thisguy

I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars, and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine."
I Would Ask For Still More, Rabindranath Tagore

After three years in the London School of Economics, I graduated and made one of the biggest decisions of my life – to turn my back on the chance to live a cosmopolitan life abroad and return to Malaysia.

Besides being home to some of the biggest corporations in the world, London also had awesome concerts, free air-conditioning 3 quarters of the year round and perhaps more impressively – Keira Knightley. Yet somehow, Malaysia was where my heart was.

I've never quite understood what went through my heart and mind when I boarded the plane home. Perhaps with some deeper subconscious significance, I chose to take that flight back on Merdeka Day.

It's been two years since that flight and I'm still finding out what it means to be home and learning who I am.

I'm a Malaysian Chinese three generations away from a China I never want to call home. I'm also a modern, liberal person, who is proud of his culture but fascinated with how small the world has become. I am in pursuit of my Weltanschauung.

When young people learn about themselves, as I am doing now, they should find themselves opening realms of possibilities, but like other Malaysian Chinese youth, I am forced to face my limitations instead. Limitations such as to what extent I can voice my opinion, behave with my loved ones in public and succeed in my career path. It's bad enough to live in a country that forces me to relinquish having certain credit privileges and scholarship opportunities and will never allow me to be Prime Minister even if I deserved it.

To call this beautiful country my home, I put up with these sacrifices. But like a character in one of Yasmin Ahmad's movies once said, I feel like I'm in love with a girl who doesn't love me back.

I read somewhere that love grows from understanding but love itself cannot be understood. And so, I won't seek to understand my love for this country that would not even notice if I were to give up one day and leave. I won't seek to understand why I am proud that she is mine even though I will never truly be hers. Instead, today, as it was two years ago on her birthday, all that is important is that I am with her.

And I can only hope that one day, she too will love me.

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theStar, 250607