2002 ~ 2006 |
THE PIONEERS
McShit!
Kwan Suet Yeing
With you-know-who (2016). ▶
36
My
journey
as SASS
student
was
more than
just an
education
and a
degree.
I clearly remember going through one of my earliest
classes on communication. The notion of ‘context’
had what, I thought, was the most elaborate definition,
explained in the most long-winded way in the
textbook, that kept repeating unnecessarily. It haunted
our exams, because you needed to get the definition
right to a tee.
This was the start of a myriad of spectacularly diverse
subjects. Vivid throwbacks on thought-provoking
issues in Gender, Race and Borders taught me that
being a feminist doesn’t mean that you are a lesbian
or that you hate men. Writing analytical pieces on
bizarre and downright mind-boggling movies, namely
‘Blue Velvet’ in Cinema and Screen Studies, instilled
a new way of thinking in me that not everything has
to make sense, and that everything is subjective
in the eye of the beholder. Most of all, me trying to
make sense of what, at the time, seemed nonsense
– like the encounter with self-doubting, existential
psychoanalytic theories such as the Oedipal Complex,
which suggested that I was in love with my father and
therefore was jealous of my mother.
Using public transport during
ISO Bangkok (2005). ▼
I was taken out of my comfort zone. I felt the same
discomfort, and was frankly mortified, when a bunch
of us girls from the ISO Penang study trip (2004)
were encircled by lusting men on motorbikes as we
passed free condoms along to the working girls and
boys in Lorong Garu together with the NGO workers
we were following. But I would have never traded that
experience for anything else. That night I spoke to a
woman in her late 60s who was working the streets
because her children had abandoned her. A year later
in Bangkok (ISO Bangkok), in the slums of Klong Toey,
I remembered holding back tears, imagining a life of
sheer poverty, living on top of the city sewage plant,
knowing that I was shadowed by the very luxurious
shopping complexes that flowed excrements to
my shack.
My journey as a SASS student was more than just
an education and a degree. The lessons taught and
questions posed by lecturers opened my middle-
class suburban Chinese mind, and showed me
the importance of looking past the initial surface of
things to the many layers of society, the meanings
and content being thrown at us daily – stereotypes,
mainstream media propaganda – which I am now
more aware of. But mostly, I take with me the
awareness to always put into context the conditions,
connections, environments, and factors that are at
play when dealing with a situation, a person or at
work. Yes, all of that, and the moments when Dr Yeoh
yelled ‘McShit!’* across the hall for me, to which I
always replied “Yes, Bata Shoes?”.
*Making reference to the T-shirt I bought during ISO
Bangkok 2005.
▲ My wedding day
in Vientiane (2016).
Suet Yeing graduated with a Bachelor of
Communication majoring in Journalism in 2006.
She is currently in business development.