So I was talking to two of my colleagues who are visiting from Singapore today. We first started talking about what Malaysians thought about Singaporeans and then we moved on to what they as Singaporeans thought about Malaysia.
Here is a short list.
1) Singaporeans don’t dare to say “Wah so cheap”.
When they’re in Malaysia among their Malaysian friends, they sometimes think something is cheap relative to back home (especially when converted to SGD) but they hold back from saying it as they don’t want to offend anyone.
2) Malaysians don’t like to walk
They basically got this impression from the Malaysians working in Singapore. Singaporeans are used to walking everywhere in Singapore and taking public transport but their Malaysian friends dread walking to the extent of skipping lunch sometimes.
I guess in Malaysia we’re used to driving rather than walking.
3) Malaysia has a lot of crime…. but it’s okay to go to JB
They worry about the crime rate in Malaysia. About being robbed, mugged, kidnapped and all. But for some reason they’re totally cool with going to JB over the weekend.
4) Taxis in Malaysia are unsafe
Probably from the influence of high profile cases like this, these two Singaporeans seem to think all taxis in Malaysia aren’t safe.
But hey at least authorities are working to catch the culprits.
5) All the hawker food you find in Malaysia is awesome.
This one I heard from Xiaxue.
When she arrived late at night a few days ago I asked her what she wanted to eat for supper and she said anything. She said all the hawker food in KL tastes good. While I said that to be fair there are some bad ones too she has yet to taste anything she would consider bad.
6) Malaysians are helpful and resilient
They find Malaysians generally humble and helpful. Not just among people you meet in public but among their co-workers or friends.
With relatively low incomes and high cost of living they find Malaysians resilient and wonder how we manage to always find a way to survive.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space