When Grass Is Always Greener The Other Side

Probably the only political blog I've read throughout my history of blogwalking is Patrick Teoh's. I always love his sarcasm and how he eventually criticize the government for quite a number of flaws they exhibit. However, what's even more amusing lately is the amount of hate comments he had. Lately, he had been posting a lot of comments from cowards who do not have the balls to make themselves known. What amuses me is how they call Patrick for being ungrateful towards the country, being an extremists and the grass is always greener on the other side for him. Ungrateful? No. Extremists? Maybe. Grass always greener on the other side for him? This is what I'm gonna talk about.

Grass Always Greener?

For those who do not know what is the definition of it, it means that a person always thinks a person or situation that he's not in to be better. I believe this applies to a lot of people. Many had began to felt Malaysia is no longer a country worth living in an which lead to many immigration. It is not because they are ungrateful but they felt the country is being ungrateful towards them. Pretty debatable point there if you ask me. However, I'm not here to judge the government or the people as I'm still fairly young to understand the world. What I'm gonna rant here is not the country or the government but is the public university I'm studying in. And I firmly believe that in here, GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER AT THE OTHER SIDE.

When They Don't Look At Us

I'm very disappointed in them actually. Over the 3 years I'm studying here, I've seen many unjust and racism. Not towards Chinese or non-Malays if you are wondering, but to Malaysians in whole. If you are studying here, you will realize what's my point after this. Basically, the management did not pay much attention towards Malaysian students compare to how much they did for the foreign students. Regardless if you are from China, Iran, Turkey, India or wherever, as long as you are not Malaysian, trust me, you are being favored here. So tell me this, how can we afford not to look elsewhere when the one that should be looking at us isn't looking at us much.

What Do We Actually Work For?

In order to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, when I mention Malaysians, I include Malay, Chinese and Indians. When I said racism and discrimination, I am referring to racism towards Malaysians. I used to stay in a hostel where every student fought for. Due to the limited rooms, especially for guys, we had to fight for our places and participate actively in the hostel's activities. The hostel offers more facilities than other hostels as there are the only hostel with free internet port, pool and snooker table and air conditioned study rooms in ground floor. So it is understandable why we had to fight for it.

I represented the hostel's basketball team, help out in several events and me and my course mates even build several rostrums for them and they didn't even return us our money when they promised us to do so. Yet, among all the guys, only about 4 could stay there. The same goes to my juniors who helped to design and build the backdrop and stage for one of their events and even ran a Haunted House which is the most profitable stall in a hostel's festival ever since me and my friends brainchild it. They involved in many activities but how many exactly of them able to get a place out of 15 guys? 1.

And being a foreign student here, you get to choose ANY hostel you wanted to stay at and ALL you need to do is request for it and fill in several papers even though you did nothing for the hostel.You may call this as a grudge and I couldn't agree more but tell me if you were in my place, wouldn't you feel the same? Being a Malaysian student that have less privileges in a local university compare to foreign student, can anyone clarify this is not a bullshit to me? When we went to appeal and reapply back for rooms, we are denied of such opportunity. But from what we saw, there are 3 empty rooms that could fit 6 people in the floor my friend is staying when we are only 4 students applying for it. If you are a foreign student, you immediately get a place without much questions asked. How can I know? Because I have a junior from China and I guess you guys can guess what happened.

Another student from China had told me that they are extremely pleased with how the staff will do whatever they can to help you out. You could stay anywhere you want and all your complaints are being attended to as soon as possible. Me? When I get my new room, I realized my bed had collapsed and the wardrobe's door came off and there are no curtains. I made 3 complaints n a month time and they just ask me to wait and see what they can do. That was 7 months ago. Till now, nothing has changed and I still sleeps on the floor with a mattress.

Biased Management?

From all the cases I presented above, it is very clear that Malaysian students are biased against. The grass is always greener on the other side for the management and this lead them to favor the foreign students. They thought that the foreign students should deserve better and they are much more delicate homosapiens. Can't they just set their priorities and mind right for once? When these students graduated, how many of them actually stays in Malaysia for long term and work? You might boast having the best education system in Malaysia but unfortunately the majority of the students are foreign and won't work there. take a look at this following statement.

Malaysia aims to double to 100,000 the number of foreign students at local institutions of higher learning by 2010, Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said.'

If you guys are still not mad then I don't know why. We have millions of complaints from good students who can't secure a place in the course they needed and the government is planning to give out these places to foreign students? How do you expect to build a successful nation when you own people do not get their supposed education? In other countries such as Singapore, Australia, America and so on, each students have to compete against each other and there are no special privileges for foreign students. It is true that they have foreign students as well, but they do not allocate more privileges for them and neglect the plight of their own local students.


One might say this is a good way to promote tourism to the country, improve economy and relationship with other countries and so on. True. But how long does that last? In the future, how many high quality of graduates can you produce to run the country? In Japan, they focus on the education of their people and hence, they can have talents to run the country in the future. How about here? Students that study oversea? Kinda like hooping for grass on the other side. It is no wonder that in 10 years time, Malaysia is predicted to be one of the highest exporter of maids. Because since the education system focused too much on increasing the foreign students rather than giving good students their preferred course to nurture talents.

Now foreign students can get a local scholarship to study here. To tell the truth, I've seen more foreign students in my university compare to Indian students or Bumiputera students. Despite the efforts of getting more Malaysians to be educated, but the effort seems to only stop till secondary level. So, a student with only the highest education level is secondary school can be an engineer or politician than runs the country well?

Conclusion

 When the people in Patrick's blog comment how he often looks at other countries and defend Malaysia, they are actually overlooking the fact that some of the universities here are doing the same thing. Government encourages foreign students in hope of promoting Malaysia's name but what good is it when there are not much future talents to continue to uphold the name? They kept thinking that since students from good countries also come over here to study, we should be proud but that's the wrong way. Instead of hoping for that, developing the youth is so much more effective in creating a good name. Why do we look over to foreign students when we have many talents over here? Why people keep migrating? They are not traitors but they just felt unappreciated over here. Who to trust us if our own universities don't?


When we say we are a developing country, but until when? China are sending their students to all over the world in hope of developing them and when they go back, they can help the country. Japan is a country where they show support to their people more than anything else and citizens there are given much more privileges. Even their entertainment awards are usually allocated only for local artist and very rare a foreign artist can break into their charts. We used to say Malaysia is a better country than China but can anyone confirm that now? Designs are seldom appreciated here due to the conservative mindset and people should actually look at themselves before comparing with others. yes the country had done a lot for us but they are beginning to do more for foreign students. Someone need to get the priorities straight first.


I didn't expect this to be so long. When I rant, I just couldn't stop typing. For those who made it this far, congratulations as you had develop high tolerance for boring stuff. That's all for now. Hope you guys had not died from boredom.