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Dear scholars,

As Malaysia is celebrating its 60th year of independ-ence, some-one asked me if I regard myself as a patriotic per-son. Without hesitating, I a n s w e r e d YES!!! I

might not be carrying a weapon to fight for the country’s safety or one of the sportsmen/sportswomen who win medals in an interna-tional competition – but I love my country and will do my very best to improve the lives of others around me.

I was drawn to the Astro Independence Day advertisement this year. It started with the following caption “You know our nation’s founding fathers. Now meet our founding

mothers, fathers and sisters.” And they start-ed showcasing images of rubber tappers, fishermen, farmers, teachers who have helped build the nation from it was to where it is now. They are all the unsung heroes—the backbone of the nation’s success. In their own capacity, they have worked hard to ensure the betterment of the future generation.

Without us realising, we too have the same responsibility as our forefathers i.e. to ensure the development of the nation for our future generation. The challenges might be different but the role that we play is similar. As you have now been chosen to become YK schol-ars, you have a bigger role to play. We believe that you are the future and you hold the key to become the change agent in your commu-nity.

No country is perfect. But that will be your role to try and solve the issues that you see. Don’t be part of the problem but be part of the solution. Great leaders don’t run from a problem but run towards the problem be-cause they see opportunity in it. To change negatives to positives. As we have also just celebrated Hari Hasanah 2017 on the 3rd September 2017, do continue the spirit of

wanting to do good for others in the days to come – no matter how small it is. You might not know the ripple effect of your action as everything starts from one small step.

The slogan “My Nation My Pride” should not merely be nice words but a reflection of who you really are; reflected through your actions. Wanting to “GENUINELY” make a difference for your country; be it Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Palestine or Thailand… that makes you different from other scholarship recipients. And that makes you a true Yayasan Khazanah scholar!

So what have you contributed for the better-ment of your country?

XoXo,

Eymie

Scholar’s Studio

Farhan Amran Ryan Surayan Lee Siu Ming Nabila Idris

Activities & Happenings YKPSP Corner

In This Issue Highlight of the Month

From the Editor’s Desk

My Nation My Pride

Volume 4, Issue 8, August 2017

Negaraku Sehati Sejiwa

By Muhammad Farhan Amran Form 4, Kolej Yayasan Saad

‘Negaraku Sehati Sejiwa’. This was the theme chosen for Malay-sia’s 60th year of independence since our country was finally freed from British occupation on the 31st of August 1957. The meaning behind the three words could be subjective I would say. For me, ‘Negaraku Sehati Sejiwa’ means that every citizen of Ma-laysia is a part of its heart and soul, something that we all should care deeply about. In this modern era, we can see the name of our nation being etched into the books of history throughout the globe. This is because Malaysians have achieved quite a huge number of successes in many endeavours. The most recent one being the 2017 Southeast Asian Games. As you all know, Malaysia was the host and victor of the SEA Games for this year, with a medal tally totalling 323. For all of us, that is quite an enormous feat to achieve in our nation’s history in sports events. So, in this article I’ll be mainly talking about a few notable achievements of our athletes in the Games as well as a few other mentions of Ma-laysians elsewhere on Earth.

The very first news headline that came up on my Google applica-tion was ‘Way to go, Muhaizar’ published by the Star on their website. For your information, Muhaizar Mohamad was one of the 844 Malaysian athletes in the Games to compete in the men’s marathon event on the 19th of August. In the marathon, Muhaizar successfully managed to obtain a bronze medal, placing third be-hind Soh Rui Yong of Singapore and Indonesia’s Agus Prayogo. Muhaizar’s bronze medal was also one of Malaysia’s earliest medals in the Games. Being a fan of running myself, I watched a live stream of the race on YouTube that day, and quickly became excited when Muhaizar overtook Thailand’s Boonthung Srisung around the 38th kilometer of the race and beautifully maintained the pace until the end of the race. Besides that, I was also delight-ed to know that King of Terengganu, Sultan Mizan managed to bring a gold for Malaysia in the equestrian endurance race atop his horse ‘Rtes Annaversary’ while breaking the national record by a whopping three hours.

