Monday June 25, 2007
Always will be mine
By JASON LIM
YOUNG MALAYSIAN STORIES
“I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars, and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine.”
— I Would Ask For Still More, Rabindranath Tagore
AFTER three years in the London School of Economics, I graduated and made one of the biggest decisions of my life – to turn my back on the chance to live a cosmopolitan life abroad and return to Malaysia.
Besides being home to some of the biggest corporations in the world, London also had awesome concerts, free air-conditioning three-quarters of the year and perhaps more impressively, actress Keira Knightley.
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It’s been two years since that flight, and I’m still finding out what it means to be home and learning who I am.
I’m a Malaysian Chinese three generations away from a China I never want to call home. I’m also a modern, liberal person, who is proud of his culture but fascinated with how small the world has become. I am in pursuit of my Weltanschauung (world view).
When young people learn about themselves, as I am doing now, they should find themselves opening realms of possibilities, but like other Malaysian-Chinese youth, I am forced to face my limitations instead. Limitations such as to what extent I can voice my opinion, behave with my loved ones in public and succeed in my career path.
And I do realise that I will never be the Prime Minister.
To call this beautiful country my home, I put up with these limitations. I read somewhere that love grows from understanding but love itself cannot be understood. And so, I won’t seek to understand my love for this country which would not even notice if I were to give up one day and leave.
I won’t seek to understand why I am proud that she is mine even though I will never truly be hers. Instead, today, as it was two years ago on her birthday, all that is important, is that I am with her.
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