The Merdeka Series: I'm Lovin' It

I had a nightmare the other night. I dreamt I was a Hindu trapped in a lrt and the walls of the lrt are real juicy beef burger patties, fresh vegie, crispy fries and soft soft buns. To escape, I have to eat my way out... I was eating and eating and eating and suddenly I was this huge obese dude (though i am quite close to it anyway) crawling out the lrt tracks .... :(



Wait a minute, it is not a dream after all. These LRTS are for real. And they are right here in multi-cultural Malaysia where our leaders constantly reminds us to be sensitive, and to respect each other's culture and religion.



Oh I forgot. This reminder applies only to those of us Bangsa Asing people. It is therefore our responsibility as an alien race to be respectful of the national religion. So even if it is insensitive to Hindus, it is alright. Just as long as we don't offend our Muslim friends.



Of course, I am thankful that I have the freedom to practise whatever religion I choose to (unless if I am Malay which makes me a Muslim automatically... though I'm not too sure by whose powers) and the constitution guarantees that all religions are equal.



But then again... here in Malaysia, all is equal... but some are more equal than others.

Malaysia... I'm lovin' it.

note: photos provided by Honeystar.
re-note: first paragraph plagarised off Honeystar with permission.
re-re-note: despite providing me with photos and permission to plagarise, Honeystar do not necessary subscribe (and probably not at all) to my politiks. She is a very nice person who so happens to have a bad friend like me.
re-re-re-note: honeystar... pinky promise.

The Merdeka Series: A Letter from Commander Panda.

I received an email from Commander Panda (of Panda Head Curry, who single handedly caused me to evolve into a mass of pure energy) on his sentiments on being a Malaysian. I liked it alot, so I sent him an email...

dear commander panda,
can i humbly seek your permission to cut and paste this email onto my blog as part of my 'the merdeka series' blogs on my blogspot. it would be good for my readers to be enlightened with the eternal wisdom of panda head curry.
regards,
chi too


and he replied...

Well, in addition to being this millineum's greatest minds, Panda Head Curry is magnanimous. Particularly to you carbon based homosapiens (as you've probably figured, we've evolved ourselves far ahead of the rest of the class).
So, please feel free to spread the seeds of our genius in the virtual aether, so others my feel our love and taste our chicken.
Send us your a link to your blog, so we can see what you mere mortals are up to these days.
Panda!


So, here's the email he first sent me. Enjoy...

Hey Ho kids!

Hell, we here at Disarseter Records just want to have a good ole rockin' time. We've never been interested in Politics, Religion, Tree Hugging Activistas, Gender/Diversity Issues or anything that didn't involve, alcohol, loud amplification, copious amounts of alcohol and back stage groupie gymnastics.

No siree, Bob.

However, it's hard to turn a blind eye, particularly when the real world starts invading our rock star cocoon....particularly when it comes armed and start shooting at the youth in our community (more below).
It's a few days till we celebrate the 49th year of independence, a year shy of half a century of self rule.

So, what have we got to show for this? Well, this year, in addition to the Celelebrity Death Match between former and current PM, crooked bridges, cracked flyovers, and trying out how to pay govt contractors the several billion RM owned to them.....we got:

A Fundamentalist, Nationalistic, Brown Power rally to:

* Remind non Malay/muslim citizens that they are "bangsa pendatang"/"bangsa asing", so remember to behave yourselves! For some reason they think just because they contribute to our economy, society and pay taxes, that they are equal to us.
* Remind followers of other faiths that we respect your right to practice your religion and in turn please respect the fact that ours far superior to yours.
* Remind us that matters of faith and belief are NOT personal if you are born muslim, and are to be managed solely by ulamaa's, in particular our buddy the Mufti of Perak - Harry Z as he's known amongst his Hip Hop followers.
Also, Lina Joy's been responsible for a recent outbreak of rabies amongst the fundie crowd.

