hi,
To be honest, if selectively opinionated . . .
What really decided me to stay longer in Malaysia was the fact that here I'm a tourist - and welcomed everywhere. Back in the UK I'm a bloody subject. Yep, a subject, not even a citizen. And do the rulers know how to make you feel subjected.
And the folks that I met there are scared of non-Brit foreigners moving into the house next to them. It's a nasty racist country judging from the comments that I received in some 4 or 5 months there in 2008. I know that Indians, Pakis and Bangladeshis have never been welcomed, except by a Labour government maybe, but it's eastern europeans that seemed to be the 2008 put-downs.
And I nearly got mugged. After 26 years in Singapore & Malaysia of being mug-free. It's an eye-opener to vulnerability. I like the Malaysian approach of shooting dead folks who shoot at the police. I'm thinking of getting a look-a-like police outfit.
And there's the rotten class system. The UK missed out on a guillotine in Trafalgar Square. Of course, it didn't do the French much long-term good but at least short-term it cleared-off some trash. Pity about Danton and Mdm Roland but win some, lose some. At least the Marquis de Sade had a skin of his teeth escape in the last 24 hours of the Terror - and I'm sure he liked it.
And the worship of Princess Diana, the people's princess, whose driver got pissed in a Paris nightclub and she and her fancy man got zapped in a car crash. My niece got killed in a car crash along with the other 3 passengers - it happens. Shame, yep, monument, jeez. You can't block out this stuff.
I've nothing against adultery, or adulterers (the current Malaysian president of the
MCA being a local and timely case in point) but shouldn't the future Head of the Church of England be somewhat more moral than a renaissance Pope - there was a civil rebellion in 1688 that was basically over this.
And I didn't seem able to do much without coming up against needing a permanent address (know your potential tax-payer and get them into the system) and being put straight. Putting other folks straight seems to be the thing in the UK. There was little overall friendliness, and little give and take. It just seemed a harder and more mean (between people) place than 25 years ago. And I lived in London then.
Everyone seemed to know their rights and entitlements to the letter. I've decided that I don't want to get involved in that no matter the cheapness of GBP, and lower property prices.
With no pension, and my dad would turn over in his grave if I went on welfare, my sister worked out that I'd be able to manage if I didn't have a car and made good use of the bus pass. I'll give the managing bit a miss until I can't.
Topic: Giving it up & going Back (Read 2631 times)
July 27, 2010, 10:21:56 AM