As Suanie Sees It

If you were at the Sept 15th rally and you parked your car at the side of the road, you should probably check if you kena saman. I’m not laughing at your misfortune or anything; it’s just that I’d parked my car by the road side, and as I was preparing to walk to the stadium, I saw a few cops giving out ‘lottery tickets’. Just so you know lah.

By sheer luck, we (Erna and I) managed to get the last legit parking spot in a proper parking place. About time too, because I was pretty pissed off with the universe by then; unfamiliarity with the area caused me to take a wrong turn, and so I had to make the biggest round in order to get back to the stadium. A Malay dude was directing me to park my car properly (as those illegal car jockeys would). I thought he wanted some money for that but turned out, he was just helping out of the kindness of his heart. I was very touched.

As we entered the stadium, we were handed a Jalur Gemilang each. Some people were passing out those rubber bracelets but we didn’t take them. Then the speakers blared out our national anthem, and we stood still. We were quite a distance away from the main crowd but people around us were singing the ‘Negaraku’ loudly. I felt so many things at once — flashbacks from my primary and high school assemblies, pride and joy from nowhere, etc that I got goosebumps throughout the song.

Leaders of Pakatan Rakyat on stage, some reading the doa

We made our way to one of the top of the covered spectator area, next to the media area. In hindsight, it was probably not a great decision because the speakers were way in front of us, facing the crowd. So I had some difficulty trying to understand the speeches. But it was great for photo ops though. Not as awesome as some of the photos uploaded to the journalists’ notebooks (I peeked) but my Panasonic Lumix TZ15 did the best it could. The 10x zoom really came in handy.

Dude wearing a DSAI face mask. I can’t begin to tell you how eerie this can be

The Chief Minister of Penang, Lim Guan Eng took the stage. I thought he was really good, really funny, really pro at working the crowd especially with his Chinese accent. Other speakers were Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim (I think), a PAS leader, Lim Kit Siang and finally, Anwar Ibrahim.

As you would have known by now, nothing major was announced at the rally. There were lots of ‘we have the numbers (crowd cheers), we have the numbers (crowd cheers)’, but they have been saying that since forever. There were lots on the ISA, which I used to brush off as a necessary evil. I have since changed my mind on that issue. However noble the original intentions may be (depending on whose perspective), its implementation and enforcement especially in this country where the government’s low tolerance for dissenting views is well-known and well-publicised (by foreign publications and non-mainstream media in Malaysia) has been nothing but cruel and vile. Sounds slightly generic, yes but it has been a long process for me to come to these beliefs.

I thought the speakers were rather funny when they made fun of Syed Hamid’s ridiculous explanation that the arrest of the Sin Chew reporter was necessary for her own safety. They (the speakers) also peppered their speeches with words and sentences in Chinese and Tamil. I cracked up when Anwar Ibrahim proclaimed, “WO MEN SHI YI JIA REN” (crowd cheers).

Will the real Anwar Ibrahim please stand up?

After Anwar’s speech, the ‘Negaraku’ was played again. Another goosebumps moment. I took a video of it here. Then everyone got up to leave the stadium; there was a slight jam at the stadium exits and at the parking lot to go home, but it was okay.

And it’s already September 17th. It’s funny how some people expected a sudden change in the government yesterday, and got sorely disappointed when that didn’t happen. Heh. Why do I find it funny? I don’t know, it just is. It’s like, people expecting something major to happen after Pakatan Rakyat took over the 5 states this past March 8th, but life goes on as usual for the wage earners. It has only been a few months lah, give it some time. After all, BN has been at the helm since 1957. Rome was not built in a day and all that jazz. Bla bla bla bla bla.

A stitched photo of the crowd at the rally. Click on the photo above for a larger version

By the way, I heart Zaid Ibrahim (crowd cheers).

Having been tagged by Shannon Teoh via Le Paultan.org, I figure I’d better do this before my week is up, because:

1) It would get Paul off my back for not writing the post
2) Me break the chain and incur the wrath of the well-meaning bloggers who participated in this meme? Nooooo!!!

Heck, even the great Daft Oi followed through, so who the heck am I to stop the flow, so to speak? Me not worthy.

Having said that, one of the reasons I’ve procrastinated was because I honestly didn’t know what to write. Nizam Bashir started this meme and he vaguely mentioned something about ‘Malaysia… special… to me…’ It is quite a challenge, because I am of that age when I am no longer idealistic and dreamy about Malaysia and its workings (age does weird things to you), and I am yet of the age to really give a shit about the way things are going. I moan and bitch about dumb and dumber local news of course, but hey, that only makes me a Malaysian. Nothing special there, move along.

