Recently I was involved in organizing an event, and the committee members included some foreign nationals (who are currently residing and working in Malaysia). I just got to know all of them over the past few weeks, and attended the meetings to plan the event. The experience was a wonderful break from monotony, so to speak, from my usual activities. It is suffice to say that I courted the organization and volunteered myself to be involved in any way that I can and able to. It was also the first time that I've used the connections of my alumni to get something. Let me just add here that I've met a lot of new people in the past month from my excursions to some social activities, always going alone. Its an eye-opener really to see so many people out there doing so much good and contributing to the community, mostly young people, and I am ashamed to say that have nothing to say for myself after 29 years of living. As far as I'm concerned, nobody in my circle of friends that I know are involved in anything as such (But if you are, it is really great and I apologize for the assumption and being ignorant). I haven't really done anything substantsial that is worth mentioning, but this is a start for me, I don't know if I can sustain it, but one has to start somewhere and I hope this is not just a phase for me.
So back to my story, after the event, which was quite successful despite the procrastinations and last minute preparations, the committee sat down for a review session for an informal discussion. Congratulatories were said and everybody was given a chance to say a word or two. During the meetings, I noticed a small underlying current of tension, nothing alarming or such between 2 of the committee members, lets just name them Mr. X and Ms. Z. To my utter surprise, it turned out that a few hours before the event, an altercation took place between them, but I was not aware of it because I was not there at the time. So anyway, during the end of the review session, they started talking about it and was very vocal about what each other felt and why they felt that way etc.. After 5 minutes of them pouring out their feelings (they are both non-Malaysians btw, which is an important fact to point that I am going to make here), one by one the others started leaving the discussion table to continue cleaning up the place, including myself. They continued arguing (but no shouting, just civilized arguing), and couldn't agree with what each other was saying and could not find a common ground. Both of them did not manage to come to a compromise. So the argument kind of ended abruptly with Mr. X leaving the room.
A few minutes after that, Ms. Z said, "Is it a Malaysian thing that everybody runs away during a confrontation?". And I thought about it for a while and said, "Yes I guess it IS a Malaysian thing".
What I'm trying to say here is, when situations like these arise, a conflict is happening between some people and we are not involved in it, we just continue to be not involved and try to distance ourselves from it, because it doesn't concern us. We don't want to be seen taking sides, or maybe we really do not want to take sides for fear of either of the conflicting parties think that we are agreeing with one or the other, which in turn would pull us into the conflict as well.
Ms. Z replied to me and said, "It would be nice if someone would mediate the situation in times like these". I kind of have to agree with her on this, someone should be able to bring the situation under control, and say something to put it in the perspective of an outsider looking into the conflict at hand. It could really make things better by saying the right things and make the opposing parties come to a common ground or maybe agree to disagree. I say this, but frankly speaking I am totally not that kind of person. I don't know if its a personality attributed to the fact that I'm a Libra, a "balanced" character. Haha. We are not supposed to believe in horoscopes.
Feeling bad for what had happened (or more like for what I should have done instead), I hugged Ms. Z hoping it would make her feel better. Women like that, don't they? Women like to feel supported and comforted. I said well its no use thinking or talking about it anymore, everything's over, the event was a success, the more you think about it the more you'll feed into your emotions, its all water under the bridge, just go home and watch a good movie or something, yada yada. I don't know if she felt better after that, but it was better than ignoring what she was going through. I did not actually empathize on both Mr. X and Ms. Z, but saying these things to Ms. Z felt like the right thing to do. In all honesty, I think if the conflict was between 2 Malaysians, nothing like this would've happened because neither would actually say anything, just to avoid the awkwardness and unpleasantness of it all.
So my point here is, yes in general Malaysians do not like confrontations, especially Malays. Its easier to ignore things like this and hope whatever ill-feelings go away in time. But on the other hand, those who cannot forgive or forget would have built pent-up feelings of anger and frustration, and if not checked, might lead to the so called "amok" nature of Malays. People who seem normal and happy on the outside but one day suddenly burst into crazy rage. We know it to happen sometimes, just read the newspapers.
This "none of my business" attitude could be both a good and a bad thing. We just have to know when it is better to ignore or intervene confrontations. But even though I am saying this, I know myself well enough to say that I won't be able to walk the talk. Just something to ponder upon.
p/s: Actually, I do know someone who raised RM20,000 for the tsunami victims in Japan in charity a run of.. get this, 100km! We are not actually good friends or anything, but I've met her several times in the few runs that I've entered in the past 3 years and exchanged hellos, sometimes she runs, sometimes she volunteers. She wrote about the whole experience in detail you can check out her blog:
http://missjewelz.wordpress.com/
oh one more thing, I did the NTV7 Feel Good Run this morning, 7km je.. in 50 minutes! Managed to cut off 5 minutes from my target time, with an average speed of 8.4km/hr. It was possible because the whole course was on flat roads (no incline), so I managed to not walk, hehe.
