Around us are hills blanketed in green,

Limestone walls etched with memories;

The past and present atween.

An oath forged by tragedy unforeseen,

Impeded endings due for centuries.

Vale of the forgotten, our home is– 

Emigrants of time we are,

In the heart of our eternal aegis;

Lay our friend, a guardian avatar.

The Altai Veil chronicles the journey of ‘Kharo’, a man with amnesia, who finds himself in an unusual village, walled off by colossal stones that encircled its plains. He witnessed the inhabitants, both man and beast alike, coexisting as one community. Creatures that were once lost to time, an ancient culture forgotten from history, and an isolated oasis. All of these instinctively feel foreign to him, as even his own name, ‘Kharo’ was one given by the villagers. Desperate to discover who he was, he seeks the aid of the village wise-woman, Zaya, as they dive deep into Kharo’s mind to re-claim the lost memories of his past, uncovering old ghosts and a secret that was better left forgotten.

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Everyday at school we had lunch together, whether a lunchbox from home or a soggy canteen food, we sat at the same spot. The location never changed – only the topics did. We talked about boys like the teenagers that we are. We talked about the future, gossiped about the people or even shared random stories a friend had picked up from another class and inevitably about homework. We didn’t bother to talk about politics or other major issues. We just lived our youthful life, tranquilly. Years passed, and we never realized we would never be in that moment again. 

Today, a friend of mine sent me a video  I had edited on our last day of school. That video was us being silly, random at times and it was hilarious. Most of us grow up differently now,  and that is beautiful in its own way. We haven’t lost our spark – but only the way we think. Now we speak about what’s happening with the world. The gossip never misses a beat. And, sadly we do talk about losing our loved ones as well. This has become our new topic ever since one had lost her father and another lost her mother.

A few years ago, during the Covid break, one of us lost her dad.  It was devastating to be there, yet not quite there. When the news flew through my phone, I remember I was shaking as I knew the father was one of the good ones to us. Did not know much about him but she spoke so fondly every time and he always had this face that belonged in heaven. You know a good one when you see one they said. He was one of them.

When we finally returned to school, she told us about his last minute on the phone. The scene was peculiar like no other, not what you would imagine when someone dies. She never got that last warm hug, the last kiss on the forehead, not even a last proper goodbye – like most people get. I listened to her attentively and this made me wonder :  If I ever lose someone,  will I be this calm and composed?  I would be driven to the brick of madness. I can’t imagine losing a father or a mother at this age. 

Unfortunately, my mom had lost her dad when she was in her early twenties. She never really talks about it. That’s how I knew how much that hurt her. She lost him forever. The thought is wild. On the surface, she seems fine. Deep down, I know she is trying her best to hide it. Maybe that is just the eldest daughter in her. Then the bell rang, the lunch hour was over. 

A few years passed. Right before Ramadan, another friend lost her mother. Oh my, oh my – she lost a mother. A mother. A friend told me that during the funeral, she was so composed. Not even a single tear in her eyes, not one running down her face. But the others mourned like normal people would – they were bawling their eyes out and their knees went weak. I always knew she doesn’t turn weak easily. She’s the strongest among us. I wanted to give her a call, but instead I gave her time and space. Probably too much as I got called out days after for not reaching sooner. 

Being miles apart while being in this situation really killed me inside. I want to be there with them, hugging them tightly. I know asking “Are you ok?” wouldn’t change a thing – but that’s all I can do from far away. I hate this part about studying abroad. You missed a moment like this. 

To make things worse, I lost my grandfather just after my finals. My heart dropped. I had to carry it with a smile on my face, pretending that everything will be just fine. I never imagined  the news would arrive. “Your grandfather just took his last breath.” That sentence killed me even though we were not close with each other, but he was the only grandfather I had. I cried my heart out, tears falling as all the memories and regrets flashed before my eyes. It wouldn’t stop raining. The storm kept coming. The waves were so strong, I couldn’t hold them in.

A few months back, mom told me that his health was deteriorating. Silently, I wished to see him when I went back. I thought I could make it in time but God had a different plan. This isn’t the first time I thought I’d make it but failed miserably. Within two years of being abroad, I already lost four people. Everytime without fail, I cry white reading Surah Ya-sin. Sometimes I can’t finish reading it. My heart feels tight as the oxygen leaves the room. It feels like watching the same film over and over again – same plot but different people. 

At that moment, I needed that lunch with a friend I’ve known for years, but I couldn’t ask for it. The intimacy that we shared by adapting each other’s vocabularies, tones and moods is incomparable. People here were there but were not that close to have these deep conversations. There’s a fine line between us. Not all of them but some. I am forever grateful for a few of them that are always there for me but high school friends just resonate differently. The talking and assuring came easily because they knew how to talk to me the way I needed them too. 

For once, that school lunch was all I needed. To go back and sit at the same table without talking, just crying for hours. To listen to each other ramble on useless things without judgement. I had that access but not anymore. Growth was happening. We can’t run from it.  

I crave that high school lunch as I sit in my room, wondering whether to ask them or not. After hours, I sent the text, “Are you guys free for lunch?” because that was what I wanted most. Them being there with me no matter the distance. 

They replied shortly after with a “Yes,” and  “Of course.” 

I closed my eyes and I could imagine us sitting at the same table during lunch hour in high school. Just smaller now, inside a screen.

Are you free for lunch?

We always were. We just forget to ask. 

We don’t do this often, our schedules always clash with one another. Not to mention the time zones. I cry for the hundredth time in front of them, something I don’t think I could ever do with other people. They didn’t try to fix it. They stayed. That’s what that high school lunch was about. Not the food, not the spot, but the people. We have each other until now, and that has to be enough. 

After we hung up, I stared at the ceiling silently. The storm inside my head hadn’t stopped but I’m glad I wasn’t weathering alone. They are my safe place, another roof that I need. I used to think lunch was about the food but I was wrong, now it’s all about the people who made you feel full.  

