THERE are, I have discovered, two kinds of people in this world: those who keep their opinions to themselves, and those who write newspaper columns. I shall let you decide which category I belong to.
Welcome to “From Where I Stand”, a small corner of the newspaper where I intend to look at the things that catch my attention, amuse me, bother me or, on occasion, send me down a rabbit hole from which I emerge several hours later knowing considerably more about something I had no intention of researching.
This may be unfortunate for the people around me.
It may, however, be useful to readers.
I have always been curious about people and the strange little things we do. Why do we behave the way we do? Why do we accept certain things simply because they have always been done that way? Why are some things considered perfectly normal when, upon closer inspection, they are actually rather odd?
And why does everyone suddenly become an expert the moment a subject is mentioned?
These are the sorts of questions that tend to occupy my mind. Some are serious. Others are decidedly less so. I make no promises about which will appear more often.
Perhaps my perspective is also shaped by having lived in more than one place. I grew up in Sarawak, spent 13 years living in Australia and eventually found my way back home. Living away gave me a different view of where I came from, while returning home made me realise that distance has a rather curious way of making familiar things look different.
Something that once seemed completely ordinary can suddenly become fascinating when you have not seen it for years.
Of course, living elsewhere also teaches you that every place has its peculiarities.
Australians have theirs.
Sarawakians certainly have ours.
And the rest of the world has enough to keep us occupied for quite some time.
I am interested in all of it.
That does not mean every column will be about Sarawak. Some may be. Others may take us somewhere much further away.
A story might begin in Kuching, wander through Kuala Lumpur and somehow end up in London, New York or somewhere I have never even visited.
Curiosity, after all, is notoriously bad at following an itinerary.
As a journalist, I suppose I have made matters worse for myself. Asking questions for a living has given me the unfortunate habit of questioning things that perfectly sensible people would probably leave alone.
It has also made me notice things.
You notice the way people speak, the things they avoid saying and the little contradictions in everyday life. You notice how someone can complain for 20 minutes about something and then defend it passionately when somebody else criticises it.
You notice how everyone claims not to like gossip but somehow knows exactly what happened to the neighbour’s cousin’s friend’s marriage.
Human beings are fascinating creatures.
Occasionally, we are also quite ridiculous.
I include myself in this assessment.
Perhaps that is why I enjoy journalism. Every assignment gives me an opportunity to see the world through somebody else’s eyes. One day I might be speaking to a politician about a major development; the next, I might be talking to an elderly person about a life that looks completely different from mine.
Both conversations can teach you something.
A road, for example, is never just a road.
On a map, it is a line connecting two places. In a government document, it is a project with a budget, a timeline and, very often, an acronym that nobody remembers five minutes later.
But to the people living at the end of it, that road can mean being able to get their children to school more easily. It can mean getting crops to market, reaching a clinic, visiting relatives or simply knowing that the journey home will no longer depend on the weather.
The same can be said of a bridge.
Most of us drive across one without giving it a second thought. Perhaps we notice the view. Perhaps we complain about traffic. Perhaps we are already thinking about lunch.
But for someone who has spent years depending on a boat to cross a river, that bridge can represent something far greater. It can change how a community travels, works, studies and connects with the outside world.
And then there is the river.
To a visitor, it may simply be beautiful scenery.
To someone who grew up beside it, it may be where they learned to swim, where their family travelled, where they fished, where they played as children or where generations before them built their lives.
Listen to enough people and ordinary things begin to reveal their hidden stories.
A road becomes a journey.
A bridge becomes a connection.
A river becomes a memory.
That is one of the things I have come to appreciate about journalism. The more people you meet, the harder it becomes to believe there is only one way of seeing the world.
And that is what I hope to explore here.
Not necessarily the biggest story of the day, because there are plenty of places for that. I am more interested in what sits around the story: the human behaviour, the strange detail, the historical connection, the question nobody thought to ask, the thing that made me laugh or the thing that made me stop and wonder.
There will be opinions, naturally.
I apologise in advance.
Although, to be fair, you have been warned.
I also reserve the right to change my mind. If new information changes my perspective, then my perspective will change.
There is no particular virtue in stubbornly defending an opinion simply because one has already announced it to the world.
We live in an age where someone can form an opinion at 9 am, announce it online at 9.05 am and spend the rest of the day defending it, only to discover at 9.30 am that they had misunderstood the entire story.
I would rather keep an open mind.
Besides, being wrong occasionally is probably unavoidable.
I also hope this column can make you laugh.
There is enough seriousness in the world. Enough outrage. Enough people shouting at one another through screens.
Sometimes we need to laugh at ourselves, particularly because we are often unintentionally funny.
Sarawak alone provides enough material to keep a person occupied for years, but the rest of the world is hardly short of material either.
There is no shortage of human behaviour worth observing.
As for what comes next, there is no rigid formula. One week might take us into history. Another might look at something happening somewhere in the world. I might write about people, culture, technology, travel, ageing, society, politics, food or simply something I encountered during an ordinary day that refused to leave my mind.
The subject may change.
The perspective will remain.
From where I stand.
I do not want this to feel like a lecture. I would rather it feel like a conversation over coffee, where we can disagree, laugh about it and still order another cup.
Perhaps that is what a good column should do.
Not tell you what to think, but give you something to think about.
So, dear readers, this is where we begin. I have been observing, thinking, asking questions and, yes, forming the occasional opinion along the way.
Welcome to “From Where I Stand”.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune.
