Japan

I really don’t expect to be updating this blog anything during the whole week.

Will be away in Japan from 26th Aug -1st Sept. A much ‘undeserved’ trip.

QE didn’t go too well. But that’s a story to worry about when I get back.

And the hours count

on and on.

I am worried. Worried about the QE tomorrow. I didn’t fare so well with Algebra on Monday, and tomorrow is my last chance to redeem myself with Analysis.

Excited (and hence nervous) about the prospect of traveling by myself for the very first time. (Singapore doesn’t count). I pray nothing, nothing goes wrong. Like missing a flight for instance. That would be disastrous.

Today was seen scrambling around trying to find replacement tutors for my classes next week. Finally managed to get them to help me. Relief.

I think I will stare at Google Earth to check out Hokkaido again.

Merdeka 50: Personal reflections

This blog series hasn’t really kicked off the way I hoped it would.

I could give a thousand and one reasons. But those would only be excuses. The fact of the matter is I don’t get it. You know, the whole independance thingy.

The fact is being born 30 odd years after Tunku shouted proclaimed “Merdeka, merdeka merdeka!” from what is now a derelict and run down stadium next to Dang Wangi Police Station, history has not been kind to my appreciation of this momentous event. You don’t get points for suggesting that the reasons for this is because I take our hard earned freedom for granted.

But such condescension is vacuous. What exactly is it that I take far granted? Over the years that I have lived, Malaysia has never been free, truly free. So when I arrived in Singapore, I actually felt liberated. Now that is bad. If this is what my national fathers fought for, I can tell them to go fly kite.

In this 50 years, Malaysian youth will feel proud that they have mamak stalls to go to and cetak rompak porn to jerk off too. In this 50 years, we have a generation of baby boomers who make babies who can’t respect the simplest of authority, and cause a major headache in our secondary schools. In this 50 years, we have Muslim youth protesting Gwen Stefani’s concert because they think non-Muslims should conform to their version of decency and public order.

In 50 years, we have a press that thrives on sensationalism and a leader worship that would make Kim Jong Il envious.

I think I’ve earned my right to take Tunku Abdul Rahman and co.’s ’struggles’ for granted. Who knows, if the British had stayed a little longer, we may have learnt a little more of English manners don’t you think.

But in a way somewhat alike to Singapore’s situation, we had our independence thrust upon us. The British, after experiences with India and the Partition had surely wanted to avoid bloodshed. So they allied with the leaders that had gained the simplest of community support, effectively legitimizing tribal politics. 50 years later in 2007, what ‘our’ way is is actually the way of looking out for ones own race. And any peace deal we put together is simply to avoid an infighting that would sink the ship we all are imprisoned on, proverbially speaking.

Even Mahathir himself, chided the Malay for not being competitive enough. But competitive against who? You’ve got it, us Chinese. Even arguably the most revered leader in Malaysian history only sees the nation as three hyena’s competing over the carcasses of this savannah.

In many ways those who make Malaysia work, and I mean this, are those who stay out of the tabloids media’s glare. And yet they are not perfect. The patriots are the veteran’s who ply Kuala Lumpur’s dirty streets, looking for a free cup of teh-0 and a bus-stop to sleep in; they are the students who are studying overseas, realizing that Malaysia could be so much more than it is today; they are the pastors who preach in churches whose congregations don’t even fully appreciate a sermon; they are the uncles and aunties who make it possible to eat a seriously good nasi lemak and roti canai and wish for their own restaurant.

No they are not perfect. But they could be so much more, so much more alive if realities were different from what it is today. If only we had freedom. More of it, and not less. If there’s anything Merdeka means, it certainly must mean freedom. The deepest desire of being human, and I am convicted, is to be free.  The Merdeka story may have stunted this freedom, but Merdeka’s children ought to be free. Today.

When Calvin says so

Yes Calvin from the popular comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes,

This is thick with subtext. Dig and be discover.

In any case for the record, mathematics for all is logic and tedium is a miracle!

Post-lunch sleepiness

Donald Trump once remarked that he didn’t have lunch hours. Everyday, he would have a cup of tomato juice during that time. I bet he never got sleepy after that.

I guess everybody yawns after lunch. I do, in fact I need that shut eye. And after reading this article from the NYT, I now know why.

Just too bad there’s no real bed around in the math’s department for some shut eye.

Merdeka is coming up, but due to some ridiculous obsession with the national anthem, nobody seems to write anything inspiring about the 31st.  I might as well get down to it…

…later.

So like in…

… 55 minutes time, I’ll be sitting for 2 out of 4 of my Qualifying Exam papers.

Loads of stuff on my mind, not the least Japan, travelling and the new experiences.

What’s in store for me next?

Stunning photo!

by Maciek Duczynski
Canon EOS 5D

 

A higher resolution of this photo can be found here.

 

Simply beautiful.

Negaraku–NameWeeKu

Over at Screenshots, Jeff Ooi publicizes a number of forums organized by DAP no doubt in various locales around the country. Personally, spare me the pseudo- social commentaries and abstract political posturing on “Defending Meng Chee” (Yes this is a jibe against the DAP.)

