I don’t think I consciously decided to pick up a new hobby. It just happened.
A few weeks ago, I started working on a small website called BacaMalay. The name is meant quite literally: baca means “read” in Malay, and BacaMalay is pronounced roughly BA-cha ma-LAY — the c in Malay sounds like ch. The idea was fairly simple: create a Malay learning resource for people who want reading material that feels more interesting than textbook dialogues.
At first, I thought I would simply put together some graded readings. Then I found myself writing stories.
I started thinking about which words a beginner would realistically know, how much new vocabulary is too much, whether a sentence sounds genuinely Malay rather than something translated from English, and how to explain little cultural things that Malaysians would normally never think to explain.
Then came the folklore.
Sang Kancil — the mouse deer — led to more Sang Kancil. Then Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat appeared. Suddenly I was planning chapters, choosing illustrations and thinking about how an old story could be made accessible without turning it into a children’s story.
It has become strangely absorbing.
What I enjoy most is probably the combination of things involved. There is writing, language, research, design and a little bit of problem-solving. One moment I’m working out whether a word belongs at Beginner or Elementary level; the next I’m trying to decide how much cultural explanation a reader actually needs.
Even the illustrations have become part of the process. I wanted the site to feel recognisably Malaysian, so ordinary things — a rainy street, a kedai runcit (neighbourhood grocery shop), a bus stop, a burger stall — matter just as much as the stories themselves.
What began as an attempt to build a useful Malay learning resource has quietly turned into something I genuinely enjoy working on.
I’m still not entirely sure whether I should call BacaMalay a hobby, a project, or an experiment.
For now, perhaps it is all three.