Cinematic Concerns

Could make a splendid politician. Not necessarily a leader. But a smooth talker who persuades. A used car salesperson? Not really, no. Librans born in Rat years set their sights higher than that. They are dreamers of grand dreams and lovers of the romantic in life.

Okay, sort of accurate so far.

THE STRIVING RACONTEUR

A gifted combination, the Libra/Rat lives in a perpetual state of hopefulness. He or she wants to break the bank at Monte Carlo, star in a play on Broadway and... write a bestseller. Further, they'd like to beget - or better still, be - the president of the United States. And when he is finished with those incidentals, he would like to take time out to win the Nobel Prize. Libra/Rats are almost self-destructively ambitious. Their truest gifts lie within the realms of poetry and fantasy. These people are exhaustingly communicative. They want to tell it all, all the time and in the most excruciating detail. To know them is to love them. But keep your eye peeled for little fault lines. Because there are some. Libra/Rats are feverishly sensitive and can dish it out but can't take it. They can be cutting to others, but wilt when spoken to harshly. Their private lives are fraught with emotional booby traps. If you find yourself in love with a Libra/Rat, take him or her directly to bed.

Okay, now that's eerily accurate!

Malaysian filmmakers: you really need to start making faster-paced films. But more on that a bit later.

I had a hunch that I would like Talentime more than her previous films - on the surface, it seems like a commercial film, or at least, it'll be the most commercial film she's done to date. Having seen it, well, it's not quite - it still feels very strongly like a Yasmin Ahmad film, with the drawn-out way the scenes play out, several of the scenes seemingly bearing no relation to the rest of the story, purposefully anti-stereotypical characters (as in, their backgrounds don't match what we expect of them) as well as unconventional families, one or two surreal scenes that make us go 'huh?', sparse cinematography, and such subtly hidden themes that I don't know what the movie's about. (I can picture Pn Yasmin saying, "It means what you want it to mean lah." Or something similar.) In short, no, it's not that commercial - fear not, it's not as terrible as our independent films!

This being so, I'm surprised that I saw this film at the THX screen at GSC 1 Utama - i.e. the largest possible screen they have. Did the distributors really think the film will do that well? There's probably a reason behind the scenes which I don't know about. Anyway, there were just 4 of us in the cinema at the time; granted, it was Friday morning.

Now to the film. The best thing the film had going for it are the songs, many of them composed by Pete Teo. Now, to set expectations. While the movie is called Talentime, it's not about the talent competition at all, so there are barely any scenes depicting the competition. Most of it is focused on the everyday lives of the students taking part in it and their families, with the talent competition oddly having little significance to what goes on in their lives. As such, most of the songs heard in the film is explicit - as in, played over scenes rather than part of the talentime. Anyway, those songs are nice. They should be selling a soundtrack CD, if they haven't done so already.

To the acting. No one stands out in particular, but overall the acting ranges from adequate to not bad at all. (I just can't stand the pauses the actors like to leave in between their lines. I don't see what the pauses add to the beats. Perhaps 5% of screen time could be saved if the actors didn't leave such pauses between lines. This goes for other Malaysian films as well.)

One of the selling points of the film (Yasmin Ahmad isn't exactly a household name, though she's steadily making her way there) is Jaclyn Victor's debut, even though she plays a secondary character. Well, like most other characters in the film, she didn't have to do much, but she definitely shows potential in acting. It was quite a while in before I realised which character she was playing, and she remains grounded in the role so that I see the character rather than the actor.

The guys. Mixed results - I saw a still of Hon Kahoe in one of the newspaper promos and thought he had a certain charisma, just looking at the face. He's the weakest of the bunch though - he plays angry in the film but it felt false ... like he's emoting anger. Maybe next time. Mohd Syafie Naswip, who popularly played Mukhsin two Yasmin films ago, did okay - he was a little bit wooden when not singing but audiences will swoon anyway. (Yasmin was right though, very good job on lip synching.) He also has an emotional scene which is as well handled as anything we're likely to see from Malaysian films at this point - thankfully underplayed. The third boy, who's deaf and dumb, is played by Mahesh Jugal Kishor and I thought his performance was the best - aided by the fact that he didn't speak at all (oft-quoted but rarely applied screenwriting tip: LESS DIALOGUE MAKES BETTER MOVIES) but managed to convey the simple sincerity of the character with his face.

