Your experience of culture shock in Malaysia

Hai christine,
Im Risa from indonesia and i been stay here for nearly 2 years, Malaysia is lovely country and nearly same with indonesia about language. We have doing business here selling sweet arabic sweet and also we sell oil and chickpeas, i love to have friends here and maybe we can share our experience  about life and about sort of thing.

what u mean by bit?lolz.i am a Canadian and educated in the uk with mix ethnicity,i have found if I speak in English with them,the attitude they show to me like 'why you speak in engish?u are brown u should speak in malay or other local language'. I rented a house with 1k every month with 3 months deposit which doesn't have a proper kitchen,no kitchen counter,and air conditioner doesn't work when i told them to fix it,they just ignored it as if a house just needs toilet and few bed rooms. so i cant cook at home and have to go outside to eat,and when i go outside,i see foods are open,flies are flying over,just next to drain. I go to office(i am an univ professor) by walk as its only 15 minutes walk,but there's no footpath let alone pedestrian crossing,i just walk by the edge of the road,and the way cars pass by me,i am afraid that some day they might knock me down.one day a motor biker screamed at me loudly 'heyy' as if i blocked his path.one of colleague,a lady from India was knocked down by biker while walking home and the biker snatched her neckless(IPOH,Jalan kampar),and when she went to police,police instead taking case said why the (hell?) was she walking? I am used to say 'thanks' 'please' with every words,and when i do the same here i dont get any reply of my 'thanks' and also never heard such from people here.

It is different and I agree, the rental properties are not what I expected. They don't have a proper kitchen and I had to ask the lanlord to remove the furniture from the apartment as I did not like it at all. But hay..when in Rome do what Romans do! These are lovely people and the culture is different.

I'm from Lithuania. My husband, I and our dog moved there 3 month ago. The first thing probably which was so strange for us.. the heat...it always felt like entering a sauna first weeks. Letter when we used to climate the strange thing is strong air conditioning in public places (transport, taxi, shooing malls). It so strong that now always taking a sweater when going for longer walk in shopping mall or going by transport. that is huge difference in my culture. we like warmness and take coats and sweaters when going outside buildings;oD

the other thing is dog. we knew that Malaysia isn't very friendly for dogs. But so far so good. Just sometimes surprises how people reacts to it. there is no neutral reactions: or likes so much and want to cuddle  it or goes around few meters, there was even twice the people see dog and screams. For me its quite unusual. Back home there are lots of dogs and most of them knows how to behave and people don't care about them around. But there in KL if you have a dog I suggest always ask people about how comfortable they are with them.

yes there is really small amount of pedestrians routes, but with that I believe that no one wants hit people. They drive quite carefully.Of course pedestrians should watch where they go too. And before going there I was warned about  robberies of bikers so trying keep my bag on other shoulder than the road is, or just put it cross body.

the other thing is as I call it right hand cult. everything is done by one hand: eating, giving money, taking products... I'm amazed how people are capable using only one arm or two but no way only left. I'm starting to learn this too. coming from Europe there is no such things so you have to use to that.

I am from London and used to walk almost everywhere. I have tried walking here several times from great eastern mall to my home in ampang with extreme difficulty. There literally is no pavement to walk on and you take your life in your hands by trying to do it. I do not wish to become a taxi princess so I keep trying but I find I am often accosted by unwanted men pestering me and trying to stay alive whilst moving quickly away from someone is even more difficult. I do not have a car here and I feel that my liberty is being eroded.
My second gripe is the dreadful customer service. Excuse me for entering your shop and ruining your day. I will say no more.....
Thirdly I have tried such brands as cadburys, Guiness and Doritos here and they are all awful in comparison to the European made versions. On the bright side, I love curry puffs, I love it that I can go to pavilion and get sweet and sour chicken with rice for about £1-50,that I can live in a condo with pool, sauna and gym for just a fraction of what it would cost in London.
I miss the arts scene, sainsburys and long walks wearing a windcheater and hiking boots but I'm not ready to return to grey skies and bitter winters just yet.

Well! At the point when comes to prejudice, Malaysians are number 1. I'm from South Africa; I lived in South Korea and China functioning as ESL educator it was great. When I came to Malaysia, I discover myself so difficult to land a position because on my skin colour. I met one selection representative he let me know he can't contract me on account of my skin colour. 

That is very sad to hear. I am aware of this problem. My partner ( a dark skinned Malay ) has many more years of teaching experience than I do yet I am working three times less hours and taking home the same amount of money by virtue of being white English. I find it embarrassing and infuriating. I would suggest you try your luck in Europe where you will be treated the same as everyone else.

Taking off shoes when entering someone's home or office.
Totally shocked when I had to work without shoes on!!!!!!
Actually I am not used to walk anywhere, even in the house, without slippers on, very uncomfortable!!!!!! I literally tiptoe around leaving the local colleagues wondering what I was doing! Lol

Hi All! I am from Uzbekistan, been here for 9 years. Malaysia is a wonderful country but need agree with some points above. When I came to Kuala Lumpur the streets used to be clean, but now it's different, rubbish and rats are everywhere. The hygiene of those days is missing.

