Today in class…

We were talking about a short story we had read which had been written in the form of an article of literary criticism, and was basically a very intricate piece of satire, kind of in the same vein of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” which was basically his idea “For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland
From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and
For Making Them Beneficial to The Public.”

The article reads as a very well thought out and well-supported argument, until you get to the end (spoiler alert) where his proposed solution–a very modest proposal indeed–is that the government takes this terrible surplus of children off the hands of their burdened parents, and sells them to rich people as a delicacy. Yes, to eat.

Of course, this entire article was a joke–meant to attack the current conditions perpetuated onto the poor by their landlords.

Our lecturer then asked whether any of us had examples of having read something, been taken in by it, and then had that class “Oh shit!” moment when you finally realize that what you’re reading is actually kind of ridiculous, and you’ve been…fooooooled.

One of my classmates then talked about a radio programme she had heard where a married guy was talking about writing a personal ad and this just went on until the end where the personal ad was actually the “If you like pina coladaaaaaas…” song, which was when she realized that it was just a huge joke. And I was trying hard to think about something ridiculous I’d read and then had realized that it was instead a big piece of satire or something, but all that I could think was that a lot of the ridiculous things that I read, especially in the Malaysian media, I actually wish were jokes, but really turn out to be true. I mean, come on, think about the complete ludicrousness of the things that our newspapers print–both in terms of things that actually happen, or in terms of the spin that these papers put on events. And to think that this was the reality in which we Malaysians live actually really depressed me.

So…you know what to do…it’s called an Election because we have the power to Elect…use your vote wisely.

My Brother on Al-Jazeera!

if you want to kinda know what happened with his whole detention thing, and the factors behind his arrest, as well as the general state of affairs in Malaysia in terms of politics, freedom of speech/media, racial relations… this video has a little bit (and sometimes a lot!) of everything… 17 minutes of your life isn’t much to give up for the insight into Malaysia that this video will provide.

Read this article that one of my brother’s friends/employees posted on his blog. Read it especially if you’re Malaysian.

John Lee, “My Boss, Nathaniel Tan, Martyred by the Special Branch.”

sign the online petition

here

FREE NAT NOW

This is my brother, Nathaniel Tan, who’s worked with humanitarian aid all over the world–Aceh, Sierra Leone, and East Timor, as well as with Refugee relief in Malaysia. He’s one of Malaysia’s most intelligent people (that’s what I think at least, and apparently some other people do too, if they’re willing to go to such lengths to quash his voice) and has spent his life (short though it may be) working to make this world a better place. And recently, he’s been working to make MALAYSIA a better place–peacefully, by showing the rest of Malaysia what the real deal is. He works for and is affiliated with PKR (Parti KeADILan Rakyat) but really, he is working for MALAYSIA.

And now, with this blatant and incredibly fascist show of intimidation tactics and political and judicial subterfuge by the government, we Malaysians have to fight for OUR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS, to FIGHT AGAINST A GOVERNMENT THAT HAS SHOWN THAT IT DOES NOT AND WILL NOT TAKE THE RIGHTS AND THE NEEDS OF ITS OWN PEOPLE INTO ACCOUNT.

Let your voice be HEARD. Let the government know that it is NOT OKAY to treat their citizens like this. Tell everyone you know about how ridiculous this is and that this is the corruption and severe underhandedness that is bringing our country down. Tell them that they are the only ones who can do something about this. Exercise your right as a Malaysian CITIZEN. Vote Barisan Nasional out of power. Change Malaysia.

(Also, in the meantime, please do all that you can to get my brother out of there, and please pray for him! Thanks for all the support from everyone…)

UPDATES ON NAT

hey everyone

so i’m really far away, and half the time i have no idea what’s going on, but please read my sister Cheryl’s blog for updates, and also li tsin’s blog (she’s nat’s girlfriend).

thank you for all your kind words and support, and for all of your prayers. if you’re in kl i would superly appreciate it if you could do something like go to a protest or send a letter or something (look at previous post, or check cheryl’s blog) because i’m so far away and i feel so powerless at the moment. i don’t even know what i can do. spread the word!!

URGENT!!!!! NAT’S BEEN TAKEN TO BUKIT AMAN

 

(this is from my sister’s blog)

edit: 10.11 – they have admitted that they are detaining him. at least. thank god.

edit: 9.52 – parents have gone to bukit aman, i’m sticking around to blog and stuff. according to david, tian chua and a few others have gone inside the station. he is hanging around outside

edit: 9.18 – am not going to the gathering at bukit aman under dad’s instructions. friend david lim kindly went and will update me as it goes along. uncle boy is also trying to go. if anyone has any updates or contacts, PLEASE ADD ME ON MSN at vns28@hotmail.com. my phone number is available to anyone who asks. my email address is cherylspeanut@gmail.com

edit: 8.44 – i’m updating pretty frequently, so please check back or subscribe to rss feed or something.

edit: 9.07 – THE GATHERING. if anyone knows how to get news crews, press or especially tv people there please do. my dad says we need exposure especially. PLEASE. li tsin has lodged a police report.

at around five pm today, plainclothes policemen turned up at my brother nathaniel tan’s office and detained him. they came back to the house then and took his computer from upstairs and his laptop. he’s been at bukit aman for the last few hours, but nobody can talk to him. his girlfriend, li tsin informed me and my parents at 5.04 when he was being taken. she was given the news by a colleague of his who was present. they came specifically for nat.

a lawyer from pkr was sent there as well and is now there with li tsin. however, they can’t talk to him and are being told that he can’t be found or that he isn’t there or something like that. according to a cop friend of dad’s, this is sort of standard operating procedure. my father thinks he’s been taken on a friday because courts are not in session over the weekend and he can perhaps be kept until monday.

the story’s been picked up by malaysiakini. read it here, please. you will need to login to read, so please use my account (just this once). username: cheryltan. password: cherylreads

edit, 8.35: the story is also on suara keadilan, the pkr website. the suaram mailing list currently also has an email which i’ve reproduced here.

Urgent alert: 13 July 2007

PKR staff held incommunicado and at great risk of being tortured

At about 4.45 pm (13 July 2007), a PKR information bureau staff, Nathaniel Tan, was taken for questioning by three plainclothes police officers. The policemen, believed to be from the Special Branch, were said to have requested for Tan to follow them to the Bukit Aman police headquarters for questioning and did not provide any reasons as to why Tan was asked to follow them.

The policemen also requested that Tan bring his notebook computer with him. It is believed that he is being questioned on matters relating to certain postings on the Internet.

As of 7.30 pm, the whereabouts of Tan is still unknown while the police have denied that Tan had been detained in Bukit Aman. Tan is feared to be at great risk of being tortured as he is being held incommunicado by the police.

Please contact the police headquarters in Bukit Aman by telephone (03 2262 6222) or fax (03 2273 9602) to pressure the police to reveal the whereabouts of Tan and to demand for his release immediately.

For further information, please contact Latheefa Koya (012 384 2972).

[Letterhead of your organisation]

Tan Sri Musa Hassan

Inspector-General of Police

Ibu Pejabat Polis Diraja Malaysia

Bukit Aman

50560 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03 2262 6222

Fax: 03 2273 9602

Date:

Dear Sir,

Re: PKR staff held incommunicado and at great risk of being tortured

We are writing to express our deepest concerns over the abduction of a PKR staff, Nathaniel Tan, by the police. Tan is being held incommunicado and is at great risk of being tortured.

At about 4.45 pm (13 July 2007), a PKR information bureau staff, Nathaniel Tan, was taken for questioning by three plainclothes police officers. The policemen, believed to be from the Special Branch, were said to have requested for Tan to follow them to the Bukit Aman police headquarters for questioning and did not provide any reasons as to why Tan was asked to follow them.

As of 7.30 pm (13 July 2007), the whereabouts of Tan is still unknown while the police have denied that Tan had been detained in Bukit Aman.

We urge the police to reveal the whereabouts of Tan and to demand for his release immediately.

Yours sincerely,

[name]

 

EDIT: 8.45. there’s a perhimpunan solidariti untuk pembebasan nat happening at bukit aman tonight at 9pm. story is also on keadilanrakyat.org

i don’t know if i’m going. please do.

it’s like they’re not admitting he’s there. please spread the word.

“So, Cristabel, why don’t you ever update and what in the world are you up to these days?!?”

Common question!

So, yeah. I’ve been in Sacramento, CA, for a week already, and I tell you, it’s been MADNESS!!!!! And the thing is that it’s only going to get even madder. Woah! And although usually madness drives me somewhat nuts… somehow, this time, it’s actually alright so far.

So we’ve been having Orientation this past week at SB Sac (so no students yet, just faculty and admin) and basically every day has been a 12 hr day for me. I wake up at 6.45 to be in school by around 8, then we have workshops and activities and meetings and stuff all the way until about 6. Then I either go home or go for dinner with some of the other homestay teachers before heading back to my homestay (usually around 8 or 9) (and my homestay family is really wonderful–super-nice and super-generous, I kind of love them) to do soooooo much homework it’s not even funny. Yeah! You guys think that teachers have it easy with so-called short work hours and stuff but oh man are you wrong… these peeps work so hard! Well, we are, anyway. And I definitely know that a lot of other teachers do. Like the students we’ll be teaching, we usually have about 2-2.5 hrs of homework every night… and this weekend I have three lesson plans to write hahha… sigh… and I have to call my advisees–who should be super excited about tomorrow–to make sure that they have all their stuff in order… you know I would have loved to be able to do this sort of thing when I was a kid… not sure if I would have gotten in if I’d applied (all our kids are like super-students, super-motivated and super-smart!), but the way that the super-cool college and high school students teach here is sooooo much fun. I would have loved to have scavenger hunts and like super-enthusiastic cheers while I was learning about chemistry and math and all that! Would have made life and studying a little bit more interesting…. but oh well…. maybe in the future I can bring this sort of thing to Malaysia! Break through Kuala Lumpur… haha! Who knows. If you’re interested, let me know.

So, besides teaching for 2 out of 4 periods in the morning, each of the teachers also co-teaches an enrichment class (like hip-hop, or Asian-American culture, or art, or public speaking!) in the afternoon, also teaches Bridge Time which is college preparation and life skills, and then also leads Club Time which is basically homeroom (which is pretty much when teachers like check on students’ work, and some exciting stuff like come up with skits to present at All-School meeting). Yeah! So, what I actually do is I teach two periods of 7th Grade Bio in the morning (we’re doing Evolution…how fun right!), and then the enrichment that I teach is Summerbook (which is basically like Yearbook, except for summer! Who knew..!), and then I am co-teaching BT with three other peeps, and then enrichment/club time with two other teachers. Yeah! So there you go. Lots of madness but hopefully lots of learning for both the students and myself.

O Week was really good actually..by the time Friday rolled around I already felt like I’d been in Sac for like forever, and that I actually really knew all these people (most of them anyway)…all the teachers and admin are wonderful, intelligent, inspired and inspiring people, and I love that everyone really believes in what we’re doing and takes it really seriously and to heart. Most of the activities during O Week were basically prep for the first week of classes, like how to write a lesson plan and all that… but I do feel that while I did learn quite a bit this past week, almost all of the real learning about teaching will come through experiences in the next 1.5 months. Some highlights of O Week were the Team building exercises which we did at a nearby college campus, and Diversity Training…which really forced everyone (in a good way) to open up, share their stories and experiences, and I really liked it because I really felt like I knew people a whole lot better after that. And it was also kind of emotional sometimes, and a great bonding experience. Yeah. I almost can’t imagine what the rest of the summer is going to be like… we really will have a lot to bond over after this. I can already see that I’m going to learn a lot from my fellow teachers…wow. This is going to be quite the summer.

And I leave you with a quote that I put on the outside of the envelope I put a letter to myself 1.5 months from now in:

“Sow the seeds for growth and be the change you want to see in the world.”

The second bit is from Gandhi, and this is just one of the underlying principles beneath what we’re doing this summer… I love these people because they really believe that they can change so much of the world they live in, and they’re actually out there trying to do it. I think that’s amazing.

SB is What?!?!??!?!!!! DYNAMITE!

Shopgirl

I think that I’m in love with Steve Martin’s narrative voice…this movie was based on his novella Shopgirl, and now I really want to read his stuff.
I liked the movie because…heh I don’t know. Good dialogue, slightly cliched, and totally un-cliched at the same time. The ‘bad guy’ wasn’t really a bad guy.
Not sure if it was a feel-good ending or not! Well–read the quotes below at your own peril; there are spoilers, but this movie is recommended whether or not you’re sentimental about love.
“Some nights alone he thinks of her.

And some nights alone..
..she thinks of him.

Some nights these thoughts occur at the same moment.

And Ray and Mirabelle are connected without ever knowing it.

But Mirabelle, now feeling the warmth of her first reciprocal love..
..has broken away from him.

