One of my childhood memories in Malaysia was that my family prayed the rosary every day at 7.30pm for 20 minutes simply because this was the time that my mother decreed.
It was also right in the middle of the 7.30pm daily 80s sitcom slot, back in the analogue days when you had to sit in front of the TV at a set time or risk missing a show.
As a result I have never seen a full episode of Full House, Growing Pains or Family Ties. Even when we were on holiday or visiting family, we prayed the rosary because "you can't take a holiday from Jesus".
This routine, along with weekly attendance of Sunday school, church, first holy communion camp and confirmation camp meant that a large part of my identity was linked to the Catholic faith and its community. I never realised it as a child, but this sense of community and grounding was important.
As a Malaysian-Indian-Catholic family, we were a minority in a Malay-Muslim majority country. Even in a progressive multicultural country, it was nice to be surrounded by people who were ‘just like me’. Or so I thought.
As I got older, however, I realised that this sense of community was held together by a set of beliefs that I gradually didn’t share, especially when it came to the Catholic Church’s dogma that we are all born as sinners and that Jesus died for our sins. It felt a lot like a terrible real estate deal. Imagine signing a lease for an apartment and walking into your new place and finding that it has a broken toilet and no running water. Imagine now, the real estate agent blaming you for the bad plumbing and wouldn’t let you live down the day your landlord sent over his son to fix everything (sure, Jesus was a carpenter, but you get the picture). That scenario is my take on religion. I felt like I was asked to continuously appease a powerful being who kept telling me that I am not good enough. Eventually, I left.
In real life, the community took my departure as an affront and I took their affront as proof that religion divides us
My breakup with religion also meant breaking up with the community and causing a rift with my family. I wish I could say we have put our differences aside and focused on our commonalities, but this is not a wholesome family sitcom. In real life, the community took my departure as an affront and I took their affront as proof that religion divides us.
So what’s a girl who lost her identity and community to do?
Funnily, moving to Australia has helped because it forced me to redefine my identity in a new environment and find a new sense of community. In this country, I identify as an Asian, immigrant and a person of colour, which are all new, Australian-centric identities for me. I also gravitate towards people who are new in town because we know what it’s like to make a big move and are trying to rebuild the networks we left behind. I’m rarely asked about my religion, so I don’t have to explain why I left the church.
I have thought a lot about my identity since and realised that it can be fluid. Over the last decade, the labels I’ve used to describe myself include: pop culture enthusiast, extrovert, introvert, opinionated, feminist, feature writer, book nerd, cat-hater, aunt, 90s R&B fan, immigrant, Malaysian, Melbournian, friend, girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, work-wife, yoga practitioner. And of course, atheist. I love the variety of these terms because they are great conversation starters and they’ve helped me find my new ragtag community.
There are no set rules for what makes a community
It’s been a liberating process partly because there are no set rules for what makes a community, no standards for how often to meet or what to wear. I like how I only see my book club members once a month and my fellow yoga practitioners twice a week. Nobody complains if I missed a few sessions. I barely know the people in these groups yet I consider them to be part of my many circles. What’s more, this has challenged my initial view that strong communities are those with common nationality, ethnicity or religion. If anyone still thinks that, I encourage you to walk into a Saturday morning CrossFit class and witness the bond between people who wake up at dawn to workout.
Of course, one of the biggest changes since leaving the church has been my routine. These days, I find my Sundays wide open — and I’ve been using that time to catch up on 80s sitcom reruns.
*Real name has been changed.
This article was edited by Candice Chung, and is part of a series by SBS Life supporting the work of emerging young Asian-Australian writers. Want to be involved? Get in touch with Candice on Twitter @candicechung_
'Christians Like Us' airs at 8.35pm, Wednesday April 3 and 10 on SBS.
