By Professor Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi

When my Sin Chew editor WhatsApped me to write a special article for the Chinese New Year, I sat in my small garden alone for two hours staring into the plants and pool of water, silently contemplating what message I would weave into the article.

In my 20 years of writing in the media as a public intellectual, I have never written a Chinese New Year article before. I have always written a Merdeka article, a Malaysia Day article and once a Christmas article in The Star, but I have never written a CNY article before.

In this article, I wish to pay tribute to the Chinese people in Malaysia and those from Mainland China. I also want to give a special acknowledgment to two individual Chinese Malaysians and at the last part of this article, I wish to pose a soul-searching question to Malaysian Chinese about building a bridge across two civilizations.

I would like to start by paying a great tribute to the Chinese people in Malaysia and in Mainland China. The Chinese are a great and resourceful people acknowledged around the world for their tenacity, industrious energy and a strong will to succeed.

In the northern Peninsula, we, who speak Loghat Utara Melayu, would often say, "Orang Cina ni kalau hang lempak depa kat mana-mana pun depa boleh jadi kaya!"

In the English translation it reads, "The Chinese, if you place them anywhere, they will always prosper!"

The Chinese are great builders. In Mainland China, their engineers build the biggest, the boldest and the most fantastic engineering construction projects known to man. What was once a Western monopoly now goes back to the Chinese with its 3,000-year-old civilization of architecture and construction heritage.

These people also have the financial package that is big enough to build a whole city. There's one in Johor already.

Their military strength is acknowledged by their Western and Eastern rivalries.

What have the Malays built so far? I wonder to myself. Perhaps the Malays can gloat about the Kedah Lama Kingdom, Borobudur and the mystical Kota Gelanggi, but those were the days when the Malays were not Muslims and they spoke many languages of diverse civilizations.

In modern times, the Malays are known perhaps for an aeroplane they can't still locate and a scandal that has the Prime Minister in the dock.

In Malaysia, the Chinese were said to be masyarakat pendatang with their tongkang and kapal layar to "sully" the lands of the Malays to work the mines.

I wonder what happened to the Chinese who came with the biggest fleet of seafaring ships led by the decorated Laksamana Cheng Ho, a Muslim Chinese. Who were their descendants? Where are they? Ada kah tak ada? It was said from the history book I read in school of the princess Hang Li Po. Who are her children? Where are they now? If one exists from her lineage, can the Chinese be a pendatang?

I am a pendatang. My family hailed from Patani, Thailand, only four generations ago. My wife hailed from Minangkabau. Her great grandfather came to Tanah Melayu as a boy of 10. Both my wife and I are pendatang of barely 120 years ago.

Okay-lah, Umno says that orang Cina are pendatang because Tun M says so and they wrote the history books as such.

We accept this fairytale story and move on.

So, the pendatang Chinese built businesses, trades, and then started building schools, universities, hospitals, established cemeteries, factories, shophouses, kongsi houses, great temples, Chinese Assembly Halls, clubhouses and macam-macam lagi.

The Chinese did all that on their own. Their own sweat, their own money and their own tears and their own pains.

We the northern Malays are always right. Orang Cina, kalau hang lempak mana-mana, dia boleh berjaya.

Take the case of the chairman and owner of the university I work at. He started with RM2,000 from his father who helped him build tables and benches for his first computer tuition center.

Now, this man, barely a few years older than me, has an empire of hotels, schools, hospitals and universities.

I think if I were to live three lifetimes, I would not be able to achieve even a third of what he has.

I do not know of a single Malay who comes close to this kind of tenacity and resolve to succeed.

Of course, there are many millionaire Malays who probably have more money and assets but these are from political, royal and racial privileges.

I am not trying to belittle my own race but I do not know any Malay who can grow like the the Chinese. Perhaps there are one or two and I wish I could meet them.

My race are visionary leaders, courageous fighters, intellectual educationists, philosophers and spiritual teachers. In Malaysia-lah!

Then, there is Ebitt Liew. I have never met this orang Cina. He is a Muslim and in a short period of time grew a business that helps so many people regardless of their race or religious faith. A towering personality.

When I read of so many Malaysians down on their luck, especially those with children, I often wish that I was rich enough to help these people in this world and enjoy some 'kesenangan' especially for the children.

I wish I lived in a country where no child in this land of Malaysia would want of food, education and an equal opportunity to succeed. This includes the children of Orang Asli, Bajau Laut and other immigrant societies.

