Chinese, Malaysian Chinese or Malaysian ?
Biologically I might be a pure chinese but culturally I am not that purely chinese. Culturally maybe just 40% of me are chinese. Well growing up in Malaysia, culturally I do get influence by other races and teaching as well. In Malaysia , some people might find it offensive if I call myself Chinese or Malaysian Chinese, according to this PEOPLE I should only call myself Malaysian and Malaysian only to be call. Seriously how stupid can this be , on one side we are promoting ourselves to the world where Malaysia is a country where multi-racial of people live together peacefully and on the other side calling ourselves Chinese, Indian and Malay seems offensive. We are suppose to call ourselves MALAYSIAN.
Imagine you have some non-Malaysian friends and they ask you a question, “Hey lenglui I heard your country is famous for many races living together peacefully side by side, so what race of people do you have there in Malaysia ?” Then as a proud patriotic Malaysian you answer gracefully ” Hey mate, well we have Malaysian in Malaysia”. Your friend then asked further, ” But I thought your country are multi-racial country, so what other races do you have in Malaysia ?”. Trying to cover yourself in shame behind the mask of Keluang Man, you take a deep breath and collect the courage to answer his question ” Well you see, it is offensive to certain people if we call ourselves Chinese, Indian, Malay or anything else, according to some people we should just call ourselves Malaysian eventhough we promote ourselves to the world as multi-racial country”. Your friend shocked with your answer and then he said ” You people are freaking sad , damn fucking wanker “.
Ok lets come back to me, so why do I say I am only 40% chinese culturally. Well first thing first I cant even read or write in chinese eventhough I could communicate in chinese thats because of years and years of practise while flirting with chinese educated girls. I spend 13 years of my school life in La Sallian schools or some people might know as Catholic schools in the older days, eventhough we sort of national school in certain ways but our Lasallian culture still strongly intact. Oh yea my alma mater is St. Xavier’s Institution, proud to be one a Lasallian and will die as a proud Lasallian.
Next with so many friends of other races, celebrating Deepavali and Hari Raya is as important as celebrating Chinese New Year to me. I eat Muruku and Dodol more often than I eat Char Koay Teow. The best thing of all this celebrations is that all of us and I mean ALL of us got holidays on those day doesnt matter who you are as long as you are in Malaysia. Of course all this will affect me a little bit in term of culturally.
Then as most people will call people like me who so called english educated people, Banana People . Banana People are not people from Banana Republic or from Banana Land or people staying in Banana Village but chinese people who are yellow on the outside but white in the inside, thats Banana People. I can’t blame them, technically our kind not really interested with our origin or family clan, I mean we cant even understand whats written there. We are the type of chinese that are more open to new ideas and more interested in whats happening in the world than whats happening in our backyard.
I grow up listening to tune not only from Backstreet Boys or Michael Learns To Rock but also Aarok Kwok ,Jacky Cheung,Andy Lau and etc. I enjoy watching movie like Mr.Bean and Power Rangers but at the same time movie like Young & Dangerous and Shanghai Bund does impress too while I am growing up. So all my life I been culturally mix here and there, some from friends some from surroundings while some from the idiot box, the TELEVISION. So thats why I said I am sort of 40% chinese culturally.
My parents are culturally quite very chinese eventhough there are quite open minded on things but deep down inside them they are very chinese. Sometimes when I do call back home, my parents will ask me do I have any girlfriends here in the UK, they said they don’t mind if I got a White, Black, Red or Green girl as my girlfriend as long as I am happy and they got Sam Poh Char to drink but I know deep down inside them that they do prefer I am with a chinese or oriental girl rather than Ang Moh. So it makes me wonder what if when I go back time I do bring an Ang Moh Poh together with me, what will their reactions be ? I hope is not something near to this following video.