the sarong party girl

any traveler knows this: one of the most important thing you can pack in your backpack is a sarong. and i’m not just telling this to the chicks. i’m saying dudes too. i have met so many travelers making their way through every direction of the globe on a backpack and they’ve all got sarongs in their backpacks.

a sarong is more than an asian fashion statement. never be ashamed of it.

a sarong can function as a towel, as curtains on a train, as blankets, as bedspreads, as a bandage, as beachwear, as scarves – just to say the very least. a sarong is easy to dry and hardly takes up any space at all in your backpack.

i learnt the importance of a sarong when stranded in a longhouse in sarawak a coupla years ago. having lost and damaged just about everything in my backpack, a local native borrowed me a sarong which uses amazed me. carrying a sarong with me on a trip some months later, it became a bedspread at a particularly dodgy backpacker lodge, a blanket on multiple road trips and a picnic blanket at waterfalls and rivers.

these days i carry two sarongs with me in my backpack. one for myself. and the other for that distressed traveler i sometimes meet on the road who could really use a really good sarong to get through the trip. if you tak pakai then tak pakai la, but it is always handy to pop one into your backpack anyway – just in case.

 

coked – out and tomatoed – in

when i was training tennis back in high school, we would play matches at the end of every session where both prize and punishment comes in the form of a can of coke. why? because we were all friends and the match is often decided on who can down an entire COLD can of coke in one go, as quickly as possible.

brain freeze is a thrill in its own right.

the record stands, as i remember it, at just over 12 seconds.

we were also known for our ketchup squirt ambush on ‘enemies.’ we always had some kind of fast food packed whenever we go for tournaments. the trick is to have an innocent-looking sachet of ketchup lying about on the floor. when you see an opponent coming, you stamp hard on one end of the sachet and squirt tomato sauce all over the enemy.

of course, we can’t go around squirting ketchup on just about every person who is not on our team. in fact, we were by far, an incredibly friendly group of tennis players who would rip everyone off play cho tai ti in between matches just as passionately as we take our tennis. we are however, those superheroes who stood up to particularly lansi players. these are the ones we award our ketchup ambush to.

over the years, i have somewhat learnt how unhealthy downing coke like that is. but you know what, there are just some days you just want to ‘accidentally’ ambush someone with tomato sauce.

oops!

 

the secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon. ~ paolo coelho (the alchemist)

i received an email from I this morning. he’s gone back to tel aviv and resumed life as a normal civilian – day job, bills and the works. like any other traveler who have gotten used to life on the road, there is a resolute to continue the great journey some day.

suddenly, i am warped through all the faces i met during my time on the road. unfamiliar faces who met me as a friend, and moved along as just that. personally, i find it incredibly easy to hook up and talk to backpackers. there’s just something very real and unpretentious about them. apa nak cover up about anyway? when you are literally a thousand miles away from home and surrounded by strangers, you are free to be whoever you want to be. most of all, you are free to be yourself – the you that you might not be able to be back home.

and so indochina has been decided. i wanted to leave earlier. CW wanted to leave later. after about a month of ding dongs, our one way tickets have been purchased and our date of departure is officially permanently fixed.

it is perhaps sweet irony that one of my backpacking articles got published this weekend. it totally puts one in the mood for the road. it’s going to be a critical next three weeks with a million loose ends to tie up. i’m loving it. i really am.

 

“kecik-kecik tak nak mampus, dah besar menyusahkan orang…”

two things first – i am not an etymologist, nor am i a scholar of malay linguistics.

as a student of language psychology however, i have been fascinated by the word ‘mampus’ for the past few days already. i don’t know how things like these strike me. i just heard someone use it one day and since the conversation in general was of little interest to me, i phrased out and turned to word around and around in my mind.

come on, we all use the word ‘mampus’. mostly casually. sometimes in anger. sometimes to subliminally indicate endearment.but has anyone else actually given a thought as to what the word really means?

according to tutor.com:

Kata wafat, mati, meninggal dunia, mampus membawa maksud denotasi yang sama iaitu jasad dan roh terpisah.

