The Pass and Now

The Pass and Now

A brief introduction and history about Batu Road which is now Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, this place is named after the first Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. It is located in the business district of Kuala Lumpur is a strone throw away from Dataran Merdeka and little India.

This road was previously named as Batu road and it leads to Batu village where mining activates took place. In the 1930s, development overtook the village changing the swamps, rice fields and coconut estates in to the busiest road in KL. Now days, the elderly people call the place refer this place as Batu Lut.

For this assignment, we are suppose to interview someone that is 40 years old above and to ask them about a place in Kuala Lumpur that gave them memories about it. I interview two ladies, Mary (60) and Jenny (58) they are sisters and they talked about the childhood days when they lived in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman (Batu Road).

Both sisters reflected about their childhood days when they were younger, they grew up at Jalan Batu Road, which is now named Jalan Tunku Abdul Raman. They said that there were empty spaces all around, squatters and shop lots which were divided into business shops and residents. The lower shops were shops for the business man to conduct their business and the upper stories were for the residents to stay. Chow Kit was a safe place to live and both sweet ladies said they had a fun time when they were younger. They also said at that time there were also gangsterisms going on but they were more civilise, disciplined and they had principles. They were like guardian angels to them, they were there to take care of the community, compared with the gangster now days; they are in the community to cause trouble.

The games that they played are currently unavailable, which means that the kids now days spend less time outdoors. For example: catching spider, riding bicycle, kunchi kuntar, are the activities that they used to play. Jenny quoted that “any space were available was a playground for them”.

Back to the good times where both sisters enjoyed when they were younger. They mentioned that there were two cinemas and lots of food stalls around. The food was cheaper compared to now, but money was harder to earn then. When Mary and jenny was in their 20’s, they said the “May 13” incident changed everything. When they were younger, the society was friendlier and all races mixed together peacefully but after that everything changed. The streets were quiet, the residents and the people around do not treat each other as friendly as they did before. The Malay, Chinese and Indian started to change attitudes towards each other. They all stated to mind their own business. They are not as friendly as before, as what the both ladies said. From then, the area was not as safe and the people started to stay home.

Overall both ladies enjoyed their childhood days and they miss those times when they were younger. I ended my interview with a picture.

the ladies..

Pink P.J "Mary" & White top "Jenny"

Our Burmese Days

Our Burmese Days

In this documentary, the main idea was to find a family’s actual root whereby the mother denies that they were from Burmese which is now Myanmar. This film shows that a daughter trying which was the director of the film (Lindsay) trying to convince her mother to go back to her home country which is in Burma. It consists of her brother (Bill) and her mother (Sally). Sally is originated from Burma but had migrated to England for quite some time. She denies that she was from Burma, she only acknowledge herself as English. She a shame of being a Burmese, Lindsay invited her mother to make a trip back to Burma but she was very reluctant about the idea. Sally was not ready to face the pain that had happened way back then when her mother which is Lindsay’s grandmothers death. Lindsay finally got her mother to agree on going to this trip and when they step down all the old memories flashed back for sally. They went visit old neighbour and friends. They told sally about her mother’s death and surely sally cried. Sally misses her mother, and it was hard for her. Lindsay was born in UK and she was very interested in knowing her actual roots. She wanted to meet people who know about her family which could tell her stories which she had missed out, she also wanted to know more about the culture in Burma and how it feels like being a Burmese. Sally’s persistence made the trip not as enjoyable as they could have. She insist that she is an English and not from Burma. She has lost roots and from this film, Lindsay is trying to encourage her mother to remember where she actually came from, and she can be proud of her own country. overall this documentary brings out the meaning of acknowledging and be proud of our own kind and do not forget our roots.

Persepolis

PERSEPOLIS
Is an interesting animation movie, I really enjoy watching it. It started out with a girl name Marjane or so called Marji when she was younger, was smoking in the airport terminal, she flash back to her younger days where she was living with her family. Marji grew up in a situation where she witnessed the Revolution of Iran and the politics that affected her emotionally.
Muslims are not allowed to gamble, drink liquor, no close contact with the opposite sex, and many other rules that they have to follow. From the animated movie, it shows that they were all partying and going against the rules that we set. Iran is a traditional country and they belief in purity. There was a scene where Marji was in class and she debated with her teacher about the beliefs of their culture.
At that point of time Marji was interested in watching Japanese show and westernise songs for example the bee gees and Abba. They were influenced by the westernise culture but the government are trying their best to prevent it from coming in to their country. In the movie, it showed that the authorities were roaming around the area to have a watch out of the illegal.
Marji had to let her feelings out, she listened to rock music, going to illegal area to purchase prohibited materials. Her style of wearing was different with the rest of the community and she was the only one who was daring enough to show her suppression emotion.
Marji was send to overseas to continue her education; her parents wanted her to have a better study environment where she could let her feelings out. But they did not know practically hat she was doing over there. They thought she was concentrating with her studies but she was having the time of her life there. She started doing drugs, smoked, and also drinking. She was lost with her life. Her love life was also not turning out as what she wanted. She started sleeping around with guys and she ended up sleeping on the streets. She was lost and she did not have anywhere to go, she called back home crying telling her parents that she wants to go back home but in one condition that they would not ask what happened.
Overall Persepolis is a film which talks about the Islamic culture and to remember the actual root that you are from. In this film it also portraits the influence of negative manner from the westernise country. We are living in a stereotype world where people are envy of others cause they have different colour skin or hair. For example, we Asians have nice black hair, but why do we want to colour it with rainbow colours to look like westerners? And the western people would envy our hair texture whereby they also have nice hair. These are the point which shows that the world is facing stereotypical people.