When I was little, I used to buy all the nonsense about Malaysia is great because she is a melting pot, blend of many cultures, colourful people, bla bla bla. Right. Now that I am older, I don’t know why that is so special anymore. For one, the world is getting smaller, everyone migrates here and there, and people are mixing all the time that we have so many culturally-confused kids resulted from the all the lovin’ mixin’. Second; I have never been to London or LA or [insert metropolitan here], but I do not need the plane ticket to know that other countries are as melting-potness as us, if not more. We are losing on this whole multi-cultural thing, kids. Need to find something else to sell our tourism.

Home is where the heart is. Since the majority of my loved ones are stuck in this country, it makes sense that I am stuck here as well. Sense of nationalism, pride, patriotism? Heck, I LOVE my country, but if I could, I would migrate to somewhere else. Maybe I could wash dishes somewhere in the middle of America, and over 15 years make so much money that I could set up a restaurant and retire a ridiculously rich businesswoman. That’s my Malaysian dream.

I could even pay for everyone in my family to participate in the MM2H programme twice over. Is that love or is that love?

Before someone bust my talentless ass for being a narcissistic, irrelevant, self-centred, nonsensical, waste-of-good-bandwidth wastrel (a blogging wastrel, mind you), I would like to say to you, cap Paul Tan’s first I was absolutely not kidding when I told him I had no idea what to write. I wanted to write about my grandparents, but he said Nizam did it first (obviously) so could I be a bit more kreatif and squeeze whatever grey matter I have left to elaborate on why Malaysia is so speshel to le Suanie? Hmmm…

So about my grandparents…

When I think of family values, I think of my parents. When I think of Malaysia and being Malaysian, I think of my grandparents. I don’t know why, but it’s just the way I function and for the sake of this post, I am going to stick to that. A few days ago, I was driving to work and trying to come up with a simple analogy for this post. Turns out there is none, so here goes:

My paternal grandparents lived right in the middle of town. If you are familiar with Batu Pahat, you would know where the famous Ah See wantan mee shop is located. Well my grandparents lived somewhere along the same row of shophouses. For a while, a younger Lim Kit Siang lived there too.

The British’s evil and very successful racial segregation of the country meant that my paternal folks were mostly exposed to the Chinese community. At least that was my impression when my family was living in the same townhouse. We did very Chinese things, ate very Chinese food, mixed with very Chinese people, celebrated very Chinese festivals.. you get the drift. I don’t recall us mixing with other races in town, except for the guy who sold newspapers by the street.

(And the old bank security guard who asked if he could touch me before I ran away.)

On the other hand, my maternal folks live in a village full of Chinese, Malays and some Indians. I didn’t talk to the Malays as much as I did when my family moved into our own home, but I noticed my grandparents communicating a lot with folks of all races.I distinctly remember my grandmother exchanging pleasantries with a round-face ‘makcik’ on our way to the village market. Every Hari Raya, my grandmother’s dining table would be laden with delicious ketupat and rendang, courtesy of the Malay neighbours. Of course we did many Chinese-y things as well, but there were some racial integration thing involved. Like eating lontong and roti canai for breakfast.

Later I found out that my maternal grandfather was once the ‘ketua kampung’. No wonder he knows so many people there, and so many people know him.

I am not sure if the stuff I’d written above has anything to do with anything, but I suppose I was trying to illustrate how I was exposed to people when I was a kid. Fully-clothed, thank you.

So…

My memories + special + I am Malaysian = reason why Malaysia is special to me! *bows*

I guess it is high time that I pass the baton to someone whom I know will definitely have more worthy things to write about. Xpyre, you are it.

Feeling rather down at the moment, but I’ve decided to spare you guys the deep dark gutters of my miserable grievances in my miserable existance. I’m humanitarian, me.

Merdeka Day is fast approaching, I’m waiting for Vincent’s initiative on what we are doing this year. Last year we had a fun time blogging in BM. My entry was Siapa Lebih Miang? which was rather well-received… ahem.

