22 posts tagged “malaysia”
Despite the current political turmoil that's happening in Malaysia I just want to express how proud I am to be a Malaysian. When you are in your hometown you might not realise it but once you open your eyes and see the world abroad, you will eventually understand.
Since before our departure I have realised the ties that we have with Great Britain and commonwealth countries in education. One of the good things was that we are able to study in one of the high quality universities recommended by the government of these countries. And up until today, even though some of the contracts are over, the universities keeps in contact with our government. And they even support renewal of the contracts with us, due to the good behaviour of our students. And the overseas college and universities can help to push things especially in acquring visas from their embassy/high commission (It happened to me and my batch). It shows how good relations we have with these people.
And with regards to passport and visas, we have virtually no problem travelling abroad except for Israel, due to our foreign policy. On my latest visit to the Balkans, I didn't have to queue up twice at night to get my visa done, like the Caucasians. "Malaysia?" the officer simply greeted me happily and checked my passport. I was honoured by that notion.
Then I recalled the time when I was in BTN. There was this guy telling us about how powerful Mahathir was in those days.
"If you let me keep my men in your country, I will ensure the safety of every personnel in your army" said the Prime Minister on his visit to Bosnia. There might be some truth in it.
In the place where I'm studying the local people always talk great things about Malaysia.
"It's my second home," said one. Some of the people here had served in the Malaya during the Communist/Confrontation era. It's as if the history book is alive. They can tell you bit by bit what really happened in during that time.
As for being a prominent country with a vast majority of muslims, our country is even recognisable in country like Bulgaria.
"Malazi? Malazi!" said a palestinian living in Bulgaria with a cheerful smile. They even treat me with palestinian cuisine. It was exciting.
If it is not because of the good relations with other countries, Malaysia wouldn't have gone up this far. I doesn't matter what is going to happen in future, I just hope for the best for my beloved country.
27th of March was the last day of my school visit. Teaching in English school has been much different than in Malaysia. I have experienced lots of difficulties trying to understand their culture, yet at the same time I began to like it very much. Like people said, experience is always the best teacher. The students here are very friendly, though they are very critical at times and very expressive. I'm gonna miss them a lot.
As a token of our appreciation, we did some stuff for the children. What I did was a bookmark by scanning a few of my paintings and stick them onto watercolour papers. I also did some language translation sheet just in case they want to learn Bahasa Melayu (in which I think they don't) Meanwhile, my friend worked on the colourful envelopes and pencils. We put everything together inside the envelope. It took us a whole night to do that. I also made a story book, Jentayu, which is based on one of the Malaysian legends. Well, I don't know if they could understand the story. Hopefully they do. I did that as I saw them doing the same storybook project for a few weeks.
While we were working on those stuff, we also tried to cook some Malaysian food for the kids. My friend fried some 'keropok', something like fish crackers. Meanwhile, I made some 'Begedil', one of the traditional Malaysian
We even did a little presentation on Malaysia. Talk to them a little bit about the history of Malaysia, the cities, the jungle, the spiders, races, food, flowers and the festivals. They were surprised to hear that we had so many festivals that we had so many holidays.
I'm hoping that one of the students would someday come to Malaysia and embrace its beauty. It has a lot of things that Britain does not offer. Since then I've started to love my country even more.
First of all I would like to thank NOOS for such a wonderful postcard. I wish you
Living here in England is very much different than back home. I have to look for appropriate food, I have to go out in groups, and I just can't really do anything without anyone's consent. And the roads are very different. Even the cause of accidents are different than back home. Some said that it's dangerous to walk alone, but sometimes I find that the people here are friendly. One thing that's very much the same with Malaysia is that when it comes to a particular celebration, almost every shops are closed and the roads become jammed. The only place that is still open is the grocery shop, very much like 7E which opens 24 hours. While they are celebrating Easter here (the resurrection of Jesus), we are celebrating the birth of prophet Muhammad back home. Talk about celebrations. People here are also divided into different sects and beliefs. But out of respect there are no problems encountered during celebration.
While everyone outside the college are celebrating Easter, we are celebrating our 'Eastern day'. Well, not really eastern to be exact. Cooking malaysian food as usual, and tried out new things like baking cookies and making potato salad. I even managed to go around Plymmy to get a look of the outside world myself, without being pressured of going in groups. What you have to do is just to take care of yourself and not to act suspiciously. And it was cool. Last time we also had religious talks which made me recall of my history lessons which I was fond of.
