Junia

I spent lunch with Junia today... she is 28 this year and she is still studying. Her background: Junia completed her SPM and then at the tender age of 17 went out to the working world of banking for the next 5 years.. when she left the bank (after a VSS) she took the RM10K that they offered her and started her nursing course. After 2 years in nursing, she found that she could not fit in an institution that had so many women could did not seem to like her. She did not do well in her examinations either... patients love her but her colleagues despised her. I think she could not cope with bitchy women who thought that just because her Chinese sucks and she speaks English then she must be too proud to bother to learn Chinese.

After leaving nursing, she was already 24. After much deliberation, she opted to do Broadcasting. She spent 3 years in her diploma and now at 28, she is currently pursuing her degree in Broadcasting.

I met her when she was 20 . we clicked immediately, but my then boyfriend never understood our friendship.. it seem we were poles apart but I still felt that we had some things in common. Junia comes accross to many people as strange. She is dark skinned, long haired- right to the waist and looked like a Malay (really looked like a Malay). The strangeness was not from her colouring but more to the way she giggles at the slightest things, her extreme friendliness that got all the boys her age thinking that she is in love with them and how she seem far younger than her age when it comes to conversation.

She shares with me how disappointed she is in Chinese men when it comes to relationship... how they tried to 'touch' her when they would not dare with the 'fairer' ones. How some avoided her when all she wanted was friendship. She shocked me lately with the story of falling in love with a Mat Salleh..he is far far away in the US and they met on the net. I kept telling her that this is too difficult and why not look closer to home. She glared at me and said "Did you know that all my life, I have been told that I am too dark, too unappealing, 'why don't you try whitening products?", "Yeah.. Chinese guys prefer paler women"... etc... and for once, now I get people who tells me I am beautiful and my skin colour is perfect... do you understand why it's easy to fall in love with someone who likes my physical outlook and appreciates my 'beauty'.

These things that she shares with me strikes a cord somewhere in my heart.... I think psychologically, i may see a little bit of me in her.