I wish I could mention the achievements of all the Malaysians in the 2017 SEA Games, but that might take quite a while. All in all, I am sure that the entire na-tion is very proud of the efforts of all our athletes in the event.

Moving on, still on Malaysia’s achievements around the world, I still remember watching an episode of the live action Mr. Bean series played by English actor Rowan Atkinson as a small boy at home. In that specific episode, Mr Bean went around town play-ing golf. Every time he hit the ball, it would land somewhere outside the course, leading him to various places in town. On one occasion, the golf ball actuallyl landed’ into the exhaust of a first-generation PROTON Saga. Quite the surprise, right? When I first realised that the car was indeed the PROTON Saga, I was very surprised to see a PROTON car in a country as far as Eng-land. I never knew that the nationwide-famous car manufactur-er exported cars all the way to the United Kingdom.

Watching that episode caused a sudden surge of pride in me as I would’ve never expected to see Malaysian products to be sold all around the world. On another occasion, last year I went on a trip along with my school’s KYSM Chamber Orchestra on a perfor-mance tour to Japan. During the trip, we went to the Ginza Dis-trict in Tokyo for a bit of shopping. My friend, Rifqi along with Mr. Alif, an accompanying teacher and I went to have our lunch at a Malaysian-based restaurant there. The owner, a fellow Ma-laysian like ourselves told us that the restaurant became a suc-cessful business for him for a few years ever since it was set up in 2010. I was delighted to see fellow Malaysians striving in famous places around the world such as Tokyo.

As a concluding statement, it can be said that we Malaysians should be proud of our nation as well as other Malaysian’s suc-cesses no matter what they may be. As such, it should be our main responsibility to make our nation proud in return for giv-ing us a safe place to live as well as providing us with basic ne-cessities such as food and education. This is all based on a quote from a movie I watched as a child, “Wisdom is a circle – What we receive, we must give back”. Hopefully all of us could achieve our dreams and give back to our country as an effort to make our country a competitive nation outside of the Southeast Asian re-gion.

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My Nation, My Pride

By Ryan Surayan A-Level KYUEM

“Are you proud to be a Malaysian?” It is undoubtedly true that if you ask any Malaysian this fundamental question, you will most probably get a positive response in a blink of an eye. Nevertheless, this very question is usually answered with haste without much further thought. “Why are we proud as Malaysians?” When con-fronted with this second question, most of us would start to stutter and fumble with our answers. Do not get me wrong, it is not be-cause we do not know the answer rather it is because we do not know what to answer first! There are a thousand and one reasons on why we are proud Malaysians. If I were to list them all, this article would look more like a thesis. Nonetheless, let us look into the prime factors making us proud Malaysians.

First and foremost, FOOD! This is what all Malaysians unani-mously agree upon to love so dearly about our country. Every region in Malaysia has its own unique twist to many mainstay local delights. From the Char Koay Teow in Penang to the Nasi Kerabu in Kelantan and Terengganu, we are certainly spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing what to eat. No wonder Malay-sia is known to be a food heaven. Aside from the reason that we have countless tantalising choices of delicacies that we can choose from, food in Malaysia also serves a very significant purpose. It bonds us together. Why is that so? I am of the opinion that bond-ing occurs over our collective love for food. For instance, if you were to go to a Mamak near you, you can see people from various cultural backgrounds under one roof, socialising while simulta-neously enjoying mouth-watering cuisine.

Furthermore, Malaysia is rich in culture and heritage. Being a multi-racial country, Malaysia has become a melting pot of rich cultures intertwined together to form the people we are today. Consisting of various ethnicities and backgrounds, we have creat-ed a colourful country of not just abundance of food but also abundance of languages and celebrations.

Whether it is building a mall in a boring neighbourhood, adding tonnes of chilli and spices to our food or even embellishing clean white walls with vibrant ‘street art’. You could say that it is because we are difficult to please but in reality, we consider spicing things up our very own Malaysian way of expressing creativity. We are so obsessed of spicing things up, we even spice up our language. We have an uncanny ability to end every imaginable sentence with the quintessential ‘lah’. We use it to dramatise on situations (You are so dead lah!), turn a seemingly insulting phrase into a playful remark (You so stupid lah!), or use it however you please. There is no specific grammar rules to abide as the word ‘lah’ is indeed a linguistic chameleon to suit just about any situation.

