An Immigrant in my own land.

I was asked to move, with prior notice of less than 2 weeks by the management of my apartment. When I asked “why?” – they told it’s because I got to make way for a group of Foreign students from Europe, Middle-east and also China. It seems that the entire building of my apartment will be converted into an International Building – it means, I’m not the only one will be moving, but 12 other students will need to get out as well.

What pissed me off so much was that the entire 2 weeks; strangers were getting in and out of my apartment. Why? It’s because they were renovating every room in the apartment – putting up air conditioning in the bedroom, installing the water heater, changing the TV and replacing every damn bulb in the place.

Wa wa wa…. Amboi lemak berkrim those foreign student… manja sungguh! What’s with this double standard-lah? Treat them so nice like a king. This is our land… my birth right! But I was ushered out by my own people without a proper transfer to another place to stay.

I guess it’s the “Visit Malaysia 2007” theme, which UKM adopt to be ‘sehaluan’ with the ‘Kerajaan’.

“It’s all about the money-lah Andrew. You look at this building, setengah bangunan ini takde orang tinggal… jadi macam mana nak hidupkan bangunan ini untuk menjana keuntungan? – dengan menghalaukan kamu keluar dan mewajipkan setiap pelajar luar-negara untuk menginap kat sini-la.” Explained Razman to me after I expressed my despondency.

Razman was right after all. I’ve found out that the rent for the place for one day had changed, it’s RM15 already. It was only RM6.50 a day with facilities like a fridge, a TV, bed, cupboard, table and sofa. But now they hiked up the price more than 100%. Mana halal keuntungan ini…

Perhaps… this is the ‘Budaya Masyarakat Malaysia’ – treat your guess better than the rest. Or maybe it’s entirely an “Adat Melayu”. Who knows… who want know… people just don’t know and don’t care about seorang budak cina yang merana tentang kedukaannya…

Not long ago Pak Lah screamed: “Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!”

Today, I scream: “Derhaka! Derhaka! Derhaka! Derhaka! Derhaka! Derhaka! Derhaka!”