Tetapi dari segi denotasi (i think the writer means ‘konotasi’ here), wafat untuk tokoh-tokoh ulama terhormat dan disegani, meninggal dunia untuk sebutan yang sopan, mati untuk sebutan umum dan mampus untuk sebutan yang lebih kasar.

as with many eastern and oriental cultures, the idea of death is portrayed as negative and extended as an expletive by demonstration of this word. telling someone to go and die, or describing a circumstance which is negative that death might be the symbolic result of it, is certainly not uncommon in lots of eastern and oriental languages.

my next question would be, how kasar can mampus go?

personally to me, mampus means death in some horrific way. mampus is like death by destruction. to be mampus is to be destroyed. to curse using the word mampus in this sense, is to tell someone that he/she should be destroyed, or will be destroyed. see examples:

“mampus la aku kali ini” – this time, i’m so dead. (i’m in deep trouble)

“pergi mampus la engkau” – go and die. (go away / cut it out)

both examples indicate death by destruction in some form or another. note that it is not death per se, but simply connotative. the real meanings of the phrases are provided in brackets.

what i find fascinating about the word is this idea of destruction in an otherwise relatively gentle language. the use of the word is completely dependent on context. and while i know that being literal does not work at all in social contexts (duh!), the idea of telling someone to go away and get him/herself destroyed is ticklish to me. how funny is that? – “go and destroy yourself, you fool!’ – ha ha ha! sounds like a brand new cuss phrase to me!

i know that at least one malay linguist grad reads this blog off and on. you know who you are. give me a shout out alright.

this is how a linguist gets kicks out of languages. gosh. i. am. such. a. freak.

 

functional thematic analysis

Halliday (1976) on the textual metafunction:

“Of the various structures which, when mapped on to each other, make up a clause, we will consider first the one which gives the clause its character as a message. This is known as thematic structure.

We may assume that in all languages the clause has the character of a message: it has some form of organization giving it the status of a communicative event. But there are different ways in which this may be achieved. In English, as in many other languages, the clause is organized as a message by having a special status assigned to one part of it. One element in the clause is enunciated as the theme; this then combines with the remainder so that the two parts together constitute a message.”

Theme:

- point of departure of clause as message; local context of clause as piece of text.

- initial position in the clause.

- The first experiential element in the clause (ideational / topical: participant / process / circumstance)

- Any element preceding the first experiential element in the clause (interpersonal: modal – adjunct / finite – operator / wh – interrogative) (textual: continuative / structural – conjunctive or wh relative / conjunctive – adjunct)

- “the peg on which the message is hung”, “the starting point of the clause as message”, “the orientation”, “the element that sets up a local context for the clause as message” >> These functions are realized by first position in English

Rheme:

- Non-Theme – where the presentation moves after the point of departure; what is presented in the local context set up by Theme.

- position following initial position.

bibliography

More on word order and thematic analysis. Retrieved 25 February 2007 from http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/systemic/Textual2.htm

The textual metafunction. Retrieved 25 February 2007 from http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/systemic/Textual.htm

Theme-Rheme & Given-New I. Retrieved 25 February 2007 from http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/lsl15.html

 

halliday’s systemic functional linguistics

Systemic-functional linguistics (SFL), is a study of functions and semantics which is claimed to be the basis of human language and communicative activity. As opposed to structural approaches that focuses primarily on syntax, SFL-oriented linguists begin with an exploration into social contexts and move on from there to look at how language acts upon, and is constrained and influenced by this social context.

A key concept in Halliday’s approach is the “context of situation” which obtains “through a systematic relationship between the social environment on the one hand, and the functional organization of language on the other.” (Halliday, 1985:11).

The ANALYSIS of CONTEXT is broken down into FIELD, TENOR, AND MODE. Collectively, they constitute the “register” of a text (Halliday, 1985:12).

* Field: what is happening, the nature of the social interaction taking place: what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which language figures as an essential component?