This is how life ought to be now.

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I used to think that silence was a kind of protection. If I kept my thoughts folded neatly inside me, then no one could twist them, no one could judge them. But that was before the confession group existed, before the illusion that anonymity makes people honest shattered into something uglier.

It began as a harmless thing. A digital space for students like us to unburden ourselves. “What’s on your mind?” the description promised. “No names, no consequences.” At first, it felt almost sacred. People confessed fears, regrets and small secrets that trembled with vulnerability. I read them at night, curled beneath my blanket, feeling less alone.

However, good things are fleeting, changing almost as quickly as they come.

People no longer spoke to release truth. They spoke to be seen, even if no one could see them. Especially then.

That’s when they started appearing. The holier-than-thou voices. The ones who didn’t confess but judged. They wrote as if they stood above the rest of us, untouched by the messiness they so eagerly condemned.

“I don’t understand how people can do that,” one post read. “I would never treat my friends like that.”

Another: “Some of you really need to fix yourselves. It’s embarrassing.” There was always that tone. Polished and superior.

At first, I ignored it. But then I started noticing something else. The words felt familiar. The way certain phrases echoed conversations I’d had in real life. The same judgments disguised as concern.

And then there was her. If I were writing this a year ago, I would have called her my closest friend. We laughed easily, sharing afternoons that stretched into golden hours. But she had always carried herself with a certain… carefulness. She was kind, but selectively so. Honest, but only when it benefited her. I didn’t notice it at first. Or maybe I chose not to.

It was a Tuesday evening when everything tilted. I was scrolling through the confession group, absentmindedly, when a post caught my eye: “Some people pretend to be kind but are draining everyone around them. Always playing the victim. It’s exhausting. If you recognize yourself, maybe it’s time to grow up.”

My chest tightened. It wasn’t just the words. It was the familiarity of them. I had heard something like this before, not in those exact terms, but close enough to leave an imprint. A week earlier, she and I had been sitting under the old tree near the courtyard. I had told her hesitantly that I felt like I was always the one apologizing, even when I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong. She smiled then. That soft, knowing smile.

“You just overthink things,” she said. “Sometimes you make everything about you.”

At the time, I nodded. I always nodded. But now, staring at the glowing screen, I felt something unraveled. It wasn’t proof. It couldn’t be. Anyone could write anything. That was the whole point. And yet. The voice was hers. Unmistakably. The same gentle superiority.

I started noticing more posts like that. Threads of judgment woven through anonymous confessions. And every time, I felt the same quiet suspicion. Could it really be her? Or was I just trying to assign a face to something faceless?

The doubt gnawed at me. It turned small interactions into evidence. The way she reacted when someone admitted a mistake. The way she spoke about others, never cruelly, never directly, but always with a subtle elevation of herself.

“I just don’t get why people do that,” she would say, as if she existed outside the realm of human error.

One afternoon, I tested something. I posted a confession. Not entirely true, not entirely false. Something vague, but personal enough to invite response. “Sometimes I feel like my friends don’t actually like me. Like they tolerate me because it’s easier than being honest.”

I stared at the screen after posting it, my heartbeat uneven. Then the comments began to appear. Some were kind and reassuring. Anonymous voices offering warmth.

And then, “There’s usually a reason people feel that way. Maybe reflect on how you act instead of blaming others.”

My breath caught. I didn’t know it was her. But I knew. I just felt small and dismissed. My vulnerability had been turned into something to correct rather than something to hold.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the difference between honesty and cruelty. How easy it is to disguise judgment as wisdom when no one can trace it back to you. And how dangerous that is. The next day, she greeted me as always.

“Hey,” she said, smiling. “You look tired.”

“I didn’t sleep much,” I replied.

She tilted her head slightly. “You should take care of yourself more.” There it was again, that tone. Soft, concerned, but laced with something else. Something above me. For the first time, I didn’t nod. I just looked at her. And at that moment, I realized something I hadn’t wanted to admit. A fake friend doesn’t always lie to your face. Sometimes, they tell the truth, but it makes you feel smaller for hearing it. Sometimes, they hide behind kindness. And sometimes, they hide behind anonymity.

I still read the confession group. But now, I read it differently. Not as a place of truth, but as a mirror. And what it reflects isn’t who we are when no one is watching. It’s who we choose to be when we believe we won’t be seen. And that, I think, is far more revealing.

Now it feels almost absurd to call it a “confession” group. If you’re truly speaking your truth, why whisper it behind a screen? Why dress it up in anonymity like it’s something fragile, when half the posts aren’t even confessions about oneself. They’re thinly veiled commentaries on other people’s lives. Because that’s what it has become, hasn’t it?

Not people owning their stories, but people inventing them. Or worse, borrowing parts of someone else’s reality and reshaping them into something more dramatic, more shareable. It’s strange how quickly “say anything” turns into “say something about someone.” And the confidence of it all is almost baffling. People dissecting choices that were never theirs to begin with. Passing quiet judgments on things that have nothing to do with them, who someone spends time with, what they do with their own body, what they believe, what they don’t. Some things were never meant to be public discourse. Not everything is a topic. Not everything needs an audience.

If someone isn’t fasting, or is, if they’re in a relationship, or not, how did that become material for strangers to weigh in on? Since when did other people’s private lives turn into open prompts for reflection pieces written by people who have no place in them?

It’s not honesty. It’s intrusion, dressed up as concern. And that’s the part that lingers the most, the way people convince themselves they’re doing something meaningful. Offering perspective. When really, they’re just circling lives that aren’t theirs, adding commentary where silence would have been more appropriate. Nobody needs your two cents.

