Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 2 9789671688625

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Money Stories from Malaysians Vol. 2

Curated by SURAYA ZAINUDIN

Copyright © 2020 Suraya Zainudin Communications Published by Suraya Zainudin Communications Subang, Selangor ringgitohringgit.com Cover design & illustrations: Yvonne Low http://yvonnism.tumblr.com | https://www.instagram.com/yvonnism Layout: Anna Tan https://teaspoonpublishing.com.my ISBN: 978-967-16886-2-5 Printed by: Angel Printing House 56-1 Jalan PJS 11/28A Bandar Sunway Metro 46150 Petaling Jaya, Selangor All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher and copyright owners. It is also advisable to consult the publisher if in any doubt as to the legality of any copying which is to be undertaken.

CONTENTS Foreword and Acknowledgements 1 Step by Step – Sukhbir Cheema 2 True Love Never Dies – Nina Osman

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3 The Wandering Waitress – Raja Ummi Nadrah 21 4 Goodwill Nadhim – Afiq Abruzzi

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5 The Horrible Landlord – Kong Ing Hong

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6 Mum’s Final Chapter of Life – Junnie Lee

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7 Broke But Not Broken – Stuart Danker

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8 The Upbringing – Azraei Muhamad

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9 Taximan Ghazal – Catalina Rembuyan

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10 The Inheritance – Myra Mitha

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11 Welcome to Financere – Suraya Zainudin

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FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Hi! Thank you for picking up this book! Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 2 is the successor of Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 1: a collection of personal financethemed short stories by Malaysians, for Malaysians. This project started as an act of reclaiming the stereotypically ‘dry’ and ‘boring’ topic of personal finance for everyday Malaysians. And reclaim it we did! In these pages, you will find a collection of eleven short stories across various genres—both autobiographical and fiction— that all share the same theme: personal finance. The topic is no longer out of our domain; it’s whatever and however we interpret and express it. None of this is possible without the help of these amazing individuals: Anna Tan, who is an exceptionally amazing editor (she writes, too! Find her books at https://teaspoonpublishing.com.my/books/); my fellow short story writers Sukhbir Cheema, Nina Osman, Afiq Abruzzi, Raja Ummi Nadrah, Kong Ing Hong, Junnie Lee, Stuart Danker, Azraei Muhamad, Catalina Rembuyan, and Myra Mitha for their clever interpretation of the theme; and Yvonne Low for the illustrations. I would also like to give special thanks to: Aizat my wonderfully supportive partner, my parents and siblings, and, of course, the Ringgit Oh Ringgit audience. I am so grateful to everyone who has been supportive of this project from Day 1. Enjoy the stories. I hope it’ll inspire and spark your own interpretation of the theme. When that happens, write it out, then look out for future short story submissions at RinggitOhRinggit.com—let’s keep the volumes going! With love, Suraya

STEP BY STEP Sukhbir Cheema Get this: way before the word “entrepreneur” was trending, my parents were already doing it. This was back in 1995. My mother had quit her job at a factory because she needed to take care of my special needs twin. My twin brother was born normal. But thanks to jaundice, aka yellow fever, he had to undergo a complicated blood transfusion which led to him being diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Having a special needs loved one is not easy. My mother and father were frequently forced to take leave from work to take turns to mind my brother. They did try to engage the services of babysitters, but these arrangements never lasted too long. Naturally, the time off work did not bode well with my parents’ employers. My mother soon found herself at odds with her bosses at the furniture factory where she had worked for the past twenty-odd years. She was threatened with a demotion and lesser pay if she continued to take numerous leave days. My mother struggled with the prospects of leaving a steady income, but she was eventually forced to make the decision to quit. My brother and I were only nine. I was reminded of this when a Facebook post showed up on my feed recently. 1

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“Want to be a successful entrepreneur? Desire to have all the secrets that successful entrepreneurs have to make big profits within xxx time frame? Click here to find out more.” I clicked on the post out of curiosity. It led me to a website where I was promised a free checklist on how to grow my business if I would first submit my email address. If you’re familiar with this marketing gimmick, you already know where this is headed. Weeks on, I was bombarded with daily emails which teased me with answers to burning business questions, and the only way to learn more would be to sign up for the promoted online courses. “You really shouldn’t miss this opportunity or you won’t be like X, Y, and Z, who managed to do it! Hear from them directly about how they benefited from this course. You only have 48 hours left to sign up so hurry! Do it right now!” To be honest, I probably would have signed up for the course in a jiffy. But I didn’t need to. 24 years ago, I had a front-row seat to watch the two greatest entrepreneurs I’ve ever met in my life. *** My mother quit her factory job in mid-1995. My father was a bus conductor at the time and would have been the sole breadwinner for our little family, if he hadn’t been diagnosed with a chronic heart issue that required him to stop working. Standing for long hours in a rattling bus was just not conducive to the health of a 54-year-old with blocked arteries. Reluctantly, he too decided to hang up his boots. When he broke the news to us in the living room of our little flat in Taman Rasah Jaya, my mother’s usually strong facade came crumbling down. Tears streamed down her face as she cradled my special needs brother in her arms. “How are we going to feed the boys? What are we going to eat?” she asked in desperation. 2

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My father remained a silent wall against the despair of my mother’s sobbing. I remember feeling a wave of seething anger towards my father because he appeared clueless and helpless in his role as the head of the family. He wore a perplexed look on his face for a long moment before suddenly brightening up with an idea. “We’ll run a school transport service,” he said in his quiet way. My mother frowned and gave him an incredulous stare. “But we don’t have a bus or a van!” My father looked out of the window. Our eyes followed the direction he was looking at. “The old beat-up Datsun?” she asked. “Yes,” he replied, “we start with the old beat-up Datsun and grow from there.” Back then, investment or entrepreneurship had never been part of my vocabulary. Heck, the two words were never uttered by my parents, who never had the chance to complete their formal education. But they were definitely responsible for showing me what investment and entrepreneurship look like in real life. Today, I’ve also come to see how both are integrally connected. You need to be a good investor to be a good entrepreneur. You need to be a good entrepreneur to make great investments. My parents couldn’t spell out the theories, but they embodied the phrase that “necessity is the mother of invention”. The first customer for my folks’ new student-ferrying business was our neighbour’s son who was in primary school. To add further context, the Rasah Jaya flats where we lived was a neighbourhood with a mix of low- to middle-income households, from the humble sundry shop helpers and busboys working at the nearby food joints, to hawkers and the occasional government clerk. This meant that the families could do with a more affordable option for sending their children to school, as the established players generally charged higher and higher with every opening of the school year. My mother knew this by asking around to learn the market rate. Then, she cleverly priced her service just slightly below the going rates.

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As my mother plied her driving routes, my father stayed home to be the main caretaker for my brother. Another good sense I learnt from my parents, especially my mother, is persistence. When she committed to any work, she adhered to it consistently and never failed to become more efficient as the years went by. She poured her heart, body, and soul into the student-ferrying business, which earned her the loving moniker of “Aunty Bas” in our neighbourhood. The children she used to ferry only had good things to say about my mum to their parents. Thanks to her friendly, smiling demeanour and ever-steadfast work ethic, her investment into this business eventually compounded. Praise for my mother began travelling by word of mouth among the parents’ network in the area. In a few short months, the number of student passengers cramming into mother’s old Datsun exceeded the fingers on both hands. She had a special way of seating everyone so that she could fit all fifteen students at one go, or else she would make double or even triple trips when necessary. The demand for her services was so high that she had to turn down many customers. The following year, my father suggested an “upgrade” of the business with the purchase of a second-hand van for a relatively small capital of RM5,000. My parents could afford to pay cash and it would be a sound investment. The catch was that the van was more likely in its fourth or fifth hand, more spacious than our Datsun but definitely seen more years. The kids were finally able to have seats to themselves instead of overlapping each others’ limbs. But the air-conditioning was a bust and the kids had to use brute force to slide open the windows for ventilation. Some windows were stuck fast and no amount of pushing and pulling would make it budge. Those kids in the back of the bus usually ended up sweating buckets. Whenever my father found time to hitch along however, the kids had it better. His years as a bus conductor somehow meant he knew just where to put pressure to shimmy the stubborn windows open. Sometimes, even opening and opening the van doors could be a pain but my father also handled this part like a pro. 4

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The most pressing and alarming concern with this “new” van though, was that it had a habit of stalling quite suddenly on the road. Once, the engine died in the midst of an uphill slope, and the van started rolling backwards. Luckily, the roads were clear and no untoward incident occurred. My father had the good sense to grab the nearest large rock to throw behind the back wheels of the bus to stop it from rolling back further before they called a mechanic and tow truck. This meant that the van required regular servicing and a trip to the workshop was necessary almost every month. This was not good for business and they knew how bad it could be for their reputation, which led them to start thinking about saving enough for the next upgrade. Within two years, they managed to save enough money to trade in the old van for a shiny new one, with functioning air-conditioning and even a radio. To further one-up the established players in the school routes, my parents made ice cream from frozen syrup and fruit juices to be sold out of a small cooler box. It made them a popular draw for the after-school crowd at every pit stop. It was the closest my parents could get to being worry-free and although the money they made was not abundant, I never felt want for food. Perhaps my parents did but they never told me. My parents were also great at building strong savings. They were diligent and steadfast about setting aside portions of their income into a bank account somewhere. Had my parents kept to this simple formula, they might have achieved the kind of success they continue to dream for themselves. Alas, people’s dreams and lives are never quite so simple. In believing that my brother could and would someday walk and talk, just like his luckier twin, my parents sought many a medicine man and woman. Our weekends were largely spent bouncing between shamans, masseurs, astrologers, and the like—all of whom turned out to be costly and 100% loss-making investments. They also decided to start another business venture, a chapati stall business, which banked entirely on their jointly saved monies from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF). This was around the same time they started the student-ferrying business. 5

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In a bid to earn more, my parents believed it was a good idea to rent a stall at a Chinese food court nearby that other hawkers seemed to avoid like a bad omen. The fact that the stall was right in front of a stinking Malaysian toilet wasn’t detected as a red flag. Coupled with the fact that Punjabi food was not yet the huge attraction it is today, the food business was quite the abject failure. Despite the fact that my mother (even if I should say so myself) was one to make the most fluffy and tasty chapathi and despite her being ever so industrious, working round the clock with practically little to no rest or sleep, the chapathi stall business remained an energy guzzler that took and took and elicited little returns. By the time my mother was done sending the last kid back home from school, it would be 7pm. Many times, when she was ready to set up the stall, it was past the 8pm dinner time of most customers who frequented the food court. Some days, there were no customers. If my parents were lucky, there would be one or two and the profit for that day would range between RM1 to RM2. Luckily, my parents had the good sense to put this bad investment down after a few months. It was futile putting effort into something that was not generating the desired returns. This is how I understood that time and energy are also among life’s important currencies and, sometimes, money is merely a byproduct of investing in the former wisely. *** My brother and I were now eleven years old and could be left to stay at home independently. This meant my mother could spend more time out on her rounds and she decided to offer free rides to some poor children, to assist their attendance to religious centres in the area. She approached the Seremban Sikh gurdwara and Sai Baba organisation with her free service. Her intentions were purely altruistic but it also turned out to be beneficial for business. At first, some people criticised her for being “stupid” to work for free but the move was an astute exercise in public relations; my parents built long term trust through this mutually benefiting value-based system. My parents’ clientele grew larger from tapping into a wider

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network of kids and their parents who needed her services for convenience. “Aunty Bas” became a familiar persona in more than fifteen neighbourhoods, across the dingy to more affluent parts of Seremban town. Her long ponytail and badass driving skills were also distinctive features that endeared her to her clients and a common ice breaker in conversations with potential ones. It was never their intention to create a branding for themselves in this way. They just did this because they felt it was their duty to help people in need. My parents could empathise because they had grown from hardship themselves. They could recognise a fellow facing distress and felt compelled to do their best to lift the burdens of others as best they could. Mother also wished that these types of deeds might pay off in karmic debt and possibly result in a miracle for my brother. 1999 was bittersweet for our family, as it was the year marking the pinnacle of the “Aunty Bas” entrepreneurial success. More and more parents approached my mother to send their kids to school. Some even switched from the competitors to my mother. After all, who could resist an affordable service that was reputedly honest, safe, and fun for the kids? I think this is where some sort of animosity or envy might have been stirred among the other school bus operators. I suspect they weren’t happy with my parents coming in and “spoiling the market”. One morning in 1999, at about 3am, my mother was woken up from sleep believing that she heard the sound of her van’s ignition. She put it down to her mind being overworked and went back to sleep. Later at around 5am when she got ready for work, to her dismay, the van was nowhere to be found. It had disappeared from the spot where she always parked. And just like that, their business investment vanished. Just like that. Gone. Although they were in a sweet spot of their business, they hadn’t saved enough to start again from scratch. At the time, my parents were also not informed about insurance and couldn’t understand how investing in insurance could have given them timely assistance.

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My mother decided the only logical next step was to become a housemaid. Several families who used to be her clients for her school van service employed her to clean their house. She would leave in the morning and come back in the evenings. During this time, my father took care of the household duties such as cooking for the family, cleaning up after my brother, and entertaining us at home. When my mother got home, my father would go out to rummage dustbins, hunting for cans to help my mother earn a little extra money. He would walk around shop lots with a stick in one hand and a plastic bag in another to collect used cans. Then, as the sun set, he would spend time stomping on them. I used to help him with this process outside our house. During one of these moments, I had lamented our fate, “Why are we so unlucky?” “Why do you say that?” my father asked. “Mum is a housemaid. My brother can’t walk, let alone talk. Look at you. You’re going around collecting cans from the trash bin. Why are we in this mess?” My father did not reply immediately. I stopped stomping and glared at him. My young adult self was indignant at what I saw as his nonchalance. Then he just shrugged. “I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” I asked exasperatedly. “I don’t know,” he reiterated softly. I shook my head in disgust, kicked the cans and began walking back indoors. I was about to close the door behind him when I heard him say, “Wait.” I stopped. “What?” “You already know the answer.” I turned to face him. He had an apologetic smile on his face. “Listen,” he said, “Life is like gardening. You need to put in the effort to tend the soil and water the plant. Sometimes we make mistakes and the plant dies. Sometimes, it could be the weather. Other times, it could be pests.” He placed his arm around my shoulder, “When one plant dies, it becomes a fertilizer for another to grow.” I stared at him in silence. “Your point is?”

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He had a twinkle in his eye. “Only people who don’t understand gardening see the death of a plant as bad luck. But those who enjoy the process will learn how to become better gardeners.” He handed me a can to stomp. “One step at a time. Step by step.”

*** My father passed on in 2011, yet his words remain with me and the memories of his and my mother’s entrepreneurial spirit live on. While so many personal development gurus lecture people about starting a business, many of them fail to show people how to sustain it. 9

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I learnt how to start a business and, most importantly, how to sustain it properly. For this, I’ll always be thankful to my parents. * It was not an easy task putting this story pen to paper. Special thanks goes out to my wife Ista Kyra who beautifully helped me in the writing process. Thanks, love.

About the author When he has writer’s block, he draws, and when he has artist’s block, he writes. Sukhbir Cheema is a writer, cartoonist, content specialist, and the co-founder of Malaysia’s first and only art-centric content website, Eksentrika, which he runs with his amazing wife, Ista Kyra. He is also a full time stay-at-home dad to a little mischievous dragon.

