Stop Trying To Make Interracial Dating a Thing. It's Not a Thing.

Image from Betty Anderson

This is something more digestible, straightforward, and close to heart (as usual). So here it goes.

One of the questions I hate hearing, and being asked about, is

How is it like being in an interracial relationship?

It seems to me that by inserting that phrase - "interracial relationship" - one tends to single out the relationship as a 'type' of relationship that is unusual. An other. 

Interracial dating, or romantic interracial relationships in general, has become a trend and a cause to fight for. 

"Oh!! He's into Indian girls! Interracial couples are so cute."

"You date Chinese guys, so inclusive. More people should do interracial dating."

I get the whole point people are trying to make:

• The occurrence of interracial relationships means that there are people in this world who can look past race, and that's what we all need right now. Especially in Malaysia. 
• That means more mixed babies, ie. people with 'exotic' facial features.
• That one day race will be an obsolete topic, and politicians cannot play the race card, because everyone is mixed race. 

In short, some people are happy to see interracial relationships popping up like mushrooms after a rain because this means that society will one day move past the need to discuss about race. As mentioned earlier, this is a matter close to many people's hearts, especially in multi-racial nations. 

However, by talking about it in such a manner only serves to magnify the topic of race. 

Because you're making a big deal out of the fact that 2 people of different race can fall in love and form a romantic bond with each other. When, in fact, the thing the same group of people want to prove, is that race is not a hindrance to anything.

But since people are so interested to know the answer to that bolded and italicised question, here's my answer:

I am aware that I'm Chinese. I am aware that he's not. 

But I never once viewed it as an interracial relationship. It never occurred to me that "hey, I'm a Chinese and I'm dating a non-Chinese". All I knew was that I really liked this guy, who felt the same way for me, and hence we're dating. 

The same goes to when I see interracial couples. I never see it as a Chinese-guy-dating-Indian-girl thing; all I see are two individuals who are very much in love with each other. 

Of course there are cases where interracial couples face social ostracism, even from their own family members. They don't deserve to be treated thus, and it's a sad thing that this is still happening in many places. All the more reason we should normalise it, and not single it out as a 'thing'. 

Because it is not. 

It's just two normal individuals coming together to form a beautiful bond.

Just think of it this way: quacking about "interracial relationship" is like saying "fetch", it's never gonna happen. So stop trying to make it happen.

Koh Rong

Flashback to the island tucked in the south west corner of the Kingdom of Cambodia: of clear waters, smooth white sand, blue skies, and white people high on pot.

The ethereality lies not in the mythic realm where water meets sky, but in the lack of mobile data and almost non-existent wireless connection. 

24 hours of sun, sand, water, terrible barbecued dinner, mosquitoes, diarrhoea, insect-induced insomnia, and mindless swinging on a hammock. Not a care in the world, except for when the ferry departs for Sihanouk. 

Time stood still for one night. 

I've Forgotten How To Write

Most of the impressive vocabulary that I frequently used in my earlier writings are like my old friends: lost, gone. The pieces where they are found are the only proofs I have of our acquaintance. 

I have come to enjoy Singapore tremendously. There's the company I have, of course. Then there's the terribly efficient public transports system. It looks like a contented city state, in the eyes of a financially-challenged tourist like me. Me, a tourist, going to Singapore to enjoy what it has to offer tourists, away from the infamous rat race that is the working environment of Singapore. 

Where should I travel to next? It wasn't a thorough tour of Cambodia, my previous holiday, but I covered a good few places and seen quite a number of sights. Jetting off to Yogyakarta in November to see the majestic Borobodur and its neighbouring ruins. There's something about ruins that appeal to me. One tries to reimagine the stories of those who have once dwelled in them: the owners of the feet that once walked the grounds; the voices that once resonated through the corridors; the memories of those who were once and never more. 

I've been eyeing Laos, but the airfare is a little too pricey. I'd gladly pay that price to go to Australia, really. And going to Australia is like going to Singapore, with the state of the Malaysian ringgit now. The bad news is that going to Singapore is like going to Australia. 

Bouquets of flowers are messy -- they die -- and thus I wonder what is the appeal in them that people love them so much. Someone asked me if I would be happy to receive a bouquet of flowers from someone, as a sign of the sender's affections to me. I realised then it is to appease one's vanity. So yes, I would like to receive a bouquet of flowers as a sign of someone's affections to me. 

