First National Forum on the Position of
Minorities in Malaysia — Author's Notes
First National Forum on the Position of
Minorities in Malaysia — Author's Notes
This story was inspired by a brief stint with a NGO in Malaysia, where I helped organize moderated discussions of the type described in the story. The actual discussions were even funnier in real life than I have probably managed to convey. The part where everyone sinks into a happy rose-tinted dream of how great the country was before it all went to shit, and the curious way in which Malaysia's golden age corresponds with the speaker's childhood, are lifted directly from life.
First National Forum got rejected once for being preachy. It isn't meant to be! The parts where the Datin lectures everybody on tolerance and racial harmony are supposed to be funny, because that is precisely the kind of thing people say. Of course the real irony is that as a member of the ruling elite and (ex-)politician Datin Zainab has benefited from the perpetuation of the rigid ethnic and religious divisions reified by colonialism, but that is probably too subtle a point for anyone who isn't familiar with Malaysian history and politics to pick up on.
Esther is one of my few non-Chinese protagonists. I should improve on this lor.
Go to next story: The House of Aunts