Coming to the last 30 minutes before everyone go home happily-away from the miserably lack of challenge environment, 3 trainees approached me for some casual conversation when I was still flipping through the insert for the tests. 2 girls were from PTPL college and Izzah was from Universiti Islam Antarabangsa.
"Kenapa tak masuk medic?" (Why is everything about medic medic medic ah?! General practioners are just highly paid kuli, my dear~)
The conversation somehow went to the part on getting into local university and persuing a glamorous prefix before one's name. Since I don't really shunt away from talking about sensitive (why sensitive at the first place ah?) issues, I said that it has been a reality that it's easier to get into local university through matriculation than through STPM (I don't think this phenomenon requires a rocket scientist to figure out guah~). I have a friend who scored CGPA 4.0 for STPM and still got rejected for medicine when we watched some from matriculation quietly seepped into a future full of sputum and paracetemol.
"Dekat Malaysia ni, memang special punya, haha~"
In order to further highlight the uniqueness in Malaysia education system, I have also brought up the fact that STPM result is recognised by Singapore but not Malaysian Matriculation. The PTPL girls were agreeing on this but Izzah just smiled.
"Tapi banyak Chinese pergi dekat private institute macam KTAR and UTAR... "
I guessed I did sound like I wanna bring up the whole special rights matter. Well, it was obvious that Malaysian Matriculations are populated in accordance to the quota (correct me if I am wrong, I only heard about it niah), so I also mentioned that most chinese like to enrol in private institutes like KTAR and UTAR, which explained why not much of people took STPM, rendering relatively small amount of STPM in local university. (What happened to Indians? Where do you all go?) Well, this is what I have seen lah.
And then, came the most shocking and amusing statement... Izzah said "Ya, semua cina banyak duit kan? Mereka buat bisnes banyak!"
Helo, talking about Universiti Islam Antarabangsa~ And you come up with this kinda thing? Think about it my dear, the government have given like 54 years of special rights to you and your nenek moyang and why the Chinese are richer in general? Have you ever thought of where the problems may lie? It's either Malay are more laid back in general or some of your relatives have been monopolizing the wealth for their own benefits? (I mean the monopoly could not have been under Non-malay as the special rights are only entitled for the Malays.)
"Well, ini perkara yang general lah, you belum tengok pergi dekat KL lagi, tengok siapa yang kaya, haha~" (Again please correct me if I am wrong, it seems like everyone in KL is richer...)
Next I went on by saying that some main stream newspapers have been monitored by the government (so please think twice for what you read), Izzah said "Ada Chinese newspaper yang lapor benda yang tak ade dekat dalam Malay newspaper kan?"
I nodded as I thought naturally Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian would not be interested to report on pembinaan tokong and some tiny little news on chinese guys got robbed or some MCA stupid little fight mah. And then only I realised that she was under the impression that Chinese newspaper report on "benda yang chinese tahu tapi Melayu tak tahu".
What!!! Helo~
After all these kinda funny statements from a university undergraduates, I asked her "You ada kawan chinese keh?" I was not surprised when she said that she doesn't have much non-malay friends since she got into SRK, SMK and UIA, which makes the quantity of Chinese friends pathetically little. Well, I should not have blamed her as she has been shunted away from other races, which explained for her previous funny statements.
Izzah and I have the slightly similar education background starting from primary til secondary school. Now, I found the existance of Malaysian National service was not of a joke after all. Without joining National Service, I guess I would not have received a preview of Malaysian society. I have met Malay guys who acted like they have come from the communist era; and I have met some extremely kind hearted dudes which I thought I could have fall for. There were a few friendly hunks from Kelantan!!! Owh I missed them!
Have you ever come across the idea that the government themselves have been doing the whole racial devision thingy no matter they realize it or not? If you were in a National School, did you notice that the quantity of Malay friends started to shrink as some started going to MRSM, Boarding school and finally MARA or UiTM. (I was from SJK- it was something near to secular school lah anyway- so I guess the Chinese community should be blamed too in this contect.)
In an anti-racism forum dated back in my 2nd year, I recalled Dina Zaman suggested that the reason for these funny racial stereotyping- everyone is simply being "paranoid". Some Malays may feel that the Chinese are working harder and the impression that the Chinese are richer is rather intimidating. While some Chinese may feel that the Malay are relying on the special rights to go through the back door, thus they develop the urge to strive harder and migrate if possible, believing in little hope for the country. Some appears to be afraid that one's race will out-do another, which has contributed for the "paranoid" behaviour. Unfortunately, I recalled that the panel did say that the Indians and the Natives seemed to have been left outside the panic room.
Am I paranoid? Hmm... Not yet I guess :-)
p/s: I don't really have the ambition of taking medicine for I am not good at controlling funny situation from happening on the Operation Room... While treating fever and cough is not that challenging... And anestatist is only known to me when I was half way through my 3rd year of persuing something more than a Medical Lab Technologist... (I mean I wanted something more challenging and creative)
Syok Sendiri in the toilet :-)
Yeap, this is how I looked like walking around the lab~
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