Every day life in Malaysia is quite peaceful but cases have been reported (and known) of rape, snatch thefts, murders but most of these are blamed (conveniently) on the immigrants (illegal) population. Conveniently of course.
But the most observable evidence of close to lawlessness being that Malaysian treat traffic lights as ‘suggestions’ instead of mandatory. One may many time see many motorcycles beating the red traffic signal when (they think) that the coast is clear. And I have seen cars also doing the same when (I think that they think that the coast is clear and that there are no Traffic Policeman around). There are traffic light junctions where there are hidden cameras, but many of these camera s are really ‘decorations’. Like many things in Malaysia, there are lot and lots of Laws but the implementation is questionable.
And Malaysians like to live in cages, that is their houses are protective grilled everywhere, doors, windows and for that matter any opening. I suppose these are precautionary measures, and I believe that those grills help to prevent burglaries or robberies. But some time these are carried over board. Here are some photos of apartments where every window seems to be uglily (and presumbably) safely grilled. Or that we Malaysians (majority) like (or preferred) to live in 'bird cages'
Except for one or two or daring owners of apartment owners who have no grill at all.
I sometime wonder if those daring ones get burgled or robbed. I hate to think what will happened to these grilled apartments if a fire ever occur in them, how do the occupants escape. In my career (when investigating the cause of fire, with other agencies) I have seen burnt bodies of the elderly and children hurdled together near grilled windows after a fire.
These photoes are only showing what happens in a cluster of apartments. One will see no exceptions when one visits terraced houses, single or double storeyed, or even big single bunglows/houses or even mansions. The main difference being that the richer the occupants are the more decorative or sophisticated are the grills; probably with battery operated or electrically operated burglar alarms or even cctv cameras ........... and I must say some even have guards for a group of houses and those who can afford it a guard (on shift) for each house.
Well, that is us Malaysians, and our ’prison’ mentality. We actually imprison ourselves, and I suppose its is safer for people to live in a prison than for many of us us to live outside, where we also ‘imprison’ ourselves.
