It is more or less common knowledge that those who are hungry do not have capacity to think about anything other than their hunger. Those who are poor are too focused on making their ends meet for survival reasons, with no time to divert attention elsewhere. Thus hunger and poverty unfortunately correlate to lack of sophisticated arts, deep-level thinking, and a non-pluralistic society where the needs of everyday life overwhelm all else that the human mind is capable of achieving. Unfortunately, in many part of Southeast Asia, as is the case for elsewhere in the world, lack of economic development maintains such harsh reality.
But a developing country is far from being uniformly poor, as previously observed in the pockets of American-style wealthy establishments in the Philippines. This is also very much the case, with thankfully less obviousness in visual discrepancy, here in Malaysia. The author treated himself to a tour of mall-residential complex in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, where upper middle class with luxurious cars anchor themselves in its myriad high-end grocery stores, posh restaurants, and classy-looking cafes and bars. The customer base, a mix of locals and expats dressed too stylish for everyday convenience, patronize the establishment.
Looks aside, what set apart these people are exactly the capacity at which they think beyond everyday issues of making money and surviving. The author was in attendance of a philosophical discussion, where a group of small business owners, multinational firm employees, and rather successful-looking artistic types gathered in a boutique cafe to exchange their views on, well, not so pressing questions that one may ponder on a casual Sunday afternoon. Today's discussion, for instance, involved the idea of a "genderless" society in which the concepts of male and female sexuality does not really exist.
At the first thought, the very idea of talking about this issue is preposterous in this country called Malaysia. A conservative Muslim society where freedom of religion is not strictly recognized, sex trade underground, and homosexuality frowned upon, bringing up such a concept is way too many jumps ahead in social progressiveness. And yet, here is a group of Malaysian twenty- and thirty-somethings (the author was the one foreign representative in this event) of all three races conversing in fluent English about how social order would be, hypothetically, altered beyond recognition with "genderlessness."
It is, frankly said, as if they are living in their own little world. As much as the author himself enjoys intellectual conversations, he does prefer the conversations to involve something that have real-world implications. The concept of "genderlessness," while having real-life examples of progress in liberal Western Europe, sees little to no advocacy here in this corner of the developing Muslim world. For the participants to come up with this topic in the first place shows just how much they have detached themselves from what really matter to 99.99% of the Malaysian population.
Dismaying as it may sound, but the detachment is understandable. In their conversations, the participants liberally cite their personal experiences living in foreign countries and recite passages from the latest research from foreign countries they read about. As business owners, psychologists, lawyers, they put a professional spin on the meat of the discussion, coherently and persuasively presenting views so that normal amateurs (the author being one of them) have no chance at picking out the logical flaws and ultimately compelled to agree simply based on sheer eloquence of the speakers.
Just as the conversation topic itself, this is a skill that 99.99% of Malaysians do not have and quite honestly, probably do not care enough to have. In a land of small businessman, as long as money and goods change hands, no one tries to change another person's position on any particular issue. And as ethnically, culturally, and religiously divided society, Malaysia cannot have too many people who are preaching how their way of thinking is correct. To go beyond this scared rule is something only affordable to the small minority who can, well, afford to think beyond the regular paradigm that is the existing Malaysian social structure.
At the end of all this, the author cannot help but feel slightly guilty. Here is a bunch of well-fed, well-bred, well-employed young men and women, going on and on about a topic that will not be important in their home country for, likely, decades to come. Sure, it does provide value for the individual in opening up the mind to new ideas while enhancing public speaking ability and skills of persuasion. But how does this really help the everyday Malaysians? Perhaps not much. It only goes to show just how a rich creme de la creme spite the rest of the society with their sense of "too much free time."
But a developing country is far from being uniformly poor, as previously observed in the pockets of American-style wealthy establishments in the Philippines. This is also very much the case, with thankfully less obviousness in visual discrepancy, here in Malaysia. The author treated himself to a tour of mall-residential complex in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, where upper middle class with luxurious cars anchor themselves in its myriad high-end grocery stores, posh restaurants, and classy-looking cafes and bars. The customer base, a mix of locals and expats dressed too stylish for everyday convenience, patronize the establishment.
Looks aside, what set apart these people are exactly the capacity at which they think beyond everyday issues of making money and surviving. The author was in attendance of a philosophical discussion, where a group of small business owners, multinational firm employees, and rather successful-looking artistic types gathered in a boutique cafe to exchange their views on, well, not so pressing questions that one may ponder on a casual Sunday afternoon. Today's discussion, for instance, involved the idea of a "genderless" society in which the concepts of male and female sexuality does not really exist.
At the first thought, the very idea of talking about this issue is preposterous in this country called Malaysia. A conservative Muslim society where freedom of religion is not strictly recognized, sex trade underground, and homosexuality frowned upon, bringing up such a concept is way too many jumps ahead in social progressiveness. And yet, here is a group of Malaysian twenty- and thirty-somethings (the author was the one foreign representative in this event) of all three races conversing in fluent English about how social order would be, hypothetically, altered beyond recognition with "genderlessness."
It is, frankly said, as if they are living in their own little world. As much as the author himself enjoys intellectual conversations, he does prefer the conversations to involve something that have real-world implications. The concept of "genderlessness," while having real-life examples of progress in liberal Western Europe, sees little to no advocacy here in this corner of the developing Muslim world. For the participants to come up with this topic in the first place shows just how much they have detached themselves from what really matter to 99.99% of the Malaysian population.
Dismaying as it may sound, but the detachment is understandable. In their conversations, the participants liberally cite their personal experiences living in foreign countries and recite passages from the latest research from foreign countries they read about. As business owners, psychologists, lawyers, they put a professional spin on the meat of the discussion, coherently and persuasively presenting views so that normal amateurs (the author being one of them) have no chance at picking out the logical flaws and ultimately compelled to agree simply based on sheer eloquence of the speakers.
Just as the conversation topic itself, this is a skill that 99.99% of Malaysians do not have and quite honestly, probably do not care enough to have. In a land of small businessman, as long as money and goods change hands, no one tries to change another person's position on any particular issue. And as ethnically, culturally, and religiously divided society, Malaysia cannot have too many people who are preaching how their way of thinking is correct. To go beyond this scared rule is something only affordable to the small minority who can, well, afford to think beyond the regular paradigm that is the existing Malaysian social structure.
At the end of all this, the author cannot help but feel slightly guilty. Here is a bunch of well-fed, well-bred, well-employed young men and women, going on and on about a topic that will not be important in their home country for, likely, decades to come. Sure, it does provide value for the individual in opening up the mind to new ideas while enhancing public speaking ability and skills of persuasion. But how does this really help the everyday Malaysians? Perhaps not much. It only goes to show just how a rich creme de la creme spite the rest of the society with their sense of "too much free time."
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