Adibah Noor is perfectly casted as the headmistress - mildly steely, her reactions mirror perfectly what we the audience think about the talentime performances. This is a very different role from the other ones she did in Sepet and Gubra. And Azean Irdawaty simply sucks sympathy out from the audience, almost effortlessly, considering she's just lying on the hospital bed.

Now on to the story. Stories, rather - there isn't just one. And they're all interconnected, though not contrived. Some fared better than others. The romance between Mahesh and Melur is perhaps the best one: the chemistry is there, and it is quite a charming budding romance, and the obstacles weren't contrived. Unlike that movie about dancing. The story of Mahesh's family and the hidden contradictions they eventually have to deal with is also pretty strong, in the sense that the drama is genuine. The weird man on the wheelchair with the sick mother is my least favourite - I wish that was left out of the film, just seemed pointless and abstract. Melur's family is just odd, and at any case there isn't much of a story there (that I could see anyway).

The editing was perplexing - there were occasions where we jump out of a scene into another seemingly unrelated scene, then jumped back to continue the first one. This happens a lot in the first half of the film, and the problem with this is that for the first half of the film we don't know what is the purpose of any of the individual scenes, or many of them anyway. You see, in this first half, Pn Yasmin chose to show us new characters without explaining their relationship with one or other of the characters, and it was hard to care about them coz we don't know who they are, and the scenes themselves don't offer much that is interesting (often just people talking about something, then other people talking about something else). Their significance emerges later in the second half; I remembered that there were a number of times that I felt, "oh, right, this is why we saw that scene earlier", but it seems like pointless labour because I don't see how it adds anything to the experience of watching the film other than 'making the audience think a little'.

When I say the film doesn't focus on the talentime itself - other than the fact that in Melur's subplot a lot of what happens is motivated by the rehearsals she does - I mean that, you get to the talentime itself and it's the last ten minutes of the film. While I get that the talentime isn't the point (and that was made perfectly clear, btw, I wasn't caring about who wins), I would expect the characters' story to resolve itself properly ... but I suppose I tend to forget that that doesn't happen a lot in Pn Yasmin's movies. We see characters moving towards a resolution ... and we end. It's not enough, because it is ambivalently unsatisfying.

From Wikipedia:

Yasmin also mentioned that the idea behind Talentime: That as humans, we have to go through a lot of pain and some measure of suffering before we can reach greater heights.

Well, now that she mentions it, I can see it there ... barely. But if it wasn't mentioned, I can't see it. Perhaps some people would say to that (perhaps Pn Yasmin herself), why is it so necessary to understand the 'meaning' in the film? Because the story by itself didn't engage me. (It's just me. There will be lots of audience members, certainly her fans, who sees things that I don't see. Although there are moments where I recognise that, "yowza, here's where people are supposed to cry", and I look around to see whether anyone is, gleefully. Sorry, just can't help it.) If not meaning, then give me spectacle. I need at least one of those two things in a film I watch; emotional involvement depends on having at least one of them.

Another thing that bothered me a little were the contrivances - the most obvious being the unnecessary contrivance (though oddly the teachers thought it naturally necessary) to have students who own motorbikes fetch (or in proper English, 'to pick up') the talentime finalists from their homes for the rehearsals. This, of course, functions to allow one subplot to happen - and by the way, we never see any other talentime finalist perusing this motorbike service. And the hall rehearsals - it didn't seem to serve a purpose for the finalists (shouldn't they be doing it at home?), though again it serves the plot. Some people will say it doesn't matter - suspension of disbelief, never hear before ah? - but, well, it took me out of the film. (Didn't help that the movie was slow enough that my head was analysing this and that.)

