When you are at sea... Part 1

I know that I am a Malaysian, but beyond that I have no identity. I have no first language, and a strong heritage to anything to call my own. Even if I have a strong affinity to the English Language, its cultural load comes to me but second hand, through books I read, through travels and the mass media. Malaysia does not quite have a culture in English, even during our colonial past. Whatever "Englishness" we have is shallow and based on stereotypical and rose-tinted assumptions on the land. Some anglophiles who might have never visited the land think that it had not changed in the last 50 years, some only acquaint themselves with the richer class and areas and some perhaps hold on to a dream of greener pastures. Anyhow, my post here is not to talk about Englishness, the English Language or Anglophiles, beyond that which is relevant to me. Because, from the time I was a young child, I was an Anglophile, until my growing years cast aside the fairytale and reality hits. I was more acquainted with the literature of England and its neighbours than I was with the literature of the region I grew up in. Perhaps it could be due to the influence exerted by my mother. She never told me about anything that might pertain to my heritage, either as a Chinese or a Malaysian. She decided that the schools will do that job for her. Or perhaps, being educated in an English-medium, girls school through her growing years had alienated her from her roots. But I ask, you ask, what roots? That, my dear readers, is the core and centre of my dilemma.

Despite my activism, despite my interest in Malaysian history (come lately) and culture, despite all that I try to do to acquaint myself further with this land of exotic possibilities, I remain defeated. True enough, I was educated in the national schools, in the years when the nationalists held sway, when English was derided and relegated to the back burner and Malay is the "it" language. But, why is it then, that I can no longer bury myself in its idiom, its heritage and its soul? When I write in that language, I do not have the cultural scaffold, or backbone, to support my immersion into that language. Despite the fact that the very first story I wrote, at the age of 9, was written in Malay, and full of imaginaries gleaned from the Malay story books I read. Now, my language has become course, has become post-modern and so very unrefined. Lacking, as my friends say, the feel and root of Malayness. Going by the policies and acceptable norms in this country, am I doomed to obscurity should I ever propose to produce literary works in Malay? Or do I have to go to some village and live among the people to capture their rhythm as they go about their lives?

What about the Chinese Language or culture? Alas, my almost illiterate grasp of the written form has made it harder to acquaint myself with the ins and outs of the Chinese culture, beyond hearsay and oral transmission. I have tried learning a traditinal Chinese instrument, took up Chinese martial arts for awhile in a class taught by a teacher from China, and even mix with many Chinese-centric friends with strong roots in their culture (unlike myself) just to see if I can find my "roots". I know I feel alienated when talking to my older relatives because I lack enough vocabulary for a smooth conversation (except periods when I've been so immersed in the language that the words just come pouring out), and had been poked fun at by Chinese friends who used me as an easy target for teasing and bullying due to my inability to defend myself properly in that tongue (this was during my school years). It is only recently that my vocabulary has expanded, though my reading and writing skills are still, alas, elementary.


Though I am not a Malay by birth, I feel more at home with the language than I do in Chinese. In fact, I have less problems conversing with old Malay folks who speak only Malay than old Chinese folks that speak only Chinese. IN fact, there was a time when I knew many Malay proverbs, but had discarded knowledge of them when I though I would concentrate on the sciences, because I did not feel accepted by most in the community while at a local university. Nevertheless, I'll never be accepted as part of the race, because of my ethnicity and religion.

Now, let's go back to talking about being an Anglophile. I used to think in varied languages, though the dominant language I think in is English. But so what? I may never gain employment from majoring in English because the poor quality of English education I have received. My parents could not afford to send me to elite schools, and I was never accepted to any elite boarding schools in my country. And I was too ignorant and too ordinary to get scholarships to elite schools elsewhere. As I said earlier, my acquaintance with the baggage carried by the English Language in its original form is second hand, but I can placate myself with the fact that English is no longer the language of the Anglos but also of everyone else worldwide. We use proper grammar (and that, I sometimes still have problems with) but we can insert whatever the colour that we wish into the dialect.

Anyway, I've to get to work. So, this will continue...