Chocolate for Independence Day

A short film for the 15Malaysia project by a bold Malaysian filmmaker, the late Yasmin Ahmad. This is my favorite in the series so far.

“People like us don’t get opportunities here. If you go there you’ll have opportunities. This land is only for their kind [i.e. Malays].” The unceasing mantra of my parents’ generation. Here, I think, it closes a door that could’ve led to new possibilities.

For more, visit the 15Malaysia website. Again, happy Independence Day, Malaysia.

Independence Day

The Malay Peninsula, with the climate of a perpetual Turkish bath.

Sir Frank Swettenham, British Malaya, 1906

The Malayan countryside is rather like a rich feast, with a little too much of everything good.

George Woodcock, Asia, Gods and Cities, 1966

Eve of Independence Day.

It’s been over a year since my return to Malaysia, and still the same:

“Why did you come back? Why didn’t you just stay in the US?”

“Life is so much better there.”

“There are more opportunities there.”

Let’s be clear: I’m no patriot. I came back, not for any noble reason but because my mom died and the only way to attend her funeral involved chucking my chances at a green card out the window. Besides, I’d been in a deadlock with the United States immigration for over 3 years anyway and it was time to throw in the towel.

My homeland, like all other countries, has its own set of problems—unique in some ways, but fairly standard for a Third World nation trying to get to First. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve alternated between hope and despair about our future since my return last May, so I guess at this point it depends on what day one catches me.

What I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, though, is how much my students here–past and present–seem to think of the United States as a Promised Land of sorts. In this they are merely indicative of a widespread sentiment among Malaysians, especially non-Malay Malaysians, that a better life is to be found elsewhere, which is to say, just about anywhere except here.

I lived for 11 years in what is undoubtedly one of the freest, most powerful, wealthiest, and most opportunity-filled nation in the world. Like it or not, the US has got to be doing something right to have so many clamoring to get through its borders. Yet even after all those years, it’s very clear to me that America the Great is not without its ailments. Whether its problems are better or worse than those here in Malaysia I cannot say, but what I do know is that the America imagined by my students, friends and relatives is not quite the America I’ve known. They imagine that its citizens are uniformly supermodel-like (thanks to Hollywood), that everyone can get a job and get rich if they only worked hard enough, that anyone can climb the ceiling-less socio-economic pyramid. The cars are bigger, the air is cleaner and the laws are more just. This is the America they imagine.

Perhaps it is simply the case that in my view the grapes have turned sour, but when I look back to my time in the United States, I don’t feel as though I’ve left the third heaven. What I do feel is that I’ve left one beautiful country for another.

I love Malaysia. I don’t think or say that enough.

It’s not perfect–not by a long shot. There’s ethnic discrimination both de facto and de jure. Corruption permeates every level of its bureaucratic political and economic structures. We breed all manner of lies and stereotypes about the very immigrants who are the backbone of our economy, shortchange them on the paycheck and make them work like dogs round the clock. Just to name a few.

But there is also beauty. People still have time for each other here. Our coffee shops open till the wee hours of the morning to serve tea and roti canai to chatty locals. Our social mix is a storehouse of innumerable traditions. We’re obsessed with food the way I imagine some other ancient peoples might’ve been. We have rainforests and rivers and beaches and mountains. Many people here still remember what a simple life was or can be. Without too much trouble, one can still find a village complete with fruit orchards, fire ants and goats. Just to name a few.

My American friends often ask me, “When are you coming back?” I’m not sure I can or want to. There is much that I love and like here. Though I miss my friends in the US very much and every day, this has become my home again. A strange twist in God’s plan—but a happy one, I think, and I feel no need to alter its course. So, even on days when I border on thinking that this country is going to hell in a handbasket, I’m content—maybe even thankful—to be here.

I love you, Malaysia. I don’t think or say that enough.

And happy Independence Day.

Apologies and Moo Point #5

Sorry for leaving this space unattended for the past two weeks. I wasn’t engaged in any marvelous ascetical feats for the recent fast. I’ve just been preoccupied with my new job as lecturer at a college about 20 miles from where I live. When the term starts next Monday (the 24th) I’ll be  teaching Introduction to World Religions and Introduction to Philosophy. We’ll see how that goes.

While listening to one of the Old Testament readings appointed to be read before Qurbana today I got distracted and arrived at this Moo Point instead:

So many neat, airtight theological systems can be exploded by a careful reading the Old Testament.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Your thoughts?

From Athens

Sitting in the Athens airport, waiting for my flight to Berlin that’s been delayed. I’ve spent the last week in Greece (Nafplio, Delphi, Athens—in that order), seen dozens of Byzantine churches and kissed even more icons. If I had stayed here for a year it would change me for life, I’m quite sure.

I’ve been struck with a surprised sense of relief from being in an Orthodox country where the faith doesn’t have that anxious quality which it did in the United States. The earthiness of Orthodox faith and practice is tangible here, especially in the jam-packed church of Agioi Isidoroi. Fr. Paul (a frequent commenter here and my host in Athens) and I attended Hierarchical Vespers there after a semi-arduous hike up the hill on which was the small cave-church. As I watched people mill about kissing icons and lighting candles by the bunches—well-dressed old ladies and sloppily-clothed teenagers—, as I squeezed my way through the frenzied crowd for blessed bread, as I rubbed my myrrh-doused hands onto my face, it occurred to me that Orthodoxy here is something like an old, lived-in Malaysian house—warm, homey and poorly-lit rather than bright, tidy and sanitized.

I think Germany will be, let’s say, “different”.

Apostles old and new

Today, my long-awaited visit to the Basilica of St. John Lateran. (Seven years ago, I happened upon this church while looking for a restroom in the streets of Rome!) Before the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul I asked for the reconciliation between the Churches that has so long evaded us. I thought also about how Peter has become like a rag doll caught in an ecclesial tug-of-war—everybody wants a piece of him to legitimize power. But he is not the only victim of this un-Christian struggle. Rome wants Peter, Constantinople wants Andrew, India wants Thomas… Will the whole Church ever be able to see themselves as heirs to “the faith that comes to us from the Apostles”?

After that, the Church of San Clemente with its gorgeous apse mosaic and underground frescoes with so many stories. At the tomb of St. Cyril I wondered what it was like for St. Methodius to have lost his brother and missionary partner there. Did they know that they were saints? I prayed for my friends at Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Denver, for perseverance in their daunting task of bridging East and West. There were moments when the tension could’ve torn one in half.

Lunch was at a small restaurant across the street from San Clemente. My first real dining out experience on this trip, and though the food was very good the 30-euro bill stung. (I’d forgotten to ask for the price of the daily special, silly me.)

This evening I am off to Vespers and dinner with the Apostles of the Interior Life, a Catholic religious community to whom I owe much of my spiritual formation. Many old friends there. You can find pictures here.