I am sure by now many of you have this one figure out.
Well people, it is not about religion that separate us, it is culture, habit and all the idiosyncrasies that we are not familiar with, with one another.
Give and example you might ask? Well, take the Chinese and the Malays, one eat pork forbids by Islam, the other one wants everything halal. What about the Indian, someone asks, well the Indian are loud and shriek when they speak, the Malays are polite (sopan santun). Their politeness may be different as compared to the Malays.
Now stop it, I am not saying Indian and Chinese are not polite (sopan santun) it is just that they will be genuinely polite to you and at the same time spit in the drain at full view of everyone, its the habit that gets in the way for national reconciliation.
Then there is the level of languages decibel that varies from race to race.
For example the Chinese-Canadian, East-Indian-Canadian, Sikh-Canadian born and bred in Canada, while some may be ugly, but not as obnoxious as the same races in Malaysia. They all speak Canadian!
Ethnic-Canadians speak English just like any other Canadian, they have the same habit when they are out in public, they will have Tim Horton coffee, hangout at the mall like any other normal Canadians do.
On Canada Line my favourite game is to see an ugly looking Chinese or Indian person to come into the transit system carriage and them offer them my seat just to hear them express their willingness to stand up in Canadian English.
"No thank you I am getting off at the next station." Or, "Gee thanks I have been sitting the whole day I need to stand, thank you."
Come visit my brother's house in England Garden, Seremban, and right behind the house there is this very irritating loud jingle and a drum beat that come out every evening from the Hindu temple at the back of his house, the temple is smack right in the middle of a Malay community.
When asked how he could live with this irritating sound, he growled and said he had put up with it for four decades. Now I understand why he was never a happy person.
Back where I live in Ampang come evening there will be three muezzins making a loud and cracking out of tune prayer calls.
Paul, my civilised Malaysian-Chinese friend call me and ask whether there is something I could do to lower the prayer call decibel.
You see it is really not about religion it is about nuances, culture, habits and more bad habits that divide us apart. If we can figure out not to irritate one another we can be happy.
So why can't we be just happy!?
Well people, it is not about religion that separate us, it is culture, habit and all the idiosyncrasies that we are not familiar with, with one another.
Give and example you might ask? Well, take the Chinese and the Malays, one eat pork forbids by Islam, the other one wants everything halal. What about the Indian, someone asks, well the Indian are loud and shriek when they speak, the Malays are polite (sopan santun). Their politeness may be different as compared to the Malays.
Now stop it, I am not saying Indian and Chinese are not polite (sopan santun) it is just that they will be genuinely polite to you and at the same time spit in the drain at full view of everyone, its the habit that gets in the way for national reconciliation.
Then there is the level of languages decibel that varies from race to race.
For example the Chinese-Canadian, East-Indian-Canadian, Sikh-Canadian born and bred in Canada, while some may be ugly, but not as obnoxious as the same races in Malaysia. They all speak Canadian!
Ethnic-Canadians speak English just like any other Canadian, they have the same habit when they are out in public, they will have Tim Horton coffee, hangout at the mall like any other normal Canadians do.
On Canada Line my favourite game is to see an ugly looking Chinese or Indian person to come into the transit system carriage and them offer them my seat just to hear them express their willingness to stand up in Canadian English.
"No thank you I am getting off at the next station." Or, "Gee thanks I have been sitting the whole day I need to stand, thank you."
Come visit my brother's house in England Garden, Seremban, and right behind the house there is this very irritating loud jingle and a drum beat that come out every evening from the Hindu temple at the back of his house, the temple is smack right in the middle of a Malay community.
When asked how he could live with this irritating sound, he growled and said he had put up with it for four decades. Now I understand why he was never a happy person.
Back where I live in Ampang come evening there will be three muezzins making a loud and cracking out of tune prayer calls.
Paul, my civilised Malaysian-Chinese friend call me and ask whether there is something I could do to lower the prayer call decibel.
You see it is really not about religion it is about nuances, culture, habits and more bad habits that divide us apart. If we can figure out not to irritate one another we can be happy.
So why can't we be just happy!?
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