I even had the chance to celebrate my sis' birthday through webcam. It was one of the most technologically happiest day of my life. I even get the chance to 'virtually' eat her cake!
All in all I don't really feel like missing home, but I'm starting to get interested in the cultural differences between these two worlds.
-Mawi became the king of SMS not because he SMSs people the most, but people sms him the most
-Our First Astronaut, is also known SMS
-We have science schools which are also abbreviated as SMS
-Tan Sri Dato' SM Salim can also be called Tan Sri Dato' SMS
-It's almost impossible to find a tv host that will NOT say "please sms your.../send your sms to..."
-They can always say "send your message" on TV, but they choose "send your SMS" instead
-Skim Cepat Kaya is available through SMS, and people are trapped the same way when it was through telephone line
-You can't even SMS your own mother at home when there's a celebration going. Traffic jam in your network.
-Some sacrificed themselves to go outside late at night, squatting and looking around to find signals (I've seen this incident before)
-You'll see people smiling shyly when they're actually not
-You won't be shocked to find people someone laughing at you when you're not even talking
-some may even jumped from their sits
-If you're not careful enough, you might be joining them!
-Sometimes you will just SMS the person next to you
-Just for the sake of saying a 'yes' or a 'no', you don't mind spending your money SMSing instead of using online poll.
-People spread false messages and they spread like wildfire
-People cannot buy oil because of SMS
-People didn't go out from KL because of SMS
-Police officers become crazy because of SMS
-Politicians take serious measure on SMS abusers
-People believe that any number can belong to Celcom, Maxis or Digi even though it is obviously fraud
-People are always 'happy'
Well, just be responsible to your phones. Selamat Malam Semua (SMS)...
When a teacher expects a good first day in school, things went the other way around. Parents have bombarded them with a lot of things, particularly the 'extra payments'. And TV3, expected to be the middleman of the issue, tries to solve the problem by asking around and coming up with their own consensus. As if they were the teachers. The simple answer to all the questions asked by the newscaster: Go to all the schools, observe, and ask around. You won't get the answers in that short period of time. Even emails don't really show the real situation.
What's happening with the education system in Malaysia is a product of on-going 'constructivism'. It keeps changing and changing that people, particularly teachers and students are suffering from it. And people, particularly parents wants it to be 'reconstructed' again. And they want it to happen so quickly they don't care whether their children are getting the best education or not.
A recap of what Ungku Aziz said just now: The problem with the system is that it keeps changing, and language plays an important role in delivering the content of education. I totally agree with his opinion. The 'nahu', or 'knowledge' of language is important in an effective education. And it needs to start from the age of 2-3. Even if we learn educational psychology, the first thing that a child learns in his early age is language, starting with the word 'mama', and the vocab expands.
And the interviewee moves on with the status of education system. But Ungku Aziz continues with the importance of language in education system. When English and Bahasa Melayu keeps rotating in the teaching of science and Maths, things get messed up and people do not have any idea what they are learning. I ask you one thing: Do you learn science for the sake of knowing the terms or how it actually works? Teachers who have been teaching science in malay has understood the subject by heart. But when the language is changed, their teaching style deteriorates.So you need to understand the language by heart before you can deliver its content.
And the interviewee moves on with the status of education system. But this time Pak Ungku simply said, "I don't have any idea about what's happening with our education system. I don't do research on it". So, simply said, you can't understand a problem unless you do a thorough research on it. And you can't get the conclusion in a short period of time. Just how many people doing research on our education system? We only have policy makers.
So, what we should do is that we should make a thorough research on this matter. Don't always point fingers at teachers. There are those who make mistakes, but only minority of them. We still have dedicated teachers as majority. And please be consistent with the use of language. People always said that the Japanese and Chinese in China do not have to learn english but can still strive economically. Let me tell you something, you are wrong. They DO learn English, but they are proud of their own language. To them, English is important in global market as well as in science, but they can still put their own language as their priority because of their pride, and its importance in their own country. They can also deliver instruction well in their tongue. And they can learn science using both language. And why can't we?
Last night's P. Ramlee the Musical was a blast. Tickets sold out, and a lot of celebrities were cramming behind the double doors. I even saw one the popular Melodi reporter chit chatting with the people around there. People were still queueing up to buy tickets, though they were sold out. I felt cocky yet nervous standing and waiting for the show to start. Maybe because this would be my first time watching a theatrical presentation in Istana Budaya, or maybe because this was the premiere, and the feeling were supposed to be tha
t way.
