Ridzal now posts his thoughts and stuff . . . Here!  Served up by Ridzal at 01:37:00 0 comments links to this post

  Ji lang ji bua I watched 881 again today. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should go and watch. Now. Go. I’ll wait . . . If the cinema is not open, then, well, you’ll have to settle for the music video of the main theme from the film:



That was the duet version. If you want to duet with him, you can play this one:



Other songs from the soundtrack:





If those weren’t as fun to sing along to, how about this one:



Enjoy! And after that, go watch 881. In fact, why not bring your lao beh, lao bu go watch also? Bring your whole family and enjoy the movie together.  Served up by Ridzal at 20:25:00 0 comments links to this post

  Hand-Job Protest Song

And . . .

The Titty Song



The chick’s frickin’ hot.  Served up by Ridzal at 23:31:00 0 comments links to this post

  881, yo ah yo!

Ms Xu Guiyin, adviser for the Singapore-Malaysia Getai Artistes Association, said: ‘The getai is a subculture that has taken root and needs to be preserved.’

It has taken some time to change the mindset of the young, she noted.

Said Ms Xu: ‘The first thought is always, it must be vulgar. But that’s not true. In fact, it takes some smartness to suss out the innuendos in the banter.’

She added: ‘Hokkien is an intimate dialect, you get the ‘qin ming’ (heartlander) feeling.’

(Koh, Maureen. “RETURN OF GETAI FEVER.” The New Paper 12 Aug. 2007: 4)

My propensity to laugh loudly at those instances did not negate the realisation which dawned upon me on why I connected so well with the movie.

Listening to the lonesome, woe-some songs of the itinerant getai singers, I could hear the country-music blues of the heartland as if a cowboy was singing about how his horse left him for another horse.

Those tunes are the siren call of the common man.

Not everybody lives in Uniquely Singapore.

Some of us live in Ordinary Singapore.

(Tay Yek Keak. “Going bananas over getai.” The Straits Times 12 Aug. 2007)

Those were also some of the things that struck me when watching 881 and listening to the Hokkien songs in the film – how Hokkien could sound so coarse and crude sometimes and, yet, efficiently encapsulate the emotions, even frustrations, of the common man, how when put to music, even the most colourful and vulgar of descriptions could sound so beautiful. No lofty ideas and ideals, just observations and laments about everyday life and normal relationships between people, yet, at the same time, a sense of resignation or learning to accept one’s station in life. I can only describe it as a worldly or earthly tongue.

Which reminds me of the effort to standardise the Malay language as Bahasa Melayu Baku, where the words are pronounced as spelt, which started just before or at roughly the time when I went to primary school and which still continues today, in that Malay newsreaders and some television presenters and radio DJs use Baku instead of the loghat Johor-Riau or Johor-Riau variation of Malay, where the ‘a (AH sound)’ is sometimes pronounced like the ‘i’ in ‘stir’ and ‘u (OOH sound)’ is sometimes pronounced like the ‘o’ in ‘choke’. I never realised back then how unnaturally formal and stilted Bahasa Melayu Baku sounds until, while working some time back with a group of students on a drama production, I heard them using Baku on the script. It just didn’t sound like the Malay of the common man, what some might call Bahasa Melayu pasar or ‘market Malay’, the underlying assumption being that the variation of Malay used in the markets by your average Makciks is somehow inferior to the kind of Malay you want your kids to be learning in school. In a way, isn’t that the aim of Huayi Cool as well? To get across to the young that Mandarin is the language to learn and be proficient in, and not the other dialects. Similarly, the Speak Good English Movement.

Something else I was thinking about – if someone wanted to make a similar film but focused on the Malay community in Singapore, what kind of film would it be? What would it be about? Would it even be possible to make such a film? There are some in the Malay community who could very easily pass remarks such as,

Wah, the gahmen lets the Chinese do so many things – burn large amounts of hell notes and giant sticks of incense that just make the air smoky and multiply the workload of the HDB cleaners, hold getais that go on till late, have void deck funerals with funeral bands that create a whole lot of noise and disturbs the whole neighbourhood, and the neverending lion dances during the Lunar New Year, but what about us Malays? What do they let us do? Nothing. Why? Because there are more of their people than us. Their people everything can. Our people always cannot.

And, yes, I have actually heard such words or words like these uttered by various individuals in the community on more than one occasion. I didn’t think much of them before, but now, I do wonder, even if the government were to actively encourage the Malay community to put up something akin to the getai, what would we put up? Sure, we have our void deck weddings and the occassional kenduri(thanksgiving prayers and feasts), and when Ramadhan comes along there’s the Hari Raya bazaars and light-up at Geylang Serai and/or Kampong Glam. The other big spectacle would be the sacrificing of goat and sheep during Hari Raya Haji, that sees all sorts of ministers make visits to various mosques, proud, I’m sure to have contributed to the government’s efforts at racial harmony and religious understanding. I’m not going to deny the religious significance of the practice, but what of the culture?

