Category: Society

Categories
Liberty Photography Society

[589] Of flags, flags and more flags (else, photoblog part whatever + 1)

“Fly the flag” campaign (or something like that) has been going on for weeks now. However, certain Malaysian minister has expressed disappointment – there seems to be lack of support for the drive from the public.

I don’t know about cold shoulders but I saw a residential area wrapped with flags about a week ago:

Whatever it is, I’m sure he will be happy with all those flags. And I’m sure, some of us would be happier if a model had gone naked instead draped in Jalur Gemilang. I know I do.

Oh, well. Seven more hours to the 48th anniversery of a free Malaya. Seven hours and 17 days to 42 years of the Malaysian Federation.

Or.

Hai. Tujuh jam lagi untuk ulangtahun ke-48 Malaya yang merdeka. Tujuh jam dan 17 hari lagi untuk menyambut harijadi ke-42 Persekutuan Malaysia .

Goddamn, I took way too much time to translate that into Malay. If anybody could od any better, be my guest.

p/s – finally, Google Adsense. It’s on the left side of the screen, below all the links and other nonsense. I know it’s not a strategic place to have the ads but hey, I’ll think of something when I’m ready to properly update my template.

pp/s – alright, I’ve moved it way down. Way down. I’m making it as unintrusive as possible.

Categories
Society Sports

[563] Of Anglicization of Malay language

A couple of days ago, I read a blog entry with huge bolded letters slapped on top of it. The entry talked about the current Anglicization process of the Malay language. Like the person that blogged about it first, I despise this trend.

Beforehand, I must say I am no purist. Despite my tongue is stamped with the word Malay all over it, my grasp of my mother tongue is almost pathetic. My Malay vocabulary is kind of limited and I’m more comfortable writing in English to Malay though I frequently confuse my tense forms. Given my situation, I do understand why when certain people speak in Malay, they tend to talk in both Malay and English at the same time.

However, this should not be used by the press as an excuse.

I cringe whenever I see any word that sounds English but is written instead in Malay in form that adheres to English pronunciation, particularly whenever mainstream Malay media uses it. Like previu or bajet for instance. The Malay word for preview beats me but bajet, can’t the media just use the good old peruntukan or belanjawan? And just yesterday in Utusan Malaysia, an article talked about polygamy and guess which word the author of the article chose? Polemik.

And then there are akauntabiliti, integriti, transparensi, profil, kontroversi, emosi, posisi. Whatever happened to the words ketanggungjawaban, kebolehpercayaan, ketelusan, rumusan (help me on this), kegamatan (whoa, I totally need a Malay dictionary), perasaan, kedudukan?

Adding more to the list: cif (cheif), propisi (proportion), kondisi (condition), ambisi (ambition).

And yeah, one more word, OMFG – infotainment. WTF?

I haven’t been using Malay extensively for the past five or six years and I might be off the road whenever Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka added more words to Malay vocabulary but if this is the trend, let’s all just use English instead. Save the entire effort of translating – transposing is more like it – and let’s all write in English instead. There is no need to spend resources on Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka anymore.

In France I heard, they have language vigilantes to protect the French language. They arm themselves with everything they’ve got in a crusade against English encroachment on French. Dewan Bahasa should emulate the French vigilantes, not the French gut. (Thousand apologies to all Frenchies and any Francophile. I can’t help it)

I’m telling Dewan Bahasa to be a purist. They should be a purist. It is their job to defend the Malay language. Who else should defend the Malay language if not Dewan Bahasa? Samy Vellu?

Dewan Bahasa is slacking so bad that a person that brought this up in that blog that I mentioned earlier is a Malaysian Chinese, not a Malaysian Malay. How sad is that?

p/s – did I mention that Ajax won against PSV?

Categories
Politics & government Society

[544] Of it’s the French!

Many thought Paris were going to host Olympics 2012. They unexpectedly lost and even worse, they lost to London. The French should be angry. And then London suffered six four bomb attacks the next day.

Initial report suspects this is a work of Al-Qaeda. I on the other hand suspect it’s the French! Yes, it’s the French I tell you. Who else could it be? Why wouldn’t the French do it?

