All About Reading

“A Malaysia of Excellence: Championing the K-Society through Smart Citizenship” This is the topic of the essay that i have been working on these past few days and it has been extremely time consuming. This would explain the lack of blogs on my site. Anyway, i am now done with the 2000 word essay for ASLI’s writing competition.

I just completed it and sent it off yesterday, after working the whole afternoon to cut it down from 3000 words to the 2000 word limit……that was not easy. But, i’m finally done with it and can go back to working on my university stuff. Joy! Oh, by the way, i have managed to narrow my list of universities down to 5, so to all those out there who have serious doubts about whether i will ever truly leave this country, just know that i am getting somewhere.

While i was working on writing the essay, i addressed the issue of our reading culture in Malaysia…or lack of it for that matter. For a while i have been observing people’s behavior (that’s one of the many things sociologists do), and i realize that there are many small things that we can do to improve our reading habits.

Observe people on the LRT or even those waiting in lines at the post office. Generally, you will see them doing nothing…well, okay, i suppose you will find a decent amount of people entertaining themselves with their hand phones or perhaps even reading newspapers…but the rest of these people, most of the time, can be found staring into space, or just looking around. Now, i would like to compare this setting to that in another country, say, America. It’s totally different! There are so many more people with books.

The issue i would like to bring up here is our pathetic reading culture as a whole. Why is it that so many Malaysian’s don’t read? Getting material can’t really be an excuse because Kinokuniya and Times bookstore do have a reasonable selection…maybe not the best, but sufficient. The only people who are in a position to complain about the variety of books in these places, are those who read. Now then, you say that books are too expensive? Well, there are always libraries and friends…it’s really not an excuse. I believe that the actual problem is deeper. For some reason, we don’t seem to ‘like’ reading. Whether we don’t ‘like’ it, like we don’t ‘like’ spinach or we don’t like it because we are too lazy is a separate question. Perhaps many individuals do not realize the significance of reading…they don’t know what an asset it is.

But then i think, “This is really weird!” Why don’t they know how valuable reading is? I would like to suggest that our education system does not encourage this hunger for books. In fact, how many of us actually had teachers who encouraged us to read additional material?

Anyway, i’ve been pondering on this for a while. If only everyone realized that they can do something so much more useful with those free moments that they have during the day. Well, who’s to tell them? The government has been trying for a while, but some how, they don’t seem to be too successful. I wonder, will our people ever learn? When will the day come where i see people carrying books around with them, standing in lines while attaining knowledge? It happens in other countries…..why not here?

For starters, work with reading material that you enjoy…even if it’s only magazines; then slowly move towards a variety of books, both fiction and non-fiction. Reading isn’t all that bad and it definitely isn’t only for nerds. Well, fellow bloggers and all those who read my blog, do pick up a book and take it along with you…especially when you know that you will be waiting in line, and are likely to be staring into space. Just try reading more. There is so much that can be learned from it and those few moments of time won’t go to waste. This is something that you won’t regret!