Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

The Difference Between A Malaysian & A Singaporean (Part 1)

In Singapore, one is taught that the inevitable cannot be delayed and there are no shortcuts unless you display some flash of brilliance. A Singaporean is taught from young that one goes to primary school and if one’s results are good, then one gets promoted to the next grade.

This is followed by secondary school where the wheat is separated from the chaff. Next comes Junior College or Polytechnic. After that, the boys are sent to National Service before entering university.

In truth, a Singaporean has it easy because he knows what the proceeding steps in his life will be. Failure results in life in the lower rungs while success merits rewards. An educational system totally geared towards producing good employees and followers using the stick and carrot approach.

Malaysians have it really harsh. All schools are equally bad. The education system simply aims to push you from one grade to the next without considering your results. Tertiary education is prejudiced against racial minorites and produces graduates with little or no value in the real world.

This produces people who think out of the box, purely because they have to survive.

So Singaporeans make good managers in a stable environment where the status quo is to be maintained. Malaysians however thrive in chaotic situations with no clear instructions by behaving like leaders.

However, Malaysians are more likely to be prone to corruption because they can’t resist the idea of a shortcut to success. Singaporeans are mentally conditioned against shortcuts and rebellion by their education system.

a daring post. but i think there’s so much more points you can add to that - but of course, in somewhere else more private.

You are the border - you can be malaysian, you can be singaporean. Depend the value of benefit and which side stand strong profit for succeed, you can select prior putting your foot down.

I believe not the nationality nor the education system to determine the shortcut to success … I believe is the personality, attitude and knowledge determine a career success.

I quite agree with the generalisations here. Some of these points describe the older generation of Singaporeans pretty well. Wonder how accurate this’ll be in the future.

This is also applicable to HongKong vs Singapore where the latter is a cookie cutter factory for excellent employees and that’s about it.

Another difference? I say CheeBye, you say Cibai.

Yes I fully agree. Singaporeans are well protected, well-planned. If we make use of it in a correct way will be good, but many cases, it makes us lazy.

no leh, I feel Singaporeans look for short cuts all the time.

well said. That make sense why Singaporean more “kiasu” while Malaysian are more “corrupt” . Am I right?

Malaysian education system? What’s that? Can eat wan ah?

I thought that was insightful….

I have to strongly disagree with you on several points:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson said in his essay ’self reliance’. Life is not a multiple choice questions. Just because the government choose to see success in one area being a natural progression to another area, does not mean the world operates this way. Successful businessmen can become taxi drivers overnight, and vice versa. I personally do not see how this is ‘easy’, when society predetermines one’s future according to over-simplified measures, such as grades.

I can’t comment on Malaysia since I’ve never lived there but I dare say there are a lot more successful Chinese Malaysians overseas than there are Singaporeans.

The trouble with stratified economies and societies is that they try very hard to impose an artificial sense of order & stability, without realising that external factors and competition will work to undermine them. Flux, change and inequality is the norm and people have to keep treading water.

[…] Difference Between Malaysian and Singaporean Jun.13, 2008 in Life, Singapore The Difference Between A Malaysian & A Singaporean (Part 1) - Cowboy Caleb shared with us what he thinks about the difference between Malaysian and […]

Cowboy,

I respectfully disagree. I’ve seen corrupt Singaporeans, Malaysians, Italians, Americans, Chinese, Hong Kongers, Indians what have you. If there’s a nationality indication for corruption I’ve not seen it yet.

Weirdly enough I agree with your statement about Singaporeans knowing where to go, but only to a certain extent. My question to you is - what about Singaporeans who don’t -WANT- to go where the path takes them?

[…] Want? - Darth Grievous’ Dark Domain: Storm in a Teacup - Over Endoh’s Post - Cowboy Caleb: The Difference Between A Malaysian & A Singaporean (Part 1) - SgForums: Tharman says S’pore not headed for a recession - HWZ: Survey finds Singaporeans […]

Anthoy -> Singaporeans who want to take a different path usually migrate. They’re now known as Australians or something.

You generalized too much. It doesn’t apply to everyone who is Singaporean and Malaysian.

I can’t comment on the Singapore education system overall because I’d only been through Singapore’s tertiary education. But your comment that all schools in Malaysia are equally bad is really nonsense and just out of your own perception.

Also, regarding corruption, I’ve seen people regardless of nationality is likely to be corrupted or bribed. It all depends on the individual whether or not they accept such action.

I suggest not to continue your writing on the differences. No benefit to anyone but your blog’s traffic.

I have worked in abroad for 8 years in a company where they’re Hongkees, Taiwanese, Singaporeans and Malaysians. And i agree with your analysis.

Malaysians face a harsher condition enroute to success and status and they’re very prone to ‘jumping’ levels for success because that’s they see in their entire life in their own country - unfairness.