It’s almost impressive, in a way. The way people manage to confess without ever truly revealing anything. And then come the replies, the quiet chorus of invisible judges. It makes you wonder what the point was supposed to be. A place to unburden, or a space where honesty is reshaped until it’s palatable enough for strangers to approve of?

Maybe it was never meant to last in the first place. Spaces like that rarely do. Give people a mask, and eventually they stop using it to hide, but rather, to perform. Strangely, no one seems to notice the shift. Or maybe they do, and they stay anyway. It’s hard for me not to see how unnecessary the first place really was.

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If you’ve read my last piece, then you’d know I’ve survived what felt like an unsurvivable time in my life. I lost three of the people I loved most in less than a year. And what’s more devastating is that their deaths didn’t take me with them. Instead, they made it so I had to stay.

They made dying no longer an option. Guilt is a terrible reason to stay alive. But I guess what works, works.

Now that time has passed, I’ve learned that it’s impossible to always accept fate. However, we can at least stop arguing with it. My relationship with my father has improved considerably. Nonetheless, we still don’t understand each other, not really. Perhaps we never will. But I suppose understanding is not always a prerequisite for coexistence. I still need a roof when I go back home, after all. So I’ve learned to make peace with whatever this is.

But this is not what I want to write about today.

I think (and I seriously hope) I’ve grieved enough. I wasn’t even allowed to breathe back then. It happened so fast, and I needed to get back on track, or I’d shatter my future with bad results. It was a dramatic ending, the way Mom left. It was disgustingly hasty.

And yet, despite everything people say about those who take their own lives, I choose not to believe it. They said Mom would face eternal damnation, but I just can’t fathom that. I have to believe she is somewhere gentler. She has had enough. I really like to believe she is in a much happier place, like my sister.

I have grieved them enough. Long enough to know that grief, in its loudest form, does not last forever. Grief used to carry me, and we’ve swapped places. Now I’m the one carrying it. I can choose when to grieve, in quiet places, and I continue my days with a smile.

But there is another kind of grief I am only beginning to understand: the grief of outgrowing people who are still alive.

Again, like before, I was totally unprepared. And I was rendered hopeless when things like this happened. Unlike death, there are no funerals to mark the ending. And I was unable to find closure. It was just a slow, almost imperceptible distance that stretched between me and this noteworthy someone. And it becomes worse because this someone was also a home to me. I lost home twice.

It sounds weird, and even to me, impossible. But this one hurts more than last time, since I can still see her around. I can still even hear her laugh in the very class we’re in. But we don’t talk anymore. As much as I hate confrontation, I wish nothing more than for her to talk to me. I wish that she had told me if I made any mistakes. She, out of everyone, was the one I had hoped would understand my place after such a devastating end.

It doesn’t happen all at once. There is no singular moment you can point to and say, this is where it ended. That’s why I was weirded out. I thought it was just a small misunderstanding, that we had simply grown apart. For a while, I thought you just needed time, though I’d say the same about me. Instead, it broke gradually. We did have conversations, but you laughed no more at my jokes. It was like you preferred silence to my noise. And that hurts me. I began to notice how much effort it took to maintain something that once felt effortless. It used to be so easy, talking to you.

And I resent myself for that. Despite not knowing what fault I am at, or if it’s my fault at all to begin with, I’d like to think that maybe I could have fixed it. But it would be nice if you had tried the same way I did. That you had been braver, to face this together with me, like we always did. Didn’t we used to be the best of company? Weren’t you the one who promised to stay to the very end? This is, for sure, not the very end I was hoping for. I’ve been stronger now, after the devastation I felt. And I don’t want this to end, whatever we have.

How do I explain that the person sitting across from me is no longer the person I knew, even though they look exactly the same? I think that’s what makes this kind of grief so unbearable. I feel guilty for feeling it at all. Because compared to losing someone forever, what right do I have to mourn someone who is still here?

Sometimes, losing the version of someone you once loved hurts just as much as losing the person themselves. Like I miss Dad. I just miss his past self. I had hoped that nothing had changed. Maybe I’d have been one happy girl.

Now, I have stopped trying to revive something that has already, in its own quiet way, ended. And in doing so, I grieve. Again.

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“Would you still love me if I were a cockroach?” he insisted on hearing my answer to the most cringe question in the 21st century. I didn’t want to answer, and I still adamantly don’t. Who asks this kind of question on a date, let alone the third?

I stared at him, slowly blinking. I was wondering if he knew how absurd and ludicrous he sounded. Maybe he didn’t, but I hoped my face would convey the exasperation I felt.

On a serious note, I don’t know why people take great pleasure in asking dull-witted, nearly laughable questions. These questions don’t just work with cockroaches. They also work with worms, spiders, or whatever other repellent insects humankind has found worthy of enumerating and calibrating the extent to which humans would go for love.

Again, the concept of love being reduced to hypotheticals and exoskeletons.

Why doesn’t one ask, “Would you still love me if I were a serial killer?” or “If I had cheated in my past 17 relationships, in light of the fact that I only got caught 17 times, would you still date me?” Absurd, but at least it’s more logical than the previous question this guy kept asking me with a serious, solemn face. He could even curtail and tone it down by asking if I would still love him if his breath stinks or if he snores like a 70-year-old, waiting-to-die man. Spoiler: he does snore like that.

I mean, be for real. Why do we resort to a full-blown metamorphosis into a creature with a bad reputation? Malaysians literally call a flying cockroach “babi.” And now he wants me to tell him if I’d take a shine to that creepy-crawly as a lover.

“Cock…roach,” I repeated in my head. What a bizarre word, when you think about it. Unlike ‘butter’ and ‘fly,’ or ‘grass’ and ‘hopper,’ these two fiendishly disgusting words are stitched together to form yet another fiendishly disgusting word. “I don’t think so,” the answer easily escaped my mouth. 

