so christmas is coming with work pilling up, there will be no rest or respite down the line in the near and distant future.
yeah strangely, this master program is more than i wished for. for one it is more work than imagined, where we have to write 3 reports, look for an internship in a crazy economic climate (failure of which means all that was done, was done in nought), read all these books then end the semester with exams. fucking hell, it would be alright if we didn’t have meetings with the agence d’urba of lyon. yeah i don’t want to get into details there, legal constraints see.
anyway, the reason why i’m writing today is to vent. i realised that for the whole of my adult relationship life, i’ve been having long distance relationships. sure it was good from the start but after awhile, you need to have someone there by your side in the physical sense.
at the moment, sure i adore the girl i’m with (long distance again) but… and this is a long but. there has to be a purpose to the things that we do! ESPECIALLY if it means a lot and may affect the course of your life. how i put it, in most relationships, being together and seeing each other every and/or other day (i’m not that needy btw) is the only way you can be sure there may be something there. take this away, you are gambling in the casino where the house always wins. what i’m saying in the above analogy is that seeing each other regularly would be like having a knowledge of counting cards. whatever.
so right, i’m sorry for being cryptic, but there is no other way to put it. all i am saying is that, if in a long distance relationship, there has to be a point in time where the couple live together – just to see if there may be something of worth there. coming back to my relationship, this possibility seems to be fading as the girl is keen on doing her internship in italy while i stay put in france, this would mean if and when i leave europe in september 2012, the relationship will be more in limbo than ever.
so yes while i’m heading to her place for 2 weeks to spend the christmas holidays, i’m inclined to write about an episode of Party Down, where it was mentioned – a relationship that works is one that goes on on slow heat. and right now, seeing each other every other month or even every 2 or 3 months means that what we have is scotland’s culinary contribution to the world – deep fried mars bars – fully supercharged where the insides bulge out in a chaotic mess. altogether yummy but at the same time unrecognisable with each bar. whatever.
so anyway, there i am again. 26 years old and i never really had your typical boy meets girl-next-door relationship where i could finish the day at the girlfriend’s or mine and just waste away time. come january after the end of the holiday period, i can already see what will happen. i would simply come back to my life in lyon and wait to see her again.
Namewee is a name known to many Malaysians be it for the wrong or right reasons. That being said, what is the real status of his highly cultivated personality, seen through the big screens to even the small one of our computer. The rise of Namewee I contend is synonymous with rising consciousness of the Malaysian people. It is not a big secret that youtube has contributed to his rise as an artist, colloquially speaking, as when he first burst into the scene, he was regarded by the mainstream media as a trouble maker, but for some, an agent provocateur, in the full essence of the word.
With the mainstream potraying him as a mischief-maker, the more savvy of us went to the internet and read up more about him. Sure he may come off as uncouth but we have to admit he has the proverbial, balls. Most malaysians being the clicktivist that we are went about silently with our lives, knowing he isn’t all that bad as potrayed in most parts, while we allowed our collective amnesia to take over when he went on a self-imposed exile to Taiwan. So why were most quarters angry with him? Is it because he tugged on certain primordial instincts of the survival of a certain race, and more so, their political beliefs and the perceived corrosion of which that will bring about their demise? By that account I truly think so.
Now, while I am not a big fan of full on capitalism, I have to say the market place did its job. Where the government failed intrinsically to finance Namewee’s film through it’s vehicle – the Malaysia National Film Development (FINAS), a private sector investor took up the initiative to fund the film. Sure in most cases, such an investment will require profit to the investor, but deep down inside, I feel that the investor knows he is putting money into a potentially sinking ship, that being the risk of the film not seeing the light of day at all. Namewee with a limited budget at hand, went to work with an overworked, underpaid crew, along with local artists of different faiths and colour, did well above their means to churn out a film.
So what does this all say? On the one hand we can say the Malaysian government failed to be an “ensuring state” which post-modern societies have come to define the new role of governments. Paradoxically, the government through various means have been trying to promote the Malay culture and language via competitions and pageantry but failed where it meant the most – to promote local initiatives – in the form of a film (this author humbly apologises to have not seen the film but the trailer) that speaks about harmony among races. Again, isn’t that paradoxical, not to mention confusing!
