Ruminations on Heritage 4: Why I Want to Visit Taiwan

A friend just asked what I thought of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. My reply was succinct:

‘Of course she should have gone. F*** the Communist Party.’

I haven’t always been so clear. For years, I felt a misplaced sense of loyalty towards China, a sentiment that trickled in by osmosis from the adults around me. My father, especially, believes all things Chinese to be superior. This, despite the fact that he was born and raised in Malaysia, lives in the US and has only visited China once.

He is far from alone. Whenever I point out inconvenient truths, many relatives and friends of Malaysian-Chinese descent choose to remain silent.

Take the issue of sexism. My paternal grandparents were immigrants to Malaysia from China, where the idea that you need to have a boy-child is so ingrained that after three girls in a row, they became desperate. They gave away the third girl in the belief that a sacrifice was needed. The gods had to be appeased, and along came my father. His parents did not seem to care who they gave their daughter to – she ended up in an impoverished family living a life I can scarcely imagine. All because she was a girl.

Such behaviour is just plain illogical.

Yet, even the most Westernised of my family members prefer to overlook this. They revert instead to talking about the awful things that happen to girls and women elsewhere, as if a thousand other wrongs make a right.

Or they say, ‘Ah, but things have changed.’

Indeed, there are now tens of millions more ‘missing Chinese women’ – the girl babies who were abandoned, given away or simply murdered (see chart below from a BBC article) when the one-child policy came into force. Disparities usually become less acute as a country gets wealthier. Not so in China: the richer China grew, the more distorted its gender ratio became – a first on our planet. 

The men on the Central Politburo’s Standing Committee must have been delighted. More boys! This Standing Committee is a subset of the Communist Party’s Central Politburo and comprises just seven members – an elite amongst the elite. China’s Standing Committee has never had a woman. Not one since 1949: you can see the dour male faces for yourself by clicking individually on the links.

In Party hierarchy the Standing Committee is all-powerful; who would dare accuse any of them of sexual impropriety? Only a tennis star, it seems: Peng Shuai, and look what happened to her. Corralled, censored, silenced and now missing. The man she accused was a member of the Standing Committee from 2012 to 2017. No wonder she’s gone from the public eye.

Taiwan, with which I started, is an altogether different country. This series of islands located off China’s south eastern coast has been self-governing since 1949. Taiwan has evolved into a functioning democracy with genuinely contested elections. It allows dissent. Governments change. It has passed progressive laws. As mentioned previously, if I so chose, I could marry my girlfriend there legally.

Where Taiwan Lies

For years, friends who have been to Taiwan have extolled its scenic beauty and its food, especially the Japanese cuisine I adore. Taiwan used to be a Japanese colony – amazing Japanese food this is among the legacies.

In past decades, a distinct Taiwanese identity has also  emerged. A growing number of its citizens apparently don’t regard themselves as Chinese but as purely Taiwanese, an identity

not based on race or blood but… on the sentiments that we are a country with democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law, and we can participate in the political decision-making.

There is something to learn from them. Heritage is an anchor, but heritage should not shackle us. It must surely be possible for us as Asians to be proud and at the same time, critical. If we can’t criticise, how will anything improve? We may even need to reject aspects of our heritage en-route to forging something new.

Of course, sentiments like these can only be expressed by people who live in countries where freedom is enshrined.

Taiwan is no renegade province owned by mainland China. It’s a separate, independent and very real country, one we should all visit – and not because Nancy Pelosi went.

Part 5 to follow

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Ruminations on Heritage 3: It’s Just Not Asian!

When I first came out as gay, my parents blamed England. If only they had not sent me to boarding school, ‘this’ would not have happened. It’s just not Asian!

I never asked which part wasn’t Asian. Did they mean:   

  • Being attracted to someone of the same sex?
  • Telling a fundamental truth that made others uncomfortable?
  • Daring to think outside the box?    

This took place in the mid-1980s. It would be tempting to believe that the whole world has changed since.

The map below shows the countries (in red) in which homosexuality remains illegal. There’s a very large mass of grey – not the case before – so, indeed, there has been progress. But we are nowhere near an egalitarian utopia. The Russian Federation, for instance, is hardly an oasis. Neither is China.

Source: Human Dignity Trust

Earlier this year, mainland censors erased a lesbian plot-line from the sitcom ‘Friends’. No lesbians for the mainland! Just what is the Communist Party so afraid of? Obviously, merely hearing about lesbians on TV could give Chinese women ideas. Hardly a vote of confidence in their men.

One of the other countries in red is Malaysia. It has a Muslim majority and homosexuality is illegal. I still have relatives there, one of whom is gay. He isn’t a Muslim. He has lived in Malaysia all his life. He has also been in the closet his entire life.

An early memory I have is of waking one morning to be told that this particular relation had been in a terrible road accident. When I saw the photographs, I was shocked. To describe his car as a wreck would be an understatement – it was crushed. If you looked at photos alone, you would have assumed its occupant well dead.

Apparently, the accident was his fault. My relative had come out of a junction and was hit by a bus (if my recollection serves me right). Everyone was amazed he survived the catastrophe. At the same time, they could not fathom what he was doing in that part of town. I remember the adults around me shaking their heads, asking repeatedly: what was he doing there at that hour?

Years later, he told me. He had been meeting a man.

The revelation brought lightning clarity. Disjointed memories fell into place. Finally, I understood. I felt like Archimedes with his Eureka moment. When my relative swung his car out of that junction, his mind was occupied.

Obviously, such an accident could have happened anywhere. But if this relation of mine had been able to meet a man the same way he was encouraged to date women, he is unlikely to have been skulking off to a clandestine encounter in the early hours of dawn.

