just voicing out opinions.

2 issues.

issue #1:
is the government or the education board/minister or whatever body in charge serious in considering to change both Math and Science back to Bahasa Malaysia?

well, this actually only occured to me when i saw a protest on this matter on the internet recently. there was one theatre activist that appeared on the video, berucap akan hujahnya.

his first point : "macam mana hendak memartabatkan bangsa melayu? - kerana kedaulatan bangsa adalah bahasa, selain daripada budaya."
~ pertama sekali, apa yang ada berkaitan dangan satu-satu bangsa dengan bahasa yang digunakan sebagai medium yang digunakan di sekolah untuk pembelajaran dan pelajaran? tidak, tiada ada apa-apa yang berkaitan, pada pandangan saya. jikalau satu-satu bangsa tidak berdaulat atau apa-apapun, isu ini tidak boleh berkait dengan soal bahasa yang digunakan di sekolah. isu itu patut dikait dengan kekuatan pengaruh satu-satu bangsa itu.

his second point : "tidak wujud sebenarnya bangsa Malaysia. nonsense ini. hanya wujud bangsa cina, bangsa india dan bangsa melayu.."
~ ONE WORD : RACISM????

his third point : " zaman batu 1345 (kalau tak silap dia) dia datang sini sudah wujud bangsa melayu, jauh sebelum itu sudah wujud bangsa melayu dengan budaya melayu dengan bahasa melayu, tiba-tiba nak tukar kepada bahasa lain,...selama ini kalau kita ada pakar apa, pakar bedah ke pakar apa, apa asasnya, asasnya bahasa melayu.."
~ zaman batu sudah...dunia ini kian bertukar, kian bermoden, tidakkan kita hendak berundur hingga ke zaman batu yang manusia masih bertelanjng? mak shaduh... memang, asasnya bahasa melayu, yang bukan asasnya apa? oleh itu, kalau diajar bahasa inggeris di peringkat awal lagi, tidaklah payah kalau mencapai tahap yang tidak lagi asas.

his fourth point : "apa musibat bahasa melayu hinggakan orang melayu sendiri tidak mendaulatkan bahasa melayu?"
~ adakah selepas dasar mengajar Math dan Science dalam bahasa inggeris dilaksanakan, penggunaan bahasa melayu antara orang melayu dan antara masyarakat Malaysia berkurang dengan sebegitu kritikal hinggakan kedaulatan bahasa melayu telah hilang?

well, 2003, its been seven years since teaching Maths and Science in English has been enforced, and i think that it should stay that way. i maybe naive but then, it does seem like English is the worlds' language as of right now, no? yes, Bahasa Malaysia is indeed our national language, and that heritage should never never be forgotten, sure enough. but this should not be an issue concerning that. this is more inclined on the issue concerning the future developement of our country. and progressive deveploement of a country depends on the younger generations, and therefore, therefore. go figure.

besides, we do have a fair share of subjects that are taught in Bahasa Malaysia, like moral, history, geography and all others that are not Science and Maths.

kesimpulannya, isu mengajar matematik dan sains dalam bahasa Inggeris tidak harus dikaitkan dengan kedaulatan bangsa negara Malaysia.

i hope they do not jeopardize the 7 years of effort being put out by teachers and students and just end it all.

issue #2:
tahukah anda bahawa industri muzik Malaysia dan Indonesia berkontroversi. kini Malaysia hanya membenarkan 10% muzik Indonesia untuk dimainkan di radio-radio Malaysia dan 90% mestilah tempatan.

i am a listener of malay music. be it Malaysian, or Indonesian, as long as its good music, i am up to it.

so again, yes i saw this program that was held last year on this controversy and Malaysian artists had claimed that;
1. mereka tidak diberi ruang untuk membaikkan kualiti muzik mereka kerana industri muzik Malaysia dominen dengan muzik-muzik Indonesia.
2. kalau artist Malaysia diundang untuk membuat konsert, dibayar tiga ribu, kalau sebut saja artist Indonesia, terus bayar tiga puluh ribu.
3. radio-radio kian saja memain muzik Indonesia.

so what they wanted was for them to have chance to be able to show what they are capable of and their potential as musicians. therefore, came this 90:10 thing. which i find very ridiculous. the only listeners of Malaysian music and Indonesian music are Malaysians and Indonesians. don't think there is any other country that understands the language, so why must it be Indonesia, Indonesia yang punya, Malaysia, Malaysia yang punya. because, if you are good and have the potential, then given space or time or chance, you will be noticed. its only because you know you are not that good that you fear for competition.

music is very much like sports. it kinda brings people together. but in this case, its just between Indonesia and us, us and Indonesians and not the whole world. music is free, music is no politics.

because after all, do you think that the 90:10 will stop fans from indulging in Indonesian music and build a stronger fan base in the Malaysian music? guess its a no.

kebedebahdan...

oh my god, jane is back.

anyway, laptop recovered all well in the hospital and is back to provide it's services. while i had no internet to spend my time on, i spend it on the tevee, many many many hours of tevee. really. i spend so many hours on the tevee, nothing but a bummer with a big ass, seriously, i do spent like 8 hours straight on the tevee, just watching nothing and rewatching nothing. i don't know why but i am capable of doing so.

