I met a fascinating man today. I have heard many stories about men or women who have done what he did. So many until they began to sound like a propaganda. What makes it worst is that this is of a religious matter and many have judged a religion by the people who are of that religion.

This man I met could never be mistaken for anything other than a Muslim. He had the headgear, he had the dark mark on his forehead of a truly pious man and he even had the beard. What aroused my curiosity about him began with his comment that he was showing some Germans around. And none of the Germans spoke English. So my father asked him how he communicated with them and he replied that he spoke German fluently.

So, being curious beings that we are, my sisters and I asked our father how this man could know German so fluently. After all, it is not a language that would affect anyone in our state, our country, or even our region. So he told us this man's story.

Apparently, this man was a Christian priest very high on the echelons of the religion and he was doing some studies about the Bible. He was researching every bit of thing that is in the good book. This explains his fluency in German because he was doing most of his studies in Germany. It was while doing these studies that he found a section which stated that to find the truth, one must find a place of religion that never closes.

Almost like in the movies, this little bit became a quest for this man. The scholar in him compelled him to find this truth. After all, the true measure of intelligence is in our search for the truth. So this man searched and searched. Then at one point, he spoke to our former Chief Minister who managed to attract him to Islam. So this man became a Muslim.

Then, while performing the Hajj, he came upon the Masjid al-Haram in Mekah. And suddenly, for him, everything in his life fit into place. The Masjid is never closed. It is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So, in Islam, this man found his religious place that is never closed. So he felt his search for the truth can finally be found.

The whole story he had once told my father a long time ago. While hearing it, I thought of how it can make a very good Raya movie, provided nobody turns it into a propaganda for the religion.

It is stories like this that make me happy to be in the religion I am in. Then I meet or see or read about some other people who give my religion a very bad name or reputation. It all brings me back to one thing. It is not the religion that is to be blamed. It is the people who are of that religion that are not thinking beyond themselves. Unfortunately also, religion in any world is mixed heavily with the traditions and culture of the country it is in. And once we mix traditions and religion, we almost certainly will get sidetracked.

The best way I see it is to be open-minded and intellectual. We need brain over emotions for matters like this. In some ways also, we need to accommodate and be flexible rather than stressed out and standing too rigidly. I usually listen to when someone tries to tell me things about my religion. I never claim to know everything so everything is a new learning experience for me. BUt as I listen and agree, I also plan to research and find out more. Find the truth. Luckily, I have a lot of people around me who I can ask. Whatever is religion, I will try to follow. Whatever is tradition mistaken for religion, I will listen quietly to as a sign of respect to the person telling me. They have done their bit by trying to teach me. My choice to not follow is my own.

Religion or not, I am part Chinese, part Malay, part Eurasian, part Arab. Each part teaches me and compels me to show respect which I do. I am not sucking up to anyone neither am I a goody-two-shoe as some have accused me of being. I am just doing what generations have taught me; to show respect. When you respect people, people will respect you back. A person cannot force others to completely respect them if they show no respect for others. People may say they don't mind the show of bad manners. But it is one thing to be comfortable with other people and quite another to be rude.

And society being what it is, if we show rudeness, we are not blamed. Our parents are blamed. And do I love my parents? Yes. I don't just say it. I show it. And I show it by showing others that yes, they taught me manners. Yes, they brought me up to be intelligent and yes, they brought me up to learn from my mistakes. They also taught me that while many of what I do is what I learnt from them, many of what I do is also my own mistake and can only be blamed on me.

But society being what it is cannot know this. They can only know what they see. So I try to make sure they see good things about me as it is the only thing that saves my parents' reputation. For, in my religion, my parents' afterlife depends on what I do in this life.