I had the opportunity to catch “Best of” at PenangPAC on Friday night – one of only 2 performances as part of the Georgetown Festival.

Siti Khalijah Zainal put on an entertaining and enlightening one hour, one-woman show, part comedy, part poignant drama, which highlighted the life of a Malay living as a minority in the Chinese dominated island nation of Singapore.  She touched upon many hot topics like Muslim divorce and sharia law, ethnic stereotyping, foreign workers, family, and love.

The best part of the writing and performance was when she highlighted the difference in cultural values between the Malay and other ethnic heritages, namely the Chinese. She provided an insightful look at the the differences that become obvious if one lives in Malaysia or Singapore for any length of time. The Malay are offered stereotyped as being “lazy” while the Chinese as the driving force of the economy – pushing their children into prestigious careers in medicine, law, business, etc…

She drilled home the point well, saying that the Malay are not lazy in things which are important to them. She said how she doesn’t want to work overtime and climb the corporate ladder because that is not who she is. Her values revolve around family and living life to its fullest. She said just because the Malay don’t have the same cultural values doesn’t mean that their values are any less valid. In fact, in this busy day and age, her message resonated with clarity and should have made anyone think through one’s life priorities.

I enjoyed her performance and how she added a lot of good fodder to the on-going dialogue about important cultural issues which are very prominent in this part of the world. If you get a chance to see “Best of”, I recommend it.