Category: Thoughts

  • Breaking Barriers

    As I was having dinner with my colleagues yesterday, my mind wandered off for a moment. I got lost in all the multiple threads going on at once. Everyone was speaking in either Cantonese or English.

    My friend asked me, “do you understand what they are saying?”
    “A little here and there..” I replied.

    Over the past year working in Inspidea, my skills in non-English language have tremendously improved. I am now able to pick out the main words and key phrases from Cantonese and Malay sentences and decipher the meaning of the whole line. Communicating with my colleagues isn’t much of a problem now.

    Language has never been my strongest point. People shit on me for having a bad command of Malay and Chinese/Cantonese. So how come people think its wrong for me to shit on other people who have a bad command of English? What kind of one way street is that? Not that I do it anyways. The only time I ever rag on people with bad English is when they bring it up first. I’m pretty tolerant towards non-English speakers, I know just how they feel whenever I try to speak in Malay/Cantonese to them.

    But I hate the fact how the alot of people think that locals who speak English as their main language, and by English I don’t mean Manglish, (as opposed to speaking in Malay/Canto) are snobbish, disrespectful, and uncultured people. Those people aren’t snobbish- they just happen to communicate better in English! If you’re gonna criticize anybody for speaking a ‘foreign’ language well, I think you should start pointing fingers at yourself for being so narrow-minded in the first place. Who knows why they don’t speak with their mother tongue.

    It wasn’t a choice to choose what school you attend or the people you mixed with. You couldn’t choose what language your family used to communicate with each other. Its not like you purposely chose not to speak the local language. These things can’t be decided by you. Why don’t people look at it the other way instead- “I was unfortunate I did not get the chance to learn our local tongue” instead of “I’m too good to speak other languages besides English”.

    I was born and raised by an English speaking family. I didn’t grow up on Hong Kong movies or TVB serials. Neither did I watch the locally dubbed cartoons. Does that make me any worse or better off? No it doesn’t.

    And despite speaking only English, I was never really good at it. I was in the top English class for year 7, then going down to group 2 in year 8, group 4 in year 9 (i think there were 6-7 groups then), and the group 4/4 in year 10 and 11 (the lowest non-ESL group). I was in the last Malay class as well. For my IGCSEs, I didn’t get any As for English Language, Literature or Malay.

    So I know my place, and I don’t act like I’m some bigshot just because I speak English. I am who I am because of everything that’s happened to me, and the result of my actions.

    I’m grateful that I went to a prestigious school and met the people whom I know as my friends today. If not for this life, things might have turned out differently.

    The very same night I had that conversation, I bumped into an Ah Beng in a petrol station. From the way he looked to the way he talked and walked, this dude was the real deal. And when he got into his car and sped off (you know how ridiculous cars move in real life when they’re driven by people who think they’re the stunt driver for the next Jason Bourne movie)- it was how I expected it to be. Now it was probably wrong of me to judge someone by their cover. But from what I observed, it was like skimming through his book, I had him figured out. I wonder if everyone else looks at me and stereotypes me the same way as I did to them? Of course they do.

    “thick framed glasses..black hair..t-shirt and jeans..this kid must listen to Taking Back Sunday..”

    The encounter with the Ah Beng made me think about my past. Imagine if I was brought up in another school (no I’m not saying that kids in non-international schools turn out to be delinquents, this is just an example), and I mixed with Ah Bengs and ‘gangsters’. I could be a pedlar parading the mamaks of kl selling dvds and vcds or even pushing drugs. I might be ‘pimping’ out my Wira with unnecessary spoilers, headlights and chrome rims. Life would’ve turned out very differently for me.

    So if I got the chance to do everything again, like most people would say, I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s the very same reason why I am where I am right now. It might not be where I want to be or what I hoped or wished for. But who I am is who I am now, and the only way is forward. Sure we can regret things that we did in our past, but don’t dwell on them. Just because you did something wrong in the past doesn’t mean that if you did it right back then, things would be better now. Life is unpredictable. And change is the only constant.

  • Traffic cops are a menace.

    Traffic cops are a fucking menace. Never in my life have I ever exclaimed to myself, “thank God there was a traffic cop!” When are they ever helpful? NEVER!

    Why are they there to replace perfectly working lights? I understand the reasoning for them to be there when the lights are broken. But when they’re not?! Since when can a man do a machine’s job better? The fucking machine was built for this very purpose. A machine that doesn’t know anything other than to regulate traffic flow. Its very reason for existing is to guide cars! And this cop can do it better?!

    It would be funny to see a traffic light kill a traffic cop. Even if I was the one who rammed into the traffic light and made it fall onto the policeman. Serves him right for trying to ‘ease traffic flow’.

    Everyone knows that traffic police are rookies anyways. These guys should be given better things to do– like patrolling the streets looking for mat rempits to strangle rather than wasting their time breathing in carbon monoxide in the middle of rush hour traffic.

    I realized I wrote about traffic cops awhile ago as well. See how much they infuriate me?! Even now, 5 months later, things haven’t changed.

  • Politics Schmolitics

    People say that I’m stupid not to vote. Or that I’m irresponsible and that people like me are the reason why our country is in such a sad state.

    Then I started to think about it. Let’s say the battle is won/lost (depending on whether you support the government or not) by one vote. One vote. Technically it could have been my vote- but because I didn’t cast it, wait let me rephrase- exercise my rights because I live in a democratic country, one party lost/won. But then I thought some more- in a country that divided we’re pretty much fucked anyway. Nobody’s gonna make all their promises come true, and even if they do, it won’t necessarily make Malaysia a better country.

    What if BN has been winning just because people believe in them? And that all the scandals and rumors you hear about were just stirred up by the opposition? Well until someone implements a voting system where you have to reveal to everybody who you’re voting for, nobody will truly know if the numbers have been tampered with or not.

    Oops, strayed off topic there. Back to where I was- not voting. I’m not a fan of politics (makes me sound ignorant, I know) and don’t bother keeping up with any of that bullshit. Because I’m not blaming the current government for how our country is now, rather I would like to blame our ancestors. The ones who decided that ‘oh shit! Malaysia should be its own fucking country!’, ‘Yeah! Let’s get rid of the British!’, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, but we’ll have a country to call our own!’ and called for independence. Seriously.

    What was so bad about being under British rule? Were they treating us badly? Were we slaves? Were they giving us a hard time? No, I don’t think so! I wasn’t alive back then, I wouldn’t know. But I’m pretty sure if they stayed on, we’d be a hell lot better than this sorry excuse of a country we have. The only thing good about being third world is that everything here is cheaper. And we have a lot of greenery (undeveloped areas lol).

    But really, imagine if they didn’t set us free. Maybe we’d trading in Euros or Pounds. Maybe our government wouldn’t be so corrupt. Maybe we might have more cultured people. Maybe we wouldn’t have mat rempits. Maybe we would be buying Les Paul guitars real cheap. Maybe awesome bands would come down here. Maybe we might even be on the map.

    The only things I ever hear people praise Malaysia about- the good food, the cheap (pirated) goods, and the nightlife. I guess all that makes Malaysia such a great country.

    “The Federation of Malaya achieved independence from the United Kingdom on August 31, 1957.” Maybe the biggest mistake we ever made.