project happy malaysia

i am stitting in a noisy cybercafe tucked at an obscure corner of an unseeming ’shopping complex’ in miri. yesterday, i pledged to write as many ‘happy malaysia‘ stories i could before i got sent off on any more travelling assignment. i guess i spoke too soon. 24 hours later, i am already on the other side of malaysia. this time tomorrow, i will be out of technological range. i honestly cannot tell when i will be out of the bush this time… which really made packing last night one hell of a task.

nevertheless, project happy malaysia intriguied me. for i have stories to share. one gathers quite a few on the road. time constrains me, but the few hours i have left in the ‘civilised’ world before merdeka, i will share one which i hold close to my heart. even if it means enduring the blasting of a dozen machine guns crashing and blasting each other in this god forsaken cybercafe.

last year, i found myself at the back of a rickety jeep bouncing like a sack of old potatoes through muddy logging roads towards the inlands of bakelalan in sarawak. the previous day had been a sicky van ride from miri via the two halves of brunei. and the next day, a gut wrenching flight on a twin otter to bario – one of the remotest areas in malaysia. my crew and i were initially assigned to do a coverage of christmas celebration there. upon arrivial, we learnt that once every two years, the different villages all over the highlands would gather in a designated longhouse for the celebrations. we got an invite to join in and we thought, why not?

before i continue, i must introduce myself. i am a malay/chinese/mamak and a little bit more. i would like to think of myself as a true malaysian, having reason to celebrate just about every festive occasion there is. nevertheless, i have had far more than my fair share of people who feel the need to categorise me, making me terribly cynic about the whole race thing.

for the context of my story today, the crew i was travelling with had two malays and one chinese, besides myself. as far as i know, neither of them are as rojak-ated as i am. now back to my story.

so the next morning, we gave our porters to carry our luggage, packed up our cameras and took a longboat down the river for one hour, trekked for two hours, spent an hour and a half at the back of a truck that is ready to break to bits, and trekked some more for four hours – all of this through the thickest, muddiest jungle you could imagine, complete with thorns and leeches. we then took a boat which capsized not once, but twice against the river rapids. our final leg of the journey to long dano was literarily a walk in the rain. the whole thing took nine hours. we arrived at the longhouse wet, covered in mud and bleeding.

our porters were nowhere in sight.

two cups of coffee later, we were still in our damp clothes. neither of us had even a toothbrush to our names. two hours later, christmas celebrations took place. we squeezed as much water as possible out of our clothes, rolled up our muddy and bloody trousers, and went to work.

there were 400 people at the longhouse that evening. most of the people coming from different villages, some trekking the jungle for days to get here. just about everyone was bunking with someone or another. because of the remoteness of this longhouse, there is no electricity here. source for water is the river. there isn’t a phone line here either. this is kelabit territory and home to some of the most gentle and pious christians i know.

through my eyes, life is hard here. diesel to power generators need to be carried on the backs of men by the tongs in order to get here. meat is hunted. vegetables are gathered. children walk for days to live-in schools.

through their eyes however, nature provides for everything they possibly need. that, coupled with a serene understanding of religion, make them a very contented and peaceful people. they know the importance, but do not pursue materialistic wealth the way we do. everything they have is shared.

christmas here is one of my most amazing experiences ever. of the hundreds of people here tonight, i see only two, very old christmas trees, modestly decorated with dusty ornaments. the longhouse is decked with rubber balloons and thin, silver runners. there were no christmas presents under the tree. no one had new clothes. but every hunter went out to get meat that morning, and that evening the kelabits prepared a feast fit for kings. dinner was enjoyed on the floor of the longhouse, with rice eaten on leaves. everyone sat in two rows opposite each other. no one asked if we were christians or not. everyone was welcomed.

there were carollings. sermons conduted in the kelabit language. and as midnight approached, candles were distributed to everyone. in a most breathtaking moment, the generators were turned off and everyone sat in pitch darkness before the eldest kelabits entered the longhouse with their candles lit. as a soft hymn radiated through the longhouse, the kelabit elders lit the candles of their children. and them to their children. until finally all the candles were lit. the scenario was nothing short of magical.

the night ends, but we still had a situation in our hands. our porters have still not arrived. we gathered at the fireplace when our hosts told us that because they are poor, they can’t give us their clothes to wear. all they could offer us was one sarong each. and from out of nowhere, new sarongs still in plastic wrappings were presented to us. i looked around as the locals were enjoying nightcaps, all wearing their old clothes. it’s christmas and we’d might as well be the only ones wearing anything new. but that did not matter to them. above all others is the hospitality they observed. and if there was any way one could help another, they would.

i was a stranger in that longhouse. and i was there for work. but i was welcomed as a guest, invited to join the festivities as a friend, and taken care of like family. i wonder how many of us would welcome a complete stranger to your houses, give them your best food and new clothes to wear? especially one who is a different race? what was more, the longhouse was already packed with people, and they offered us a room and their beds to sleep in, while our hosts slept on the floor of the living or common room. not once was the question of race was even mentioned. it is one of those rare times in my life that i knew for sure, that it really did not matter, and i truly believed that i was surrounded by people who truly believed that we are all humans, and that is all that matters.

the ending to this story is a quick one. our porters arrived after lunch the next day. they went to the wrong village the day before. one’s natural reaction would be to clobber the living daylights out of them. but then kesian that they missed christmas celebration. and should they have arrived the previous night, we would not have experiened the awesome hospitality of the kelabits as we did. we stayed at the longhouse for three days before returning to bario. we returned the sarongs to our hosts, who smiled, and folded them up neatly.

this is my happy malaysia story. well, one of them. the one i am most eager to share. i’ll try to write another if i get the chance (and access). in case i don’t, happy birthday malaysia. and to every single malaysian out there, i wish you a harmonious merdeka celebration.