(1/2) “I was in KL during the 13 May 1969 riots. I was 19 at that time. There were a lot of Chinese around this area then, and they were all my friends…”

(1/2) “We used to play football together from our childhood days. People from Kerinchi, Bangsar, Abdullah Hukum wanted to come, beat up the Chinese in Lembah Pantai and even murder them.

I stopped them and said, ‘Don’t you dare, this is my area. If you want to come here and cause trouble, you need permission from me. Why do you want to kill them? I know all of them since we were kids. Even though we were from different schools – me in a Malay school, and them, a Chinese school, we are all friends. Leave, now!’

I told the Chinese boys, ‘Don’t be afraid. Stay put, and they won’t bother you again. Wait until the police or army come and pick you up.’ They waited, and the police eventually came and took them to safety. 

I didn’t touch a single Chinese person, I looked after them to make sure they were safe. If they got murdered, I would have to answer to the police since I was a youth from Pantai. When the Bukit Aman police came, they took 20 youth with them. My name was first on the list because I was the ‘taiko’ of Pantai area. Luckily there was the ‘ketua kampung’ to protect us. 

People back then liked to listen to other people’s opinions and stories. People were divided and used to conspire against each other. That’s what lead to all the fighting and riots. Even amongst the Malays they used to fight each other. I don’t understand, why would you fight amongst yourselves?”

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(1/2) “Masa rusuhan 13 Mei 1969, saya ada di KL. Saya 19 tahun masa tu. Ramai orang Cina tinggal di kawasan ini, dan mereka semua kawan saya. Kami selalu main bola sama-sama masa kecil dulu. Orang-orang dari Kerinchi, Bangsar, Abdullah Hukum nak datang dan pukul orang Cina di Lembah Pantai dan ada yang nak membunuh pun.

Saya halang mereka dan bagitahu, ‘Jangan korang berani, ini kawasan aku! Kalau korang nak datang sini bawak masalah, minta izin aku dulu. Korang dah kenapa nak bunuh dorang? Aku kenal dorang dari kitorang budak kecil lagi. Memang kitorang sekolah lain-lain – aku sekolah melayu, dorang sekolah Cina, tapi kitorang semua kawan. Berambus sekarang!’

Saya bagitahu budak-budak Cina tu, ‘Jangan takut. Tenang je, dorang tak akan kacau lagi. Kita tunggu je polis ke askar datang untuk tolong.’ Mereka tunggu, dan akhirnya polis datang dan bawa mereka ke tempat yang selamat.

Saya langsung tak sentuh mana-mana orang Cina, saya jaga mereka untuk pastikan mereka selamat. Kalau ada yang terbunuh, saya yang akan bersoal jawab dengan polis sebab saya budak Pantai. Masa polis Bukit Aman datang dan tangkap 20 orang budak, nama saya nombor satu dalam senarai sebab saya taiko kawasan Pantai. Kami agak bertuah sebab ada ketua kampung yang membantu kami.

Orang dulu-dulu suka dengar cerita dan pendapat orang lain. Mereka dipuak-puakkan dan dipergunakan dengan komplot menentang antara satu sama lain. Itu yang jadi punca gaduh dan rusuhan. Antara orang melayu pun nak gaduh. Saya tak faham. Kenapa nak bergaduh sesama kita?”

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Seen at PPR Lembah Pantai

Photostory by Amalina Davis and Mushamir Mustafa
Translated by Khairul Ridhwan

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(This post was first published on May 5th 2018)

“When I take Fluffy to the movies I’d buy two seat tickets, just in case there’s someone who bought a ticket sitting next to me…”

“We’d usually sneak Fluffy into the cinema in a bag, but now that he’s older we don’t watch movies as often.

I’ve trained him to not be afraid of people and be comfortable in noisy situations by taking him literally everywhere I went – to the pasar malam, to my office, attend events, shopping malls, grocery stores and even meetings with my friends. 

