Tag Archives: Malaysia

January 1, 2016 · 05:49

An Unexpected Discovery

A few days ago, when I told a Frenchman that I came from Malaysia, he said, ‘Ah, you have a simple language.’ It was not the first time someone had told me that s/he thought Malay “simple”. The sub-text, albeit unarticulated, was usually: “simple language, simple people”.

I felt it again with this Frenchman, a European condescension towards my Asian culture. I thought to myself: what does he even know about Malay?

Malay was a language of my childhood, one of three. My family spoke English and Cantonese at home but I was taught in Malay at school – part of the first intake of students to be educated exclusively in the Malay language in what had previously been English-medium schools.

I learned the language, but failed to appreciate its poetic beauty. This was partly because in Malaysia, Mathematics and the Sciences are more highly regarded than the Humanities, and partly because of the political context in which the switch from English to Malay took place.

It occurred in the aftermath of May 13 1969,  a day on which Malaysians of Chinese origin were targeted for slaughter at the hands of mobs of Malays in Kuala Lumpur’s streets. The killings occurred after UMNO – the political party which has ruled Malaysia since its independence from Britain in 1957 – and its allies lost the popular vote and many parliamentary seats in a general election.

The period afterwards was a time of radical change. Within about a year, Malaysia had a new Prime Minister; within two years, a raft of racially discriminatory measures was put in place. It was then that Malay was imposed as the medium of instruction in previously English-medium schools.

Language, of course, is not only a means of communication: it is also a political tool. In Malaysia certainly, language and religion are used adroitly by UMNO. UMNO understood early on the power of language. It has been uncommonly adept at choosing emotive words and at using these words to craft an insidious political narrative.

Thus I grew up hearing that I was pendatang yang tumpang sahaja di Malaysia, a newcomer who was only squatting in Malaysia. This was the backdrop in which I was taught Malay. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I never stopped to think about what a beautiful language Malay actually is. If French (which I speak) is romantic, then Malay is poetic. It was only when I started writing a novel and began filling my landscapes with characters who ran around speaking different languages that I was struck by just how poetic the Malay language is.

Take for instance the simple concept of homeland. The Malay equivalent is tanahair, literally translated as “soil (tanah) water (air)”, in other words the earth and water from which you come. I hope you will agree that the expression “my soil and water” is much more evocative than “homeland”.

Or take that well-known beast, the “orang-utan”. In truth, the latter is a bastardisation of the words orang, meaning a person, and hutan, meaning forest. Orang hutan is actually “a person of the forest”. The phrase, if you think about it, is immensely inclusive; it says, “Here is the forest, we share it with this creature which is not so different from us – a person of the forest.” For me, orang hutan captures the essence of traditional Malay culture, which was at once utterly respectful of others and very gentle towards them.

Even that wonderful political creation, the bumiputera – the prince (putera) of the earth (bumi) or son of the soil, a person who by dint of race or religion is privileged in Malaysia – has a certain ring to it. From a purely linguistic standpoint, the word bumiputera is really rather beautiful.

There are many other examples, and yet poetic beauty is not what people think of when they mention the Malay language. Instead they say what the Frenchman said to me: Malay is “simple”.

What he and others don’t seem to realise is that Malay was written using the Arabic script, a form known as Jawi, until quite recently. I discovered this for myself while carrying out research for my second novel (for which incidentally I have completed a first draft). Most of this research took place at the National Library of Singapore (whose generous opening hours of between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. allowed me ample time to work). There, shivering in the ultra-cold air-conditioning which Malaysians and Singaporeans seem to favour, I found that the Malay language newspapers I wanted to read had been published solely in the Arabic script. On further digging, I could not find a single Malay newspaper which had not been printed in Jawi up to the Second World War. I was of course unable to read any of them; the Jawi which we had been taught in school was rudimentary, because Jawi was already not in everyday use by the time I went to school.

If Malay were still written today the way it used to be – in the Arabic script – would people go around denigrating it as a simple language?

I grew up hearing and speaking Malay every day but I took the language for granted, in the same way Malaysians assume they will see the sun every day. Only recently have I rediscovered Malay. At the same time, I began to appreciate the richness of Malaysia’s multilingual environment. I can easily recall the distinctive sounds of my native country: Malay, with its elegant smoothness; the no-frills brand of Cantonese I grew up with, rough and ready, a far cry from the haughty Hong Kong version but more in tune with the go-getting entrepreneurs who spoke it loudly and merrily; and the energetic, tongue-rolling Tamil used by our Indian friends, full of indecipherable syllables at which I could only shake my head.

We in Malaysia are fortunate to have this wealth as our heritage. But I have yet to hear a Malaysian adoring any of our languages the way the French adore theirs. The French are happy to debate the intricacies of their language for hours and will happily tell you how wonderful French is. This is something I wish Malaysians could also do, starting with our national language, Bahasa Malaysia. I would love to see Malaysians not only owning Bahasa Malaysia and learning it with enthusiasm, but also acknowledging its inherent poetry and being proud of it.

 

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August 30, 2015 · 23:54

This Merdeka is Yellow…

Tomorrow, August 31, is Malaysia’s Independence (Merdeka) Day. Shortly after Merdeka Day thirty six years ago, I left Malaysia. I’ve lived away for so long now that I have spent more time in England than in my country of origin.

Yet, nothing grips me as much as major pieces of Malaysian news. Last July for example, when MH-17 was shot down over Ukraine,  I was riveted: engaged in both heart and mind, emotions veering between horror and utter disbelief, and finally anger. Hours later, when it was already clear that the plane had not crashed accidentally but had been shot down by a missile, major media networks (in three languages) changed their headlines to reflect this appalling new element.  All except for the BBC, which retained its misleading “Malaysian Plane Crashes in Ukraine” as if it had been Malaysian Airlines’ fault, as if the plane’s flight path had not been pre-cleared. I was so incensed that I wiped the BBC app off my iPhone.

