A single story

If you are asked to sum up your characteristic and life in and tell it to others in one single story, which story would you picked? Or rather, can you depict yourself really well in one story.

For example, If I would,  I may depict myself in a sad story, in which I am nerd, unlucky, single and not good-looking , and when I tell it to my friends, some will break my conversation and say, " It's not damn true, you are awfully lucky to have a scholarship," and etc etc.

Maybe I was unlucky in terms on my body possessions, but I am overall lucky, for violating the traffic rules for year and still ending up in one piece.

That's right. Humans are inherently complex animal, that you couldn't sum who they really are, with a single story.  It's not to say that one single story of a person is not the truth, but rather, an incomplete truth, that tells you some, or little, or even, nothing, of the guy's personality.

What if I tell you there's one young guy, he was rebellious in nature, he did poorly in studies, he switched school for 3 times for that, and he has speech impediment. And If from this single story, you have to conclude what's the well-being person is, I doubt it will be a positive review...

Just to tell you, this guy in Winston Churchill, the prime minister of England during WW2

Yes, you couldn't never tell from that one single story, yet,

BUT we do tell what people are from the little single story. And often time, you could even say the race-relation in Malaysia is often shaped with one single story

When I was small, my aunt always quote those naughty kids as little Indians, and often times I get caught with this nicknames a few times because of my own mischievousness. And when I asked my aunt, why Indian, of all things, I remembered her answer " they are a bunch of uncivilized people " vaguely.

There's also one vivid scene I saw when I was a kid, in a Bollywood fighting scene, there's one guy fighting a number of bad villains. That heroic guy drunk a whole load of beer, whacked the beer on another villain, and proceeded with a fight that I could say "brutal". And that goes without saying, the two story I experienced becomes my "only definition" of Indians.

However, when I had an asthma attack, the doctor that cured me was an Indian. And back in Malaysia, every time there's  a load of asthma attack or fever or injuries, it was that same Indian doctor that cured me outta from the mess.

And if I had not encountered that Indian doctor, I might still trapped in a story in which Indians are the bad guy in society, and yeah, just to let you know, my roommate was an Indian ( although he has the name Danish with him ).

And for Malays, it's the same case. My parents often tell myself "not to think like a Malay", and when I asked, they often said "Malays are a lazy group of people". And back when I was still young, there's whispering of my friend saying "Babi Melayu" , and also some newspaper article.

And there's one particular bad experiences I had with Malay, I was browsing net on a cafe when some bunch of Malay kids screams like amok for no reason at least for an hour, you could imagine my irritated feeling as I was actually doing my assignment on the cafe.

And all those things, after years, had finally summed me up one thing.Malays are lazy, good for nothing, rempit,  useless without government, bad in English and a racial bunch. That, was the single story I had.

It was during my scholarship years, that the single story of mine changed. The two years shows me that a Malay can also be a hardworking bunch, rational dudes that able to speak English fluently as well.  And they are not one of those peoples you could say as " good for nothing " people.

And despites of the racial waves incoming lately because of an issue, we have people for all races that refuses to be get carried by the emotional racism wave, yes, including those Malays.

It's a Utopian world to say there's no racist chinese and malays and Indians. But, the racist side of the story doesn't constitutes our behavior as a Malaysian. And when the politicians highlighted the race issues , often time, they are obsessed with the one story of racism we have, and ignored the stories of harmony we have in our country.

And lastly, for people that have a certain prejudiced feeling to a person, a group, a race, or even a country, I would implore you, not to look at the one face of the story and proceeded conclusion based on that. You know, when people judged you by their side of the story, you know that

they haven't seen you enough, and you know it because

There's never enough story to sum up a human.