Condolences to victims and families of QZ8501.

“My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death assail me.
Fear and trembling have beset me;
horror has overwhelmed me.” –Psalm 55:4-5

My heart goes out to the victims and their family members of the AirAsia flight QZ8501. So saddened by this tragedy. Yet as the Psalmist says in the last line, “I trust in You” (v. 23). I will trust in God Almighty. Even though I don’t understand, even though there’s so much inexplicable confusion, I trust in You. 

English - Standard and Malaysian

You know, sometimes I'm so confused.

I love English, and I love writing. And I could come up with an essay that fulfills the standards of Queen's English. And I love the language to bits. Being able to feel the fine polish of the words, to sense the different meanings of each word and feel them being used in an accurate and pristine manner, so that the each letter strikes deep into the soul of a person.

But sometimes, I lapse back into Malaysian English. It's weird, really. It's English, but somehow it's not. It's a type of slang, and yet it isn't. Bits and pieces of other languages chopped up and blended together to form a strange yet familiar new language. I don't really know how to describe it. I guess it's got to be felt and lived through. It's something instinctual, almost chaotic.

I don't really know what to do with this dichotomy though. On the one hand, I need to be precise, expressing myself in the formal Standard English, and on the other hand, I need to be able to feel proud of the unique flavour of Malaysian English.

So with this tension, my thoughts get confused, my tongue gets muddled, and sometimes I feel the words I want to say get choked back in my throat, or restrained in my pen.

But despite the trouble articulating myself, the unstable vacillation between Standard English and its Malaysian counterpart, I love both Englishes; I will embrace both the shine and polish of the Standard and the wild chaos of the Malaysian one.

Things I've Learnt from Packing Donated Goods

For 2 short hours, my family and I recently helped out the volunteers at the Bandar Utama Community Centre who were packing and loading donated goods for the flood victims in Kelantan. Donating goods to others wasn't tremendously new to us, but it was a first for us to actually go on the ground and help pack up and organize donated goods.

Upon arriving, one of the first sights that greeted us was the vast amounts of donated goods that have been dropped off: rice, mineral water, clothes, blankets. There were just tonnes and tonnes of goods filling and spilling all over the assembly hall of the community centre. I was really encouraged and touched by the sight. Well done, Malaysia!

There were a few observations and thoughts that I've jotted down, and a few lessons that I've learnt through this humbling experience: -

1. Truly, truly encouraged to be seeing volunteers coming together to help sort out the donations. A large number of donated goods is of course encouraging, but the staggering amount is so overwhelming. We were working for about 2-3 hours, my arms were aching, I've broken into a very hot sweat, and we've moved about 1% of the goods. I am not even exaggerating. But I was very thankful for the volunteers, who have taken the time not just to drop off goods, but to also mill through the gritty work of sorting out the donations. It was a lot of hard, manual work, but no one complained for a second. Everyone came from different backgrounds, different ages. We even had a 15 year old girl helping us out. Some injected a little bit of zest into the task by trying to play "American football" with the plastic bags, and some worked quietly and steadfastly. But whatever the differences in our personalities, we came together and worked to get those goods sorted out.

2. Not all donated goods are good. A personal lesson I've learnt is such: It's great that you want to donate all the items you no longer need. But, be discriminatory about what you're donating. Used undergarments are a known no-no, but they still turned up in donated goods, and there were weird things like iPad covers being donated (which may be good for causes other than disaster relief perhaps...?). Have a careful look through your donations. Do you truly feel that these can be donated? Or are you merely trying to dispose of old items in a way that would salve your conscience?

3. Take the effort to have a bit of care. Yes, life is busy, and you're just wanting to drop off your donations before rushing off to cook dinner for your family. But before you donate, just take some pains to make sure that your donations would be such that it would be useful for the victims, and easy for the volunteers to sort through. While it was great that everyone donated so so much, if I was being strictly honest, there were times when I felt the piles and piles of donated clothes resembled a landfill: there were ripped plastic bags, clothes spilling out of boxes onto the floor. I'm actually guilty of just "dumping" donations without properly sealing the plastic bags. But now I learnt that it would save a lot of time and energy (and heartache) if we all would carefully seal the boxes, plastic bags, and garbage bags that we put our donations into. It would be ideal to label them too.

4. Research. Again, everyone has so much going on in their lives that we can't really expect people to be complete experts in knowing what to donate, or how to help out etc. But it is important to just take some pains in finding out the right centres to drop off goods to, what kind of donated goods would be valuable, etc. For instance, we were actually told that the Bandar Utama Community Centre wasn't really the designated place for people to drop off clothes, but it's still being done anyway. And also, it is actually better to give canned biscuits rather than rice because the victims wouldn't have stove or the equipment to boil rice. I found that most of this information could be found on the posters, especially the ones on FB, but for some reason, the message isn't getting across. So yeap, read through the posters carefully, see what people really need.


People are generous in that they want to help out and donate. And that's great! But it's also time that we also start getting on the ground and help out practically, in physical labour - rather than just financially and materially. Also, if you do want to donate, take some care and effort in doing so. These goods are being donated to actual people who need them.

This Quiet Room

I walk around these quiet halls, and I remember. It used to be filled up with your laughter, brimming over with your jokes, your happiness, sometimes your anger, your tears.

These quiet corridors, where your feet used to be. All the things that you used to do for us, all the times we had. There were squabbles, there was hurt, there was sometimes loneliness.

