“si lai ” attitidue….
"you know har that doctor, simply palpate here and there oni for 1 minute, then charge me rm 50 edi….nowadays doctors very untung hor…so expensive one….the medicine is also not that expensive gua…"
"just a signature and that lawyer earns hundred of bucks in his pocket…."
this is another common feature of malaysians….
when buying anything, anything at all, we would start to count the original cost, whether it’s worth the money or not. we mark somethings as "expensive" or "cheap" based on the ingredients they used.prices which exceeds the original cost by the "si lai" standard, no matter how good the packaging, processing, preservation…etc… are regarded as unreasonable.
for example, a normal mee goreng which has prawns, chicken and some vege would normally cost rm2.50…if mamak shop "A" sells it for rm 3…..it’s unreasonable my malaysian’s si lai’s standard, altho it might be nicer to eat due to the experienced technique of the sifu…unless he has more prawns, or chicken…..or something that’s adds to the cost…. a plain mee shouldn’t cost more than rm 1….because it doesn’t have anything else other than the noodle itself…
therefore, u can say malaysians are very economic…..and u can also say that they sked ppl get rich too easily…
in the course of development of the country….the tertiary industry has became a great importance. tertiary industry, in short, means the promotion and offering of services in exchange for $$ without any materialistic transection…however in my opinion, this industry won’t be able to develope very well if this "si lai" attitude do not change….
malaysians do not appriciate services..whenever we give out some money, we wanna see something concrete in return. services offered are so abstract in the sense that for one, most people do not have a guide how much a standard price should be as it varies depending on different factors such as level of qualification, quality etc…more often the fear of being cheated make us feel insecure giving money for services esp professional ones as it often cost much more than that you give for repairing your bicycle….for example…
well, obviously you can’t compare the time the sifu repair your bicycle and the time the doctors take to examine you, or how much it cost to consult a lawyer for a legal opinion….
another good example is that when travelling, you could see many tour guides waiting around the attraction spots to offer some tour for the tourists….it’s often not that much, maybe about one meal in restaurant…but a typical malaysian wouldn’t take those tours. the opinion is that he too, could read up in internet and books for those information, altho the tour guides have some qualification in sociology, archrcheology…etc….
recently we went to prague and took their tour around the town…it was a completely different experience compared to some other town that we travelled alone…we got to know the culture and the way of life of the locals from their point of view…the small stories not found in the text books made the journey a memorable one too…
" i could do it too" is the common statement said in defense for the expensive service offered. well, maybe you could fry the mee goreng yourself at a much lower price. but could you treat your illness without a doctor’s consultation? or settle your legal stuff without a lawyer’s professional opinion?
if i were to give you a whole bunch of meds and let you select whatever meds u want to treat your disease and just pay for the meds itself, would you want that?? or i could provide you all the surgical instruments you need and you can cut on yourself to save the surgical cost which might enable you to do better things like buying a new car….renovate your house….etc…
it’s the health we’re talking about ppl…."don pray pray"….
and if you’ve noticed, by malaysian’s "si lai" standard, the mona lisa by leonardo da vinci which is in paris now, doesn’t worth more than rm 100….