Cops harassing kids:

* Goatgate I New Year's Eve. 300+ kids detained at Paul's Place for devil worship and goat hearding.
* High Noon at the OK Parking Lot AKA Goatgate II - 19 August 2006. Cops go on a cowboy shooting spree outside Paul's Place in Old Klang Road, firing in the air to break up an alleged fight between 2 punk gangs....who I assume were hitting each other with bargain Fender, Gibson and BC Rich knock off guitars and drum sticks because they were frisked for any other weapons.


But in all the gloom above, here's a bright spark!

Technology: We enter the Space Race! Beam me up Scotty!

The first Malaysian astronaut program is underway. This momentous event has spurred a flurry of research and development in the following cutting edge areas:


* Can we get a Batik space suit?
* How do you get the sauce to adhere to your satay in zero G.
* What if the Malaysian astronaut turns out to be Malay muslim (Could he be otherwise? World Beater Squash Champion Nichole's the wrong race and can't let what happened at Everest recur, though we dubiously "salvaged" Moorthy and his corpse) http://tinyurl.com/nl6os
o How's he going to pray and wash himself in zero G.
o How do you compensate for orbital frequencies and relativistic effects of being in orbit to calculate prayer times?
o Which direction do you face?

(Note: No advanced calculus, numerical methods or physics methodologies were abused in the above analyses)

The above priorities sure warm the cockles of this engineer. I'm glad my tax ringgit is going to fund the above studies. I sure as hell can't think of any other experiments that I'd like to conduct in zero G...well maybe beer funnel fluid dynamics may be fun and once I've done those funnels, would I have to pee as bad as if I were on Earth..or would the zero G reduce the strain on my bladder.

Engage, Mr. Crusher.

Fly that flag proud, boys and girls & mind the Bollocks.

Regards,

Rafil

The Merdeka Series: Ada Apa Dengan Cina (The Chinese Dilemma)

In true Malaysia Boleh! spirit, I actually made a Cantonese film despite my inability to write in chinese and my laughable attempts at speaking Cantonese.
Made for Pusat KOMAS' bangsat... I mean bangsa Malaysia eduacation series, this film is about 2 Cina boys contemplating what there are going to do in a society marred with racial inequalities.
Enjoy...

Ada Apa Dengan Cina (The Chinese Dilemma)
-written and directed by chi too
-produced by Mien Lor for Pusat KOMAS
duration: 13 mins 29 secs
language: Cantonese/Tamil
subtitles: English

The Merdeka Series : Vulgarity and Gender, A Racial analysis.

In about 5 days time, multicultural and plural Malaysia will celebrate her 49th birthday. In conjunction with that, in true muhibbah spirit I will be conducting a few inconclusive studies (or rather self analysis) on the Malaysian psyche.

In this first study, I will analyze gender perceptions through the use of 'top-of-the-mind' vulgarities among the many racial groups based on their own mother tongues. I will be comparing how different races use words that are associated with genatalia (male and female), verbs, and other nouns... then I will see how this relates to gender perception among different races.

As a benchmark, I will compare it to a neutral language that does not belong to any race in Malaysia; that's English, the very western and un-asian lingua franca of the world.


In English... vulgarities that are often used are as follows:

1) fuck - verb, slang for copulation
example:
- to express surprise, 'oh fuck!'
- to express anger, 'fuck you'
- as an adjective enhancer, 'this is so fucking absurd'

2) shit - noun, excrement
example:
- to express surprise, 'oh shit!'

3) dick - noun, male genitalia
- as an adjective, 'you are such a dick'

4) cunt - noun, female genitalia
- as an adjective, 'you stupid cunt'


In Cantonese, a language widely used by the Chinese people of Malaysia, the following expletives are commonly used:

1) tiu - noun, slang for copulation, equivelant of the English word 'fuck'
example:
- to express surprise, 'tiu!'
- to express anger, 'tiu!'
note: unlike 'fuck', 'tiu' cannot be used as an adjective enhancer. However, the next word can.