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TRUE LOVE NEVER DIES Nina Osman It was a bright Sunday evening. If you live in Melaka Raya, you know how scorching the sun can be. For Azman Rashid, a sixty-year-old whitecollar retiree, Melaka’s weather never dampened his spirit. He was content spending his retirement with whatever he had left, a large sum of KWSP savings he secretly enjoyed, indulging in his favourite hobby. A secret he kept just for himself. Wiping the beads of perspiration from his forehead, his focus was now on his soon-to-be-married son. With one look at his son’s face, he could guess what this was all about: his wedding. His son had always had the look of someone who carried the weight of the world. Today, he looked like he just took a detour to purgatory. “What is it, Am?” Azman asked. He had an inkling of what was going through his son’s mind but there was no harm in asking. That’s what a father does, right? “How do you know that I am about to ask you something?” his eldest son replied. Deep down inside, Am knew that his face was like an open book. Admittedly, anyone could pretty much guess that he was under duress. “Well, out with it then. I know that something is bothering you. Otherwise, you would be running right now.” His son had been athletic for years and he rarely missed a day to run. 11

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“I…feel like a mess, papa. I am actually bothered by the amount that Aina’s family asked for her hantaran. But I didn’t say anything at that time because I love her. RM15,000 is too much, papa. I just want your advice or anything you can offer me at the moment.” Am’s shoulders sagged in defeat. The wedding was set to happen in three months and he had only managed to procure half of the required amount. He was stressed, and it was straining his relationship with his fiancée. Aina had a Degree while he was just a Diploma graduate. Luck favoured him as he managed to secure a good job with a steady income. However, procuring RM15,000 in such a short amount of time was too much for him. When Aina’s family dropped an ultimatum to have her married before she turned 26, she presented the news to Am in delight. She had always known that she wanted to marry him the moment she met him. But for Am, it was another story. He wasn’t fully ready to be committed to someone—and until that point in life, he’d saved up mostly for his gaming consoles. It hadn’t even occurred to him to get married early, but the love he had for her could actually split the sea. Well, eventually I am going to marry her anyway. Better make it happen. That was what Am thought initially, but when the reality of his financial situation hit him hard, he sank deep. Deeper than the seven seas. “You love her, don’t you?” Azman’s gaze penetrated deep into his son’s soul, wanting him to reveal his feelings. Men are taught to not display their emotions, to hide them in the dark. “I do, papa. That is why I am so stressed. Now that I am obsessed with finding the money to complete the hantaran, she complains that I have no time for her. That I am a changed person and she’s starting to wonder whether I will act this way after marriage. Women and their thinking. I can’t just tell her that I feel pressure about the hantaran. I want to ask you, papa, back in the days when you wanted to marry mama, did you face the same obstacle?” The question caught Azman off guard. His attention was now on his wife who was busy tending to her precious garden. She still looks lovely after all these years, he thought. Unbeknownst to his son, his question didn’t miss the mark. Who would have thought that they would share the same fate? He chuckled to himself. He was immediately transported back to the past. That precious day when he first proposed to the woman of his dreams. They had known each other for years, a childhood friendship which later blossomed into a 12

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romantic relationship. Then a wrinkle formed in his forehead when a memory emerged. He didn’t like to remember unnecessary things. What a nuisance. “Papa?” “I’m sorry, Am. I was reminiscing. What was your question again?” “I was asking whether you faced the same thing when you wanted to marry back then.” Am felt worried. He could feel a swift change in his papa’s mood. The last thing he wanted was to upset his papa, the man he looked up to all his years.

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Clearing his throat, Azman looked at his son’s painful expression. “Well, well. Where should I start?” *** The year was 1984. Azman patiently waited under the shady tree in Lake Garden, now known as Perdana Botanical Garden. The same place they had always met for years. A smile formed on his lips looking at the tree as it was filled with their proclamation of love, carved initials of their names. She was a bit late today. But no matter. He had not seen her in a while. A letter powdered with talcum powder was their only way to be connected with one another. He straightened the collar of his shirt. He was anxious and he had a reason to be. He looked at his reflection on the still lake water. Dressed for the occasion, his Beatle haircut was neatly styled and he’d just purchased a new pair of bell-bottom pants to impress the lady of his life. He felt the bump in his left pocket, an indication that the ring box was present, and his heart skyrocketed. This was the day he would propose. To make her his forever. He had practised his lines and everything sounded so perfect. From afar, a beautiful woman approached. Mariam, his Mariam. Dressed in a yellow baju kurung with flowery patterns, her jet-black long hair shone in the sunlight and she had a smile that could enchant anyone. He may be exaggerating, but he was a man in love! Minutes later, he got down on his knees and proposed. The sight was foreign to her, a scene copied from his favourite Western movie, but he asked for her hand in marriage and she understood this. Her only reply was “meet my family”. She was fond of Azman and she knew Azman would do anything for her. And Azman… he was on cloud nine. Azman’s family visited Mariam’s house to merisik the following month. A necessary formality to get to know the future spouse’s family background and to discuss wedding preparations. The word ‘hantaran’, a monetary gift for the bride, scared most men but Azman did not falter. He had just graduated from Universiti Malaya with top scores and already started his career in the government sector. He was a good marriage prospect. Definitely a good husband candidate for Mariam. 14

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What he did not expect was that her family would ask for a high amount of hantaran in a short period of time. At that time, RM2,000 as a hantaran request was so high, it was considered a bit impossible. But Mariam was a crown jewel in her family. Prim and proper, the men of her village marvelled at her beauty but it was Azman who managed to win her heart. It was a known fact by most villagers that Azman had become a government worker and her family had taken advantage of this opportunity. This was the ticket out from the financial troubles they had all these years. Azman knew about this but he couldn’t care less. He just wanted to get married to Mariam before she became someone else’s. The arrangement was set. Both families had agreed and Azman was on a mission: to find the money for the hantaran. In his mind, he already pictured how beautiful Mariam would be, dressed in a bright pink bridal attire, a beautiful contrast to her bright pinkish skin. He summoned all the courage he had and planned to make this happen. All for the sake of the beautiful Mariam who would be his wife. As they were set to be married in the next seven months, he found a pen and started writing his financial plan. Azman’s Planning Basic salary: RM500 Hantaran: RM2,000 Saving for hantaran: RM200 for 7 months Ya Allah, this isn’t good, he thought. He needed another RM600! He had just started working and could only save RM200 per month. Thinking to save on food expenses, he decided that he could save RM300! This could work, he thought, I can eat roti kering every day. He would have money for the hantaran. But his joy subsided when he thought about the feast or kenduri on his side. The money he needed for his side of the family. And it didn’t help the cause much when he had a large family. He was the eldest in the family and his mother loved him so much. That thought put him in a worse state as he needed another thousand ringgit to make it work. He knew that his mother would enjoy planning for his wedding and he needed the greens. So much for saving, he thought as he stared at the wood ceiling with a crooked fan. He hadn’t thought this through. It was a rushed decision 15

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but he was a desperate man. Everywhere he went with Mariam, there would always be a man trying to woo her. He needed to make her his before she was snatched from his hands. An idea came to his mind. He would have to make ends meet by working an extra job. His routine was pretty much an eight-to-five job. Then he rushed to work in a food stall which belonged to his friend. When he had spare time, he would take any jobs that he could from cutting the grass in someone’s lawn to repairing electric wiring and someone’s roof. He was determined to do anything he could. For months, he tried to make a living and during those months, he rarely contacted Mariam nor found a time to meet her. It was two months before the wedding. From his side, the feast would take place after a month. He still had time to prepare the money. He saw how busy his mum was with his wedding preparations and whatnot. Azman did not think much about it; he just let his mother do her own thing and he just prepared the money. He met Mariam in the last month to discuss the wedding preparations and to deliver 50% of the hantaran sum. She didn’t say much during the whole process. He knew that she was as nervous as he was. They were accompanied by her sibling. Her mother was strict enough to not let them meet with each other. “Tak manis,” she said. Some Malay folks believed that during the period of engagement, one should not be allowed to meet unless it is necessary, with the condition that any of the family members are present. As much as he missed her, he knew that this tradition was important for her family and his. No matter, he thought. After the wedding, he could look at her forever. One day, he received a letter from his betrothed passed to him by her ten-year-old brother. In her letter, she asked him to meet at their favourite food stall. He was beyond thrilled for he missed her and had been dreaming of her. “Ajiq, tell her that I said yes.” “Okay, bang.” Ajiq saluted him. He watched his cheeky soon-to-be brother-in-law spring into action and ride his red bicycle back to his village. It was a fifteen-minute ride but he knew that Ajiq did not mind as he always roamed his village with his mini entourage from one kampong to another. 16

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He informed his mother that he would go out in the evening. After taking a shower, he sprayed his favourite Malaikat Suboh cologne. Satisfied with his look, he borrowed his ayah’s kapcai. Ajiq’s bicycle was parked in front of the stall, a sign that he had carried his sister with his bicycle. He was fond of the memory of how he and Mariam had always spent time together climbing coconut trees and roaming the village with their bicycles. That same bicycle that Mariam had now passed down to her brother. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Ajiq sitting at another table, helping himself to a roti canai. Azman was hungry and hadn’t had time to eat. It was Saturday evening and he had just finished fixing his neighbour’s lamp for the sake of the pay after he received the letter. He was hungry but he found that Ajiq eating at another table away from them was a bit peculiar, as he would normally sit with them. In fact, too peculiar. Maybe today is an exception, he thought. “Assalamualaikum, Mariam.” He sat in front of her. After all this time, he still couldn’t believe that this goddess of beauty would soon be married to him. The more he looked at her, the shyer he felt at that moment. “Waalaikumsalam, abang. Have a seat.” Mariam never looked at him once. Her gaze was directed to the table instead. Oh, she is shy now, is she? He secretly enjoyed this sight. He couldn’t wait to make her his. Be patient, Azman…be patient. Azman was too crazy in love to notice that Mariam’s hands were shaking but she hid them well under the table. “I can see that you are as impatient as me. Can’t wait until the wedding to meet me, ya? I know you miss me.” He spoke gently while waving his hand at the waiter to order the food. Mariam smiled but she still hadn’t looked at him. “Are you not eating, Mariam? Let me order you something.” “No thank you. I have eaten. You go… go… ahead and eat, abang. You look hungry.” Did she stutter now? How cute. Ah, don’t worry Mariam. In two months, we will be together. He smiled at his thought. While he was eating, he took a good look at Mariam and he began to notice things that he hadn’t noticed earlier. Her hands were on the table gripping her handbag so tightly, her knuckles had almost turned white. He was pleased to find that her engagement ring fit nicely on her finger. 17

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However, he couldn’t help but realise that her fingers were shaking. Most of his questions were replied with a curt nod and she talked less as the minutes passed. He began to worry. “Mariam, abang…” “Abang… Mariam…” The timing was perfect as they spoke at the same time. Azman found this hilarious and gave a burst of hearty laughter, but Mariam was surprisingly quiet. “Okay, Mariam first lah.” Slurping his milo ais, he glanced at the next table and saw that Ajiq was missing. He relaxed when he found that Ajiq was trying his luck with the tikam game. Ah… kids. He smiled. Mariam, however, didn’t wait any longer. It was the moment she had been waiting for. She couldn’t sleep just thinking about it. “Abang, I think… I think we should cancel the wedding…” she spoke in a low voice. But Azman wasn’t listening as he watched Ajiq from their table. “I’m sorry, Mariam. Come again?” He was now looking at her. Gathering all the courage that she had left, she looked straight into his eyes. “Abang… I don’t think we should continue with the wedding.” Azman couldn’t believe what he just heard. Breathe, Azman, breathe, he chanted. “What is it, Mariam? Do you need more time? Or the money is not enough? I am doing everything I can right now. If you want more money, I will make it happen.” Inside, he was praying deeply that his future wife would rescind her requests. This is just a dream, Azman. She still loves you. He silently prayed. “No, abang. It’s just I don’t want to marry you anymore.” Azman was about to lose it. No! Years of sacrificing and just months before the wedding, he felt like his world was about to crumble. “Why?” At this point, he had lost his words. He looked at her with the same loving gaze but her eyes no longer showed the same love that she once showed him. It was cold. Dead cold. Her love had vanished. The last thing he knew, a single tear fell on his face. “I found someone else.” “How could you? Am I not good enough?”

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“You are too good for me, abang. But I believe that he can make me happier. I’m sorry, abang.” Then, she looked at him with pity. That was his last straw. He rose from his seat and bolted away from the stall. Ignoring the looks from people. He should have stayed, should have begged. But she wasn’t the same person anymore. Not his. He still had his dignity and he wouldn’t beg someone who refused to stay and let alone to be married to him. He just couldn’t force someone. Especially not her. *** Reality check. Present. “Wait, what? You almost didn’t marry mama?” “Well…I—” “Wow, papa. I would have never thought that mama would do such a thing. Wow, I need a moment.” “It is just that…” “But I guess love prevails, right, papa? I mean, look at you two. Everything turned out okay for both of you. Maybe this is what people said. Dugaan bertunang! Hahaha.” “Well, son. When I was telling you this story, I wasn’t referring to her.” “What?” “I was referring to my old lover.” “Eh? But mama always tells us that you are her first love.” “It is for her, but not for me. She doesn’t need to know all the details, right? The important thing is I am in love with her and will always be. The present matters.” “But how did you marry her?” “I was heartbroken for a while, but I knew at the time that I was not ready. Meeting your mother was a fair chance of luck. We became friends and then we got married. Simple.” “Just like that?” “Just like that. Son, no matter how much you plan, if the jodoh is not for you, it is not for you. But meanwhile, take my advice. Don’t take her for granted. Make her understand how serious you are in this matter. I tried so hard to please her, to make her mine that I forgot about her wellbeing. So she ended up looking for someone else who can make her 19

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happy. She wanted someone with a better job, stability, someone who is always looking out for her. Well, she’s divorced anyway.” Am’s eyes were bloodshot. Sensing that that was too much info, Azman cleared his throat. “That’s beside the point. It’s okay really. For me, that does not matter anymore. The most important thing is life after marriage. Not before, not to please anyone. I was financially secure when I met your mother, it was the right time, and I was able to provide for her before and after. Our wife is our duty and it is our job to care for them in and out.” Am stayed quiet, reflecting on his father’s words. “People always thought that being financially secure is about being rich. It’s not really. It is about being able to afford things. What’s the point of looking rich on the outside when the truth is that you are broke? When there is a will, there will always be a way. If you want to make extra money, why don’t you help your papa out with his business?” “Eh, what business? You have already retired.” “Silly boy, who do you think paid for your mom’s new car?” “But mama told me it was from your KWSP?” “Son, one needs to be prepared for everything, especially when it concerns the woman that he loves and his children. Come, I show you.” Am hugged his papa out of the blue. He had never shown affection, but he made an exception today. He was truly glad for today’s talk. Azman smiled to himself. He couldn’t keep the secret about the business anymore, but there was one secret he was sure to bring to his grave. His marriage to his old lover a few months ago. True love never dies.

About the author Being a copywriter, Nina Osman deals mostly with social media postings, article writing, and analytics. Writing poems and short stories— that is the truest escapism she needs.

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THE WANDERING WAITRESS Raja Ummi Nadrah Shit happens. I’ve learnt to accept that. In high school, I was a top-scoring student with big plans for the future. I wanted to pursue a degree in engineering, graduate with honours, and land a high-ranking position in a reputable company. I wanted to marry my high-school sweetheart, start a family, and grow old together. I wanted to lead a well-balanced life as a successful career woman who is also a doting wife and loving mother. Well, guess what. That was not how any of it turned out. At 21, I found my dreams in shambles due to some serious errors of judgement. I got myself kicked out of university and ended up working as an admin assistant with a laughable salary. I was caught in the rat race like everybody else, which meant that I was broke all the time, yet still trying fruitlessly to impress people who couldn’t have cared less. Gone were my friends and my boyfriend, and with them, my self-esteem. To put it simply, my life had gone to shit. But somewhere along the way, in between bouts of depression and a quarter-life crisis, I had a sudden eureka moment. It was such a simple solution, in fact, that it boggled me how I never thought of it before. Now before we go any further, I should probably warn you that you’re about to listen to someone who’s not quite right in the head. Some people think I’m completely bonkers, and I can’t say I blame 21

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them. So, that might be something you’d want to think long and hard about before you even consider taking any advice from me. Anyway, here goes. The ground-breaking discovery I made was that, when you really look at it, life is actually pretty damn simple. For almost every problem you encounter, there is a simple solution: Office job stresses you out? Quit. No money to buy food? Work in a restaurant. No money to buy a car? Don’t buy one. No transport to go to work? Walk. Simple, isn’t it? And that was exactly what I did. I quit my office job and moved to a cheap room in Bukit Bintang so I could walk to KLCC, where I had been hired as a waitress. Finding a job in F&B is a piece of cake. You can practically waltz into any restaurant, ask for a job, and start the very next day. If you think there are no cheap rooms in Bukit Bintang, you are mistaken. There are many. But you have to be willing to leave your pride at the door and mingle with illegal immigrants, sex workers, and other scums of society. At least, that’s how people see them. From my personal experience though, most of them are much better human beings than some of those expensive suits and ties. My first room in Bukit Bintang was RM300 per month. It was a small flat in a rundown building close to Jalan Alor food market. The house originally had three rooms but had been renovated (with plasterboard dividers) to make five in order to accommodate more people. One of the rooms was actually part of the kitchen. The occupant—an Indian national—had to sleep underneath the sink. Every day, I walked 25 minutes to get to work (40 if I walked slowly). Sometime in 2012, the elevated pedestrian walkway opened to public, connecting KLCC and Pavilion, and making my daily walks a much more pleasant experience. Or if I was simply too lazy to walk, there was always the free GOKL bus. Safety-wise, I never found myself in an unfavourable situation. Bukit Bintang is truly a place that never sleeps. The clubs stay open till 3 a.m., after which party-goers would proceed to Jalan Alor for steamboat and snacks till 5 a.m. By then, some early birds would have started their commute to work. And the cycle continues. 22