I have a gay cousin who did the same: he went around surreptitiously – until his parents accused him of being a drug addict! It took a dramatic argument for him to come clean with them. That story, at least, has a good ending. My cousin lives happily with his partner and has done so for years.

Not the case of my car-crash relative, whose sexual orientation is an open secret. Granted, he is loved by the family. This makes him fortunate. Nonetheless, can you imagine the amount of sniggering he has had to endure, what it must be like living within a culture where you’re asked ‘Are you married?’ within minutes of meeting someone?

As we celebrate Pride month, I thought it time to shine a light into the closet. It looks to me like a dank, dark place. I can’t imagine living in it, or how great the mental toll must be.

I’ve often heard that ‘we in Asia have our own way of doing things’ – we don’t need to talk about them. Some people believe there are things better left unsaid. No doubt they also think I should not be writing this blog-post. But ‘ways of doing things’ evolve. Chinese women used to bind their feet: should we return to that practice? Of course not – no culture is beyond universal human values. If we find it hard to say the word ‘gay’, it’s because we still associate shame with gayness. The dictum ‘we have our own way of doing things’ is no more than a convenient cover. It allows uncomfortable topics to be avoided.

Fortunately, some changes have come; in Asia, Taiwan has led the way. The island nation legalised same-sex marriage on 17 May, 2019. Contrast that with China’s censorship of the Friends’ sit-com lesbian plot-line. Taiwan’s marriage equality is one of many reasons why it is not China – and whether Taiwan belongs with the mainland is, in my view, debatable.

All those years ago when my parents blamed England, they had a point. England did not make me gay, obviously, but it has given me a confidence, freedom and happiness I would not have enjoyed otherwise. Here I can live openly without having to hide; here I stand without fear, knowing that I am protected by law.

This freedom is indescribably precious. In a poignant moment a few years ago, my ex-wife and I welcomed a visitor from Dagestan. When he realised that he was the guest of two women who were married to each other, he was in awe. Without any hesitation whatsoever he proclaimed:

‘Today I have met people who truly are free.’

Part 4 to follow

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Ruminations On Heritage 2: What A Truly Multicultural Democracy Looks Like

My country of origin, Malaysia, loves selling itself as the multicultural haven that it really isn’t. My adopted land, on the other hand, just gets on with it. England is showing the world what a truly multiracial, multicultural democracy looks like.

At the start of the pandemic, we were treated to daily press briefings. The first session was hosted by the Prime Minister and his medical advisors. Thereafter, other Cabinet members presented briefings.

The parade of Secretaries and Ministers is evidence of just how far Britain has come. By now you will likely have heard of Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Priti Patel, the Home Secretary. Both are descendants of first-generation Indian immigrants from East Africa. The former Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi, who was tasked with rolling out the UK’s very successful vaccines programme, is himself a first-generation immigrant. Here he is giving one of those briefings. Zahawi is now the Education Secretary.

In England, politicians from ethnic minority groups aren’t just relegated to the side-lines, the way they are in Malaysia. Below are a few of England’s current Cabinet members.

Health Secretary: Sajid Javid;

Business Secretary: Kwasi Kwarteng;

COP26 President: Alok Sharma

In ‘Malaysia, Truly Asia’, there is virtually no ethnic diversity within a government that continues to be dominated by race-based political parties. By ‘race-based political party’, I mean a political party run along sectarian lines which admits full members from only one particular racial group.

Yes, you read that right. This may be 2022, but you still have to be Malay (or bumiputera) to be a full member of the ruling United Malays’ National Organisation (UMNO). In principle I am allowed to join, but only as part of an associated group following orders (as per Clauses 4.1.2 and 4.3 of UMNO’s Constitution). Unwanted, unwelcome, second-class: the same way I’d be treated if I lived in Malaysia.

Excerpt from UMNO’s Constitution

There is also that damp squib known as the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), which supposedly represents Chinese interests. Not to be outdone, Indians have the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC).

The idea that you need to be a certain race to gain full membership of anything should be illegal. It has no place in today’s world. But race (and religion) are expedient tools for power. And the politics they nurture thrives on a self-fulfilling loop of tribalism. Nastiness is repeated ad infinitum, the audience become inured and tribalism ends up infecting a nation.

I discovered this when Sajid Javid was named Home Secretary in 2018. My phone pinged with messages. Some Malaysian family members were worried. ‘You now have a Muslim Home Secretary! London’s mayor is also a Muslim!’

Yes, and???

It transpired that a tonne of What’sApp videos were doing the rounds. One listed the British cities with Muslim mayors (hundreds, apparently). Another video purported to show a road somewhere in England being taken over by Muslim men bowed in Friday prayer. Yet another displayed Buckingham Palace. The Palace, it seemed, was going to be turned into a mosque. I wonder if someone has told Her Majesty. She is celebrating an unprecedented seventieth year as monarch and may have other plans for her home.

A few salient points are in order. First of all, a politician like Sajid Javid reached his position on merit – he was not favoured by positive discrimination. Secondly, he is a member of the Conservative Party which, whether or not you like it, is fully open to all races and faiths. Thirdly, he serves all Britons, not just British Muslims.

When a group of Asian male paedophiles was convicted of grooming white girls in Huddersfield for sex, Javid was brave enough to call a spade a spade. He described the men as ‘sick Asian paedophiles’ and commissioned research to investigate cultural connections. Here’s an excerpt of his comments:

…the sad truth is that if you look at recent high-profile convictions of gang-based child sexual exploitation, there is a majority of people that come from Pakistani heritage backgrounds – that’s plain for everyone to see. What I’ve said is that we, in trying to deal with this, trying to turn this round, we must look at all factors and we must not be too sensitive and shy away or be oversensitive.”

