Leaving my business

I have been in the mask business for close to 2 years now, and it is now time for me to leave.

There are various reasons for my departure, of which I will detail in future post, but for now, I would just like to jot down what I am feeling about this decision.

Scared. I am terrified of the idea of no longer having any stable income. The nature of a business, especially an entrepreneurial one, may oftentimes be quite risky and unstable, but the past two years, this business has become a stable source of income for me. I had the luxury to spend without too much of a worry. On hindsight, that was very callous and immature of me, not saving up more.

I have slight regrets but not too much. I never had much money growing up, so when this business presented me with the opportunity to live my life with less financial worries, I took it. I have bought things that I would like. Things that have brought utility and joy to me, and also things which brought me lessons - most important of which is the lesson to not simply buy things which do not bring any value. I spent, I gained, I learned. It's alright. At least I now know.

But it still does not remove the fear of no longer not being able to rely on a steady stream of cash flow. As I sit here, thinking about the future, my heart rate increased, my breathing is short and fast, my mind is racing with negative thoughts and worries.

I shouldn't be worrying about this. I should be thankful of what I have been given and move on to build an even better future. I should not be worried about not having enough money to buy what I want, because that is not an important concern. I will have enough to survive, and I must not be anxious over not being able to cafe hops or attend hi-teas with my friends because that is indeed not necessary.

Priorities, Audrey. Priorities.

I will be fine.

The Poor are Liars

Because of a previous attempt at helping out with some “social development” in a village further from town in Kota Belud, I came in contact with the leaders of the village. Almost a week ago, I reached out to them to ask how they are holding up at this time (Covid-19 health emergency, Movement Control Order etc). They replied me, telling me some of the villagers are facing shortage of drinking water and food essentials. They told me some government agency did went to distribute necessities, but some of them did not receive it, even when they need them.

I offered to help out, and asked them for a complete list of the names of people who are in need. The local church leader was put in charge of liaising with me. He told me there are around 135 people who are adversely affected, but 20 of them are in more hardship than the others – they need help the most.

I thus reached out to KB’s MP. She said her people will look into it but cannot guarantee provisions for all twenty of them. I offered to help fund-raise and was told that I will be updated soon.

I then reached out to my family to see if anyone is willing to, despite the Movement Control Order, purchase some things and send them over. My mom offered to ask around, she wanted to forward my message to her work group. But her superior refused her request to forward. He questioned the verity of the message, and believed that there are already sufficient agencies who are to be responsible for assisting these people.

My dad then called a friend, believing that they would be able to help, given their connections and better off financial standing. I was put in touch with her and forwarded the name list (in picture form) from the church leader to them. The picture was alas too blurry and I now have to wait for a clearer one.

One more day carrying on formalities may well be one more day hungry for those in need, but since I am not around to help, this must then be managed by whoever is willing to do so.

Throughout this whole process, from the day I asked for assistance from the first person even, I was warned that the villagers may be scamming me. I was told that despite how bad it may sound like, some villages have the tendency to take advantage of the kind-hearted – telling fiction of how they are so badly off just to get some money or donation. I was told to be wary and to just let those who knows how to handle these, handle it. And that I may not know the actual situation. I was also told that hey some of the villagers are still selling veggies the other day!

It is disheartening. At this time, many have lost their source of income because of the restriction of movement imposed by the Malaysian government. Many have seen a significant reduction in their income. Some goes hungry – having no food, or not enough food to feed all members of the family. It is depressing, it is hard.

Do I believe that some may be trying to take advantage of those who are willing to help? In normal times, maybe. At this time, not really. What I believe in is that many do not have enough. Some may have enough for a few more days, and none after. Some may have to dig out their life savings just to ensure they and/or their family don’t starve. I would therefore say if it seems like they have enough and if they are trying to win some provisions, then they are not adequately prepared for the current situation and thus do need some help.

Everyone is trying to survive. Some of us are luckier than others. Our salaries or allowances paid for even when we merely sit at home to flatten the curve. Others may not be as fortunate. Businesses are forced to shut down and many business-owners – owning multiple properties, driving nice cars, living in comfortable house, having substantial investments and savings – are screaming that they will not have any income anymore these few weeks/months. These are the self-employed with brick-and-mortar businesses are fearing for their finances.

Now imagine those self-employed, whose job is to rubber tap at their inherited rubber “estate”. Those whose source of income was from their newly started “tourist spot” (a river with several huts at its banks, charging RM2 per entry). Those whose source of income was from being undocumented employees of businesses which pay below minimum wage.

Granted, oftentimes, people living in the countryside usually have their own land to farm, so one may ask – are they really that badly off? Are they really going hungry? Does their situation warrant assistance from the public? Why don’t they just plant their own food?

