‘coz people got, me got me questioning, where is the love?

J and i don’t like crowds. you won’t find us going for just any concerts.

weirdly though, we happened to be in the mood for this one. don’t ask me why. not going to tell you anyway.

we got there early. in fact, i think we were one of the earliest ones to get there. belum start pun kita dah masuk. masa tu, hari masih terang and there were still doing sound checks.

and because we were so awal, we got to go really near the stage. the view from up front started nice and roomy and gradually became a madhouse for body slapping action.

i made a sign to flash up for the BEP performance :)

dear organisers, please find non-yuppie MCs for your future events. these three border dangerously between irritation to just asking for footwear to be thrown to them.

danny one. i am not going to comment on his choice of nickname. i am sure that if i understand a bit more chinese, i will be completely able to appreciate his rap. no, i mean it.

reshmonu. whom i think should come back down to earth, por favor. why is his gambar like that? because i was using a normal point and shoot camera, duh.

joe flizzow. who should find a genre he likes and stick to it. i can appreciate the experimental attempt, tho, since they were as bite sized as it gets. his dancers are way awesome, however. *claps*

mc hotdog. taiwanese. remember what your mother told you about judging a book by the cover, or a rapper by his nickname. he actually had one song that has a good beat to it and i throughly enjoyed. i’ll give him that much.

and then of course, the BEP. oh, there were other bands before that also. manhand and mj116.

oh. kay.

that is really how i actually felt. BEP were publicised to much for this event and is the reason why so many turned up. it is also probably the reason why you are here reading this post. you want to see the BEP. for some of us who turned up so early, the act took so long to come on. given the publicity.

but what the heck, yang penting, they eventually took to the stage. the crowd went loco.

so, i got pictures from the arthur’s day celebration in sunway last weekend.

i know the controversy. how come i got almost close up photos? how come my photos came out clear? how come i even got photos in the first place?

no, i did not use a dslr with a telephoto lens, if that is what you are asking.

it is because J and i almost died of suffocation wrestling with the hoards of people near the stage. and because for every one clear shot i got, i have about three dozen completely blurred out ones. that’s all there is to it.

remember what yo momma said, if you want it, you got to earn it. oh. my. god. there were crazy people up in the front of the stage. insane, i tell you.

and i think fergie is actually cuter on tv. she looks kinda frazzled that night. but her, i was the one getting elbowed on every conceivable direction.

will.i.am reliving his dj alter ego. i swear, when he played journey’s don’t stop believing, he and me got a connection. i think i was the only one among the sea of front stage yuppies who knew the words to that song.

J and i could not take the insanity up front till the end. we squeezed our way out of there long before BEP ended their gig. i think i’m getting old.

J told me that taboo saw my poster sign. he said he looked directly at me for some time.

and that, my dear friends, totally made my night.

happy birthday, malaysia.

monday monday. where do i begin to describe monday? merdeka day. you know, i remember a time when merdeka was a big deal. we’d all have flags stuck on our cars – flags that would fly right off the holder on the highways – ya, i remember that too. and people would dangle flags from the balconies of their houses – these flags would be there long after merdeka and would start fading before the house owners would take some of them down. ya, i remember those days.

and maybe it is the economy, or maybe it is the flu, or maybe it is just me, but things don’t feel so semangat this year.

i joined the crew of the merdeka train party to inject some merdeka cheer in the celebration. and for a brief, but importantly very real moment, i did feel the surge of malaysian spirit in the patriotically vandalised trains.

and i can tell you the precise moment too. we were singing chan mali chan. and no matter who you were, everyone knew the words. and there was an explosion of pride. and random people came together. and there was this aunty and her friend who glowed with such happiness and cheered us on. and we laughed. and we sang tanggal 31. and negaraku. and happy birthday malaysia. and just for good measure, selamat hari jadi malaysia.

and yes for that exact moment, i can tell you with complete conviction that we were proud to be right there, on that very train, singing those very songs our forefathers taught us, on this day, in this country, for this very reason.

there was an after party buka puasa thing after the train party. i will not elaborate on it. it was not what i expected and i found myself as a ghost as my former self. only more cynical. i have been there. the glam of things. and i have done that. all the bling. and now i don’t need it anymore. the socialite crowd. the kiss kiss hug hug. i’d like to think that i’ve merdeka-ed from all than that.