This weekend, I have once again been glued to Malaysian news. A 34-hour protest has been taking place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. People were out in force – two hundred thousand according to the organisers, a mere twenty thousand by the government’s count. Most of the protesters wore yellow T shirts (hastily banned beforehand by authorities), blew into their vuvuzelas and air-horns, prayed when it was time to pray, listened to speeches and made music – all quite peacefully. Many even stayed overnight as had been planned, literally sleeping on the streets and squares of the capital. To see what it was like during the final hour of this marathon rally, see the attached link.

The protest was organised by Bersih (Clean), an organisation which is campaigning for clean, fair elections in Malaysia. This was the fourth rally organised by Bersih. At the previous demonstration before this one, an estimated quarter of a million turned up and police used teargas on the crowds.

Not surprisingly, the Malaysian government – which has a rather low tolerance of dissent – was up to its usual tricks last week. They first declared the rally to be “illegal”. When that didn’t work, the Home Minister banned yellow clothing and T shirts with the words “Bersih 4”. The authorities, knowing that a sleep-in was planned, promptly prohibited the erection of tents.

Despite these absurd obstacles, yellow T shirts abounded on KL’s streets. Demonstrators proceeded with their “sleep-over” – truly a sight to behold. Of course there have been plenty of naysayers, as there always are. People who belittle Bersih for “not going far enough”, and the protest as little more than the huff of a few well-heeled urbanites.

As the former chairperson of Bersih – the redoubtable Ambiga Sreenevasan – has pointed out, Bersih’s rallies take place despite the organisation having little money and no power and in spite of the entire machinery of government being arrayed against them. These rallies rely entirely on “the goodwill of the people”. Which is why they are remarkable: Bersih‘s rallies are tangible signs of a nascent civil society.

Street protest flies in the face of Malaysian tradition. As a nation, we prefer to avoid even the smell of conflict. We stick to safe topics, such as shopping, and of course, food! We can say a lot about food without touching on anything remotely controversial, anything that (we fear) may offend someone. If you spend your life in this “head-down, risk-free” zone, the thought of going on a march where you may be asked to hold a banner or shout and generally take a stand, is rather alien. Mahathir Mohamed, the former Prime Minister who turned up at the rally on both days, gave an interview in which he admitted that it was the first time he had joined a street protest – and he is ninety.

I only learnt about protest as a student at Southampton University in Britain. The experience was incredibly liberating. I discovered what democracy should actually be about. I found that in a truly democratic country, people were free to express legitimate political views, so long as they did not advocate violence on anyone else or infringe on the rights of others. In contrast to Malaysia, I could say what I felt without being shut down, called names or told to leave the country. I went on marches, I held placards, I became an activist. I disagreed vehemently with some people, and still managed to remain friends with them.

The whole process was thoroughly validating. Among my causes: gay rights. There were absolutely no positive gay role models then, and your boss could have fired you if s/he discovered your sexual orientation, no matter how well you did your job. It was such a far cry from today that it is hard to even remember what Britain was like in the mid-eighties. If anyone had told me then that in less than thirty we would be able to marry one another, I would have laughed out loud.

This example goes to show that protest can bring about change. You only have to think of the suffragettes to be reminded that without them, women would never have obtained the vote. Without protest, we would also not be attending universities today.

Could the same natural evolution happen in Malaysia?

On this, the signs are not good. The Malaysian government is one which loves the legitimacy that its veneer of democracy confers, at the same time as it hates the reality. Citizens wanting to hold Ministers accountable: what a nuisance. As for the possibility that the government might actually be voted out of office, perish the thought!

After fifty eight years in power, any government would be tired; this one is especially tired – of criticism from those pesky citizens. In recent days and weeks, Malaysian Ministers have acted with their usual brilliance. In late July, a leading business publication exposed the fact that US$700 million had entered the Prime Minister’s personal bank account. The official response? Suspend said publication for three months. How dare journalists do their jobs! This week, when it became clear that threats and intimidation were not going to prevent the weekend’s rally, the government blocked access to Bersih’s website (within Malaysia).

No wonder America’s former ambassador to Malaysia has voiced his worries. In a recent opinion piece, Mr. John Malott described how there are two faces to Malaysia’s current Prime Minister Najib Razak: the international man who knows what Westerners want to hear, and the domestic man who happily lines his and his wife’s pockets while curbing individual liberties and meddling with institutions.

As if to confirm his increasingly authoritarian streak, the Prime Minister told the nation yesterday: “All forms of street demonstration have to be rejected as they adversely affect peace and order and cause problems to the public.” Apparently, only “immature” people express their views by protesting on the streets. Such words (and his actions) do not bode well.

Where will Malaysia go from here?

Will the Prime Minister step down tomorrow? Unfortunately, this is unlikely.

Will we see greater restrictions on freedom in Malaysia? Possibly.

Could the country veer towards dictatorship?

As an optimist, I believe that positive change will come, but this will take longer than we either think or would like. What is important is for concerned Malaysians not to give up. We need to remain engaged, to stay strong and show that we will demand good governance, no matter how much our own government threatens us. For the sake of Malaysia’s future, we will not go away. Not until we have clean, fair elections and an end to rampant corruption and cronyism.

