If someone were to ask you, where do you origin from, do you state your country of birth or do you state the country of your heritage?
Yesterday i was chatting with this dude, i THINK his name is Parvin. Anyway, the name is of no importance. This dude, holds an American passport and yet gets all mad when you call him an American. He has NEVER lived in the States(he was there for bout a month or so). If i got my facts right, he spent most of his years in Indonesia. Oh yeah, another fact, he's Indian. As in, Indian BY RACE, like dearest, ME.
When i first met him(not yesterday, when this particular conversation took place), i asked him where he was from and he replied saying that, he's INDIAN BUT HE HAS NEVER LIVED IN INDIA!(hey dude, i'm Indian as well, and my whole life was spent in Malaysia!). Then yesterday, we were talking and he said that his country of origin is India.(LIKE HOW ON EARTH?!) I mean, when one asks you for YOUR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, don't you state the country you were born? For me, I'm Malaysian, because i hold a Malaysian passport AND Malaysia also happens to be the place I origin from. I was BORN there. My PARENTS were both born there. If i'm not mistaken i think my grandparents too(I think they were the first generation to be born there) When i pointed that out to him, he mentioned that in most cases, it's always Malaysians and Singaporeans(Indians) who wouldn't claim India to be their country of origin.
So today, i asked Jen. Jen holds an Australian passport but she says she origins from Sri Lanka because she was BORN THERE. I asked her, what if you were born in Australia, she said, then her place of origin would be Australia! Siew Lyn, a Chinese by blood, but she origins from India. She was born there and she holds an Indian passport.
Dude, must all Indians origin from INDIA?? Likewise, must all Chinese origin from CHINA?? I have NEVER denied that i am INDIAN...but i deny that my place of origin would be INDIA..not because i'm very PROUD to call myself a MALAYSIAN(geee, i bet people like Hanaa will be saying, "LATHA?? HELL NO!"), not because i grew up there but because i was BORN there. If at all, i were to give up my Malaysian passport and become a citizen of another country, my country of origin would still be Malaysia!!
so. people, what do you guys think? Do you state your country of origin based on your heritage or the place where you were born? or is it just a Malaysian thingy to not admit India as our place of origin?
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
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1 comment:
Latha, I'm sure you are very patriotic - trying to get me to sign a medical slip so that you do not have to do national service. Very patriotic indeed...
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