The Chinese are all rich? But which ones? – Nicholas Chan

Come to think of it, I am in a way a New Economic Policy (NEP) child.

I figure this is probably why I get very upset when people start making statements like "Cina itu semua kaya, kan?” despite clear evidences showing the contrary.

The median salary of the Chinese is only RM 2,000 per month, not to mention that the Malaysia Development Report 2013 had stated 86% of urban households (which the majority of Chinese are) have no savings.

If people are more analytical they should know better than to make sweeping statements like this. The assumption that the Chinese (or any other non-Malay races) should be left out of government intervention because they would still survive and thrive in a laissez faire environment cannot be more wrong, perverse, and racist to its core.

A part of me actually felt vindicated when Bukit Bendera MP Zairil Khir Johari stood up and said that not all Chinese are rich and poverty is not a race-based issue.

I literally cannot be at where I am today without the assistance of the government. The reason is I simply cannot afford to. So when people said all Chinese are rich, I have always wanted to ask, am I not Chinese?

It is even more frustrating when people automatically assumed you are from the upper class when you are Chinese, asking questions like “why don’t you get your bachelor’s degree overseas” as if it is a birth right.

This comes from people both within and outside my communal group.

To clarify, I did not grow up in poverty. But neither was I “rich”. Both of my parents have no significant enterprise behind them (personal or generational) and the only physical asset we have is the single-storey terrace house we affectionately call home until today.

The fact is, financial strains were always present during my childhood. We literally have to break our piggy banks for whatever we can find to help us across those difficult junctures.

I still remember those nights when I have to gather my sisters for a meeting when we got wind that our father is going to be jobless soon, charting out plans to reduce our spending (like using less electricity and water) and save some of our pocket money to give back to our parents.

It was no doubt an exercise in futility for us as schoolchildren but it shows that we were never naïve about our financial or even social standing.

Like any less affluent family, what we yearned for is not to be millionaires, but to gain social upward mobility, so that we as the next generation could enjoy better living standards than the previous.

In this sense, I think I can pretty much relate to any average or poor family, Malay or Indian. All of us have great stakes ahead. We can’t afford to slip through the cracks because there is nothing catching us in the bottom.

Perhaps that is why my parents insisted that their children should all attend universities. They deemed it a “mistake” that their parents didn’t send them to college back in their days, but the truth is, their parents cannot afford it.

And by their own income, they still wouldn’t be able to afford ours without public universities (IPTAs) and study loans like PTPTN.

That is why I look with aghast on the privatisation drive of higher education in the 1990s because these institutions were often cited as the answer for the Chinese complaining not being able to enter IPTAs.

But how can they be (most of them, at least) with those prices that are a few times higher than the price in IPTAs? Which Chinese is the government talking about?

I still remember the day when my dad and I walked out with our heads down after an enquiry session in one of the private colleges because the cost of it is way out of reach.

It shook my belief that education is an inherent right, given to those whom have worked hard to qualify for it. Until this day, I still can’t hide my disgust about how education, supposedly an instrumental for social improvement, was turned into a vehicle for profit.

With little choice left, you can say that I hedged all my bets in getting into at least an IPTA, if better, a government scholarship for an education abroad.

As someone who endeared learning very much, I simply could not resist the temptation of attending a world-class university.

This ambition has been the driving force for me since my upper secondary years. I need to make sure that not only I get a scholarship, but I am most qualified for it. It didn’t help when you are repeatedly being told that not having the correct skin colour might make the endeavour even more challenging.

In some way, I did rise up to the challenge, finally being able to secure a government scholarship to a reputable university overseas to do my master's. And it has changed my life since.

Nevertheless, the point of writing this is not about me. This is the story about a Chinese student whom by merit had also relied on programmes that are affirmative in nature. 

I, too, have benefited from programmes that stemmed from the NEP. I was picked to go to matriculation colleges that enabled easy access to the IPTA.

I managed to get my scholarship at the third attempt. As a once rejected full-A student, I can only say the prospect of getting a government scholarship is an odd mix of effort and luck.

I am relaying a personal story instead of my usual analysis because I want people to imagine what would happen to those coming from the same or worse background than I do but denied the opportunity.

It is safe to say I wouldn’t be at my position now without these hard-earned lucky breaks. Still not rich by any standards, but I have enough to make my own luck.

I claimed an element of luck for my blessings because I have heard and personally knew similarly qualified people (academically and income level wise) who were shut out of the system. Many had to go through the more daunting STPM but denied their primary choice of study, let alone the opportunity to go to a world-class university.

And I am not just talking about the doctor wannabes who often get into the newspapers. There are also the aspiring engineers and accountants whose cases were not highlighted simply because their results just weren’t stellar enough to warrant any attention, never mind the fact that they are perfectly qualified for admission.

These people are forgotten and had only their socioeconomic (or even ethnic) background to blame. They worked hard but ultimately, couldn’t strike the lottery, losing the opportunity of a lifetime to realise their potential, for themselves and the country.

I genuinely worry for them, no matter what their race is, as socioeconomic status has again and again been proven by research to be a major determinant of life chances.

I might once be jealous before of my Bumiputera friends, who had a lot more opportunities than I do for upward mobility, like those scholarships I might never qualified for being in the wrong race, but now I no longer am.

For I understand their struggle is the same as mine, to pursue social upward mobility and to close down the gap that is forever menacing for us not born with a silver spoon.

I am happy as long as someone made it through the socioeconomic barrier. The focus should be on those who don’t.

Expecting camaraderie from my fellow Malaysians who are also facing the class struggle, I was no doubt hurt when Perkasa and their likes pointed out that government policy should not benefit the Chinese because they are already rich.

Again, which Chinese? Is the price of a few Chinese success story a total overlook of those less fortunate from the community?

The delusional stereotype that a Chinese must by default be successful on their own feet, is to me, a curse and an insult, not a compliment.

The Chinese need affirmative action, too (also judged by merit of course) so that some of the less well-off can catch up.

It is understood the system might not be able to help everyone. But to deny an entire race of assistance due to caricatures and stereotypes seems like just one step away from stripping them of their citizenship.

A recent famous book that is themed around Malaysia’s inequality is named “the colour of inequality”. I by first-hand know it clearly that inequality should never be distinguished by colour. – December 1, 2014.

* Nicholas Chan reads The Malaysian Insider.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.