The end for Social Graces?

The dictionary defines gracious as; "being pleasantly kind, benevolent and courteous."

I suppose in today’s world, it is not easy to define what being gracious actually mean.  Over time I have heard and read about so many Malaysians ungraciousness on the roads, in malls and even in public toilets and what is more amazing is that like in some third world countries, we are becoming a race that accepts the faults in society  and as is the miracle of human nature, at some point, adapt to it.

An experience I faced last Saturday was a definite prove of this. The Diplodocus and I decided to head to the famous mall, Mid Valley Megamall, and if it was not for our brother’s birthday the very next day, I would never have agreed to head there on a weekend. A trip down Zombie Ville would have been more pleasing.

After an excruciating wait, we finally spotted an Indian (national) and his family loading up their fairly new Nissan Sylphy. As cars were parked on both sides of the driveway, the sylphy had not much space to reverse to get out of his parking lot. Hence he did what any other one of his country man would do. He got his very excited wife to ‘watch the back’ and then went bottom-long into the car that was parked at the rear of his. The excited wife did the only thing she could do,  jumping a couple of feet in the air and trying to push the sylphy forward, unsuccessfully of course, and after a while,  realizing her effort was in vain, jumped into the passenger side and the company drove off, without a note of an apology to the owner of the Injured car.

But that’s not my only story here.

As the Sylphy was loading, we noticed a young, pleasant looking woman with the highest heels and tightest of jeans standing next to the Indian family.  The minute the car drove away, madam long legs decided to ‘book’ the parking lot for her boyfriend. In no mood for any more bad manners, we honked and managed to coax her out of the way for us to park. But after couple of meters of walking to the mall’s doors, the boyfriend decides to drive by and start shouting at the Diplodocus and me for having stolen his parking spot.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but since when do Malaysians actually practice ‘parking-via-human-standing-booking’? As a society, if we allow people to actually act this way, can one imagine the chaos it could create if all of us decided to act in the same manner?

Have a little social grace folks, it can go a long way.

Peace out.