Hacker Culture

I have been giving this some thought recently and I am finding it more difficult to identify myself as a Malaysian or a Chinese. While we are all a hodgepodge of various cultures and influences, I have found that the largest chunk of my life has been greatly influenced by and spent in the Hacker culture. I would advise you to read the Wikipedia article linked as your understanding of the culture may differ significantly from the actual meaning.

While sitting here enjoying my cup of teh tarik in the local Hailam Kopitiam, I ask myself – what am I going to do about this?

I think that I will probably take the first step by accepting the fact that I am a hacker, first and foremost. Of all the cultures that I have imbibed, the hacker culture is the one that I live by in totality. While I may celebrate various national, cultural and religious holidays and feasts, I have generally been an observer rather than a participant in each.

I am an active participant in the hacker culture.

Helping out with voter-registrations for more than a year now, I have come across people with various combinations of race and religion in their ICs, some of it has actually surprised me. I have recently bought the book, Found in Malaysia and come to realise that our identities are far more complex than our government would like us to believe.

I think that if I decided to fill up ‘Hacker’ as my race, my fellows would mistakenly classify me as ‘Hakka’ and plop me into the ‘Chinese’ category regardless.

blink!