Speaking of Merdeka, I read an interesting article by Zainul Arifin titled When patriotism isn’t first instinct. He asks if displaying the flag is the only patriotic action we could muster these days. Seems that the younger generation do not relate to Independance Day, especially those who look upon it as only a holiday, aka time to rest at home, watch some tv, go to the various shopping malls, sleep till the following day…

At least that is what Merdeka Day means to me. I have not the least inclination to join the masses at the padang to reenact Tunku Abdul Rahman’s joyous shoutings decades ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love this country but I love me more. And I am of the belief that patriotism, like love is not a spoken thing, but more of a felt thing. Of course when the circumstances arise, I will like many of my fellow citizens rise to the occasion to defend this country… Someone slagged us off? Bla bla bla long argument, bla bla bla fu. But am I willing to die for this country? Hmmm… I’ll have to get back to you on that. Does that make me less patriotic? I don’t know. Would you do that? Would you die for your country?

I suppose the older generation would. For the past couple of years, I’ve hassled my grandmother often enough to get her account of life during the WW2 and the chaotic time before Merdeka. Tough did not even begin to describe it, she hinted more than once. She was upstairs in her father’s shophouse when the Jap soldiers killed her father downstairs. She was married off early to avoid being taken by them. My grandfather was ‘abducted’ and tortured by some overzealous people, no one knew where he was taken to, money was spent for information on his whereabouts and my great-grandmother brought two chickens to bail him out.

Things are definitely better. Just looking at opportunities for women; my grandmother is a housewife. During my mother’s time, you either become a housewife, a teacher or a nurse. Today, Malaysian women can CEO of whatevercompanyyoulike for all you want. I don’t know if it’s due to Merdeka or worldwide female liberation movement but I am happy that we changed with time, seeing that I can’t cook, I can’t teach and I can’t take care of myself, let alone taking care of other people.

Have goods will shine, no matter what your goods.

But come 31 August, I’ll still sleep in lah. It doesn’t necessarily make me less patriotic, because I know in my heart that we have a lot to love, to be thankful for and to celebrate. Just that I get sunstroke sometimes, you know…

Fuck la, my chair just broke. No mood liao.

Minor update:

Sms action with mom:

Me: evidence that I am too fat — my chair broke
Mom: HAHAHAHAHA.. poor chair.

Sigh with moms like these, who needs enemies?

Check it out Malaysians! Apparently we are dirty…

One would hope Malaysians would wash their hands regularly, but, no, a shocking 63 per of Malaysians have admitted that they do not wash their hands after using the toilet and before eating or handling food.

… but we are happy…

Malaysia ranks 44th in the Happy Planet Index, beating richer Asian countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Brunei.

So, the dirtier you are…

The survey of 1,000 Malaysians showed that 34 per cent did not wash their hands properly before eating or handling food and 29 per cent did not wash their hands after going to the toilet.

… the happier you will be…

“The nations that top the index aren’t the happiest places in the world, but those that score well show that achieving, long, happy lives without over-stretching the planet’s resources is possible,” it said.

That’s all for this week’s useless weird-but-works logic.

Good evening and welcome to Suanie News.

On the local front, Malaysians are once again stumped by the illogical series of actions following Opposition party leader Lim Kit Siang’s motion to highlight a News Straits Times published front-page report about a MP who had interfered in the seizure of illegal sawn timber from Indonesia. The MP, later identified as Mohd Said Yusof (BN-Jasin) had asked the Customs and Excise Department to “tutup sebelah mata” (”close one eye”) on the incident, for the first time publicly breaking the unspoken code of how businessmen and gomen individuals in Malaysia have been practising business for donkey years.

In an unbizare twist of events, Mohd Said admits that he is the “sole proprietor of the company [Binyu Sof Enterprise] which transported a consignment of imported logs seized by Customs last month”. Mohd Said Bin Yusof, geddit? He also attempted to justify his interference with this cute analogy,

It is like you’re driving on the highway where the speed limit is 110kph. But you drive at 150kph, and you’re stopped by the police. What would you do? You will say ‘please, sir’

Source: News Straits Times

Upon hearing the example given to aid Mohd Said’s case, pimp-extraordinaire KY of KY Speaks fame gave his comment,

“Bullshit la…”

