Quick Updates

Many things are happening, that keep me from starting a proper travel blog. Apart from the fact that I am not technically travelling, of course. Not till the 21st. But home is where all the exciting things happen, and I've been away so long that every observation I make is new and surprising. Observations such as, beware of large kualis of stuff being deep-fried by the sides of roads and hawker stalls. I can feel the heat emanating from the kuali as I walk past. And then there's the crazy traffic, politics, friends who talk about politics, food, and...more food.

And so the headlines:

Yet another family member falls prey to mosquito-borne disease, but not too bad. Just two days in hospital. He thinks he got it from my housing area, hurray for home.

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Turns out the political secretary found dead outside MACC headquarters, Teoh Beng Hock, is a relative. We don't know him personally, but he was a cousin of my generation in the second degree. Really not the best of omens as I consider the possibility of a career in politics, as a political secretary in particular. My aunt sent the family some money. This suicide under mysterious circumstances has all the trademarks of an incipient dictatorship, but it's more likely the result of the terrible randomness that plagues Malaysian bureaucracy. Somewhere, somehow, someone who doesn't know a thing about a proper bureacratic investigation was put into a position with too much power and too little regulation. He might have decided to emulate what he watched on TV. He might have been too short-sighted and lacked the self-awareness or reflective ability to understand human behaviour beyond the limited scope of psychological manipulation (and other associated techniques) during interrogation. Or this might really be a suicide (but chances of that are very low. Even if it was a suicide, it was not for personal reasons). Nobody knows, but everyone will remember.

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I've had interesting conversations with everyone I've met, mostly about the state of Malaysia right now, the possibility of improving traffic in KL, the Malaysian "relak aje" mentality as opposed to the Singaporean kiasu mentality, the difference between ideals of community and actual community (which is not so ideal), and so on. This is the biggest plus about being back home for me. Everyone has something to say about life as they see it, and it's always a unique worldview with inimitable experiences. Not that this is unavailable in Singapore, but the latter does suffer from a kind of homogeneity because of the generic mould that people have been raised into. There are fewer differences to mirror oneself against; the tensions one faces in society there don't seem to promote contemplation beyond the surface of the material life. Whereas in Malaysia everyone is so caught up in the question of identity, especially in the racial and political aspect, that we can't help but be cultural observers. The accuracy of such observations, often made with untempered prejudice, is questionable, but it still makes for lively conversation.

Reflecting on these conversations, I see that one of the reasons Malaysians talk so much about politics is the need to come up with a counter-narrative to the incoherent and failed state narrative. On the other hand, the government of Singapore has forged a very strong state narrative about the road to success which the majority has adopted*. Malaysia consists of various groups who now claim separate migrant and non-migrant histories, but who all want the same thing. All the state talk about 1Malaysia and putting on a show of official visits will not resolve the fact that we are now, more than ever, split along racial lines, believing different things about where we come from and where we are going as a nation. And for all our regular Malaysian talk, meta-narrative through criticizing and cracking political jokes is not enough of a solution. It's a good thing, and necessary, but not enough. Even writing and producing really good academic papers on the current situation is not enough (though still absolutely necessary). It takes the co-operation of the people in power, on the political side, and most of the time they're not listening, or they don't understand what abstruse-sounding academics say. Is there a solution? I can only think of very banal and practical ones. No theories.

*Yes, the rise of a state narrative is a cycle between government and culture, apart from other factors, but I'm not about to start a political studies essay on the extent to which each is an influence on the other.