In Chinese culture or i believe in any other cultures, it is essential for us as the younger generation for not forgetting our own root. For who we are and where we are from, i was brought up and taught to bare that in my mind no matter where i am and where i go.
'Our Burmese Day' is the documentary about a lady named Lindsey Merrison, along with her mother, Sally and her brother, Bill from England go back to her mother's homeland, Burma. She is trying to figure out the truth and the reason behind why her mother is hiding from them about her own root and heritage. For almost 40 years, Lindsey growing up for not knowing her mother is an Anglo-Burmese root. As what Bill says in the film which i quite agree with, "There is no big truth about life, just a series of discoveries."
From the documentary, i could understand how it feels like for not knowing our own background until we found out the truth, perhaps from someone else instead from those who we are close with, which of course, hurts more. The journey of traveling back to the hometown, to the root and where they were from is definitely an eye-opening one. Among one of them is the discovery of a sexual relationship in between a maid, Bill and their father. Secrets, affairs, lies, confusion are all a big curiosity to Lindsey. She feels that she is hidden behind all these chaos and she has to find out one by one no matter what.
It will be the first time in 40 years that Sally and her brother Bill have seen their homeland. Part of it is quite touching and we can see from their eyes when they expressed on how they actually remembered things back then.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Assignment 2- Movie Review on Malaysia’s Independent Movie- Sepet by Yasmin Ahmad
The movie, Sepet (2004) directed by Yasmin Ahmad was a big success in the Malaysia film industry. For once, I was really proud of Malaysian’s film production. Basically, Sepet is about the interracial relationship between a Chinese boy named Ah Loong or he called himself as Jason and a Malay girl named Orked.
In short, the movie is about a Chinese boy falling in love with a Malay girl and goes through a series of events that ends 'tragically'. I am really impressed and love how Yasmin Ahmad expresses her idea and thoughts in this particular movie. As we all know, racial issue is a critical and sensitive issue in Malaysia as we are living in a multi racial country. Therefore, when it comes to racial issue, typical Malaysian chooses to keep their mouths shut and mind their own businesses. This is just so typical Malaysian. Of how we stereo-typing that Malaysian-Malays are all conservative and religious to the extent that Malaysian-Chinese who are being stereo-typed as the open-minded ones are not suitable to be together with the Malays, as well as due to different culture and background values or the religions.
From my point of view, there is hidden meaning behind this movie. In which, if my judgment is correct, then Yasmin Ahmad is really giving an honest view through her movie. Obviously, there is no straight forward message on religion converting and all that in the movie. However, in the end of the movie, it somehow shows that Jason is involved in an accident that keeps us suspense on whether he is dead or alive. This actually indicates the hidden meaning behind the movie which I mentioned, it is either Jason has to convert to Orked’s religion or one of them has to die. This is of course, the large view and stereo typing of Malaysian culture.
In conclusion, this movie has given me a big impact and somehow, changes my stereo-typing-attitude as well like a typical Malaysian. I think that one ought to have a broader mind set and love in between two humans shall never be judged based on the differences of religions nor backgrounds.
Assignment 1- ESSAY: LIEW KUNG YU’s Art Works- Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku.
Liew Kung Yu is one of the Malaysia’s well-known contemporary artists, who recently came out with his master piece of art works entitled ‘Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku’, as in English called ‘Proposals for My Country.’ According to Liew, his inspiration of the art works is from various public sculptures he photographed while he was travelling around Malaysia.
‘Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku’ consists of four pieces of 3-D photo collages. Basically, they are mainly about the development and urbanization of our country, Malaysia and at the same times also consists of what we expect in the near future in our country. What is special about the photo collages are they are similar to pages from a pop-up book where certain pictures are popping up in 3-D form. The first photo collage that caught my attention is Konkrit Jungle. Basically, we can see that there are various types of animals in the photo collage. The animals are actually significant concrete buildings, which personally, I would interpret it as Liew tries to communicate with the viewer that apart from Malaysia is developed with high-rise buildings and the advanced technology but at we also preserve and protect the wild life here. In fact, they are also one of our main tourism attractions in the country as we can see there are a lot of tourist-look-alike-people taking pictures and walking around. As for the giraffe that I notice in the photo collage, even though giraffe is the kind of animal which could not be seen easily like elephants or orang utans in Malaysia, but bear in mind that the art work is about our country’s future development as well. Therefore, it is not surprising at all for Malaysia to have giraffe as one of the common animals.
