By Anis Fauziena Abdul Karim
Malaysia is a beautiful country as it has many things to offer. From a variety of foods to different ethnics and cultures, it gives pleasure and satisfaction to anyone who experience it. We live together within different ethnic groups under one roof yet we manage to maintain peace and harmony.
Being a Malaysian, I enjoy going to Mamak stall late at night to have my supper together with friends those of other races. Sometimes, when there is big match, you can see many people going to mamak stall just to watch the game despite their race. This can be proven when people regardless of their title, skin colour and race are gathering in front of the television just to give their full support to our national athlete Lee Chong Wei against his traditional enemy, Lin Dan. Although he lost to his opponent in final match, but one thing that cannot be denied is that he makes Malaysians unite regardless of our races.
Malaysia has many attractions. We have many beautiful places to discover. People said to discover Melaka is to discover the history of Malaysia. We have beautiful mosque in Putrajaya, church in Malacca, temples and many places of worships. It shows the uniqueness of Malaysia. We are raised in different cultures and ethnicity. It is a waste if we do not take this chances to visit each other’s worship place and learn about their religion and stuffs.
The best part of being Malaysians is we have a variety of foods and we enjoy each other’s traditional food as well. As much as I love yong tau foo and chapati, I believe Chinese and Indians also love to eat rendang and satay. This can be proven when you go to night market where you can see Malays, Chinese and Indians all enjoying Malaysian food together.
Being a Malaysian is such a blessing where we have many off days especially during festive seasons. We have major festive like Eid-Fitr, Chinese New Year, Deepavali and Christmas. During every festive celebration, I find something in common which is an exchange of foods or gifts and angpow.
The same cultures and ritual have been blended the day we grow up together. For example, people in Sabah and Sarawak are so united to an extent they can share food together, visiting each other’s worship places and they even provide car parking for each other if there is a ceremony or event. Now, tell me where else in this world we can find something like this?
I do travel abroad sometimes but Malaysia is still where my heart is. I am so blessed to be part of this society. Even though political issues sometimes divide us apart, we share the same thought, that is, to make Malaysia a better place to live for our next generations. I hope in future we can still see our kids all nicely dressed up in our kebaya, cheongsam and saree. ***