In fact, I'd like to receive any form of pleasant gifts as a sign of someone's affections to me. I am a girl after all. 

An advice given to me was that I shouldn't go against my feminine nature. I was born and made a female, it is expected that I adhere to my biological, concurrently psychology, 'reflexes'. While I have come to terms with it -- which was a horribly difficult thing to do, what with the negative connotations associated with most feminine traits -- I think good can come from trying to shirk off some traits that are detrimental to interpersonal relationships as well as job progresses.

I still do think that these 'traits' are part of the characteristics assigned to the social construct that is a female. However, I do not see the point of fighting them so vehemently as some feminazis do. In my 0.02 Malaysian ringgit's worth of opinion, the first step to overcoming something is not to deny it, but to come to terms with the assumption or reality of possessing it, and then move on from there. 

I miss writing poetry. I used to be able to string up a 4-line rhymed stanza with ease during my high school days. Free verse came later. Now, nothing. To plagiarise that sweet-talking / -writing Pablo Neruda:

Counting the nights between our separate cities
To the night that we should chance upon each other's faces again
- in the flesh -
The nights so long,
Reunions so short,
Goodbyes so fleeting. 
The steadfastness that I hold onto every 
"I'll see you again soon",
If only that's enough to bring your warmth to me
As surely as every goodbye is imminent,
The happiness that is me,
My every night,
Mine. 

Pray, Love, Remember.

She has a million phobias. Tarantulas, ghosts, cockroaches, rejection, lizards, darkness, etc. Then there's oblivion.

To be forgotten, to forget; to not be remembered, to not remember. 

The biggest insult, and the deepest cut, is to be forgotten by the people who were once part of your life. To wake up and not remember a thing about the ones who once touched your life, is the scariest thing in the world. 

Oblivion. 

She wants to be remembered forever, because she never forgets. It isn't so much about committing all the wrongs and scars into memory; but more about engraving the deep set eyes into a foamy sea of reveries. "Yes, I once knew you."

You were once so important to me. You are important to me, still.

Memory is like a locked room, hidden in a corner, meant to be neglected. It's a room that she loves to visit, every now and then, and the key hangs around her neck like a noose. A slave to the past, clinging to it like opium. 

Remembrance.

That's the nearest thing to immortality. That's the proof of her existence. Nothing scares her more than to cease to exist in your world.

Schrödinger's Cat

Image from favim.com

If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

Too long a hiatus. 

It still feels like a dream: managing the social and digital platforms of the most popular English radio station in the country. Met a few Hollywood A-listers, some music legends, and called some of the most prominent radio announcers in Malaysia "buggers". 

There is no glamorous job. Only a job that satisfies. 

That aside, on Schrödinger's cat. I vaguely remember a fellow Experimental Writing classmate, Helen, basing one of her weekly submissions' on this theory. 

What does a Liberal Art student know about Quantum Physics? It depends on the student, really. I only know that it problematises the Copenhagen School's interpretation of Quantum Physics. That it is only logical to presume that the cat is either dead or alive, and not both as the Copenhagen School would theorise. 

Put simply, there is no grey area to any situation. 

Poor cat. 

So yeah, there's no grey area to this situation. But that is Science and this isn't, someone I know would argue. And then he will bite his own tongue because human relations, as he once explained to me, is, in fact, very scientific. 

The answers to that mind-boggling question of why we are attracted to whoever we're attracted to can be found in the area of evolutionary biology. Pheromones. Physique. Survival of the specie.

We are cells. Stardusts. Not ethereal and intangible fragments called 'souls'. 

Image from rebloggy.com

Since we've established the premise of this situation, which is (cynically) scientific, then perhaps it's safe to presume that the cat in the box is dead. 

Logically, should one wish for the cat to live, one would have taken the cat out of the box as soon as possible. 

One wouldn't even put the cat in the bloody box. 

Plain as day and you wonder why I didn't see it. It's a thing I'm known for, being a glutton for punishment (which applies also in other matters, but let's not go there). My hamster female brain is unable to logically process things as it comes. The best thing it does is triggering the tear glands and I've cried a few times over it, wondering if the stupid cat is even alive. 

Or was there even a cat from the start. 

Hamster ramblings. Lines of discombobulated thoughts that refused to be framed coherently and logically because of the way my sex is hardwired. 

But I don't want the cat. 

I want the man himself.