Love and Peace...

Autumn is nice. It is even nicer when you get a chance to stroll along the river to view the reddish leaves of the trees. Despite of my busy days at the lab doing experiments and preparing for the upcoming JLPT (maybe it's too late..huhuhu), I still be able to afford one evening to visit Kiyomizudera (one among hundreds of UNESCO's sites here) during its 'Light-up'.

Being there with two guys who also happened to come and study in Kyoto last March, I'm quite sabishii (lonely) to see loving couples walk themselves up to the tera. I got to know from a Japanese friend that in a love relationship between a Japanese guy and a Japanese girl, a Japanese guy usually tend to act over-macho, over-protective but in the meantime also calculative and not gentleman. That is the main reason why Japanese girls have tendency to search for a foreigner boyfriend. I personally did not agree with this as I always do believe that Love itself is magical; when it strikes you at the heart, everything else like stupid behaviour or bad deeds just doesn't matter that much as you have to love somebody for who they are, were and will be. Love neither should be a burdon to oneself nor should restrict oneself from being himself/herself. Love should support us to be the best in everything we venture into. A labmate of mine spend hours of time and even sleep at the lab to finish his experiments on time so that he could spend one whole week of holiday with his girlfriend who currently resides up north in Niigata while another friend sticked to bringing bento (boxed lunch; usually home-cooked) or eating salad everyday just to buy pricey present for his girlfriend. So who said that a Nihon-jin guy is not a gentleman or romantic, maybe it does not apply to all but most of them..I don't know...

One night, when I accompany a friend to the Sakyo-ku post office (Japan Post, its mado-guchi offers 24 hour service..see picture). I have personally experienced a situation involving a couple and the old oba-chang (female senior citizen..In Japan, retirees still very much wanted for part-time jobs). It started when this couple of lovers requested to pay for the charge to send a pile of their letters with credit card. As the clock just ticked 2 a.m in the morning, the old lady refused to accept the payment as she said that it might not be accepted by the system. The guy suddenly shouted in rage that he never seen such a stupid post worker in his life like this old lady and preached to the old lady what is the meaning of 'customer is always right'. While the old lady keep apologizing, the girl slammed the counter, said a few angry words and pulled her bf out from the post office. Nobody acted to solve this 15 minutes drama (if in Malaysia, I promised that this guy must have been knocked out by other customer.... who were waiting in long lines behind him). I'm quite shocked but did not dare to react in this foreigness situation of me. After that, the old lady continued serving other customer with her shaky hands.

Whether my friend's opinion is true or not, I would like to call to everyone to love, respect and value everyone with honour regardless of their age, skin colour, ideology or whatever characteristics that makes us different from one another (especially involving senior citizens, children and female). Only with that, every single unit of living things in this world from Jerusalem to Congo and Sierra Leone could live in peace. Peace for all, let's spread the love...

What is the value of science without humanity...

I was exposed to theaters at my very young age when I still didn't know what it is all about. It was back in 1993, where Malaysian economy is still at the peak of prosperity before the 1998 economic crisis that my father ran a company offering creative works and consultation. Among his awarded jobs are design sets for theaters produced by National Art's Academy or Akademi Seni Kebangsaan (ASK) (Currently ASWARA..offering academic program until Diploma level) apart from numbers of TV programs sets, Shopping mall's festive decorations and tourism promotions. During that time, Istana Budaya haven't been build and theaters were performed at Panggung DBKL, MATIC and ASK itself. I couldn't remember all the titles but mostly it was directed by old skool like Uda & Dara by Ahmad Yatim and Kena Main by Khalid Salleh. Practically, we could watch all the theaters for free but at that age, I am still fond towards collecting Marvel cards more than this artistic performances.

In college, theaters were performed annually for Merdeka and sometimes on Teacher's Day, mostly organized by MC Production House (abbreviated as MC Prod..hehe..always fought with lebai-lebai among us when organizing concerts). It was really busy to be part of the production team (reasons to escape prep classes and stay up late over light's off time) but also full of joy. I have involved in few of them, if not all and have enjoyed every second of pre- and post works of it (although I do always get a role as a Japanese kenpetai or kenpei, maybe because my eyes...sepet).

Unfortunately, I have missed to watch both of our latest and greatest (by testimony from critics and theater fans) theater production which were the Puteri Gunung Ledang: The Musical and P.Ramlee The Musical. Craving to watch it from Japan, I only could read or view it partly from the informations available online (online newspaper, blogs and YouTube). However, I am very happy that during the Panasonic summer seminar, we have been given an opportunity to watch a musical theater performance by Shiki, an illustrious theatrical group in Japan. This 'Lion King' musical based on the original Disney Pixar animation Lion King were presented in a splendid 2 hour performance. Looking forward to watch more performances by Shiki!!


Last 23-25 November, Kyoto University held its November Festival (大学園祭　Daigakuensai). Luckily, I have been invited by a friend (who is also an actor in this theater) to come to a play entitled 'Red Demon' (Aka-Oni..please refer to the Kanji in red) specially performed for this festival. I was very 'lucky' because my new friend doesn't even know that I love theaters but instead just invited me to come. This play is a masterpiece by Hideki Noda, a famous playwright of modern Japan. The original version is entirely in Japanese language but this play have also been staged in English, Thai and Korean languages too. For this Kyodai version, it is performed in bilingual mode, English and Japanese to suit a bigger audience.

