Hi everyone! This is my ahem, third post and I realized after reading a few more introduction posts a lot of the steemit folks here speaks about where they are from / where they are now.
So I would like to introduce the place I am currently residing:
It is a flag...
That has…
Red
White
Blue
...
...
A lot of countries have these 3 colours; but lo and behold, there’s a forth colour, which is Yellow.
How many countries out there have all four of these colours? Not many.
And Malaysia, would be one of them.
If you would ask anyone around the world 15 years ago where Malaysia is, a lot of them would probably have no idea where it is; and you would have to say,
“Do you know where Singapore is? Well Malaysia is right above it.”
But the recent few years Malaysia has been shed under a very bad light; from MH370, MH17, Air Asia, Mount Kinabalu earthquake, Lahad Datu attack, to the latest controversial news about the murder case of Kim Jong Nam.
It does look like Malaysia has been struck by an unlucky smack? Doesn't it?
Probably, probably not.
It could be just another country that is being thrown under the bus because of something bigger at play at the back.
Nevertheless, I would like to show you a much normal light of this wonderful country that is so near to the equator.
Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-faith country. If you are talking about inclusive-ism, Malaysia can be one of them. It used to have some really bad racial war incident like the 513 (May 13), but after that, many of its citizens have vowed to try to be as collaborative as possible to live harmoniously, although the bigger “fatter” people at a higher sector might not like it.
Throwing aside the racial dispute created by unnecessary personnel and back to promoting multi-ethnic society; Malaysians derives from the 3 major ethnic groups: they are the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians. And we also have the aboriginal tribes and now with more and more people coming in due to Malaysia My Second Home (M2H) project and educational plus tourism; Malaysians are starting to get used seeing foreign labours and expatriates.
Because of the multicultural-ism, most Malaysians could speak at least 2 languages: Which is Malay (the National Language) and English, and most city folks here speak fairly good English. Besides that, other race in Malaysia would also learn their mother tongue from childhood, which is either Mandarin or Tamil, depending which race you are; thanks to the well fought preservation of language schools by parents and teachers.
So technically if you know a Chinese or an Indian who is from Malaysia, they will probably know 3 languages; but unfortunately more and more Chinese live under the Urbanised landscape have abandon their mother tongue, which is the Mandarin language, although some still practice Chinese local dialects, which can derive into Hakka, Hokkien, Hock Chew, Guang Tong, etc.
So for a well verse Malaysian, one could speak about 3 major languages and probably 2-3 dialects.
Pretty well verse, wouldn’t you agree?
And another interesting part in languages for Malaysians, we like to “rojak” (salad in Malay) our languages, where a fellow Malaysian could actually say 3 different languages in one sentence and the other party could still understand!
Apart from languages, Malaysians LOVE food; yes it is a FOOD PARADISE when you come to Malaysia. Every time I tell my friends who visit me here to be ready – you WILL GAIN WEIGHT HERE!
Like its versatile culture, Malaysian cuisines contain both traditional and fusion forms; and the most common “national food” that almost all Malaysians love, is the nasi lemak.
Heck, there’s even a movie about this food!
(Look for the movie from Youtube called Nasi Lemak 2.0)
That’s how Malaysian love their food.
There’s so much more good things I can share about Malaysia, and I hope this post isn’t too long to bore you off from discovering this all-year Summer country and its warm people.
More to come! (Especially about the food!)
Let me know in the comments what else you would like to know about Malaysia