A sweet conversation

I had a conversation with Miss R yesterday while installing the "XXX" software on the server. Such a lovely lady. Professional in her work and man! I tell you, she's pretty. The funny thing was she thought I was 25. 25!? Wow, do I look 25? I wonder what makes me look young? My glasses? hairstyle? (do I have one?) voice? eyes? (yuks!) flat tummy (quite)? (could be) ... I'm puzzled. OK, may be I should take it as a compliment. And she was surprised when my Finance colleagues told her my age and the fact that I would be a father soon. Hey hey ... I'm a cool, young looking, hairless dad. Not bad.

I got to know that she was previously from Indonesia but has been away for more than 10 years, earlier in the States and now in Singapore. We started talking about racial integrity in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, and how they differ from each other. When she told me how amazed she was when she first saw how the different races here mix well with each other here, it made me realised that we Malaysians have achieved so much in maintaining racial stability. Apparently it is not the same in Indonesia. Although on the surface the level of assimilation looks significant, the good relationship between the Chinese and the rest has never been "real". The Chinese never really feel comfortable being at home, which is pretty sad. Out of fear being rejected, most resorted to changing their name to an Indonesian name and over time they have also stopped using Chinese language. Which is why even Miss R cannot converse in Chinese despite being able to understand some Mandarin.

Miss R is right in saying so about Malaysians. In general yes. And we as the whole should be proud of it. But, this is not to say we are perfect as I told her. On the political side, of course there are still those that are not happy with the government's policies etc and I agree that some of these policies are in favour of one or two groups over the others. But to make every single person happy ... nah ... I don't think this is achievable even in another one thousand years. It's a delicate thing.