Posts filed under 'Rants'
i went back to my high school today with 5 other classmates to give a motivational talk to the upper secondary students. even though it was an extremely last minute arrangement, it was also easy and fun, so we agreed enthusiastically to do it. three of us spoke off the cuff: darren spoke about aims and goals, kezanne on how grades are not everything.. and me.. i spoke about how we should never let anyone - be it the school, our teachers or our classmates - put us down simply because we are different.
darren and kezanne gave great speeches, but i feel the need to clarify what i said today. i started my speech by saying that when i was in high school, i would probably not have been attending this very assembly because i would not even be present in school anyway. it’s a pretty known fact that i didnt have the best attendance in school, simply because i didnt LIKE being in school. school bored me and i felt like i just was not made to be in this environment at all.
this attitude got me a lot of flak from teachers, and it was also something that i fell deeper and deeper into as my high school years went on. i remember how sometime in form 4, i had the strongest contempt for teachers and students alike because i thought they were all so narrow minded, rigid and self-important.
like how i was once accused of cheating in an exam by a new teacher because she was ‘warned’ about me and was very surprised that i got good grades for her paper, which i studied my heart out for. another time, i wasn’t allowed to run for student council president even though i got the popular vote. i also had this CF president who liked to remind me how undisciplined or ungodlike i was. countless times i was told to my face how i’d be the one person who would pull my class average down, flunk SPM, that my parents should be ashamed for bringing me up wrongly, or that i should try to be more like my classmates.
i was in the top class every year, where everyone was mostly studious and meek. most of them could and would not flout rules, and a handful had a kind of condescending attitude towards those that did, as if the fact that they attended school day in day out made them so much better and smarter than those who didnt, or the fact that they followed rules diligently meant that they were somehow more superior and learned beings. my class also had a bit of this ‘every man for himself’ kind of thing going on. one time i had this huge screaming fight with this teacher who was making all sorts of rude and uncalled for remarks about me in the classroom as if i wasn’t even there, and when i spoke up to defend myself, none of my friends stood up for me or even dared to look up from their desks even though i was crying and crying. this same teacher later picked on another girl from another class by repeatedly pushing her head, and immediately half of that classroom stood up to defend the girl. so cool, isnt it? that’s what friends are for. i dont think that kind of vibe existed in my classroom back then, and i’m so glad that things are very much different now that we’ve grown up and allowed our friendship to develop in an unstifled and competition-free zone.
high school was a very lonely and angry time for me; many times i felt so terribly discouraged by all the comments, refusal of opportunities and just that really shitty feeling that people didnt place any hope or belief in me. you can say that i probably deserved this kind of treatment, but my logic was that i was harming no one, and that my skipping of school or not doing homework was not THAT big of an issue anyway. besides, i got good grades. i was pleasant, friendly, nice. i had lots of friends. i was involved in and knowledgeable about things outside of the classroom. i wrote and debated well. i organized lots of events and fundraisers for the school. all these things, to me, more than make up for sucky attendance. success is more than being a drone.
and it is important to me that other students know that. i have a really strong sense of determination and also many good friends who always knew how to get me back up on my feet, which despite the odds, eventually resulted in my success and happy ending in high school. but not everyone could be so lucky. discouragement is a big, serious thing that should not ever be flung around carelessly; i know this because i still have all the hurt and anger inside me that are scars of carelessly-flung discouragement. it is important to me that other students know that they dont have to be like their classmates simply because herd mentality dictates so, and that grades are not the only measure of success in high school.
honestly? i dont think that the head prefect or the assistant head prefect or the student council president or all the prefects in my class or all the teachers pets are in any way better, smarter or more accomplished human beings than me. i dont think it’s right that people are made to feel that they are lesser than others. i dont think it’s right to allow arrogance to fester in these supposed ‘top students’, nor do i think it’s right that these ‘top students’ strengths and goals should be imposed on other people. i do, however, think that we are all equal people who are all awesome, but awesome people who are diverse and are good at and enjoy doing different things.
i love my teachers and my classmates, and i think my classmates are some of the most brilliant people i have ever met, but.. i cant be expected to be just like them. i was not born to be. in fact, i like how i turned out. i like that i got 12A’s in SPM and i like that i was a warm, popular, active, well-liked and open-minded person both in high school and college. i like that i am going to Columbia University in two months’ time. i like that i have a bright future ahead of me, that i have people in my life who love me unconditionally, that i have this blog where people who read me are so kind and reach out to me with such encouraging feedback whenever i face problems. i like that i have had the beautiful blessing of my family, best friends and my boyfriends who know me inside out and have been with me through thick and thin. and all this… after how i went through all those years in high school being told that i had an attitude problem, that i would never succeed in anything i do, that i was just not as good as my classmates, that i was an epic failure.
my life and all that i have achieved with it is not a failure. so i skipped school. so i wore my skirt short and wore a pink scrunchie to school. so i stood up for myself even if it meant raising my voice at a teacher. so i broke rules. but so what? :) at the end of the day, i am still not this failure that they thought i was and would be. ‘they’, by the way, are not and will never be the ones who decide what my success and failures are.
my message during my talk today was essentially this: that we are all different, and we should not be discouraged by people who try to bring us down for it. i know my school has this culture of suppressing radical creativity and individuality, and it makes me sad to think that every year, there are students like me who are graduating with half of their spunk and verve ironed flat out of them.
i think i delivered my talk very poorly today, because the audience seemed to get the impression that i was encouraging truancy and that the gist was “you can succeed even by not attending school”. well, it’s not. if you think that is my point, then you have missed it entirely. that is of course my fault, because i winged my speech with entirely no preparation and i was angry when i was speaking. sigh. so, to anyone reading this who was there for my talk, i hope you understand that i’m not telling you to be like me or that i’m giving a sort of stamp of approval on my own behavior. i’m sure that with this long supplement, you guys are intelligent and mature enough to see now what i meant to say this afternoon.
i’m also tired of people giving me that ATTITUDE = 100 thing. i mean, yeah, it’s a very cute attention-grabber for motivational seminars and all that, but it is neither a fundamental principle of existence nor the best benchmark of human qualities. besides, we all have different perceptions of what a good attitude is, so dont come and tell me that your idea of a good attitude should be mine and everyone else’s. attitude, contrary to the popular belief of motivational seminar attendees, is not everything. no one decides what ‘everything’ is.
haih. am i being ranty. sorry :( i just felt so uncomfortable after that talk that i just really needed to clear this up.
okay lah so serious already, must lighten the mood abit. i shall show you some pictures of Ben and Freddy rolling around in the sand at Perhentian.
#1 roll
#2 roll
#3 roll
#4 someone’s been reading the kama sutra!
#5 wheelbarrow hahaha
i heart Ben and Fred cos they’re never too afraid to have fun.. they are the coolest :) and here is one of my favorite Perhentian pictures - the guys holding up their pants after peeing in the sea! :
July 1st, 2008
i first started blogging 7 years ago. in 2001, when i was a fiery little bookworm in Form 1 who had too many opinions and too little time to let everything out, i started my first ever blog at Geocities.com, using Blogger, the blogging tool that would later spawn the almighty Blogspot.com. i had all of 10 readers then, and it was great because these were my best and closest friends at the time. geocities.com/pinkpau.. haha. good times.
i remember changing URLs a few times because i was so paranoid that other people were reading my blog. i had a lot of rants on my blog, you see, and these rants could be read by any of the people i wrote about. this was a time when i was 100% honest about my feelings in my blog because it was being read only by my closest friends anyway, who would give the best advice and already knew me inside out. i eventually settled on pinkskyes.tripod.com and decided to never move again, but i still wasn’t completely open to the idea of a public blog. in a way, i dont think i ever really decided to go public; somewhere along the line i just slipped into the acceptance that we can never really hide ourselves on the internet.