Spot on.

What Javid said and the way he said it is one of the fruits of freedom. Real democracy is sometimes messy. But after the storm comes sunshine. You are able to look at your own culture with clearer eyes. You can speak hard truths without feeling defensive.

Part 3 to follow.

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Ruminations on Heritage 1: The Price of Freedom

Who we are, what we believe in and the values we stand for have never been more important. What would you do if a regime you strongly opposed appeared on your doorstep?

I have long asked myself that question. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this is no longer a moot point.

I visited Ukraine three times in 2014 in the months after Crimea was annexed. My now ex-wife is of both Russian and Ukrainian origin and has friends in Kyiv, which we visited. We also went to Lviv. Both are charming cities. To me, Kyiv seemed more Soviet and therefore exotic, whereas Lviv, which is close to the Polish border, (see map below from nationsonline.org) reminded me of Vienna: beautiful yet familiar.

Everyone we spoke to in Ukraine shared the same aspirations. They were fed up of corruption and proud of how they had overthrown a leader who had done Moscow’s bidding.  Our Kyiv friends showed us the square where thousands had congregated for weeks in freezing conditions, protected against bullets by the stacks of tyres they put up. They saw Ukraine’s future firmly in Europe. They did not wish to be part of some reformulated Russian empire – the shackles of which they had worked so hard to throw off.

Tyres Left in Maidan, Square in Kyiv

Till then, I had known little about Russian colonisation. (NB Technically, it was Soviet colonisation.) I heard many stories on those trips, and one was so harrowing that I could not get it out of my head. I had to write about it. What emerged was flash fiction – a very short piece. Masha’s Burning Memory was included in the UK’s National Flash Fiction Day’s 2014 anthology, ‘Eating My Words‘. Our friend Olga, who had related the story, cried when she read it.

The real event on which her tale was based took place in 1933, during what is known as Holodomor or the Great Hunger. Lest we forget the past, there is a museum in Kyiv dedicated to its memory. Remarkably, Kyiv’s Holodomor Museum continued putting up defiant updates in the midst of continuous bombardment. For a full and exhaustive account of Holodomor, I recommend the book Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. It doesn’t make for easy reading, though; I haven’t been able to finish it in two years.

Church I Visited in 2014

Who knows what will be left of the church above? When I compare Russia’s subjugation of Ukraine with Britain’s colonisation of Malaya, I realise we got off very lightly. Indeed, Russia makes our British colonial masters seem positively benevolent. No wonder Ukrainians are fighting so hard.

But there is more to Ukrainian resistance than mere political self-determination. What they want is simple: freedom.

A cliché, I know, and like many clichés, buried within is a kernel of truth. I get this.

I have experienced a type of freedom in the West which I have not found elsewhere. The freedom of opportunity, freedom to fully express myself and explore, the freedom to choose.

I come from a country where little of the above exists and I cherish my freedoms. (Now that it has become common to count your freedoms, I have also begun using the plural). Alas, too many of my Western friends take their freedoms for granted. They have not known ‘un-freedom’.

Part 2 to follow.

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The Long Crawl

I sincerely hope this blog-post find you healthy, fit and sane. If 2021 were on offer as a free trial, I would end mine right now.

Thankfully, there are glimmers of hope. Vaccines are on their way.

I can hardly wait. Yet in recent days I have found myself having conversations I never expected. Family and friends often disagree with me, but I did not expect to have to convince them about vaccines. Here are some of what I’ve heard:

This virus is so new!

‘I don’t know what’s in the vaccine.

‘The vaccine might make me ill.

‘Vaccines can be dangerous.

‘I’m not sick and I may not get Covid-19, why should I get vaccinated?

Well! Where to start?

Look, I’m no expert – my Ph.D. is in Theoretical Physics, not Epidemiology. But I do understand scientific principles and I can parse statistics. In 1999 when I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, I learned everything I could about my particular type of tumour and grilled the surgeon. I mean, he was about to drill into my skull; you’d want to know exactly what he was going to do, wouldn’t you?

The more I learned, the clearer it became that the benefits of surgery far outweighed the risks. To be honest, I did not have a choice. I’m fully aware that if it weren’t for Western medical technology, I would have died. So I guess that would make me a little biased.

With that little disclaimer out of the way, let me start with the statement:

‘This virus is so new!’

It’s true this virus is new, but coronaviruses as a group are not. This is important: it means that researchers have been studying viruses similar to the one causing Covid-19 for many years. The vaccines on the block were not just invented in the last nine months.

For instance, you’ve heard of SARS, right? The letters stand for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, better known as avian flu. SARS also originated in China and was caused by a type of coronavirus. That was way back in 2003. Then came MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (camel flu), caused by yet another coronavirus. The point is that research into these kinds of viruses has been taking place for decades. And some of that accumulated knowledge has gone into the vaccines being produced.

‘I don’t know what’s in the vaccine.’

The good news is that if you really wanted to know, you could find out. Here are some of the contents of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that was approved in the UK on 2 December 2020: mRNA and lipids, including 4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis (ALC-3015). Gobbledygook to me, but great if it helps you.

On the other hand, I found that reminding myself how vaccines actually work was reassuring. Which brings me to

‘The vaccine might make me ill.’

Ironically, if you do feel ill after vaccination, that’s a sign your body is reacting the way it should.

Here’s the basic idea: your body is injected with a small amount of the virus against which you are going to be inoculated, so that it starts creating the antibodies you need.

The diagram above is taken from the British Society of Immunology’s website and is the best I’ve found to summarise the vaccination process.

So let’s say we want to inoculate you against polio. When you’re injected with a small amount of the polio virus, the antibody production process is kick-started. If your body were subsequently invaded by polio, it would already have been primed for battle.

