Being Chindian

by Temily Tianmay Jaya Gopan

(photo by sateda)

The birth of Baby Shay to Subang Jaya assemblywoman, Hannah Yeoh, has shed light on a minority population that has yet to receive significant attention. Shay’s father, and Yeoh’s husband, is Indian. Most Malaysians are familiar with the local term ‘Chindian’, which describes children of Chinese and Indian parentage. As a Chindian myself, I feel particularly connected to the ongoing controversy surrounding the baby’s race and can’t help but notice that the Chindian narrative regarding this matter has not been considered.

When I told my 10-year-old sister about the debate sparked by Baby Shay’s Chindian roots, she told me that her own teacher had insisted that she was Indian even though she clearly told her she was Ch-indian.

“I am not Indian. I am different from the other Indians at school even though my paper says Indian. I look Malay but I’m not. But I am also not Chinese. So I can only be Chindian”, she said.

She knows first-hand how it feels to be shoved into a category which means nothing to her.

(Image of Orissa by barunpatro)

As a child, I too got into trouble for raising my hand for both the Indian and Chinese categories. But I always felt like I had to say I was both. Otherwise, I would feel guilty because it seemed like my Chinese heritage was being left out of everything and that would not be fair to my mom. Guilt is a heavy burden for a child to start carrying on the first day of school. As I grew up, I would sometimes tick the box that said “lain-lain”  because it seemed like a better description of who I was.

But does my race define me? What exactly do we mean by “race”? We seem to be having a debate without really defining the term. The Oxford Paperback Dictionary defines “race” as, (1) one of the great divisions of mankind with certain inherited physical characteristics in common (e.g. colour of skin, shape of eyes and nose); (2) a number of people related by common descent; (3) a genus or species or breed or variety of animals or plants.

If definition (1) were true, then all Chindians should be considered Malay because we have the same skin color. But then again, there are also very fair Malays and very dark Malays. Should they be considered Chinese or Indian or “lain-lain”?

If definition (2) were true, then we are all one race because we are ultimately from a common descent if we trace it far back into our evolutionary history. Why stop at tracing it back to just a hundred generations?

Definition (3) reinforces that we are one human family. My point in this is to show that the definition of race is arbitrary. It is impossible to categorize people based on their “race” and using the word “ethnicity” instead of “race” does not change the fact.

Ever since I left Malaysia for university abroad, I have filled in forms for university applications, scholarship applications and visa applications to multiple countries and not a single form required me to state my race. It is every time I come home, ironically, that I am asked about my race, a painful reminder that different races have different benefits in this land.

The message is loud and clear: Your race is who you are.

And this message is heard not just by adults, but subconsciously absorbed by children who can’t yet think for themselves. A five year old Chinese girl came over to my house to play one day. She never second-guessed being comfortable with me because I speak Mandarin. Upon seeing my father, however, she came over and whispered in my ear: “Who is that dirty man over there?” It turns out that she had been told that all people who were darker than her were dirty. But still she ran into my fathers arms with a big smile when he initiated a game with her. Prejudice had not yet consolidated itself in her heart.

(Photo by asifthebes)

Our message seems to be contradictory. On the one hand, we proudly parade the 1 Malaysia sign. But on the other hand, we have institutionalised practices that remind us at every turn of how we differ from each other. Malaysia proudly proclaims its unity in diversity, but then forces the literal embodiments of this, children of mixed race, to give up their diversity and tick only one box.

In order to achieve unity and truly establish one common identity, shouldn’t we instead be reminded at every opportunity of what we share in common?

And if we really can’t get over the urge to physically distinguish ourselves from each other, a better way of going about it would be to actually look at our genetic differences. At least we would have a clear defining factor. Japanese researchers have found that people who have dry ear wax and wet ear wax have a different gene.(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/29cnd-ear.html) Perhaps our forms should now have a “dry wax”/ “wet wax” category for us to choose from.

The fact is that we are one human family. Science has proven it. But how long will it take for us to start practising it?

