I’m not homeless nor am I flat broke. I am however – still broke most of the time and have as much financial worries of various magnitudes as any other person you’d meet living in Kuala Lumpur, or any urban cities in Malaysia. But what puts me in a better position is this – I’ve never known the meaning of going hungry, or being hungry. I’ve thrown tempers of enormous magnitude when lunch is late, dinner is late or when there’s no breakfast. I’ve sulked when food is crap and had to be sent back to the kitchen because it would mean I’m without food for another 30 minutes. And that’s just 30 minutes. I am NOT a supporter of soup kitchens. There, I’ve said it. HOWEVER I cannot deny that soup kitchens are the best stopgap solutions to the homeless, vagrants, orang jalanan(?) or whatever you may want to call these communities. I also know friends from various walks of lives put in their time, effort, money and sweat into either running soup kitchens or volunteering for one. I’m not just talking about us rah rah rah keyboard activists, but people who have crazy hours at work, ECD working for 18 hours a day, film producers who shoots for 20 days in a row, musicians, artists, buskers, mothers, teachers, mak datins(I kid you not!), doctors who works on crazy 72 hour shifts and still make time to go to the streets. Why? Because they do not want people to go hungry. Do you know what happens when you cannot or you are unable to feed yourself? You stop thinking. You cannot think. Your body’s basic necessity is food. Not your pesto pasta or caeser salad – but food that nourishes you so you can WORK. So you can breathe, you can think and you can stand up – with DIGNITY. When you cannot feed yourself – you shut down. That’s NOT being lazy. That’s not being USELESS. It’s about being hungry. I spend a lot of time roaming KL at crazy hours because I’m an insomniac and I live so close to the city – even when I don’t, that’s probably the only place you go for midnight suppers. I have friends whose relatives are homeless, and that’s how we go visit them and take them for a meal to catch up. I talk to every random uncle and aunties ( a lot more than I do my own friends actually ) and tell them to “jaga my car please, how come that shop is close?, what time open?, where is this?, why auntie you never wear bra? Milk come out, uncle want to eat? you sit I pay for your hokkien mee” Believe me – I’ve said stupid shits like that to get them to eat with us. Because I know how crappy one feels to be hungry. I make the worst decisions in life when I’m hungry. I’ve known how frustrated a person can be when he’s hungry. I’ve only very recently seen how even having a roof over your head – when you’re hungry and cannot pay for food, your life still stinks. When you have to think of what dish to ask the makcik so you don’t exceed your RM5 budget a day. When you see RM5 for 3 packets of kacang and that’s a steal. When you sleep all day – so you only eat once. Or when someone had to think TWICE about buying me a birthday meal, if we can go eat teo chew porridge or fishball noodles (because teo chew porridge is more expensive with the dishes) and still have some spare for a soft serve ice cream. And this – was a person with a roof over his head. You, Tengku Adnan, had obviously never been hungry. I’m judging you by your size – your shirt’s button hardly sit properly. You’ve never WALKED the streets and speak to these people like they’re a person. YOU associate homelessness with unemployment. MOST of them have jobs – some even have tanah back in kampong. In cleaning up the city – ask yourself this. Why can they NOT afford even renting a room in Kuala Lumpur? Why are public transportation so terrible and EXPENSIVE in the city? Why are some of these families not able to get housing at PPRT? Is your system transparent or fair? Why are process for get aid from JKM, Baitumal, and Zakat(this one I’m not so sure) so hard and the bureaucracy and red tapes to get there? In eradicating syndicates, keeping it “beautiful” for tourists”, you are forcing the people who makes Kuala Lumpur, OUT. By banning these soup kitchens - you are undermining my friends who are out there helping! I cannot stand people who bully my friends!! Are you a Minister of the Federal Territories or are you a Minister for “VISITORS” of the Federal Territories? I suggest to that YOU too go hungry – for just one day. Might do you some good. You really takes the cake from the other toad this time around.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 03:31:22 +0000
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