The concept behind vaccination is incredibly simple. It’s not new. And if vaccination did not work, diseases like polio would not have been largely eradicated in the world.

But the idea of injecting a virus into your body, albeit in a controlled fashion, could sound like voodoo. This may be why the following notion has gained currency:

‘Vaccines can be dangerous.’

In this context I cannot ignore the efforts of a disgraced doctor called Andrew Wakefield. This guy falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. To my knowledge no one ever managed to replicate his results.

This last point is crucial. A fundamental principle of experimental science is that an experiment must be repeatable. No other professional scientist ever replicated Wakefield’s results, which means his results have never been tested. There is no credible evidence of the link he claimed. Wakefield was stripped of his medical licence.

Yet this did not prevent MMR vaccination rates from plummeting (and incidence rates from rising). Infamy has not stopped Wakefield from becoming a cause célèbre in fact-free zones on the Internet. And we know how many such zones there are. Some people even believe that Covid-19 is a hoax created by governments to lock us up.

Anti-vaccine and anti-masking demonstrations have taken place all the way from London to Spokane in Washington State, on the West Coast of the USA. Half the population of France on BFMTV have said they would either not take the vaccine or accept it only reluctantly.

All of the above worries me. Ignorance is far more dangerous than any vaccine could be. Thanks to social media, opinions proliferate, and people seem to believe they can hold opinions about absolutely anything, even ‘facts’. In the Cambridge Dictionary a fact is

something that is known to have happened or to existespecially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information.

Here’s a fact: the Earth is round. In olden times people did not believe this – they thought that if they travelled far enough, they’d fall off the edge.

But we have now seen Earth from space. There are photographs to prove it. The one below (famously known as the Blue Marble) was taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. Are you still allowed an opinion on whether the Earth is round?

I suppose you don’t have to believe the evidence. Those of us fortunate enough to live in properly-functioning democracies have the freedom to choose our beliefs.

With freedom comes responsibility. Our beliefs have consequences. So let me come to

‘I’m not sick and I may not get Covid-19, why should I get vaccinated?

Because there is no guarantee that you won’t get sick. If you’re offered the vaccine but refuse it and you then get sick, who should pay for your medical care?

Vaccines alone are not cast-iron guarantees. There’s still a small chance you may not be protected. In addition, vaccines aren’t suitable for everyone. And those of us who are vaccinated could still be carriers. We would need to remain vigilant.

But vaccines represent our best hope. They are the first step in our long crawl back to normality. I, for one, am holding my breath.

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Good Things Come Out of Bad

Crisis forges character. Facing adversity changes us. Sometimes we rise to the occasion and get stronger, other times life overwhelms us; either way, we do not stay the same.

On March 20 2020 when Boris Johnson announced the closure of pubs, restaurants and gyms, life took a surreal turn, just as it did when I was diagnosed with a brain tumour many years prior. Circumstances were different, yet in some ways also the same. There were things beyond my control, but I had a choice in how I reacted.

My tumour was a haemangioblastoma: non-malignant, innocuous even. It was no more than a kidney-shaped bean inside my cerebellum, the lower half of the brain where motor functions reside. The tumour did not and would not have spread, but it caused a cyst – a bubble of liquid – to form around it. The cyst grew. By the time I saw a neurosurgeon, the bubble filled a third of my cerebellum. That’s how I knew it was there: the cyst had begun impinging on my brainstem.

I spent a weekend wishing I were in a dream, that the person who was me was actually someone else. And then I sprang into action. The moment I took charge – to the extent I could – marked the start of my recovery.

This experience was a test run for the future, except I did not know it. I made limited changes to my life.

Ten years later, almost to the day of my brain tumour diagnosis, I faced death again. This time I had cancer, breast cancer, which is relatively common. Still, there is no way to sugar-coat the moment I heard the news. Cancer was something that happened to others; I honestly did not think it would happen to me.

Good things eventually come out of bad. While stuck in a post-chemo depression, I started writing. It was an act of desperation: I never imagined I would emerge profoundly changed and happier, living life with passion.

Good things will also come out of COVID-19, even if we can’t see them all yet. Some positives are already obvious. There’s less pollution, for one thing. And Britain is enjoying a renewed sense of unity. Brexit broke this country; it has taken a virus to remind us that we have more in common than we have differences. That alone is amazing.

On a personal note, this pandemic has helped me resolve key issues around my identity. During the first week of Britain’s lockdown, when Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, put out a call for 250,000 volunteers to help the National Health Service (NHS) I registered at once. I did not even need to think.

My place is here. Finally I know where home is.

I no longer feel torn. Between Britain, where I’ve lived most of my life, Malaysia, which remains in my dreams, and America, where I have family, friends and a literary agent. Thanks to a virus that emerged – ironically – from the land some of my ancestors came from, I understand what it means to be home. Isn’t that extraordinary?

I am exactly where I should be. To know that is a blessing.

The past two Thursdays, cheers rang out along the United Kingdom’s many streets for the key workers of this country: those in the NHS, in social care, in pharmacies, supermarkets and schools (now online). We saluted them right across the country. The moments were so poignant that I cried. I clapped, too, and for good measure, banged on a pot. The entire street was out. A neighbour blew a short tune on the saxophone.

This scourge afflicting us will be defeated. We will come out the other side. When we emerge, what will we see of ourselves?

I want to be able to look back and know that I acted as courageously, thoughtfully and compassionately as I could have. I want to know that I reached out where I could, gave comfort when I could, did all that I could to help.