Then comes another question – there are so many others who may be worse off than those who are currently said to be in need, what then gives the latter the privilege over the former, even when the former is still unidentified?

Never ending questions to ask and things to identify. By the time one is approved of being worthy of receiving assistance, how many days have the person went hungry or anxious about being hungry? Do we really want to keep our people anxious about their own survival daily? Does it not then create a society where one is scared of not having enough anymore and so at the next opportunity, try to obtain enough through dishonesty?

Theoretically, people are egocentric. We put our own interest first. But somehow, it seems like the public perception of village-dwellers and the lower-incomes’ is that they like to take advantage of others for their self-interest. That they will use any given chances to scam.

Perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves why.

I have a personal theory. It is that when we think these people are in need more than we are, we thus see the fact that they may be needy as possible motives for them to lie. We see those as “reasonable suspicion” for them to take advantage of others. Perhaps subconsciously, we gave them this label of dishonesty. 

Let’s retrace our steps now. We see them as liars – why? Because they have a “Motive” to be dishonest – why? Are we not being distrustful towards village-people or the lower income just because they are after all village-people or the lower income?

I understand the possibility of being scammed. That is always a likely possibility when one wish to act out of kindness. There may be many who may tend to cheat. The consequences of falling for these lies may be, among others, ineffective allocation of resources, breeding dishonest thus ineffective people, and may ultimately affect the development of the society. We say that for the betterment of the society, we will not want to encourage scammers.

I agree that we take certain steps to ensure there is no dishonesty, but these steps must be efficient, they must be those that can be fast enough so as to avoid unnecessary delay.

What I do not agree is the ingrained idea that the poor are liars, are stupid (see Aleeya Zailan’s comments below.), and are advantage-taking bums. Ingrained idea here refers to the automatic thought that first jumps into mind. The first response where we say "Are you sure this is true? These kind of people tend to lie."

We are all advantage-taking assholes anyways, what makes you think your kind of advantage-taking is better than others?

I’m not sure anymore what I am rambling on here. But thus is my thoughts today.

The Bread

Money has always been a problem growing up. We always have just enough - no more, sometimes less, but we make do. I remember all the times my parents (or mostly my mom) were stressed out and being anxious about not having enough at the end of the month. I remember my mom telling me, on several occasions, that she only had a two-digits amount left in her bank account. She was worried that we would not have enough groceries to last us through the month. She was worried she could not meet our insurance commitments. She was worried over the fact that she, at that point a forty-year old, did not have her own savings for rainy days.

We tried to save as much as we could.

We saved on electricity - never leaving any electrics on when not in use, switching off and unplugging appliances, switching to the most energy efficient bulbs my dad could find, not installing any air conditioning, etc. Our electricity bills were usually below RM80 a month, if my memory serves me correctly. That's a pretty good feat - being a family of 6 living in one house.

We saved on water - using somewhat of a "grey water system", except that it's manual. We fill up buckets and buckets of water used to wash vegetables, dishes, rice etc. And used those water for farming and gardening purposes.

Following the above, we planted our own fruits and vegetables. I vividly remember planting red peppers and chili padi's. Those were my kind of plants because they were easy haha. We had pakchoy, sayur manis, spring onions, ginger, pucuk raja, this thing called 丝瓜, pumpkin, winter melon, to name a few of vegetables. My dad loves planting fruits, we had fresh fruits all year round because of that. We had a lot of red flesh dragon fruits, mangoes, durians, papayas, bananas, pineapples, lychee, rambutan, jackfruit, cempedak, tarap, passion fruit, soursop and even had an avocado tree which sadly never bears any fruit. That may or may not be an exhaustive list of the fruits we had.

We had chickens too. They gave us good eggs (kampung eggs), and served as delicious soup when slaughtered haha. I didn't work on them much - I had always been tad scared of farm animals.

We DIY-ed things whenever we can. Dad would fix everything around the house and refuse to get someone to do it. To save for the construction of our current house, he did all the work himself with two hired helps, and on school breaks, with my brothers. Their unskilled hands are evidenced by the awkwardness of the interior of our house now. Slanted tiled, uneven stairs. Safety hazards maybe, but those are the hard work and savviness of my family. I helped out by painting my own room myself haha.

We almost never eat out, saving those for special occasions only. And the times we did, we would mostly go to KFC because where I'm from, KFC is cheaper for a family of six as compared to a conventional restaurant. We cook at home everyday, rotating between me and my brothers, and occasionally my mom or dad.

We shop second-hand, especially my dad and I. My mom always joked about how he, save for herself and the family car, only has second-hand possessions. I on the other hand love thrift shopping. I used to be extremely passionate about fashion and style, and thrifting was the only way I could embrace that interest.