In conclusion, we clearly have a lot to be proud of as Malaysians. Often times we might find ourselves complaining about the hot and humid weather but let us face the facts, we would not trade Malaysia for anything in the world. From the hospitality of the people all the way to our rich biodiversity that our beautiful na-tion has to offer, it is no wonder why we are proud to be citizens of this unique country. On this Merdeka and Malaysia Day, let us reflect on why Malaysia has been such a perfect home for each and everyone one of us. With that said and done, you can be rest assured that I for one, am proud to be a Malaysian.

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Malaysia, Home Truly

By Lee Siu Ming PhD in Agricultural Economy USM

Early this year, I had the privilege of meeting up with some Roh-ingya refugees who are currently taking shelter in Malaysia. A family of three with a small child grabbed my attention. This small child is going to celebrate his second birthday at the end of this year.

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According to the child’s mother, she was pregnant when the Roh-ingya crisis happened, and the family had to flee from their own country. According to the Home Ministry, Malaysia is the home to almost 56,000 UNHCR Rohingya refugees.

As Malaysians, many of us did not have to think about the need to leave our home country due to crisis. We are fortunate and blessed to live in a country that is peaceful and the differences between races, religions and diverse backgrounds are celebrated. Malaysians have the freedom and fundamental liberties as set out in the Federal Constitution.

It is here where we embrace each other’s differences and cele-brate the different festivities such as Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas and Hari Gawai. The delicious food, especially, makes us anticipate for these festivities. It is also in this country, we sit in front of the television and cheer for our sport celebrities such as Datuk Lee Chong Wei, Datuk Nicol David and Faiz Subri, and (not so) quietly hope that their victory will present a public holiday for us..

Being nationalistic or patriotic is not merely about an act of wav-ing the national flag, or just joining in the celebration in the month of August. I truly believe that improving ourselves, making oneself as a better individual and contributing to our society to make the country a better place continuously and consistently are actions that will reflect on our spirit of patriotism. An office worker who increases his productivity will increase the nation’s productivity, a student who works hard for success will contrib-ute to the pool of human talent, and a social worker who helps more needy people will increase the welfare of our country. The collective efforts will definitely make our country a better place.

At the end of the day, we need to take actions that we are proud of so that we can be proud of our country. Kennedy in his 1961 in-augural address proclaimed, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Before I undertook my postgraduate studies, with the generous sponsorship by Yayasan Khazanah which I will forever be grate-ful for, I had the opportunity to travel to many different countries when I was working.

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While the opportunities to travel have given me invaluable eye-opening experiences, these trav-elling opportunities also allowed me to better appreciate Malay-sia. At the end of each trip, when I board the plane set for Malay-sia, I can assure myself that I am travelling to head back home. Malaysia – home truly.

Where is an International Student’s Home?

By Nabila Idris PhD in Development Studies University of Cambridge

I’m on a field trip to Thailand where my house is a stone's throw from Bangkok's premier hippy destination. Needless to say, I stick out like a sore thumb in this area populated by poor Thais and rich Westerners feigning poverty. But I love it!

Every weekend I simply walk down the neighbourhood for a cheap, but yum, culinary adventure, more so since I don't speak Thai. A few days ago, at a street side shop, I randomly pointed at the menu and said "Pla" with a thumbs up. The owner—intelligent lady—correctly interpreted that to mean "Fish okay" - I was served tom yum noodle soup.

I've discovered the halal symbol here: a red crescent and star (in Beijing, near my university, it was the entire kalimah!). An old lady sold me some mangosteen recently, with two extra handfuls, adding with a grin, "Free!" I bowed to her, mumbling, "Khop khun kha." They elongate the kha with a lilting aaa - I'm too em-barrassed to copy that. Hence the mumbling.