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Moving there had saved me at least RM200 per month on transportation. Plus, there was no need to worry about bus delays or finding a place to park or getting stuck in traffic. As a bonus, I was able to keep fit without having to pay for a gym membership. This might be hard to believe, but I was actually earning more as a waitress than I did in the office job. Whereas my previous salary was only RM1,000, at the restaurant I was earning RM1,600 per month, and that was not inclusive of overtime (3 to 4 hours per day), tips, and extra allowances. The company gave a special allowance called ‘KLCC allowance’ to those of us working in the twin towers because KLCC outlets were generally busier and more profitable than other branches. On top of that, I was also not spending money on food. We were given one free meal per day at lunchtime. For dinner, I ate people’s leftovers. Yes, gag all you want, but you know the kind of food that most people can only afford once a month or when they get a bonus? I got to eat it every day. For free. Even before I started working at the restaurant, I had always been the ‘DBKL’ among my friends anyway. I hate, hate, HATE seeing food go to waste. Especially food that costs RM59.90 (and above) per plate. So, whenever my friends couldn’t finish theirs, they’d hand it over to me and I’d wipe that plate clean—with my fingers if the spoon couldn’t scoop up that last bit of gravy. In short, not the kind of friend you’d want to take to a 5-star hotel. So, what difference does it make whether I eat my friends’ leftovers or a stranger’s? What are strangers if not friends you haven’t met? But of course, not everybody shared my view on this. Some of my colleagues (mostly the locals) would give me disgusted looks and say things like: “Hey, where’s your abang? Your abang didn’t give you money for food?” “You see la later you’ll get sick! I wonder what diseases they carry. Ew.” “You don’t know what they ate before coming here. Maybe they just had pork.” To that last remark, I would reply, “Oh, no wonder it tasted so good!” Well, maybe I was just lucky, or maybe I had developed a stronger immune system, but I’m glad to report that for all of those years that I spent working in F&B, I never once took a sick leave (partly because not going to work meant no free meals, and partly because I never got sick enough to skip work). And ironically, the ones who dispensed those unsolicited ‘medical opinions’ were the ones who were always calling in sick. 23

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They were the kind of locals with a special hatred for foreign workers and never missed a chance to make those feelings known. You know the type. They strutted around acting like they were a class above everybody else and would bash anyone who suggested otherwise. It didn’t help that I frequently refused the company of their misogynistic, entitled selves and chose instead to hang out with the Nepalese and Bangladeshis. At least they didn’t make unnecessary comments about my dietary preferences—they ate with me. In fact, I had teamed up with them to make sure that we saved the best leftovers for each other. No good steak would go to the dustbin. Not on my watch. After a few months on the job, I could pretty much predict which customers were not going to finish their meals. New couples on first dates, for example, tend to eat very modestly, either because they’re too engrossed with each other or because they don’t want to let their gluttony show that early in the relationship. When somebody ordered a particularly expensive dish or a multicourse dinner, we would keep an eye on their plate(s) and hope that they wouldn’t ask for the leftovers to be packed. The foreign workers and I were so close we were almost telepathic. We would exchange glances across the room and smile at each other, knowing that we’d be having a delicious dinner that night. You probably don’t get to hear this every day (no kid in their right mind would say they want to be a waiter/waitress when they grow up), but I think being a waitress is my true calling. Yes, it’s a tiring and thankless job. You’re on your feet 10 to 14 hours a day and some of the customers are pure assholes. I’ve had a customer who demanded a refund because the carbonara sauce was white instead of red (I think she assumed all spaghetti sauces were red); I’ve had a customer who threw a fit because she couldn’t pronounce some of the words on the menu (e.g. lasagna), and a customer who got upset with me because there was no toilet in the restaurant (well, I’m sorry, Karen, I didn’t build the bloody restaurant). Yes, a waitressing job may be exhausting, but what I like about it is that once the day is over, it’s over. There are no extra assignments you have to bring home, no sales targets to reach, no presentations to prepare for, and no deadlines to meet. And once in a while, you come across those customers who smile and say ‘thank you’ and don’t treat you like a doormat. They make it all worth it.

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The Wandering Waitress

On the financial front, I wasn’t doing too badly either. The following is what my monthly expenses would look like in a typical month: Average salary (incl. OT, tips, and allowances) Rent Transportation Food (for the occasional splurge on my off days) ASB loan Phone credit Personal items and other miscellaneous expenses Nett Earnings

RM2,200 –RM300 –RM0 –RM40 –RM260 –RM30 –RM50 RM1,520

So, after deducting my meagre expenses, I still had a balance of RM1,520. Not bad for a waitress, huh? How many people earning double or triple my salary could actually say that they save that much every month? After much consideration, I had also surrendered my investmentlinked insurance policy and medical card (which previously cost me RM270 in total). Instead, I became a regular blood donor. This entitled me to free medical treatments and ward facilities in government hospitals, should I ever need them. On top of that, I did not have any dependents. I did not have any PTPTN loan or car loan. The only loan I had was ASB, but that brought me dividends every year, so it cancelled itself out. I also wore uniforms to work, so that saved me from having to shop for clothes. As you might have guessed from my eating habits, I leant towards the extreme side when it came to penny-pinching. I simply did not shop. I wore hand-me-downs. I recycled and upcycled my stuff. Other people would buy ripped jeans; I would wear the same pair of jeans for years until those rips formed naturally. I would loiter outside cafés to use their Wi-Fi for free. I would save those paper-cups from fast-food restaurants so that when I visited again, I could ask for free refills. These are all rather embarrassing to write about but when people started asking me what I did to have so much money, I had to tell them that this was how I lived. And the reason they were asking was that despite my frugality, I had what people tend to perceive as a very expensive hobby: travelling.

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In 2011, I travelled abroad every single month. They were very short trips, averaging 3 to 4 days each time, and only in neighbouring countries, but still. People got suspicious. I had acquaintances asking me, in all seriousness, whether I was a ‘sugar baby’. Or if I had contacts with… you know, someone who might be able to ‘take care of them’ in that way. I had an uncle who wouldn’t stop pestering my mom, “Are you sure she’s not a drug mule?” After which he would share on the family’s WhatsApp group viral stories of how people were jailed abroad for transporting drugs. 26

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And because of my name, some people were quick to assume that I was an heir to some royal fortune. Needless to say, I found this very insulting. By thinking that I had it the easy way, they were simply dismissing the crazy amount of hard work and discipline I had put in to get to where I was. What they didn’t know was that I was as frugal on my holidays as I was at home. Those trips I took were not the luxury vacations that they probably had in their minds. On each trip, I only spent a maximum of RM300 (not including flight tickets). I slept in airports, bus stations, train stations, bus stops, and parking lots. This was before I discovered how to get free accommodation abroad (more info on this on my blog). Those who knew these details thought I was completely out of my mind. Why would I go on a holiday only to torture myself like that? Well, here’s the thing: if you have lived the way that I lived in Bukit Bintang— on a bedbug-infested mattress on the floor—sleeping in a bus station would be an upgrade. And on another note, yes, I’m fully aware that instead of ‘wasting money’ on travels, I could have saved it all and settled down, bought a house and a car. Sure, I can do that. But do I want to live that kind of lifestyle? No, thanks. I’m no longer interested in buying stuff to conform to society’s standards. Besides, I’ve learnt a long time ago that shit can happen anytime. You might as well live your life today. Now, 9 years and almost 50 countries later, I have advanced in my waitressing career and can afford to travel further and longer. I’m still renting a room, but in a much better building—with a swimming pool and no bed bugs. This is the best time of my life. Pretty unconventional admittedly, but hey, what a life!

About the author Raja Ummi Nadrah has travelled solo around Asia, Europe, Oceania, and Africa. She has also learnt to fly an airplane, jumped out of an airplane (not the one she piloted), walked 240 kilometres from Portugal to Spain in 8 days, crossed Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, travelled around Sydney in a campervan with a nudist aborigine, and hitched a ride on a tractor in India. You can follow her adventures on ummigoeswhere.com.

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GOODWILL NADHIM Afiq Abruzzi The evening skies shined brighter than they usually did. As the soft wind wafted tantalising scents of Acacia trees around the park, I sat alone on the bench near a playground filled with little kids. A few other benches were occupied by their parents, monitoring their children while enjoying the meals they brought. Quite a nice little family picnic, I thought to myself. As for me, my time for having my own family hasn’t come. That day was like any other day, except for my weekly routine of reading when I’m not working. Not too far away, a group of young boys were laughing and screaming loudly. My eyes began to fix on them as they played with their remote-control cars, competing with each other on the track built by the developer of this housing area. The reminiscence bump began to hit me as I pondered upon my youth and the good old memories. Sipping the cup of coffee I brought from home, I continued to read. Suddenly, I felt a silhouette of someone walking towards me. It was one of the boys from that group. I didn’t turn my head to look at him. Not even a slight glance. He sat at the edge of the bench. Then, he moved closer while quietly peeking at the book in my hand. “What are you reading?” asked the boy. Without looking at him, I replied, “A book.” 29

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“About?” “Game Theory for Dummies,” I said, flipping to the front of cover the book. “Wow! Is it about video games?!” His eyes widened in amazement. I chuckled and shook my head. “No, it’s about mathematics and economy.” Our eyes met and he smiled. Without caring too much about him, I continued reading. For a while, the boy just sat there without doing anything. From the edge of my eyes, I could see his restlessness. His posture looked slouchy, he frequently crossed his arms, but mostly, a sigh of sadness was heard more than once. Trying to break this uncomfortable silence, I closed the book and decided to talk. “Why don’t you play with your friends? Seems like they’re having so much fun.” The boy sat silently, staring at his friends from afar. “Did they make fun of you? Or try to bully you?” I asked again, feeling concerned. He took a deep breath and shook his head weakly. “No, nothing like that. It’s just that… hm, never mind.” “Tell me. I won’t tell anyone if you’re having a hard time playing with them,” I said, giving him assurance. Finally, his pursed lips began to open. Clearing his throat a few times, his unconfident eyes were fixed on the ground. “Actually, there’s a remote-control car competition at the end of this month. And all of them decided to join. So, I feel a little left out because I couldn’t.” “Why? Did your parents not allow you to?” I asked. He quickly shook his head. “I don’t have an RC car. It’s quite expensive. And I don’t want to ask my mum to buy it for me.” “What about your dad? Have you tried to ask him?” He shrugged and looked away but I knew what he meant. I nodded without saying anything. The conversation ended. For a few minutes, we didn’t talk. Not even a hum was heard. Sitting there, my mind started to contemplate on things I should do. Should I just help this boy I just met out of pure sympathy? Should I just let him be and walk away, minding my own business? Or should I follow my sense of humanity and do the right thing? This battle of thoughts took a while and finally, my gut instinct guided me to the strongest part of my heart. 30

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“Okay, I have an idea,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Meet me tomorrow at this spot. 5 o’clock.” He turned his head, looking puzzled. “What for?” I got up from the bench, ready to head back home. “You’ll see. And ask for your mum’s permission. I don’t want her to think you’re spending time with strangers.” “Are you going to buy me a RC car?! Are you?!” he shrieked. “I have to go now,” I replied while reaching out for a handshake. “By the way, my name’s Nadhim. I live a couple of streets away from this park.” “I’m Danial! Nice to meet you, sir!” he answered, shaking my hand excitedly. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” After I got off from work, I rushed back home with a slight sense of excitement. I never felt this way before but since yesterday, something about that boy had sparked something in me. It was like one of those inexplicable feelings that stuck inside you, gnawing and feeding yourself with so much energy. There I was, sitting alone on my usual bench, with a big brown duffle bag in my hand. From afar, people might’ve suspected I was doing some kind of shady thing but it has been a long time since I cared about what other people think. Five minutes passed and still, no sign of Danial. Just when I decided to walk away, I could see from a distance Danial running towards me while waving his hand energetically. “Mr. Nadhim! Hey! Sorry, I got caught up helping my mum with some chores,” said Danial, gasping for air. “It’s fine,” I replied. “Please don’t call me sir or mister. Just call me Abang or you know, something that won’t make me feel old.” He nodded. “Okay, Abang Nadhim!” “Now, this is for you,” I said before giving him the duffel bag. “Take a look.” At first, his reaction was between clueless and curious. Right after the bag was unzipped, his eyes began to shine. His hands began to rummage in the bag. His eyes started to widen before laughing in awe. Then, he eagerly took a complete set of remote-control car out of the bag and hugged it. It was an old model, powered by a lithium-ion battery, but still in good condition. Compared to some of the newer models, the car was

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slightly slower than the ones that used kerosene but from a technical point of view, the speed of an electrical RC car was a lot easier to handle. “Wow! Oh my! Ahhh! An RC car?! You bought it for me?!” he shouted excitedly. “Actually, my dad bought it for me back when I was in school,” I answered. “But seeing as I don’t have much time to play, I think you’re the one who needs it the most. But only if you promise to take care of it.” “I promise! I’ll take good care of it! Can we play now?!” asked Danial, jumping around as he couldn’t contain his energy. I nodded and smiled. “Let’s go.” We walked together to the racetrack to test the car. As we arrived, a group of young boys, whom I expected were Danial’s friends, looked cynically at us . Danial looked at them and smiled. Unfortunately, all I could see was a cynical look on each of their faces. Being an adult, I tried not to judge or put a label on them because I was once a young boy. I knew how competitive and harsh they could get. “Is that even an RC car? More like a trash truck!” mocked one of the boys. A circle of laughter was heard. Another boy started to make a funny face and dance foolishly. “Maybe you should go back and play Hot Wheels, Danial! Hahaha!” Slowly, I cupped Danial’s ears with both hands. “Don’t mind them. Just focus on yourself.” Suddenly, one of them boldly approached and started to grab Danial’s car and toyed with it. “Hey! Give it back!” shouted Danial. He began to grab his car back while roughly pushing his friend. I could sense a fight was about to start. Quickly, I stood between them, blocking Danial’s view to distract him from getting angrier. “Danial, calm down,” I said, crouching in front of him. “How could I? They made fun of me!” shouted Danial. His eyes were still glaring at his friend. I shook my head. “No, they didn’t. They mocked the car, not you.” “Still, I was offended! I didn’t start it! They did!” “Listen to me. When’s the competition? “At the end of this month.” “Exactly, how many days until the day of the competition?” “About 21 days, I guess?” 32

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“So, win by action, not through argument. Don’t waste your time thinking about what they said. Focus on yourself. Time is the most precious commodity we all have. Time will tell who made the right decision. Got it?”

Though he looked quite disappointed, Danial nodded and tried to ignore his friends. He started to play with the car and I was next to him the whole evening. When dusk arrived, we decided to call it a day. I reminded Danial to practice every single day if he ever wanted to win the competition. At first, he looked reluctant because he wasn’t confident due to the fact that his friends’ RC cars were fancier than the one I gave him. But still, I convinced him not to overthink things and be positive. 33

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The next day, I couldn’t accompany Danial to play and practice because work was piling up unexpectedly at the office. But on my way back home, when I drove past the park, I could see Danial playing his RC car all by himself. He looked focused, happy, but mostly, he was in his element, like nothing in the world could stop him. I didn’t pull over or stop to watch him. I believed he would be alright all by himself. This routine of his continued every evening for almost two weeks. After work, I would join him whenever I could. But when I couldn’t, he didn’t mind and still practised alone. *** It was the day of the competition. A crowd gathered at the race track to watch the competition. Mostly, it was just the whole neighbourhood; the contestants, the organizer, and a few judges they invited from out of town. I arrived a little late because I had been running some errand for a friend but luckily, the race hadn’t started. Danial was with his mother as they listened to the rules given by the organizer. I didn’t go up to them to say ‘hi’. I wasn’t sure if it was my self-esteem or if I just didn’t want to put myself in an awkward position. The afternoon wasn’t too hot, quite the perfect weather to spend time outside. Finally, 15 contestants began to line up side by side, putting their RC cars on the starting line. Danial was wearing a jersey vest with a big ‘8’ sign on the back. I stood outside the line around the track to watch him. He looked around worriedly as if he was looking for something. Suddenly, he caught me looking at him and waved excitedly. I put my fist up in the air as a sign of luck and smiled. As the referee raised his flag, everyone started to quieten. The anticipation for the race to start made every living soul around fidget nervously. On the count of three, a whistle blew. The competition began. The first one to complete 10 laps would be crowned as the winner. The crowd began to cheer for each contestant. I, for one, didn’t hold myself back from chanting Danial’s name. Although Danial’s car was quite behind in the earlier laps, he was so laser-focused on each corner and obstacle on the track. A couple of his friends tried to sabotage him by crashing and pushing their cars until Danial’s collapsed. But little did they know, the boy’s perseverance was way beyond their expectations. 34

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Danial rushed onto the track, flipped his car back up, and continued the race. Every contestant was in their sixth lap. Danial managed to catch up and positioned himself in fifth place. Again, his friends tried to do the same thing but this time, Danial caught them earlier. As soon as two cars raced towards his, Danial steered his car and managed to swerve away, leaving them to collide against each other and fly out of the track. Again, Danial didn’t even bother to look at them, keeping his focus on the race. Finally, he managed to place himself in second place. His friends didn’t even make it to the top three. Danial brought home RM5,000 in prize money and a small trophy. Right after the prize-giving session, I went to look for Danial, who was having a little picnic with his mother. I waved at them. Quickly, Danial got up and ran towards me with a happy face. “Abang Nadhim! Look!” said Danial, holding up his trophy in his right hand. I clapped and patted his shoulder. “Congratulations, kid. I knew you’d win.” “I still can’t believe it. I thought the car couldn’t win!” “Why’d you think that?” “You know, because I thought the other kids have better cars. Plus, theirs were mostly the newest models.” “Your friends might have expensive RC cars but you’re no different than them. That car,” I explained, pointing towards the RC car next to his mother, “is the same as theirs. But what makes it better is YOU. You put in an enormous effort compared to them. You’ve trained every evening before this competition. All those late evenings, you’ve invested in yourself more than they did. And now, you’ve won.” Suddenly, Danial jumped and hugged me. Wrapping his arms tightly around my waist, he said, “No. We won.” “Yes. We did.” I nodded while softly patting his head. “So, what are you going to do with the prize money?” “I think I’ll give some of it to my mom. And the rest, I want to buy more RC cars,” answered Danial. “Because you can afford a better one now?” He confidently shook his head. “I want to create an RC Club. Through that club, I can rent out the RC cars to anyone. Maybe RM5 for an hour’s play. Mostly, I don’t want other kids who can’t afford to buy the RC cars to feel like they’re being left out. Because…” 35

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“Because what?” I frowned, looking clueless. “Because I want to be like you,” said Danial. “I want to do what you did.” At that moment, I realised that time was also on my side. I made the right decision. I chose to give and trust. For the first time, I saw how time compounded everything around me. Financial upside in Danial, spiritual upside in me. Even the littlest thing does make a big impact. But above all, goodwill tends to pay us back with goodness.

