Here's the Long-Awaited News

This posting is long overdue; I guess I was just waiting for the right moment for everything to be put into place and run well to come before having it announced here.

I am officially a player for the UNSW Basketball Team that plays in the Division 2 in a local league. Nothing really great, but good enough for me. There are of course the Division 1 and Premier League teams whose standards are higher, but I guess Division 2 is not bad at all, in fact much better as far as most of the tournaments I used to enter back in Malaysia are concerned. How I managed to get into the team is another story, but one thing for sure is it took me through a hard way.

The transition in playing position from being a big guy to one who does the running and a lot of ball handling for one is never easy. You see, I had been playing as a center, traditionally the tallest player in a team for like five, six years, and now I am shifted to a forward position, a center’s total opposite down to the size factor, obviously. And yes, if you have just been guessing, I am among the smallest man in the team. Another hard part is definitely one that is dealing with communication, but I guess I prefer to see it more as a way of building up my oral fluency rather than a reason to grumble.

Anyway the team has been through 5 round-robin games, one each week, the earliest two of which I missed because I was not yet in the team. I did not fare well in the first couple of games I featured in; in fact they left me pondering as to whether I am good enough to play at this level, and frankly I even had a slender thought of giving up. I did not, nonetheless, and into the third game which was yesterday I was back to the old me. I did the things I know I am good at, and eventually got that confidence in me built up. I owe a huge portion of that to my supportive teammates.

As for the jersey number, of course I would love to pick up 41 or 10 at first. The latter, in fact, was my number in two consecutive glorious years back when I was with the Cagers. The sad news was my coach brought with him only three jerseys for me to choose from before one of the match; with options of 3, 9 and 50 as the jersey numbers. So there I was, bidding farewell to the dream of wearing number 41 or 10. Anyway, thinking that I was nowhere as flashy as Dwayne Wade or Allen Iverson wearing number 3, and the fact that 9 is a bit too common, I settled with 50. One good player I could recall wearing that number was David Robinson, so I guess it is not that bad a choice at all.

I should say that this thing keeps me a little bit busy especially towards this end of semester, with final exams and stuffs, but I reckon I have come a long way to get this chance, and it is my choice and I am happy with that.

The Rally

So I went to the rally last Saturday as planned, despite the early morning laziness to get up from bed and the bus route being cut short by half which resulted in a need to walk. I made it to the Sydney Square, Sydney Town Hall at about a quarter before 11, and was immediately greeted by uproars made by the thousands of Sydneysiders who were already there. Because I believe pictures are better in doing the portraying of the event here, I leave all of you with these some nice live photos I captured during the rally, together with brief comments.

The usually calm Sydney Square turned into a sea of protesters and banners. At least five thousands of people were initially targeted to come, but the actual number who made it, according to the organizers, nearly doubled.

They may come with various banners, but one thing for sure- they shared a same thing, a single idea in mind.

The men in the uniform gave due respect the public, and the public, in reply, treated them in similar way. Anyhow, as always, there are one or two rotten apples in a basket of good ones; despite early warnings that the protest would be a peaceful one, villains were always there to spoil the peaceful mood of the day. Two protesters were nabbed by the police in front of my bare eyes for apparently going beyond the line- one actually went naked in the middle of the mass of people for no unequivocal reason. It left me with a question mark as to what these people actually had in mind for acting in such a shameful way, when all they could do was to follow plenty of others in staying in rational frame and just that. Later at night, I came to know over the news that in total 17 were arrested during the protest.

The protesters then marched on to Hyde Park where further rally was planned to be held, but I decided that was it for me- I needed to head back home for some other business.

What impressed me most was the attitude of the people who joined in the protest; young or old, all tried to let their shouts heard during the rally, while at the same time abiding by the law. Even though they did not come out with similar agendas- a number of groups were promoting environmental-friendly policies while some others chose to bring up anti-war sentiments and so on and so forth- still the general objective was crystal clear in that they were simply no satisfied with the current going-ons in our world. Overall it was a good first-hand, first experience for me, and I definitely look forward to attending events of this kind again in the future.

Today's Friday Prayer

The mosque was not too spacious to be able to lodge hundreds of people, but large enough when the fact that its location is in a non-Muslim dominating region is put into perspective. There was some make-shift tents prepared as to give extra space for overload crowds who devotedly attended the ritual weekly congregation. Forecasters earlier said that the day’s temperature was 11° Celsius, but the heavy downpours were believed to have reduced it somewhat. Those seated under the tents were apparently freezing, but they stayed anyway. Nothing in this world seemed to bother them from remaining there.