in pinkskyes, i blogged with absolutely no refrain. i had something like 400 readers a day then, and i just blogged whatever i wanted to. if i was happy, i’d talk at length about exactly what was making me happy. if i was angry, you could expect a long and detailed rant about the specific people and incidents that were involved. i had a few short posts every day; whenever i felt like saying something on my blog, i’d blog, even if it was just 2 sentences long.
then in January 2006, i got my domain and moved here to quaintly.net, using Wordpress, entirely set up by Booha and Alvin the Puppy because i am technologically impaired like that. this was when i made the first step into the public blogging arena, and i started to be really careful with what i had to say because i was getting linked everywhere and hearing from lots of acquaintances and totally unexpected people about how they ’stumbled upon my blog’. haih that can be very scary, as i’m sure most bloggers would realize.
then i actually started attending blog meets, something i’d always avoided because i never really wanted to get involved with - and was almost scared of - the Malaysian ‘blogosphere’ as they put it then, and still put it now. my first bloggers meet ever was in early 2006 - a very small one put together by the cast of The Homecoming which i’d watched and loved. that was where i met Zona and TV Smith, and i remember Fireangel with her screwdrivers and Kimberlycun and Shaolin Tiger not showing up because they forgot about the meet.
that was my first ever real encounter with bloggers, and i guess being amongst them helped me come out of my private-blogging shell a little bit. in my pinkskyes days, i watched how bloggers attacked each other openly over the smallest things, i watched the whole Xiaxue vs Malaysia drama, i heard of this PPS thing and how it was the ‘who’s who’ of the blogosphere, and many more things like that. the ‘blogosphere’ just seemed like such a vicious place to be, and the whole idea of a huge blogging community was just very foreign to me. after 5 years of blogging privately, i felt like a country girl being thrown into the city - a little bit dazed, a little bit scared, a little bit self-conscious.
i’ve grown to become extremely comfortable in the blogosphere now, so comfortable that it’s strange when i think about how it’s only been 2.5 years since i was initiated into the scene. that’s only one third of my entire blogging life. i still write what i want to, albeit not as wholly as i’d like to.. and i’m a lot more censored and refrained than i used to be.
and you know, that is the biggest peeve that i have with myself - the fact that my blogging has become so vague and secretive over the years, and that i can’t always write what i want to, because my blog is now very very public. since quaintly.net, i dont think i have ever ranted or hinted at my displeasure at any one person without said person eventually reading about it. with a public blog, i’ve learned that sometimes it’s better to keep all the super personal stuff away because not doing so entails all sorts of problems like people getting their feelings hurt, blog wars, boycotting, snubbing, sabotage, gossip, and many more.
and that’s why all the stuff you read on my blog are these happy things that fall short of addressing the heart of what i REALLY want to talk about. the closest i can ever come to writing about these taboo things are my emo Musings and Unsent Letters posts, but even those i have to heavily cloak in confusing vagueness and lock the comments, so that people dont really understand or know the details of what i’m talking about.
there are really a lot of things i wish i could blog about, like in my pinkskyes days, because i want to just let it out and let my friends read it and at the same time get their feedback in my comments box. but of course such things come with repercussions, and so i can’t and don’t want to blog about these things anymore. sigh.
like yesterday, Martian and i had this big fight in Gardens. i thought he was being so unfair and unreasonable, and i wanted to blog both our sides of the story and ask everyone if it was wrong for me to have gotten angry. but then i can’t, because these are things better solved between the both of us instead of aired out in the open.
and i want to blog about this person whom i know, who is perhaps the most ungrateful and disgustingly two-faced person i’ve ever met. long story short, i’ve backed her up and supported her many a time when she needed it, but never a word of thanks. instead, what she does is totally backstab me. but i can’t blog about it because she’s a good friend’s girlfriend. and they both read my blog.
and i want to blog about this long feud i’ve had with someone. yeah i just want to blog about it and let everyone know what kind of a person she really is, and all the things she’s done to me and my friends. i want to clear the rumour that i apparently ‘hate her for no reason’, because there are a million and one skanky things she’s said and done that no one knows of, but that *I* know of and have firsthand experience of. but i can’t, because it’s someone’s reputation at stake, and of course no matter how angry i am this is something that i should not do.
and i want to blog about this blogger who made an attack on Kimberlycun and me on her blog, basically saying that we were spouting atrocities at this forum we were invited to speak at. i am confused because i have no idea which part of our speech troubled her, or why ANYONE would even have an issue with what we said, because it wasn’t like we were saying anything remotely controversial. so i emailed her about it, but she just brushed me off by saying it wasn’t personal, because one of her friends even shares the same opinion as us. (huh?) so i’d really like to blog about it and get everyone’s opinion on this supposedly ‘atrocious topic, but no.. i can’t blog about it because there are other parties involved who would probably hijack the subject and use it against us. long story.
and i want to blog about Bottega Girl. but i can’t. because i want to try to like her even if she doesnt like me. i NEED to try to like her.
and i want to blog about so many more things, but i can’t, because at the end of the day, given all the reasons and circumstances, i dont want to. it’s a good tradeoff, but one that has resulted in a blog that is a mere shadow of the honest blog i used to have. some days i dont mind it, because after all it’s just a lot of rants that i’m leaving out… but other days i think that these rants are such an important part of me. and it makes me sad that i have to hide these things.
haih. but that’s why i have friends to rant to :) good, concerned, awesome friends who are the best listeners and who can prolly name all the above ‘can’t-blog-about’ people a few paragraphs up there in a heartbeat. i love you guys. you people are my rebirthed pinkskyes.
to the people who have been reading me since day one, or a few years ago, or last year, or somewhere in between.. thank you for reading me, even if i’m not as drahmah and rant-y as i used to be. yeah yeah i know you guys like to read all the angry rants about specific people, gossip and blogger drama, but i hope you understand that i can’t always write about such things :P because there will always be hurt feelings and ruined friendships and unnecessary animosity. and that’s really just not my cup of tea.
but i really want to try to become more like my honest pinkskyes self again. i want to go back to being able to blog about anything at all, to not calculate every single move and repercussion.. because i think i owe it to myself to worry less and to be more honest. so.. when i do start becoming rant-y again, please dont judge me ok? :) i can be angry. i can be upset. i can be sad. i hope that when i choose to display all these emotions and open them up for public commentary, you guys will be kind in your responses and know that you are dealing with a person who has feelings too.
i was telling someone that when i leave for the US and become detached from the local blogosphere, i know that my blogging will change because that’s when i will start writing for myself again. you can ask any top blogger we have.. do you write for yourself or for an audience? you’ll never get a straight answer but the truth is, they probably havent written purely for themselves ever since they became famous. in our blogosphere, it’s all about the traffic and the money and the throngs of fans and the popularity competition. it’s a sad sad sad thing, but that’s what the culture is like. there are days that i look forward to leaving for the US, because that’s when i’ll be out of this blogger rat race, and i can focus on what is truly important - myself, my writing, and the people who will still be standing by me and sticking around to read what i have to say :)
i know that there are people out there who love the traffic and the money that traffic begets, people who want to be top bloggers and all that. but i’m not one of them. getting where i am was so accidental and lucky. haha i still remember the first ever plug that Kenny Sia gave me. i didnt know him then, and when i woke up and saw the huge traffic jump, i got so scared and wrote him a really long email begging him to remove the post. haha. so funny. in fact, i just looked up the email and i’m laughing now as i’m reading it. sigh the irony. maybe one day i’ll put up the email and we can all laugh at it together :)
haih this post is so long. definitely a lot longer than i intended for it to be. but it is the most cathartic thing that i have written in a long, long, long time.
