Of races and everything in between

Now Malaysian government is promoting unity among its people. Finally, they are thinking of dropping the ‘race’ column in forms that we always fill. For those who don’t know, Malaysia is a very diversify country. We have three main races, mainly the Malays, Chinese and Indians. However, we do have other races too, too many to list.

As a 80’s child, I grew up in various surrounding. Common to many during that time, I have friends from all races. However, I don’t see colour in them until I went to school and we have different classes to attend.

Growing up with my grandparents in the village up north in Kedah, you can say that most of my friends at that time are Malays. I learn how to speak Malay at a very young age and I am very proud of that until I went to school in Penang. You see, I learn the Kedahan Malay language and speaks in their slang. I thought I am good but then, when I went to school, my Malay friends in Penang don’t understand much what was I saying to them. I told them bendang (paddy field) but they called it sawah. I try to explain that during rainy season, some places in the village will be bah (flood). But no, they called it banjir. I tried to explain that is because the parit (drain) is full and the water can flow smoothly. As usual, they laughed at me and said longkang-lah.

Well, all of us laugh together. I don’t see that they means any harm or trying to laugh at me but we are just having a good time or learning together. With my Malay friends in school, I learn the synonyms of words.

Apart from that, we plays games together too. From the Malay, I learned about gasing (spinning tops). We will always play together during the recess time although my tops will always spin upside down. Well, they always laugh at my uniqueness of the tops spinning. Until now, I never get it right. After school, we will again gather to play. This time, kandi. It’s and Indian games. Well, we play other usual games too like marbles and police & thief.

I have never seen colours in our friendship. Never were it brown, yellow or black. I just see them plainly, as friends.

I particularly love it as during festivals, we will visit each others and have funs in additional of red packets, green packets or even purples! We will play fire crackers and also fire works! Oh, food…all the glorious food that my mother friends cooked! How can I missed Ahmad’s mother chicken curry or Shogi’s mum muruku. I simply love their food and we always have second helping, then third and fourth…blurppps! (Now I know when I starts to have all the built up of ‘middle kingdom’)

One particular celebration I remembered very well. It was Chinese New Year and we visited some friends in Kampung Baru in Penang. We love playing fire crackers together and I have brought some. However, there is a twist behind it. This time, we have to test our courage and see who can ran the fastest. All of us planted a red fire cracker in a cow dung. We will lighted it up and then ran as fast and as far away as we can. When it blows, we will then stopped and turned around to see if any of us has been ‘hit’. By what? By the dungs, of course!

I grew up loving to play sports especially running. I know my running skills was develop when running against my Indian friends. They were very fast runners. I love to compete against them but they were always sharing tips too. They will always tell me that I must have a longer stride if I want to run faster. So, I eat more hoping that I will grow taller. Some told me that I have to talk like them, faster so that I can run faster. So, I learned talking faster and also shaking my head. Then, my mother’s friend start to call me the Chinese thamby!

All this while, I never learn how to see my friends as Indian, Malay or Chinese. I learned that they are my friends who we grow up together and helping each other. Do we fight? Yes we do.But that strengthen our friendship when we learn of each other differences. We learn how to respect them. We learn not to eat in front of the Malays when they are fasting. We learn that not to eat beef when the Indians are around. I will always try to prepare halal food for my muslim friends when they visit me.

Nevertheless, as I grow, I learned that politicians says the dumbest words. They didn’t learn how to play spinning tops, kandi, marbles or even police & thief. I started to see that we are different in diversity. They teaches us how to see the different and then flare up the racial tension!

I do support the government move to remove the ‘race’ column from the forms. However, I belief that is just only the first step of many to take. It’s deeper than filling up forms. It’s about respects and trusts we have from our friends of various religious background. It’s about laughing and crying together when we have our ups and downs! It’s about acknowledging that we have our different heritage but a common nationality and motherland. It’s about finding the common ground and called MALAYSIAN. It’s unity in diversity!

1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now

As I sit in the office, I am pondering and thinking about what I have been through this morning.

I have recently graduated from a public university and currently working on my postdoc with a university in US. However, I am now back in Malaysia for my field work and my wife is still a PhD student with the same public university I had graduated from. However, lately, the authorities had cordoned off all parking bays in the campus and students are not allowed inside. We are all asked to park at the ‘park and ride’ and ride the bus.

However, as a graduate student, our work and research doesn’t just confined to a specific lab. We worked with so many research labs and also places. We also don’t work with just books but with equipment and kits which we have to carry around. Our time is flexible yet at a very fast pace. We can’t afford to loose our time with the research materials we are carrying. Every minute that we are transporting our materials/ subjects will cause it to degrade.

As such, how do we parked our car outside the campus and take the bus into the campus and then, do our work. After that, take the bus again, to get to our car and drive it in to load all our research equipment into the car? How long will that take and how much time will it be wasted?

We went to complaint but the answer that has been given is this:

1) Staff also don’t have enough parking – so, how do you solve this and that will the benefit both sides? Most of you clock in and then clock out without necessarily needed to go out.

