You Have Heard Of “Kaizen” Or “Cani” But I Can’t Help Being A Kiasu!

February 6th, 2007

You have heard of “Kaizen” and “Cani” but I can’t help being a “Kiasu”..

I am sure you have heard it all…I mean Kaizen and Cani…

Basically they mean the same thing: “Continuous and Neverending Improvements”

But I bet you have not heard “Kiasu” (not if you’re from Singapore or Malayasia) of this one because I am just one of them.

“Kiasu” (pronounced as “Kia’Soo” or “Kia’See”) according to Wikipedia is a Hokkien (a Chinese spoken variant) word for ‘extreme fear of losing’ (Chinese).

This word is so widely used by Singaporeans and Malaysians that it is incorporated into their English vocabulary (in the form of Singlish).

It is often used in describing the social attitudes of people, especially about South East Asian society and its values.

Its widespread use is often due to the fact that these attitudes are common—to not lose out in a highly competitive society (e.g. by accumulating too much food on a plate during buffet in case there will be no more later), or to the extent of parents imposing heavy study labour on their children in their wish to make them at the very top of all other students.

Growing up with this attitude, these students often become ambitious businesspeople, with the desire to be on top in wealth and prestige disregard with their true capabilities.

Such an attitude is often highly competitive, and its emphasis is to be above all other people, even if it means putting other people down.

But to be kiasu is not only to be competitive. Kiasu people are driven out of fear of losing probably more than the desire to succeed.

And I am afraid I have that as one of my traits.

When I see others having firesales, I told myself “hey I am going to give something better”…

When I see others giving PLRs I told myself, “hey, I can do that too”

Now just take a look at what I have done when I read about cheap dimesales:

http://imcybernetix.com/fmd

But….long story short, are you a “Kiasu” too, or are you too afraid to lose out to admit it.

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