Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
I grew up in Cheras, KL. I have lived here all my life, and the one thing that I have consistently noticed is that people tend to surround themselves only with others of the same skin colour, regardless of shared interests.
Now don’t get me wrong – I understand that this does not apply to everyone, and convenience does play a very big role in socialising. For example, if you had gone to a Chinese school, chances are you would have predominantly Chinese friends.
I’m here to challenge that specific scenario. I did go to a Chinese school, but instead of having friends who are mostly the same race, I spend the majority of my free time either at futsal or having banana leaf with some of my best mates – who all happen to be non-Chinese.
I was brought up to appreciate every culture
My parents made it a point to celebrate any festival we could throughout the year: whether it’s going to their Indian friends’ open houses for Deepavali wearing sarees and kurtas, or mastering the art of cooking rendang to bring over for Pak Cik Osman’s annual Raya celebration.
Whenever it was Chinese New Year, you would see many families of different races coming together at our own open house. In fact, my mom always made it a point to go through the extent of preparing a special halal corner for the Muslim guests in our house. Granted it was a little more effort, but it was always genuinely appreciated.
I guess you can say that our parents implemented that idea of unity to us all our lives.
Language barrier is no excuse to not mix with other races
If language was a reason to not adapt to other cultures, then my inability to speak Tamil would have restricted me from buying my favourite vadai every Saturday. You would instead see me at a kopitiam most days chatting with the aunty about her kids in Mandarin.
That is not the case.
We Malaysians have this superpower where we can use any rojak language to communicate with pretty much anyone in our country. For example, my Indian friends go to the morning market to get their weekly vegetables from the Chinese aunties by speaking BM and English with no issues at all.
Over the years, I have personally picked up the fascinatingly different lingo my Malay friends use and it really helped improve my dynamic with them. For example, I would drop the “santai-santai ah” with the occasional “pape roger” whenever asking them out for a mamak session. You know, because we’re all broke.
I have absolutely nothing against Chinese people lah…
But there’s always this subtle judgement among my Chinese friends. It’s always about who has the most money, who has the best job, or who drives the nicest car. Not that it’s the worst thing – I just think it’s unnecessary and a bit uncomfortable. Whenever I look to lepak with my friends, all I care about is having a good time through banter or talking nonsense.
It goes both ways. It comes naturally to me surrounding myself with a circle of diverse friends, just like how it can be natural to them to do the same with their Chinese friends. I believe that diversity leads to richer friendships.
Despite that, I still hold a lot of my Chinese friends close to me and they will forever be in my life. But I sometimes wonder if it’s the sentimental value I have with them or if it’s just the inability to let go.
My love of sports helped me meet different people
I am an avid fan of football. I live and breathe it growing up, it’s my second religion. You know how the stereotype goes, even in school, the Chinese kids always associated themselves with badminton and basketball, while I’m always on the field, kaki ayam, scoring the next best goal (to me at least).
So it only made sense that I would spend more time with the Malay kids, before and after footy. Just like how the Chinese kids stuck among themselves after their first-to-10 point game on the court. No one really knows why, but sadly, that was just how it has always been.
Regardless, my love of Manchester United has helped me discover friends from all walks of life and I’m grateful for that.
Deliberate communication will help each other from diff races grow as a person
To me, the ability to communicate perfectly with people of other races in a diverse country like Malaysia gives me the advantage of being on the same wavelength with different people. And more importantly, this ultimately helps me understand them a little more than I would have if I stuck to people of the same culture.
Either way, I feel proud that I expanded my radius to be socially accepting of people regardless of their background. I have my parents to thank for that, but sadly not everyone had an upbringing like mine.
My only hope now is that Malaysians can practice the same to bring all of us closer together.
For more stories like this, read: What It’s Like Going To A Chinese School In Malaysia As A Malay
and I Was Bullied In An SRJK Chinese School Because I Was A Banana
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