melanie's blog

PUBLISHED!!!!!

I feel famous now.. wahahahahaha... (Shy only). So those in Malaysia, got read newspaper or not? Apparently the picture is quite hard to miss... :-)

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2007/4/29/lifefocus/17090262&sec=lifefocus

Wall of pride

The roll of honour on her grandfather’s wall is a good measure of how well this writer’s family has done.

By MELANIE WONG 

IN my grandfather’s house, there are many rooms. However, it is not these rooms that make the house special. What makes my grandfather’s house unique is a special wall.  

It is said the success of a man lies in the kind of family he raises. That being the case, this wall would be an apt representation of my grandfather’s pride and his success as the man of the house. This wall is the wall of “the graduates’’. It displays photographs of each smart-looking graduate (ahem) in the family in his or her graduation gown – and this is what has made my grandfather so proud for as long as I can remember.  

Wong in front of the many graduation pictures that line the wall in her grandfather's house.

What makes this graduation “album” more poignant is the fact that my grandfather is a man to be reckoned with himself – he is a survivor of World War I and II, a renowned Chinese poet and calligrapher, he heads a sawmill enterprise, is father to 11 children, grandfather to 30, great-grandfather to 17 (with another on the way). At the age of 97, I think his greatest wish is to see all his descendants become successful and live a good and healthy life. 

I am probably too young to know exactly when this wall tradition began but it must have started way before I was born. I remember seeing them in the old house and always wished for my own photograph to make it onto the wall one day. 

I would stare at those glorious photographs of my aunts, uncles and cousins in admiration, wondering when it would be my turn and whether there would be enough space when it came to me, as the photographs go in order according to rank and age. So, ever since I was a kid, I have been inspired to go to college and bring back a photograph of my own for that wall.  

Even though my grandfather’s old house has been torn down, we have continued the tradition of the wall in the new house. The photographs span 40 years and the newest addition to the line of graduates will be my cousin Jeremy who is graduating from the University of Western Australia. That makes 18 of us on the wall this year and marks an end of cousin Erica sitting at the tail of the line after a good four years! 

Next in line will be cousin Jun who is graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles in two years time. Will there be enough space for anyone else? Of course!  

Standing national crisis

Is Malaysia really a harmonious nation as it claims to be? Is there really room for non-Malays? I think its really time for 'wise' Malaysian policy makers to start thinking and do something to save the country.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/65421

http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/65420