2) lhan - noun, male genitalia
- as an adjective enhancer, 'tit mah chan chou yeh hou LHAN chat* man'
- as an adjective, 'lei thei hui ker yeong, LHAN kum yuk shuen'
* the word LHAN is often paired with the word CHAT, though one can use LHAN by itself without problems.
note: by adding the modifier 'si' (which means shit), 'LAN SI' means arrogant.

3) hai - noun, female genitalia
- as an adjective, 'chuen tho HAI kam yeong ah'
- to express anger, 'ma* HAI!'
* MA (which means 'mother') must be coupled with HAI in order to express anger, otherwise, using "HAI' by itsef fails to make any sense at all.


In Bahasa Melayu, the lingua franca of Malaysia; and a language widely used by the Malay community of Malaysia, which makes more than half the country's population... the following vulgarities are popular:

1) puki - noun, female genitalia
- to express anger, 'PUKI la woi'
- as an adjective, 'PUKI betul la'
note: the word PUKI is often used with its modifier 'MAK', which means 'mother', forming the word 'PUKIMAK'

2) pantat - noun, female genitalia
- to express anger, 'PANTAT la woi'
- as an adjective, "PANTAT betul la'
note: the word 'PANTAT' is not a vulgarity in Indonesia... over there it simply means 'buttocks'.

3) bhuto - noun, female genitalia
- to express anger, 'BHUTO la woi'
- as an adjective, 'BHUTO betul la'


In Tamil, a language widely used by the Indian community in Malaysia... the following vulgarities are popular:

note: unfortunately, the Indian community are quite marginalised in Malaysia, therefore nobody really bothers to learn to swear in tamil. Though it can be observed that the Malays, Chinese, and Indians all swear in all 3 languages; English, Chinese, and Bahasa Melayu. That is one thing that makes us quite muhibbah and multi-cultural.
re-note: there probably are vulgarities in the Tamil language, unfortunately I don't know any. Therefore, this makes a truly Malaysian study, since they are always discounted anyway in such studies and surveys.


Conclusion:
It is observed that the English language has 1 vulgarity that is a verb, 1 that is a female genitalia, 1 that is a make genitalia, and 1 that is a noun. Gender wise, equality prevails as both sexes are credited for vulgarities named after their body parts equally. The same can be said about the Chinese (1 verb, 1 female genitalia, 1 male genitalia). However, it is observed that all vulgarities in Bahasa Melayu all refer to the female genitalia; it can be said that a certain degree of sexism can be observed from how they swear. It is quite strange that despite having a slew of vulgar slangs for the vagina, there seem to be none at all for the penis in Bahasa Melayu.

note: there probably are more vulgarity in the said languages, but this is only accounts 'top of mind' vulgarities. Listing down all existing vulgarities may render the this blog unsuitable for children.

re-note: you're probably thinking that this is a completely pointless study (and I will agree with you). But if the Merdeka Center can come up with pointless studies, I think it is my right as a Malaysian to do the same too.

re-re-note: this blog entry is inspired by Ben's Bitches', after having heard their song, 'Run Peter Run' like over a thousand times.

re-re-re-note: Happy Merdeka Day.

Goodbye

hopefully I'll see you soon...

Mr. Bunny Sees

Mr. Bunny can finally see...
Much love to that strange 3 eyed monster from Hong Kong for donating his 3rd eye. Mr. Bunny would also like to thank professor Strange for the successful eyeball clone and surgery.

