The Global Chindian

Since becoming a Chindian, I had many very serious thoughts about it. Most of it from the deep recesses of my mind (about a quarter inch deep). One of the many thoughts was how would we fare globally? Will we do well? What could be contribute? How will we adapt? Will we open up a roti canai with sweet sour pork store in a convenience store that also does laundry?

I've had the blessing of being able to travel to some countries but in the different regions of the world. I've come to realize that our Chindian look is very global. Unfortunately our global look means 3rd world country look! Whenever I travel around SEA, I ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS look local. Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and even Indo-China.

There was once when I was in Thailand with my Aussie colleagues for our company meeting. After work, they decided they wanted to "check-out" Patpong. To the uninformed and liars who've never been to Patpong, it's Bangkok's red light district. When we got there, the "guest relations officers" jumped out and pulled my Aussies friends into their outlets. I was left standing alone in the street. After my friends decided on the "outlet", the GRO came out and got me in for a free drink but they led me to a corner and ignored me. I was totally confused as to what was happening. It took me a while for me to realize that they thought I was the local tour guide and the free drink and meal (if I wanted it) was my commission for bringing the "farang" or foreigner. WTF!!

The same in the Philippines. Every restaurant I was in with my colleagues, the servers will speak to me as they expected me to know what to order. And they speak to me in Tagalog. I don't feel so weirded out in Indonesia since I speak Malay and I can play the part. So we Chindians are definitely very at home in SEA. I've had recent trips to the US and the situation is just as amusing though one was quite terrifying.

Due to my work, I got the pleasure of traveling the US quite often and we typically land in LA or San Francisco. SF is one of my favourite places to visit due to the weather and it's generally nice. I remember the first time I visited SF in 1995, I went to Chinatown for Chinese food because we Chindians can only take so much of cold cuts, pasta, bread and salads. When I looked at the menu in this small Hong Kong-run Chinese restaurant, I realized that everything was called dumpling. Fish ball was called dumpling, so was wantan, sui kow and anything that looked roundish! Unable to differentiate, I spoke to the lady in Cantonese to order. While she looked shocked, she kept her composure and took our order.

I began to realize that something weird was going on and started to feel like a zoo exhibit. That's when I realized that there were LOTS of people outside the shop looking in but not coming in and the kitchen staff started to come out to look at me. It was a 5 table restaurant so it wasn't hard to know they were looking at me. After lunch, I was very curious and when I asked for the bill, I asked the owner what was going on. This was the conversation we had in Cantonese.

Me : What's going on? Why so many people outside?
Owner : Oh, those are my neighbours. They run the shops beside mine. They are here because I told them about you.
Me : What??? Why? What about me?
Owner : We have never met a Mexican that can speak Cantonese and speak it so well!!!!
Me : WHAT??????

To mess with her further....
Me : But I'm not Mexican. I'm Malaysian.
Owner : Ohh!! So you are Malay.
Me : No. I'm Indian.
Owner : What?????? Then how come you speak Cantonese.
Me : My mom's Chinese.
Owner : You just said you were Indian and Malay!!!

That went on for a while but it was nice messing with her.

In another trip, I was lost in San Pedro with another Chindian friend Patrick and 2 Malaysian Chinese friends. San Pedro is the harbour for LA and as the name suggests, there are A LOT of Hispanics who are blue collar workers there. When we were walking about, they were starting to get edgy about my Chinese friends and we "Hispanics" had to stay close to "protect" them. For a while it got a little tense especially when we sat for lunch. The Hispanic owner thought we were having a table talk over gang territory. Then when we ordered ice-cream, that kinda gave away we were more pansies than gang members!!

Patrick and I, at one time, traveled with 4 Malaysian Chinese girl colleagues (I had to add Malaysian Chinese else you think we were hanging out with Mainland Chinese girls!) and we were driving the mini van around SF Chinatown. The drivers' side windows were not tinted but the passengers and back were. We were "randomly" stopped by the police and when they saw all of us, it confirmed their suspicions that we Hispanics were smuggling female Chinese immigrant into Chinatown!!! There were A LOT of explaining and IDs flying out to San Francisco's finest.

There are many more global stories that I will share with you but the next time you see in the US news an hispanic arrested for allegedly trying to kidnap a Chinese girl, call the Malaysian embassy. It's just me taking my wife for a holiday in the US!!!!

