The United Altered States of Maryam

On my flight back from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur, I sat next to a Malaysian Chinese man who had spent the past two years working in Sydney but was originally from Alor Setar, Kedah (approximately 6 hours drive north of Kuala Lumpur). He was heading back there to visit his mom for the holidays. He was probably in his early 30s, rather short with the smile of someone who had secretly farted in public. He was also rather nervous-looking although I could hardly blame someone for looking nervous on a flight especially when a bona fide storm hits 2 minutes before take off. I swear I could have created my own ocean judging by how sweaty my palms were.

The middle-aged lady in the seat behind me, she said to what I assume was her husband (although you could never be too sure about these things.), “We’re not taking off in this weather are we????!!!!” to which the (possible) husband grunted, “Well, we’re already on the plane. The weather’s not that bad.”

The howling wind was contorting the trees around the airport into yoga positions and rain water smacked the windows of the plane like a frustrated mother to an insolent child. It was quite possibly the darkest 2 p.m. in the afternoon I had ever seen. The highway of dark clouds in the sky were striped with bright flashes of lightning, like the flash from a giant, heavenly camera that Someone Up There was using to take snapshots of how utterly ridiculous humans can look when faced with the thought of impending doom.

“If I had known it was going to be like this, I would have taken a whole bottle of Valium,” said the middle aged lady. If I had known that she was going to be nervously kicking the back of my seat throughout the 8 hour flight, I would have personally stuffed her full of Valium myself and hit her unconscious on the head with a heavy, blunt object for good measure.

Thankfully, the storm cleared out 15 minutes later and the pilot cheerfully announced that we were ready for take off and that we had only good weather ahead (or at least, I think that’s what he said. Malaysian Airlines pilots seem trained to clearly enunciate the ‘Ladies and Gentleman/ Tuan Tuan dan Puan Puan’ and ‘Thank you/ Terima Kasih’ part of their announcement while mumbling and garbling all the words in between). That was when the man sitting next to me (I didn’t catch his name) decided that it was safe to start a conversation.

“So, is this your first time going to Malaysia?” he asked.

Err, well, if you discount the fact that I was born there and the previous 20 years I had lived there, then yes, this would be my first time in Malaysia. It seemed a little surprising to me that a Malaysian is unable to recognize one of their own especially when I was sure that he had heard me speaking to the stewardess in conversationally perfect Malay. Earlier, my Malaysian passport had somehow jumped out of my bag onto the floor and he had picked it up and handed it back to me. Of course, there’s a time for smart ass replies and then there are times when you should just politely shake your head, smile and go, “Oh no, I’m Malaysian. I just go to uni in Australia.”

“Which part of Malaysia are you from?” he asked.

“I’m from KL.”

“Ohhhh, so you KL-girl lah….. no wonder,” he said. I couldn’t be bothered to ask him what he meant by that probably because I already knew. KL-ites are to the rest of Malaysia just as Parisians are to the rest of France. It’s the can’t-be-helped aura of stuck-up-ness that people of capital cities tend to have, stemming from the subconscious belief that they’re better than the rest of the country (Come on, admit it KL-ites, deep down you do think you’re better than the rest of the country) And then he asked, “Do you speak Chinese?”

Again, I shook my head. “I can swear and say chicken rice in Cantonese but that’s about it.”

“Wah, how come Chinese girl cannot speak Chinese?!”

“Actually, I’m Malay.”

“Cannot be, your skin is too fair for a Malay.”

I can only sigh at this. He’s not the first person I’ve heard this from. “Well, it says so on my birth certificate. And both my parents. And my grandparents.” And by the way, I’m not so much fair-skinned as I am pasty from spending the last month depressed and voluntarily confined indoors. Also, the constitution officially defines a Malay person as someone who:

a) carries a Malay name

b) is Muslim

c) follows Malay culture & tradition (or something like that)

d) born in Malaysia or has lived in Malaysia for a significant amount of time (or something like that)

Nowhere does it say that a Malay person has to be of a certain skin color. Nowhere does it say that Malay person cannot be lighter or darker than a particular shade of brown (and it shouldn’t either). It makes more sense for people to be grouped (if they should be grouped at all) by the way they live their lives, by their shared assumptions, values and beliefs than the way they naturally look (clothes, accessories, hairstyle and plastic surgery not included). I mean, I’ve been told that I share an uncanny resemblance to that demon-possessed girl in The Exorcist but except for the fact that we are both prone to rather demonic tantrums, I doubt we have much in common.

And then the guy says, “Your English osso very good for a Malay.”

Right, and nowhere in the constitution does it define a Malay person as someone who

e) speaks lousy English.