And it’s from there that he’s not afraid of people. He’s very sociable. And even when there’s a sudden noise he is calm and will not freak out like a normal cat.

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Bila saya bawa Fluffy menonton wayang, saya akan beli 2 tiket, risau kalau ada orang lain beli tiket dan duduk sebelah saya. Selalunya kami akan sorokkan Fluffy dalam beg untuk masuk panggung, tapi sekarang dia makin tua jadi kami tak menonton wayang sekerap dulu.

Saya latih dia supaya tidak takut dengan orang lain dan biasakan dengan bunyi bising dengan bawa dia bersama saya ke mana sahaja saya pergi – ke pasar malam, ke pejabat, ke majlis-majlis, pusat beli-belah, pasar raya malah bila berjumpa kawan-kawan saya.

Dari situlah dia jadi tak takut jumpa orang lain. Dia jadi sangat sosial. Dan bila ada bunyi bising yang yang mengejut dia tetap tenang dan tidak melatah macam kucing biasa.

– H̶u̶m̶a̶n̶s̶ Cats of Kuala Lumpur

Photostory by Mushamir Mustafa
Edited by Amalina Davis, Translated by Khairul Ridhwan

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(This post was first published on May 7th 2018)

“I wore my first heels when I was 21 years old and not long after that, I put on my first dress and makeup – as a drag…”

“Many people keep asking me: ‘Are you going to change your gender?’ or ‘When are you going to go for surgery?’

The truth is I never want to change my gender identity at all. Most people especially in Malaysia are confused between a drag and a transgender. 

For me, I love to put on my favorite makeup, dress, shoes, and other accessories then perform or just show up to any occasion like my friend’s wedding to enlighten the crowd. 

When I first started few years ago, one of my family members in China was visiting us and he claimed that I was possessed by a female demon. 

Not knowing better, my parents, especially my father was very worried and insisted that the family member exorcise me on a traditional Chinese superstitious ritual. 

I felt ashamed and depressed after this incident because my family would rather accept the fact that I was possessed instead of accepting who I really am.

I threw away all my belongings when I was doing drag back then and it took me a year to recover from that, thanks to my friends. After a wake-up call, I decided not to just throw away everything I have worked so for and continue to be happy with who I want to be. Besides, those things ain’t cheap! 

Not only I am working my way to attend shows and perform, I am also getting request from some companies to host their corporate events and I believe there is a huge potential for the drag scene in Malaysia despite controversial religious issues.

Most of my friends are very supportive of what I do and even offered their help and places for me to change and do my thing. 

I find that drag is a performance that mocks masculinity, and ultimately brings light into everyone, to reveal the truth within themselves”.

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Photostory by Ooi Chia Shen
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on August 20th 2018)

(2/2) “I’ve noticed that Malaysians lack respect to people like cleaners. Just because they are cleaners, you would treat them like ‘sampah’ (trash)…”

(2/2) “I have had cases where my cleaners were verbally abused, just because they missed a spot. They were called useless, trash, and all sorts of names.

I’ve had cleaners coming back to me crying because she got 1-star rating from the customer, from using our app Maideasy, where we match cleaning service providers with those looking to have their house professionally cleaned. The next day she terus demam (got sick) !

I’ve had customers calling me up and saying, ‘You tau tak i ni siapa? I ni Datin tau!’ (Do you know who I am? I’m a Datin!). Another customer said, ‘the cleaner and myself live in two different worlds, we just don’t have the same values.’ 

We shouldn’t say those things. Most of the time, the cleaners are just doing their best, and they want to earn an honest income. 

When we are training the cleaners in how to do housekeeping, we also try to teach them to look at life differently, to not let a dirty job define you. Don’t feel like you are less important than an office executive just because you are a cleaner. 

Our cleaners really need the money that they get from MaidEasy. Some of them have been with us from the beginning, so that’s three years. We can see how they use the money for rent, send their kids to school, and things like that. They share with us how this job have given them some stability in their life, it does make me happy. 