Art I believe is a bottom up phenomena when man became homo economicus as seen in the passage of time. During the renaissance, many artists had patrons of the arts who supported them and thus allowed art to flourish. This included not only businessmen but also princes and kings. In this context, what is the Malaysian government doing on its part? Namewee needed the funds but the government (through FINAS) did nothing about it. Fine, the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia approved the film itself, but what I question ultimately is the message to local artists. On the one hand the government is trying to stimulate creatives mind, while its actions finally say otherwise. All I can imagine is that the process will be highly bureaucratic and ultimately frustrating for projects not conforming to the government’s ideological leaning.
This brings me back to Namewee. He truly is a national hero, seen beyond the context of an artiste but as an activist. He challenges one to rethink how we perceive the government and the work that it has done in the past. In my view, not only did the government streamrolled civil society on various accounts, on the smaller scale, they have trampled on local habitants’ welfare, in this case impoverished fishermen by proceeding with the rare earth refinery in Kuantan, Malaysia. This brings me to my last question on this matter is – is economic growth the only indicator of a government’s success and its continuing stay in power? Alas, Namewee definitely opened many Malaysians’ eyes to yet another government failure.
sooo what’s new? nothing much, this week has been a succession of computer games, movies, football, reading here and there, chores, etc but what i really want to talk about is a documentary i just finished watching.
True Stories: Babes in Hollywood and to put it mildly, it’s a pretty harrowing documentary. what started out as a boring afternoon turned into a reflection of our crumbling social norms. anyway, the premise of this documentary is to chart the few families living in oakwood, los angeles, a service apartment complex for aspiring actor kids age 3-12 who wish to break into hollywood. now, these children of similar aspirations and their families chose oakwood as the accommodation of choice is due to their free actors workshops, where people from the industry (actors, producers, agents) come in to meet the kids. sounds promising no?
so from the get go, we are introduced to these kids with industry folks who advise somewhere along the lines of “follow the dream, never give up” or up to advising the child in getting new photos done, and they apparently know somebody who can do it for them. after all, you need to promote yourself, show your range. yeah decent advice from adult figures don’t you think. it is after all harmless but also good for the child – to instil a bulldog, never-give-up mentality which will do the kids good well into the future.
of all the kids who follow the dream throughout this documentary, some would stay in oakwood for the pilot season, which is a short couple of months where the most auditions would take place while some went as long as living in oakwoods for 3 years. we got to see the day to day living of these families and the mums acting as chauffeurs to their kids to yet another audition or even a meeting with an agent.
these oakwood kids are under such demanding schedule (mind you some are toddlers) and are thus homeschooled or forced to attend specially tailored schools for child actors. this is where the paradox begins. the reason being most public schools in the area feel that taking off for auditions is seen as an obstacle to a child’s intellectual progress. this being hollywood where chances are lost when not seized upon, the parents are thus inclined to maximise their child’s prospect by withdrawing them from the public system.
the parents know it is a colossal dream to pursue and they definitely deserve the accolade of best parents on earth. the amount of energy invested in building their children’s career is shown through the screen, and none of them had the expected as a little girl, i wanted so badly to be an actress so i’m giving my child the headstart. they are driven to give their child the best possible childhood a kid could possibly have. imagine that’s like a younger, kiddier you saying, “i want to be a firefighter when i grow up,” and your dad simply gives you a lighter and hose to practice. that would have been really cool if not for stupid moral codes or legal issues.
but the qualm here is, will this take one all the way to stardom? what are the parents exactly teaching their kids to think? in one memorable scene (spoiler alert), late in the pilot season, we have a lady protesting she doesn’t want her daughter to try for a part where she will have to curse. “if she doesn’t do this we’ll have to go back” says the lady after discussions with her husband, a farmer, who works to pay for rent in oakwood. so the kid went to the auditions and no… she did not get the part. but! she did get encouragements for her sassy performance! the kid surprisingly, wasn’t dejected at all.
