by Justin Teoh
I don’t know if this was the case for other Malaysian childhoods, but as I grew up in Penang Island, I vividly remember sitting in the backseat of my parents’ Proton Saga, looking with puppy eyes at the brightly lit plastic neon trees along Weld Quay and the Penang International Airport. Contrasted against the stationary white fluorescents illuminating apartments from within, or the warm towering streetlights, the neon trees were ever changing – gradients would blend from pink to purple to green, to the occasional national colours of blue, yellow and red. They seemed as inviting as the colourful paint of local playgrounds, and I’ve always assumed that these places had some hidden kiddie attractions awaiting as well. Never got the chance to step out of the car and check them out, though.
To this day, their skeletal remains hold up, but their distinct glow has fallen into antiquity. I cannot help but notice that throughout the years, that same enthusiasm towards our nation, has started to dim simultaneously, at least among the younger community. It’s very much evident: the bustling popularity of many cultural landmarks, such as the local Odeon Cinema and the Majestic Theatre, has since died down as fewer and fewer local films are produced; the local state carnival used to be much more active and vibrant (it’s where my parents had their first date!); even our ministry advertising was less conservative back then.
If Penang used to be this modern back then, imagine what it was like in the rest of Malaysia! It’s fair to say that the country had a lot of potential and was fairly progressive at its cultural peak, back when religious rhetoric was not yet a major driving force within the national government, whereby certain customs and practices were enforced and must be observed, thus exerting a substantial amount of control on what we can and cannot do.
Even so, the world still recognizes our country’s aforementioned potential. Situated in the centre of Southeast Asia, major global companies–and I mean big, big companies–currently see Malaysia’s strategic location as an ideal platform to distribute their products and services, which could greatly increase domestic job opportunities and strengthen our local currency; this in turn could give people disposable income to do what they love or to experiment further on their interests, without worrying about financial security. After all, as argued in A Room of One’s Own, money is needed “if [she] is to write fiction”, as with any creative endeavour.
I could quote Woolf for paragraphs here, but the key here is being able to diverge more resources from technological developments into not removing but restoring our national identity in every aspect. Not just the superficial dimensions presented on marketing advertisements, but the entire spectrum of what constitutes “Malaysia”. Here, I’m referring to the communities from the geographical top down, far and wide; from where the tropical rain flows down and shapes rivers, traversing through the villages, towns and cities, and towards the oceans; the way of life that diffuses together with each muddy bank that’s passed, congregated; retold through the mouths of elderlies and the teens and the children, up and around in generational lineage akin to the water cycle. Sure, one can learn about how necessary identity is from self-aware observations, and then tuck it away contently in favour of our own devices, but when a country fundamentally operates upon a mixture of identities, isn’t it, then, of huge importance? Before unsentimental technologies may or may not take them away from us?
Admittedly, there is still much left to deconstruct and to be learned. Our culture cannot be merely taken as a label. It must be a good model towards others. At some point we would have to acknowledge that our prejudices are not mere Freudian slips, that in doing so, we sometimes alienate others in our determination to better ourselves. In a human sea of endless physical and emotional transactions, at the end of the day, I wish for a person to gaze up the KLCC towers and not feel hopeless.
Even though the neon trees are long gone, I am reminded that the same glow now shines through every corner. As I am now older, I can finally step out on my own, and see them in the city streets, in the trendy neon light strips blinking from café windows, in the solitary midnight oil lamp burning as the rest of the apartment slumbers, in the flashlights pointing towards dangerous pathways. In much of the same way, we the youths are now in a position to be able to do something, and make a difference in this brave new world. They call it optimism, I call it progress.
