Malaysia tour day 14 - Some fun with signs!

One thing that any world traveller will tell you is that the signs in non-european countries can be unintentionally funny and/or odd. It's all down to cultural mismatch, and no doubt they would find our signs strange too. When guidance is offered on things that fall outside our cultural norms or european common sense, they often seem quite bonkers to us.

Here are a few that I've encountered here in Malaysia in the last couple of weeks:

1. No snogging on the tube.

There is a plethora of prohibitory signs on Kuala Lumpur's modern public transport trains. The most amusing for us is no doubt the no-kissing sign. Coming to think of it, we could do with this on the tube in London too. There's nothing worse than trying to read a book on the way home on a saturday evening while the couple sitting opposite are eating each other's faces off.


2. No durians.

Durian is the legendary smelly fruit of Malaysia. As I mentioned in a previous post, the smell is rather noxious. This sign prohibiting durians was seen outside the lift at our hotel in Penang. Durians are often banned in hotels and public transport, but you often catch the odour of durian abuse in other places such as markets, malls and streets.


3. No stage-diving from toilets.

The floor in bathrooms can provide for rather a hard landing. Seriously though, this sign is telling people used to crouch-toilets (the hole in the floor ones!) not to get up and stand on the rim and attempt the same thing with a modern toilet. So, why does the figure on the left look primed for a jump from the high-diving board?


That's all for now. To finish off, here is a little video of random mini-reportages I've done in the last nine days or so. Enjoy!