I’m struck with a mild fever
today. I think my body has reacted to all the torments it has been subjected to
in these past few days. I rarely contracted fever…I took this as a signal to
slow myself down a bit.
I gulped down a Panadol
before having a deep sleep just after Maghrib. Woke up around 11.30p.m, my head
still felt a bit dizzy, but it was a lot better. I’ve already notified my ‘steamboat’
friends of my condition…they cancelled a car because I couldn’t attend the
function. One or two of them showed a degree of concern…really appreciate it,
although I don’t really give a hoot whether anybody is concern or not about me.
I can take care of myself. I can live by myself.
There was a bit of a situation
in the English class last evening. The lecturer (a young Chinese) was giving a lecture
on diversity of cultures, when she implied that Malay is a kind and polite
race. She asked the opinion of the class, when suddenly a female Chinese
student daringly said that Malay is not that polite.
I suddenly raised my voice,
telling her off that we (Malay) are indeed a polite people. She changed her
tone afterwards, perhaps partly because of my directness, saying that majority
of the Malays are polite, with few bad apples, as with other races.
How impolite to say that a
certain race is not polite in front of the whole class? This has never occurred
before. They are getting very loud and vocal lately. A case of superiority
complex? They claimed to be treated as a second class citizen, whereas they continuously
depicted us (Malay) as having a second class mentality.
There was this case last
semester when a Chinese student indirectly saying in front of the whole class
that Malays are lazy. It didn’t help to have a lecturer who was more of a
liberal Malay apologetic. For me, this was not a laughing matter.
There was another situation
in the same class (economy), where I tried to explain something (related to the
subject) to a Chinese student, in which she listened half-heartedly. I knew
what was playing in her mind. For her, as a Malay, I did not have the
intelligence to digest the subject better than her.
When the mid-semester result
was out, in which the lecturer called out the names of the top scorer in front
of the class, my name was among the list. That Chinese girl looked at me in disbelief.
There were two or three more Malay names on the list besides me. Surprised to
see us Malays do have a brain, eh?
Also on the list was this one
quiet Chinese guy, who always seated next to me at the back row. I admired his
personality; calm, quiet, never uttered a single word. And most importantly, he
was not boastful. He explained to me that his goal was only to pass the
subject, not scoring an A.
He reminds of a quote from
Plato “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they
have to say something”.
I have nothing against the
Chinese, almost all my good friends in Penang were Chinese. In fact I worked
under them closely for three years. I went out with them, hang around with
them. We ate together, went to cinemas together, played badminton together,
gossiped together, and argued together. But a handful of them just raised my temper
indefinitely. And I really couldn’t stand it.
I think my fever has slowly subsided. Will watch some episodes of Spellbinder 2 before reviewing one or two
subjects. Need to do some practical work tomorrow. I hope everything goes as
planned.
