I was hosting my American colleague back at my hometown yesterday for customer visit. After meeting with customer I took him for afternoon tea. We were having friendly chat while he was tasting Kuching's local "Ang Dao Peng" , "Rojak" and "Belacan Beehoon".Out of curiosity, I ask him "Are you American?" . He replied " Ya...why do you ask that?" I said "Just curious, because your last name, Schodowski, doesnt sound like original American". He laughed "Oh ya, my ancestor were from Poland, they migrated to the States couple of hundred years ago, I am the 3rd generation American." "I see..." I replied.
"Are you not Malaysian, I thought you are just working in Singapore?" He then asked interestingly. I replied "Ya, I'm Malaysian, just working over Singapore. Well...to be more exact, I am a Chinese Malaysian. My grandfather migrated from China but I'm born here, 2nd generation Malaysian."
"Ok, so it is a multicutural society here, no wonder I see there are different races like the Malay and Indian....so....you're just like me!" He smiled. I thought for a while and sighed "Ya...just like you but not really like you. Even though I'm Malaysian, but not really a fully rightful Malaysian."
His eyes start to open wide and ask "What do you mean by fully rightful? I thought being born here you enjoy the right as the nation's citizen?" This time round, I sighed even deeper "Well, in this country, though we are all citizen of the nation, we have citizen "classification". The 1st class citizen, namely the "bumiputera", i.e. the Malay, is the native here. They have various benefits if compared to the "2nd class" or migrant citizien like the Chinese or Indian. It's much easier for their businessman to get a government project tender, their children is easier to get scholarhsip / text book subsidy / entry to university, their worker is easier to get promoted in government companies....etc etc. Where as for Chinese or other non-bumiputera races, we do not have such benefits"
He replied " Oh...that's bad! We dont have that in the States, every citizen is treated the same, we have the same right over every aspects in live, irregardless of where do we come from....hmm....so life must be tough for you guys then?" I said " Ya...tougher....but we survived! So for those who don' survive well locally, we gone exile to find opportunity in other country, just like me...haha!!" We both burst into laughter ~~!
As the discussion goes by, I told him more about the situation in the country...how Sarawak itself as a state of natural resources wealth production place is 10 years behind West M'sia, how Malaysia, with so much natural resources as a country, lag far behind Singapore....how we survive as fresh graduate, earning RM2000 where Honda Camry is RM120,000 where US fresh grad earns US$2000 but Toyota Camry is only US$18,000....bla bla....
At last, Mr Schodowski said.... "Well...... come to America!"
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