May 26th, 2008
today started off a little angry for me. then sad. then angry again. now, i am feeling a little bit sorry - in the guilty sense of the word. yet, there’s this throbbing kernel of blissful contentment somewhere in the pits of my stomach. ever jumped into something big and risky, expecting the worse, but then at the end of it all discovered that there was no need to be afraid or pessimistic in the first place? because everything turned out perfect and more beautiful than you could ever hope for? that’s what i’m going through right now. it’s a good feeling, even if preceded by a little bit of remorse at the recklessness of aforementioned pessimism.
i really wish i could say why i was angry this morning. at least it would get my message across to the relevant people involved. but i think the more i dwell upon them, the angrier i get, and the fact is dwelling on such things doesn’t really improve the situation any. well okay i want to talk briefly about just one thing, because that is the one i am thinking about most. i understand why sometimes it is important to remain neutral, but i cannot help but feel a sense of disappointment, and sometimes disrespect, for people who are privy to both sides of a story but still are unable or refuse to form an opinion. there’s always the same old “aiyah sensitive issue lah i dowan to say anything”, which to me sounds so cowardly and unintelligent. just because things are ’sensitive’, you don’t even want to THINK about the problem at hand? when all the bare facts are laid before you on the table, you can’t even bring yourself to recognize what is right and what is wrong?
i hope no one misinterprets or jumps to conclusions about what i’m saying, because i’m aware that what i said can apply to many situations, but i’m referring to some very specific events. haih. i’m just so sick of people who can’t seem to employ just a little bit of judgment and integrity when it comes to situations that require them to, because as a result of that, nothing is ever done about the injustices that are allowed to fester. and when talk comes to do, they all step back and let the more outspoken ones take the heat. and when the battle is won, they all come out to celebrate together-gether. it’s damn unfair. no this is not about elections. this is something personal. it’s about friends, it’s about right and wrong, it’s about a certain person with no principles whom i believe i’m never speaking to again.
haih.
on another note, i finally sent in my acceptance notification to the one college of my choice. so this fall, i will be attending Columbia University :) and i also already sent out the decline forms for all my other schools. it was so hard putting the check mark next to ‘No, I Will Not Be Attending…’ in those forms, particularly the ones for Penn and Chicago. when i think about all the effort and determination and prayers and hope i put into my applications for these schools only a few months ago, i can’t help but feel so extremely ungrateful for declining all their offers. yes i know it’s very silly to feel like this because i’m SUPPOSED to choose only one school and decline the rest, but hey. i dont know lah. remember how i wasnt even expecting to gain entrance into any of my schools. and now here i am just signing the decline cards as if they dont mean anything to me. i felt a little bit nauseous as i was signing the Penn card. during application season, Penn was the first application that i worked on because it was the school i wanted to get into most - and i slogged through it like a dog because i really needed it to be perfect. i remember exactly how i felt when i was writing my Why Penn essay. and now.. i’m not even going there. it feels strange.
i want to say thank you to everybody who helped me get this far. first of all, thank you to all of you who voted in my poll and left me comments on my Columbia / Penn decision :) and thank you to everyone who sent me long emails about their opinions. thank you Yau, i’m so glad you took that first step all those months back; i couldn’t have done it without you. thank you Matteus, Andrew, Chen Chow for all your ever-encouraging comments and opinions. thank you Lotus for constantly giving me that swift kick in the butt to get me going - you are the reason why i’m even attending an Ivy League institution in 4 months’ time. thank you Christine for that great interview; it must have been why i was accepted into Penn in the first place. thank you Nick and Amanda for all the insight into Columbia. thank you Emily, Timtam, Booha, Eeyang and Dad for being there during the last few minutes of my decision-making. lastly, thank you to all my friends and relatives who cared enough to share their thoughts with me about both colleges and for hounding me ever so often about my decision :) you have all been very kind to me.
i really regret that i cannot attend Penn. but the more i think about it, the more i feel i made the right choice when i sent in my Columbia confirmation. so here’s to plunging into New York City headfirst and not looking back!
oh and i went to watch Iron Man today :) i wasnt expecting it, but it was OMG SO GOOD. exciting, engaging and jaw-droppingly awesome from start till end. deep sigh! when i grow up i want to be like Iron Man!! *___* either that or marry someone like him!!
okay i have nothing else to say, and i really should be going back to bed. obviously my newly-recalibrated body clock is now cacat again. and for the people who are only here for the pictures, and i know there’s some of you out there!!!, i leave you now with one picture from Bangkok :
me trying to decide which shirt is more ME!, at Khao San Road - my 2nd favourite place in Bangkok after Chatuchak :)
May 2nd, 2008
i am currently back at Martian’s apartment, where there are simply not enough snacks or tissue paper. sometimes i don’t know how he exists in such impoverished conditions. i got so fidgety that i couldn’t stand it and went to the supermarket this afternoon to buy some Hello Panda biscuits and tissue boxes back -____- oh and i also found PODS!!! did you guys know that Singapore now has PODS!!! i am munchin’ away with much joy.
i’m eating and sleeping properly again, as i always do when i am back in the care of Martian, and it feels good. the other day i woke up feeling faint and i only realized a while later that it was because that i hadn’t eaten for 2 whole days. i was so busy and stressed out with the pajama party and the public speaking competition (more on this soon) that i simply forgot to eat. incredulous. i think i need to take better care of myself :\
there are so many things i wanna blog about, i don’t know where to start.
okay first topic: advertorials! i saw Michbaby’s post about people who complain about advertorials, and she really hit the nail on the head when she said it is irrelevant whether or not a blogger is being paid to write a post. i cant agree more, and really and do not see why there are people who insist it is only ‘right’ that bloggers write ‘THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL’ at the top of each sponsored post.
alrighty, i can’t speak for other bloggers, but i will only write about products that i actually use and like, or if i think this is a product that i want to tell people about. every word that i write in my advertorials is purely the truth of what i think of the product; clients CANNOT tell us to write good things about the product if we don’t actually like it in the first place. take my LipIce post for instance - i mentioned that i love the product and i have been using it since i was young, which is the truth. does putting that stupid ‘THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL’ sentence at the top of the post change anything or lend some kind of validity to my opinion of the product?
some girl mentioned somewhere that i should ‘give room for readers to make judgment based on the fact that part of the reason i am writing about this is that i am being paid for it’. aiyah what is this overreaction lah. yes, we write about certain things cos the brands pay us for the post, but seriously, what is the relevance here if the sole purpose of following a blog is to read the blogger’s opinion? so you’re getting the opinion wat! -___- and you are being exposed to a good product that the blogger genuinely likes and wants to write about, why are you complaining!
look back on all my food posts and restaurant reviews- would it have mattered whether or not i was paid for it, if at the end of the day people who read the post got to know about this certain restaurant and its services, and became more aware about KL’s food scene? same thing, yes? just like i choose to blog only about restaurants i LIKE, i also choose to blog only about products i LIKE.
and it’s not like the brands give us a whole press release that we merely copy and paste onto our blog. we actually take the effort to explore and write about the products creatively and truthfully, as per our own opinion. so i dont see why there should be a credibility issue.
at the end of the day right… this issue of ‘THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL’ is such a small and itty-bitty thing that i don’t understand why people wanna throw a big fuss here and there. i think there are bigger things to worry about in our world, rather than ‘why is this blogger getting paid for a post but then no disclaimer!!!11′. sigh damn petty lah.
second topic: Malaysian Dreamgirl! i’ve been following all the 4 episodes, and here are my favourites so far:
this is Fiqa, a Malay-mixed-Chinese girl with really stunning features and a quiet confidence. i was very impressed by how articulate she was in her audition, and i really like her type of look - intense, cool, with a little bit of androgyny thrown in. i warmed up to her even more when i saw in Episode 4 how she told her aunt not to let her mother watch an upcoming episode where she would be dressed in really tight shorts. so sweet :)
Valerie, who came onto the show with this really big frizzy ‘fro and with all this PERSONALITY :) from the episodes i’ve watched, she’s very bubbly and likable, and very unique. definitely the kind of girl who’s special without even trying, and the sort whom everyone wants to get to know. for her makeover, she got her big hair cut off, and she’s got this sleek slightly-pixie cut now that really complements her eyes and facial features. it’s great!
