The past few days were not regular days for me. The second summer session is finishing and I had to drag myself to finish up the last history homework and the take-home final. Professor Kats gave us a treat of pizzas and sodas for class today. I had to make my presentation on Byzantine Empire and it's cultural legacy. Hassan wrapped up the class by making a presentation on Malaysia. Professor Kat is very fond of Malaysian students. I suppose he has met many of us from the previous semesters that he had thought. This session had altogether 12 Malaysians for him. He kept mentioning about Malaysia at least once a week throughout the 6-week period. He commented on its diverse culture and traditionalism despite being developing nation as well. He said many electronics products here in the United States are manufactured in Malaysia.

I had a conversation with Irwan's landlord yesterday. He was a very talkative old man who digressed from giving Irwan advice on safety rules in his rented apartment to talking about Malaysia and state of steel workers. Like Professor Kats, he comented on the many electronic products manufactured on Malaysia. However, I am not that particularly proud of this fact for many of these products, perhaps all, are of Japanese companies who took advantage of the cheap wages in our country. Have we benefited from the foreign investments especially in the industrial areas of Shah Alam and Penang? Perhaps economically but I doubt it would a long term one. Malaysians are hired as blue-collared workers. I doubt there will be transfer of technologies as what some may have expected. Other companies such as Dell and Intel have massive operations in Penang but there is very little significant R&D going on over there.



How much more educated can the Malaysian society be? We had thrived through our cheap labor but that was simple human capital that did not require any advanced knowledge in maths or science. I've been reading my world history book especially on the topic on how Russia and Japan emerged to be industrialized nations. Japan in particular had selective Westernization which kept certain Confucian values. Education is given top priority so literacy rate was among the highest in the world. There seem to be a recipe for this success. I suppose many Malaysian leaders and politics have encountered similar readings on the successes of other nations but I am not really sure how are they working on it. The Prime Minister addressed the matter of having a knowledge-based labor force. He spoke on it inspiringly but I am not certain on how much work has he and his government has put on it. It is true also that the efforts come from the people.



As I grew up, my friends and I grew more matured. We once limited discussion to matters of entertainment like toys, sports and games. I've been discussing a lot about the state of our country with my friends especially with my fellow scholars who I've been living, eating and studying with for the past 2 years. They came up with ideals on how this country should be run. They came up with critiques especially on the education system. Professor Kats mentioned last week that it is good for the young ones to be dreamers as whether we like or not, everyone has to go through certain changes in life. The ability of being able to dream fits the ability of being able to adapt to changes. Anyway, I do pray that with all these ideals and dreams hope for a nation so unique and culturally diverse like Malaysia, come great actions. Haha. Sounds like Spider-man.