All over Asia there are invisible communities. Some make themselves “invisible” because they don’t want to be bullied by stronger communities. This is one of the reasons why many of the so-called hill-tribes in Asia choose to live in the less hospitable hills away from the populated plains. Some others make themselves “invisible” because they aren’t supposed to be there in the first place. These are the illegal migrants. Others are “invisible” only because we locals don’t want to acknowledge their presence.
In large Asian cities, such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, there are hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal foreigners. On work-days they are usually spread out throughout the city wherever there is work to be done. On the weekends (especially on Sunday) they gather in their unofficially designated parts of the city to meet their fellow-countrymen, eat their favourite foods, buy dvd’s in their language, remit their money, share information about job opportunities, etc. Though these “foreign enclaves” are usually within the busiest parts of the city, and are bustling with thousands of foreign-looking people busily cramming a week’s activities into a few hours, these communities are effectively “invisible” to the locals.
Several months ago I brought a local Kuala Lumpur resident to visit a community center that we run for migrants in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. We parked the car several blocks from the center and walked to the center. As we were walking through the throngs of foreigners, he kept remarking “Wow! I didn’t know there are so many foreigners in KL!!” As a matter of fact, he had never, ever been to that part of KL!
When we finally arrived at our Goducate community center he was shocked to see so many foreigners in it. His remark “This is AMAZING!” To me the amazing part is that tens of thousands of foreigners in the busiest part of a city are usually invisible to the locals.
The likeliest reason for their “invisibility” to us locals is that we don’t really want to know them. We see them constantly around us around our homes and workplaces doing useful work. We know that they are necessary to our lives and economy. But we really don’t want to know more than this because to do so will uncover too many problems that they face.
But Goducate wants to know more about the problems that they face. And in its own little way Goducate wants to help them.
Yes, these invisible urban Asian communities of Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Nepalis, Ibans, Myanmese, Vietnamese, Indonesians, Filipinos, etc. desperately need help!