About the author Afiq Abruzzi is a full-time writer and author. Some of his work can be found on Malaysian literary websites.

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THE HORRIBLE LANDLORD Kong Ing Hong It’s very common to hear stories of landlords dealing with bad tenants. Broken toilets, dirty surroundings, and unpaid rent are all too common. For my case, I had experience in dealing with a horrible landlord and his condo from hell. I was a fresh graduate working my first job as an engineer in a multinational company in traffic jam city, far away from my hometown. I took on this job because the pay was very lucrative for a graduate fresh out of engineering school. My pay was at least 20% above my hometown friends who chose to work nearer to home or in smaller companies. This reason alone was enough to convince me to leave the small town that I came from. I was all alone in a foreign city with no friends or anyone to look out for me. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt distant, isolated, and suffocated trying to fit into the busy city. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. But I disregarded the uncomfortable feeling and focused on my nice salary instead. Like most people who work in foreign places, my focus was to keep my expenses low and maximize savings. I hunted for the most affordable room available that was also close to my office. I rented a small room at a condo about ten minutes from my office, which I will call D condo. I shared the unit with two other people, an auditor for a renowned

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auditing firm and another engineer from a different multinational company. We got along well and there were no problems between us. Most of my weekends were spent exploring the city and mingling. I discovered new places and made new friends in and out of the office. The strange and foreign land of traffic jam city started to feel like home. There’s one special trait possessed by these city folks. Most of the city dwellers were either interested or involved in some sort of investments, legit or not legit. These investments can be stocks, properties, gold, or money games. It’s very difficult not to get exposed to investment-related stuff while staying in the city. Naturally, I got interested in the world of investments. I started to attend free seminars offered by investment gurus, banks, and insurance companies. Initially, these free seminars were very valuable and I was able to learn lots of new things. After a while, I realised that these free seminars only scratched the surface of the subject—their true purpose was to upsell their paid course. The speaker would usually just share a little bit on the subject and provide some testimonials, then finally try and sell their paid course to the attendees. There was one time I attended a property investing preview and we had a dedicated timeslot to network. I met a guy named Ang. He was a short, pale, borderline-malnourished, late-thirties kind of guy; his appearance reminded me of Gollum from Lord of The Rings. We talked about rental properties, passive income, property market prospects, and we seemed to click. “He seems like a smart person,” I naively thought. Later in the conversation, he said, “I’m actually looking for a new housemate, you interested?” “How much is the rent?” I asked, getting straight to the point. “I can rent the room to you for RM300, but it’s a small room.” At the time, my current rent was RM500 which was slightly above fair price. In addition, it was almost impossible to find a room for RM300 in traffic jam city. If I moved, I could save RM200 every month. Ang stayed in IR Condo, which was slightly further from my office, but I figured that I was willing to sacrifice a little distance for RM200 in savings every month. It sounded like a good deal. So, we arranged to do a viewing of his unit. IR Condo was very new—only three years since its completion date—and many of the units were still vacant. It had three blocks and a three-storey car park shared by the tenants. As for facilities, they had a big swimming pool with a 38

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slide, a gym, a multi-purpose hall, a library and many others that justified the high maintenance fee. Ang’s unit was on the 22nd floor, a typical 3bedroom, 2-bathroom unit where one of the bathrooms is inside the master room. “So, where’s the room for rent?” I asked. “Well, the room is actually not ready yet,” he said, as he beckoned me toward a small corner of the house. “I intend to build a partition around this corner and make it a small room.” “Is there any other room available?” “No. All the rooms have been rented out.” From what I saw, the room would be claustrophobic and it made my cramped room in D Condo look like a suite, but I thought that I could make it work as long as I could install some shelves on the wall for storage. He agreed and we had a deal. I didn’t know at the time, but I had just made an agreement with the devil and moved into hell. Once I moved in, the house became a 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom unit. The tenants from three of the bedrooms had to share one bathroom. That was fine but I was really surprised to find out a few things about the house that I didn’t know before moving in. First of all, Ang was right about all rooms being rented out, but he had not been completely honest. He did not disclose that he was staying in the house as well… …IN THE LIVING ROOM. He stayed in a tent in the living room. I was confused. Why would the landlord resort to staying in a tent while owning his house? Later, I found out that Ang had bought this unit a few years back during the property boom. He saw many of the people around him buy properties and make money flipping them. At the same time, there was an abundance of promotions from the developer, some offering as little as RM5,000 downpayment for a RM500,000 condo. Eventually, he succumbed to the temptation and bought a unit in IR Condo for RM600,000 while borrowing almost 100% from the bank. Little did he know, he had just bought a unit he could not afford at the peak of the property boom. Needless to say, his plan to flip the condo for a profit failed miserably because the property market cooled down soon after his untimely 39

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purchase. His RM600,000 condo was worth RM500,000 just a year later, and he would have to swallow a huge loss if he sold it off. In order to keep up with his mortgage, he tried to churn as much money out of the house as he could. He built an extra room for extra rent. In addition, he stayed in the living room so he could rent out all the available rooms without spending anything on his own accommodation. So the original 3-bedroom 2-bathroom house was actually a 4bedroom-and-1-tent, 2-bathroom house. There was a total of seven people living in the house with five of them sharing the outside toilet. It was very crowded and there was also little space for us to dry our laundry. I felt deceived, to say the least. If I knew so many tenants had to share a toilet I probably wouldn’t have moved in; if I knew my landlord camps in the living room, I DEFINITELY won’t move in. If it’s any consolation, at least the tenants at the time were decent people. In one room, we had an Indian couple who preferred to mind their own business. Occasionally, they had fights so loud that they would wake the entire floor. Then we had Wai, a shift worker, staying in the room next to the Indian couple. He was weird, awkward, and sneaky. To make things weirder, I always heard him going in and out of the toilet from my room—he must have a small bladder. I didn’t really like him but he was harmless, so we generally just stayed out of each other’s way. There were two ladies in the master room; I never really got to know them because they actively avoided the other tenants in the house and just stayed in their room whenever they were home. They didn’t even use the washing machine. They generally just tried to not exist in the house, which made them the ideal housemates. In the living room, we had Ang, the financially-distressed homeowner without a room to stay in. And there was me, a fresh grad engineer who stayed in the Harry Potter closet room. My room was measured to be 6ft x 6ft. I managed to furnish my room with a single bed, a small table and chair, and a small self-modified wardrobe after careful planning. Then, I bought some plywood and brackets to install some DIY floating shelves on the walls for storage. There was very little room to move but it was good enough for me. I was content with my ability to make use of what I had and made my small room as hospitable as possible. I had to buy a new bed and table for RM500, but I was still happy to know that I was able to save RM200 every month even though it was crowded and not very comfortable.

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With so many people living together under one roof, the biggest problem I faced was the traffic of the bathroom. The bathroom was occupied at almost any time of the day. I had to move fast if I wanted to use the bathroom. It didn’t help that Wai used the toilet twenty times a day for twenty minutes at a time. Even at 5am, some of the tenants were awake and inside the toilet. Another problem I faced was the usage of the washing machine and the clothes hanging area. The peak time was usually during weekends. There were some instances where all the tenants washed their clothes on the same day and there’s very little space to dry them. It really ticked me off when someone left their finished laundry in the washing machine without attending to them. At this point, I regretted my decision to move to this slum; I missed my old room and housemates at D condo. All these problems could have been avoided if there weren’t so many people staying there. Since Ang was in financial distress, his most pressing concern was paying his mortgage and he was willing to put everyone through this hell. And this hell he called home wasn’t at its final form yet. A few months after I moved in, Ang decided to make two more bedrooms out of the living room. He wanted to move from his tent into one of the newly partitioned rooms and put the other room up for rent. I protested against this idea but to no avail. “You know that we already have too many people sharing the toilet, right?” I said, “Making more room will just make matters worse and it’s making living here harder.” “I need to do it,” Ang said in desperation, “I’m having trouble paying off my mortgage.” He was under pressure and was more concerned with paying the mortgage than the residents’ wellbeing. I speculated that he’d gotten himself into another financial mess. When it came to investments, Ang had the touch of death. Anything he invested in ultimately lost money. His purchase of IR Condo was just one of the many bad investments he made. In the end, there was nothing I could do or say to convince him otherwise. I thought Ang could not possibly make the living conditions worse. I was wrong. Due to the already deteriorating living conditions, some of the original tenants like Wai and the Indian couple moved out. Ang took this opportunity to rent his rooms out at a higher price. He rented out his newly available rooms to groups instead of individuals. That meant 41

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all the rooms in the house were now occupied by more than one tenant. In simpler terms, three people moved out but five people moved in. He was collecting rent based on headcount instead of room to maximize his own profits. To make things worse, these new tenants were slobs. The toilet and kitchen became filthy and the once-prestiged and beautiful condo now looked like a hovel. At this point, the tenant turnover increased. Most of the new tenants moved out after one or two months, probably because nobody wanted to stay in a house that was so crowded and dirty. I didn’t even bother trying to know the new housemates anymore because they’d probably move out soon enough. Ang just kept finding new people who were willing to stay in this hell. His new tenants were now the likes of drug addicts, illegal immigrants, and delinquents. After one year staying in hell, I literally caught a break when I got into an accident and was hospitalised for two months due to some broken bones. I can’t believe I’m saying this but those two months away from that condo was the best time I had in a while. The hospital room was much more accommodating and comfortable—best of all, I didn’t have to deal with Ang and his band of lowlife tenants. I really felt that a change of scenery was needed. I was homesick and getting tired of living in the fast-paced city with traffic jams everywhere I went and, most of all, I was tired of Ang and his condo. I started to miss my hometown and wanted to start a new career there. My wish was answered almost immediately. I received a job offer back in my hometown during my hospitalization! It was a job that I applied for some time ago, but had forgotten about. The pay was lower than what I had but I was ok with that. As long as I could get away from the city life and the condo of hell. I gave my employer my two months’ notice and tendered my resignation. Now all I had to do was to wait for two months and I could finally go home. When I was discharged from the hospital, I returned to hell. During my absence, all the previous tenants had moved out and were replaced with new faces. It didn’t matter, because the housemates were just as rotten as the previous ones and the living condition was just as horrible as before. Ang had the right tenants to make sure of that. I was the tenant with the longest-running tenure now.

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Due to my immobility, I opted to work from home the first week I was discharged from the hospital. One evening, I found all my cash, about RM500, gone from my wallet. I was home the whole day, so I knew that one of the tenants had broken into my room and stolen my money while I was taking a shower. One of the tenants must’ve found out that I didn’t lock my door when I showered and decided to take advantage of it. Since all the tenants were new, I had no idea who could have done it.

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I called Ang immediately and we had a talk about it when he came home. At this point, I was fuming with rage. “One of your tenants came into my room and took my money,” I said with certainty. “Who could have done it?” he said, with a tone of disbelief. “How would I know? Your tenants change so often that I don’t even know who actually stays here anymore,” I snapped. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. You can’t blame me for this,” he said defensively, with a slight tremble in his voice. He was not comfortable with this conversation. At this point, I just snapped. All my frustrations and anger staying in this condo were unleashed upon him. “You are responsible for this, you idiot! You are the one who filled this house with bad tenants. First, we have people who don’t clean after themselves. Now, we have thieves among us,” I ranted. “But I…” Ang was lost for words now. “I know you’re too broke to compensate me for my loss anyway. Just know that one of your rents collected from them this month will be paid with money stolen from me. For all I know, they could steal from you next,” I said pointedly. Then he broke down and started crying. A forty-year-old man crying on the floor because of what I said, probably because he knows it’s true. The sight of him weeping on the floor was truly pitiful but I was not sympathetic at all. I had enough of this! “Just look at you. You’re pathetic! It’s no wonder you are in this situation now. I wouldn’t be surprised if you died broke,” I spat. His sobbing grew louder and he had nothing to say for himself. “I’m moving out in two months and I don’t want to see you ever again,” I continued. “Please don’t go. You are the only good tenant I have left,” said Ang, his voice trembling while he continued to sob. “That’s your problem. I’ve had enough staying in this shithole.” Then I slammed my door shut and continued to curse my luck. I could still hear him sobbing through my door. The other tenants probably heard our conversation and realised how pathetic their landlord was. I took no chances during the last two months in the condo of hell. I locked my door all the time and made sure to check on my belongings often. I carried my keys everywhere I went, even into the bathroom. The 44

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activities of other tenants outside their room became less. Nobody wanted to leave their room unless it was necessary, not while there was a burglar in our midst. Fortunately, nothing unusual happened during this time. My last day in the city finally came. With a heavy heart, I bid goodbye to my friends and colleagues that I had made dear during my short stay in the city. I will never forget the people who I have befriended in the city and I wish to meet them again someday. As for Ang, I did not talk to him after I slammed my door on him. We were no longer on speaking terms. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I did him wrong by berating him in his own home with ears around the walls. I knew that it wasn’t right, and I probably shouldn’t have done it, but what’s done is done. I just wanted to move on and be done with him. My short stay in the city is now nothing more than a bad dream.

About the author Kong Ing Hong is a millennial who works a regular 8-to-5 job. He aspires to be financially free before reaching 30 years old. When he’s not working, he writes about personal finance, stock investments, and personal development on his blog, thestockmonger.com. Other than that, he enjoys reading, basketball, and parkour.

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MUM’S FINAL CHAPTER OF LIFE Junnie Lee “Mum fell down in the kitchen!” Those very words still linger in my mind. My brother said them in haste when I returned his calls after I completed my eye check-up. Yes, I wasn’t in the pink of health, and as much as I want to keep telling myself that age is just a number, it definitely isn’t when health problems crop up as the ‘numbers’ add on… Back to Mum’s condition, I still remember asking my brother what happened. He said that my mum had been cooking in the kitchen when she slipped and hit her head against the edge of a wooden cupboard. Mum, at 85, was still strong enough to do daily house chores. Immediately, I drove quickly to the hospital, where Mum was already in the A&E department being treated for her injuries. My youngest brother told me that the back of Mum’s head was bleeding. She had started to vomit, and tears flowed from her eyes as she was in lots of pain. We were very concerned about her condition as a fall at her age can be critical. Other family members arrived soon after, and after waiting for several hours, the nurse came out and briefed us on Mum’s condition. The doctor stitched her wound and she had to be admitted for further observation. Thankfully, several tests confirmed that there were no

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fractured or broken bones, no serious injury other than the concussion from hitting the back of her head. Mum was discharged from the hospital after a week. All of us were relieved and thought that her condition was not severe—it was just a matter of recovering from the wound. Mum was feeling fine and, as scheduled, we took her for follow-up treatment to check on her wound. Her wound was healing nicely. The attending doctor told her that the stitches can be removed and it might hurt a little. My brother and I stood by her and watched as the doctor pulled each thread and cut it off. We winced at the sight of some blood oozing out, but Mum remained calm. The doc kept asking Mum whether it was painful. She remained composed and said no. Mum has always been a strong and brave woman and we admired her determination. She has always been our source of inspiration—with her perseverance and determination to raise us alone since our dad passed away when I was in my teens with my two youngest brothers still schooling. Imagine having to provide food on the table, money for daily school expenses, etc. Oh, how she did it without a complaint or throwing a tantrum each time one of her kids did something “creative” that would make her mad, especially when it involved money! Because we were under the impression that Mum was on the road to recovery, we were hardly prepared for the heartaches and frustrations— not to mention unexpected financial expenses—ahead. Within days of her return home, Mum was not able to urinate. As a result, her tummy became bloated. We had to rush her to the emergency ward again. There, the doctor did some tests and told us that this problem could be temporary due to the shock of the fall. The doctor instructed his nurse to insert a catheter to drain urine from her bladder. After spending the whole day waiting for the procedure to finish, we took Mum home. The doctor advised us to leave the catheter inserted for a week. We were taught how to clean the tube and Mum’s pubic area to avoid any infection. My sister and I took turns to take care of Mum and clean her a few times a day. Despite doing our best to maintain her hygiene at all times, she developed a urinary tract infection (UTI). She was down with high fever, frequent shivering, and vomiting. We were very worried and immediately rushed her to the same private hospital again. She had to be 48

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admitted to the ward for several days. My siblings and I looked after her throughout the ordeal. Knowing private medical hospitals are profit-oriented organisations, we were not sure if the need for Mum to stay in for several days was necessary since she appeared to be fine after a day of medical observation. After almost a week, Mum was finally allowed to be discharged after some medical tests. Mum was already impatient and wanted to return home.

