A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

Kuala Lumpur - A global survey that placed Kuala Lumpur as the third rudest city is disputable.

Deputy Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak says the basis and tests used in the survey are questionable.

Dato' Seri Najib said, Malaysia said one of the attractions to foreign tourists is the friendliness of Malaysians.

He said, the survey of 35 of the world’s capitals by Reader’s Digest magazine gave a negative image of the country especially after it was aired repeatedly by CNN.

The magazine had sent reporters to the 35 cities in which it publishes to conduct a survey of local politeness.

Three tests were employed: dropping papers in a busy street to see if anyone would help, checking how often shop assistants said, "thank you" and counting how often someone held a door open.

The uproar caused by the above issue was not surprising.
We Malaysians are generally very concerned with how the ‘foreigners’ view us. Sensitivity is heightened whenever criticism is made by ‘foreigners’. Complaints and criticisms by fellow Malaysians rarely get such overt reactions.

I’m not going to comment much on the survey or its findings. I think my blog has been more than sufficiently peppered with my own experience and observations throughout the years for anyone to safely conclude my opinion on this issue.

But I have to say that it’s really amusing to me that the people who condemn the survey came up with their own findings that Malaysians are such ‘friendly, courteous, warm people’.
What do they base their findings on?
Questionnaires and interviews with people on the street.
What people on the street?
Tourists.

Give me a break. Judging our rudeness by the views of our esteemed guests is hardly logical. You don’t need me to tell you that there’s a blatant double-standard with the way we treat our countrymen and the way we treat our visitors.
Ask my husband. I’ve asked so many rude salespeople I’ve encountered whether they’d treat a ‘mat salleh’ the way they just treated me. More often than not, that question will be met with averted eyes and sullen silence.

Don’t get me wrong.
I LOVE the way we treat our visitors.
I LOVE the way tourists always say such lovely things about our country and our people.
I LOVE the way Malaysians are renowned for our ‘friendly, courteous and warm’ personality.

But all that good does not right the wrong of treating our own people with rudeness, discourtesy and indifference.

I think all of us must have experienced at least ONE incident involving rude Malaysians. It's everywhere!
Khairy Jamaluddin wrote in his column in a local newspaper, narrating to us a story about how he and his friends helped a car stuck in a drain whilst getting drenched in the rain and how the car's driver sped off without a word of thanks.
A friend of mine shared the story of how she offered to help a woman carry her shopping bags and was warded off with a stern "F*ck off!"

Honestly, there’s so much I have to say about this subject but I’m sick and tired of it, really. I’ll just be rehashing most of the things I’ve already said time and again in this blog. Allow me to just regale you with one of my recent experiences with our ‘polite Malaysians’.

Wan and I went to Mid-Valley Megamall yesterday.
Upon entering the parking lot, we saw a fellow trying valiantly to reverse his car out of his parking spot. He was having a tough time because his was a big car and there were also two cars double-parked behind his car, making it almost impossible for him to reverse easily.

1st Rudeness:
The two cars selfishly double-parking behind a legally-parked car.

After seeing him go in and back out of the parking spot a gazillion times, my husband took pity on the guy and decided to help. So he parked our car nearby and got out to lend a hand to the obviously helpless fellow.

I stayed in the car and watched the following incident via the side-mirror. Being Ms. Observer (as Halian would call it), I also rolled-down my windows a bit to hear what was going on.

While Wan gave the necessary hand gestures to help the fellow reverse safely, the dude fixed his face with a stubborn I-Need-No-Help look. He was seen muttering through the corner of his mouth to his girlfriend seated next to him.

2nd Rudeness: Pretending that a person who’s helping you is invisible.

The fellow was an idiot. I say this because (a) he had spent so much time trying to reverse his car out with NO visible progress (b) even after a person gives him directions; he STILL made no visible progress.

3rd Rudeness: Me bestowing idiocy-status to a stranger.

After several painful minutes of seeing Wan trying to help an idiot, I was rewarded with seeing the fellow swing his door open, bolt out of his car, completely ignore Wan, stride towards the back of his car and make a great, big show of aggressively kicking one of the double-parked cars while cursing in abandon.

4th Rudeness: Repeat of 2nd Rudeness, shouting expletives in a public area and taking out your frustrations on an inanimate object that doesn’t even belong to you.

He then stomped back to his car, slammed the door and started his whole go-in-back-out samba.

I could see the look on my husband’s face. A comical mixture of amusement, frustration and annoyance. I was already sending him psychic messages “Leave the idiot and come back to the car, sayang. I’m hungry”.

But Wan being Wan, he persevered. He again directed the fellow on the best way to reverse. When he was younger, Wan used to work as an Operations Officer at a company that rented-out cars. Among his many skills include parking in miniscule spaces and reversing out of impossible enclosures. I could see him struggling to get this dude to listen to him and eventually, I heard his voice rise.

The fellow seemed to struggle between his supreme ego (save face in front of girlfriend mahhh...) and his desire to escape the hell-hole that was Mid-Valley carpark. He grudgingly followed Wan’s instructions and all seemed to be going well.

Then Wan told him to stop, straighten the tires and reverse slowly. The fellow seemed to be perfectly ignorant as to how to use his steering-wheel to straighten the tires. I could see the front tires screech to the left...then to the right. By that time, even my Man-of-Infinite-Patience reached his limit. The crazy fellow had not even ONCE acknowledge Wan's existence although Wan had been walking back and forth to make sure that the fellow didn't scratch his precious car.

After being ignored and upon seeing the fellow foolishly wasting time playing with his steering-wheel, Wan sauntered back towards me and enter the car with a sigh. As we drove off, I kept my eyes on the side-mirror and saw the fellow doing his samba routine again.

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

All through lunch, Wan and I kept shaking our heads in amused annoyance while discussing the incident.

5th Rudeness: Talking about people behind their backs.
Though if the fellow was around, we’d probably offer to buy him lunch. NOT.

“That’s why it’s getting so much easier for people NOT to help people,” I observed.

“I tolong sebab I pikir, kalau I sendiri dalam situasi macam tu, I pun nak ada orang tolong,” said my matter-of-fact husband.

“I know, I know. It’s not like I’m saying we should stop helping people. I’m just pointing out to you that not only do people NOT say thank you anymore, they’ve decided to even stop acknowledging our existence as some sort of bizarre defensive mode,” said the over-analytical wife.

“Ahhh... Well, budak tu jaga ego depan girlfren dia la tu,” Wan said while eating the last of his noodles.

“How do you know it’s not his wife?” I asked.

“Sebab dia punya ego, dia punya pride and dia punya drama tadi tak macam husband depan wife. More like boyfriend nak impress girlfriend,” said the wise-wan.

“Whaaaaaat??? What kind of woman would be impressed with THAT behavior?” I exclaimed.

“Perempuan bodoh la,” he replied with a perfectly straight face and a mischievous glint in his eye.

6th Rudeness: Assuming that there are women stupid enough to be impressed with a modern-Neanderthal.

But then again, maybe there are.

All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises.
Henry Clay (1777 - 1852)