Family Time, in court

They brought him to the court before 8am. I arrived around 8, Marina and her daughter were already there. I said hi to Marina and asked her, "not yet arrived"? She told me he had arrived, he was inside the van.

There was a white van with all windows in deep black. I could not see him but I smiled at the window and said hi.

After half an hour, the police yet brought him out. Before he was brought out, they put a "Do not cross" yellow line a few meters from the van and asked everybody to stand behind the line.

Supporters shouted "Pete, be strong" once they saw him out. Among them, Azmi Sharom, respected UM law assoc prof cum columnist, and a blind lady wearing "Free RPK" t-shirt.

Raja went in the court. Supporters gave him a big applause. His wife hugged him tight and they kissed. His supporters hugged him and told him be strong. At that moment, I had tears in my eyes. Despite wearing journalist tag, I went to him and shook his hand.

I was thinking, government politicians could be that powerful. They could use whatever law for whatever purpose, each and every government engine is ready for them to abuse. They could lock any healthy and cheerful looking person up and turn him/her into a weak and pale person spending every moment sitting in a dark place hoping for a bit more time to spend with family and friends.

Raja is there, sitting in dark every day and night, when I go to work, go shopping, when I thinking of which restaurant to go, enjoying massage. I tell myself, he's there in dark every moment. I must not forget.

I can do very little to help. As a journalist, the best help I can think of is to keep asking the Prime Minister questions on ISA.

On the press conference Abdullah announced not contesting in UMNO election, I asked him, "You had just anounced your reform agenda, I'd like to know if u'd consider to abolish ISA before you step down?"

He said there're things get done fast, and things that take time.

I asked back, "Is that mean you'll not?" He ignored my question and turned to another reporter.

Yesterday in Gerakan, Hong Siang (my ex-colleague) asked him almost the same question. Abdullah said he answered the question to him before and his answer would not change. He then said he wanted to stop the press conference.

I immediately thraw out this, "how about release of ISA detainees?" As he had already raised his body from the seat, I asked him the same question again. He just answered, "nanti dulu lah".

(going to dinner, to be continued...)

To Ayah

I still remember the days Ayah took me by his green scooter, turning round and round in our small village. In those evenings after dinner, he used to let me seated in front of the scooter, and took me to the wind.

After I grown up, uncle told me that our neighbour ever asked him, “Why do you let that Malay guy take Ashi, aren’t you scared he will take her away?” No, uncle never worried about that. Ayah is a simple good man with a stable job. For his “P. Ramlee” nature (open, nice, kind, moderate, like to joke), he is popular among the villagers. Some of the aunties, uncles and kids in my village used to follow my way of calling him. They called him “Ayah”.

As ayah only speaks Malay, sometimes the illiterate villagers find it difficult to communicate with him. Despite the language constraint, ayah and uncle get along very well. Uncle would mix some Cantonese into their conversation and to my surprise ayah could actually understand him. After years spending together in the same neighbourhood, uncle improved a lot in his Malay language.

My uncle is a big fan of Chinese songs of thirties to sixties and ayah shows a great interest in them. Sometimes Uncle lends his discs to ayah but ayah also has his own collection of Chinese oldies.

As a Telekom staff, Ayah was assigned to work in this remote area almost 40 years ago, and never leave. He is part of the village and the village is part of him.

However, during these four decades, things changed a lot. Although love between these two families can never change, some precious moments have sunk in memories, and will never come back.

I remember in my school days, ayah liked to “yam char”(drink tea) with uncle and me in a Chinese café at the main street of our village. There used to be a satay stall operated only during Chinese New Year and Hari Raya. Ayah and his wife (I call her kai mah, not Mak. It is Cantonese way of calling godmother. She is a Chinese) together with uncle and I would have one day sitting together at the café and ordered satays for our lunch during these festive seasons. Ayah would be busy saying hi to friends, and proudly announced to all his friends, I was his anak angkat. And I, I would be busy spending time with the satays.

I did not notice when it all started but things changed from there.

Since then, ayah and kai mah never steps into any Chinese café in our village. And the Malay satay hawker never set up his stall in front of the Chinese café during festive seasons. And since then, kai mah puts on her scarf when going outside of the house.

Until one day a Malay male student politely refused to shake my hand, and a Malay cashier in supermarket used a plastic bag to wrap her hand before holding my pork tin food and tin beer, I yet came to realize that ayah and kai mah have been taken by a fierce stream running down from some fundamental minds. This big stream is going no way but heading back to this piece of fantasy land created in the minds of this group of religion fundamentalists in the country.

I have no idea if there will be happiness on this piece of land, but I am quite sure it will be a land with no pork, no alcoholic drink, no Malay sitting together with Chinese enjoying tea in a Chinese café.

_________________________

Selamat Hari Raya and maaf zahir batin, to ayah & kai mah and all my Muslim friends out there.

