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As a farewell, Hanim treated me to lunch at Lala Chong, a Chinese restaurant that specializes in extremely fresh seafood steamed in garlic, ginger, and Chinese wine; Chinese style fish head curry; and glass noodles stirfried with seafood. We ended up ordering steamed fish, along with many other sides. I must say that I was relieved not to have to try fish head. I even ate some beef because it looked so good.

Our meal was more somber than normal. I was slowly beginning to accept that I would be leaving Malaysia in a few days. More importantly, the day before, the Bersih 2.0protests had taken place in Kuala Lumpur. Put simply, Prime Minister Najib was appointed to his office. To prove his legitimacy, it is customary to hold elections. The opposition, led by Anwar Ibrahim (former Deputy Prime Minister/current member of Parliament), planned a protest demanding election reform (transparent, free, and fair). PM Najib legally banned the protests. He later changed his mind due to the intervention of King Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin and permitted the protest to occur inside of Stadium Merdeka. Later in the week, he retracted that permission. This caused them (the yellow shirts) to decide to march to the stadium anyway. The protests were not pretty.

Hanim did not participate in the protests, but watched them unfold on television with a heavy heart. She spent that whole day crying and worrying about the future of the country that she loved so much. The emotional drain was written all over her face. I could not completely empathize with her given her status as a member of the ethnic majority of her country. Hanim is a proud Malaysian (nationality) and a proud Malay (ethnicity) who understands the value of progress. The dichotomy of my US pride and her Malaysian passion is rooted in a sense of belonging. Hanim lives and breathes Malaysia. She looks, acts, and feels Malaysian.

While we continued discussing the politics of yesterday’s protest, a tall Chinese-looking man, wearing gym clothes sat a couple of tables away and began snapping photos of us with his iPhone. At first I just dismissed it as him being intrigued at the spectacle of a black man having a one-on-one meal with an older Malaysian woman. Then Hanim told me that she used to be a lot more politically active in her youth. She believes that she’s on a couple of watch lists and gets followed around sporadically. She turned to wave (mockingly) at him and I forced uncomfortable eye contact with him. Embarrassed, he got up and left without ordering any food.