His face changed when I said that. But what did he expect me to do? Had he expected me to giggle endearingly and say, “Yes, of course, darling, I’d cradle your six legs and whisper sweet nothings to your antennae”? God knows I wouldn’t even stay in the same building as Mr. Roach. I took a sip of water. Time—my only ally.

“I don’t even like you as a human yet,” I said. I know it sounded spiteful, but I was just trying to wisecrack. A playful banter, you know? And, wonderfully enough, he let out a slight grin.

“I know it’s not cockroaches you’re worrying about.” That wasn’t the last thing he heard from me—it’s far from that. But if I were to write down every bit of our conversation, you’d be reading an inexpensive 500-page paperback. 

To encapsulate, things have gotten deeper since then, and we’re still going steady to this very day. Might as well tie the knot any minute. We talked about it and cleared things up. I hated cockroaches, which led to my response being an undeviating and incontestable “no.”

The nature and essence of that question were supposed to simply make us chuckle or chortle, not to take things a little too philosophically. Plainly enough, asking “Would you love me at my worst?” too soon would have made it ten times cringier. But not just that—it might be harder to answer that “much more realistic” question than that frivolous cockroach one.

Would I love him as a cockroach? No. And as we were speaking back then, I wasn’t even sure I’d love him as his worst self. And that’s the real question, wasn’t it? That was what he wanted to know. He wanted an affirmation that I’d love him at his most fallible. If I would love him as an ever-erring, error-prone mammal that he is. Instead of using the word “human,” he disguised it with insects.

“Would you still love me when I start to become… unlovable?”

Oh, yes. That’s the word he should have used: unlovable. A cockroach is unlovable; that’s why we use it in lieu of ourselves. We were really just costuming it in absurdity. We humans are the masters of concealment, after all.

“Unlovable” has so many definitions, so many connotations and interpretations, depending on who you ask. To me, it’s simply the things humans possess that I dislike or disagree with. In the realm of love, it could be everything unattractive and obnoxious someone carries. The most taboo revelations of all—not money, not height, not even sex. It can be everything from bad eating habits, laziness, messy rooms, nerdy interests, guilty pleasures, bodily imperfections, insecurities, mood swings, and so many more unspoken things. Those concealable things. Those we keep from the public eye and only materialise in the comfort of solitude.

Surely when humans fall in love, they will most likely live together. And suddenly, all of the hidden things start to be discovered. Our self-surmised “sheer hideousness” that we stashed away eventually comes out. And our beloved significant other would need to get accustomed to and seasoned in our foibles. That’s the basic presumption. But it’s also deeply human to have ubiquitous doubts. That’s why we question.

It’s just the fear that one day someone will see the real us and decide to leave. So, instead of asking about the things that are unlovable about us and how far they would love those unlovables, we joke about roaches.

If he had asked me if I would love his unbearable self—his messy hairstyle, his quirky sense of humour, his blood-curdling snore, all of his alien idiosyncrasies—obviously, I’d have said no. As a matter of fact, I’m still not keen on those sometimes. But never once did I question being with him, choosing him. It’s the “human” in him that I love.

I’d choose his snore over anyone else’s noiseless sleep every single time. And I would not choose someone else’s however-enticing hair over his uncombed, tousled one. And the list goes on. I didn’t understand why. It didn’t make sense to me that I could loathe small things about him while also finding cherishment in doing so. I find it compelling that I’m able to love him more in spite of those dearths and inadequacies—or even weaknesses, if you’d prefer to call them that.

Now, I’ve come to the conclusion that perfection is a revolting idea. It’s sickening, at least to me. Nobody is perfect, and we’re meant to be imperfect. Not just that—we’re meant to find delight in doing so.

When he first met me, he tried to be perfect. He wanted so badly to wed me that he thought he needed to be quintessentially flawless—that he needed to be my ideal type so that he would be worthy of me. How chucklesome.

That’s why he didn’t laugh like he normally does. He didn’t let out his rowdy laugh so that I wouldn’t be scared to date a mirthful guy who laughs all the time and takes almost nothing seriously. He wouldn’t sleep before I did on the overnight train to Paris so that I wouldn’t get annoyed when he snuffled in his sleep. He didn’t even wear any sleeveless shirts around me—or no shirt at all, for that matter—even when he wanted to, in the compulsion of summer sunshine, so that I wouldn’t see his scars, which he self-proclaimed as unsightly.

I understood his point of view. Many of us want to be, or at least come across as perfect. So we hide ourselves from plain sight. I’m not just talking about a man to marry; I’m talking about everyone you choose to be in close proximity with in life. Siblings, friends, you name it. Show them the real you.

“Would you love me if I’m human?” Perhaps this is the most fitting question now. 

Because the last time I met him, he wasn’t at his most “human” self—he was acting like a saint. Do I need to remind us of our nature? As far as I’m concerned, we are as far from being paragons of virtue as we are from Earendel. So we ought not to be.

And little did he know, I love to whine and grumble about all of his “human” imperfections. Those vagaries are what keep our love vigorous. Humans surely can be alarmingly ugly at times, but let’s not disregard our beauty.

“Cause all of me loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections”

All of Me, John Legend

Since he loves this song so much, he should have known better than to shilly-shally about my unconditional love, or that of others. It’s time we believe in true, unequivocal love. It’s about time we romanticise our harmless, ignorable blemishes.

Also, let’s steer clear of using cockroaches, lizards, or anything along those lines for metaphorical “what if” questions. It’s an oddly specific and slightly unsettling place to draw inspiration from. Come on, boys (or girls), be creative in expressing your love.

To be in love is to be seen—and to stay, even when what is seen is not beautiful.

Oel ngati kameie.

