Since I was five, one of my foremost ambitions was to go to university abroad and graduate with an undergraduate degree. Where I would do so, what I would graduate in, and how the quarter of a million ringgit bill would be managed were hazy details, and it was left to me only to dream about preppy pants and regalia.
At 22, I graduated with an undergraduate degree in Human Resource Management from the Simon Fraser University, my parents' alma mater. I had worn the preppy pants and now, the first woman on my father's side of the family to do so, I wore the regalia. The only problem was that I was graduating into a horrendous recession, which turned into a horrendous depression, and there I was in Canada, without a job.
As a former international student, there was the option of returning home. Other students from China and Hong Kong were flocking back to search for jobs in their fields, not only because of the slumped job market in British Columbia, but because it had been their plan to do so since the day they commenced university.
If you've never tried this, you should: use a search engine and ascertain the inclinations of Malaysians who are international students - whether their leanings are towards returning home or towards staying put, hopefully to gain citizenship abroad.
You will find that the leaning is overwhelmingly in the latter direction. If I inquire after the reasons my Chinese friends return home, or why the European population up and leaves after convocation, or why the American students migrate permanently back south, they say their families are back there, or the job market is still hopeful, or they are simply tired of the notorious Vancouver rain.
Perhaps it doesn't rain nine months of the year in Melbourne, or Wichita, or Leeds, but certainly our Malaysian families are at home, certainly the job market isn't more crumbly there than it is in those respective places. Why then are Malaysian students so reluctant to be Malaysians in Malaysia?
Some of us are aware that racial politics plays huge roles in the retention and the climb from cubicle spot to corner office and are worried that in our fields, we will fail to accomplish our dreams because of ‘the system.' A few are plain bourgeois and know that Malaysian compensation cannot match the dollars or pounds from abroad. We also find we like living in countries that embrace lifestyle choices like cycling to work and recycling at work.
We like actually seeing the stars instead of learning constellations online, and we admire the communities that share gardens and support their local schools. And we can always fly home once a year to bless our parents and eat at the mamak stall again.
The more foresighted of us know that educating our children abroad will breed superiorly knowledgeable, skilled, read, and widely-exposed students than we ourselves were. Also, we don't want to pay again the international fees we had to pay, because we will, inevitably, want to educate our children in Melbourne or Wichita or Leeds.
The children in Vancouver have access to resources that I never dreamed of, even though I was a student in one of the largest Malaysian cities. Imagine the comparison to our rural schoolchildren.
Job-hunting for months gave me the time to think deeply about home, and my peers who were graduating one by one, and opting to stay where they were. Even if this depression drives many of us home, the ‘brain drain' will continue the moment economies recover, and the lousy retention of young men and women in Malaysia will continue to the detriment of every industry in our country.
We have world-class education, we are volunteering and working overseas, we are gaining knowledge, skills and abilities from developed nations nut there is no place for us at home. The ones who did graduate at home are eyeing placements abroad.
Some will call us selfish, but I say we are patriotic enough. If I dream aloud of revamping the public education system, friends who are future tycoons pledge funds, old classmates who are in masters programs critique and encourage, I for one will return home when my visa expires, and I will stay home.
I do this, and others who plan similarly to me, because we are looking down the long road of propagating policy change, volunteering with students, starting non-government organisations, staying in the same income bracket for most of our lives, paying the alarming international student fees for our children, toiling in parent-teacher associations, and elbow-greasing our way to donations for better libraries and community facilities.
In short, picking a fight with ‘the system' our whole lives. The ones who just want a normal life void of all this thankless fuss and labour will simply gain it in Melbourne or Wichita or Leeds, and come home for the occasional ‘maggi goreng.