for a while now, the higher echelons of our political hierarchy have had a new rationalization when things screw up. and the rationalization is this : irresponsible, lying bloggers.
he attributed mudslinging bloggers as one of the causes of a slow flow of tourists into the country despite it being Visit Malaysia Year 2007. apparently we should be singing praises about Msia in an attempt to lure tourists into our beautiful multi-racial, multi-ethnic country that is rich with culture and heritage and history. nevermind the fact that our multi-racial feelgood happy-clappy diversity is as real as the tourist brochures get, and that our govt has a habit of wrecking heritage sites that have such potential as tourist attractions, and the unspoken rule of our historical archiving is that the less-than-glorious parts should be forgotten and never brought up.
Tourism Minister said :
“Our airports are jam-packed daily, the occupancy rates at hotels are high and, furthermore, we are not only concentrating on Kuala Lumpur; the tourists visit other parts of the country.”
airports are jampacked. so? occupancy rates at hotels are high. so? not only concentrating on KL. so? how about not coming up with ridiculously plebeian defences, and actually doing something about the sad failure that is called Visit Malaysia Year 2007 (VMY 2007)? Tourism Minister, here is a newsflash : the tourists that are in our country right now have absolutely no flipping clue it is VMY 2007. the reasons they are here are reasons unbeknownst to us, but as a recent poll in The Star would have it, they are most definitely NOT here for the effectiveness of your campaign in their respective countries. they have no idea it exists. that means VMY is a failure because you people have no marketing savvy.
he also said : “With only one ferris wheel at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa drawing a huge crowd there, what are these people talking about VM2007 being lembab (slow)?”
it is no secret that i hate the stupid eye on fucking malaysia. spending 30 million of public funds on a stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid ferris wheel that will be dismantled by the end of the year is the most ridiculous proposition at tourism enhancement i have ever seen. and with 30mil, you’d think they’d use that money on an attraction that’s UNIQUE and not something that was ripped off another country’s attraction. and what the HELL does he mean that because the ferris wheel draws a crowd, it means VMY is a success? hello but have you not realized that everyone going to that stupid monstrosity are LOCALS???
and dont even get me started on the joke that is the idiotic RM1-for-15 minutes jamban in the middle of our city. it’s making us an international laughingstock, thank you very much tourism ministry. is malaysia so backward that self-cleaning, hygenic and presentable bathrooms have to become a fucking tourist attraction? shouldnt that be the state of toilets all over the country instead of a few strategically-placed glamourized Porta-Potties? how about putting the money that went towards those plastic huts into wages for the people who clean our public toilets? how about putting that money into TOILET ROLLS for our public toilets, for goodness’ sake? and how about not charging RM1 while you’re at it?
i dont know about y’all, but i cringe everytime i read travel guidebooks that say ‘guard your belongings; pickpocket and theft cases are abundant in Malaysia’. if our rampant crime rate is not a secret to the guidebook writers, surely it is not a secret to the people of Malaysia and the government. do something about it lah can or not. and while you’re at it, can we look into the corruption problem as well? yah yah elect Pak Lah and he’ll eradicate corruption in Msia. his service is going into 4 years now, but last month a cop wearing a “Aku Polis Anti Rasuah” (i am an anti-corruption cop) button on his lapel tried to fish for a bribe from my dad. fuck off and die lah, you teabreak-loving currypuff-eating criminal in a crimefighter’s uniform.
seriously. do the people in our tourism ministry travel? are they so saturated in politics that they no longer know what tourists look for when they go out to see the world? come on lah even an 18 year old girl knows what she wants to see when she travels. when i go to Indonesia i look for pisang goreng. when i go to Hong Kong i go shopping. when i go to Vietnam i check out the totally vibrant street life and culture. when i go to Singapore, i totally appreciate the user-friendly public transport system. so……… Malaysia oso got pisang goreng wat. our shopping is one of the cheapest in the region. our street life and culture is thankfully still very much alive. and ok so we dont have a user-friendly public transport system, but we can work on that! see, just do all these things lah. and talk more about nasi lemak. i swear to you, nasi lemak can bring in tourists by the THRONGS.