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On the day of the scheduled discharge, we wondered why the nurse had not sent Mum for the medical tests. When asked, the reply from the nurse upset me as she just said, “you have to go down to the finance department to top up another RM1,000 before we can take her for the tests.” Filled with anger, I told her off and questioned why the outstanding bill couldn’t be settled when Mum was to be discharged on the same day. After all, I had paid the required deposit and topped up the amount the previous day. She merely told me that it was not enough. Sigh… I had no choice but to proceed to the finance department to top up another RM1,000. After this episode, there were a series of ins and outs of the hospital as she kept contracting UTIs despite our every effort to keep her private parts and the catheter clean. We used gloves and alcohol swabs before cleaning the area. We had no choice but to dig deep into our coffers for more unexpected medical expenses. Finally, one of my brothers discussed with the doctor to remove the catheter. Since Mum was not able to urinate on her own, the doctor advised us to assist her by draining her bladder several times a day. The doctor also gave us a small catheter (nope, it was not free) and taught us how to insert the tube and drain out the urine. Despite doing all that we were guided by the doctor, she contracted UTI again and we had to re-admit her to the same hospital. We were very tired and frustrated as none of us were making big salaries, and as we were employed we had to apply for leave to care for our mum. We discussed this with the attending doctor and, to our surprise, he was not able to provide us with a solution to Mum’s condition. The doctor informed us that there were no supplements that could assist to reduce the risk of the UTI. He could only tell us that there were many strains of bacteria inside Mum’s urinary tract and he had administered all types of antibiotics to get rid of the bacteria but to no avail. Throughout the ordeal, we spent about RM30,000 just to be informed that there was no solution to Mum’s UTI problem. Can you imagine the extent of expense if there had been surgery involved? Such medical expenses were definitely not budgeted for.

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When Mum got another infection, we decided to take her to another private hospital since the previous one could not solve her problem. We collected her medical report from the previous hospital and showed it to the doctor at this hospital. Again, Mum had to go through a series of tests. She was upset and worried and we were heartbroken to see her crying as she kept saying she wanted to die. She had been in and out of the hospitals and with each visit, follow-up, treatment, and admission, Mum had to endure a long wait before the doctor could see her. After all the tests were done, the specialist found a cyst next to her bowel the size of a ping pong ball. He told us that immediate surgery was necessary to avoid further complications. He also informed us it could be malignant but this could only be confirmed after removal through surgery. We expressed our concern that at Mum’s age, and with her poor health, she was in no condition to undergo surgery. However, the specialist assured us that they would do all the necessary tests to ascertain if Mum would be strong enough for the surgery. He further told us that if the cyst was not removed, it could continue to grow until it compressed against her bowel. If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to pass motion and her condition will be very serious. We requested for some time to discuss whether to proceed with the surgery or not. Mum was discharged as the specialist told us there was nothing he could do other than surgery. She was very sad when she heard the specialist tell us that the cyst inside her tummy could be cancerous. She told us she won’t be going to any hospital again. Since the specialists in the private hospitals were not able to help much, we decided to take her to the General Hospital. We were advised by friends that the GH would probably be better equipped with facilities and, furthermore, it’s cheaper. All of us were concerned that Mum’s condition would be prolonged and we would be financially drained in no time. We decided to let her wear adult diapers to minimise the risk of UTI, and mind you, the adult diapers were not cheap at all… So, we admitted Mum to a GH when she contracted another bout of UTI. We wanted to place her in the Class 1 ward but it was full, so she had to be placed in a Class 3 ward. Mum was very sad but she kept up a brave front by saying it was alright. The entire Class 3 ward was so crowded with beds placed close to each other and even along the 51

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walkway. Such a scenario would undoubtedly make a patient’s health condition worse. We did not want Mum to feel that she was left alone at the hospital especially at night, so each of us siblings decided to bear with the poor conditions of the ward and took turns to tend to her needs. Mum’s bed was near the window. Imagine having a torn curtain as shade against the hot burning sun shining directly onto her bed. It was really hot and stuffy throughout the day and I was sweating profusely. But then again, who else could we complain to when it was the General Hospital? Imagine the doctors and nurses who work there daily under such unconducive conditions. We used a wet towel to keep her cool and applied bedak sejuk on her to keep the heat down. Through it all, Mum did not complain, choosing instead to keep silent. She turned from a chatty person to one with few words. At times, she chose to ignore us and did not want to talk to us. But through her eyes, we could see that she was worried about her health and she probably sensed that her time would soon be up. She did not share her worries as we knew that she did not want to worry us further. After a week of senseless ‘natural sauna’ during the day at the ward and sleeping upright on a worn chair by her bed, she was finally allowed to return home. We bought a toilet chair and put it in her bedroom. We bought diapers for her to wear and we encouraged her to use the adult potty to ease herself. By doing so, it would be easier for her to empty her bowels and also minimised the risk of UTI. Each time she felt the urge to poop, she would call us to help her up. We tried to talk to her and share jokes with her. Occasionally, she smiled but most of the time she just stared at the ceiling. After frequent trips to GH, my elder brother spoke to one of the doctors who attended to her. The doctor suggested that my brother take care of Mum at home and keep her company by cheering her up. There was nothing much that the doctor could do since the cancer had spread to other parts of her body. Our hearts were filled with deep sadness and we knew that Mum wouldn’t be with us for long. Fortunately, Mum has ten children and we took turns to take care of her throughout the day. Imagine a lady who had worked so hard to bring us up after dad passed away forty years ago when we were still very young. One of my brothers even asked me why God allowed Mum to suffer such pain when all her life, she had been 52

Mum’s Final Chapter of Life

kind to people. When he asked me this, I too questioned God—but then again, who are we to question God’s plan for her? We could only wish she did not suffer as much as she did… Slowly, Mum’s condition deteriorated. But she never whined or made life difficult for us. Even when she was in pain, she never uttered a sound. We shed a lot of tears. Mum too cried a lot; I guess she knew that this would be the last lap of her life. She wouldn’t tell us what was on her mind though we tried to persuade her to tell us so that we could help fulfil her last wishes. She kept saying she couldn’t tell us as she did not want us to worry. About two weeks before her passing, she developed a blister on her backside. Each time we lifted her up from her bed to sit up to eat, she would grimace. We knew the blister was very painful. Soon she drifted further away from us. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. She lost her appetite. On the night before she took her last breath, I was lying beside her on her queen size bed. I tried to make small talk with her. Suddenly, she opened her eyes wide and stared at me for a few seconds. When I asked her whether she had anything to say to me, she just kept quiet and closed her eyes again. The next day, I received a call from my brother that Mum had passed on. It was still a shock. Though we knew that day would come, it was just too much to swallow. I couldn’t believe that Mum had left us and was no longer by our side to cook her delicious food, to be there for us in our time of need and most of all, for us to tell her that we love her so much and to be able to provide for her comfort and needs. Our hearts ached in great pain and only God knows how we felt then. After nine months of suffering, she finally left us for good. It was hard to see her go but then, we are glad that she is at peace now and free from pain. Mum had always been considerate even until her last breath. She dragged on until after Chinese New Year before she passed on. She wanted us to celebrate CNY and she also knew that friends and neighbours would be reluctant to pay their last respects during CNY as it’s a taboo.

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It has been a year since her passing and we still miss her so much. She was such a good cook and each time she cooked my favourite dish, she would call me and ask me to go over for dinner. She was our pillar of strength and her house was our headquarters. I’ve come to realise that everything happens for a reason. Mum’s sickness was God’s way of letting her children return the favour of taking care of her. I am fortunate that I have so many brothers and sisters to help my mum through her last journey. I guess it is also God’s way of teaching us that planning our finance is not merely for what we anticipate for our own spending needs, but also for those around us. And it could be a rather significant amount—we had to chip in a total amount of RM60,000 during the nine months of Mum’s suffering. Mum, we love and miss you so much...we’re happy you’re in a better place now.

About the author Junnie is in her mid-fifties and is a freelance administrator for insurance professionals. she has just started dabbling in freelance writing as she loves reading and writing.

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BROKE BUT NOT BROKEN Stuart Danker I’m broke. That’s always been a recurring theme in my life, especially when compared to my peers at thirty-six years of age. I know I shouldn’t compare myself with others, but how else am I supposed to know if I’m making proper progress in life? Still, as much as I’m behind the curve, there was a time when I was even broke-er, if that’s even a word. You see, I spent my introductory career years with a starting pay of RM900. This career as a hairdresser came after my many other odd jobs: waiter, insurance salesman, cybercafe attendant, roadie. Of course, these were my jobs of choice because I hated school enough to skip Form 5, much to my parents’ dismay. Up to this day, I’m still not sure if I’d failed the education system, or if the education system had failed me, as I’d always wanted to explore literature instead of the weird subjects they had in school. I was also too young to think ahead, not realising that if I did well enough in school, I’d actually get to go to college to study literature. So, like any other highschool dropout, I began earning a meagre living to help allay my parents’ worries. At this point you’re probably wondering why you should read on, if there’s a payoff for listening to a guy ramble on about being broke. Besides, this is probably the last thing you’d expect from Money Stories from Malaysians. Well, I can’t promise you a great ending, but I can tell 55

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you that the only reason you’re reading this piece right now was because I was broke. If you’re wondering what that even means, do read on. Now let’s get started. The Beginning Let’s get privilege out of the way—I’ve always been fortunate enough not to worry about food, shelter, or love. In that sense, I’ve always enjoyed a type of wealth not many other people are fortunate enough to experience. That said, it really hit me hard when, while I was still working the counter at a video game shop, my girlfriend at the time chose to break up with me because I “didn’t have enough money”. Yes, she actually said those exact words too, right before I was about to begin my weekend shift. Then she rode off with some dude in his Audi. What was I to do? I was only seventeen, and my commute to work still heavily involved public buses. I didn’t blame her. The rest of my peers had just finished SPM and were about to choose their majors with a twinkle in their eyes, the promise of a greater future ahead of them. Me? I was making RM4 an hour selling video game consoles in a shopping mall. Of course, I’d move on to other jobs, an insurance agent being one. Can you imagine that? An introverted eighteen-year-old trying to sell policies to his friends who couldn’t even pay the premiums yet, let alone care about wealth planning. I failed bad, real bad. So that’s when I began thinking about starting a proper career. I was still bitter about my recent breakup, and I wanted to make sure I’d choose a job that had some sense of career progression. I’ll show her, I thought. But without having any academic credentials, my options were severely limited. I didn’t want to study though, because I truly hated it. So I picked a trade. I trained to become a hairdresser, and I stayed one for the better part of six years. Making the Cut After years of six-day work weeks, twelve-hour shifts, and the absence of bonuses or public holidays, I would work my way up the ladder and turn twenty-six. With substantial experience under my belt, I’d find my break as a senior stylist and even become a supervisor of a salon chain. This 56

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position came with a whopping pay of RM1,800. This included taking care of the salon, staying on top of inventory, and calculating commissions for the employees, all on top of managing and servicing my own clients. When I tell you that I’d grown disillusioned with the entire state of it all, it’s not an exaggeration. We’re talking about people my age earning at least RM5,000 by now, with their fancy four-month bonuses and twentyone days of paid leave. I would’ve been content with not having to work on public holidays. But I get it. I chose my path, so I had to live with it. And I did for a while, until I met a customer who’d become my next girlfriend. She was thinking of emigrating to Singapore, and she asked me to come with. We’d only dated for a few months at this point, but I thought things couldn’t be that much worse than it currently was, so I said yes. What did I have to lose anyway? Nothing, right? Turns out I did. I had everything to lose. Leaving Home I got a hairdressing gig in Singapore through a fellow Malaysian who had also made the move to the neighbouring island. It came with a salary of SGD1,200 which I figured was a significant pay rise compared to what I was earning back home. I hadn’t worked overseas before, so I never knew that you shouldn’t convert currencies when living in another country; I learnt real quick not to. Our master bedroom cost us SGD800 per month, so that was SGD400 for each of us. Subtract food, toiletries, and transport, and I was left with a couple of banknotes at the end of each month. My girlfriend and I hadn’t built a solid foundation of trust yet, so when slight problems arose, we really duked it out and argued for days on end. Turns out, having to stay cooped up in a small room because you’re broke really turns you into a manic-depressive, and I guess we were both at our wit’s end. We couldn’t afford to eat out, to have leisure time, or to even buy a mop. One day, she told me that her mom disliked me because I couldn’t take care of her, and it was like déjà vu all over again. We fought even more. Things carried on like this for almost half a year until fate finally intervened.

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It was close to midnight. My girlfriend and I were having a row as usual. I was bathing and I somehow slipped, breaking two bones in my palm. My middle knuckles had disappeared and I was panicking, but my girlfriend was still mad at me so I had to go to the hospital alone. Following that, the salon was quick to withdraw my worker’s permit once they realised I wouldn’t be able to work. Within the week, I was due for a flight back home, without a job, a girlfriend, and the use of my right hand. It would take at least three more months before I’d be able to hold a pair of scissors again. Speaking of scissors, I had only one bag to my name at this point, so I hand-carried it aboard the flight. Security found my toolbag and told me that I could either mail it back or they’d throw it away. I was late for my flight, so the only thing I could do was watch them dispose of it. It wasn’t easy watching RM1,000 worth of equipment go down the bin, especially in that stage of my life, and when my livelihood depended on it. But weirdly, a sense of relief washed over me as the officer tossed the toolbag away, never to be seen again. I took it as a sign from God. It was then I decided not to be a hairdresser ever again. Back to Square One So I’m back in Malaysia and had just gotten two metal plates inserted into my hand. Each of them cost RM5,000, excluding the operation and stay. I was glad that my days as a failed insurance agent actually resulted in me having a medical policy, and the costs were duly covered without a fuss. This was when I’d learnt another big lesson—always get insurance no matter how broke you are, because if you can’t afford the premium, you definitely won’t be able to afford a medical emergency. Now I was living with my parents, with no money in the bank, no income whatsoever, and I had to reexamine my future trajectory for the second time in my life. Still hurting from this breakup, I decided to go where all the money was. I’d borrow money from my parents, earn a Diploma in Accounting, and try to break into that field. There were lots of things that took place during this phase of my life, but mostly I stayed afloat by holding a part-time job in a big retail chain. This was also when I picked up Mandarin, as most of my classmates spoke it as their first language and communicating with them in English was challenging.

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Here, I met another girl (sensing a pattern here?) who was also studying later in life. We hit it off, but money problems would soon resurface, and it seemed like no matter what, I just wasn’t ready for relationships until I could settle my finances. My girlfriend and I were on rocky ground for the entire year, and once I graduated, I sent out fifty applications to make up for all that lost time, as well as to keep a failing relationship afloat. I only got one reply, and it offered RM1,200 for longer hours than my hairdressing days. I took the job just to have something going while I sought better opportunities. Needless to say, everything fell apart, relationship and all, and once again, I found myself lost with nothing to my name. 59

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My total life savings at this point was some RM3,000, but since I was already lost, I was prepared to lose it all. I took all my money and flew to Phuket for a month, just to get away from everything. I stretched every cent and lived a very simple life for my time there. I stayed in a Muay Thai gym, ate rice and eggs, and bummed scooter rides from the Westerners who could afford to rent them. One guy even let me bunk in with him for my last week there. That was when I realised that life was meant to be lived, no matter where you were in this journey. And for once in my life, I didn’t feel bad about being broke. With newfound motivation, I browsed job portals again and came across a couple of copywriting gigs. I decided to apply on a lark, because who would ever want some guy with a Diploma in Accounting, zero industry experience, and not even a blog post as a portfolio? Still, I sent them in, and in the extra info field I wrote: I don’t have the formal qualifications, but I know my Hemingway from my Dickens. They replied the next day—both of them. I had two interviews lined up upon my return. There was finally light at the end of the tunnel. Moving On It’s been almost eight years since that fateful day. I’m grateful to be able to pinpoint this turning point in my life when I began finding traction in the publishing industry. Turns out, I have a knack for writing, something I never knew I could do. I never even knew I could make a living off this skill. One thing led to another, and I’ve finally completed my first novel just a few days prior to writing this piece. I’m still way behind my peers due to the path I took, but at least I’ve broken out of the RM2,000 pay range. Do I regret anything? Sometimes. I wonder what I could’ve been had I taken writing more seriously from a young age, but we’re not all blessed with the luxury of hindsight. If I hadn’t gone through all that, I might never even have found this path. Besides, the skills I’ve picked up along the way did actually prove useful. For instance, I cut Tony Fernandes’ hair on my second day of work at AirAsia when he found out there was a hairdresser in their midst. That was a great experience. I still use Mandarin fairly frequently too; my current girlfriend and I speak it half of the time.