* Tenor: who is taking part; the social roles and relationships of participant, the status and roles of the participants

* Mode: the symbolic organization of the text, rhetorical modes (persuasive, expository, didactic, etc); the channel of communication, such as spoken/written, monologic/dialogic, +/- visual contact, computer-mediated communication/telephone/F2F, etc.

bibliography

A brief introduction to the work of M.A.K. Halliday and Systemic-Functional Linguistics. Rretrieved 25 February from http://language.la.psu.edu/spcom497b/halliday.html

Halliday, M.A.K., & Hasan, R. (1985). Language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). Spoken and written language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

the great asian divide

i am worried about the implications of the asian debate divide. you know what i am talking about. i think this whole AUDC thing has gone far enough.

i will not hide that i stand on the side of the all-asians in this whole divide dilemma. i would not even call it AIDC. it is all-asians, for a reason: because the soul of it is completed by the participation of all of asia. that is the all-asians i competed and adjudicated in many years ago. that is how i shall always remember it. that is how things should be.

my concern is not absolutely about the fact that there is a new tournament in town. asia could certainly use the extra competition.

it is the agenda of the AUDC that disturbs me. anyone who says that the AUDC is innocent is vomiting rubbish. AUDC came to be out of ignorance of the state of asian debates. the founders of AUDC claim to create a tournament addressing the weakness of the all-asians when in actuality, they run away from the problem of defeated democracy. AUDC was born with the agenda to destroy the all-asians.

the asian divide is a clash of personalities, not a clash of tournaments. it is a problem of inflated egos which have spilt over. it is the problem of a bunch of so-called “senior debaters” who have grown so cocky, they cannot put aside personal clashed for the good of the greater majority. i blame both the AUDC and the all-asians for this. at least the all-asian egos remain in the tournament. i think running off and creating a whole different tournament is an act of cowardice. these “senior debaters” are people who really should have retired a long time ago. and for a lot of them, really should try to graduate and move on with life.

 

the MOTHER of all homemade first aid kits

over the years, i have compiled a reasonably comprehensive first aid kit. it is designed to cover just about everything i might need in all and any given situation. this kit has been with me to cities, kampungs, seas and forests. in prep for my upcoming trip, i’m taking a count of the stuff i have in it. check it out:

1. savlon – antiseptic cream

2. minyak cap kapak

3. counterpain – analgesic balm

4. puri-safe – water purification tablets

5. eno – perisa halia

6. piriton – for runny nose

7. ultracarbon – charcoal pills

8. teck aun chi kit pills

9. panadol soluble

10. varen – painkiller

11. powerbar gel – strawberry banana flavour

12. oralite – oral rehydration salts

13. alka-seltzer – lemon flavour

14. vitamin C

15. dequadin lozanges

16. loose, dried tembakau – aeroplane brand

17. handiplast – sterile water resistant plasters

18. alcohol swabs

19. cotton squares

20. cotton swabs

21. micropore hypoallergenic paper

and all of this fits in one M-size overland first aid kit. which reminds me, there are a few things i need to pick up the next time i pass a pharmacy:

22. a triangle bandage

23. iodine

24. vaporub

did i leave out anything important?

 

snow (hey oh) ~ the red hot chili peppers

this has been on my playlist ever since i heard it at the grammy awards. personally, was not too blown away by the performance (can you imagine how much paper was wasted for their confetti blow out?!) – but the song is pretty cool. now you closet karaoke darlings out there, the lyrics are here in verses of two because it is much easier to keep up with anthony kiedis that way.

come to decide that the things that i tried
were in my life just to get high on

when i sit alone, come get a little known
but i need more than myself this time

step from the road to the sea to the sky
and i do believe that we rely on

when i lay it on come get to play it on
all my life to sacrifice

“hey oh” – listen what i say
i got your “hey oh” – now listen what i say

when will i know that i really can’t go
to the…, well once more time to decide on

when it’s killing me, when will i really see
all that i need to look inside

come to believe that i better not leave
before i get my chance to ride

when it’s killing me, what do i really need
all that i need to look inside

“hey oh” – listen what i say
come back and “hey oh” – look at what i say

the more i see the less i know
the more i like to let it go

deep beneath the cover of another perfect wonder
where it’s so white as snow

privately divided by a world so undecided
and there is nowhere to go

in between the cover of another perfect wonder
and it’s so white as snow

running through the field where all my tracks will be concealed
and there is nowhere to go

when to descend to amend for a friend
all the channels that have broken down

now you bring it up, i’m gonna ring it up
just to hear you sing it out

step from the road to the sea to the sky
and i do believe what we rely on

when i lay it on, come get to play it on
all my life to sacrifice

i said “hey oh”
tell my love now – “hey oh”