It makes me feel like I have made a difference in their life. More than just making money. Business is just business, but when I feel like I’ve done something to change someone’s life, and bring a positive impact to the community, it feels really good.

I joined the e@Stanford programme under theMalaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre(MaGIC), and we visited the United States and Silicon Valley. It was very eye-opening. Everything in America, especially in the Silicon Valley, is in the billions. They think big, everyone there wants to change the world. 

In Malaysia, it is happening too, but on a smaller scale. That doesn’t mean you are less capable than them, it just means you are solving problems closer to your vicinity. 

With age, I have come to the mindset that it does not matter how big or small is the things that you do. As long as you are happy doing what you do, and it pays the bills, anything more than that it is a bonus. It’s what’s true, to you”. 

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Humans of Kuala Lumpur is partnering with Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) in featuring inspiring and impact-driven entrepreneurs, problem solvers and startups in their mission to solve Malaysia’s problems!#HumansofMaGIC

Photostory by Amalina Davis
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on August 20th 2018)

(1/2)“I come from an upper middle class family. My father is the Chairman of a manufacturing company and has factories in Malaysia, China, and all around the world…”

 

(1/2) “I grew up being surrounded by expensive things, so I don’t feel anything different or special about it.

Most people in the affluent society tend to live inside their bubble. They think that just because another person have a more expensive handbag, they are better than you.

For a while, those material things did matter to me. Then I went through the rough times in my business, and I couldn’t afford those things, so I became more practical about it. Yes, you can have your Dior handbag, but it hides who you are. 

Its like, you wear a Dior t-shirt plastered across you, but who are you? You’re like a walking advertisement, rather than yourself. It plasters your personality. I don’t want to be hiding behind those material things, I want people to see me for who I am. 

When I was at university in London, my parents didn’t really give me enough money, so I had to work. I worked in the cinema and started a small catering business to support myself. I was very skinny when I lived there, because I would eat dessert like pudding as lunch, to save money. I would also congregate with my ‘poor’ student friends, and we would buy a sandwich pack with two sandwiches and take one each. 

I met my husband when we were studying in London together. He went to Imperial, and I went to UCL. When I met him, I realized we think on the same wavelength – he’s very intellectual and I like to read and play with ideas. We felt that entrepreneurship was the only way we can experiment with what we think, and succeed. 

Our entrepreneurial adventures are our creative and intellectual pursuits in thinking outside the box and thought a salaried job will not give me the creative exploration that I want. 

We have been together for 18 years, and started our first business together 15 years ago.

We have had half a dozen businesses, some succeeded and some failed. 

Currently, we are the co-founders of Maideasy, an app that provides cleaning services to households. We only employ local cleaners, and most of our cleaners are from the B40 (Bottom 40{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} income level) group. 

Working with the B40 has really opened my eyes. It made me realize that a lot of them don’t even have things that we easily take for granted, like a roof over their heads, stable parents, food you can eat anytime you want and education. With all of those things, you feel very confident to face the world. But a lot of the B40 don’t have these privileges. 

One of our cleaners is a single mother with two kids. She didn’t have money to pay for rent and the landlord is about to kick her out from her room. We loaned her RM300 and a smartphone, so she can get started with cleaning. 

But when she started cleaning, she didn’t have anybody to take care of the kids. We found out that she leaves her 3 year old and 5 year old kids inside the room, alone, when she goes to work. Eventually, she moved back with her parents in Seremban. The parents will look after the kids while she goes and cleans. Luckily MaidEasy was operating in Seremban, so she now manages that area. 

I read a book called ‘Scarcity’ written by two MIT professors that talked about how poor people think. That book explained that each brain has limited space. With most people in the B40, they have to make a lot of decisions. Who’s going to take care of my child, am I going to have work tomorrow, where will my next meal be from? So when they have too many things in their mind, they can’t find solutions for the simplest things.

For example, the cleaners would say, ‘oh my phone doesn’t have battery la.’ Then we say, buy a power bank. ‘Oh my motorcycle is broken’. Then we say, go la to the garage. They cannot make those kind of decisions, even the smallest ones they’d have trouble with. 

