Death of Sorts

This has been one of those great weekends where Saturday felt like a Sunday, hence Sunday felt like an extra day off. Which has left me time to be pensive over complex topics one should not spend too much time thinking about.

Like being happy. Over Thai food in Penang last Thursday night, my friend LCL tells me that the thing that keeps people from being happy is their Ego. Emm...hmm? She explains that Ego is what causes people the need to feel different from others. When really of course, we are all part of one another and part of the same body of...God.

Stay with me here.

Sometimes I suppose we do revel / wallow in our past experiences, hanging on long past their memorabilia due date because these make us feel that we have encountered a depth of something that others may not be enriched enough to understand, making us more special because we did. We "survived". Add sentimentality and you're singing too much of Pink's "Who Knew" when someone leaves your life - a death of sorts. Add cleverness and sometimes you get prejudice.

Doesn't help either that happiness is a pretty commonplace thing. Let's face it, most of the time we don't realise we had it until we get into an unhappier place and look back. Plus, happiness is a current thing, and living in the present is always scary - running the same circles of lessons unlearnt from the past has at least some hopeless certainty to it.

Maybe we shouldn't be afraid of forgetting since it's harder to forget than we think anyway. Maybe we shouldn't be afraid of a blank canvas everyday, although it may turn out to be empty, lonely or just plain boring.

Gone Snorkeling

Coming to think of it, I really should post an underwater picture, but unfortunately I’m no proud owner of such useful camera gear. Also, this shot will always be special because piqued by the enthusiasm of a certain reassuring MC, it is where I first wander off safe, solid beachfront into the unknown under the cool, blue surface of the sea.

The beach just-around-the-corner of Gem Island, Terengganu

And what a party it is down there! Bulbous corals beckon, and when approached, you find that they are perched on some underwater rock and just beyond is space, storeys and storeys of space that open up below and entice you to dive down and explore. Fish graceful and playful, flitting things which make you think of every colour you’ve ever learnt of – carmine, indigo, teal, in combinations you’d never see on land. Sedentary sea cucumbers on the seabed, sea snails suctioned tight onto rocks, man I even saw an oyster.

And us – how encumbered and clumsy we are with our life jackets, mouthpieces and precious buoyancy, bumping our way through a world where I could not help but think we do not belong. If you stick your hand out and look at it under the water, you will find it an unnatural, unhealthy shade of greenish-grey, not unlike how fish look as they lose their gleam almost immediately when out of water.

Nevertheless, it was such fun to visit – I could almost hear the band carrying on as I made my way back over the sparkling water to land.

Hello Malaysians!

It's Merdeka this month - we are 50. You may not find me at the Putrajaya parade but I still have a certain sentimentality about Tanggal 31 and all that, perhaps quite well represented by this ad in MAS' Going Places. It's a shame that it is so small here, I really liked the shots.


It IS the little things that make being Malaysian great. So many of us take for granted things which we share to an extent that amazingly every Malay, Chinese, Indian and other race in this country can call their own, yet respect that it comes from a different race. Like satay. Mamak. Yong Tau Foo. Our festivals - I've seen Chinese people wear their cheongsams during Hari Raya in the shopping malls just for the heck of it.

And for me, being known and accepted first as a Malaysian, then a Chinese. I don't think that neccessarily goes in that order in other countries of overseas Chinese diaspora.

Living in this country can be frustrating. Snatch thieves, seemingly increasing cases of people being cut up and stuffed in freezers, tunnel vision driving, public transportation networks not linked up, gripes of preferential treatment bla bla.

But you know what? I like it. I still believe in it. I believe in things big and small- like genuinely chummy conversations with cab drivers, the Prime Minister just because he looks like a good man, the layered tastes of our food, our identity. It's hard to define what that is because we are not the kind of people who put labels to things, but ironically that's exactly because we kind of know what's Malaysian and what's not without having to rename the rambutan the Malaysian lychee or something ridiculous like that.

So come back. Stay here. Stay wherever you are. But never forget who we are, and the little, frustrating, hilarious, heart-warming, trying, growing country called Malaysia where we come from.

Happy Merdeka Day!