Call that Malaysia

It was puke-inducing...

Yeah, I was watching this opening of the FEI World Endurance Championship (an equestrian cross country sort of stuff) live on TV and I can't help but laugh and ponder about the "world class-ism" of our country's sporting organizers. Honestly, it felt no difference from a local event. Whoever the hell was behind the opening, he or she was sure "smart". Okay, maybe we have standards that says: "hey ini bukan olempik la, just use the usual stuff we do everytime for every event for every year". The opening cultural dance was especially awkward; it's well fusioned, old fashion, sloppy stuff that looks more like spillover than appetizer. I can't understand the Malayness, Chineseness, Indianess, and lain-lainess of what they are trying to do. In the end, it's all western beats like every cuti-cuti Malaysia songs you hear on air. There's no subtlely, no enchantment. As if they are only trying to fill up air time. Heck, this is a world class event; the stadium was filled to the brim, and all we have is a few dozen dancers wagling on the ground. Heck, the North Koreans are better; they know how to get attention. Us? We get the honor of holding an international event and being complacent. Then just throw out a little bit of salt and an uglier than life mascot. Is this Malaysia?

Crabs later, now for a bit of heritage lesson

I was going to post something about my Pulau Ketam photo trip but the connection was lousy. So instead of that I'm going to talk a bit about ancestry and heritage. Really, a bit only la, because I found a better link to explain the rest. Well, here goes.

Okay, my dad's a Hokkien and mom's a Teochew. That makes me half-half of both and I'm damn proud of that. I hail from Penang. Although I speak predominately Penang Hokkien, I probably'd understand most Hokkien/Teochew related dialect spoken anywhere in this country. If not, I'd guess it to a certain accuracy. Penang itself is a strange place. As you might know, the Hokkiens there (as well as those from the north) speak differently than say those Hokkiens from Central or Malaysia.

Within the state of Penang itself, we have three dominant Chinese dialects: Hokkien, Teochew, and Hakka. In Penang, we have a clear line between Island people and Mainland people. Heck, there's a channel separating them! Islanders are mostly Hokkien speaking, and mainlanders are much Teochew and a mixture of both (or all three). People from the Island, I think, speaks Hokkien strangely. I don't know its the culture or what, but theirs are kind of soft (or what the Cantonese call "la la dei"), almost eloquently manner. Come to mainland, and you'll find alot of us are kind of barbaric. We mix alot normal Hokkien and Teochew and vice versa in our daily life, thanks to mixed heritage or mingling with friends.

As I've said, I'm half-half. I find Teochew people much nicer, although they might appear to not care a fark about you. The men are tough people, but the women are equally tough but loving and kind (my late Granny is one). They mostly come from the kampung and they are damn versatile and damn smart, unlike the town Hokkiens. They have an extrodinary childhood. Ask any Teochew grownup and he or she would tell you all the (mis)adventures they had as a kid: climbing trees, cycling, swimming, mud wars, chasing pigs and anything that moves, running all over the place, maybe breaking a teeth or two, and so much more. They are brats, unlike me. My adventures were limited to the viccinity of the house. I never had the guts to go dirty, but they do, and its fun. Sadly all of this is going away fast.

There's not much nature anymore nowadays to mingle with, and I doubt kids Teochew or otherwise could have had all the fun like their parents used to have. Even in Penang, its all bricks and slabs. Kampung kids are going away fast into the world of shopping malls, fast food, and computers. Once they enter school or college, it's bye bye bicycle and hello Kancil. The point I'm telling this is because I see a very familiar world in Pulau Ketam. The free roaming spirit of kampung kids doing the thing they do best: playing their heart out. Certainly us city slickers don't have this kind of thing anymore. The last time I counted myself as "serious playing" was about 11 or so years ago. Schools condition kids to listen to rules and all sorts of moronistic values. Go into college and capitalism the other ism isms kicks in. Come into work and you either rot or drag yourself along.

Kids are like dogs: they need plenty of imaginative and physical space to roam and play. Then they can be happy. I'm a big kid (I know some of you still are or wants to be) and I'm not afraid to show that side of me once in a while. Go on, roam free if you want. Forget the money, forget the homework, hell, fark the exam. You only live once, reclaim your childhood now or you're going to end up like Micheal Jackson! Period.

P/S: See, a bit only mah. Okay, since Pulau Ketam is predominately Teochew, my guess is most Teochew are involved in fishing/farming business. The Hokkiens are more towards business of wholesale and marketing. That's just my guess lah. And
here's a website dedicated to Teochew people, if any of you are interested in Teochew heritage.

