Different Minimum Wages

My family and I went to the BBQ Garden yesterday for dinner. It was kinda nice place actually. Open air surrounding with Bossa Nova music. They were many expatriates there and their menu was both in English and Vietnamese. I must say their presentation was very good because the pictures in their menu was really mouth watering.

They had beef skews, lamb skews, spicy chicken skews, beef wrap with cheese (my absolute favorite though I didn't order it coz no one in my family eats cheese!). It was surprisingly nice.

It doesn't look that appetizing coz its not cooked yet! What dya think?

The service there was pretty good too. Though I think they were kinda short handed because everyone seemed so busy! There was this sweet girl that was serving us. She spoke pretty fair English but kept forgetting what we asked for. I asked for pepper for 4 times before she finally gave me a small plate of salt with pepper. =.=

Yay! BBQ!

Anyway, after we finished, my mum spoke to her for a while. She later learned that the waitress was a student and she works about 4 to 8 hours depending on the days. And you know what her wages are? 30,000 dongs for 4 hours!!! That's like RM1.50 an hour!!! Which is pretty much USD 0.50 an hour!!!

Can you imagine that? Compared to the min wage of California of USD 7! Urgh!!! Its kinda sad thinking about it. Even my mum's tip was higher than that! Though come to think of it, Malaysia isn't that much better either because we don't even have a min wage! McDonalds actually pay RM3.50 an hour! That's like about USD 1.10.

I wonder though, is it hard to get a job in any of this places? I mean obviously we're not talking about permanent career jobs but more like part-time jobs. Is it stricter in US? Is it easier to get a job in Vietnam or Malaysia? Do the companies do employment screening for places like restaurants or clothing store?

Though I guess we can't really compare because the lifestyle of these places are all different in a sense. You can't really find mamak stall food in US that cost about USD 1 right? Though just working for 3 days can buy you an iPod in US compared to almost a month in Malaysia.

But the property in US is sooo expensive! Though on the other hand, vehicles are cheap.

I guess everywhere has its pros and cons. Its where we choose to call home. Right?