driving home later, saya anak malaysia came on the radio. i rolled down my window and blasted the music. i have been around the world (promo: click on my sidebar categories, please). but i am always happy to come home.

saya anak malaysia ~ sudirman / dr sam

1953 bulan 5 aku dilahirkan
di sebuah negeri yang diberi nama negeri sembilan

selepas itu aku dibesarkan di negeri kelantan
aku belajar di sekolah orang putih dekat dengan pasir puteh

saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia
saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia

lepas sekolah aku merayau, negeri mat saleh aku merantau
tempat orang indah sekali, tapi malaysia dekat di hati

saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia
saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia

sampai masa aku pun balik, tapi makwe ku nampak pelik
dia kata nak jadi apa, aku kata itu tuhan punya kuasa

saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia
saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia

lemah lembut sopan santun sudah menjadi darah dagingku
walaupun aku nampaknya kutu, aku hormat orang tuaku

saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia
saya anak malaysia, saya anak malaysia

that saturday we played manchester united in the july of ‘09

jangan jealous, but i actually got pretty awesome tickets for the first manchester united vs malaysia (xi) match last weekend. just how awesome? front row, dah-links. just behind the manchester bench.

now don’t go about calling me a reds fan just yet because i ain’t (nah nah nah nah nah!). i am, by principle, a supporter or any team that manchester united plays at any given moment. especially and ESPECIALLY in this case, malaysia, and i really cannot care any less about what you think of them. i think support for local teams takes an importance beyond the politics. we can bitch all we want about corruption and some people’s intelligence all we want locally, but that does not mean that we don’t stand behind our flag in games.

my sister wore red to the game. because it represents both malaysia and manchester. sigh. neutrality. the easy response. XY tells me that he supports whoever wins that day. how typically kiasu.

anyways, there are advantages and disadvantages of sitting front row and almost center. for one, i am like less than a fifty meters to the field. my photos, ahem, as you can see, came out quite cun. down side is, my view is blocked by giant speakers and press people and other people walking about the sidelines.

for a person who hardly watches football (oh pick your jaw off the floor and get over yourself), it was a pretty interesting game. and in my opinion, the two goals malaysia scored that evening was pretty respectable. the first one was sheer luck but because it was so sudden and perfectly executed, the stadium went absolutely mad. it was awesome. and the second goal, well we bloody well earned that one, if you ask me. the goalkeeper slipped and fell, and in that moment, yahya decide to go for it. and that instant decision paid off! i did not see the monday match but i think we played a respectable game on saturday.

after malaysia evened up the score 2-2 with manchester, i turned to my brother and sister and told them, that’s it. manchester is coming back full force now for revenge! i mean, duh, i would. i honestly could not tell if they played full or half force, but didn’t the fans come out here to see them show off anyway? i spent the whole week listening to manchester united fans telling radio DJs how the reds are going to belasah the malaysian team on the field. someone even predicted 6-0?

last last, they did put one more goal in, but then again, you kinda expect that la. the one thing i am actually happy with is that people left the stadium not saying how awfully disappointing our local team is, even if its just the (xi) team. that’s something, you know.

just one thing la, the announcer that evening was terrible. he got the pronunciation wrong. he got the grammar wrong. and sikit jer lagi, he would have gotten the players’ names wrong. sigh!

the obligatory proof of purchase picture. so i actually had a fun outing. J thinks that the sunglasses makes him look cool. oh and fyi, i was wearing the black FAM harimau malaya t-shirt. well, duh!

i leave you with this last picture of a tackle during the game. obviously, the picture is cropped but this is not a photo competition i’m entering. check out the legs, man!

have a chill weekend, folks! :)

lan-e tuyang : RWMF behind the scenes (part 2)

the festival day arrives and we all head to the culture village in high spirits. the crowd is a little slow this year, but this did not mean that there was quite a large audience for the workshop and concert sessions. and while mathew, being the popular one, went around shaking hands with people, asang and uynes looks actually quite excited.

i am assigned as an interpreter for asang during his workshop sessions. the first one was in the iban longhouse and asang opened with a great version of the song, you guessed it – uyau untang! :)

thing is, he played the long version but the rest of the participants in his workshop was happy to play along with him as lead. after the session, so many people came up to take pictures with him and he was so happy.