Yours, imperfectly,

LOX

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One of the all-time classic and earliest Chinese New Year songs must be “Gongxi Gongxi”. While it is now a must-have song in every commercial center during Chinese New Year, little did we know that it was initially meant to be a song to celebrate the end of a war. It was composed in 1946 by Chen Gexin, in conjunction with China’s victory in the War of Resistance against Japan. The lyrics: “冬天已到尽头，真是好的消息，温暖的春风，就要吹醒大地。”, describing the end of winter and celebrating the coming of spring, as a metaphor for surviving the long hardships of war. And the infamous catchy phrase “恭喜恭喜恭喜你呀”, the Gong Xi (congratulations) was of course not initially meant to celebrate the start of a new year, but rather the end of the war. Similarly, most of the Chinese New Year songs early Malaysian Chinese grew up with were originally soundtracks from films from China that often depicted the emotional reunions of soldiers returning home from war to see their families, which coincidentally matches the message of Chinese New Year – reunion.

Apart from auspicious phrases and festive greetings, another key element of Chinese New Year songs is its “noisiness”, such as sounds of 锣鼓 (gongs and drums) and 鞭炮 (fire crackers). Since when has it become a must-have in Chinese New Year songs? One of the explanations is that historically, when setting off firecrackers was prohibited in Malaysia, song producers saturated their albums with firecrackers sound effects so that families can still experience the explosive festive atmosphere despite the ban. Similarly, the incorporation of gongs and drums could also be traced back to 1969. After the 513 incident, public lion dance performances were restricted and remained sensitive for a few years. Therefore, gongs and drums were added into Chinese New Year songs to replace the “missing street celebrations”. When some of the cultural traditions were prohibited,  this unique form of “auditory compensation” ensured that even when the streets were quiet, our traditions were never lost; instead, they were preserved in a resilient, rhythmic record.

Looking at the explosion of Malaysia’s Chinese New Year song industry, it seems that it is highly overlapping with the media evolution. Since the 1970s, local producers such as New Southern Records changed the industry from “importing” the recordings from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China to Malaysia, to producing the recordings locally. One key representative of this golden age of VCDs is the child group, the Four Golden Princesses (四千金), whose their album sales surpassed 1 million.  In 2008, another era had begun. As Astro became a must have in most middle-income families, they also joined the club of producing Chinese New Year song with《大团圆》, a heartwarming best-hit for Chinese New Year that remains popular to this day. After its huge success, other broadcasters also joined the competition, making Chinese New Year songs production increasingly creative and professional. Moving forward to the YouTube age, by the 2020s, due to the rise of YouTube and the content creator industry, the number of Chinese New Year songs increased exponentially, leading to a staggering output of more than 400 new songs annually. Basically, anyone with enough followers could produce Chinese New Year songs, from professional music production Youtubers such as 3P and Namewee, to even primary school students. Production of Chinese New Year songs had also undergone decentralization, similar to the entire media industry.

Thanks to Malaysians’ inimitable creativeness and our diverse culture, it enabled us to produce the most distinctive Chinese New Year songs, in the Malaysian-Chinese way. Song writers have used our “Bahasa Rojak” skills innovatively. During the Year of Snake, the Malay term for snake, ular, has been widely incorporated into songs, such as 《全民过年ulala》; the phrase “ulala” has been the hook of the entire song. Other than incorporating different languages, different dialects appear more and more in Chinese New Year songs as we started to put more emphasis on dialect preservation. Namewee’s 《马来西亚的新年 Type C Malaysia》 this year gave prominence to six main dialects: Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Teochew, Foochow and Hainanese. Another unprecedented overlap between Chinese New Year and Ramadan this year sparked creativity of netizens, giving birth to some of the most ingenious cultural fusion ideas. For instance, the song “Gongxi Gongxi Ramadan” took the melody of an infamous traditional Chinese New Year song and gave the lyrics a creative twist filled with greetings for the upcoming fasting month. All these playful yet innovative works could never be produced without the multicultural environment.

In the end, Malaysia’s Chinese New Year songs tell a story that is bigger than the catchy hooks on viral TikTok videos and seasonal hype. They are the canvas portraying how our identity has continually shifted. Our “Chineseness” has never been a static inheritance that is being preserved in a museum, but is shaped by minority life, multilingual reality and everyday coexistence with other communities. Over decades, Chinese New Year songs have moved from borrowing China’s wartime ballads as a symbol of reminiscent of life back across the ocean, to local productions filled with gongs, drums, firecrackers, Malay slang, dialect pride and a hint of Malaysian humour. So when people say, “Malaysia’s Chinese New Year is more happening than in China,” it actually shows that our culture did not merely survive distance and history, it evolved, and it is continuing to find new ways to present the uniqueness of our culture.

References

许雅玲. (2019, January 29). 由招财进宝 到感恩团圆 听新年歌看文化变迁. 中国报. https://www.chinapress.com.my/20190129/%E7%94%B1%E6%8B%9B%E8%B4%A2%E8%BF%9B%E5%AE%9D-%E5%88%B0%E6%84%9F%E6%81%A9%E5%9B%A2%E5%9C%86-%E5%90%AC%E6%96%B0%E5%B9%B4%E6%AD%8C%E7%9C%8B%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E5%8F%98%E8%BF%81/

余坤恬. (2026, February 16). 当新年歌成为一种全民生产现象，我们正走进怎样的贺岁时代？. 访问 The Interview. https://theinterview.asia/feature/197356/

张秋艳, & 叶彩云. (2026, February 21). 新年歌能够唱多久（五）| 新创贺岁歌冠全球. 星洲日报. https://www.sinchew.com.my/news/20260221/%E6%98%9F%E6%B4%B2%E4%BA%BA/7272611

Phan, T. (2023, January 19). 地表最多新年歌的國家？馬來西亞「賀歲歌與它們的產地」 | 轉角國際udn Global. 轉角國際udn Global. Retrieved February 25, 2026, from https://global.udn.com/global_vision/story/8664/6920020

Thum, S. (2026, February 14). Malaysia as the Global Hub for Chinese New Year Music. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/malaysia-global-hub-chinese-new-year-music-sean-thum-r05hc/

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You were such a contradiction in my life,
the kind that quietly rearranged the way I understood closeness,
because nobody seemed to understand me or misunderstand me more than you,
and somehow I stayed, suspended in that delicate space between feeling seen
and feeling as though parts of me were still wandering somewhere just out of reach.

