A land of shortchangers.

How often are you shortchanged in your country? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? How about everytime you buy something? That, rather oddly, is the case in Malaysia.

You see, I had become accustomed to the Singaporean way in which if a bill comes to an amount requiring change smaller than the existing coins, that the shop would round DOWN, the bill - and therefore, absorb the loss for itself. Singaporean stores don't therefore, shortchange, the customer. However, Malaysian stores...all of them that I have been to so far...have a rather different approach: they have "rounding adjustments" on the bill - which are always upward alterations in the bill total - to make the change easier. Malaysian stores always try to shortchange the customer: this happened to me in MacDonalds, and in a Supermarket, in 7-11...in fact, everywhere I went, the stores would automatically shortchange me.

Taxi drivers almost always shortchange the customer, too...but that deserves a post of its own.

It strikes me as funny that Singapore and Malaysia were once one united country, yet on one side the shops never shortchange the customer - and on the other side, they always do. Why did one country choose one path - and the other choose the alternative? It is most strange.

I know that the sums involved are small, at each transaction - but since they apply to EVERY transaction, it adds up and would, in the course of a shopping year amount to a sum that anyone would object being picked from their pockets by a passing thief. Yet, picked from their pockets it is, every time they shop in Malaysia.

I should add, at this point, that prices are generally much cheaper in Malaysia than Singapore - except for imported and brand name goods - yet, the point remains, that shortchanging is the norm, in Malaysia, whereas it would be considered abnormal in many other places.

However, it was a surprise to me to see "rounding adjustments" on bills - because I have never seen that, before, in the 20 or so countries I have visited. So, that makes Malaysia unique, in my experience. It is not the only way in which they are unique, but more of those on other posting occasions.

Where even the taxi drivers are creative.

Malaysia is not Singapore. That might seem like an obvious thing to say, but it isn't really, since Singapore and Malaysia were both once part of Malaya. They have a shared history - yet, their nature, particularly their psychological nature could not be more divergent.

We have spent the past few days in Malaysia. In that time, I have been rather surprised by some of the differences in behaviour I have noted. I shall address but one, today.

On two of the taxi trips we have taken, the taxi drivers showed a quality I have never noted in Singaporean drivers: creativity on the road. By this I mean that they showed creativity in how they navigated their way across the city. In one case, the driver took a short cut through a hospital by pretending to be visiting a patient, and taking an entry ticket, just like every other visitor, so that he could circumvent a traffic jam! I was most impressed with his resourcefulness.
In another case, the driver doubled back, on seeing a huge queue of traffic and took a meandering way off the main road onto a back road that was virtually empty of traffic: "Not many people know this way.", he observed in explanation. Sure enough, he got us back to our hotel in about half the time the outbound journey had taken with another taxi driver. Again, I was most impressed with this evidence of creativity.

Singaporean drivers never really show evidence of creative thought. Indeed, many Singaporean drivers don't know their own city well enough to get one there at all, never mind invent a special time saving route. The difference in knowledge between some of the Malaysian drivers we have seen, and their Singaporean counterparts is quite stark. Perhaps it is a matter of survival in a way. The Malaysian drivers have a strong incentive to avoid traffic and some become inventive in response, to do so.

Yet, that is not the only evidence I have seen of creativity here. I will write of those other evidences in other posts.

In the meantime, I look forward to the not infrequent surprise that is a taxi trip, here.

Berjaya Times Square and Bukit Bintang

I had always thought of Orchard Road, in Singapore, as quite a big shopping centre. That was until I went to Malaysia. Today, we went to Bukit Bintang and Berjaya Times Square. It was like entering a new world - a chaotic, gigantic, new world.

Berjaya Times Square is built as if for giants: it is a shopping centre on such a scale that it makes people seem dwarfish and insignificant. So big is it that I wonder just how often one would have to visit to actually get to know one's way around. At first sight, it seems an impossibility that anyone could ever know their way around such a huge place. Perhaps they don't. Perhaps everyone, there, is as lost as I felt and wanders at random, hoping to stumble on what they seek.

Now, I am moved to mention the Berjaya Times Square because of its bizarre peculiarity. This is a shopping centre so big that it even has a built in theme park. That's right...a theme park is hidden within this never-ending shopping complex. It has all the attractions one would expect of a theme park - fairground rides and a roller coaster, included (which snakes its way across many floors of the shopping centre.) What really struck me is that the shopping centre is just so large, that I had no idea that the roller coaster was there, until we ascended into one particular wing and heard screams passing by above. Looking up, I saw a roller coaster train whizz by, carrying its terrified (or excited) passengers.

Bukit Bintang, was just as surprising in its own way...in quite a scarey way, if you are not comfortable with huge crowds. I rather think that Saturday evening is not the best time to visit Kuala Lumpur's answer to Singapore's Orchard Road.

The most obvious thing that struck one is how much bigger Bukit Bintang is, in every way, than Orchard Road: it seems to be a shopping nation of its own, engulfing one in a booming, bustling, confusion that, at first impression, has no order or meaning. However, no doubt that is because I don't know where I am, where anything is, or even what anything is. There are a lot of unfamiliar names all around. At present, it is a place that lacks clarity of meaning - since I can't encapsulate it in my mind and understand where everything is and what they are. I have no inner map: it is just a sense of retail chaos...however that sense of the chaotic largely derives, I would think, from my unfamiliarity with the area.

Perhaps, should I visit the area often enough, I would come to understand it, but right now, I just get a feeling of its great immensity.

I didn't think it was possible, but perhaps, just perhaps, Malaysians like their shopping even more than Singaporeans do - at least, they seem to have built shops on an even grander scale than Singapore has ever attempted.

Getting back to our hotel wasn't easy. We couldn't find a cab anywhere (there are too few for the capital, I think...and they tend to be choosier than Singaporean cab drivers - as in some of them won't drive you unless you go off meter...). So, we ended up on a crowded monorail train. It had two main recommendations: it was cheap - and it was faster than by road. Other than that, one could point to the overcrowding, but then Singapore has the same problem with its MRT.

As a first impression, I think I will never forget the startlement at seeing a theme park, inside a shopping centre...and those first screams of thrill-seekers hurtling overhead in their roller coaster, surrounded by shops. How wonderfully strange.

It's a dangerous world

Last week, Tiarnan, three was walking alongside his mummy, out and about, in town. Suddenly, he looked up at his mummy, and spoke most seriously, in his high little voice:

"It is a dangerous world, mummy.", he observed.

She looked down at him, somewhat startled at his topic of conversation. Before her surprise, had barely begun, he continued: "Hold my hand mummy."

He said it in such a way that it was clear that he was not seeking her protection at all - rather, in his young mind, he was protecting his mother from danger!

How funny.

So, thereafter, Syahidah wandered around town, with her little bodyguard carefully looking after her. It is common knowledge that a bodyguard should be unobtrusive - and who could be more unlikely to attract attention to his "bodyguard" status than a three year old boy?