Malaysia an amazing wonder

The following is a foreigner's view on Malaysia published in The Star today. It is sad that many of us do not see it that way.

Wednesday December 1, 2010

Malaysia an amazing wonder

I AM a Romanian writer and due to some unexpected and favourable circumstances, I had the opportunity to visit your beautiful country last month.

I must confess that before leaving Romania, I still harboured those ridiculous European prejudices regarding Southeast Asia and, of course, I was prepared for the worst.

If not for the visit, I would not have been able to imagine that your country has such physical, social and infrastructural wonders that make an Eastern European like me envious.

I was more impressed with your country than any of the European countries I have visited. Your airport is comparable to most of the airports in the West, almost as large and efficient as the one in Amsterdam where I had to wait for several hours before taking the plane to Kuala Lumpur.

Your highways are simply unbelievable. Many European countries do not have such an excellent network connecting almost every corner of a country. Anyway, Romania can hardly boast of anything similar to yours.

I was amazed with the modern facilities in all your cities, the splendid architecture, iconic buildings like the Petronas Twin Towers and those in Putrajaya, the very clean streets with trees and greenery. For someone coming from Europe where in November the trees are bare of leaves and the fields are brown, it was something magnificent.

In my travels to the various cities, I was astonished to see steady and continuous development and growth while at the same time, everything was so peaceful.

But what’s most outstanding were the people. No matter of which race and religion, all of them share the same traits: open and extremely friendly.

They are very polite and always helpful. They seemed to get along well with each other in their social lives and working relationships. I did not see any unpleasant incident, unlike in so many other places where social segregation and disturbances are clearly visible.

Despite their differences, the people here appeared to me as genuine Malaysians. Happy is the country where people can live in harmony and understanding with their neighbours and not bother about colour, religion or ethnicity.

I noticed that the average income in Malaysia is similar to that of Romania and the ringgit is almost equal in value with our national currency, the leu. However, the food, fuel and cost of living are much cheaper than in Romania.

When my Malaysian friend complained that the petrol costs RM1.80 per litre, I laughed and told him that in Romania, it costs three times more. I was told that the same party has governed Malaysia for more than 50 years, so there is a political stability. I don’t know about your government policy and I am not interested in it, be it liberal, conservative or whatever.

But I saw the results and that is enough for me. A government that steadily follows its programmes and does everything possible to develop the country and bring prosperity to the people deserves my respect and admiration.

I have no idea what the unemployment rate in Malaysia is but having observed the fantastic rate of development and level of progress, I guess it must be low.

When I returned home, I told many people about what I saw in Malaysia and they were impressed. No one knew much about your country and a friend of mine who runs a travel agency knew even less. And she is quite interested to launch a programme to promote Malaysia as a tourist destination among Romanians.

I would be happy to learn that one day, more Romanians would select your country as a destination for their vacation.

LAURENTIU FAIGHEL,
Bucharest, Romania.