Smiling...

Smiling.

I think that there is nothing more beautiful than a smile. It's contagious, it's infectious and it fills you up with a strange fuzzy feeling right where your heart is.

I went to Bangar's Pasar Malam (night-market) last night and bought some apam balik (Malaysian pancake) from a Mak Cik and her little daughter. When the little girl handed me my change, she smiled the sweetest smile I've seen and I immediately smiled back a huge smile with the effort of matching hers.

An immediate thought struck me, "That little girl gave me one of the most pleasant experiences and I would make an effort to head back the following week and buy more apam balik from her!" Nowadays, I've noticed that smiles are one of the rarest things you can find in Malaysia. Bank tellers, post-office staff and even airport staff seem to greet me with a grunt and if I'm lucky, a nod.

I know our tagline is not 'The Land of Smiles' but I've met many people who say that the one thing about Malaysia is that everyone smiles beautiful, big smiles. But I really beg to differ.

I have lost my appetite on countless occasions only because I've ordered from someone who makes me feel like I have inconvenienced them. They ignore me while I stand at the counter and continue their conversation with their colleagues, they roll their eyes and 'tsk' if I change my mind, they plonk my food on the counter and as if shoo-ing me away attend to the next customer.

A smile adds to the experience of enjoying your food and even your day. Imagine a day filled with friendly girls at the toll-booth, continuing with a chuckle from an old uncle serving you a plate of char kuey teow and ending with a driver on the road giving you the right of way with a huge grin on his face...

A warm smile conveys something a million words can't say. It says, "Hello, there! Thank you so much for your business and I hope you enjoy my mommy's yummy apam balik." It says, "Good afternoon young lady, how may I assist you this fine afternoon? Don't worry, I'm here to help you facilitate your request so ask me anything you want!"

After Bangar, we popped over to SS2 to buy some durian for my mother-in-law who seemed to have a craving for our national fruit. We bought the fruit from a shop who also had very pleasant staff. The lady helped us out by wrapping our entire tupperware so that we wouldn't have to suffer from the stench in the car. The boy who we enquired the price of the durian also told us the price without the usual "stop wasting my time, if you ask you better buy" tone.

I've recently come back from a quick trip to Penang and I was amazed at the friendliness of the people there. Everywhere I went, I was greeted with toothless smiles and friendly gazes. Not once did I receive the usual grumpy greeting I'm so used to.

Maybe some of us don't even notice that we don't smile. Maybe some of us feel that smiling is only reserve for people that we know and are close to. Maybe some of us don't feel like we deserve to smile.

So why don't you try this...try smiling at yourself in the mirror while your brushing your teeth. Do you like what you see? Once the action of smiling becomes natural to you try using that smile whenever you meet someone. Perhaps you will inspire the person you meet to smile and hopefully that smile is passed on to someone else.

With so much sadness going on in the world right now, maybe we can take on the responsibility to make things better by injecting a little smile in our lives.