and how about revising some of the restrictions on foreign artist performances? we should hold more concerts! invite more performers! stop estranging international artistes ala Pussycat Dolls and Ang Lee! the Rainforest Music Fest in Swak is cool and all, but it is just not enough. do they not realize that music and the arts were the old black, are the new black, and will always be black! have more showcases and people will come, it is that simple. look at Bangkok .. they know that. look at Singapore.. they know that. yeah i oso know that, that’s why i’m spending a whole week there in two days time for the Mosaic festival, spending Singaporean dollars and buying Singaporean goods and raising Singapore’s GDP. the truth is you can always harp a lot about nationalism and shit like that, but at the end of the day, consumers can only have so much patriotism. we are consumers just as we are citizens. if you dont deliver, then too bad lah, we go across the causeway lah.
and what are they DOING to our night markets and wet markets? i wonder if they realize such things are what make us quintessentially south east asian, and that tourists love to see this sort of thing? why is the bangsar pasar malam, a place brimming with Malaysianness, turning into a DBKL-blue-tent and plastic-table abomination? why do they want to raze wet markets to build high-rise buildings that have bad architecture anyway? people dont travel out of a concrete jungle to see another concrete jungle.
also, if the govt is really so intent on spreading the good word about Malaysia, i honestly see no better way of doing that than via our local filmmakers who are definitely kicking ass in the international arena. but what happens to Yasmin Ahmad? she gets flak about being pencemar budaya. what happens to Tan Chui Mui? they dont give her funding for her movies. what happens to Amir Muhammad? they ban all his movies. WELL DONE LAH GOVT. I’M SURE WE LOVE THIS TEMPURUNG WE ARE UNDER.
what else what else. oh yah. our taxi drivers. but no need to say anything lah that one, you dont know meh, now they trying to clamp down on errant taxi drivers by sending undercover officials on taxi-riding sprees. very effective wan, you dont know meh. that’s why over the past week all these cabbies still tried to charge me RM 30 from mid valley to my place and tried to tell me at 10 freaking PM they have the right to impose midnight surcharge. damn effective these govt strategies! dont simply criticize!!!
and speaking of criticism. of course bloggers got all the shit lah. first of all, what is wrong with critique? why cant you deal with it? as executives, you’re supposed to make us happy first and foremost. if we are not happy, are you not supposed to do something about it? why are you shutting us up? not enough izzit you gag the mainstream media into the pathetic state it is in now? secondly, it is the media’s job to inform and to educate. well surprise surprise and i wonder why, it seems our mainstream media doesnt do a good job of that. so can you blame the information-hungry masses for turning to the internet for their education? can you blame them for finding on blogs what should be in our newspapers in the first place? our PM said at the Asian Media Summit 2006 : “the media must present different sides to a story, dismiss half truths and foster critical thinking so that people can be more informed in their daily lives”. yeah listen to your PM. how come when bloggers present different sides of a story and dismiss half truths, it’s not critical thinking.. but they are told that it is all lies and irresponsibility? oh and of course they are told to ‘check their facts’, as is the popular harumphhh of our ministers, keris-waving, one-eye-closing or otherwise.
okay i’m getting too angsty. it’s just that it’s so aggravating to read about the ministry who gave birth to VMY 2007 (which is a joke) condemning bloggers simply because they arent getting the results they want. Tourism Ministry, if anything, bloggers are the ones putting Malaysia on the map. when we write about our daily lives, people all around the world can become acquainted to Malaysian lifestyles in a way so real and personal, it surpasses all marketing campaigns. and that is something your farcical ‘Malaysia Truuuulyyyy Asiiiiaaaaaa’ ads will never be able to achieve.
tonight’s one of those nights. those Comments Off nights of bleakness and dissolution. few things make me happy lately; i drew a little bit of delight from watching an angsty angry cabbie eat an ice cream earlier tonight, but that cheer was shortlived. when i got home i sat on the floor for a long time weighing decisions but ultimately coming to nothing. then i crawled into bed and pressed my right cheek against the pillow, and i stared at the wall. i recognise this feeling and it’s loneliness. but i realize that i of all people have absolutely no right to feel lonely. i get so much love from my friends and family and boyfriend. i should shut up and be grateful for what i have. but at the same time i just want people to understand me. that’s the best gift you could ever give me.. just one ounce of understanding, for one minute. just see where i’m coming from, stop yelling at me, stop calling me names, stop expecting anything from me. this is all so unfair. you’re unfair. that moment haunts me in my dreams. it hits me at that very last second right before i cum. i sink into it slowly in the minutes before i fall asleep. it’s there in my mind when i pick up the phone and start talking. and i want to throw up. i think it’s sick. sick sick sick. my skin crawls. i want out but i dont quite know how to say it.
1. i got a 78% in my econs test. what is wrong with me??
2. after a 4-month long absence from the gym, i finally went back the other day. as per the usual, i went to get my body composition analysis done. i thought i wouldnt have to face my trainer’s wrath, because i’d actually lost weight during my time away from the gym. but then when my results were printed, the guy started laughing. “what???” i asked, barely masking my irritance. said he with a big grin, “you got some explaining to do to Lam (my trainer).. you may have lost weight, but that’s because your muscles have all converted to fat. prepare yourself ah…. your body fat percentage has gone up 5%!” -__________- what. the. fark. i am a whale!
3. after a lot of fretting and hesitation, i sent in my application for the Malaysian team that would represent the country in the World Schools Debating Championships. to my complete and utter shock and joy and jubilation and TOTAL HAPPINESS, i got a call yesterday saying i was selected to come audition for the team. i was so excited ok. i immediatelly called and emailed my nearest and dearests, to share with them what is the most amazing news i’ve gotten in a long time.
but. today. i got a call saying. that. i’m not eligible to join the team because. i’m enrolled in college.
ARGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. and you know what is the worst part of it all … the reason they found out is actually my fault. coz i stupidly told them i was in college doing a degree programme. -____-
the above three reasons and some other unbloggable reasons had me way down down down in the doldrums today. starbucks caramel macchiato didnt help. gelato didnt help. a lot of kinder bueno didnt help. i wanna jump off building but Martian dont let. so i went and did this :
it’s been so long since i had short hair, i cant even remember what it feels like. i got bangs again, too. i think it looks better sideswept (below), but Martian and hockchuan disagree and think it looks better down (below below).
i thought i’d feel much better after doing this but i’m still awfully depressed. i’m in one of those phases where i just want to go far, far, far away and roll in flower fields or something.
it was definitely a scene at the Singapore Expo last Saturday, when punk rock band Fall Out Boy were in the Lion City to promote their 4th and latest album, Infinity On High.
prior to the night of the event, publicity of the show was almost non-existent in KL. even in Singapore, news of the concert went around mostly by radio and word-of-mouth. however,
okay so it seems i no longer have to do a write-up on Fall Out Boy’s gig in Singapore. so to hell with the customary sanguine politeness of mainstream media reviews! i shall tell it like it is! it is no holds barred from hereon! (unless of course, you are a publication who didnt send anyone to cover the event, but think it may be nice to feature the gig. in which case, you can email amateur ol’ me.)
anyway yes, i dont know why the publicity and advertising for FOB were so paltry. i would think that for a band so big, the concert would be touted all over the streets of Singapore and KL, especially now that FOB have managed to tap into mainstream audiences (though i’m not sure if that is a good thing). and what with Singapore being the only Asian stop in their 4 month long worldwide tour! if i were the organizers, i would have been more than happy to spend a few extra bucks just to blow the event out of the water. i mean, it’s Fall Out Boy! dude!
when i got to the Expo, i must say the initial sentiment i had was one of disappointment. walking into the enclosed concert hall, there were kids as far as the eye could see. i dont mean kids like kids my age, i mean kids like kids aged 10-13!!! see lah, this is what you get when good bands go mainstream. you have all these fake-eyelashed preteen girls going to rock concerts in glittery high heels and boys who think they’re cool if they’re wearing a tshirt that says ‘I’m A Sex Instructor’. upon sight of 2 such tshirts and too many prom-queen girls, i started to prepare myself for the fact that this would not be a good concert.