Jean, my favourite from the very beginning. not only is she so cute, she’s also smart. she’s studying pharmacy in IMU, and from the way she talks, you can tell this girl has substance. i immediately sit up when the camera is on her and she’s giving her opinions, because i know it’s going to be a good answer - no waffling or ‘dont know lah..’ kinda answers, but strong and spot-on opinions, but never aggressive. i love how she can look both cute and hot - she looks so adorable in the sportswear shoot, and then how stunning is that B&W picture? so yes, you can imagine how disappointed i was when she announced that she pulled out of the show. yes, Jean pulled out. my favourite pulled out. i can’t believe this T____T it’s really a great loss to the show. you can read her note on her withdrawal here.
some other random commentary: i actually like the camerawork on the show! it’s pretty good, especially the editing. but there are some parts that gets draggy and a little bit filler-ish, like the part where the girls went to Bar Savanh and there was like a good 1 minute of them doing nothing but dancing. and the judges can be a little bit long-winded sometimes. also, where is Sazzy Falak!!
okay who’s everybody’s favourites!!! faster say!!
third topic: Martian and i are going somewhere cool (literally) today.. :) hehe. our plane leaves at 7 a.m, and i’m supposed to wake Martian up in about an hour. i’m very excited cos i haven’t been to this country in a very very long time, nor have i been to this part of it. actually i didn’t even know that part of the country existed until Martian booked the flights on a whim. ahhh i can’t wait!!!
eh actually i was given the task of researching the trip but i haven’t done it. shit shit shit see lah shouldn’t have spent so much time eating Pods today :\
March 19th, 2008
i’m sure many people are already in the know of the many shrewd ways our government cheats and cons their way to a victory, but i thought i’d compile a simple and hopefully educational list for the benefit of my peers and any readers who aren’t aware, and would like to know, of the foul play and deception that goes on during the elections.
so! how our elections are rigged to unfairly benefit the government:
1. GERRYMANDERING
in our last election in 2004, Barisan Nasional won only 60% of the total votes cast, but had a whopping 91% representation in Parliament. that’s 198 out of 219 Parliamentary seats, with only 21 seats going to the Opposition despite them having an extremely significant 40% of the popular vote. heck, that’s almost half of the total votes given to the Opposition, but somehow in some weird way that only garners 9% of the seats in parliament.
so how is this done? the Elections Commission (EC) manipulates the borders of each constituency. let me make this elementary - say you have Taman A that is traditionally a BN stronghold. Taman B next to it may potentially fall to the Opposition because during the last election, the victory margin was very very small. you’re scared of losing Taman B, so what do you do?
you take voters from Taman A, and tell them they are now part of Taman B and have to vote there now. basically you’re spreading your surplus over to your weak side. in the end? Barisan Nasional has strong wins for both Taman A and Taman B. sweet.
and of course, they lump all the strong Opposition constituencies together to make sure the Opposition has less seats. in the eyes of the government, 1 Lim Kit Siang in Parliament is better than 5; so if the EC can help it, and of course they can, they gerrymander opposition strongholds as well. ah. it used to be in the constitution that the total voters of each constituency cannot differ by more than 15%. well surprise surprise, this has since been abolished :) wonder why.
here’s an example of gerrymandering. in 2004 elections, the Jerai constituency in Kedah had 21,600 new voters shifted in from neighboring constituencies. the result? BN won by a 10,000 margin - a victory they would not have had without gerrymandering - and that racist, sexist Badruddin got to retain his Jerai seat in Parliament. btw this is the douchebag who single-handedly immortalized the statement, “this is a Malay country; if you don’t like it, get out!”.
2. BUYING OUT OPPONENTS
if you’ve been reading the newspapers during the week of nomination, you would have read all the happy stories of how Barisan Nasional has won several state and parliamentary seats ‘uncontested’. my brother went, ‘wahhh! Opposition scared to fight BN ah!’
at first i didn’t understand what that meant; why would the Opposition allow seats to go uncontested? just throw in somebody to make sure people like Azalina ‘i am watching you’ Othman don’t win their seats uncontested again, right!!!
but then i came across this story. what it reports is that two PKR candidates have come forward to say they have been propositioned with money to withdraw from the elections.
“”They have been chasing me since nomination day. At first, they went around my kampung seeking the would-be candidate, proposer and seconder. Now they go one step further - offering me RM300,000 cash to withdraw,” Idil said over breakfast near PKR headquarters in Matang, Kuching. … “I have been telling them RM300,000 is too little … not enough to go around, and jokingly said they should offer me RM3 million. They took it seriously and said they would discuss the matter with their superiors,” Idil quipped.
(Source: Malaysiakini.com)
yeah now you know what happens when Barisan Nasional wins seats ‘uncontested’. this is where all your hard-earned tax money goes to - buying out opponents so that a corrupt government can stay in power.
3. BRIBING VOTERS
so these people go around to poor rural villages, and give people money to ensure they vote for BN. i hear rumours like this all the time, but i’ve never actually heard of an actual case where someone reported this bribery. but the other day Kezanne just told me that her schoolmate’s family back in Perlis has been offered RM 1,000 to vote government. they are poor and RM 1,000 is a lot of money to them. Kezanne’s schoolmate is a JPA scholar; more reason to feel compelled to vote government.
4. PHANTOM VOTERS
this means unidentified voters contributing votes to the elections. a big accusation of phantom voting was when PKR stopped two buses of what were allegedly BN phantom voters in the recent Ijok by-election, which BN won.
there have been evidence of dead people (or really young children) registered on the electoral rolls for numerous elections and by-elections.
and there are people who find themselves miraculously registered at two different constituencies (there was a KL-based woman who reported this to Malaysiakini; i cant find the report now. anyone have the URL?).
and then there are voters registered to an address where they do not live. read this to see how Teratai state seat candidate Jenice Lee found 26 voters registered at her house. those people have never even lived there nor does she know who they are. the EC has dismissed her report as ‘a small matter’.
and then there are voters registered to abandoned sites. read this, a report of 500 voters registered to an abandoned army camp in Penang. ooooh Penang ;) looks like a certain coalition feels threatened!
5. CONTROLLING THE MEDIA
just about every newspaper, tv station and radio station you can think of is owned by the government and its comprising political parties. The Star, Sin Chew and China Press are owned by MCA. The New Straits Times, The Malay Mail, NTV7, 8TV, TV3, Hot FM, Fly FM and all other Media Prima subsidiaries are UMNO-owned. RTM 1 and RTM 2 are state-owned.
this means that everything you read in the newspapers and watch on TV is government propaganda. any voice of the opposition is totally blacked out. not only do they not give the opposition a voice, they also trump up all the Opposition’s flaws. simply because they can. simply because you and i and everyone else keep buying their papers and keep tuning into channels.
i have a friend who works with one of the Media Prima TV stations. so far they’ve been allowed to give the Opposition candidates a liiiiiittle bit of airtime every now and then… but yesterday a memo was released saying that no more coverage is to be given to the Opposition AT ALL. how nice eh :) like the indelible ink, this is another pushing of the panic button by BN.
when i was young (and always encouraged by my school and my government), i read the papers quite diligently. at the time, it was always beyond me how anyone would ever vote Opposition, when our Barisan Nasional was such a gleaming, glorious, corruption-free, caring alliance who sincerely wanted our country to prosper!!!!! Barisan Nasional had UMNO, MCA and MIC… that means they’re taking care of all the races!!! so why would ANYBODY vote DAP who only cares about the Chinese, or PAS, this kolot party who comes up with all sorts of archaic rules like boy-girl separation and condones such radical Islamization!!!
and if i had a huge problem i needed help with? i would go to Michael Chong of MCA right away, obviously. because he’s always helping people some way or other. rape cases, money woes, the handicapped, snatch theft… Michael Chong is always there to save the day. MCA truly cares. the newspapers never directly say it, but it’s all i ever freaking read about. the Opposition were mudslingers and liars in comparison.
but now that i’m older and i know more stuff and i have the internet at my fingertips… the one question i have is, how do these reporters sleep at night, knowing that they are contributing to this cruel and tyrannical blacking out of knowledge and information among Malaysians both young and old?
