Its the first day of the exploration week. & after studying for almost a year in TOA (The One Academy), today is the day we are going to choose our real future. The college organised a seminar for us 3rd Year Foundation students to let us know more about the major we are going to choose and our future too. It began at 10:30am at the auditorium and not many people were there. The talk began with Principal Tatsun's motivational talk and his brilliant ways of communicating with the crowd. He dresses as the coolest principal I have ever seen, like a pai-kia (gangster) with 2 unbuttoned shirt and a black coat. Anyways, the program was to let all the students involved to choose their right path to success and interest.

I was fascinated by the presentation of the Multimedia Head. Multimedia was one of my choices to further study in my major and it has all sort of interesting courses which attracted my attention, especially the music and video making. These were my top interest and forutnately, she was able to convince me into thinking more of to going into this particular major. The multimedia design course is filled with interesting stuff like, animation, music, videos, motion graphics, etc. It was what I was looking for.

Hmm.. my previous choice was to go into Digital Animation before I studies in TOA. Now, I think I will choose Multimedia Design as my major because of all the interesting things they offer. Digital Animation (DA) to me, is kind of like stressful and no social life. It is totally not my style. I love the outdoors and photography, but the thing is I love DA too and its hard to consider between these 2 subjects. Anyways, I hope I chose the right path for myself and I have to choose it before the 14th this month.

What about you guys???

Well, after a month of no-blogging campaign (which actually means I'm lazy for a month), I'm going to start something which is quite sensitive to certain people including myself. Today, We had our Malaysian Studies class, also known as the LAN1003. Anyways, the lecturer had asked us to do some research on "Unity& Integration in Malaysia". So, we did but it wasn't easy too. During the class, Uthaya (our lecturer) began to ask around the class for the specific and correct answer to these 2 mind-boggling words. No one had the appropriate answers, so Uthaya himself began to explain.

Unity, actually means "The state or quality of being in accord; harmony" but in Malaysia, it means "Each race only sticks with each race, each political party sticks with their own; You don't harm me, I don't harm you" so in conclusion, I mind my own business.
For example, UMNO (United Malays National Organization), MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) and MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress) are all under the broader coalition called BN (Barisan Nasional) which is also the current ruling coalition. Why are they divided into races? Why aren't they just BN? What about the other ethnic groups? Why is only UMNO taking all the higher ranks in Malaysia?

Integration, which also means the same as unity, has a different definition for Malaysia. In Malaysia, it means "Everyone is working together as one, No race difference, Everyone lives in Harmony and Tranquility".

Things seems okay to me, since I understood what the hell he was trying to say to all of us. I kind of get the concept of these 2 weird words. It really did make sense to me. So, the reason he told us that is, he wanted us all to suggest good ways to help Malaysia to achieve Integration. So, we were divided into groups to discuss on this topic. After the discussion everything turned out well, until some guy tries to spoil the fun. A Malay guy, had this weird way of promoting integration us all, He suggested: Integration means we have to speak Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian Language) to communicate in Malaysia and not other languages like, English or Chinese or etc. He also states that we should not english because our english SUCKS! (He actually did say that, ok?) This way, everyone will have integration among each other. He said that we speak very less of Bahasa Malaysia among ourselves and always use other languages to communicate.

What I thought was, 'Do you know what happened in Indonesia?' Indonesian Government policy mandated all Chinese language teaching be banned from schools, issued a presidential directive to force Indonesian Chinese to abandon their Chinese names and adopt Indonesian names with the growth of anti-Chinese sentiment and attacks. The established Chinese private schools were nationalized and their facilities were converted to public schools. Moreover, many Chinese Indonesians were assigned different identity cards which show their ethnicity, and have to show proof of having rejected Chinese citizenship, despite being a native-born Indonesian. Many believed these laws were targeted to drive Chinese out of the country because family names and genealogy are an important part of Chinese life. Now, the condition in Indonesia for Chinese has improved rapidly and starting to realise how other languages can influence their market in a good way, especially english and chinese. This was good, for now.

Anyways, that wasn't the problem, I'm a person who thinks that its very difficult to achieve a so called integration in the world, not only in Malaysia. I think that because of different culture, we have different perspective of looking at things. Some, which I believe are unacceptable to other races or seriously might offend the other race. Jealousy is also part of the barrier for this integration thing and sometimes it might cause serious trouble and damage to human rights. Every one of us has our own way of saying things and think freely. Racism (which exists in most of the world) is the main cause of war and riots.

Its hard to explain something so abstract that is in my heart. I feel very tied up and sometimes I feel guilty for just thinking about stuff like that. It irritates me and like most of the people of Malaysia, we want harmony and integration among us all. My friend told me that the best way to integration is to abolish those political parties and form just one united coalition or BN. My question to that was, is it possible to work together as one? Is it possible that there will be no conflict or jealousy if that was to happen? A multi-racial country is the world's most toughest thing to control perfectly. There is always a down pour and I believe that it will never happen.

I am not here to say who is stronger and who should be the leader to this. My concept of a peaceful and integrated society is, to understand each other and to tolerate. My concept also includes the abolishment of the ISA which is still used in Malaysia for Security purposes. My concept also includes the abolishment of the abusive usage of the bumiputera (Sons Of the Earth - mostly Malays) privileges. These were unable to come out from my mouth in public as it is a very sensitive topic. Depending on the privilege will not help a country to flourish entirely while it also restricts certain races to give a heart to patriotism. Waving the National Flag (Jalur Gemilang) or sticking tons of flags on a car or motorcucle only during the National Day doesn't mean that they are the most Patriotic.


Well, I believe that the Flag of Malaysia should be respected in every way. It should not be used as a child's play thing or used unproperly in public. Countries like Korea, China, etc. respect their National Flag and are banned to use it even during the Independence Day (it is considered disrespectful) and I believe if integration was to really happen, it should remain that way and we should find ways to change the definition of 'Unity' to its original synonym cousin 'Integration'. So that no one else will get confused of this matter and not feel unwanted in any way. Being strong is the way to success and it will always be.

And what the fuck does this mean to the people of Malaysia?
In 2004, during the UMNO general assembly Badruddin Amiruldin (new deputy permanent chairman) waved a book on May 13 during his speech and stated "No other race has the right to question our privileges, our religion and our leader". He also stated that doing so would be similar to "stirring up a hornet's nest". (Wikipedia.org)

Hai~ what kind of integration is that? Are you trying to tell us that we (non-Malays) are not Malaysians? I thought Malaysia is a free country?