The story of stuffs and gender

After almost a year and a half in Australia, there are two things I am beginning to look at differently now.

Firstly, what, why, and how much stuffs I am using in my daily life now as compared to when I was in Malaysia. Transportation provides the first striking difference, whereas in Malaysia it's almost impossible to walk to get anywhere near to my destination, I only have to walk to get to school, buy my groceries, and watch movies these days.

Not only I drive almost every day in Malaysia, but every two or three month I drive intensively back and forth from school to home. Although I admit I enjoy driving immensely, especially so with the company of friends and along the beautiful beaches of Pahang, Terengganu, and Kelantan; living in Randwick now provides me with the satisfaction of being able to connect to my local areas, to know every road by foot, to know the owner of the store, to get a glimpse of familiar neighbour every time I walk by. At the same time, it doesn't cut me off from the world.

In terms of buying food and things, I notice how I am producing less surplus when I started to get things I only need. Part of it is attributable to living alone of course, because in Malaysia I usually buy things for my brothers and nieces, which also explains how we are more connected by things than communal interactions in our life now more than ever.

Watch the Story of Stuffs to see what I mean about buying and using stuffs and their impacts on our lives, and watch how much our world has changed since 200 years ago.

Another new perspective which I found revealing is the interplay of sex and gender in our society. Sex is biological, but gender is cultural. Who we are and how we behave is constructed by our society. And guess what, even what we interpret from the Bible, the Last Testament, and the Quran are socially constructed. It really is a question to ponder, what values underlie our judgments in the interactions of our daily life, and how sometimes we are clouded by perspectives which we think our own but not.

I've gained a lot of insightful awareness and confidence in the past year, and I believe I'm already miles away from what I had been before. The only question is, how do I bring these realization home and stay true to myself while bringing about the change I want to see in my home country?