Some of these same sentiments were summarised by New York State’s Governor, Andrew Cuomo, whose daily briefings have become must-watch events in an America clamouring for intelligent leadership. Here are a few of his words:

‘Ten years from now you’ll be talking about today to your children or your grandchildren, and you’ll shed a tear because you will remember the lives lost, and you’ll remember the faces and you’ll remember their names and you’ll remember how hard we worked and that we still lost loved ones. And you’ll shed a tear and you should because it will be sad, but you will also be proud. You’ll be proud of what you did. You’ll be proud that you showed up.’

It’s not for me to prescribe what anyone else should do. For myself, I know how tenuous life is; to squander this opportunity would be unforgivable. That is why I’m showing up.

But I’m also keeping well and trying to stay sane. Please do the same. Keep well, stay safe. We will get through this.

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Thank You, Britain

I’m aware that I’ve been away from this blog for a while. Rest assured, I’ve been busy. Some folks, I know, are expecting news about my next book. I hope to be able to tell you more in the coming year. For the moment I’d like to come out on this blog, this time as a Brexit supporter. A friend warned me, ‘Be careful. You don’t want to alienate anyone.’

Extreme polarization is one of the challenges of our time. As a country, we used to be able to disagree with one another and remain civil, but in recent years discourse has turned toxic. Attitudes have hardened. ‘You’re wrong! I’m right.’ That’s very much the prevailing tone. I sincerely hope that readers of this blog will allow more subtlety than that.

I don’t intend to explain why I voted the way I did. It was a gut-wrenching decision, one which I took very seriously, not least because we were told it would be a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ vote.

I discussed the issues with friends from whom I thought I might get insights not otherwise available, including a senior peer in the House of Lords. I made sure I listened to both sides of the argument. This wasn’t easy, since most of the people I know wanted the UK to Remain within the EU.

Days before the Referendum on 23 June, 2016, I grabbed two sheets of paper. One sheet was for Remain, the second for Leave. I drew a line down the middle of each sheet and listed arguments in favour of Leaving and the arguments in favour of Remaining. Pros and cons, in other words, pros on the left and cons on the right.

It appears that Boris Johnson did the same in even greater detail, going so far as to write an entire pro-Remain article. The existence of such an article is supposedly evidence of his being a two-faced so-and-so. You can criticise the guy for many things; on this point, however, he was doing no more than what writers often do: playing around with points of view. I did it because I could not see how else I would reach a decision. I took one side of the argument, slept with it for a night or two and then took the other side of the argument and slept with that, too.

My doubts persisted to the very end. Nonetheless, I think that listing those bullet points was a worthwhile exercise. There’s always more than one side to any story, and if we are to heal as a nation, we’ve got to be able to see the other side, too.

Since the Referendum result, it has been scary coming out as a Leave supporter. In fact, I would go so far as to say that coming out as a Brexiter has been scarier than coming out as gay. I was naïve the first time. I was at a cocktail party in a staunchly Remain household and could literally feel the hackles rising. I thought I’d get beaten up. After that, I kept my mouth shut.

Leave voters have been stereotyped as stupid, ignorant, racist, xenophobic, little Englanders. I’m none of those things. This absurdly simplistic depiction gained traction across the pond, too. A snippet in the New Yorker magazine from September celebrated a Lebanese street artist who came to Clerkenwell, London, to create graffiti. She sprayed ‘No to Brexit!’ and ‘No to borders!’ on a wall, as if wishing to Leave the EU is tantamount to withdrawing from the world (and as if the benefits of wholly porous borders are self-evident).

Implicit in the popular narrative is the unspoken juxtaposition of good, black or brown immigrants on one side, against bigoted, racist white natives on the other. Ergo, I the underdog immigrant, am necessarily in the right, whereas you, if you’re a native white Brit are presumed to be bigoted, especially if you have the audacity to question immigration policy (as Labour supporter Gillian Duffy did with Gordon Brown in 2010).

Reality is more nuanced. I have lived far longer in England than I ever did in my native Malaysia, and I reject the above caricatures. 17.4 million people – 52% of Referendum voters  – chose to leave the EU. The majority of this country is not racist. On the contrary, I have found England to be an incredibly tolerant, open place.

Have I faced racism? Of course. But those incidents pale in comparison with the overwhelming kindness and generosity I’ve also encountered. Moreover, racism is a two-way street. Immigrants are racist, too (and that’s before we even get to their sexism and homophobia).

Some may say that I’m blaming immigrants. I’m not, though how we behave matters. If we don’t bother integrating, acceptance becomes harder. Let’s take language. Most immigrants speak English, yes, but many do so rather poorly; some, after years, continue making basic errors. I find this wholly unacceptable. We have obligations as immigrants, the most basic being to learn the language of our host nation properly.

I went to the opposite extreme. Coming from a former British colony, I already spoke English well, but I did not initially have the British accent I have now. I acquired it through conscious effort. No one needs to do that – you don’t have to sound like the Queen to be accepted. For me, though, it was an important marker of belonging.

Many people – especially my white socialist British friends – like to castigate this country as cold and selfish. Jo Swinson, who led the Liberal Democrats, Britain’s third political party, until she lost her seat last week, said after being booted out: ‘I still believe that we as a country can be warm and generous, inclusive and open’, which implies that it isn’t. I disagree. I believe Britain is already that warm and generous, inclusive and open place.

This is why so many immigrants come. If Britain is so terrible, why do you think we come, and we stay, too?

I’d like to do something that’s not often done: to take this opportunity to thank my adopted country for the wonderful chances it has given me, chances I would never have had in Malaysia.

Thanks to Britain, I was able to gain a university place fairly and squarely, with ethnicity not being a primary consideration (as it is in Malaysia) and only the strength of my brain mattering. I went into examination halls secure in the knowledge that I would not be marked down because of my race or others marked up because of theirs and that if I worked, I could achieve anything.

