I do like to read but it does depend if the reading material is attention grabbing...hehe any other fans of the chicken soup for the soul series or readers digest?

I think it's just not about reading. If you look at what a typical Malaysian has for hobby, you'd find, non other than teh tarik, internet, tv & movies, music. These are more pop than hobby.

Hardly see anybody having Hobbies, they just like you said too lazy or simply have no luxury time to do that.

Think of it as training. Lama2 biasa punya. Trust me, I've trained my best friend to understand 'high-level' English. Expose yourself to a lot of books like that, and eventually dapat tangkap punya lah.

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Added on February 10, 2011, 10:12 amWell said. Couldn't agree more.

This post has been edited by Tiakaneko: Feb 10 2011, 10:12 AM

Well, you like it, you pay it.
Buying books in Malaysia always consider a lose money at the point of view of other people. They see these books as a stack of paper with ink in it that is useless for any practical usage.
Everything that cannot help you to generate money is consider a wasted.
In school, teacher didn't ask or encourage us to read books that is other than textbooks or exam related let alone our family will do it.

for me, comes from remote area.. there're no MPH, kinokuniya or borders. Only normal books store that only supply book school and for major examination book(UPSR,PMR, SPM......

It's about mentality
few years back i have listen this quote "Makcik dah tua x skolah, kenapa kena baca buku"

So the mentality is " No school No books" even newspaper...so sad ...

PROVE ? expecially my neighbourhood (4-5 houses) . sometimes they comes to my house to ask for old newspaper.. me and my mother wondering why and my little brother (always play with neighbour child) told us that he NEVER seen they read newspaper.. WOW

Differently, my grandma, 70+ yo. everyday wakeup early in morning driving to mosque and on the way back she buy newspaper almost everyday.. even sometime i visit her I can read the paper which is 'mis-buy' by me or i can read different brand of newspaper. ...

Its not about the rich or poor people . Its about READ...


"In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Read! in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood:
Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,-He Who taught (the use of) the pen, Taught man that which he knew not........."

Al-Alaq, Verse 1-5...

People saying reading is good. Reading is knowledge. I believe reading is worth your general knowledge and the way you can change a person's point of view.

Filling heads with knowledge and stories, makes a person live in a different perspective view, that enhance their understanding thus helping others to know the state of mind of another person.

That's where we often left out from being well-developed to face the things we often feared of. That's ourselves from books. So read when you know it's the right time to fill the strength of your need-to-know or desire-of.

In my opinion, there is misconception between reading a book and doing general reading. To be honest, most Malaysian or people would think you must read books, paper novels and alike. Well i think there's no excuse for price and limitation of books now with wifi's and abundance internet connections available.

Excuses are made for not taking the baby steps to read short anecdotes or stories and fear to take the mantle of reading thick novels. For example, many would say they would get sleepy after reading two pages. Well, which human wouldn't if they are obviously tired. Or to deceive themselves, reading status updates and conversations in Facebook would not succumb to this mental tardiness excuse. Apart from holding paperback novels or a newspaper, why not read the rapidly changing news portal which i think is a jewel of knowledge in every subject one can choose from.

Reading should be thought only about stories or crunching word counts and pages. Reading should be an enjoyable experience without regret or the desire to make an excuse for not to read.

They are reading experience of being in a trance of fantasies or adventure, but why not take the other modes of reading as a self enchancement tool.

I think reading is a damn good hobby to do. Instead of killing time, we are enchancing ourself too. Some people are too ridiculous nowadays to even go an everyday lives of reading only a page of article or worse, a headline and continue with 6 hours of gaming-brain-eroding session.

I think parents are partly responsible for not inculcating the reading habit in their children.

Pre-internet era I recall the average number of books read by Malaysians was at 2.

I also think the issue of poor English, poor BM, poor Mandarin stems from lack of reading.

I love reading a lot... And i prefer reading from actual books than reading from my laptop... But i only read in house... i'll be dizzy if i read in car, train or bus... @@

ask ah wang!

people feels weird when I read books,damn... -.-

That's because people would think either you're a nerdy bookworm, an anti-social, show off, or just plain boring, and weirdly enough they would get somehow intimidated or uncomfortable being around you. Err.. Something along those lines. I wouldn't give them a second thought if I were you, I mean I'd rather just continue reading and lost myself in it than messing my head with possible reasons people would come up with when they were scrutinizing me. Lol just my two cents.

not sure whcih part of malaysia ur in, but in penang, ppl dont give a darn whether u read a book or not....and usually u wont be the only one.

I think that's a typical culture of msians, can't blame them in general because they're probably brought up like that. For example, if your parents are those that likes to read and cultivate it in you in an early age, like mine, then the children will most probably grow up to read as a hobby. Then there's also the fact that technology has advanced in a faster pace now, kids get addicted to ipads etc...games, grownups are either busy with work, too tired after that to focus on reading. Reading consumes a lot of concentration. So rather than doing that, most would end up watching tv/movies things that don't need much concentration.

I was a bookworm and collected lots of series of novels when I was younger. I read less now because of my studies but I still like to go bookstores and browse through and grab one that attracts me. Funny how Malaysians, in general, think that buying novels or books is a waste of money. For me, I never thought if it as a waste, in fact, my parents always encourage me to buy books. When I was still schooling (I'm in university now), they'd rather me spent my money on books than other stuffs.

A bit out of topic but I hope to have a small library section in my future house hehe...a little corner with racks and racks of books haha

Just to add on why Malaysian don't like reading .... its also because books in Malaysia are every expensive compared to other countries. A simple paperback book can go around Rm60.

Ya sure, we can order online but still. Think of it, if books are like Rm20 - Rm30 price range, I'm sure some of us will get some of them for the sake of reading.

my 0.02 cents.

Most mass market paperbacks cost RM36.90. Only self help books reach RM60 price tag for paperbacks because hardcovers aren't that popular in that genre.

Books Expensive ? Yet ... they have no problem buying a RM 2,000 iphone 5 .

.

Can't agreed more.
But then, you have to look at it through economics.

I guess everyone who had some training in economics would understand the term utility.

If reading can't give them the same satisfaction as owning an Iphone 5, why would they even bother to spend even a single cent to grab a book?

It's all pinned down to personal preference IMO.

And culture part, I agree that a lot of people think that spending money on books is a stupid act.
People kept telling me that you can just get a 2nd hand book at 10 bucks.
But heck, they themselves didn't even bother to read a single book even though it's really 10 bucks per book.

That's why, if i really want that book. i take a photoshot on the cover and search pdf in a google. Sometimes, i try to find at Bookxcess , Ancorp Mall or else free reading.Though, i worked at BSC bookstore as part timer, i'm only can get 20% discount but still cheaper .

But you're not supporting the already dying book industry