Red Demon is a story of humanity. It starts with a man who was washed up to an isolated island with no means to communicate and explain where he is from. The islanders then mistakenly thought him as a red demon, who possibly eat human flesh for food and related to some monster. However, he has been taken care well by That Woman (Ano Onna), a girl who lives with her brother and sister. That Woman is the only person who could communicate with the Red Demon. The villagers however misunderstood the good deed of this Red Demon in an incident where he saved a baby from being kidnapped. The Red Demon together with That Onna were then executed by the villagers but That Onna's siblings managed to save both of them and left together in a rowboat. Their tiring journey begins and the play ends when all of them came to a place with beautiful rainbow, far away over the seas.

In my opinion, the Red Demon play actually symbolizes the beginning of the modern period of Japan (late 19th century-present) where Japanese ended their seclusion from the world and rushed to catch up with the industrialized West (Meiji government policy). During that period, foreigners start to dwell into the society and as typical as everywhere in the world, differences in culture, language and characters start to form a slight spark of doubts between the locals and the outsiders. However, Hideki Noda through Red Demon wish to deliver to all of his audiences (especially his fellow Japanese) that the new world (represent by the analogy 'the land beyond the sea') needed all of us to tolerate between each other peacefully, learn to accept dissimilarities and changes.

Recent unhealthy issues represents by street demonstrations, peace walks and outraged by minorities back in Malaysia reminded me that we Malaysians should also learn something from this Red Demon play. Malaysia has been famously renowned for its delicate ethno-political balance, and this could only be maintained if we keep opening up our minds to accept differences and learn to live in it by tolerating among us. Malaysia has always been open to the world even since Malacca glorious years where languages, religions and cultures of the world had passed through here. So there is no reason why we can't survive another centennial of peace, respect and mutual prosperity.

(I purposely wrote this just an escapism out of my busy laboratory works and experiments..Afterall, what is the value of science without humanity....)

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body...

I have just finished reading Kam Raslan's Confession of An Old Boy which surprisingly took only seven days of delivery by ordinary air mail to Japan (bought it online from Selects Books, Singapore..). The author has successfully relinquished the untold story of a fictional character named Dato' Hamid (DH), an anglophile budak koleq and a humble MCS officer back in the old Malaya. I am sorry to say but rigid minded people may look this piece as a full 7 chapter of book telling how typical a Malay Collegian could possibly be by always in love with sports (for DH it's hockey... and not to mention long lists of old boys heading the national sport's association and mere example of my 9701 brothers, always crazy about football and nonetheless, play rugby for MCOBA), hot girls (in DH case, it's always foreign beauties..in our naive years, girls from Tkc and Stf..later Sri Aman, TTDI, Subang and Assunta) and wine (no comment).

I, however..being characteristically analytical in my points of view and always try to see things from a different angle found out that this book have successfully revealed some important distinctive qualities that a true Malaysian or Malayan (as per described by the author) possessed but now had lost over the time. Malayans at that time are people with full of adventure (as per potrayed in Tun M's poem 'Perjuangan Belum Selesai')...who is at young age travel far either for knowledge or complacency...a Malayan is always a charm little Asian gentleman who will never forget to tell about sunlight and palm trees, endless empty beaches and the dense jungle lair of tigers and elephant of his lovely country as part of an introduction to himself..DH in this story is nevertheless a student cum traveler, playing drums in nightclubs with his Kelantanese friend, Nik during summer holidays..but never forget to come back home to Malaya..maybe you said that you have been chosen among thousands of applicants to undergo apprenticeship in PWC London straight after graduation but please do remember that at one point after your long years of climb towards the uphill track to be a chartered accountant, you must later go back to serve your country, your people in whatever means you could...I have personally seen students graduated from Japan who seems forgetting their roots...never mind their hair colours and style.....never mind their weird Malay accents..just please come back to serve your people when you already get what you wish for...stop trying to be somebody else...especially when your source of scholarship is related to the pile of taxpayer's money in EPF or whichever other Fund it may be derived from...

DH also faced a tough time to reject 'duit kopi' when it is the only way to fulfill his Anglophilic desires beyond his pay as a government servant...Borrowing Kam's word....What do you do when your tastes have been conditioned to be expensively international, but your training is to be a government functionary? Cynical to the present situation, Malayan at that time were Anglophilic but Malaysians currently are becoming Anglicized, proved by the increasing rate of shopping visits to London.

Go grab this book if you love nostalgic memories and would like to learn from history. Maybe I should stop now and figure out what happen to my order via Dawama for two books on two prominent leaders of ours.. Dato Onn Jaafar and Tunku Abdul Rahman...it has been 2 weeks since my third mail of ordering..no wonder Malay Language progressed so slow..just look at the efficiency of the guarding entity and its marketing agent..Just wonder how long it will take for the books to find its way here...

Let us learn a lot...and make no more repetitive mistakes..

Proclaim (Read) ! In the name of thy Lord & Cherisher,Who Created..
Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood...
Read ! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,-
He Who taught (the use of) the Pen, Taught man that which he knew not...

(Surah Iqra/Al A'laq)

*If any abbreviations in this article is not fully understood. Kindly post a question in the commentary section about it. I will attend to it shortly.