The second piece of photo collage- Metropolis Warisan is mainly about the development and urbanization of the country. Famous building sculptures in the cities like Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC), Kulala Lumpur Tower (KL Tower), Putrajaya, Sultan Abdul Samad Building, LRT, Proton national car, aeroplane and such, these are all the pride of Malaysia and most important of all, they reflect the image of Malaysia. Although, Malaysia is still a developing country; however, it is obvious that our country’s development is coping up well with the pace of the world. The third piece of photo collage entitled Bandar Sri Tiang Kolam. We can see different architecture sculptures or more precisely, different residential sculptures that differentiate different status of residents in Malaysia.
The fourth photo collage- Pantai Gelora Cahaya is all about the diversity of cultures in Malaysia, as well as the tourism attractions of Malaysia. There are beach, sunset scenery, Malacca flowery trishaw and so much more. Malaysia is formed by different cultures, backgrounds and races; hence, our country is rich with different tourism attraction based on different cultures and backgrounds of the citizen. Besides that, Liew also uses our national flower, which is the hibiscus to be the background decoration of all the photo collages.
In conclusion, from the photo collages, we could more or less foresee the future development of Malysia. Liew is the voices of all the Malaysian on visualizing the future Malaysia and I believe these art pieces of Liew are indeed a very creative way to propose it to our government. All in all, it reflects the unity and harmony of our country as well as the relationship in between urban communities and the space that they habit.
‘Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku’ consists of four pieces of 3-D photo collages. Basically, they are mainly about the development and urbanization of our country, Malaysia and at the same times also consists of what we expect in the near future in our country. What is special about the photo collages are they are similar to pages from a pop-up book where certain pictures are popping up in 3-D form. The first photo collage that caught my attention is Konkrit Jungle. Basically, we can see that there are various types of animals in the photo collage. The animals are actually significant concrete buildings, which personally, I would interpret it as Liew tries to communicate with the viewer that apart from Malaysia is developed with high-rise buildings and the advanced technology but at we also preserve and protect the wild life here. In fact, they are also one of our main tourism attractions in the country as we can see there are a lot of tourist-look-alike-people taking pictures and walking around. As for the giraffe that I notice in the photo collage, even though giraffe is the kind of animal which could not be seen easily like elephants or orang utans in Malaysia, but bear in mind that the art work is about our country’s future development as well. Therefore, it is not surprising at all for Malaysia to have giraffe as one of the common animals.
The second piece of photo collage- Metropolis Warisan is mainly about the development and urbanization of the country. Famous building sculptures in the cities like Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC), Kulala Lumpur Tower (KL Tower), Putrajaya, Sultan Abdul Samad Building, LRT, Proton national car, aeroplane and such, these are all the pride of Malaysia and most important of all, they reflect the image of Malaysia. Although, Malaysia is still a developing country; however, it is obvious that our country’s development is coping up well with the pace of the world. The third piece of photo collage entitled Bandar Sri Tiang Kolam. We can see different architecture sculptures or more precisely, different residential sculptures that differentiate different status of residents in Malaysia.
The fourth photo collage- Pantai Gelora Cahaya is all about the diversity of cultures in Malaysia, as well as the tourism attractions of Malaysia. There are beach, sunset scenery, Malacca flowery trishaw and so much more. Malaysia is formed by different cultures, backgrounds and races; hence, our country is rich with different tourism attraction based on different cultures and backgrounds of the citizen. Besides that, Liew also uses our national flower, which is the hibiscus to be the background decoration of all the photo collages.
In conclusion, from the photo collages, we could more or less foresee the future development of Malysia. Liew is the voices of all the Malaysian on visualizing the future Malaysia and I believe these art pieces of Liew are indeed a very creative way to propose it to our government. All in all, it reflects the unity and harmony of our country as well as the relationship in between urban communities and the space that they habit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)