The other day, I was going home from work by LRT as usual and an incident happened that reminded me of the infamous Malaysian culture.
As usual, the trains were all packed during rush hour. A Malay guy was standing near the door and there was still some loose space behind him. He could have backed a little to make room for me if he wanted. However, he just stood there holding onto the hand strap overhead and didn't budge an inch. I thought, "Oh well, I'll wait for the next train then," since I wasn't rushing for anything.
Seconds before the door closed, a geeky but smiley and skinny plus not-so-tall Mat Salleh came by and spoke in Malay, "Boleh masuk?". His pronunciation was impeccable.
Well, all of us were duely entertained. It even drew a curve up the lips of some of the passengers while I was stifling a giggle myself.
Immediately, the guy who was too lazy to budge backed away and made a nice little space for the Mat Salleh. I was the only one left outside the door. Heck, seemed like I was being ostracized. One of the female passengers looked at me.
Geez, I was thinking, "And here it is - the Western-worship behaviour of Malaysians rearing its ugly head."
I felt like a second-class citizen in my own country! Funny!
Or was it because the Mat Salleh could integrate himself into our culture and language that they treated him differently? I really dunno.
Talk about double standards.
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