Being a non-Muslim I have traveled to more countries where Muslims live than most Muslims in Malaysia have.

While there is an increase in talk about piety and abstinence in these countries, here in Malaysia there is festive sense of what the dinner menu is going to be. In my earlier days when I owned a mini market we would stock up more food as the sales for food products would the highest during Ramadan.

In Indonesia, with the world's largest Muslim population, seems to have more Muslims who are into the spiritual aspects of Ramadan than the physical. It is common knowledge that Muslim friends here would expect non-Muslims to allow them to be "slower" and to "understand" them if they don't work as they are fasting.

Many have experienced that "face" you would get if those fasting were really asked to work. In other countries, every one pulls their own weight. Even visitors here find this, where to eat and what to eat, during Ramadan rather curious.