r/malaysia

American tourists with kids age 9,11 interested in visiting Malaysia.

-I have read its a very safe country for tourists. Is this correct?

-Weather...in August I should expect hot/humid weather but not necessarily more rain then other times of year (or perhaps this is only for the east coast)? I believe there is low typhoon risk in August, is this correct?

Thanks

I’m seeing some critique of the movie “Obsession” by Malaysians online and there’s a lot of negativity?? Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but a lot of it was how the movie wasn’t scary and many people siding with Bear which was disappointing to see. I absolutely loved the movie but it’s sad to see local watchers empathize with a rapist who was intentionally made to be a bad person. In my opinion it stems from a lack of critical thinking skills and an inability to properly decipher art. A lot of local horror movies are just cheap jumpscare trash and I hope one day a local producer can make a horror just as good or thought provoking without using religion as a fear tool.

hopefully this is the right subreddit to post this in.

i'd like to preface this post by saying yes you're probably gonna think I'm stupid for the decisions I made but I've been in this guy's situation and know how shitty it is so I just wanted to be a homie and help someone out yk? but i digress, on with the story/scam (?) awareness

so every week I do my grocery shopping in the mall near my hostel (I'm a uni student). today I was walking earphones in and I notice this guy trying to talk to me so I ask what can I help with? thinking he needed directions and this guy (in china chinese, not malaysian chinese) tells me he has some issues with withdrawing money from his bank acc bc it's in chinese yuan, so I suggested going to the currency exchange because anything related to money is an immediate red flag. he told me they only accepted physical currency (no idea if that's the truth in hindsight, I've never had to go to one) so I'm thinking, yup I've been in a situation where I'm stranded in a foreign place with no money and noone to call for help so I know the feeling. so again I ask what can I do to help?

he basically tells me he wants to send money to my acc and I just withdraw it for him. I didn't see the issue with this (unless the money is laundered and it gets traced back to my acc and I get in trouble for it but I didn't think this was likely?) so I agreed. otw there he keeps acting chummy patting my shoulder and saying he was grateful I was there (I'm in a predominantly malay area so I'm pretty much the only chinese in the mall rn) since he doesn't speak a lick of malay or english and asking me what I do here. I tell him truthfully that I'm a student (90% of us are broke so there's no point in scamming me really) and he tells me he came for work.

so we arrive at the bank in the mall. suddenly he says he wants me to withdraw money first and then he'll wire it to me after i hand him the money. huge red flag. I ask him how much he needs. 1.5k, he tells me while looking me dead in the eyes. me, the freshly turned adult who he knows is a uni student. obviously I'm not stupid enough to part with that kind of money for a random stranger, so I open my maybank account and show him the balance (a pathetic amount, I keep all my money in a different bank) and tell him I can't help him with that, and suggest we do what he initially requested, which is wire the money to me and I'll just hand it to him

he pulls me aside and tries to explain he just needs to see the money in my hand before he wires it to me so i don't scam him. and honestly this guy is two heads taller than me, I'm a pretty small woman and I seriously doubt I could outrun him with his money even if I tried. so I told him I really can't do that, most I have is rm50 sitting in my account. he starts saying even rm100 is enough and can't i just do that little thing for him?

I'm aware it's a psychological tactic where a person makes an incredibly unreasonable request then, upon being denied, turns it into a much more reasonable demand that the other person will be more likely to comply with because it's a lot better than the initial request. so I tell him again even if I wanted to I simply don't have the money to help him out.

and at that point he starts getting angry. his tone of voice is noticeably sharper when he asks rm100 of me again because "rm50 just isn't enough" and i just know i have to get the fuck out of there incase he gets aggressive. so i apologise again that I can't help him and he leaves, still angry. as soon as he turns his back i book it the hell out of there, get my groceries asap and get home while it's still bright out with my mom on call the whole way back.

no idea if the guy was being genuine or if i was about to get scammed and i keep replaying the events in my head. i know it was stupid of me to follow him but i didn't get any sinking feeling in my gut until his voice tone changed and i genuinely just wanted to help. what do you think? either way i think it taught me a good lesson to just ignore people next time

edit: thanks for all the replies. i feel reassured that i didn't just ditch some guy in need. hindsight is 20/20, honestly makes no sense that he didn't have some source of money since the nearest airport is atleast 6km away and he would've had some way to get to the mall, aka some sort of spendable money, i was in if he really had freshly flown in. i was naive to think nobody would scam the 18yo local uni student but I guess anyone can do anything even for as little as rm100. anyway, my mom told me next time just pretend you don't speak chinese, you're banana anyway so it's only half a lie lol

Is it possible that Malaysia would ever allow dual citizenship? Is this something that is discussed by today's politicians or not really? What are your guys' stance on it

Like this also can meh?