Reasons Why I Left England to Come Home to Malaysia

 

A question was asked of me in a group WhatsApp Chat by Dr Jasmin Keys here:

Dr Lim

Even before 1969 you were with me in London, and they already offered you a senior job in England. Why then did you not want it, but went to join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States instead? Was it for better salary or better prestige? Malaysia loses a lot of talents to other countries especially to Singapore where jobs for highly qualified graduates are in great demand.   

I read here 3 major reasons why most talented Malaysian graduates leave the country, especially to Singapore where they have relatives there. Why must they 'steal' from Malaysia?  

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2023/02/881981/top-three-reasons-why-malaysians-are-leaving

 I think Malaysia must do something about her brain drain.  

Dr Jasmine Keys 

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Here is my answer to Dr Jasmine Keys

Thank you for your question, Dr Jasmine Keys.

My simple reason why I returned from the UK and even left my research job at MIT is not because of higher salaries here in Malaysia, even though it is more prestigious working in England or at MIT in much higher academic positions in these two countries. The reason was because I was homesick after leaving Malaysia for so many years to study.

I missed Malaysian food and the perpetually warm tropical climate where I need only to wear a T-shirt, shorts and slippers everywhere I go. In England I must wear a coat, a tie, and shoes all the time even if I needed only to cross the road just to post a letter home.

Even to go for a haircut I needed to wear a suit which is very dirty to wear inside a barber shop with other people’s hair all over the place.  Then after the haircut, I needed to bathe, and bathrooms in the UK are entirely different from those in Malaysia, where here we can splash water all over the place, but not in the UK where they use a bathtub to sit inside to bathe, like a buffalo wallowing in the same mud water. In the UK all their bathrooms are carpeted. So, it was almost impossible to bathe there like a Malaysian without wetting the bathroom floor.

When I was doing my postgraduate at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, I was staying in a British Council Hostel in Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge just beside the famous Harrods. In that hostel there were far more African students staying there than students from Malaysia, Singapore, or Hong Kong. Initially, I felt very uncomfortable among African students.  

It was not that I do not like Africans, since coming from an Asian country I was more used to Asians. The African students staying in the same hostel as I in London were taller and bigger size than me, and I was afraid they may beat me up though they never did.  

On the contrary after I left London to go to the University of Reading to study another area of specialization, I had lots of friends from Middle East and African countries. They were absolutely nice to me. In fact, they were very jovial and often invited me to go to the pub for a drink with them though most the time I declined as I had a lot of  research assignments and projects to work on. They always associated me from someone from China, a country they always praised heap high since I am a Chinese though I am actually a Malaysian. I too were very friendly with all of them.

Furthermore, all the food I got to eat in my London students hostel  were just boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, and boiled Brussels sprouts. The best I could get there was just fish and chips, ham and bacon sausage, black pudding, eggs, beans, mushrooms, or their famous haggis. But I must go to Scotland for their Scot’s haggis.   It was very miserable for me to live like that.

But later I went to the University of Reading on a British scholarship to do my Master's in a different area of specialization. There the food, my single hostel room and bathroom were much better. They even brought supper to my room at night after dinner. I was given the best room there facing a garden with birds and squirrels coming in and out from a forest beside the garden. It was so quiet there, unlike in London. My university college campus then was in forested area in Surrey rather than at Reading. I was much more comfortable there than in London    

Nevertheless I still wanted to return to my country to home sweet home where everything is so warm – socially and climatically down to food.

It is not the pay that attracts everyone, but also the social and friendly atmosphere, more importantly the work environment and the nature of the work too are  very important. For example, just to inform you, when I started working with the Ministry of Health in Malaysia in the 1969’s my starting pay was only RM 1,500 per month which is a servant’s pay today in 2020 – 2024. A medical officer’s pay, or any graduate salary irrespective of the field of study all got only RM 750 per month as long as they have a Bachelor’s degree. 

You can see a RM 1,500 per month salary is hardly impressive by today's cost and standard of living. 

But a RM 750 salary per month for a medical doctor having studied for 5 years in a university was even far worse than the worst servant’s salary today. My salary was twice as much as an ordinary doctor’s pay because of my Master’s degree. But my working environment among my medical and clinical colleagues at the Institute for Medical Research was so warm and cordial where we understand each other.

 Almost immediately I got my MSc degree from the University of Reading in England, my Reader (Associate Professor) approached me to ask me if I would like to work in England as they can give me a job there in a senior position. I immediately declined his offer. He asked me why. I told him I was on a British scholarship with the condition written there that I would return to my own country (Malaysia) to help my country  in development. He told me since it was their scholarship, they can withdraw that condition to enable me to stay in England to work there. But I still declined their kind offer.

