Tun M

I'm sure many of you have seen the short clip of Tun M being interviewed by BBC on his views on the Westerns. Being one of the many, I shared the clip on my FB page. Little did I know that the video was going to spark some questions from the Westerns themselves, though only one who was actually brave enough to ask, the others just 'liked' it, I'm sure they have the same questions on their mind. When sharing the clip, all that I could think of was how great is this man, how sharp were his answers, and how brave of him to say all that on BBC. He really has my respect.

Back to the questions asked, they were from a friend of mine, a former classmate.

++I guess she was a bit offended by what I said++
++More questions++
I answered her questions with what I know, which is not much. And as for her second question, I asked her to read an article on Wikipedia about our Yang di-Pertuan Agong because I really have limited knowledge about his powers.

Anyways, being French, I understand her confusion. It's not easy to understand how a government of a country she just recently heard of, works. What she said is also true, about French not knowing anything about Malaysia. It really is a foreign country to them. I know this for a fact because back when I was teaching in French schools, none of my pupils could point out where Malaysia is on the world map. Their guesses were that Malaysia was in Europe or near the US. Really far off, isn't it? So when I showed them that Malaysia is a small country in South East Asia, they were surprised, of course. And the first question asked was usually, "Is English your native language?" Because to most of them, Asians do not speak English, and Asians are mostly Chinese (which is also a true fact considering China has the largest population in the world) and the most annoying thing is, whenever you bump into a group of less educated people here, they'd automatically go "Cheng chong ching chung" to you as if you're able to understand them. You get what I'm saying here?

So, I did not expect them to have a tiny bit of an idea about our government. Truth be told, Malaysia IS a mysterious country to them. No cliché whatsoever. And the fact that they never think about anyone else but themselves, other countries just do not exist to them, that's French for you. Not everyone, but most of them, especially those who have never been out of the country, or Europe for that matter. Don't be surprised, but some of them think that we still live in the jungle, on trees, which is kinda cool, because I've always wanted a treehouse since I was little. It's different from the British. I can still remember, my class teacher when I was in the UK, he used to serve in the army and he's been to Malaysia and had fond memories of our country. He called it Malaya instead of Malaysia. I guess that's a different story altogether, we were colonized by the British.

On a different note, when I was younger, I remember reading a book called 'Duta Kecil' (The Little Ambassador), and I wanted to be that girl in the book ever since. I got my first chance when my family moved to England. But now, with today's technology, I believe we can all be that little girl, who makes Malaysia known in the eyes of the world. At least by posting things like that on FB or whatever social network site you're on, people from other countries can learn stuffs about Malaysia. Isn't that just wonderful? So, stop bashing your own country just because you don't agree with its politics. Use the medium you have now for our country's benefit. We have a lot to show, and let's show them what this small country in South East Asia is about. Be nice. Malaysians are known for their amiability!
Good luck, little ambassadors!

Moi xx
Listening to : Rindu Setengah Mati - D'Masiv