 

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my grandma wears sparkling earrings

my grandma is over seventy years old. for CNY yesterday, she donned her old gold wedding ring. a tiny cross hangs around her neck. around her left wrist, a green jade bracelet. foregrounded amidst all these cosmetics however, is a pair of sparkling silver earrings.

grandma mumbles her words. as she waits patiently for a response to her repeated queries, her arms shake in involuntary spasms. i sit next to her, and we are both lost for words.

gentle reminders of christ line the walls of her tiny apartment. and though she lives alone, six blue plastic cups sit in the middle of her round marble dining table, next to a large tin kettle with its spout covered. those cups have been there year after year for as long as i could remember.

i cannot get those sparkling earrings out of my mind.

i imagine my grandmother getting ready for CNY that sunday morning. and as she gazed into her dressing mirror that morning waiting for everyone to arrive, she pulls a drawer and takes out a box of old jewellery.

i try to imagine what goes through her mind as she selects these very pair of shiny, sparkling earrings, tugs at her ears and inserts the pieces of silver through them. having accomplished the task, she sits for a suspended moment in front of the mirror.

i wonder if she smiled, the way we smile when looking at ourselves in the mirror after combing our hair, or clasping a necklace, or putting on an earring.

i wonder if she wonders if anyone had noticed – the way we wonder if anyone noticed that we had donned something special.

i could not bring myself to tell her. partly because i did not know how. but largely because i was afraid. i don’t know of what. over the years, i have become accustomed by the gentle and understanding sense of silence between us.

i noticed your earrings, grandma. and they look beautiful on you.

 

hey, lunar new year greetings to everyone!

i will be celebrating CNY in town this year with visits to my grandma’s and cousins:)

i’ve just come back with some wicked new material. climbing up the rock end of batu caves was awesome! i’ve got scars and bruises in some of the most unthinkable places. kata je the rock is a 5C but i’ve climbed 6A walls which were easier! tapi well, mana boleh compare, indoor and outdoor kan lain. pedihnya jari aku. sakitnya lebam at my knee kena batu.

as such, i will be toiling through the festive holidays. i have a string of stories to write and several gigs(!) of photos to filter through. ni pun belum masuk the inevitable CNY collection lagi. i’m pretty excited about it, though.

so hey, be safe on the road and go easy on the fire crackers, ya hear?

gong hei fatt choi!

 

they’re sharing a drink they call lonliness, but it’s better than drinking alone

do you ever get that feeling that you should be somewhere else doing something else… and possibly even with someone else? i mean if you could choose what you could be at this moment of your life, would you be who you are now?

me – would i have thought back in my teens that i would be a language specialist? and if i had known that in my mid-twenties, i would be a linguist, would i have prepared for this moment? would i have looked forward to being who i am now?

and me as i am now, i wonder who i would be in the next ten or even five years? would i still be doing what i am doing? if i could fantasize for a moment… just for a moment… if i could be anything i wanted to be, realistically of course… what would i be?

i would be a storyteller. i would be the one who could tell amazing stories of real people and wonderful cultures from all around the world. i would mesmerize my audience of both ranked celebrities and mamak stall stalkers about the adventures i’ve experienced on the road. i’d be that traveler who was lucky enough to have survived incredible catastrophes, experienced the weirdest of the weird, shared drinks with people who carved their names in history, and stumbled upon the heart of the world.

sometimes you just know when the time is right to seize the moment.

you can tell that my heart longs for the open road. i hear the winds of indochina whispering my name already. oh to sing out loud in the bars of luang prabang again! in a place where nobody knows my name or who i am! to look out the window and see a whole new way of life play itself out! to close my eyes and know for a fact that i am a thousand miles away from home – and feel right at home with the world – and be just another new face and lost in a world of new faces.

soon, my precious. soon.

don’t mind me. i’ve been a walking train wreak for the last coupla days but i’ll get over it. my sudden contemplation of the future this afternoon was sparked by the great billy joel. i absolutely dig the lyrics. you have GOT to read it, my darlings. if you’ve read this whole post and see me in a bar, sing me this song and i’ll buy you a drink.