at 8.10pm, Malaysian band One Buck Short opened for Fall Out Boy! that was a very pleasant surprise, coz i thought it was just a rumour that they were going to be the opening act. so amidst the crowd of some 5000 (teenybopper) Singaporeans, there was 1 Malaysian pinkpau that night feeling very bangga for the Malaysian local music scene. heehee.
i like the fact that One Buck Short are totally laidback and not image-driven as some bands can be. Izal came onstage in a purple shirt that said Fart Wars… hahaha wtf so cute. lead vocalist Mooky wore this jacket that you’d wear out to get a pack of smokes or something. that’s keeping it real. i loved that they didnt try too hard to impress, which is the case most of the time for opening acts. but is it just me or has One Buck Short’s musical style taken a new Simple Plan-esque direction? i remember listening to their EP songs and they weren’t anything like what i heard at the concert.
Saw Loser, a Singaporean hybrid band, was the 2nd opening act of the night. man, they are one good example of image-driven bands who try too hard. i’ve only heard of Saw Loser in passing, but i did not expect to see what was clearly a Greenday-’inspired’ band walking onstage to perform. white spiky hair, red necktie, black shirt .. all present. aiyo. their music was okay, i thought it wasnt too bad, but i really was just eying their very VERY dishy guitarist the whole time :D
but apparently Greenday hairstyles and sexy guitarists are not enough to win over the Singaporeans. throughout Saw Loser’s set, people kept booing and there were scattered yells of ‘get off the stage!’. i thought it was just a case of impatience on the crowd’s part, but then i asked around, and it turns out that Saw Loser is not very well-liked in Singapore. ‘arrogant’ and ‘lame’ were some of the adjectives i got. well, okay. but they got lengchai guitarist wor.
anyway, bla bla bla, insert 20-minute wait while roadies did sound checks .. and finally Fall Out Boy comes on stage!!!!! but big yawn for opening gambit, we got the same ole same ole Smoke Machine and Blinding White Light ‘do. geez. is a little bit of creativity too much to ask for?
i wish i could give you a long detailed blog about the awesomeness of the whole gig, but i honestly dont have a lot to say about Fall Out Boy’s 1-hour performance. the whole thing just fell a little bit short of my expectations. they performed as if they were barely there; only guitarist Joe Trohman made attempts to muster up some semblance of showmanship. it was all very lacklustre. the crowd went wildest only when they played old tracks like Dance Dance and Sugar, We’re Going Down. even when they did This Ain’t A Scene, the hall wasnt exploding as it should have. and i didnt like the light engineering either - it was poorly done, and just didnt maximize the performances the way good light engineering would.
i have something i want to say about my experience in this concert. from the very start of the show even before the opening acts came on, it was very clear that this crowd was an exceptionally pushy and rude one. throughout the event, my brother and i witnessed more than several tussles between people who were trying to shoulder their way to the front. all these vicious white girls were shoving small angsty asian girls, and in return the small angsty asian girls were bitching back in Mandarin. even the boys werent giving face to girls who were tiptoeing to get a better view; they had the nerve to push the girls’ heads down, and on a few occasions called them less than savoury names.
momentarily i was confused. the last standing-pit concert i went for was the Bangkok 100 Rock Festival, where as i recall, everyone was very friendly and they were all there to have a good time as one crowd. people were passing joints around and giving you space to move ahead if you wanted. even when Hoobastank and Simple Plan came to KL, the crowd was friendly and cooperative. Linkin Park was a little bit unpleasant thanks to a few jakun groups in the pit area, but overall it was bearable.
