To be Loved is to be Changed.

Through love, care, and time, I believe anyone can be changed. I named my project after a beautiful saying because it resonated with me deeply. I am a romantic. I love easily and have no qualms with giving love even to those who do not deserve it. Love can bring light out of the darkness and make the coldest tundra a warm shelter.

I was changed by love. Many think it is an emotion, a feeling. In reality, it is a process; a culmination of the consequences of devoting your heart to others. My goal for the year is to love, and to let in those who want to love me as well. I allocated more time and effort to the people around me. I wanted to be set free, and not hold back in my emotions. And so, this project showcases the progress of that goal, and through ethnographical concepts. I dissect my relationships with the people around me.

The overarching theme is love, and also the bending of stereotypes. To most people, I am feminine, dainty, delicate, and emotional. On the contrary, I am so much more than that. I am someone with unpredictable interests and struggles. Many people think I am also “westernised” but in fact, I am passionately in love with my home country. In this auto-ethnography I explore language and culture, social class, discursive relativity, and contextualisation cues, amongst other things. The specifics of these instances can be seen in the captions of my videos, where I go in depth of how I feel, the concepts I apply, and descriptions of those moments. I am a bigger person now through love and care, and I want to explore the causes and instances through analysis. Here are my findings.

Heaven lies beneath the feet of your Mother.

My mother is a force to be reckoned with. And contrary to cultural norms, she is the breadwinner of the family. She pays for the food on the table, the bills and for my education. While my father built this family and got us to where we are today, my Mother has taken the reigns in ensuring my dad and her have enough money for retirement, and settling her children’s education. Their love has taught me how to be whole. I can never repay them.

My mother is the world’s best cook, and I, her food taster. Due to her busy schedule and job, It is a rarity to see her cook, but when she does, I will be right next to her, watching, lending a hand — and tasting of course. As seen in this video, it is the night before the first day of fasting, and she is making sure we have food for Sahur. Although the home is empty without my father (he works outstation) my mother will always make her presence the warmest kind of love.

Cultural Collaboration

My housing community held a little festival of sorts at our facilities floor. It was the first time we had an event like this, and it was a pretty unorganised event. Regardless, it was a treat to see so many people around. I even thought to myself “I didn’t know so many people lived here!”

They had all sorts of performances, cultural ones like the lion dance, the Kompang, and Qawwali drums and music. Towards the end of the festival, they had them all perform on stage at once. It was the first time I ever saw such a thing. It’s common to see it all happen separately but to see them all together playing the same beat and rhythm was so intriguing. It reminded me of the place I called home and the melting pot of cultures that intertwine here.

Why shouldn’t we all play our instruments together? It is music after all.

Karaoke

Starting University has been so fun. I’ve made so many new friends, flourished in new environments, and learnt new things. I also made international friends, like Mir, who has come all the way from Bangladesh. He’s an eccentric and outgoing person who loves spending time with his peers. It became me and my friends’ mission to get him out more amongst the chaos of assignments.

On this night, after Art Fest, an event held by UCSI, we burnt the midnight oil singing our hearts out at a karaoke place. We had so much fun. Mir and I experienced many cultural differences, in attitude, behaviour and language. I recall one time purchasing Tau Fu Fa, a soya bean dessert, and he laughed at the name, as it meant “your uncle” in his language.

One thing Malaysian culture and Bangladesh culture have in common is our love for Bollywood film and music. In this video we’re singing a song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a film almost every Malaysian child has watched in their childhood. And so, we collectively shared that one heartfelt piece of culture in that moment.

International School Kids

These are my best friends. I’ve known Aiko (left) since I was 5. Hanum (right) is a friend I made through Aiko, who quickly rose in my list of favourite people.

We bond over good food, fictional story book men (real men too), and also our struggles with “culture shock”. The three of us all have experienced what felt like the never-ending process of adjusting to life in a new country, more than once. Aiko has moved 5 times in her life, I have moved 3, and Hanum has moved 2.

We all ended up graduating from international schools, and then had to find our footing in college and university. It is through this struggle we love each other so dearly. I relate to them, and they relate to me! I couldn’t ask for anything

Lights out and away we go!

