Peninsularian Ignorance

Oni wat nyaa de Semenanjung aruok toban pikir de wat tih?

Another Thursday, another blog.

Hi there fellow readers, I'm writing this blog from a taxi on the way to the LCCT after fours days in KL with my family. After nearly four years, I set foot on mainland soil once again. It never ceases to amaze me how things move so fast around the Klang Valley. Things I noticed that were so different from my last trip to KL:

• There are more Arabs than locals now in and around Bukit Bintang
• No more pirated CDs of any kind in Low Yat Plaza
• Durian never stops fruiting
• The construction of the new MRT rail

The things I'm stating above would not in any way be a shocker to those already living in KL coz I'm only noting the things that I find different form my last visit. But you know what, regardless of all the changes happening there, one thing stays the same and it is the one thing has happened to me almost every time I go there. It is something that I've coined as 'The Peninsularian Ignorance'.

Here's one example of it:

Taxi Driver:    Where you want to go?

Me:               Bleh tak bawak aku gi ke hotel ....?

(Now, I'm talking lepeh coz I don't want to be charged a tourist rate for a taxi..so bear with the lepehness for a while)

Taxi Driver:   Oh! Boleh! Boleh! You punya flight dari mana tadi? 

Me:              Dari Miri.

Taxi Driver:   Oooo...kerja sana ka, memang orang sana?

Me:              Memang orang Sarawak 

(Note: Didn't exactly want to say I was from Miri, coz technically I'm from Bau...hahahaha)

Taxi Driver:   Buat apa datang Malaysia sini? Pergi main main ka?

By this time, my socks were rolling down my shin coz, I was never even out of Malaysia in the first place. 

Me:             Takdelah, kalo nak main...gi padang bola la. Ni nak bercuti ngan family jer ni.

Taxi Driver:  Oooo...cuti ka. Malaysia sini banyak bagus, banyak tempat best best mau pergi. 

Me:              Ya ka? Bagus sangat ka Malaysia ni?

As you can see, my sarcasm has started to take the best of me and I'm no longer eager to continue with petty chats with ignorant Peninsularians. So for all the development achieved by the Klang Valley using mostly money from the East Malaysia's oil reserves, I'd appreciate it if someone were to educate effing Peninsularians that Sarawak and Sabah is still Malaysia. The conversation above didn't just happen in one taxi ride, it happened when I was in every taxi! It also happened when I faced sales assistants at the mall.

Don't make me go to KL in maybe another five to ten years time and still here Peninsularians refer to Peninsular Malaysia as Malaysia and thinking that Sabah and Sarawak as different countries. It made me think that id Peninsularians are so ignorant of Malaysia, I think that if Sarawak exited itslelf from the federations, no one would know right? I think that's a positive way to look at it. Coz no one knew that we're part of Malaysia in the first place. 

I went to primary school and I think by the time I was in primary three, I was fully aware that Sarawak in part of Malaysia. By the time I finished primary school, I already knew the state capital of every state and using common sense, from the pictures of Malaysia they show in the textbook, I can imagine that Kuching to Miri is very very far coz its like the same distance in the picture as Penang to JB. 

I didn't have to be there to know. So why are taxi drivers who drive many East Malaysians in and out of KLIA and LCCT are still unaware of this? Can you believe, that the individuals that form part of the travel industry in our country, don't know the general knowledge about Malaysia? Doesn't that mean that they are not reliable in informing non-Malaysian about Malaysia, when they themselves welcome a Sarawakian for coming to Malaysia? Damn.

PS: I wrote this blog on Thursday but I was only able to post it today, on Saturday. Sorry for the late post.