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.
My dad did not get enough education so it was very hard for him to get out of the life he had back then. But, he was able to get a job in a factory where he was fixing up bicycles and making new bicycles. The problem came in 1987 – when it was the financial crisis – and the factory had to close down in a year and my dad had nowhere else to go.
So, what he did was use up all of his savings to set up a very, very small stall where he could help repair the bicycles of all the different students who were going around in his suburban area in Ulung Lama, Taiping.
Growing up there, when I was young I was also going through a lot of medical difficulties; I was born with kidney dysfunction, where it was really difficult for my kidneys to process salt, especially to filter it out. So, I had to go on a few different medications in the beginning, even when I was 9 months to 1 years old. It attacked me when I was 9 years old and a lot of my families’ income was actually spent on my medication.
So, even as young as that; at 9 years old, I was already feeling so much guilt because I was one of the reasons why my family could not go forward in their lives in terms of financial stability. Because of that reason, I studied a lot.
[Image taken by the author, Mushamir Mustafa]
I actually went out to KL when I was 8 years old for the first time in my life, just because my relative was able to take me out. But after that, since then, the next time I actually went to KL was around 18 or 19 years old, after I got my JPA college. So, it was a huge difference for me, living in a complete village to going out there.
My city was Ipoh and that was the nearest city that I actually went to! So, that transformation was huge and I was supposed to be a breadwinner in the family. My sister studied in UNIMAS and she got a job, but it was not that great in the beginning and it was very, very difficult.
When my sister was studying in UNIMAS, it was around the time that I was also going to Canada. So, there was no one supporting my parents at that time.
My dad was still trying to get his life going and supporting everyone else, because no one else had income. My mom would do a lot of different kinds of things like she used to sow; she would sell nasi lemak, mee, cendol and I would help at both shops.
[source: Gary Barnes on pexels]
But when I had that opportunity of education, I was also facing a lot of difficulties in Canada. Because of all the people that are surrounding me – everybody had additional finances to help them – just the scholarship itself was not enough for me to sustain the expenses of living in Canada, especially in Toronto.
What I did to actually help sustain myself was through doing a lot of odd jobs; I did gardening, because I had experience in gardening; I was doing letter and small item deliveries and being a dispatch.
I worked at film festivals as well, as a photographer and videographer, even though I have never touched a camera or video camera before – I was learning my skills on the spot – just so I could sustain my expenses there.
At the same time, my family was also facing a lot of financial difficulties back home in Taiping so I would send whatever scholarship money that I had back to them.
All of these also caused me to not excel in my studies. I had a lot of different other skills like programming skills, so I was exploring more on that so I could help to sustain my finances. A lot of the problem was just financial. So, what happened was that my passion for education and in learning started to slow down a bit, and my academics were not as good as they used to be. I used to be a top student almost all the time but then it was all changing. At that point, I was wondering, is this really where I want to be? Is this the course that I really wanted?
[source: luis gomes on pexels]
[source: Vlada karpovich on pexels]
Forced To Come Back To Malaysia
When I came back to Malaysia, I was trying to find other education opportunities because I knew my parents were so disappointed. I didn’t really tell them that there was a problem I was going through, and I only told them after a few months that I can’t really go back to Canada anymore and I can’t complete my education.
It was the most emotional moment for me when I had to tell my parents that I couldn’t finish my degree in Canada.
This was especially hard because, out of everyone in my extended family, I was the first one to actually be selected to go out as a scholar to a country like Canada to get my degree. I was doing Aeronautical Engineering which was completely unheard of in my family.
[source: viresh studio on pexels]
So I kept lying to my family for a good three months and I’ve never had to lie to my parents or keep things from them before but I had to.
That was actually the most difficult moment I was going through.
When I finally told them about it, they just couldn’t fathom it. They’ve always seen me as an excelling student, and this was the first time they saw me breaking down.
I couldn’t even look them in the eyes, to the point where I just spent most of my time outside, sitting in LRTs and looking for jobs.
I would come back home as late as I could so they would already be asleep—it just came to that point.
My dad took it really hard—he was never the type to be that expressive—but for the first time, I could see that he was almost shedding a tear in front of me, and that was just really rare to see. I think that broke me even further.
I was going through a very severe depression at that time because I couldn’t really face my parents. I would cry every night at 2 or 3 a.m. because I would not be able to help my parents do anything.
At that time, my parents had already moved to Kuala Lumpur. My sister had just gotten a job at a bank,, and it was helping, but we were all living in a small house in an unnamed condominium. So, all of us were living in that small area; it was very difficult, and I would sleep on the floor of the living area. So, that’s how our life was.
But I knew I needed to sustain myself, so I started working all kinds of different part-time jobs again. I even started teaching, and that was one of the early incomes that helped me a lot. I was really good at mathematics and calculus, so I helped teach SPM students. That was just one of the ways that I managed to get some money to sustain myself.
