people

Sunday, May 22, 2005

A New Beginning

Hello all, this is Brenda. My friend Sarah has given me the honour (which will be her ultimate folly, I think) to contribute to her blog. And as usual, I have writer's block and am underperforming under pressure. Everyone wants to get-off the starting block with a bang with an exciting story about their exploits and the stupid gits that they meet in their daily lives, but I've decided to start with a whimper. Here goes:
I went to watch Star Wars with my brother last night at Star Cineplex (in Kuching). For those Star Wars fans who have not watched it yet because you're afraid you'll be disappointed with it like Epi. 1 and 2, have no fear, it's quite good. The cinema was packed. But the main point of the blog is not about the movie, it's about the cineplex (they still do the tickets manually, by hand! With those big red crayons!), the shopping centre (if you can call it that. There're 3 floors, the food court is closed so that took out about 70% of the retail outlets. Essentially dead. Anyone visited Kuching Plaza lately? It is beyond repair, don't even know where to start to describe it now.) and Kuching (we have a new flyover. When you go up the flyover, look out to the horizon. What do you see? Nothing? Exactly. Flat and green.) in general. While I was stuck in KL (the past 4 years), I'd always thought that once I graduated, or done my one-year try-out there, I'd be more than glad to come back to Kuching and continue life here (bearing in mind that I have a Physics degree and Physicists aren't exactly in demand in Kuching, but I was hopeful I'd get a job. Not picky.) . But the past 12 months shuttling between Kuching and KL, and trips to the sad sad shopping malls in Kuching has made me think: hhhmmm....maybe not. I used to hate KL: it's noisy, it's too congested, it's too busy and without my own transport, too big too get around in and visited those cool places like the bars Dida always goes to (oohh. I can sense Dida readying her 9mm right now). But nowadays, I can't help but feel a little stifled by Kuching. Of course, I don't try to compare it to the dynamism and colour of KL, but when I'm here, I'm in my comfort zone and I don't want to do anything other than sit at home and channel-surf Astro...because there's nowhere to go and no one to see and nothing to do. Shopping is non-existent, bookstores in Kuching are dying and one can only go to Coffee Bean oh-so-many-times before you start to realize that designer coffee gives you the same buzz as 90sen kopi. I wonder if my other friends like Dida feel the same? I'm pretty sure Dida does because she comes back to Kuching a lot a lot less than I do, and she'd never be able to have those "adventures" and do her "exploits" here in quiet little Kuching, under the watchful gaze of her parents. :) For a full accounting of Dida's personal life, plus a little embellishment here and there to spice things up by yours truly, visit her blog at livejournal.com/users/nemesis_on_fire. (Put the gun down, Dida. Nice and easy, ok? I'm doing you a good thing. There'll be more traffic to your blog now, right?)
On the other hand, I really do not want Kuching to become a city like KL. On the outside, Kuching is a small, quiet city with a nightlife that's barely alive, but the people of Kuching are well-informed and well-traveled people, where everyone knows almost everyone else (which might be a bad thing especially if you've a new bf or gf and every relative or family friend can report to your parents that they saw you there on so and so day with so and so's son/daughter).
Which is more than you can say about KL- it's a "world-class" city, but I have met people who have never had a passport, never traveled to even Sabah or Sarawak, never had friends of another race, never spoken a language other than their mother tongue and God forbid if you talk to them about religion or world affairs. When I was an innocent teen, whenever I read in Time or Newsweek about the "racial tension" or "discrimination" that exists in our country, I pooh-poohed it all because I'd never seen it with my own eyes. When I went over to KL, I didn't have access to Time anymore, but I experienced it for the first time how we discriminate against each other, against other Malaysians because we were not of the same beliefs. Example: a friend in UM messaged a friend of another race (from St.3 also) to ask if she had any tips for a paper they were both taking, but did not receive a reply. On the day of the exam, the 2nd friend confessed that they had been told not to give any tips to the others. In a "funny" twist to the event, the others scored the only 2 As for that paper. Huh. Is this the growing up I had to do?
So I'm glad I still have Kuching to come home to. I have friends of every race and religion here, my good friend Madz calls me from Ireland to wish me Happy Easter (my reply would be: "Ha?It's Easter already?"), and we all speak the universal language of English and the most volatile or sensitive our jokes can get are about sex and err, Dida (I couldn't resist, Dida! Sorry!). It's my oasis of calm, although some days, I fear that it will go the same way as KL (a lawyer, whose office is right opposite my dad's, was gunned down a few months ago. In Kuching). I'm pretty sure that most Kuching-ites want Kuching to remain "backward" or progress as slowly as possible, because we're happy the way things are (slow and easy) and if we're bored, we can always just fly off to Australia or New Zealand for a short getaway. So many Kuching-ites have PR there, they can create their own small town or settlement.
As it is, I've been living out of suitcases for 4 years and will be doing so for another 2 years at least. It's not what I had in mind when I started university 4 years ago. I didn't have a plan then, except that I hated KL and I couldn't abide by the thought of working and living there. Well, just goes to show how you should never say never.
I'm off to see the rest of the world for another 2 years, finally leaving KL and who knows if I'll ever come back to Kuching and make it my home? Am ever so thankful to God for giving me this opportunity to experience this, and with fingers tightly crossed, hope that it will hold more good than bad and that I will learn whatever lesson I have to learn. I read Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" yesterday (everyone of you who feel uncertain as to what you actually want to do with your life from here on, or you just want to read a good book, read this) and this sums up the whole book nicely:
"To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation."

No worries, folks, I'm rarely this comtemplative when I post up stuff on the Net. Go to Dida's blog to see how my maturity goes down to nil when I have her as a punching bag.

No comments: