Malaysia UNtruly Asia

This isn't a new subject I'm soon ranting about, but those sneaky neighbours are getting completely out of hand.
A couple of weeks past I've learned that they have, yet again, snatched and claimed one of Indonesia's priceless heritage as theirs. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about the "Rasa Sayangeeee" Song.

That song, is of the Island of Moluccas origin. One of the most easiest ways to distinguish a Moluccan, is by the way they say 'eeee' at the end of every sentence. That is not, I believe, a trait of Melayu people, whose distinguishable sound is : 'pe-laaah', 'aaah', and the scrunched up 'can' . (How I wish I could emulate them to give you a vivid picture. Sadly, but thank God for it, theirs is one of the few accents I haven't been able to imitate.)

The reason why we Indonesians are so pissed, is because this last is the most recent of their never ending attempts to steal other people's culture. Let's not forget the lost Sipadan and Ligitan Islands, whose geographical lines have always existed inside Indonesia's territory, but due to Indonesia's people own stupidity of not looking after what is theirs, it's bloody well gone now. And OK, for this one I can admit the fault is somewhat ours, albeit reluctantly.

But what about the rest of their inhumane and degrading treatment to us?
How, most recently a Karate expert from Indonesia was randomly attacked by a group of Malaysian officers without even given a clear reason why he was attacked, and when he only reasonably tried to fight back, he got pounded even worse.
How, the Indonesian workers who clean their homes and make their houses are rarely paid well, are often treated with hot-tempered hands, subjected to vicious cruelty nothing short of having boiling water thrown carefree at you, discrimination and undeserved scorn.

How, they refuse to call us by our proper name: 'Indonesia' and insultingly say 'Indon'.
How, when I went there a couple of months ago, at the airport I was stopped and got badgered by arrogant dicks who looked their noses down on me only because I happen to wear a headscarf and look like I might be Indonesian.
How, they claim our Batik and Dayak patterns when for God's sake, those two go hand-in-hand with the area it comes from, that when people go to Jawa, they see Batik. When people go to Kalimantan (Borneo), they see Dayak people, Dayak patterns, Dayak shields. But just because you happen to own a part, an insignificant part at that, of our island, you dare to claim what is rightfully ours. And you bloody well know it.
How, they think we're stupid and look at us like we're the dirt who had the nerve to lay grace upon their spic and span bedpan. And because of it, think they exist, live and breathe on a higher level than us and that every Indonesian who go there must be a servant. No, we can't be smart people. No, we can't be intellectuals. Surely, surely we can only be dicks.
And to think they were actually educated by Indonesians before.

So people, those are some of the reasons why Malaysia, is UNtruly Asia. Because all they can do, honestly, is claim bits and pieces of everybody else's culture.

Of course, I realize that I may be generalizing here and stretching the application of this particular entry a bit far, so let this be a disclaimer: this entry applies and applies only to those who act like what has been mentioned in this entry from start to finish. Anybody else who feel it's untrue, well, then it doesn't apply to you.

Another post from John which seriously cracked me up

John's blog on myspace

June 21, 2007 - Thursday

Slut Payday Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities Paris Hilton is going to be paid a million dollars for her first interview after jail. In other words, Paris Hilton is going to be paid more money than most human beings will earn in their lifetimes, as payment for being sent to jail. A commodity is a strange thing, and to understand what you're looking at when you look at or hold a commodity in your hand requires a specialized critique into the nature of market economies. A commodity is more than the sum of it's parts. Let's look at a wallet as an example. The wallet is made of black leather. There's also some plastic in it to hold pictures, maybe some thread to stitch it together, and maybe a small metallic money clip. A square foot of leather, a square foot of clear plastic, and a gram and a half of aluminum, as raw materials, might cost you a dollar. When you go to the store to buy a wallet, you end up paying say fifteen dollars for it. The fourteen dollars between the cost of the raw materials and the price you, as the consumer, end up paying for the wallet are where a commodity takes on some very peculiar qualities. There was labor that was necessary to tan the leather, to assemble the wallet, to market the wallet, to put in on the shelf at the store. There is more labor necessary to stock the shelves, to store it in a warehouse before it is purchased, to ring it up at the register, etc. Then there is an amount of profit that the individuals with the vested capital need to render the wallet in order to ensure their continued existence. The raw material that goes into the wallet can be marked up, but only so far. The labor necessary to put the end commodity in your back pocket can be marked up far more so, hence you end up paying fifteen dollars for a one dollar wallet. Paris Hilton is a human being who is a raw material that can be added to a commodity in order to increase it's price. She does not work to add that value, her existence is the labor, so she's not labor, she's raw material. For example, you can add Paris Hilton to a television show or a magazine article, and the show or article or whatever the case may be becomes more economically viable, by the amount of money that was given to Paris as compensation for showing up at a nightclub, or lending her image to a perfume or an album, but also by the markup that's placed on the act of compensating Paris. Further complicating the peculiarities of the life of Paris Hilton, she became a raw material in the first place by being named after a commodity, by being pretty, and by seeming to have not a care in the world that runs deeper than the surface of it. In other words, she's a raw material that acts as a reminder of a complicated sequence of social relationships that inspire a weird mixture of awe, envy, and depression. In other words, she is the perfect image of what it means to be an American today. People ask me why I hate her so much. The answer is that I don't. It's not her fault. She's a dumb slut. What I hate is a society that makes Paris Hilton possible.

Fashion is Stupid - by John

John is one of my favourite bloggers in myspace. The guy has amazing insight on so many issues, and recently he wrote on something that has been a bug to me since I can ever remember: Fashion. Here's what he had to say about it, and I agree!

October 10, 2007 - Wednesday

Fashion is Stupid Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping Last night, I was watching America's Next Top Model with Jen, and I was distracted from really getting into it because I was trying to think my way to the heart of what it is that bothered me about the show. Every time I watch the show, which is pretty often, since my wife loves it, I get this uneasy feeling that's pretty close to anger. Obviously, fashion is another word for mindless conformity, but that much is obvious on the surface level. What I've realized is that I don't think the fashion world should even exist. These are women who look nothing like any woman you're ever going to encounter in everyday life, though granted, beautifully so. They are wearing clothes no normal human being would ever wear. In fact I've done some math. There might be 100,000 people in the world who have enough money to wear clothing like the clothes these women model. If half of those people are women, we're down to 50,000. Let's use a nice round number and say there are three hundred million people living in America, where the show airs. That comes out to one person out of every six thousand that can even afford to spend $15,000 on a dress, whether or not they'd be inclined to. And that's in the wealthiest country in the world. Then you have to wonder, out of that select group, how many of them are the right height and weight for these outfits? If one out of five of them are, and that's generous, we're now talking about one person out of every thirty thousand. So high fashion is clothing for 1 out of 30,000. That kind of shoots down the idea that these people are trying to sell clothing. Target and Wal Mart make ten thousand times more money from clothing sales than Versace does. So what the hell are they selling? Or maybe a better question is, what the hell are they doing? What IS the fashion world all about? I think it's about commodifying an unattainable image that's attractive to people specifically because it's not attainable. It's an escape from the drudgery of being normal and living a normal life. I think most women flip through these silly magazines for the same reason people buy lottery tickets. It's an excuse to have a fantasy. So now I know why the show makes me angry. It's because it's a show that glorifies a brutal and worthless industry. An industry that puts children in third world countries to work and makes its money by convincing normal people that they're too poor, too short, and too fat. It's an impressive con, I'll give them that.

"porn novel fan"

I read historical romance novels.

That may or may not come to surprise you, an answer which I don’t doubt would entirely depend on how long you have come to know me. I daresay if you haven’t known me well, you’d have no idea. This is because I don’t look the type who reads ‘those books’. Or so I’ve been told. I must admit it’s not exactly something I relish in sharing aloud, knowing what people expect and think me to be.

I’m a “porn-novel fan” said one. This is a common comment uttered by some people upon learning that *gasp* I read what is considered 'sinful', in my culture at least. Supposedly. A comment that never fails to have me cringing and wincing in pain upon hearing. Because it's simply not true.
As a matter of fact, I think it's actually insulting to the writer. Not that they're listening but I am a fan, and as you well know, fans are usually nutters.