The pouring rains were too loud that they eclipsed the sound of sermon from inside the mosque. Periodically, a bloke or two were seemed entering the mosque ground, covering their heads with a piece of cloth or bare hands and dashing to get to the nearest roofed space. They were a bit late that most of the spaces were already occupied, but nothing could stop them from attending the congregation. Soon, the sermon was finished, and the crowds stood up in unison to prepare for the prayer. Those who could not initially find empty spaces tried to squeeze in. Amidst the chilliness of the day, the sound of the rain, and the over packed mosque and make-shift tents, they started praying, led by the Imam. In a little while they finished. Miraculously, the downpours also stopped, as if it understood the problem it would lay for the dismissing crowds.

As the congregation was inching to the end, a proportion of the Muslims stayed chatting with fellow countrymen or even strangers who had just become friends, while some left straight away, perhaps to continue working. It was only their lunch hour after all.

That was the scene during today’s Friday prayer in a small city Down Under that is Adelaide, as seen by my bare eyes. I believe, a typical scene as such can be seen anywhere around the earth where Muslims reside. We might live a totally different life from others, or speak different languages, or perhaps drive different cars, but when it comes to how we are seen by Him as embodied by the act of performing our obligation such as this Friday prayer, unequivocally, we are all the same.

Footnote: My apology for the second-class photo, I had to basically snap pretty quickly as to avoid eye-contact from the crowds. You do know it is not appropriate to take pictures in such situation don’t you.

After Tsunami, He Went to The Casino

Just when I finished a brief phone chat with a Malaysian friend while on my way to the Central Station last weekend, a guy sitting next to me in the bus made it a point to start a conversation.

‘From Malaysia?’

I nodded, and he revealed that he is from Indonesia.

A series of words were exchanged afterwards between us, before at one point he claimed;

‘I’m from Acheh anyway.’

Now when u listen to that, one word immediately comes to mind- tsunami.

I was not sure whether I was struggling with shock or sympathy upon listening to his revelation, or perhaps it was the mix of both, but I somehow could not come out with nice words to get hold of our conversation so I chose to remain silent until we both arrived at our destination.

When we were about to go separate ways, I asked him where he was going. His initial response, however, was vague to me.

‘Don’t you know? It’s a casino.’

Dumfounded I was, but still I gave him a forced smiled. Before long, I realized that my sympathy was nothing but futile.

Saturday Night Rugby

What a night. I just came back from Telstra Stadium watching the Test Match between Australia and Wales, an outing arranged by the UMNO Club of NSW. Nothing political, merely a liberal student body meant to socialize. It was not my idea in the first place to go and join them to the match this time around, but I was puzzlingly defeated by lust when Keano, the president who happened to be my Prep School prefect back then in MCKK convinced me to come.

So there I was, taking the 15-20 minutes bus ride from my place to Central Station before meeting the rest and embarking on our journey to Telstra Stadium, Sydney Olympic Park via train. The train journey was basically filled with me updating myself with Apis, Bhozai and several other INTEC mates, but the highlight was of course, I bet everyone agreed, the irking but entertaining noises of local rugby fans who were on board as well. Anyway, I was impressed with the public transport system here. The match ticket that we bought already included public transport to the stadium, which means you might be living anywhere in Sydney and you are still able go to the stadium by only means of displaying your match ticket to the bus driver or ticket inspector at the train station. Interesting if you consider the mutual agreement and understanding that need to be reached between the ticket coordinators down to the bus drivers. Not only that, sufficient train coaches were also made ready to cater for the special night, making it very, very convenient for thousands of supporters tired from watching the match to get home in a timely manner.

A little bit about the game. The opening half was a nervous one for the home team; in fact the crowds were just about to settle down on their seats when Wales had their first try. Wales later on took a comfortable 17-0 lead including a second try out of a brilliant steal deep into the Wallabies’ half, which reminded me of the glorious try Mat Rock made against Raffles College of Singapore in 2004 during my MCKK days. The home team managed to find their pace and pick up from there then to close the first half trailing by 5 points behind. It may have been otherwise an opposite, dreadful end story for the massive 40000 spectators, most of which were Australian supporters in the stadium if not for the final-gasp try followed by an impeccable conversion that sealed a 29-23 win for the home team.

