Malaysia is indeed a beautiful country. I know I get ungrateful at times and pine for London, but this place is, at the end of the day, home.
With all its greatness and shortcomings.
The land of nasi lemak sambal sotong, teh tarik, nyonya kebayas, mat rempits, racial polarity and people who say 'lah'. Either I am reminiscing through rose tinted glasses or I am just a fool, but don't you think things were better when we were children?
Was it that we were less exposed to racial intolerance or that it was not as bad then as it is today, I don't know. I have never had any of my classmates doubting the propriety of my mother's butter cake nor did anyone question me as to why I wear a baju kurung to school.
I remember that some time back, a canteen lady - a total stranger mind you asked a Chinese friend of mine why she was wearing a baju kurung since she is obviously not Malay. She replied something to the effect of "sukahati I lah."
I was reminded of this during the whole fracas involving the songkok issue where the elected representatives from DAP refused to wear the headgear for their swearing in at the Selangor State Assembly. How do we cultivate a bangsa malaysia when even wearing a songkok or a baju kurung can be politicized to this point. While the Opposition calls for government to abolish this and that and yet cannot make concessions to wear a songkok, I fear for for the future of the country la, seriously. Thank goodness we have normal sane people at the grassroots who posses common sense and gusto to tell these fellas to behave or get out. The people have never felt so empowered.
The spectacle that was the first televised parliamentary session was an utter embarrassment, particularly for DAP who failed to show that they could rise above the name-calling. You can watch it on YouTube. I won't besmirch my blog with clips of those. Sakit hati. And did Jeff Ooi really have to call a press conference to tell the world that his car was towed away because of improper parking facilities?
Much ado about nothing really.
With all its greatness and shortcomings.
The land of nasi lemak sambal sotong, teh tarik, nyonya kebayas, mat rempits, racial polarity and people who say 'lah'. Either I am reminiscing through rose tinted glasses or I am just a fool, but don't you think things were better when we were children?
Was it that we were less exposed to racial intolerance or that it was not as bad then as it is today, I don't know. I have never had any of my classmates doubting the propriety of my mother's butter cake nor did anyone question me as to why I wear a baju kurung to school.
I remember that some time back, a canteen lady - a total stranger mind you asked a Chinese friend of mine why she was wearing a baju kurung since she is obviously not Malay. She replied something to the effect of "sukahati I lah."
I was reminded of this during the whole fracas involving the songkok issue where the elected representatives from DAP refused to wear the headgear for their swearing in at the Selangor State Assembly. How do we cultivate a bangsa malaysia when even wearing a songkok or a baju kurung can be politicized to this point. While the Opposition calls for government to abolish this and that and yet cannot make concessions to wear a songkok, I fear for for the future of the country la, seriously. Thank goodness we have normal sane people at the grassroots who posses common sense and gusto to tell these fellas to behave or get out. The people have never felt so empowered.
The spectacle that was the first televised parliamentary session was an utter embarrassment, particularly for DAP who failed to show that they could rise above the name-calling. You can watch it on YouTube. I won't besmirch my blog with clips of those. Sakit hati. And did Jeff Ooi really have to call a press conference to tell the world that his car was towed away because of improper parking facilities?
Much ado about nothing really.
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