So back to my story, after the event, which was quite successful despite the procrastinations and last minute preparations, the committee sat down for a review session for an informal discussion. Congratulatories were said and everybody was given a chance to say a word or two. During the meetings, I noticed a small underlying current of tension, nothing alarming or such between 2 of the committee members, lets just name them Mr. X and Ms. Z. To my utter surprise, it turned out that a few hours before the event, an altercation took place between them, but I was not aware of it because I was not there at the time. So anyway, during the end of the review session, they started talking about it and was very vocal about what each other felt and why they felt that way etc.. After 5 minutes of them pouring out their feelings (they are both non-Malaysians btw, which is an important fact to point that I am going to make here), one by one the others started leaving the discussion table to continue cleaning up the place, including myself. They continued arguing (but no shouting, just civilized arguing), and couldn't agree with what each other was saying and could not find a common ground. Both of them did not manage to come to a compromise. So the argument kind of ended abruptly with Mr. X leaving the room.
A few minutes after that, Ms. Z said, "Is it a Malaysian thing that everybody runs away during a confrontation?". And I thought about it for a while and said, "Yes I guess it IS a Malaysian thing".
What I'm trying to say here is, when situations like these arise, a conflict is happening between some people and we are not involved in it, we just continue to be not involved and try to distance ourselves from it, because it doesn't concern us. We don't want to be seen taking sides, or maybe we really do not want to take sides for fear of either of the conflicting parties think that we are agreeing with one or the other, which in turn would pull us into the conflict as well.
Ms. Z replied to me and said, "It would be nice if someone would mediate the situation in times like these". I kind of have to agree with her on this, someone should be able to bring the situation under control, and say something to put it in the perspective of an outsider looking into the conflict at hand. It could really make things better by saying the right things and make the opposing parties come to a common ground or maybe agree to disagree. I say this, but frankly speaking I am totally not that kind of person. I don't know if its a personality attributed to the fact that I'm a Libra, a "balanced" character. Haha. We are not supposed to believe in horoscopes.
Feeling bad for what had happened (or more like for what I should have done instead), I hugged Ms. Z hoping it would make her feel better. Women like that, don't they? Women like to feel supported and comforted. I said well its no use thinking or talking about it anymore, everything's over, the event was a success, the more you think about it the more you'll feed into your emotions, its all water under the bridge, just go home and watch a good movie or something, yada yada. I don't know if she felt better after that, but it was better than ignoring what she was going through. I did not actually empathize on both Mr. X and Ms. Z, but saying these things to Ms. Z felt like the right thing to do. In all honesty, I think if the conflict was between 2 Malaysians, nothing like this would've happened because neither would actually say anything, just to avoid the awkwardness and unpleasantness of it all.
So my point here is, yes in general Malaysians do not like confrontations, especially Malays. Its easier to ignore things like this and hope whatever ill-feelings go away in time. But on the other hand, those who cannot forgive or forget would have built pent-up feelings of anger and frustration, and if not checked, might lead to the so called "amok" nature of Malays. People who seem normal and happy on the outside but one day suddenly burst into crazy rage. We know it to happen sometimes, just read the newspapers.
This "none of my business" attitude could be both a good and a bad thing. We just have to know when it is better to ignore or intervene confrontations. But even though I am saying this, I know myself well enough to say that I won't be able to walk the talk. Just something to ponder upon.
p/s: Actually, I do know someone who raised RM20,000 for the tsunami victims in Japan in charity a run of.. get this, 100km! We are not actually good friends or anything, but I've met her several times in the few runs that I've entered in the past 3 years and exchanged hellos, sometimes she runs, sometimes she volunteers. She wrote about the whole experience in detail you can check out her blog:
http://missjewelz.wordpress.com/
oh one more thing, I did the NTV7 Feel Good Run this morning, 7km je.. in 50 minutes! Managed to cut off 5 minutes from my target time, with an average speed of 8.4km/hr. It was possible because the whole course was on flat roads (no incline), so I managed to not walk, hehe.
6 comments:
Good to see u there at the NTV7 run Kirah!
Apa activity u masuk yg berbunyi sungguh interesting ni.. next time kene ajak :)
Lin
i got this masa cross cultural class bck in france dulu, the class mmg sgt mixed nationals & the lecturer is brit. we all described ourselves & bila aku ckp m malaysian dia tros ckp pasal amuk, the pent up feelings, bladebla. xingat dh apa aku ckp tp agreed mmg like to avoid confrontation, lg prefer let go than face things, mcm sabar la konon tp maybe more like malas, or pnakut? haha.. and i stuju bout the libra thingy sbb aku pon sama! :P
Lin! omg how did you find this blog? macam segan la pulak ;p
Dear AAA.. don't la make me guess siapa anda.. heheheh
alamak ttules initial, its me aaa - aniaizaashaari la kerr sorry :P
hahaha.. i was blog hopping and then terjumpa.
i really enjoy your travel posts :)
good writing kirah. me likey :)
i would have done the same thing - running away then hugging, hehe - so i guess that is all true. it's the same like non-malaysians are comfortable to voice up and confront kalau diorg tak puas hati, tp kita dok senyap2 je prefer not to raise any conflict(and then cakap belakang hehehe)
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