Jalan Bukit Bintang, then and now

Jalan Bukit Bintang, as most of us know it, is a strip of road lined with shopping malls built for wallets of all sizes; cafes catering every possible taste; hotels adorned with anywhere between no stars to 5 stars; countless massage parlours, and much much more. It is the shopping haven for locals and tourists alike.

Jalan Bukit Bintang at dusk

But it hasn’t always been that way, has it? No, change is the only constant. But then, how did it looked like is the yesteryears?

I spoke to Siti about it. Now a receptionist, she used to live along that road. That’s right, people used to live at what is now Kuala Lumpur’s shopping capitol.

Siti

She lived in a shop house, at the place where KL Plaza now stands. On that 12000 m² that the plaza occupies, there was also a fair ground where fun fairs were held. That was BB Park. There was also a wet market, right next to her home. Oh yes, it must have been a happening place even back then.

Pavilion: There was a girl’s school here?!

In the 60’s, the area was a tight-knit community. Everyone knew everyone, and although Malays are a minority here, its still a good mix; the Chinese and Indians were there. She recalls the friendliness of the neighbours, the traders, everyone. Some traders would leave their stuff at her door for the night, moving them out to set up their stall again the next day.

She remembers fondly of visiting a nearby noodle factory, and follow the production every step of the way. Come Chinese New Year, she gets to see how kuih kapit is made, just as I have watched my grandmother make it.

It didn’t last long however.

6pm, 13th May 1969

It was just after the general elections, people had been running all over the place with banners for some time. Nothing unusual, or so it would seem.

A 14 year old Siti just got home from school when her uncle announced that there was trouble brewing in Kampung Baru. They would have to pack and leave. It was trouble indeed, the taxi they were escaping on had to speed through a mob roadblock just to get to safety.

It was the infamous May 13 riots.

She stayed in her aunt’s house in Kampung Baru, a predominantly Malay area. From the windows, she could see armed mobs going up and down the roads, things burning in the street, gunfire at a distance.

It wasn’t long before a curfew was imposed, and she had to survive on rations of rice, oil, and biscuits. It didn’t last long fortunately, and the curfew was lifted after a few days. She could now return home… or what’s left  of it.

She was told that machete-armed men stormed her home and ransacked it. Some shophouses were burnt too. As for the market, people say many bodies were carried out of area.

Some shophouses behind KL Plaza. Were they here at the time? What horrors must it had witnessed then.

She had to move out. And just had the riots left a deep scar in our politics, it left a deep one in the local community as well. It would take many years before the place was repopulated.

There are hardly any signs of the stories she described are left today, perhaps except for the shophouses that still stand around the area today.

Arguably, the place still stands as a confluence of cultures, but of a different kind: one driven by the full force of globalization.

Intersection of Jalan Bukit Bintang x Jalan Sultan Ismail

Place and (poor) memories?

I watched the Burmese Days, and unfortunately I couldn’t gather much from it. It was very subtle in its plot development, but I’d like to blame the audio too (and by extension, that Hi-Fi shop that used to play loud music near my home).

Aside for narrations of the story “The Great King Eats Chaff” being recited clearly, accompanied by bell chimes which precedes each episode of the story, I only found out what was going on in the film after it was over. That came from classroom discussions (it appears I wasn’t the only one confused, but some managed to grasp it. But some classmates also surfed the internet for the synopsis during the show) which followed the screening of the film.

But why had I been so inattentive? I was sitting in front row! I can’t be that poor a listener! It was also in the middle of the semester, before all the weight of assignment fatigue sets in.

The story is about the daughter/niece (also the director), the mother and the uncle going around Burma/Myanmar to revisit places where the uncle and mother grew up, but for some reason the mother was unwilling to dredge her pass.

But I didn’t even manage to work out the relationships between all these people! I did not realise the director was the main subject’s daughter, and the uncle was not “the husband”, until these were all pointed out in the classroom discussions.

