NOV 22 — My stint in the US has come to an end, as I and three other Malaysians completed our Eisenhower Fellowships, joining 31 Malaysian alumni since 1963 comprising civil servants, politicians, business leaders and the nation’s favourite cartoonist.
The seven-week experience was the longest I had been away from home in a single stretch since returning to Malaysia in 2007, so I greatly appreciated the warmth of compatriots I met throughout the journey.
Most were students: The chaps who had trekked from Ann Arbor to meet me in Detroit, the two in Los Angeles from UCLA and USC, and the group in Chicago with whom I enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion and meal generously hosted by Puan Azimah, director of Education Malaysia Chicago.
As always with clever young Malaysians, their zeal in wanting to contribute to their country was palpable — even those who were not on a government(-linked) scholarships: as long as sufficient infrastructure and freedom were available, they return and enrich our country.
One notable (and self-described) feature of the US Malaysian student experience is the deeper and frequent interactions with non-Malaysians: Some remarked how their friends in the UK and Australia seemed to only have exclusively Malaysian (or even just mono-ethnic) friends, perhaps because the student numbers were so large to make that possible (certainly it’s a phenomenon I saw in London).
But the relatively low number of Malaysian students in US campuses encourages the creation of wider social circles. As a result, appreciation of different cultures is more likely.
Earlier in Los Angeles, I met with Puan Azilina — vice president of Tourism Malaysia Western USA and Latin America — who gave interesting insights into the strategy for that market. Later, my meeting with our Consul-General in New York was not planned: A result of my unexpectedly having to visit the consulate to obtain a new passport. As per the standard service, the document was ready within the hour, at which point the Consul-General Syed Bakri invited me to a delightful Turkish lunch.
I am thankful to these generous Malaysians far from home, who embodied our culture of hospitality better than some in Malaysia itself. I might add that a third of these countrymen were from Negri Sembilan: an over-representation that surely indicates a durable adherence to the spirit of merantau.
It has also been enriching getting to know the three other Malaysians who were on the programme with me: Amhari Nazaruddin from the Prime Minister’s Office, John Toh from Pemandu and Yeoh Chen Chow from Groupon Malaysia. Their fellowship experiences were individually compelling (we went our own separate ways most of the time), and it was fun how the other participants — all from Asean countries — asked us identical questions, expecting different answers: A sign of a healthy democracy, they said. For our part, it was an
embodiment of patriotism being expressed in different ways leading to sometimes different conclusions. If only party politics could operate along the same lines.
It has been a special journey and I am thankful to the Eisenhower Fellowship Association of Malaysia for initially recommending that I apply back in October 2012.
The particular journey home has been less special. Flight delays are not too bad on direct non-stop trips, but they can cause considerable inconvenience if it means missing connecting flights.
My flight out of New York was three hours delayed to begin with (under the cover of “technical problems”, a catch-all phrase airlines can use to mask their incompetence) – but after the knock-on effects of delayed landing and delayed gate availability, my original onward flight had already left. Time for a kebab, then.
Flying used to seem more enjoyable, even when languishing near toilets on seat 56K (as I frequently was, getting the cheapest restricted discounted student tickets bought a year in advance). But now, wherever you sit, you are not exempt from the ritual humiliations of multiple security screenings, compounded by inconsistent practices across different locations.
I once left a practically empty water bottle in my bag and was treated like a criminal (and woe betide if you protest your innocence on the technicality that there is less than 10ml of liquid)! Indeed, one thing I did not enjoy about the US is the casual prejudice that accompanies these checks, accentuated by officials speaking condescendingly s-l-o-w-l-y and loudly.
The whole vocabulary of flying seems to have changed too. Some airlines have no stewards or stewardesses, but flight attendants. Passengers have become customers. And the crux of hubris: Flights are no longer delayed, but merely retimed. Thankfully some of this high-handedness have not made its way to our national carrier.
That is why, after a disrupted flight after a long journey of discovery, I was happy to board MH1: I was already halfway home.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