I’ve never heard a sentence that ends with ‘….for a Malay’ that wasn’t at least a tad bit insulting. I remembered in my former college, this classmate of mine; this girl from Belgium said, “Oh my god! You’re pure Malay?! I thought you were half-white. You’re very pretty… for a pure Malay.”

Bitch. Realizing that I had taken offense, she then said, “I mean, not that I …um.. I mean, my boyfriend’s pure Malay.” Right, so you have an ugly boyfriend then, you dumb Belg.

Nowhere is it officially written/ stated that a Malay person

f) has to be uglier than everyone else.

Back to the man sitting next to me on the plane, I wish for his sake that he would stop shoving his foot in his mouth. I know airline food is bad but that’s no reason to keep tasting your own toes. “So, how long have you been studying in Australia?”

Okay, valid question but by now I was in no mood to engage in a proper conversation with him. Curtly, I answered, “Nine months.”

“Being in Australia must have changed you a lot……”

Now how the hell would a stranger I met an hour or so ago be able to know that? (If you’re wondering, I do not have an Australian accent nor do I pretend to have one. What do you think I am? A Channel V Asia VJ?) “Not really. Why do you think so?”

“Because you seem very modern for a Malay.”

Great. Does he mean to say that the Malays are

g) backward and can only progress by living with a bunch of white people

“If anything, you seem more Singaporean Malay. They’re more modern.”

Sorry, what he means to say is Malays are

h) backward unless they’re from Singapore.

Oh well, who cares what he thinks? He’s from Kedah! Kedah is so dull that the kids have to start goat-sacrificing cults to keep themselves occupied and amused. Ok, not true. Not fair of me to say that. But hey, everyone thinks they’re better than someone and alas, I can’t say I’m an exception. I really shouldn’t hold it against the guy. Someone else will sock him in the face eventually and that person will throw a good punch……for a Malay. Keeping this in mind, I wished him a merry time back in Alor Setar as we disembarked at KLIA. I meant it….. I really do hope he has a good time being back in his hometown. Even if the little voice in my head did say, Yeah sure, like anyone could actually have a good time in Alor Setar.

Posted by Maryam at 7:18 PM | Permalink |

Are you in search of spirituality and inner harmony? Why do you need a spiritual teacher?, asked a little flyer I saw on a message board at Uni the other day, right before it said: Find the answers at our seminar - only $18 !!!

Who would’ve thought inner harmony could be bought at $18?

Pardon my lengthy absence from this blog; lots of work to be done in the last weeks and days leading up to semester finals, especially since I’ve spent the most part of the semester loafing and moping, procrastinating and contemplating the nothingness of things along with trying to remember the last time I had a shower. Staying up for a full 36 hours straight to finish a film production budget for my Business of Film & TV class and a 6000-word communications audit report for Communications in Organizations class made me feel as if I tumbled into some terrible alternate dimension where I was working as an accountant. I also had a 30 page-film pitch document to complete which was mostly made up of lines such as “Sharp! Witty! Fast-Paced! Edgy! Thrilling! Powerful!” written over and over again to either hypnotize or bore all those who lay their eyes upon it into funding the film project.

I’ve also been feeling just generally down lately. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with spending my first Aidilfitri away from home without any traditional festive cookies to binge my miseries away with or pesky relatives to blame my miseries upon. To make myself feel better, I cooked some nasi lemak and chicken rendang for my two housemates and Specimen A, the honorary housemate (long story) and we had an Aidilfitri dinner thing. I had my kebaya top on and I requested that everyone come to dinner in their traditional/national outfits or proper evening attire. Specimen A showed up in shorts, a wife beater and flip flops claiming that it was indeed the Australian national costume. The dinner went well, my rendang was successful but I still felt a grey cloud looming over me….

Which I thought a night out at a Halloween party would fix. I had not properly partied since the end of winter holidays and Z reckoned it was living a life of hermitude that was dragging my spirits down. So I pulled on my most flattering pair of jeans and slipped on my brand new fuck-me shoes – peep-toe, sleek, shiny hot-red patent leather with sharp, 4-inch heel. I even allowed Z to do my hair – “sexy, tousled chic” was the idea, I think – and curl my lashes. When people asked what I was dressed as for Halloween, I should have said, “Effort”. Instead, my lousy mood made me reply “Z’s friend”. Yes, I was dressed as somebody’s friend.