even the other participants in the session came to take a group picture with him. and even while we were walking back to the theater to keep the sape after the session, people kept stopping to take pictures with him.

laku jugak ha, asang tells me, and laughs.

that’s the band practicing on the tree stage. that’s the fourth member of the band, lawai, mathew’s son. he plays the slotong, a bidayuh bamboo instrument.

view of the concert area from the tree stage. yes, i can finally said that i have stood on a stage at the festival. it was not during the performance, but that really is not the point :D

the band’s first song for the evening was a tribute to uchau bilong.

i looked around the crowd as the band played. there are about three kinds of people. the kind who don’t get traditional music and are uninterested. the kind that tries to understand the music. and the kind that just allows the music to immerse its tune into them. sadly, there are not that many of these kind of people.

i spoke to some people later in the festival and we agree that not everyone is here for the music. lots come to party and lots come to drink and meet people. and these are absolutely not wrong reasons to come for the festival. it is just that i wish that more people appreciate the pure traditional tunes, you know?

that’s the discovery channel getting ready to do an interview with the band.

asang’s other workshop at the theatre. mathew had given him strict instructions not to over play his sape and he cut the two songs he played – bakung pok and uru kawa – into nice short pieces.

asang and uynes posing with the red chamber band after the workshop. they were interested in their sape and posed with it. did you know that asang made the two sapes himself? and there is supposed to be a bird at the top of the sape. but i already talked about that in part 1.

following the band had been an awesome experience. i was all of it – interpreter. groupie. fan girl. person who helped carry cable wires and other equipment. it was awesome.

lan-e tuyang : RWMF behind the scenes (part 1)

this year, i followed a sarawakian band on their their RWMF journey. hosting my own sape with me over the south china sea, i went to spend ten days with the band lan-e tuyang, living with them, training with them.

our headquarters is at mathew’s longhouse in singai. you know that thing they say about screaming i the jungle and on one can hear you – something like that? well, we had our speakers on loud almost every night and that is one of the advantages of not having neighbours.

we spent the day plucking the sape and learning songs. you wee, while both mathew and asang are kenyah, one is from upper baram and one is from belaga. some songs are slightly different and some songs are a lot different.

it is awesome to see them practice up close. these are things you really cannot see from off-stage. the speed of the finger movements, the exhilaration of a song well played. asang can actually go on and on with his son playing the bass strings. there was even a time when he just looped the song over and over again, that mathew had to give him a tap with his toe to ask him to stop.

and i tell you, i have never experienced kenyah humour like this before. they jest and make fun of each other all the time. especially mathew and asang. you see, asang rarely leaved the forest so is a little naive where it comes to modernities and mathew will joke about that a lot.

when i arrived, he introduced asang to me as uyau untang – after an old orang ulu legend. uyau untang is supposed to be an awesome sape played who was banished from the community because he had leprosy. as legend goes, uyau untang eventually went on to defeat other sape players with his melody and went on to marry a princess and became king.

so to be called uyau untang is a compliment but also a bit of a tease, of which asang always took with a smile. that smile and blank stare look, i swear, is a classic. you never really know what he is thinking but you are sure that he is actually a whole lot smarter than you and he knows it. that kinda look. in reality, asang has performed as far as paris, france.

that is a hornbill carved from wood. there us a funny story about this. you see, the wooden hornbill was actually the top of asang’s sape. when mathew went to fetch asang and uynes, they found that the sape was too large and could not fit in the car.

and well, you guessed it. with asang’s permission, mathew took a saw and slaughtered the head of the bird off the sape! it is the most horrifying funny story i have ever heard!

i offered to glue the head back but asang said it was okay. the head now sits at mathew’s place as part of his personal sape collection.

the band appeared on the cover of the borneo post after their preview show, and this was an important coincidence. you see, asang works as a security guard at a factory in belaga and had called a few days back, threatening to fire asang if he does not come back to work. we had a difficult time negotiating with that manager person of the situation, saying that asang will be performing etc.

the band practicing in the hotel room. you see, coming from the forests, people like asang and uynes are not used to urban hotel life, much less a resort style hotel. they had turned off the air conditioning in the hotel and opened the sliding door to let air in.

on the first evening, the other bands attended a fancy welcoming reception in kuching, but mathew and asang stayed back and me and candy (mathew’s wife) brought rice with chicken and vegetables for them because thy are not used to fancy food. they sat on the floor and ate.

later, i found asang by himself in his room playing the sape. you see, that’s what they do in the forests. instead of watching tv, they play music to entertain themselves. i brought my sape and he taught me two basic tunes.