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Speaking of which, all those bad romances taught me to appreciate a great relationship when I see one, and that’s what I have right now. Every mistake I’ve ever made has played a role in who I am today, and as much as I regret some things I’ve done, I’d never change anything at all. I’m broke, but I’m not broken, and perhaps if you’re going through the same thing in life, you too can carry on fighting the good fight. What I’ve learnt is that you don’t need to be rich to lead a rich life, and there’ll always be hope as long as you keep going, whatever your pursuit might be. Knowing this makes the hard moments easier to bear, and helps you appreciate the good moments when they come. So, when you reach a point where you’re unsure of what to do, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And also, don’t forget your insurance.

About the author Stuart Danker has been a writer for eight years and he's worked with brands such as AirAsia, Malaysia Airlines, and New Straits Times among many others. Most of his published stories pertain to travel writing, though he prefers delving in the 'no-niche niche' as a means to grow his craft. His experience includes everything from writing radio ads to creating AI chat-bot scripts for websites. Having just completed his first (unpublished) sci-fi novel, Stuart is now looking to broach the world of fiction and beyond.

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THE UPBRINGING Azraei Muhamad “Mama, why can’t I have money like my friends? Like the good old days? I want to buy nugget from the canteen too. I miss them. The nuggets. They probably miss me too,” I remember asking Mama one fine day when I was in primary school. That was back in the early 2000s. Back then, I was a fatty boy (still am). A big, 60kg twelve-year-old. Friends called me Big Show, referring to the huge WWE wrestler. But funnily, I was just 20kg when I was eight. I was called Along Kecik at that time. Yup. 4 years, 40kg. How’s that possible? It has more to do with me discovering my appetite along the way. From kena rotan by Abah because I didn’t want to eat nasi (I remember this vividly because that was the only time in my life Abah has ever rotan me) to a boy who ate nasi ayam almost every day, it was a journey of transformation that eventually led to the following twenty-year struggle of me and my body. Is it a curse? Sometimes. But more importantly, being a fat kid forced me to be active my whole life—marathons, weekly football, swimming, hiking, scuba diving, cycling. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to embark on my once-in-a-lifetime adventure of cycling solo around Peninsular Malaysia in 2015. Well, that’s another story. You guys can check out

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“Kayuh Mengejar Horizon” to read about that crazy life-changing adventure. Anyway, back to this. My discovery of appetite actually had a lot to do with my money management education at such a young age. When I was seven or eight years old, being just a tiny kid, I had money in my pocket almost every time I went to school. I walked from home to school every day (saved on petrol there. See?) and usually had my lunch in school. With a younger brother and sister at home, Mama and Abah were struggling to make ends meet. Juggling between kids and work, this probably was the best deal. 50 cents. RM0.50. 50 sen. Lima puluh sen. Lima posen. Fifty cents in my pocket, and there was plenty to choose from. You know, the typical food choices at the canteen: nasi lemak, mee goreng, keropok lekor, nuggets, fishballs, all kinds of fried food on the long table. Kids in school uniform queuing to buy. And I remember the price back then. Thirty cents for a plate of nasi lemak (boiled eggs cut into probably twelve pieces, I think, because they wereso small but it looked good enough for a kid), ten cents for a keropok or a nugget, and twenty cents for a glass of air sirap. With fifty cents in my pocket, it was not possible for me to have all that. If I had lunch earlier at home (it was evening session for Darjah 1 to Darjah 3 students at my school), then I’d probably have the snacks during recess. But if not, then how? Therefore, before I went to the canteen, I would plan ahead and decide what to eat. A proper meal would consist of a plate of nasi lemak, and a glass (or probably a cup, it was not even a glass) of air sirap. And that’s fifty cents for the day. But as I discovered my soon-to-be bigger appetite along the way, I learnt that this proper set meal was not enough for me. “Mesti nak ada kunyah kunyah jugak,” I started to whisper. Plus, watching friends eating those looking-good nuggets and keropok, I wanted them too. Now hold on, you soon-to-be fat, greedy boy! Here came my first financial dilemma in life. When I was way younger, pre-school age, it was a lot easier. I asked for a toy from Mama or Abah, and the answer would either be a yes or a no. If yes, then happy kiddo. If no, then maybe go merajuk. And that’s that.

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But here I was, with the money, but not the ability to have everything I wanted. What should I do? Thus, the first financial lesson in my life: As humans, we can’t have it all. In economics, this is called opportunity cost. To have something, you have to let go of something else. But eight-year-old me only understood it as “aku ada lima posen je macam mana?” So, I could either have: a) a plate of nasi lemak and air sirap, or b) a plate of nasi lemak, a keropok and a nugget with no air sirap (just finish the air botol Mama gave you, you little monster!), or c) a lot of keropoks and nuggets (five pieces)! Make the most of what you have was the mantra I practised at that time. And I couldn’t be happier! I alternated my options within the week. There were days where I opted for the first two options, usually when I felt very hungry, and there were days where I felt a bit relaxed and probably just had some tea-time for myself with the third option. But boy, I was wrong when I thought I had it all figured out. Because later on, the greed in me began to reveal itself. I wanted more! Here comes the second financial lesson: Negotiation. I started to negotiate with makcik kantin. I told her that I only have fifty cents with me and I am so hungry. I tried to negotiate with her whether she could give me two plates of nasi lemak for only fifty cents. This is called bulk purchase. The more you buy, the cheaper the cost per item. Instead of thirty cents per plate, I could have it at twenty-five cents per plate if I bought two. With my cute and innocent face, I managed to persuade the makcik kantin to accept the offer. This sounds like a good deal, but this was when I let greediness consume me, and eventually turned me into a fat boy. But no regrets, as I learnt my lesson. And as time went by, I started to gain so much weight, I think my mother started to notice. And as my younger brother and sister were also starting to enter their school years, maybe Mama and Abah realised that giving me money was not the ideal solution anymore. End of an era.

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We now entered the year where we were given packed lunch, and no more pocket money. I was excited at first. I went to school having a menu none of my friends had because it was not sold at the canteen. Sorry dear friends for the bad attitude. It was egg sandwich one day, nasi goreng another day, or probably fried mee, whatever Mama managed to cook on that particular day. And most of them were healthier options. I wonder why… But then, I started to get bored. We always do. In life, we get excited at first, then we tend to get bored. We all want what others are having, and we tend to forget what is actually in our hands. Oh boy. 66

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Thus, the question. “Mama, why can’t I have money just like my friends? I want to buy nuggets from the canteen too.” I missed my canteen days. We had a good time. Why did it have to come to an end like this? Why do good things always come to an end? Mama was cleverer. The next day, she packed me nuggets. Always be careful with what you say. ‘Nuggets’ was just the illustration, but what I really wanted was the money to buy things at the canteen! But I can’t be too demanding. She is the mother. If I go against her, I will not be able to go to Heaven one day! Being a good kid, I just obeyed her. Until one day, the third financial lesson for me came when a friend of mine approached me. “Bekal apa mak kau bagi hari ini?” a classmate of mine asked me one fine day. I showed him the nuggets—or probably egg sandwich at that time— to him. He was so excited! I think it’s probably the egg sandwich because the next thing I know, he offered to buy my bekal. “Sedap ni! Nah kau ambik 50 sen aku, kau bagi bekal kau. Aku makan bekal kau je lah hari ni.” WHAT IS THIS? WHAT IS THIS MONEY? WHAT IS THIS TRANSACTION THAT IS HAPPENING? IS THIS FOR REAL? I GET MONEY FOR SOMETHING I DON’T REALLY WANT? MONEY THAT I CAN USE TO BUY MY BELOVED KEROPOK LEKOR AT THE CANTEEN? I took the money. And…I went to the canteen. The third financial lesson: Business. Oh my God I cannot believe I just turned Mama’s bekal into a business. I hope she will not read this book, or if she reads this, she will forgive me. This is called consideration. For you to have something else, you have to let go of what you have. In this case, monetary transaction. My friend wanted to have my bekal, so he exchanged it with his money. From my point of view, I wanted his money, so I let go of my bekal. But the most important thing was, he only got the food. The Tupperware my Mama gave me I HAVE TO BRING BACK HOME. You never mess with Mama’s Tupperware. Business. You can always sell something that is yours. You may or may not love the things you have, but there is always a price for everything in this world. In my case, fifty cents for an egg sandwich. 67

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Because in life, there will always be something that people want. Otherwise, there won’t be seller and buyer for a piece of stone/rock. I still can’t get the idea of buying a piece of stone, but that is the truth. There will always be a price for everything. From nuggets to business, and life in general, almost everything in this world involves money. And while (the love of) money is the root of all evil, the seed is the mismanagement of money. Money itself brings a lot of good things in life and in this world. Good food, good entertainment, contributing to an orphanage, almost everything in this world needs money. But along with greediness, bad habits, selfishness, corruption, and oppression, bad financial management causes more problems for people and the world. And do we blame others for all these? Or can we actually take the baby step and start to take really good care of our financial health, just like we take care of our own body and mental health? As we grow older, the price of things in life often go beyond Ringgit and sense. Some start to appreciate the value of their time that no amount of money can buy. We appreciate our time with family more, so that spending too much time and money outside starts to feel like a waste. While on the other end of the road, someone somewhere eventually sells themselves for more money. They start to crave for more power and bigger things that only a HUGE amount of money can buy— their Ringgit no longer comes with sense. They sell their self-pride to evil. This usually ends up in bigger destruction, both for themselves and for the world. Because as someone famous once said (Mandela or Ghandi, I can’t remember), “The world is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.” And on personal note and experience, I also learnt an important thing: Mama and Abah are the best teachers in life, especially when it comes to financial education. I am glad we talked a lot about money management within our family so that financial literacy has become our second language. I now urge our generation to start doing this too. It is a taboo to talk about money within our community, especially among Malays—but it is the most contributing factor towards social ills. Corruption, robbery, breach of trust, dishonesty, almost all of these involve money. And the 68

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next thing we know, we start to talk about money but no longer for a good thing. It is now our time to start the change. Be the change we want the world to be.

About the author Azraei published his first book in 2015. “Enam Angka Menjelang Dua Puluh Lima” shares his experience of reaching his first RM100,000 by the age of 25. Since then, he has been getting more and more questions regarding financial planning especially from the youth. With a mission to spread financial literacy awareness among Malaysians, one youth at a time, he engages with them through #FinancialGory. Occasionally, he is invited to give motivational talks and sharing sessions with universities, NGOs, the private sector, and government agencies. Financial stuff aside, Azraei Muhamad also wrote his second book, “Kayuh Mengejar Horizon”, to tell his story of cycling throughout Peninsula Malaysia. The 25-day solo ride was done in conjunction with Merdeka Day in 2015 (and also because he was bored with his life back then).

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TAXIMAN GHAZAL Catalina Rembuyan I once knew a man who advised me to buy stock in Malaysia Airlines. He was my taxi driver—an overall friendly, trustworthy, all-round good guy for whom I felt I could entrust my life (at least for two hours on the PLUS highways)–but for whom the world, for a time, had not been very kind. Since I can’t assume that everyone reading this would be old enough to remember how life was like in KL before KLIA2 was built, I guess I’ll give a little bit of background. Several years ago, the bulk of flights from AirAsia landed and took off from the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). It was a little farther from KLIA. Unlike KLIA, which is accessible via a direct highway and makes its presence known through large overhead signages and decorative trees flanking the left and right of the road, to get to LCCT you needed to turn into a tiny junction that would take you through oil palm plantations. If you took the wrong turning, you would find yourself in a remote area of Puchong or Sepang. There were rumours that some of the boys in those neighbourhoods liked to mark their territory with upturned nails. Another wrong turning would take you to an oil refinery. Compared to the roomier and cleaner KLIA, LCCT looked like a significant decrease in standards. A friend of mine from Canada once 71

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told me that KLIA was one of the finest airports he had been in. In the Nineties it was very possible to believe that. But LCCT—smaller, browner, and as elegant as a bus station—seemed to signal that those good times were over. LCCT looked, smelled, and sounded like an airport of a Southeast Asian developing country—overcrowded and packed with more people than there were available seats. Even though most of us knew that the reality of this big shift was simply the result of billionaires disagreeing with one another, it was hard to shake off the feeling that the country was so much poorer, even though LCCT’s Starbucks, McDonald’s, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and their local makan place across McD’s were never short of customers who were more than willing to pay airport prices for warm food to munch and a place to sit. The other thing about LCCT was that you couldn’t reach it by train. I guess this is when I indulge in a little exposition on history again—I’m old enough to remember a time when Malaysia Airlines was the only airline that had regular flights from KL to Kuching, and taking the KLIA Express from KL Sentral to KLIA was the default mode of commuting from the city centre to the airport. That was also the time when you could check in your luggage from KL Sentral itself. LCCT was, however, disconnected from these visionary transportation plans. To get there, you needed a set of wheels. This is when my taxi man comes in. KL is a different kind of city if you were born and raised there. So many of my friends tell me about childhoods spent in shopping malls and Sunday markets in Klang, Subang, or PJ, never feeling that they have a need to leave their neighbourhoods and never going anywhere further than Brickfields without a car. I guess if you live in a place long enough you learn to work out the routes and routines that you can build around yourself to make your enclave. But if you’ve arrived in KL from another part of the country— whether to study, to love, or to make money—the city becomes a test of your smarts and survival skills. You learn to dodge the bag snatchers on motorbikes by knowing what pedestrian pathways you can weave in, how to work out the safest way to walk past the druggies smoking in the fire escape of your rented apartment as you run down the stairs to catch the bus, and you start keeping an index of phone numbers of contacts that you need to have constantly on hand.

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To live in KL, a lady needs love, kindness, and luck—and the numbers of police stations, tow truck fellers, TNB helplines, dentists, doctors, gynaes, and thugs. And taxi men (or women, if she’s lucky). They’re very important. Again, I feel that (especially for those for whom night journeys to LCCT are a part of neither of their realities, past nor present) I need to illustrate how intimidating the journey from the city to LCCT was for a single woman. Getting the right taxi man was especially important if you needed to catch a flight taking off from LCCT, especially if you were getting there from anywhere within KL or PJ or Subang (anywhere in the Klang Valley except maybe Sepang) because the journey would usually take up a good one hour, maybe two. To one’s right and left there would be nothing along the road but secondary forest, palm oil, fields of sand that had formerly been abandoned mining pools, and newly-built terrace houses that watched the highways silently as though they were peopled by occupants who, upon hearing any commotion or cry for help from the roads, would draw their curtains and pretend they heard nothing. And if you (like me) were an East Malaysian whose pockets were not as deep as her homesickness, you’d often be buying the cheapest (and by that I mean the earliest) flight out of LCCT. The difference between an early flight and one that took off later in the afternoon could be a difference of hundreds. So, many times, you could be making this onehour or two-hour journey with a stranger driving you on a lonely road before the light of the day. And while most taxi drivers drove you from the airport to your home in one piece, that didn’t always mean that they did so in a comfortable manner. Once a taxi driver who took me from LCCT to my apartment swerved through the highway traffic so speedily that as soon as I reached my apartment entrance I stumbled out of the car’s back door, teetered over to an open drain and threw up. Another time I suspected that the driver of a taxi I was in was the kind who main jampi: he stopped by a river to dispose of a small bag of ashes, a ritual that I recognised to be a bomoh recommendation for eliminating bad fortune. Once I took a taxi that had a driver bearing what I thought was the logo of Tiga Line. So, you needed a taxi driver you could count on. Really count on. In many ways, you needed to be able to trust this feller with your life. And that was how I felt about Ghazal. I felt that I could count on him. 73

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The funny thing is, for someone who played such an important role, I can’t remember how I got his contact. It’s likely that I simply pulled his name card out of a stack and started using his services ever since I figured out I could call him. Or maybe I had gotten his contact via wordof-mouth. (There’s nothing better for a brand than for a woman to tell another woman that it can be counted on.) Anyway, the most important trait about him was that I could rely on him. He was a good driver. He never drove too fast and he always had a steady hand on the steering wheel, but he could step on it and speed up if I needed him to do so. He was not a very big man—he was not much taller than I and middle-age had shed some of his hair and widened the girth of his waistline—but his face was one that was generous with blessing others with smiles. He was friendly enough to make conversation whenever you needed it, and he could read his customers well enough to know when they preferred silence. I felt safe on my journeys to LCCT with him. I spoke to him in Malay. This was just my default; I prefer speaking to people in the languages that I guess to be the ones they were most comfortable in. But he always tried to speak English with me. We did not really converse all that often because very often I gave brief, onesentence responses to indicate that I preferred quiet rides, and the end result of that is that I can remember the very few conversations that we had. “Going back for Christmas?” he had once asked. “Ah yer, ye lah,” I replied, not wanting to reveal too many personal details about myself. Then, a few months later, I would find myself using Ghazal’s taxi services to LCCT again, but for a different festivity. “You are Chinese?” he had asked then. “Ah yer. Half-Chinese.” “Father’s side ke, mother’s side?” “Mother’s side.” “Oh. Sebab your muka macam not really Chinese like that.” “Oh. I ni orang Sarawak.” “Sarawak bahagian mana?” “Kuching.” “Iban ke?” “Yer.”

