(Note: the title was fun, like in the “Hunt for Red October”, but then I noticed people could think I was talking about a shop hunt… so sorry, nothing of that, only an opinion post, move along, please *smiles and waves her hands like a traffic guard*).
I keep away from Spanish communities at SL, not only because the SL “me” thinks in English, but because I like to think of my virtual self as a citizen of the world. But at the same time I have a lot of fun, seeing how surprised my friends are when I tell them I spent a sunday gathering chestnuts (roasted are delicious), or how often we eat octopus at home. So nationality matters, too.
And so, when the lovely temptress Quaintly asked where does the 4% of SL Malaysian population hide, and if they did read english blogs, I felt a glove has been thrown. After all English is Malaysia second language, so they should blend easily if they don’t want to be noticed, at least if we skip the problematic timezone; but they more or less share it with Australia and New Zealand, isn’t it?
Do we have a 4% of stealth Malaysian population?
I am not a huge fan of polls, but when I did a little one about brows, simply asking for a handful of comments, it was such a surprise. Some people use different brow shapes to express emotions, some adjusts a brow for each different skin they buy, some stay with one all their SL life, and some don’t change anything but clothes, and maybe hairdos, keeping “me” as stable as they can. Such richness of views was amazing, and I would had never learnt so much if I had simply polled for a given set of answers, because statistics are duuuuuulllll!!!!
So, without trying to make a custom of it, here you have a new poll. I really want to know:
Are you from Malaysia? If so, do you like it to be known, or you usually skip it? Do you know somebody at SL who is from Malaysia? Is there an active Malaysian community/group at SL? Would you like it to exist?
Leaving the focus of the poll aside, I should point out that the statistic Quaintly referred to does not stipulate that 4% of all residents come from Malaysia, but that 4% of all user-to-user-L$-transactions can be attributed to SL residents located in Malaysia. Basically, those 4% of transactions could well be attributed to a single user who made large enough purchases/sales (e.g. transfer of a private sim) within SL.
Still this poll should be very interesting. Apart from Quaintly I know one other Malaysian, and never stumbled across another one. One should not forget that Malaysia is a Muslemic country, and even though saecularized in many aspects, my experience shows that there are not many users in SL coming from Muslemic countries.
/me nods at Peter and… err… no Malaysians around? *pouts*
that’s cool London. Like you, I have always lived an english-speaking second life and i feel weird among italians. I ‘ve never understood why. LOL.
And the stats are really funny. Quaintly is the first malaysian I ve ever known in SL. I ‘d really like to know whats the equivalent in USD of 4% of transactions, just to have an idea.
Thank you; as Ciaran said, probably most of those transactions rest on Quaintly back :-)
Btw, I’ve been considering doing the “hiatus” post you suggested, but I am probably not the most appropiate one to do it, since I rarely update my blogroll (and yes, I could had answered this at your blog, lazy me :-p).