I was born in 1949 in Penang when the white men were still the colonial masters of Malaya. During that time there were only two types of people - the British who were the imperial masters and Malayans of different ethnic backgrounds who were the 'ruled'. We called the British ‘Sir’ or ‘Tuan’ - in our own country! My dad worked for Sime Darby (owned by the British then). He was 'exploited' by the boss. He retired after 35 years with the company with very little savings.
I grew up in a slum area in Penang (Dato Keramat Road). Next to our slum was a Malay kampung . We little boys knew we (the Chinese and Malays) were different. But not that much different. We played football, flew kites and catched peacock fish together. We had our little boys fight but our parents never come out with a parang or kung fu knives to kill each other. A few days later we again played tops or badminton together.
To cut the story short, I was fortunate to attend my secondary education at the Penang Free School, passed my HSC and given a state scholarship (the chief minister that time was Dr Lim Chong Yew) to study economics at the University of Malaya. My second day at UM was May 13, 1969. Suddenly, we (Malay and Chinese students) found we were very different. We became suspicious of each other. We gathered in ethnic groups. My childhood friend, Adenan was a clerk working for the HSBC bank. But we were still friends. Our naive minds could not understand why the Malays and Chinese could not live together like Adenan and me.
I graduated and did not take up teaching as required by my scholarship. But I paid back the scholarship money to the government. I joined Malayawata and later in 1975 the Chase Manhattan Bank. During this period I saw the impact of the NEP, the separation of Malaysians based on race, religion, colour and political affiliation. It pained me to see all these. I was a fifth-generation of Chinese Malaysian. My roots were in Malaysia. Malaysia was the country I was brought up and thought I had a future in.
China was not an option for me. I was poor like my Malay friend in Dato Keramat Road. Why discriminate based on race? Why not discriminate bases on social class? There are rich and poor Malays. Likewise there are rich and poor non-Malays. Why can a rich Malay kid receive support (scholarship, allowed to go to university) while a poor non-Malay kid is not given the opportunity? I was born a Malaysian and Malaysia was my country. There was no other country.
I got married and have two wonderful children. Both my wife and I had very successful careers. By 1989, we could experience the intensity of the separation of the races with the onslaught of the NEP. I still have many Malay and Indian friends. In 1989 we decided - for the sake of our children - that we need to go out to have a look at other countries. China was not in our mind as a place we wanted to emigrate. We came to Australia. We all like it.
The good thing about Australia is that when you first meet the immigration officer he says, ‘Welcome to Australia’. The customs officer did not hustle us. We looked at some of the schools for our children. The teachers welcomed our children even though we had not registered them. We went to the government departments and people lined up. There is no ‘cutting the line’. All are served irrespective of their race and the government officer even smiles!
We returned to Malaysia and applied for Australian permanent residency. In 1992, my wife and I left our two very wonderful jobs and with our teenaged children, emigrated to Australia. The first year was a struggle for me as I could not find job. In 1992, Australia had the recession it needed to have. I subsequently found a job and career. Our kids went to school, to university (both received scholarships) and both are now successful bankers. I am still working at 59. I work for a US company.
For our Australian operations we have a country manager who is a French Australian, a general manager who is Anglo Saxon Australian and a finance manager who is an Indian from South Africa. I am the human resources manager and I am ethnically, Chinese. I have an American and a white Australian reporting to me. We have more than 20 different ethnic groups working in our company. We are very different culturally, religiously and socially. But when we come to work we work for one company in one country.
Why do I want to tell my story? Because this is the same story of many qualified, experienced Malaysians now living in Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK, Singapore and even China. Malaysia is losing very talented people. Talent which is short supply in the world.
As an economist once said, ‘It is better to have 30% of 1,000 than 90% of 200'.
