As Suanie Sees It

Have a good weekend, bitches.

Kemudian saya dimakan.

Sekian.

When you first asked me to go back with you, my friends were more than disapproving. But the initial three days I spent with you turned out to be my life changing moment - at least the penetration of feelings that slowly broke my barriers, if any for I was still rather naive, a mask of sophistication that peeled off as you delight in my youthfulness.

Another place another time, I walked into a restaurant where you were (im)patiently awaiting with some friends, then I appeared feeling a confidence I did not feel when you whispered, “I’d forgotten how beautiful you are” sealed with a kiss so sweet as I could only smile awkwardly, for I was flattered the virgin that I was. You, who have seen countless beautiful women during your life journey and travels thought I was beautiful. You, who went to so many places, seen so many things, thought of me as the most glittering diamond. You thought I was beautiful. You looked at me with all the love in the world. You teased me ever so lightly, a certain wit a whole new level that never failed to amuse me, allowing me to realize and appreciate the gem that you are, your life philosophy though you seldom if ever follow them, your wicked smile so kind and gentle that I love you so.

You weren’t perfect. I didn’t want you to be perfect. But you were too imperfect for young idealistic me. Promises broken.

It was not your undying love that I seek, nor your 24/7 physical presence. The former would be too Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White. The latter I know to be impossible. For which I’d yearned for, for which I knew would never be and accepted.

But the same sweet lips you kissed me so ardently with, the same lips that explored the rest of me, the same lips that did not follow though. Days, weeks, months, years. How often you disappointed me, made me cry, let me down. The first time I cried so hard as if a parent lost. Even now I remember exactly how I felt. How I despaired. How I wept, how you never came. The last straw was that you never even called, not even to explain, moreover console.

You taught me to love. And I did love again, for the one who held me though uncertainties, who once asked me what I was so afraid of, who love me enough to want to be with me, whom I dared to love back in spite of reservations; he was perfect for me. At least for a while. But for that short period of not withholding anything back, I thank you. You opened my body, mind and soul like I never did. I was alive. I would not have changed a thing.

I’d told you some of this when we met. I never did tell you the rest for I was sure I found him. I wanted to start anew; finally someone who awakened what was left of me, to discover something more. With him I felt hope, I felt spring. With him, I felt like I could let you go.

Little did I know.

But I am glad. For barely a year later, though I am alone and lonely, dealt with a bad pack of cards that is fate, destiny and decisions, I am not bitter. Far from it, I still believe.

It didn’t stop me from thinking about you all the time, even now at this very moment. I bet you wouldn’t have realized the magnitude of your existence in my life if I didn’t tell you so, nor expected it. Neither did I. But like you told me, when you love someone, there is no reason but to just love.

I’ll remember.

The necklace.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

… it can only be Puteri Gunung Ledang - The Musical. This post is a tad long with 13 photos, relevant and irrelevant stuff and zero structure.

The Story

To understand the musical, it is important to understand the story, or at least know it a little. If you studied in a national school, you’d have heard of Hang Tuah, the Sultan of Malacca’s loyal aid. If not, you’d have heard of him from the ‘discussions’ that he was not a Malay but a Chinese/Indian/Mamak/Chindian. Who cares.

And because Wikipedia is your new friend, you may click on these two links to read about the original legend of Puteri Gunung Ledang and the legend rewritten for the big screen and musical.

I am offering you this background information (at least links to them) because if you are planning to go watch this musical and you;

i) have not seen the movie
ii) do not understand Malay
iii) like me, developed a slight hearing loss problem
iv) all of the above

… oh man, you’re so gonna need help.

Getting There

… was a nightmare. Mostly because I am the all-rounder noob when it comes to the intricate Kuala Lumpur city planning (and a lost lost here and a lost lost there) but luckily we reached Istana Budaya on time and all body parts intact.

The whole place was quite grand, but they forgot to provide us with chainsaws to shorten our legs for a more comfortable seating experience. “Designed by Tony Fernandez,” TV Smith quipped.

If you have seriously long legs, haha good luck to you.

The Musical

I seriously didn’t know what to expect from the musical as:

1) it’s a Malaysian musical (don’t beat me up please)
2) I’m n00b when it comes to real, live musicals

The stage setting was certainly impressive. I thought the way they maximised certain background/location prop was most clever and creative. The rustic elegance of Majapahit, chaotic buzz of the the Melaka harbour, regal prestige of the Melaka palace and solitary doom of Gunung Ledang… I couldn’t help but to ooh-ahh when each new setting was revealed.

Half naked men, yay!

