Cling and uncling

I cling and uncling to what I’m about to exit. I’ve begun packing most of my belongings—mostly apparel and souvenirs—on Monday, a day after I returned from my Great Southern Touring Route trip with Esther, Esther’s aunt, and Estee, and I felt ready to leave. But as usual my heart oscillates between a rank sadness at having to leave a place that opened up sights, experiences, and friends from around the world I otherwise wouldn’t have, to a dimmed excitement of being back to my home country again, meeting family and old friends that I’ve always been close with, and getting to play me and my brother’s PlayStation 3.

Home country—now that’s a phrase I’ve been using as of late when talking to NAB’s staff when I opened a bank account with them, and with Optus when enquiring about my 1-year contract. Malaysia is a home to me, but simply living here for just 6 months enlightened me to how indifferent and apathetic most of us are—we take things for as they are, with our infamous phrase we apply to any and every situation, whattodo, and we leave things the way they are and have been—corruption, backwards societal mindset, etc—where we’ll forever remain at the back of this race for improvements, achieving nothing that a developed country is supposed to have.

It angers me always, at how people utilise religion as an answer to everything people are afraid and insecure with. We pride ourselves of being multicultural, and having been part of this brainwashing agenda, this is what I always tell foreigners when they asked about Malaysia: we have 3 main races in our country and we co-exist peacefully. I’ve recently read something that sounded so true I’m shocked I never thought about it: the government desperately want to sell an image of a harmonious nation, and the way they maintain that harmony is to issue silly decrees to not discuss anything “sensitive”, but doesn’t that impede on our freedom of speech? That’s almost a laughable thought—”freedom of speech” indeed. And the truth is, most of us from the minority races are deeply unsettled and hate the injustice levied against us (that said, I believe we mostly hate the government’s policies rather than the people who prolly have nothing to do with them). I’m surprised we’ve never been up in arms over this—other countries would’ve revolted since time immemorial and exact change—but we’re all taught to be afraid. Joining a peaceful candlelight vigil? Crazy ah, you’ll get thrown into jail under the ISA!

And that is what I hate to be returning to. The first time I saw a peaceful demonstration in Melbourne, I remember feeling excited and euphoric. Professors from universities went on strike (mine included); firefighters demonstrated as they demand for more firefighters, not less!; the same-sex marriage rally in Federation Square; countless of anti-racism peaceful demonstrations flooding down the streets of the city; a small protest group against KFC for their alleged cruelty towards animals; a socialist group protesting at the corner of Bourke and Swanston Sts demanding to be heard.. they let off some steam, and have all been heard. But in Malaysia where we pride ourselves with faux racial harmony, a small voice of dissent will be stamped out swiftly with fines, police abuse, and jail sentences, and so we let things be. We’re far too afraid, that a revolution has never begun.

And so Esther leaves tonight, or rather, in about an hour’s time, and me, in about 3 days. The very act of getting a professional steam cleaner to steam clean my carpets tomorrow morning essentially sealed the fact that I’d be leaving.

This must be real, I thought to myself. I try to erase all sense of familiarity and longing with this place—there won’t be any “I’ll meet you at Swanston St / La Trobe St later” over the phone or a text message or a message on MSN, no more “This stop is William St” announced from my rides with the free City Circle Tram, no peaceful demonstrations, no multicultural crowd as vivid as Melbourne, and most importantly, no more interaction with the Walsh St Boys. Ivan and co from unit 5 of Walsh Main recently acquired a new housemate in the form of Rob the American, and I wished I could be part of that fun. Watching at 12am last night with utmost incredulity at Youtube videos of (crazy) people lighting their hair on fire, had us laughing at the stark stupidity of it all—and I’m struck at the same time with the reality of leaving.

And so here I am. In this vestibule of clinging and unclinging. Packing and unpacking. Remembering and forgetting.