But deep down, we know.

I walk into your room. And a little twinge - commingled with feelings of pain, longing, nostalgia - shot through me. What a funny thing it is, that your life no longer inundate this room - that it lays bare and silent, in direct contrast with your laughter and your spirit.

It hurts a little, it stings a little. Regrets I feel. Sadness I feel. And it's strange how emptiness could be such a tangible feeling.

But I'm thankful for you, I'm thankful that you've walked into our lives, thankful for your big heart and big smile. And we're all praying for you, supporting you, wishing you the very best. We will visit you one day.

And despite the sadness, I take joy in the knowledge that we will meet each other for an eternal celebration in His presence.




-----

For my dear Sok, whom we all miss. 

Wise Words

For us, there is only the trying.

-T.S. Eliot

Telescopic Philanthropy

I encountered this phrase when I was reading Dickens' Bleak House, and I found it a perfect, perfect summation of how people tend to approach charity or volunteer work.

Before I start off, I need to make clear that I am not at all against charity or volunteer work; what I am protesting against is the superficial view we have when undertaking such work.

Yes, it's great that we feel the need and desire to want to share a part of our resources, time, effort with those who may have materially less than we do. But what is our view of them? Do we see them in a one-dimensional way, as "helpless victims", nameless faces lost in the crowd of destitution, poverty, and hardship?

Which is exactly what Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House was doing. Yes, it was great that she felt the desire to help these countries in need. But she was extending help in a cold, distant, almost mechanical manner; she was merely pumping in money for a cause which she knows of, but does not know.

What is also disconcerting about this "telescopic philanthropy" phenomenon is that we are always so quick to put a world of distance between ourselves and the people in need. "Oh dear", we say, "it must be terrible for people living in such and such a place". Yet at the same time, have we turned a blind eye to the hardship and struggles of the people and communities near us? We are prone to hide behind the excuse of geographical distance, to use it as a justification as to why we aren't doing more. The extent of our help is limited, we say. We are living at the other end of the world, there is only so much we can do, we say. Yes, we can't take on the problems of the whole world, but we can (and must) start trying to be a bit more aware of all the problems and the issues that different countries are facing. And also, we have to realize that the problems aren't always happening "elsewhere": there are people all around us that are so much in need of our help as well, and we can only spot them if we open up our eyes wide enough.

If we really want to help, yes finances and funds are vital. But we can't just hope to solve everything by money, which is the apparent quick-fix solution - but very rarely the long-term solution - of problems. What is of utmost importance, then, is how these funds are used. It is vital that these finances are used such that the fundamental problems are being addressed, and progressive changes are being made - no matter how tiny they may seem at the beginning.

We need to first and foremost understand the people who are at the receiving end of the help. We need to understand their lives, their real problems, their joys, their potential at turning their lives around. The people who are in need are strong, capable people who have made it thus far in life, and we should never strip their dignity by simplistically and rather condescendingly thinking that we could offer monetary assistance and be done with it. Real people have complex, complicated problems.

I will admit that it will be hard. Having visited a few indigenous villages back in my home country Malaysia, I do understand the difficulty of starting and sustaining a conversation with the villagers, some of the people whom I have helped out in the past. There was a lot of things holding me back, a lot of emotions that I couldn't quite pinpoint then, but which I recognize now: emotions bred from the fear of making a fool of myself, awkwardness of talking to people who have a totally different lifestyle than mine, guilt of having more materially, and perhaps the worst of it all, laziness of making the effort to step into the life of another person.

Trying to resolve these problems with just money is like staunching a severely bleeding wound with a flimsy band-aid: it helps, but it won't help forever. We need to get down to it and actually take the time and trouble to understand the people who are in need. We need to get our hands dirty, actually go down to ground level, to come out of our comfort zones, talking to them about their lives, their way of living, their very own selves. When we have gained insight, then and only then are we able to tackle these issues, only then are we able to draw up and lobby for effective policies. Effective policies can't be successfully formulated and implemented by condescendingly imposing what we think would work; no, the problem has to be painstakingly researched, analyzed, debated, discussed, refined. Importantly as well, we need to stop offering aid to people as though they are merely passive receivers of it. Instead, we need to empower communities and individuals to use their abilities, potential, talents the best way they can. We need to give them tools that would enable them to build better lives for themselves.

Someone recently shared this article on Facebook, and I thought it was a splendid take on the topic of responsible volunteering. It's time to stop viewing needy people and communities as distant, helpless subjects that are completely cut off from our spheres of existence, and engaging with them, hearing their voices and their side of things.

Psalm 40:2

Sometimes I’m just so caught up in the business of everyday, I’m swept up in the floods of the multitudes, drowning in the lists of to-dos and want-to-dos, swelling up with places names dates things; so much so that I risk losing myself in the midst of it all.

But Your hand reaches into the everything that I am holding, pulling me up and breaking me away. 

You are my anchor steadying me, preserving me against the currents threatening to inundate me.

And You remind me. Who I am.

In You. 

Refugees in Malaysia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdV3sj76vnA


This is so sad... obviously this issue is way more complex than what Al Jazeera presents, and there are many considerations to take into account when dealing with refugees (e.g. resources, growing population, security issues, etc.). But instead of immediately rejecting them and exploiting them, we need to help them, support them, take the trouble to understand them.