A foreigner in her home country
Racial issues have been a sensitive topic lately with the suspension of Sothinathan by PM and some other education issues in Malaysia eg. Malaysian Government de-recognised the Medical Certificates from Crimean University, the lack of transparency on granting medical scholarships to the SPM high achievers etc. In the midst of these, I read an article by The Edge (I think it’s this week’s copy), on Kuala Kangsar Malay College (KKMC). The article compares the education systems generally in Malaysia and KKMC in particular between the current ones and the yester year’s. Ex-teachers and ex-KKMC boys were interviewed. They have generally implied that they have lost hope in the current education system. One issue that stands out was that the increasingly lack of exposure to the non-Malays in KKMC (apparently there used to be non-Malay teachers back then. I’d guess the teaching force now is Malay-dominated?) and thus lack of SOCIAL INTEGRATION with other races in this case.
This is sooo true to me when I think about it. This also applies to Chinese educated students like me! Having been sticking with Chinese Schools for my primary and secondary school, I’ve only got some SOCIAL INTEGRATION going on after I started work at my ex-all Malay company.
There was a little CULTURE SHOCK for me during my stay there. I gotta re-learn my spoken Malay, and having to adapt to the fact it has a strong nepotism culture (lack of meritocracy). I also had to adapt to the slower pace of working environment. I totally suffered initially because I ONLY HAVE SPOKEN MALAY during my Malay classes (can you imagine how text-book sounding it will be?); I was brought up practicing MERITOCRACY, not NEPOTISM? And to HABITUALLY procrastinate your work is out of your mind!
But hey, I’ve just grown to accept my Malay colleagues for who they are, and found that not all of them are like that. In fact some of them were fun to hang out with. For the good or bad, I just wished that the SOCIAL INTEGRATION happen earlier in my formative years rather in my working adulthood. I’ve been feeling like a foreigner in my own country for such a long time until then!
This is sooo true to me when I think about it. This also applies to Chinese educated students like me! Having been sticking with Chinese Schools for my primary and secondary school, I’ve only got some SOCIAL INTEGRATION going on after I started work at my ex-all Malay company.
There was a little CULTURE SHOCK for me during my stay there. I gotta re-learn my spoken Malay, and having to adapt to the fact it has a strong nepotism culture (lack of meritocracy). I also had to adapt to the slower pace of working environment. I totally suffered initially because I ONLY HAVE SPOKEN MALAY during my Malay classes (can you imagine how text-book sounding it will be?); I was brought up practicing MERITOCRACY, not NEPOTISM? And to HABITUALLY procrastinate your work is out of your mind!
But hey, I’ve just grown to accept my Malay colleagues for who they are, and found that not all of them are like that. In fact some of them were fun to hang out with. For the good or bad, I just wished that the SOCIAL INTEGRATION happen earlier in my formative years rather in my working adulthood. I’ve been feeling like a foreigner in my own country for such a long time until then!
posted by babychristian @ 9:36 AM
2 Comments:
On your way to be true "Malaysian"! Guess i'm "lucky" to study couples of years in Malay school before finally end up in chinese school :) To be honest, i enjoy being the only chinese in my malay friend's wedding:p Like all other people/races: there's always good and bad horses, right? Cheers!
Hey Low, thanx for dropping by.
I've got a friend (he's an Indian talking like a native Malay speaker)telling me today that he couldn't understand why non-Malays just couldn't speak Malay fluently b'coz you are Malaysian! He was the only Indian living amongst the Malays, and I, a product of an alternative schooling system, would never have chances to mingle with Malays (except my History teacher)until I join the work force. I don't think that I'm therefore less of a Malaysian, just b'coz I've chosen a different path. Given a chance, I would like to mingle with everybody regardless of their race, but at the same time have the choice to choose the kind of education that I believe in (quality of education at affordable prices) compared to the national schools.
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