Air Dicincang Berputus

A Story of Malaysia’s minorities.

From when I was a child until I was 17, I was scared of Malay people.

I wish I could tell you that this was because of some traumatic incident that imprinted itself upon my psyche: maybe a scary security guard who magnified in Freudian proportions to roam the depths of my subconscious; or a strict and overzealous teacher who punished me to excess. But frankly, I have no such excuse.

I grew up in a sheltered Chinese urban middle-class bubble. I went to a Chinese primary school, spoke…