Well why did I think of that? Hmm…

Persepolis

I must admit, I’m not a great fan of religion. Any religion. Not just that I have no faith, but also no faith in faith.

The cartoon Persepolis is both an autobiography and historical narrative in cartoon form, by Marjane Satrapi. In a series of flashbacks, it tells the story of Marjane growing up in the backdrop of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

The revolution, although seemed like a hopeful moment at first, turned out to be a nightmare for Tehran’s intelligentsia. It was even more repressive than the Shahs before.

As it is common amongst all who adopt a holier-than-thou attitude, the hypocrisy that often accompanies that attitude is wonderfully highlighted in the scene where police ordered Marjane to stop running, because running moves her posterior in a way they thought was “obscene”.

Her response was to yell at the officers in no uncertain terms, to stop starring at her butt. Gotta respect the lady. And of course, this is not the only instance of hypocrisy in this film.

There is also an unhealthy amount of stereotyping going on in the film. Marjane’s headscarf seemed to have caused some anxiety at the French airport. Viennese Catholic nuns called her all sorts of names, to which she responded with a rhetorical question that got her kicked out of her accommodation. Unfortunately, that won’t be too far from the truth.

Why am I not fond of faith?

To have faith, is to accept something as fully justified even though there is little or no justification for it (paradoxical, I know). It is by its very nature and definition, blind and unquestioning; and for some reason people are being brought up thinking its a good thing.

When actions don’t need any more justification than the words of a higher authority, whether priests or uztaz; king or president, we become effectively mindless drones. As Voltaire would put it:

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

On RichardDawkins.net’s forums, there is a list of all the deities ever worshipped by humans. So far, the work-in-progress has compiled a list of 5495 deities. Personally, I’m just glad that its only the big three causing most of the religious strife. Imagine what the world would be like if every deity wanted to be in this popularity contest.

Blind faith comes in many guises: patriotism, loyalty, dogmatic ideologies… ect., but religion seems to be its most common and deadly manifestation. Although most practitioners are harmless, it makes the world safer for the extremists.

Just look at that river of blood…

Of Big Thorny Fruits and Tall Grass

The Big Durian, by Amir Muhammad, is a film documenting the events leading up to the notorious 1987 Operasi Lallang, from the perspective of the grassroots.

The events started unfurling with Pvt. Adam running amuck at Chow Kit; his M-16 rifle blazing. The cause was supposedly because his brother was killed by a member of royalty after a golf game (the brother was the caddy). As he sent rounds down the road of Chow Kit, fears of another May 13 were brought up.

A Sabahan girl stole a peek on the private during his rampage. She said she saw (with envy) the face of a man who has just burst out of his cage. Free, while she feels trapped in the big city.

The single most memorable scene for me was when an Indian lady was being interviewed. She described how she tried to persuade another person not to take to the streets, and said “let’em take everything”. As if to suggest the price of political apathy, this was followed up immediately with a photo of an Indian man with nothing to give: he was homeless. Hinting on the price of political apathy perhaps.

The film looks at the events of 1987 from the hindsight of the late 90’s. If this film is supposed to be the link from Ops Lallang (or arguably earlier, back to May 13) to the Reformasi movement, then Amir’s later film “Malaysian Gods” can be seen as the link from the Reformasi movement to the Hindraf movement.

Ada Cadangan?

First, a bit of housekeeping. There is something new on this blog (not this post), can you see it? Hint: Look right for a blue box. Special thanks to HSH for the heads-up, I like it.

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“Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku” (Suggestions for My Country) was created by Liew Kung Yu, and exhibited at Petronas Gallery. I was fortunately enough to catch the exhibition while it lasted (you won’t find it there anymore).

It consists of four huge photo montages, titled “Konkrit Jungle”, “Motropolis Warisan”, “Pantai Gelora Cahaya”, and “Bandar Sri Tiang Kolom”.