6. HOLDING PEOPLE AT RANSOM
when people like UMNO’s Azalina Othman tell bloggers that they are ‘being watched’, and people like MCA’s Chew Mei Fun tell people to vote for BN otherwise ‘May 13 will happen again’, and people like Hishamuddin wave the keris at non-Malays, how can you not feel like you are being threatened in a country that is supposed to be your own? (Mell, this is why i don’t agree with that BN ad on how people are allowed to be themselves here in Malaysia.)
i know many bloggers who refrain from putting the slightest iota of politics in their blogs because they’re afraid of being ISAed or Sedition Acted.
i know many people who vote government because they’re afraid the votes can somehow be traced back to their identities and this may compromise their businesses or their jobs or even their LIVES.
i know many JPA and BNM scholars who are practically muzzled when it comes to politics for fear of losing their scholarships.
i know many people who vote government because they’re afraid May 13 will happen again.
i’m very sad and angry that these things happen. we should NEVER EVER allow our government - an entity that is supposed to PROTECT us - to put us through this kind of fear.
7. HAVING THE ELECTIONS COMMISSION UNDER THEIR INFLUENCE
so the latest elections fracas is about the indelible ink that cost RM 2.4 million that will now no longer be used in the elections, because, oh!, the Elections Commission terdengar some desas-desus about how certain parties have evil plans to mark their opponents’ supporters’ fingers with ink even before they get to register.
Dear Elections Commission,
first of all, why dont you expose whatever evidence you have of these rumours, instead of keeping it to yourself, and allow the people of Malaysia to judge for themselves? we don’t even know if you’re making up these stories or if these featherweight stories warrant such a huge regression. don’t punish an entire nation for some silly rumours that you heard through the grapevine.
second of all, SHOW US all these jars of ink that you supposedly already imported from India for 2.4 million of OUR MONEY.
thirdly, if this rumoured evil plan of these certain parties can cause such a big reversal in decision, surely then there is a problem with your education of using indelible ink in the first place. you have not done your job of educating people well enough on the electoral process if they can be tricked into applying the ink before they even vote.
fourthly, instead of taking this totally moronic step of not using indelible ink when Bersih and other people who CARE have fought SO HARD to have this ink finally used in our elections, why don’t you go out there and teach people how to use indelible ink!!!! be pro-active and combat the problem, for goodness’ sake, instead of this knee-jerk reaction of removing the indelible ink altogether. if the rumour is true, surely the small number of unsuspectingly-painted people can be contained by the almighty EC, since you all have such a great track record of weeding out phantom voters by none other than the amazing Identity Card teamed with the equally amazing Electoral Roll -____-
i really didn’t think it was possible to think any lower of the EC, but whaddya know, we learn something new every day.
DAP’s Lim Guan Eng put it quite nicely; “The Election Commission is working hand in hand with the Barisan Nasional to cheat in the elections.”
this is a very interesting interview with the current EC chairman Abdul Rashid, conducted 4 years ago :) read read.
—————–
a good government thinks for its people, instead of stubbornly refusing to move from power. they think about what their people want and need, and concede, instead of doggedly taking measures to ensure that they will always remain in their corrupt rule, even though the people no longer want them.
so. yes. vote for change. you know how it goes :)
March 6th, 2008
you know what makes me angry?
i hate it when people do stupid, rude, spiteful things… and then when they get in trouble for it, turn around and say it was all a JOKE.
isnt that just the number one escape plan of the century? so just because you apparently saw it fit to create COMEDY in a situation that didn’t warrant it, you dont have to be held responsible for the damage you caused? because everything you did was just a JOKE, you dont have to own up to your immature and bad judgment of even making such a ridiculous joke in the first place?
and that’s even IF the ‘joke’ was really supposed to be a joke, instead of a damage control escape route for when you find yourself chin-deep in shit.
i have absolutely no respect for people who cant take responsibility for their own wrongdoings, but instead choose to shift blame or to make stupid excuses like, ‘i was only joking’ or ‘cant you recognize a joke when you see one?’. if you screw up, admit it and take it like a person with integrity. deal with the backlash appropriately and make amends - that’s only the right and responsible thing to do. how DARE you make yourself the martyr in this situation when you were the one who decided to take that offensive step, accusing other people of misunderstanding you or not having ‘a sense of humour’!
i’m ranting about this today because over the weekend, i watched a video of a conversation between two Malaysian Muslim bloggers, who in the video, said that non-Muslim Malaysians should tattoo ‘I Am A Kafir’ across their foreheads and chests so as to not be confused with Muslims.
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT.
i am in SHOCK AND DISGUST. at the utter bigotry. audacity. and dirty mockery displayed by these two bloggers who claim to be righteous defenders of Islam. the 16-minute video starts by a claim that ‘Christians in Malaysia are getting out of hand’ and that ‘Muslims like them have to speak up on this and not keep their religion to themselves’. they later say that Christians constantly meddle with Muslim affairs and that Christians should not try to shove their religion down the throats of Muslims. and then they go on to say - in reference to the Gan Eng Gor case - that non-Muslims should tattoo ‘I Am A Kafir’ across their foreheads and chests so that they wont be mistaken as Muslims in event of their death.
isn’t the hypocrisy so glaring.
after a huge backlash from the online community, both these bloggers have come out to snidely say that they were ‘only joking’. in the words of one of them, ‘Learn to differentiate between a statement and a joke’. he even quoted Voltaire. LOL LOL LOL.
see this is what i never understand about religious fascists. i dont understand how people who claim to love God and aspire to be godlike, can go around pointing fingers in people’s faces, screaming “you’re going straight to hell! there are demons in you!”. i dont understand how people who are enlightened by spirituality can have so much anger and hate and intolerance towards those who do not share their beliefs. and i definitely do NOT understand how people who subscribe to a religion that teaches fairness, understanding and patience, can come out and say Nazi-like things like ‘non believers should tattoo themselves’. i dont understand how people who shove their religion down other people’s throats can be so thick-skinned to tell followers of other religions to not do the same to them. all not very godlike to me.
again in relation to the Gan case, the blogger later goes on to say how they don’t want non-Muslims in Muslim cemeteries anyway. how disgustingly intolerant does that sound to you? he talks as if non-Muslims are dirtier and of lower breed compared to Muslims.
the same guy also says, ‘Well, by now every Islamophobe in Malaysia must be losing sleep and getting very pissed off … There are others amongst the Non Muslims who just mind their own business and choose to live in peace amongst Malaysia’s multi-ethnic, multi-faithed population.’
dont you love how this guy first said that Muslims must speak up about how non-Muslims are ‘getting out of hand’, but when non-Muslims (or in his words, ISLAMOPHOBES wtf) speak up against Muslims getting out of hand, it’s not right? apparently when such hate-inciting and fascist videos are made about non-Muslims, we’re supposed to just suck it up and mind our own business and live in peace among Malaysia’s multi-ethnic and multi-faithed society. why? because we’re non-Muslims.
people like these two bloggers know that they can do all this shit and get away with it, because the country protects people like them. we have all these badan-badan and all these organisasi that are formed just for this purpose, and also to keep a close watch on the rest of us non-Muslims who so much as bring up any isu-isu sensitif about religion. one of these bloggers even wrote on his blog that the Islamic authorities should take action on their behalf. i am so LIVID. i am ANGRY that Namewee who made the Negarakuku video had to go through so much crap and contempt from our country’s administrators and even faced threats of exile, but these two bloggers who created a video that is so much more vulgar and repulsive, can get away smug and scot free. yes i am LIVID. i am SO ANGRY. how is this fair???
WHY IS MY COUNTRY LIKE THIS. WHY.
February 4th, 2008
today i’m choosing to blog about loyalty. i dont quite know what the point of this post will be or what i want to say, and i’ve still got a lot of conflicting ideas about the topic, but i believe my non-existent message will unravel itself as long as i continue typing.
i am aggressively loyal to the people i love and care most about, and this is a loyalty that transcends all logic and reason. my best friends could be the worst people on earth and i would still love them always. for instance, sieutheng can be very selfish sometimes but i dont care because she’s sieutheng and i love her. waimin tends to push us away when she’s in trouble, but i will still always be there for her because she is waimin. i’m very anti-fur, and even though tzeching is like ‘fuck all you fur activists la have you not felt how soft mink/fox/rabbit fur is!’ (quoted verbatim from her blog wtf!), i will still always love her because she is pang tze ching and we used to trade sweet valley books wtf.
sometimes i struggle with this kind of loyalty and i wonder if i’m making the right decisions. i dont know what exactly the struggle is but there just is a weird tension between my principles and my loyalty. like the fur thing for instance - i would immediately dislike any stranger who said anything remotely close to what tzeching said, but i would never harbour such thoughts against tze ching. when she says things like that, i just go haiyaaahhh why this tze ching so like that wan! and then i’ll continue chatting with her about our mutual love for grey’s anatomy and pretty handbags. and then there’s also the fact that i hate all my best friends’ evil ex-boyfriends simply because they broke my best friends’ hearts. that’s loyalty. but is it fair to these ex-boyfriends? granted they probably don’t really care, but it is an unfair judgment nevertheless because i don’t know their side of the story. but then again does such a judgment matter if it doesnt affect their lives in any way and is only brought up when a good ex-boyfriend-bashing sleepover session is in order? you see what i mean when i say there is a weird tension between my loyalty and what is right?
i guess what i’m trying to say is - i generally don’t like to judge people i’ve not encountered or who have never done anything wrong to me, BUT THEN this rule doesn’t apply anymore when it’s my best friends or family who have been wronged by other parties. and that even in situations where my friends and family are wrong and do things that are totally against my principles, i don’t fault or disrespect them. all that stuff just goes right over my head. it’s like a blind love thing.
some days i like this part of myself. some days i dont.
there is a second facet to this whole loyalty issue that i’d like to touch on. i have a story of me, my friend Aaron, a girl Belinda whom everyone hates, and a guy Chuck whom everyone hates. my friend Aaron hates Chuck, ok? and i really hate Belinda. conflict: my friend Aaron really likes Belinda for reasons unknown to the universe and all of its inhabitants and i swear this is not an exaggeration. a bit of background - Aaron has a lot of friends who are very loyal to him, and i am one of those friends. loyalty to Aaron is a default dislike / contempt / non-contact with Chuck; basically if you are friends with Chuck, you are not a friend of Aaron’s.
when i first met Aaron, i instantly took a liking to him. to me, he was one of those genuine guys whom i felt close to very quickly and could really click with. i’d met Chuck before and i didnt think much of him, but when Aaron told me all the stories there were to tell and i had digested all of them, my position on Chuck was now a total 100% dislike and i wouldn’t have touched him with a 6 foot pole. why? because i trust Aaron and i believe that everything he tells me is true. even though Chuck had never personally done anything wrong to me.
now we bring in Belinda, whom i absolutely loathe for many, many reasons. Aaron knows this, and he also knows that EVERYBODY (again, not an exaggeration) doesn’t like her and also hold the same contempt for her that i do. yet he dismisses all of our views, scolds some of us, and continues protecting Belinda and trying to placate her. he takes ’stuff’ from some of us to give to her, which makes us really angry and confused. at the same time he keeps announcing his complete neutrality in this Belinda vs The World issue, when it is very obvious to everybody that he is in fact biased in her favor. he cites that he does this because Belinda is loyal to him.
my question is, is it fair to dismiss everybody else’s loyalty for Belinda’s loyalty? the rest of us external observers know why she is ‘loyal’ and it is for completely materialistic and selfish reasons. Aaron of course refuses to see this. i cant speak for everyone else involved, but i know that my feelings have been extremely hurt. i showed him nothing but unwavering support in his crusade against Chuck, but when it comes to Belinda - my opinion doesnt matter, he doesn’t believe me, and he chooses her over me and the rest of us. it’s hurtful. it makes me wonder about loyalty. is there a loyalty that is more important than others? right now i fail to see what is so noble and great about this material-based loyalty that Belinda shows him, compared to the collective loyalty that the rest of us have given him.
the third facet of this loyalty issue - what happens when someone takes advantage of the loyalty his or her friends show? without going too much into detail because i am really just. so. tired, the story goes that there is this friend of ours whom we love very, very much. but lately he’s been taking advantage of his eternal get-out-of-jail-free card and taking certain liberties with us. we’ve told him that we don’t appreciate him using us like this, but it falls on deaf ears and he actually starts lying to us so that we don’t realize what he’s doing. and of course, we believe all his lies because he’s our friend.
some of us are extremely angry at him and want to cut him out of our circle. i’m a little bit angry too, but loyalty dictates that i stick to him no matter what, even though he has become this conniving little lying thing that i no longer recognize. i cant tell you what he does and what he lies about, and i understand that this lack of information is probably pretty crucial to any decision one would have to make.. but what would you do if you were me? he’s not changing his ways. so do i stay with him and give him space to be himself, at the risk of propagating his selfishness and ignorance… OR do i work with this boycott on him so that he eventually comes to his senses and learns that he cant get away with treating his friends like shit?
loyalty. such a multi-faceted thing. please do leave me any of your views and comments on this topic, i would very much appreciate it :)
EDIT: i’ve just heard that some silly person thinks she’s Belinda, and she went and lodged a little complaint to the person she thinks is Aaron. all i can say is, the world does not revolve around you, ok? you may for some obscure reason think that it does, but i can assure you that reality is far from your assumption. if you think you have lots of things in common with Belinda, then that is a very, very, very sad thing to realize about yourself, because Belinda is a horrible and rude person whom nobody likes.
do NOT try getting me in trouble with this person whom you think is Aaron. you are, as always, really pushing the limits of my patience. just try to be a nice person for once; it’s not very hard. as of now and in relation to the issues brought up in this post, my BEST FRIENDS are going through some problems, and i intend to be there to support them. clearly, you are not one of my best friends. so, do not hijack this and turn it into one of those chapters in the elaborate movie of your life. in a nutshell, please dont be so damn perasan.
January 20th, 2008
i want to relay an incident that happened to me recently. it was about 2 a.m, and i’d just finished watching a midnight movie with my brothers at Mid Valley. as usual, the ‘midnight charge’ touter cabbies were already parked at the South Court, grouping together for a smoke while waiting for people to rip-off.
my brothers and i take cabs ALL the time, and we’ve seen our fair share of rip-off cabbies who charge you a fare that’s triple of what it would usually cost to get you home, so we don’t deign to contribute to the pocket money of such touts. so we walked out to the street to hail a cab as we normally do, while ignoring the touts who were hollering ‘pergi mana? pergi mana?’ (where are you going?) at us.
but one of them actually approached us to ask where we wanted to go, and when we told him where, he quoted us an exorbitant price of RM 40. we shook our heads and said we would only take his cab if he used the meter.
and he said OKAY.
pleasantly surprised, we got into the cab and he drove us off. Tall Brother started telling us in Cantonese that this guy must be up to no good, because he was way too eager to use the meter, which would normally come up to only RM 12. i replied back that he must have rigged his meter, but even so, the price difference probably wouldn’t be too big.
but guess what? by the time we were halfway home, the meter already read RM 30. keep in mind that after midnight, there is an extra 50% charge on whatever is on the meter. we were just watching the meter go up and up and up with raised eyebrows. finally, my brother said, ‘hey bro, why your meter like that?’ and the cabbie gave some stupid reply like his meter was working perfectly well.
then i said, ‘you’re a cheat’.
and that sparked off a HUGE argument between me and the cabbie. we were just YELLING at each other the whole time. he actually had pretty decent english, so it wasnt like we couldn’t communicate. i kept asserting that we KNOW how much it costs because we go home from MV all the time, and it’s never more than RM 15. he had absolutely no defense for himself, so he started attacking us personally, saying things like - ‘you’re rich kids anyway, what’s the fuss over an extra ten bucks here and there? just ask your daddy for the money lah’. and that really got me riled up because this cabbie knows NOTHING about us, but saw it fit to make dumb comments like that when he was blatantly making a living from conning others. so we argued argued and argued and exchanged many vicious remarks, until he finally said -
“okay, if you want to keep accusing me of rigging my meter, let’s bring this to the police station”.