I tried to go to public universities, but they told me, “Sorry, no, we can’t accept you because you don’t have matriculations, Form 6, or any other A-level education.” “You only have Canadian pre-university.”
So, they didn’t accept me anywhere!
I tried to write a letter to our Education ministers, but no one got back to me. So, it was really, really difficult. Only Sunway University offered a scholarship for me if I was actually able to show that I had a good academic background. They said that everything is transparent, so I decided to just sign up for it. I saved up money for four months, and whatever work I had, I WORKED. I used to come back home at 11:30 at night after I taught tuition at multiple places.
I came back, and finally, I managed to save up RM12k just to do that first semester, ONLY to find out that I would not be able to get that scholarship because my pre-university had expired by the time I had enough money to go to Sunway University.
But Sunway was always so helpful to me. They would say that it’s okay; I could pay my fees later, as long as I paid them. The finance department gave me a specific date for payment. So I would still be studying, but at the same time, right after I finished my studies, I would go to Kajang just to work to get more money from the tuition I paid.
And I was adamant about going through all of this because my parents thought it would be difficult for me to get a job, and it was difficult for me because I had programming skills—I could build websites from scratch—but a lot of companies couldn’t hire me at the time. People didn’t think that skills alone were enough; you’d need a degree for people to hire you. So, I still had to get that university degree.
Finally, I was able to do that, after three years of juggling studies and work, somehow I was selected as a Valedictorian at Sunway University.
[Image taken by the author, Mushamir Mustafa]
Still, at that same time, I was still facing the difficulty of finding a job that paid well. I was conflicted between a job purely for profit or a job for my own personal reasons. I was so into education that I really wanted to help kids who were poor like me who couldn’t get out of their poverty. I really felt like education was the main anchor of getting yourself out of poverty.
So, I helped out by charging a very low fee whenever I taught tuition for SPM students around the region because I felt that difficulty.
But, that was a problem for me because I didn’t take all the jobs that were offering RM5k – RM6k salary even for a fresh graduate like myself. Instead, I stayed at Sunway University where I worked as a teaching assistant to help me grow as a person.
Driving A Beat Up Proton Wira
So, I used to have this second-hand Proton Wira 1994, in the beginning, to help me move around to teach tuition and everything since I needed an income but that required me to travel very far. So, that was an issue. I saved up all my money to buy that car but the servicing cost me more and every month a new issue would surface and the expenses weren’t always fixed.
So I had to sell that off, save up and spend some money on a new Axia. But at least I know how much I’d have to pay each month. It’s all these different things and also helping my parents to stay in a place; I would pay for rental, bills and all that. So everything has contributed to my expenses. Whatever I earn is really just nice for me and it’s difficult for me to save.
Currently, I’m working for an NGO; I work under Sunway iLabs, a non-profit organisation under the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation. We don’t really get that much of an income so, it’s also a real challenge.
And that’s still where I am now; I am still working with students. Although I have moved on to a different department, working with Sunway Innovation Lab, I still work a lot closer with the education side. I am offering education technology and also social innovation, and sustainable development at the university.
[source: cottonbro studio on pexels]
That’s where I’ve always contradicted myself when I ask, am I really feeling happy?
I’m always happy that I’m contributing towards my students and the people around me, but am I contributing enough for my own family’s growth? Because I always feel like I’m not doing enough.
I love working there, but at the same time, it’s a challenge for me financially. So, I used to do a lot of part time as well, but as I started to age, I realised it was taking a lot of toll on my health. Then, I started to reduce that. So I’m back to that “kais pagi, makan pagi, kais petang, makan petang” kind of situation on a monthly basis.
The Previous Generation Had It Much Easier
The boomers had it a lot easier when it came to job opportunities in a certain way, while the younger generations would struggle with this as they’re competing with thousands of graduates that we’re producing every single month.
So that has been a huge problem with millennials. But of course, there are those groups of people who come from an extremely rich background and don’t have anything to worry about. When you mix them all together in one space, it just becomes a mess.
From what I’ve seen in Kuala Lumpur, a lot of the millennials are self-absorbed, but there’s also a group of millennials who are really struggling to fit in with the society in Kuala Lumpur.
Even if they come from a good, middle-class family, all of them—particularly the students I taught—have mental health issues.
And their parents have no idea what’s wrong with their child. This causes them to not appreciate their parents or their family because their family can’t understand what they’re going through because it’s a hugely different generation.
Before You Can Help Others, You Must Be Able To Help Yourself First
My dream is to help my family and to be in a situation where they don’t have to worry about wanting to go to a hospital or a clinic just to get a proper medical checkup – they’ve always been so scared of going to the doctor. So, my dream is really to provide them with a sustainable lifestyle.
One of the things that I really learned is that yes, you really have to help your family, but at the same time, you also have to put yourself first. There’s also this saying that I really started to follow as I grew up: if you can’t help yourself first, it will be very difficult for you to help others. And it doesn’t matter who you want to help—even if it’s your own family, you will still need to sustain yourself first.
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