me simple penangtite

if you read the sunday star, you would have notice a feature on penangtites. the heading went “chin chai or kiamsiap?”

both ‘chin chai’ and ‘kiamsiap’ are in hokkien which means ‘simple’ and ‘stingy’ respectively.

it is well known that among malaysians, penangtites are known to be ‘kiamsiap’. well…. am i? nah, i wouldn’t say so but if you say i am, no i won’t be offended. usually when people remarked to me “oh penangtite eh. very kiamsiap one”, i would reply “good lah. good to be kiamsiap, so that we can save”, which means to say i look to ‘kiamsiap’ as a good thing! or like in the article, stated somewhere, ‘kiamsiap’ is equated with simple lifestyle, being wise and planning ahead… so penangtites should be proud if label ‘kiamsiap’!
oh… and ‘chin chai’ too! yeah, we penang folks are ‘chin chai’ people.

well the reason i said i am not kiamsiap is simply i tend to spend extravagantly. whatever i want, i buy. whatever i don’t want, i’ll buy too! whatever i can do without, i want it anyway just to show i have it (kiasu?), so i buy! for example my digicam, casio EX-Z3. when i first set out to buy a digicam, my budget was below RM1K as i said i only need a basic digicam. however after browsing through so many digicams, i was attracted to this casio EX-Z3 which cost RM1.7K1! i wanted to have it because of the great features, though i know i won’t know how to use all the features.

ok that’s about me spending on myself. now what about spending for others? same thing. extravagantly too especially where food is concerned! i like to bring family or friends for good food or buy good food back for them. at one stage when i treat my friends to good food, they will made a comment “lucia is rich” which get on my nerve. so i tell them “please don’t say i am rich. say i am generous.” true. i am not rich. i am generous. (btw, my zodiac sign, aries, says so that i’m generous). though i am not rich, i don’t mind parting with my money to make friends satisfied/happy. oh this reminds me when i bought my digicam, a friend said “lucia is rich. can afford to buy such expensive digicam”. grr! i hate that. again must tell her it’s not that i’m rich but that i’m extravagant or a spendrift. that’s why you see, i’m usually broke. oops. am i contradicting myself? if broke, how to spend money? er…. the thing is when i have money, i spend and spend a lot until i am broke, then wait for pay-day, spend again, broke again, spend again… and the cycle goes on. yeah yeah you are right. no savings in the bank. i’m gonna end up on the street when i’m old and alone. 🙁

note: more articles about penangtites, click here to read from the ‘beritamalaysia’ newsgroup.