Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Respect vs Indulgence

In Malaysia, at official functions, invited / honoured guests when called upon or addressed are not only referred to by their names, but also their titles/darjah/pangkat such as 'Datuk', 'Tan Sri', 'Datin', 'Yang Berbahagia'..etc.

This appears very much in the media especially, where these titles are twice to thrice the length of the person's name himself/herself.

I wonder how the person referred to feels at that point. Does he feel as though he is being fed some ego, indulging in that title, or is it a form of respect for what he has done to deserve that title (we would temporarily not go down that road) or both?

I feel humbled by people I meet daily who have accomplished so much address themselves by their first names, or just their surnames to me. I respect this even more so.

1 comment:

Miss Lime said...

True. I respect people who are humble. If they have great accomplishments, they do not need the title to make them known. It will be known.

Depending on who, some are just "kiasu" and "ai-bin." Haha.