I bought a car!

A car is one of the first major commitment most newly employed malaysians get themselves into. Of course, not a big a commitment as your girlfriend. Besides, nobody waits till they're employed anyway!

Usually, the first car will be a proton, or lately due to the amazing job done by Toyot..i mean, Perodua, the Myvi or any other perodua variant seems to be really popular as well. ( For some reason, the cars REALLY resemble toyota in every aspect! what a coincidence!) and people make fun of inspira being a copycat.

Alright, sorry, deviated, back to the topic now. Cars are not cheap. Buying a Toyota may cost about RM70,000 being the cheapest, a Honda cost RM 90,000. Way too expensive for new employees. So, what do we do? We can opt for secondhand cars. A 15 year old toyota corolla cost rm 22,000. Sounds like a better deal? Does this mean, a fresh graduate who just found a job can only drive a 15 year old car?

NOPEZ! because, we have, PROTON and PERODUA! This 2 companies enable us to buy cars at a MUCH, MUCH cheaper price. Simple because unlike foreign cars, they do not have to pay the import duty. How much would they cost ? Lets take a look.
 

The new Saga FLX. Now available from RM 38598!



Or the much smaller, cheaper version of Perodua, now available from RM 24900 !

This, is the type of cars most of us can afford now. Seems like sensible price, doesn't it ? Still can't afford it ? No worries, Loans available up to 9 years :D

Is that a good bargain, or what ? Lets fly across the ocean, and visit other countries :)

What do people from other countries drive, for 20,000 worth of their money.

US:

Or, the UK

FORD KUGA, at 22,000 GBP

Sure, you can argue and say, its in their currency. Would be totally different price once we convert them.

A Proton Gen-2 is sold in Malaysia for RM 58000.
A Proton Gen-2 is sold in UK for 9000 pounds.

Convert that, we have our national car sold in UK for RM 45,000.
Why do we pay, RM 13,000 more, for our own national car ??

Did anyone ever pondered that ?

Lets be a bit more critical.

Lets buy a Toyota Prius.

Rm 140,000 in malaysia.
Fresh Graduate pay = RM 2500

RM 140,000 / RM 2500 = 56
You will buy a car that is worth 56 times your pay.

Toyota Prius in UK = GBP 21000
Fresh Graduate Pay = GBP 1800

21000 / 1800 = 11
Or, People in UK buy the same car, for 11 times worth their fresh grad pay!

While we get a Toyota Prius for 56 times the value of our pay, some white bloke in UK can drive this for 56 times worth their pay.

So, is the car you just bought worth the price?

Go figure.

Selamat Hari Raya; Do You Celebrate?

Its the 5th Day of Raya. The Raya mood is still there for me, at least. Many of us will be visiting our friend, Fayadh the 'skyscrapper' and Miss Zara later in a while.

Here I am, writing a blog post at 7:50am on a Saturday. Why, you ask?

Was just another day yesterday, when me, another chinese guy and a malay guy were having a drink, talking about football, and politics. When out of no where, the guy on the table beside looked at us, and said, " Wow, 1Malaysia group eh?". It took us a while to realize, "erm, oh. Yeah, we are." While people realize this often around us, we never do. *on a less serious note, Yadh and dixon, you guys need me. Harder to find Indians lately :P*

Now what am i getting at here? That we should hang out with other races more? Well, no, i went through that too many times. What I do want to bring up, is that, do we celebrate Raya?

To the malays, its a chance to buy new clothes, get more duit raya, balik kampung, visit our relatives, etc etc etc.

To the Chinese, a chance to wish our malay friends, 2 extra days of holiday in that year.

To the Indians, 2 extra days of holiday. (They don't do the wishing stuff. Heck they don't even hang out with malays!)

So, based on the activities mentioned above, who celebrate Raya? Obviously the Malays. It is their celebration, nothing got to do with the rest of us, right?

Well, the mindset of "Raya is for Malays" have made most of us, totally ignorant. We don't even know how many days do they need to fast before Raya. We don't even know what food they serve during Raya. Heck, the most basic, we don't even even know what we should do first when we go to a Raya Open House, assuming we actually go for one.


Now why does this happen? I got to blame this partially on the education system. When we were young, our parents sent us to chinese school. Why? Because it is our heritage. You learn better from our own kind. Better education than public schools.

The malays get sent to the Sekolah Berasrama Penuh. A school for the elite smart bumiputra students. A pure 100% malay school.

The Indians get sent to the Tamil school. Why? Because who else is going to go to an Indian place, if not the indians themselves (same old excuse). Or better, some Indians are enrolled into Chinese schools. You can just imagine the father with an indian accent telling his son "Go and studyyyy, then you can be smartttt like the chineseee, and make LOTTSSS of Mah-Ney!"

In the end, this only creates a wall between our races. We interact mostly with people of our own race. We don't even have much opportunity to interact with other races. Since the age of 7, we only know how to communicate with those of the same skin colour, with those of the same language. Even if some of us later on, in secondary school, joined a public school, they still stick to their own people. Those who speak Mandarin will always flock up together, and those who don't, will be not be part of the "group". The Japanese have did a study on this problem, it is known as JHAD. (Jutsu Hozen Autonomous Discrimination)

So, if today, you can't speak Malay too well, or don't know what kuih lapis and roti jala is, It is not too late. Its Raya :) Take this opportunity to understand each other.

Starting this year, Go Raya with the Malays.
Starting next year, we can all celebrate Chinese New Year together.
Starting today.

Date the Indians.