Us And Them

I remember reading articles in magazines and mainstream media about the West when I was growing up – the articles almost always portrayed the evils of the Western culture so much so one would think that all these Westerners do are party all day; indulge in a life that revolved around alcohol, drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll; practise free sex; exist in dysfunctional families and broken homes; etc, etc. Yes, granted, there are those who do have such lifestyle but not everyone does. And who’s to say that no one here embraces that so-called Western lifestyle anyway?

But the articles were all biased too. Why didn’t they focus on the positive aspects of the West like their careful driving (in England for example, people hardly ever use the horn), their courteous manners (opening and holding the door for you and offering to carry your bags for you), their deep care for animals (setting up animal shelters, hiring animal inspectors to catch abusers and camping in remote forests to study, observe and understand wildlife in order to preserve it), their concern for the environment and their conscious act of recycling, their thoughtful disposal of rubbish, their not trying at all to flaunt their wealth... and while some of them may not be as academically gifted as their Asian counterparts, they are generally well-rounded in the sense that you can discuss a lot of topics with them. You can chat about films, art, architecture etc with them and still have a meaningful discussion.

I for one find it a tad irritating at documentaries telling us how lucky we are to live in a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-faith society/country (but not necessarily multi-tolerant of each other!) when there are so many other countries which are even a bigger melting-pot than us and they don’t even have to keep repeating this fact to themselves as if to be reminded of it or to seek international validation of our supposedly unique identity (and we are not at all that unique actually). And I find it mildly irritating too to be reminded that we are more courteous, friendlier and more approachable than those from the West – because I don’t really think we are all that anyway. Just look at how we behave on the road – the slightest error from the other driver can set us flying and our tempers flaring.

And boy, do we love putting others down. We call people names (‘Fatso’, ‘Blackie’, ‘Rabbit-teeth’, ‘Shortie’) and apart from having the world’s once tallest buildings, highest flagpole and largest ketupat, we don’t really have much confidence in ourselves (e.g. in a badminton/football match, we prefer to think that our opponents would win because hey surely we can only expect to excel at local grounds). We don’t respect our national flag and some of us don’t even know the lyrics to the national anthem (what more the pillars of Rukun Negara) – unlike our foreign counterparts from Thailand or South Korea who respect their flags and national anthems so much they’d stop whatever they are doing and stand when they hear their national anthems being played.

Some of us look up to the foreigners and admire them. The shopkeepers at the majority of boutiques here prefer to serve foreign tourists – never mind if they enter in their flip-flops and tattered clothes – to the local customers, because surely the foreigners have deeper pockets and to think otherwise is unthinkable. Some of us criticise the local lads and lasses for marrying foreigners – why, is there a shortage of available eligible Malaysians? -although secretly they probably wish they could do so themselves.

As with most other things, not everything about the West and their culture is wrong and not everything about the East (or Asia) and our culture is right.