Stereotypes of a Malaysian Chinese

I'm a Malaysian currently studying in the UK. As an ethnic chinese student, I faced a lot stereotypes.
Here are some common stereotypes I faced as a Malaysian Chinese in UK:

1. My English is very bad
2. I am a communist supporter
3. I am an atheist.
4. I am rude, loud and ignorant of others
5. I'm super rich and arrogant due to the fact that I have lots of money
6. I'm here to stay in the UK illegally.
7. I'm from China, definitely.

This is my point of view:
I am a 4th generation chinese in Malaysia. My great-grandparents migrated from China to British North Borneo (modern day Sabah of Malaysia) during the 1920's due to political unrest in China. Decades passed by and my grandparents are granted Malaysian citizenship after the independence of Sabah, forming the federation of Malaysia in the 1960's. Decades later, I was born in the 90's. Hence, China is of no relation to me (other than the fact that I'm an ethnic Chinese and Chinese originated from China). I am a Malaysian. Malaysia is my home country and I will identify myself as a Malaysian, not Chinese.
Generally, Malaysian Chinese are quite different from Chinese from China. If you are generalising all chinese in the same category, it is same like categorising all European in the same stereotype. (Genrally, an Englishman would not love to be identified as an Ukrainian, would he). Due to decades of assimilation into the Malaysian culture, I actually can not relate to the Chinese of China, Even our languages are quite mutually unintelligible.

Answering to the common stereotypes as above:
1. Generally, Malaysian Chinese have a good English language background. It will be quite offensive for a Brit to say to a Malaysian chinese " Do you understand what I'm talking? Shall I go slower? I know, it's hard for Chinese to converse entirely in English." We learn English since our kindy years, I read my bible in English, all my school subjects are taught in English except some other languages class. I speak to my friends in English. So, depends on your definition, my first language is actually English. However, due to the fact that Malaysia is a multicultural country, most Malaysian Chinese can speak other languages as well. For me, I can speak Cantonese, Hakka, Mandarin, Malay, English, and a little bit of Hokkien. I speak Cantonese with my family members, Hakka with my extended family, Malay with my Malay friends, Mandarin with the school friends, English with my church members, Hokkien with my cousins (a little bit).

2. No, I don't support communism. In fact, I think democratic nations are the best.

3. I am a Christian. Just because my face is Asian doesn't mean that I'm from China with no religion at all. Sometimes I find it quite funny that people in UK assume that I don't have any knowledge about religions at all, just by judging my face. "Oh, you from China? Wow Christianity and Church must be something strange to you! Wanna know more about Jesus? Come to our evangelical courses! Don't worry, we have Chinese translations for you" If I'm really from China Mainland, I'll probably be more than happy to continue this conversation. But since I'm from Malaysia and I've been a Christian my whole life, I think this questions might be a little bit offensive (I don't need chinese translations, thank you). But, it is very encouraging to see that the churches in UK are doing their part in bringing more China Chinese to Christ. However, I don't blame anyone due to the fact that we can't tell the difference between a China Chinese and a Malaysian Chinese based on the facial looks alone.

4. Recently, due to the economic boom of China, many Chinese from China became use their new found wealth to travel around the world. Chinese tourists have a bad reputation because in some cases, they are known to be very loud, arrogant, dirty, inconsiderate, and some even urinate at the public subway. In extreme cases, they abuse the tourist service providers and carve their names on some historical monuments, like the ones in Egypt. Because of bad reputation of tourists from China, we as a Malaysian Chinese with an Asian face tends to be stereotyped that way as well. No, Malaysian Chinese (and other oversea chinese such as Singaporean and Canadian) are quite well mannered. We know the rules and we will not break it (there's no benefits of breaking a UK law anyway)

5. I'm poor. I'm always on budget because I'm on scholarship to study in the UK. Praise God for the scholarship! But I've witness the lifestyles of Hong Kongers and Mainland Chinese students whom I consider as "lavish".

6. No, I really want to obey the law. Even if I want to migrate to other countries, I will not enter illegally.

7. No, I'm from Malaysia. If you see any Asian faces and assume that they're from China even before striking a conversation, you will be offending Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Indonesians, Taiwanese, etc... and maybe some Aussies, Americans, British, Canadians and Kiwis. But I will not blame you as there are 1.3 billion humans in China and only 50 million ethnic chinese are born outside of China. (That's less than 5%)

Worry about my country

(I might have to remove this post for the sensitivity of the issue in Malaysia)
I am increasingly concerned/worry about my beloved country, Malaysia

The government is using the colonial-era Sedition Act (1948) to shut off the opposition, arrest them and cut them off from the political scene. Such brazen act should not exist if Malaysia is keen to be a first-world country. This is an uncivilized act of insecurity and immaturity.