There was something strangely comforting in that tension,
in the way you could sit beside me and unravel my thoughts with ease
only to leave other pieces of me untouched,
as though loving someone did not always mean fully knowing them
but learning to live with the mystery they carried.

Perhaps that is why your presence never felt simple,
and why even now, when I try to remember you honestly,
I cannot place you neatly into the past like the other things
that time has already taken with quiet certainty.

When I walk down memory lane, you are still there.

Not in the obvious places where nostalgia likes to gather,
but in the quieter corners where the mind wanders
when I am tired of thinking about the present.

You appear in fragments I once believed time would erase,
in the softness of an evening when the sky dims too slowly,
in the familiar rhythm of a song I had not realized we shared,
and in those brief pauses during ordinary days
when a thought arrives that once belonged naturally to you.

Your face lingers in those corners with a patience I never asked for,
not loudly, not painfully, but with the quiet persistence of something
that never needed to fight in order to remain.

It is strange how memories choose their own permanence.

There are moments I have forgotten entirely,
conversations that once seemed important but now dissolve into silence,
yet the simplest images of you remain intact,
like a laugh caught halfway between surprise and amusement,
or the way the world seemed briefly calmer
when we were both occupying the same small space within it.

Time has carried us forward the way it carries everything,
stretching our lives into directions neither of us could have predicted,
placing distance between our days so gradually
that one morning it simply existed without explanation.

I have learned not to resent that distance.

There is a quiet dignity in allowing life to unfold
without forcing old stories back into places they no longer belong,
and there is something unexpectedly gentle
about loving someone enough to be glad they are happy
even when that happiness grows far beyond the reach of your own life.

So I watch from afar, in the only way distance allows,
and I find myself smiling at the thought of your days
continuing somewhere under the same wide sky,
shaped by people and moments that have nothing to do with me
yet still feel oddly familiar simply because they belong to you.

This love I carry now asks for nothing.

It does not search for a second beginning
or whisper foolish hopes about returning to what we once were.

Instead it rests quietly within me,
content to exist as a soft and steady warmth,
the kind that does not burn or demand attention
but continues glowing long after the moment that first lit it.

Still, there are evenings when the present feels delicate,
as though it is balanced lightly upon the edge of another life
that might have existed if the smallest things
had unfolded differently.

And in those moments I allow myself to wonder.

I imagine what it might feel like to live in the same present,
to let our days unfold beside each other without distance translating them,
to share the quiet gravity of ordinary time
that so often reveals the deepest forms of companionship.

Not the dramatic kind of love that announces itself loudly,
but the quieter one that lives inside daily life,
inside shared mornings and unremarkable conversations,
inside the simple comfort of knowing
that someone is there to witness the passing of your days.

I imagine us not as the people we once were,
but as the people time has slowly shaped us into,
standing side by side in a life made of small routines
and gentle understanding.

Yet even these thoughts arrive without bitterness.

They feel less like regret
and more like curiosity about a path
that simply belongs to another version of the world.

Because the truth is that I do not wish your happiness
to be any smaller than it already is.

I would rather see you living fully somewhere beyond my reach
than hold you close in a life that asks you to be less yourself.

And perhaps that is how love learns to mature,
by realizing that sometimes the most sincere form of devotion
is allowing someone to continue forward
without asking them to look back.

So this, in its quiet way, becomes my final act of love.

I will become someone unrecognizable.

Not because I wish to erase what we were,
and not because forgetting you would make anything easier,
but because life asks each of us to keep growing
even when growth leads us away from the people
who once felt like the center of everything.

I will become someone whose days no longer circle your memory,
someone whose future does not search for you
in every possibility that appears.

And you will become someone different as well,
someone shaped by laughter and struggles
that I will never fully know.

Perhaps one day we will look at each other again
and realize that the people we once were
exist only in memory.

And strangely, I think that is alright.

Because what remains between us does not need to be reclaimed
or rewritten into something it was never meant to become.

It can live quietly where it already rests,
soft and unclaimed, untouched by expectation.

A love that once existed honestly
and now survives as something gentler.

A quiet, enduring kindness in the heart.

To you, still, from yours truly.

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The moment.

How could I ever forget the moment that held oceans of laughter,rivers of change, and quiet storms of feeling?

The moment that did not simply drift by like an ordinary second lost to time,but etched itself like permanent echoes in the chambers of my soul.

The moment that carved a quiet doorway into a heart I had long ago sealed and sworn no one would enter again.

The moment that healed pieces of me I didn’t even know were broken.Parts I had learned to live without and fragments I thought were simply gone forever.

The hushed corners, the everyday streets, the quiet nights we lingered together and the laughter that belonged only to us settled themselves into me far deeper than I ever allowed myself to admit.The quiet check-ins, the subtle care, the effortless and silly jokes returned my smile before I even realized it had been missing.They became a part of my pulse,woven gently into who I am.

For the first time, I found myself hoping that the clock would slow its relentless ticking.Every second felt too sacred to let go,too fragile to slip away.Even our tiniest conversations stretched beyond seconds,as if the world paused just long enough for us to exist in our own small forever.

And somewhere in those small,almost invisible moments, I felt myself soften again.Something inside me began to shift quietly but ,pressing against my chest like a tide I could no longer hold back. It took me longer than I care to realize that my feelings were growing from what began as simple comfort.

Yet,I hovered in the void between what had been and what could never be.That fragile space trembled with unspoken truths, heavy and undefinable, like a melody that won’t ever resolve.Every glance and word of yours burned brighter than it should, yet nothing could be seized nor be held. 