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But I must be fitting in too. Yesterday, I bought pad thai at a kiosk I last visited a month ago. Surprisingly, the seller's eyes lit up, "You! Missed you!" he exclaimed. Turning to his friend, he spoke rapidly in Thai; I only caught the word "Bangladesh". So not only did he recognise me, he remembered where I was from too. Sticking out like a sore thumb obviously has its virtues!

It didn’t surprise me then when recently I called my room on this hippy street: ‘home’. An international student who travels exten-sively for work, I have had many homes. There’s Cambridge, of course. The city is unapologetically steeped in upper class British culture, where a brown visibly Muslim student, such as myself, has little hope of becoming invisible. Much to my surprise, this did not have any deleterious effect on my sense of self. In fact, as I got more involved in the city’s thriving subculture of people of colour, especially Muslims, it allowed me to strengthen precisely the non-conforming aspects of my identity. A fellow graduate student once thanked me for the hang outs I host, “This is the only place where I am not the ‘other’”. ‘I am not the other’ is the very idea of home, isn’t it? So Cambridge is, of course, home.

I’ve called Beijing, York and Vancouver homes too. In Beijing, my generous friend, Yaxuan, and her kind family hosted me for Chi-nese New Year; her uncle was head chef at a very important gov-ernment organisation. If you haven’t had his Huang Ho Yú (fish of the yellow river), you’re missing out on life! York is memories of my first time living abroad in a foreign land. If I know anything about cooking pasta, it’s down to my lovely housemate, Claudia.

Breathtaking Vancouver, on the other hand, is the first city where my husband and I stayed together for longer than a month. Perhaps, that’s why I fondly remember it as an unnaturally romantic place!

Amongst this plethora of homes though, my one constant is Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. It’s oftentimes a frustrating city—the traffic, for instance, is legendary—but for me, it’s the home. Every time I peer down from a plane window to find Dhaka’s distinctive lego-like buildings stacked almost on top of each other, my lips involun-tarily curve into a smile.

One of those buildings house my precious family. One of those streets host a multitude of food carts that sell scrumptious delica-cies. All of those people speak my language, live my culture, and cry and cheer for the same cricket team.

Maya Angelou said it best: “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” Be-sides Dhaka, there is nowhere else in the world where I can effort-lessly blend into the crowd and, in essence, disappear. Instead of carrying the ever-present burden of representing every brown/Muslim/Bangladeshi on the planet, in Dhaka I am just insignificant me. It is liberating.

So where is home for an international student? Even though we make homes across the world, I would venture the real home is ‘back home’; everything else is transient.

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Our Bestari Scholar, Ferhad Ataillah (on the right)

won a total of 6 gold medals at the recent World

Scholars Cup Global Rounds in Cape Town. He has

also qualified for the Tournament of Champions in

Yale University. Well Done Ferhad!!

Congratulations to our Bestari

Scholar Thaqif Aris (in the

middle) and his team from

KYS for winning the IIUM in-

terschool debating champion-

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Yayasan Khazanah Interactive Engagement Event (YKIEE) 2017 was successfully held on 24th August 2017 at Sunway Putra Hotel. The event was very well participated by 17 Partners and Leading Organisations. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule!! It was definitely a great opportunity for the scholars.

YK Dinner or YK Scholars’ Appreciation Night is an annual event organised by Yayasan Khazanah (YK), for YK Board of Trustees, Partners, cur-rent scholars and its Alumni to socialize/network and update on achievements. This event also welcomes the new scholars into “YK Family”. The theme this year was “Stylo Stylista” and attended by over 500 attendees.

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Get t ing Rea dy for J ob I n t erv iews

On 20th August 2017, a total of 25 scholars attended YKPSP Undergraduate 3rd Module: Winning in the Job Market (WJM). Scholars were given on tips and techniques to polish and brush up their cover letter & resume. And it was not just that, they also had some groom-ing lessons—mind-blowing A-HA moments to some ;D Here are some pictures for the week:

Next YKPSP Session..

To those attending, do have a look at your email inbox for our updates. Do ensure that you have joined the WhatsApp group created by Ruben :)

YKPG HIL: High Impact Leadership

24 —30 September 2017