-FAST FOOD-

Last weekend, it was time for outing…and also time for “window shopping”…hehehe…mirah, fifah,ieyda,zirah,mai,alia & Nono.. Relaxing their mind from study & want to have fun…So, we rented a car to go to Mesra Mall..yeah!!..on the way to their destination, suddenly Mirah asked them.

Mirah: You all hungry??

Ieyda: Yup! Absolutely…girls??do you?

Fifah,mai,zirah,alia,fieda: we too!!!hahahaha (laugh) ;P

Nono: But where we want to take our lunch? hehe...

Alia: Hey girls...McD is fine right??…. (while her finger was pointing to symbol McD)

Fifah: Who agree to eat fast food today??lalala

All girls in a car said: All agree!!!haha (with singing..i’m lovin’ it!!!!!)lalalala~ (^_^)

After parked their car...once we entered to the McD restaurant, we saw a lot of people inside and had enjoyed their meal with full of exciting..after finished took an ordered,…we chose table far from people to have some peaceful environment while having their meal.…hahaha (actually just for the sake of having peace conversation)hehehe… during enjoyed their meal, suddenly alia voiced up.

Alia: Can you see..a lot of people eat here…is it fast food is their first choice in taking their lunch, mirah?

Mirah: Maybe or maybe not, ermm..zirah, do you think they take fast food as their routine menu?

Zirah: Hurm…let me think first (with smile goat) ;)

Mai: It’s not funny zirah..let me tell you about it. When we talk about fast food, what will across in our mind?? Some people say, it is a common food for people nowadays. Some will say it is instant food. But, do you know what’s real definition for it?? According to young women health’s website, fast food means food that is quick, convenient, and usually affordable. I believe that this term is not weird for us, right? But, do you realize that this kind of product is one of the social changes that happen in our country. It is because, this change related to the society.

Ieyda: Nice issue that can be discussed about..ermm…it is no doubt that almost all of people love fast food. But, do you know how Malaysians respond to the fast food when it was introduced?? Fast food has been introduced in Western countries almost 100years ago….quite a long time… Nowadays, many fast food was existence around the world and enter our market such as McD, KFC, pizza hut, Burger King and others. We take an example in Indonesia, fast food is considered as a high class food where the price are relative expensive, exclusive place like fried chicken, hamburger, hot dog and so on. Now people especially young generation feel proud to buy fast food according to the thought fast food as a high meal. It is faster, easy to get, and the most important thing, it’s delicious. (serious face)hehe..

Fifah: To me, the acceptance of Malaysians on the fast food can be classified as social change. Let’s do some research regarding this thing. We can analyze it based on important components of social change according to Steven Vago. There are identity of change, level of change, duration, magnitude of change and rate of change.

Alia: Let me answer! Let us talk about the identity. The modern lifestyle of Malaysians leads to the changes in term of needs, taste and preference. Most of the people are busy and they have no time to cook. Besides, women also further their studies and they do not really good in cooking as they spend most of their time to focus on study. Fast food is the best choice as it is fast, easy, finger licking and affordable.

Mirah: So, how about the level of change?....(confuse face)hoho (j_j)

Nono: The society in Malaysia loves fast food so much, either young or old people. Let say, we ask 5th years old children about fast food they will think about KFC, McDonald and so on. Besides, people who live in the urban area will be close related to fast food, right?? But, what about those in the village and rural area?? We believe that they are also familiar with this phenomenon. They know what is McDonalds and KFC.

Zirah: What about the duration? Is’t take a short term to make a society choose fast food in their daily life?

Fifah: Fast food is a long term change phenomenon. It is because, in Malaysia, it emerged around 1970’s. In the beginning, it is hard for fast food to enter the market. I think it is because majority of Malaysians have their own routine food and they prefer to take it compare to fast food. For example, Malay take rice for their meal especially for their lunch and dinner, but if they go to KFC for example, there only have fried chicken and it can’t make their stomach full and satisfied with it. Besides, the issue of ‘Halal-Haram’ is one of the reasons why fast food is quite hard to be accepted. The issue starts when people are questioning about the method used in processing the chicken. As we know, Islam has its own rules in processing chicken based on syara’. Everybody knows that the chicken have been processed at factory. In addition, is the machine followed syara?.Now JAKIM is concerning about this issue and the fast food factories are always in the supervision of JAKIM. So Malaysian now have no worry to take fast food as it is approved by JAKIM. Since it is already accepted in Malaysia, the fast food now is still very popular and became the favourite meal for the people.

Mirah: Okey, let I continue the magnitude and rate of change based on what we learn with miss Fisha in our class and my understanding about that. We can say that the change is incremental. We can see that, from time to time, there is some improvement in fast food. Let say, the Pizza Hut. It always comes out with new recipe which is something that unique and has their own originality. It shows that, people accept it very much. If not, how come the company really confident to come out with new recipe, right???? We believe all company desire to get more profit rather than loss. The rate of change of fast food is continuously. As we say before, from time to time there is some improvement in fast food. .So, by doing some improvement, it shows that fast food give full of effort to be accepted by people. As a result, nowadays fast food is already known.

Ieyda: Here we can say that all kind of discussion is all about the components of change. But, how about the sources of change, as we know any changes in society must reflect with several sources which are considered as factors in social changes right??...

Alia: Ieyda, let me tell you deeply…There are several sources of changes, which are technology, ideology, competition, conflict, political and economic. We can say that, ideology is the best sources that can describe fast food. What are the relationship between ideology and changes? Do you know about it?? According to Max Weber, the development of capitalism represents one of the most thorough efforts yet made to establish a relationship between ideology and changes.

Zirah: Alia, you talk like a lecturer..hahaha

Mirah: who knows, you might be a development administration lecturer later..kih3…

Mai, ieyda, fifah & Nono: we support you..!! (“,)

After an hour we talk about fast food and our discussion which related to the social change… we continue their destination with full of joy because their assignment was done!!!hehehee…...

                                                  -THE END-

Manager: Afifah