Today I was only alert for one lecture that was Basic Professional Writing. I had a few snoozes throughout the lecture early in the morning; it was really early, 8 a.m.! Some more it’s Monday. Later on, I dozed off as well in tutorial class until the tutor’s voice boomed into my ears; I was alert for the last 20 minutes. “Smile”… However, I was really concentrated in the Basic Professional Writing at noon. The reason was the lecturer was marvelous. She doesn’t look energetic, strict instead. But, on the contrary, her lecture was very interesting. I found out today’s lecture was quite interactive and good, good not in sense of useful material for exam, but rather good in sense of useful tips for daily life. My lecturer always gave us examples which could be visualized easily, as all the examples are happening around our daily life. Today’s lecture was about culture and some reading skills.
How often will we put a small magazine, pocket book, thesaurus or dictionary in our pocket or bag? How often will we read in train, bus or LRT? How will others look at us if we do so? However, if you go some western countries or Japan, reading in public transport is so common.
How often will we, Malaysians do our part in workplace whole heartedly? As we can see, many scandals flood the newspaper front page headline everyday: leakage in roof, landslide in highway, flash flood in low areas. All these can be avoided actually if we have regular maintenance and provided there is no corruption and bribery in the process. *no offense*. Often, we hear that this friend’s or that neighbor’s newly bought national car doesn’t functional well. On the contrary, as we can see, Japan or Germany-made-cars can last for many years with proper care and regular service of course. Though after World War 2, most thought that Japan would just continue to stay on their own or would corrupt one day, they came up with their powerful products and made their country proud. One of the main reasons is the workers’ attitude towards their work.
How often will we CEO in Malaysia bows to and greets the workers? How often will we find our public toilet to be clean though we pay for it? How often will the wedding dinner start on time especially the Chinese one? However, in Japan again, the CEOs do bow to their workers, the public toilets are as clean as those in five-star hotels and punctuality is their prime principal that they hold firmly. These not only happen in Japan, but in some western countries as well.
How often will we see the ground of public transport is clean? Sweet wrappers, tissue paper, and etc are commonly “left” at the seats unintentionally or thrown on the floor. We never pay attention to this. But if we were in Japan, Japanese will definitely cast a “dirty” look on us if we ever do this.
Have we ever wondered where have we gone wrong? Should we evaluate ourselves? I don’t mean that we don’t have great things to be proud of, but it could really be countable. We don’t have light reading instead we have critical reading all the time. Why? Why do most of the students have interest in reading the dull text books while novels are far better and more interesting? Undoubtedly, this is because of the system we have: exam-oriented. This is especially true for Chinese, as exam has been so important since the past centuries whereby students study hard all the time in order to get “chong yuen” which is similar or equivalent to PHD today. And many think that those arrive late will look to be higher class, and thus punctuality problem is never solved. Cleanliness is another problem in our country too, we always have such thinking “this is not my home, who cares; I’ve paid for it, let those who are responsible in cleaning to do it”, and hence, we always have to close our mouth and nostrils when we go toilets. We also always think that those who are under us or have a lower status have to greet us first, or else we would “lose face”. As a result of less reading, most of Malaysian’s dreams go down the drain, while Newton’s pipe dreams (for most people that time) come true one by one. As I know, most scientists and inventors are well-read!
It’s hard to change our “culture” over night, but let’s begin with you and me :)
p/s: this is supposedly posted yesterday, but as a result of the “rocks” Streamyx, I only manage to post it now.