Imperialism: The Momma of All Fuck-ups

Imperialism is bad: it is the source of all the big and small wars ever since antiquity. The Spanish caused all the hardships you see in Latin America; the French messed up most parts of Africa and South-east Asia; the Italians in Eastern Africa was good as Mousolini (as good as dead); the Dutch, well, they created the biggest Islamic nation in the world (not that bad though); modern day China was a result of 3000 years of internal imperialism; and the baddest of them all are the British.

Thanks to the British, we had a situation where we call this situation by the name Malaysia. You see, I theorize that Malaysia is not a country, but a result out of the mess that the imperialists were unable to mend. They brought everybody, every single culture they could muster into this tiny strip of land called Malaya and ripped every ounce of it inside out before they were chickened out by samurai wielding bicyclists, little men (and women) from the jungle, and finally Oxford educated keris wielders. So the remnants of this little piece of land had to trouble themselves because they were jealous of each others' gain.

Thanks to the British too, you had all kinds of stupid laws and rules that are written before they chickened out and now has become canon. Thanks to the British too we now had English educated brats who are experts at judging peoples' ass. Plus, the imperialists also gave us the words 'minister' and 'politicians' which equals crap in the modern sense. So don't go blaming your Malays or Indians or Chinese for the crap situation you get now, blame it on whoever that brought us together in the first place, and the people that suggested the name for this situation. Because they also couldn't keep up, just like the Brits.

DAM(N)!

This news made me furious. The Sarawak Garblement has approve the construction of 12 dams (empangan lah) to boost its 'industrialization'. Apparently, I don't know which world these people came from. Maybe they are aliens sent here to reap earthly resources.

Now, its not one or two dams but twelve. What that means is that 12 natural forest areas ARE TO BE DESTROYED. They claim by year 2020 Sarawak would be able to supply 600% increase in energy to 'future needs'. Fark them lah, I'd say by 2020 the only rain forests our children will see are located inside shopping malls.

Maybe instead of causing further damage to our (I SAID OUR) environment, why not stick a dam in every Malaysian opposition leaders' asses so they won't be able to sodomize anyone?

Desiree 陈诗莉 - 让世界听到 (Let The World Listen)

I got my copy of Desiree's (of Project Superstar Malaysia '06 fame) long awaited debut album yesterday, and having listened it another time this morning, here's my take on Des and Co.'s maiden effort.

At first glance I was quite held off by the slightly unsharp cover photo, but lauded the manufacturers for the use of a jewel case compared to most of the Digipak or DVD case crop. Well, the rest of the album liner images weren't really sharp either. It turns out that the photography was done in Hong Kong, although the liner captions would misleadingly suggest that Des has travelled the world.

The album sounds very urban. I assume this was a result of the collaboration with Singaporean Kenn Wu at his Tiny Box Studio (Singapore is urban mah). From what I heard, they took a year to come out with the album. As I've said, its very urban, with most tracks containing urban beats and electronics. Its something similar in feel with Elva Hsiao's songs. Although generally, its similar with most contemporary pop stuff of the region.

I think most (maybe not her fans) would dismiss her singing as nothing spectacular. Yup, that's my impression too. I think she doesn't have the bit of edge. "The edge" is kind of like a singing that powers the song but not to the expense of overpowering. There are emotions and good flow, but not as good as to make the music stand out like what Yise did. But I do think that she is a capable singer, and the urban feel of her songs fits her nicely. I doubt it would work if she were to sing acoustic/light stuff. This is something that I'd put on my car stereo while driving to work. No, I'm not degrading it to car music, I generally considers it a good urban album. It's just that we had a lot of urban sounding stuff on the market already and this one is going to find hard competition.

So, to sum it up, Desiree's first is an album worth listening. Although less engaging as a whole, it is better than some of the mass manufactured pops from around the region. And as a Malaysian artist, its a big leap for the industry. There are a few tracks that I particularly liked, one of them being the sentimental piece 不得不爱你 (Can't Stop Loving You). I'd put this track on a movie scene involving lady sipping wine at her 25th floor apartment balcony overlooking the city nightscape.

Lead track 'Baby':

情牵南苑 - Age of Glory

I love pilot episodes; they either decide the success of a series, or its doom. They tell audiences what to expect, and generate further expectations, and at the end, make you anxiously waiting for that next episode to be aired next Monday. That's what happened to me with favorites such as Stargate SG-1, Seaquest, Lost, Prison Break, most of the Hongkie stuff and all of the J-Doramas.

In case you didn't know, "Age of Glory", a Malaysian made drama which I am deeply (almost affectionately) involved with, premiered earlier tonight on NTV7. Don't worry if you missed that. There's still 39 episodes to go, every Monday to Thursdays at 9.45pm. Edit: Past episodes are also available on www.ntv7.com.my, without the ads (yeay!). After watching the pilot of AOG, there are some points that perplexes me.

