Hello ladies and Gentlemen, apa khabar? I hope that you are all well. May name is Dolah and I am an accountant to the stars. Ahahaha. No, seriously, I am. I work in a medium sized firm in Holborn who has many actors and artists and singers as their clients. I really don’t understand them, they are quite a strange bunch of people. My manager always tries to encourage me to know our client’s work, go to their shows, their exhibitions and I do. In fact I picked up some private clients there. Some of whom I have done some pro-bono work but on the whole they are good payers.

(Why I am here?)

I really want to thank you for coming here and listening to me because really, I wonder, myself, why I am here. I mean I am talking to myself but I guess I’m talking to you as well. But you can see, it’s early morning, no one is up. No one is on Twitter, no one is on Facebook apart from those from home but really I don’t want to talk to them, What for? Even reading Maya Angelou gives no comfort. I always find her wisdom comforting. I know alreadylah why the cagebird sings! Aiyah I feel like it’s going to be one of those days. You know, she is a client with our American branch? Big enough to matter, small enough to care. Hehehe. No, that’s no our motto. I read that somewhere else.

(Made redundant)

Talking about work, perhaps I’m feeling like I need to talk because the company is downsizing and they are looking at my section to see who is worthy of keeping. And there is my problem. What am I? Who am I? Without being an accountant… what? How do you do what you do when you’re no longer what you are?

(Malaysian – Good Malaysian, Bad Muslim)

Am I Still Malaysian? I bet… looking around the room that none of you have ever met a Malaysian before. Maybe you have but you just don’t know it because they were either Chinese or Indian. You have never met a Malay Malaysian. I don’t know. There is something about living in London, in England that makes me fee less of a Malaysian but more of a world citizen, you know, like I can travel anywhere. I’, guessing that you must know by now that Malaysia has 3 main races, 4 categories but three races. Malay, Chinese, Indian are the races and the fourth category is ‘Other’ you know those Peranakan types or those Rodrigo types or Eurasians. Other. Something that you should know about Asians in general, Malaysians in particular, is that we are obsessed about food. Talking about it, eating it cooking it. Looking around the room I can sense that some of you know, if not all of you have hear of a website called Gaydar. Malaysians have Malaydar. It will tell us whenever we go to a new city or country, where the nearest Malaysian restaurant is. Malays in particular have something called Malaydar Plus. It will tell us where the nearest Malay person is just so we can talk about kampung cooking or my grandmother’s recipe for

(Clients)

(Toilet)

(Sense of Belonging. Football?)

(Painting)

(Long Line of Pen-pushers)

I come from a long line of pen pushers, you know, my father was a draughtsman because he was good at drawing and it was a skill they taught him in the army. My grandfather was an estate clerk right up until he retired