This Is Your Brain On Drugs

You will need,

- 4 potatoes
- 1 stalk coriander
- 1 whole onion (finely chopped)
- 5 cloves of garlic
- extra virgin olive oil
- salt and black pepper

1) Peel and quarter potatoes, boil with salt and chuck in the coriander root. The root is like the tour de' force of the coriander (flavour wise), so it really helps with giving the potato some flavour. Boil it to a point where you can stick a fork into the potato and it breaks (the potato, not the fork).
2) Chop up the coriander, onion, and garlic real fine. Put them in a bowl (big enough to put everything plus potatoes). Add salt and some fresh ground pepper.
3) Mix everything up and add a dash of extra virgin olive oil.
4) Chuck the boiled potatoes into the bowl and mash them up real fine. This is my favourite bit, when the hot potatoes hit the raw ingredients... The heat from the potatoes unlocks the flavours and this aroma hits you real hard. Make sure the ingredients get mixed together while you're mashing the potatoes
5) Taste it. You will lose consciousness for a moment.
6) Upon regaining consciousness, see if you need to add some more salt and pepper.
7) Bon apetit!

Warning: for those of you who can't deal with onions, don't make this. The whole idea of this dish is that you get a really intense taste of raw onions and garlic that makes it a rather exotic tasting dish. Boleh pengsan

Re-warning: I do not assume any responsibility if the dish does not turn out as good as it is supposed to be. If so, that only means that you're a lousy cook.

This Is Not Poetry!

It's a Saturday morning.
I called you... alas! No answer. I texted you... alas! No reply.
Do I disgust you? Does my mere existence make your insides choke?
If only I knew...
If only we spoke a bit more...

Was it because I spoke too much?
Did my lips move out of sync with the audible sounds that are coming out of my mouth?
I see your fingers struggling... hitting the 'mute' button incessantly.
If only I knew...
If only I spoke a little less...

A little bit less...
No more...
hush...

I disappear.

0684 : death by analogue

I picked up what might be my last roll of straight processed slide colour film yesterday. For the first time, it has dawned on me that maybe I will eventually be too poor to shoot film. What used to be 11 ringgit to process is now 18 ringgit. Major shock.

I asked the photoshop lady why the atrocious pricing... Well, apparently the advent of digital photography have pushed slide film to a new low, demand-wise. Thus, it costs more to process now since there is less to do so, yet they still need to prepare the same amount of chemicals to do so. sigh....

So, I present you '0684 : death by analogue', a collection of nonsensical colour photographs... and what would probably be the last of my colour photos. It is absurd.




maybe...




maybe not...










hello chloe...





maybe not...





my biggest fan.






maybe...





why not?





























definitely maybe.
























maybe probably maybe...























aural pleasures.





oral pleasures.











the other chaulys






maybe here...






maybe there...






maybe not everyone can fly...






maybe it will fly, maybe it won't.






it probably does.





flying east...














maybe i'll let you pass...





maybe I'll stay.



may I?






thank you very much you're far too kind.

The Bangkok Post

I'm tired of words, so I thought this time I'll post some pictures instead.

This is a roll of 120 slide film that was sitting on my desk for some time already. Had it cross-processed and scanned the other day only to find out that they were from my trip to Bangkok earlier this year.




Jatujak market




Chulalongkorn versus Thammasat showdown




Siam Paragon




Chulalongkorn versus Thammasat showdown 2




Me and En


Jan 2006

What I Had For Lunch Today.

I had a pack of rojak for lunch.
It was very good.
I finished everything.
I became very full.

Revolusi Karapas

An open letter to my fellow turtleniks.

dear friends and friends of friends,

I come to you with urgent pressing matters. We need to kick some sense into the head of a certain Kamarudin Ibrahim, who over the past couple of years has been one of the biggest threaths to turtle conservation in Malaysia. Allow me to explain myself, why am I so harsh on this man? For one, he leads the Turtle and Marine Ecosystem Centre (TUMEC), the leading turtle and marine conservation agency in the country.

This man as it appears to me has been living in complete denial and disillusionment in regards to the status of the leatherback turtles, and it seems that he has made 'reviving leatherback turtles' a personal agenda. Recently, he has refuted a UN reported that states the leatherback turtle being 'effectively extinct', unable to understand what it means by effectively extinct, he claims that they are merely critically endangered since there were 5 landings this year. It is appaling that a man of his calibre is unable to crunch the figures and trends that would categorize the leatherbacks as being effectively extinct.