2) Student parked at the lecturer parking lot. Our dean also don’t have place to park – so, now you asked all student to park outside so that the dean have a place to park?

3) Talk to the dean – where the heck is the dean? will he meet us?

4) Thanks for your complaint -so what are you going to do with it?

So, whose performance are we trying to help to push?

When did the university try to help to give us better facilities to promote a better environment for us to work. At first, they took away our rest area/ sitting room. Now the car park. What next? The lab?

The student can’t work if we are always embroiled with campus politics and also problems that caused us to work inefficiently!

Who is the people first? Where is the performance? It seems all this benefits the staff only!

Wake up!

1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now

As I sit in the office, I am pondering and thinking about what I have been through this morning.

I have recently graduated from a public university and currently working on my postdoc with a university in US. However, I am now back in Malaysia for my field work and my wife is still a PhD student with the same public university I had graduated from. However, lately, the authorities had cordoned off all parking bays in the campus and students are not allowed inside. We are all asked to park at the ‘park and ride’ and ride the bus.

However, as a graduate student, our work and research doesn’t just confined to a specific lab. We worked with so many research labs and also places. We also don’t work with just books but with equipment and kits which we have to carry around. Our time is flexible yet at a very fast pace. We can’t afford to loose our time with the research materials we are carrying. Every minute that we are transporting our materials/ subjects will cause it to degrade.

As such, how do we parked our car outside the campus and take the bus into the campus and then, do our work. After that, take the bus again, to get to our car and drive it in to load all our research equipment into the car? How long will that take and how much time will it be wasted?

We went to complaint but the answer that has been given is this:

1) Staff also don’t have enough parking – so, how do you solve this will the benefits from both sides? Most of you clock in and then clock out without necessarily needed to go out.

2) Student parked at the lecturer parking lot. Our dean also don’t have place to park – so, now you asked all student to park outside so that the dean have a car park?

3) Talk to the dean – where the heck is the dean? will he meet us?

4) Thanks for your complaint -so what are you going to do with it?

So, whose performance are we trying to help to push?

When did the university try to help to give us better facilities to promote a better environment for us to work. At first, they took away our rest area/ sitting room. Now the car park. What next? The lab?

The student can’t work if we are always embroiled with campus politics and also problems that caused us to work inefficiently!

Wake up!

Leaving home (minus love ones) Part II

I have one of the hardest time today. It’s weekend here. I love to spend my weekend with my wife. Just to hang around. Clean the house. Do some groceries shopping. Take a walk in the park. Or just simply watch tv at home. However, today, I have to do everything on my own.

I went shopping ‘alone’. Eating and thinking at the back of my mind that my wife will like the food. I saw some interesting place and knowing that she will love it too. After dinner, I took a walk in the park and the emptiness just overwhelmed me. I just think this will be nice if she is around here. Just holding hand and taking a stroll in the park and looking at geese and ducks in the pond, having the wonderful breeze blowing at you on the face, smelling the oak trees, watching the birds flying and hearing them singing, looking at the wheat turning brown and dances to the breeze and seeing sunset and then the city lights up just simply too much for an empty heart.

What do you do in the situation like these? Do you still pursue what you have or just simply leave behind all these, not just dreams and ambition but the plan and destiny that God has plan for you. I know some will says God might have better plan. God don’t have better plan when it is always the best plan. So how do one who have known that it’s God’s will, will react when he himself struggling with life? How do I embrace what God has plan for me and personalize it and pursue the DESTINY God has?

I know God will give US the strength to overcome. God will teach us but how long do I need to learn? TIME will HEAL and time will help us to OVERCOME. I know I AM MORE THAN CONQUEROR IN CHRIST JESUS! But I also know life will get harder the next round I leave her again. I know because the time apart will longer now, not just weeks but months. Today is just the 4th days we are apart and it’s just so overwhelming now.

Now I am staying with someone and she has my brother to accompany her. But later, she will be alone and I will be staying alone. We will cook dinner alone. Eat alone. Watch TV alone. Exercise alone. Drive alone. Clean the house alone. Listen to music alone. No one to share your laughter with nor share you burden with. How do you do that?

I know the internet does brings the world nearer. I chat with her using the Skype and it’s free. I can see her too. But the misery is we can see each other with holding each other. We have to be strong so that we don’t cry when we see each other. You love it that you can see each other but hate it that you can’t be there.

Winter will come when the days get bright at about 10am and gets dark at 4pm. How that nature too will at misery to that during one of the hardest time of your life? You will feel just so cold. Physically and emotionally.

I am not sure if you can picture and imagine what I have written but when there is no birds singing in wood or flying in the air, seeing trees without leaves, no more grass, frozen lakes, creeks, streams and ponds what do you feel?

I am just relying on God for strength, courage and wisdom to overcome all these. From the beginning we have made the prayer, God, You have save us and You have the best plan for us. You just use both of us where You want us to be and however way You want us to do. Now we know that we are walking the path and on the destiny God has for us. This is just the beginning of the plans that He planned for us.

We will just need rely and hang on Him for our days ahead!

