How The Web Was Wrong

Click the image to read the heart-moving post about a frazzled young mother struggling with two toddlers while flying interstate and how women around her stepped up to help her through flight check-in, until baggage claim at her destination. The post was made on 8 December 2018.

My interest pertains to the narrative's movement and transition through social media. As a feel good story it deservingly gains traction much to the surprise of the OP (original poster).

Web-media picks it up and makes it part of their editorials, which in turn gets viralised. In most cases, links to the OP are not made. Maybe a mention of her name. Other soc-med news vultures do the same on their own private accounts. Wondering if there's a term for such a phenomenon.

Two days later the smart OP appends a charity drive to her original story to take advantage of its popularity. A sharp and compassionate move on her part. One webzine runs the story, fails to credit her original post but DOES link to the charity. Good enough? Hmmm... 

Four years later, the narrative surfaces again, and it must be because of the "MEMORIES" function of Facebook, especially since it incorporates a timely Christmas message people feel they must share it.

According to Becca in 2020, people were STILL donating. If they chance upon the OP on Facebook.

And now imagine the missed opportunities for charity by others who read the story from hijacked postings (that's my term for now for this despicable deed) that do NOT attribute or credit fairly.

If you found this article interesting, do leave a comment, and DO donate to the charity that Becca Kinsey felt could benefit from the viralizing of her beautiful and inspiring story.

Merry Christmas!

I Fly To Thee

Thank you for dropping in.

I was asked to write a short blurb of 100-words maximum so that audiences at Five Arts Centre's 2-Minute Solos might better appreciate my performance.

I did not think 100 words would be enough to explain the references in my piece.

I also feel that audience coming in cold would be a much better thing for the piece. I want them to feel an almost similiar bewilderment that I have felt when I faced the issues that resulted in this piece.  

I am prepared to admit that many references in my piece would not be recognised immediately or even at all. That some insights need a little more help. Such is the practice of piety and often politics.

The Memorare is a passionate Catholic prayer pleading for the intercession of The Blessed Virgin Mary, the revered mother of Jesus Christ.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is also revered in The Holy Quran, and whose Virgin Birth to Christ is also part of Islamic belief. According to Wikipedia, "She is mentioned more in the Quran than in the entire New Testament and is also the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran".

My paternal grandmother, Dolores Chin, a Penang-born Peranakan-Serani only spoke Malay to her children. Both my grandmothers were devout Catholics.

The batu tumbok (pestle and mortar) found in nearly every Malaysian home is often used to make sambal belachan by pounding chillies and belacan together.

Belacan has been produced by the fishermen of the Portuguese Settlement in Melaka for many generations. I have ancestral stock from this community.

The pounding gesture of twelve times echoes the European theatre tradition of 12 knocks heard before a stage play begins. You can still hear this ritual practised in some theatres in Paris.

The knocking before the curtain rises tradition references a historical beginning to when re-enactments of religious stories developed into theatrical performances and the knocking was an homage to the 12 apostles of Christ. Some theatres have reduced it to three knocks in reference to The Trinity of Christian belief.

When I was growing up, rub chilly in your mouth was a threatened punishment to children for saying rude things.

The punishment transforms into a holy anointment (like Hindu holy ash) at an agonising turning point of revelation, courage and faith following a passionate prayer for understanding.

My 2-Minute Solo ponders the question: "When does expression of faith become propagation of faith?"

It is my heartfelt and impassioned artistic response to "The Allah Controversy".

I would be very happy to hear any comments or feedback you may have about my 2-Minute Solo, especially the feelings and issues that have been aroused in you, before and after having read this.

Terima kasih.

The Best 6 Pack Exercise at Home!

Stephen Krashen on Language Acquisition

“Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.” Stephen Krashen

“The best methods are therefore those that supply ‘comprehensible input’ in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are ‘ready’, recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production.” Stephen Krashen

“In the real world, conversations with sympathetic native speakers who are willing to help the acquirer understand are very helpful.” Stephen Krashen

From: The LanguageSupportUK Blog

5 Ways To Make Time For Long-Term Projects

Original HERE.

If most of your revenue is generated through daily interactions with customers, a project can be problematic. Longer-term engagements require thought processes that are much different than day-to-day tasks.

