Free lunch or starve

The Sukau villagers, represnt well most rural Malay villagers, are the people who live with whatever the nature give them, or whatever allah want them to have, "isahallah". At a surface this can sounds like a kind of philosophy for some people who live in the european standard of civilisation and seen poverty only from TV. But having the chance to experince living amongs them and see the reality deeper, what I finally learn behind this romantic capediem. atitute is also the atitute of being used to things only come easy or else never persue after anything, I would call it the "free lunch atitute or starve" atitute.

One example with the land, every Malay native (bumiputra) in the village own a few acres of land entitled to them from the government. In these land, most bigger tree are logged to build their house, whoever got outsider offer to do palm oil would be more than happier, except few do fruit plantation, most of the land are usually left unused, for yers... and for our project, those are the only land we can go after now, as a Malaysian but non native (or meanings non Malay or non minority) I have no right for free land, neither the right to buy one, I could buy one but only buy under someone else name who is a bumiputra, as we have no one trusted to this level, so we opt for renting.

Once we found an unused land that we like, when discussed with the owner for a rental price he demanded the price of 30% of our future implanted capital plus the profit of it... I think to myself, he might as well ask us to be his god parents, in chinese we said 衣食父母(food & clothes parents), describe the person who give you an living.

He then said, the land price have increased because of tourisme boom these pass years, I understand that this village used to be disserted, land worth nothing and suddently few investors came in, then people start to think that their free lunch arrive and they shall be rich now. then I told him, the value of the land increase with condition when there is investment or businness implantation in it, we are talking about less than 10 decents lodges bussiness implanted here since last 10 years, I don't deny that the land price did increased, like infaltion increase too, but not to the extends of the value of 30% of our future business.

He don't seems willing to settle for a reasonable rental price, so he will keep his unused land forever. Today 99% of the land in Sukau still remain unused, and meanwhile no new investors are coming in to Sukau except us. The value of the land is perhaps only a dream for them to turn rich overnight.