I remember growing up in the 80s. I have naturally curly hair, and was often teased by family and neighbours due to my so-called ‘hairstyle’ – curly like the main characters in Alex Haley’s ‘Roots’. Yes, I was relentlessly called ‘Kunta Kinte’, the main character in the tv series about African slaves. And you know what ? It was a painful experience for a 7-year old girl.
My parents refrained from calling us kids using names such as ‘comel’, ‘si cantik’ and so on. I guess they were not brought up that way. It was common for some Malays to avoid saying nice things about their children, especially regarding their looks, perhaps as a way to avoid evil spirits. That is why some elderly Malay women have names such as Hitam, Burok etc. And this is also why some kids like me grew up with a bruised self-esteem !
Fast forward to my secondary school days. I was also skinny, and some of my seniors ( I went to an all-girls’ school) called me ‘budak takde pinggang.’ And I pretended I didn’t hear it. They were the pretty ones, the ones with straight hair, nice clothes and rich dads. I mixed around with the less-popular kids : the half-Chinese girl, another girl with curly hair like me and a straight-haired plump girl. You could call us geeks, but we were cool geeks. We knew all the songs on Casey Kasem’s Top 40 (another 80s institution!), and the Malay songs too ! And we scored almost all As for our SRP.
I managed to get into a boarding school for my Form 4, and here I met a few girls who enjoyed commenting about other people’s looks. I was still skinny at that time ( I think I looked like a pinhead), and I remember how one girl would call out to me during a windy day, ‘ Hey pegang dia tu, tiang bendera nak jatuh ! Sambut !’ My coping mechanism would be to grin, and avoid bumping into such people again.
I wasn’t one of the sporty ones, and of course I wasn’t one of the pretty ones. Instead, I joined the public speaking club. I also joined essay-writing competitions. Whenever I was bored, I would write down short stories in old exercise books. I was interested in adventure and spy stories. I loved reading Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books available at the school library. I remember how when my former school library disposed some English story books to make way for new ones, I actually took the old ones home !
When I was not busy reading books or writing stories, I gave my mom a helping hand in the kitchen, frying fish, chicken, vegetables, kuihs. I hated the cleaning up, though. I guess for most girls growing up in the 80s, we were told to focus on studying, and the household chores would be completed by our mothers. And if we didn’t focus on studying, our parents would threaten to marry us off to old unmarried male relatives ! Eww, that was enough to prompt us to hit the books.
I got average grades for my SPM and was offered a place in ITM. I met more new friends there : the plump one, the tall one, the stick-thin one with curly hair, the mixed Malay-Arab who was always the centre of attraction, etc. We learned to live with each other quite harmoniously in one flat : we queued up for the bathroom every morning, we took turns to wash our clothes every day, we learned how to smuggle rice cookers, radios and tvs and of course, we studied really hard for our exams. With the help of my friends, I learned how to put on Avon lipbalm, and then Avon lipstick, and someone actually lent me her Elizabeth Arden lipstick for me to wear to classes !
I made myself busy with my studies at the uni, and in the process I think I learned to accept my looks. Sure, I still looked like a pinhead, but it did not really bother me. Also, it seemed that there were less people criticising about your appearance at the uni ; other students were also busy with their studies, and their Gamelan/Muzik Kontemporari/Persatuan Anak Negeri and so on. The co-curricular activities help to build your character and your self-esteem. You learn that there is more to life than having a flat nose, a flat chest or Kunta Kinte hair. And of course, nobody wants to go to a uni and NOT graduate.
I graduated some 20 years ago and am now a senior officer in a government organisation. If I had been badly affected by other people’s comments about my looks, or if I had been too focused on my appearance, I don’t think I would be able to get this far. My self-esteem may have been bruised in secondary and boarding school, but now I am much more successful than my former classmates and seniors who had commented on my looks !
– Mak Jemah
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