New business initiatives can be more troublesome. Projects involving innovation, such as investigating the potential of a new product line, choosing and applying a new technology to operations, or figuring out what trends are relevant to your industry and business, can be ambiguous at the start. Planning for these can be more complex and require greater agility.

Whether your goal is a completed project or business initiative, planning now can allow you to avoid panicking about missed deadlines, botched presentations, lower-than-average efficiency, or missed market opportunities later.

1. Deal with your resistance to planning

Maybe you don’t have extra time now to devote to preparing for an event or plotting how to capitalize on a trend that may (or may not) be relevant to your business. Based on your best calculations, your workload will be lighter in a few months, giving you time to plan and execute well before any deadlines or changes in the business landscape.

Maybe a project or technology doesn’t seem all that complicated or time-consuming. You believe that you don’t really need to explore or analyze anything right now order to execute effectively when the timing is right.

Maybe your business model and project deliverables involve day-of-event issues so that not planning seems like a wiser use of time. You can’t get commitments from vendors, customers, etc. too far in advance and you can’t predict trends, so you don’t even try.

But as a deadline looms or as methods, technologies, trends that were cutting edge years ago become widely accepted as norm, forethought looks smarter. What to do? Craft a plan to keep the order-shipping routine intact and make progress toward your goals so that you can calmly approach your workdays.

2. Figure out what you plan to accomplish

Figure out what you want to do in as precise terms as possible. A project for a customer should have firmly established objectives, deadlines, and budgets. The design of a new product line, trend analysis, or technology investigation should have general parameters with allowances for flexibility throughout the planning and execution phases.

Engage those involved in your project or initiative. Clarify areas of uncertainty or possible confusion. Think about what success will look like if execution is flawless. If the vision of your stakeholders is described differently than yours, or the ROI looks unreasonable, ask more questions and tighten your project’s definition. Develop a shared understanding of what requirements and outcomes are fixed, and which are flexible.

3. Get a handle on the details

Planning at a high level is pretty easy. But when you start identifying details of a project or initiative, things get more complicated and overwhelming. Cataloguing the details to be considered and acted upon is crucial to effective execution. So, take your time and make the effort to nail down specifics.

How should you figure out the details to be included in the plan? Unless you have led many projects or spearheaded new programs just like the ones you are plotting now, it’s likely that you will miss something. But don’t let uncertainty stop you. Get started and then fill in the gaps.

Write down the details you have already considered. Take a mental walk-through the entire project or program to discover more. Consult an expert to uncover items that you would have never considered or may have mistakenly judged inconsequential to the success of your project or business initiative. Translate details into action items.

4. Set aside time

Make room on your calendar for project tasks, interjecting them with everyday business. Ideally, you can create a project plan, listing one action item after another in a linear sequence until all actions are completed and the project is complete.

Note that business initiatives and innovation projects may not follow a straight linear path. For these situations, certain actions will lead to defining next steps but may involve temporary reversals before moving ahead. Doug DeCarlo describes one way of guiding this process as extreme project management.

5. Start now

Start as early as possible so that the schedule can accommodate setbacks as well as surges in everyday execution without compromising completion dates.

Develop strategies to keep the project or initiative moving forward.
Devise timelines that take into consideration lead times for products to be ordered, services to be arranged, project approvals from stakeholders.
Discover what actions are dependent on previous steps so that your path is as linear as possible and backtracking is unnecessary.
Anticipate constraints and allocate resources to prevent bottlenecks based on these limits.
Review project status regularly to deal with unexpected or recurring problems.
Make decisions quickly and stay focused on well-defined and well-understood goals of projects and initiatives.

The Epicurean's Secret Calendar

Was called in to do a quick copywriting intervention on a promotional brochure for Carcosa Seri Negara. Clients loved what I did and the text went into print almost immediately. Perhaps the fastest turnaround from brief (Friday) to production (Wednesday) I had ever experienced.

Here's the cover and back:



And here's the inside:

HOPE

He drifts into the knowledge
that what he knows
will never subsume
the unknown.

And so he must learn
to embrace the unknown like
a familiar friend he had lost contact with
for many, many years.

They re-connect,
he and this wine dark future,
and no love feels lost.

(Must. Should. Will.)

