So my citizenship application was approved some time during end June. Came about 13 months after I submitted my application (timeframe was supposed to be 6-12 months but to no surprise it came late, seeing how my PR application back then took much longer than other Malaysians I know too).

Not that I couldn’t/didn’t want to talk about it earlier, just that I thought I would combine it into one single post after completing all formalities haha. As if anything will happen in between, but oh well. I guess the fact that it also came during a very eventful period where I was struggling emotionally with work transition played a part.

This time round because of COVID (sigh, you again?) there are obvious deviations from the usual process - for one, “Citizen Journey” which would have been a Learning Journey kind of experience is now online which actually sped things up, a lot. I mean the whole thing always felt like a show to me anyway, and if the whole point is to allow new citizens to integrate better culturally I don’t suppose I will need it, so I got it settled over one weekend and not too long after I was cleared to initiate renunciation of citizenship. 

This was the part which unexpectedly took longer because, again, COVID. This time round you had to write in to book an appointment slot because of capacity issues. And I kind of underestimated the amount of people who needed to visit the consular section in MHC on a daily basis (or maybe overestimated their productivity level) but appointment slots are apparently full all the way till a month plus later, which ate into the ICA appointment date so instead of bringing forward my ICA appointment date (because I envisioned that it would be easy to get an appointment date at MHC), I had to delay it instead.

And in the end when I reached MHC on my appointment date - I mean, if this was the crowd level with capacity restrictions, what would have been the crowd level without capacity restrictions? The queue outside stretched for more than 100m without much safe distancing..sigh. Anyway I suppose it was a good excuse to take two half days off for, and both days I got in and out within an hour plus because majority of the crowd are there for passport renewals (ok, I guess maybe it’s coz nobody can go back to Malaysia for it) so I had ample time for the other activities I planned for my half day offs.

And a third half day off today to complete the formalities - taking oath. Half expected to be asked to do pledge too hahaha but nope. So yep, completed without much fanfare. There’s supposed to be citizenship ceremony organized by your local grassroots presided by your MP, but so far during this period it obviously hasn’t happened yet according to what I read online. 

Not that it changed me much as a person but I did thought I wanted to take a step back and reflect about the whole decision and what it meant to me now that everything is over.

I have always said that I never felt at home in MY - even though I hold citizenship there by virtue of my parents being one (and the fact that being born in Bru doesn’t mean you will be a citizen so it’s not as if there’s a choice). I don’t think I have even spent more than 2 weeks in any part of MY in one shot. Nor do I think I will ever settle down there at any point in my life (I do think back to the time when I was at the crossroads, and one of the path led towards studies and possibly life in Malaysia - how that would have turned out I will never know but no regrets). Contrast that to the first half of my life (so far) in Bru and the other half in SG - these two are really the countries I call home. 

So I didn’t really think that I need a citizenship status to validate that fact, but it would be nice not to be seen as a foreigner in your country of residence for once. 

And so renouncing Malaysian citizenship, unfortunately, wasn’t a difficult decision at all. That said, I thought I was grateful to have been recognized as Malaysian since birth - I could very well be stateless given how Bru regards people who are not one of the 7 indigenous race, even if they are born there. Achieving Bruneian PR status is hopeless enough, so at least I had a country that recognized me as a citizen and offered me very basic rights. 

And like it or not, it forms part of your identity, and gave me a sense of belonging to a community. Think case in point, at least from my perspective, was how I was able to be included in a group outing by Malaysian seniors a few days into my life in SG by virtue of my nationality - probably would have been excluded if not for it because I was obviously not a very sociable person haha. Which probably helped a lot in terms of eventually settling down to life in SG - not saying that I will not have befriended all these people eventually, but it maybe made things a lot easier by having something in common, so I guess I am thankful for that, too. 

But what I am getting at is that at the end of the day, changing nationality doesn’t define you or your preferences. I will still support Malaysian sports teams over Singaporean ones (oops what about the oath I just took) and Malaysian Chinese accent will always feel comforting (because these is how my closest family and friends speak). And do I even start talking about Malaysian food hahah. Because all these are what you grew up doing/liking and will not change overnight. I will not suddenly be a fan of bak chor mee (urgh) because I am now Singaporean. So it’s mostly for practical reasons at the end of the day.  

That said of course now there’s more reason to give back to this country who has taken me in, and I can definitely do that with the work I am doing now. And can’t help feeling that the decision does chart a part of my life course.

So that concludes a life changing process, worth recording for future references hahah.

Labels: milestones, thoughts