But out of all seriousness, this occurence is unfortunate as it happened during a G8 meeting in Scotland. The explosions in London have already postponed G8’s talk on climate change to some time later. This distasteful incidence have already overshadowed all activities to bring the issue of climate change to the front.

I’d suppose Bush must be happy with this since he possibly won’t have to face a possible barrage from other G8 leaders to act on climate change. At the same time, G8 won’t have to worry too much about anti-globalization protest. It would put the protesters in a very bad light if the protests go on.

Regardless, it’s comforting to know that Bush is finally out of denial mode and admits that there is a link between human activities with climate change. Hence, the work to fight against this environmental chaos is made a tad easier.

Let’s see if China and India are going to accept some kind of emission capping as they have promised some years ago.

p/s – the American Solar Challenger 2005 is almost here. Check out Michigan Solar Car Team website! Go Blue!

Categories
Economics Society

[534] Of Friday sermon at Ann Arbor Islamic Center

Every Friday around noon, I’m supposed to attend a Friday prayer at a nearby mosque. I have not missed any one yet lately, save the one day that I departed for San Francisco.

As it typically goes, there is a sermon prior to the actual prayer. Unlike in Malaysia where the sermon is almost for certain boring, politically biased and lacks logical flows, the sermon at Ann Arbor most of the time gets the wheel inside of my head cranking. The sermon is interesting because most of the time, it relates to issues that I follow.

Lately however here in Ann Arbor, the Friday sermon has somewhat become a fundraising session. Every recent Friday sermon that I’ve attended as far as I can recall, the sermonizer will start on how donating is good and god will reward a person that gives in the afterlife and what’s not. The sermonizer will continue rambling until a punch line – “there is a poor community in Charlotte, South Carolina that is building a mosque” or “your brothers and sisters in Columbus, Ohio need your help to complete an Islamic center”.

I have nothing against fundraising. As I wading through a very difficult jungle out there, I do see how almost everything needs capital. The statement becomes especially true when it concerns religion. No matter how much cash is thrown into the mosque, the church, the temple or anything, it will needs more and more money. Plus, a couple more cents.

However, I feel it is outrageous to see somebody explicitly soliciting for monetary contribution during a Friday sermon. In my opinion, an announcement before or after the whole praying session would suffice. A flier would suffice. A sandwich man would serve the purpose too. Imagine a sandwich man wandering around soliciting for donation at religious sites – would love to see that!

I don’t know. I don’t get myself involve into the local Muslim community too much. Perhaps that might nullify my opinion. Nevertheless, seeing a sermon session becoming a soliciting session is distasteful.

Oh, well. I guess I should be looking forward to attend another fundraising session before performing the Friday prayer, or I could skip the soliciting session, or, skip the prayer altogether and play Warcraft 24/7 until I rot in hell.

But I wonder, if I had stopped attending the prayer because I hate the sermon cum soliciting session, would I pull the sermonizer cum solicitor into hell with me?

This of course, assuming that God exists, I’m in the right religion, heaven and hell exist, blah, blah, blah…

Categories
Photography Society

[523] Of anon and $5,000,000

I found out last week that the Alumni Memorial Hall, which houses the University of Michigan Art Museum, is set to undergo a renovation in 2006. According to the project description, the renovation will increase the museum space to more than double.

My take – I sort of hate it but at the same time, the plan looks daring, much like the pyramid at the Louvre. The Art Museum has Roman feeling to it and the plan includes a modern design. There is a model of what the Art Museum would look like after completion in the building lobby.

Despite my possible reservation of what I’d call a clash of the temporal dimension, the plan would probably do lots of good to the area. From my understanding of the building style, passersby would be able to see what’s going on inside the Museum, or at least inside the proposed extension, from the outside. It would give a feeling of openness to the building.Anyway, somebody donated 5 million dollar to the Museum for renovation purpose.

Too much money – that’s all I could say when I first saw it. At least, it is for a good purpose.Lastly, in the Museum, there is this one huge painting – hung on a wall, needless to say – which nothing drawn on the canvas. Just a huge frame, colored with purple painted on it. I stood in front of the painting, trying to figure out what the “work of art” is all about for a moment or two. After that, I asked myself, “why am I staring at a blank framed purple-painted canvas?”

I appreciate art, but what I did is stupidity at its best.