Why Expats from Post-soviet Countries Having Problems in Malaysia

Malaysia is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and in order to make it economy more flourish, this country is on the verge of using several approaches to attract students and specialist from all over the world. The number of people from former USSR countries (excluding Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania) is growing accordingly, due to rise of people’s interest on Malaysia But as Aesop said, every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either ("The Mule'’, Fables, 6th century BC), not all of the expats have wonderful life in Malaysia due to adaptation problems (will be listed below). As a result, some of this people are supposed either to return to their home or migrate to other countries.

For example, I, as a student of Malaysian university and citizen of post-soviet country, Uzbekistan, have noticed three major reasons why people from my region have several obstacles to fully realize in Malaysia: climate, meal and language. The first thing people from Central Asia and East Europe usually notice about Malaysia when they arrive is climate. Almost all countries of post-soviet countries have moderate dry climate, thus mild and wet climate can be totally uncomfortable for people who never been in tropical countries. The most common examples of symptoms of people from my region they just arrive in Malaysia are dizziness, weakness and problems with their respiratory system. For example, when I arrived to Malaysia, I felt problems with my blood pressure in line with difficulty to breath. Usually it takes from 3 to one week for people to recover, but people with immune deficiency can suffer the consequences. Furthermore, Malaysia has only summer compared to region where all 4 seasons exist (winter, spring, summer and autumn). This can be problematic because of dehydration process. As hot weather makes people sweat, people drink too much water and loose minerals and salts of their body. The one who sweats (a lot) needs to compensate the loss of salt minerals in the body otherwise it will lead to serious health complications.

Malaysian climate is closely connected to its citizens’ diet. Since in hot weather there are higher chances to get infection, spicy food is extremely popular among dwellers, and not preferable for people from CIS (commonwealth of Independent States or post-soviet countries) as our cuisine mainly do not welcome spices as much as Malaysians’ do Furthermore, extremely small number of russian restaurants are operating in Malaysia, and majority of them are located in Kuala Lumpur. Thus, some gastronomical health problems can be seen for this people because of rapid change in diet. For instance, here I had a problem with my digestion system after having tasted extremely spicy dishes. Seasonal products of post-soviet region are mostly either not available or expensive in Malaysia since this country mostly imports products which are common in my region (for example vegetables, some fruits like an apple or carrot). Thus, without having an appropriate amount of money for meals, it is mostly difficult for expats of post-soviet region to maintain their previous diet regime. Consequently majority of them would rather return to their own countries or choose another country for potential migration where food preparation and composition is similar to their own (mostly European countries).

The last but not least reason why people have some objection to migrate to Malaysia is language barriers. Definitely, the significant number of people in Malaysia knows English (50 percent), but their accents are difficult to understand for people from my region. Thus, they have the number of difficulties in various situations while having conversation with locals since Russians speak English language more evenly, smoothly, while Malayan, Chinese or Indian accents of English language is filled with more intonations, which in normal conversation to Russians seems inappropriate and overly expressive. Moreover, there is a huge difference in pronunciation of English words between Malays and Russians (or people from another states of the region ). This eventually, can lead to depression for newcomers as they can not make any friendship in Malaysia which makes them isolated from society.