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June 21, 2015 · 20:24

The Story of Great Grandfather Chin Choon Sam and a Mosque

There is a road in the Greentown area of Ipoh, Malaysia, which is named after my maternal great grandfather Chin Choon Sam. He was the husband of the woman who inspired my first novel.

ipoh_on_malaysian_map1[1]

Chin Choon Sam was also the father of (among others) the late Chin Kee Onn. Chin Kee Onn in turn was the author of Malaysian classics such as Malaya Upside Down – the first non-fictional account of life in Malaya under Japanese occupation (from December 1941 through September 1945) and Twilight of the Nyonyas – a fictional tale of a Nyonya family in the early twentieth century, a period of decline for this mixed-race community (of which more below).

Not much is known about Chin Choon Sam other than that he was an educated man who came from a Hakka village in southern China. Great Grandfather arrived in Malaya at some point towards the end of the nineteenth century and apparently set himself up as a roving accountant to Ipoh’s first entrepreneurs. He didn’t become a millionaire but he did well for himself, so well that he decided to settle in Malaya.

By all accounts, my great grandfather loved his adopted home. He already had a wife in China, but Chinese immigration policy was such that women were not allowed to leave the country in the same numbers as men. In order to put roots down in Malaya, Chin Choon Sam took a local woman as his second wife. He chose a woman from the mixed-race Nyonya community who was shrewd, blessed with a fiery tongue and who delighted in feeding him eye-watering, spicy dishes.

Who exactly were the Nyonyas? Unfortunately, many people today, even in Malaysia, don’t know the answer. This is in large part because the Nyonyas (and their male counterparts, the Babas) do not fit into the political narrative which the Malaysian government and its ultra-zealous supporters would like us to espouse. The dominant narrative in today’s Malaysia holds that the country was “first” inhabited by the Malay people who, by dint of having arrived “first”, deserve “special privileges” – first priority in the civil service, education, public scholarships, land purchases and financial hand-outs. Protection for the rights of this privileged class is enshrined in the country’s Constitution (which incidentally, was generously agreed by our wonderful British rulers prior to their departure).

Moreover, because the Malays converted to Islam sometime between the twelfth and the fifteenth century – a religion brought by traders from India and the Middle-East – it necessarily follows that all Malays born today in Malaysia are Muslim. It must be so, how could they possibly be anything else?

There are some who would like us to believe that it has always been this way in Malaysia: that every person of Malay descent has been incontrovertibly a Muslim since the twelfth century.

Alas, the Nyonyas are thorns in the above narrative. Here were local Malay women marrying immigrants from China and then proceeding to adopt some of their husbands’ customs, including, crucially, their religion. Instead of practising Islam, the Nyonyas adopted Buddhist-Taoism.

Worse, Nyonya and Baba communities were established along the coastal parts of Malaya from the fifteenth century onwards. In other words, a sizable Chinese community began settling in Malaya six hundred years ago – a very long time ago by anyone’s standards. If it were not so, Nyonyas and Babas would never have come into being.

The existence of Nyonyas and Babas is rather inconvenient. Should their descendants (people like me) not also deserve “special privileges”? For how many generations do your forbears need to have been around before you enjoyed such privilege? This question is best avoided, otherwise Malaysia’s racial policies would be shown up for the poisonous, antiquated trash they are.

Therefore, instead of celebrating an interesting part of our heritage, the Malaysian government chooses to ignore it. Evidently, parts of Malaysia’s history cannot be publicised – it would give the citizens ideas. The Nyonyas and Babas point to a time (not even that long ago) when Malaysia was actually liberal, when the Department for Islamic Development (JAKIM) did not exist and there were no officials lurking to poke their noses into people’s daily lives.

It was in that age that Chin Choon Sam married a woman from the Nyonya community. They had nine children together: three girls and six boys. To cement his position in Malaya, Great Grandfather invested in seven plots of land in Ipoh, my family’s hometown. He would have bought them sometime in the first decade of the twentieth century, when Ipoh comprised barely more than a few streets.

Of all the places in Ipoh, Chin Choon Sam chose to buy his land in Greentown. Greentown then was not the thriving metropolis it is today. It was actually a bit of a wilderness – far from town, full of rubber estates and mosquitoes. To say that Greentown had uncertain prospects would have been generous. Most people must have thought Great Grandfather mad or very foolish, which is why he probably acquired his seven plots for a song.

Why only seven plots, you may ask, when he had nine children? Because my great grandfather, as typical of any Chinese man of the time, was thinking only of his sons. Each son would need to build his own house, while it was assumed that his daughters would marry and be provided for by their husbands.

But there was one extra plot. This, Chin Choon Sam donated to the Malay community specifically so that they could build a mosque. The only mosque in the area is the Masjid Muhibbuddin Shah (Masjid meaning Mosque in Malay) on Jalan Abdul Jalil. It’s close to where my family used to live and is very likely to have been built on Great Grandfather’s seventh plot. In those days, gestures of friendship between non-Muslims and Muslims were uncontroversial. My great grandfather’s donation was welcomed and a little road in Greentown was named after him.

The Author on Chin Choon Sam Road

The Author on Chin Choon Sam Road

Contrast that with what happened in Malaysia last week, when plans by the Democratic Action Party (DAP), an opposition party, to build a mosque, were condemned as an “insult” to Muslims because funds for building mosques had to be “halal”. The DAP, despite having Muslim members, is conveniently branded a political party of and for Malaysian-Chinese, who are of course not halal.

My great grandfather’s desire to pay homage to his adopted country was natural and highly laudable but I  wonder: would his gift have been accepted now? In the sorry state that is today’s Malaysia, I suspect not.