I am proud of my Malaysian heritage. This includes, among others, Indian, Chinese, Malay and Asli heritages. I do not prefer one over the other just because of who my ancient ancestors were. They all contribute to my thoughts, emotions and ideals. How then is it fair to force me and other children of mixed race to choose one over the other? I refuse to pilih kasih.

I praise Hannah Yeoh and her husband for at least attempting to do justice to their child. Shay is definitely not just “Chinese”, as her papers now show.

Home Minister Hishammudin Hussein was quoted saying that “Whatever changes involving this matter will need amendments to the law and considerations on the constitution.”

Laws and constitutions are man-made to safeguard the interests of the people. Once upon a time in history, highlighting our racial differences may have safeguarded our common interests. But this is no longer the case. Law and constitutions are man-made and therefore can change to cater to the needs of the present time.

One of my favorite authors, Shoghi Effendi, wrote:

“If long-cherished ideals and time-honoured institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae…no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines…For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.” 

And if it doesn’t change, let us all, Chindian or not,  tick “lain-lain” in an attempt to blur the lines that divide us.

Watch Temily’s interview on the brand new Komunitikinitv show, My Dua Sen, here, where she takes on the infamous Brain Drain, and introduces his kissing cousin: Love Drain.

Vision is hardly 20/20

Just the other day, as usual, my younger son, with his profound questions asked me, "Will our country be a very developed country in 9 years?" I, as usual, could not give a straight forward answer but take him on a long journey of circumlocution and make him more confused than he ever was!

To me, being a citizen of the developed nation mean all its citizen have a certain to play. It is not just a matter of having lots of money to spend, mammoth buildings for others to awed, seamless cheap infrastructure for its entire citizens to use for free. With great powers come great responsibly. A citizen from a particular first-world nation is expected to behave in a certain socially acceptable way, just like any professional body has a code of ethics for its member to emulate.

Certain current events do not speak well on our journey to be a developed nation. The ruckus and free-for-all that occurred during the Energizer Run is one living example that I witnessed myself. And the worst part is there were Singaporeans amongst the participants. Guess they will now have something else to snigger or sneer about over their nocturnal chocolate drink or Chinese tea made with New Water (water recycled from sewage treatment plant). People throwing big plastic bags out of their half a million ringgit car are examples of why money cannot buy you proper etiquette.
Being highly developed to me means include being cultured enough not to look down others who are not so fortunate.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Change of government, change of hearts?

It sometimes baffles me to see why something which is quite obvious to me is not to others (or it is made to appear so?).
If one were to peruse our mainstream papers, it is quite apparent that there is concerted effort to discredit the two opposition held state governments of Penang and Selangor. They (the forces above) make it appear as if everything is going on bad in these places. If there is a hitch in the hill funicular train service, it appears on the headlines. Also if a baby in a day care nursery in Penang drowns in a bath tub; if the illegal nursery (of the plant variety) in Selangor is asked to vacate after so many years occupying the state plot without paying a single sen of rent, the state is pictured as heartless and do not have the welfare of the people at heart!
The wise man knows that civil servants (even if you are uncivil in your behaviour) are independent of the government of the day. The supposed masters of these servants are citizen of the country, not the dogmatic political dogs.
The local authorities are malaise and not proactive in their outlook, so much so that change of guards have no real bearing on its day to day functioning. It will just be another case of the same worn out clowns who has run out of ideas in a different set of costumes  performing the same routine...

The Third Man

The Third Man (1949)

An enjoyable movie that I watched recently (actually for the second time) is a 1949 noir classic thriller named "The Third Man" directed by Carol Reed. It is listed as British all-time best movie, starring Joseph Cotten, Adila Valli (Italian Actress, not Indian) and the flamboyant Orson Welles in the leading roles. What makes it different in its own way are the unique musical score, the powerful dialogues and the cinematography ahead of its time. It is set in the poverty-stricken post-WW2 ravaged Vienna, which is governed by various Allied forces.

It depicts a pulp fiction writer who arrives in Vienna on an invitation of a friend who dies in an accident which raises many questions. He is sucked into the imbroglio of deceit, racketeering and fake medicine and fake death. It ends with a classic cat and mouse chase in the sewers of Vienna.