anyhows...last Monday,i waited all day long, in excitement for Prison Break and dang it, there was baseball game on, thus Prison Break was not aired. i was very bumped. switching from one channel to another to another..then i decided to only switch between discovery channel, disney channel (never too old), VH1 and the history channel. back and forth back and forth. on one incident, it happened that all of the four channels were on commercial break, so i swtiched to travel channel, and the voice on tevee was saying, 'so here i am on the last day, in ... ' in that split second, i thought to myself, say Malaysia.. though i was highly doubtful that the voice will say Malaysia, but it did! Anthony Bordain, the host, was in Malaysia. but unfortunately, it was already his last day, so i only watched the last 3 minutes of it. but it was no familiar sight for me, it had rumah panjang, tribal people and lotsa greens, so i figured, it must be either Sabah or Sarawak. but it feels good to know that a travel channel program did made it to Malaysia. =)

being here, in a country so big, so ignorant to the outside world, regular common everyday people, generally, i assume, do not know much other than what is happening in their own town/city. and with that, obviously they do not know where Malaysia is. being that Malaysia is a small country. i have spoken to many people in the course of the time that i am here. people would ask me where am i from, and when i say Malaysia, you can see in their eyes that they have no clue. there are some very interesting conversations that i had with these kinda people.

conversation #1 :

the people 1 : so where are you from?
me : i am from Malaysia.
the people 1 : oh, wow. how is Malaysia like? what kinda language do they speak there?
me : well, Malaysia is a coutry very rich in culture. majority of the people there are malays and the rest are chinese and indians. i am a Malaysian chinese, therefore i speak chinese, i do not speak mandarin but i speak another dialek called hokkien, i also speak malay and of course english.
the people 1 : oh, wow. hokkien, my mum speaks that.
me : oh. do you?
the people 1 : no, i don't. my mum is from vietnam and they speak something similar to hokkien i think.
me : oh, so you are from vietnam?
the people 1 : no. i am from here. so...do they have fast food in Malaysia?
me : ya, sure we do. we have McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, ...
the people 1 : oh, wow. you do? how about Popeye's?
the people 2 : no. Popeye's is not that famous.
the people 3 : so, do they have computers in Malaysia?
me : yes, of course we do! its an advance country. we have mobile phones and all the technologies in Malaysia.
the people 1 & 3 : oh. (with suprised faces)
me : you should go to Malaysia. its a nice place.

its all i can say to end the conversation. it was utterly unbelieveable. i mean come on! how would they thought i came all the way here from Malaysia if there was no computer. swam the seven seas to get here?

conversation #2 :

the people : so where are you from?
me : i am from Malaysia.
the people : oh. cause our english is really good.
me : thanks. we do learn english in Malaysia...
the people : oh. really? cause they don't teach us anything here.
me : you don't know where is Malaysia huh.
the people : i know... (long pause)
me : serious?
the people : ya, its near Laos right?
me : errrrryaaa... you can say that. kinda.

Laos is a really really rare. i mean you will get, its near Singapore or Thailand, but Laos? i am not sure where Laos is myself. but i think it borders with Vietnam and Thailand. but well, sure its close enough. but if compared to conversation #1, its heaven and hell.

thats the only two i can remember out of some more. but its just adakah-patut-kebedebahdan, you know.

but i am still very proud of where i come from. there is never once that i would wish that i am not anak Malaysia. speaking about this, has youl heard the Malaysia unity song? check it out.

simple satistics on malaysia.

some may say that that Anwar is another power craving politician waiting in line to be the next government so that he gets his turn to rob the country and the citizens. making it now as if its one criminal blaming another criminal of his crimes. but right now, no one knows for sure that if Anwar is true to his words, and will he carry out all that he has said that we will do if we make him the prime minister. no one knows. but one thing we do know, is the current government is certainly a criminal to all the citizens' suffering, major or minor. since no one knows, question, what happens if after Anwar is at his top, he becomes like one of the animals? well, what do we gotta lose? if we make him the leader, there is a 50 -50 chance that he may turn out bad, and he may not. if he does not, we have a whole lot to benefit from. a whole lot of suffering taken back. but if he does, its real unfortunate but we do not lose anything because all that we can lose, we had already lost them to the current government. right?

oh tanah airku.

what is actually happening to Malaysia?

i know but i don't think i know quite enough to know yet will i ever know enough? even when i am back home i rarely read the newspaper, catch up with the current events or what not but this 'Malaysian issue', which i don't even know what the core is, is already catching up with me here. and i become so interested in knowing more but hell i can't. so i find answers in this website called malaysiakini.com, news and views that matters, there are so much issues there, political issues. ok, so i guess all this havoc and mayhem in the politics in Malaysia is causing all the mess in Malaysia, what the hell, i don't even know. is this issue common? all this political battle has been there all along that i was too ignorant to even notice or did it only start after the 12th general election?

all i know lately was that the price of fuel went up and thus causing prices of food and many everyday essentials to increase too and consequently cost of living increases but yet income remains stagnant. anyway, from malaysiakini.com, there are so many interesting issues, spreading awareness in the general public in how Malaysia is turning into under the current government, so many columns, articles, so many letters, videos...(btw i love to watch anwar talk.) as shallow as i am right now, i know Malaysia is not in good hands, so is there a tiny possibility that the government will change?

all this is so confusing. maybe i am just not fit to understand all this. but hey, i love Malaysia. its not Malaysia's fault that its so fucked up. well, i just hope that Malaysia will somehow be able to turn around and be better. Malaysia is such a beautiful little country that it would be so bitter if one day the country goes down the slump. i truly hope Malaysia will not fall any deeper.

because to me there is no other place to call home once you've experienced and live the Malaysian life. i may not have seen the world yet, but i am sure of that.

do visit malaysiakini.com, people.