Education here is another matter, before you enter the kids to the preschool or school there will be tons of promises, once your kid enters to the school all these promises will disappear and you need to end up with outside tuition. Some cashiers and promoters are very rude with zero manners. The shopping malls should educate its workers before hiring them

hi there jasmine, do you happen to follow their newspaper? i saw in a newspaper,they got a rat bigger than a dog, and the guy who caught it, he was just SMILING!!
education is matter?lolz,i am a doctor and an assistant professor,i can bet with you that most asian countries let alone north american or even any europeans ,has way much better education in compare to msia.
u should be careful if you outside,its extremely dangerous,every eyar atleast 9-10 thousand suffer from food borne disease such as amoebiasis,diarrhoea,intestinal helminths.
only shopping malls?haha i don't see any gentle behaviour let alone courtesy among my colleagues who are professors,lolz.

Prejudice does NOT just happen in Malaysia, not only Malaysians do that.  It is actually WORLDWIDE.  You can find these kind of people all over the world.  It's kind of human nature, so we can all stop our hypocrisy now. 
As well as, in every country there's always a squatter area and a high class area, rich and poor people even in Western and European countries.  It's actually unavoidable!  Who on earth can control that?!  We just have to be matured enough to accept reality, complaining wont do you any good.  Just be the best we can be wherever we are, we don't own this land so we might as well behave ourselves in foreign land and quit whining like babies!
Best laugh at your experiences in life good or bad.

Didn't really expect to see such powerful negativity when I clicked on this topic. Sadly I'm sure it's all mostly true and even sadder, we don't experience any of it because we are two American professionals: registered nurse and financial services. (my wife is Chinese but only speaks Cantonese and although the Hokkien of Penang don't understand her they are never rude). We are not wealthy by any means but are early retirees using MM2H and most Malaysians bend over backwards to help us, talk to us and even want to become friends. Granted everyone posting lives in KL and Penang is very different. Walking is not a problem here in town and there are sidewalks in Georgetown and even where we live,  all the way out in Batu Ferrenghi.

As far as culture shock, Malaysia is mostly what we expected for a developing country with surprisingly decent services like phones and internet. Obviously it's nothing like the west but that was one reason we chose to come.

Speaking of culture shock; There is one issue so insanely ridiculous I can't even fathom it. The toxic chemical and burning ash inhaled by 30 million Malaysians thanks to irresponsible neighbors breaking every rule in existence and complacently accepted as "the haze" is possibly the breaking point for me that sends us back to the USA or to other developing nations like Panama that are influenced by sensible western legislation. I was going to post this on my blog but decided it was too negative so I'll use this forum to vent my opinion;
======================================

Hoping you accept my apologies in advance, it seems a big error in judgement might have taken place. I've tried very hard to keep all negativity off the blog but as I sit here breathing in poison toxic chemicals it would be irresponsible journalism at best to simply ignore "the haze" in a blog that involved living in Malaysia. I'm not going to harp on the pros and cons because that been talked about for almost twenty years yet 30 million people's lives get shortened every single year. Perhaps the breaking point that decides where The Experimental Expats go next, I feel hopelessly trapped.

I've lived through "the triple H" days otherwise known as hazy, hot and humid summertime periods growing up in New York City. We've also lived through severe forest fire seasons in Calgary that sometimes blanket the city in haze for a day or two. But the air pollution in America is not the direct result of Canada (or any other neighboring nation) intentionally burning their entire country and violating every air quality rule on earth. Additionally, the air doesn't smell like a continuous slop of ash, rubber, chemicals and who knows what else. Allowing an entire population to live in this for upwards of eight weeks straight every year for 20 years with no end in sight is by far the most insane human mismanagement of nature I've ever seen. The fact that it's at least manageable if not preventable makes it worse. And the icing on the cake is how everyone we've talked to (and I mean everyone, including the most vocal of more liberal  Penang) simply accepts it. As visitors we have no say and other expats tell us to go to Panama or Costa Rica which are mostly regulated and influenced by America. Sadly, this option might come to fruition. Unable to do my cardio, my eyes are burning, my lungs hurt and barricading myself inside air conditioning for the entire waking day is no way to spend early retirement.

That's all I will say about this issue; I hope to be back to normal positivity the next time I post.

hello boss

.

.

Hi,

My shock was the fact that I can t find good pastry here!! I have been craving Mille feuille for months

You don't have to crave for it anymore...you can get it here. Been there once, quite good for me. Like my mom always say..If you want better, make your own! 

L' Epi D'Or French Boulangerie MILLE FEUILLE
No. 38G, Block C, Zenith Corporate Park, Jalan SS7/26, Kelana Jaya, Petaling Jaya 47300, Malaysia

TroyV,
Whats that? Is it like Kuih Lapis? Just wondering, don't have it here 

gr8fen, it's a pastry. The one I ate was 2 layer crispy pastry is made like a sandwiched in between a thick cream custard in between. Anything with thick cream custard...I like.