The Big Durian

<The BIG Durian>

The Big Durian is a Malaysian Documentary that created during year of 2003 which film by Amir Muhammad. The different of this documentary compare to other documentaries in Malaysia is they discussed about the sensitives issues that happened in the past of the history of Malaysia, such as Ops Lalang 1987.

Before they talked about the issue Ops Lalang, the documentary started with the issue of Private Adam Jaafar. This was a shocking news during that time when an army private named Adam Jaafar had run amok in KL's Jalan Chow Kit with his M-16 rifle that he took from the army base. This incident took place on 18 October 1987 which was a dark day for all the Malaysian. After his rampage in Chow Kit, he moved to Wisma Sabaruddin and this the placed he was surrounded by the military and police. However, there is no further investigation or any news report to the public when Adam was caught on 19 October 1987. As the public wants to know the reason behind of him to conduct this terror action in Chow Kit. But this issue ended up with a question mark in all of the Malaysian's head. Here's the things, after the issue seem to be settled without a great explanation by person in charge, a different kinds of rumors started to spread throughout the thought of Malaysian to create a hypothesis on the reason for Adam's terror action. What I called it as rumors is because the polices or governments do not want to clarify the truth yet some of the rumors was strongly agree by Malaysian as the reason behind the zero action from the polices and government on the explanation of this Adam incident. One of the rumors that is well believed by the Malaysian until todays is about the dead of Adam Jaafar's brother. As Adam was an army during that time, he heard that his brother was dead due to a Sultan's action. His brother is a caddy man which is a golf assistant to help Sultan in carry and give the golf stick. One day, when the Sultan missed the hole, this Adam's brother made a joke on Sultan that Sultan miss the hole even in a short distance. Sultan was angry and hit him with his golf stick. Adam's brother dead at the scene after got hit by a golf stick. As the Sultan Malaysia have their own unique power which they can't charge by the law in Malaysia. Adam knew that he can't do anything to help revenge on his brother, so the rumors explained that the reason he conducted this terror in Chow Kit to pull everyone attention on him and revenge on his reconciled.

From the aspects of rumors to chow kit incidents, there is a very high possibility that the rumor is true. As there is many incidents happened in Malaysia which the government or polices wanted to cover it up to protect some particular people which is from upper level of society. Therefore, this issue may has a very chances showing that they don't want to create public discontent to the issue that sultan killed someone since they never going to charge sultan any law action. This might be the reason why the polices or government do not report any further investigation on the case.

After 9 days of Chow Kit incident happened, the government had launched out an Ops Lalang (Operation Lalang) on October 27 and arresting 106 people under the distension of Internal Security Act (ISA) and most of them are from opposition leaders and Chinese education activists. This is a black day of human rights in Malaysia and also the dead of democracy in our country. Then what is it for to call Malaysia a democratic country when we have no freedom in human rights, press freedom or independent judiciary? I believe that this is the reason why Malaysia is hardly improve and developing to become a most successful country in SEA compare to Singapore which has nothing and become something in the SEA.

Throughout the documentary of "The Big Durian", I believe that this is a scripted documentary which everything is planned and prepared during the pre-production while some actor is real or some actor is prepared. As some of the actor has shows some flaw during their acting as a interviewer of this documentary but this doesn't matter. The one of the aspects that I'm interested is why they planned before the documentary instead of recording in live without scripted. There is few reason to this aspect. Firstly, maybe the director wanted to maintain the presentation quality of the documentary. Secondly, the director worried that Malaysian are scared to present themselves on the screen to talk about something sensitives issues happened in Malaysia. This is because we Malaysian know that Malaysia is a democratic country without democracy.

Field Trip to Gallery Petronas

Date: 20-01-2016

Time: 10:00am - 03:30pm

We have visited KLCC Gallery Petronas with the tittle of #tanahairku which translate as "my mother land" in English. Gallery Petronas is a non-profit visual arts gallery primary dedicated to documenting and promoting works created by Malaysian artists such as Yasmid Ahmad, Quek Shio Chuan, etc. The current exhibition with the theme of TanahairKu is to bring out the story of how Malaysian build the nation together with different culture, language and most importantly how we live happily, peaceful together as Malaysian through their Petronas TV commercials, web films, print ads and street arts.

There is few section of the exhibition in related to different meaning and theme. I am going to discuss a few section that i impress the most. The theme Proud to be Malaysian as the first section of the exhibition. "Sometimes we forget how it all started...", I am totally agree with this. As a Malaysian, do we really appreciate what we have today in our country? Do we really understand how we able to get through so far until today with peace and harmonic? Most of us don't. No matter what have happen to our politic or economy in our country, as a Malaysian, we have the right to protect our people and we should appreciate what we have today. As what we have today is what people sacrificed in the past, we have to be grateful on everything and everyone that help in building the Malaysia today.

"Sometimes we forget how it all started..."

Following by the section 2 with theme of Our Diversity Makes Us Beautiful is to tell the world that we Malaysian will always have faith in our similarities even though we have our own different beliefs. "I want to pray for his safe return...", Prayer 2001, this a story which a boy praying for his daddy's safe return as his father is a fisherman and his daddy is out there in the south-east china sea in monsoon season. Besides, the one things that reflect the grateful moment is the boy praying for other unfortunate children around the world when he watched the TV program about the people suffering from diseases, war and nature disaster. We have to learn from the boy that different belief or races doesn't makes us become a different human. Even a boy knows better than a man.