Their parents may suffer some hardship but that is life, and the children should never suffer the same hardship.

Now, that is a truly humanistic civilization and a nation to be called a home.

So, Ebitt Liew is a towering Chinese, not because he is a Muslim but because of his great kindness.

Now, I would like to ask the Chinese a soul-searching question.

After all that the Chinese have built in terms of businesses, institutions, buildings and bridges, why is it so difficult to build a bridge across to the Malay civilization? Apa sebab? Susah sangat kah?

When I ask this question, I would have to sit through a boring two hour explanation of blames on politicians, education, DEB, Umno, PAS….hmmm what else….quota system, extremist Malays and a lot more.

Aiyaaa..is that all? Are those really big hurdles for a civilization that can build huge construction and cultivate so many billionaires? Why can't you solve this simple problem of understanding the Malays?

Once I was invited by a Senator from MCA to attend a brainstorming session with Umno people on how to reengineer MCA for a new Malaysia.

This was after MCA was wiped clean from Malaysian politics!

So I came to this big house in Cheras whose owner was a Chinese businessman whom I will call Dr. Wong.

At dinner time, I was asked to sit with several elderly Malays who were all hardcore Umno stalwarts!

I sat and listened to their conversations and kept my peace when the lies began to sprout about PKR, Anwar and of course their favorite enemy….DAP.

But then the host appeared and jovially joined us at the table. He spoke excellent Melayu. He can even speak excellent Kelantanese, a language I pun tak faham.

He quoted pantun after pantun and named different Malay dish that I pun tak pernah dengar.

He knew a few Malay dirty jokes and I just smiled because I memang tak tahu. The Umno people biasa-lah.

After the astounding dinner, we all sat for a meeting and I heard Dr. Wong deliver a speech in an oratorical Melayu style.

I said to myself, I don't think I can lawan this guy in parliamentary debates in Bahasa Melayu! The only thing I can lawan him was on Islamic issues as he possesses the same level of Islam as those pompous Umno elders…which is nothing much.

I then asked my MCA friend who the hell is this guy? My friend said he was a successful businessman.

I said to my MCA friend, Kalau orang macam ini jadi pemimpin kaum Cina, orang Melayu akan tergamam nak bahas dengan dia. This man can change the whole Cina-Melayu relationship and turn Malaysia around.

Why the hell is he not the president of MCA? He is rich, he is handsome, he can speak Kelantanese and knows all the different Malay food as well as Islamic rituals and above all he is charismatic.

The MCA man only shrugged his shoulders.

When I left the meeting that night, I gave Dr. Wong my book, my salam and asked for his number so that I could have a deeper conversation with him.

But it was not to be. A friend told me a few months ago that he died of a heart attack. What a great loss to the Chinese and most importantly to Malaysia!

Thus, in this Chinese New Year, I want to ask the Chinese people where is your Dr. Wong and Ebitt Liew? Why are the Chinese not giving scholarships to Chinese youngsters to have degrees in Malay Studies and Islamic Studies?

Why so many doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects and truckloads of businessmen?

I also want to ask why are there no scholarships for Malay students to study Chinese civilizations in China or even do engineering in China? Why are Chinese students not sent to UAE or Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Jordan for Islamic Studies? You don't have to be a Muslim to study Islam. Do you?

If the Chinese can send 100 Chinese students to study about the Malay civilization and Islamic knowledge, and another 100 Malay students to study Chinese heritage and civilization as well as other courses in China, we could be building a bridge across this stupid divide that has caused conflicts upon conflicts for six decades!

Then, I also asked my Sin Chew editor how many Chinese newspaper are there in Malaysia? His answer was 'Peninsular banyak and East Malaysia lagi banyak!'

So, from all the banyak-banyak newspapers, how many have Bahasa Malaysia section? His answer, 'Tak ada-lah, Prof!'

Aiyaaa…the first rule of negotiating with another culture is to master its language and culture.

Should we have to wait another 60 years for one Chinese newspaper to have a Bahasa Malaysia section? Itu pun susah nak buat kah?

Finally, as a last word, if Mainland Chinese can build bridges and dams across their mighty rivers, building a small bridge of knowledge, values and faith across the Malay neighbors should surely be a feat of kacang putih proportion indeed for Chinese in Malaysia.

May Allah protect all my Chinese brethren citizens from the COVID-19 this CNY and help Malaysians to weather the greater test of forging an understanding and trust between all of us.

Salam Sejatera and Salam CNY!

(Professor Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor at a local university.)