Another Day on the Malaysian Train

I stood at the corner of the carriage, leaning against the walls with my luggage huddled immediately beneath. The faint odor of diesel and cigarette smoke was present in the air - a palimpsest of smell – signs of both fuels and cigarettes that have burned and burned away into the atmosphere, but not without leaving their own marks – like a hint of old memory.

Because of the Chinese New Year traffic jam from Melaka to Seremban, I had missed my train back to Kampar. As penance, I had to exchange the comforts of the modern ETS to take the commuter to KL Sentral before switching over to a night train to Ipoh. There I will stay over for a night at Elim Gospel Hall, making my way to Kampar only the next day.

The carriage was filled with people of all races, mostly Malays. I feel uncomfortable calling people Malays, or Indians or even Chinese, in fact. I feel like it separates us, although I think it shouldn’t and I wish it didn’t. I wonder if the labels of race had as acute an effect on people as it has on me.

Not that I need any additional reason to feel separate from others.

After all, I’m a very un-Chinese-like Chinese, a very un-Malaysian-like Malaysian and maybe even a very un-young-adult-like young adult. I can’t speak Chinese properly or write Chinese at all, I lived and studied in Singapore from the age of 14-18.. you get the picture.

I speak and write Bahasa Melayu well enough (PMR and ‘O’ Levels – ‘A’, if that means anything) but as I listened to the banter of the group of Malay (here I go again) friends around me, I realized that um, I probably don’t understand them too well. After all, in casual situations, nobody really speaks the proper Bahasa Melayu developed by Dewan Pustaka, but revert to the language in its more uncontrolled and natural form. This can be pretty hard to follow, if you’re a guy whose best Malay friends prefer speaking English or is his old Malay teacher (proper BM all the way!)

I feel like an alien, but I don’t want to be. Will I be fully accepted in this country I live in, or will I bloom only in the fringes of its society – with other fellas like me? What I want is to be accepted, not simply on the basis of my abilities and talents, or on my ideals, but simply by virtue of who I am – the good, the bad, the weird and the ugly.

If it doesn’t, that will be pretty sad, but it’ll be okay anyway.

The smell of diesel and cigarette smoke lingered in the air, clinging jealously to our clothes. You can forget us but we’re still here.