MGM 2008: A Review

A grand annual stage play planned and organized by Malaysian students in Sydney, Malam Gema Merdeka, was held last Saturday in conjunction with the upcoming National Day. I was not part the of the production team, merely a staunch audience. It was a good performance overall, kudos to the team that had made it possible.

Here are just some quick personal reviews from me from the seat of an audience.

It was nice seeing a quick showing of Fahmi Reza’s 10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka during the show. I had always been pessimistic that people my age would not be interested in this kind of work, that most of them might not even have heard of this stunning local documentary. I am glad that I was proven wrong. I do not know whose idea was that to include a part of the documentary during the play, but if any of you who are reading this happen to know this person I am referring to, please tell him or her that the inclusion of the documentary had made my day, and that I say thank you.

Little things do paint a stain to a beautifully-crafted picture, and often they piss me off and I am sure sometimes they do that to you too. I do not know whether this feeling stems out from my over-patriotic sentiment, but it pissed me off to see a fellow countryman dropping the country’s flag onto the floor during one of the scene of the play, the same way it pissed me off at seeing people making a mockery of the national anthem in another event a few months back. I know that you were merely acting, but you could have easily got rid of that action and still make the whole play looks efficient. You can say that it is something insignificant, you never intended to do it anyway, but I cannot imagine where do you hold the nation’s pride when you dare putting the nation’s flag on the same level of your feet and still call the action insignificant. The whole country went mad when the picture of someone burning the nation’s flag went around in the months leading up to last March’s General Election, did it ever strike you that such action of yours could also trigger a wave of anger amongst the audience, albeit perhaps miniscule in comparison? Call me of being overly sensitive, but while you are doing that you might want to also have a look at the mirror and see where you stand. What I am asking from you is simple; show a little more respect to my country, our country.

On another note, I overheard many of those who had been involved directly with the production saying how relieved they were now that the whole thing has ended. They should feel that way, given the hard works they had put in to make it a success, weekends they sacrificed for practice, and their time, money that could have been spent somewhere else. I am not quite sure myself how to put this, but I think that putting things entirely at a halt seems to be a mistake, since what lies ahead is a challenge of a greater magnitude in comparison with the efforts to stage the production itself. As cliché as it might sound, the challenge is to not just let the lessons die together with the play, that is to gather as many lessons as we can, instil the values in ourselves so hopefully we can wake up tomorrow a better person than before we were involved with the play. We jump in joy in celebration of our nation’s independence come 31st of August every year, but for what reasons do we celebrate, have we ever given that a thought? In the play, Joe, the main character reflected back on his past, the country’s past, and try to look for rooms in which he could make amends. I personally saw that the aim was good, that is to remind people that history is there for us to learn from. However, the thing about acting and play is that lessons that were meant to be imparted to everyone could easily, immediately fade away as soon as the stage light is switched off. For stage actors, excitements and relief quickly take over once it all ends, while for audience, well, they could be either too upset or too awed by on-stage movements and actions that the thought of analyzing the message brought across never passes through their mind. And so we all resume with our cycle of life on the next day back to square one, having missed the glorious chance to grab the lesson that was well-laid in front of our bare eyes.

Selamat Hari Kemerdekaan everyone. Wait, what Merdeka? Tunku Abdul Rahman never endorsed 31st of August as an Independence Day, but rather a National Day. Malaysia was born on 16 September 1963, not 31 August 1957.

Didn't Mean to Hurt You Morrie.

I remember reading somewhere a few years back that in the ancient Olympics, winners would be glorified, while losers would have no place in history. Winners, in this sense, are only those getting the first place. There were no second or third places back then, no silver or bronze medal. You either win it all, or you would be considered as a loser, even if you were edged by the slimmest of margin by the overall winner. The losers, when the reality that they had lost in the event they took part in dawned upon them, would immediately leave and hide, too shameful to face people. While the winners got all the accolades and prestige, losers would be looked down by the society, sometimes even their existences were perished from memories. Some of these losers went as far as committing suicide for shame of losing. This is certainly way different from the way we perceive anything in life these days, sports in particular.

For some inexplicable reasons, somehow I find myself agreeing with this one-winner idea. There was this strange feeling in me when seeing athletes celebrating after finishing in the second or third spots in the Olympics. I know you have worked so hard to get this far, but hey, there was someone else crossing the finish line right before you, what on earth could be your cause for celebration? Should not you be in tears, feeling sorry for yourself? Didn’t you feel the pain, trying to come to terms with the thought of being only a second-best? My only guess is that you were satisfied with your efforts, that second or third-place finish is just fine for you. I am sorry, but I think such thought is just pathetic.

Some say that one’s best effort sometimes just is not enough for a first-place, that at least one can be proud at the fact that one has tried one’s best. The winner, they say, is just blessed with extra God-given strength to overcome any rivals that dare to give a challenge, you simply cannot do anything to change that. I tried to play around this idea inside my head honestly, but it just does not make sense to me. How could you say that you have pour in your best effort and still lose? For me, when you lose, it is simply because you did not try hard enough.

Sorry Morrie Schwartz, I tried to agree with you. But I just could not stop thinking that there is something severely wrong with being number two.