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And then several more months would pass before I would meet him again, for yet another Christmas. “Gawai tak balik?” he’d ask. “Tak, kerja.” Everyone knows that money is hard to come by, so he never pushed the questions further. Sometimes he talked about other customers that he had. There was another group of young people who lived in the same apartment blocks I lived in and whom he took to LCCT because they, too, were flying home for Chinese New Year. I knew that he made these conversations just for small talk, but for me it gave the additional effect of ensuring his trustworthiness. And now I get to the point when I may annoy a number of people. Whenever he drove me to LCCT, I made it a point to over-pay him. I’d arrive at the airport safe and sound, take out something past a hundred ringgit, maybe even close to two, and I’d tell him to keep the change. Was I being reckless with my money? Maybe. But I felt that it was a worthwhile exchange for someone who was mindful of my welfare. The going rate from town to KLIA was RM80, although most taxi drivers charged higher than that for a trip to LCCT. But if I calculated the cost of the journey to-and-fro the airport and town using the cost of expenditure in a car, that amount wasn’t very high. So I would give Ghazal a little more than his market rate. I knew that the life of a taxi man was tough. And I knew that I needed a trustworthy taxi man. So I kept using his services to and from LCCT. And I did so even after I learnt that there were new bus services that were taking passengers from major shopping centres in town, like 1 Utama, to LCCT. For me, it saved me one trip from my apartment to 1 Utama and additional waiting hours on top of that. And besides, I wanted to keep Ghazali around as my personal contact for a reliable taxi man. I guess I was being charitable. Maybe I saw it as an investment in human goodwill. But I guess even the most simplistic of financial advisers would tell me that what I was spending excessively. So when KLIA2 was completed and KLIA Express could take commuters directly from KL Sentral to the airport, I was among the many who took this option of travel. For me, it felt like the good old days were coming back, when you could get a bigger, nicer airport and you could reach it via rail. I mean, between the option of relying on the goodwill of

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strangers driving you around in their cars or the security of a solid train system, it was pretty clear to me which was a preferable option. And so, for several months—I think between the years 2014 to 2015—I did not contact Ghazal. From time to time I did wonder if I should call him up and ask him to take me to the airport, if only because I didn’t want to lose his contact. But whenever these times occurred I would rationalize it. What difference did my occasional trip make to him? Yes, I paid him several hundred every few months, but really, it was only several hundred every few months. I figured that my customer loyalty made no difference to him. If I could travel back in time and give myself advice on the little things that mattered, I would have told my past self to give Ghazal a call. Because after 2014 or 2015, I never heard from him ever again. There were many changes during those years. The MyTeksi phone app was becoming popular and I imagine that Ghazal must have been one of those who signed up for it. I also imagine that he must have been among the taxi drivers who felt a kind of betrayal when MyTeksi decided to compete in the ride-sharing market, eventually becoming Grab. I imagine that he must have seen the dwindling profits from his business as a taxi man, which was already eaten up by the high costs of licenses that he had to pay. When I did call Ghazal after many months, the voice on the other end of the line informed me that his number was not in service. I think many people would forget about their taxi drivers after that, but I still tried contacting his number, hoping to get someone on the line. Almost every time I attempted to call him, I received a notification that his number was no longer in service. Once, however, I heard the multiple beeps of a ringing phone and someone picked up the call. “Hello!” I said, “Ini Ghazal ke?” “Siapa ni?” the voice on the other end replied. “Ini bukan Ghazal ke?” “Wrong number lah.” And that, I think, was the final sign. Wherever Ghazal was in the world, I had no way of reaching him. He had disappeared from my life, and I had no way of knowing where he was, how he was doing, and if the multiple changes that would have hit his rice bowl in 2014 meant that he was still okay. 76

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There is another reason why I still remember Ghazal and why I still think of him from time to time. It had to do with the last and final conversation that I had with him, on what would be the last journey I took with him to LCCT. It was 2014—or 2013, I can’t recall—and Ghazal was particularly chatty and optimistic. He’d gotten into trading stocks. Like many people, I guess he decided to increase his wealth by developing multiple streams of income. But I guess like many other people, he was wary about financial risk. So he shared with me what stock he had chosen to invest in.

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“Malaysia Airlines,” he said, “it won’t go up very high. But you know? The government will not let Malaysia Airlines sink. Profit won’t be high. But Malaysia Airlines—the government won’t allow it to go low.” It was also the longest conversation I had with him, because we talked about the certainties of certain stocks all the way. And then, in March 2014, MH370 disappeared. It’s been several years since then, but I sometimes, when I’m at my desk working away, I find myself recalling LCCT and its crowds and congestion. I don’t know why. And then, at times, I also think about the people I associate with that airport, like the friends or family members I had picked up or the strangers who had shared the floors with me as we lay on them waiting for our early morning flights. And sometimes I think about Ghazal, and I wonder where he might be in the world.

About the author A graduate of the University of Malaya's M.A. in English programme, Catalina Rembuyan is an educator specialising in teaching English literature to secondary and pre-university students. She enjoys working with youth and has served in production teams for student theatre as well as organising committees for youth-oriented writing programs and camps. She has written and published poetry, short stories, and creative nonfiction in various Asian-centric journals and anthologies such as “Singpowrimo: 2017”, “When I Say Spoken You Say Word: Kuala Lumpur Spoken Word Anthology”, “Eastlit”, “PJ Confidential”, “KL Noir: Yellow” and many more. She has written book reviews for The Star and Eksentrika as well as articles for children’s educational magazines published by Asiapac, and edited Fixi Novo’s literary journals Little Basket 2016 and 2017. She is currently working on her first novel.

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THE INHERITANCE Myra Mitha Hands quivering, she slid off her gold bangles one at a time and placed them on the counter. The pawnshop owner’s eyes drifted lazily from her lips to her chest, covered as it may be with a scarf. Once all four bangles—passed down to her from her mother—were on the counter, the owner picked them up, placing them gently on a rusty weighing scale. A short moment later, he quoted her a price. Aghast at his quote and skilled with bargaining tactics from various clothing material bazaars, she argued with him, claiming that the bangles held a much higher value and accusing him of attempting to con a poor, innocent woman. “With all due respect, if you’re as poor and innocent as you claim to be, you wouldn’t know of or be at a place like this, ma’am,” he interjected. She scoffed, leaning over the counter to pick up her bangles from the weighing scale and turning around to leave, with a casual remark to the pawnshop owner, “I won’t take this sort of attitude from anyone. Besides, I know of another place which would give me a better quote. Thank you for your help!” Upon nearing the door, the owner exclaimed in a high-pitched tone for her to return, that he would offer her a better price for the gold bangles.

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His new quote was satisfactory, and she made her exchange within the next two minutes. Little had the pawnshop owner known that her brother’s family owned the largest jewellery store in the country, and, naturally, hearing them converse from time to time over the years, she’d attained a better idea of the value of jewellery. That, and the pawnshops she should stay away from in case the gold she’d been pawning off recently could be traced back to her. The too-large bell above the pawnshop’s doorway jingled as she left, head bowed from prying eyes as she made her way down the street, past several shops selling cloth and ready-made clothes, men’s voices beckoning to her, calling out their cheap prices. In the distance, she spotted her car and made haste, a growing worry crowning in her mind of being a single woman on the street in an area often described as dodgy. Her driver unlocked the car door as he saw her approaching and as she entered the cool Honda, she breathed a sigh of relief. Briefly giving the driver instructions on their next stop, she turned to look at her young daughter sat next to her, head buried in a book—just as she'd left her. She smiled to herself, getting comfortable on the custom-leather seats. She’s the reason I'm doing this, she thought, gazing out at the noisy, chaotic traffic. *** It was vastly more humid than hot at the tailor’s. She stood by the entrance next to the only solid table in the room looking out into the empty brown plot, with her back to the tailor’s assistant, who sat on the floor five feet away from her. All in all, the shop couldn’t have maxed ten feet. And yet he had been their tailor for as far back as she could remember. All the women on her side of the family still came to him, comforted by his familiarity and expertise. As the tailor laid out each piece on the table—on top of several other layers of clothes—she examined them, only to compliment and move on to the next one. “And where’s your eldest today? I haven’t seen her in a while, so I’m hoping the measurements I used for her clothes this time will sit right. I believe I last measured her four months ago,” said the tailor in his deep, monotone voice. 80

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Her eldest had made it a point to not come for this very reason, she knew. Having the tailor measure her only to comment on her waist having increased a few inches was a tradition she refused to be a part of. Instead, she’d rather continue wearing clothes which sat a bit too tight at her waist, constantly pulling the shirt down from behind as she moved. Try as she might to remain unnoticed, her relatives kept on criticising her every move. Of course, as a mother, it was her duty to defend her children, but how could she in the face of her own mother figure? It wasn’t her place to answer back to the elders, to question why things were and why things were said the way they were. Suffer in silence under the perils of society; compromise, since you must, were the unsaid rules. Waving off the tailor’s question with a white lie of her eldest being preoccupied, she asked for the receipt for all the custom-made clothes. Ten sets of clothes for the daughter still reading in the car, another fifteen for the one at home. It may seem excessive but she was unsure of when she would be able to have clothes tailored next. Not knowing when they would be returning to this country, and knowing that her eldest—who was the only family member not moving abroad with them—would never go to the tailor’s on her own volition, even fifteen sets of clothes seemed too few. As he handed her the receipt, she beckoned for her driver standing outside to help carry the dozen bags of clothes into the car. Cautious to not allow her expression to give her away, she briefly glanced at the receipt and dug into her handbag. Uncovering the envelope into which she’d stuffed the money from the pawnshop, she picked off a quarter of the notes, feeling a pinch in her chest, imagining it were a gold bangle she was handing to the tailor. *** She’d always preferred to get through the easy tasks first, whether with studies, work, or just chores. It gave one the feeling of being productive, and further motivation for the more daunting tasks ahead. This time around, though, the morning had seemed like more of a haze than anything else, productivity not in sight as she refused to acknowledge herself for putting this particular task off as much as she could, running errands she could have done later in the day as well. In fact, it was courage that she had been attempting to muster all morning. They’d even made a short stop at the bookstore after the 81

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tailor’s—to appease her daughter, she told herself. All to avoid the last and final stop: the house in front of which their car had just come to a halt. Muttering a silent prayer, she fidgeted with the ring on her engagement finger—her late mother’s diamond-speckled ring, not her initial engagement ring. The latter was long gone, since their home had been robbed a decade ago, along with the rest of the jewellery she had received from her family on her wedding day; her ears, neck, hands, and feet dripping in gold, sapphires, and diamonds. After all, what else was to be expected from the youngest daughter of a jewellery mogul? Their wedding had been nothing short of a spectacle. She shrugged off the memory of walking into their home that fateful night with her eldest daughter, then at the tender age of eight, and the fear that had gripped her upon seeing their main door slightly ajar and picking up her daughter only to dash back onto the street to their neighbour’s to call her husband; that was a spiral of loss and sorrow she did not wish to go down at the current moment. Other worries needed to be tended to today. Unlocking her iPhone and scrolling to see the various messages from friends asking for a piece of her time before her departure, she left the car humbled by their affection. There wasn’t a need to ring the bell outside the house. The guards stationed outside recognised her and allowed her and her daughter through, greeting them and moving on to chat with the driver. Walking past the two Land Cruisers parked in the front yard, she spotted two of the six flamingos which occupied the large expanse of garden looking their way. At times, it was hard to believe that not two decades ago this used to be her home. Her daughter had gone ahead and opened the door into the house, struggling to push its weight as a maid rushed towards the door from the main hall to help her. Discarding their shoes next to the door, she made her way through the hall, past the two open glass doors leading into yet another smaller hall. Her nephew was out attending tuition, so her daughter began making her way into the living area, novel in hand. “Please come and meet your aunt and uncle before getting back to your book,” she reprimanded her daughter, who heaved a sigh and joined her. Knocking and proceeding to walk into the room, she saw her brother lounging on the luxurious Barcalounger, while her sister-in-law sat on the 82

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bed, removing items from a Hermes bag only to transfer them into a brand-new Chanel. Her eyes widened at the handbags, reflexively wondering at the cost of each. Her brother’s family refused to leave the house unless adorned in designer items—whether handbags, shoes, or sunglasses; her cheap knock-offs bought from their last vacation in Thailand some four years ago paled in comparison. However, she would maintain the facade of pride, telling those who questioned her ways that she preferred variety, quantity over quality. Using the same designer handbag or shoes for months on end bored her, she would say with an air of nonchalance. They greeted the two elders and, grabbing a handful of Lindor chocolates from the glass centre table, her daughter took leave of the room. As she opened the door to leave, the cook moved to the side and knocked on the open door, a ceramic tray of tea and biscuits in his hands. Her sister-in-law prodded him in, and after a few sips of the tea and ten minutes of small talk, she began to get dressed for the class on Islamic teachings that she led thrice a week. Amongst the commotion of her sister-in-law's preparation, she turned to speak to her brother, who was watching the local news with a stern look on his face, his arm on the back of his head and his right foot restlessly moving from side to side on the reclined Barcalounger. They had never been close, their relationship shrouded by family politics, money, and pride, their conversations tense with underlying meaning. But now she sat across him, struggling to find the same words she came to him with every two years or so; in the same house, same room, knowing how the conversation would go, knowing the outcome, and yet finding it difficult to utter a single word. This time around, she was grateful for him starting the conversation: “So, how are the preparations going at home? Are your children prepared for the move?” Before she could answer, he paused briefly only to continue with, “I was quite disappointed that you sold off the furniture—what if this doesn’t work out, that it’s not like what your husband promised you and you end up having to come back within a few months?” He’d never had faith in her husband. Faith or trust, even— particularly after the last few years. But wasn’t it him who had insisted on her marriage to a middle-class man in the first place? Was he not the one who assured her that even though this man didn’t come from money,

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she could help him out, since she did? What was the point of her inheritance if not to help out her new family? And she had—she’d paid for him to attain his Masters from the United States while she stayed back here, working during the day and tending to their newborn daughter at night. Quarrelling with her motherin-law who insisted on keeping control of the household even with her new daughter around. The same mother-in-law who had, not two years before her marriage to her only son, commented on her weight while teaching a tailoring class, of who in their right mind would allow their son to marry a creature like her? A fine example of karma. Shaking off the magnitude of thoughts that engulfed her mind, she now answered her brother, reassuring him that she had accompanied her husband herself to Malaysia once he’d accepted the offer, and knew for certain that this was to be a new, promising chapter for their family. “Pertaining to this, I intended to come talk to you today about my allowance,” she stuttered, turning the ring on her finger three-sixty degrees repeatedly. Rushing her sentences, she continued, “While I was visiting Malaysia, I managed to talk to my husband’s friend and his wife to get an idea of how our finances may look like there and how it compares to the currency here. My current allowance doesn’t come near what they mentioned our family will need. Of course, my husband will cover the home expenses, but I need to be able to look after myself and my children; my daughter will be enrolling in an international school, and I’ll have to arrange for day care for the baby. I would work, but I’m afraid I’ve completely lost my medical skills since I stopped practicing once my second one was born, and apart from that my husband was telling me that under my visa I may not be allowed to work...” She trailed off into deafening silence, with only the static from the television in the background, the cable having gone out since it had begun raining outside. There was silence from her brother’s end, though it seemed like she could feel the anger emanating from his body. “I’ve told you before that we can’t keep increasing your allowance like this. Are you still a child? Why can’t you understand?” he finally said, his tone rising towards the last question, rhetorical as it was. Tears threatened and she looked for help from her sister-in-law, but she was busy by the dresser, applying a thick coat of mascara. “I know, and I'm sorry for having to do this. But I just need to make sure my children will be able to manage in such a new environment. It’s 84

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already going to be a big change for them, and the schools there are very expensive. I can’t compromise on their education.” Turning his head towards her for the first time, he mentioned that this was not the objective of her inheritance left by their father. That she must not indulge too much, that she had a son to educate and three children to have married and pay for the festivities, which was never an inexpensive cost in their culture. Besides, her inheritance was already being mined to start paying for her eldest daughter’s university and lodging here, and it was already causing a huge hit to her inheritance. A sadness rose in her as she solemnly recalled having to tell her daughter that they couldn’t afford to send her abroad for university, so 85

