Intelligence Quotient

Professor Milton Osborne, whose credentials among the Southeast Asian and Australasian academic and diplomatic community are too many to list, was representing the Lowy Institute of International Studies when he visited Auckland to chair an intimate session on China as a paramount power in Southeast Asian relations. As one of the hosts, we showed him around Auckland and my only duty was to walk him to the lecture theatre at the university, where I had promised him earlier I would attend.

Yes, friends, Ezra is now a little bit more aware of politics, no thanks to Rachel Chin and www.malaysiakini.com.

I was initially hesistant when I realised that there were far less people than I thought, sitting in a conference roundtable format. Academics, embassy representatives, researchers...a glorified office assistant (me). Still, it was an incredibly eye-opening 1.5 hour session where the only thing I got out of it (unfortunately I have A.D.D.) was that mindsets are certainly changing towards China, and the Chinese.

Inevitably, the Chinese diaspora popped up in relation to whether these communities (which of course are scattered all over SEA, Malaysia included) helped or hindered the course of host nation-China relationships. This was when the floor was open and a hand shot up from the front.

"Hello Professor, My name is Joe (name chosen because I honestly can't remember - my A.D.D). As a Malaysian Chinese do you think that the success of Chinese outside the mainland, who have been generations removed from the mainland, has helped build inroads for SEA nations tapping into China's economy? I mean that the children of Chinese migrants to SEA nations have grown to be quite successful and are now going back to China as investors and businesspeople and are now kindling inter-region trade..."

Now at this point I was quite curious about the "success" part. What success? For every Chinese migrant's great great grandchild who made it big in Malaysia, there are a hundred who have not and are still eking a living back in Malaysia. Some, like me, have not seen China yet and am just thanking my lucky stars to be able to be in NZ on a scholarship. I reckoned that he was talking about his own glorious account, and the account of his father, and his father's friends, or whoever they may be who broke the mold and afforded to start a new life here.

"...It's quite well-known that Chinese are an, eh, intelligent race. (Insert very small but audible audience groan, even from the Chinese). Take for example the recent Mathlympics (or something like that) in Singapore. NZ only took home a bronze while the Chinese from other SEA nations took home 12 golds. (Groans, definitely audible) Could this skill build bridges into China for the host nations?"

Look mate, I don't know about bridges but you're definitely tearing some down here.

I have to admit, I've never found it easy being who I am. Based on pure ethnicity, being a Malaysian Chinese brought up in a protestant home with Manglish-speaking parents isn't exactly your idea of "cultural". The constant straddling of two (or more) worlds is no one's walk in the park. I had to learn my Chinese roots by force - my folks, who could not speak a word of Mandarin, made me attend 11 years of Chinese school. 5 years on, that section of my mind has putrefied and I'm stringing together broken sentences like a 2-year-old. It's hard enough coming to terms with who you are in the world and your relationships with others without having someone with almost the exact same background coming around and pissing on everyone's toes.

Maybe that's the one thing that unites the Chinese diaspora. We will always be a selfish race. If this country isn't good enough for us, we migrate. If trouble brews, we migrate. "Remember to study hard, you must get into a private uni/college." "Aiyah, the ***** will always be this way. We must fight for our own rights." "Better get a PR (permanent residency), you never know when you might need it." We're better than you because we're smarter than you and that's why you hate us. "Don't hate us cuz we're beautiful/intelligent/rich."

We forget our roots. We forget Cheng Ho. We forget that Chinese diplomats absorbed, not propagated. They never flaunted. Somehow along the line we forget that without a country, we're nothing. Being Chinese doesn't mean that you're from China. And if you scorn the very countries that nurture you, what are we then? Even Taiwan knows the value of a nation. The Malaysian Chinese diaspora may well be the only community that still doesn't really identify with its host nation after generations - even if these same guys have hopped over to Australia, Canada and NZ.

I have a dear friend, very much Malaysian Chinese, who attributes his "American accent" to his years of living in Washington, DC. At least that's what he tells all the friends he's made here. He's never even been to the States.

Me, I blame my forced, half-baked accent on American TV and just a slight shame to be Malaysian Chinese.

Conversations with Cab Drivers

I suppose it's my fault for not telling most of you that I've found a new job with the Asia NZ Foundation. Then again, it's my fault for not touching this for the longest time, but you should know that by now.

Anyhoo, the job's excellent, things are going great, the best part of it is that unlike my previous job, I get to travel. A lot, actually, since we're hosting the Auckland leg of the Diwali celebrations. By travel I mean from the airport to the city and vice versa, not to catch flights unfortunately, but to do a meet and greet. In that sense it's not all that different from my previous job as well, but then again, I finally get to see the blardy sun.

A very alien concept this: I don't own a car. This is practically unheard of among KL and Auckland urbanites. I do have a sheaf of taxi chits, and this is how I stumbled upon taxi drivers.