Liew’s work is inspired by statues and monuments throughout Malaysia, and he photographed and assembled them into a vision of what the future of Malaysia could be, with witty humour.

Malaysia had been a nation with little historical narratives (Milner, 2005) holding it together. Hence, these narratives had to be created in the name of national unity; a common identity and history which becomes the glue of nations, and hence the state (which created the narrative). Throughout the early years of independence, the narrative was that of British colonialism and a “bargain” which enabled Malayans, and later Malaysians, to be independent, plural and in peace.

During Mahathir’s rule, a new ingredient has been added to the narrative: prestige projects. This is particularly true in the wake of the 1987/88 Operasi Lallang and judicial crisis, when anti-government dissent was high and racial relations were tense. These megaprojects - launched under the guise of modernisation are - ambitious feats of engineering aimed at boosting national pride. Before long, we have the tallest towers, longest bridges, and even our own “national” car. All these were widely publicised as national achievements. Meanwhile, much smaller monuments and homage to modernisation were springing up elsewhere.

Cadangan-cadangan Untuk Negaraku pokes fun at this. Its vision of Malaysia’s future is full of these monuments and other symbols of national pride. Aside from people, grass, and the occasional trees, the whole landscape is artificial. It was as if national progress is measured by the tonne: tonnes of concrete and steel. Even the animals and the waves of the ocean were just concrete and paint. Swarms of tourists armed with cameras, flock around landmarks throughout each montage, as if it is indeed something to be proud of and worth visiting. Kung Yu’s vision of future Malaysia is essentially an exaggeration of this phenomenon of monument-building being equated with nation-building.

While looking at these artworks, it is difficult not to feel that the landscape was somewhat hollow, once the initial awe and wonder of the work’s size and colour subsides. Perhaps the same can be said of the prestige projects itself. Once our neighbours have built taller building and longer bridges, will Malaysia still exist as a nation with common ideals?

It should also be noted that Kung Yu’s previous works are very conscious of where it is displayed (Rajendran, n.d.). Hence, it is very ironic that his exhibition took place within one of these prestige projects, and funded with public money. Given the authoritarian nature of officialdom, either the curator wasn’t very careful, or perhaps there is official recognition and acceptance of this phenomenon.

Reference:

Milner, A. (2005). Historians Writing Nations: Malaysian Contests. In W. Gungwu (Ed.), National-building: Five Southeast Asian Histories (pp. 117-161). Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Rajendran, C. (n.d.) Seriously, Simply Speaking: Cakap-cakap with Liew Kung Yu.

Blogging for University

Over the span of 3 days (and one of those days is a holiday), I was instructed to set up 2 blogs by my lecturers. One is for “Alternative Voices and Issues in Mass Communications” class, the other is for “Introduction to Internet Technologies”. This is the former, and yes I’ll be graded for my work here.

To me, it is a bit weird that blogs would be considered as something in the “alternative”. Back when it all started perhaps (*gasp*, I’m THAT old?!), when it is something that would appeal to the youths and frowned at by “older people” and the mainstream media alike.

Today, blogging is the mainstream. Even people in their 80’s blog, just ask Mahathir. Just about everyone with a computer and an internet connection blogs. Ok, maybe not everyone, but enough of them to bump into every few seconds while walking down the busy streets of KL. As for the mainstream media, even The Star uses twitter, never mind blogs and larger media organisations (example: New York Times.

Is blogging still the “alternative”. Maybe. Just by calling the “mainstream media” mainstream, I have just accidentally validated the blog’s status as the alternative. Researchers would still turn to The Star, New Straits Times, and other publications for credible information, and perhaps the more established “new media” outfits like malaysiakini.com and The Malaysian Insider too. But not blogs.

In any case, I’ll give bloggers more credit than the MSM. They don’t charge for crap.

 

Edit:
Ops, my lecturer works with the MSM too. Am I getting a fail grade? =x

Hindsight sucks