Brains Abroad #6: Eric Ong

Whoo-hoo! OneBrain got its first unsolicited contribution to Brains Abroad!

Eric Ong, a Malaysian in Jakarta, had some thoughtful things to say about why he’s chosen to stay there despite the traffic.

If Eric sound familiar, you may have read this previous piece he wrote for the Malaysian Insider.

  Eric and his wife, Alicia

Name:  Eric Ong

Age: 29

Hometown: Petaling Jaya

Current city: Jakarta, Indonesia

No of years abroad: 2

What do you do for a living?

I work for a Malaysian based steel company and have been seconded to the Jakarta office. Initially for a period of 2 years, but have grown to enjoy living in Indonesia and have now extended my stay indefinitely.

What do you like about where you live?

In no particular order:

Note : There are always extremists everywhere, including Indonesia, but for the most part, and for the majority of society, the below is true :

1) Lack of racism compared to Malaysia. Post 1998 race riots, and post Suharto, Indonesia has come very far, and is for the most part no longer a race based society. Everyone is equal here, whether you are Pribumi, Chinese, Javanese, Sundanese, etc. Relatively stable politics. This is especially so as compared to the recent political climate in Malaysia.

2) Open minded society. You would not imagine that this is a Muslim country. Muslims can eat side by side with non Muslims at a non Halal restaurants. Anyone, including ladies wearing ‘tudungs’ can enter pubs freely, and order alchohol if they so wish, without even a second glance. Muslims and non Muslims respect each others rights equally, whereas in Malaysia, it seems like the Muslims are offended very easily.

To Market with Mama

Ah, Chinatown. Amsterdam, Vancouver, San Francisco, New York,  London…if there’s a Chinatown in a city I’m visiting, I’m there.

I love the little old ladies in samfu with their pink plastic bags. I love the egg tart bakeries, the steamy noodle shops, the cheap hair salons.

So why did it take me a year after coming home to make it to a Chinatown in KL?

I am not talking about Petaling Street, which is still a lot of fun but these days more touristy than ever, more Nepaltown or Bangladeshtown than Chinatown.

I’m talking about Setapak. Now there’s a Chinatown.

Up till now, I’ve been shopping at a variety of overpriced supermarkets and mini-markets, to find the imported cereals, cheeses, milk and yoghurt that my family consumes like, well, like a growing family. This stuff costs even more than it did in America, which especially hurts since we are now on Malaysian salaries.

This morning, my mother took me to her regular market. In Setapak.

Whoah! So many Chinese people!

We ate breakfast – chilli pan mee for me, assam laksa for her – at a nearby coffeeshop, then got to work.

The market was basically a big roof over rows of stalls, each with a white tiled counter overflowing with produce, meat and sacks of dried goods.

First, the pork seller. Once I got over my squeamishness at the skinned pigs’ heads hanging in a bunch – Silence of the Pigs! – and the box of used – and reused knives, I have to say, the meat looked GOOD. Pink and fresh.

Brains Abroad #5: Joanna Yeoh

Joanna Yeoh is an old friend from Bukit Bintang Girls’ School whom I remember as one of the smartest kids in class, an energetic choral-speaking conductor, and, yes, it must be said, a fierce and scary prefect with the power to dispense punishments such as memorising poems and *washing toilets on us mere mortals.

Twenty years on, it was very fun to catch up with Joanna on one of her trips to KL. 

Joanna now runs her own human resources consultancy – Five Talents Consulting – in Singapore. (I’d like to believe that those years of being a BBGS prefect helped her hone her use of carrots and sticks in developing and motivating CEOs…)  

She also writes a great blog that’s an homage to our alma mater, Back2BBGS.

(* From Joanna:  Btw, washing toilets was never a punishment, every BB girl did it including princesses from Istana Negara – which is my mum’s favorite story.)

Name: Joanna Yeoh

Age: 41

Hometown:

Kuala Lumpur (although technically I was born in Selangor)

Current city:

Singapore

No of years abroad:

11 years (1 in England, 4 in Australia, 6 in Singapore)

What do you do for a living?

Leadership & Change Management Consultant

What do you like about where you live?

It’s safe, clean, efficient and has become much more interesting to live in in the last few years with the museums, entertainment, theme parks, casinos and other world class events like the Formula 1 races. Plus the government makes it very easy for educated professionals to start their own businesses with minimal red tape and maximum tax breaks. I find it easier to persuade multinational clients to buy talent and skills when one is branded as “Singaporean” as opposed to any other ASEAN nationality. The food is good too – if you know where to look. And Singaporeans seem to have developed the ability to laugh at themselves in the last few years – a definite plus!

What do you not?

Responses to “What Do Returnees Want?”

It’s been interesting reading the responses to my Monday piece in Malaysian Insider.

For those who missed it, I wrote about how hard it is to decide whether to stay or go, and ranked the importance of the incentives offered to Malaysians abroad if they return.

In truth, I’d been bracing myself for negative comments. I expected people to tell me that by returning to KL, I was jeopardizing my children’s future, or being unfair to my husband. Or that I should have bought bigger cars, since I, uh, had those tax breaks. (Yes, this has been said to me in real life.)

But no, people were nice. Some lovely people welcomed me home and wished me luck. To the one who added that I will soon be disappointed, well…maybe yes, but disappointment lies in wait wherever you live in the world. Good times, bad times, wherever you are.

I also heard from someone who noticed that I had written another piece in The Nut Graph three years ago, whilst in the throes of indecision. Thanks, Derek, I understand why you stayed in the UK and you know why I returned to KL. There are no perfect choices.

The most rollicking comments though were not on Malaysian Insider but on a separate forum altogether, something called lowyat.net, which reproduced my piece wholesale, attracting 48 comments.

My favourite were comments No. 28-30, reproduced below:

Aurigae: balik buat apa…old parents just let them die la

Itanium: Your marder give birth to a piece of char siew better than you.

The Analyst: Don’t insult char siew leh.

 

For those who missed it, here’s the article:

One Brain Pontificates on the Malaysian Insider

Go here.

My Ma-in-law Visits

Remember that feeling when you’ve been away from Malaysia for a while and you return and WOAH! The sudden braking and the swerving. The swearing. The Aedes-like ZIIIIIING of motorbikes hurtling past you.

I am talking of course about Malaysian roads, which have never been exactly good but are now rivers of lawlessness. Then after a few days of driving, you get used to it again. You relax. Your toes stop curling. Think you can cut me ah, brudder? Think again.

We were reminded of that intial shock when my mother-in-law came to visit.

Now my mother-in-law lives in Minnesota, a place where the stock is largely Scandinavian in origin, the roads are orderly and rules and rules.

The last time she visited, she likes to remind me, I almost got her killed crossing Jalan Imbi where it meets Jalan Raja Chulan. Endless stream of cars, no pedestrian crossing. Walk now, I said, and she did. But she panicked when she saw a car round the corner and ran backwards. The car swerved this way and that and so did my mother-in-law – back and forth – before she finally leapt with a grace belying her 72 years to the safety of the sidewalk.

I’m not sure who was more frightened, my mother-in-law or the driver.

You confused him, I told her afterwards.

To her credit, she is still very nice to me.

Even after I got her son and her grandchildren to move with me to Malaysia.

Malaysians abroad, especially those married to foreigners, will understand what I mean when I say there are no perfect choices in life. Stay abroad and your parents miss out on your kids’ childhood. Come home and your spouse’s family loses out.