Meanwhile, Lim Kit Siang’s motion to refer the Jasin MP to the privileges committee was supported by the Barisan Nasional (Malaysia’s ruling coalition party) Backbenchers Club chairperson, Shahrir Abdul Samad. In layman’s terms, it would have meant the implicated party (or to save my ass, ANY implicated party) would be brought to stand in front of some people who would be totally bored out of their minds listening to the wails and pleas of ‘I didn’t do it’, ‘It wasn’t me’ and ‘Okay maybe it was me but I swear that this is normal practise’. In an ideal world, the person would be found guilty and be handed to Andre the Giant for a good seeing to from behind. Then The Undertaker would give him the Tombstone. Then the bees would get him. Realistically, if the implicated party was a member of the parliament and found guilty after a 10-month period of deliberation, he would be given a ’stern warning’ and told to write a letter of apology to the sovereign. The ruling prime minister would also give him a ’stern warning’ and tell him, the media and the country that the person would never do it again, or else. Hypothetically if the implicated party was a normal person like you and I, he or she would be fined a moderate amount of money, spend a couple months in jail for ‘threatening a customs officer’ and be told never to do it again. I said hypothetically because in the real world, you and I will never be able to walk up to a customs officer and tell him to close an eye for excess baggage.

In a brilliant and calculated move leftover from the Mahathir iron-fist era to save their political hides, no one in Shahrir’s club would back him up in his support of the Opposition’s motion. This caused Shahrir to be onion-eyed as he rightly lamented, “I had hoped that they would because it was meant to safeguard the autonomy of Parliament and the dignity of MPs.” He then resigned his position as the chairperson of the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club, you know, because he felt that it was the right thing to do. At that time.

Sharir’s resignation was accepted by the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, which basically means that he is truly kthxbai. The Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi later said that Najib had done the ‘right thing’, which means that Sharir is gg-ed (thanks Spongefox for the reference). Mohd Nazri, a minister in the Prime Minister’s Dept. kindly pointed out that it was as good as a rule that MPs of Barisan Nasional DO NOT support any motions by the opposition. The next day newspapers screamed headlines like, “Toe the Line, says PM” and “Pak Lah cracks the whip” and similar stuff like that.

HowThisWorks.suanie.net — if you are a Barisan Nasional MP, you cannot agree with anything motioned by any opposition members. If someone motions to lift death sentence in Malaysia, it is your responsibility to point out how the fear of the rope would make potential druggists and vendors to think twice before they use the white powder, and to appreciate how cotton-clouds-fragile life is. If someone is brave enough to want to make Samy Vellu pay all the citizens of Malaysia a sum of money as a sincere apology for the sorry state of our roads and highways and all the incidents that followed his position as the Works Minister, you must vehemently oppose (and bear the brunt of the rakyat’s anger). An acquaintance with overworked imagination quipped, “If the opposition says condolence to Tun Ghabar Baba’s family, you must oppose, nooo cannnnottt no condolences!!!“. A little off the mark (since it’s not a motion to be tabled) but the general idea is there.

Meanwhile the KBSR/KBSM education system continues to churn out Malaysians who study by rote and not made to think for themselves.

The drama continues. Popcorn-laden Malaysians await with breath that is bated.

Entertainment News:

We have a special request from a reader to spread the following news:

Dylan wrote:

Amir Muhammad’s documentary, THE LAST COMMUNIST, has been banned in Malaysia after being approved by the Malaysian Film Censorship Board to screen uncut (and being approved by Singapore’s censors to play uncut). It was even screened (by special request) for the Special Branch unit of the Malaysian police force. But a campaign by a conservative paper (Bloody Berita Harian) to generate a phony public outcry over the film seems to have resulted in the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs banning the film throughout Malaysia (it was supposed to open on 3 screens). Read the detail in his blog here.

It is the superior minds’ understanding that Berita Harian is not and does not represent the public. Perhaps we should get Lim Kit Siang to table a motion for a R&D cente to implement a totalitarian method so that the rakyat could be injected with a serum that would make them worship the grounds the gomen floats on. Actual Yes (Wo)Men. Trouble No More. We are awaiting Raja Azmi to appear on national television for her piece of mind on this issue. Raja Azmi as you well know, is the critically-acclaimed writer of the epic movies ‘Black Widow’ and ‘Cinta 200 Ela’ and producer for the former. She is also a virtuous Muslim wife who would never hear of her husband stepping into the kitchen. A role model like no other. We should be so grateful.

Technology — TM Net has made it to the illustrious Wikipedia.org. Check out TM Net’s wiki listing here. Quote, “Most of the phone operators or customer service officers employed by TMnet aren’t computer literate.” Unquote.

Sports — There is no sports. Alex Yoong is a sick twisted figment of our imaginations. If we are lucky.

Weather — rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny.

Sources: News Straits Times, go browse the archives or search for dumb political moves ‘Jasin’ or ‘Shahrir’ or whatever you feel is relevant. Also, Jeff Ooi and Teresa Kok.