In the quiet, I asked myself, again and again: what am I to you?

 Will you ever see me at all?

Will I ever matter to you the way you mattered to me? 

And why does it feel like everything, when perhaps it was nothing from the very start?

But in the end, the silence between us rumbled louder than any confession I could ever muster. It filled the spaces my voice could not reach, turning every “almost” into a fragile shadow that trembled but never fully became. The words I never spoke remained imprisoned within me, haunting like ghosts, waiting for a courage that never came.

My heart was never ready to let go, never ready to face the quiet that settled in the spaces where everything had once been alive. Our conversations, once so effortless and full, gradually faded into shadows, and our laughter slowly dissolved into echoes that resided long after you were gone. Those familiar streets and quiet corners we had shared, now carry the ripples of memories, whispering reminders of what once was and what could never be again.

Some people lose because they confess. Some lose because they remain silent. Me? I was lost somewhere in the spaces between the words I never said.I lost myself in that dangerous space between, where words almost lived, almost mattered, and yet never did.

If these words ever find you,know that you will forever be the greatest chapter in the story of my life.Though I walk forward, carrying the weight of what was never spoken, a part of me always remains tethered to the warmth you left .And if destiny has truly written our paths, I hope we will meet again not as the fragile souls we once were, but as the most complete versions of ourselves.And when that day comes,may it feel like the world itself holding its breath to witness the love that never truly left.

Until then, you will forever remain the quiet prayer I whispered,hoping that the light you deserved would touch your days before it ever found mine, and that somewhere, in some small way, my love might linger around you, unseen but unwavering.

Even if my words never reach your ears. 

Even if the depth of what I felt remains unseen. 

Even if my name never crosses your mind.

To the one who holds my heart,

you are my favourite unkept promise,

my sweetest “what if”,

my tender almost,

my “maybe in a different lifetime”,

my forever favourite unfinished chapter.

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Budak kecil itu

Aku dekati

Aku amati

Bahu dia aku pegang lembut

Pipi dia aku sentuh perlahan

Kepalanya dahaga usapan

Seakan dunia sedang menunjukkan

bahagiannya yang sungguh halus

Budak kecil itu

Aku pimpin tangannya

Lantas dia bertanya

“Kita mahu ke mana?”

Sini, aku tunjukkan dunia sebenar

Dunia tanpa ada orang tuamu

Yang menapis bahaya hidup

Anak matanya tepat aku pandang

Raut wajahnya bersih,

Aku tatap penuh hiba

Air jernih laju aku seka

Dia, ialah aku.

Dari anak matanya, aku lihat aku.

Yang masih bermain-main

Yang bebas dari runsing

Yang menumpang kasih ibu ayah

Ingin sekali aku beritakan padanya

Khabar bumi di kemudian hari

Di saat dia dewasa

Cukup besar untuk memahami

Bahawa dunia ini tak seindah yang dia harapkan

Dunia ini,

Sentiasa ada alasan untuk menyakiti hati yang berperasaan

Budak kecil itu

Lincah berlari membelah angin

Seolah tiada yang merunsingkan hati

Ingin sekali aku berpesan

Kelak membesar jangan cepat memberi hatimu pada insan

Kelak yang kau dapat hanya kesakitan

Manusia durjana yang disanjung itu

bersembunyi di balik kemeja dan kasut kulit

Kata-kata mereka mempesona

Manifestasi seolah tiada cela

Dijunjung, disanjung hebat

Walau terang bangkai gajah

Walau bersuluh penuh noda

Pada lensa netra mereka

Rupanya buta dengan harta dan pangkat semata

Manusia iri pula sentiasa mencari jalan

Menjatuhkan kaki yang sedang belajar berdiri

Hatinya enggan memberi puji

Bahkan amarah menguasai diri

“Karut, tiada makhluk hidup mahu menganiaya yang lain”

Kata-katanya buat aku bungkam seribu bahasa

Bukanlah salahnya melihat dunia dengan mata suci itu

Namun malangnya bumi dicemar tangan-tangan hina yang mencipta dosa baru

Bumi jadi ruang perang

Bukan lagi tempat riang

Andai satu hari nanti

Dia mampu menelan realiti

Pasti dia fahami

Nilai kecil duniawi

Tiap saat, ada kepala yang dipancung,

Ada tangan yang ditoreh, ada pisau yang membelah luka

Rangkaian perhubungan yang terlihat gah

Ternyata terselit agenda pemerintah

Media sosial?

Cara baru melukai manusia tanpa tumpahnya darah

Khabar palsu?

Laju dikongsi tanpa teliti

Memecah belah pertalian darah

Membahagi manusia mengikut ‘kasta’

Bukit-bukau ditarah

Rata dek haloba sang peniaga

Pejuang kekayaan makin kaya

Pejuang nasib hidup makin meranaHasil hutan ditukar dengan ringgit

Andai angka itu mampu ditukar dengan nilai kemanusiaan

Budak kecil itu

Riang benar tawanya

Aku dekati lalu rambutnya lembut aku elus

Senyumnya tak pudar

Alangkah indah pemandangan

Wahai sang periang kecil

Andai kamu tahu dunia sudah tak indah lagi

Tangan-tangan kotor telah cemari

Kasih sayang tak mampu menguasai

Hati yang diikat ketamakan tanpa simpati

Golongan fakir meningkat dinihari

Dunia, sudah tidak indah lagi

Kendatipun begitu

Bumi tetap dengan putarannya

Gunung tetap dengan pasaknya

Awan dan bintang

Tetap silih berganti

Dan kamu, tetaplah dengan baktimu

Kerana sesungguhnya

Pada akhir kalam

Dunia hanya tinggal cerita

Jadi kamu, bangunlah dari lena dunia

Bangkit berjuang dengan kudratmu

Kuat selalu, sang pahlawan

Aku titipkan

Budak kecil itu

Buat kamu yang membaca

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.