here’s to all our dreams! yea, i know it’s not a saturday. but when you’re me, you lose track of days pretty quickly.

the piano man ~ billy joel

it’s nine o’clock on a saturday
the regular crowd shuffles in
there;s an old man sitting next to me
making love to his tonic and gin

he says, “son, can you play me a memory?
i’m not really sure how it goes
but its sad and its sweet and i knew it complete
when i wore a younger mans clothes”

sing us a song, you’re the piano man
sing us a song tonight
well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
and you’ve got us feeling alright

now john at the bar is a friend of mine
he gets me my drinks for free
and he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
but there’s someplace that he’d rather be

he says, “bill, i believe this is killing me.”
as the smile ran away from his face
“well i’m sure that i could be a movie star
if i could get out of this place”

now paul is a real estate novelist
who never had time for a wife
and he’s talking with davy who’s still in the navy
and probably will be for life

and the waitress is practicing politics
as the businessmen slowly get stoned
yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness
but its better than drinking alone

it’s a pretty good crowd for a saturday
and the manager gives me a smile
cause he knows that its me they’ve been comin to see
to forget about life for a while

and the piano, it sounds like a carnival
and the microphone smells like a beer
and they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
and say, “man, what are you doing here?”

 

the rose ~ lyrics by amanda mcbroom / originally performed by bette midler (1979)

some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reed
some say love it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed
some say love it is a hunger, an endless aching need
i say love it is a flower and you – it’s only seed

it’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance
it’s the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
it’s the one who won’t be taken who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live

when the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong
just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun’s love in the spring, becomes the rose

 

say NO to shark fins

chinese new year is around the corner and everyone’s looking around for snazzy places to have reunion dinners, ya. here’s something to keep in mind while deciding on the menu this year: say NO to shark fins!

there are two enormous reasons why we should stay clear of shark fins and the soup which is a so-called ‘delicacy.’ firstly, where health is concerned, the shark’s fin has close to zero nutrition value and contains the poisonous metal chemical mercury.

that’s right, sharks concentrate mercury content in their bodies in the fin areas. sometimes even up to seven times over the FDA safety limit for consumables or up to 5.84 ppm of mercury (maximum permitted levels in Hong Kong are only 0.5 ppm). the stuff in that bowl of shark fin soup is the same liquid you find in a thermometer tube. remember how the mercury expand in the thermometer when exposed to high temperatures? now can you imagine the same thing happening in you blood veins? another fact also would be that once consumed, you body cannot dispel the mercury. its going to be in you body forever.

and seriously, does shark fins really taste like anything at all? they’re like tasteless jelly and what flavours them is the soup and all that MSG. you can actually taste the chicken and the fish sauce and all the herbs and all, but there is honestly no real taste to shark fins at all. in all actuality, it is there just for the heck of being there.

secondly, and what by right should be the greater reason to not buy and eat shark fins, is because of the cruel way they are harvested. because of its demand in the market and the price they can fetch in restaurants all over the world, over a hundred million sharks are killed every year for their fins.

when caught, their fins are cut, and the bodies of the sharks are thrown back into the water. the sharks are still alive at this point but without their fins, the sharks suffer and die a very slow and painful death by sinking at the bottom of the sea and drowning. sharks are creatures that need to keep moving in order to live. their inability to navigate because of their missing fins kill them. can you imagine that, a whole shark dies just for one lousy fin? this method of shark fin harvesting is called “finning.” it should be illegal but that is how just about all of our shark fins come from.

of course, we kill chickens and cows and eat them too, but sharks are in a whole different league altogether. for one thing, sharks do not procreate the way rabbits do. in fact for most shark species, their breeding habits are still a wonderful mystery to marine scientists. overfishing where sharks are concerned is a serious environmental threat, listing sharks as among some of the most endangered creatures in the world.

i have swam with sharks. and i have dived with sharks. both in the open sea and in confined waters. they are magnificent creatures and it is absolutely unacceptable to have them die in vain like that. i strongly urge you to stay clear of shark fins soup this festive season.