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I am no Jackie Chan, but
really who am I?
Chinese! I bear Chinese name
no doubt, but I was born in Malaysia
after her independence in 1957. Hence I carry with me a Malaysian passport and
identity card; which the locals here termed NRIC.
I went to Chinese primary
school, where Mandarin was the main medium of communications before I proceeded
to national schools and finished my General Certificate of Education (GCE ‘O’
Level) in late 70’s with aggregate 11 in 5 subjects. So what, to add to the mockery
of the aforesaid examination, I‘d obtained better grade in English ( A2 ),
Bahasa Malaysia ( C6 ), than Mandarin ( P7 ). So who am I by then? A Malaysian
Chinese? So shameful!
By this time, I could easily
converse in our national language – Bahasa Malaysia ( BM ), English, Mandarin
plus my own dialect which is Fujian.
Moreover, I can also understand some basic associated dialects like Cantonese,
Hakka, Teochew, Hainanese etc.
Next, because I idolized
Barry Gibb of the famous trio
Bee Gees, I had adopted a “Christian Name” of
Barry; although going to Sunday Mass is still alien to me till this very day! I
remember telling a good childhood friend of mine donkey years ago; name Danny
that we were actually “Anerican Chinese”, how strange! Who was I by then, I
wonder?
As I progress and got
assimilated into our cultural and religiously diverse society, I made many more
friends from all walks of life, different in creed, color, origin &
religion so I began to think again who am I?
A Malaysian Chinese?
A Chinese Malaysian?
A Malaysian? Or
None of the above? – As if I
was filling some kind of forms……..
Correct me if I am wrong; I
could still recalled that my English teacher Ms Teoh said - an adjective
descript a nonce and I must say it was rather confusing even until now despite
having As for my English during GCE “O” level. Which of the above were more
appropriate?
In fact I was still juggling
with the idea of being a Malaysian Chinese or vice versa until of late when I
saw on live over TV how our Miss Wong Mei
choo gunned down – with her badminton
racket Peoples’ Republic of China’s Xing fang Xie – World ranking No 1 to
clinch the 2007 Chinese Badminton Open in Guangchow, China; that I’d awaken to be
reminded how wonderful it must have being a Malaysian! The joy from within was
beyond my power of expressions – being a Malaysian!
Coupled with the icing on
the cake that Mei Choo’d eliminated 4 top ranking Chinese players en route to
her maiden Championship, it was indeed a fantastic achievement. However, if
this were to happen 30 years ago, Mei Choo would have been cursed and swear by
fellow Chinese compatriots ‘seeking temporary shelter’ in Malaysia, which were
never intended to be their permanent home then! To them, who am I? Chinese, off
course?
Thousand apologies, I like
to take to task the recent demand on education medium, street demonstrations, rally, demolition of
temples, pig farms, lifting of Malay Kris and those referendums would have been
unnecessary, if not irrelevant had we been taught to be a mere Malaysian;
nothing more, nothing less!
I could understand it was
quite sensitive to put such message through in our education system during the
infancy stage of Malaysia’s independence; but not today, after we’d claimed the
50th glorious years of Nationhood; if only we try harder!
Our political leaders,
championed with visions must have been enlightened to note that those days of
harping in religious, racial, ethnic issues were over. Championing for a
particular
race, often misconstrued as at the expanse of another is but the most
notorious yet invisible terrorist within every one of us. Who is Osama then?
If we could not have found a
common yet uncommon platform to unite within despite all these years of living
together as one nation; I fear our days of peace in diversity were numbered.
Given a chance, I urge those
concern to immediately set up a salvation fund in the name of Tunku Abdul
Rahman, our father of independence to aid whoever Malaysians, financially
irrespective of background. If we could sent cosmonaut to space and subsidize
PLUS hundreds of millions, if not billions; what is a Billion Ringgit Salvation
Fund to aid any needy Malaysian?
Since time immemorial, when
men were contented with basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter and some basic
amusement/entertainment; they would think twice going against such livelihoods.
Let’s hope for one nation,
one race, the Malaysian Race! Further….
One Planet, One Race, The
Human Race!
Proud just to be a simple
Malaysian!
More abstracts about the Who Am I