So what's up with the musical? Is it something like the highly appraised TV show High School Musical? Well, it's something like that, but with a bit of Malaysian touch. It tells a story about the history of P. Ramlee from the day he dreamed of becoming an artist to his last remaining days contributing to the Malaysian art scene. Along the way he meets his love life and faces grief and sorrow before becoming a renowned artist througout Asia. And it doesn't need a complex plot to tell such story. Let the song and the rhytms explain it all. And of course with dances too. The story spans up to 3 hours starting from 9.p.m with a 30 minute intermission.
And now comes the review. Since this was my first time watching a Malaysian musical theatre I couldn't comment much about how it was presented (did watch different kind of theatres performed by my collagues, and even acted in one during the KL festival, but those were totally different than what I was watching ). But overall it was good, with the beautiful voices from the cast, synchronized dancing and eye-popping props and backdrops. However I did find a little bit funny (but not obvious) on the voice projection by one of the actors (well, maybe they did that on purpose). And some of the songs did not really fit the moods of the story, especially when it came to the sad part. They also put some modern twist in the rhythm. And the absence of P.Ramlee's collection of original songs were felt (maybe they wanted to avoid copyright infringement). And the plot did really have a climax that drived my emotion to the top. Something that would make a person who had never known P. Ramlee to cry and say "I should've known
him earlier!" Maybe this only came from my own judgement, but I believe that every part of P.Ramlee's life was explicitly told in the story. And with my dad to elaborate on what was happening in every scene, I found out that his life was not just about being a 'seniman' or an artist, but more about being a man. And seriously, Sean Ghazi managed to 'become' him that night. I enjoyed watching every scene and wouldn't want to miss a second of it. The production team really did their best.
All in all it is a theatre worth watching. If you want to know everything about P. Ramlee, start booking your tickets now!
Today, it's going to be one 'giant leap for all Malaysians'.
This would be a great moment for us Malaysians that finally we can see someone going to space. It's a dream for almost every kid in the 90's. And hopefully we can get valuable knowledge even though it's in short period of time. A lot of debates went on before the launching, including religious duties which gain international attention. But it was clarified by clerics worldwide. It shows that anyone regardless of their religion can fly. You just need to know how to get yourself closer to God wherever you go.
But sadly he would have to celebrate Raya alone in space. I wonder how he's going to do that.
A lot of people have been saying good things and bad things about space travelling, but I think it's a very good move since that we are actually waiting for something to be achieved this millennium, and it's not just about Islam hadhari. Maybe next time we can travel to the moon, and not the sun. We have to keep pace with other countries around us. We need to gain worldwide attention like we did last millennium.
Best wishes to Dr Sheikh Muszaphar. Have a safe journey and Selamat Hari Raya
I've read a lot of complaints regarding Malaysian DJs, particularly those coming from one of the Astro radio stations. They have been playing Indonesian songs over Malay songs that Malay artists do not have room to promote their songs. And among the famous complaints are from our internationally-acclaimed rockstar, Amy Seach.
A lot of comments were given. Some said that the radio stations shouldn't always play Indonesian songs. Some said that the DJs should be replaced with Indonesian DJs while others believed that Malaysian songs are actually poor in quality that they could not compete with Indonesian songs. There are also people who believed that Malaysians prefer soothing love songs over philosophical local songs.
But the question remains: Why Indonesian songs in particular? I found it sometimes uncomfortable that Indonesian songs are played on the air for almost 24-7. Not that I hate Indonesian songs -seriously I like them very much, but not to the extent that they are repeated for almost every hour by the DJs. And when it's time to play local songs, it's always about Mawi and Siti Nurhaliza. Well, Maestro artists did have their chance to get their songs on air at times. But where are the other local artists from other record labels? What about the Indies? If they are not given the chance to perform how are they actually going to make money?
There is a probability that politics are going on in the radio station itself. But it may not be a government issue, rather than business one. Maybe because they are losing hardcore DJs that they try to buy listener's attention through Indonesian songs -since that they are proven to be successful in their own country. They know for one thing -Malaysians prefer love songs. And one of the commenter has proven himself correct. And the second one maybe because of appearance -and you know how oversea artists may look and dress up like. Sometimes they look like Koreans and Japanese, when they are actually Indonesian. But Malaysian artists looks more towards the West, so they are considered 'overdressed'. So, the DJs would exploit these ideas and put up those popular Indonesian songs on the radio. Sometimes I wonder why they didn't put dangdut songs instead. Oh, I forgot! These songs are not popular to young listeners.