So, to my point that our films need to start moving faster. Okay, I know it's a very Malaysian (and strictly Malaysian) reaction to immediately go to the other extreme in retort, saying, "what, you want us to do like Hollywood movies like Transformers with MTV style editing ah?" No, because often those movies move too fast. Especially Hollywood animation films. The key is to understand the speed at which the audience picks up stimuli (exposition, spectacle, emotion) from any given scene, process it and relate to what has come before - and, of course, it is different for different audiences and different from one minute of the film to the next. I don't mean it's something scientific you need to calculate, I just mean the director and editor needed to have a feel for this kind of thing as it relates to the audience. (Arthouse films are another matter.)

The most glaring problem I see in most Malaysian films is this inability to gauge when an audience knows or feels something. (Have no fear, it's not like Hollywood gets it perfect either. But then, they're also not wrong in 100% of their movies ... which is the case with Malaysia.) I'll take a very obvious example: in Kinta, we see a dramatic fight scene, which wasn't interesting to begin with, play out again later IN ITS ENTIRETY, and then AGAIN in an abbreviated form. It doesn't take some film critic to see that that is stupid - your average Malaysian audience member, who never studied a day of filmmaking, knew that that's just wrong! In short, watch out for redundancies, and also for moments where you leave the audience hanging because there ain't enough information (this one isn't bad, until you botch it up by not resolving it later, or resolving it unsatisfyingly so the audience felt like the momentary confusion wasn't worth it).

Okay.

How Good I Think The Film Is: 7/10
How Much I Liked The Film: 6.5/10

PS - Browsing through other Malaysians' blog comments on the film, clearly I'm out of touch with the masses. So there.

It shouldn't really be funny since it's such an outdated meme, but it is!

... they'd be pretty short. Good point, guys who made this short.

Pretty funny stuff. Makes a point about sex scenes in movies that we already know, but the point has never been made in this fashion.

Translated from 来生不做中国人 by 钟祖康.

Some Western jokes are directed towards the Chinese people of the PRC: if Adam and Eve were Chinese, they would not have disobeyed God's will and be tempted by the snake in consuming the apple. Why? Well, because they would have eaten the snake instead.

A car park (or 'garage' for you Yanks) has the capacity to take in 100 cars.
The Germans will park 100 proper, as they are very precise people.
The Japanese will park 120, thanks to their compact cars.
The Americans will park 80, thanks to their, ahem, large cars.
The Chinese will park ... 2. Why? One would be parked at the entrance, the other at the exit.

A restaurant decides, in an attempt to encourage early birds, to offer a free meal for the first customer of the day. On the first day, a black person was first, and he got to eat for free. The next morning, the manager opens the front doors of the restaurant to find a basket of flowers, along with a card expressing thanks - courtesy of the black person who got to eat for free. The second day, the first guest was a white dude, who also takes advantage of the free meal. The next morning, the manager finds a basket of apples, courtesy of the white dude. That day, the first guest was a Chinese man, who also got his free meal. So what does the restaurant manager find the next morning when he opens the front doors? Why, dozens of Chinese men waiting by the door.

Recently, a Western magazine reported a survey on female Westerners' opinions about men from various major countries, and here's what they thought of Chinese men: they are among the most detested of men. The women pointed out the following disgusting behaviours found among Chinese men: seldom wash their hair, bad BO, especially the feet (oh my god!), loves spitting, tendency to spew rubbish everywhere, not civic-minded, not observing of cleanliness, likes picking their teeth, scratching for dandruff; often leave the nails on their little finger to a grotesque length, the better to dig for nose wax, ear wax, and when they succeed in doing so they roll it into a ball for closer visual inspection, sometimes even smelling it without any sense of propriety ...

So, I went, and I shouldn't, and I know I shouldn't when I was buying the tickets, but I did, and I got bitten.

1. The title. If you don't think it is terrible, you don't have to read on. The rest is not going to make sense to you.

2. Sound design was terrible. No, strike that - sound design was unprofessional.
(a) Footsteps: sure, the foley editor matched the footstep sound effects to the walking, but it sounded like someone EQ-ed it to death, like the (barefooted) characters were all wearing high heels.
(b) Surround: so, during the montage, the music is playing through all speakers, and then suddenly it all concentrates on the front right speaker - this is just SLOPPY.
(c) Dialogue: really, the sound guy on set was so terrible they had to ADR (dub over) the ENTIRE MOVIE?
(d) Overall: no control or attention paid on background (as in, ambience/room tone), how it mixes with sound effects and dialogue and music, etc.

