Culture in Malaysia

According to Ball et al. (2006), there are nine socio-cultural components: aesthetics, attitudes and beliefs, religion, material culture, education, language, societal organization, legal characteristics and political structures. For each component I will write down the most important characteristics of the culture in Malaysia in section 3.1. Wherever appropriate I mention the scores that Hofstede (2001) and Trompenaars (1997) found on their cultural dimensions and if I found those scores are correct.

- Aesthetics
The ‘Kampong’ (village) culture and the Islam have been of great influence on the art in Malaysia. In the isolated villages unique dancing, music and batik styles developed itself. Painting and carving skills on the other hand aren’t so developed because of the Islam discouraging the use of human shape in art. Malaysia has a lack of a literary tradition like in India or China. In fact, the government acknowledges this is a problem. In East Malaysia art consists mainly of warrior dances and different crafts of textile, rotan baskets and woodcarvings (Ars, 2001).
I have travelled around Malaysia and visited an Orang-Asli village in the jungle around the Cameron Highlands. It was nice to see how the Orang-Asli used to live, but you could also notice that these people were not living as primitive as they once were. Tourism has become a good way to get some income and you could see that people were dressed up in their Indian clothing, while others were walking around in jeans and t-shirts. And after visiting the village you were expected to leave some money for the hospitality of the people in the village. The biggest anti-climax was seeing an IKEA bag in one of the huts.
Malaysia, and in special Kuala Lumpur, is a playground for progressive architecture. The city has built an impressive skyline, with the Petronas Towers as the most imposing building. The towers were designed with the Islamic and Malaysian culture in mind. The modern Malaysian motives in the building are designed like traditional weaving patterns and woodcarvings. The patterns symbolise unity, harmony, stability and rationality: important principles in the Islam and Malaysian culture (Ars, 2001).
Malaysians think building big buildings and skyscrapers is a way of showing off how well the economy is doing. This is true in a way, but the problem is that buildings are not fully occupied and a lot of the office space is not being used. The best example are the Petronas Towers: a large part is not being used because of the exorbitant prices for the office space. But the problem exists for hotels as well: some carcasses have been built, but the work never finished because of insufficient funds.

- Attitudes and beliefs
Malaysian people are not very punctual when it comes to being on time. “Malaysians view time as multi-track and infinite. To most Malaysians, there is no need to hold on to time or to try to plan and control it as other social priorities are considered more important than time itself.”(Abdullah & Low, 2001). Malaysians consider human interactions more important than schedules, appointments, delivery dates and deadlines. When working at the office I found out really soon that being in the office on time was not very important. I will discuss more about that in chapter 4.
Some Malaysian leaders had future plans though. When you think of the Wawasan 2020 as discussed earlier, there is a strong long term orientation. For the long / short term orientation Hofstede (2001) has found no score for Malaysia. This example points out that Malaysians do not only live by the day, but plan their future as well. Most of my colleagues all had plans about their future work and the position they wanted to be in after several years. So if I would have to give a score on the Malaysian time orientation based on Abdullah and Low (2001) and my own experiences, I would rank it somewhere around the middle at about 50 points.
Trompenaars (1997) makes a difference between sequential and synchronic cultures. For the first time is absolute and for the second time is intangible and less important. Malaysia scores somewhere in the middle.
The Wawasan 2020 can be seen as a way that Malaysians are taking control of their environment and are determined to become one of the most developed countries in Asia. Malaysians are trying to control nature. Trompenaars (1997) found a score of only 26% of the Malaysians who agree on its worth controlling nature. I have found that that percentage is to low in the 21st century. Most people I have met are ambitious people who have great plans for the future. These people were Malaysians in general, and Malays might have slightly different ideas. I have found, during my travels, that most Malays are making the best out of their lives. One of the best examples, maybe to literally, of controlling nature is the fact that the rainforest is endangered on Borneo. The rainforest is chopped down to make place for huge palm oil plantations.
In Malaysia there is a very neutral culture according to Trompenaars (1997). In a neutral culture people are taught that it is incorrect to show one's feelings overtly. I have found that this is true, especially in the working environment. Colleagues are always very polite and people are never too enthusiastic or to extreme in their emotions. People are interested in each other but the atmosphere in the office never gets to informal.
I found it hard to label Malaysia as a specific or diffuse culture. I got familiar with my colleagues pretty fast, of course more with certain ones than with others, but on the whole people were really friendly. They took me out for lunch and told me all about the food and Malaysia. With some of my direct colleagues I have been going out in the weekends and I have been at the homes of two of them. I have found that when you are starting to build a real friendship, people are willing to do everything for each other. One of my colleagues (which I had a very good relationship with) just got married in India and invited me to come to his wedding over there. He even wanted to pay for my ticket! I still have contact with him on a regular basis and he came to Europe for his honeymoon. I met him in Amsterdam in the beginning of October and it was great to show him and his wife around.
Some Chinese and Malay people I met in Bangsar and KL invited me and my flat mates to come to their homes for a party or to their food stalls to tell us about their food. We met these people while having dinner in a restaurant or while going out, so we hardly knew them. On my trip through Malaysia me and my girlfriend were invited for a traditional Hari Raya breakfast with the owners of a hostel near the Taman Negara. These are examples of how the Malaysians and Malays are letting you in their lives and want to show others how they live. So we were easily accepted into the private sphere of these people, which is a sign of a diffuse culture (Trompenaars, 1997).