Thanks to Britain, I’ve been able to express political ideas and opinions without fear of official recrimination. Only those who have lived under oppression can truly understand how amazing this is.

Thanks to Britain, I know what it feels like to have my vote count. This is a priceless freedom, one which too many Westerners take for granted.

Thanks to Britain, I don’t have to lie about who I am. I can live openly with a woman, even marry her, and have this right protected by law.

Thanks to Britain, I know that profound social change for the better is possible – because I’ve participated in it, seen it and experienced it for myself.

There’s no question that England has made me the person I am today. I will always owe her a huge debt. Too often, we immigrants are quick to complain and slow to thank. In my own small way, I’d like to rectify that here. Thank you, Britain.

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Why We Still Need Gay Pride

Way back in the summer of 1985 I received a death threat. It was a Sunday evening, I was about to enter my final year at university and I happened to be alone in the house I was sharing with three other women.

There were two phone calls. The first time round, the caller was too chicken to speak. Minutes later, the phone rang again. This time we exchanged sentences. The voice on the other end was genderless: I really could not tell if it was a man or a woman.

But I do know the person was on a payphone. In those days British payphones were coin-operated and when you ran out of money, they would beep. I definitely remember the beeps. Our conversation went like this.

Me: ‘Hello.’

Caller: ‘Is this 39?’ (Referring to our house number)

Me: ‘Who’s this?’

Caller: ‘We know your type.’

Me (heart thumping): ‘Who is this? What do you want?’

Caller: ‘We don’t like your type. We’re going to bomb you out.’ Click.

That was the grand finale.

Was I terrified? You bet. There being no cell phones at the time, I dialled the number of every house I could think of in an attempt to locate my housemates. Half an hour later, we held a house meeting. We rallied others. Friends came round and stayed. Many more women of ‘our type’ passed through the doors of that house in solidarity.

The caller(s) never carried out the threat. It didn’t matter, though. Threats like these play on your mind.

While pretty much any of the women in our house could have been described as a ‘deplorable’ (to borrow Hillary Clinton’s infamous phrase), I have little doubt that the caller was targeting me. I was out of the closet even then; in fact, the previous academic year, I had served as Southampton University‘s Lesbian & Gay Officer. The threat was made because we were a household of women, one of whom – me – had dared to declare my sexual orientation in an age when most people turned pink at the mention of lesbians.

For weeks afterwards, I was wary whenever I went running. Not many people were road running in Britain then, either, which made me a well-known sight. I was living in leafy Southampton and whenever I pounded the pavements, I imagined someone jumping out from behind a tree along The Avenue and throwing a grenade in my face. I thought about all this, but I never allowed fear to stop me. If you let terrorists stop you, they win. And I was not prepared to let them win.

Last year someone said to me that sexual orientation should not be a matter of ‘pride’: it should simply be. In an ideal world that’s true. Alas, we don’t live in an ideal world. We didn’t live in one in the mid-1980s and we still don’t live in one today.

What’s been happening in Britain lately?

Two lesbians in London were brutally beaten on a bus after they refused to kiss for a gang of men. A homophobic attack, obviously, but there’s another side to this assault. For bizarre reasons, many heterosexual men get off on the idea of two women together. If you’re a man, next time you watch porn involving two women, please think about the ramifications of your consumption.

The other awful sight has been of Muslims harassing children and teachers outside a school in Birmingham. On the one hand the protesters declare that they’re not homophobic, on the other hand they don’t want their kids learning that there are – surprise surprise – children in this world who grow up with two mummies and two daddies.

There are several troubling aspects here. First, the matter should not even be up for discussion. To paraphrase Labour MP Jess Phillips, ‘You can’t cherry-pick your equality.’ Secondly, a deliberately intimidating atmosphere has been created outside a school in the guise of ‘protest’. Thirdly, the protesters don’t even have children at the school. Fourthly, the protesters freely admit they haven’t read the textbook they’re objecting to. Add a final troubling factor – how they’re being supported by some woolly-headed liberals – and you’ll understand why I chose to attend London’s Gay Pride this year.

Two Muslim Guys I Bumped Into

I’m so glad I did. The march was the biggest we’ve ever seen. There was, as always, a fantastic atmosphere. It lifted my spirits. And it helped me appreciate why Gay Pride is still needed.

For as long as our sexual orientation is an issue for someone else, Gay Pride is needed.

For as long as there are people too afraid to come out or too embarrassed to say the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’, Gay Pride is needed.

For as long as we’re beaten up and called names, Gay Pride is needed.

And it is especially needed for the sake of the children whose parents would rather we kept silent.

On Gay Pride Day we are obviously visible, we’re loud and we celebrate. People can see that we’re ordinary folk from all walks of life. (If you doubt me, click on this link for an array of dazzling Instagram pictures.) It’s sad that we still need to reinforce the message in 2019, but we do.

I went to Pride on 6 July, 2019, to stand up and be counted. For the first time in years I felt it was important to proclaim loudly and clearly: I’m gay. I’m here. I am. Amen.

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Why I Would Not Buy a Huawei Phone

I have wanted to write this blog-post for a long time. What stopped me was the work on my next novel. Plus, I had trouble unbundling  a host of conflicting views on China.

As a huaqiao (华侨), an overseas Chinese in Malaysia, I grew up with some aspects of Chinese culture, but have no ties to the mainland.

Despite my father’s best efforts, I never felt especially Chinese. I’m proud to have inherited Chinese culture, of course, with its richness and four-thousand-year history. When I watched the opening of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, my heart was full.

At the same time, China has always been a foreign country. I’ve only been there once (in 2011). It was enjoyable as a holiday, but the visit brought up a sense of disconnection. Beyond a few genes and an obsessive work ethic, I did not have much in common with the mainland Chinese.

