A touching story

In an Australian school magazine I read recently, I found a sad story written by a young Chinese-Indonesian professional who seemed to be an old boy (former student) of the school. I was touched by the story. This is what he wrote:

"During the social unrest that swept the Indonesian capital by storm, I too, was one of those so-called Indonesian-Chinese (sic) seeking refuge in a foreign land. You can call me a hypocrite, you can call me unnationalistic. As a matter of fact, I had little say on the matter.

"Being a management consultant for a multinational firm with a foreign client, I could not afford to stay at home. The show must go on, and I was requested to leave as soon as possible. To Hong Kong. A former British colony that returned to the Motherland a year ago. A land of the Chinese.

"A land where my ancestors a hundred years ago came from. Yes, I blend in well all right. With my yellow skin and 'slanty eyes' I was one of them -- I was one of the locals -- I was a Chinese. Yet, to me, Hong Kong is a foreign land. As foreign as Trinidad and Tobago. Yet somehow I look like a local as long as I shut up and pretend to know what is going on. They judge me on how I look, not on how I feel inside, not on how I have been brought up... Little did they realize that I was born 24 years ago in a small mining town in South Sumatra, Sungai Gerong.

"But I will return to Jakarta where somebody will regard me as an expat. A city where someone will give me racial slurs because I'm Chinese. But listen, in Indonesia is where my heart is..."

JENNY LAURITZ KHOENG

Jakarta