25/11

Yesterday, when I was at Urbanscapes (the city's creative arts festival, to those of you who've never heard of it before) I had quite an interesting conversation with this man (let's call him A).

Ok, here's what happened. I decided to drop by one of booth (for the third time) for some free ice-cream. While I was talking to this girl, who I met before at a different venue, A approached me and casually mentioned that it's one ice cream per person. Hey dude, I'm only trying to help you out.

Ok, back to the point. So, the conversation started and he was saying how a lot of the performers were from Sarawak. Me being me, mentioned too that I was from Borneo. And this is where the real conversation started...

*note that I have a bad memory but I'll try to be as accurate as I can.

A: Oh, why is it that people from there make us feel like strangers! I mean when I was there it felt like I was in a different country.
Me: What do you mean? People there are generally very nice.
A: Oh no, it's just, I didn't know that you have to use your passport/IC to enter. I thought we were all Malaysians.
Me: But yeah, you have to understand that it's a deal made between Tunku Abdul Rahman and Sabah and Sarawak when he offered them to join Malaysia. Hahaha this is why you should've paid attention in history class.
A: I got A in history but I've never heard of this before. It was just a culture shock for me when I arrived there.
Me: Yeah, can't do much about it because it's the law.
A: Yeah, but it's not fair to me. I mean people there can come here to work but we can't come there to work.

Ok, this conversation lasted quite a while. I'll just end it here. My point is a) that dude was ignorant b) just because he got A in history (as he claimed) it doesn't mean he knew everything! When I was in high school, my history teacher didn't failed to mention about this deal made between the Tunku and the people of Sabah and Sarawak. That's what's lacking in our education system! We were taught to pass an exam!

Also, to generalized an entire state like that is very much arrogant and ignorant. The statement that he made about people over there can work over here but they can't work over there is very untrue! Heck, a lot of my teachers in high school were from Semenanjung! A lot of social workers there are also from Semenanjung. What he failed to realize is that there are more job opportunities here with higher pay than there.

What I'm really trying to say is, you can't be saying we're supposed to be Malaysians when you for a fact don't know squat about anyone other than your own culture. Being Malaysian is about diversity and that means you're gonna get culture shock.

Also, why he pissed me off was because he kept on generalizing people and said that people there were mean! Hello! With that attitude, no wonder no one was nice to you. Lol.