Dad, Jude and Tagore - The hopeless case and the genius

I have a younger brother called Jude Tagore David. He was named after St Jude and Rabindranath Tagore. St Jude was the patron Saint of Hopeless Cases and Tagore was a well renowned Indian poet and writer from the early 1900s. He was given a knighthood by the British but renounced due to a massacre incident by the British and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. I used to tease my brother that he was an enigma because he was a hopeless case but strongly principled and cultured! Yeah, he didn't enjoy that! One wonders why.

My dad loved to read and he used to read Tagore's works at one time. I think we got our love for reading from him and we loved general knowledge, history and foreign culture in particular. My dad was an amazingly generous person and he would bring poor people he met on the streets home for meals. It will infuriate my mom and worry us because I would come home and find strangers in my house. Thank God they weren't psychos or serial killers. They can't be robbers because we were so poor, we would have robbed the thief!!

He was very logical and his reasonings were more often than not, fair. Importantly also that he was not very traditional. Indian fathers tend to take the dictatorial approach. You-follow-whatever-I-say-no-questions-or-I-will-kick-your-ass style. He was very democratic and very fair. I realize now how much I look to him in life and try to follow him. He truly was a real beacon for me. He absolutely adored his grandchildren and would spoil them silly by giving them Coke, sweets and whatever that drives my kids on a sugar high. There were many people we have never met at his funeral and they would we weeping and crying! My family would be wondering who the heck are these people??? That is the kind of blessings he had. I miss him so.

My brother Jude is an amazing character. He is one of the laziest crazies I have met but also a freaking genius!! He is one of those people you want to kill in school. He will goof off, sleep a lot and still do well in exams. He has an amazing talent for languages as he picked up Tamil in school and now he speaks Thai because of his wife. He taught himself to play the drums and not only to play but to play WELL!! He is in a band that plays at night spots around KL. That's SOOOO cool! If he learned notes, he would be playing professionally now.

He was always kind of huge, now and as a kid. You could always pick him out in any school photo as he will be twice the size of everyone. I remember when he was 9, he ate 8 char siew pau in one sitting! I can't even eat 2. Once also around 8 or 9 years of age, he tried a can of Guinness, without us knowing of course, and fell asleep for 9 hours on the bedroom floor. Typical drunkard!!! He is like a Sequoia tree trunk now and could make me into a cheap tosai. So every beginning of the school year, I will ask him to accompany my kids to school. My kids never gets bullied!!!

We didn't always get along when we were kids. He irritated me to no end and could always get away with murder with my parents. We did have our moments though. Once when bathing (as kids not now!!!!), we got into the bath tub and turned the water grey. We were in there for 30mins and when we opened the bathroom door, there was our mom with the cane. She whacked the daylights, night time and our puberty out of us...and we were wet and naked!!!! Despite our fightings, he never left me alone when it came to punishment by our mom.

He is my best friend, I love him dearly and wouldn't have it any other way.

MY PARENTS, GRANDMOTHER & JACKIE CHAN

My paternal Indian grandparents, Vincent Robert Joseph and Rita Joseph were born in Chennai and migrated to Malaysia during the 1930's. Working as an estate manager, my grandfather moved around a lot for work.

My maternal Chinese grandparents, Chan Chi Long and Lay Foon's heritage were from Dongguang, Southern China. My grandfather was killed during the Japanese occupation and this forced my grandmother to take on odd jobs to make ends meet for the family.

My father, David Joseph, is first generation Indian-Malaysian. My mother, Stella Chan, is second generation Chinese-Malaysian.

Born in Port Dickson in 1939, my dad is the 4th in a family of 10 siblings while my mom was the eldest in her family and born in KL. They both had little education due to the harsh war and poverty. They had to leave school to find work to support the family and siblings and eventually ended up in Kuala Lumpur to work.

Dad worked as a foreman with UMW and a volunteer police corp for a number of years. After retrenchment, Dad took up jobs as a factory manager and managing video arcades. Despite our situation, he always ensured the family was cared for especially educational needs. Mum, on the other hand, helped out by babysitting and helping to pay for our education. We were a poor family, and Dad struggled to make ends meet by taking on 2 jobs. My mom stopped working when I was born to take care of the family so because of that, I naturally gravitated to the Chinese culture.

Mum and Dad met when they worked together at a retail store called Kishu's in Batu Road. They began dating and after 7 years, tied the knot in 1970.

Initially, my paternal grandparents were against the marriage, as they were wanted Dad to marry within the race. They couldn't comprehend having a daughter in law who spoke a different language. There were many unhappy quarrels but over time, they warmed up to Mum, and gave their blessing.