Truthfully, the book isn’t about porn at all. Yes, in one scene or two or perhaps three, depending on the writer writing the book, you do occasionally come across those scenes. It’s inevitable. In fact, I’d be downright lying if I said a romance novel, any romance novel, would be good without at least one sex scene. Or as the term is generally preferred in those novels: ‘making love’. I mean, come on. You have a hunk and the ubiquitous babe, they fall in love, but they resist the love until before the very end, in the middle of which they or she, as it is usually, gets broken-hearted, and they fight, and get stormy and things become too heated and whaddaya know, they're doing it right there on that page. You have two, I have two. It's not that difficult to put together, doh.

So I hope you’d understand why I disagree with anybody who says I’m reading ‘porn’ because it’s something on another universe altogether, never mind genre. I prefer calling it like it is: historical romance. Having read that many books on that particular field, I think I have enough credit stored in me for you to count my words and myself for that matter, trustworthy. I’ve read porn. ‘Erotica’, as is the more vulgar and sensual term for it. And boy, it is not the same with historical romance.

Why am I such an avid reader of historical romance, you may ask.

A number of reasons.

But the numero uno reason in my list, is because it makes me happy and gives me hope. Because those novels, as unreal and idealistic in sense and every way imaginable as they are, are what forms the very basic of my soul. It’s where I run to when I’m sad, it’s the one place I know I will find refuge, it’s my so-called ‘haven’. Albeit a temporary one, much to my ever present dismay at finding myself yet again at an end of another wonderful, wonderful book.

I guess a lot of people would call me gullible. Foolish. Idiotic. Unbelievable. Unreasonable. Irrational. Incredibly unreasonably unrealistic.

But that’s me.

I grew up, reading fairy tales and playing Barbie. Watching Care Bears and Disney’s Little Mermaid. Reading quirky Japanese manga. And to my joy in my middle salad days, historical romance.

So I’ve come to want that in my life. I want what I read in those books to happen to me. Without bloodshed, preferably, but otherwise I want it all. Because it’s all good.

Don’t think that I haven’t told myself off enough for living in puffy clouds and having cotton candy dreams, I’ve been there, done that. But I simply wouldn’t give it up. I just can’t. My fervent belief in the one Almighty, instead of downtrodding the idea as most people would believe ought to happen, only instills more hope in me. The more people shake me the stronger my hold on it. The more people try to force me to have relationships the more adamant I become in resisting unless I know that the chemistry is there. The more I try to not kid myself, the thirstier I become for it.

Obviously the world wide web is not a place where one can easily dispatch and lay bare all that is making one’s head pound like the ever swinging pendulum once touched. So I can’t, much as I’d like to, open one and everything here. But I can give illustrations, however vague they might later appear to be.

A couple of months ago, I managed to achieve an amazing achievement, one that I never dreamed of, but weirdly enough, did come true. As a result of that achievement, I became quite well-known, at least to law students in Indonesia.

It is truly striking to have people look up to you and think of you as someone ‘cool’ or ‘outstanding’. I still feel awkward about it. When others in campus pass me by and glance at me in a particular way, I’d feel weird. Because to me, what they see or what they think they see, isn’t me.

I’m not a genius. And God knows I’m not super or maddeningly smart. Often I’d feel strongly insignificant and low around people, because I honestly never know how to place myself.

What I do know of myself however, is that when I want to achieve something, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do, so long as it’s within my power to do and it doesn’t involve me in anything illegitimate or wrongful. I’m a perfectionist, and because of it I can’t rest until I know I’ve done it right.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I face an awful lot of challenges and obstacles. Whenever one falls down, hundreds more sprout at me. It’s never-ending. Then there’s the many complicated situation in my life which is not perfect, even if some people might think it is. One such situation, I had recently confided in one of my best friends, and she was astounded at the weight of it, that she was quiet for a good number of minutes.

I’m not trying to put more emphasis or ‘dressing’ on this, I’m telling it like it is.

And it’s exactly all of this, that drives me into that one passion I have that seemingly is never satisfied no matter how many of them I try to put my hands on: historical romance novels.

Is it wrong? Perhaps, possibly, probably.

But I know it won’t stop.