The unknown becomes familiar,
to survive the next second.
Next hour.
Next day, week, month and year.

No doubt he will flow with the clock,
yet he reaches out to grasp the reeds
but the current carrying him fast
past
only aids
their razor-sharp edges
to draw deep cuts
into his palms,
rewriting history.

He yearns to know:

Why do you
make me believe
that you are
my saviour
when often
I feel you
delight to
crucify me?

Movie Musicals

Dear Mr Vernon,

We were the four students from MDIS who did the street interview with you and Mr Rohaizat and Mr Dan Myer in the Esplanade Mall last Sunday (6th Jan 2008).

We would like to thank you for your time and assistance in helping us with the brief interview. Due to your relevant expertise for our assignment, would it be possible if you could further help us with a few more in-depth questions?

If you could assist us, we have attached the questions to this email for your kind perusal. We hope to get in touch with Mr Rohaizat and Mr Myer as well, and were hoping if you could pass along their contacts to us.

Sincere appreciation for your kind help and inputs. We eagerly await for your reply.

Best Regards,

Charlene Poo
Ivan Wee
Xiao Shuyun
Julianatasha Salleh



V A Emuang to charlene, Ivan, j_natasha88, jerlaine2505, Xiao

show details 01:50 (8 minutes ago)

Gosh why did just four simple questions have to be appended via a MS-WORD document?
If I had known I would have answered them earlier. :-)

Does that sound like a great excuse for handing this in two days late?

Sorry for the delay.

Peace - V

Questionnaire

1. How long have you been in the Arts industry?

Forever. I graduated with an BA (English) degree and my major was Theatre Arts - in 1984. So - you do the math. :-)


2. What do you think about the evolution of musical films over the years?

Musical films? Presume you mean 'movie musicals' as per the genre you asked us about two Sundays ago. Well it has evolved with movie-making technology. And so special effects is as much a part of the narrative, or influences narrative. Music has become, even more so,dramatic atmosphere and emotional soundscape, in addition to just melodies upon which a lyricist may hang plot and character, a la traditional stage musicals.


3. What are the driving forces behind a successful/effective musical film?

Always - plot and character. The story. What is t'he story'. Always. Of course the things that make a movie a movie musical such as the music, choreography, singing, singers, etc ... that's a given. But eventually, it's the story. How it makes great people look humble - or humble people look great.


4. Do you think that musical films contribute to social values?

Behind every story is a moral. All art is contributive, constructive ... but only to a mind that allows it to do as such. That is a call made by the reader/viewer, but would be influenced by other external factors. Art education, media, marketing and promotion. The movie musical, like any artform, which encourages empathy, contributes to the social value of 'empathy' - perhaps the most fundamental and under-rated of all social values.

Incommunicado's ideal

I just unearthed this article which appeared in the 4th October 2005 issue of the New Sunday Times, in a column entitled "My perfect weekend". I was interviewed by Intan Maizura.


Livewire arts activist and marketing communications consultant, Vernon Adrian Emuang is hard to pin down but INTAN MAIZURA manages to halt him for a tete-a-tete.

Picture by HAMSIAH ABU BAKAR

FOR THOSE OF US NOT IN THE Arts circle, the name Vernon Adrian Emuang, 44, might probably elicit a `blur' reaction. Others may remember him for his wacky turns as Jeffrey Ong's sidekick eons ago on the now defunct TV3 IT offering, Cyberwave. But that's not to say he's been dormant. This lively Sarawakian just does not know the meaning of the word `stop', furiously and actively working behind the scenes, on a number of projects. He is presently involved in KL Sing-Song 2005, the first ever regional singer/ songwriter conference and workshop in Malaysia, which incidentally is produced by his own company of eight years, Artsee Networks.

"I was also recently involved in Yasmin Ahmad's Sepet, helping to negotiate and secure sponsorship for the premiere as I believed a lot in the film - it's a powerful film in a very sweet way. I wanted to support it so when I discovered it was going to be released, I got very excited and came on board," explains Vernon.

He has also been busy helping out RTM with voice-overs and scripts for a documentary series called Malaysian Food Discovery, of which there are going to be 26 episodes in all. "I don't go out on the shoots but I do go through the footages. And then I write the script and subsequently do the voice-overs."

