"So you are planning to go back to Malaysia?"

I nodded.

"Where do you want to work?"

"My mom wants me to work in KL. Almost everyone in my family is there right now," I replied, remembering the conversation I had with her a few nights ago.

"KL... it is so noisy. Not for me. I boarded an Air Asia plane from Perth to KL. Then I took the bus to the city. I didn't see a single Malaysian. Everyone was a foreigner... speaking in five, six languages that I don't understand. They are not tourists, you know. I don't mind tourists. But they are foreign workers - Pakistani, Bangla..."

I was listening, but I couldn't understand him because the irony was plain for me to see. Here he is, a foreigner in Australia complaining about the foreigners in Malaysia. If I were an Australian with his outlook on people, then I would see him as nothing but an opportunistic international student who is taking our jobs, our tax money and our women.

It is unfair to the foreign workers in Malaysia. They are just trying to earn money to send home. Somewhere in our Malaysian lineage, we have at least one ancestor who was a migrant. To look upon foreign workers with contempt is to look upon our histories, ourselves with contempt.