There was a girl at the party in a pink wig who either said she was on holiday from Sweden or was dressed as someone on holiday from Sweden. But then, she was wearing only lingerie, fishnets and heels so it’s confusing. She had a face that looked like she had heard something surprising for the first time and was permanently frozen in that moment. M, the loud, 6 feet tall Chinese American from California came in a bright yellow chicken suit complete with red flaps and as if the idea wasn’t obvious enough, had need to yell to every random, passing stranger that he was a “CHICKEN! A CHINESE CHICKEN!! GEDDIT? A CHINESE CHICKEN! Take the man in the chicken suit SSSSERIOUSLY!” The chicken had a huge, bling cross hanging from his neck, a joint in hand and gangsta hip-hop music blasting from his shiny, huge jeep causing people to question his avian authenticity, pushing him to respond, “I’m a chicken with a twist, alright! A twist!”

M wasn’t the only guy that came dressed with a twist. J.A., came dressed in a long dark green robe with a hood that seemed to be fastened together by a Scouts Merit Badge for Ancient Rituals. When asked who he was supposed to be, J.A. first replied, “An Aztec Pope!” but was only met with looks of utter what-the-fucks? He then changed it to, “The priest person from the Da Vinci Code movie” only to have people disagree. Three layers of white, theatrical makeup and lashings of black eyeliner later; he had become “Death with a Twist.”

“What’s the twist? People get to live?” I asked. J.A. has the honor of being the first person I snogged in the Gold Coast, all those months ago and I forever have the dishonor of being yet another victim of the local uni campus’ international player/ kissing bandit. Hey, what can I say – it happened during one of my first nights out in town and I was suffering from too much endorphin-release and enthusiasm to have very sound judgment. In our following encounter, all at parties, I’ve managed to over-compensate my embarrassment with what I’d like to think as light-hearted, witty banter.

“So, how come the only time we bump into eachother is at parties at night, where everyone’s intoxicated?” he mentioned.

This time though I found myself distracted from making a witty comeback by what the host of the Halloween pre-party, an outrageous French MBA student called ‘P’, had to show me. P was one of the first fellow uni-mate Z and I met when we arrived on the Gold Coast, while house-hunting. P was then identified by the inappropriately short length of his khaki shorts which gave him an obvious wedgie and made the tall Frenchman look like a giant schoolboy who had outgrown his school uniform. For Halloween, P’s costume wasn’t any less disturbing. He was dressed as Alex, from Stanley Kubrick’s film version of A Clockwork Orange – which meant a black bowler hat, over-the-top, spidery false lashes, thin, black suspenders a tight, white t-shirt coupled with even tighter, white jeans that gave him not only a wedgie but a VPL. But the crowning glory was certainly what he had over the front of his white jeans, protecting the crotch area – a surgical face mask wrapped in silver duct tape strapped on, providing for an eye-catching, bulge which he kept stroking while in conversation with guests.

My conversation with J.A took place while we were sitting on the balcony of P’s penthouse apartment with the gorgeous views of the Surfer’s Paradise strip and P’s, fluffy, uneaten breakfast omelet still on the table. Just so happened, the only place where I could sit on a balcony filled with people gave me direct visual access through the full-length windows to P’s bedroom. I suppose P thought it would be funny to stick his shiny, bulgy, silver crotch right on the window while making a thrusting and swiveling motion with his pelvis, making a squeaking sound as the crotch-cover rubbed against the window pane.

P claimed that his face-mask/ jock shield “was ‘andmade, if you know what I mean, custom made to fit, zat’s why eet ees so beeg and girls cannot stop looking at eet. But I tell zem, what can I do? ‘Zees eez all I ‘ave to offer, no?” Later in the night, I overheard him telling yet another girl in lingerie to take a picture with him because “my mother thinks I’m gay!”

The actual Halloween party was at a tourist-y bar filled with drunken Canadians, one of whom was dressed as a giant joint. Even that failed to take the blues away, so Z and I made an early exit, back to our home in Labrador, otherwise known in a charming rhyme as “Lock-Yer-Door Labrador” where I resumed feeling sorry for myself, bemoaning not only the fact that I don’t seem to enjoy the things I used to as much, but also the lack of perceived overall magic and meaning in the things I do with my day-to-day life.

Today, as I was sorting through junk mail, I found a flyer which ominously declared “The End of False Religion is Near!” complete with a background image of fearsome dark clouds and lightning.

On the back, the flyer promised that all shall find the True Path if we purchased their special booklet for $5.

For amusement’s sake, I decided to stick the flyer on the fridge.

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P.S. I also recently watched the film, Natural Born Killers on DVD and I'm starting to think that Oliver Stone is a genius director. Or at least, was. Who knows what went wrong with Alexander? Maybe the sight of Colin Farrell straddling a horse in a miniskirt was too much to handle.. I highly recommend it if you're looking for a movie to watch.

Posted by Maryam at 11:27 PM | Permalink |