DO we all really have to work until we die?” I ask my companion as we stroll out of the path dappled with sunlight into an open road, from whence we could glimpse the fresh greyness of an ancient sea, lapping the shore that morning as it has done in endless labour from the dawn of creation.
“Don’t you remember? That is what you asked years ago in one of your stories. But I think you are not asking the question quite right,” she says.
“And what might the right question be?”
She tosses her head, and her hair flutters like butterflies in the gust that streams in from the blue vastness, and she looks at the village behind us once more. But she says nothing.
Two hours ago, as mortals count time, we were in conversation with K, a man with deep roots in the past and with keen eyes on the present. Charming is his mannerism, content is his tone. He sits upon a raised platform in a corner of a tribal hall, and awaits the tourists and their questions.
He speaks of skulls, of spirits and of the stirrings in the people and the land.
K is more than 60 years old. So is his wife. She sits behind him, facing a wall of wood, and bathing in shafts of light.
She is carving statuettes of warriors, of Mary, of animals, of dreams.
They sell these creations of the mind and hands to visitors. It is the means by which a little more money flows in, he says as he gestures to me to sit alongside him.
“How long have you been doing this?” I ask.
“Six years,” he answers softly and smiles, and lines form long and lively on his face. “I come from Serian.”
“Aren’t you tired of working?”
“And why should I be? This is a blessing.”
Which is the same answer I get from two dear makcik, who, sitting cross-legged on the matted floor, beat the Gendang Melayu Sarawak and open their mouths, sending hypnotic words and sounds deep into the marrow of the soul.
“Dah lama buat kerja ini, 15 tahun. Tiap-tiap hari datang dari Kuching.” (We have been doing this for a long time, 15 years. We travel from Kuching every day),” says one to my companion.
How much do they make?
They laugh a little. “Cukup, Alhamdulillah.” (Enough, praise be to God.)
In 14 years, will it really be enough?
In Malaysia, the number of people over the age of 60 is expected to grow to 14 per cent of the population in 2030, and 23 per cent in 2050, according to a study I discovered on the EPF website. And, if it is the will of Heaven that I still walk the Earth then, I will join them.
Will they and I, every single one of us, be working so we can pay to live? How many will draw a pension sufficient to keep the roof in one piece and the stomach in silent peace?
Will we, in such large numbers, be a great burden on the young, and a greater burden still on the state? The Economist says that “over the next 20 years, the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600 million to 1.1 billion” and that the generation will for sure “change the global economy”. For good or ill, who can say? The experts are still searching far into the future, but none have a crystal ball.
My newfound Bidayuh friend does not fret about this.
The kind man and the makcik I chat with at the cultural village are not living on pensions or annuities. They have families. This, along with their little income, is support enough.
But I worry about the future because I feel inequality continues to happily thrive in this world, and families continue to miserably fray at the edges. Too few can save enough when they are young. So it is that when they are old, to stop working is to stop living.
For this reason, says my companion, we who are young now have to turn everything on its head, and ask not whether we have to work until we die, but this instead: “What is the purpose of work?”
Indeed, what is the sea, endlessly at work, telling us?
The writer, David Christy has been with NST for 20 years, and possesses a keen interest in history