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
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