It’s the start of the 2023 Formula 1 season! Lounging on the couch on a Sunday night is one of the best ways to kickstart the week. Ever since 2014, Formula One has played such a catalyst in my life. It’s formed my aspirations, dream travel locations, and even my circle of friends. Something about the thrill of it all. The politics, the drama and the devastation of the sport spurs me on, it is a world of its own!

When trying to discover my identity, I’ve found that its played a big role in how I speak and interpret the world. For example, the British slang I picked up through the British commentators. Saying things like “crikey” and even silly phrases like “balls to the wall”.

Conversing with friends who understand the lingo and context is easy, but when I accidentally leak those phrases into my day to day, my peers get confused. I’ve realised that Formula One has become intertwined in my language, and that my friends, at times, don’t understand me without certain contextualisation cues. I’ve made an effort to try and separate that part of me and disable it around my classmates and friends. We’ll see how that goes.

Family Dinner

I have eaten Nando’s for as long as I can remember. Even as a little kid, I would look forward to our weekly Friday night Nando’s. It is a very normal occurrence in my family, as well as in my extended family, to eat dinner together every night. As many times in a week as we can. If we can’t make it, we have to let the family know.

Catching up together at the end of the day and having that moment together in our busy lives has played an integral role in keeping our family close.

According to a friend close of mine, this is NOT normal at all in most families. Apparently, it’s a monthly occurrence at best. I asked my father about it and he says that was how his family did it. On my mom’s side, she claims that it’s not a thing in her extended family. That it’s something she has only experienced in the family she made.

I realise now that within the small speech community that is my family, we have our own traditions and activities that make us a community. A family.

My Sunrise

If I could own any piece of the universe, it would be the Earth’s sunrise. Every week I send clips of the sunrise to my friends who study in the UK, since apparently it’s constantly overcast and gloomy there. Sunrises feel particularly personal to me.

I can remember the different sunrises from every place i’ve lived. Whether it be outlooking the sea, or as it rises over the swimming pool every morning at practice when I was younger.

Sending these clips to my friends is a non-verbal act of communication. We don’t get to call much, or text for that matter. But every once in a while we send a picture of the sky, and we say how we’re doing.

Maybe one day we’ll lose this habit. Maybe one day we’ll never speak again and reminisce. But for now, we send videos of the sunrise, so I know we’re still on the same Earth, still looking at the same sky.

Lovers

A clip from a slow day where my brother (Elmy), his girlfriend (Isya), and I took a trip to a sports equipment store. One day I hope to find a love like theirs. So driven with their own passions and yet, still devoted to one another. They come from two varying social classes, my brother and I come from an upper middle class family, and his girlfriend, Isya, comes from a high class one.

One would think they struggle to communicate, but in fact, Isya finds so much joy in spending time with us. While her family keeps a watchful and strict eye on her to maintain a reputation, on days like this she can let loose — and mess around on gym equipment if she’d like to.

Her family has glitz and glamour and connections to the highest in the industry, invitations to galas, every other week and a complicated family dynamic. Yet, Elmy is there to listen to her troubles and helps her maintain a balance in life. I believe my brother gives her an escape from such chaos. They fit one another like a puzzle.

Concert

Went to a Ne-Yo concert on this day. The music was so awesome, so energising. But, living with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) , I unfortunately was going through a really tough time that day. Heavy Menorrhagia, back pain – just such intense waves of pain.

I fought through it, sure, but how much of my waking life will continue to be affected by my disorder? I almost backed out, but my friend convinced me to go. I explained my pain to him, but he just brushed it off. The friend that I attended the concert with is someone very dear to me. We bonded over interests and shared many speech communities. We were both students of the same college, in the same friend group that was so intimate we had a plethora of inside jokes. We wanted to join the same industry once we started working full-time. But we still had one rift: gender and sexuality.

I think in that sense, me and my friend experienced a kind of discursive relativity. I wanted to relay this pain to him somehow. But I was scared I would look weak, like I ditched him for a small problem. But what if they were a girl? Or had the same syndrome? Would they understand me then? Am I supposed to be honest about things like this? In the end, he actually did everything to accommodate to my issue. He made sure I was comfortable, handed me extra clothing just in case, and kept me energised. I couldn't be more grateful.