The use of light and colours was something I’d never seen before; in fact the entire production’s excellent lighting implementation left me quite dazzled… you can see that I am running out of things to say because I’m not like, pro when it comes to this sort of things, but I know a good light when I see one, so there.

Like ‘wayang kulit’ liddat

The score and selection of songs enthralled me throughout the night, the most memorable song for me was the strong performance of ‘Tujuh Syarat Agung’ (The Seven Preconditions) by the ‘nenek kebayan’ ensemble. I found out later that Dick Lee and Roslan Aziz both had something to do with this… erm area, and tone-deaf as I am, I was able to differentiate and hugely appreciate the different scores for both Majapahit and Melaka (the grandeur of both kingdoms and all that).

A strong South East Asian feel in sounds

There is a bit of a grip though. At times there was imbalance in sound due to some technical glitches (though Sukania Venugopal as ‘Bayan’ was quick on the take when Tiara’s mic refused to work). And I felt that there was a certain chaos especially during the performance of an ensemble, translated “I can’t understand what they are singing”. As I mentioned earlier, I have a bit of a problem with my left ear, though my problem has more to do with distance rather than comprehensibility. Sometimes I’d have to take a peek at the English translation available on a small electronic board above the stage but it’s not much help as I can’t view it properly from where I was sitting, and the timing of the translations were occasionally inaccurate.

The Cast

It was easy to see who stole the show — AC Mizal as ‘Gusti Adipati Handaya Ningrat’ aka the tyrant aka the baddie aka the one of the halangan antara cinta sejati gave a performance like no other and left us quaking in fear of pissing off the Majapahit ruler.

I scare king like Adipati

They really cast Adipati well, even in the movie when Alex Komang was king.

Tiara Jacqueline leh… ok lah… it’s her show what… I am already used to her being the puteri of Gunung Ledang, even though she can’t really hold her notes but I can’t say that I’m any better. Not bad not bad, buey pai buey pai, though Adipati pwnz everyone.

The only way Suanie is going to be in a musical, evar

Stephan Rahman-Hughes is cute, has beautiful eyes, nifty dance moves and a ridiculously powerful singing voice but he is not Hang Tuah. And that is like, really really bad and sad ‘cos this is a story between Gusti Puteri and Hang Tuah. He looked so out of place and most of the time I was left thinking, WHERE IS M. NASIR WHEN YOU NEED HIM?!? His dialogue and pronunciation weren’t all too natural and the audience knew it. I mean, you don’t necessarily have to cast a pure Malay as Hang Tuah; any good actor could like, ACT but somehow I didn’t feel the presence of the brave Hang Tuah at all. Seriously overshadowed until he hit the high notes. THAT was impressive, but that’s it.

Not to say that M. Nasir had a whole lot of chemistry with Tiara in the movie, but in spite of the mushy mushy elaborate love scenes, he made us think that HE was Hang Tuah so screw you lot. And he certainly could bersilat so screw you lot a second time.

Speaking of chemistry, it was quite lacking between Stephan and Tiara. But Stephan is definitely cute and would fit right in any broadway shows (I found out that he played Chino in West Side Story) and maybe in my warm embrace also. It’s so unfair that Tiara gets to touch him all the time… she is a Datin Seri okay, what more does she want? Seriously, some people are just so greedy…

Tiara touching my man… AGAIN

The only other recast from the movie to the musical was Adlin Aman Ramlie (aka the LRT guy), reprising his role as ‘Sultan Mahmud Shah’. I really disliked him in the movie but I really liked him in the musical, so I guess it’s safe to say that he’s better live. There is a hillarious scene when he was dancing ala Boogie Nights and singing ‘yeah’; it was a bit wtf ‘cos he’s the SULTAN wei!!! But definitely entertaining… BEST!

Other notable characters were ‘Bayan’ played by Sukania Venugopal, a sturdy quiet strength for Gusti Puteri. A bit of a shaky voice but the emotions were delivered there and then. Mohammed Afif Halim as the young ‘Raja Ahmad’ (the crown prince) caught everyone’s heart.

Also the rest of the ensemble especially those hyperly dancing all night long deserves a standing ovation.

Stand up and clap and cheer; don’t be a lazy audience

So should you go watch this musical? OF COURSE LAH! Go feel the group effort so unfounded in Malaysia these days, go enjoy the ups and downs which you could only experience by actually being there (it’s bound to get much better with time), go hear the beautiful sounds, see the beautiful stage and costumes, GO ENJOY YOURSELF ‘cos in one word, it’s FUN!

