And then there was Alastair…

Posted by AlastairS on December 24th, 2007 | Categorized as Introduction | 312 views and 15 Comments

Festive greetings one and all! My full name, according to my passport, is Sim Jia Qing Alastair Milton. My mum calls me Alastair, grandmother calls me Jia Qing and to my friends I’m just Simmy. I have an older brother who is currently studying in Perth, West Australia and a younger sister who goes to school in Medan, Indonesia.

I was born on the 1st of April 1988 in the small mill town of Laha Datu in East Malaysia. My father is Chinese Malaysian and my mother is Chinese Indonesian. Seeing as they met in Newcastle, England whilst at university and my mother doesn’t speak any dialect of Chinese and my father didn’t speak any Malay, English was the language we spoke at home.

At the age of 10 months my father took a job working in Papua New Guinea as a computer programmer on a project to computerize the system at a palm oil company called New Britain Palm Oil Development (NBPOD). Life in PNG was probably the best childhood I could have asked for. Since I had been there since before I could walk and the town of Mosa was a very small, the locals were familiar with me and my older brother. In my 7 years in PNG i learned how to walk, talk, swim, play golf, ride a bike, start a fire without using a match, build a tree house, make a “pop gun”, learn that I was allergic to bee stings and generally develop a love for the outdoors. I had friends who were locals and those who were expatriates but to me there were one in the same.

In 1995 my father took a job in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia. I remember not being scared of moving to country where I didn’t understand the language but mainly being upset that I wouldn’t get to see my friends!
So we set off to Indonesia and for the first time in my life I genuinely felt out of place. Despite visiting my mothers family once a year while we lived in PNG, we spoke no Indonesian and many Indonesians spoke no English and those who did, didn’t speak it fluently. At first we took Indonesian lessons, but at 7 years old my concentration span wasn’t able to last the 1 hour lessons and after the teacher yelled at me and my brother for speaking Pigin English my mother decided that this wasn’t how we would learn the language. We eventually picked up the language the hard way. By picking up phrases and vocabulary through our Indonesian friends we learned Indonesian in less than a year. Since we were part of a very small expatriate community we attending a link school from Medan International School. At first there were 5 students. My brother, the three other expatriate kids who’s dad was English and mother was malaysian and myself. In the next 5 years the numbers of students fluctuated and at it’s smallest there were only 3 students. My sister and her friend, who were 5 years old, and myself, 12. Despite having many native friends I felt deprived of English speaking friends and so I socialized with parents, teachers and often joined chat rooms. Looking back, I feel that during this period of time I matured rapidly as a result of having to talk make conversation with much older people. Living through the Asian economic crisis, the smog and the religious riots also changed me as a person. Being a Catholic family we lived in constant fear that the riots who make their way into our house complex. We even had a plan for what we would do. My brother, whos Indonesian still had a strong English accent would hide along with my father in the root. My mother, sister and I would then try our best to convince them that we were Muslims. It was a very unsettling time. We couldn’t leave the country because there were riots everyday on the one road to the airport. On most days the sky was filled with black smoke from rioters burning buildings.

Fortunately the riots passed and although some of my dad’s colleagues lost their lives our family was safe. In 2000, my dad took another job in Medan, North Sumatra. The biggest change for me was that now I would be attending a school of about 70 kids, much bigger than the school of 3 I was coming from. But by this point in my life I had learned how to adapt and fit in quite well. Over the next 3 years I was captain of the school soccer team, student council president and competed in state athletic meets as the only competitor below the age of 20, my best result being 4th in the 400m. The biggest change came when I was 14. One of my teachers passed away and I blamed myself for this. His death was stress related and in the time that I had known him I had done nothing but cause him stress. I always wanted to do MORE than I needed. I wanted him to give me more advanced work and when he refused I despised him. When he passed away I realized that there were more important things in life than academic achievement. I went from being a highly driven student to one who enjoyed the simple pleasures in life. I was still a straight A student, but I was no longer stressed about not getting 100% or not being THE top student.

In 2005 I moved to Perth, Australia to attend boarding school for the last two years of my schooling. By this point I had done a lot more growing up than some of my peers and found the most difficult part of being in Perth was having to act immature as to not seem arrogant or stuck-up. There was still more growing up for me to do though and this was to take place half way through my final year. I tore my anterior cruciate ligament in a rugby tackle and needed a knee reconstruction. Being a very active person I didn’t take to this very well. I was very upset but worse was to come. My father was diagnosed with cancer and my long term girlfriend dumped me, all in the same week. I, like most people would, spent two weeks wallowing in self-pity. After 2 weeks I made a decision to be happy regardless of what was going on in my life. There was more to my life that I hadn’t appreciated before, I was alive and had friend and family that loved me. This has since been the philosophy that I have lived with, to be happy and always live with a positive outlook.

After 2 years in Perth my TCK instincts kicked in and I knew that I couldn’t stay in Perth for another 4 years. I applied to Curtin University in Perth as a back up but my main choices were MIT, Caltech in the United States and Imperial College in London. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into Imperial College to study Aeronautical Engineering (an interest I developed probably as a result of spending so much time in the sky) and have been there for a year and a half now. I applied to Imperial College without ever having been to Europe and although this made the move daunting, the thought of having to stay in Perth for another 4 years was even more daunting. I live in Bayswater in London with a Japanese, an Australian and a Swede as my flatmates.

I write this sitting in my friend’s place in Milan. He and his family were kind enough to let me stay with them for the Christmas and New Year holidays. Even though most people here speak little or no English, I almost feel more comfortable with not understanding and being in situations that other “normal” people may find uncomfortable. Although having spent 3 years learning French and 1 year attempting to learn some Spanish, I manage to get the gist of Italian conversation.

In summary: I have lived in 5 countries, 6 different cities, over 19 years. Speak English, Indonesian/Malay, a little Mandarin (which I’m not forgetting), am in my second year of German at uni and although i did French for 3 years and Spanish for 1, I can remember almost none either of them! I have friends from every continent and intend to continue to learn languages for as long as I can! My parents and sister live in Medan, Indonesia and my brother lives in Perth, Australia.

Even though I feel incredibly fortunate to have had these experiences, sometimes I wonder if I would give it all up for a “normal” life and if I would impose such a lifestyle on my children, assuming I ever have kids! But these will be answered in the fullness of time and right now all I’m really doing is focusing all my efforts on being happy and enjoying life!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY AND I WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

- Alastair

P.S

Sorry if this seems very disjointed and somewhat poorly written. I’ve never attempted to write out my life story in such detail. Hopefully my next attempt will be a little easier to read!

Alastair Sim

Chinese by ethnicity, Malaysian by nationality, Australian by association and cultural chameleon. Have lived in 5 different countries, including 6 different cities, over 19 years. Am also an avid procrastinator.