On my mother's side, my grandparents were already open to it, as my aunt (Mum's sister), Violet Chan, had married an Indian man. Luckily for Mum, Aunt Violet had already educated her parents that not all Indian men were violent, wife beaters and drunkards, as the stereotype goes back in teh 60s. So when it came to Mum's turn, my grandmother had already been through the cultural shock.

From my own observations, both cultures can be quite different in some areas. For instance, Chinese parents are not used to praising their own children, even when they do well in school. The Indian parents, on the other hand, are more direct, and will praise or criticise when needed.

Until I was 7, I stayed with paternal Indian grandparents in Air Panas and Setapak. There, I was exposed to the Indian culture, language and food. When I turned 7, our family moved out to be on our own since we were stayng with my Dad's siblings and parents. From then till I left home,my maternal Chinese grandmother or Poh-Poh as I called her, stayed with us in Sungei Way.

Her influence on me was stronger as I developed into my own person. She was a big influence in my life and an inspiration, as she had been though hard times without the support of my grandfather. Without attending school, she taught herself to read and write and even took up sewing to help support the family. Hard work, independence and table manners were a few things my brother, Jude and I learnt from her.

When i was 8 years old, she began to teach me how to use the chopstick. At meal times, she would insist on making me pick a button mushroom or peas with my chopstick before I could eat. If you are able to pick one up, you could take a bite! While it may seem dictatorial, it was actually very funny to see us struggle with it.

The one actor she loved was Jackie Chan. She would always take me to the movies and in time, I was introduced to all his movies by my Poh Poh. I remember clearly the first movie we went to see together. It was in 1979 and the movie was called Drunken Master at Odean in Jln Tungku Abdul Rahman. What a swell time we had - grandmother and grandson in a movie! Ever since then, I've become a movie junkie!

She was very impartial when it came to movies, as she would take me to see movies I wanted to see, even English movies and Poh Poh didn't speak English! She would accompany me to watch movies like Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and even Jesus of Nazareth!!

Poh Poh also bought the Matchbox toy cars for my brother and I, as we both loved model cars. I think we have more than 80 cars still in mint condition, collected from the 70s and 80s. During the 1982 World Cup, my grandmother and I would discuss the games, the players and the countries. From her, I learnt the Chinese names of the footballing countries. Every football tournament after that, isn't complete without a daily discussion of the matches with Poh Poh.

It makes me smile to think that my grandmother even knew about football back then. My inspiration, my teacher and my friend.

My new PC!

Hi everyone! It's been a long while since my last posting. I was too tired and just too hickety boo lazy! For that I apologize. So since my last posting, our country has gone through a lot. We had our elections and the controversy continues. UMNO elections are over as well and we had our first budget. Hopefully we can go back to bringing up our country quickly. In the sporting front, our top sportspersons continue to march on. There were talks of Datuk Lee Chong Wei and Dato Nicol David slowing down at the "ripe old age" of 30+. Chong Wei seems to be struggling a bit with 2 losses and so did Nicol for a while. But my Chindian sister has hit back. After losing 3 finals to an up and coming player as well as her arch rival, she beat them and won the last 3 tournaments. Not bad for a has been....

Liverpool seems to be doing slightly better. The question is how long can they keep it up. Some summer signings have been showing promise but there are some who are still lacking. My other fav teams in Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus continue to flourish! However the LA Lakers struggled badly last season and looking at the off season, I don't think they will be doing well this year. Miami is still the team to beat.

As for my family, things are just as normal. We had some holidays that I have not been able to update you. Give me time and I will do so. We went to Beijing and Xian where we visited 2 of the world's most important historical monuments, the Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Warriors. Then last year we were in Korea. KLY and I took our wives to London and Paris...LOT of brownie points this. In April Melissa and I took a trip to Dubai courtesy of my new company, EMC. Oh yeah, I joined a new company.

So all is good, some lows but many highs. I also got a new PC...after 10 years and I'm posting this from my spanking new PC. Just got in today and it was an very exciting feeling after 10 years. I mean I have the iPad, iPhones, Samsung gadgets but this is my family PC where we share. I asked FB friends since I don't know these young whippersnappers anymore, where is a good place to assemble my own config at an affordable budget. I got what I wanted and I'm tickled pink. I'm gonna sign off for now since it's past 1 am and I need my beauty sleep. Stay healthy and look after each other.