Malaysians & Reading

Many a time, we have seen articles, saying one way or another, of the fact that Malaysians are not reading enough. Apparently, the national average is well below the acceptable level, at a staggering low of only 7 Pages a year! Got this info off the net, and found this interesting nugget of a blog, linked here - http://thebookaholic.blogspot.com/2006/08/reading-habits-of-malaysians-some.html.

I am not too sure of a more recent statistic that paints a better picure of the reading rates of M'sians, but it sure does cause you to wonder right? Do Malaysians really read that little?

Go to any bookstore nowadays and chances are you will see throngs of people browsing, or leafing through some manner of reading material. Then there is also the fact that we see new bookstores cropping up at every new shopping center. Names like MPH, Kinokuniya, Popular, Times are all but etched into the heads of city folk. Smaller bookstores also exists in smaller townships in comfortable nooks and crannies, nestled between shops and restaurants (One can argue that these are not true bookstores, but at least they do offer their share of reading materials, ranging from your ubiquitous fashion/lifestyle mags, business reviews and some small selection of novels, both fiction and non-fiction).

I know that statistics are almost always open to the possiblity of being presented how one wishes to present them (skewed or as is), but what does the word Read here mean? Does it apply to only books, or to any kind of printed and bound publication or to anything that can be read? Must one actually purchase them before the reading is actually counted as Reading? I personally dont consider newspapers (way to much tragedy in these), magazines (paparazzo mags = reading? puhleze!!) or sourcebooks (for school or work, these we are stuck with so must read as compared to actually, wanting  to read) as what I would consider as reading (you may want to offer your opinions in the comments section ya).

I always see a small army of people crowding bookstores with their faces quite glued to the pages of the reading material they have in hand. Some actually end up puchasing, while some others are quite content to put the thing down and graze on the next available title.

While I personally find this free reading behaviour irksome, I do understand that Ipeople need to know whether the book they are reading is actually worth buying and so glancing through a few paragraphs or pages (or chapters even) is permissible in my opinion. So, to each their own eh? If the bookstores don't mind, I certainly shouldn't.

In fact I always make it a point to look for bookstores (invariably this would be MPH or Borders or to a lesser degree, Popular) to kill some time in (okay, okay for an hour or two of free reads!) whenever I am out shopping. This is also the case for my GF, we both do love reading. Thus the question I need answering is how much is sufficient? Two, 5, Twenty books?

I spend on average of 100 Ringgit on books and magazines every month, which isn't much, but all that I can spare, :(. But it does allow me about 3 books and a reptile magazine, which helps me remain sane and centered. Money well spent, I say.

Tun M has been rumoured to have read thousands of books (Booyah! how I wish I can be like that), and as a former premier of Malaysia, I am sure he too must have been disconcerted to note that his fellow citizens are way off the scale when it comes to reading. Many have said that the Government should do more to encourage the habit of reading, and to this I do feel that the assorted 'Mari Membaca' campaigns have met with little success (no statistics here, just from my observation of my own family and friends).

Many have cited that they have very little time left for reading, with having life and the pursuit of financial gain being the master concerns. Add in your darling idiot box (lcd or otherwise) and barrage of satellite channels, and the free availability of seriously cheap DvDs and Blu-Ray discs, the compulsion to dine and wine as well as the unavoidable problem of getting stuck in the carpark that is KL's Traffic flow.

One begins to wonder, how does one fit in reading, a hobby some see as self indulgent, in all that? I still have this one book I bought from months ago collecting dust on my tableau. Often times, I feel deflated as soon as I grab the book, too tired to bother.

Another thing that kept cropping up is the the fact that books are expensive. The paltry 100 Ringgit I spend barely gets me my 3 books. I often have to wait for the cheaper paperback versions of the books I wish to get, and it almost always upsets me that I cant just buy that particular book there and then. Hardcover fiction books cost on average upwards of 60 Ringgit, (which means I can only get that 1 book for the month) while the smaller paperback versions are in the vicinity of RM32 each.

I always do look out for bargain buys, discounted prices, 2 for 1 deals and sale periods to get more bang for my buck, but these too come rather infrequently. I do look out for the odd bargain bin style bookshops like Selvan or Pay Less Books. They do have gems for sale if one is willing to really look for them among their rows of shelves. Read here for some other views- http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsfeatures.php?id=434431

For whatever it is worth, the Government has allowed a healthy tax exemption for reading materials, to a tune of RM1000 per year, so, they are trying help us M'sian read more, so maybe I should be thankful for this. Besides, the growth of the Book industry is certainly on the up, as evidenced by the opening of new outlets of bookstores everywhere. Surely, this can be statistically indicative of the fact that more Malaysians are cultivating a love for reading. Or am too simple minded to make this assumption?