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as to be able to send their youngest child, a son of two, to university abroad once he came of age; a decision her brother had informed her of only after her daughter had received acceptance letters from not one, but four universities in Canada and the United Kingdom. “My daughter is already compromising; she was so upset about being unable to go abroad, it broke my heart, brother. I remember you telling me a few months ago that the apartment in Abu Dhabi you bought for me was to start being rented out. That, with the rent us siblings are receiving from the bungalows we own here, will keep replenishing my inheritance, I hope.” She then continued with her final argument, an empty promise she knew she wouldn’t keep, but hoped might be the final push he needed for a yes. “This will be the last time I ask for a raise in my allowance; trust me, I know you are worried about it piling up and putting a dent in my inheritance. I’m just as worried, but all I know right now is that I need to do the best for my children, and the only way I can do that is by giving them a good education and a happy childhood, if nothing else.” It worried her that her brother may not be entirely able to empathise with this; education for his children was a lesser priority for him, knowing that the business he will leave them will continue to prosper, that a good education abroad was already a given for his children, if that was the path they chose for themselves. Her heart was beating as loud as her brother’s voice had risen by now, as he answered, “I’ll give this to you, only because once your husband moves you away, you’ll be too far from me to help you out if worst comes to worst. But you need to do better. You can’t keep up with this behaviour; you must learn from me and manage your finances well. Push your husband to do so too… if he’s got it in him.” Her husband was already doing his best, she knew; moving to a new country was only for the betterment of their children. For him, it would be a downgrade from his own medical clinic to a university lecturer, unable to practice, to do what he loved. But intellect told her she mustn’t mention this to him. Gratefully, she gave her thanks to him, and they decided on a number far above her current allowance, his head once again turned to the television, which had come back on with the local news of the current bipolar weather. She went outside to check on her daughter, reminding herself that difficult as this may have seemed, it was still easy as compared to when her brother eventually passes and his son takes over her inheritance. 86

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Pride, money, and power had corrupted his mind at the age of twentynine; who knew what his state of mind would be in ten years? They would never allow her to be in control of it herself either, the youngest amongst the siblings as she was, and a woman—even if it were her right. And for this, she’d always be bending over backwards, making herself lesser in their eyes. Most of it was about respect, she knew. They saw her husband as lesser than them anyway, as money defined a man’s worth in their perspective. They never saw how relentlessly he worked, how he had struggled through his education, how different he was from them—in a good way. Family meetings her husband was obliged to attend were nothing short of awkward, her husband’s views, topics of conversation, and habits never matching those of the businessmen from her side of the family, as they smoked shisha prepared in the comfort of their home late into the night, talking about business and the upcoming horse races in a city up north. Her daughter complained of wanting to stay for dinner at her uncle’s, for the food made by their cook was an elaborate buffet every night. Apologising, she told her daughter that they needed to rush home so she may have dinner ready for her husband, once he returned home from his practice. At the same time, she wished she could tell him of her achievement today; but money and inheritance were an unspoken topic between the couple. Twenty years on it was expected of her to contribute, without a word. *** She’d finally settled her son down, hoping that he would remain asleep for the remainder of the flight. Her daughter had fallen asleep too, her finger placed in the pages of the book on her lap, her father seated next to her. Picking the book off her daughter’s lap, she took the bookmark from where it was tucked in the pocket of the seat in front of her and placed it where her daughter’s finger had been. She put the book into the seat pocket. Finally having some time to her thoughts, she tuned out the hustle and bustle of the other passengers and gazed out the window into the dark night, lit up every few seconds by flashes of lightning.

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Worry refused to escape her. She was leaving everything behind; her support system, her childhood, her friends, her city. For the children; it was all for the children. She'd held on for this long, ensuring their satisfaction and happiness at every twist and turn. And yet, it was never enough. It pained her, seeing her daughter being forced to compromise on her education, giving up on the picture-perfect dream of studying abroad. Her eldest did not know that her mother and other women of her generation’s lives were built entirely on compromise; that if it were not for compromise, she, her daughter, wouldn’t have been born. Perhaps, in this way, her eldest would be able to do better for her own daughter. That her own sacrifice would be the motivation. Like it had been, and continued to be, for her. The darkness outside reflected on her own thoughts, as she battled to find other options, anything at all which could help her finance her children and their life further. There were none. Quietly laughing to herself, she thought: unless I could somehow steal my own jewellery to make an easy million one more time.

About the author An apt case study of diaspora blues, Myra Mitha is overwhelmed by the qualms and woes of being Pakistani. She has been residing in Malaysia for a decade now, with a brief six-month stint in Brunei some two years ago. A writer by nature and nurture, during the day she works on humanising chatbots while by night she blogs at mithamatics.wordpress.com.

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WELCOME TO FINANCERE Suraya Zainudin Date: 15 June 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Welcome to Financere! Dear Marina, Thank you for subscribing to Financere, your personal finance coach. Congratulations on taking the first step towards financial freedom! Our goal is to make your life easy by helping you make the best financial decisions possible through big data and artificial intelligence. Our awardwinning system won the Malaysia Fintech Award 2019 and is supported by the Ministry of Finance Malaysia! You are enrolled in the Gold tier. As per your instructions, RM99.90 will be charged to your credit card ending with 8724. The billing cycle will start on the first of every month. You can review your settings here.

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Best, Financere team *** Date: 15 June 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Account Settings Dear Marina, Thank you for completing your profile and money quiz. You have chosen the following features:  Automate your savings  Automate your investments  Automate your bill payments  Receive notifications for financial advice and suggestions via email | text message You can review your settings at any time here. Note: Your data is protected under Malaysian law. Click here to read our full privacy disclosure. Best, Financere team *** [15 June 2019; 10.37pm] You: You: You: Aiman: Aiman: Aiman:

(hello emoji) Hey sayang You up? hey babe Yeah just watching Netflix Waiting for laundry 90

Welcome to Financere

Aiman: You: You: Aiman: You: You: You: You: You: You: You: You: You: You: You: Aiman: You: You: You: You: You: Aiman: You: You: Aiman: Aiman: Aiman: You: You:

Sorted out your thing? Yeah done-ish. Just need to wait for them to verify my account. Should get the notification by tomorrow The quizzes were fun. Was expecting something more serious but it was nothing like that! How fun is fun lol I mean It was fun-NER Ok for example. When I was creating my profile, it made me link all my banking accounts and social media profiles And I had to take a couple of personality tests I remember one of them is called the Big Five Personality test You should take that btw, it was very insightful And then by the time I got to what they call the goal-setting section That part was super fast It’s like they can predict my answers It’s a bit scary actually Or maybe my answers are generic Idk What did you answer? Ok example They asked what’s my financial goals right And the top three answers on the list were something like save up emergency savings, pay off my credit card bills and put some money aside for travel All my current priorities kot?! Lower on the list are things I didn’t even think about. Like an education fund for my non-existent children OUR non-existent children ;) Haha Anyway Lol sorry sorry I know you don’t want to talk about that yet My bad Financere sounds really cool sayang Right? They gave me a plan. If I keep to it, I will have 3 months’ worth of emergency savings, clear off all my credit card debt AND be able to take a small trip by the end of the year

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*** [16 June 2019; 6.30am] Good morning, Marina! We have calculated the safest route to your work location. Open Google Maps here. Accident-free drivers pay lower car insurance premiums! Have a good day ahead, Financere team *** [30 June 2019; 12.00pm] Hi, Marina! Based on your online activity, you have made 7 non-essential online transactions in the last 3 months from the following shops: Zalora | Sephora Click here to instantly unsubscribe from Zalora | Sephora emails Doing this may help you save an extra RM132.88 per month Have a good day ahead, Financere team *** Date: 7 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Refer a friend and get RM50 cash rebate! Dear Marina, Earning tip: Why not take advantage of our referral programme and tell your friends about Financere? Each referral gets BOTH OF YOU RM50 each in Financere cash rebate! Click here to get your unique referral link.

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Best, Financere team *** [Facebook posting - 8 July 2019; 5:17pm] Marina Samad is feeling excited Hey friends! I’m using Financere and it’s really cool! Use my link to sign up and get RM50 off your first billing! financere.com.my/ref/marinasamad *** Date: 16 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Upgrade to Platinum tier Dear Marina, Congratulations, you hit the 1-month mark with Financere! As a token of appreciation, we are giving you 50% off Financere’s Platinum tier! Get better financial advice for just an additional RM39.90 per month. Hurry, this deal will only last for 24 hours! Simply click here to enrol. You will get access to Platinum tier benefits immediately and only be charged in the next billing cycle. Best, Financere team ***

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Date: 15 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: 3 hours left! Dear Marina, Only 3 hours left for you to get the 50% off Platinum tier upgrade. We’d hate for you to miss out on this amazing deal! How about a cool 75% off? Remember: Financere subscriptions are eligible for tax rebates. Simply click here to enrol. You will get access to Platinum tier benefits immediately and only be charged in the next billing cycle. If you change your mind before then, you are free to cancel the upgrade without any penalty. Try it out! Click here to take our Home Purchase Assessment for FREE. Best, Financere team *** Date: 15 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Fwd: Home Purchase Assessment A, I need a new job before I can afford that condo :( Love, M

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[Forwarded Message] Date: 15 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Home Purchase Assessment Dear Marina, Please find the results of your Home Purchase Assessment below: Home price: RM500,000 Downpayment: 10% Interest rate: 4.5% This purchase will:  Increase your net worth by an estimated RM3 million in 30 years  Significantly reduce your monthly savings.  Add 20 working years before reaching retirement  Recommended action (auto-activated): job search. Please see attached your first job listing of higher-paying jobs in your field which matches your work experience and skill sets. This attachment will be sent weekly until you complete the process. Best, Financere team *** Date: 15 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Platinum tier benefits Dear Marina,

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Congratulations on your upgrade to Platinum tier! From now on, you may receive more notifications than usual – that is normal! Edit your settings or click here to browse actions you can take. We’re happy to help you lead your best financial life. P/s – Don’t forget to visit our award-winning Relationship & Money Assessment section. Best, Financere team *** Date: 20 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Relationship assessment Dear Marina, Please find the results of Relationship & Money Assessment between [Marina Samad] and [Aiman Lukman] below. Result: Incompatible Chances of divorce: 75% (high) Trigger points:  Mismatched love language. We identified your partner’s main love language as gift-giving, which is your least preferred love language. If you continue dating [Aiman Lukman], we recommend you activate action: automate gift purchase. Click here to receive a weekly list containing under-RM50 gift recommendations that your partner might like. Click here to send [Aiman Lukman] a questionnaire designed to improve gift recommendations.  Mismatched expectations. Based on your chat history with [Aiman Lukman], you do not appear to share the same desire to have children and experience motherhood. 96

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Different earning trajectory. Your skill sets are highly valuable within your industry and you are on track to earn 5x your income level in 10 years. Marriages tend to be shakier when wives outearn their husbands.

A detailed assessment based on education level, family background, health and value system can be downloaded at this link. Best, Financere team *** [22 July 2019; 3:09pm] Aiman: Aiman: You: You: You: You: Aiman: Aiman: Aiman: You: You:

Can’t wait to see you this weekend, beautiful :) I’ll pick you up at 3pm okay? Hey. Sorry, something came up I can’t see you this weekend Another time okay Oh. Okay. How about Wednesday? I’ll come see you during lunch :) Need to check Will let you know

[23 July 2019; 11:44am] Aiman: Aiman: Aiman:

Hey babe! So… see you for lunch tomorrow? Can take you to that place you like :)

[24 July 2019; 12:15pm] Aiman:

I’m downstairs, where are you?

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[24 July 2019; 3:31pm] Aiman: Are you angry at me? Aiman: Sayang? [missed call] [missed call] Aiman: Talk to me [missed call] Aiman: Pick up the phone [26 July 2019; 2:55am] Aiman: I don’t deserve this

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*** [r/relationships] Posted by u/throwaway2435_ms 2 days ago 2.7k upvotes Should I (28F) marry my bf (28M) if our chances for divorce is high? Writing this from a throwaway account. My bf and I have been dating for almost 3 years. We get along REALLY WELL. He’s a really sweet and considerate guy, I’ve never been more in love. My family and friends love him too. We have no immediate plans, but we’ve always assumed we’ll end up marrying each other. About a month ago, I took a relationship assessment from one of those big data platforms. And it turns out that we’re not as compatible as I thought, not for the long-term. The software predicts 75% chance of divorce. 75%! And now I’m at a loss. I know that there is a 25% chance our relationship could work and defy the odds, but taking that chance feels like gambling to me. The practical thing to do is to break up with him and find someone else I’m more compatible with, but I don’t know if my heart (or his) can take that. Yet maybe we could save ourselves a lot of heartaches sooner rather than later, before our families and possible children get involved. (That’s another thing. He wants them, but I’m still unsure!) I’ve been going over these thoughts over and over in my head and avoiding him (I really shouldn’t, but I don’t know what to do or what to say!). What should I do, reddit? Tl;dr – Should I break up with my bf now, to avoid a divorce later? ***

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Date: 28 July 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [No subject] Hey… I’ve been shitty. I have no excuses. I’ve said it a hundred times, I will probably say it hundreds more times, but I’m sorry. I’m truly, truly sorry. Please don’t contact me anymore. I’m not good for you. You’re right. You don’t deserve this. M *** [5 August 2019; 6.30am] Hi, Marina! We have assessed your Groceries and Eating Out related purchases in the last month. Your diet is high in simple sugars, saturated fats, and sodium. Keeping this up is not only expensive, but you may also develop health issues and incur high hospital bills in the future! Please check your email for our suggestions. Financere team ***

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Date: 5 August 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Health suggestions Dear Marina, We have assessed your Groceries and Eating Out related purchases in the last month. Your diet is high in simple sugars, saturated fats, and sodium. The consequences of continuing your current diet:  An increase in monthly health insurance cost  A reduction of monthly savings  An additional 15 working months before reaching retirement Based on our in-built time tracking feature, it appears you are spending a lot of time on Entertainment. May we suggest dedicating a few hours per week for meal planning instead? It’s a great way to improve your health and lower Groceries and Eating Out expenses! For your convenience, we have attached a 30-day meal plan tailored to your diet preference. Click here to automatically purchase and deliver all the ingredients you need. Best, Financere team *** Date: 10 August 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Save RM2,942.33 on your upcoming trip Dear Marina,

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It looks like you’re taking a trip soon! How fun! However, you’re also taking a big financial hit! Here are some suggestions to lower your travelling expenses: 

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Terminate your personal loan. Financing a trip with a personal loan is almost never a good idea. We can help terminate your personal loan on your behalf – click here to activate this action. Doing this will save you RM833.13 in interest fees. Select another accommodation. Your current hotel booking costs higher than the average cost of accommodation at the location. Click here to cancel your booking so you can select another. For your convenience, we have attached 5 budgetfriendly hotel recommendations in this email. Hurry, the free cancellation period ends in 3 days! Doing this will save you RM2,109.20.

Best, Financere team *** Date: 12 August 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [REMINDER] Save RM2,942.33 on your upcoming trip Dear Marina, In case you’ve forgotten, here are some ways you can reduce your expenses on your upcoming trip! Here are some suggestions to lower your travelling expenses: 

Terminate your personal loan. Financing a trip with a personal loan is almost never a good idea. We can help terminate your

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personal loan on your behalf – click here to activate this action. Doing this will save you RM833.13 in interest fees. Select another accommodation. Your current hotel booking costs higher than the average cost of accommodation at the location. Click here to cancel your booking so you can select another. For your convenience, we have attached 5 budgetfriendly hotel recommendations in this email. Hurry, the free cancellation period ends in 1 day! Doing this will save you RM2,109.20.

Best, Financere team *** Date: 27 August 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Job search Dear Marina, We are sorry to hear about your job loss. But keep your spirits up! We can help you! Step 1: We have auto-activated job search. Please see attached listing of high-paying jobs in your field that match your work experience and skill sets. This attachment will be sent weekly until you complete the process. Step 2: List of government and state assistance. Please see attached list of available help that you can take advantage of! They will be very useful in reducing Groceries and Transportation expenses. Step 3: We have auto-activated a repayment plan to help you pay off your credit card balances and personal loans, thereby reducing your total interest payments. As long as you don’t take on any more debt and pay your balances on time, you’ll be fine! You can do this! 103

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Best, Financere team *** Date: 15 September 2019 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Goodbye Dear Marina, We have taken the liberty of using funds from your emergency savings account to pay off all your credit card balances and personal loans. Your new balance is RM5.72. Unfortunately, based on our records and projections, we find that you will not be able to commit to future Financere monthly payments. Therefore, your subscription to Financere has been terminated, effective immediately. We wish you well. Best, Financere team

About the author Suraya is a self-employed writer, speaker, digital marketer, and the founder of the personal finance website Ringgit Oh Ringgit.

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Thank you for reading Money Stories from Malaysians Vol. 2! If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on the site you purchased it from. Reach out to me at [email protected] if you have any questions or simply want to chat about your money journey.

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