Mudah dan Murah?

Do you know what the 2 most important words in Malay are? They’re ‘MUDAH’ and ‘MURAH’. These words have BIG pulling factors, perhaps it’s one of the secrets to the success of mudah.com.my website. Those in Advertisement industry must know about this already.
An alternative Malay tagline for Air Asia can always be changed to ‘Kini, mudahnya nak terbang….’ Instead of ‘Now, everyone can fly’ because everyone knows literally people can’t fly.

Try flipping through any Women Magazine and you’ll surely find ‘Cara mudah untuk menanam pokok, menggilap tembaga, menghias rumah, mencangkul laman etc etc’ The truth is, those tasks are not that easy, but when the word MUDAH is used, psychologically readers will be attracted to the article and some are even brave enough to attempt them. You can try ‘Resepi Mudah membuat tepung pelita’ – it’s not easy at all. Tepung pelita is one of the Malay kueh that requires years of practice. Looking at the ingredients, they don’t look challenging at all. But based on my years of experience buying this kueh at Pasar Ramadhan, only a few stalls made it to my list.

Another trick is ‘Mudah menang’ or ‘Menang Mudah’ contest that usually leads people to Scratching and Winning while not realizing that they’ve been conned a few thousand ringgit. See, it’s that easy to trick Malaysians’ minds just by having the word ‘MUDAH’. Have you ever come across motivational books entitled ‘Laluan sukar menuju kejayaan’ or ‘Challenges to break the glass ceiling’? I don’t think so. However, you can easily find ‘Melabur cara mudah’, ‘Permudahkan pembiayaan biasiswa anak anda’ (eh, motivational book ke ni?)

Besides that, if you ever attended or participated in any of the local universities’ ‘Minggu Orientasi’, you’ll at least get to know a few ‘Pemudahcara’ who actually did not make your orientation week any easier. Most of them voluntarily took the opportunity to get short cuts to tackle freshies. CHEAP!

While ‘MURAH’ is self explanatory in the retail business, it is also a very important word in the entertainment business. ‘Perempuan murah’, ‘artis murah’, ‘jual murah’, ‘hati murah’ are commonly found in the local gossip magazines. Just add ‘MURAH’ to any noun and you’ll get a sensational story. A unique thing about the entertainment industry here is that the word ‘MAHAL’ has almost the same impact on the mass too.

The only thing about ‘murah’ that‘s confusing to many Malaysians is ‘Jualan Murah’. Not only you’ll find that the prices are not reduced that much, they’re always wrongly translated as ‘Cheap Sale’. Well, my fellow Malaysians it should be just ‘Sale’ or if the towkeys want to make it more attractive, can always call it ‘End of season sale’, ‘Musim tengkujuh sale’ and like there’s one furniture shop near my house, they’ve been having ‘Closing down sale’ ever since 4 years ago. Damn, it’s taking them that long to complete the close down.

By the way, I’ve just completed my entire team member’s appraisal and now my brain has gone haywire. Have a good week people!