The music score, being British, is quiet at times, but the whole excitement of suspense, sadness and climax is all given by an unknown wine bar performer with a lesser-known instrument called a zither. The musician (Anton Karas) and the tool later became famous and replaced waltz music to depict Vienna and the post-war era.

Another point worth mentioning is the memorable lines. In one scene, Orson Welles, who plays the cavalier host, tries to justify his liaison with the dark side at a classic location at a Ferris wheel by uttering the following...

You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

And it is followed by the crescendo play of the zither....(excellent stuff)! Pray, listen to the compelling dialogue between Cotten and Welles followed by the opening score on the zither.

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Fathers' Day special?

Early this week, my favourite  radio station advertised that they were going to interview the father and son politician pair in their Breakfast Grille segment in conjunction with Fathers' Day over the weekend. I was curious to see (hear) how they were going glorify this father of a figure who attained notoriety via his digital display of his bedroom antics with his mistress which he claimed was with the approval and knowledge of his wife not many years ago. A politician, being a politician, thick lichenified skinned and shameless, managed to return to hold the helm which he once lost. Not much to my surprise, the duo did not appear together. In its place, Sr. was interviewed on his political party and agenda and nothing about being a father.
My learned uncle, ever so bitter with his late father, offered his fatherly words of wisdom to me when I was growing up. "Anyone can be father. To be a good one, that's one should thrive to be!". In my books, I suppose a good father should be one who should be able to provide for his family in his own able way and be a pillar of Gibraltar and a yardstick for his kids to emulate. Talking from experience, we all would not appreciate our old men until we ourselves got into fatherhood and discover the intricacies of diplomacy and wriggling through sticky situations as a father. By then, we would realise that we had indeed evolved to fit into the shoes of the man we had earlier never saw eye to eye in our earlier younger blooded days and never wanted to be like - our fathers. Happy Fathers' Day!

Pssst, nice tune!

This tune (Colonel Bogey March) brings back fond memories of the Penang Free School (PFS) band's rendition of this tune during School Sports Day. It was played solely on flutes while the band marched past the VIPs and parents' shed majestically with their their proud band master, colours and the impeccable laurels to match. Those were the glory days of PFS and its stature as one of the premier schools in the country! Hey, what do you know? It is something like the theme of the movie 'The Bridge of River Kwai'. Living on the pride of our institution!

A snippet (Colonel Bogey March) from the 1957's 7 Oscar winner (including Best Music Score - but there was hardly any 'music' in the movie!) - 'The Bridge over River Kwai' - showcasing pride of the British Army. This is not the kind of movie that my wife or children would fancy - there are no fancy clothes, no promiscuity, no lovey-dovey dialogues and provocative flashing of flesh!
Here is a bit of trivia for you.... (from Wikipedia)

According to Turner Classic Movies, the producers nearly suffered a catastrophe following the filming of the bridge explosion. To ensure they captured the one-time event, multiple cameras from several angles were used. The film was shipped to London by air freight for processing. When the shipment failed to arrive, a worldwide search for the film was undertaken. To the producers' horror the film containers were found a week later on an airport tarmac in Cairo, sitting in the broiling Egyptian sun. Though it was not exposed to sunlight, the heat-sensitive color film stock should have been hopelessly ruined. However, when processed the shots were perfect and appeared in the film.