All of the sections of the exhibition have its own meaning and purpose, I do enjoy to visit most of the section such as section one and two. But I found more interest and common feeling on the theme "What's life without love?" in section 3. In my opinions and experiences, I believe that love is the key to achieve peacefulness, love is the key to achieve unity, love is the key to bring the people all together. What is the meaning of life if we live in a world without love? In the exhibition, I learned that love is what brings us together after those sacrifices, resilience, perseverance and determination. The video commercial Man Gyver 2008 is the video that shows how me the gratefulness of love in a family. This is a story about a father's enduring love and sacrifice himself in order to send his son to university. Aiman, is the boy in the story character who is the son. He is a talented kid. He always ask for his daddy to buy something for him when he saw something that he want. Although he get rejected, he will find his way to build his own prototype of the item that he want. 8 years later, he becomes the famous Man Gyver in his kampung. One day, he received the invitation letter from the university for further study. Once again he go and ask his father about this to get the permission from his father. Then the moment his father took his saving book that his father has prepared for him, Aiman saw his name in the saving book with huge amount of money. That money is enough to fulfill his father dream. Yet, his father willing to sacrifice his dream to buy a super-bike in order to prepare for his son's future. This scene shows the sacrifice of a father for a son because of the power of love in between the family. In my opinion, love doesn't only happen between family, couple relationship or wife and husband, it can also happen in between friends, people around us. Sometimes, we just don't have to be shy to show our love to the others, because we are born to do spread love not hate, so don't let the society change what you are, be the one who change the society. As a simple act of love and kindness can lead a step forward to the world with peace. Therefore, I enjoy and love the way how Petronas use TV commercial to promote their brand yet it can still promote the Malaysian culture in the society.

Man Gyver (2008)

Next, A lifetime of Friendships is the theme for the section 4 in the exhibition. As a friendship, we know that friends are the one who share a connection with you to been through all the difficulties, hardship, sadness or happiness. In this section, Petronas has referenced a historical event in Malaysia that happened in 13 May, 1969 to convey the message of the friendship between different races of Malaysian. As you all know, 13 May 1969 is the Sino-Malay sectarian violence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia due to the racial issues between Malay and Chinese. When the first time I heard that Petronas has chosen this topic as their TV commercial in 1997, I am shock and wondering, why they want to choose this sensitive issues that most of the Malaysian don't even want to talk about it anymore yet it is a bad memories for all of the Malaysians. But they do change my perception toward the outcome of the video after i watched it. Lee Yen's Best Friend (1997), it is a story that happened during the state of emergency, due to the racial issues Chinese people was murdered by Malay people around Kuala Lumpur area. Lee Yen, the girl in the video is too young to know what was happened at the moment. She saw her mother received a call and told them to take refuge in Sabah as quick as possible. Her panic-stricken mother packed their package quickly and they were about to leave their house. Their Malay neighbors saw what happened and they came out to appease Lee Yen and her mother. The Malay neighbors told them they would be safe in their house. Throughout the whole story, the emotion flow is very worrying as we all know the feeling during the moment of 13 May 1969, but in the end, the aid from the Malays neighbors gave a sources of warmth feeling to the Lee Yen's family during that incidents. It gives a senses satisfaction to the Malaysian audiences who watched this as we Malaysian are agree and wanted this scene to be happened in Malaysia all the time, which all races helping each other. This is what makes Malaysian proud to be a Malaysian. I agree and love the way how Petronas successfully creating a commercial to draw attention to this dark period of our nation's history yet it still can change the perception of Malaysian toward the incidents as we know we will stand out together again if anything happens between the Malaysian.

Lee Yen's Best Friend (1997)

"I was too young to know what the panic was all about..."

Time Capsule

Time Capsule

xx There been a lot of memory in our life even though we only reach the quarter of life. We learn, we explore, we discover something as we have a very great childhood back in 90s. In my opinion, being as a 90s kids are the best and luckiest compare to the following generation. This is because we can experience the changes of the technology from the 90s to 21st century era. As we can see through  the technology, the lifestyle and even the concept toward the life of our people have been changed rapidly and greatly within a decade, and these changes have lead to the elimination of the item that we usually used and played before the new technology has developed. Therefore, there are a lot of 90s stuffs and things which the children nowadays are unable to see it, feel it and touch it as they are more attracted to live in the world with technology and gadgets. So, what am I trying to propose is to increase the opportunity for the children in the future generation to know, to understand the toys and the stuffs that their "parents" used to play when they are same age as them. It is important because i believe it is just like a linkage between the children and their parents to understand each other world easily. An healthy growing environment, instead of those fancy apps in the fancy gadgets.

xx If I have given a chance to contribute 1 item to this time capsule, I will choose a film photo album. Nowadays, photo album can be done easily through Facebook, social media or any picture sharing gadget in internet. Having a photo album is getting easier and easier. But it doesn't change the way we appreciate the photo album that much when the time with no any internet sources of online photo album. In the past, we do share the moment together with family or friends and having fun in looking the memories from the pictures in the photo album. Besides, we appreciate every pictures of it because those pictures are printed out one by one through the negatives film. But now, we all just upload the picture we want to the social media site and we don't even appreciate or feel precious about it because we have paid no money for it. Yes, it is convenient and simple, but it still cannot compare the culture of having a physical photo album than creating an online photo album.
And I hope by contributing the photo album of my childhood memories, I able to let the future generation to understand the way people keep their precious memories in the pictures with the photo album and the culture of it.

Pictures of my lovely sisters (upper) and my cousins (below).

I have probably forget these memories and how am I possible to remember this if without these?
Online photo album? Is just a fun photo sharing session, it doesn't able to keep your memories forever.