I use Jalan Raja Laut to get to work everyday. So seeing busloads of tourists taking photos of Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad and hanging around Dataran Merdeka is a daily fare.
By now I can even tell if it's peak holiday season or not by the number of tour buses parked at the side. I can even differentiate the nationalities of the tourists. Currently I see a lot of Chinese nationals by the number of "touts" or beggars holding chinese placards asking for donations.
As for the “mat salleh” (as we call Caucasians in Malaysia), they normally do not follow the tour buses but walk in on their own. Occasionally I see a few of them on the Hop On Hop Off buses and would shake my head in disbelief as they love to sit on the open air deck under hot afternoon sun.
I also find a flaw in the design of the bus as the open roof thing, in my humble opinion should be in the front where the view is 360. Instead the front is covered until halfway and the rear is open. So imagine if you are a tourist on top, you cannot see what’s the attraction until you are beside it and then turn around and take a picture of it from behind.
In Hong Kong, the tourists double decks are without roof. In Singapore it is fully covered. In Malaysia, we like to have the best of both worlds. I supposed they feel that people sitting in front prefer air con and people at the back like the exhaust. I don’t know.
Anyhow I digressed. From my observation, I find that the one stark difference between Malaysians and non-Malaysians is non-Malaysians tend to observe traffic light. They will wait for the pedestrian light to turn green even though there are no vehicles approaching or all the vehicles have stopped at the traffic light.
For Malaysians we will immediately cross the road without a second of hesitation. It is not so for foreigners. They will wait.
There is this particular light at the junction right between Dataran Merdeka and DBKL which is not very pedestrian friendly (possibly because the timing is off) as when vehicles stop, it still show Red for the pedestrian and before long it’s green for the vehicles and the poor tourists are still standing there waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green for them.
I know of a tourist who had similar experience a few years back at the Concorde Hotel junction wanting to get to Dang Wangi LRT station. She stood there for a good 5 minutes before she realized something is wrong and decided to cross when the pedestrian crossing light is Red but all vehicles have stopped.
Later walking past Wariseni before AIA building, again she needed to cross the road to get to the LRT station (at that time, there were still no pedestrian bridge) without the aid of any traffic light. This time she stood longer not knowing how to cross the road as most cars cruise at high speed on this road. She stood there until finally a Malaysian sensing her despair came and helped her cross.
So if you are a foreigner, when in Malaysia do as Malaysians do. Use your common sense at crossroads. Remember there is strength in numbers. If you see other people cross, follow suit. Don't just stand there and wait. Goodness knows how long you have to wait.
But if you are Malaysians in overseas, do as the native do and adhere to pedestrians rules. Pedestrians are not king where there are traffic lights. Just have to be patient and wait for the lights to change. After all, we don’t want to be labeled as uncivilized.
