(Some) Things don’t change at all

It’s good to be back home in Kuala Lumpur after an absence of almost a year of sabbatical in Sheffield, England.

The first thing that I noted as I landed in KLIA was that the haze is back! Driving into the city from the airport revealed just how bad the problem has been. I wonder what has happened to the Asean-level haze fighting programme that was set up a few years ago to solve this problem. Now it appears as though we Malaysians have begun to take the annual appearance of haze for granted, as a part of our daily life.

And then we still have the same old crazy vehicle drivers who just don’t care about using their indicators or adhering to the proper traffic rules.

Perusing through the daily papers, one item of news caught my attention. It was about how people in Penang had flocked at the Immigration Department to get passports after a rumour of a price hike. Some had queued from dawn to save their money in getting/renewing their passport.

How did this rumour started, no one knows. Apparently a Chinese daily had reported it and without checking people had just swarmed in, only to be told that passports prices were to remain the same.

This is not something alien to us. Remember the long queues whenever a rumour circulates about an impending petrol price hike?

And then we still have unmanned counters at the Post Offices, off-line computers at banks (even the really big ones) and software breakdowns in JPJ (Road Transport Department).

People are still crazy about just walking aimlessly in shopping malls and to their delight there are more shopping malls now as well.

More electronic goods are now being sold interest-free as long as you purchase using your credit card. There are more cars in the roads and there are newer roads too but somehow the quality of these roads is quite pathetic.

So what else is new in Malaysia? After one year, I think almost everything remains the same. We are still lacking the first world mentality which our leaders want us to have.

But still I am glad to be back home to all these.