Memories of RRF: Form6

Still writing about 1981. A good year. After spending a good 3 months with Mama, it was back to life and back to reality.
So there I was in Lower 6 at PFS, thinking I could conquer the world. Trying to act cool with the back-combed thick hair of the 80s. F6 was an eye opener. Over the Malaysian telly, 'Happy Days' was a hit among the teenagers. Every dude (yours truly included) was trying to 'act cool' and walk around with the hips and shoulders abducted slightly ala-Fonzarelli (The Fonz nee Henry Winkler) as if there boils were growing in the groins and armpit respectively!
Suddenly all the Malay friends whom I had known had mysteriously disappeared. The scholarships and matriculation offers came a-knocking on their doors and they reluctantly and half-heartedly accepted them. We heard that a guy who could hardly speak English for nuts got a scholarship to learn English language in US. He had to go for elementary phonetic lessons before he could qualify for classes proper. And F6 was left with predominantly non-Bumiputeras and some Bumiputeras who did not qualify for anything. Even then, some were on the appeal list and eventually disappeared like alien abduction. Some brainy chaps were quickly gobbled up by Singapore under the smokescreen of ASEAN scholarship, which I was shortlisted but miserably got rejected after the the interview.
I attended the ASEAN scholarship with my fellow student (AK, but mentor). We went down to Singapore on a shoe string budget by bus, stayed in Bencoolen Hotel, went for the interview and returned home that evening. We managed to do some sightseeing on foot, enroute to the bus station to take us to JB. I still have the poorly taken grained shots of the Merlion, Court House and Haw Par Villa. All hells broke loose when we reached JB. It was pouring cats and dogs and the rail track was flooded. As expected there was mayhem at the station. The trains were delayed and we were wet, tired and hungry (and angry). We grabbed a packet of noodles from one of the vendors. Only when we were chewing the mee, did we realise that the rather tough noodle was actually rubber band in our dinner! Or was it a special delicacy in JB? - To cook Mamak Mee with rubber band! Back to F6....
Some of the affluent non-Bumis had no time to have their children be guinea-pigs in the experimentation conducted by the Malaysian Government to teach A-levels and eventually tertiary education in the Malay Language. The kids quickly transported themselves to soils of other country gladly. That left the low-lives like us to fight it out in what was easily  agreed by all my teachers in unison that beyond all doubt was the most difficult examination in the world. For people like me, born with a plastic (not silver) spoon, F6 was it - no talk for Taylors' or overseas education. STPM or bust!
They were 4 Science classes and 3 Arts classes. Lower Science 1 was offering Science subjects minus Biology but plus Pure Mathematics. I was in Lower 6 Science 3 (LSc3). There initially 4 girls in our class of 20, but the boys managed to frighten the girls off to other classes that at the end of the day, we were left with only 16 boisterous boys who were the loudest and meanest students of the whole F6. Girls actually took a longer route to their destinations just to bypass our class so as not to heckled and commented at.
After 8 months of studies in L6Sc3, we all graduated to USc3 - the same students.
By and large, we had many dedicated teachers who would go the extra mile to prepare us for exams. The teacher who took the cake, in this sense, was our Chemistry teacher, Mr Loh Huah Sin. He actually had extra classes on almost every Saturday morning and during some holidays as the examination day was imminent. And his classes were open to all students.
There was a General Paper teacher who hardly taught us anything but left us to do our own work while he marked other classes' work sheet. Cikgu I, we used to call him Lobo (as he looked the splitting image of Claude Akins of The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo), was a Government scholar in Economics from the unknown University of Iowa. He tried to encourage discussion in the class regarding plethora of topics. Invariably, we, the students will bring in the inequality of treatment non-Bumiputeras in the NEP. And he would put end to it, every time. That was General Paper for us.
Mr KKT must be good in Physics. Unfortunately, he could not transfer his know howto any own of us and we were all in the dark about all subjects in Physics including light! He tickled our funny bone with his pronunciation of tennis - as "Tennish" during his school assembly announcement. I must also KKT for 'misguiding' me to fail (first and last time for any subject) my monthly Physics test in U6. I was so distraught by it that I studied and 'over-studied' the subject on my own that in the test (Midyear exams), I managed to secure the highest mark in the U6 and clinched the Physics prize for the form.

Chalk graffiti by FG on Teachers' Day 1982.

The irony of class (L6Sc3 & USc3) is that in spite of the noisiness and the apparent rowdiness shown by the students, they must have been burning the midnight oil and the candle at three ends for this calss squandered all prizes in the Science subjects (Biology, Chemistry and Physics)and produced 3 doctors, a dentist, a veterinarian surgeon, many teachers and many engineers.