“They are offering me RM 20,000 a month, as I was in charge of marketing last time. But I said no. Because one thing that I regret as I look back, was that I missed seeing my kids growing up. I wasn’t there for them, as I had to travel a lot to Japan and many other countries. You work, you work, and drink a lot after work, and make tons of money. Before I know it, they’ve grown up. And its not like I need the money… I have enough to live comfortably in retirement. Unlike young people, I’m not running out of money, I am running out of time. Finally I get to enjoy my hobbies and see more of my grandchildren. And being a taxi driver, makes me happy. You know why? If I want to wake up anytime and start working, I can do it. And if I don’t feel like working, I don’t have to. I am my own boss.”
“I would tell myself to not trust anyone. I believed in this one guy. It’s kind of personal…I believed in all of his promises, and he lied to me. I believed in him so much. It took my one whole year to get the truth out of him.” “So will you never trust again?” “It’s the first day of the new year, I don’t know. Maybe there will be people I can trust, maybe not. But…this time, I’ll take more time to get to know them before I tell them anything.”
—
Wishing you all a better year ahead with all that Malaysia has gone through in 2014. Humans of Kuala Lumpur
“Autobiographies of Winston Churchill. He was the center of politics during the second world war – the main man.”
“So why did you decide to read up on the second world war?” “Because in order to understand the present, you have to go back to the past. History repeats itself, you know why? Because mankind repeats their mistakes. Look around, you’ll see corruption in every part of the world. At some elections, they turn the lights off – and you can’t do anything because they have all the power. Throughout man’s history, there has never been a moment of peace.” “This looks like a moment of peace” “I mean in general lah.” — at Big Bad Wolf Books
“He was constantly telling me you’re fat. So I was like damn, I have to do something about it. So I decided to work out on my own, started to gain interest in fitness like a lot, reading health magazines and I lost those 16 kilos in 4 months. I was so thin, in a healthy way, until people couldn’t recognize me because I used to be this fat chubby kid in primary school and ever since I got to my ideal weight, I’ve been into sports. My first sport was netball and I lost those 16 kilograms when I was 10! I mean, other kids are eating candies and chewing chocolates, and I mean you’re like 10, who the hell cares right? But I cared about it. I still struggle with food because I love to eat. But I balance it out by exercising 3-5 times a week because your body is the greatest investment you can make”.
“As humans, are you practicing your humanity? Are we human enough? Do we have humanity in us, are you really HUMAN? How often do you keep in touch with your humane side?”
“I want to express that in my art. I also want to reach to the public about art, instead of it just being exclusive to galleries and other artists. And people, they like the beautiful and technical side of art, but we can also elaborate that art is not only about the form, but about the content itself. Why do you do art? Find out the reason why you do art. Its like beauty, its very subjective, different people have different opinions about beauty. But we can only see the beauty that we understand, because we are the artist. And I want to build that connection between the art, artist, and the viewer. Art has a human face too”.
Photostory by Mushamir Mustafa
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on December 10th 2014)
