Close Encounters with the Strangers that Built My Country
Is it that hard to treat a human being, as a human being?
He smiled thinly from behind the counter. His convenience store uniform creased further as he scanned my items, and I glanced at his name tag: Jaleel (not his real name). He looked to be my age. Sensing a kindred spirit before me, I asked: “Have you eaten?”
He was taken aback by my question. Probably because nobody had asked before. Because nobody cared. Because Jaleel was from Bangladesh and one of the millions of migrants eking out a meagre living in my homeland.
They worked as grass cutters, waiters, security guards and construction workers. They were Bangladeshis, Nepalese, Myanmarese, Indonesians and Filipinos. They lived in tiny cramped rooms with three or four fellow countrymen. They are poor because much of their earnings are mailed home to support families, wives and children that were left behind.
“No, I have not eaten yet,” Jaleel replied in Malay. Then, as if he sensed something as well, he continued, “I’ve been here since midnight. No meals since then.”
Ignoring his protests, I gave him the can of coffee I had just bought. “Wait here,” I told him, even though he wasn’t going anywhere. “I’ll get you something.”
I went to a nearby restaurant and bought him rice with vegetables and fried chicken. But when I gave him the meal, I remembered that the food wasn’t halal. Most Bangladeshis here were Muslim, and I presumed he was as well.
I apologised profusely, but he laughed and shook his head. “It’s okay, nobody has done this for me before,” he replied, smiling widely. “Thank you.”
In the 1940s, my ancestors left their destitute homeland of Fujian and booked passage to Malaya on a British ship. Word was that Southeast Asia was the promised land, a land overflowing with tin and rubber. There, you could start afresh and make something of yourself, if you played your cards right.
As a fourth-generation member of the Chinese Diaspora, I’ve often wondered how things might have been if my ancestors arrived in the present day. Would they be in Jaleel’s place, wearing that orange and green convenience store uniform and being paid peanuts to work eighteen-hour shifts?
Perhaps they would, because migrant workers have little choice. My maternal grandmother had to cycle two hours around the capital, working odd jobs to support the family. My maternal grandfather was uneducated and could only find work as a taxi driver.
My paternal grandparents, on the other hand, fared better. They started out as farmers and tin miners, gradually saving enough to open a grocery store of their own. But they also had fifteen mouths to feed.
Chinese and Indian migrants, along with the local Malays, built the country into the beacon of prosperity that it is today. They were the first migrants that were brought in for low-paying and dirty jobs like tin mining, rubber tapping, construction and manufacturing. Undesirable work, but crucial for the economy and the nation.
Work that Jaleel and his people have now inherited.
After a long day at work, I swung by the convenience store for some juice. Standing behind the counter was Jaleel, his smile ever at the ready. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and welcomed me.
I stood there flabbergasted. “I just saw you last night!” I blurted out. “And it’s now seven in the evening. Have you been working non-stop since then?”
“Yeah, boss said she needed me to cover several shifts,” Jaleel replied. He rubbed his eyes again. “For now. They asked HQ to send extra workers.”
“I hope they are paying you more for double-shifts.”
Jaleel shrugged and smiled. “At least I still have a job. My friend, not so lucky. His employer abandoned him, now he has no job, no money, no passport.”
Not many people know this — or care — but migrants get their passports taken away by their agents once they arrive here in Malaysia. It’s insurance; this way, migrants can’t escape without paying off the money spent by the agent to bring them over.
Tash Aw’s We, the Survivors brilliantly documents what migrants go through the moment they land on our shores. The novel draws beautiful parallels between the experience of today’s migrants with that of my ancestors — but it also highlights an ugly fact. That today’s migrants seldom get to taste the eventual freedom my ancestors once enjoyed. They can never be part of this country. They can never return to their homeland.
Because they seldom get their passports back. Their agents get away with it because migrants have little rights in Malaysia. Most are undocumented and unrepresented, so nobody would employ them. If they go to the authorities, they are treated like criminals, beaten in dark cells and discarded like things.
Jaleel was one of the lucky ones.
Like his fellow countrymen, Jaleel also had his passport taken from him. His agent confiscated it the moment he left Bangladesh. The convenience store that employed his agent may be a popular and reputable brand, but they clearly weren’t beneath doing shady shit like this.
When I brought Jaleel’s story to a friend that works with refugee bodies and local communities, his face darkened. The only way to free Jaleel was to ‘buy him out’.
“These crooks will toss you an arbitrary number,” he said. “It’s not going to be in the hundreds or even thousands. They think they own these migrants, so they should profit from it.” I asked if the local councilwoman would help, but he shook his head. It was out of her jurisdiction and immigration would get involved. That would land Jaleel in all kinds of hot water.
Before I left, he took me aside and warned me to drop the idea. The people who backed Jaleel’s agent had plenty of money, muscle and political clout. This was bigger than just one person.
“My dream is to save enough money, return home and open my own chicken farm,” Jaleel said, during one of my visits. “My brother has bought two cows with the money I send back. Life is better for my family now.”
Why chickens, I asked. He laughed and explained that eggs were always in demand and chickens were easier to breed and care for. The farm would grow quickly. Then he could afford to hire people in his village, so the youngsters needn’t travel abroad and leave their loved ones behind, as Jaleel did.
Jaleel’s business acumen never ceases to impress me, even until this very day. He didn’t have much of an education, yet that never stopped him from shooting for the stars.
Our conversations in that chilly convenience store humbled me constantly. His impossible situation didn’t shake him one bit. “God will help me, Insyallah,” was what he’d repeatedly say. And his family was doing well, thanks to him. That was a priceless accomplishment for him.
In these conversations, I’d continue to ask if he’d already eaten. He would always claim that he had, even though he was thinning every time I saw him. I bought him food anyway. It was my ticket to stay and talk to him about chickens, cows and God.
One day, I walked into the store at my usual time to find another man standing in Jaleel’s place. I thought, no matter. He’s probably on a different shift, so I’ll come back another time.
I walked into and drove past the store multiple times after that. Jaleel was nowhere to be found. I was curious, so when I saw the manager, I inquired about Jaleel.
“Transferred,” she replied, her eyes never lifting from her clipboard. “They move those Bangladeshis around a lot. Otherwise, they become too comfortable and start thinking that they own the place.”
Several months ago, I got lost somewhere downtown, while making my way to a friend’s wedding rehearsal. It was around dinnertime and traffic was terrible, so I figured I’d grab a bite while waiting for the roads to clear a bit.
I found myself in an old part of town, where migrant workers lived in crumbling tenements and overgrown shop lots. Several blocks down were banks and venture capital offices, where millions of dollars swapped hands during the day. But here at night, it was dark, dingy and quiet.
I walked into a nearby restaurant, looking for hot food. All they had were the congealed remnants of lunch that day, looking sad and dry in the open trays of a bain-marie.
I looked around the restaurant and saw foreign faces everywhere. Nepalese, Bangladeshis, Rohingyas, Vietnamese and Cambodians. People speaking multiple languages at once, and as if to each other. Maybe they understood each other. They shared a common language: one of estrangement, hopelessness and quiet suffering.
I looked again, but I didn’t recognize these faces. I couldn’t find him.
I never saw Jaleel again.
