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I was sitting alone on my own just now in my Quantitative Analysis lecture, the seat to the left of me vacant. I’ve never been one to be fully alert in the mornings, and was my usual sleepy self and placed my head on my outstretched arm on the table to take a short nap. When my lecturer arrived, I awoke again and saw that this Malay girl was looking towards my general direction (I was sitting to the bottom-left of her) and first addressed my name (I didn’t even know hers wtf), asked if anyone’s sitting next to me and if I’d mind if she sat there?

I mouthed and gestured sure, go ahead. For a while we didn’t talk whilst our lecturer continued teaching the topic of Financial Maths that was left hanging last week, and we copied down the projected notes vigorously. Occasionally we’d ask each other about certain mathematical questions, and that was all there was to talk between us.

But during the lecture evaluation period and a short break that was given, we got to know each other better – and I was finally putting my Malay to practice again (after having so many Malay best friends in my primary school days, and lower secondary), after its last proper usage was when I was in Laos and Thailand last December with Siew. Small talk was made, basic questions on our personal lives were asked (“You dulu belajar kat sekolah menengah yang mana ya?”) – I’m never big on socialising, but I was intrigued to want to know more about her. If there’s one thing about me about socialising that seems certain, it’s that if I perceive the other person to be not so intimidating, it’s easy to talk to said person nearly all the time.

So we talked. A lot. And I realised that this is my first time in years that I’m actually conversing with a peer of another race – a sad thought, innit, when we’re living in a purportedly multi-racial and multi-cultural country? My college is predominantly Chinese, and she was the only Malay girl in my class. I wanted to ask her if being in the minority makes her feel out of place, when quite a number of the students here converse in Mandarin, but I stopped short of asking that. I’m not too sure if it’s sensitive to ask, but common sense tells me that it isn’t a good question to ask when you’re getting to know someone for the first time.

She seemed nice, and fun to talk to actually – and she told me she was studying matrikulasi at this certain place (I forgot which it was already, and oh she’s 2 years older than me too) that was ‘ulu’ according to her. When her fellow students there found out that she’s from Subang, they were telling her, “Ohh orang sosial rupanyer” (I think ‘sosial’ is some slang of which I’m not too sure what it refers to exactly – haven’t been keeping myself up-to-date with Malay slangs), and whenever she seems a little too open-minded, they’d label her ‘sosial’. She laughed them off as being too ‘kampung’, but they’re very amusing to her.

All these while, no, I’ve yet to learn her name.

I wanted to ask her about the whole Ahmad Ismail fiasco and wondered what her thoughts were on the whole thumping of “Hidup Melayu!” hullabaloo in that Penang press conference. But I didn’t. I realised it was quite stupid to ask – it’s exactly the same thing isn’t it, if a Chinese leader were to cackle a fiery racial sentiment, and I’m asked what my thoughts are when I probably don’t share the same view?

Throughout history, men have been quarrelling, fighting, killing over race and religion. If “fucking idiotic” doesn’t quite describe it, I don’t know what else will. The very notion that the entire world is segregated and divided over the inherent and the unchangeable such as race (and I’ve not yet come to skin colour, religion, sexual preference, political affiliation, etc) is outright ridiculous.

Sigh. I resign to our fates. Humanity will continue to hate itself over its variations and individuality for time immemorial that I swear, one day we’d just bloody destroy ourselves with a single bomb of concentrated hatred – or with a ticking racial bomb. I don’t understand – I can never understand this.

But all I can understand is that there is a single truth: that bigots and hypocrites will continue to exist. And to that end, I am genuinely sad. Why do bigots exist, think the way that they do, say the things that they say?

But do you know what makes me happy? Looking at this:

A photo of a toy model of WALL-E looking outside the window, probably asking, “What’s beyond this world?”