To produce high-quality research for my assignments,
it was necessary that I went deep into the theory – be it
postcolonial, feminist, film, etc. Each of these subjects
were dealing with similar cultural, historical and social
problems – be it the question of colonial power in
subaltern theory; or the dominance of patriarchy and
heteronormativity in feminist theory; or the power of
the male gaze in film theory. But underpinning all these
theories was philosophy, and alongside it, critical
theory. The more I tugged at the strings of each, I was
drawn into a web of connected ideas most which were
beyond my academic years of maturity.
After the first semester was finished, I was supposed
to pack my bags and head home back to Australia.
But by then I was settled in. I didn’t want to go home.
I was falling in love with Malaysia. Casa Subang was
now my home. Thankfully, I was able to extend my stay,
so I enrolled into the second semester:
• FTV1010 Contemporary TV Studies (Mr Fikri Jermadi)
NH2405 Contemporary Fiction
• E
(Dr Andrew Ng Hock Soon)
We were also able to talk about the films I studied, such
as Mukhsin and other Yasmin Ahmad works. We could
laugh together at P Ramlee, and me, a “gweilo” or “mat
salleh” (as she so affectionately called me), was able to
understand the cultural humour. I was a rare find. And
to add to the synchronicity, it turned out that she was
from Subang! It was meant to be.
When I left Malaysia at the end of my studies,
I backpacked across Southeast Asia for three months.
The night I arrived into Luang Prabang just happened
to be the second night of the South East Asian Film
Festival, and by luck or serendipity, they were showing
Yasmin Ahmad’s films, including Mukhsin, which I had
written an essay on for my exam. But what made the
experience even more special was that Mr Benjamin
McKay, my film lecturer who introduced me to Yasmin
Ahmad’s work, had sadly passed during the year, so
sitting in the outdoor audience in the north of Laos,
it was like I had come full circle and there was an
uncanny charm, a sense of closure and farewell.
95
OM2411 Media, Culture & Power
• C
(Dr Yeoh Seng Guan)
related – the mamak stalls, teh tarik, bak kut teh, limau
ais, nasi kandar, laksa, and my breakfast standard, roti
canai, the whole lepak culture… the list goes on.
• COM3020 Second Media Age (Mr Callum Gilmour)
I loved study. I loved study and the process of research
so much that I had strong aspirations to become a
lecturer. I was also inspired by the quality of teaching at
Monash University Malaysia, which added further fuel
to my burning desire to stay at university forever. I could
write pages and pages about how transformative my
academic experience was, but this is supposed to be
a love story.
In 2012, when I was back in Melbourne I met my
Malaysian wife-to-be. She was Chinese, but could
speak fluent Malay, so when Alicia and I started dating,
I was able to impress her with the smattering of Bahasa
Melayu I learned in the year I lived in KL; I could “cakap
Bahasa Melayu sikit.” And I was endeared with how
sometimes she would finish her sentences with “lah”. I
was also able to share with her the things I loved, and
she missed, about Malaysia, which was mostly food-
Student life in and around
Casa Subang! ▼