By Iew Aij, Lived in Russia for half a decade | https://www.quora.com/
I am a Chinese born and bred in Kuala Lumpur in the most traditional Chinese way possible which means ass-whooping, flying slippers, getting if possible 100% in exams and eating with chopsticks.
I am the 4th generation Chinese, and my great-grandfather who sailed here across the South-China-Sea to mine (back then he was mining tins, I wished he mined bitcoin) in what was known then as the Malay Peninsula.
At the age of 7, I was enrolled to a national school in Malaysia (because the school is located directly opposite of my home, and it is more logistically available back then) , while most of my cousins were enrolled to schools that were conducted in their mother-tongue (Chinese). A national school meant that the school I was studying had a majority of 70% of Malay and 30% of other races.
Things were fairly good in the beginning until I was 9 years old ( Year 3), when jokes started to be a little harsher and boys that age were a little meaner. I, being a minority was constantly subjected to verbal harassments, they made fun of me for “eating pork”, that we Taoist are “praying to statutes” and etc. Boys will always be boys, and I would be lying if I said I was not hurt by being segregated just for “eating pork” or by “praying to statues”.
Back then, I was lucky, I befriended someone who happened to live around my neighbourhood (he eats pork as well) and we did almost everything together. We joined the same society, went to the same class, and eventually we obtained results good enough to be admitted to one of the most prestigious school in Malaysia.
Things got better in the new school (we were 13 years old) probably the boys in this school were more mature or, perhaps I grew accustomed to it , that it no longer had any effect on me. 3 years in this school, I made plenty of friends, but soon a trend formed, which I came to notice later in life, ( most of my friends were either Chinese or English speaking Malay).
Up till then, I had been brought up in a very classical “Chinese” way, in which we believe other races are not as good as ours and that they are always out there to harm us, marrying someone other than your own race is a big no-no, and chances are you would be disowned and probably if not definitely loose all of the inheritance not to mention your family name.
At the age of 16 years old, I enrolled to an even more prestigious college, it was a military college. As the name suggested, everything was military, a college in which they do not care who you are or who your father is/was less they care was your religion, the only thing differentiating you from the person next to you was the number you were assigned to and your determination.
Again, I would be lying if I said I was not discriminated for being a Chinese in a school where the Chinese in this could be counted with your fingers (most Chinese prefer to be comfortable in their own home rather than to be “in the army”) . In the beginning I felt like I was again being segregated, however it did not take long for that feeling to be washed away. I also noticed that my Malay language was getting way better, and in less than 6 months, I was able to converse fluently in Malay without any accent and spoke tremendously well than before. Something which I couldn’t do in 9 years, i was able to do it there in less than 6 months.
Slowly, I bonded well with my Malay brothers, I learnt whatever they shared with me, their culture, their heritage and a little of their religion. I began to accept these differences and actively worked to make myself for “Malay”. In less than 1 year, I was accepted and became “one of them”. After 2 years in the college, as we “Passing Out” (I do not know what is the right verb in Past tense), I had gained great knowledge, experience and most of all I gained 200 other brothers of different parents, race and even religion.
I did well in the college, and was given the opportunity to study abroad. There I met even more friends of different ethnicity and bonded well with them too through my understanding and my knowing on how to accept others despite their differences.
At the time of this writing, I have more friends (whom I can count on) of different races than I have of the same race. Sometimes, it takes two to tango, everyone wants their needs to be met first and expect others to tolerate with it.
In my most humble opinion, if one wants to change how things are, it is always best to change the person you wake up to see every morning in the mirror as Michael Jackson said “If you want to make the world a better place, Take a look in the mirror and make that change”.
In a nutshell :
We Malaysians, are not malicious to one another. It is just misunderstandings and culturally difference that we believe appear to be unable to tolerate with each other (except for extremists who we believe have political agendas). I think and dare to say that the next generation Malaysia will embrace these differences better than we did.
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