The Growing Room

Hey!

Good to have you all back at The Growing Room. We are launching a series of posts dedicated to tells this stories of international study abroad students from all across the world. The people we have chosen to write have all come from across the seas; foreigners to a new culture yet ready to soak up learning experiences and fun. So keep your eye out for our new “WORLD CULTURE’S” section in which the students themselves will give you first hand accounts of the profound experiences they have under their belt.

Today’s post comes from one of my best friends JunHao. He is a very outgoing, inspireing and funny individual. On more than a few occasions myself and JunHao have sat down to discuss life and its deepest mysteries. JunHao is a buddhist from Malaysia and his knowledge in the area is quite profound. I met JunHao while studying abroad at Nottingham University in England. He is planning to be a doctor and has been studying medicine for quite some time.

His post today is dedicated to discussing the social and cultural differences between the United Kingdom and Malaysia. Whether you have been to these places or not you will truly enjoy this journey into the cultural views of a traveling 20 year old with ambitions to grow!

JunHao Lim
29-06-2008 7am

I grasped my bag firm and tight, and stepped out of the MAS airline cabin. The stiffness of my body after 13 hours of flight was gone completely as I took my first rejuvenating breathe of British air. That was the moment when I first realized that I’m in a complete different land from Malaysia.

What is the difference between England and Malaysia? I could write a whole list of comparison which can take a few days to complete.

THE WEATHER
First it is the weather. In England, there are 4 seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. In Malaysia, there are 4 seasons too, which are: Hot, Very Hot, so freaking Hot That You Could Fry Your Butt By Leaning On Your Car Door. Moreover, it is humid. I’ve heard people complaint about how heavy the rain is in UK, for me it feels like wet shredded squirrel furs sprinkling from the sky. In Malaysia, each raindrop is so huge that with the momentum gained from dropping so high up from the cumulonimbus cloud, it feels like 20kg cannon balls showering upon our body. Thus, air in Malaysia is very humid. This is very bad for a person who has sweaty armpits as sweat does not dry up quick enough and there comes the odor which smells like the burp of half-digested food in the back of your throat when you are bloated after a party. Besides, having soaked armpits will never be a trend of fashion as it looks like mini Dumbo ears, with the tie resembling the elephant trunk. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the picture below.

THE FOOD
Let’s talk about food. Sorry to say, British food will never satisfy a Malaysian tongue. Most Malaysian loves hot and spicy (H&S) food. I’m not saying that you can’t find H&S food here, but H&S food here is soooo not H&S. Let me give you the actual definition of:

Hot: Sharp peppery and pungent (Sensation)
Spicy: Having the flavor, aroma, or quality of spice.

However, the definition of H&S here is: To add another 5 packets each of pepper and salt. It is so bland that it could not trigger any of the receptors in your taste buds. (Maybe it is just for the food provided in halls that I made such generalization) But of course, UK is a heaven for potato lovers as British can cook potato in any form you like. Mashed, fried, baked, bbq, grill, steamed, boiled with skin on, boiled without skin etc. Just name it. In Malaysia, food has pretty funny names if we make direct translation from its original name to English. For example, one of Malaysia’s famous foods (my favourite too), Nasi Lemak, means Fat Rice literally. It is actually rice cooked with coconut milk, usually served with chili and chicken curry.

THE PEOPLE
I would like to take this opportunity to explain about the people in Malaysia. We call ourselves Chinese, Indians etc in short. But do not misunderstand.  We are born in Malaysia and legally we are Malaysian. However, our ancestors were from China or India, so we retain our racial identities. Besides Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indians, the race which fills in the majority of the population of Malaysia is the Malays, the aborigines. This is what makes Malaysia special as we have a mixture of races, religion and thus an amalgamation of each culture, and most of us are multilingual. We celebrate Chinese New Year, Malay’s Hari Raya and Indian’s Deepavali together. On the other hand, England is not a multiracial country, which is distinctive from Malaysia. Living cost in UK is so exorbitant. We can buy a large meal deal from McDonalds with just 1pound. I still remember that I lose my appetite as soon as I found out that a sandwich costs 2pound on the first day I reached UK. Transportation cost is hell. Nuff said.

