Ketupat & Co.

The Burden of Rising Living Costs on Malaysian Families Malaysia is doing great, apparently. Economy growing. GDP up. Investment strong. Headlines all very positive. Politicians smiling. Reports full of charts going up. But go ask a normal Malaysian family one simple question: “Are you actually feeling richer?” Watch them laugh. Because while the economy is growing, their wallet is doing the opposite — shrinking like your patience in a traffic jam on the LDP. Let’s get one thing straight. The cost of living in Malaysia is not just “rising.” It’s creeping up quietly while salaries jog behind like they forgot their shoes . Official data will tell you everything is “under control.” Inflation around 1–2%. Looks small. Looks harmless. But real life? Real life is not a spreadsheet. Real life is: Your groceries somehow RM50 more than last month Your electricity bill suddenly acting like it owns a business Your child’s school expenses multiplying like bacteria Eating...

Leadership Is Not About Slogans. It’s About Results. Malaysian politics has a favourite topic that appears every few months like a seasonal flu: race, religion, and who should lead the country. Every time the economy is slow, wages are stagnant, or young people are worried about the future, suddenly the national conversation becomes an identity discussion instead of a performance discussion. It’s a very clever strategy, actually. If people argue about who should lead, they spend less time asking how well the leaders are doing. Recently, the statement was made again that the struggle must continue to ensure the country continues to be led by Malay leaders who are fair, guided by religion and the Rukun Negara, and who can deliver justice for all. It sounds noble. It sounds patriotic. It sounds like something that should be printed on a poster with a waving flag in the background. But here’s the awkward part that nobody wants to say too loudly: Malaysia has already been ...

SPM Results Mean Everything in Malaysia Except Whether You Can Think “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” — Albert Einstein First of all, congratulations to all the straight-A students. Seriously. You worked hard, you sacrificed time, you memorised entire textbooks, you survived tuition, extra classes, trial exams, real exams, and relatives asking, “So how many A?” at every family gathering since Form 3. You earned your results, and nobody should take that away from you. In a system that rewards discipline, memory, and exam strategy, you played the game well — and you won. Now to those who didn’t get straight As, didn’t get many As, or maybe didn’t even pass a few subjects — listen carefully: it is not the end of the world. It just feels like it because in Malaysia, SPM results are treated like a life-or-death document, somewhere between a birth certificate and a marriage certificate in importance. Every year when SPM results...

Understanding the Roots of Mahathir's Legacy in Malaysian Politics To understand Malaysian politics, you must understand one man: Mahathir Mohamad. And to understand Mahathir, you must first understand one important Malaysian political reality: in this country, retirement is often just a short coffee break. Mahathir’s legacy is so deeply embedded in Malaysian politics that even when he is not in power, he is somehow still part of the conversation, the strategy, the headlines, and occasionally, the problem. Some countries have founding fathers. Malaysia has a founding father who came back, retired, came back again, fought with his own successors, created new parties, brought down governments, and still had time to write blog posts. If Malaysian politics were a movie, Mahathir would not just be a character. He would be the franchise. To understand his legacy, you have to go back to the 1980s, when Mahathir first became Prime Minister. This was the era of big visions, ...

Why Zebra Crossings Are Just Road Art Here In theory, a zebra crossing is a very simple concept. The car stops. The human walks. Nobody dies. Everyone goes home happy. In Malaysia, a zebra crossing is not a traffic rule. It is road decoration . It is street art. It is a suggestion. It is a place where pedestrians stand at the side of the road and question their life decisions while cars fly past like they are qualifying for Sepang Circuit. You can stand at a zebra crossing in Malaysia wearing bright red shirt, waving your hands, making eye contact, holding a child, holding groceries, holding your own hopes and dreams — and cars will still pass you like you are invisible. Then one kind driver stops. You feel grateful. You feel emotional. You feel like hugging him. The car behind him honks like he just committed a crime against humanity. How dare you stop for a pedestrian? This is Malaysia. We stop for toll. We stop for traffic light. We stop for police roadblock. Pede...

Pedestrian Bridges Nobody Uses: A Malaysian Story There is a very unique structure you can find all over Malaysia. Tall. Expensive. Usually painted in bright colors. Comes with stairs that feel like you are climbing Genting Highlands. Sometimes got roof, sometimes don’t. Sometimes got lift, but the lift rosak since 2014. Yes. The pedestrian bridge. The government builds it. The pedestrians ignore it. And cars continue driving like Formula 1 below. Welcome to one of Malaysia’s greatest urban design mysteries: Why build pedestrian bridges if nobody wants to use them? Let me describe the typical Malaysian pedestrian bridge experience. You want to cross the road. The shop you want is right there. You can see it. Maybe 20 meters away. But the pedestrian bridge? 120 meters away. With 35 stairs up, then walk across, then 35 stairs down. In Malaysian weather. 34°C. 90% humidity. You reach the other side already sweating like you ran marathon. So what do people do? They look l...