All That I Want.

With me still being partially deaf (literally speaking) and not being able to fast because of the medications that I need to take which in my personal opinion is not helping much with the infected left ear of mine, yours truly is not really in the best of moods today.

Anyway, as I logged on to my  facebook account earlier, something that I have not been doing in a while, I stumbled upon something I wrote (in the “My Notes” section of facebook) more than a year ago. At that moment in time, we were still residing in Hong Kong. It brought back some unpleasant memories and in a way made me glad we left Hong Kong. Don’t get me wrong though. I would not trade my Hong Kong experience for anything but there have been “moments” that made our lives there not such a pleasant experience.

Allow me to share with you what I wrote on January 11th, 2009.

I was looking forward to 2009 with new vision and hope, putting aside events of the past, all geared up to face the new year with renewed positivity in a foreign country. We welcome the year, all geared up with new resolutions though deep down inside we know that some of it will not be carried through. The one thing that I wanted the most was to set a good example to my six years old son, to teach him the important basic values in life, good mannerism & to respect and be courteous to others.

So much for my new year’s resolutions when an incident occurred on the first day of 2009 and all my vision, hope and renewed positivity thrown out of the window. A considerate gesture on my part backfired and I was subjected to verbal abuse by some of the locals that were on the same bus with me. To defend myself against the verbal abuse, I fought back with equally abusive words in front of my six years old son. I was so angry with that group of locals as they were being openly racist towards me but at the end of the day I was angrier with myself, for stooping to their level that I ended being a bad example to my son.

Ten days into 2009, I took my son to a local GP as he was down with fever. The clinic that we normally go to was closed so we had no choice but to go to this particular GP that was on my husband’s medical panel. Both my husband and I have had very bad experiences with this particular GP when we first went to see him upon our arrival in Hong Kong in 2007. The GP refused to take my husband’s blood pressure reading by saying to my husband “You’re so fat. We don’t have a blood pressure monitor that fits you”. My husband was so stunned that he couldn’t find a suitable rebuttal.

As for me, who was down with a very bad sore throat resulting in the lost of my voice, the doctor actually said to me, “ I’m sure you think your condition is caused by the polluted Hong Kong air” but then he looked at my records and saw that I was a Malaysian and continued saying to me, “ Malaysia is even more polluted than Hong Kong. Also your condition is caused by eating too much curry because isn’t that all that you people eat?” As I couldn’t say anything due to the condition of my throat, I just sat there like an idiot, taking in everything he said but too weak to say anything. All these condescending statements came from a local doctor who obtained his medical degree from Australia. My husband and I promised ourselves that we were never going back there.

We had to take back our words as our son was down with fever this morning and we had to change the dressing on his finger (my son had a little incident at school yesterday and injured his finger). My little boy was really sick and was breathing heavily during the check-up. Instead of checking to see why my son was breathing in that manner, the same doctor that was so rude to us previously said to my little boy, “Why are you breathing as though you’re about to give birth?” Being rude to us was one thing but to a six years old boy? This time around, both my husband and I still did not say anything to the doctor (I didn’t want a repeat of the bus incident) as my son was with us. However, this time around we have decided to lodge a complaint to my husband’s employer about that particular doctor and to the necessary authorities. Enough is enough.

I have never wanted to move to Hong Kong but being the dutiful wife, I would have accompanied my husband to any parts of the world. Before moving to Hong Kong in September 2007, my family and I came here for a short holiday and even then I was already subjected to the rude & racist mannerisms of many of the locals here. Could it be because of my dark complexion because I’ve seen how extremely nice the locals are to the “gwailos/mat salehs” (the whites) Hence my unhappy reaction when I was told by my husband that we were moving to Hong Kong.

My Malaysian friends living in Hong Kong have also encountered many unpleasant situations with the locals that we generally summed it all up by saying that’s how they really are and there’s nothing much we can do about them. I’m not saying that all the locals here are arrogant, rude, racist, inconsiderate, selfish, well I could just go on and on about them but I’ve also made friends with a few really nice locals here who are just like my Malaysian friends back home. But at the end of the day, the majority outnumbers this small group of really nice locals thus making me re-think, is it really worth it to continue living in Hong Kong?

With the global recession setting in, the deliberate attacks by the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip causing the lives of civilian especially innocent children, my little episodes with the locals would seem really petty. All I wanted was to be able to teach good values to my little boy, to lead by good examples. I may not be able to contribute towards global economic recovery, help stop the attacks in the Gaza strip but the least I could do is to teach my little boy to be a good person so that he may grow up to be an outstanding being with impeccable values. However, I’m finding it hard to do so when my son witnesses the unpleasantness of these people, every single day.

The only thing positive to come out of these incidents, is that it made me value my home country Malaysia, more than ever. Malaysians are indeed a well mannered nation.

There you have it folks, some of life's unpleasant moments that was presented to us, courtesy of some inconsiderate, selfish, idiotic "Hongkongers" during our time in Hong Kong. Thank God, we don't have repeat performances of those incidents here in Singapore. I guess when it comes to the basic important values in life, Malaysians and Singaporeans shares similar beliefs and upbringings.