You-Want's Life

For my hiking experience on Day 1, read here : https://euanlife.blogspot.com/2023/05/conquering-mt-kinabalu-another-feather.html I was staring at my phone blankly, scrolling through social media as I waited for my 1.20am alarm to go off. I only had around 1-2 hours of sleep despite having laid on my bed at Lemaing hostel for almost six hours. That was the summit day, but fatigue from the day before and the highlands cold obviously did not take this sleep deprivation well. The other hostel guests started getting ready- all were complaining of their tiredness. I quickly changed into my hiking suit, which consisted of water/wind-proof pants over my tracksuit, a heattech for my torso and my hoodie from the University of Warwick. After a simple wash-up followed by putting on my waterproof jacket, I followed the rest of my crew into the cold and dark. Nope, the hike had not started yet. We headed to the restaurant for supper. It was only 1.45am, but the dining hall was lively with hikers f...

What would make an experience in Malaysia iconic enough to be proud of calling it home? I could name a few extraordinary adventures you could only find here: reaching the southernmost tip of mainland Asia, free diving off our East Coast in the South China Sea and hiking the sacred mountain of Kinabalu. Having explored my adventurous sides extensively when I studied in the UK, I felt that hiking Mt. Kinabalu was a calling when I came back to Malaysia. This is one of the most highly regarded experiences you could do as a Malaysian- it is the highest mountain on the island of Borneo, at approximately 4095m. My crew and I booked our tickets via Sabah Parks about 5 months before our actual hiking date- yes, the demand was crazy and tickets ran out fairly quickly. We picked the simpler hostel, Lemaing, as it is cheaper, at only RM364 (for Malaysians). The ticket included accommodation, 3 meals, hiking permit, insurance and service charges. We were required to pay other fees on site, this i...

English is a beautiful language, if you know it well.  Yet, learning tenses and constructing sentences were not the easiest tasks. I remember learning prepositions and ‘verb to be’ in school as a kid. The rules were complex and there was no fast forward way to learn the concepts other than to memorise them. Needing to split my time among English and other mandatory languages in a Chinese primary school in Malaysia easily hindered many of my peers’ learning progress too. You see, we’re talking about an urban environment where English is relatively more commonly spoken. Can you imagine the experiences someone from a much more rural area would have? Did you know? English literacy rate is 44% lower than Malay literacy rate in the country. Many might believe that proficiency in the Malay language is sufficient to enter the workforce in Malaysia, which is not wrong. However, if we look at multinational corporations and progressive markets in the country such as banking and finance, profi...

I first met portrait photographer, Steven Lee, at a Malaysian student event known as Impact Stories by UKEC in London some 3 years ago. He has been in the photography scene since the 90s, working on documentary and travel photography. His projects include several coffee-table books, initiating the Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards, which is an annual international portrait photography competition since 2009, and co-founding KL20x20 Photo Festival and EXPOSURE+ PHOTO with Nadirah Zakariya, which 2nd edition will be held in KL this September. It was only weeks before the pandemic had severely struck the UK when we first met. We kept in touch online since then, but not until recently, I discovered that Steven is a mutual friend with my neighbour, James Quah, who is a professional dance photographer. What a pleasant surprise! After learning that Steven is back in Malaysia for some of his commitments here earlier this month, we arranged to meet up at LOKL Cafe near Masjid Jamek, for a ...

I have always been creative.  When I was pursuing my degree in the United Kingdom, I constantly looked for artistic opportunities where I could explore myself creatively. Poetry, photography, drone videography and even modelling had been areas of my experimentation over the past few years. However, there existed pressure rooted from the stereotypical Asian-parents’ perception that art-related careers would not bring financial stability. Thus, I only dared looking at my fun creative work as a side passion from my ambition of a ‘serious’ career in banking. What boggled my mind then was how, throughout many of our artists' careers, they have remained strong with their passion in art despite challenges of the times, limited resources and societal pressures in the Malaysian community. I returned to Malaysia in September 2022 shortly after my graduation. I came home with a  degree in Economics, but left behind my creative ventures and prepared myself for a corporate-oriented mindset...