Hi, my name is Kenneth. Some people call me Kheng Yew. I was born in ….. Alright… lets cut that crap and get to the point 
I grew up in a place which looks roughly like this..
If you were telling me to goto city, the 1st image that pops up into my head would be the exact image u see above. That image was stuck in my head for 15 years!
I basically lived most of my life (up to now) in Malaysia. I love it there cause of the endless possibilities of things that you can do there but we wont discuss further into it, I also love the food there, people there as we are all the "same" so its so much easier to communicate with other people. You know what people expects and want from you. So that is kinda easy to communicate and interact.. to a certain extend I suppose…
I probably discussed this before in some previous post but I suppose doubling it wont be that bad.. I think…
For the past 4 years.. the image of CITY totally changed… instead of the one u saw above.. when you tell me CITY.. the one and only image that pops up is ..
Yah, PERTH… Perth it is, thats where I've been living for the past 4 years ++, not to say its a great city but again I am not complaining because Perth is a really nice place to be. People here are nice, just everything is pretty well organized, and one bad thing about it is… fine.. I wont say it before people start flaming at me because I support corruption (to a certain extend).. Well fine, I did not say that…
Enough of the hokey pokey…
I've been here for almost 5 years now, it may not seems very long to most of you but for me, it has been a long and challenging journey.. 5 years went by pretty fast, a lot faster then I thought it would. I can still clearly remember the day I left for Perth, it wasn't a very great day. Well I cant exactly say that. I was both sad and excited as I would be moving to a different country. Its not like moving to another area, not like moving to another state. I am moving to a HUGE island down south! Come On, how many times does that kind of thing happen in your life? I dont know about you but for me.. ONCE!
After leaving the place I lived for my past 15 years, leaving all my family(relatives) and friends behind. It wasant an easy thing trying to be happy. I suppose you can meet new friends here but its never the same. People here grew up in a totally different cultural background then you did. Hugging your friend back where I live was normal, hugging your (guy) friend here is considered as a "gay" act. From where I came from, people wear shoes outside and take off their shoes when they come into the house but as for people in Aust, they go out barefooted and end up wearing their nice shoes inside their house. Weird? Maybe not..
Funny for us humans, we have the ability to fully adapt to the external environment we are in. We are not like cars, when they say FEED ME DIESEL you cant feed them UNLEADED PETROL because they simply wont run. But for us, we can adapt to any environment, any abnormality, anything new that pops up.
Maybe thats the reason why after 5 years, I don't actually feel the difference I felt when I first arrived. Its just part of you now. And occasionally, you will look @ the car rego and think. I dont used to see "1ABC 123" as number plates.. what i used to see is "WKD 2232". I dont used to see road signs that are white in background, what i used to see is road signs yellow in colour. I dont used to see plastic money, what I see is paper money. Last but not the least, I dont roll in a corolla, I used to…. fine.. wont go there..
But when u think back, you feel that you are in some foreign place, somewhere that you dont belong to in a way. Come on.. we belong to where we r suppose to be.. no offense but this is not the place we are meant to be. We are just here because we wanted to and we decided to leave our culture, our true identity and our memories behind.
I didnt know why I did it and I still dont but I have to say it was a right choice after all. Maybe i should have stayed in Malaysia because thats where I belong but coming to Australia changed me as a person, I would have been a totally different person if I were still in Malaysia. What kind of person? I will leave that to your imagination.
Like I always say, I am happy where I am now, Im satisfied with the things i have except i would love a nicer car but dont worry i will shut up right now before someone chucks rotten eggs at me.
Be Happy!! Smile Always…
Kenneth
PS: Thanks to the conversation with Jane that inspired this entry….
