJ to turn into another stereotyped Singapore-like society.


On the other hand, i am trying to gather my thoughts on whether life in Malaysia is really that bagus! I have met a lot of very nice friends and acquiantances here. i love the 人情味, the culture, the customs and the practises here.


but when i say i love malaysia, you can almost be certain that i choose to temporarily close my eyes on some issues of injustice.

check this out.

A proposed Guidelines to Foreign Participation in the Distributive Trades "states that all retailers, wholesalers, and specialty stores would be asked to restructure to meet a minimum 30% bumiputra requirement, to raise its paid-up capital to at least RM1 million and to ensure the composition of the directors and employees reflect the racial composition of the country."

In another word, if your company is big and pro, 30% of your workers must be Malay, and 60% of the board of directors must be Malay. The former is acceptable, but the latter is cut-throat nono. This would seriously hamper entrepreneurship especially among aspiring young Chinese entrepreneurs like me =)

and lots of other issues.

but all can be traced to one root problem: ethnicity

in neighbourhoods and kampungs, malaysia is indeed a multiracial and multicultural society, and people from different races live happily together. But that is not reflected at the higher level of the society namely in the parliament and among the movers and shakers of this nation.

and there was a Malay politician who said something like this: "this land belong to us bumiputra, and we graciously allow you chinese to settle in this land, and now you chinese kakacheowcheow trying to cross the line?"


please dont arrest me.
if our govt do know how to access to blogs.