The Ground Beneath My Feet

by shz

I gotta say, last week was definitely the most exhausting, knackering week of the entire year.

You see, other than the fact that my friend Grainne (by the way, its pronounced as Groin-ya. Its an Irish thing) and Osama were here for 2 weeks, soon after they left, the architect we’re collaborating with also from UK came the next day. Ultimately, I had a whole one week meeting-marathon continuously, consisting of consultant team meeting, site visit, clinical users meeting, facade specialist meeting that by Thursday, I swear I almost vomited in my car on my way back from home around 7pm. I honestly can’t remember the last time I use my brain this much. Yes, I don’t really do much thinking in my life.

(Sorry, I have no other boring picture to show you but this typically lined up consultants on site)

Naturally I had a lot of “English” conversations with them, and it sort of made me think about my times back in UK.

I thought a lot about my life there, the friends I made, the people I’ve worked with, studied with, the things I learned and the things that changed my perceptions… and I realized what a different person I have become. And how humbling, especially humbling, most of those experiences are.

But I’m also becoming very, very annoyed of people who think so highly of themselves out of their fortunateness. I have friends who after 2 years coming back from UK, still can’t bloody stop whining and complaining about how things are in Malaysia. How crap the Malaysians are, how the Brits are better and all that bullshit arrogant talk. Its puzzling really, because if there’s one thing I learn about the citizens of the developed world, is that they are rarely arrogant, mostly humble and keep their intelligences to themselves. I might be wrong and if I do, I must had been socializing with the wrong crowd. And hopefully I didn’t.

Sometimes I really do run out of polite words to say that condemning doesn’t help (note that condemning and constructive criticizing  are different things), that to those who are being so whiny about it doesn’t improve much of themselves either. Sure enough, Malaysians aren’t perfect. There are too many assholes on the road, too many local dramas and bad titled movies portraying the stereotype Malay culture, too much fabrications in the local news, too many trying to be someone they’re not or faking their accent, but isn’t this your root? Aren’t you one of them? Isn’t that your mother, father, brother or sister? Is it not where you came from? Like give me a break. If there’s anything more second class or backward, it is that – condemn.

We should know that not everybody is lucky enough being sent abroad, get all the exposures and have the advancement of mentality. Even that, I don’t really pity them because truthfully speaking, they are not that bad at all. They are as smart as other foreigners I met, except that they are more comfortable communicating in their mother tongue and that you can see they have been living in their comfort zone too long, its hard for them to cast certain habits away.

I might be shallow or short sighted in my observations, I might be too soon to judge or conclude, but I find hard to tolerate people who despise their own race. I’m not being so overwhelmingly patriotic or anything, I just find it funny when they do that. Makes me want to hand out a brand new shiny mirror, assuming the one they already have is not reflective enough.

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