The wonderful people of the Auckland Co-Op Taxi company, which I use solely because they are everywhere, wield the power to make or break your day. Take the example of my first ride with them back from the airport. This time I was on my way back from Wellington, where I had met the team earlier, a couple weeks before I started on my new job. I was happy and excited and was telling the wooden wall about it for about 15 minutes before giving up. Then he overcharged me by $15. What an anticlimax to an otherwise glorious day being on an airplane twice in 12 hours. Still, that has been the only bad experience.

Rama, who drove me back from the airport after sending someone off, told me about how he spent his long weekend, where he took the kids, and how he was going to drive until 11 that night. "What about the kids?" I asked, to which he said, "They'll have had enough of me over the weekend, and me of them."

Kris, whose wife owns a trinket store, told me how he only moonlights as a taxi driver. "Sometimes I feel as though I'm my wife's unpaid employee." He did the Diwali celebrations in Manukau, manning the stall for hours and ran himself ragged there, and not to my surprise will be doing the one this weekend which I'm running myself ragged for. "See you this weekend," said I as I hopped out. "Unfortunately," said he, wearily. Hilarious.

Jim greeted me in front of the Auckland Museum with the perfect pronunciation of my name. I was surprised on two counts - one, that the operator got it right, and two, that Jim got it right, being a pakeha (NZ European). Now as much a Crown entity as NZ can claim heritage from, the Queen's English is in shocking disuse. Don't get me started on spelling. The other day I heard "hotting up" in a TV trailer. That's blardy national TV. Okay, "Ezra" isn't an English name per se but what about the Christian heritage?

Jim did have an unfair advantage. His alter ego was Jim the preacher, which he actually did to old folks at the Sunset Rest Home. Through the 15 minutes it took for us to beat the traffic back to the New President, he did a social commentary the likes I've never heard of in a long time. Persuasive but never pushy, he sounded more like the taxi driver who gets you to the right places in your mind instead of a pushy preacher. Not that he didn't lament about the lack of drive in the convictions of today, but he did so without prejudice and pall.

I actually walked out of that cab feeling like I just walked out of a church on Christmas morning.

The Story of C

C: It's interesting to see how different the world can be between cultures. My lecturer had this anecdote about the war in Iraq. When some Japanese and Italians were held hostage, the reactions back home were worlds apart. The Italians went into a panic and were trying their best to get their people home. The Japanese refused to negotiate, even after threats and deadlines looming.

E: Why so?

C: It was all in the mentality of the whole versus individuality. As a generalisation, western culture values the individual. Personal life is sacred. On the other hand, the Japanese place greater emphasis on the whole, on the wellbeing of society in general. The action of one doesn't affect the individual but the whole. When the Italians were released, they were hailed as heroes. The Japanese however, were plastered across the papers as recklessly endangering the nation. Those released hostages were getting threats from their own countrymen in the mail.

E: I don't think there's a right or wrong way to look at it. It's just that our social and political mentality are inextricably linked with the way we were brought up in the society we come from. It's always shocking sometimes to live in a different land and realise that it's not just cultural norms, climate and food that we have to adapt to, but a whole different way of thinking.

C: When I first came here, it was the first time I had Taiwanese friends. In one class I had a couple of friends from China, and another from Taiwan. When it came to introducing ourselves, after the latter told the class that she was from Taiwan, one of the Chinese girls stood up, smacked the desk and shouted, "You mean China! Why is Taiwan separate?" It was quite an outburst, although I have to admit that for a long time whenever someone said they were from Taiwan I had that same urge too.

E: You don't now?

C: Not really. It's only when you realise that the Taiwanese grew up knowing they were right, and I was brought up knowing that I was right, that this underlying contradiction makes a bit more sense. It must be quite a struggle trying to find your identity in the world when no one wants to admit you exist.

E: Yes, I've realised that. It's only when you go somewhere else do you start to see your own country in a neutral light, with all its flaws, things you knew but somehow didn't see before.

C: It's a bit like seeing some of the kids here who were sent here by their rich Shanghai parents. The wantonness of their lives here can sometimes be a bit disturbing, especially when there are still many living sub-standardly back home. Progress will be the answer - only when everyone reaches that same level of living.

E: Isn't understanding the answer instead? Look at us - we don't fit into that stereotype, but we are far from the minority where we come from. I just hope that things will be better a couple generations from now, maybe when our grandchildren are a different shade of yellow, or maybe when the world turns a faded sort of brown. After everything you've seen, do you still want go home?

C: Of course, I'd never give it up for the world. For all its flaws, that's where family is. I find it difficult to give up something I've believed in for so long.

E: I suppose then, that some things are worth fighting for.

A Friend in High Places

Consider the following coversation on MSN, with a person who has yet to identify himself.

my new subaru says:
i think i know you
ezra says:
you do?
ezra says:
pray tell how you do
my new subaru says:
through Jesus
ezra says:
wow
ezra says:
and what did He tell you about me?
my new subaru says:
seriously..i have no clue..

You'll never guess...

...what I used to make this.

Half Sky Hanging

I've just realised who I am.