It's been a long time since he has had any breaks, let alone a weekend off but Vernon definitely knows what'll make his weekend perfect.

"It would be one where nothing has been planned and I am in a foreign place, where nobody speaks English so I can't really communicate normally with anybody and everybody is a stranger. Of course, I would have at my disposal enough money for a decent meal and to probably catch a bus or taxi somewhere, anywhere.

"It would be one of those days where I'd wake up to a bright sunny morning, in another place that I'm not used to. Maybe Tokyo, Paris, Canberra - I'm a city person! It's not familiar but neither is it completely strange. I'd just walk out onto the streets where I'd have to use my wits to get around, but the people are friendly, of course.

"I'd start off by looking for a decent breakfast which would have to include bacon and eggs - I don't know why - and lots of fruit. I'd then look for interesting cultural and art places to head for, like a gallery or something. Nothing would be planned; I prefer to stumble into things because I get enough of having to keep to schedule when I'm at work!

"In fact, that's how I stumbled into the Picasso Museum in Paris and the Louvre, also in the city. A saxophone player who was playing inside this cavernous porch - basically the portal of a castle - caught my attention. The sound was amazing and I just stood there for half an hour just listening. I didn't know where I was really and after half an hour decided to move on. I moved out of the portal into this courtyard, which was huge and barren with just sand. I thought, 'Oh, this is interesting, it's a castle'. The next thing I knew, I walked into this area with all these pyramids. It was the Louvre. I still remember this moment.

"Looking for deodorant in Tokyo was also exciting. I still remember it because it was quite an adventure looking for it. My bags went missing on a flight to Tokyo where I was supposed to meet some clients on the day I arrived. I had to resort to using sign language. Every time I asked for deodorant, they kept pointing me to the most expensive perfumes! "I've had that kind of experience before and it's quite refreshing because you're challenged a little and you have to slow down to communicate, so you have to slow everything down to understand what's going on.

"When I was growing up, weekends meant church in the morning with my parents, then a family breakfast. That was fun. We'd trundle off to the Section 14 market (in Petaling Jaya) and buy stuff - all the hawker food and then come back and the whole dining table would be scattered with hawker food still in their wrappers. We'd have to forage through them to find what we wanted. I also used to do a lot of things with my brothers (I don't have sisters), whether it was cleaning the house, or helping my mum with the baking.

"A perfect weekend could be with my family whose company I enjoy, or it could be alone or even with friends. I guess as long as there's no set programme, it would be perfect. Wake up, have breakfast, do anything that comes to mind and just let things move along. Unrushed, unplanned, and where surprises just keep popping up.

"If I can go to bed that night thinking, 'oooh, what a great day and it wasn't even planned', I would have had a great weekend. I just love that whole idea of serendipity with all the happy accidents that happen."

TARAP MAN (STAR Review)

The review in THE STAR of 9th December 2007

More than meets the eye

In this play set 13 years ago in Sabah, double-edged one-liners helped to lift it into the contemporary realm.

THE TARAP MAN

Dec 5-9
The Annexe Gallery,
Central Market, KL

Review by SARAS MANICKAM

THEY said The Tarap Man is a journalistic thriller. They lied. The Tarap Man is more than that. It is an unflinching look at a system that failed and continues to fail the individual.

It is about socio-political reality failing common humanity; about the fourth estate (Senior journalist to young award-winning one: “Once upon a time, there was a Fourth Estate.” “Where?”) failing to maintain journalistic integrity, preferring to play ball instead. It is about metaphors of life, surviving the system and rising above it. The play may have been set 13 years ago but given recent events, the threads are wholly contemporary.

The Tarap Man is set in Sabah. It is about a boy incarcerated for the murder of his mother in 1952 and presumably still in prison with the system having forgotten about him. More than 50 years later, a journalist struggles to unravel the truth about him. Against the backdrop loom the state elections of 1994, a critical testing time for the system, individual and the public at large.

When Aashi (Anne James) finally meets the tarap man (Vernon Adrian Emuang), she is swept into his secret, cryptic world.

