It always feels like a little miracle to find an author who actually makes use of language, who understands that words can be art. Thank you Mr. Rushforth, thank you for restoring my faith in humanity.
For about 5 minutes. Once I put the book down, there's the real world waiting to suck all the hope and happiness out of me again.
The thing about Malaysia is, it does have some redeeming qualities. It's absolutely beautiful here, the food is incredible, as my gigantic ass will attest to, and it is very culturally rich. The socialised health care is practically magical to someone who has had to choose between buying diapers or taking a baby to the doctor.
And while they (by they I mostly mean the government) give lip service to remaining true to their roots and cultures, that's not what I am seeing. What I see is a sad, horrible race to emulate Western society in the most offensive ways; greed, tiny hooker shorts, McDonalds, KFC, shitty music, horrible, overpriced, over-bred dogs and cats that cost as much as the average monthly salary. Lovely things like that.
However, any attempt at being progressive as far as the positive aspects of Western culture go is met with anger and derision. Freedom of the press? Reproductive rights for women? Gay rights? Freedom of religion? God forbid! So it's fine to get fat on Burger King and infect people's minds with the twin horrors of Miley Cyrus and Nicholas Sparks, but to suggest that maybe the government should free the remaining HINDRAF leaders (whose only crime was to encourage Malaysian Indians to organise a peaceful protest, three YEARS ago) and you're a dirty foreigner, a rebellious, secular whore who wants to undermine the entire Asian and Muslim way of life. I won't even get into their selective and disturbing use of Syariah law or the complete lack of safe, legal abortion facilities.
I am baffled, bewildered, astounded and confused. I am not the type of person who hates Western society, or my own country. I love America and I think I'm lucky to have been born there. I want Western medicine and European writers and Mexican beer and American attitudes. I think there are a lot of disgusting things though, and I really cannot even begin to fathom why those horrible, cruel, useless, stupid, banal and unhealthy things are embraced so readily while the important things are shunned.
As soon as I become jesus, I promise, things will change. Just, just let me work on that for a bit.
I guess I didn't realized they were so..old school? LOL I don't know what I'm looking for here, but I think I'm kind of jaded when it comes to people's rights in other countries. I'm not ignorant, I know that other countries are still pretty strict with their rules and we have many more freedoms than most. It's different hearing it from someone who is living in a foreign country. It's sad. Sometimes, I wish we could just build up our own little worlds...from an a la carte menu. LOL
ReplyDeleteA la carte worlds, I like it! Malaysia just has some really stupid ass rules. They are trying, and it's not as backwards as a lot of people think it is (the ones who know Malaysia exists anyway!) but, yeah, in some ways it's just ridiculous. Particularly with regard to religion.
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