By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
THE night stalls at the Segama Conplex has been a iconic feature of Kota Kinabalu City for decades.
It was a favourite haunt for city folks for fruits and hawker good. It has lately been transformed.
I popped by hoping to catch some heightened activities typical of the area as the Chinese New Year approaches.
Sitting down for a plate of fried carrot by the same gentleman who’s been doing it at the same spot all these years, I jobserved wide-eyed Chinese tourists haggling over durian prices with local vendors exhibiting a fairly decent command of Mandarin.
And when a deal was struck, buyers and sellers joined in a hilarious chorus of wordless cheers as the durians are pried open.
It was a spectacle to which even spectator like me felt pleased.
The vendors made sales to happy tourists perhaps craving for the King of Fruits at prices well within their reach.
Me a Chinese Malaysian thinking the impossibility of such a scene across the water in Malaya.
Over there, there have been incessant calls for vernacular Chinese schools to be closed.
Learning the Chinese language is being discouraged.
It right before my eyes are examples of how the command of a second language helped, and how different my home state, Sabah, is from deteriorating Malaya.
I learned that 4+ million from China visited Malaysia each year. About 700k make it to Sabah.
If each spent RM2000 while here eating durian and exploring our beautiful multiculturalism, it translates into quite a few tourist ringgit.
Yet, in the middle of all the happy tourist laughter and talk of growing the Chinese visitor number, we have people talking down Chinese about their fondness for pork, and that they are a lesser people.
There are 1.4 billion Chinese people. They are moving and shaking the world.
If we don’t want to experience Japan’s fate of losing a fatal chunk of Chinese tourism dollars.
We should be just practical like those Segama durian sellers – learn to live with the realities.
A certain Akmal Saleh said he loved the Chinese. An idiot could detect his sarcasm and in-the-bone resentment of the Chinese.
I’m a Chinese. If I could, I’d like everyone to love my people. But then I wouldn’t give a shit if you can’t stand me. To each his own, AH
