We are not liberated because..
(I'm writting this cause i feel the need to rant about something that irked me today. So bare with me. But at the end of this maybe somebody might agree with me?)
Greetings!
Christmas is coming. HoHOHoho.. do you feel the excitement?
Not really. Over time the novelty of the idea has died. Commercialism may have done just enough to blow the whole idea of christmas out the window. No more celebration of its true meaning but of that fat guy in a red suit who laughs allot. Oh.. and buying more stuff for the 'loved ones'. Hmmm..
But,
That wasn't what really struck me today.
I was in Starhill plaza today looking to get myself a nice new bag which daddy agreed to fund for being the poor student that i am. So we trot on happily into the store found a person who wasn't attending to anyone. Great, flipped the catalog, found the bag, all fine and dandy while my family trotted off to find some other stuff.
So here i stood at the counter waiting for Dad to come back the all important final 'okay' before i ask the guy to pack it up for me. So i decided to strike a conversation with the guy attending to me. So i struck up the usual first few questions like "does it get really busy around this time" and stuff like that.
I then asked, so do you guys have to meet like some sort of quota here implying if they had any sales targets to meet. But what he answered got me somewhat taken aback.
He answered "No we don't really have a quota.. But we do strive to have an equal balance of chinese and malays..."
At this point i stopped him and said "no no, i don't mean that.. as in like sales quota."
From then on he answered the question and the conversation continued along those lines.
But heres the thing, I used the word quota and the first response was in that direction. You could say he didn't really hear me and so there shouldn't be anything in there but point is i wasn't thinking about tht one bit yet his first reaction to the word was that.
Since when has the number of staff in a retail outlet become a ratial thing? Well, it isn't as bad as you think. It probably is nothing. But, do we really even have to think of it?
A few days back Tim and Sean asked me if they thought Malaysia was truly liberated as part of a joke about someone. But really if you were to ask me that question seriously, I'd answer you 'No we are not liberated but we are independant'.
Why?
In my oppinion to be fully liberated, is to completely loose your root or cultural identity and adopt a new unified identity. I don't mean by loose your roots as completely discarding culture, all i'm saying is that you practice and respect your culture as best you can but to be able to live in a diversed society somethings would need to be set aside.
What again are we setting aside? For starters, changing our mindset. Y'know how the term dying to self is being played around pretty popularly nowadays not just in a christian context? Precisely that, dying to the old mentality of thinking primarily about oneself or in this case your own race and begin to think of everyone as similar coherently working towards a common goal of making our country a better place?
How do i know we're not there yet?
When we introduced ourself to foreigners, we agree tht we're malaysians but we also indicate rather clearly when asked that we're malay, chinese, indian, etc. That fact of the matter is we are still holding on to our own kind that we lose track of the fact that we are primarily and more importantly Malaysians being born and bred here. Thats what it says on passports and IC's! We don't write 'malaysian (insert race here)' on our custom forms do we? No we dont. See the point?
So, are we independant? Yes we are. Are we liberated? Until we can only refer to ourselves as malaysians and not primarily our ethnicity we will continue not to be.
It isn't hard to make a difference. It just starts with love. Loving your neighbour just as yourself would be more like it.
I love this country.
Don't you?
Greetings!
Christmas is coming. HoHOHoho.. do you feel the excitement?
Not really. Over time the novelty of the idea has died. Commercialism may have done just enough to blow the whole idea of christmas out the window. No more celebration of its true meaning but of that fat guy in a red suit who laughs allot. Oh.. and buying more stuff for the 'loved ones'. Hmmm..
But,
That wasn't what really struck me today.
I was in Starhill plaza today looking to get myself a nice new bag which daddy agreed to fund for being the poor student that i am. So we trot on happily into the store found a person who wasn't attending to anyone. Great, flipped the catalog, found the bag, all fine and dandy while my family trotted off to find some other stuff.
So here i stood at the counter waiting for Dad to come back the all important final 'okay' before i ask the guy to pack it up for me. So i decided to strike a conversation with the guy attending to me. So i struck up the usual first few questions like "does it get really busy around this time" and stuff like that.
I then asked, so do you guys have to meet like some sort of quota here implying if they had any sales targets to meet. But what he answered got me somewhat taken aback.
He answered "No we don't really have a quota.. But we do strive to have an equal balance of chinese and malays..."
At this point i stopped him and said "no no, i don't mean that.. as in like sales quota."
From then on he answered the question and the conversation continued along those lines.
But heres the thing, I used the word quota and the first response was in that direction. You could say he didn't really hear me and so there shouldn't be anything in there but point is i wasn't thinking about tht one bit yet his first reaction to the word was that.
Since when has the number of staff in a retail outlet become a ratial thing? Well, it isn't as bad as you think. It probably is nothing. But, do we really even have to think of it?
A few days back Tim and Sean asked me if they thought Malaysia was truly liberated as part of a joke about someone. But really if you were to ask me that question seriously, I'd answer you 'No we are not liberated but we are independant'.
Why?
In my oppinion to be fully liberated, is to completely loose your root or cultural identity and adopt a new unified identity. I don't mean by loose your roots as completely discarding culture, all i'm saying is that you practice and respect your culture as best you can but to be able to live in a diversed society somethings would need to be set aside.
What again are we setting aside? For starters, changing our mindset. Y'know how the term dying to self is being played around pretty popularly nowadays not just in a christian context? Precisely that, dying to the old mentality of thinking primarily about oneself or in this case your own race and begin to think of everyone as similar coherently working towards a common goal of making our country a better place?
How do i know we're not there yet?
When we introduced ourself to foreigners, we agree tht we're malaysians but we also indicate rather clearly when asked that we're malay, chinese, indian, etc. That fact of the matter is we are still holding on to our own kind that we lose track of the fact that we are primarily and more importantly Malaysians being born and bred here. Thats what it says on passports and IC's! We don't write 'malaysian (insert race here)' on our custom forms do we? No we dont. See the point?
So, are we independant? Yes we are. Are we liberated? Until we can only refer to ourselves as malaysians and not primarily our ethnicity we will continue not to be.
It isn't hard to make a difference. It just starts with love. Loving your neighbour just as yourself would be more like it.
I love this country.
Don't you?
posted by Joe at 12/10/2007 01:19:00 AM
1 Comments:
Hello joe, Ying (Quan) here. Nice seeing you when we were back in Msia last December. Figure I drop a thought.
I dont think I agree that we should all refer to ourselves as malaysians and not indicate our ethnicity. While having a "united identity" of being Malaysian is important, it is crucial we maintain what each of us contributes into the salad bowl of cultures in our country.
IMHO, to be Malaysian is to embrace the fact that we live in a mixed cultural environment. As someone who has travelled to multiple countries, I have never been able to avoid the question - "but you look very chinese!" when I declare that I come from Malaysia. To deny(that is, not to identify with) that my ancestors are from China and thus I am of Chinese descent is to eliminate a very important part of your own personal identity.
That identity is, IMHO much more important than a national identity of being "Malaysian". I don't think it takes away from the national identity to identify as being "Chinese Malaysian" or "Indian Malaysian". Similiarly, America has to acknowledge that while many of its residents embrace the identity of being American, they are still distinctively "Irish American", or "French American", for example.
If you tell a friend from Spain that roti canai is from Malaysia, would'nt you be afraid to take out the fact that Indian influence has played heavily in to the creation that dish? Would you not then say, "this dish was somehow brought to our diverse cuisine by Indians"?
IMHO, living harmoniously in a mixed environment does not necessarily mean shedding one's ethnic identity! It is an important part of being Malaysian! I do love Malaysia!
love
Ying
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