Neither the Jasmine Tea nor the Earl Grey

Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s views and sentiments struck a resonant chord in me though we are generations apart. Mr Lee was born and bred in Singapore while my father was born and bred in Penang. Both the islands of Singapore and Penang were English settlements. Both Mr Lee and my father grew up under the British rule. They both sang God Save the Queen as their national anthem before 1957. They are both banana, wearing the yellow skin with everything English in mind. The stark difference is, Mr Lee is the father of the developed nation, Singapore, while my father is the father of my 2 elder brothers and me.

My grandparents sent all their children to English schools before Merdeka for the hope that the children will secure good jobs upon leaving schools. In those days, China was still a sleeping dragon. People saw no future in learning Chinese. To add salt to injury, Chinese educated graduates contributed to high unemployment rate. That was the reason Mr Lee discontinued the medium of teaching in Chinese in Nanyang University, later being renamed to Nanyang Technology University. I guess, that was the reason, too, of my father sending my eldest brother to a Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) primary school instead of a Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC). Alas, my eldest brother ended up in a Malay school because the Malaysian government began to change English-medium national-type schools into Malay-medium national schools in the 1970s in accordance to the national language policy. My eldest brother, for being unable to read Chinese, had to memorize the entire Jacky Cheung’s song in which I wrote the pronunciation in pinyin for him, before he could sing in a karaoke during the heyday of HK entertainment.

Race: Chinese. That’s written on my birth certificate. I find no fault in it until Dec 1996. It was my first time visiting Shenzhen, China, from Hong Kong. When I stepped out of Kai Tak International Airport, it was as if I’ve taken a 3+ hour flight from Penang International Airport to Beach Street, Penang. Everything looked so familiar, especially the colonial buildings. When we had our passports stamped and entered the sovereignty of China, I naively asked my mom, “Why are there so many Chinese words? Even the streets names are in Chinese without any English!” My mom answered bluntly, “If Chinese in China don’t use Chinese, who else is going to use Chinese?” Instantly, I realized how stupid I was. Throughout the trip, I found myself uneasy reading everything Chinese; road instructions, tourist signboards, and even the car plate numbers begin with a Chinese character. China, to me, is still a foreign land no matter how many times I’ve visited the country. On the contrary, when I stepped out of London Heathrow Airport in Dec 2008 after spending 1+ year in the United States, immediately, I found myself virtually at home, as if the 7+ hour flight has brought me back to Penang from Chicago.

When I was a graduate student in the United States, I was the only Malaysian. There was not even a single Singaporean in the university I was attending. Communicating with fellow Chinese from China posed to be an awkward experience for me. Culturally, they saw me as an overseas Chinese in the tropical country of South East Asia. They were amused at my habit of taking a bath at least twice a day, even during the chilling months of winter. They accepted my unique connoisseur taste buds of favoring Indian curry and Thai tomyam instead of Chinese food. They enjoyed my Mandarin, which is spiced with jargons unknown to them or structured with funny grammars. On the other hand, there was not as much communication hiccups while mingling with the Caucasians. However, with the whites, we don’t share the same taste of jokes, of entertainment and of family values.

I am a Chinese who can read or write Chinese but still, more at ease at reading English materials. The Caucasians see me as a Chinese but the Chinese from China see me as an overseas Chinese, which is not quite a Chinese. I see myself as a Malaysian but the Americans keep asking me where is Malaysia? On one hilarious encounter, a lady at the immigration asked me, “Is it China?” as she couldn’t find the word “Malaysia” on her computer screen. Therefore, I truly admire Mr Lee Kuan Yew for his success in putting Singapore on the avatar of international recognition. When I am too lazy to explain where Malaysia is, I’d just say, “I’m from Singapore”. I’m neither the Jasmine tea nor the Earl Grey, I’m the Boh tea, which is still in obscurity.