Being the head honcho of turtle conservation in the country, this man poses a threat where he can potentially drain the country's turtle conservation resources in his personal mission to revive the leatherback turtle population, which is clearly an exercise in futility. However, as long as this man is still in office, he will still churn out multi million dollar plans of penal colonies, turtle cloning, illegal turtle egg trading, and etcetra (and i say etcetra because he can potentially come up with more absurd and mind blowing ideas).

My response to this, as turtleniks, I say we try to unseat this Kamarudin through 'Revolusi Karapas'. No, I'm not asking you to take up arms, you just need to take up pen and paper and write letters to the editors. Yesterday, our dear friend Hillary Chiew wrote a wonderful front page article regarding this matter, which provided a wonderful window of oppurtnity for us to respond. Click on the following link and its related links:

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/8/13/nation/15130343&sec=nation

If possible, everyone should click on it and read the article. What happens is, when the story records a substantial amount of hits, the editors will begin to relize that turtle stories do matter and may put up more of them in the future. That way, victories and atrocities (especially those of you know who) of turtle conservation will be reported more often in newspapers.

I urge all SEATRU volunteers to do this, read the article, analyze and understand it and write your opinions to the editors of various newspapers, especially the star. If there are things that you do not understand, I encourage you to seek clarification from Prof Chan personally. Send your letters to:

editor@thestar.com.my

(Please Note! Letters to the Editor must carry the sender's full name, address, telephone number and e-mail address for authentication. A pseudonym may be included. Letters may be edited for clarity, objectivity, brevity and other requirements. We will only publish letters addressed exclusively to The Editor of The Star.)

additionally send them also to:

letters@nstp.com.my
chenghai@thesundaily.com
bhsurat@bharian.com.my
online@utusan.com.my

and if any of you has the emails for the chinese press editors, do share.

It is a great loss that we should give up on the leatherback turtle, but sometimes, when enough mistakes are made... life must go on. We need to urge those in power to learn from these mistakes and apply this knowledge to the other turtle species that stands a chance.

May you have a good day ahead and may there be a future where turtles can thrive and be happy turtles.

Ada Apa Dengan Lebanon?

For those of you who are in the dark about what the hell Israel is all about... Here's George Galloway on what's going on with Lebanon. Galloway was the Labour Party MP who accused the Labour Party to be full of shit in regards to the Iraq invasion back in 2003. Fucking brilliant.
Enjoy

Gather The Wind

Today I will rip someone's work off and post an English translation for my favourite Japanese song. Much thanks to Kyoko for explaining what 'Kaze Wo Atsemete' means. That's the title of the song, which means 'Gather The Wind'. Enjoy.

Kaze Wo Atsemete (Gather The Wind), by Happy End

As I was walking down a towering alley
In the outskirts of the city
I saw beyond the blotched fog
A streetcar still sluggish from sleep
Crossing over the sea

So, I gathered the wind (under my wings),
Gathered the wind (under my wings)
And ran across the blue sky

As I passed through a beautiful sunrise
I saw beyond the empty-looking breakwater
A city with its day-colored sails up
Moored in the port

So, I gathered the wind (under my wings),
Gathered the wind (under my wings)
And ran across the blue sky

When I was killing time one morning
At an empty coffee shop
I saw through the cracked glass
The rustling of the high-rises' silken clothes
Brushing on the sidewalk

So, I gathered the wind (under my wings),
Gathered the wind (under my wings)
And ran across the blue sky

Unbecoming High School Behaviour

While hanging around at Starbucks after Rhapsody's brilliant performance, I can't resist the urge to enhance my dear friend KJ's beautiful face. If only I can penetrate police barricade in such manner without being beaten to pulp. Kudos KJ! It pays to be the prime minister's son in law.