I'm not saying that perplexing is a bad sign for a drama premiere. I happened to like dramas that does things out of my comfort zone (the great TVB drama War and Beauty has IMHO an aptly apocalyptic ending which The Girlfriend loathes), although they did it at different stages, rarely at the pilot. So seeing the first episode of AOG departing from its comfort zone makes me don that Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson look. Nolah, at least they don't have shaky handphone-esque camerawork and stuff that needs me to turn my TV screen 90 degrees. So what's the quirk?

It has centralized dispersion. That means contradiction lar, even the two words are opposites mah. It tells the story from a flashback from Rose, excuse me, Yuk Lan's point (kudos James Lee for those beautiful opening shots). But, the (flashbacked) story is skewed towards what's happening to Rose's elder sister (played by Yip Lai Yee). We see a bit of what's coming for Rose - her being smart (conversations with sister), her being defensive (saving Janet Khoo from Uncle Hamsap), and most importantly her dreams (being taught makeup and dancing). Those are small bits of information to what lies ahead of young Yuk Lan. Yuk Lan is definitely the focus here, but so far its her sister's issue that is of concern, and the episode ends in that way too.

That brings us to the second point, that AOG follows a sequential character revelation ark. Most series opens with all main characters (mainly protagonists) and most side casts showing up. The characters' lives often cross paths between each other or they are shown with their own lives in the first episode until they converged at a later stage (usually less than two episodes later). AOG opened with only Yuk Lan and her immediate family. This indicates that the other two main casts would be sequentially revealed along Yuk Lan's life. This too means that audiences would need to stick to seeing only her for some more episodes. I don't suppose that is the case though. A person's life is usually boring. The characters of Shu Juan and Chen Mei would probably pop up sooner.

Finally, hooray for the comeback of Cantonese dialect. Although Janet's Malay-slanged Cantonese amuses me, but I hail the producers' bold decision to stick to it. At first I thought the editor gods made a mistake, but nope, its all true that I'm listening to locals speaking Chinese dialects on free TV again (there are maybe some others that I had no knowing of). Its odd, but my friend theorizes that maybe Janet's character came from KL, that's why she speaks Canton. I had a nice time watching HVD and The Company's Cantonese dramas during the good ol 90s, but quitted since the gaberment's initiative at pushing Mandarin as de-facto dialect for public TV. Those sucked in part because the actors had not acclimatized to speaking in full Mandarin. The small doses of Cantonese in AOG hopefully is a start for more localization of Malaysian dramas.

Maybe I was most edgy about AOG because I worked on it. I knew how they made those shots and they deliver more memories than objective emotional impact on screen. I hope those who view it purely for what they are - drama, would enjoy it as much as we enjoyed (har har) making it.

no-fark!

Fuyooh Malaysia Buuleeh!!!

Today, March 9th 2008, the air was clear, the roads were smooth, the rain was refreshing, the sky was (partly) blue. For the first time in my 23 year life I absolutely felt like a Malaysian.

Yesterday, beginning when the very first voters put the cross on the ballot paper, a storm was built. It culminated later at the evening in the form of a tsunami. A big wave that purges some of the obsolete obstacles that stuck like a cork in the bottle that is our country. Although not all corks were successfully popped out, it still gave them dents and weaken their structure. The rest of them got carried by the wave to the open sea where they must rethink what they did to deserve this punishing.

Yes, It was the tsunami created by the people, enraged by the ignorance of the spoil corks, seeking revenge. We Malaysians are cool and calculated people who settle our differences on the right channel, and we finally did just that. Damn, this is a fun country!

Malaysia can, because you can.

no-fark!

Who said donuts are just donuts?

Last evening The Girlfriend returned home with half a dozen worth of Big Apple Donuts. Before this I've heard some rave reviews about this shop, so I was eager to try it although The Girlfriend made it pre-requisite that I bathe first. Now, throughout my eating life I came across some food that just by the first bite would turn your whole mouth into heaven. These donuts? Let me tell you that they are:

O-M-F-GOODNESS-DELICIOUSLY-SUPERB

And that is like ten levels above heaven! Its kind of hard to describe exactly where went right. I think the toppings were fantastic, but the best part is the dough. Moderately soft, they felt just right. I was also surprised that everything tasted almost perfect even though it was bought some one hour before we had the first bite. Its stuff like this that made me feel glad there's still some heaven on earth, at least where the mouth is.

Anyways, seven weeks of school has come to its end as fast as it has started. After a week, I'm officially beginning my industrial attachment. That's going to be 5 4 months worth of I-don't-know-what-to-expect. Whatever comes, I'm sure I could get a bit of solace from a dozen of little heavens.













no-fark!