they say it all the time in hollywood, your chance is gonna come, just hang in there. but at the same time, one can die from such encouragements. remember the child stars from yesteryears? okay, i must admit most of them are still alive despite their substance abuse, but most of these abuses take place from their loss of identity. from appearing on covers of magazines at a young age to later on being shunned by studio executives is a big change for a child actor. he just isn’t used to a wholesale change of behaviour of those that surround him. heck none of us are!
i could go on and on about the ills of capitalism (heh heh) but parents should do something to protect their child. the my child is special will not cut the mustard in such circumstance. why? basically when the child isn’t cute any longer, no studio will hire him. and can these parents gamble and say well he’s cute now so he will be cute into the future? no, they can’t and i’m proof number 1. humour me here, i was a relatively cute boy although in a plump, bratty sort of way – imagine a kid with a fat face with a cap on feasting on ice-cream – and by stereotype i could play the school bully. as i grew older, if i were to be honest with you, i’m definitely no looker at this moment in time. why would anyone hire me? i won’t appeal to the masses, i’m not a money maker! as for childlike spontaneity goes, for most i theorize, the older one gets, the more calculated one is.
ahh, child stars. you have a whole list of them, jonathan brandis, corey feldman, corey haim, macaulay culkin, drew barrymore, lindsay lohan, the kids in full house, you know the lot. if u look at everyone of them, they at some point in time had mental health issues and still are fighting to fill that void – a childhood. so again, my question remains, are parents morally right to allow these kids to follow the dream? if so, at which point do we say stop? will money come in the way as it happened with macaulay culkin, corey feldman and many others. as corey feldman puts it succinctly about growing up in this industry, “what childhood?” and the track record of child stars is sufficient enough for me to be skeptical. not only that, the list i just mentioned, two are dead.
p.s: from what i gather oakwood is a month to month rent apartment. rent per month cost $5000.
i’m currently sitting at the terrace of my girlfriend’s home typing this blogpost. my head, not having a structured idea of what to write is inclined to put everything i feel down to words. so bear with me while i explain myself.
so as most of you know that local politics be it malaysian, argentinian, croatian, american, german, etc (you get the picture), have their qualms on their local politics. these community leaders come out and preach words which may or may not represent the population as a whole, the locals go up in arm against the view and the person himself. oh this is such a disgrace, the world will now think us [insert nationality] are all but idiots.
having spoken with many nationalities in my short lifetime, all i can say is all governments are the same. the idea of governance is noble, but its custodians are human. don’t fret dear [insert nationality], stupid people are everywhere.
yes you got that right. i will be embarking in another academic year come september 2011. this time i will be doing a master in ethics and sustainable development.
to those of you who have been living in a cave, sustainable development in a nutshell is about humans and the environment. how we harness the world’s resources without thinking of the externalities. so this course will be all about thinking about the externalities and how do we minimise further damage to the environment while continuing to grow (in the economic sense). so yeah, interesting stuff. can’t wait!
i have to say before going further is that i’ve given up on going to the sorbonne. not that they accepted me or anything, but i gave my documents in and they said i need to go to the sorbonne to sort out some formalities. too lazy for that. weighing the pros and cons, the master in lyon will provide a brighter job prospect while sorbonne… well it IS the sorbonne and going there would be doing it for the sake of getting a degree from paris. not that the master from paris, ethics and politics is inferior, no sir! but in the long term, i think the case for environment will be in the forefront for most governments and politics will inevitably take the backseat.
yeah you got that right. what is the use of politics when there will be no one to govern! talk about being your own boss and servant. that’s like saying i’m the king of my own studio apartment, all that is living and inanimate shall listen to me. paf! okay i’m sorry i was oversimplify it.
so two years into living in france, i’m glad of my achievements. i can truly say for the first time in my sad life i’ve accomplished something for myself. what i set out to do, i did. first, i got that B2 i was hoping for in my first year living in saint etienne, which meant university was a possibility. second, having got in to lyon 3, jean moulin university, i graduated with a degree in philosophy. not too shabby!
okay enough of blowing my own trumpet. i need to humble down a little. i’m glad i had great parents, siblings, loved ones and friends who supported me throughout these endeavours. really i would have succumbed to many breakdowns and not think about climbing back up again if not for them. i won’t say my efforts are a testament to the unfailing human spirit (i know someone who did a marathon and claimed so), but i suppose i’m just like everyone out there trying to be different, to do something no-one would do in their wildest dream – mine was to learn philosophy or psychology and another foreign language. hence having achieved that, i must acknowledge that without loved ones in my life, this dream would not have become real.
