Malaysia Truly Asia

Currently blogging from the land of Kota Kinabalu. I've been back in Malaysia for about a month and a half and I've been doing a fair bit of observing and trying to note what has changed from my previous trip back and whether it's for better or for worse or was there any change to begin with.

Referring to the title of the blog, what does that even mean? Does it mean that by visiting Malaysia you don't have to go to any other Asian countries? Do you get the whole cultural experience that you'd get from visiting the other Asian countries? Is there no MORE Asian country than Malaysia? Does it make Malaysia the best out of all the Asian countries?

Same same but different?? Malaysia, be it gomen or people living in this land, I think it's fair to say that we'd visit some neighbouring country and think, "We're not like them." And carry on on this whinging tirade of how we Malaysians are better because we have the Twin Towers or this apparently world class F1 circuit. We like to think we are more developed, better, stronger and whatever else but in a lot of ways, i think we're the same. And that's where I may have offended a lot of people who are ready to stand up and point a finger at me saying how wrong I am.

I try to visualise looking at Malaysia as how an outsider would look at this country. What do they see? Whether the get off at KLIA or LCCT or cross the border into JB, what's their perspective? Is this a country that tries to represent and makes it's mark in this world by once having the tallest building? So what? Does it REALLY make Malaysia any more developed? As a tourist, whether one who stays at every 5-star hotel or a backpacker, I think that Malaysia is as much a developing nation as the other nations in this region. Having the tallest building does not make us any better. There's still the issue of poverty, discirmination, poor maintenance of buildings, poor road conditions, and the list goes on. Yes, each nation do have their strengths and weaknesses. In the eyes of an outsider, I believe they see us all as one and the same. You have that few interesting touristy destinations but everything else is run down.

By saying all of the above, I'm not writing off Malaysia. But that in many ways, we are not much better than our neighbouring states. And until we accept that fact and stop thinking so highly of ourselves, nothing much is going to change or worse, it could be a detrimental change. Forget that tallest building. Yes some people work in it but for the rest of Malaysia who hardly see it in their everyday lives, what really matters is proper rubbish collection and disposal, proper traffic control, better infrastructure, better systems, better behaviour, just to name a few.