The play could have descended into ponderous pathos; instead, it is largely accessible and absorbing, thanks to gifted acting, direction and production. Double-edged one-liners helped to lift the play into the contemporary realm. Goes one line: “What makes you think that those who fight for democracy are democratic themselves?” And when Cornelia (Mia Palencia) is chuffed about her award-winning piece on endangered corals, she meets with “So you think that if they know, they will care?” Perhaps the most thought provoking line belongs to Leong Kin (Thor Kah Hoong) when he tells his editor: “Do not mistake my silence for my compliance.”

Rising above being merely entertained, the audience is constantly forced to assess meaning within meaning and so an interactive process is created. For this, if not anything else, go watch this wholly original local play by Ann Lee. The play is in English but incorporates naturally into its flow, other languages such as Hakka, Telugu, Kadazan and Malay.

Aashi (Anne James) is a Semenanjung journalist in Sabah, in cold storage, for writing one too many critical pieces against the establishment. She is advised by friend and colleague, Leong Kin, to lie low. Aashi is incredulous. “Lie low? I am in Sabah. How low do you want me to go?”

When Leong Kin corrects her usage of a preposition, she barks about his ability to “debate the details to death and miss the main point entirely”. Frustrated, cynical, increasingly depressed and dependant on her pills, Aashi finds in the search for the tarap man, a lifeline to rescue herself from her own darkness and rigor mortis.

As she delves deeper, she comes up against a hardened, routinely obstructive public system as well as the authoritarian stance of her editor, Regina (Christina Orow), indifferent to “the epic miscarriage of justice”.

As character interacts with character, the players find that the quest for the tarap man has irrevocably changed their own perspectives. Leong Kin learns to stand up for truth, forsaking security and even Aashi, in her quest for truth, learns about honesty from fresh-faced, idealistic Cornelia.

When she finally meets him, Aashi connects immediately with the tarap man (Vernon Adrian Emuang).

A different kind of mentoring. Leong Kin (Thor Kar Hoong) wants more from Cornelia (Mia Palencia) than what she is willing to give.

Their critical scene together, pivotal to the play, is perhaps the weakest scene, marred by a script that suddenly becomes a mishmash of the obscure, the incomprehensible and the simply too confusing. A tighter reined script here, that allows the leaps and incoherence without sacrificing understanding, would have been good.

We get the gist though: the tarap man is no mad creature. He is governed by his own unconventional views and methods. Perhaps saner than many, he is cryptic, mysterious, complex and he cunningly keeps his secrets.

Single-minded in pushing his agenda, Aashi refuses to acknowledge or cover the larger-than-life political crisis in Sabah then and so is sacked again.

There are many threads in the play and not all of them quite work. We don’t know what is really in the letters. Did the tarap man actually kill his mother? Is he mad pretending to be sane pretending to be mad? There are no neat tie-ups but it doesn’t quite matter.

Director Zahim Albakri is brilliant – though I can’t understand the necessity for the table tennis scene. Vernon Adrian Emuang, Anne James and Thor Kah Hoong are outstanding and the rest of the cast, very impressive.

At intermission, the audience finds itself ushered out by a cold-faced prison guard: “Pigi! Pigi! Pigi! Cepat!” Her words are chilling. I would use the words with more warmth and say, “Pigi! Pigi! Pigi cepat and watch the play.”

The Deafening Silence

It sings a mocking dirge
A melody untuned
Which rocks upon the earth
Unsettling every dune
And while the tides unfurl
A froth of hope and gloom
A precious little girl
Stands silent in my room.

So much was shared between
The wires of a song
But everything seems nothing
Since you won't play along.

Perhaps I should have not
had that facetious thought.


"But he that dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose." - Ann Bronte

A Personal Belief About Beliefs

Belief is an amazing thing. While belief is neither a fact nor an empirical, it can hold great sway among many of us.

Perhaps this is because belief brings order to a chaotic mind, a chaotic world.

Belief decrees, and so demarcates, and while it arranges, it is divisive. The more there is of one kind of it - the more likely that those who stand apart from that kind of belief may be excluded by it. Often, those who make the choice to question a belief, or challenge it, put themselves at great risk of exclusion or derision by those greater in number who stand by it.

Belief is perception. It is not reality. Often we forget. But then, what is reality but a prevailing agreement of the most common perceptions. So, widespread belief can immolate reality with its fervour.

Thankfully, belief is known to evolve. Change. It must. Because the human mind is a fickle thing.

