After a good long while.
Alright, so there’s been a lot going on, and I finally decided to update. Penang and good food.
Thats bout it. Lol bye.
Okay this month is the month of December, the end of the year, rhetorical statement as it is but it’s relevance will prove to be significant as I elaborate.
This month is the month where the bread winners take their long leaves of their stressful jobs (read: dads!) to have a good vacation and spend some quality time with their families.
Malaysia is quite an intriguing country to visit for its tropical weather, diverse culture and the multitudes of flavors that would make life enjoyable to live. But the irony is that, many comments left by tourists leave a bitter memory of their experience rather than the much buttered up sweet talk adverts.
Take this, there was a wedding held recently in a 5 star hotel in the heart of Kuala Lumpur which the identity will be kept confidential, had services that would keep you away from Malaysia for a good amount of time.
Firstly, upon arrival the hotel was able to allow check ins, because there weren’t any rooms available yet. The greatly annoying point about this is that, reservations were already made beforehand, how can this happen? It’s a 5-star hotel. Fine, so maybe they weren’t so pushy to kick out the overdue occupants. But still this says something about the service in Malaysia.
Moving on, was the wedding reception. Sounds great right? Well, thats where your great expectations would be shot to the ground and burnt to the ground. It all began when the services started. The waitress had such excellent speed in serving the table, one of the attendees stood up and started serving the rest (much faster and efficient, with pleasing presentation as well). Hello? Attendee > waitress. Fine. Disregard that. So then, the same nice guy, asked for vinegar. Yes, vinegar is usually provided on the table, by Malaysian culture, but you see not everyone is local. So then, the waitress just stared blankly and went, “Harh?” as if he was speaking an alien language. Great, first the bad service, now they can’t even communicate through an international language. This is then followed by a helpful local, who helped him with the vinegar.
Shortly after, another attendee was craving for something extra spicy, so she asked for some pepper (she’s a local so she spoke in BM) and this was replied with a puzzled look from the waitress. She then proceeds to ask a passing waiter, “Eh, kita ada lada ke?”. Now ladies and gentleman. That would mean (not a direct translation), “Eh, is it possible that we have pepper?”. Funny, 5-star hotel restaurant hosting a wedding reception, no pepper. So I really what they use to flavor some of their dishes. Probably due to the impending recession, they decided to follow China and used shredded leather as pepper. Oh, just to note, this was a blatant comment by one of the attendee “The food sucked.”
Now now, that was not the end of it. Purely by observation, you can see how much this servicemen and women lacked the basic manners for everyday life, not just for hospitality for tourism. They would bump into you, and say “Excuse me” instead of “Sorry”. Fine, that’s probably excusable, but anyone would be expecting better service.
Now returning after the reception, they proceeded to check-in, and were quickly directed to their rooms, only to see one queen sized bed, when the reservation clearly stated 2 single beds. Fantastic!! You may even say that no one is as lucky to step on shit thrice a day! After a good few minutes of chewing tongues, they agreed to reset the bedding, but for the time being, they were asked to spend some time, with their luggage at the lounge. Despite the mix up, no sort of reimbursements were offered. So, another few minutes chewing more tongues, the hotel finally did something right, which was to upgrade the bed to a king sized bed.
Now, for locals, I believe you would have seen Malaysia Airlines (MAS) advertisements saying MH is not just a flight code, but it also stands for Malaysian Hospitality. And given much of that experience by tourists, is it all that hospitable? I can only agree that many countries still think Malaysia is a land where people still stay on tree houses and move around by swinging on vines.
Shape up Malaysia! Tourism is one of the biggest cash flow into the country, any local, would feel ashamed if they had introduced this and that to their tourist friends, only to be embarrassed by the numerous screw ups that they conjure.
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