Malaysian Culture (Pederson & Asma)
These are some of our opinion regarding Malaysian Culture based on Pederson & Asma.
Do you think Malaysian Culture is salad bowl or melting pot?
Opinion 1:
Monochromic vs. polychromic
In my point of view, Malaysian culture is more polychromic rather than monochromic. We can see around us that most of Malaysian culture is not always on time. Some of them really did not care about punctuality and do not know on how to manage time very well. For them, time can be changed so that they are never afraid about the promptness of time. But it can be deniable that some people like Chinese are very strict about time and they will do everything in an exact time properly. We can take a look at most of Chinese people attitude regarding their daily life especially when they run business; they value time and make punctuality as a priority one. Nevertheless in overall, I can see that Malaysian culture including all races is not monochromic type. They are suitable to put into polychromic type which is for me compared to other cultures like American culture and Japanese culture, attitude of Malaysian culture regarding time is left behind. It is actually depend to every person in themselves about their time management whether they could be categorized as systematic people or vice versa. (by Farihah Mohamad)
Opinion 2:
More relationship than task-oriented. (Task is subordinate to friendliness)
In such a multicultural country, relationship with others is really crucial in order to make the society understand each other’s cultures. Completion of particular tasks is important in a company for instance but without relationship with others, a task will be very difficult to be settled. If you are task oriented, you prefer to work on a project until it is complete but without relationship, it may leads to misunderstanding perhaps. (by Fazalina)
Opinion 3:
More religious than Secular
Malaysian culture not more into religious and also not into secular because Malaysia follow Quran and Sunnah but certain thing like hudud are not enforced due to protect human welfare, while our culture not more into secular because of religious teaching is everywhere and never disappeared, as a school counsellor if there is conflict about this statement, what we may do is guide their belief system to the right one so that there is no confusion. (By Nik Nurul Fatihah)
Opinion 4:
More group than individual oriented
I agree that Malaysian people are more group oriented than individual oriented even they have multiracial in this country. Most events in Malaysia involve all races although they have different culture. For example, the residents work together in cleaning their neighbourhood places and they also participated in the events that have been conducted in their neighbourhood like sport, family day and so on.Besides, during wedding ceremony, they invite their friends from different culture and have sense regarding food especially for who are vegetarian, allergic etc. (by Saidah Hanisah)
