A lot of people have given me the impression that Malaysian undergraduates in universities like mine are set to remain in England post-graduation. Before I actually went to uni and met said students, it seemed like a sensible thing to think. There has been a lot of talk recently of migration. (I suspect there has always been a lot of talk about migration, but with the rise of anti-government/independent online media in the last five or so years, the forum for such comments has been made more public than ever.) With more and more Malaysians studying abroad, I can see how people would think of a foreign education as an easier way out of this country if you have given up on the state of race-based politics in our country. Study there, get a job there, and the key thing: stay put there.
I am not sure that the impression I’ve been given is quite right, though. I leave room for differences in other universities – the composition of Malaysian students there may – and probably are – hugely different from that in Cambridge. I also allow that the population of Malaysian students in Cambridge is extremely small and so does not even come close to representing the majority view of our students in England. But I think we must also allow for the fact that a lot of people take Cantabs (among other first-tier universities’ graduates) as a common example of students whom they expect to remain in England post-graduation. So preliminaries aside, I speak on the situation in Cambridge alone.
There are a number of reasons why I don’t think remaining in England is the likely outcome for a lot of us. The biggest – and possibly the most Cambridge-specific reason – is a scholarship bond. If anything, I think one of the cleverest things the government (and other major corporations offering overseas scholarships) has done is to make scholarships readily accessible to potential undergrads. Statistically, just under half of the Malaysian undergrads who are nationals of (and ordinarily resident in) Malaysia, are not under a scholarship bond to the Malaysian government or a Malaysian company. 50% may seem like a big population of students who are essentially “free” to work where they choose, but with a typical undergrad intake of ~22 people a year, it is not very large a number at all.
It is easy to say that bonds are easily broken by repaying your would-be employer – but only a rare few can afford to find half a million ringgit (or more, depending on the length of your course, where you’re living, how you’re living and what penalty, if any, your contract imposes for non-performance) to purchase your employment freedom. It is easier still to say that a Cambridge graduate can expect top employers to roll out the red carpets and offer you a salary lucrative enough to repay your scholarship bond. The UK job market is far, far, far more difficult to break into than that. Recent anti-immigration policies have made an already-tough situation all the more difficult. Speaking particularly of a City job, there is often a huge cultural barrier to surpass – if you are not ready or even able to trade in our Malaysian culture to be a proper Londoner, it is going to be extremely difficult to get through the rounds and rounds of job assessment at City law firms, banks (and investment banks) and to a lesser extent, accounting firms. The argument that an Oxbridge degree gives you a big leg-up only really holds for local graduates. My paper degree is not going to buy me a ticket into that old-boys’ club for as long as I am still classified as Foreigner in status and culture.
I allow that there will be huge frustrations with working in Malaysia. In the legal industry at least, the pay is no where close to what other jurisdictions offer. With the legal market largely closed to foreign players, the type of work to be had is no where near as exciting as what a foreign firm can offer (from a trainee’s point of view, at least – I grant that such excitement may have less appeal to one who has been in the industry for a while now). I think the private sector is a lot more shielded from the bureaucratic knock-on effects of a deeply flawed, race-based political system, but the societal mindset that this reflects will pose inevitable problems in career progression in some workplaces at least.
But, working in the City is not without its own, equal frustrations. Cultural differences – and to a lesser extent, race and gender – bring with them inevitable problems in career progression too. Not forgetting that they pose problems at the recruitment stage, even. No complaints on remuneration and exciting work, but there is a lot to be said about the significance of cultural difference. I know a fair number of people who are prepared to give up a better-paying job in the City for a lesser-paying one at home, because of the big-fish-small-pond vs. small-fish-big-pond game. Racial difference may be a problem in the Malaysian private sector, but this is no where near the problems that cultural difference will most certainly pose in a City career. You need only look at the statistics of partners (or even, at the opposite end of the spectrum, associates) in City firms to see this.
I wouldn’t be so quick to put out an obituary on patriotism either. As much as the new social media has spurred on an escape-this-decline-in-Malaysia mentality, it has awakened some very formidable activist souls among the less jaded and more ambitious. Perhaps this, too is more Cambridge-specific. Perhaps we are where we are because we’re academically-inclined to begin with. Perhaps we became – or become – that way when our courses (especially in social sciences like Law) are structured to get us to think of theory and debate and challenge, not just learn and apply correctly. Perhaps it’s just being out of the big city and feeling less of the pressures of the world and materialism. Whatever it is, I see far less money-driven ambition in Cambridge, as I do of change-driven ambition. We’re largely Obama people – there can be change, change, change! A lot of people I know here want to return – if not immediately, then at some point in the near future – to Malaysia to do something about the things we don’t like.
But I leave this all as an objective view – perhaps I am too ready to defend our underestimated love for Malaysia. As for me, if I do not already truly believe or embody it, then I want to believe that coming home to Malaysia is not second best. Salary, career progression, job satisfaction, cultural preference and patriotism aside for me – surely it is the best place to be if this is where God sends me to serve. Isaiah 52:7 writes, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” I once heard it preached, that we’re called to reverse our mentalities and realign our ambitions for His glory; think first of where we can best serve, and let decisions on where we will live, where we will work, how much we will earn and our lifestyles follow on from there – not the other way around. So I will say the same of Malaysia as I will for London, or any corner of the earth 
