I think it is very selfish for someone to say that. Don’t you care about other people? How about your children and your grandchildren?
When I tell people I’m studying environmental science and I’m a conservationist, they called me a ‘hippie’. They will start asking questions like, ‘how are you going to get a job?’ or making statements like ‘you are not going to get any money’. I always knew that whatever job I’m going to do, it is not about the money.
For me, it is all about learning. I love learning about the environment because it is something that we are so closely attached to, but people just don’t think enough about it.
I started with environmental science in my undergraduate, so I did a lot of broad environmental subjects. In my masters in Cambridge, I decided to specialize in wildlife conservation because I want to work with protecting and preserving animals.
It is not a big topic here in Malaysia, even though we have so much wildlife and natural resources to protect. Maybe it is because we are a developing country so we don’t think about all these. I feel like sometimes we just think about how to make money from it, we don’t think of how to protect it.
I don’t think its their fault though, we just don’t get enough exposure here. Instead of watching cartoons growing up, I watched National Geographic and Animal Planet. That is the reason why, not just me, but all my siblings are very passionate about the environment.
My mother always told me ‘do what makes you happy because you are going to do this for a long time. You don’t want to be doing something that you don’t really like because it makes you miserable’.”
– Humans of Kuala Lumpur
Photostory by Samantha Siow
Edited by Amalina Davis
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(This post was first published on June 9th 2018)
