People in and out of our lives. The phrase evokes an image of a lone wanderer who blows into town one dusty summer’s day and regales you with tales of a land beyond the borders. Then one day you wake up and he’s gone. Leaving you with a dream of new horizons and a fresh view of the world.
There have been a handful of people who have had significant impact on my life in terms of changing my perspective and thinking. They passed by my way for only a season, then off they went. In and out of my life. But what an impression they left.
Of the five people in this series, only one has made significant repeat performances. Each appearance has altered my perspective of myself and the society I live in.
I first saw Najah in Adelaide, at the 1997 annual conference of the National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia. Quite a mouthful, the NLC is the national representative body for international students in Australia. I attended the conference as Education Officer for the International Student Committee from the University of Tasmania. Najah was the incumbent NLC Education Officer.
The image of her standing with the rest of the office bearers at the head of the packed hall still springs to mind each time I think of that first meeting. She was wearing something red…can’t recall if it was a scarf, top or jacket. Man, that was a nice jacket. -- Errata: apparently it was a very red sweater.
This is not nice at all to admit, but it’s got to be said. Up until recently, I never had Malay friends. Classmates, acquaintances and colleagues don’t count. My parents, being of the generation that got spooked by May 13, are not the kind of people who would throw confetti if their children decided to produce Bangsa Malaysia. Then there’s that little thing called NEP. Well. Suffice to say, I had the typical Malaysian Chinese mindset when it comes to viewing the Malays. It was Us vs Them.
Community Service Announcement: Ignorance and Prejudice are evil. Kids, don’t try them at home. Or at all.
Right up to university, I continued to passively ingrain this ugly mindset. How not to, when one of my classmates, squandered a large part of his scholarship funds on a big bad motorcycle, poor grades notwithstanding. Don’t get me wrong though, I didn’t actively shun Malays. What I’m really guilty of is to have had no particular regard, whether good or bad, for them.
Till I met Najah.
I remember being absolutely riveted by this woman. Her command of English, intelligence, articulation, poise and confidence blew me away. At the age of 23, hailing from a small town and attending a university that had a tiny Asian student population, I had never before met an Asian student with as much charisma and intellectual intensity. Groupie Alert!! :) After posing a question at the Q&A session to the then Federal Education, Amanda Vanstone, I caught myself wondering if I’d have sounded like a try-hard ignoramus to Najah. It was my first foray into student activism after all.
Talking to her for the first time was an eye-opener for me. She used to wear the tudung but had to make the wrenching decision to go without it because of the stereotypical presumptions the Aussies (or was it the Americans? I forget the details of this story, so correct me if I totally defame you here) made from it. Similar assumptions were made when people discover that she’s a Petronas scholar.
Ignorance and Prejudice are the most effective ear-plugs ever invented. Too many people, sometimes including – regretfully – myself, look at a woman in tudung and automatically assume that she’s as empty-headed as an inverted shuttlecock. We immediately decide that she'd have nothing worth listening to. I don’t even need to state what judgements are passed by too many non-Malays in a first encounter with a local or scholarship-funded overseas Malay graduate. You know.
How easily we judge the book by its cover. How readily we take as gospel the negative reviews of a particular genre. How easily we generalise.
How shamefully insular I had been.
I concluded from our first meeting in 1997 that she would be someone to watch in Malaysia’s future. In the aftermath of this country’s 1998 political crisis, her name popped in my head out of the blue and I was prompted to do what every good little stickybeak would. I googled her.
Wow.
She was being hailed as one of the reform movement’s many unsung heroes. At the risk of her own financial and personal security, she had been instrumental in preventing a peaceful protest from being hijacked and degenerated into yet another street battle. Given that I can no longer find any record of this incident on the internet, I won’t go into the details of what she did. Suffice to say, my esteem for her grew by the bucketful.
At a time when my own political consciousness began its slide (irretrievably, in hindsight) into cynicism and apathy, Najah opened my eyes - yet again - to how one’s intellectual compass and integrity can be preserved, despite the morass of inanity into which the politics of the day had plunged the country.
I contacted her, we met up, she talked about starting some kind of Malaysian encyclopedia. Er..ok. -- Errata: not encyclopedia, but a political commentary online journal thingy - sorry najah, I tertutup my YM screen too early.
Fast forward to 2004. In a fit of rebellion against my ex-boss, her Royal High-Hairness, I decided that as long as I had to suffer her presence in the office, our dial-up connection should be dialed-up at all times. Take that, cheapskate. Again, I googled Najah.
Behold, the world of blogging.
Her Malaysiana Digests (talk about follow through) site is no longer freely available online. Pity. It was really good. Her current one (link on my sidebar) is as distinctly different as a digest is to an annotation. Perhaps it charts the transition of a person from different places in one’s life, synchronising with changing priorities.
I have learnt much from my mostly passive observation of her blogging history. Clarity of articulation. Dealing with criticism. Choosing one’s battles.
I am a snob most of the time with regard to the English language. Sometimes to extent of arrogance (example: I deliberately turned up a half-hour late for the English paper during a school exam, confident that I would still be done early). Bad grammar, unless deliberate, and wrong usage of words chafe me like fingernails on a blackboard.