We went to PPR (Projek Perumahan Rakyat, low-cost flats) to ask people there if they want to be a MaidEasy cleaner. You’d be surprised by the things they cannot do. I’ve met one cleaner that didn’t know how to go beyond 5km radius of where she lives. And the second cleaner – someone who doesn’t know how to use a smartphone. The third cleaner didn’t know how to use Waze or GPS.

Complex decisions are too much for them, so you make it easy for them. MaidEasy helps simplify their decision making process.”
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Humans of Kuala Lumpur is partnering withMalaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre(MaGIC) in featuring inspiring and impact-driven entrepreneurs, problem solvers and startups in their mission to solve Malaysia’s problems!#HumansofMaGIC

Photostory by Amalina Davis
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on August 19th 2018)

“I was a prefect in a very gangster school for 6 years. There was a lot of gang fights, students doing things they are not supposed to do, bringing things they are not supposed to bring, smoking, ponteng (skipping classes) – and most fights were done outside of school…”

“Once, I remember going back home, I found my car splashed all over with red paint. I knew who did it, because I caught him ponteng class. I wasn’t afraid because I know them and knew how to navigate. You need to know not to go head-to-head with them, but you still need to get them into order. That is the challenge.

You just have to be sincere, humble, be friends with them. You don’t want to be punched in the head when you walk out of school right, so you just explain to them what might happen to them. Don’t be stuck up and langsi. I found out early in life that there there are many, many ways to solve a problem (with difficult people), not just one way. 

The whole experience made me a more rounded person in how you deal with tough people when you are a prefect. Now at my age I see that you have to deal with a lot of difficult people. 

When you want to deal with people you need to know first how to motivate them. I used to be a high demanding, aggressive, hot tempered boss. So people worked under a lost of stress under me, which eventually burns you. 

And it burns you when people come to you and resign – not because they are bad but because I am just too tough. I have toned down and learn. 

So until now I learn that people don’t owe you anything. You are as a manager. People leave not because of the job, they leave because of the manager, right? So you just have to learn how to be a good manager. 

So make sure that whatever position that you are in, especially with my small company, with my people I try to teach them beyond what they are doing on their job, try to bring them up to a higher level, spend some time with them – teach them. 

And dealing with the tough performer – I always believe in meritocracy. Know that your performance is dynamic, it always changes. You can be a top 20 performer today, and you can be at the bottom 10 the next day. So you need to keep your performance up. There are always people who are better than you, so you need to always be savvy. 

If you want to climb the corporate ladder, always aim to be the Top 20, so try not to be in the Bottom 10 – you will know when you are there. You need to tell them what to improve. You as an individual and as an employee you need to know what is your goal. I would advise people to follow their passion. I only work with my passion. 

I don’t do my job because its my job, I do it because its my passion. We spend a lot of hours in a job. Many people do a job because they want to sustain their lifestyle. I don’t believe in that. I will perform if I really like it. If I am put in a position in a company that I really hated, I know I am going to be bad at it. 

Sometimes when there are job offers which pays comfortably – they are high paying for a reason, but I know that I myself and am past that. 

With Millennials, and working with young graduates, I noticed that they lack focus and just don’t know the reason WHY they are working. They take on any jobs. Sometimes I ask them a simple question, what is your goal? 

And many millenials say ‘I want to be rich’. I said: who doesn’t want to be rich? That’s not a goal. That is never a goal. You think about it. I don’t think you want to be rich, or do you want to be financially free? That’s a goal, and there’s plenty of ways to be financially free – and you will be rich when you do things that you are good at. 

Treat people with respect, and just be sincere. People can see. 

For me, I have found out what my passion is – from my time working in China with a marketing research company, I found out about Gigagigs. 

GigaGigs, is an app that instantly connects you with micro tasks that are simple, fun and easy-to-do, and pays you upon completion of these tasks.