I speak a few languages but not perfect at any.
I'm not the shortest among my peers but I'm not standing tall at 5'7" either.
I don't stutter but I do mumble.
I'm smart but I'm not wise.
I know my way around Photoshop but I don't know what CSS is.
I have answers to problems but none to mine.
I started out loving science but haven't touched a calculator in years.
I have the gift of gab but lose it around an employer or a pretty girl.
People laugh at me, not with me. At least I make people laugh?!
I'm a nerd who once got pissed drunk on a regular basis.
I play the drums better than my friends, but never good enough to land a recording contract.
I taught guitar for two years but I cannot play a guitar solo.
I excel at school probably to end up slaving behind a cubicle.

I think of the wittiest things to say but never remember enough to write them down.

I am mediocre.

Sarcasm

I've realised that the reason I don't blog much is that I'm too busy living life to write about it.

It's not like I have the time to sit down and pehey yoou know wat i gotta run

The Yodeling Fish

Some of you may now be aware of my Multiply site, and the songs I put up on it. I've had many people say different things about it, but mostly the question the most people ask is "why do you do it?"

Frankly, I don't really know.

So for the lack of inspired writing, seeing I lack life experiences, wit, and a general sense of humour, I've decided to make this blog post a dissertation of why I can't stop recording and posting songs, a practice almost as annoying as my tendency to link every single damn site.

Let's just go back in time a little, just for some context. I used to be (and still am) not a normal boy. No, I didn't like wearing my sister's dresses, not like she had any to begin with. What made me different was my sheer lack of any sporting ability whatsoever. Yeah, sure I played badminton for a while, but when one thinks of it, it's a damn lame game. Go on, name a famous shuttler. Or is it shuttlecocker? See?

Anyway, while every other boy shot hoops or scored goals, I was always left behind, poor boy, catching fish from drains. Until I discovered my dad's guitar. I remember waking up early one Saturday morning when I was 11 to catch the cartoons with a huge bowl of cereal. As I sneaked down the stairs, I glimpsed at my dad's guitar. Being the curious George I was, I tried holding chords and banging the strings. That's when my dad came down. The first thing he said was, "You wanna learn that?" I nodded. The very next day he threw me a chordbook and taught me my first three chords - A, D and E. I played "Guantanamera" for a month.

By the time I hit high school, I had a little arsenal of chords, both in major and minor keys - even 7ths, which then to me was "jazz". I covered everything from Deep Blue Something to Michael Learns to Rock. Goo Goo Dolls and Jason Lo were the gods I worshipped. And while the guys grew muscles and scored with the ladies, I sat in my room, night after night, yodeling til the neighbours threw bricks and cats howled. When I discovered plucking, I'd play Jars of Clay's Frail with the lights turned off until I literally fell asleep with my fingers still moving. That guitar became my life.

I drooled over a black acoustic electric for two and a half years, and every time I passed by the window of Ipoh's most rip-off guitar shop I'd stop to drool at it. I own it now, a black beauty which I've used for countless performances, and still do for all my songs. Did I tell you I sold my body to get that? That's a story I'll only tell if you ask me. But I digress.

Fast forward a few more years, and Ezra's in college, still annoying the shit out of his roommates and housemates not only because he still wails instead of sings, but he's also acquired (HORROR!) an electric guitar. It's around this time that I started playing around with the Windows recording tool. Sitting at a little bistro having lunch with Seng Hean and Danny, I saw Damien Rice playing Cannonball on MTV. I loved it. And quite spontaneously, I recorded myself singing and playing that song, which I then turned into an MP3.

One day, I sent that file on a lark to a friend. She couldn't believe it was me. Yes, yes I sound much worse when I sing but I thought it interesting that she asked how I got two guitars playing at the same time. Fact is, I didn't, it was one all along, but I was quite flattered I fooled someone into thinking that I was good at it. Which got me thinking - what if I really did play two guitars? All those times I screeched out the solo while strumming, what if I could actually do it? I got so excited I went searching for a mixing tool - and found it in Mixcraft, a basic multi-track program that allows you to layer one sound over the other, and add effects to each to boot.

I went on a recording frenzy, starting with Disagree's Crumbs' guitar solo. I couldn't stop feeling amazed that those beautiful melodies were actually all me. You could call it narcissistic, and it was. It's when you discover how well tuna goes with onions and tomato, or sand and buttcracks, or ah bengs and tight shirts...it was a revelation. I didn't know I could hear two of myself playing at the same time. The last time I felt that way was when Ah Meng and I duelled the outro of Oasis' Don't Go Away at 10:00PM outside the school library. Beautiful. I felt the same perfect duality as Dave Murray and Adrian Smith as they ease sweet dual leads in Iron Maiden, or when Britney got preggie with Kevin's baby and went on to shoot that corny perfume ad.

Fast forward almost a year on, I'm toying around with more effects, and a new drum program. All with the same guitar, albeit a new webchat mic and an undoubtedly worse voice. Go see it all in March.