Fall Out Boy, on the other hand, was just oh my gawd. i was so bewildered, wondering what the hell is going on, is this not supposed to be a civilized country that has international acts coming to perform all the time? i mean, coming to a rock concert with high heels is pardonable, but this is a freaking ROCK CONCERT.. isnt there some unwritten rule that you are not allowed to be uptight at a rock concert?? just chill out and enjoy the music lah right. what’s with all the animosity and this massive free-for-all to get to the front??
the answer to that only dawned on me much much later when i was in my hotel room drinking diet coke and pondering the intricacies of contemporary concert-goer behavioural patterns : i kinda forgot that i was in the land that invented the word ‘kiasu’. haha.
there’s also a more universal problem about concerts these days. because we’re smack in the middle of the camera-phone and digital camera revolution, the typical average concert pit has now become a massive 3-hour congregation of people sticking their arms up in the air to take pictures. yeah sure, taking pictures is fine, but how do you have fun at a pit concert when you’re taking photos all the damn time? must worry about stability lah, must worry about composition lah, must worry about changing shutter speed lah .. aiyoh. it just gets in the way of personal satisfaction, and when too many people do it, it affects the concert crowd as a whole. have people forgotten how to enjoy music?
Fall Out Boy eventually sent a friend down to the pit to start a mosh. it was not bad at all, my brother was in it and he reports that it was a good mosh. haha i remember when these bunch of white guys tried to start a mosh pit when Incubus came to KL, and security came to stop them. kudos to Singaporean concert organizers for being happening!
the night ended with Fall Out Boy’s extremely gorgeous bassist Pete Wentz going down to the crowd for his dose of ego-inflating. that man is unbelievably hot despite his cockiness (at one point, girls were screaming his name, and he just rolled his eyes at them. gasp, the nerve), and how can a girl not swoon at his lyrical genius? for the uninformed, Pete Wentz is the one who pens the lyrics to FOB’s songs and comes up with their infamous song titles like ‘Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued’ and ‘I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me’.
and he’s sexy. which would explain why girls literally tore the shirt off his back when he was held over the crowd at the end of the show. and believe you me, catfights ensued after the show, over bits and shreds of his blue tshirt that ironically read, ‘Leave Me Alone’. hahaha oh girls. why do you feed such sarcasm!
and i must admit that the very moment Pete Wentz came onstage, the first thing i thought was, dude, i’ve seen your penis in all its shaved glory.
this is me sitting on the floor of the concert hall after the concert was over, on which i spotted bra cups, remains of sweat-stained clothing, a soiled sanitary pad and lots and lots and lots of discarded shoes.
i apologise, george, i have no videos! wait, actually i do. but you can barely hear anything from all the fuzz :(
i like to think i am in control of how i feel. but truly i know that i am not. like right now, i’m feeling the one emotion i hate the most. fear. there is no word to describe how much i abhor and shun the feeling of fear. i like to think i dont feel fear. and the truth is, i dont. or not a lot anyway. but nights like tonight are the anomalies in my otherwise perfect life. right now i am very very scared. it’s 3.57am. i know that when i wake up tomorrow, i will have forgotten all of this. but by the evening, i will remember once again. and then i will want to say something. and maybe i do say it, or just a little bit of it .. but eventually the truth never comes out. because i’m scared and i dont have the courage it takes to spill it all out. then i’m told not to say anything if i’m not going to finish my sentences. reason? because it’s annoying. but do you not care how i feel? why wont you sit down with me and help me try to understand what i’m going through? dont you see that sometimes things are hard to say. and that being vulnerable is difficult when one has tried their entire life to seem anything but. the truth is, i’m vulnerable. not very vulnerable, but just vulnerable. i may look angry to you, but at night i cry myself to sleep and when i have breakfast i draw sad smileys in my ketchup. who am i to you? some girl who blogs stuff.. but in between that ’stuff’ is a ghost of a person in a few hundred drafts that never saw the light of the index page. they are stories of how i dream about cats and bottles and sweat and dark corridors. stories of forgotten kisses and desired fulfilment. fulfilment.. what a big word. on my friendster, under my Who I Want To Meet column, is the name ‘fulfilment’. fulfilment, why are you so elusive? all i want is a little bit of you. just graze me with your fingertips. flicker your split-ended hair on my cheeks. anything… and tell me why if everyone else can have you, why cant i?
Pinkpau is Su Ann. 19, Malaysia. Hostile when hungry. Sometimes a shapeshifter, always an optimist with a penchant for pessimism and shoe-shopping. More?
Contact at : pinkpau[at]gmail[dot]com
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The point of the pinkness of this site is to annoy the crap out of you. Really. What made you think I was a nice person? More?
