“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” – Mother Teresa
MY childhood was not that much different from everyone else’s – at least not those who remember wearing bell-bottomed trousers and other fashion horrors.
I had brothers who wore their hair long and who dreamt of being part of rock groups such as Santana or Deep Purple. We rode on chopper bicycles, had portable record players at home and, in the afternoons, we looked forward to buying sweets and bubblegum from the “roti” man.
In those distant days, there was nothing sinister in openly admitting to being Malay, Chinese, Indian, Sikh or Eurasian. There were no hidden agendas behind what we said, no need to read between the lines when we declared, “I am a Malay, you’re Chinese.”
Nowadays, when it comes to anything to do with race, religion or culture, we have to be so very careful about what we say, and to whom. Admitting to be of a particular race now brings with it political connotations, and our words will be scrutinised for all the hidden and unpatriotic meanings behind them.
When I was a child, I lived with my Malay relatives. There were literally hundreds of us who lived on a hilltop community.
I had one grandmother who was Malay of royal birth and another who was a Peranakan Chinese, so the foods we ate ranged from rendang tok and gulai tempoyak to acar Nyonya and udang masak assam jawa.
My favourite bookshop was owned by Indians, and opposite it was a goldsmith shop owned by a Chinese gentleman whose daughter was one of my friends at school (Lim Yoke Bing, if you’re reading this, please e-mail me).
Fast forward from the 1970s of my childhood to last month when – after reading in my morning papers about political parties exchanging the “he-said-I-said” sort of statements, and the sensitivity attached to the subject of our racial harmony or otherwise – I took my youngest son and my daughter on a car journey to join my husband and older sons for the Kembara Mahkota Johor.
On the way, we stopped at a convenience store in Labis because my son said he was hungry.
Several curious people from the shops next door came out to see the police car, blue lights flashing, sirens blaring, escorting our little entourage. While one of our staff went to buy some snacks and drinks for my son, I began taking pictures of the curious onlookers.
At first they looked a little puzzled so I tried using hand gestures to signal to them that I would like to take their pictures. At the risk of looking like an idiot (“Who is this strange woman with a camera?” they may have asked themselves) I grinned at them, pointed to my mouth, trying to make them understand that I’d like them to smile for me, please. Having taken the photos, I waved to them as we drove away, and they waved back. The result: this picture you see here.
A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words, and I think this one says quite a bit. Please let me add a few more – if we show interest in others, they will respond. If we treat them with suspicion, they will react with suspicion. But if we smile at them, they may pause in what they’re doing and smile back. It’s as simple as that, or is it? Unfortunately, it isn’t any more.
If we don’t take a good look at ourselves, we will soon become a society of rude, aggressive, suspicious and paranoid people.
The proof? We now need “courtesy campaigns” via the media to tell us we shouldn’t be rude to others while driving or that our children should show respect for those who are older than them.
There is also the ongoing war of words, as reported in our newspapers, about bumiputras and non-bumiputras. We do know and appreciate that politicians are speaking out on our behalf but sometimes there is a need for all of us – politicians or not – to relax a little. If we are to be united as a nation, we have to a certain extent let go of our paranoia and our mistrust of each other.
In politics, words said in the heat of the moment and all faux pas cannot be tolerated. Personally speaking, reading all the journalistic nitpicking exhausts me, so much so you’ll see me wandering around the local pharmacy blissfully aware that whatever colour lipstick or eye shadow I choose, there is no political connotation attached to my choice, nor am I being purposely insensitive when I notice that both the salesgirl and I are Malays, and that the other shoppers are Chinese and Indians.
Malays or Malaysians, bumiputras or not, I still believe there’s a deeper link between all of us that we may not be aware of, but which exists nevertheless. In part, it comes from sharing a history: from hundreds of years of colonisation to the Japanese Occupation, from independence to the dark, frightening years of the communist threat.
Nowadays, the link that you and l share comes from living together, such as going to the same convenience stores, seeing neighbours leaving for work around the same time as we do, or waiting for our children outside the same schools.
Finally, to that little group of people who waved to me in Labis, I would like to say a big thank you because you made me very happy for the rest of my journey until now.
To all fellow Muslims, I would like to say “Selamat Berpuasa”.
15 Oct 2006 : The Star, Mind Matters
