EP 102: (Merdeka Special) People, Places & Experiences that Shaped Us.

This question is one that I have also discussed with fellow Malaysians who are based in the UK, right? Which is that something that makes Malaysians stand out as a nation when they're abroad is their warmth and their hospitality.

And I didn't realise that this was something that was so core and central to the Malaysian identity until I left Malaysia.

And I think we experienced this as we were also students living in the UK.

And then now, even more prolifically as a working adult, because there are not as many students around us and we're few and far in between, that sort of warm Malaysian hospitality that is so signature is something that I really appreciate about growing up Malaysian because...

the sort of, oh, just come over to the house, even if you've met someone for the first time, they would actually invite you over to their home for a meal.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And for myself, I think similar to you, the Malaysian slash Asian slash Southeast Asian hospitality is really like nothing we've ever experienced abroad, I do feel.

And there's just a very strong sense of our... deep hospitality and the way that we are able to convey warmth and that communal feeling, not just among each other as Malaysians, but even to tourists and friends and foreigners who are visiting.

So I definitely do feel like that's something

that we took for granted before we left.

For myself, something that I missed after leaving Malaysia as well is the effortless switching between context and language.

And I don't know, Jan, if you've taken notice of this, but it's the effortless switching between English, Bahasa, and all the different Chinese dialects that we speak.

So Mandarin, Cantonese, and whatever that random dialect words that we might have thrown in there.

The, have you eaten as a love language to make sure that somebody is always fed whenever they enter our homes.

And just recognizing that we can talk about a particular reference And the people around us will just get it.

And I think this ties in really nicely to all of the history and the context that we have built and that people who know us know of that same context and can resonate with that before we've actually left and now live in a new country and have to rebuild that whole context, right? So I feel like that's definitely something that I do miss in that Yeah, just all these effortless switching between languages that, yeah, you never have to feel like, oh, let me translate that just so that somebody else understand.

Or because we live in such a multicultural city right now in Melbourne, as well as in London, we want to make sure people feel included.

So we're always making sure that they understand the cultural references that we're making.

But obviously in KL, you never need to explain yourself.

You never need to translate.

You never need to make sure somebody else gets you because they just do.

So true.

And that's like the magic that you get when you see a fellow Malaysian abroad, right? There just needs no further explanation.

The shared context is already there and therefore any ice is already immediately broken and you just feel, oh my gosh, I've just met a fellow bro or sis abroad and it's just such a nice feeling as well.

So that kind of leads me to the next question, right? Would you say that living abroad has changed the way you see your Malaysian identity? And if so, how has it changed?