And now, when I’m surrounded by tourists from China, I have the urge to get away. Unlike the Japanese, mainland visitors aren’t exactly known for unfailing politeness.

What worries me even more is China’s twentieth century history: the Long March from corrupt and failing feudal state to corrupt and ruthless authoritarian state.

You could say that the past is the past and what has already happened doesn’t matter. Alas, this isn’t the case. Through the historical research I did for my books, I learned first-hand how present-day Malaysia continues to be directly affected by its past.

And as long as China is intent on expanding beyond its borders, China’s past will shape our present – yours and mine – whether or not we like it.

Unfortunately, China displays many of the characteristics fictionalised in classic dystopian novels. Take ‘1984’, the famous novel by George Orwell. In ‘1984’ Britain has fallen under the rule of an authoritarian power. The ‘Party’ exerts total control over the British population through a Ministry of Truth, which writes propaganda and erases inconvenient facts. A force known as the ‘Thought Police’ persecutes anyone brave enough to challenge the Party’s views. There’s also a dreaded place called Room 101. In Room 101, your worst nightmares come true: you undergo ‘re-education’.

Unbelievable?

China has subtler versions of all the above. China’s methods are possibly even more insidious because its citizens appear to have freedom. We mustn’t be deluded, however. China has long been adept at policing ideas. And in the Internet age its censorship capabilities are second to none. The Great Firewall blocks all web sites that the Communist Party deems pesky or potentially troublesome.

Re-education camps have been given a new lease of life in Xinjiang province. The Chinese government first denied the existence of the Xinjiang camps and then, in a change of heart, gave the camps a creative euphemism. Apparently, they exist to provide ‘vocational skills and training’.

There’s also the question of missing citizens. People disappear in China, as they do in ‘1984’. The former head of Interpol – a Chinese national – is a recent victim, alongside the others on this list. And these are only the celebrities.

On June 28, 2018 the National Intelligence Law took effect in the People’s Republic.  This gives the authorities wonderfully sweeping powers. Here’s an example of what they can do: ‘monitor and investigate foreign and domestic individuals and institutions’. Talk about broad.

We finally come to Huawei (华为), the mainland Chinese telecommunications company whose phones I’m not going to be buying anytime soon. Remember the start of this post, where I said that I was a huaqiao, an overseas Chinese? Hua refers to China, and Huawei’s name means ‘acting on behalf of China’.

Huawei makes mobile phones as well as the ‘kit’ sitting in cellular networks. By ‘kit’, I’m referring to the technical gear – things like switches, routers and location registers – needed to provide the seamless experience that smartphone users today expect.

According to Wikipedia, Huawei’s revenues last year exceeded US$105 billion. Not bad for a company only founded in 1987. Huawei’s founder is an engineer. His name is Ren Zhengfei. A very clever man, obviously. And with excellent connections, too: his former employer is the People’s Liberation Army.

Huawei likes to say that it is employee-owned and independent of both the Chinese government and military. It’s certainly true that the firm is owned by its employees.

As for its vaunted independence, let’s imagine the following scenario. You are the boss of Huawei. Your company is a big player in a one-party state; in fact, Huawei is a national champion. Britain is about to upgrade its cellular networks. Huawei bids and wins a contract. Your President is delighted. He wants your team to plant special equipment into the British cellular network that your team will be working on. This is important, he tells you. For security reasons, the Chinese government needs backdoor access to Britain’s communications flows.

What do you do? Say ‘No’?

I don’t think so.

The above is a hypothetical situation I made up. I’m not saying it has happened. But can I imagine it happening? Absolutely. And by the way, the new National Intelligence Law would make it easier. This is why Australia has banned both Huawei and ZTE, another mainland company, from bidding on the next generation of cellular networks. I only wish European countries would stop pussy-footing around and do the same.

To be clear, technology provides surveillance tools for all governments. We have challenges in democratic countries, too. The big differences here are the checks and balances and open debate you’ll find in democracies. Sometimes, there’s possibly too much debate: look at Britain today. To our critics I’ll say this: yes, democracy is messy. If you want neat, go to Saudi Arabia.

The author of yet another illuminating article actually visited the Huawei campus in China. He describes being shown a map on a wall measuring 4 yards by 6 yards (roughly 3.5 by 5.5 metres). The map is of Guangdong,  a city in southern China where some of my ancestors came from. The Huawei map is dotted by thousands of lights. It must have looked like an abstract painting except, of course, the lights are not art. Each light belongs to a Huawei smartphone that is tracked 24-7 and is correlated with the phone user’s online purchases, social media posts and goodness knows what else.

The information goes to China’s Ministry of State Security. The Ministry knows where a smartphone user is at all times. It knows when the person is eating out, who the person is eating with, sleeping with and probably when they shit, too. If you criticised the Communist Party or the Chinese government online, the Ministry would certainly know.

Such information flows are being further commingled. China has installed high-resolution video cameras, at 100 metre intervals, in major cities. These Chinese video cameras have facial recognition software powered with chips from – guess who?

You got it. Huawei. Acting for China, remember?

I, for one, would not go anywhere near a Huawei phone. I don’t want Huawei or ZTE kit in our networks, either, even if it means that our next generation of mobile services will be more expensive. The risk of having any of our data unwittingly handed over to a totalitarian government with no moral compass is just not worth taking. Our freedoms and our rights, our very democracy, have been hard-won. These things are priceless. We must defend and protect them.

If all else fails, I’ll go back to a dumbphone. From Nokia.