In the end, the Wallabies won, and I got to know some new friends. Awesome.

P/s: I noticed amongst the billboards of proud sponsors in the stadium this familiar ad, on the top left of the picture. Yes, Proton. What does it do up there I simply have no idea.

If You Go Overseas, First Learn To Cook

Physics was over by noon today and after a quick thinking, I decided to head home and prepare a meal myself for lunch, slashing the idea of having the scrumptious but costly chicken kebab or pide or meat pizza or chicken schnitzel and chips at the café on campus.

I admit that I am a terrible cook, but up until today, I keep telling myself that I could one day improve.

I suppose the meal I prepared today did me a fine reality check; I realize that I should better give up that thought.

I did not finish the meal; half-way through I felt like vomiting and a moment later I decided to throw the entire plate’s contents off. Boy, how horrible. Anyone else out there dares claiming they vomit out the food they cook? Well do not ask me what meal I prepared anyway, I am simply too ashamed to reveal the answer.

From tomorrow onwards, my lunch will be the costly chicken kebab or pide or meat pizza or chicken schnitzel and chips. Nevermind my bank account is running dry. As long as I do not have to cook. And vomit.

Good To Meet You Brothers!

This morning I went to Liverpool to a friend’s place with some other classmates. No, not that Liverpool in UK. This is Liverpool, New South Wales, about an hour journey by train from Sydney. We are basically working on a group project for Engineering Design subject. Her father offered to help us and he happens to own a factory there, so we decided to go have a look and work.

It was 5.30pm when we boarded the train back, which means Maghrib was looming. True to the nature, I had this uneasiness feel of not being able to make it on time to reach home for Maghrib. Having three Muslim counterparts out of four people with me did not give any help either; they simply did not seem to care about performing their obligation. So I decided to stop in the middle of the train route at Auburn, a small, very nice Muslim town. I had been here once before, and I knew they have a mosque where I decided to pray.

I performed solat jemaah with few locals, and finished praying when I realized that there was someone observing me. After I was done with my doa this guy approached me, and decently asked, “Where’re you from?” To which I replied, “Malaysia.” This guy seemed to be excited at seeing a foreigner at that mosque and probably keen to find out more from me, which drove to more dialogue between us, and apparently more questions from him,

“So what’re you doing here?”
“How long have you been here?”
“So how do you find Australia?”
“Well I actually have a friend who just came back from Malaysia, he went there to watch the Formula One. Do you watch Formula One?

After a series of conversation, he finally revealed his actual intention for approaching me. Apparently he noticed that I did something in my solat that is not right, and he made it a point for him to show me to right way. Later a friend of his saw us and joined in the conversation,

“Assalamualaikum. Chinese?” (as you might have expected)
“Oh Malaysia! I’ve been there!”
“Malaysia’s very nice. I found that people there’re very humble.”

To those people who read my previous two postings and decided to judge me as always trying to find a way to be critical to my home country, this piece proves that I am actually not.

By the way, the first fellow’s name is Yasser, while the second one is Mustaffa. Both are locals, but I believe hail from some Arabic countries.
The conversation continued.

“So you’re a university student? Petroleum engineering? Wonderful! It’s good to learn that we’ve got plenty of Muslim professionals in the future.”

I am posting this not because this was my first time meeting other Muslims in this country. My Petroleum Engineering class itself in fact has Muslims covering more than half of its students, mainly from Saudi Arabia, Brunei as well as Malaysia. Besides, I encountered hundreds of them every week during the Friday prayer. But as far as I am concern, my meeting with Yasser and Mustaffa was the first of its kind I experienced. I found that most of Muslims I am living with here choose to segregate themselves according to background, countries where they are from in place of one genuine label; Muslims. Those from Saudi never bother to greet Malaysian blokes, and pretty simply the other way round. Again, I am not referring this bigotry to all of the Muslims here. I am merely saying most of us. Those who decide not to live in such way, I take my hats off in praise for them.

Well, back to my trip to Auburn. Yasser and Mustaffa apparently had some other serious concerns and left before Isya’ while I decided to wait for one, so here goes their final dialogue,

“Good to meet you Brother.”

It was indeed good.