i said, okay let’s go. we will take no shit from conman cabbies who are a disgrace to the entire service industry of the country.
and then guess what he said to me? he LAUGHED, and he said, “think properly before you make such a decision, girl. if we went to the police station, who do you think the police will help? you or me? you ni orang cina saja; aku siapa tau tak?. (you’re only chinese, do you know who i am?)”
i just sat back and said, ‘just drive to the police station’, but deep down inside i knew what he said was true. he would bring us to the station, and then what? was i to lodge a report? i knew without a doubt that we would be put through some nonsense paperwork, and then get jeered at, and then be told to walk home. all this while the cabbie gets a manly round of handshakes and pats on the back from the cops at the station. my report will go nowhere, and that disgusting cabbie will go on to rip off and take advantage of many, many more people.
because the cops let him do it.
so yes, this is not a blog about the scores of rip-off cab drivers in our city that choose to make a dishonest living. this is a blog about the police force of our country, and how they are a no-good, corrupt, unprincipled and lazy force that have SO MUCH to do before they can start calling rightfully calling themselves the keepers of law and peace.
the cabbie eventually didn’t bring us to the police station (*rolls eyes*) because he claimed he didnt want to embarrass us. if he had actually brought us there, the experience wouldnt have been embarrassing, but INFURIATING. i know i only made an assumption on what would happen, but believe me when i say that i’ve witnessed how the cops can be extremely racist and lazy when people go in to make reports, and how oftentimes they help the people on the wrong side without so much as batting an eyelid.
my mother, who was MUGGED a few years back, was laughed at when she went in to make a report. she was told by the police that she had it coming, because it was her fault for carrying so much money around. exact words - “auntie… you punya pasal lah… kenapa nak bawa duit banyak banyak?”. this obviously made my mother very angry, and she told them that as law enforcers, they should be out there trying to prevent more crime cases from happening instead of telling victims of muggers that ‘it’s their fault and that they had it coming’. and then you know what they told her?
they told her to ‘balik tongsan’. (go back to china)
my aunt who was robbed by a cab driver, and another aunt and another cousin who were victims of snatch theft received similar treatment when they went in to lodge a report. i’m sure many of you have faced the same things too. and it’s not just the chinese and indians and dan lain lains who’re affected by the inefficiencies of our police, but even malays who go in to lodge reports are treated with laziness and pure indifference. so this is something that’s beyond racism. it is simply a total lack of concern and sense of duty.
i truly and wholly believe that the duty and responsibility of the police is to take care of the people of Malaysia. that means everyone from the top brass right down to the commoners on the streets. but what happens in a corrupt and insecure government regime is that even the law enforcers (along with the judiciary!) are crafted out to be on their side, even if this means going against the people and harming them if necessary. case in point - Hindraf rallies and all subsequent police vs people events. i was so nauseated when i saw videos of the police dragging and beating innocent people up, and then later on in the newspapers read how some oh-so-valiant cop sustained some minor arm and head injury in the line of duty while ‘attempting to disperse illegal and violent rioters’. and not to mention the Hindraf supporters who are currently being charged for attempted murder against a cop.
PLEASE LAH OKAY. what is it about the PDRM badge and some fancy uniform that gives them the right to attack civilians - who are merely VOICING THEIR RIGHTS - and injure them, and then get off scot free for it? i think our police seriously need to start thinking about the principles behind their job and to reassess who they really should be protecting.
even on the social scale, i will be completely honest in saying that i dont trust our police officers at all. they dont make me feel safe, and i dont feel like they will help me in a situation of danger or need. and i’m very VERY sure i’m not alone in saying this. how many of you have been stopped by cops on the road and then asked for bribes? (i have a lovely story of a friend who was driving a couple of indian friends in the car : they were all stopped at a roadblock on the day of the huge Hindraf rally, and were ASKED FOR A BRIBE if they ‘didnt want any trouble’. wtf?? they were just going to Bangsar for banana leaf rice for goodness’ sake!!!) how many of you have lodged a report only to have your situation made light of by the very people who are supposed to be taking your case seriously and trying their very best to solve it? how many of you would worry that our cops would punch you in the face if you tried to argue with them? how many of you girls have had your legs leered at lecherously by male cops from the windows of their patrol cars?
i’ll tell you what my very worst experience with the cops are. someone very, very close to me was detained for 10 days in the lock-up two years ago in a huge mix-up. we visited her almost every day at Pudu Jail, bringing food and toiletries because omg you CANNOT IMAGINE what the conditions of the lock-ups are like. but we weren’t allowed to bring her the food and other stuff unless we bribed the wardens and the cops stationed there. and that is a HUGE amount of money if everyone there wants RM 50 minimum. a few times we actually did give them the money out of desperation, but we later found out that the stuff never reached her. they just fucking threw it away because they couldnt be bothered to send someone to search for her cell and pass her the stuff.
because we cant be parting with thousands of dollars just to see our friend every day, we later formulated a better idea. we brought buckets of KFC to the lock-up as bribe, just so long as they passed a few pieces to our friend during mealtimes. oh but of course they neglected to do this. when we confronted them the next day, they flatly told us there simply wasnt enough KFC to go around. they also said that there’s nothing that we can do anyway if they didnt pass on the food, because OOH, it is ILLEGAL for outsiders to pass things to people inside the lock-up! wow suddenly all this concern with the law eh.
this episode really opened my eyes to the blatant corruption that takes place in our police force. even when we went to Bukit Aman to try to sort out the paperwork, we were met with inquiry after inquiry as to ‘what we were willing to do’ to get our friend out of the lock-up. it was disgusting, it really was. when our friend was finally released from the lock-up after the whole mess was sorted out, i quietly told the rudest cop there that i would report everything that he and the other officers had said and done. he laughed and said, ‘report only lah. who would you report to?’ and it’s true. who do i report to? the cops? the ACA? no wonder he laughed.
more and more of my friends are studying abroad and never coming back. why? i ask them, and they tell me it’s because they can’t stand Malaysia anymore. they’re all going to Singapore and Australia. i remember one time in Melbourne when i was about eight years old and walking around St Kilda’s alone, a lovely police officer came up to me and asked if i was lost, where my parents were, if i had come out alone, what my name was. when i went back to my parents, the first thing i said was, ‘why in Malaysia dont have police wan?’
i suppose they’re all just too busy with their long tea breaks and going around to illegal businesses collecting handsome bribes from the taikors, to be seen out on the streets preventing crime and righting wrongs. after all, why work up a sweat catching criminals when you can have karipap, eh?
December 8th, 2007
post-shower and shivering - i swear i can feel the walls of my blood vessels frosting up. i am sitting here bundled up heavily in towels, wondering how is it possible that it can be so cold here. hello, equator? where are you? my remarkable self-insulation abilities regretfully do not extend to the physical. right now, little shorts and tank tops - all i brought - and the hotel towels are all i have.
i’m not supposed to be here. i dont even want to be here. but then i figure, better a strange hotel room stocked with Pringles, than a tainted and sickening apartment where the floors will forever ooze contempt and betrayal. better to freeze here alone than to face what i should have avoided all along. i just feel really stupid right now. regretful. scathed. but at least i have all this anger to help me heal.
the city is beckoning from beneath the window, but i’ve just been room-servicing the days away. chicken katsu don on the first night, then fish and chips, then caesar salad and french onion soup. i feel like the protagonist in a Murakami book, only without the alcohol and the weird sex. there’s just this comfort in holing yourself up in your hotel room - the sedation and solitude is a much better second-hand than the ones we have on our real clocks. the mood to explore just isnt there, no matter how tempting those banana pancakes they sell on the streets are. all i can think about are college and murder.
i’m just so mad lah i dont know where to channel all this frustration. went to THAT MALL earlier this afternoon for some reluctant shopping, and i wanted to scream when the waitress led me to THAT TABLE. you wanted a legacy, right? well you fucking left one. what is this, some kind of elaborate plan that you cooked up? did you see this coming and smirk to yourself? this legacy shit is so dumb. and insensitive. and hurtful. all the things you are.
tonight, Khao San Road calls. i’m really quite thrilled at the idea of being there. the possibilities and adventures are just endless.