so to all of you dreamers out there, this goes out especially to a dear friend of mine by the name of johanan devanesan. don’t forget the dream my friend. it is the only thing that we can consider ours, be it awake or asleep, it is the fire that sparks our life, making life bearable in our darkest day. you have love in your life and this will be your cushion while you reach for the stars. take it easy now jo, all will be good when action is taken towards the goal.
my dad read my blog the other day and told me this: watch what you write.
i don’t claim any revolutionary thoughts but the ideas associated with the previous entry are thoughts of levinas and past philosophers reused onto a simple blogpost. when my dad said “watch what you write” he meant that the government is watching.
but no worries, so far i’m just the tip of the iceberg. a nobody. plus, how do you police ideas? when in ISA, is it possible for a guard to tell the prisoner, “stop thinking like this you should like us.”
an evident contradiction.
at the very heart of it, a government is a sum total of its citizens and modern society is marked with plurality. the only system of government i remember having a total concentrated power in one was the absolute monarchy of france – which historically led to the french revolution.
by sending one to the ISA merely shows an inappropriate, disproportionate punishment for something one was born to do, learn and grow, a definitive human trait.
well i’m just glad locke, rousseau, or any one who had any semblance of how a society should be wasn’t born to current day malaysia. or else they might be led to the ISA.
it’s funny that malaysian politicians are always up and arms about race. one thing i will give to them is that man is inherently racist, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be morally driven to do the right thing.
what are morals? they can be divided to many categories, and amongst them is the deontological moral. this is where “you ought” and “thou shalt” come into play, for example, thou shalt not kill or you ought to watch how you drive. they are prescriptive to one’s behaviour. but okay, it is easy to KNOW morals, either by books, your parents, a religious text or even day to day experience. we perceive and we know this is the norm. but how do we practice this?
practice as we know differs from that of theory. this is where levinas comes in. he came up with “the vulnerability of others”. this means the vulnerability of others compel you to help. to make this easier to swallow, imagine a man who was pushed and fell. when this man makes eye contact with you, you are instantly engaged and you feel compelled to help him up. how does this relate to the politicians?
these politicians are in a position of power and they know whatever they say will get media coverage. they are in a position where they are the role models and they set the tone on how most people act and react – as we can see in politics, another example in the case of the US, when war was sanctioned against Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction – many americans thought they were looking for al qaeda (allegedly supported by Iran); but instead Iraq became the target.
while some left wing public figures condemned the war, most of the public were up for it. why? they had suffered an attack on home-soil and demand that justice be served. fast forward a couple of years later, no weapons of mass destruction found were found and the war just like the vietnam war (gulf of tonkin incident is now known not to have happened); both wars took a toll on the american’s perceived legitimacy of these war.
to bring them all back, what do they even mean and what has it to do with malaysian politics. in both incidents involving the US going to war, there was always a threat. vietnam war, communist; iraq war, weapons of mass destruction, terrorist. where is our morals and all the “thou shalts”? thou shalt not lie obviously has been broken.
the perceived threat in malaysian politics is the fact that race-based politics is seen as obsolete by a number of people. UMNO, MCA, MIC, all they have in common is membership exclusive to a particular race and to fight for the rights of a certain race. but now, in my humble opinion, as the country has “matured” the people want to hear things like – what is your stance on the lack of security in residential areas? how are you tackling corruption by the police (duit kopi)? how will you create jobs for the rakyat? as the saying goes only simple things matter.
but when politicians come up with statements like 1Bumi and say it isn’t racist at all. i would like to pose a question to them. how would you feel if hypothetically there is another campaign of relative support for 1White People. oh wait, it exists as we speak – the white supremacist. and they are considered racist by “western media”.
however all is relative as one would say. how can we transpose normes which are foreign in nature, to another foreign culture and civilisation which has had a different historical progression? secondly, are all our values universal? this is where levinas comes in again as mentioned above on the “vulnerability of others”. we are compelled to act on the vulnerability of the other person which in turn constrain our freedom to act as we please. this is why we humans as social creatures don’t kill as we have the other in our head. the other holds on to our consciousness like a hostage and compels us to act for it!