Can you imagine if Barack Obama put Romney into jail for Romney's criticism about USA government? That would have caused an uproar among the Americans.

Malaysia has a lot of potential to be the best country in the world, but not with the current government. Malaysia is becoming more and more authoritarian, like Russia.  If this trend continue, I am sure that brain drain will be epidemic and the public dissatisfaction will explode.

Authoritarian/Totalitarian government will do more harm than good. Just look at the past/present dictators. The dictator and the cronies looted their own country. The dictator and the cronies lived a luxurious life while the citizen suffer poverty. To name a few: Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Pol Pot of Cambodia, etc.

Such hypocrisy existed in the Malaysian government should be exposed and amplified. Why would the police only arrest the opposition leaders for their remarks, but not the ruling party's leaders' racist comments? If you are one of the members of the ruling party, whatever seditious remarks or racist statement that you make, you are immune, If you are one of the members of the opposition parry, whatever you say you could be arrested for it.

I don't see any future for Malaysia, not with the current situation.

#PrayForMalaysia

How to identify different types of chinese

People with Chinese ethnicity are all around the world. This chart is a small representation of the much bigger picture.

Jealous 2.0

I get jealous really easily. I easily get irritated by people who tends to show off.

However, nobody is perfect. So i must learn how to tolerate everyone , looking for their nice side for mutual benefits. Thinking of ways to avoid on their "asshole" side of them

I don't know why but I think I am very immature, can feel intimidated quickly. I love being compared and win, hate it when people compare me when I lose out. Such a mindset sure will destroy me de, because there are a lot of people (tonnes of them) far better than me.

The only thing I can do is focus on myself, and God, don't compare, just do my best. Compare only to see where I can improve myself. It doesn't matter if I'm inferior, as long as I did my best.

So, dear ladies, all the best in your life making each other jealous haha

Friendship and Rejection

Wrote this to express what I feel, will be a nice reference for the future me to understand what the present me thinking right now haha.

I just had a video call with a particular good friend to me from High school from Malayisa. Nice chat and we didn't change at all. So, full of confidence, I asked him to allow me to chat with more people. Eventually I had to accept the truth that not everyone miss me, it's not like I want them to but it's a cold shoulder generally. Only certain very very close friends that I did realyy felt connected to, others are not so. Some even choose to ignore it. Well I don't bkame anyone. I was the one, my attitude and my past wrongs had led me to this. Time and time again I felt guilty.

Then I always reflect upon it (call me the guy who thinks too much).. Life is always about memory isn't it. Bad memories are to be learnt, not to be dwell in it. Good memories are to be cherished. Can I just choose to remember the good? Choose to see the good side out of every bad? Yes, it's a choice, it's always a choice.

Men will never escape from making mistakes. With mistakes, comes cost and consequences, We can choose to learn from it, or we can dwell in the guilt until it becomes a bondage. Nobody really care about our past, it just define who we were and how we had made progress in improving ourselves.

I always have this tendency to feel sad when people not giving me attention. I love attention, I want to be praised, I want to be around many friends, I don't want to feel lonely. I want to feel belonged. Yet, after these years of experience and reflections, I came to conclude that given my personality which has a huge space for improvement, it's really no matter if I don't have any friends at all. It is all about keeping myself together and mature up. It is always on how we face things, not what we faced.

Somehow i think my personality reflects my dad's. Something I didn't really like but I have to respect my dad for what God had done through him. I really have to get rid of the immature and longing for attention side of me, it's really bad. And yet I know nobody is perfect, but I just had to try because the consequences of not trying is far greater than the cost of trying. Maybe I just like to present a perfect self. Rather be hated for who I am than to be loved for who I'm not. Yes, it might seem to be impolite, but I really have to grow up in this unforgiving world.

Not everyone will give you the attention you need haha. That's the hard way I learnt.

Anyway, God is always with me, whom shall I fear..

Identity Crisis

I am a Malaysian Chinese. I am the fourth generation of chinese in Malaysia. My great-grandparents are from China. According to my grandpa reocrds, I'm the 23th generation of the family, tracing our family origins back to the 10th century in the Song Dynasty of China. My great-grandfather is from Guangdong province of China, My great-grandfather of my mother's side is from Fujian province of China, My grandmother of my father's side came to North Borneo (modern day Sabah, Malaysia) during the WW2 to escape the japanese occupation in China. I am born and raised in Sabah since then. Hence, I am a pure chinese, pure Malaysian,

What makes a Malaysian Chinese distinct from other Asian faces? I understand that we all look the same. And yes, not many people realized the variation between the chinese speaking community. Grouping all chinese into the same category is like grouping all Europeans into the same category, including French, English, German, Russian..etc. That would make a huge debate isn't it? As for example Germans will never wanted to be identified as ethnicity as the French people. Thus, it will not be a nice thing to do to assume that all chinese acts and behave the same way, although most people do that.