December 4th, 2007
i recently met someone who said that bloggers are a difficult bunch to deal with. his exact words were, “bloggers these days are so damn demanding. they think just because they have a couple of hundred hits a day, everyone has to treat them like royalty or like some celebrity.”
and you know, it’s so damn true.
for the information of those who werent aware of this, i was working with Nuffnang for some time a couple of months back. so i got to see firsthand all that diva attitude some of our so-called ‘celebrity’ (and some not-so-celebrity) bloggers are capable of when it comes to making money from their blog. “where’s my ad???” is the number one question we field. and then giving them ads is not enough wan you know, must give them two stacked ads so that they can make double the amount per week. if not, they will complain and complain and complain till the cows come home.
first, there is the ‘celebrity’ blogger (i use this term with much pain) who gets a lot of traffic and whines about not getting ads. then, there is the blogger who gets less than 20 hits a day and also whines about not getting ads.
let’s talk about the greedy celebrity blogger first. granted, we dont have that many celeb bloggers, and luckily for us only very VERY few of them are divas. but these divas still exist. and to be honest sometimes i dont know why they are celebrity bloggers. they write like crap - quality that does not warrant the kind of ego they have - ie absolutely no substance or clarity in their writing, coupled with horrendous grammar and spelling. broken english everywhere, sometimes cant even spell the product name right. yet they keep talking about and marketing themselves as if they’re some kind of revolutionary new wave of media, capable of propelling your business to greater heights just with a link or two on their oh-so-famous blog. well, if you wanna have so HUGE an ego, at least have some goods to bring to the table besides rotten writing and an over-dependence on random pictures you ripped off the internet.
i just cant stand it when so-called celebrity bloggers get all smug about their supposedly more-popular-than-thou status, thinking they are better than all the ‘little bloggers’ out there who by the way WRITE MUCH BETTER THAN THEM ANYWAY -___- it’s like there is this huge cloud above their head that says, ‘i may have lousy english and writing skills but that’s okay because i’m a CELEBRITY BLOGGER, and i can hence tell YOU off for having bad english because YOU’RE not a celebrity blogger like ME.’ true story, people, true story. seriously lah there is nothing wrong with a blogger having bad english; in my opinion you dont need to have better language skills than everyone else to write a really good blog.. but i think it’s totally hypocritical, RUDE and delusional if someone with bad english thinks they can go around telling people how bad their english is simply because they are some sort of ‘celebrity blogger’. the lack of humility pisses me off so much. honestly, it does not the fuck matter that you have a gazillion hits a day and make a couple of thousand dollars from your blog if you are by nature a disgusting, greedy person with too big an ego and absolutely no integrity whatsoever.
these bloggers have made so much profit from Nuffnang, but when asked to go on a revenue share for certain projects, REFUSE TO DO SO. i am just so in awe as to how anyone can be so terribly ungrateful. is 30% so much to give up? would you even have that other 70% if it were not for Nuffnang? and to add to that, they have the nerve to keep demanding higher pay per advertorial even if it means Nuffnang makes less. like i said - disgusting, greedy and ungrateful.
and it’s not like these bloggers are the next in line for Pulitzers or something. these are blogs that are littered with random glowing reviews about lousy food and products, but are written anyway in the hopes of catching the eye of the involved businesses. these are blogs that are filled with advertorial after advertorial with no substance in between. and it’s become all about being famous and making money and getting free food. what’s the point in having a blog like that? what’s the point in being so proud of a commercial blog that hides behind a pseudo-personal front? have you no shame that you are so smug about being the face of the Malaysian blogosphere and yet maintain a blog that is just out to make a quick buck?
the perfect example of nice and down-to-earth celebrity bloggers are Kenny Sia and Suanie. despite his monster-sized daily traffic that could populate a small country, Kenny has got to be one of the most humble and approachable celebrity bloggers i have ever met. if anyone has a right to be a diva blogger, it is him, but he simply doesnt pull that shit. in fact, he was one of the few people who urged Nuffnang to start doing revenue share because he felt Nuffnang deserved it :) Suanie is a blogging celebrity in her own right, but so down-to-earth about her status and influence, and unpretentious in her blogging. if you want a semblance of what the old pre-traffic obsession blogosphere used to be like, Suanie’s blog is the best place to find it.
sigh. i have absolutely no respect for so-called celebrity bloggers who like to throw their weight around. if you have a high readership, put it to good use instead of taking advantage of each hit to make money for yourself. get your brain working and churn out some meaningful writing like the rest of the other ‘little bloggers’ that you look down upon so. if you cant do that, then stop touting yourself as “XYZ the blogger” and just be a regular XYZ like the rest of us. how about that. how about some humility and some grace while you’re at it.
and it’s not just celebrity bloggers who can be greedy and ungrateful. when i was working with Nuffnang, i received scores of emails a day from bloggers who have like 10 hits a day or something, threatening to leave the network if they didnt get anymore ads. or simply going “eh why i so long no ad ah??” how about it’s because you dont even meet the freaking traffic requirement, you MORON. and even if you have what, 21 hits a day, stop complaining about the cents you’re making compared to the dollars you think you deserve; because without Nuffnang, that space on your sidebar is NOTHING. you wouldnt be making ANY cents if Nuffnang wasn’t out there touting your blog for you to advertisers. dont forget that you make as much money as your traffic gets you; so if your traffic is next to nothing, know that you are in no place to demand more money.
so you think your sidebar space is worth more than the amount you’re getting? quit gabbing and remove the unit lah then. we’d rather give the money to other bloggers who have the same amount of traffic that you do, but actually appreciate the work that we do for them. pulling power goes to the nice or the influential. so what happens if you’re neither? fuck off then, and take your precious sidebar space with you.
what angers me the most is blogs that sport the classic url of makemoneywithblogging.blogspot.com or something; set up SOLELY to make money from blog advertising, are full of weird Click Me banners and little adsense thingies, have random lyrics and other copy+paste shit, or sometimes even nothing at all… and then they can write us emails asking us WHY THEY HAVE NO ADS. hello????? your blog is not even a blog!!!!!!!!!
i’m just lamenting the fact that Nuffnang, who has been doing so much for the blogosphere, is not getting the gratitude that they deserve, from big bloggers and small bloggers alike. dont take all that money in your Earnings panel for granted - us folks in the office have to work long and hard to deliver that kinda money to you. our bosses have sleepless nights and dont even declare themselves a salary each month just so they can do this one thing for the blogging community. and yet, what do you as a blogger do? refuse revenue share. demand more ads. email boss to ask him to ‘check’ why you have no ads. pester about the status of your cheques. please lah. it’s time some gratitude is shown.
and i’m also lamenting the degenerating state of personal blogging. what happened to the days where blogging was all about getting your point across and sharing opinions and writing about your day-to-day experiences? now it’s become all about updating every 2-3 days so that your readers dont go away, it’s become all about stupid little gimmicks to keep your traffic up, it’s become a science and a business rather than the art and hobby it used to be.
haih. actually i didnt mean to sound so angry. i totally got carried away, didnt i? but i just cant help ittttt i’ve got so much pent up ANGST!!
one of these days, i’m going to give 5 links of 5 malaysian blogs that i think have good, sincere and heartfelt writing. none of that whiny give-me-ads commercial stuff. i think it’s about time we called some attention to the blogs that really deserve it. so if you have any hidden treasure blogs that you love to read, do drop a comment here and we can all partake in the good stuff :)
November 23rd, 2007
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