Wayang kulit has gone the way of the dodo, except when some institution or cultural centre invites a dalang from overseas to perform. Nobody does barongan anymore, such practices having been deemed un-Islamic by what I see as an increasingly conservative Muslim mainstream here. We have kuda kepang and other Malay dances being performed at the Taman Warisan Melayu or the Malay Herifake . . . I mean, Heritage Centre, but those appear more for the benefit of tourists and dignitaries than for the average Mats and Minahs, who would rather dance to hip hop and R&B at the nightclubs anyway. We don’t even have bangsawan anymore, which for all intents and purposes is a relatively recent genre and not really a traditional Malay artform – the closest one might get would be the occasional purbawara play staged by one of the more ‘traditional’ Malay performing arts groups, usually affiliated with a Community Centre located in parts of the island with a visibly-larger Malay demographic.

Is this a situation that can be changed? Honestly, I don’t know. Does it need to be changed? I don’t know. It’s just something I was thinking about. A simple question, probably without simple answers – if you were to make a 881 for the Malay community, what would it be about?  Served up by Ridzal at 22:32:00 1 comments links to this post

  What if the world were a little more perfect?   Served up by Ridzal at 15:33:00 0 comments links to this post

  My timetable for the semester

Yes, I finish at nine on Wednesdays, but that is a small price to pay for a three-day week, no? And if I do not feel like going home that night or have got work to finish, then I can just sleep over on campus and wake up in time for classes the next day. That sounds like a plan. Of course, the plan might fall through and I might end up coming back to campus for all five days, but I will try my best to avoid scheduling any appointments on Tuesdays and Fridays. Maybe I should go get a job . . .

As for examinations? Here are the dates:

TS4219: 24-NOV-2007,PM
EN4271: 30-NOV-2007,AM
TS4217: 07-DEC-2007,PM

Other than the Cultural Performance in Asia paper being scheduled so late, that does not look too bad, does it?  Served up by Ridzal at 21:11:00 0 comments links to this post

  Additional thought on the previous post At the briefing for the International Advisory Panel dialogue session, the Vice-Dean was talking about how there still seems to be the common opinion that the faculty is a dumping ground for students who cannot make it into Medicine/Law/Business/Engineering/etc. No, this is not going to be a rant by a frustrated Arts undergraduate, although when you consider how many parents still would rather see their children become a doctor/lawyer/engineer than study the humanities or the social sciences or the amount of money that the government is pumping into science and technology, especially the biomedical and life sciences, there does seem to be good reason to be frustrated and rant. I think many have come to accept that the arts, humanities and social sciences will continue to take a back seat to the other disciplines in the eyes of parents, the government and even the news media, at least for a while.

No, I am just wondering what would happen if one day everyone with an arts, humanities or social science background were to go on strike – just drop everything, stop working and refuse to apply their skills and knowledge until they are given the credit they deserve. I wonder what kind of impact such a move would have. It would make for an interesting social experiment, don’t you think?

What do you think would happen?  Served up by Ridzal at 16:29:00 0 comments links to this post

  Thinking of what I want to do after graduation . . . Because a year is going to pass by really quickly.

From the Commonwealth Scholarship application form, 2006 version:

SECTION SIX: FUTURE CAREER PLANS AND LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL

UK Commonwealth Scholarships for developed countries are funded by funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In addition to attracting the candidates of the highest academic quality, FCO is keen to support those who will assume positions of influence in later life, both in their chosen profession and in wider society.

And considering how the nominating agency for Singapore is the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister’s Office, one more or less knows which group of scholars have the greatest chance of being nominated and receiving the scholarships. And, if I am not mistaken, they only make one or two nominations per year to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, which means, friends, I am very likely to be applying to do my M.A. at NUS. I might also submit an application to the Institute of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU to do an M.A. in Performance Studies and apply for a tuition scholarship and graduate assistantship, although:

Tuition scholarships and graduate assistantships for international students (F-1 and J-1 visas) are very limited. International applicants are urged to seek aid from their home country's government and other outside sources.

I would rather take my chances with applying directly to an institution’s aid-granting office than through a government agency, without having to prove any kind of leadership potential on my part. I want to be in academia, not government or the civil service, thank you very much.

Now, the timing. If I applied after graduation, I would have half a year to one year before I commence with the M.A. course, which means having to look for paid employment during that time, so I can start paying off my computer loan, start paying my own mobile phone and Internet bills and, most importantly, feed myself. So, my aim right now would be to figure out how to cut down the time between graduation and the start of the M.A. course, whichever it is I end up applying for and which will accept me. Probably have to see if I can get a teaching or research assistant opportunity, among other things.

Nobody said it was going to be easy, but in some ways, this seems the only course of action having discounted teaching (with the MOE) and practising theatre professionally (having passed on most of the internship/volunteer opportunities and part-time work with a professional company that have come my way) as a career option.

I will just have to stay the course and hope it pays off in the end.  Served up by Ridzal at 03:12:00 0 comments links to this post

  I [heart] Bernadette Peters . . . A brilliant singer and actress, and a beautiful woman:





Also on the same concert, Hey, Mr. Producer:



Having recently seen a poor rendition of the song live, I must say that this is how you should do it:



Sorry that it’s been all videos recently, but can you blame a guy for having too much free time to surf YouTube?  Served up by Ridzal at 01:53:00 0 comments links to this post