LIFE
Our country is relatively conservative as we are a Muslim country (we do still have freedom of choosing our own religion), entertainment wise we are very different. In England, or actually most European countries, one of the main entertainments is to go to bars, pubs or clubs to drink. However in Malaysia, drinking and get drunk is very uncommon, though you will still find some morons who drink and drive and get caught by ambushing police who demands for bribes due to their pathetically low salary. In Malaysia most people spend their free time in shopping complexes, watch movies and also to our unique 24hours coffee shop called the mamak.

There we eat and drink non-alcoholic beverages while watching live EPL football on projected screens. This is like a substitute of bars in UK, and the difference is that bars serves alcohols.

One thing that I am actually very impressed by people in UK is that the drivers have very good road manners. They respect pedestrians a lot and always give priorities to safety of people on the road. Malaysia holds the record of most road accidents in a year if I’m not mistaken.

Rules of crossing the road:
1) Do not cross when traffic light for pedestrian shows red.
2) Do not cross when traffic light for pedestrian shows green - drivers don’t care!

In Malaysia we have huge cyber cafes. No don’t get me wrong, cyber café is not for surfing porn. It Is for students who hates playing online PC games at home due to the incredibly slow ‘narrow’ band as it provides LAN connection for people who crave for smooth non-lagging multiplayer games.

Oh yes I would like to mention, due to the country being conservative, our way of thinking is also different from the Westerns.

OVERALL
All these differences made life quite difficult in my beginning months in England. Being away from family and friends for such a long time is quite an uphill task for me as I’ve never had this kind of experience before. However staying in residential halls of the university helped me a lot as I get to know a bunch of new friends from all over the world. I’ve never regretted choosing to stay in halls apart from crappy food and the lavish sum of money that I’ve to pay.

I’ve also learned that to join into any circle of friends you have to be outspoken. One thing I found about international students unable to mix with local students is that they are too shy to talk, mostly because of low confidence in speaking a language which is not their mother tongue. Luckily I overcame that barrier and found a few groups of good friends.

FUTURE ATTITUDE
You must be wondering. Why do I choose such a difficult path, 6500miles from home and so many uncertainties? One thing for sure is that quality of education here is definitely better from universities back at home. It is also a cool idea to have lecturers who actually wrote your freaking thick textbook. Besides, being abroad also opens my eyes to see the different side of the world and relishing this whole new experience. I get to know people from around the world and learn more about different culture.

It also gives me the opportunity to travel around Europe during holidays. Besides, I think eventually we will leave home and live our own lives without depending on our parents so this is like a first step of independence.

Now it is the end of my first year. I’m actually quite satisfied after reflecting my whole year of being a medic. So far I’ve enjoyed my course, apart from the hellish torture of examinations. Being a medic, I get the chance to speak to so many different kinds of people.

This is one of the reasons why I chose to take medicine as I love speaking to people, understand their feelings and do whatever I can to help them. The feeling of being able to lend a hand to ease other’s suffering is a huge incentive of being a medic.

It improves me as a person, as I learn to be more empathetic and sympathetic. Being a Buddhist is also a main source of driving force which led me to choose this pathway as I believe that it is necessary for every being to do good deeds to others.

Being able to contribute something which would change someone’s life is a power that medics have, a power which can help to change the world, is a dream that I embrace.

If one is unsure about the future, I think what one needs to do first is to find his/her own interest, then consider if their interest would lead to any possibilities of doing good to other people in future. From that, a goal can be set as a guidance and then just work hard to achieve it; eventually success will be in your grasp as Success is defined as an achievement which would bring happiness to oneself and most importantly the others (Family, friends and the world).

-JunHao Lim

I would like to thank JunHao for writing this post for The Growing Room. Myself, John, and Brett all miss you so much bro! I hope all is well for you and you continue to follow your dreams and stay positive. We look forward to joining you in Malaysia in a few years. You are always welcome in New York my friend. Talk to ya soon!

If you enjoyed that article, consider subscribing via. RSS to catch the next edition of - Internation Students and their view’s of life overseas! - Click here to Subscribe