Well-heeled Malay

My Singaporean Chinese colleague told me, “you are one of my rare well-heeled Malay friend.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, “Am I your rare well-heeled Malay friend or am I your rare Malay friend?”

“Both.” She said.

She doesn’t have that many Malay friends, and after knowing me in this short three months, she said that I am different from many Malays whom she knew. The reasons being, I’ve been halfway across the world, and to so many different countries that only she could imagine. Most of her Malay friends, who are very few and far in between, only mentioned JB and Malaysia as their farthest destinations.

I’m not so sure whether that could be counted as well-heeled, but maybe well-travelled.

You see, I have a problem with this definition. From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, well-heeled means having plenty of money. I thank Allah for all the rezeki that he has given me, but surely I don’t have plenty of money.

For one, this colleague of mine lived in a condo they can call their own somewhere almost central in Singapore, whereby I only rent them, and that’s only because I don’t have my own flat. Me - houseless in that sense, but I am grateful for still having a shelter over my head. I saved and scrimp for our next holiday. And we have our own bills and debts to pay that seem part of what our life is all about – bills, fees, debts, mortgage etc. How I wish I could spend without even looking at the price tag.

The reason why I am well-travelled is because I am lucky to have a dad who works with SATS as one of their pioneers. Therefore, he and his family were given free air tickets to any SIA destination every year. But even then, we did not quite make full use of it. Having free air tickets is one thing, having money to spend on himself, his wife and five other children in some faraway destination is another. The first time he allowed me to travel alone, so that I could make full use of this free air ticket, was when I was 15. He told me he could only get the air tickets but I have to cover the other expenses myself. So I begged him to withdraw some of my hard earned savings since I was young, went to London, and bunked in with my cousin who was studying there. Being the travel bug that I am, I worked during the school holidays, between two weeks to a month just to get enough money to cover basic expenses. At that time, I usually bunked at some relatives or friends’ relatives homes. So under my dad’s privileges, I traveled to Los Angeles, Christchurch, South Korea, Manila and the many air trips to KL with him or the family. On my own, or with a friend with the same privileges, I’ve been London, Christchurch again, Perth and Melbourne.

The last time was after I finished uni, and signed up a package for a 33 day Europe tour. I used my Dad’s free flights but paid for the land package, which set me back for a couple of months after starting work because I had to pay a loan that I took for this holiday. That was really awesome! At least, I have covered some of the most expensive countries to travel if I hadn’t had the free air tickets. But I had loans to pay after that, eventhough it was not huge, it was steep for an entry level earner like myself.

After I started work, I lost all rights to those privileges. No more traveling, since it would definitely be a pinch on my very tiny pocket, but I was lucky enough to travel for work. My first working experience overseas was traveling to Kelantan via the KTM to film a drama. That was really hard work, to work with such skimpy budget, what’s more overseas. So much drama over one drama.

Overseas traveling was rosy when I was producer of a fashion programme. I traveled to Paris, New York, Tokyo and Bali and attended New York fashion week, no less. That, shall I conclude, could best described my jet-setting life then.

Then, there were other less high-flying places like Brunei, Bintan and China.

Then came my stint in KL. I was a producer of a travel programme and traveled to quite a bit of the Malaysian states – Cherating, Chameron Highlands, Port Dickson, Malacca, Sarawak.

When I got married, I traveled on our hard earned money to our first destination together – Mauritius for our honeymoon. After we had Afzal, we headed to Melbourne and Gold Coast, and then once again, Melbourne. Those were hard earned cash too.

And by some Divine intervention, hubby received the offer to be posted to Alabama, USA, for one year, and we grabbed at this opportunity to live in a different country. Dare we say, we’d rather spent to see other states in the USA, then to come home to Singapore and not being able to travel that far again. So while living there, we’ve headed to Florida, Atlanta (Georgia), Mississippi, Louisiana, Los Angeles etc.

I’ve always been a travel bug, and am ever-willing to travel for work. However, when Afzal came to the picture, I’d rather stay put for him, but am willing to travel with him

Thus, being well-heeled, I’m definitely not. And if my memory serves me right, I once heard which is statistically unverified, that there were about 400 well-heeled Malays in Singapore. Well-heeled, in this case, to mean having a household income beyond $10k a month. That’s a paltry number considering the number of Malays or Singaporeans in Singapore, but I’m way way below that income level to be part of that statistic. So I’m not well-heeled.

I don’t mind being labeled a rare breed Malay, but then again, what is a rare breed Malay?