3. I noticed they were not following the 15º rule, so some of the edits were jump cuts. The jarring, unartistic, totally-a-mistake kind.

4. The dialogue. Which is forgivable to the extent that ALL Malay movies have terrible dialogue anyway. But if I got to listen one more time to some Cina boss saying "kalau belum siap, nanti potong you punya gaji baru tau" ...

5. Eye contact is all over the place. Did the cinematographer/director/continuity person watch out for it at all? What do you mean it's not the continuity person's job?

6. Contrivances. So, the father totally disapproves the boy seeing the girl (if you call that a spoiler I will come and hentam you myself). And spends most of the movie ordering the boy to be beaten up, or insulting the boy and the boy's father. And then, just a few scenes apart, signs a very, very expensive cheque for the boy and sits next to the boy's father smiling while watching the competition? I'm sorry, are Malaysian audiences THAT forgiving to such details (but not to others)? Really?

7. Why does a hunky boy like Remie have a spare PINK helmet on his scooter? I'm sorry, please don't say 'suspension of disbelief'. It takes just a little more thought, not even hard work, to supply the pink helmet for the scene. Could've even made it funnier, or made it a plot point.

8. So, the film is meant to be about dancing, right? In fact, that's the main reason I wanted to see the film - the trailer featured some cool dancing shots. Guess what - they BLEW ALL OF IT in the first 15 mins. After that, no more cool dancing shots. We've seen it all already. So we spend the rest of the film mostly in subpar melodrama mode, and then, without much of a setup, we arrive at the competition which forms the climax of the film. But did we get a SENSE that they've been working hard towards it? No. Not enough setup, mate. The dance scenes in the middle hour are all used towards lovey-dovey or lame montage scenes. And on top of that, all the teams (except for our protagonists) re-used the same dance choreography from the qualifying round we saw earlier in the film. Is that insanely illogical or what?

9. So you setup that Mia forgot to take her phone along with her. Well setup actually - the editing makes it very clear to the audience. But wait a minute, she seems to be able to make it dinner with that guy. Isn't it impossible for people to call each other to ascertain time and place for the dinner date if one of them DOES NOT HAVE A PHONE?

10. You say I'm nitpicking. I say, you know what, the film lost me a few minutes into it. I was no longer in the film, and my brain activity is occupied with full-on analysis just to stop myself from cringing to death. I didn't even mind the Malay girls at the back who were talking loudly at the film. In fact, I had mind-space to think about all the dastardly methods to kill them should they be in the same theater with me when I'm watching a film that is NOT a Malaysian film.

I read the screenplay to Blindness over a year ago when I was still in Hollywood. I hadn't read the novel by José Saramago before, but because the screenplay describes scenes of utter sickening depravity, lost morality, and complete collapse of a civilisation where there is formerly an unnamed, generic one (as in, no mention of city or country, instead, a cosmopolitan culture that speaks of some pan-global society), my feeling was that the screenplay must have been fairly faithful to the book as far as plots and themes go.

Reading it, there were a few elements that I thought should be in it - for example, what would I do if I was a director handed this script? Well, there would be a lot of whiteness in terms of cinematography, as the characters in the novel suffer from 'white blindness' - though exactly how to execute that, I didn't know. Also, there would probably be lots of out-of-focus stuff, or some other technique that emphasises the fact that virtually every single character is blind. But how far do you go with that? Do the entire film completely white (or dark) and just rely on sound effects? That would be taking it too far, no one's gonna sit for that. Yet it brings up a good point - the sound design on this has to be very accomplished - because you lose a sense, all the others heighten. And in cinema, sound is the ONLY other sense.


