08/12/2021
Selamat pagi, vanakkam, good morning, zao shang hao.
It's very good to be here, thank you everyone for coming by.
I want to specially thank our guest speakers, Dr. Tan Yee Kew 陈仪乔博士 and Tian Chua 蔡添强. Both of them as you know are in the forefront of the reformasi movement. They’ve also been very important supporters of cultural diversity, in parliament and outside. It's good to have them here.
I have known Dr Tan for a long time. Dr Tan is not your doctor if you have a stomach ache or covid okay? She’s a PhD who has been a longtime front line fighter for cultural diversity and the Gombak group that she has brought along with her is an indication.
Tian Chua of course you’ve seen him right at the front line against the FRU. He has also been important in community organization. Tian Chua is the chairman of DAYA, which is a new group which some here may want to consider to join as members. So thank you to the two of you for coming.
I also want to thank a number of other people that have made this event possible; The The School Jaya One management has lent its facilities - thank you.
We have a very important stake player in this country’s cultural and ethics diversity and that is our media. Eddie Hoo here with us is the Editor in Chief of theSundaily . He not only provides very important news on Malaysia and the world but this news comes to you in both online as well as the print version and it's free. Thank you Eddie for curating our news everyday and bringing it to us.
I also want to thank all the booth operators, the volunteers who’ve worked behind the scene to bring this event to us and not to forget Charles Barnabas who has been singing to us and will continue later.
Now why this event?
Well first of all, we have these messy covid shutdowns and it's important for us to break out, so this is December, this is the holiday period and hopefully this will help bring some of the crowds back to the mall and to get people back to their normal lives.
But the event is really about cultural diversity. It's about the heart and soul of Malaysia. It's about who we are. It's about our history, our identity, and it's something that unfortunately, and I’m also part of this unfortunately group, we tend to take cultural diversity for granted in this country. Because we grow up in it we just take it as it is. The fact is that we seriously under-estimate and under-value our cultural diversity.
You know there was a report just maybe two days ago, it may appear in theSundaily tomorrow or Monday. This is that amongst countries in the world where foreigners live, Kuala Lumpur is the number one (1) livable city out of all the cities in the world where foreigners reside.
So on this, Malaysia is No.1 ahead of Singapore.
Do you know why Malaysia is No.1 amongst the Orang Putih, the Japanese and amongst the Middle East people who come over here? We are No.1 not because of Twins Towers okay? Skyscrapers they’ve got all over the world. Foreigners, visitors, and tourists love to live in Malaysia because of our cultural diversity.
Visitors come here not because of KFC and McDonalds or our skyscrapers. They come here because of Batu Caves, because of Masjid Jamek, because of the Snake Temple, because of rojak.
They come here because the colors, the sounds, the sights, the history, the culture that we take for granted is totally exciting for them. It's something that you won’t be able to find so easily anywhere else in the world. So we have it and because we have it, we take it for granted.
Batu Caves, rojak, satay, the wau, the dancers that we have seen just now, we should cherish, we should enjoy them, and this is what this event is all about. It's one that highlights cultural diversity, our identity, and it's one that I hope for us to stand up for it and cherish it.
As the MyHometown CEO, I am very happy to be associated with it. If you go to my website, I don’t know how many of you have been to www.myhometown.com.my. All of you here can click on www.myhometown.com.my . We are a one stop website for the history and culture of Malaysia.
And there you will find stories about all your hometowns - Kuching, Penang, Johor Bahru, Sibu, Klang, Kuala Terengganu.
You’ll find articles and images on the culture and the history - stuff which you can spend hours on really. I hope you will take advantage of this event and you also take advantage of MyHometown website to learn more and to appreciate the cultural diversity that we have.
Well I want to end by saying that it is important especially for us to make sure that our young people not only appreciate but also learn to be fair to the cultural diversity that we have here. This means defending it - a subject that I don’t want to try to push too hard here.
But we do have to stand up and ensure that this cultural freedom that we have and which is found in the constitution is not lost.
Terima kasih, thank you very much.
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