Our Heart Are The Shapes of Malaysia

August 17, I was invited by a friend of mine to her church event at Bandar Sunway.

Upon entry, I was greeted with the word "merdeka" by 2 girls.

Owhhh kayyy.... Thats unusual.. I mean, who the heck greats people with "merdeka"? Maybe its their culture during independence day,

But I know we Malaysians one thing for sure will not great each other "merdeka", but most of the time we will rejoice together and proclaim,

"Yay! tomorrow holiday!".


I smile and nodded my head to the girls.

As I was about to walk into the hall, they handed me a bulletin and a miniature 'Bendera Merah Putih'.

Its a shame to say that, I don't even have the 'Jalur Gemilang' and I am now having the 'Bendera Merah Putih'.

Well, during secondary school times, they gave it to us during the merdeka celebration, but they took it back after the assembly, so what to do...

Blardy cheap bastards! :P

And I never buy also la, so.. shhhtttt!


Oh, I forgot to mention that 17 August is the independence day of Indonesia.

Well, now that you get the picture, I can go on sharing my experience witnessing the entire event as a foreigner.

I've arrived at the church a little bit early, my friend was part of the team which will conduct the 'Upacara Bendera'(flag ceremony).

So I had to sit alone among people I don't know.


The upacara started with the team marching in from the hall door way.

I was told by my friend, they had to do this every Monday during school times, much like our Malaysian version of perhimpunan(assembly).

The only difference is they use a certain groups of people to perform, while ours, siapa-siapa pun boleh(anyone also can), mainly perfects prefects.


I notice something, the flag carrier is a girl.

But what interest me even more, was the amount of girls in the upacara team are more then the guys!

No I'm not being sexist, but normally guys are more into these kind of thing rite? This totally surprised me.

After the upacara, the church service starts.


Till a point, during the singing, the stage leader said, "mari kita kibarkan panji-panji kita."(come lets raise our flags!)

Hmm..... I looked around, everybody young or old, guys and girls, all raise their flags.

I'll look darn odd if I continue to keep my hands in my pocket, and no one knows that I'm Malaysian, and I couldn't possibly explain to them, it will just make me look dumb.

There is a Malay saying, "masuk kandang babi jadi babi, masuk hutan monyet jadi monyet!"

Yes I know what your thinking, shut up.. :P

So I took the little flag, raise it up till my neck level and just move it left and right.

Come on man, I don't even frigging wave the Jalur Gemilang pass my head.

But, I felt a sense of difference at that moment, it just doesn't feel 'home'.

I like the phrase written there,
"Patriotic, will not fade till the end of age."

Hmm... Its like this, you wish Lee Chong Wei will win the gold meddle, but at the same time, you criticize and say "Malaysia sure cant wan la", but in your heart you really wan him to win,

But when he lost, you start to say, "see la, what I told u, sure lose wan", at the same time in your heart you felt very sad because he lost.

Thats the closest how I can describe.

I think that feeling is call nationalism. Remember I said once, "loving the country and loving the government is 2 different thing."

Maybe is time for us to think what do we really feel about our own country, indeed there are many shit in our piece of land, and darn your right everyone is sick of it,

But are we going to complain forever?


Through my observation during the entire event,

I can really say that these group of Indonesian people know that their country has many problems(which I think we know a bit also reading from news papers),

Yet they pray their hearts out for a better transformation in their country, the girl who prayed on stage, I can see tears flowing from her eyes.

Man I tell you, their level of nationalism, is something we are way far behind.

The event came to an end with the choir team performing, I manage to capture 1 minute of their performance with my half arse quality camera phone, photos = good, video = very bad.

The sound quality made it sound bad,

but the actual performance is really good.

Selamat Merdeka to all my Malaysian friends.

Lets move onwards for a greater and glorious future!

She was the one whom invited me for this event, Ivana.

Take care~ ;)