Big Durian

The Big Durian

First of all I would like to say that “The Big Durian” is a very interesting show, where it helps us Malaysians to understand more about the politics that happened before. Before watching this movie, I did not know about the case of Private Adam’s amok because it happened in 1987 whereby I was one year old at that time. This documentary is done in a way that it is humorous and yet brings out the message of the scary event that happened at that time.

1. What scene in "The Big Durian" made an impression on you, and why?
The scene that gave me a major impression is the scene where they showed Private Adam’s face expression on the news paper. He was cool and calm. He sort of have the expression that showed he did not do anything wrong or he was relieved from his burden. The fact is he had killer whereby he killed the innocents but he does not have the guilt in him.

2. What was rumored to be Private Adam’s grouse/ reason which lead him to running amok?
The most popular rumours that are believed by the citizens of Malaysia are that the Sultan of Johore killed Private Adam’s brother. He reported the case but was ignored by the authorities because this case involved a higher position citizen that is the Sultan. At that period of time the Sultan of Johore had a very high control in Malaysia. I’m a Johore girl and my mom told me some stories about the Sultan of Johore. From what I heard, he was a big bully, he carries his gun where ever he goes and he does whatever he likes. I’ve heard that he slapped a waiter’s because he does not like his face and if he is not happy with that person he would just pull out his gun and pull the trigger. I would not know is it true facts or was it just rumours, it depends on what you belief. In Private Adam’s case, I belief that he was trying to get attention to the public about the official authorities not helping him whereby his brother was killed by a higher position person.

3. A character from Sabah ends her narrative by noting the look on Private Adam’s face. What was it that she saw and how does it contrast with her feelings?
The character from sabah said that she had a felt the freedom and peace when she saw Private Adam’s expression, she feels that Kuala Lumpur is a place where most of the dangerous things or events would occur and she feels unsafe to be staying in KL.

4. From what historical point is the director viewing the events of 1987? What is the “present” of the documentary and what’s it’s mood?
The director is trying to create some politic awareness to the public as the public are not aware of what is going on to the society today. The director tries to make the documentary in a funny way where younger generation would prefer to watch it and have an idea the events that happened in 1987.

Liew Kung Yew vs. Anthony Milner

Liew Kung Yew vs. Anthony Milner

To be truthful I have briefly read through with Anthony Milner’s work. It talks mostly about the history of Malaysia. From the art work “Cadangan –Cadangan Untuk Negaraku” Kung yew tries to portrait a frame work of Malaysians culture. I like the “Bandar Sri Tiang Kolam” in particular, because in this piece I see the different segments that he divided. He made it in the way that we could see the different category of houses from the wealthy section of houses to a lower class housing area and the bridges that are linking together brings out the idea of Malaysians working together for a better future. For the pillars it sort of says that the pillars of Malaysia that is the next generation of Malaysia.

For the “Pantai Gelora Cahaya” it looks like a futuristic picture where the staircase leading up to the sky. Tourists are everywhere visiting and taking pictures of the beautiful ocean in Malaysia. The cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku is displayed on the trishaw of the frame brings out the message that Malaysia is a traditional and cultural country, because trishaw is part of a transportation vehicle at that point of time.

Metropolis Warisan shows that the architecture the main attraction of Malaysia. From the collage it shows the advancement of our country, because it shows the twin towel, LRT vehicle, and some of the cultural buildings. He made it colourful to attract the attention from the public.

From the art “Konkrit Jungle” we could see many kinds of animal that were display in the frame of work, but the way he display the animals were unusual. He stacked up some of the animal and some of the animals have windows on its body from my point of view it represents that what the animal think or see from their view towards us human. Kung Yu used some of the animals to be the entrance for some sort of a tourist attraction to attract tourist’s attention, from what I see is that it means Malaysia has many attractions for tourist to visit. There is a board which states “CHADANGAN CHADANGAN UNTUK NEGARA KU” I feel that he is trying to present some ideas to our nation.