And that which finds home within, like a belief, may also change. Evolve.

Yet, belief would rather forget that the only constant is change. Mostly, belief hates this . Because belief believes it exists to bring order to a chaotic mind. Belief thrives in diplomacy, which advocates order. But belief does not need diplomacy. For when a belief is strong enough, diplomacy is a hindrance. Like a stampeding horde, a popular belief that has never been challenged will trample underfoot those who linger in inquiry or doubt. Or even in diplomacy.

Belief unchallenged is a ball of snow allowed to roll down a slope. Belief unchallenged may grow bigger, but that does not mean it will grow better. A snowball, no matter the size, is always just a snowball. It cannot pretend to have turned into an igloo. That needs work. Needs craft. Needs inquiry and discussion to shape and mould it into something more useful.

That’s my belief. What’s yours?

Swept Away

My unbridled
optimism gets in the
way of
my longing to be
a fabulous realist.

It is true.

I think too much.

Your one gesture spoke
volumes.

And a castle rose up
upon the fecund beach
where many ruins now stand.

There another ruin
now stands.

And I feel wonderful.

Eaten Away

Cutting my losses
Just moving on
Accepting defeat
Extracting a thorn

How was I fooled?
Blind as a bat
Humility absent
You're not where I'm at.

Yeah, go on, snigger
Playing your game
Who's your next quarry?
So friggin'lame

Should I just hope you
Choke on your bile
Even your death
Isn't worthwhile.

All this is silly
The anger I feel
Frustration uncloaks me
Rage makes me its meal.

Why this theatrics?
It baffles me so.
Because it was not
where I wanted to go.

And when I relented
You knew you had snared
This stupid damn fool
That could never be spared.

You gawked and you prodded
And when you were bored
Made the decision
To ignite the discord.

This throwaway thing
Is how I do feel.
Frustration uncloaks me
Rage makes me its meal.

The Anticipation of Arrival

This is a campaign I created for Ismail & Associates in the advertising account pitch for Mutiara Crowne Plaza Hotels sometime in 2005. Yes, that long ago. Sigh.

The hospitality chain was formerly known as Merlin Hotels & Resorts, and they had various kinds of hotels in cities and resorts.



As per the usual with some of my best work (well, I do like this series of ads), another agency got the account and these thumbnails remain for me to gloat about as great ideas that were never realised.



My strategy was to create anticipation via suggestive and evocative headlines. Stir the kind of excitement in a reader's imagination as if they were about to embark on a trip, or arrive at a destination.

It was about creating a feeling for a place that is almost palpable even though you hadn't been there yet.



Isn't that the excitement and anticipation of travel?



Do you think it works here?

Wake Up The Village!

MM asked:

How do we change mindsets towards women so that they are no longer the victims of violence and abuse?

The word "abuse" isn't exclusive to physical harm. Many women around the world, across races, religions, income, class & cultures, are equally subjected to psychological, social or mental abuse, which are sometimes even more damaging than physical violence.

How can sexist, derogatory & abusive attitudes be overcome?

What role do the rest of us play in this process of change?

So I answered:

Mindsets and attitudes can only change with education and illumination, over time ... and each of us have the responsibility to do what we can when we see injustice of any kind.

We must speak out because evil triumphs when good people do nothing.

We must be proactive - teach young people to be empathetic and compassionate. Give them the awareness to recognize injustice, and how it can damage and hurt.

Bring home the truth of what hurts and destroys, what is evil and what aids the negative actions of others.

Young children should be nurtured on parables and fables, all those great stories that can fuel the imagination and strike a chord in the heart.

Those neurons must be sensitized from a young age. And this also happens when children themselves are subjected to care and compassion by adults. Are we spending enough time with them on these story-lessons?

Parents need to spend precious, quality time with their children. Adults need to set strong and clear examples. Abberant adults should be taken to task by those who witness their intolerable actions, especially when children are about.

It is true that it takes a whole village to bring up a child, and our villages need to come together fast!


Then I decided to take advantage of Yahoo! Answers:

Question:

I am unable to stay focussed on goals that I want to achieve. What can I do?

Question Details:

Too many ideas, not enough cerebral RAM or physical energy. I seem to be chasing my own tail on many things. I know that once I set my mind to it, I can make things happen. The universe has been good to me that way - providing many opportunities, and connecting me with wonderful helpful and generous friends and family. But I still feel unfulfilled. What's really missing?

