Asian Values, Asian Politeness, Our Culture & Pride

MM Online:

Ipoh restaurant owner and staff apologise publicly for RM1 price hike of its set meal

A restaurant owner in Ipoh along with his staff apologised for having to raise one of their set meals by RM1.

Screenshot via Instagram/AyamGepukGantengIpoh

KUALA LUMPUR, July 2 ― A restaurant owner in Ipoh along with his staff have publicly apologised for having to raise the price of one of their set meals.

The Ayam Gepuk Ganteng team can be seen bowing in front of their restaurant in Meru as a sign of apology in a video posted on their Instagram.

Owner Muhammad Syairazmin Azril Alias told MStar that price increase amid the Covid-19 pandemic was the reason that left them no other choice but to raise the price.

“Previously, our Ayam Gepuk set was RM8, now we have to raise it to RM9 though our other sets remain the same price.

“Maybe there are those who couldn’t afford to buy our meals anymore because of the one Ringgit raise.

“We’ve talked about the price hike for a while, and we really don’t want to raise our price, but we have no choice.

“This is not for marketing purposes, but we want to send a message that this is not what we want either,” Azril said.

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kt notes:

The gesture has been gracious, charming and to me, a delightful epitome of Asian courtesy which warms the cockles of my heart.

I have always been taken by the charm of Asian cultural courtesies, in which two have specially been my favourites, namely: the Thai 'wai' and the East Asian 'bow' as practised by Koreans, Japanese and surprising, even in its place of origin, today's China.

The person who most charmed me with her 'wai' has been former PM of Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra. OK I have been biased, wakakaka, and I promise not to write paragraphs and paragraphs of her, her career or her sweet charms here, save to say, here was once a Thai PM, No 1 Citizen in Thailand, still showing her charming socio-cultural courtesy to all and sundry, even to the lowest and poorest of Thailand's citizens.

The Thai 'wai' came from Buddhism which in turn originated from the Indian Anjali Mudra.

The people of the Indianised states (India herself of course, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Kampuchea, Indonesia especially Java, Lombok and Bali) have adopted the gesture as a greeting of respect and/or reverence. As my Khmer (Cambodian) guide taught me when I visited that delightful country, the higher the hands are held in relation to the face and the lower the bow, the more respect or reverence the giver of the 'wai' is showing.

Malaya used to practise the 'wai' in very early days but in the last 100 years or so, have reserved the gesture only for royals (though there once was one royal who considered the 'wai' performed for him as offensive, and would earned the polite gesturer a slap instead, wakakaka. I learnt through the 'grapevine' why he took umbrage at the 'wai' - raging that he was not yet 'dead' - obviously he had mucho Western values).

Now the FULL 'bow' - according to Wikipedia, the ketou (磕头) or Confucian bow, a sign of respect and/or reverence like the 'wai', stems from sometime between the Spring and Autumn period, or the Warring States period of China's history because it was a custom by the time of the Qin dynasty (221 BC – 206 BC).

Performing the FULL bow, shown by prostration, that is, kneeling and bowing so low as to have one's head touching the ground, is an act of deep respect. In Sinospheric culture, the FULL bow or 'kowtow', as is generally and better known in the West, is the highest sign of reverence. It was widely used to show reverence for one's elders, superiors, and especially the Emperor, as well as for religious and cultural objects of worship. In modern times, usage of the FULL kowtow has been reduced.

The Westerners have called it 'kowtow' which to them and their Western culture has been deemed derogatory and a gesture of abject submission or groveling, and not to be performed by a subject of HM especially an officer, wakakaka.

On abject prostration before royalty, one should see how the Thais (from common peasant to the PM) prostrate themselves before their King, even though they are not from the Sinospheric World. No other nationality has such an amazing degree of prostration. But we needn't 'borrow' such a 'devoted' gesture.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn of Thailand and Queen Suthida during their wedding ceremony in Bangkok on Wednesday. Photograph: Thai Royal Household Bureau/AFP/Getty Images - May 2019

Former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra crawls on the floor in front of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, December 2011

Though FULL bowing would normally be for one's elders, superiors, Emperor, and religious and cultural objects of worship, for others the standing bow is quite far from what many Westerns believe to be a gesture of abject submission or groveling. For example, the Japanese Emperor bows to his people and the public, and so does the South Korean President. Bowing bespeaks refined courtesy and good breeding - not something a Westerner would understand.

One should see Japanese schoolchildren after crossing a street at an official street crossing turned back to bow to the drivers of the waiting traffic to thank them for their graciousness - hah, such politeness. Yes, Children in Iwate, Iwate Prefecture, Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region, are taught to do this during elementary school as part of their lessons on etiquette and good citizenship, and while there’s no legal requirement to do so, the habit sticks with a lot of adults, who continue bowing in thanks to motorists throughout their adult lives. The gesture isn’t reserved for uncontrolled intersections either; Iwate locals do this even when crossing in front of cars that are stopped at a red light. [Such politeness may even help cool down the temper of impatient motorists]

A year or two ago, I saw on a TV documentary about the Chinese New Year celebrations and holidays in modern China. A scene brought a lump to my throat when I saw a burly man living in a house in a hutong exited the house to return to his place of work (probably somewhere in a distant city) when the Chinese New Year celebrations ended. He turned around to face his farewell-ing parents and in an unexpected gesture (well, unexpected to me) kneeled down on the hutong alley and performed the FULL ketou to his parents. 

That act of filial piety was an emotional but delightful surprise for me to see a man in today's Communist China still practising the full 9-yards of filial Chinese culture. And all the while I had thought the Chinese have forgotten their roots, leaving only today's Koreans and Japs to continue Confucian's teaching to show great reverence to one's parents and grandparents.

Thus what the Ayam Gepuk Ganteng team led by their owner Muhammad Syairazmin Azril Alias, had done, bowing in front of their restaurant in Meru as a sign of apology, has been a praiseworthy act of Asian refined civility and courtesy.

Let us Malaysians be equally polite and courteous and adopt either the 'Indianised 'wai' or the Sinicised 'bow' as part of our polite culture.

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kt note: I've also published this post at KTemoc Kongsamkok