Escape

Driving alone on this familiar highway, Nirvana in the air. Motorcyclists come, and go. Everybody is going somewhere but the clouds on top never give me any hint on where I shall go. The weather is fine but I feel like hiding somewhere. I shall hide in the music, or the lyrics, in anything light and unsensible. There is something close to me disappeared from my life. Something I'm not thinking of getting it back. Nevertheless the city doesn't look cute and this life becoming more and more unfamiliar to me. Driving alone on this familiar highway, I feel like hiding away, away from everything meaningful to me.

Another Spoon-feeding Story

It seems like our Internal Security Ministry is spoon-feeding our mainstream media.

According to Merdeka Review’s exclusive report today, the ministry has recently sent a letter dated 11th Jan to mainstream media, instructing them not to quote contents of “uncyclopedia” as it wrongly describes Malaysia, while making fun of and humiliating the country.

The letter was signed by Che Din bin Yusoh on behalf of Ketua Setiausaha of the ministry Andul Aziz Mohd Yusof. The letter (which in my opinion serves as a spoon) says, Uncyclopedia contains offensive information, stirred with seditious, incorrect and false information. For instances, history of Malaysia, cultures, name, flag, national leaders etc of Malaysia.

This is really funny. Anyone surfs Uncyclopedia would know its descriptions about Malaysia is meant to make fun of Malaysia (sadly the jokes are based on certain ugly facts which are not officially recognized). I thought not a single person in this world would take it seriously until I read this news. This is really unbelievable, really really unbelievable, until Merdeka Review mistook Uncyclopedia/wiki as Wikipedia earlier today.

No, I do not think Internal Security Ministry is that stupid to pass such a stupid instruction. There must be an interesting reason behind…. Mm… tell me, is it a creative way of humiliating people working in mainstream media?

Chuang Tzu's notion of God

Taoists accepted the naturalistic conception of the universe, but in their system, by a peculiar combination, there is still place for God, immortality, and freedom; man is still one with the universe, if only he can “see things under the form of eternity”

(1975: 5). Yu-Lan Fung. 1975. Chuang Tzu: A new selected translation with an exposition of the philosophy of Kuo Hsiang. New York: Gordon Press

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The term “God” or “Heaven” is commonly found in Chuang Tzu’s works. However I think his notion of God is different with religious God as in Christianity, Islam and other religions, which generally means the Creator. “God” termed by Chuang Tzu is not explicit in meaning. However it bears the meaning of the unseen force that governs the nature by a set of eternal and absolute law. The following passages found in Chuang Tzu’s works hint us on this:

The Tao of God operates ceaselessly; and all things are produced… (126: 157)

…your life is not your own. It is the delegated harmony of God; your individuality is not your individuality is not your own, It is the delegated adaptability of God; your posterity is not your own. It is the delegated exuviae of God; you move, but know not how. You are at rest, but know not how. You are at rest, but know not why. You taste, but know not the cause. These are the operation of God’s laws. How then should you get Tao as to have it for your own? (1926: 282)

…what is it to be embraced in the obliterating unity of God? It is this. With reference to positive and negative, to that which is so and that which is not so, ---- if the positive is really positive, it must necessarily be different from its negative: there is no room for argument. And if that which is so really is so, it must necessarily be different from that which is not so: there is no room for argument. (1926: 31)

However God in Chuang Tzu’s sense is not the Creator of the universe that created all the beings, nor image of the Creator who passes divine passages he wants to produce. For Chuang Tzu, beings spontaneously produce themselves and natural means everything spontaneously becomes what it is. As Chuang Tzu’s great commentator Kuo Tsiang puts it, “everything is as it is by nature, not made to be so. Therefore, when Chuang Tzu spoke of heaven (t’ien，天, also translated as God by other translators，like Giles from Cambridge University), he meant the natural, not the blue sky… T’ien is the general name of all things. There is nothing that can be specifically called t’ien. Who can be the Lord that commands things? Everything produces itself and it not created by others. This is the way of nature.” (1975: 45)

Chuang Tzu’s notion of God is not religious nor it sacred. Perhaps this is the reason why Chinese prominent philosopher Yu-lan Fung tends not to translate the Chinese term “天” as God but heaven and nature (1975: 44). Meanwhile another translator Burton Watson translates the character as “heaven” or “heavenly” in most cases (1968: 25). Chuang Tzu’s notion of God or heaven is definitely very different with Francis Bacon’s notion of God. Bacon was a Christian who believed in Christian God. For Bacon, God is the Creator of the universe who set the law of na 天, pronounced as “tian” (t’ien)in Chinese. 天道is translated as “the Tao of God” by Herbert A. Giles in Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer (1926: 157). However the word 天is also translated as heaven and nature, see 1975: 44.