For someone like that, this blog could very easily have been written in a grammatically correct and eloquent (I did already admit to arrogance) style. But I would have bored myself to death and my friends would be complaining that it’s too cheem. “Deep” lah. It would also not reflect the way I generally speak when not required to be formal.
Malaysiana Digests led me to discover the gem that is Dina Zaman, another of my blog inspirations. Refreshingly real and belly-achingly funny, her blog was the first one I followed with the zeal of a stalker. It’s gone now. A sad day it was when Little Ms. D said goodbye on Gongkapas Times. Its informal tone greatly influenced my indulgence in a more relaxed, katun-style of writing.
Reading GK Times was like listening in on Dina talking to her friends. English peppered with Malay, and vice-versa. So real, so honest. No translations required. It was a peek into the mind and heart of a witty, clumsy, smart and passionate Malaysian woman. I was enthralled.
It’s funny how things can come full circle round. When I first met Najah, I had a pretty insular outlook. Each time she breezed in and out of my life, my horizons expanded. Today, the two biggest influences on my Internet expression are Malays. I am truly humbled and grateful for it.
Najah remains the most impressive Malaysian I’ve met.
*****
POSTSCRIPT
Stupid spam. All 200+ worth of spam comments. Can't edit to delete, so will have to resort to publishing the legit comments here in the body.
Comments
snowdrop(7/29/2005)
yay to the return of the People series!
i'm always very kagum with people like these... it's so rare that one meets someone driven only by pure altruistic motives. in fact, it's so rare that one meets someone driven.
and phew to the more relaxed style of writing - not that formal writing is bad, but this is just so much more like real-life speak. or is that just a reflection of the low quality of our speech..
Jay (7/29/2005)
I'd just started reading Dina's blog when she took it down. :(
"Najah remains the most impressive Malaysian I've met."
What the...! Oh wait, yeah, you've never met me. That's alright then. :-p
-vows to run everything through spell- and grammar-checker before posting in case English-language snob Spot drops by-
Derek (7/30/2005)
Yay from me too on the return of the people series.
I don't suppose it has anything to do with the conversation we had on Wednesday? Heh ...
As for me, I also do not hold particular regard, whether good or bad, for them.
Oh, as for the previous deleted post, have to lar, since "wrong usage of words chafe me like fingernails on a blackboard."
;P
Wandernut (7/31/2005)
"Too many people, sometimes including regretfully myself, look at a woman in tudung and automatically assume that she's as empty-headed as an inverted shuttlecock."
I'll be honest now. I'm one of them. Especially those who drive like they don't know where they're going(left signal lights when they're turning right), those who hog right lanes and those who work in government offices. Shuttlecocks, exactly how I would describe them.
And I know of someone whose father drives a Porche (among other cars) but got a bumi scholarship to study in London. Disgusting.
But I do have several Malays I'm happy to call 'friends'. They probably won't inspire future Nobel Prize laureates, but they are some of the most unpresumptuous, sincere people I know.
Hey, I was at the NLCAC of 1999, representing Charles Sturt University (in God-forsaken Bathurst). It was held in UNSW, Sydney that year. Quite an eye-opener.
Spot (8/01/2005)
snowie - i think our particular brand of speech is of a particularly low level! sooner or later i'm actually going to say surprai and embress in public. heehee.
hypocrite = me. :)
jay - imagine if we did meet, you'd get a whole "People" post dedicated to you! For now, it'll just have to be "Jay has great hair!".
derek - no, just timely. i'm trying to intersperse the nonsense with navel-gazing posts so that i can cultivate an emo image. hyuk.
better to be neutral than to have stereotypical regard.
wandernut - it's those very generalisations that i'm saying we must avoid. after all, every race is as guilty of having bad drivers. as for civil servants, so happens that they do make up the majority, hence this particular generalisation is very easy to make. i've definitely come across some pretty dismal chinese and indian civil servants too, so how to say? sigh.
it's tough, trying to be a better person. but we have to.
People! IGNORE my smarmy English teacher crap! I am an arrogant hypocrite! Sob!
Najah (8/01/2005)
*gasp*
Errr...??
I've been gone only 3 days and I come back to this???
By the way, didn't realise you knew about my 'reformasi' fiasco. Let's not speak of it now that I'm in the land of no civil liberties... ;-)
Asm@di (8/01/2005)
Gulp, English teacher is in the house
:P
Spot, you're not the only one guilty of that racist misconception. I used to be like that as well. But you know what? The more I spend time to know people of other races, to listen to their stories, I find that essentially we are the same, with our own sets of problems and woes and bad habits, regardless of culture and background.
Now I treat people as people, regardless of race and it feels good.Less rotten potatoes to carry around.
Spot (8/01/2005)
najah - heh. you're welcome. ;) have put in the errata already. yeah, i didn't think that the specifics of that little adventure should be dusted off, particularly where you are now. good luck on this new chapter!
asmadi - *looks around for the rotan* drop those potatoes, girl! :D
Shryh (8/05/2005)
When I returned to Malaysia after studying in the States, I fell into a funk. Then I discovered the Malaysiana Digests and the Gongkapas Times, and I began to feel much, much better about being home...
... though I left for East Asia months later. >)
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