Then word got out that Fernando Meirelles will be directing this, starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. Actors I like to see, certainly. But more importantly, Meirelles was a damn good choice. Even though I was disappointed and didn't think much of Cidade De Deus thanks to years of people hyping it up for me before I saw it, I wasn't too taken in by The Constant Gardener either. But Meirelles' direction is one of willingness to go far in portraying very uncomfortable scenes, visually potent and hard-hitting approach to cinematography, and his films always contain grim and depressing themes of a sociological nature.

So it was odd that word got out from film festivals that Blindness played at that it wasn't very popular. One word that kept popping up was the word 'laboured'. As in, Meirelles tried too hard.

Well, now that I saw the film, I don't know what those people are yapping about. I swore not to read any more reviews so I didn't, so I can't tell you what they think, why they think it is 'laboured'. But Blindness is an absolutely brilliant piece of filmmaking. It contains all the elements I talked about - the whiteness, the out-of-focus shots, the emphasis on sound design - and more. It followed the script in including scenes of nudity - when everyone around you is blind, there is no longer any embarrassment in taking off your clothes. The production design is very realistic as far as designing the world of this fable goes - turd and urine on the corridors, grime and slime growing on everything from bedpans to walls, the state of filth of the characters increasing by the minute, and so on.


It was filmed not in an American or European city, but in Montevideo and São Paulo - as I mentioned, there isn't a specified real-life context in which the story plays out, but rather it's an anonymous country. But think about it (at least those of you who've studied or lived overseas). Every modern urban city, from Shanghai to London to New York to Dubai to Sydney, kind of has the same feel to it, after taking into account the most obvious cultural and geographical differences. Also, the benefit of filming it in South America, is that the filmmakers are somehow able to composite or actually stage mind-boggling shots of an empty city filled with broken vehicles and completely messed up with rubbish.

Another aspect of it is the utter low of which the moralities of some of the characters sink to, which will strain the audience to breaking point - at the very least, it forces you to question yourself, what would you do under those circumstances? And it doesn't allow you much time to think. There are scenes of genuine anguish, suspense and horror.

But my favourite part has to be the third act.

It is my favourite of Meirelles' films that I've seen so far. People who've seen Cidade De Deus may disagree with that - but I find it really incredible that people would think this isn't a good film. Please, watch it, and come to your own conclusions - I'll be interested to hear your opinions on it.

The film, with a budget of $25 mil (impressive given the scale of the film), earned less than $20 mil worldwide. I hope the DVD sales and rental makes up for it.

The most underrated film of 2008. (And no, of course it won't be out in Malaysia.)

A group of reporters from China with the help of two local reporters to do a research about the natural ecology topic and investigate the senior maternity health care herbal. They have entered to A tropical forest for this research. It should be a quite relaxed journey but it been hide a crisis. They have been attack by an unknown monster and their friend being die one another, in the same time the landslide has block their way out. They struggle for survive and later calm down investigate and analyze the actual fact.

(Source: Grand Brilliance Sdn. Bhd.)

Okay, guys, you seriously plan to watch this film? I'm definitely not. And not just because of the absolutely atrocious English - even though that would've been reason enough.

(If you think I'm being prudish, here's what I think - you spent however many hundreds of thousands of ringgit on the film and can't even find a proper person to write your synopsis for you? What does that say about your attention to detail? And your motives - is the film a purely masturbatory endeavour?)

Boycott this film!

My Screenwriting teacher back in LA would often quote Jules Dassin's statement that "people need to see their life affirmed on the big screen" (... just as children look to adults on how to behave). And I remember this because I had no clue who Dassin was and usually spent a moment considering how to spell the name. I've never seen any of his works (Rififi, Night And The City).

Horrors! Bahasa Melayu is in deep trouble!

After six years of implementing this ignominious policy of teaching Science and Mathematics in English with only a vaguely marginal measure of success (as we expect all government policies to be totally, 100% successful), it's imperative that this policy must go!

Yes, Bahasa Melayu is indeed so weak, that we must preserve every single channel and medium that uses it! It's bad enough that we're allowing English and even Chinese and Indian languages on our television sets! How dare they! How dare they now demand that Science and Mathematics be taught in English and thus destroying the FUTURE of our children! Do they not realise that this a step towards removing a MAJOR chunk of usage of Bahasa Melayu in Malaysian life? Do they not realise that it is important for our children to discuss Science and Mathematics - and that they should do it in Bahasa Melayu, rather than in English, so that they can, with the grace of the Almighty, actually know how to use the mother tongue of all Malaysians?

