Friday, December 18, 2009

Winter 2009 Movies

(500) Days of Summer
10 Things I Hate About You
10,000 B.C.
21 Grams
88 Minutes
A Bridge Too Far
American Pie Presents: Book of Love
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
Apocalypse Now Redux
Australia
Avatar
Bart Got a Room
Basic Instinct
Body of Lies
Charlie Bartlett
Chaos Theory
Choke
The Cider House Rules
Definitely, Maybe
Die Hard
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard 3: Die Hard With A Vengeance
The Edge of Love
The Escapist
Everything Is Illuminated
Factory Girl
Fireflies in the Garden
Flash of Genius
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Havoc
The Hunt For Red October
The House Bunny
How To Lose Friends & Alienate People
In the Valley of Elah
Inglourious Basterds
The International
In Bruges
Interview
Interview With The Vampire
Kate & Leopold
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Last Chance Harvey
Little Nicky
Lymelife
Mamma Mia!
Marley & Me
Miss Congeniality
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
My Sister's Keeper
Never Forever
The Nines
The Orphan
P2
Paranormal Activity
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Powder Blue
Public Enemies
The Princess and The Frog
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Reality Bites
Requiem For A Dream
Serendipity
Shakespeare In Love
The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants 2
Step Brothers
Sunshine Cleaning
Sex Drive
Table For Three
Taken
The Taking of Pelham 123
The Time Traveler's Wife
Training Day
The Ugly Truth
Up
Up In The Air
The Wrestler
Year One

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Hibrid, Go Fuck Yourself!

This comes on the back of reading reports that Proton, with the help of Lotus, are developing hybrid cars to serve the Malaysian market by 2011. I have no qualms with that. Malaysians are comparatively horribly sensitive to changes in fuel price, and hybrids save fuel. Simple as that. Oh, and then there's the small matter of Lotus having a hand in the project too. So you know they won't fuck it up. They helped out with the Nissan GTR, for fuck's sake.

What irks me is that because I read the report in Malay, I had to face the torment of bastard words hibrid and prototaip. On a side note, let me just say I was pleased that they used the words pangkalan and pembekal instead of making up shit like hedkuarters and suplier. But saying that, however, is like saying, "Yes it is sad I have AIDS, but at least I don't have syphilis too". That's just being condescending--or would you fuckheads at DBP or whathaveyou call it kondesending? Us Malaysians--and more importantly, us Malays--shouldn't let our standards stoop so low. Bahasa kita, bai.

Anyway, why can't we think up new words? Of course it'd be odd to sit in a room and try and make up a totally random word to represent something. But in between the time of cavemen grunting and the word-stealing culture of today, surely people must have at some point, sat down and thought, "ah this makes me happy, I'll call it a 'beewy-meewy' just because". It could be an onomatopoeia: "it buzzes, let's call it a 'buzzer'!" Anything, really. You can't just have copied everything from someone else. There had to be independently thought out languages. This isn't a Moment of Creation debate for crying out loud. It's only words, not planets and the whole freaking universe.

Back to hybrids, now. It basically means 'a combination of two or more different things'. Well I guess if haiwan dua alam couldn't make the grade--those sellout assholes preferred amfibia instead, just so they'd not sound un-English--I doubt kereta kacukan would anyway. Sure, it may sound funny because you only ever associate kacukan with orchids, selembu and people of mixed race who aren't Chindian. But so was the word hybrid funny when you mentioned it in the same breath as cars before the Prius came to town.

Then again.....Proton Saga 1.0 Kacuk doesn't sound very appealing. But still.

I am no linguist. No shit. But as I have said many times, at this rate, Bahasa Melayu will be nothing more than just English with some of its Cs spelt as K, its 'tion' spelt 'syen', and a few more which I am sure any Malaysian can tell you. Of course the languages are fundamentally different. They have reversed Hukum DM, so in Malay you'd say 'kereta biru', but in English it'd be 'blue car'. So that in itself may just ensure that BM won't degenerate/corrode/evolve into English.

But the way these idiots just simply adopt a Malay spelling for English words, I can't help but think they'll find a way around the Hukum DM too.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Are You Melayu?

1. Do you like teh tarik?
No.

2. Do you like durian?
No.

3. Would you buy a Proton?
Highly unlikely. Maybe.
Yes or no only.
No.

4. At home do you wear the kain pelekat?
No.

5. If someone suddenly slapped you, how would you melatah?
"What the fuck!"

6. a) Can you translate "gendang gendut tali kecapi" to English?
No.

b) Do you even know what thats mean in Malay?
No.

c) Do you care to find out its meaning now the topic has been brought up?
Kind of. Everyone knows the poem but nobody seems to know what it means.
Yes or no only.
No.

7. Do you balik kampung for Raya?
I don't have a... --No.

8. Do you speak more English or Malay at home?
English.

9. Are you at all pissed at the irony that these questions aren't in Malay?
Can't be arsed.

10. Do you make it a point to fly MAS?
I'm on a student's budg... --No.

11. Do you think national infrastructure like Touch 'n Go should have Malay names?
What, like Sentuh dan Berambus? Fuck, no!

12. Do you like Maggi goreng?
No.

13. Have you ever been part of an 'Enam Jahanam'-esque clique?
No.

14. Do you think the suffix 'Sdn. Bhd.' makes Malaysian companies look less fancy beside their peers with 'Pte. Ltd.' or 'Corp.'?
If every Malay company was named D'Something, yes.
Yes or no only.
No, with the exception of companies named D'Whatever.

15. a) How many Malay movies do you actually like?
Seven.

b) Discount P. Ramlee movies.
Two.

16. What about Malay TV shows?
None.

17. Do you miss nasi lemak?
Not that much.
Yes or no only.
No.

18. Have you ever wore a tengkolok?
No.

19. Have you ever wielded a real kris?
No.

20. Do you know any form of silat?
No.

21. Can you speak a different dialect of Malay?
No.

22. Do you like Milo?
No.

23. Do you agree with kapchais?
No.

24. Can you play the kompang?
No.

25. Your thoughts on rambutans?
A waste of time. Too much hassle, not much to chew.


*****

I can go on.

You see, what I have done here is depict myself as an asshole--someone who, should you be a kris-wielding Kelab UMNO Overseas member (or, God forbid, UMNO Youth), you would want to stab and then give a lecture about Ketuanan Melayu and culture and budaya and adat and much, much more. Anyway, back to the topic at hand. While many out there would easily testify as to how easy it is to make me look bad as a person, as a Malay, as a Malaysian, as a student, as a son, as a Muslim, as a Tartan--as whatever--you could ask these very questions to any average Malay out there and still obtain similar results of ignorance, a lack of respect and love for one's own kind, and that wretched 'tidak apa' attitude.

While there are many of you out there who would do so much, who would give so much for your own flesh and blood, for your own kin, for your own kind; please bear in mind that how you judge a person's ethnicity is not something that's remotely objective.

By asking the wrong questions, you yourself are the asshole for ignoring the more important things in life.