And the other one is the 'gam' case. Just to silence the local artists, they don't consider looking at the albums. To me, that is the most treacherous thing to do towards local music industry. They may even result into playing Spanish songs or other international songs which to me they are not proper since that they are rarely be put on air. Why can't they put French and Russian songs too? They have popular songs too. But it may not be popular to the listeners. Bollywood songs would prove to be more relevant.
Now back to the Indonesian music epidemic. The reason of them choosing Indonesian songs over others maybe because they thought that they are considered 'malay songs'. In my opinion instead of playing other people's songs, you should play local Chinese or Indian songs. Since that it is a Malaysian radio station, there's no harm playing their songs. They have good quality songs too. But hey, these DJs don't want to risk losing their listeners. They are actually afraid of their own shadow.
To me such prejudice should not occur in radio stations. It is a foolish idea to actually think that putting a lot of international songs can save your neck and get your fans to stay loyal to your station. If you want that to happen, you should rename your station. Let people know that it's not just about the latest music rhythm, it's more towards international rhythm. I'm not saying that I don't like international songs, but I beg these stations to give more room for local music industry.
Flag is another important component in making a nation after the anthem. Jalur Gemilang is unique in a sense that (as far as I'm concerned) it is the only flag which has a yellow cresent and 14 pointed star. It basically shows that our nation respects every states in the federation. The strips may look similar as to the U.S flag, but we do not adhere to the nation. We have chunk of cultural influences from every corner of the world, but we still maintain our own.
People fight for their nation by raising their flags in the air and defend them. From the ancient time to this day, flag is respected as a national symbol. During battle people defend the flag with their lives, even if they have to lose both their hands. One example can be seen during Prophet Muhammad's time. Other cultures also have such stories about how their people defend their flags. People respect their flag as a symbol of unity, prosperity and power. The one who loses the flag is the one who represents a powerless nation, and an embarrassment to the world.
But today, people showed hatred to certain mishandling of powers by burning the flag. These people are just extremists -they thought they knew everything when they actually knew nothing about what they are fighting for. People are fighting for rights and not for bringing down a nation. And what they did was they were trying to bring down the nation.
And other people just laughed at us. They just brought a shame to the country.
Traditionally Negaraku was introduced with a short drum roll "which beckons the audience to attention, and heralds a stately pace, where the nation sings its pledges of loyalty to King and country. It continues serenely to express the unity of our multi-ethnic population and our gratitude to God for His blessings. And as the music repeats the coda section, praying for the safety of our enthroned King, there comes a stirring crescendo of drum rolls and cymbals, which culminates in a poignantly dignified ending."
National anthem represents a country, its society and its sovereignty. When the anthem starts to play, everyone rose up and sing to the tune of ever grateful of living in a nation that is independent and peace. It should be treated with great respect. It is not about political parties, but rather an ideal shared by the community. Our anthem is unique in a sense that it encompasses our pledge to the King and country, our gratefulness to God for His blessings, and the unity which is hard to be achieved in other countries. It is very short but meaningful to every Malaysians who understands its lyrics and its melody.
Even though it is said to be borrowed by other songs prior to independence, but we have no right to insult it once it officially becomes an anthem. A song is a song, and an anthem is an anthem. You can do change and make new arrangement to a song, but not to an anthem unless approved by the supreme leader of the country. It was a good move to revert our national anthem to its original tune, as to make it more meaningful to us Malaysians.
I could still remember the time when we practiced for the Merdeka event. When the Negaraku was played, the spectators watching us practicing stood up. Even the small kid sunderstood when they saw their parents stood up respecting the anthem. Name it Malays, Chinese, and Indians, everyone stood up. Whether they were watching us during the day or at night, beneath the hot sun or rainy day. They understood.
But I was upset by people who change its title, its tune and its beat to something that is unacceptable. Even if these people would seek forgiveness from the country, it would do no good as they had done something detrimental to the country, and it will be etched in our history forever.
What a simple modification of an anthem can provoke hatred between races. We have a peaceful nation to maintain, so if we have dissatisfaction we should go to a proper channel. We can prove to be better than the West if we can understand and use our freedom of expression wisely.