So what if English is used as the language of instruction of Science and Mathematics in most parts of the world - i.e. the parts where we send our children to for tertiary education? Well, we teach them English here, don't we? So what's the problem? And when they get back? Why, they'll simply revert back to using Bahasa Melayu in doing their Science- and Mathematics-based professions without any loss of translation and with zero effort. Our children are smart enough, right?

A political issue? How dare you filth up this most sacred demand by suggesting a totally untrue and implausible cause for our actions?!

Yes, we insist teaching Science and Mathematics in English will erode the Melayu culture! Even though the youngsters are still stubborn Mat Rempits, as before!

As such, there is only one solution: we must take to the streets! It worked for Hindraf and BERSIH, it will work for us too!

This is beyond simmering anger. Actually, it is, but I'm normally such a non-confrontational person that most everyone I know get annoyed and angry about any one thing before I do. So when I'm angry, other people would have erupted already.

I'm talking about those people talking to their partners during a film at the cinema, discussing the details of what's happening (usually because they found it amusing where it actually isn't, or they're not sophisticated enough to understand what's happening in the film - this includes simple romantic comedies); or flipping out their phone to text or, even worse, actually answer the phone.

So I'm watching Seven Pounds with a friend. Beside her, a Chinese couple who probably didn't understand English too well - NON-STOP COMMENTARY AND DISCUSSION ON WHAT IS HAPPENING. But that is somewhat understandable ... they were a bit loud, and really shouldn't be watching this film (or at least, should be banned from watching any non-Chinese film at the cinema), but I get that they have to discuss what's happening, and that it's within traditional Chinese culture to do so. Yes, I am saying that these older people think watching movies is like watching Chinese opera.

Now, beside me, on the other hand, are a young Chinese couple, who speak reasonably good English (the kind that indicates having some overseas education experience) are FUCKING DISCUSSING THE FILM THROUGHOUT THE FILM - in between her FUCKING TEXTING AND SHINING HER FUCKING PHONE ABOUT, thus fuckingly distracting me non-stop. What are they discussing? "Eh, this is a flashback issit?" "Huh? Don't understand what you mean." "Neh, this part continues from the part in the beginning." "Oh I see! Yeah yeah."

Un-fucking-believable!

PEOPLE, CAN'T YOU FUCKING TALK ABOUT IT OUTSIDE, WHEN THE FUCKING FILM IS DONE? AND COME ON, THE FILM WILL FUCKING EXPLAIN IT TO YOU EVENTUALLY IF YOU HAD FUCKING PAID ATTENTION. EVEN THE LOUSIEST FUCKING FILMS DO THAT. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NEED TO FUCKING TALK ABOUT IT?

I never did confront them, but I was real close to doing so. I was formulating in my head what to say, and it would've come out along the lines of, "I know the film isn't very exciting but shut the bloody fuck up, can or not!?"

But what I was really thinking inside my head was:

I WANT TO FUCKING PLUNGE A KNIFE STRAIGHT INTO THE FUCKING BITCH'S HEART.

Or, I WANT TO FUCKING SLAM HER HEAD AGAINST THE FUCKING SEAT IN FRONT OF HER.

People, can you stop doing this in the cinema?

YES. I am talking to you, the reader. Oh, so you don't talk or text or answer your phone at the cinema, right? FUCK-ING LIE. Half of those who are reading this are likely to be doing this regularly.

It should be made into a law to LEGALLY KILL the people who make noise or use their phones in the cinema.

In fact, one guy came very close to doing so.

Zack Snyder, director of Watchmen:

The cool thing about Watchmen is it has this really complicated question that it asks, which is: who polices the police or who governs the government? ...

There are a lot of Malaysians who are going to stumble into watching Watchmen without any real clue as to what the movie about - "Superhero/comic-book movie lah, what else?" "I thought the story's like The Incredibles?"