We have had 80,000 downloads and 15,000 users and collectively they have earned rewards close to RM 300,000 since we started 1.5 years ago. 

And all the while I have been in corporate and was never exposed to the startup ecosystem – and that’s how Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre has helped us out. They made me see their big network of entrepreneurs and you can see all the innovations and ideas of other people, and that opened my eyes of what Malaysians can do and how I could apply it my industry to solve problems.

My vision and aim now is to expand out to South East Asia. 

I’ve been in the corporate life for 20 years – its been a comfortable life, so why did I want to get out that into the startup life? 

I could have a comfortable or an uncomfortable life. Asking myself that question made me realize that this is something that needs to be done for the greater good, I love the app so much that I am willing to take a bet to make this work. And true enough it has grown by leaps and bounds.”

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Humans of Kuala Lumpur is partnering withMalaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre(MaGIC) in featuring inspiring and impact-driven entrepreneurs, problem solvers and startups in their mission to solve Malaysia’s problems!#HumansofMaGIC

Photostory by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on August 18th 2018)

“To see the smile on a child’s face and the joy for the families is what drives me everyday…”

“I’m Anne and the founder of the Inclusive Outdoor Classroom (IOC).

At IOC we want to change mindsets and give families who have children with special needs a platform, to be part of a community.

We also get parents who don’t have children with special needs to be part of this (our programs) and that’s how we encourage maximum inclusion, even from the public.

That way, both parties are learning from each other and contributing towards the well-being of an inclusive society.

It’s important to remember that it doesn’t mean when a doctor says your child has special needs, nothing can be done.

In fact, there’s a lot that needs to be done. The first is educating society that autism is not a disease which can be contracted.

It’s about understanding, stepping into a world that is unfamiliar and trying to discover the best of yourself. At the end of the day, everybody just wants to be accepted and included into society.”

Photostory by Annis Saipul
Edited by Christine Cheah

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(This post was first published on August 16th 2018)

‘Why me?’ was the first question I asked when I found out I had a special needs child

“At that moment, I was struck by darkness. I felt my world collapsing, but then I asked: ‘How am I going to help him?’

At a young age, Ethan never responded to me. No eye-contact, nothing. 

Only when I sing to him, he will look at me and that’s how I started communicating with him. 

The biggest challenge is when I take Ethan out in public and he starts to have meltdowns, throwing tantrums. 

Sometimes, they cannot stand too much noise, the sensory is too overwhelming. They cannot take it and they don’t know how to express it, so they start to scream and yell. 

People would stop and stare, and give me that ‘you could be a better parent’ look. It didn’t happen once, but often and always in restaurants. 

One day these kids have meltdowns and the next day they’re happy and showing their true potential. So, don’t judge. 

Some of them are really good at drawing too, but you just need to discover their talents. 

For parents with young kids on the autism spectrum, my advice is to let them experience, let them explore their strengths and true potential. Give them a chance to prove themselves.” 

Edited by Christine Cheah

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(This post was first published on August 15th 2018)

“My name is Mikhail, I have autism and I’m very proud of it.

“When I was in school, I got bullied a lot. I feel a lot of teenagers think that many people don’t understand them, even the popular ones. That’s why most teenagers would change their personality to join a crowd. That’s what happened to me. I was bullied by students who joined their friends in doing so.

But my advice would be to love yourself. God gave me autism for a reason, and to blame me, is to blame God.

When we watch some tv shows where there is an autistic character, the character will be high functioning autistic people. They feel shy and always looking down, but people forget they are also very smart.

I can talk to people face-to-face. I can look them in the eye, but most of the time I would feel awkward when I stop talking and then I would be thinking: ‘What do I do now?’

As for my dreams in the future, I prefer to keep them under wraps but I will tell you this – I want to study drama and theatre. I want to give people that magical feeling, because, well, everybody could use some magic in their lives.”

Photostory by Annis Saipul
Edited by Christine Cheah

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(This post was first published on August 15th 2018)