Malaysia truly Asia

This is the slogan used by Malaysian Tourism department to promote our tourist industry. However is this slogan working? Is the Malaysian government doing enough to attract tourist from all around the world? Recently I read a news in the paper regarding our tourist industry. The reports said that tourist from China had decreased dramatically compared to last year. Why? Why is this happening? malaysia is a multi-racial country and chinese comprised a large proportion of the population. Tourist from China would not have any communication problem here and Malaysia would be a perfect vacation destination for them!

Maybe some of my recent experience can explain this. A few weeks ago when I was hanging around in Petaling Street with my China friends, we had a very very bad experience with the taxi drivers in Malaysia. We were rushing for time during that time as we need to go back Times Square Hotel. However whenever I tried to get a taxi, either their reply was

"soory...I have appointment with another passenger...."
"Times square arr....boleh.....sepuluh ringgit lar......"

When I asked him to run by the metre, his reply was

"dekat saja...you jalan lar.....kasi sepuluh ringgit pun tak boleh!"

Wei.....brother, you as a taxi driver can negotiate with us like this one meh? You should take any passenger regardless of their destination by turning on the metre not by charging as you like!

My friend asked me

"Malaysia oso got this type of taxi driver one arr??"

I dunno how to answer her. In fact, most if not all taxi drivers are like this! They try to make money from tourists by charging a very high rate! I am already used to this king of situation and I do not want to argue with those taxi drivers. The last time I sit in a taxi will be more than a year ago. I had even worst experience with taxi drivers that makes me swear not to get into a taxi in Malaysia!

My friend also told me that she found out that there are more cars than people in Malaysia! The air is very polluted. Yess....that's true. However I do not know how to answer her as well. How am I going to answer that question? Do you expect me to explain the whole National car and the Ap issue to her? And also the government who fails to build a good public transport system? It's very very bad to make tourist leave a bad impression to our country.

Besides that, I've a very bad experience with the hawkers in Petaling Street.

"How much is this shirt"
"60 dollars"
"30 larr~"
"cannot lar, this is A gred shirt.....40 dollars"
I then walked away...
"buy things where can so lansi one......i give you 35 lar......still dun wan arr???30 lor...."
I shook my head
"20 lar.....20 give you"
I didn't bother him
"nah....give you 15 dollars lar...you take now....."
I walked even further leaving him behind.
"&^*&$%&%()^)^&*^"

Damn! he scolded harsh words! How can he do that? Who said this is called lansi?? My law lecturer told me that once you counter proposal a person, the initial proposal is broken as you do not accept it! therefore I do not have any binding contract with that seller, yet he still wanted to scold harsh words.......

Besides that, recently there is a news regarding a lady tourist from China who is hummiliated by our police. She is being beaten up and she is summoned to take off all her clothings. Could you imagine this happening to you? How could the police used such uncivilised method to investigate suspects? I know the police are trying to catch illegal immigrants but the suspects are not guilty. could they try a more cicilise and humanise method?

No matter how the Malaysian Government advertise Malaysia, Malaysia tourist industry will be in a deep crisis if all of these incidents kept happening. Tourists who are attracted to the advertisement would then feel cheated after they come to malaysia. Worst still, they would spread this to their friends and this will surely affect our tourist industry as "bad word of mouth" is far more poworful than an advertisement!