Puteri Gunung Ledang - The Musical runs throughout February at the Istana Budaya. Information on time and ticket prices here.

Thanks to Daniel Tang for the tickets and TV Smith for the invites.

After the musical

We went to Studio 5 @ Ampang Jaya to yum char.

Min, TV Smith, Lu Sean and Regina

With Patrick Teoh, w00t!

Now go read what other people have to say:

Midnite ‘Happy Birthday’ Lily
Jeff ‘Godfather’ Ooi
Naz cucuk langit
Young Female Min
Patrick ‘niamah’ Teoh
Sharizal ’si cacat’
Sultan Muzaffar tak berdaulat
Fireangelism FU

Truth is, the world just can’t function properly without me.

I leave my throne as Empress of the Order for a few days to lau yee sang with my family, and see what happens? Rage, anger, riots, fire, blood… you name it… thanks to some caricature drawn by some insensitive people, published by some stupid people and protested by some overzealous people with ugly end results. You know, things that make being picked up by a Vogon ship sound extremely appealing.

Since my thoughts and feelings are immeasurable to the importance of mankind, you are allowed to chew on this:

First of all, the Jyllands-Posten is stupid. No excuses. It’s like, plain and simple stupidity shamelessly quaking behind freedom of speech. Just because some other people respect Islam’s taboo of not drawing up a representation of the prophet Muhammad, does not make it a violation of the freedom of speech so precious to the first world, the Western founding fathers, bla bla. Offensive cartoons on Christianity don’t want to publish, offensive cartoons on Islam want to publish lah? Pandai…

While we are at it, Frants Iver Gundelach is also another bodoh punya fella. I lazy to explain who he is and what he did, feel free to utilise Google.

Freedom of speech my cellulite-ridden ass lah. It’s prejudiced disrespect and ignorance to the sensibilities of Muslims, and I bet you 10 Hoegaarden that there is a certain desire to fuel Islamophobia. Pussies. Come out and say it loud lah. Have to use this sort of underhanded methods… now who suffers? Who? I tell you who suffers… ME. HERRO, I live in an Islamic country ok? There’s NO WAY me or anyone else here could escape from reading/listening/watching this development and sekali salah tembak, I yang kena ok?!? You wanted to reveal/expose/show the level of (non) tolerance of the Muslim world? You’ve got it, then what? There’s no medal at the end of the race. Haha freedom of speech… haha very funny… NOTHING IS FREE OK!!

But (half) seriously, there is only one reason why nobody should ever do this sort of stupid things. Do you know how crazy some people hiding behind the mask of religion can be? No? Suicide bombers, Bali bombers, this and that bombers, HERRROO?!? Now you’ve gone and upset the delicate balance we tread so carefully. If I were Muslim, I would want to skewer you into kebabs ‘coz anyone this dumb can’t afford to waste earth’s precious oxygen.

Then there are some Muslims. Like, OMFG WTF ARE YOU DOING?!?!? Some of the people I’m damn pissed off with are probably dead and others will never read this blog, but please lah, spread the word that ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE!!! In this case, the only Jihad involved is the one with yourself, like when you are protesting at the Danish embassy or whatever, to refrain yourself from burning down the building or killing other people. That is like, BAD! It’s like you see someone’s wife who is pretty, you are allowed to say that she is pretty. That’s it. But all this violence is akin to touching another man’s wife; LINE CROSSED OK?!? Repeat after me: CAN SEE CANNOT TOUCH!

And isn’t it a tad hypocritical when it comes to mocking Christianity/Christians and Judaism/Jews? Don’t tell me it boils down to, “I can do to other people but other people cannot do to me.”

People sengaja want to rile you up, you just walk into the trap. Peaceful protesting is fine, write letters to the UN saying how very very angry you are, but please leave it at that. Come hari kiamat, let them burn in hell lah; you’ve done your part. Their freedom of speech is idealistic, just like some Muslim groups’ idealistics of the whole world united under the Islamic law. Both sides of things are like, never ever going to happen so deal with it.

Then there’s the boycotting of Danish products. Fine. Off your head, name me 5 Danish products.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Carlsberg, Carlsberg, Carlsberg, Carlsberg and Carlsberg Ice? Thought so.

Least it is said that I am not sympathetic to the religious cause of my fellow Malaysians, tell you what lah. I boycott together-gether ok?

People just piss me off these days, some more than others. I have only one thing left to say; since all of you are living in my universe breathing my air, I recommend that you beg, borrow or steal a gun and with it, shoot yourselves in the genitals. Thanks.

/end rage