Last night I attended the Night for SEMOA Charity Dinner at Taylor's College, Subang Jaya. A friend of mine (and fellow Valed) was one of the guys organizing the event, so I decided that I would cough up the RM60 that was required to purchase one of the limited number of tickets. Why not, I thought. Aside from giving to charity, I could also meet up with some old friends and eat some good food while I was at it as well.
Before I continue, I should probably give you some background information on SEMOA first. SEMOA is a non-profit organization (NGO) focused on improving the livelihood of Orang Asli (indigenous people of Malaysia) children through the Orang Asli Education Centre (OAEC). Among other things, it does things like distribute rice and clothes, build houses, and provide free basic education. (For more information about SEMOA and how you can help out, click here.)
Right, so back to the dinner. It was pretty good, I must admit.
The food - nasi briyani, typically, and complementing dishes like chicken and beef - was nice, albeit limited. The floor layout and organization was well-planned, too, as there didn't seem to be anybody having difficulty moving around or finding their seat.
The performances were alright, too - some music, as well as a short play. It was just too bad that I could hardly make out what was being sung during the musical acts, though. I blame the lack of sound absorbers in the hall that the dinner was being held in. As for the play, although a bit lacking and predictable in terms of storyline, it still gets my thumbs up due to the good acting.
But anyway, the main thing I would like to highlight from my thoughts on the dinner is this:
With all the good food, performances, and especially the reunion with old friends, many of us may have forgotten what had caused the dinner to be held in the first place - the Orang Asli children.
Around half of the attendees to the dinner were friends of the students who had organized the event. It was then, of course, understandable that they (being technically still teenagers, after all) would be more than a bit excited at meeting one another. So excited, in fact, that they missed out on listening to the one good speech on the night.
Most of the speeches had been given before the actual 'tucking in' began. These were all the usual, boring ones - you know, the words of appreciation, how the event was conceived, and so on. However, after most people had finished eating (I was still munching away on my second helping), it was time for one of the SEMOA representatives to speak on behalf of the organization.
To be honest, I didn't catch half of what the man said, myself. I did get some snippets, however, in which he spoke very well about the importance of education. A very typical and dull topic, you may think, but this guy made it sound interesting. I would have been happy to just sit quietly and listen to him, but it would have been rude to ignore the people who were talking to me at the time.
And indeed, almost everyone was talking throughout the entirety of the speech. The guy sitting next to me at my table (not a Valed; a friend from Manipal who I had invited to tag along, and since the other guys didn't know him, they didn't talk to him much) first brought this observation to my attention, and that realization caused me to feel a slight tinge of sadness. It was almost as if no one cared about the guy up on the stage and behind the podium, or the organization he was representing; the only reason they came to the event was merely to meet up with their buddies.
Credit has to be given to the speaker, though. I'm pretty sure he was fully aware that he was being largely ignored, but he never swayed in his tone and manner. He deserved the hearty round of applause that he got when he was done - although I'm sure that most people only clapped because everyone else was clapping.
Some of the Orang Asli children under SEMOA had actually attended the dinner as well, and in what I presume to be their best clothes (except for a number of them who were dressed for the dance performance they gave at one point during the dinner). It's just as well that they were probably too young to come to the same conclusions that I did, or that would have caused quite some embarrassment on our part.
Then again, my conclusions could be wrong. The organization got RM15, 000 after all, and might not have cared a jot why the people who had donated the money had even done so in the first place. All that money had probably been donated with good intentions anyway, and everyone had just temporarily forgotten all that due to the rising dopamine levels caused by meeting old friends. Maybe I just think too much. I did enjoy meeting my old friends again, and maybe I felt psychologically obliged to somehow feel guilty about enjoying myself.
In any case, the dinner was for a good cause - the underprivileged children of the Orang Asli. Here's hoping that the money donated to that cause will help them to achieve great things in the future.
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