As Suanie Sees It

Tanggallll tiga puluh satuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Bulan lapannnnn lima puluh tujuhhhhhh
MERDEKA MERDEKA
Tetaplahhh merdekaaaaa
Ia pasti menjadi sejarahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Yes this is a Project Happy Malaysia-related post. Thing is, I’ve given this project more than a few days thought — of what I can/should/will write, and I am the first to admit that it ain’t easy.

It’s been nearly 5 years since I’ve left my home town to the hustle-bustle of KL. I only remember two incidents from my first week here — 1) I ordered chicken rice for lunch for 5 whole days because I didn’t know how to speak a word of Cantonese, and 2) I bought a useless Shin-Chan soft toy for RM10 from one of those charity-peddlers. Since then I’ve never eaten chicken rice for more than two days in a row, and I never again bought stuff I don’t need from anyone while I’m eating. How does that relate? No idea, just reminiscing.

I guess people-factor is the only important thing there is in whatever. Despite reports of crime and other bad shit, I’ve not personally experienced many bad things coming from other people — well except the other time when you-know-what and my LCD monitor was gone. But that was not a personal vendetta thing, shit happens and the same have happened to countless other people. I’m talking about the people you meet, the people you encounter. In fact the only bad memory I have of people is this Chinese taxi driver who turned sour-faced and talked to me rudely when he found out that my Mandarin is half-past six. You know, because I am Chinese so I must take pride in being Chinese and therefore my Mandarin or Cantonese or Hokkien or whatever things that define Chinese-ism must be solid, else I am shaming my heritage and ancestors, never mind that my IC states that I am Malaysian, not Chinese-Malaysian, not Malaysian-Chinese, just Malaysian. So he took it upon himself to berate me throughout the very unpleasant journey.

Other than that, there’s not much unpleasant incidents that stand out. Maybe because I am such a people-person when I want to be (ahem) and I can easily strike up conversations with random strangers. Of course there are the crooks and baddies, but you get the same sort of people everywhere you go. There will always be people who want to shortchange you, no matter where you are — KL, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, Africa, England, America, Timbuktu. Or even the people around you, if you happen to be rich and old and unfortunately produced scheming lying descendants.

But what makes Malaysia Malaysian? Forget about the stupid new gestures like salam-ing you with the hand over the heart (actually it’s the stomach). What else? You tell me — I am rather out-of-touch with what is happening over at the Ministry of Culture and what-not.

Is it the food? I read somewhere that the food defines the people. But that is too general, I think for these days you can get Malaysian food anywhere in the world. Apparently you can get better dimsum somewhere in the States, that is according to KY. When I brought my friends from Netherlands to eat satay, he went, “oh like we have never had satay before…” (don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice guy, it was just his usual semi-sarcastic manners at work).

We do have a wide variety of damn good local food. I don’t need to list them one by one, but you have the usual nasi lemak, char koey teow, roti canai normally included in our staple diet. You bring foreign friends around town and they ask you to bring them to sample local food, where do you go? Usually I am hard-pressed to answer, I really don’t know where to bring them. So I take them to Jalan Alor, to Petaling Street, to SS2 mamak, or McDonalds. Hehe.

Erm… how is this happy? I don’t know. I was talking about people, kan? Nemmain, deviation is the spice of blogs.

Hmm.. people… right now I am sitting at Starbucks looking at them. Got all sorts, different colours, all speaking one. That’s happy, isn’t it, to have people communicate… Well I’m happy, and it’s two more days to Merdeka and I don’t foresee my happiness being trodden anytime soon, so… Project Happy Merdeka ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!

Yeah I cheated. Selamat Hari Merdeka, y’all.