And my parents drove old cars. Until 2017, my mom was still driving around a Toyota Unser they bought in 1998, and my dad drove an rusty old Mazda which really looked terrible, subsequently "upgrading" to a 1980 Datsun 120Y. I learned how to drive with the Datsun.

My parents wanted us to travel and see more, so they did what they could afford - bringing us to travel locally and telling us amazing facts and stories about each of the places we visited. We learned a lot through the experience - on history, geography, culture mainly. It was truly wonderful and I credit my love for history, geography and traveling to learn about the culture to how my parents brought us around.

Looking back, and typing these down, I have no complains at all about how things were (and still are haha). We learned to be savvy, and could probably survive living alone with no assistance from anyone. We always had just enough. Sometimes we don't, but most of the time we do. And sometimes, we even have more and got to get some nicer things in life! Things may sound quite bad, and life may sound hard, but I assure you, it was not. Things were okay. It was really enough.

I used to be quite embarrassed about our living situation, about how frugal my parents are, about how we are not well off. It wasn't nice. I was superficial. But I would not say I have any regrets feeling what I felt, because knowing that I had those feelings before made me appreciate everything so much more. And made me appreciate my parents even more.

At this point in life, I have had a taste of how it's like to earn my own money. And I finally realized why my parents were always so stressed and worried about money. I understand now why my mom was so anxious over the fact that she did not have rainy days funds.

Around this time is also when I realized that merely saving and being frugal will never change anything. It will get you by, definitely, but that is all you get. You stay where you are, you run in circles your whole life. Capitalism is as such - the rich gets richer, the poor gets poorer, those in the middle either stays forever in the middle, or becomes poorer. A handful advances to the higher tier. And there has not been any true socialist system for us to properly draw any conclusions.

I am determined to change the life of my family and myself around. I don't want my parents to be laughed at for never traveled much internationally (yes, it was apparently always brought up in big family gatherings). I don't want them to be ridiculed for not knowing things because they could not afford to even know them. Money may not be the only solution, but it is and can be a big turnaround for them. Thus, bread I will make.

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Entering university and somehow being around well-to-do people, I listen to all their complaints about how they are not as well-off as some others. 

I listen to them calling themselves middle-class even when they or their family members travel to various countries several times a year ("oh we just "budget travel"! Oh no, not hostels because they're uncomfortable. We stay in AirBnb because they're "cheap"! And oh we could only afford the flights because we have the mile points anyways!"). 

I listen to them denying their privilege by dismissing their or their parents' luxury cars as company cars even when the parents own (or are among the owners of) the company. 

I listen to them calling me rich because I'm making money through a business which I juggle alongside my studies, and themselves poor or broke for only (appearing to be) getting the allowance given by their parents. 

I listen to them calling themselves poor but still wanting to eat at expensive places, then being unhappy when we eat at some cheaper, rundown place. 

I listen to them coming up with many reasons just to deny their privilege.

Somehow, appearing "middle-class" or "poor" is a trend now. Hardship is romanticized and seems to paint one in a better light- a light which screams 'oh I got here because of me and me alone. It's all MY hard work. It's ME. It has NOTHING to do with all the privileges I have. Absolutely nothing. ALL MY OWN HARD WORK." Everyone wants to be seen poorer than they actually are but would they also want to BE what they claim to be?

(Thinking about my well-to-do friends back home, they don't do this at all. They are just very frank about everything and never even brought up any excuse to justify their privileged lifestyle. Maybe it's a city people thing lol. Good grades and outstanding co-curricular's are irrelevant now - being from "a humble background" and "struggling to get where you are" is the new requirement.)

Mind, I cherish all the friends I've made, all the people I've met regardless of their background. I just thoroughly dislike the act where these people even TRY to deny their privilege by giving reasons why they should be considered poorer than they are. Every time someone does it, it just feels like a damn slap to the faces of true-blue M40/B40 who actually went through the life of not getting what they need, needless to say what they want, who had to work ten times harder just to catch up, who had to work their asses off just to be able to afford an insurance!

Nothing wrong with spending your money or your parents' money. Nothing at all. What's wrong is denying the privilege. What's even worse is verbally trying to make yourself seem more "down-to-earth" than you are when your lifestyle suggests a damn strong otherwise. Any statements at all claiming that you are not as privileged are flat out lies. Posing as those from lower social class just to get things your way is stealing opportunities away from people of those class, those who need the opportunities more than you do, those who need the opportunities to SURVIVE WITH DIGNITY. As opposed to wanting the chance to make themselves feel better about their character or merely to add on to their long list of achievements.

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This log has turned so drastically haha, but this is what is on my mind right now.