A Merdeka Day (Gratitious) Post

"Although it's not quite paradise, but it sure feels like home." - Bliss

 

Everyone has a post on this eventful day. I did want to post one up myself but decided the heck with it. And then I saw all my friends with one, so I decided to resuscitate mine. Be forewarned that it is not the most loving post you may come across. In fact, my ass may be censored because you should know how our country operates. So I shall cross my buns and hope that nobody will take this even more personally than it already should.

It was probably just another public holiday to spend. When I was younger, I would wake up at a fairly early time in the morning (if compared to my sleeping ins of older years) and there would be Nyonya kuihs on the dining table alongside my favourite Hokkien Mee. This was not some National Day tradition my family upheld religiously. My childhood life was, after all, smacked right at the heart of Penang’s most crowded area. Delicious hawkers food was just a few minutes’ walk down the forever jammed roads. We would munch on our local breakfast and watch marching parades broadcast live from Kuala Lumpur. We would marvel at the simultaneous precision that were the uniformed militaries and would perk up whenever the Boys’ Brigade march pass. My father was the captain for the 8th coy.

Then, I found myself being in the parades in high school. Not those in Kuala Lumpur, where your royal spectator was the King himself. Penang has its own parades to boot at various switches of venues between some open field in Butterworth and Esplanade. I was involved in these Merdeka parades for four years during high school. Different high school marching bands were there to lead different sections of the parade. While they were at it, they made a competition out of it. Anonymous judges hid amongst the crowds, beside the main stage, behind that coconut tree and acted like local civilians there for the show. The winners would be announced probably a week later. We would always be biting our nails and hoping for the best. Then they started not positioning us and decided to give us Cermerlangs and Emases. Something to do with hurting people’s feelings, who knows. I was never one to mingle with politics.

I would get up in the most ungodly hours in the morning to get myself ready for the parades. Days of hard practices under the sun being yelled at, marching in artificial unison and getting the commands right, polishing our instruments until they grow blisters and cutting holes on our brand new gloves. All of these were boiled down to probably five hours of waiting and one hour of showcasing. It was great chance to show off animosity towards the other school bands. We would cross path with them as we go in a round. One time, we finished our round and marched past a co-ed school I shall not name here. They decided to turn up the volume of their drum solos for the heck of messing up our own drum solos and snicker as they see our footsteps get messed up and we ended up marching to their matra instead. My ex-drum major, then merely a member, was at the sideline, decided to give a shove at one of the members. Oh the patriotism. This went on for three years. From being a clueless junior to a sidebar senior. My last year saw myself leading the pack carrying a playcard. Even I was leading the drum major. Actually that did not give me much superior significance. I was just a poor senior pushed up to the plate when nobody wanted to act as bait.

Truth be told, I am not a very patriotic Malaysian out there. Shame on me. I do feel a little bad when I heard my friend *coughEsthercough* announcing proudly for having MAS as her all-time national carrier and loving every nook and cranny of the capitol. I was not able to convert patriotism into my blood no matter how hard they tried. In primary school, we were giving recycled paper-material lyrics of the National Anthem, the State Anthem and some famous patriotic song along with our school anthem. We had to underline the words we normally would sing wrong. We had been for maybe two years before the saviour of them lyrics. As we progressed to Standard 4, we were technically seniors and had to recite the Rukun Negara in Malay and Mandarin. I swear, I can still recite the Mandarin version. I just did it. You should see how we rushed the six lines just so we could finally sit down. It was quite dreadful for us kids back in those days. Singing four songs and reciting two allegiences without moving an inch or crouching our bodies.

In high school, we were forced to have National Day related assemblies on the school field. They rallied us to the front of our school way too early for anyone to give a flying fuck and make us do patriotic things. I do not really remember. Some classes were chosen to do marathons from somewhere to the Botanical Gardens just around the corner. We were all crossing our fingers we would not be picked. Pity those that did. We had to spring clean our classrooms as well. I think it was because some big shot was going to do tours in our school. Or not. The Principal just loved having us do something to honour patriotism. She does not want to feel bad we do not even care. There were probably a lot more tasks she put on us but alas, they were nothing but an invisible speck of dust in my mind. Granted I do delve into my head often enough to keep the surface polished and dust-free. However, of course she would threaten us greatly with demerit marks if we ever go against her will. Our school loves doing that. Threatening helpless students. Unfortunately, we woke up one day and realised demerit marks will not make any difference on us when we leave school.

There were cheesy commercials on National Day spilled all over the television channels. You cannot run away from it even if you are watching satellite television. Every five minutes an advertisement will come on reminding us that by midnight the great someone will be giving a Merdeka speech. Not that we would wait by and listen to him talking about God-knows-what - I do not even know what is there to talk about in a Merdeka speech; big shots are weird - but I guess the channel stations just enjoy annoying us with the advertisement. Something to do. We Malaysians are a bored bunch, you see. Petrol stations, mini-markets, convenient stores, and basically everywhere else with a cashier counter to boot set up a little corner selling the Malaysia flag to attach to the roof of your car. People do buy them. Kids who do not have cars will purchase those plastic Malaysia flags with colourful sweets inside the transparent pole. They are most wanted hot cakes. Hurray to those who rip money off of those who actually are patriotic. Especially when the occasion nears, these cute flags can be seen erecting on the top of every car zooming down the street, basking in the strong oncoming wind, fluttering their proud Jalur Gemilangs. I have seen some who have two instead of one. Some went all the way, jabbing the car from front to back, top to bottom with the flags, and shielding the bonnet with another big ass Malaysia flag. Some even have loudspeakers on. But I am sure they are just hired advertisers. It just makes me wonder if they are really that patriotic or they just love the gawking attention.

The politics got on quite a riot while I was away. I refuse to pass any judgements here because if you know me, I tend to stay as far away from any form of politics possible. I do not read the newspapers – yes, and I was majoring Journalism. Even when I do, I would read the comics and horoscope. That is like the only one page I pay attention to. If I can save myself, at least I enjoy It’s A Durian Life. So yes. Things are dirty in politics. They do not wash their hands under the tables. Then again, no politics is ever one without being filthy. Can you ever trust your children heading out to play without coming home mud-stricken? It is the tragic beauty of life.

On some days I may gain interest for my country. The riot. The rudeness. The traffic jams. The clueless gatherings at alleged celebrity visiting sites and definitely at brand spanking new spaces. The crappy music selections repeated again and again on radio stations. It is after all something I have grown up with, something I have gotten used to. Those years of forcefeeding patriotism down our throats do work out. There lives my family. There stays my house. There gathers my friends. I guess, it will always be somewhere we will find ourselves ending up in.