Singaporeans are liken to children born with golden spoon where they need to ‘rely’ on parental governance to progress. In short their surviving skills are underdeveloped. They are also deemed to be boring people who doesn’t quite know how to enjoy life but they can be the best worker when given the right environment.

Taiwanese and Hongkees are generally skewer. This can be attributed to the fact they had better migration stock from the start. While Singapore and Malaysians were getting coolies and illegal immigrants back in the 1920s, Hongkong and Taiwan were getting the technocracts and businessman who operate banks and factories etc. Therefore in that sense, in terms of street smartness, Singapore + Malaysian is 1 generation behind them simply because they had started from a different point in the race.

tommy go f12k yourself. He write whatever he wants. I suggest u u turn one cheek if u dont like what u read.

Anon bet you are from the best Singkaupor School right? or you just make it up to kindergarden and study in bangla? Tommy also have the rights to talk and yet blogger’s blog are meant to be read and yet comments,if dont like ppl to comments better close the sections. anon ?? stand for?? A NO OTAK NAME

we are born with geographical dna. generally, more space, more space for your brain to grow. less space, less space for your brain grow horizontally. thats why sgapokareans are very narrow minded people with mostly vertical pt of view only. hehe.

Difference? When malaysians get angry with the authorities, they go to the streets in large number and the garmen listen. When singaporeans get angry with the authorities, they go to court and the garmen glisten.

It is the color of the land you are born in. Some are born in Crimson red. Some in Yellow canary. Some wear their flag in bright red, some wear their flag in bright yellow.

This observation is pretty meaningless. It’s true that the more developed a country becomes and the better its social systems are, the more soft and lazy its people get. We may as well criticise Malaysians for being less mentally agile than the Chinese, because Malaysians are exposed to less unfairness than the Chinese. It’s all relative, isn’t it?

Interesting. Although its very general I think it makes sense.

You could easily replace the word Malaysian with American and write the same essay.

[…] You Want? - Darth Grievous’ Dark Domain: Storm in a Teacup - Over Endoh’s Post - Cowboy Caleb: The Difference Between A Malaysian & A Singaporean (Part 1) - SgForums: Tharman says S’pore not headed for a recession - HWZ: Survey finds Singaporeans […]

hi

Just look at the number of malaysian holding professional positions like engineering, medical and legal in singapore as sg PRs and you will conclude the education system in malaysiua is not as bad as stated.

Singaporeans THINK they hv a better educational system because their kids score As and beat other kids in international competition (some of those kids taking poart representing sg schools are malaysian), and hv air con school rooms and latest laptops and go to exotic countries for school trips.

Reality is the sg education is exam geared and not rounded. The fear of failure and the stigma of failure is great. In Malaysia, they appreciate not everyone is academically strong.

With greatest of respect, products of sg education tends to be boring and think only of $$$.

Sg education has created employees. Not persons wityh unique qualities in this world.

Start a new forum and do a survey - compare sg girls and malaysian girls - see who is more desirable.

Not to mention “great;);)”Transit link is run by a Malaysian (lady who like fast car) too :)
All in all The playing field is only level if People can do stuff and take risk.
Singaporean are risk adverse and Malaysian are risk taker?
Not so,lucrative trade and service are hog by GIC which are own by ….
But why send children here to study? Then when they grow up and hold an engineering job here without serving NS the edge they have become more obvious.
The main thing to note is Disruptions. The rules here is to get a tame group who does not dare to question authority openly.
NS is highly disruptive for local citizen (males at least) not in the Kaki (elitist) list.
Disruption is not good for any developing businesses and family planning period.

all I can see that you have done is illustrate your poor sense of judgement and lack of insight with regard to this issue.

to what statistic or trend data do you credit your “corruption-prone” conclusion? i feel that you have made a sad error of hasty generalization

It is sad to see people making judgment based on nationality. Any organization that embrace and attract the diverse human potential and background stand to gain a lot more. Singapore is very good at attracting the best brains, although many Singaporeans chose to abandon their motherland.

And the best brains know what’s best for them and it ain’t the best of Johor, Batam or Chua Chu Kang!

Fuck u!we should love our country and trusted the education level.Please don’t forgotten that u studied yours primary school and kindergarten in Malaysia-a well known country..We are try to move out from the figure now,please help to find solutions to solve this problems and not just criticism our education system..change your narrow minded..be more patriotic to your country..We love Malaysia eternally..thx..please forgive for all faulty i had made..thx for the generous attitude..

Fuck u!we should love our country and trusted the education level.Please don’t forgotten that u studied yours primary school and kindergarden im Malaysia-a well known country..We are try to move out from the figure now,please help to find solutions to solve this problems and not just criticism our education system..change your narrow minded..be more patriotic to your country..We love Malaysia eternally

Yes dont compre between singapore and singapore, Yes singapore better but their people suffer with the systwn and policy set by their Government, every one stressful and some of them kill themself just cant cope with he life they face on…………..