(to be continued)

the year i followed a band

this would be my fourth RWMF and what can i say, i feel old. last year, i was up front and center without my shoes. this year, i am just happy to sit back and enjoy the music from afar. not slammed by sweaty bodies. not soaked in mud.

this year, i chill. i think this is the aging process. a transformation in the definition of fun. i am not sure if i’m completely okay with it, which does not mean that i’m not comfortable at it. i know, it is complicated like that.

the MC says its the first rainforest world music mask festival. i think they should change the MC. i have thought that they should change the MC for the last four years.

i think that following a band this year makes up for a new kinda excitement. lots of behind the scenes and all that. there are a bunch of people that i did not get a chance to or forgot to take photos with. i wish i did, i really do.

the one posing in our hotel room is LN, who insists that the black sarung with pinkish purplish flowers does not make him look gay. the one who looks like he just got electrocuted is AJ, his cousin.

they may look like they need special attention but they are two pretty decent guys. picked me up from the airport and made sure i had my water when i got back and all :)

it is LN and AJ’s friends that make me somewhat worried. these are two who i met up with on the second day of the festival. i assure you that it was only shortly after this scene, that they got completely intoxicated. or so i was unfortunately told.

GL, who is now officially a compact camera convert. yay!

that is my annual picture with ML, who i mean annually at RWMF. and that is LS, who after all these years, i finally have a picture with. both of you owe me coffee. i will claim with interest… next year!

with AL and UL at the festival site. i need to remember to get their address and somehow send them pictures of the festival.

with MN and AL from the band. it was the third day and i am listening to them sing kenyah songs at the penan hut. there was a small crowd and they told stories about living in the forest.

with SG who i meet every year at the festival. as you can see, we got hold of a bunch of the purple balloon things.

and presenting, a RWMF first timer, NY! he only made it for the last night, but he choose the best night to come.

SG’s creation. i am not sure if this is obscene or artsy or just weird.

the band line up for the festival this year is not exactly something to shout out about. my sources tell me that they are trying to get back to the traditional roots this year, but you know what, for so many years, RWMF had evolved to include more and more fusion elements. any while i agree that we need more culture elements, stripping robust beats too drastically may not exactly be the gentlest way to do this.

two sides from two different pairs of slippers. got no idea how it got to our hotel room, or where the other sides are, or why it happened to be that way, or who brought it in.

AJ says its just something that happens.

my first gawai bidayuh redeems

it was purely coincidental that i arrived in singai on the very first day of the redeems gawai celebration for the area’s bidayuh community. it was raining that evening, but you know what they say, the show must go on and by the time we found a parking at about, er, 10pm… the place was already extremely packed with people, most of them lightly drizzled by the rain.

in all my dozens of trips trip sarawak, this would be my first gawai. so no, don’t start asking me hos the bidayuh gawai is different from the iban gawai.

right from the beginning, i was trusted into the company of AN, DC and OZ who took me visiting. gawai, if you’re new to this part of borneo, is a celebration of harvest, and is marked by a giant mass open house with loads of merry making and food and music. that’s the traditional way of eating bidayuh food – on bowls made from palm fronds. so the environmental, kan?

on a serious note, i spoke to one of the event committee members about the significance of the event. according to him, there are still some bidayuh in the area who still believe in spirits and hold to this spiritual religion of their ancestors. they are the ones go participate in prayers and trance during the festival. the larger community, who are mostly christians, join in the festival in preservation of culture.

you see, there is a realisation that someday, there will be no more pagan bidayuhs anymore. it takes a lot of sacrifice to be a bidayuh witch doctor, for example, the person needs to be ‘purified’ by not being exposed to the world for a whole year. the person will only eat certain foods and enter a state of trance to receive ’spiritual calling.’ it is understandable but sad to learn that not many people want to accept this way of life.

and the few who are still alive and practicing are aging.

someday, he tells me, there will be no more. no more of the spiritual side of gawai when the last witch doctor dies. but that is why it is important to learn and preserve and teach as much of the culture as possible now when we are still able to witness things for ourselves. so that when the day comes, even if the spiritual part is no longer practiced, we will be able to carry on the traditions and remember the roots.

i think roots are important.

there was also a fun fair on site. i won’t say much on it. it is like any other travelling fun fair that goes around malaysia. and then there are cultural games like top spinning and blow pipe shooting.

