On A Cheng Beng Morn In A Bank...

Was at the bank this morning... I didn't realize that there were fewer Chinese staff and customers in the bank until I was 'forced' to listen in to 2 Malay tellers' conversation which could be heard all throughout the bank... they were speaking above the normal conversation tone. The topic was Cheng Beng. It was the tone of one staff which I found totally irritating and which seems to reflect more and more of our unpleasant Malaysian flavour.

Cheng Beng is obviously something he did not look favourably upon... I think he was not too pleased that many of his Chinese colleagues were absent from work.... anyway, the way he commented to the point of being personal and at a volume in which he did it were totally uncalled for.... full of righteousness of his own beliefs....this one phrase which I always hear - Kami orang....... (you know what the next word is going to be...)

Kinda funny I thought... cos the more I listened to him, the more I felt he was condemning his own faith; the more he opens himself to his own version of judgment. I've so often hear people of his faith, lamenting how 'tak larat' they are during the fasting month... or how we should 'pity' them cos they are fasting. Or how puasa is used for excuse not to do a lot of things.... or how they show their piety and then look away when something not right is carried out... you know, pakai kopiah and then the next moment they open their mouths, it's full of dirty talk??? Cakap and buat tak serupa bikin, kind of thing?

And Malaysian politics is in a great part responsible for such kind of behaviour.... cos we seem to be invoking the name of God for many wrong reasons... I wonder if someone can come out with an invention that can examine the niat (intention) in our hearts... would we all be able to come out clear?

Coming back to Cheng Beng... I see not much difference between the morning Raya visits to the grave of their loved ones and it actually. Everyone is just trying to remember their loved ones who have gone away.... Malays, Chinese, Indians, Iban, Bidayuh, etc, etc... life is also about remembering those who made it possible for our presence here on earth.

I'd like to think of myself as Malaysian first... then my ethnicity next. But in Bolehland, I keep being reminded that I am Chinese first then Malaysian first.... bukan-Islam and Islam.... bumiputera and bukan-bumiputera. The separation lines keep being highlighted again and again. Aiyo! You'd think the downtrodden lot is only made up of one race.... got a lot of poor people out there; yellow, brown, black, dark brown, light brown Malaysians, etc, etc... only no green little Martians.

So is it no wonder that I keep thinking about this 1Malaysia as crap concocted for political mileage? Forked tongues speak different things to different audience. Muhyiddin's version or Najib's version is true now? Muhyiddin says ethnicity first. Najib says 1Malaysia.