To Malaysian Readers: I do know that Article 153 of Malaysia’s Constitution safeguards the position not of Malays per se but of “Bumiputras“. The definition of Bumiputra – a Prince of the Soil, a protected class of person in Malaysia – is convoluted though, and not relevant to this blog-post. Article 153 is a minefield in Malaysian politics which would require separate discussion.

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February 17, 2015 · 05:06

Of Hot Cross Buns and Croissants

An email arrived recently in my mailbox screaming “JAKIM bans hot cross buns in its bakeries”. In case you hadn’t guessed, JAKIM stands for JAbatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia – the Department of Ismalic Development in Malaysia. The headline I saw was therefore entirely plausible.

Digging a little, I found out that the article was old news. The story had done the rounds a few years previously, when it was said that in JAKIM bakeries, the crosses on hot cross buns had been turned into mere ropes. In other words, one of the lines on the cross (see photograph) had been removed, purportedly to avoid “offending” Muslims.

A Hot Cross Bun on a Plate

There was just a small problem: a hot cross bun with no cross is no longer a hot cross bun. This observation prompted an imaginative local blogger to christen the new bun with the name “tali-bun”, “tali” being the word for rope in Malay. Talibun is also deliciously close to Taliban, and we all know what that connotes.

If JAKIM has indeed banned hot cross buns, it will not have been the first time that this innocuous pastry has sailed into controversy. Which is mind-boggling if you think about it – how could a sweet, spiced ball of dough possibly cause such fuss? Yes a cross sits astride its top and yes, the bun is traditionally eaten at Easter, but the bread holds barely any religious connotation today.

And yet, the sign of the cross still has the power to terrify.

As early as 2003, Britain’s Daily Telegraph ran a story saying that a handful of local councils in Britain had banned the traditional hot cross buns at schools to avoid causing “offence” to “non-Christians”. When it emerged that the councils named by the Telegraph did not in fact have policies on hot cross buns, the paper had to apologise.

However, the debate over hot cross buns just wouldn’t go away. A few years later, it was the turn of a British hospital to cause a furore by not serving hot cross buns at Easter. This decision upset so many people that the hot cross buns were soon reinstated.

The Brits who spent time worrying about how the sight of crosses could “upset”, “offend” or otherwise imperil Muslims had obviously not heard the story of the croissant. The croissant is today associated with France but it did not originate there: the bread actually came from Austria, from Vienna to be precise. Anyone familiar with the extraordinary variety and quality of Austrian pastries will not find this revelation surprising.

Among the most memorable characteristics of the croissant is its shape: the bread looks like a crescent. Croissants in a WindowIndeed, the croissant may well have first been baked after the siege of Vienna in 1683, when bakers working in their cellars throughout the night heard burrowing underground – the sound of Ottoman soldiers invading – and alerted the authorities, thus saving Austria. As a reward, legend has it that the Viennese bakers were given the right to make a pastry in the shape of the Ottoman crescent.

I first read the above account in Stephen Clarke’s wonderfully entertaining book 1000 Years of Annoying the French. The author makes plain that there are other theories regarding the origin of the croissant, one of which is that it derives from an Austrian pastry known as the kipfel. There are records of the kipfel going back to the middle ages. In contrast, croissants do not appear in French literature until 1853, when a chemist named Anselme Payen wrote a book called Des Substances Alimentaires (Dietary Substances) – a title almost designed to put you off your food. In his book, Monsieur Payen discusses croissants under the section “fantasy or luxury bread”.

Regardless of who is right about the origins of the croissant, what is clear is that it was introduced from Austria into France. In its adopted country, the croissant soon became a breakfast favourite. Since then, millions of people – Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and otherwise – have been gulping down crescents – the sign of Islam (and of the moon) – without even being aware of the fact. Ingesting a crescent every morning, with and without butter and almonds and chocolate, has not upset anyone, irrespective of religion, nor has it dented faith itself.

The benign nature of the croissant did not stop a group of rebels in Syria from issuing a fatwa, a Muslim religious edict, against the bread because its “crescent shape celebrates European victory over Muslims”. Evidently, there are Muslims who need protection from both the cross and the crescent. That is the absurd situation we could end up living in, if ideologically-driven political correctness is allowed to become the norm.

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. It was the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud who came up with this perceptive saying. The people who are so busy pronouncing fatwas and other rules obviously cannot just allow a cigar to remain a cigar; otherwise, they would be out of work. Our only hope is for common sense to eventually triumph over ideology.

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December 29, 2014 · 13:31

I’m Back, with Two More Books in the Making

I’ve taken a break from this blog for several months, not because I’ve had nothing to say, but because the journey of getting a first novel published has been more complex and frustrating than I expected. I wasn’t naïve about the process either; having talked to many people beforehand, I understood what it involved.

Alas, one has to grow a thick skin. I thought I had one (in comparison to many artists). Coming from business and finance, I was already used to knocks and bumps, critical feedback and tough conversations. This was different. When you’ve put your heart and soul into an endeavour, rejection feels totally different.

In March, when I was signed up by Thomas Colchie (see By Serendipity, I Have an Agent!), a literary agent who specialises in representing international writers, I had high hopes. Thomas approached a dozen publishers on my behalf, but unlike theoretical physics, everyone has a view, and this view is subjective. Publishers turned us down. The funny thing is, their feedback – to the extent that they gave any – was not consistent. For some, the book was not literary enough, for others, not commercial enough; a couple of publishers complained about the Malaysian-language dialogue, others about the pace being too meandering. My partner, bless her, was outraged by this last comment, because its meandering nature, like a winding river, was precisely what she loved most.