Leaving home (minus love ones) Part I

I think we can only talk about so much regarding how much we understand of what’s a person sacrifices and struggle when the leave their countries and going to a new place. This is especially harder if ones is married! I am writing from the perspectives of a husband who still deeply in love with his wife and travelling because of work and nothing else. Period.

Well, let me says that we are taking this moves not because of the ‘extra luxury’ we will have nor because of the idea of migrating to another country especially US will be a great opportunity. I think opportunity is there, at least it does helps to open doors and to get the experience of working elsewhere but luxury is not the point at all. I mean if I work at my own home country, I have more luxury than here. We are taking this step because we know that’s what God want us to do and the plan He has for us. I am seeing His hand upon it and His plan unfolding days after days. (Note that I started using ‘we’ and not ‘I’ here because, it involves me, my wife and also my family)

First of all, one of the greatest challenge we face is the lack of companionship that we enjoy when we are together. Not just lack. Non existence at all. Now that we are staying in two part of the world, what companionship are we talking about. Companionship between husband and wife. Husband/wife with family and vice versa.

Secondly, the non-existence of companionship  between husband and wife will lead to insecurity. Insecurity in the sense you don’t want you wife/ husband to be helpless when they need help. You don’t want your love ones to be alone. To eat alone. To shop alone. To watch movie along. To drive alone. To exercise alone. To celebrate festival alone. And much more….It’s more of lack of insecurities from the emotional aspects not finance!

Thirdly, we will also feel so detached from home and vice-versa! What is happening to family right now? Are they doing fine? Or are they hiding anything from us because they don’t want us to get worry since we are so far away!

I think the lack of just knowing your love ones is around will actually simply help to put a lot of things to rest and in peace. There will be more struggle than what I have wrote here. It will be in the next post!

 

To be continued…

Between ministry and job/occupation

1. A job gives you an income but ministry gives you joy.

2. When a cleaner pick up a rubbish, it’s a job; while a member picks up the rubbish, it’s ministry.

3. You work in a job, but your serve in a ministry.

4. Your motivation for a job is financial gain but the motivation in a ministry is always the love of God.

5. To have a job is an opportunity, but to have a ministry is a privilege.

6. Achievement in an occupation is measured by how much you have gained/ achieved/ succeeded but yardstick for ministry achievement are about how many lives you have impacted/ change or sacrifices you have made.

7. You look for a job opening to work but you look for need in a ministry to serve.

8. You expect a return in your occupation but not in the ministry.

9. You put yourself first in a job but you put other first in a ministry.

10. Both will need work!

Between Toilet and Mentality

I went to the bathroom a while ago and found out that it was soiled. I hate it when I enter a wet bathroom and it smells. What makes it worst is that it will be dirty, marked with our shoe pattern and  even make it hard for us to walk, either we will afraid that we will slipped or even wet our pants.

When I am about to leave, a conversation took place.

A: aiks…

V:dirty huh..

A:Yes…culture here to splash water every where…

v: People said, the best way to judge a community is to visit their public toilet!

And I am thinking about it after that…How true is that statement! If you go to a clean and upper class community, you will find that the ‘toilet culture’ will be better and more ‘civilize’.

If you entered a dirty toilet, you will know how the people will behave too. I have entered some dirty toilet that will even make my ‘poo’ shrink!

Transitioning

I keep on harping and pondering the word transition. In my earlier post, I talk about moving on from one place to another. That’s transitioning. However, the more I think of it, the more I realise that is what life is all about.

We are always in transition. We learn and we move on to another level of knowledge. Can we stay stagnant? if we are, than, we are not pursuing education. I always support life long education. One cannot stop learning. We only stop learning when our mind stop functioning! 

In life, we transition from one working experience to another. Yesterday, I started my job although temporary as a research assistant but working on my research project. I have to transition from a student life to working life.

Life itself is a transition. I believe, we are in this world for a purpose, a purpose to glorify Him. But life itself is a journey. We have to make good use of this life and journey. In fact, life journey here is about preparing for another. Indeed again, transition. I believe, we will love this transition from earth to heaven!

What do you think?

Just another blogpost in the web

Well, this is just another blog and another post in the web as well as another blog for me.

However, looking back into life journey that I have completed thus far, I think I would want to chronicles it down for the next phase of my life. Having settled down in a town I have come to get used too and love, I am now finding myself uprooting it and moving to a new place and for the first time, a new country.

I have come and stayed in the current place all because of education and that I am moving again also for education. Its never easy to move from one place to another. Everytime you move, you loose friends and your network, some form of security that you have built, if not physically than, emotinally, changes of diets and also getting out of the similarity that you have get used too. To put it short, get out of your comfort zone! Then, you have to rebuild all that again in the new place you plan to go…

It seems my life have been in this pattern since I am small. Born in Penang, stayed in Kedah for 7 years, moved back to Penang and stayed there till I am 19, I moved to Kajang. After 9 years here, now I am moving again. I am sure I will be moving out of the place I am moving too…again, though I don’t know when, 2 years, 3 years or maybe 10 years. But what I am certain of, I am going to move to a new place after my work there is complete.