20:10
Before going back to Hong Kong, I feel that I have been making real progress of emulsifying the two solutions that make up me: The Chinese side and the Pakistani side. I have been trying to learn what it means to be a Pakistani from my close friends here. However, that process of emulsifying the two is quickly quickly falling apart, and the two side seems so distinctively separated at the moment. One of the biggest issue for me is language and experience. Having lived all my life in Hong Kong before university, being a native Cantonese speaker and having close families from the Chinese side, I am naturally attracted to Hong Kong people. However, that yearning of being able to trace my lost side is still there. I have no idea what it means to be Pakistani. The only way I can peep into that life is by visiting some of my Pakistani friends’ home, being invited for dinners. I think I have been learning and openly accepting that side of me. I would say, I have accepted it insomuch as beginning to reject my Hong Kong side. When I went back to Hong Kong this time, I was very scared that I would not fit in. However, on the contrary, 17 years of practice slid right back into use. I could crack jokes in Cantonese, I could relate to the youths of my age, we could discuss about a lot of common experiences – to the extend that I would say, that is where I belong. Why do I want to retrace my Pakistani side?
In fact, that is what my brother’s view is. Perhaps, my whole family including my grandmother thought, everyone in Hong Kong has finally accepted you to be one of them, why try to relate to people you have no real commonality with? – I.e. Pakistanis. I remember she used to ask me, “Why don’t you consider Hong Kong as your home?”
Nonetheless, for me, it is very important. More so, now that I have finally reverted back to Islam. There was a debate on Facebook and Twitter today about dawah. In my mind, how many Muslims go out of their way to get to know non-Muslims, be their friends, and invite them to Islam? Today, there are individuals out there, for example, Sheikh Nazim, who has the ability to convert thousands of people. I, myself, is in need of guidance let alone do dawah. I am always of the opinion that knowledge is a double edge sword because on the one hand you need knowledge to improve your deen/religious duties, on the other hand, you are required to spread that knowledge. It is always easier to preach to the converted because they will listen but to preach to those who do not want to listen, they try to push you away.
I have to find a way to emulsify my two sides again, not for anyone else’s sake, but purely mine. I really can’t live in this state of constant polar switching – what do they call that? Oh yes…Bipolar, or according to Charlie Sheen, Biwinning.