Of course, if I return to Malaysia my salary would be much lower than what I would get if I worked in the UK. But the cost of everything then in Malaysia was much cheaper than in the UK. For example, a brand-new single storey linked house in Kuala Lumpur after I returned from England in 1968 was only RM 10,000, which is now RM 450,000, and a corner lot house with a spacious garden was only RM 12,000. My brand-new car I bought in 1969 was only RM 7,000 which would be over RM 100,000 today. So even with a “low salary” everything was so very cheap then with the cost of living so ridiculously low. So, we could all live like a king.

If I were to work in England my salary would of course be very much higher than what I got then in Malaysia, and yet I prefer to come home to my country. In fact, I was given a research job to conduct studies on liver diseases at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about the same time as WHO offered me a job to conduct cancer and clinical research in Lyon, France. But why should I go to France? That is an alien country to me. I don’t speak French and neither have any relatives or friends there. I would be so lonely if I accepted. So, I refused to accept WHO offer, and accepted MIT instead. At least they speak English in the United States to make me more comfortable. 

It was after I left MIT in 1969 did the Ministry of Health Malaysia immediately offered me a job as a medical research officer at the Institute for Medical Rsearch in Kuala Lumpur. I was fortunate to get offers one after another without waiting. 

Less than a year after I started working at the  Institute for Medical Research I had another  offer for another  scholarship from the  University of Cambridge to do my PhD there.  I had to decline as I only then started working and I was still on probation, and I did not want to lose my job should I resign and take up the offer from Cambridge. 

Actually, I was already quite used to Cambridge when I did my postgraduate at London University because both London and Cambridge have a twinning arrangement where expertise in certain areas of medicine and nutrition London did not have. So we students in London used to shuttle to and fro from London to Cambridge between semesters to learn and observe studies done at the Department of Experimental Medicine in Tennis Court Road at Cambridge University, or visiting Professors from Cambridge would come over to our University College in London to give us lectures. This went on throughout the duration of our postgraduate course. 

Furthermore, for the final examination the University of London invited the University of Cambridge to set the examination papers and got 4 external examiners from Cambridge to examine us, with only one Internal Examiner from London University sitting there without interfering in the oral examination by the 4 External Examiners from Cambridge.  So, we had the best education from both universities. This was as good as studying or graduating from Cambridge or even better though registered as a student in London.

It was many years later during working life I went back to London to complete my PhD.     

 Having explained all that based on my experience as a student staying overseas a good part of my life, we go back to your question why I prefer to come back home to work, I think which country to work in or for is all our personal choice, and this has nothing to do with salary, social stauts, or prestige as you believe Dr Jasmine Keys.   

As far as other Malaysians going to Singapore to work  is concerned, it is up to them even  if they are not happy there. Singapore is a very stressful place to work, and I know many Malaysians working there came back to Malaysia even though the salary in Malaysia is 2 -3 times lower. But things here are at least 5 times cheaper than in Singapore besides nowhere else to go in Singapore except the same streets round and round with cars and concrete buildings there everywhere. It is like a concrete jungle everywhere in Singapore like here in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, but at least we have a lot of natural green environments outside Kuala Lumpur.

An example of Malaysians who came back to Malaysia after working in Singapore for many years is my youngest brother. Lim Yew Cheng. He was the only Malaysian Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon then who went to work in Singapore. 

In fact, he was the first and only Malaysian heart surgeon who conducted Singapore’s first heart transplant operation along with other Singapore heart surgeons at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

After my brother Yew Cheng conducted Singapore’s first heart transplant, he rang me up in Kuala Lumpur well past midnight to tell me what he did. I was shocked. Here is the account how Singapore did their first heart transplant with Yew Cheng’s name mentioned there:

  Singapore’s first heart transplant (nlb.gov.sg)

My niece, Clinical Assoc Prof Anne Hsu Ann Ling is also now working at SGH. But Anne is a Singaporean.

https://www.sgh.com.sg/profile/hsu-ann-ling-anne

My brother Yew Cheng left Singapore in 1994 to return to Malaysia to work as a Professor of Surgery at the University Hospital, University of Malaya, the same year I retired from the Institute for Medical Research.  He has left the University of Malaya Teaching Hospital and is now on his own at Gleneagles Hospital in Kuala Lumpur. But his wife from Raub, and his two sons, both medical specialists (one in Australia), and a daughter who is a chemist, are all Malaysians still in Singapore.

He was not alone. There are also many Malaysians working in Singapore or in Australia, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and later came home to Malaysia.

But Malaysia does not appreciate scientific and medical talents losing them all to Singapore and elsewhere. What a pity

In summary, where one likes to go to work is a personal choice and has nothing to do with salaries or positions unless there is a lack of opportunities to work in their own country.

Jb lim