I learnt history in school
and during my time it was an obligatory subject to learn and pass in major
exams.
It started with just
local and national history. Then it moved on to European and Asian histories. I
even had 2 semesters of TITAS in university, which stands for Tamadun Islam dan
Tamadun Asia. It focuses on Islamic, Malay, Chinese and Indian civilisations.
To be frank, I never
liked learning history. It was full of things that have already happened. There
were always too many names to remember, too many exact dates to memorise and
too many roles to commit to mind. And during exam I was expected to churn out
those information verbatim. I had no appreciation for history. I excelled in
exams for the subject because I had to.
It was only when I worked
and lived in a different state from my hometown that I realised the importance
of knowing my history. History helped me explain some disagreements and popular
myths about my home state. Sometimes I would use history to ridicule people who
had little or no knowledge at all of my home state, but this only happened when
the prejudices were unbearable.
Usually I would be very
nice at explaining things to people who would like to know more. I was and
still am a nice person.
So after many years of
not having to explain myself or my ancestry to strangers with my Malaysia's and
Sarawak's history, I found myself in a very familiar situation a couple of
weeks back at a local playgroup that I attended.
The question was: WHY DO
YOU HAVE AN ENGLISH NAME?
"Why not?"
"Why
can't I?"
"Why do
you think I can't have an english name as my name?"
No, I did not answer the
lady back with those questions.
Instead I politely
explained that my parents liked that name and they thought it would be good to
bestow that name to their daughter.
I was anticipating follow
up questions that would require my history knowledge.
However the conversation
turned to other subjects and I was happy with chatting away about mundane
stuff.
I am glad that I still
have my history knowledge intact and I have no problem sharing with others
about my ancestry if there was a need.
The past teaches us a lot
about the present, and the present helps us shape our future.
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