A nuanced view of my early past

It's not very often that I look back deeply on my past. But it is something I'll need to reconcile eventually. There's a few things that may or may not have brought me to write this brief account today. Bear with me on this lengthy prologue.

First, a 'young' lecturer who once taught me gave his professorial speech(video link) last Tuesday. In it, he choked up quite a bit on looking back at his career highlights, with a generous amount of shout-outs to his colleagues, current and former PhD students, and family. Somewhere in my files, I still have an undergraduate essay he graded an A+ for (not that I asked him to autograph it). But really, it makes one think, what would I say if I were to give a speech, looking back to this moment now in 10-20 years time?

Second is a lab session I tutored this past week. 'Drilling back to the future', based on the ANDRILL project. There's a concept in geology called Uniformitarianism which we often use, that the "present is the key to the past", and also that the "past is the key to the future". I find it ironic how personal finance disclaimers tend to go the opposite way, saying that "past performance is no guarantee of future results". Anyway, we showed some videos during the lab, and it was funny seeing some of our younger-looking lecturers from just over ten years ago. Really though, the fact that those same folks are still working on Antarctic problems today makes me wonder, what's changed?

Third I guess, is the book I've been slowly trying to finish recently - "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo. Maybe I'll write another post (or more) on this book in the near future, but for now, there was a section inside that did make me think. You see, the book is about getting rid of stuff, and for me, I tend not to get/buy new stuff in the first place. There is however, a lot of old stuff I have, stored in my childhood home, and also in boxes at my current place. On a special (yet-to-be-decided) day, I'm going to get rid of them, to make peace with my past.

How are any of these three things related? I have no idea, other than how they all relate to the past in a way. What was in my past anyway??

I was born and raised in a small country called Brunei. Although for the record, I'm not officially a Bruneian but a Malaysian. And I'm not Malay but Chinese, which refers to the fact that my ancestors (great-grandparents) once lived in China. So culturally, I'm more of a Bruneian Chinese than a Malaysian Chinese, though they're pretty similar cultures for people outside of the Malay archipelago. Confusing?

This ambiguity of who I am/where I'm from didn't really matter to me at first, since many of my childhood friends were of similar origin. Knowing how to write and speak in at least three languages was 'normal', though it was more of a jack of all trades, master of none situation. I could count in Chinese, deliberate in English, and relate culturally to Malays/Muslims.

As for my upbringing, I used to live on a hill (我从山中来), which may or may not have an inside joke element amongst some of my school friends. My first home had a jungle behind it, and there was where me and my best friend neighbour would go playing almost every late afternoon. When I moved to my second home (literally just higher up the same hill...), I still went out to play in the forest, but it got less regular as secondary school studies and computer distractions came on the scene.

In a sense, the outdoor world was what sorta got me into my environmental field today. Me and my neighbours used to collect all sorts of junk like cardboard boxes, pipes, wires, even a bathtub once! We would make all sorts of things out of it, and I was a handy man from a young age. My scout training sort of formalized things a bit, and I was a master of knots, good with a knife and fire, and not to shabby with compass directions.

So while a lot of my friends took up Accounting, I took up Geography for my 'O' level exams (in Brunei back then, you had to choose). Two funny asides though.

One, I did take up Commerce (along with a lot of my friends) as a self directed study (i.e. no classes), utilizing only notes from a nice teacher. What was funny was that a lot of us self-directed-study people got this 'Top in Brunei for Commerce' award (without taking classes!!). See, Brunei has a population of about 400,000 so it's not that hard...

Second, I did learn basic bookkeeping, and use it to this day to track my income and expenses manually on a paper book. My mom sent me and my sis to this ISI (now MonQ) kid's money camp in around March 2008 (or so I can tell) to learn about budgeting, saving, etc. I've tracked every cent of my spending since then, starting from an income of BND$10-20/month? prior to 2010, to about BND$30/month in 2010, to BND$50/month in 2011 or my final high school year in Brunei, to the ~NZD$3000/month I'm managing now in 2018.

Note: BND and NZD tends to fluctuate around 1:1 over this 10 year period of time.

Why do I bring this up? My current interpretation on this is that while a teacher is great to have, it's the practice you put in that makes perfect. I see teachers as a sort of traffic coordinator, guiding us to the right lane. We can have all the notes, all the driving lessons, but it's up to us to drive ourselves down roads that even our teachers have never went on before.

2008 was when I started upper secondary school, and the basic bookkeeping I learnt before was sufficient enough, all the extra bells and whistles are nice to haves. Heck, back in 2008, I didn't even notice there was a financial crisis (Brunei tends to be sheltered from world stuff), I only knew about it when I got to university!

Back to Geography.

In upper secondary, me and my good friend, being the only two studying Geography in our class of 40 would have to carry our chairs to another classroom to sit in on Geography class. There, we would sit at the back of the other class, listening and taking down notes. Because Brunei was such a small country, our national Geography was pretty much covered in primary school. Instead, we would learn about the wider world. The rivers and reefs of Australia, the fruit bowls of New Zealand, deserts in Africa, the Himalaya mountains, etc.

The funniest thing when I look back now is this. My geography teacher actually told us not to do 'A' level (high school) Geography, supposedly because it's very hard. Well I've aced that and look, I'm doing a PhD in it now :P

High school, or Form 6 as we would call it, was an interesting time. We were allowed 5 subjects maximum, and though I did try to slip Physics in, the teacher didn't allow it. By then I've sort of known that I'll want to do Environmental Science, which was a broad subject. In a way, it's the perfect vague career, you could end up doing just about anything.

So I took up Geography (duh), and also Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Thinking Skills. Interestingly, my teachers were very multicultural, I had 2 Chinese teachers, 1 Malay, 1 Indian, and 1 Westerner. Even more fun was that my Geography teacher was a Chinese who could speak proper Temburong Malay slang (the most rural part of Brunei). My Biology teacher was Malay but he would speak in an almost British accent because he studied in the UK. My Indian Maths teacher used to teach in Hong Kong and would joke in Cantonese (almost every day we would laugh until our stomach hurts).

Sadly, almost every one of these teachers retired or left the year after I graduated. Sometimes in life, it is all about timing. I feel very lucky to have had so many great teachers, who were there at the right place at the right time.

Even in such a small country, I was taught, and indeed, grew up in a place that respected multiculturalism, diversity, and all that jazz.

So I might want to express an idea in speech. But given a choice between pure English an a mix of three languages +/- some dialects, I might articulate it better using the latter (assuming you understand).

Because it was such a small country, we knew that we were just a small part of the big picture, and that we are interdependent on our neighbours for resources and ideas.

Everyone, even the little ones, has the ability to contribute meaningfully to this world.

It is because of being in such a small country, that you learn to appreciate how having just very basic things will do, and that life can be as simple as you want.

The best thing to have is what you already have. You're alive, what more do you need?