There is a Russian fable about an elephant who painted a landscape. Before sending it off to an exhibition, the elephant invited friends over to inspect his painting. The elephant was very excited: would his friends praise him or criticise him? What would they suggest as improvements? Each animal friend came, inspected, and pronounced. Their criticism was all valid, but by the time the elephant had incorporated their suggestions, his painting had turned into a fantasy savannah featuring snow, ice and the River Nile side-by-side – a far cry from what he had wanted to depict.

Should I re-write my novel, or should I stand firm? That was the decision I had to make.

My agent didn’t think I should re-write my work. He believed that the pace and richness suited the story and its setting – South-East Asia at the turn of the twentieth century. Instead, Thomas advised me to start writing the second book in my trilogy. This may sound strange – if you can’t find a publisher for one book, why write another? But Thomas, who is a highly experienced agent, believes that the second part of the story, being less complex, would be easier to sell. For the moment, I’m taking this advice. I will commence research in Malaysia next month.

Meanwhile, I’ve completed the non-fiction book I had already started – a short work about my experiences in France. Anyone who has read the blog-post about my battles with a skip (yes that’s right, a skip) will have gleaned that there is little love lost between France and me. France may be a superb holiday destination, but once I began spending more time there, I found the place a huge disappointment.

I did not want to write a French-bashing book though, as there are already plenty of those, nor did I want my manuscript to sound like a litany of complaints. Instead, I’ve tried to achieve a style of loving, albeit sceptical, humour – along the lines of the vastly popular A Year in Provence or the more recent 1,000 Years of Annoying the French. The latter may sound like a piece of French-bashing but isn’t. Really. Having said that, any French person reading it would need a sense of humour.

My own book will centre on some of the things my partner and I had to confront when she bought a house near Paris and I set about managing its renovation. This is not an account of builders and DIY but is about things you would not imagine finding in Western Europe in the twenty first century. Phenomena such as cash desks (I can already hear it, what?), gardeners whose quotes depend on what they think you can afford (not on the size of your job), a taxi driver who barks at three passengers to squeeze into the back because he’s charging his iPod and can’t be bothered to move the device. If you think we were just unfortunate, we weren’t – others have recounted similar experiences. In his book 1,000 Years of Annoying the French, Stephen Clarke even describes Parisian taxi drivers as being “allergic” to having passengers on the front seat. And I thought I knew France. Non, pas du tout!

To be clear, I’m not trying to change anyone: the French have every right to be as they are. In fact, it would be great for us all if the country stayed more or less as it is (and even better if it regressed by 50 years, as some politicians are unwittingly proposing). I could never live there though. But I hope that my account of how to deal with certain French peculiarities, or not (as the case may be), would be entertaining to anyone with an interest in France. It might even be thought-provoking for those planning to move to the land of foie-gras.

Now nearing the end of its third edit, my non-fiction manuscript is almost ready. I’ll be sending it soon to my agent for initial feedback and he’s already expecting it. Fingers crossed.

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May 23, 2014 · 13:22

One Small Step, A Giant Leap

In the course of writing my novel, I had many opportunities to compare the Malaysia I knew with the Malaysia of today. I have already shared my sadness, disappointment and worry elsewhere (The Malaysia We’ve Lost; Where is Home?; Ambiga, Allah and this Visit Malaysia Year).

This past week has been markedly different. On May 17, 2014, my country finally took a step in the right direction, and raised my spirits in the process.

On that day, a brave young woman of Malay ethnicity became the Opposition candidate in a predominantly Chinese town. If this sounds trivial, it is not. In Malaysia, race and religion are used as political weapons, and Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud’s story marks a water-shed.

As it happens, I had already been thinking about Teluk Intan, the town where Dyana is standing for election. My agent Thomas Colchie (see previous blog post), had asked to see the synopses of my entire trilogy of books, and I had been pondering Teluk Intan because the town will be mentioned in my second novel (where it will be called by its colonial name of Telok Anson). I am still at the planning stage for this second work: jotting down ideas, looking at maps, dreaming… But I digress; my purpose here is to share why Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud has given me such hope.

She is a lawyer from a family of active government supporters. In Malaysia, this means that Dyana could enjoy a good life by not rocking any boats. Instead, she joined an Opposition political party. Not only that, but she chose a party that is widely regarded as “Chinese”.

Why did she do this? Here is a quote from her: “Malaysia needs a new form of politics and to drop the old race based politics. I choose to forge a path towards a better Malaysia.” Bravo, absolutely spot on.

In truth, the party which Dyana joined – the Democratic Action Party or DAP – welcomes all races and religions, but because it has historically appealed more to Malaysian-Chinese voters, the incumbent government likes to stick it with a “race” label. The fact that Dyana chose this party was a courageous step, demonstrating an independence of mind and a willingness to go beyond her comfort zone to further her ideals. How many of us can say we have done that?

Almost at once, the backlash against Dyana began. She was wolf-whistled at her own nomination. Photographs of an actress who looked like her but was dressed in a bikini floated around the Internet. There were whispers about her age: too young at twenty seven, apparently. Malaysia’s incumbent Prime Minister was only twenty three when he was handed his seat on a plate. Did anyone complain about his youth? I doubt it. One rule for men, another for women. Same old, same old.

The great and the good of Malaysian politics have come out in force to denounce Dyana as a traitor (to her race), to bait her on religion, even to scold her mother for not sufficiently indoctrinating her! This, unsurprisingly, came from our former Prime Minister, an expert in the gutter politics of tribe. All kudos to Dyana’s mother for standing up so publicly for her daughter: “As a mother, I will support my daughter. I will campaign with her because she is my daughter.” Quite. But when so many have so little to say about so few, you know that something momentous is happening.