Ricky Rubio

Ricky Rubio, a basketball prodigy. While peers his age were attending high school, he was already strutting his stuff in the Spanish ACB League. While at the age of 17, I was busy preparing for my SPM examinations, 17-year-old Ricky is busy trying to lead the Spanish basketball team to Beijing Olympics glory. While a triple-double is always considered a rare feat in basketball, Ricky made it all look easy; in FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship, he had two triple-doubles and one quadruple-double, including a 51 points, 24 rebounds, 12 assists and 7 steals in the final game that all but assured his team a victory.

"I think he's a freak of nature — being so young and being so skilled and also so cool all the time. You can see that he knows what he's doing. He's not playing out there with pros based only on his talents. He knows the game and he can only improve. I think he'll be a great player. It all depends on him, but I personally think he's going to be great."

- Pepe Sanchez, Unicaja Malaga

I will keep my eyes on you from now on kid. Come to NBA soon so I can get to see a lot more of your actions.

And so my love affairs with the Spanish continue; Ricky Rubio now joins the ranks of Fernando Torres, Pau Gasol, Rafael Nadal and Fernando Alonso as my sporting heroes.

Revisiting an Eight-year-old Lesson

In the final few months leading up to the UPSR examination when I was in Standard 6 in 2000, we had this motivational camp organized by the school aimed at preparing the students mentally (looking back, what much can you do to improve the mental state of 12-year-old kids anyway). I remember that the camp was held for a few days at a rural area somewhere not too far from Klang. The idea of going to the camp was kind of exciting at first, since it was probably the first time that I got the chance to stay away from home on my own for more than two, three days.

They may call it a motivational camp, but to me most of the time it was more like a torture for all of us. The chief facilitator who was assigned to keep his eyes on us for the whole period of the camp in particular was ruthless; it was only moments after we stepped off the bus when he warned that we may not be getting our meals if we do not show good behaviour during the camp. We were 12-year-old kids who naturally looked forward to fun playing times so such reception of course came as a shock for some of us.

Anyway, on the first day we were introduced to the rules and regulations that needed to be adhered to as participants of the camp. One of the most important rules was the use of a ‘money’ system in the camp, whereby pretty much every single meal, facility and other needs did not come free; you would need to pay certain amount of money to get the luxury of having them. The ‘money’ in this sense was of course not the real one, but you get the idea. The best part was the way ‘money’ could be earned; pretty much you would have to offer yourselves as slaves to the facilitators. For instance, helping to clean up their food tray after meal sessions earned you RM30, while polishing their shoes gave you RM50. There were various other chores you could do which I cannot remember much, but the rate of pay would be determined by that particular facilitator you worked with. If my memory serves me right, the winning group of various activities carried out could also gain some amount of money. Now that might sound easy to most of you, but I have not come to the part where we learnt about how much money we had to fork out for each different need. For a start, we were told that the dormitory we lived in would cost us somewhere around RM1000 per night as a group, while each individual meal is about RM10. The next day the chief facilitator would come to us and say the ‘economy’ has risen overnight, and for this reason our dormitory rent was doubled to RM2000 per night. This trend continued to change for worse daily.

The result? You saw timid kids trying to work their way up to make some money, in the process gaining bravery. The 12-year-old minds of us who had no idea or appreciation whatsoever about the value of money in real world before began to realize that life was not too good after all when we are all tied up financially. No one would have dared to get close to the chief facilitator before the concept was introduced, but once it kicked off you would see him being swarmed every moment by the brave ones amongst us, each wondering if there was anything they could do to help him (actually to get money of course). I myself was not too comfortable at the thought of approaching adults who were strangers to me, but out of desperation such action became easy. Along the way confidence was gained, and gone were moments when we prefer hiding in our own shells rather than trying to reach out to the outside world and other individuals. We also learnt that selfish behaviour was not welcome when you had responsibilities to a particular group, such as when paying our dormitory rent whereby each of us had to contribute. Despite the hardships that we had to endure, we soon learnt what the real message meant to be conveyed was; that life in real world is certainly not easy.

For some of us, the lesson was quickly forgotten once the camp ended. But somehow it stuck with me even years afterwards and perhaps it is not too much to say that it helps to define me as a person. Though this might not sound possible, I wish I can get a chance to meet the chief facilitator personally sometime in the future to thank him for the seed he planted in me eight years ago during that memorable motivational camp.

Emas Jadi Igauan

Kita bangga dengan menara berkembar tertinggi di dunia, lapangan terbang antarabangsa berjuta-juta mahalnya, Litar Sepang dan sebagainya. Kita bangga ada di kalangan kita sudah berjaya ke puncak gunung Everest, jejakkan kaki di North Pole, tak lupa juga yang telah mampu menjengah ke angkasa.

Aku kata? Ahh itu semua bukan pengukur keupayaan sesebuah negara. Untuk mencapai kesemuanya, yang perlu cuma wang ringgit yang berlebihan, dan juga idea.

Ekonomi kukuh kononnya, rakyat berbilang bangsa tinggal selesa damai sebumbung, semuanya membuatkan kita senyum bangga.

Belum cukup. Emas Olimpik perlu digapai, barulah hebat namanya. Barulah boleh berbangga.

Selamat maju jaya. Malaysia Boleh.