Malaysia-Singapore
Beneath The Line
Malaysians are led to believe that Singapore Malays are treated badly mistreated; "What I found was..." blogs Malaysian visitor.
Jul 23, 2008

My view on Singapore
By papabear959
The last time I had the opportunity to go to Singapore was in 1994. It was one of the places that I visit a lot during my primary school days.

Normally as part of our trip back to my father’s hometown in JB, we will normally drive to Singapore and stay there for a night or two at either our relatives or at my mom’s friend place.

After 1994, most of my relatives have decided to go back and stay in Johor and my mom’s friend has since move back to Germany. So, when I was given the opportunity to go to Singapore for a conference recently, I was quite excited.

Singapore to be brutally honest was impressive. No cities in Malaysia can be compared to Singapore. Being in Singapore is like being in a European city.

The only thing that brought me to reality that I was in Asia is the weather. The first thing that I notice is the cleanliness. Over the years I heard a lot of people talking that Singapore was clean and you can hardly find any rubbish lying around.

I guess the Republic strict enforcement was to be blame for this. But it is actually a good thing. I would prefer to have a clean country than a dirty one.

Some politician might say that Malaysia is still cleaner when compared to Indonesia or Thailand. I actually don’t care about who we are cleaner than. What I care is how to improve and surpass the one above us.

I went to the Singapore Central Business District (CBD) that afternoon.

Riding the MRT, I couldn’t see how the landscape of Singapore was. But emerging from the MRT station at Raffles Place, I suddenly had the feeling that I was now in New York.

Around me were tall buildings, most of them owned by banks. I was in the middle of the CBD. There was a small garden there which I assume where the office workers around here would sit and eat their lunch.

The environment was impressive. The planning was superb. You don’t see any building that is foreign in that area. It was a fruit of thorough planning.

Later in the evening, I walked from the CBD up to Clarke’s Quay, along Singapore River.

Clarke’s Quay is the home of G-Max reverse bungee. It looks like a fun ride but I dare not to ride it since I have acrophobia.

Besides that, there are a lot of tourists hangout place here such as bars, clubs and restaurant and amongst them, Hooters.

This place was packed with people despite being a Monday night. Most of them are foreign tourists, but with Singapore having so many foreign expats, it is almost impossible to distinguish them apart.

This is a stark contrast compared to KL, where hangout places such as in Jalan P.Ramlee are pretty much empty except for weekends.

However, despite all this impressive development that Singapore has, one thing that really caught my attention is how people in Singapore treat each other.

People in Malaysia are always given the idea that Singaporean is racists and apply double standards against the Malays.

Malays in Singapore are treated badly and all preferential treatment is given to the Chinese and Indian. My personal experience and through conversation with Singaporean themselves is a stark contrast from the rumours we Malaysian hear back home.

They are actually living in harmony. No clear tension appears in their society. The basic rule there, which is the same in any developed country, is that you have to earn anything you want. Be it wealth, respect, position or even benefits.

Basically you compete in a fair playing field.

Comparing Malaysia to Singapore is a taboo for Malaysians. We keep saying that we are better than them.

In my honest opinion, we are currently 10 years behind them in almost all aspect.
Malaysia and Singapore was on equal level before 1995.

After the financial crisis, we are still crawling but Singapore has actually sprinted to become a developed country.

Our leaders keep saying Malaysian need to copy or take some European countries or US as a role model in our quest to become a developed country.

You don’t actually have to look far. Just have a look south of our borders. Instead of copying Japan or Korea, we should take Singapore as example and improve ourselves.

http://papabear959.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/50/