More open house story

Had quite a busy weekend – went to open houses here and there. Actually, I only went to two open houses, but they were both indeed very memorable.

Saturday was mostly spent in Gyotoku where the good people of Takara (the Malaysian kampong in Gyotoku – the whole 10-units-housing-block is occupied by Malaysians) hold their open house. There were so many people there – most of them familiar faces I’ve met at the Embassy on Hari Raya, some from Waseda dai and some unfamiliar faces. Since all the occupants of Takara are JPA scholars, their shared-open-house invitation was also extended to the Embassy officers. And PTDs – be in the form of officers in foreign country or students on full-paid leaves – seldom miss on the opportunity to mix around and expand our networking, so, yes, even Encik Adib, the Student Counsellor from the Embassy, was present at the open house.

Kak Mai, wife of Pokcik, a fellow student at Waseda, once told me that if he hadn’t gotten the offer to work in Tokyo, En Adib would probably be in Tokyo as a PhD student himself. En Adib used to attend the same QA course with her husband prior to their coming to Tokyo and Pokcik told her that he never thought to see the person who'd always slept in the QA class to be the Student Counsellor in the Malaysian Embassy. They used to be equals in INTAN when they both attended the QA program, but here in Tokyo, since Encik Adib is the counsellor, there’s a shift in positions. That’s how it could be in the PTD service – sometimes even those who used to be one's juniors could one day actually be one's superior. One never knows – and yes, even those who used to sleep in class (or still occasionally doze off in class, I hope, heheheh) have their chances of climbing up the PTD service ladder.

All in good time, of course.
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The open house was attended by a lot of people - mostly Malay Muslims, some Japanese, and other fellow Malaysian friends. Three non-Malay students from Waseda Dai had a great time at the open house in Gyotoku. I’ve known Nicholas and Sing before, but it was my first time meeting Ronnie, a Mambusho sempai. Sing is also a fellow Mambusho scholar while Nicholas is here on a loan. His father put their current house in Segambut (or Setapak – I can’t really remember) on mortgage to support Nicholas’s studies here.

If I were to arrive in Tokyo last April and sat for the entrance exam then, chances are, I would have been a full time student like Nicholas or Sing. Sing told me that there’s another Mambusho scholar in Waseda in the same batch with us, Julian. The three of us were supposed to arrive in Waseda in April, but only Sing and Julian did, so I’d basically missed my golden opportunity to be a research student for only 6 months like they did. But it’s kind of interesting to note how the three of us seems to represent a muhibbah Malaysia – Sing, a Chinese, Julian an Indian and I, a Malay.

Nicholas, who had done his undergraduate studies in Kyushu, really enjoyed the open house to the max. He hadn’t been invited to any Raya open house for the past 4 years during his years in Kyushu, so this particular open house really reminded him of home and how everything used to be when he was in Malaysia. The food was great – the normal arrays of nasi himpit, kuah kacang, rendang, kuih raya. Then there were also nasi dagang, laksa penang (with ramen noodle substituting as the laksa) and mee bandung, but the top favorite was undoubtedly the pulut & kuah durian. Being a rather late-comer myself, I missed having a plateful of pulut durian, but I managed a small bite by nicking some of Sing’s.

I went back to Tokyo with Sing. Ronnie went back earlier while Nicholas’s stop was not that far from Gyotoku. It was apparent that the open house thingy affected Nicholas greatly. He confessed that while he’d known some Malasian Malay abang and kakak in Kyushu as an undergraduate student, he’d never been invited to any open house during Raya. And he’d never met any Malaysian officers in charge of student affair when he was in Kyushu. So he’d been more keen on identifying himself with other pan-Asian Chinese, crossing boundaries, without any nationality identity. His two best friends were a Chinese from mainland China and a Hawaiian Chinese, and he had felt rather comfortable with identifying himself with them, rather than identifying himself with other Malaysians.

The open house – the chance to mingle around in good-old-just-like-back-in-Malaysia-muhibbah spirit – somehow brought a jolt of realization to Nicholas, on how good it is to identify himself with fellow Malaysians. He never realized how good it could feel to be invited to a Raya open house, to be able to enjoy the warm ambience and cheerful environment once again, and he promises that he’ll try to hang around more with fellow Malaysians, and make friends with more Malays.

Later, however, Sing professed her suspicious that once the excitement has worn down, Nicholas probably wouldn’t be hanging around with Malay friends that much after all. There’s always the issue of halal food and not being able to go to izakaya when one hangs out with Malay friends, she said. Well, while the opportunities of lepaking at ma’ple (as in makan place, not the autumn multi coloured leaf) in Tokyo are quite limited compared to in Malaysia – I’m pretty sure that there must be a lot of benefits for all parties involved if Malaysians could identify themselves with other Malaysians regardless of race…

Hmmm...

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Sunday – was spent in Saginuma, attending an open house by the kohai, a joint-effort involving several students from various places and universities.

It was quite a hearty and lively girls-only makan-makan session. I’ve been chatting with Oja, the girl who invited me to the open house for quite some time now and I’ve met or known a few of the rest, often through the association of the 3 kohais – Hafiz, Faizly and Fahmi - staying in the same dorm with me in Komaba.

Being with the girls reminded me of how good it feels to be in an all-girls outing. That in turn, made me realize how I miss the company of some good friends. Girlfriends from my school days. Girlfriends from my college & University days. Girlfriends from DPA days. Girlfriends I’ve known and made friend with in the office. (Insya Allah, when I go back to Malaysia, I will try to visit and maybe hang out with some friends I miss the most…)

Oh, by the by, I met a girl who used to attend a class organized by my hubby’s uncle in Seremban. She’s doing training in teaching Nihongo, was back in Malaysia last March and had heard from a few makciks about the impending arrival of a long distant relative who was going to go to Waseda for her master’s degree in October. She was so excited on finally meeting me that she told me she was going to call her mother in Malaysia to tell her about our meeting.

Ah, it is a very small world, after all…