I can't wait to see what answers come back.

Wake up the Village Idiot!

A Curious Blend

Burmah Road is one of the oldest parts of Georgetown in Penang, and is a main street for Kampung Serani. This was where a Eurasian community re-settled from Thailand, brought over by the British to act as go-betweens between the colonists and the local people, in the late 1700s.

I wrote these few verses to start me off, and hope to extend it further at a later stage.


BURMAH ROAD

Remember when the roads were lined
With shady trees as old as time
A village where proud houses stood
On pedestals or stilts of wood.

The families who lived here then
Comprising of a curious blend,
Were not as obvious just by face
To fit just one specific race.

For here was quite a melting pot
Of foreign ties and polyglots,
Where great-grandpa now buried here
Did come by ship from not so near.

(To be continued... )

Wilting Without Grace

I am wilting. It is getting unbearably hot here. Not the kind that tingles the pores of your skin like a well-earned sauna. It is quite different. It is an oppressive kind of heat and I feel driven to jump from this kuali into Sungei Wang. Blame the humidity, the high percentage of moisture in the air that clots each laboured breath, makes the skin clammy, and makes even a harmless cotton-blend from British India feel like a Lycra straight-jacket fashioned for a rave at your local downtown asylum. It is the kind of humidity only fat Cuban cigars with equally fat price tags could appreciate. Not me. I cannot roll that way.

I am wilting. Even though my great-grandparents were born here (all eight should be enough), and probably their parents, too, the mitochondrial legacy within me struggles to acclimatize. Should I wonder why it would take this long? Will my children's children feel as alien? When is the time when my progeny will fully feel at ease, fully integrate and disappear into the kerawang? Until then, do we deserve to be treated like … well, termites?

I am wilting. I feel the energy draining from me. The oppresive temperature bears down on any semblance of hope I ever did harbour. Yes, it once sprang from my breast with enthusiasm born of youth. Perhaps, more than a port-of-call, what my post-adolescent hope really needed was an aircraft carrier. Not long ago, in the last millennium, as a returnee, that idealistic foreign graduate – stupid me – I should have launched my unapologetic assault upon these beloved shores. But now more than I had ever imagined, I feel embattled – like many around me; bullied by crafty, titled figures of authority, brow beaten by badge-wielding officers behind glass counters, held frozen by those swirling blue lights on screaming white Protons. The servants are not civil in this land of Planta. They look at me with contempt because they have been told that their gourd is more bitter than mine, or because language fails me. Annie Lennox knew this well. (I love her voice and know she sings for me.)

And you? Are you not wilting, too? Surely, sister, you must be choking in those swarthes of fabric meant to keep sandblasting winds at bay as they would (as you are so often told) those dreadful primal distractions. And, Tuan, can't you see how the sweltering demarcations are closing in around you, until where you may sip an iced cincau even will be governed by men with oily moustaches?

I am wilting. My knees tremble because the spot where I stand has shifting sands. I am told I should be thankful that it is not quicksand. This could be one of those places you see on CNN, they say. The kind that in time will become the setting of an award-winning epic movie or television blockbuster. Where the hundreds of extras the producers hire won't need to move too much. Listen … maybe they all started this way, too? Something strange would hang in the air which not nearly enough among them ever thought required speaking up about. So, the strangeness unchallenged crept over them like another harmless twilight. Lines drawn in the sand, differences no longer merely observed but legislated, and soon the yellow stars come out to play. Syurga forbid we ever come to that? Choy! Is it not strange that inclusion must be fought for?

Oh, I am wilting. Aku melayu. Can I say that? Well, I did. Because I so want to – truly.

____

This piece (a lightly abridged version) appeared in the Ramblings column of TELL (July 2007) magazine. Do pick up a copy - it's one of the more daring magazines around.

No Answers

The turning point
was a fog
heavy and harsh
choking all hope
all sight
ending dreams
with a quick, decisive stab.

Screams of disbelief
like wind-chimes in a cyclone
a mind trying to find meaning,
looking back for signs,
wondering why the earth disappeared from beneath my feet.

Both planted so firm, at least I thought, on a feeling.