And what is happening is that the old politics of tribe are being challenged in highly public fashion. A young Malay, Malaysian-born and bred, has stood up and said NO to the race-based politics that have held sway since the 1970s. She is too young to know the Malaysia which I knew, and I have always worried about what would happen to Malaysia when those of us who remember what it used to be like, pass on from this Earth. Now I have glimpsed the answer: just because you have not experienced what Malaysia once was, it does not mean that you will be blind to injustice when you see it.

Dyana is a tangible challenge not just to Malaysia’s old politics but also to the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism, and strong forces are lined up against her. They do not want her to succeed. They do not want her to win, and if she wins, they do not want her to do a great jobs, and if she does a great job, they do not want her to remain with the DAP. Because if she succeeds, she will be living proof of exactly the sort of progressive, modern, inclusive Malaysia which many in my country are terrified of. If she succeeds, more may follow her. If more follow, what would become 0f vested interests? What would be the raison d’être of single-race and single-religion political parties? Heaven forbid, we may actually move forward and build the truly embracing society we are capable of building together, the real One Malaysia, not the slogan-bound 1Malaysia the government likes to trot out for tourists.

For all these reasons, I wish Dyana and the DAP the very best on 31 May 2014 and beyond. (For the record, I am not a DAP supporter).

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July 24, 2013 · 23:38

Blame the Chinese!

I enjoy hearing from readers. Even when they express views I find disturbing.

Just before the last Malaysian general election, I wrote a blog-post about the corrupting influence of unfettered power (see Malaysia’s Election Eve). The article focused on corruption in Malaysia, not race. But as with most things Malaysian, race is never far behind.

In recent days, a reader picked up on this blog-post and delivered a simple message: you Chinese in Malaysia are the cause of our corruption. We Malays were innocents until the British ‘let’ you in to the country (my emphasis). Stop complaining, since it is your corrupting influence that is coming back to bite you. (To see the comment for yourself, scroll down along the comments section  below Malaysia’s Election Eve.)

Leaving aside the historical point that there were Chinese in Malaysia long before the British arrived, forgive me for stating the blindingly obvious: corruption in any country affects all its citizens. Corruption in Malaysia (which the reader appears to accept) affects Malay, Chinese, Indian and Orang Asli (the indigenous peoples of Malaysia) equally.

Blaming minority races in Malaysia is not new. The day after the recent general elections, when the ruling party lost the popular vote but nonetheless kept the majority of seats, the incumbent Prime Minister explained his performance in terms of a ‘Chinese tsunami’. Utusan Malaysia, a leading Malay-language newspaper, regularly publishes incendiary material which deliberately stokes racial feeling and attributes all kinds of evil to the Chinese. An infamous article with the heading Orang Cina Malaysia – apa lagi yang anda mahu? (Chinese of Malaysia – what more do you want?) listed Malaysia’s 10 wealthiest people, 8 of whom were Chinese. The message? You’re already rich, what more could you possibly want? Equality? This provocative title was repeated after the recent general election results, in yet another twisted article.

But let us put all this aside. Let us assume for a minute that what the reader contends is true – that palm-greasing is a peculiarly Chinese phenomenon. How does this explain Singapore, a country within spitting distance of Malaysia?

Singapore has a Chinese majority in power, yet it is consistently ranked amongst the least corrupt countries in the world. On the Tranparency International Index, where a lower number is better, Singapore is ranked 5th while Malaysia shares 54th place with the Czech Republic, Latvia and Turkey. Why the difference? What does Singapore have which Malaysia lacks?

The answer seems pretty clear to me: good governance.

I suggest that it is the absence of good governance – the absence of sufficient checks and balances to the wielding of power – which has put China, Mexico, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Russia in the top 5 in terms of illicit outflows between 2001 and 2010. Power corrupts, and in Malaysia, fifty six years of power corrupt absolutely. There is no evidence to suggest that the Chinese, Mexicans, Malays, Arabs and Russians are intrinsically more corrupt than anyone else on the planet, despite the staggering numbers in this report.

It is easier of course, to find a scapegoat than to face up to the real issues at hand. Why bother, when all you need do is point your finger at the successful minority groups in your midst? Malaysia today is nowhere near where it should be in this world, given the extent of its natural resources. Its tiny neighbour to the south, an island so small you need a magnifying glass to see it on the map, has left Malaysia far behind. How could a former mosquito-infested swamp which has to import everything, even drinking water, have raced ahead of a land as bountiful as Malaysia?

That is the question Malaysia’s ruling party and its acolytes should be asking. With the rise of China and India, Malaysia could benefit handsomely from home-grown ties, but instead of embracing its Chinese and Indian minorities, Malaysia treats its minorities as second-class citizens, forever fearing that the Malays will not be able to make it in this world unless they receive special help.

In blaming minority races for a host of travails, the ruling party and its acolytes are following a well-trodden path. When propaganda triumphs over reason, the consequences are stark, and the examples in other countries do not bear thinking about.

Malaysia is still far from such extremes, and I truly hope it remains that way. But I fear more and more for my country. It is already no longer as tolerant as the home I once knew, and I worry Malaysia will lose its way even more. Instead of the different races coming together, we may be pulled further apart. If we are to build the country we all want, we must…

I don’t have the answers, but one of them must surely be: stop blaming the Chinese.

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May 4, 2013 · 10:18

Malaysia’s Election Eve

Power corrupts. Fifty six years of power corrupt absolutely. That is how long the ruling elite has held the reins of power in Malaysia.

What new ideas could it possibly offer which it had not thought of during its half century of uninterrupted rule?

In a country thousands of miles away, I remember the Thatcher years. I became an adult in Britain then, and watched an initially energetic government run out of steam by 1992, a mere thirteen years later. The Conservatives limped on for another five years, but change was inevitable.

