8 surprisingly simple things that can make Malaysians instantly happy!

Sometimes the average Malaysian could be tempted to think that there’s very little to be happy about in Malaysia. Prices are going up, allegations of corruption, erratic weather, angry bosses, and etc.

In fact, a recent study done by a Canadian Professor found that Malaysia actually only ranked at number 61 out of 106 countries on the happiness scale. (Even Singapore is happier than us at number 24!)

And as depressing as that sounds, surely there are things that can definitely cheer Malaysians up right? Surely there are some kind souls out there who would want to help make Malaysians happier? Well, if you’re not keen with the option of jumping over to Singapore just to feel happier…..

 

Why not jump over to Celcom instead?

So our latest buddies Celcom actually want you to be on the happy side with their new Celcom FIRST™ Gold Plus plan!

It’s a plan that lets you spend less and do more with lower prices as compared to their competitors. And before you start calling us idealistic, how about checking out what this plan has to offer:

• For RM98, you get a total of 40GB a month (20GB on weekdays, 20GB on weekends)
• There’s free and unlimited usage of WhatsApp, WeChat and Yonder Music too
• Absolutely free calls to all networks

And that’s not all, if you were previously on the Celcom FIRST™ Gold or Platinum plan, you would notice that your plans have been automatically upgraded! The Celcom FIRST™ Gold plan now gives you 20GB of data, and the Celcom FIRST™ Platinum plan, 60GB of data!

Doesn’t that sound like something that would make many of us happy? But why stop there? We wanted to keep those happy thoughts so we asked our readers what made them happy. So here are 9 other things that can put a smile on (almost) any Malaysian’s face!

 

1. Minyak Angin… Cap Kapak?

To be honest, we were a little stumped when reading this, but Nurhatini A. Rahim managed to convince us la.

“It is your cure for everything! Flu? Rub some on your nose. Headache? Rub some on your temple. Period pain? Nausea? All can!

It is a must item for me whenever I travel overseas. It is an oriental version of aspirin, only much much safer. I even sniff on it to make my stress go away. Not that I’m addicted to it, but hey, it really works!” – Nurhatini A. Rahim

Gotta admire that enthusiasm, and don’t worry, we don’t judge your addiction love for it. And to be fair, she’s not alone on this. We found reviews of people proclaiming their love for this minyak from places like Indonesia and Australia. But what exactly is in this 80-year old concoction that has captivated so many people?

Well we found that the ingredients actually consist of  a lot of chemistry sounding things like methyl salicylate and eucalyptus oil, but when we looked them up, all of them have been used medically in some way or another. (Only for external use, of course.) So don’t worry people, sniff/rub away!

 

2. Any kind of  public holiday

You can try to name a holiday that Malaysians won’t enjoy, but chances are most of us would enjoy any holiday thrown our way, whether planned or unplanned.

“It depends on which state you are working in. We also get more holidays added to the calendar by winning football games, badminton, and anything important to us :).

If your state wins the football championship for the season guess what, you get a day off! We celebrate our independence twice a year for crying out loud.” – Jouhari Ali

Honestly this was probably the most common answer that we got from our readers, but kudos to Mr Johari for trying his best to encapsulate every possible public holiday scenario. He also pointed out that Malaysia actually has one of highest number of public holidays in the world! We’re joint fifth on 15 days, but we’re nowhere close to the highest which is India with 21 public holidays.

3. Rain after weeks of haze or Malaysian sun

As Malaysians, we all know what it’s like to walk into the sun and feel the scorching heat penetrate all the way to our kidneys.

But when it rains?

“Hot + Cold Water = Heaven! Automatically can see people face senyum kambing kembang and jig giddy joget shake in happiness. Even my neighbour dogs and cats were like literary jumping with mouth open, grass, plants become alive.” – Vera

Now that is quite an expression of happiness not just for humankind, but for the flora and fauna. But how can we be sure that rain makes Malaysians happy? Simple, because we know that haze and hot weather make people unhappy.

And this may not just apply to Malaysians but our neighbouring Singaporeans as well, who also share our weather, and our haze problem.

But sometimes we may not even need hot weather or haze to appreciate rain. There’s actually a scientific explanation as to why rain actually makes people feel good, because the slow, non-threatening whooshing noise it makes calms people down.