But these pass. Like he did, this sniper, and I am still unable to curse his mother.

Fondness became despair,
like the second foot thrust into
the same pyjama leg.

Sparkle & Awe

When one thinks of the House of Cartier, that designer brand of timepieces and jewellery, one would think of classic designs best accompanied with a quietly elegant sense of style. But a turn at an exhibition featuring creations from its Heritage Collection recently spun my head around on two counts: that Cartier has a radical history, and that a respect for tradition is best matched with a daring for innovative side-steps into the untried and unprecedented.

The exhibition was The Art of Cartier, a collection of specially commissioned jewellery and precious objects comprising over 100 pieces specially repurchased in the past twenty years, and selected to tour the world since 1989. Its priceless gig at the National Museum of Singapore recently – the collection’s first showing in South-east Asia, was indeed a timely one as the last Preview Season event for the newly renovated Museum before its official re-launching.

I arrived at the Museum aptly located on Stamford Road on the very last day of the The Art of Cartier, organised by the legendary maison, and presented by the Museum. This cosy collaboration between a Singaporean public organisation and a French designer-brand corporation at the Museum’s new extension, called Gallery Theatre, was truly dramatic – spotlit glass-cases nestled into staggered redbrick walls where the Cartier creations held sway like holy grottos. In this seemingly religious ambience a volunteer guide provided a spirited commentary. An enthusiastic gaggle of perfectly coiffured tai-tai’s and curious sunbaked backpackers toured the exhibits like pilgrims of gemstones and precious metal.

Right from the start The Art of Cartier was an exceptional journey in time, in the history of design, and in quick glimpses into the lifestyles of the very rich and terribly famous. It seemed that Cartier was the choice of European royalty as well as Indian Maharajas, who would arrive at the Parisienne jeweller’s workshop with crates full of precious stones for the Cartier artisans to set in exquisite designs.

The route of the exhibits begins with designs from the Belle Epoque era of the early 1900s. It was here that Cartier innovation trail-blazed its own course, employing for the first time platinum, which lent itself to mounts and settings that were as delicate as they were solid, and which showed off the sparkle of diamonds in a way gold and silver never could.

Enamel, hardstone and a daring combination of colours were also the hallmark of Cartier. And the maison’s design inspirations came from as far-flung places as the Middle East, and China, capturing the imagination of those who had a penchant for the priceless, the exotic and the singularly unique.

Materials, motifs, ideograms, mythical creatures and divinities inherited from these places exotic and unfamiliar to the West, were incorporated bravely into Cartier designs. Each must have caused quite a sensation in their time. Cultural fusion, long before the phrase had been coined, and of an exquisite craftsmanship that would have set Cartier way ahead of any other jewellers then.

Nature may have inspired Cartier, but their artisans ensured that any one Cartier floral and animal designs would be bold and assertive in its materials, posture and architecture. Some boasted highly articulate structures, where wings quivered and tails could lash one way or the other.

Hollywood celebrities too had their day with Cartier. Gloria Swanson, one of the silver screen’s earliest icons would be immortalised flashing not just one but two diamond, platinum and rock crystal bracelets fashioned by Cartier in what has been described as prefiguring jewellery as fashion accessory.

One of the hallmarks of Cartier design is in the creation of their ‘mystery clocks’, where their hands seem to float in space without any visible connection to the movement. Utilizing crystal discs and an intricately concealed mechanism, Cartier mystery clocks are quite a sight to behold. I was mesmerised for quite a while as time passed, well … ‘mysteriously’.

Other notable exhibits were the sword designed for Jean Cocteau, the famous ‘Crocodile’ necklace for Mexican actress Maria Felix, and the ostentatious creation for the Maharaja of Patiala – a heavily jewelled and gem-ed up number that would turn Elton John green with envy, or make Liberace do double-flips in his grave.

While I am not really very much into jewellery, The Art of Cartier was quite an experience. It reminded me that when inspiration meets innovation, and when some daring is part of the mix, that is perhaps when some history can be left behind for others to gape at in total awe. I know I did. And it wasn’t even because of their price tags.

(761 words)


The Art of Cartier was presented by National Museum of Singapore from 30th December to 17th October 2006.


(This piece was published in the February 2007 edition of THE HILT.)