Let’s relate ourselves to history guys. Our country’s history. In so many ways, a blokes passage in life has been chartered in the course of Malaysia’s past, and doomed to repeat itself.
It all started with Parameswara claiming our northern states and setting up his empire. Exotic, raw and intriguing to the locals, as so we were after donning on our dark green school pants for the first time, and realizing that y-front scuba brand underwear that Mama bought from Mun Loong is not a good cover-up for what you and friends now call “stim”. We wanted to pitch tents and start conquering unchartered lands.
Then the Portuguese came to Melaka and brought with them funny words in funny music like jingling nona. Awkward as that time may be, reminiscent of our awkward nights in Boom Boom Room, Spinning or Base 2 (Yow Chuan) – trying to look 18 wearing Cross Colors oversized t shirts. All I wanna do summa zoom zoom zoom anda pom pommm….was just as weird as the culture brought into our shores by those clock tower building, funny name giving (Stadthuys???) traders down South in Melaka. But dance we did, and funny slangs we spoke, and got our share of A Famosa’s.
Then the English came to teach us some decorum. Whipping the savages that we are into shape. Much like a steady girlfriend at Uni. Maturity and stability. Pre-med credentials outweigh your earlier skills of drinking Pelican pre-mixed vodka while doing the Macarena at Modesto’s. We were taught to ingest continental breakfasts instead of the usual touch and go buffet lines. That is until….
The Japanese landed! Just like the time when we realized there are more women outside of campus for the first time. In kamikaze like fashion, we were thrown off balance in the corporate world. Hot female bosses enslaved us in tight MNG work attires. Being a whipping boy in the office further enhanced our inferiority complexes, which are duly released in the form of binge drinking and sleeping with anything that doesn’t resemble a pad with wings or panty liner.
Communism swiftly ensues, and completely drags us back to the dark ages of doing things for the “common good” – which translates into living together and her training you to be of “good husband material”. And not long before…
The English comes again in the form of “the understanding one that was right under our noses the whole time” – Mutual benefits and a few ribbing and courtships and negotiations later, formed a marriage of cooperation that seemingly sets us free in knowing that the future looks so promising and that you once again, are a fulfilled, and liberated man with everything he could ask for…
Which brings us to today, just finding out that we’re still secretly the house b^tch who only THINKS he wears the pants in the house….but she’s the one that chooses which ones were allowed to wear.
Happy Independence, chaps!