Imagine if the Conservative Party had carried on for three times longer than their run of eighteen years. The governmental coalition in Malaysia, known as Barisan Nasional (National Front in Malay), has done exactly that. Is it plausible that any regime which has held authority for so long could remain uncorrupted? (This is something neighbouring Singapore has achieved, but Singapore is an exceptional country; see for example Transparency International’s 2012 League Table.)

Tomorrow, Malaysians will go to the polls. Some of us overseas have already handed in our postal votes (a right which incidentally, we were denied until a few months ago. Before then, the only Malaysians living overseas who were given postal votes were students, public servants and members of the military).

I, like many of my fellow-Malaysians, will be following the election results closely. I have no illusion over whether this 13th General Election will be free and fair. It has so far been a dirty election, and is likely to be up to the last minute. Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the Opposition Coalition, has complained of dubious voters being flown in from neighbouring countries. The Malaysian ‘Electoral Commission’, a purportedly impartial organisation, has admitted that voters have been flown in from abroad by ‘friends of the ruling regime’, but the Commission has actually defended this practice! (Such is the state of Malaysia today).

These are the desperate actions of a morally bankrupt regime. Despite all this, I am filled with anticipation, a little excitement, and plenty of apprehension too, for I know I could yet be disappointed.

The possibility of change is frightening. I have no idea what form any change in Malaysia would actually take, should it happen.

Do I trust Anwar Ibrahim? No. But he’s the best hope we have.

His Opposition Coalition includes an Islamist party, the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, commonly known as PAS. Does PAS worry me? Yes, but the incumbents, who have abused religion and race through the years as tools with which to divide Malaysians – solely to keep themselves in power – worry me even more.

Malaysians do not take easily to the streets. We are often afraid of expressing our true opinions. But the political scandals have become too numerous to list, or ignore. Let me quote just one statistic: under the current government, Malaysia became the third most corrupt country in the world as measured by illicit outflows between 2001 and 2010 (third after China and Mexico, both far larger and more populous countries).

For Malaysia, change must come, if not tomorrow, then on another day. I know that no maggot-filled regime has ever survived indefinitely in history. At some point the maggots will run out of flesh and will have to feed on themselves, or be overthrown. Unfortunately this could take decades, even centuries.

Tomorrow, whatever happens, I will take heart from the words of American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’

Malaysia, Ubah!

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March 1, 2013 · 10:11

Celebrating the Year of the Water Snake

It began, as all Chinese New Year celebrations must, with food. Paper plates loaded with steaming hot rice and stir-fried vegetables were spread onto tables. “Eat! Eat!” the women running around both floors of the Islington Chinese Association (ICA) exhorted, in a way which brooked no dissent. Disobedience would not have been an option.

A crowd numbering hundreds had gathered on a discreet street in north London where the ICA is located, to ring in the Year of the Water Snake. In addition to fan dances, calligraphy, demonstrations from a kung fu master and of course, the Lion Dance, there was to be literature: poetry from a British-born Chinese writer, and a reading by me of extracts from my novel. We’ve never done this before, Dr. Stephen Ng, ICA’s Coordinator, and Lady Katy Blair, its co-Founder and CEO, had confided; you will be an experiment.

Amidst whispering and much howling (from the younger guests), it seemed to me a brave experiment, especially since part of the audience spoke only halting English. As I watched people run hither and thither, I wondered how the afternoon would go.

Those worries didn’t last long. We were soon distracted by an insistent beat and the clanging of cymbals. On a pavement outside, a round Chinese drum, its black lacquer gilded with golden characters, had been set up. Lion is approaching. boom-boom-boom The drum was extraordinarily loud, inducing a shiver in the pit of my stomach – a frisson I always feel when I know that the epic Lion Dance will follow. Neighbours peeked out of their windows as the Lion approached, bearing its multi-coloured head. This was a friendly beast, so friendly that at least one little boy was tempted to peer solemnly into its ravenous mouth. The Lion wagged cheeky pink tongue and tail in every corner, which I hope was enough to chase away any evil spirits lurking.

What's in there

By the time I returned inside, the upper floor of the ICA had been transformed. In its place was a concert hall decked with rows of chairs. From the stage at the front came the dulcet tones of a Chinese flute, so lulling that even the children stopped squirming. When Anna Chen, poet and activist, took to the stage, she invigorated the crowd by half-reading and most astonishingly, half-singing, her poignant poems. The lyrical Anna May Wong must die was especially powerful – ‘a personal journey through the life and crimes of Hollywood’s first Chinese screen legend’, it says on Anna’s website. (I hope everyone reading this will have the opportunity to watch Anna perform). I could see that people listened, but you had to be able to hold their attention.Anna Chen reads her poetry

All too soon, it was my turn. I had been told I would go onstage after the fan dance. I waited in the wings, tense because I knew it would be the first novel reading at the ICA, afraid also that my story might not be regarded as ‘Chinese enough’ for a community event of this sort.

Indeed, the family in my novel is mixed, the woman who leads it being a Nyonya – part of the Chinese diaspora in South East Asia which dates back centuries. Many people today have never heard of the Nyonyas and Babas, even in Malaysia. This is a great shame, because the Nyonyas and Babas successfully created a unique fusion of Chinese and Malay culture long before globalisation existed. In their way of life, they have something to teach us, especially in present-day Malaysia where race drives your rights, or the lack of them (see blog-post The Malaysia We’ve Lost).