And as Jeremy offers her more of his heart,
Mirabelle offers equal parts of herself in return.

One night, sooner than she would have liked
(which made it irresistible)..
..they make love for the second time in 14 months.

At this point Jeremy surpasses Ray Porter as a lover of Mirabelle
because what he offers her is tender
..and true.”
“As Ray Porter watched his Mirabelle walk away..
..he feels a loss.

How is it possible.. – he thinks.
..to miss a woman whom he kept at a distance..
..so that when she was gone..
..he would not miss her.

Only then did he realise how wanting part of her..
..and not all of her..
..had hurt them both..
..and how he cannot justify his actions..
..except that..
..well..
..it was life.”

On Happy Cows

So, I’m sure you’ve all read about how the gahmen has changed the official name of our national language to “Bahasa Malaysia” from “Bahasa Melayu” to show that it is indeed the language of the entire nation, and is not just the language of a particular race that has particular political superiority over other languages and other races. Ooh, how delightfully muhibbah we suddenly seem to want to appear.

I was out tonight having tea and subsequently mamak  (the whole day has been foodfoodfood, I swear, Malaysian food always makes room for more) with an olllddddd friend, and we were talking about anything and everything, and one of the things we discussed was well, as usual, our beloved Malaysia and well… the us in it. (hehe I was also telling a friend on facebook that home was as rainy and humid as usual, and that I had just returned to a home smelling of durians… I really felt like Malaysia was welcoming me home with its sweaty, stinky arms. Hehe. Gotta love ‘em!). Well anyway… one of the little news snippets that emerged was the one above… and she said that her first reaction was, “Wait, hasn’t it ALWAYS been Bahasa Malaysia???? That’s what I remember learning in school!” to which, of course, the answer has to be No, because if it had always been B. Malaysia, then they wouldn’t have to come out and say that it is now, right? So that means that until several days ago, no matter what we called our national language in school, officially, our national language was B. Melayu.

Actually, I don’t have that much of a problem with the fact that our national language may have been referred to as Malay instead of Malaysian. It’s just one of those facts of life that stem from an unhealthy tradition and doesn’t really have any sort of lasting effect on the everyday lives of really anyone. What we felt was a problem, though, is how this entire issue (among others) has been basically made into an angle from which the government can build its gigantic propaganda machine. So it’s like suddenly us innocent Malaysians just looking for racial unity are supposed to believe that these keris-wielders in government really are on the side of all Malaysians, regardless of race and keturunan, just because they’re finally officially allowing us to call our language Malaysian instead of Malay, when it really should have been Bahasa Malaysia from 1957.

It’s like they conveniently pulled this little trick out of their hat to show that they actually care about national unity and integration, when really it’s a ploy (a ploy i tell you!!) to pander to the non-Malay vote (clearly, elections coming up guys! Really easy to register–visit your friendly neighbourhood Post Office, where you will receive Service with a Smile. if you’re lucky!). So don’t let yourself be fooled by their little allowances, and by things that may seem like big deals but actually have very little bearing on the social and political reality of life in Malaysia. Don’t forget the millions wasted on useless projects like the Malaysian Eye (ooooohhh so we’re almost as cool as London even though our Eye is tiny and just looks like a lame knockoff) and that whole new palace they were thinking of constructing because one of the halls in the current palace wasn’t big or grand enough for their jamuan or whatever. Don’t let them keep feeding us all of this bullshit that makes us think that they’re doing a good job and that they don’t need to buck up. As my brother Nat is rather prone to saying–the two largest barriers to change in Malaysia is apathy and cynicism. I’d like to add another one–complacency. The main reason why there hasn’t been real riots or revolutions (or almost any really successful opposition party) in Malaysia is because the government has been brilliant in keeping so many Malaysians *just* happy enough to not want to complain. We’re mostly content because we’re allowed to carry out our businesses in a relatively undisturbed fashion… there are bribes we may have to pay but they’re pocketchange in return for our erm, returns. We’re well-fed, and so we’re happy… and hey! the status quo seems to work for me, let’s vote their evil empire  in yet again. Once in a while they’ll throw us happy malaysian cows a bone like a truly national language. And then we go Huzzah! Sheep-dom, here we come!

So… get rid of your complacency, don’t be fooled by their little tricksies. Let them know a “Bahasa Malaysia” isn’t enough–we want a Malaysia for Malaysians, and a truly Malaysian government for Malaysians!