An MP has died
No time for condolences
The scrambling begins
Local, interviewed:
"Alive, he did nothing much
Dead, he's quite useful."
Merajuk is cute
When done by politicians
Who do not get picked
Nomination day
Alas, projectiles are hurled
Play nice-nice, children!
In this little town
The economy's booming:
Just ask the hotels
No concerts come here
The big crowds at ceramah
Make up for lost fun
"Think of all we've done
For the people here!" he roars
While the roads get paved
TV says one thing
Internet news, another
Look into your heart!
Disgruntled voter:
"I can't stand any of them!"
Potential spoilt vote
Polling day is tense
Do those buses bring phantoms?
Everyone's shouting
People wait for news
Will they say 'Takbir' or 'Foul'?
Depends on who wins
The town's quiet now
The new rep seems quite healthy
But you never know
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Yasmin and Malaysian cinema, now in French & Portuguese!
Recently, two different countries hosted screenings of Malaysian cinema. The first was France (which also included Singaporean movies) and the second Brazil.
I attended both to represent my documentaries The Big Durian and Malaysian Gods, and I wrote essays for both catalogues about Yasmin Ahmad, whose films were, of course, also shown. These are how they look, scanned:
Both events were actually initiated and curated entirely by the cultural workers (to use a nicely Marxist term) in both countries, with very little help from Malaysian associations. I heard from both places: "We sent emails to [insert name of relevant government agency tasked with film promotion here] but, after a while, no one replied." And no one from the Malaysian embassy in Brazil even bothered to turn up for any of the events.
But why dwell on the idiocy of Malaysian bureaucracy? Dozens of Malaysian films were shown in places where no one had ever seen any of our films before. So that must count as a good thing.
And my huge thanks to the hard-working organisers and hosts who made the events proceed with nary a hitch: Jeremy Segay and Eva Markovitz in Paris; and Tati Leite and Arndt Roskens in Rio.
P.S. Brazil was a magical place!
Both events were actually initiated and curated entirely by the cultural workers (to use a nicely Marxist term) in both countries, with very little help from Malaysian associations. I heard from both places: "We sent emails to [insert name of relevant government agency tasked with film promotion here] but, after a while, no one replied." And no one from the Malaysian embassy in Brazil even bothered to turn up for any of the events.But why dwell on the idiocy of Malaysian bureaucracy? Dozens of Malaysian films were shown in places where no one had ever seen any of our films before. So that must count as a good thing.
And my huge thanks to the hard-working organisers and hosts who made the events proceed with nary a hitch: Jeremy Segay and Eva Markovitz in Paris; and Tati Leite and Arndt Roskens in Rio.
P.S. Brazil was a magical place!
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
My second published short story ;-)
The full version of "Cempedak" is in the NST today! The link to the story is here.
Scanned by Richard Wong.
The more observant among you might remember the micro version here. As was the case with "The Subversive Sign-Language Switch of 1998", expanding the story entailed changing the narrator. In the first story, it went from male to female. In this, it shifts from first to third person; I have to admit this change was made because newspaper readers aren't used to reading fiction, and I didn't want them to mistake it for one of them first-person articles.
Congrats to Umapagan Ampikaipakan who has revived the NST literary section, and for taking the initiative to print fiction. All the Malay-language papers have done so for years, so it's time the English ones caught up.
Scanned by Richard Wong.The more observant among you might remember the micro version here. As was the case with "The Subversive Sign-Language Switch of 1998", expanding the story entailed changing the narrator. In the first story, it went from male to female. In this, it shifts from first to third person; I have to admit this change was made because newspaper readers aren't used to reading fiction, and I didn't want them to mistake it for one of them first-person articles.
Congrats to Umapagan Ampikaipakan who has revived the NST literary section, and for taking the initiative to print fiction. All the Malay-language papers have done so for years, so it's time the English ones caught up.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Something that happened on the way down from the Christ
The famous Christ the Redeemer that overlooks Rio de Janeiro was somewhat smaller than I had expected. (But then again, this is true of all the iconic structures I was introduced to first in pictures, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower or the Kaabah.) But it is undergoing extensive renovation, which makes the statue more interesting. The main point of the trip up the mountain, however, was the spectacular view of the city at magic hour, as well as the invisible line of the Atlantic sprawl meeting the sky. My mobile phone camera won't do any of that justice, so I will leave you with the statue instead:
On the way down the Corvocado mountain, the train (which was the last of the day; it was almost 7pm and dark) shuddered to an unscheduled halt. We were surrounded only by jungle, but the train was packed with people, mostly Brazilian. And this is what happened: complete strangers started ... talking to one another. People turned around in their seats, got up, gestured to those a few rows back to include them. Within five minutes, the carriage was rocking with the sound of conversation and laughter. I don't know what they were talking about but no one seemed to be complaining about the delay, at least not in a sour way. I think this was the positive energy that caused the train to then start moving again.
If they had done what a different sort of crowd, in a different country, would have done (groan, whine, flip out their handphones, connect iPods to their ears, avoid looking at others, pretend to sleep), the train would have been stuck longer. And it would have felt that way, too.
On the way down the Corvocado mountain, the train (which was the last of the day; it was almost 7pm and dark) shuddered to an unscheduled halt. We were surrounded only by jungle, but the train was packed with people, mostly Brazilian. And this is what happened: complete strangers started ... talking to one another. People turned around in their seats, got up, gestured to those a few rows back to include them. Within five minutes, the carriage was rocking with the sound of conversation and laughter. I don't know what they were talking about but no one seemed to be complaining about the delay, at least not in a sour way. I think this was the positive energy that caused the train to then start moving again.
If they had done what a different sort of crowd, in a different country, would have done (groan, whine, flip out their handphones, connect iPods to their ears, avoid looking at others, pretend to sleep), the train would have been stuck longer. And it would have felt that way, too.
Monday, 8 March 2010
My first published short story ;-)
From this month's Off the Edge magazine. If you've read the micro version, you will notice a few changes.
Let me know what you think!
Let me know what you think!
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Monday, 1 March 2010
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