MCA has come out in another way, choosing instead to “continue to assist” (whatever that means!) Meng Chee. I just hope they mean and do what they say so confidently in the newspapers.

But the Cabinet takes the hardline with an ambigious “the law will have to take its course“. That’s just being kecil hati. 

I have watched the video, and I wonder at the storm in teacup that suddenly brewed over. I myself chuckled a little, identifying straightaway at the rap. But he wasn’t the first one, how about that fellow from Muar? Also the same thing what…

Must be because never use Negaraku….

But whatever the case, I think there’s too much attention given to him given much more pressing issues at hand, a sentiment echoed by Lim Kit Siang. YouTube is first and foremost a video sharing site. Think of it as a public wall, where anyone and everyone is invited to draw graffiti on it. It is public and a medium for self expression. A phenomenon of Web 2.0-which I’m sure not one cabinet minister even understands what it is-YouTube videos are VERY PERSONAL.  If you don’t like something, all you needed to do was to close the tab. A threat to prosecute Meng Chee really amounts to thought policing. Shudder the thought.

For whatever is worth, we give too much credit to Meng Chee by politicizing this YouTube clip. It’s like making a big fuss that your teenage daughter starts keeping posters of Shah Rukh Khan in her room. Just the hormones for goodness sake!

With the stock market spiralling down to less that 1200 points, our pukul enam setengah of a Cabinet certainly won’t have the energy to tell the AG (they are not supposed too btw) to persecute. And I don’t think the AG has much of a case anyway. Sedition Act? Can’t even tell the difference between an expression of discontent with an incitement to rebellion?

Doesn’t anyone recognize satire when they see it?

So what if Gandalf is Gay?

Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf the Gay Gray in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings visited Singapore recently to play King Lear in Shakespeare’s King Lear. CNA interviewed him and over Singapore national television announced that,

It’s not exactly okay to sodomize your male partner in Singapore too, much less have oral sex. It’s a criminal offense. So what do you do when an actor as magnetic as Ian comes to do theater in Singapore? You shut up and let him do what he does best: wow Singaporean audiences.

Singapore’s tourism strategy is to promote itself as an epicenter for arts and culture in this region.

Seems that Malaysia is not spared from embarrassing encounters with the rainbow league too. But this is much much more than a friendly trip down to the playhouse. Rev. Ouyang plans to open a church here in Malaysia and has held his first service in a hotel here.

The pastor is homosexual and open about it.

Of course, the mainstream tabloids newspapers did a story and he seems to be public enemy no. 1 after

Muslim-majority Malaysia will block a plan by the country’s first and only openly gay pastor to establish a church embracing homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals, a minister said on Monday.

Reverend Ouyang Wen Feng, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian ordained in the US, caused controversy after saying he wanted to set up the church by 2010.

The government would block the plan, Tourism Minister Adnan Tengku Mansor told AFP, adding the country had always sought to portray itself as a “family-oriented” holiday destination.

“We have no intention of being portrayed the same way like other cities such as Bangkok or those other cities in that league,” Mansor said, apparently referring to the Thai capital’s sex industry.

Whatever our views towards being gay, being a pastor and running churches, you must admit that what Mansor said is quite undiplomatic (towards Thailand).

That aside, what concerns me more however is highlighted in bold. Is it right for the government to intervene into an internal religious affair concerning Christians? Back off Mansor, opening a church has nothing to do with tourism.

Dangerous precedents in the making.

Merdeka 50: A collection of reflections 2

C.H.E. Det writes in the Era Baru with a piece entitled HARTA INTELEK.

Excerpts,

Jika kita fikir tentu kita akan dapati ada persamaan antara kajiselidik beratus formula ubat supaya mengenalpasti satu yang mustajab dengan memberi pelajaran kepada ratusan ribu muda-mudi Malaysia supaya dapat kita kenalpasti sebilangan kecil yang berbakat.

Jika mereka ini mendapat pelajaran tinggi dan kemudian berkhidmat dalam negara maka terpulanglah modal rakyat yang dilabur untuk memberi pelajaran kepada anak rakyat.

It takes someone with more IQ than our average cabinet minister to make a connection like this. But here’s the punchline,

Tetapi keadaan sekarang negara miskin membelanjakan wang yang banyak untuk kenalpasti dan melatih cerdik-pandai mereka, dan negara kaya tanpa apa-apa usaha atau perbelanjaan mendapat nikmat daripada usaha negara miskin.

Ramai jugalah rakyat Malaysia yang terbaik dan terlatih dengan perbelanjaan ratusan juta oleh kita yang diperolehi dengan percuma oleh negara kaya di mana mereka ini berkerja.

Sepatutnya negara maju ini membayar royalti yang tinggi kepada kita dan kepada negara-negara membangun yang lain yang membelanja wang yang banyak untuk mengenalpasti dan melatih ahli-ahli professional yang sekarang bekerja di negara-negara maju.

C.H.E. Det is Tun Mahathir’s pen name, first used  in 1947 when he wrote an article for the (Singapore) Straits Times.

It is interesting to note that after 23 years of aggressive modernization under his leadership, he still compares Malaysia to a negara yang miskin.