- Religion
The (Soenitic) Islam is the official religion, Muslim people (mostly Malays) represent just a little over half of the population. The constitution gives the Islam a preference: the Malay leader is an Islamic religious leader, Islamic religion education is obliged at state schools, Muslim people have their own jurisdictional system and pay special taxes. The Chinese are supporters of Confucianism, Buddhism or Taoism. Most Indian people support Hinduism. Six percent of the population is Christian. The different tribes at Sarawak and Sabah support animistic religions (Winkler Prins, 2007).
A good example of the Islam being the state religion and living by Muslim rules is the way foreigners should behave. Pop performer Gwen Stefani had planned a concert in Kuala Lumpur on the 21st of August 2007. There are strict rules in Malaysia for performers. Under the official guide to performing in Malaysia, a female artist must be covered from the top of her chest to her knees. Jumping, shouting or throwing of objects onstage or at the audience is not allowed. Performers cannot hug or kiss and their clothes cannot have obscene or drug-related images or messages. Stefani promised to obey the local guidelines, but still there were protests from different Muslim parties. Janet Jackson refused to obey the rules in Malaysia, so she cancelled the concerts she had planned.
In most of Malaysia mosques, Hindu and Chinese temples are everywhere. Highlights that I visited are the National Mosque in KL, the Dataran Putra; an enormous mosque in Putrajaya, the Kek Lok Si Temple; the largest Buddhist temple in South-East Asia and the Batu Caves; one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India with a 43 metres tall golden statue in front of it. It’s great to see the different kind of ceremonies and have random people telling you what and why people are doing certain rituals. Christian churches are usually not as visible as the other temples and mosques, because they are not so well decorated and usually smaller than other shrines. One of the oldest and most famous Christian churches is the St. Peter’s Church in Malacca.

- Education
“Enrolment in primary school stands at about 95 percent and at secondary school in about 58 percent. Gender differentials in education are narrower than in the past” (Robinson&Ross, 2006).
In education there are strong differences though. For Chinese and Indian people there are special schools were they are lectured in Mandarin and Tamil. These schools are discriminated in comparison to the national schools: they get fewer funds, less materials and the circumstances are not as good. To create unity in the education system, the government introduced Vision Schools in the nineties: national, Chinese and Tamil schools were put together in one compound. But the larger part of the Chinese community resists to these schools because of the fear of losing its identity.
In Eastern Malaysia there are some ethnic groups that have a delay in education because they live in isolated villages. Some children in Sabah and Sarawak have to travel for hours to go to school. Besides that parents want their children to work (Ars, 2001).
Government and private universities and colleges have been established all over Malaysia to provide for the higher education needs of those seeking to progress beyond secondary-level education. At Weber I was responsible for contacting Universities and colleges to promote the ‘Asia Pacific PR Student of the Year Award’. This competition is organized by Weber every year and is meant for communication students all over the Asia Pacific region. While contacting these universities and colleges I got the idea that this is very well organized in Malaysia.
I have heard from some Chinese people though that there is a maximum to the amount of Chinese people being allowed to go universities. This results in brilliant Chinese people not being able to go to (state) universities while mediocre Malay students are able to do so.

- Language
The official language is Bahasa Malaya in West-Malaysia and Sabah and Bahasa Malaya and English in Sarawak. Beside these languages the different ethnic groups also speak their own language. Despite attempts of the government to propagate the Bahasa Malaya, English is the most used language in trade, education and jurisdiction (Winkler Prins, 2007). English is perceived as a language of prestige: being fluent in it is often associated with social status and elitism (Abdullah, Singh & Gill, 2001). Most Malaysians I met speak English very well.
Abdullah, Singh & Gill (2001) describe “Malaysian English”, which is spoken by those who do not speak the Standard English. While they may be able to get the message across in English, it may not be done with grammatical accuracy. This is what I experienced when talking to Malay people: they did not always speak perfect English, but understanding each other was never a problem.
One of my personal objectives was to learn enough of the Bahasa Malaya to make myself understood by locals. It turned out to be pretty hard to speak Bahasa very much. I will reflect more on the language in section 5.4.5.