do these politicians who expound 1Bumi type polemic have others in mind? are their consciousness taken hostage by others and thus will constrain any inherent racism (valid for all humans) and refrain therefore from speaking hurtful words? no. they are alone and unconstrained in their thoughts. these politicians may be morally inclined, but deontological morals (thou shalt, you ought) are but impossible to make a man do the right thing.
as we can see in during a war, thou shalt not kill goes out the window with mass murder, or even the simple act of killing an opposing soldier. what is the definition of peace – when there is no state of war. and in times of peace, is only when people are “moral creatures” once again. my question to you: is there a war of ideologies happening in malaysia? if we link the rakyat (malaysians of all race and gender) to the idea of others, can we say politicians are moral figures?
with all that is happening in the world today, unemployment, uprisings, natural disasters, one can’t help but feel helpless. college graduates coming out now are finding it hard to get entry level jobs and are forced to work jobs below their imagined station. but as one would say, pride doesn’t put food on the table.
i suppose it would be hard for me to comment as i am not in their situation now. like many others like me, i am still in university hoping to ride out this global phenomenon. but know this, we are the generation which finds it harder to build a career even though quantitatively, we are the most educated the world has ever seen. what is needed is a not a determinist view of our current situation but to know that free will and then hope may carry us forward.
when lacking in prospect, keep busy. read and be inspired. but inspiration from books are thoughts of the old are just that – inspiration. who are these heroes from the iliad or odyssey and how will they help one in his day to day living. we may think it is impossible to emulate the deeds of the old however grand they were, as they are but myths and bedtime stories. this is fatal to our existence. they are our benchmark. to conform and take what fate has decided is no longer the norm – ask yourself this, if god has a plan, should we all then work as all is already decided?
when jesus was on his way to jerusalem to spread the word of god, he was asked to stop by his mother and sister who feared for his life. he outrightly denied them. why? he knew that he had a mission, a vision of his worldview of love and compassion which he sought to sow in the hearts of men. had he heeded his very own mother, would jesus be as revered as we know him today?
we are the generation which will determine what our children will be and how they see us. should we be remembered as the generation that failed on all fronts or our will we be able to recount, this was our great war? for now self-pity is not needed.
being a malaysian brings with it many pros and cons. one is that i am proud to say i come from a multicultural background which has given me the enjoyment of understanding, appreciating and synthetising different cultures into my own self. this has allowed me to be the person i am today – liberal in thought and action.
on the contrary, being a malaysian also brings another aspect of individuality to the whole picture of self. while not a direct action of mine, the government has acted in much undemocratic manner in recent times. there are too many to list (unfortunately as well many have been committed to the graveyard of suppressed memories) so i’ll just leave it as that – just go around and read the political blogs and you will understand what i am talking about.
so as a citizen of malaysia and the actions of the government being an indirect manifestation of my will, is it possible for the government to act as it has always done for such a long time. fair enough, first past the post and all that democratic process which us the citizens exercise every couple of years are one of the many but by far the most important of our rights as citizens vote in the government of the day, majority determines the current government’s mandate. the present government are there as they have the majority’s backing.
but the question of being proud to be a malaysian and patriotic to the nation comes into play. two are both sides to the same coin but different in definition. while i am proud to be a malaysia, the cultural sense; i may not be able to attest to the latter. patriotism, is such a superflous word throw around by the politicians who demand all from its people but give so little. their initiatives with all the often heard catchwords – 1 malaysia, unity, harmony – are often broken when a “rogue” MPs clamour for racial supremacy. thank you Mr. Prime Minister for acquiescing all transgressions of your party. i am sorry for not swallowing the bullshit and thus in that sense, i am guilty of being unpatriotic.
i am sure many malaysians living abroad have the same dilemma when questioned by curious locals as to “what is malaysia like”. indirectly this privilege class who represent malaysia while living abroad, an ambassador of sorts to the country’s national values, would reflect and respond optimistically “the food is great!” i am not afraid to say, being a malaysian is a tough job.
