the mirror image

While at my graduation ceremony, my mother met a nice woman who's very much like herself, in the weird sense that this woman is the complete opposite of my mother. This might sound a little bit creepy, but it did happen. The woman was attending her daughter's graduation, the third of her eight children; six of which are daughters, at the time of the meeting with my mother; who happened to have eight children, six of which are sons. I am the third of eight children.

It did not stop there. If it did, it wouldn't be interesting.

The woman, at the time of the meeting was residing in Kelantan (I think she still does). She's Johorean, but followed her late Kelantanese husband back to his hometown after they married. She had stayed and adopted Kelantan as her new home after her husband passed away. My mother was born and brought up in Kelantan, married and followed my late father back to his hometown, and when my father passed away, had stayed put at the place she dubbed home; Johor.

The both of them; the woman and my mother agreed that; home is where they now reside.

--------------------------------------------

I'm well aware that it has been quite some time since my graduation ceremony. I chose to write about this now after doing some blog-hopping and chanced upon this interesting piece by a friend of Boro's (I don't know how to specifically point to the post, but it's the post on the 30th of October 2006), or rather, what really caught my attention was the comments regarding that particular post.

I am fortunate to have a (Johor) Javanese (late) father and Kelantanese mother. If nothing else, it gives me a different and fresh point of view, this, well, bloodline (macam Naruto la pulak). I've heard from people words like; never marry a Javanese (they were talking about Malaysian citizens I believe). And I've heard countless times of all the do-not-be-friends-and-God-forbid-marry-these-people things about the people from Kelantan. Believe me, there's nothing wrong with the Javanese or Kelantanese, really (I'm annoyingly -but in a joking manner- cocky at times because that's just the way I am, not because I'm half Javanese and/or half Kelantanese. Honestly ;p). And there's nothing wrong with being half or full anything (I strictly mean in human terms here. If someone is half hyena then something might have gone terribly wrong). The problem is when one is half or full of hatred and/or prejudice.

People are different. And because of that, the world is a much more interesting place to live in.