Boy are they in for a shock.

Having seen it, my feeling is that most of them won't know what to make of it. Sure it's violent and sexy - except they cut off Dr Manhattan's genitalia, literally ... damn snippers! (i.e. Malaysian censorship board) ... I know, I know, prudish Malaysian sensitivies must be protected yak yak yak.

How many of them would know that Watchmen is the most respected graphic novel and is the only 'comic book' to be awarded literary prizes? How many of them could anticipate the cerebral sophistication required to watch the film? As one of the creators of the comic said: "The plot is the least thrilling aspect about it. It just isn't that interesting."

So I thought it appropriate to point out the above quote by the director, to help Malaysians ground it to something more concrete.

As in, link the movie to real life. Yes, do it. Like our current discontent with our government - whichever one you deign as your hated one: Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. Najib and Anwar. The MACC. Etcetera etcetera ...

... Who does God pray to? Those are pretty deep questions but also pretty fun questions. Kind of exciting. It tries to subvert the superhero genre by giving you these big questions, moral questions.

This thing is amazing! Took me nearly ten minutes to coordinate my eyes and brain.

This is the new illusion that has been flittering around the Internet. Which way is the woman spinning?


If you see her spinning clockwise, you are using your right hemisphere, and vice versa. The left brain relates to logic and fact-based knowledge, whilst the right is the more creative and emotive.

Only 14% of tested participants can see both, and are able to 'make' her spin in the opposite direction. There's a knack to it - focus on the outstretched leg and push it behind her body against the flow. Can you do it?

There are varying numbers as to how many people were at any one of the locations surrounding the Perak State Secretariat building today. What's for sure is that Utusan is blatantly lying - or have a different definition of 'orang awam'. And delcapo may have been exaggerating.

Still, the inevitable photos will make clear who is right in a matter of hours. It'll be interesting to see which of the photos the mainstream newspapers decide to release tomorrow.


UTUSAN Malaysia, reported at 10.56 am

IPOH 3 Mac – Lebih kurang 50 orang awam menyaksikan sidang Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) pembangkang yang diadakan kira-kira 50 meter di luar pintu masuk bangunan Setiausaha Kerajaan Negeri (SUK).


anilnetto.com, liveblogging

9.11 am - Another contact outside the state government building reports a crowd of about 800 in the area. That's close to the 1,000, which delCapo had estimated earlier.

10.23 am - Another contact estimates that about a 1,000 people are watching the open-air proceedings. It's a historic sitting of the Dewan. Back to the people.


Berita Harian

Perjalanan persidangan itu disaksikan ratusan penyokong parti pembangkang dan wartawan serta anggota polis yang berkawal.


The Edge Daily

10.20am: Sivakumar did not get in. They are convening sitting in an open car park. All the ADUNS are here standing in a circle. Prayers being said at start of sitting. About 300 people here.


The Jongandhi Herald

10.13am: Speaker Sivakumar has decided to hold the emergency meeting right at the car park. All Pakatan representatives are present. Some 300 people are watching this historic proceeding.


sanggahtoksago.com

Jam 9.20am: Orang ramai pelbagai kaum yang berhimpun di bangunan sekretariat semakin bertambah dan kini mencecah 100 orang.

Jam 10.15am: Sidang tergempar DUN diadakan di tempat letak kenderaan diadakan juga di depan Bangunan Perak Darul Ridzuan setelah bangunan tersebut - yang menempatkan dewan itu - ditutup. Ia diadakan di bawah sepohon pokok, dan semua 27 wakil rakyat Pakatan termasuk menteri besar mereka hadir dengan dipengerusikan oleh Speaker yang berpakaian rasmi. Tiada kerusi untuk semua 28 ahli DUN tersebut. Sidang bersejarah DUN dibuka dengan bacaan doa, sambil diperhatikan kira-kira 300 penyokong.


delcapo.wordpress.com

9.45am - FRU counting down….. Most of the 2000+ crowd dispersing…. some are staying… tense…

Not that many people read my blog, but what's relevant is that a large proportion of those that do are non-local. So while what happens in the following video is eyes-rolling old news to fellow Malaysians, not all have seen it, and most non-Malaysians don't know about it, and I thought it might be important for as much of the global community to bear witness to this as possible.

