The Amateur Writer

This is another overdue post but I had an opportunity to visit Pulau Ketam for a school visit during my internship. I was pretty oblivious to its existence and I've heard stories from my mum and colleagues about the place. Remote, dirty and language barrier are some of its descriptions. I refrained from any judgements and was pretty much all-in for this little adventure. My friend, Yin Li and I had to make it for a class at 10AM so the journey started quite early. I'm not very familiar with the KTM/LRT system  in Malaysia (because I'm ignorant like that) and we had to take a train to Port Klang (which I've never been to) so it was quite...an experience for me. I freaking enjoyed the whole journey to be honest. I really felt like a Malaysian for just going off quite spontaneously to travel to a place no one I know have been to. Sometimes I feel it is way better to get to know one's own home country and really discover the essence of your home than go travel some place foreign.

So after the train ride, we had to take an hour ferry ride to the island. It literally felt like I was in a foreign country once I stepped onto the ferry. There was a 90s Chinese karaoke song blasted and the overall vibe was very....exotic. Even Yin Li described the whole experience as if we're somewhere in the small islands in China. I'm not sure whether they are small islands in China but it really felt like that!












Pulau Ketam is a fishing town/village(?) mainly populated by the Chinese community. Most people there can't speak Malay or English so Mandarin is main register here. Small alleyways such as the picture above populate the island and the best way I can describe this place is quaint. I really like the atmosphere and the place is actually really nice. It doesn't smell as bad as I thought it would be. Garbage disposal is a big issue here but I can see that there are community efforts to clean up the island on every other weekend.






There are a total of 4 Fellows at the only high school on the island. I managed to meet up with Priscilla, Mildred and Ken Ming and sat in for Priscilla's English class.


















The biggest concern for the students in Pulau Ketam is definitely getting them interested in pursuing education in general. Seeing that most of them have never left the island and being totally separated from the outside world, most students aren't speakers of Malay and English. Realistically if they were to pursue other career opportunities, they aren't eligible due to these basic requirements. From a parents perspective for these kids, they don't see the need for their children to pursue higher learning because they can always continue the businesses they already own on the island. For the parents, as long as the kids can attain basic skills such as numeracy skills that are good enough to know how to balance the books for their business then it is good enough.

 Another thought that may come to your mind is how can these kids sit for SPM if they aren't fluent in Malay or English. The reality is well...most of them don't sit for SPM. Out of 200 SPM candidates in the school, only 12 of them sat for exam.

I don't want to end this post with such a sad fact but the one thing that this trip has taught me is to see beyond the bubble that I live in. The life and challenges that Malaysians who live outside of Kuala Lumpur are so different. Sometimes I find it infuriating how selfish some of us can be to assume what our country should need when the reality is, most of Malaysia are simply not ready for change.

I guess my thought process at the moment would be that if change or first world-ism is what you after, then do your part and help out other communities to be at par with what you are so that change can take effect.