land below the wind~

december has come to a gentle ending where the year of 2008, there's been lots of changes happening around life here. being staying away from malaysia for almost 10 months, missing contact of malaysian's sun, rain and air but somehow, i don't really miss the food there yet as much as others. maybe i already accepted that i wont be tasting any of them for the next 20 months after i leave the country. after all, cooking my own meals here almost makes it taste like home anyway. somehow i feel that those people that really says they can't find good food in adelaide is kinda over reacting. those that say's adelaide is boring and can't wait to leave here, is also over reacting.

nevertheless, i came from a place where many would say its a 'jungle' yet i am also a frequent traveller back to the pearl of the orient. i would say i experienced what a developed place and underdeveloped place looks like. recently i receive an email that basically tells the story on how the state i grow up in was being marginalised by others. nevertheless, that place thought me that we could make many things out of what we have and the grass is not always greener on the other side. the town i grow up in have no night life, the cinema was only 2 years old, we don't have any shopping complex nor place that sells branded clothes. we have no white beaches or five star hotels or resorts. yet we have an airport big enough to land 737's and is accepting flights from Philippines as well. We also have the one of the few sanctuaries that house the near extinct orang utan. a turtle nesting ground is only a few minutes boat ride from the town im staying.

i remembered that our power supply and water was constantly cut. thought i lived in a terrace house, i experience studying by the candle light and taking bath tru pails of water. i enjoy those moments where we could play with the melted wax and make shapes out of it. i constantly held my laughter silently when i hear people in 'bigger' cities never know how to use a match stick. i stayed in a housing area where in the evenings people will go out to play and jog around the park. there we still see kids chasing each other along the road without worrying about the cars and no over protective parents treating everyone on the road as criminals hiding their child from the sun as have our own security guard on partol every hour around the housing estate. yet we have full access of the Internet, and we also do stuff what other kids in larger cities do with their computers such as playing online games, downloading movies, and not to mention blogging. we have the same internet access as larger cities in my country.. we also have astro services and also those 'large-satellite-dish receivers' operating around. what makes you more advance than us anyway??

i went to a primary school in a building with a huge crack on the floor at the back, predicted to collapse soon, yet the building is still standing today, and the crack is still visible till this very minute. my school don't have a football field, or a big car park, situated next to graveyards and was apparently used as a hospital during the WW2. yet, we love our school very much. we have 7 cubicles for guys and about 8-10 for girls shared by almost 1000+ students. the toilet was only recently given a brighter tiles 4 years ago. 2 of the roads to our school are always at risk of landslide during rainy sessions and the other access is only a 2 lane road which will be pack with school buses and parents cars during the end of the day. given all this circumstances in a city, i wonder if anybody still wants go come to our school to study. yet our school was the best school with the most top scorers in my town at least during my time. many got scholarships and studying overseas in fields such as medicine and engineering.

with all the shortcomings in the town i grew up with, we learn something most of us never had the chance to do so. we learn how to compromise, how to make the best of everything and learn how to give and take from each other. best parts of all, we experience jungle tracking right behind our school, a 6 hour hike from our school to the housing estate I'm living in, which includes real jungle experience without a walking trail, into rivers, and also to go down a 3 story high cliff. this trail was 'open' by our school's scout team. we experience starry nights during blackouts, we experience candle light dinner with family, with the sound of cricket and other insects accompany us and not the sound of the TVB drama behind.

the place i grew up in wasn't the place i was born in. yet i like that place very much. there are so many things to do there. its not that i don't like the pearl of the orient. i love the island very much too, but both have their specialities to be love. for those that says sabah is uncivilised, please check the internet you are so proud of for the real facts. if u see sabah there, u see that we also have access to the internet. just to let you know, people in adelaide knows where is north borneo(sabah) much more better than where is malaysia. and you want to know how i let people know where im from?? 'im a malaysian from north borneo...'

hmm.. im sorry that this sounds like a hate post... =/