- Societal organization
The ‘Kampong’ (village) culture was always very important in the Malay culture. In the native villages it was common that when someone committed a crime the entire family, or even the entire village was punished. The people believed that there was a great social responsibility and that when a member of a family committed a crime this could also be assigned to the other members of the family due to their lack of control. There was a law called ‘adat’, which still has its influence on the behaviour of the Malays. The law stated that the entire group (family or village) was responsible for the behaviour of an individual (Ars, 2001). This culture explains the low score according to Hofstede (2001) Malaysia has on Individualism (26). “People in collectivistic cultures belong to groups that are supposed to look after them in exchange for loyalty, whereas people in individualistic cultures are only supposed to look after themselves and their immediate family” (Ball et al., 2006, pp.207). The same goes for scores that Trompenaars (1997) found, although scores were not so low as the score of Hofstede, there is more a communitarian culture than an individualistic culture. Trompenaars (1997) also found a very low score on ‘opting for universalist system instead of social group’ in Malaysia. This means people see the ideal culture in terms of human friendship and in intimate relationships instead of rules being more important. There is a particularistic culture. That is special when you imagine that most Malays are muslim and that the Islamic religion has a lot of rules which have to be obeyed. I have found that this is true for the typical Malay people, but I have met a lot of Malaysian people who are far more individualistic than other Malays and Malaysians. I believe that with the development of Malaysia the individualism will rise as people are becoming more ‘western’.
What you would expect in a Muslim country is females being less important than men. According to Hofstede (2001) Malaysia has a score of 50 on the Masculinity index. That’s no extreme score and I have not noticed any problems or struggles between male and female employees. When you think that at least three quarters of the employees was female, you can imagine that the atmosphere at the office was all but masculine. There is an increase in women in the workforce and in managerial positions as well (Mei Nien, 2001).
In my preparatory report I noticed that on the scores of Hofstede, there is a striking difference between the cultures of Malaysia and the Netherlands between the dimensions of power distance. “Power distance is the extent to which members of a society accept the unequal distribution of power among individuals” (Ball et al., 2006, pp.207). In companies or cultures with a larger power distance superiors have much more power, authority and decision-making rights than subordinates, and there is a strong centralisation. Malaysia scored 104. I noticed that there is quite a difference between companies in Malaysia on this score. In Chinese companies for example, the hierarchy is enormous. One of my flatmates was doing an internship at Pensonic, from origin a Chinese company and with a lot of Chinese employees. People had to stamp cards when they entered and left, and people who were late or took a lunch break that was too long were disciplined. It was not common to talk to the superiors unless people were asked to. The hierarchy was very important.
But even at my company, a more Western company, there is a lot of respect for the managing director. At Weber in Malaysia that’s a woman, something you don’t see very often in a Malay company. She was not at the office that much, maybe just two half days a week, but nobody dared questioning about her whereabouts. When I celebrated my birthday and brought some pie to the office, I put it in the pantry for everyone to take whenever they wanted. When the pie was nearly finished the PA came to me a little panicky, and asked me if I had brought a piece to the MD. When I told her I didn’t, she told me that I had to bring her a piece because she was not going to pick that up herself. At a farewell dinner for one of the colleagues we went to a restaurant with the entire company. There was a long table set, and the MD would sit at the head of the table. But the seats next to her would stay empty the longest, as most people didn’t have any idea how to handle the situation of sitting next to the boss in a more informal setting. In the end the seniors were sitting close to her, so you could actually see the hierarchy in the company.
Trompenaars (1997) has found no score on Malaysia being a culture of ascription or achievement. In Malaysia there is no such thing as a caste system, even although there are lot of Indian people in the country. I have talked to Indian colleagues and they told me that they were making there own career and that that had nothing to do with their family or birth, age, gender etc. I have found that Malaysia is a country in which you have to work hard and then you can accomplish things. But when you think of the bumiputra politics than there is a difference in the things people can achieve based on religion. Malays control the politics while Chinese control the economy. Chinese are not allowed to go to any Malaysian state university. So these stories combined, I think Malaysia is becoming more and more a culture where achievement is more important. I think that is the case for the most developing countries.

- Legal characteristics
The legal characteristics are based on English common law. Judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court are at request of the supreme head of the federation. The country has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction (UNDP Malaysia, 2007). Different states can choose to have their own laws. There are for example states (e.g. Langkawi) that are tax-free: there is no tax on alcohol or cigarettes. Corruption and bribery still are a problem in Malaysia.
Of the last, I had an experience from close by. We were in the car with two Malaysian people, driving home from going out one night. They would drop us off at our apartment. When we were on the way, we passed a road block. Cars had to stop for an alcohol check. Although we thought the guy behind the wheel did not drink any alcohol that night, he passed the police man some money (50 Ringgit). When we drove off, he told us that he did drink some alcohol and didn’t want any trouble. He told us that if it would have been us (or any other white people) the bribe would have been a lot higher.
Law can be very strict in Malaysia. One of my flatmates was doing an internship at the Malaysian Dutch Business Council, which involved arranging internships for students from the Hanzehogeschool in Groningen. He told me a story about a Dutch intern in KL who did not renew his visa before the expiry date was over. A standard visa is valid for 90 days, but going in and out the country gives you a new visa for 90 days. This particular guy went to Singapore after his visa had expired for two months and thought he would get away with that, maybe by paying a fine. He was arrested at the border and was in a Malaysians jail for a week before being deported back to the Netherlands. So that shows the politics are really strict.