Resignations & handphones
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
So its all over the place now, everyone at work knows that I’m leaving. Today, some students have been over to wish me good luck. It was very nice of them, I much appreciated the gesture. There was however something intriguing about what the students said. I didn’t notice it at first until Haniff and Fauzia came to see me, then I realized that there was a pattern there. Of the students who wished me good bye, only those from Kelantan and Terengganu asked me if I was going to change my handphone number. The question was innocent enough but it revealed something about the character of the people here.
Allow me to explain. Handphone dealers, especially in the East coast, try to sell handphones and the connecting services together. In KL and Selangor however they sell them separately as often as they sell them separately. There, you can get an expensive handphone at a much reduced price if you buy it with the connection offered. I think the phone company offers some sort of incentive that includes paying some of the price of the phone. So many people there would buy their handphones with a new connection each time they get a new one. This of course means changing their phone numbers often.
When spoke about this people I know here, they tend to say that it was bothersome to have to inform everyone you know about your new number but I believe these people have missed the point. It seems to me that the handphone is still a status symbol in the east coast community; it seems to be taken as a sign of prosperity to be able to have the latest handphone. If this is so then merely having one isn’t enough because a status symbol is useless if no one knows that you have it. So they call or sms everyone they know to inform them that they have bought the latest handphone. Out of courtesy, the receiver would enquire after the new phone and the new owner would inform them that it was mere a “cheap” one then go on to describe the most expensive handphone on the market. At the end of this exercise, the acquaintance would be informed that this person has bought this new high tech gadget and the new owner would be contented that he has informed everyone he knew of his latest acquisition and given them the idea that he is so prosperous that he considers this excessively expensive device was a ‘cheap’ thing. Armed with this moment of illusion, he would happily go about his business and paying his monthly installments on the phone. All is fine… until a new and more sophisticated model appears on the market.
It should be noted that the ability to fully use the new device is optional. One only needs to know the basics, like making and receiving calls, taking photos and perhaps using the alarm clock function, anything beyond that is a bonus.
So its all over the place now, everyone at work knows that I’m leaving. Today, some students have been over to wish me good luck. It was very nice of them, I much appreciated the gesture. There was however something intriguing about what the students said. I didn’t notice it at first until Haniff and Fauzia came to see me, then I realized that there was a pattern there. Of the students who wished me good bye, only those from Kelantan and Terengganu asked me if I was going to change my handphone number. The question was innocent enough but it revealed something about the character of the people here.
Allow me to explain. Handphone dealers, especially in the East coast, try to sell handphones and the connecting services together. In KL and Selangor however they sell them separately as often as they sell them separately. There, you can get an expensive handphone at a much reduced price if you buy it with the connection offered. I think the phone company offers some sort of incentive that includes paying some of the price of the phone. So many people there would buy their handphones with a new connection each time they get a new one. This of course means changing their phone numbers often.
When spoke about this people I know here, they tend to say that it was bothersome to have to inform everyone you know about your new number but I believe these people have missed the point. It seems to me that the handphone is still a status symbol in the east coast community; it seems to be taken as a sign of prosperity to be able to have the latest handphone. If this is so then merely having one isn’t enough because a status symbol is useless if no one knows that you have it. So they call or sms everyone they know to inform them that they have bought the latest handphone. Out of courtesy, the receiver would enquire after the new phone and the new owner would inform them that it was mere a “cheap” one then go on to describe the most expensive handphone on the market. At the end of this exercise, the acquaintance would be informed that this person has bought this new high tech gadget and the new owner would be contented that he has informed everyone he knew of his latest acquisition and given them the idea that he is so prosperous that he considers this excessively expensive device was a ‘cheap’ thing. Armed with this moment of illusion, he would happily go about his business and paying his monthly installments on the phone. All is fine… until a new and more sophisticated model appears on the market.
It should be noted that the ability to fully use the new device is optional. One only needs to know the basics, like making and receiving calls, taking photos and perhaps using the alarm clock function, anything beyond that is a bonus.
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