Of Malaysia Hall's Open Day and The Quest for Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai

Today Malaysia Hall Sydney is holding its inaugural Open Day, and I could not get myself more excited about the prospect of one thing- Malaysian cuisine on the horizon. I went to bed last night thinking of myself luxuriating myself in the incredible taste of Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai, and I still did when I woke up this morning. Laugh at me if you wish to, but come here and try replacing my shoes, I bet you will surely have the same yearning. It is not that I had never found such heavenly luxuries here; in fact only last night my sponsor provided me with Nasi Lemak for dinner. People, it is the strange feeling when you never get satisfied with something and always ask for more. When you are used to having Nasi Lemak for breakfast or a weekly Roti Canai for supper, do you think you ever want to put a full stop to the whole think? Perhaps it is the same feeling when you patiently, staunchly waiting for the next Harry Potter movie to come out when you already watched the previous movies repeatedly, and in fact, you already read the book which means you know the entire story. Well, Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai and Harry Potter. Not a bad combination, huh?

For those of you who are not familiar with Malaysia Hall, it is a social center for Malaysian community in Australia which mostly revolves students, besides serving as a convenient accommodation for them. They hold major Malaysian events and religious festivals to promote good bonds and feel-like-home atmosphere for Malaysian residents here, Sydney in particular.
This Open Day, dubbed as the biggest event ever in their history, was given mediocre publicity, mostly only to Malaysian community. However, considering the somewhat large community circle as well as the kindness of some who invited their counterparts from other countries to join in the event, I was expecting this Open Day to be a real big one. Was I wrong? Well I did not really actually care, Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai were all in my mind.

So now both the Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai converged with the Open Day, the result was you saw me cycling spiritedly through a typical morning to get to Malaysia Hall- a breakfast set of Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai plus the awesome Teh Tarik was all I thought. The night before Buk told me on a phone conversation that the event would start at 9am with breakfast set ready to be served. I chose to give them a chance and decided to come only at 10am, as my Bruneian friends who were also coming wanted to come at that time. And I was there a little before 10 am.

However, as typical as any Malaysian event could be no matter in which part of the world, this particular event did little to escape the pathetic notion of ‘Janji Melayu’ which is recurrently associated to them – the settings of programs were way behind the schedule. I could only get a taste of Nasi Lemak about one and a half hour after I arrived. In fact when I reached there at 10am the booths had not even been set up, and there was this group of ladies who were only starting to prepare the cucumber for Nasi Lemak. And they acted as nothing was actually going wrong, that they never knew how to use their watch. I waited there patiently, until it crossed my mind that I should get myself off this whole mess and treated myself with a slice of pizza at a nearby place instead. I did wait, however, until the smell of Nasi Lemak reached my nostril and raised my appetite. In short, there I was enjoying this not-so-delicious Nasi Lemak after one and a half hour of patient, while waiting for my The Tarik. I was just about to forget the morning’s chaos when suddenly I was notified that The Tarik was not available, and I should get another drink instead. People, I was not really bothered with getting another drink, but what I wish to question is why did you want to put Teh Tarik in the menu in the first place when you could not afford to serve it? On one hand, you were cheating while on the other, you crushed people’s hope. You ruined my hope.

Later on I met a friend who dejectedly told me about the disappearance of his slippers. We both shared the same idea; it is not the price of the slippers we were concerned of, instead it is the bad manner of taking people’s belongings that annoys us. And as what you might also think at the moment, this is another typical dire manner of Malaysians.

As the event went on, there were also all those traditional Malay games as well as other modern games including 3 on 3 basketball made available, but I was simply not interested. There are other things that I wish to complain, such as the use of coupon to buy food. I always hate this idea since the primary school age, because this coupon system apparently forces us to spend. And for a matter of fact, my primary school’s Open Day applies a similar coupon concept. And now you start to think what is the difference between a primary school’s Open Day compared to this biggest-in-the-history one I had just attended? Well, maybe in primary school they do not start late. Maybe. The other thing that annoys me is the unprofessional, second-class use of the PA system. People are listening, so do not act silly in front of the microphone. And it is not that hard to find someone who can do the job properly I guess. By the way, the event's official poster that I posted on your left does not look nice either. The language used is simply not taken care of.

I spent my last coupon on Pulut Kuning, met some other people including Hafiz and Hanaa for a moment before I took off. By the way, did I mention anything about what happened to the Roti Canai? Well, the Roti Canai were there, but they looked weird, and I suddenly lost my lust for it. And two small, weirdly-made Roti Canai for AU$5? It simply did not help.

By the way, that friend of mine who lost his slippers found them back shortly after our conversation. I guess, at least we do not take people’s belongings, we only borrow them for a while. Without telling them.