The first passage I read told the ancestral story of the Nyonyas and Babas. Selina introduces the Nyonya themeTo make my reading come alive, I had watched videos of actors and politicians speaking. I also enlisted the help of two Malaysian students, Wahidah and Aufa Dahlia, who gallantly came on stage modelling Nyonya costumes. Wahidah, her hair tied up in the famous Nyonya chignon, looked resplendent in a tailored vintage sarong kebaya.Demonstrating sarong kebaya Her blouse and sarong came from Aufa’s private collection, while her feet were adorned by a pair of hand-made Nyonya beaded slippers which had been purchased from a shop, Colour Beads, in Malacca. This beautiful town is arguably Malaysia’s most historic, and a large Nyonya-Baba community once lived there.

Wahidah was subsequently joined on stage by Aufa Dahlia, who showed off her modern Nyonya attire with great aplomb. The audience sat enraptured, so graceful were the kebaya ladies. Later, many went up to Aufa’s table, where she had placed a sample of the kebaya blouses she sells on her website as a hobby. If the kebaya ladies and I were to form an act, we would surely be hits on a reading circuit!

Modern NyonyaOther artistes followed, including the kung fu master whose rhythmic movements mesmerised everyone. Look at the picture below and you will see why he was a tough act to follow, especially by a writer reading her second passage late in the day. Kung-Fu masterFortunately, I was aided by the dramatic second scene I had chosen to read and by the prop I brought along: the Nyonya kueh (cakes) which feature in my novel. I had only two varieties with me – both from the Malaysia Hall Canteen in Bayswater – but they disappeared in seconds after being shared out!

Afterwards, people came up to say how much they had enjoyed my reading. One woman thanked me for opening her eyes to the diversity of the Chinese diaspora, a few even asked where they could buy my book. Alas, I had to say it was not yet published but I gave them my card nonetheless, as it has the address of this blog on the back.

The grand finale of the afternoon was a Ching (Qing) Dynasty costume parade which starred a Mandarin, a Court Official, a Eunuch, the Empress and of course, the Emperor, all in borrowed robes which had never before been worn in the UK. Truly a fitting way with which to end such an uplifting day.

The EmperorAs we headed off, I thought of those who had come before us. It was not just Emperors and Empresses who made history but the coolies leaving in desperate circumstances, and before them, during the Ming Dynasty, the adventurer traders who left to settle elsewhere. These ancestors, all of them, have left their mark in the sands of history. And we their descendants are immensely fortunate, in having such a rich heritage to celebrate.

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January 14, 2013 · 11:18

I’ve Finished!

Six days ago, I finished my novel. Yes! It has taken four drafts and almost two years to hone the 150,000 or so words of my historical epic family drama.

Given that I completed the first draft in just twelve months of furious writing, I find it amazing that I then spent another eleven months editing my work, word by precious word. In the early months, when I sat before my personal computer in full narrative flow, I naively wondered why some books took their authors seven to ten years to write. Now I know.

Looking back, I can see that the first draft contained mainly bare bones. It was as if I had to pour the words out onto a page, so that I could tell the story to myself. Many writers say they don’t share their first drafts with anyone else, but perhaps I’m more thick-skinned. Besides, I find I need feedback to get those creative juices flowing. I therefore showed my first draft to my partner, and also to a professional developmental editor. If I had to do it again, I would do exactly the same thing. I was fortunate in having Dr. Nathalie Teitler, formerly a tutor at Spread the Word, among other organisations, as my editor. The drama I’ve written takes place in Ipoh, Malaya (see map), within a complex multicultural setting, and I needed an editor who would be sympathetic to such material. Right from the start, I became used to criticism, to having chunks decimated, even a whole chapter rejected. I write to be read, and I needed such input. ipoh

In that period, I also sent my early draft to two literary consultancies. Both are reputable and advertise themselves as ‘leading’ consultancies, yet they gave opposing feedback: one very encouraging, the other much less so (I had not told either that this was a first draft). The experience confirmed what I had already suspected – that whether your writing is deemed ‘good’ is highly subjective. Much in the writing industry seems a matter of taste.

When I started the second draft, Nathalie worried I would lose momentum. It happens to many, she said. With me, the opposite was true: ideas came quickly and not always in tangible form, often at night in half-dreams from which I awoke, unsure of the words that had been churning in my head. I was in Malaysia at the time. Something about the heat, the food, family and the way people speak there  (Wahh! Like that also can ah?) stirred my imagination. Thanks to a prolific subconscious, large chunks were added to and taken away in the second draft. A major edit, I thought, until I began the third draft.

That was when I really did sharpen every word in every sentence. It is now quite a different book to what I had at the beginning, or even after the second draft. By that, I don’t mean that the underlying story has changed, rather, that I’ve told it using many more motifs and metaphors.

Editing, I was to learn, is an art. An art which I resisted, until I started to enjoy it. Editing is hugely time-consuming, and anyone who has put together a presentation in the corporate world will understand one of its frustrations. Changing a phrase in the third paragraph of the second chapter could impact the flow of what came before, as well as what comes after. Often, you have to re-read a lot more than just the short paragraph you are changing.

Late in the editing process, I discovered a critical tool: reading aloud. I found that if I could not get my tongue around a sentence, it was usually because there was a problem with that sentence. When I re-wrote it in a way that made it easier on the tongue, the prose invariably became clearer. But reading aloud an entire epic drama of 150,000 words twice from start to finish takes a lot of time. It has a cost on family life too, if your partner happens to be your first reader, which is the case with me. Every time I re-wrote a piece, she was asked to read it. This was especially true of the beginning and end, which I re-wrote, re-read and re-wrote many more times than five, in fact, so many times that I fear I may have lost my first reader in the process. I worry she won’t bother to read the published book! Be that as it may, I can finally say I have completed my first novel. Hallelujah!

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