Jed Yoong

Christmas is my favourite time of the year. Even more than Chinese New Year.

When I was younger, it was even more hectic and fun. By now, I would be busy with carol practice and preparations for my cell group’s Christmas Gathering. Cell group is a small group of ideally 15 to 20 who lives around your neighbourhood and attends the same church. It helps people fit in a mega-church like FGA or DUMC, and allows church leaders to have more one-on-one’s counselling sessions while building relationships for fun stuff and support during the ups and downs of life.

After over 10 years of active church life, I disappeared from the bubble church scene to discover life outside church. Well, I am not a super-goody two-shoes but my life generally centred around church and its activities since I was 13. If you’ve met me before my time in the religious wilderness, you would have called me a Christian fanatic.

Anyway, this year, as my church attendence is still fairly erratic or totally absent, Christmas will be a quiet event with my family. And perhaps I will join my previous cell group for their celebrations or just on Christmas day at church.

In the UK, Christmas is almost madness. People get into so much credit card debt to buy gifts. And it’s so colourful, the streets are lit with decorations, people are in a generally jovial mood and looked forward to Christmas parties. I guess it is also less of a spiritual celebration but more of a tradition for them, like our Chinese New Year.

It’s a time for giving, forgetting the self and remembering God’s love for us. Christians are told that just as God forgave us, we should forgive others. The Bible — the Word of God — also threatens that if we hold a grudge, God will also hold a grudge. It’s this threat that spurs me to forgive minor offences and major injustices. Also, as I turn 30 next year, I realised life is too short to be consumed in hatred. Additionally, scientific research suggests it may cause fatal diseases like cancer, heart disease or high blood pressure.

Taking this view of looking beyond the micro and immediate future, I also realise that in Malaysia, life is pretty good. But this is also my greatest fear that I’ve been lulled into this comfort zone of Malaysian “bo-chapness” (Hokkien for “tidak apa”) that my life will slowly pass away when the world is still out there.

But I guess I am now about 80% inclined to leave because I believe my small efforts to stir some political consciousness among the cushioned urbanites may be in vain. Far from being a pessimist, I am also a realist. But I also believe in God, who says: “With man it may be impossible, but for God all things are possible.” It may be a question of faith.

Or maybe of fear. I fear for my life sometimes, especially writing about MIC and Samy Vellu. Or police violence. Or even exposing the truth.

I look at Lim Kit Siang, Karpal Singh, Tian Chua and Elizabeth Wong. They have been fighting the Barisan Nasional for so long. And where has it got them? To say that they have been completely ineffective is inaccurate. Without these brave, dedicated politicians and activists, who are also human and hence flawed, Malaysia may be in an even worse state. And really, I don’t want to be writing about the same stuff in 20 years time. Just like Wong Chun Wai has been most of his journalistic career. Isn’t it a bit boring?

Have I given up in Malaysia? No, because in God there is always hope. And in God, we trust while we act and look beyond this small dot of a country called Malaysia.

Blessed Christmas to ALL.