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So You Think You Know Your Mother Tongue

Near my house in north London there’s a Belarusian church made of wood. The Belarusian St. Cyril of Turau Church is the only wooden church that has been constructed in London since the great fire of 1666. Next to the church is a double-storey house – Marian House – where the priest lives. Marian House also serves as a community centre. By now you must be scratching your head, wondering why I’m telling you any of this.

The Beautiful Church Interior

It’s because I was at the Belarusian community centre last week, at a literary event to honour mother tongues. The concept of mother tongue is incredibly important to Belarusians, whose language was widely spoken in the region until they were Polonised and then Russified by conquering Polish and Russian empires. First things first; where is Belarus? For the answer, see the map below.

Where is Belarus?

The above comes from the BBC’s country profile. Belarus is a landlocked country in northern Europe, stuck between Poland to the west and Russia to the east. In the south is Ukraine, while Latvia and Lithuania lie north. The region has a fascinating history. I’m no expert (for a summary here’s a Wikipedia link), but the point is this: Belarusians in Belarus have been discriminated against for speaking Belarusian, their mother tongue.

Language shapes perception, and when those perceptions don’t accord with what an authoritarian regime wants them to be, the solution in that part of the world has been to crack down on language. This happened under Soviet rule.

Although Belarusians are now allowed to speak Belarusian, their language suffered years of decline. Even their Nobel Prize-winning author, Svetlana Alexievich, writes in Russian. It’s thus fitting that the Belarusian centre in London should host an annual event marking UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day.

And so we gathered, on the sunny afternoon of 23 February, to read poems in our mother languages. I, for one, had to think hard about which language to read in.

The first language I ever heard was Cantonese – which isn’t really a language, it’s a Chinese dialect. My parents also speak English, Malaysian-style English (known affectionately as Manglish), and up to the age of 10, I could not make head or tail of Western accents. When I started school, a third language – Malay – was thrown into the mix. Malay was the medium of instruction for us. By the time I left for England in my teens, I spoke and wrote Malay and English fluently while also using Cantonese in daily conversation.

What, then, is my mother tongue?

When someone asked the question after my talk at the 2018 London Book Fair, I fudged. I didn’t know. I’ve never consciously thought of Cantonese as my mother tongue, in the same way that China is not my homeland. I’ve visited China only once, and I left feeling eternally grateful that my ancestors went to Malaysia. English is now my first language and I write in it, but mother tongue? My mind just couldn’t get there. I also speak and read French, which I had to learn at my British boarding school; in fact, I speak English and French now better than either Malay or Cantonese.

In the end I reverted to the comfort of Malay. I read a couple of poems. Not my own, I hasten to add. My repertoire doesn’t yet extend to poetry.

First, though, I had to introduce Malaysia. People know the country for downed jetliners (MH17 ) and corruption (1MDB), but Malaysia is so much more than that.

The Excitement of Malaysia

You can see how animated I get when I talk about Malaysia. I made no bones about the profusion of languages in my life. These comments challenged some of what the two invited Belarusian poets of distinction, Uladzimir Arlou and Valiantsina Aksak, had said. They kicked the event off with beautiful poetry in Belarusian (their own). One of them then expressed the view that a person cannot exist without a mother tongue. Given Belarusian history, I understand this perspective, even if I disagree with it. Here they are below, listening graciously.

In multicultural Malaysia, some of us exist happily with no mother tongue or with more than one. Or with a present-day mother tongue that is different to our childhood mother tongue. Or a mother tongue our ancestors never spoke.

Distinguished Poets Uladzimir Arlou and Valiancina Aksak

The poems I read come from the Malay tradition of pantun. Pantun are verses in groups of four which have both rhythm and rhyme. I used to love pantun at school. The verses are witty, amusing and evocative: real, living poetry that people use in conversation. Here’s one:

Pisang emas dibawa belayar,

Masak sebiji di atas peti,

Hutang emas boleh dibayar,

Hutang budi dibawa mati.”

(Source: Soscili)

Below is my attempt at a rough translation:

Golden bananas are carried on voyages,

One ripens on top of a chest,

Debts of gold can be repaid,

Debts of kindness are carried to the grave.

For me, the lines above distil the essence of old Malay culture, where human kindness was valued above riches. A far cry, in other words, from what Malaysia became in recent years.

Elsewhere, I have mentioned how poetic Malay is as a language; pantun conveys this so well. At the same time, a lot of the poetry reveals the gentleness inherent in Malay culture. For instance, verses can be used to give someone a telling-off (without really telling them off). The audience giggled at the idea of poetry as admonishment.

They were surprised by the absence of titles. Pantun don’t need titles because this isn’t a high-faluting verse form; on the contrary, pantun is down-to-earth poetry anyone can make up. Yet, even in the eight lines I shared, people were moved by the beauty in its cadence.

The audience must have liked my presentation – they voted to give me first prize!

The prize was none other than a bottle of what will surely be a memorable Belarusian speciality. See that number at the bottom: 40? That’s the alcohol content. I kid you not. Apparently this is medicinal alcohol, a balm, I’m told. We shall see. (In fairness, the label does declare 20 herbs.)

The Highly Alcoholic Prize!

I know that my hosts are waiting anxiously for feedback on Balzam Belaruskii. For the moment I’m afraid I must disappoint them. Each time I look at the 40%, I shake my head. I’ll have to be very sick before I dare open this bottle.

In the meantime, I would like to thank the Anglo-Belarusian Society for a great event. Special thanks to Karalina Matskevich for her energetic organisation, Father Serge Stasievich for generous hosting, Aliaksandra Bielavokaja for her photography and to everyone else who was there, too, the young as well as the not-so-young. We departed into a glorious evening and I’d like to leave readers with an uplifting view. Here’s London’s Belarusian church at night, all lit up.

London’s Belarusian St. Cyril of Turau Church at Night

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