Bohemian Malay

Looking back over all the things I did the last few years, I wonder the wisdom of them and what I get out of that. When? What? How? Where? and most importantly Why?

I don't know when exactly I started having the feeling that I have to get away. Away from family, from Malaysia, from my friends. Maybe there's something wrong with me. Having had an American way of education, it wasn't enough just to settle for something less. I knew my home country is going through a modernisation period and she could offer me a lot. Nevertheless, I long for my freedom of expression, free thinking and basically to do as I please, but we are still a long way from that. I wasn't the typical Malay girl who giggles at every comments and act like 'malu malu kucing'* They can't decide for themselves what they want and instead always go for the easy way, 'apa apa je lah' Gosh! Make up your mind! Stand on your own principles. Be firm and have your own mind. Most of them lack these values. I cannot stand these people. Please, get them out of my sight. So I flee.

What? is a very broad subject and hard to approach. What have I done with my life? What have I accomplished? What is/are my regret/s? What the hell do I think I'm doing? Nothing, really. I know I travelled to the cultured cities, appreciate no-nonsense art, get stoned in a drug-free country, enjoy fresh outlook on life and moved to the coolest living space. Does that makes me who I am now? I've been there, done that but I still think that I'm stupid. Well, maybe not stupid but naive. People can still trick me into believing the unbelievable. I sometimes still believe that the money-making con chain letters work. Me? A so-called educated being. Judging from my accomplishment, I have done nothing else but questioning my sanity.

How am I supposed to know how I got to where I am now? By plane, landed at Manchester Airport and I have never been quite the same again.

Here I am, still standing on my feet. Oh! Where my heart is, now that's different issue altogether. My heart hasn't got time to settle in one place just yet. One moment my heart tells me to go home and another time, it wants me to go gallivanting round the globe. As if I have the means to do so. My heart is as free and easy as I am.

For the sanity of my own mind, I have to do what I'm doing now. I have to be my own self and if I'm robbed of it, my world will collapse. Just to survive, I have to be away from my family, my friends and my home. I don't miss them that much now but when I do, it hits me like a bullet. Painful and suffering. It toughened me up so I can get on with the cruel life.

What is bohemian, anyway? Just a word that doesn't really describe me. I don't think I want to be labelled bohemian because I am conservative in some ways, liberal in others. Not very artistic, a little unconventional maybe an oddball. Who knows? I can't even decide what I am half of the time.