“Oh! What a poor seal!” my friend said as the orcas crashed the melting iceberg. In the middle of it was a seal trying to survive.

I made my friends watch an entire episode of the Our Oceans documentary on Netflix. Obviously not everyone was interested, but what caught their attention was the well-known narrator, Barack Obama. 

In the end, the group of orcas gave up and swam away. Everyone was celebrating the seal’s victory. As they were cheering and clapping their hands, I finally decided to say something, “But the orcas are starving though”.

Everyone turned around and looked at me, but no one said anything. They know how much I love those big mammals. In fact, I was the only one in the room who was rooting for them instead of the seal. 

Everyone knows orcas are the killer whales, or at least I thought everyone did. However, few of us know they actually come from the dolphin family, which is why they are highly intelligent. 

Over the years, orcas have been captured and held in for entertainment. They received negative perspectives due to being the apex predators, and this viewpoint intensified following the killing cases of their trainers in marine parks during shows or training sessions.

They were confined in small tanks, forced to train and perform in front of hundreds of humans daily, and yet they are to blame. I find this viewpoint ridiculous. Of course they would kill; even naturally, that is how they feed themselves. 

Humans have killed and caused massive extinction for years, slaughtering every single species until their bloodline stopped. Ironically, no one calls themselves “the killer mammal”.

We are so good at naming things, other things of course. Definitely not ourselves. 

Several months after watching orcas on a flat screen in my cramped studio, I somehow found myself floating in the middle of the Arctic ocean.

On December 16th, 2025, I visited a city in far northern Norway. Skjerv?y, located a few hours away from Troms?. My friends and I wrapped ourselves in several layers of clothing and huge boots. I hugged their arms, ambling carefully like a penguin on the slippery ice. Well, everyone looked like a penguin in my eyes. 

We then hopped into the boat. The guide told us everything we needed to know like basic rules and precautions. She said we were very fortunate to have unusually warm weather, which is peculiar for them. 

As the boat drove farther from land, the ocean breeze started to hit our faces. The mixture of its coldness with the warmth of the sun felt comfortable on my skin, as if I was meant to be there all along. I had the chance to talk with Kai, a Chinese girl studying in the UK. She was very nice, but sadly we didn’t exchange any contacts.

Along the journey, there were massive white mountains around. I had to squint my eyes to observe the majestic views due to the strong blustering wind. The ocean felt like a bumpy road that slowly lulled me to sleep, but I held back the urge. I definitely did not pay a month’s rent just to sleep. 

Finally, after around 10 to 15 minutes on the boat, we saw a pod of orcas swimming nearby. The tour guide slowed down the engine and whistled to catch their attention. She explained a few things about their pods, their diets, their migration, and their physical activities. Orcas are the most widely distributed cetaceans. They often swim and hunt in pods, just like wolf packs. In wintertime, from the North Atlantic to the coast of northern Norway to feed on spawning herring. This could reach between 600 km and 1,500 km.    

Seeing the killer whales roaming freely in the vast ocean with their pods reminded me of the (Antibes). I was naive and excited to see them without actually learning about them first. Although Marineland is finally closed due to the ban of cetacean entertainment in France, the journey is not near the end at all. Globally, there are still and other cetaceans living in small tanks, suffering a never-ending torture. 

As I finally observed the dolphin species up close, I was still not satisfied. Greed is always human nature, after all, and I craved to see humpback whales. The guide drove the boat farther and farther, hoping to see at least one of them.

After a while of searching, the ocean eventually shared its secret with us. I admit I felt like the most fortunate human on earth that day; a humpback whale appeared right beside our boat and swam close for a few minutes. It positively indicated that the engine wasn’t bothering them. They were comfortable swimming near us!

The guide explained to us how the humpback whales also travelled from , migrating based on their mating and feeding seasons. For some reason they have been my favourite whale ever since I was 11, but with no memory to recall why. 

Out of the blue, a fin whale also appeared behind our boat, but it only surfaced once. No one had the chance to record the brief moment. Looking at their courage to swim up close, I was thinking how brave they are to show themselves. Humans have been hunting whales forever, for entertainment, and other human ‘necessities’. 

For decades, whale hunting caused their mass population to shrink and dwindle; endangering and destroying the ecosystem. Considering our history, we have given them every reason to disappear from our sight, but they don’t. The scene in front of me felt satisfying, but also undeserved; I was looking at an action of trust given from a species that we have betrayed for centuries.

Why would you feel guilty for the sins you don’t commit? Maybe I am guilty for the little things I don’t know. For every litter I saw but didn’t pick up, that probably ended up somewhere in the ocean they are living in.

The next day we directly flew to the next city. I hadn’t (and still haven’t) moved on from everything I saw on that day. I mean, who would? 

As I travelled to Oslo, leaving Troms? and all the beautiful creatures behind, I received a text from my brother:

“What a waste going to Norway but not seeing any aurora”

“What a waste living here for 5 years but not seeing any whales? Aurora is just another light display anyways, what’s the difference with rainbows?”

“And whales are just another mammal anyways, what’s the difference with cats?”

I turned off my phone. 

I am not a fan of colorful night skies, but I understand the different values and perspectives of traveling. Some people prefer historical buildings, some prefer preserved nature, some love following the trends, and some prefer whale watching, or maybe that’s just me?

In many years to come, it is uncertain if our future generations can still go whale watching like I did. It all depends on what humans, us, will do. It all depends on how many whales are still alive. Some species might be endangered, some populations might grow, and some might be extinct. 

Extinct. My least favourite word in all dictionaries. 

It seems illogical to think that some species that have lived for more than millions of  years could go extinct. 

Oh, but who is to blame?

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