Just so UMNO Youth can't claim to be misrepresented or misunderstood later, with such video evidence around.

Notice they didn't actually shove Karpal Singh, but basically just yelled at him and treated him as a senile. They did shove Lim Lip Eng around, however, who did not fight back and just let things be. The woman MP who rushed in to help Karpal Singh is Fong Po Kuan, or so I'm told. At the end of the video, the UMNO Youth made this declaration ritual which ... old-fashioned's not even the right word to describe it - disturbingly archaic, perhaps?



And one more thing. This 'Youth' business - seriously, these are men in their late 30s and 40s, what's so 'youth' about them?


UPDATE
How interesting. UMNO Youth looked at the same video and declared that they did not touch Karpal Singh (technically true, but ...) and that the other MPs were harassing them. As such, they were happy that the video is being distributed so that people can see that UMNO Youth did no wrong.

You see, the expect that most Malaysians would not have watched the video, so they can get away with saying anything in the papers.

And they'd be right.

I learnt many new words today.

Hikikomori (ひきこもり or 引き籠もり)
The distinct but by no means exclusively Japanese phenomenon of a generation of the population who have chosen to live a reclusive life, withdrawn and isolated from society at large, often staying in their flats or rooms for extended periods of time (possibly years).

Twixter
An American neologism describing a new generation of Americans who are trapped, in a sense, betwixt/between adolescence and adulthood. They live with their parents - compare that with, say, the 19th century, when you're basically thrown out of the house when you turn 12.

NEET
Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training. Originally an abbrev. used by the British government.

Freeter
Japanese term for people between 15 and 34 who are underemployed or unemployed after graduating from college/university, living as parasite singles with their parents. The defining characteristic is that of having little to no income; generally this isn't a problem as staying with parents significantly reduces long-term and semi-durable expenses. Freeters tend to be underemployed or unemployed because they are waiting for a more ideal job, or are hampered by economic conditions (such as now).

Parasite Single
Also originally a Japanese term, this describes single people who live with their parents until late 20s/early 30s in order to enjoy a carefree and comfortable life. They generally don't contribute to the household income; but they do have larger luxury expenditures. (For a cinematic example, watch Failure To Launch.) Another increasing phenomenon is the parasite couple - like friends of mine who just got married, and the couple is living with his mom.

Boomerang Generation
Applies to young adults in the Western culture born between 1975 and 1986, so-named because of their frequency to return to their parents' home after short periods of living independently. Social life and dating life can be impaired because of less independence under such arrangement; on the other hand, again, it is a very economical arrangement for the young adult.

Quarter-Life Crisis (QLC)
The period of life immediately following the changes of adolescence, ranging from early 20s to early 30s. (Yes, it takes some people that long.)

• feeling "not good enough" because one can't find a job that is at one's academic/intellectual level
  
• frustration with relationships, the working world, and finding a suitable job or career
  
• confusion of identity
  
• insecurity regarding the near future
  
• insecurity concerning long-term plans, life goals
  
• insecurity regarding present accomplishments
  
• re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
  
• disappointment with one's job
  
• nostalgia for university, college, high school or elementary school life
  
• tendency to hold stronger opinions
  
• boredom with social interactions
  
• loss of closeness to high school and college friends
  
• financially-rooted stress (overwhelming college loans, unanticipatedly high cost of living, etc.)
  
• loneliness
  
• desire to have children
  
• a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you
  

(Most of these definitions taken from Wikipedia. To read more, just Wiki them.)

What's particularly interesting is that I saw very clearly that my sudden relief, even happiness from learning all these, is derived from the fact that this knowledge has given me a way of defining my identity, to find the point of reference to anchor my thoughts - exactly the behaviour of the ego that is mentioned by Eckhart Tolle. It means that there is still something I haven't figured out in spiritual terms.

Now, the question is, can YOU relate to any of this? Are you a freeter, or are you perhaps suffering from quarter-life crisis? Discuss.