Malaysian Chinese:
1. Speaks Malay, English, and some Chinese dialaects including Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, FuChou, Teochew, Hainan..etc. Some Malaysian Chinese don't know the chinese language at all, we call them "Banana" (Yellow Asian coloured skin, but white caucasian inside)

2. Have better English proficiency (We were once British colony). But our English is fondly called "Manglish" (Malaysian English) or "Singlish"(Singaporean English) as it is a English Creole with a mixture of Malay, Indian Chinese words in it.

3. Loves Malay, Indian, and Chinese food of all kinds.

4. Great exposure to multicultural environment as Malaysian population comprises of Malays, Chinese, Indians, and various local tribes. And hence, we are exposed to various religion mainly Islam, Christian, Buddhist, Hinduism,..etc and also Atheism!

5. Love our country Malaysia, love our multi-ethnic friends, but most likely to speak out against the government critically in certain government policies.

My thoughts
I am now studying in the UK. Most people thought that I'm from Hong Kong or Mainland China. But hey, chinese are everywhere! I'm from Malaysia. When I say I'm a Malaysian, they'll think that I'm a Muslim Malay. No, I'm Malaysian Chinese, to be more specific, a Malaysian with chinese ethnicity. No, I can't really relate to the Hong Kongers, I don't identify with the Mainland Chinese. Our cultures and upbringing are totally different. Malaysian Chinese are genuinely different, and sometimes I felt insulted when they think I'm from Mainland China, given the bad reputation of Mainland Chinese tourist generated,
No, I don't have problem at all to understand English. Just because Mainland Chinese struggled with English doesn't mean that we Malaysian Chinese will do the same. Our English is way better than what you expect. (Call me proud but this is generally true). There is one occasion where the church speaker said that he will speak slower to accommodate my poor English skills. Hey, that's an insult! I understand you just fine.,,but I don't blame them because most Mainland Chinese and Hong Kongers have bad English skills.
To a certain point, I lose my confidence, thinking that all white British people will just group me together with other Mainland Chinese. That's a pretty bad reputation actually given that Mainland Chinese are notorious for their bad tourist behavior, tarnishing the image of Asian faces. But it's not fair to the Mainland Chinese as they are actually kind people, just a bit loud, dirty and inconsiderate. But that's fine, it's not their fault for their upbringing. We Malaysian Chinese are no better either.
What will you feel when I say you British are the same as the French? I don't think you will be happy isn't it? But that's fine, we can't identify French from Britons unless we listen to your conversations haha. So, I am trying my best to accept the fact that, unless Britons interact with me, they'll just think that I'm from Mainland China.

Malaysia Dilemma
Dear Malaysia, please don't reject me just because I am of chinese ethnicity. I am born and raised in a typical middle-class Malaysian society, I pay taxes to the Malaysian government. I consider Malaysia as my home, my only home. I love all Malaysians regardless of their belief and skin colour. But some of the policies are not so favorable to us, and force us to look for better opportunity elsewhere, contributing to the brain drain. I would really love to contribute to the Malaysian economy, but now I am indirectly forced to search for "greener grass" outside of Malaysia, which made me very very sad. I have no idea of my future, really no. But my heart will always be Malaysian, Malaysia boleh.

why am I sad now

I feel depressed, sad, in-confident, tired,, lonely and basically very down. I have to identify why am i feeling this:

1. I have to decide whether I want to join my parents for European tour. It's one of the biggest decision inlife I have to make. I have to weigh out all possibilities, outcome, cost, and family values. Before these, I always go with the flow. Now suddenly need to make a choice, I feel very shock and sudden. I don't know what to do.

2. I may have to apply for National Insurance Number again. I was late for submission due to uni close during Christmas period. what can I do? What should I do? When can I know if I'm successful or not? Why ppl seem so smooth yet I so hard.. hmmm

3. Job during the summer? The process of interview, selection, rejection scares me out. I don't want to feel rejected. Yet, without effort, don't expect a summer internship will come anytime soon.

God, I lift all these into your hands, you are my guide, Lord of my life. May your will be done, and your spirit of wisdom and discernment be with me. Amen