AN took me to the crafts corner of the mini exhibition and bazaar area. yes, yes, the items on display are supposed to be for sale, but since sales are a bit slow for the very expensive cultural costumes, we thought that we would do a little advertising.

the one on the left is the bidayuh headgear and the one on the one on the right is an iban one.

i told AN that ibans scare me and she smiled. she’s iban. but she’s an acception, i told her :)

and that’s DC modelling the orang ulu headgear. the whole dress up camwhore thing happened in full view of very curious passer bys, lots of whom, i am happy to report, did stop by to buy bead necklaces and rattan fly swatters. no, i am serious.

garden gnomes

garden gnomes. this is one of the first unfamiliar sights i encountered when i touch downeded in europe. i was in a metro from munich airport to the city and caught sight of this at a stop on the way.

we don’t have a culture for garden gnomes back home. we got all sorts of other ornamental stuff, like frogs or swans and stuff for feng shui purposes but no gnomes.

my only knowledge of garden gnomes are from fairy tale books that i read as a kid. i learnt that garden gnomes are a german thing and gnomes symbolise helpfulness and the gnomes are said to come alive and help with the gardens at night.

but gnomes are also known to be the object of pranks. another german thing. i don’t know if i understand it well enough, but it is something about stealing the other guy’s gnome and making it reappear somewhere else.

sounds like fun, kan? i am so going to put a gnome when i get my own garden nanti. sorry la, gambar is taken from jauh. i don’t think it would have been very polite to climb into people punya garden to take a picture of their gnomes. nanti they think i’m trying to steal it pulak.

if you never change your mind, why have one? ~ edward de bono

just got back from a conference on thinking last week. as intellectual as it sounds and as glamorous as it tries to be, i came away with a slightly disappointed impression that it leaned a tad over on the academic side. of course, the question is if this is a problem at all. it was organised by an academic institution after all. this entire post could turn out to be just me throwing a verbal tantrum.

but i realise a lack of practice. not absence however, i must say that there are a number of industry participation as well. it is just my unresearched perception that too much academic thinking can be psychologically and socially unhealthy.

but hey, pit me against the brains of howard gardner and tun dr mahathir and tony buzan and kevin warwick and edward de bono, and i respectfully zipped by gob, sat on my hands and listened. and for the inspired moments when my wandering mind decided to linger within the halls of the KL convention center, i found myself time and time again impressed by clever lines that i will attempt to use in my everyday preaching.

i had a poster paper on photography accepted for the conference and i spent many idle hours watching from afar the kinds of people who stopped by my presentation panels. from just this observation, i can deduce the following obvious conclusion: people like pictures more than words. while i am sure that the other posters presented immensely ground breaking discoveries, my collection of forty pictures caught an ever passing crowd from those with striped ties and shiny polished shoes, to those drenched in the latest elizabeth arden fragrance, to workers emptying out the recycle bins nearest to my panels.

and here i am constantly asking myself, what were they thinking? (duh, it is the thinking conference after all)

if you have read up to here, i know that you are expecting some smart alec remark on how the whole conference was a complete waste of my time. either that, or some funny politically questionable but grammatically perfect three-line sentence about how all the great thinkers of our generation are at some stage of age related baldness.

or maybe you just want an explanation of the photos on this blog post, especially about the one or two that made you excited this fine monday morning. i guarantee you that i personally snapped these shots and that none of the photos has been edited or modified in any way.

i am not sorry if this disappoints you (which you probably won’t admit anyway. one plenary speaker at the conference told me that people who browse blogs are narcissistic like that), but you will need to make your own mind up (that sentence is supposed to be neutral and thus save me in case ISA decides that some of the pictures are not funny enough).