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  Playing in an independent band in Malaysia is never easy, unless you’ve decided from the start that you’re not doing this for fame and fortune but strictly for the love of it. The lucky few who do manage to break through to the mainstream will probably tell you otherwise, but I’m quite sure the majority of us will be smart enough to advise newcomers not to…

  Last month I visited a doctor for a case of asthma.  It was my first visit to that clinic so it was compulsory to fill in a patient form which meant filling in details such age, sex, occupation and etc.   Right after handing in the form my name was immediately called. I walked towards the doctor’s room feeling a bit funny as there were a…

There are so many obvious answers to the above question that I kind of feel embarrassed at having to write an article about it. In a country where, between 2005 and June 2012, a total of 243,823 people have been declared bankrupt and where 51% of bankrupts are people below the age of 45, it’s really quite obvious that a lot of us have a bit of…

There is a mamak in PJ that I frequent almost daily.   If I’m not there for breakfast, I will be there for lunch or a late-night drink with friends. The servers know me by sight and when I say macam biasa they nod their heads and understand what I mean immediately.   If I told you which mamak I’m referring to, you would probably say that…

    I have a friend who used to work in a certain pricey restaurant in Sunway Pyramid, sometime around 2007. There, he became friends with a Burmese dishwasher who, for privacy’s sake, we’ll call Not Maung. Not Maung was a friendly guy, good humoured and is content, if not happy, with his job. My friend, on the other hand, told me he hated his job despite…

  Foreign workers – can’t live with them, can’t live without them. At least that’s what quite a lot of Malaysians I know feel about them. Deputy Human Resources Minister, Senator Maznah Mazlan said that there are 1.403 million foreigners here holding the Temporary Employment Visit Pass, which accounts for 11.2% of Malaysia’s total workforce. That’s actually quite a lot of foreigners for a country with a…

To get an insight into how everyday Malaysians spend their money, the Kopitiam Ekonomi team will be running our “Open Your Wallet” series. We will be choosing a new person each week to show us how the money in their wallet is spent from Monday to Friday. Share your thoughts and comments about this week’s wallet, and come forward with suggestions to make his budget better. If…

Everyone’s got an opinion about Malaysian movies, and most of them aren’t very flattering and deservedly so. Even Malaysian indie or arthouse films aren’t particularly well known for their quality, let alone the sort of trash that passes for mainstream Malaysian movies. But rather than taking the depressing route of discussing the poor quality of Malaysian movies, why not take this time to talk about some of…