It (#Wattys2016)

the local alien (a panda?)

When I was nothing but a crazy, side-show circus attraction

Dropped from the land of the white people to the country of my origin,

People kept laughing.

I'd look down, reaffirm with my very own eyes that I was clad in the typical, horrendous school uniform that every Ali and Abu were wearing

But every time I'd look back up, my eyes - they would see more nudging and pointing and laughing as if

I'd somehow accidentally dressed myself a clown, a muse for their entertainment, their laughter, their amusement.

People were eating popcorn, not literally, but I could see their mouths were full with words to say, names to spit out.

"Alien!" they called me, "Mat Salleh! Invader! Penjajah!"

They'd whisper about me behind my back in Malay, a tongue they thought I had not mastered.

A tongue, in fact, I understood too well.

"He's gonna infect us with his Western ideals and liberal opinions."

"He'll spread the word of English and overpower our beautiful national language."

"He'll CHANGE us. For good."

"But I was ten."

Sometimes, I'd go back home with a Zinger burger and a can of coke in my hands and

The local makciks and pakciks would shake their heads, judge me for apparently being too "Western" when in reality, I was just hungry.

In contrast, they'd smile instead if I purchased some jambu or rojak or cendol to eat.

"He's finally becoming Malaysian," they'd say, as they'd finish eating their Big Macs and fries.

But the ultimate crime laid in the rejection of rice.

I had not been raised on eating rice in the cold streets of Manchester where I had been born, so

Trust me when I say it's nothing personal, except

People take it too personal, as if I was discriminating the country, critiquing the nation's culinary background and identity and tearing away my very own "Malay" label, yet

At the end of the day, it was just rice.

Once upon a time, I felt proud talking to the "white people" you seem to misjudge as a conundrum of messes and corrupted ideals

And I'd tell them the story of Malaysia, boast about our orang utans and rafflesias and tapirs,

Show them pictures of kuihs and lauks and ketupats while trying so hard to control my quaking stomach,

Happily express how we lived as one despite being of different races and ages and majors and

I'd love to tell them that everyone is just so friendly.

But now?

Now.

It's complicated.

We need a change.

And no, I do not propose we westernize our country