Berita Hairan

sarip is liking this wordpress very much, cos it has many many useful functions. so sarip goes lah godeh godeh here, godeh godeh there – cos as usual the spirit to attain excellency at work is never available after a few days of rest – and (walla!) look what sarip found.

sarip understands the search for singapore babi, as there are many around at the moment. he does not, unfortunately, understands the search for robot zaman dulu 1 kali. nuclear tests from pyongyang are more understandable than this. :S

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in case you are wondering, those pixs are not from sarip’s room. sarip wished it was his, unfortunately not. but it is from a room in one of singapore’s best kept secrets. a place long appreciated, but not abandoned. it is one of the last remnants to still be alive and kicking, after the demise of mitre hotel. the building is as old as raffles hotel (to my assumption), and it is a nice getaway.

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most! up! to this killer gerbil. sarip was never in the scene, but he likes gerbil’s wERkZ. he r3pR3s3nts! i wonder who still uses that term nowadays. :S

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if you’ve walked around and noticed the ads, eric ’slowhand’ clapton will be performing in singapore NEXT year. sarip understands the nature of the logistics and the hoo-hah-hah in the planning and organisation for a big star but,sometimes, he does wonder if the singapore concert promoters ever learn their lesson. only recently, robbie william’s gig has been cancelled after all the houbrahah last june, where it allocated only 3 days for purchasing the tixs. what happened next? he cancelled his tour because of “exhaustion”. i watched his gig at leeds on star the other day, and come as overrated big stars go, he could not be bothered less about their audiences. no?

i know some people are still big fans of eric clapton – he’s a legend no doubt. but promoting his concert way before the actual gig can be a downer if anything happens to the artists’ mood swings. and then what?

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politics is a boring subject, the majority will agree on. sarip is the least influential person he’d ever known in terms of political favour, but it is his interest. he liked it eversince someone, he forgotten whom (colin goh, maybe?), published the comic book “Goodbye Lee, Hello Goh!” or something like that. and then he loves Lat cartoons, where a lot of parady involving Malaysia’s politicans and politics were potrayed in his drawings. amusing it is, but also a defining message on how the politicians can affect our lives indirectly.

and who so has the most influence to the global structure than the united states itself. admit it or not, most of our lives depend on them. as we speak, more than half of the world’s products are either conceptualised, designed or produced by them. there is no denying of fact in that.

and so, nov 7th is an important day for the U.S., in fact for the whole world in consideration. this is the day, where the citizens will vote for the house and senate that controls the constitution. or something like that. what is more important – for everyone in fact – is that the republicans to be ousted out for the democrats to settle in. sarip does not know if the democrats will be better of for the fate of everyone, but at least he is reassuared that the slimeballs and the dirty politics of the republicans will not be continued.

sarip just hope for the best, for everyone, come november the 7th.

-phew-

occasionally, today paper churns out interesting articles, like this one. he puts into the point, what me and other muslims around the world have been asking about the current situation of muslim politics. the only surprising thing is that for a paper who dismissed one of its staffs for commenting on social issues, it actually prints this article for mass reading. possibly, the main reason behind this is due to the fact the writer is a foreigner. foreign talent must be good mah….

yawning bread gives out another excellent note on mediacork productions. it’s true and i doubt they will admit it, but most mediacorp productions spice up with a lot of shebangs in the promotion of the programmes, but ends up with little to ponder and more questions to burn. sesame street is more knowledgeable and in-depth in their programming as compared to these productions. best in asia my foot.

now, is it me or the death of steve irwin and the birth of the new japanese royal baby is but a pure coiincidence? you may never know.

when this site was set up, the main intention was for me to convey everything in malay. i am a malay mat, raised up in the culture and still living it till this day. however, ashamed it is so, it has not been keep up to pace lately. this, due to certain reasons lah. i am (still) trying to practice myself in expressing *better* english, better. the level is still not as proficient as desired, but as the cliche goes – practice make perfect, yes? also, in trying to inflate my ego further, i am dreaming to myself that by conversing in english, this site may appeal to a wider audience. i am still trying to figure that out with little success. BUT! as always, learning consists of many steps, and if there are any kind souls out there, do point out my mistakes for me to learn. evil souls are welcomed too.

i will still post posts in malay at times too for the same reasons as above. one step at a time.

anyway, to cut the long story short, the sole reason why i am on this verge of *self-reflecting* notion is to bring out the topic of idealising malay and its language. it may sound ironical and contradicting for it to be shared upon in english, but then who in this world may care, right? though i may be surprised if anyone will be bothered to read this up to this point. so before anyone will bleep out remarks such as, “this guy ngengada plak. inggeris dah berterabuh, lepas tuh nak handle topik pasal bahasa melayu…”, you can always clean the dusts on your keyboard and moved on.

if anyone of you reads berita harian each tuesday, there is this section written by Dr Liaw Yock Fang, teaching the readers on the wonderful fundamentals and history of malay and its language. for once, i thought, berita harian had become sensible to print out recognisable and reputable articles in its pages. there was this one article in which he wrote about the origins of malay, and how the language was developed. my description of the story is very vague, so i will just leave it to that. however, if you do happen to read berita harian on tuesdays, do check out his articles. i, for one, will be keeping his articles for keepsakes. what surprises me was that the history of malay is full of discrepencies and vagueness as compared to others. there is little documentation in regards of this, and it saddens me on why this is so. and the best part of this, most of the research and historical papers are collated by non-malays such as dr. liaw himself. but i may be ignorant and naive at this point, and who i am to fool? i am but only one and my knowledge is too shallow to make an observation.

there is also this wonderful article by mr alex yu of the yawning bread fame. the information is detailed and makes for very interesting reading.

i am very grateful for these 2 men to provide me and others these information. i have to point out here, that i had been ignorant on the historical part and this may had been produced by other malay writers, which i have to admit i have yet to recognise.

but that is not the point of this topic. it is just that i cannot understand why others and myself can’t recognise who our prominent historians are. i am a malay, yet i know very little of it. we live in a time whereby parents are concentrating more on the importance of english than our own. i do understand english will be an important commodity for the child’s future, but what i cannot relate is the accusation of communication in malay is backward trending. this is not the first time i have brought up this subject, and i do sound like a broken record with no other content to bring out.

i have just this crazy theory on the impact of the redundancy of the malay language if it is not kept. the malay leaders often keep emphasising on our social issues that is eroding our values as a whole. shoot me if you want to, but i guess the main problem with malays at this time is not the issue of drugs usage or abusive families but it is the erosion of our malay(ness) identity. it is not a surprise to many, that many malays are not proud to proclaim themselves as one. they feel the values of being a malay is one that is not highly important, and sometimes i for one do feel subjected to this. it is contradictory then when we are ashamed is due to the actions of our own people. i do not know how to express this well, but we can observe that it is a vicous cycle that is slowly eeking out our identity as a race altogether. we rarely value our language and history. we feel that it is not comfortable to engage communication in malay. if this continues, then the term “bahasa menunjukkan bangsa” will forever be lost from us. it may sound inappropriate at this time, but if this situation continues, we shall see more social problems like what is happening now. as we let go of our language and heritage, we will lose our identity, our focus and would not know where we belong to. and the cycle will continue.

so, what shall we do about this? how do we put pride back into our own identity? how do we remove all the stigma, negativity and perception of our own heritage? i want my malayness back, like in the good ‘ol days of the 50s and 60s. i want to converse with my malay friends in our own proper language. i want to be comfortable and others too in this zone of malay-ness. i want to be proud of being one. i want and i want.

and hopefully, one day it will become a need.