 

4. Anything that we don’t have to pay for

After holidays, free stuff was probably the 2nd most popular answer from our readers, but while some said free food, and others free wifi, this person realised that to Malaysians, it doesn’t matter what is free, as long as it’s…free.

“I personally believe that a typical Malaysian will love anything that is given for free. Be it a plain roti canai, a movie ticket or a movie ticket.

You can experiment with this. Try and ask any of your colleagues out for a movie. See how they respond when you say you belanja and when when you said bayar sendiri.” – Shahir Naim

But how crazy are we about free stuff? Well, if you Google “free stuff Malaysia” you actually get so many websites dedicated to talking about where Malaysians can get the latest free goodies.

And it seems that Malaysians are actually so crazy about their free gifts that this expat website even  made it a point to tell expats coming here about it. 

 

5. Ice cream man’s bell

As we grow older, sometimes we learn to let go of the things we used to love as children, and move on to other things in life. The joy of hearing the bell of the ice cream man in the area is not one of them!

“I had a really bad case of Monday blahs when I thought I heard the sound of the ice cream man’s bell. Like not the Paddle Pop song one, but the old school bell that’s rung by hand. I looked out the window and saw him passing by, so I ran down as fast as I could and caught him.

I don’t know which is the better part of this story – the fact that he was actually there because he got lost and decided to try his luck in a new area, or that he had yummy ice cream sandwiches!” – Poh

And just like that, Poh’s Monday blahs became Monday boleh lah! #pleasegivepitylaugh

Sadly, it was difficult to find the origin story of the ice cream man. But as far as we can tell, the ice cream man profession is actually very old. This article mentions one who sold ice cream potong as far back as the 1960’s, but it probably goes wayyy further back because ice cream (or it’s ancestor) was mentioned as early as second century BC (meaning 2016 years plus another 2 years). So it’s something that’s been making Malaysians happy possibly even before we first kena jajah. No easy feat.

6. Kittens, duh

“Coz they are cute. Coz they are chubby. And playing with them gives real pleasure of comfort of our love to them. Besides, who doesn’t like cute and chubby kittens? ;-)” – Christine Dominic

Believe us when we say this, the CILISOS office totally gets this answer (Editor’s note: It’s actually just Lydia and Hans). We lurve our kittens AND our cats. CILISOS even has its very own resident cat which visits us occasionally. We call him Snowballs.

But before you start calling us and Ms. Catherine crazy, what if we told you there are Malaysian Facebook pages dedicated to sharing the joy of loving a cat/kitten like this and this?

And dun play-play ah. These pages actually have thousands of followers! 

But that’s not all, cats are also so ingrained into our culture that one of the most popular Malaysians campaigns last year was based on a cat called “Kucing Happy“. Heck, we even have a lot of peribahasas which mention them.

 

7. Durian season

Ah, you didn’t think we’d get through this whole article without mentioning our love for the maharaja of fruits right? Like we love our durian so much, some of us would probably marry it if we could.

“One time I did very poorly for my exams and I was feeling sad, and my dad cheered me up by buying scores of durians home. He also does it whenever it’s on season or when we get together with our relatives. I have the best father in the world!” – Matt

And despite the news that this year’s hot weather had reduced the supply of durians and caused the prices to increase, that didn’t stop many Malaysians from fulfilling their durian craving.

“I think about the consequences later, but for the moment I will still continue to enjoy my durians.” – Durian enthusiast, Sundeep Kaur Cheema, as quoted by The Star

 

8. When our sportspeople win a match

“Because we Malaysians are especially united when it comes to sports, yes or yes? We have always been united, but of course we are more united when supporting our national teams ;)” – Jason

We’d be inclined to agree. And you don’t need to think very far back because just a couple of months ago, the whole of Malaysia united in their support of our Olympic heroes.

It may seem like we’re making a sweeping statement, but videos like the one below, of the crazy cheers heard from ALL AROUND 5 APARTMENT BLOCKS (!) after our men’s doubles semi-final win, indicate that it is truly something that makes many Malaysians happy.

And we were still proud of our sportspeople even when they couldn’t win that elusive gold medal.

 

Wah… seems pretty easy to make Malaysians happy!

We’re sure there’s still a lot more that we didn’t mention. It’s also kinda cool that nothing on the list above is actually very expensive or elaborate, but things that can make almost any Malaysian happy like the ice cream man, or rain, or even cheering for Malaysia’s first Olympic gold medal.

And speaking of gold…