Thursday, February 08, 2007

What it means to be Malaysian

  1. You have to wake up 2 hours earlier just to get to work half an hour late because:-
    • you were stuck in a jam getting out of your residential area because the property developer and municipality planner did not think to build enough access roads to accommodate the influx of residents to the new housing area;
    • there is only one single lane "toll free" road and a thousand cars trying to get onto it;
    • there is a multi lane toll paying road with 10 collection booths, but only 2 are open and the touch 'n go and/or smart-tag lanes are reduced to one serviceable gantry because the others are "sedang diuji" (undergoing tests);
    • the multi lane toll paying road converges into a three or (heavens!) two lane road;
    • the very uniquely Malaysian "queue cutters" who thinks that he/she gets an advantage by being 2 cars ahead of you on a jammed road (hurrah! big deal!); and
    • traffic lights that seem to take forever to change and when they do, the car in front of you decides to stall, splutter and die.

  2. You pay 300% in car excise duties, yearly road tax, exorbitant toll, (frequently) price-adjusted petrol, parking charges and still get stuck in a jam;
  3. You wish to use the public transportation system but there is no to service your area; or you most likely will still have to fork out ridiculous taxi fares because the distance is too far to walk but not far enough to justify the taxi driver's "effort"; or it rains and you end up stranded at the bus stop/LRT station and praying a passing vehicle doesn't splatter you with mud;
  4. You have to stand in line in order to get a queue number to wait some more at government departments(!);
  5. You're being given a long speech about how you have flaunted the law/exceeded the speed limit and how the officer will have to haul your a*s down to the "balai" (police station) only to have the same officer tell you that he wishes to "help you settle" on the spot;
  6. You dial a frequently called number only to be told by an automated voice that "the number you have dialed, is no longer in service" when you just manage to get through 5 minutes ago (weird...);
  7. The standard phrase for seeking opportunities or options is, "got/ada lubang ka?" (nope, it doesn't have any negative/kinky connotations, it just simply means "do you know of a source?")

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