The lost were-tiger!

The Book

Sitora Harimau Jadian (Sitora Were-Tiger, Malay; 1964)

When P. Ramlee relocated to Kuala Lumpur, he was disappointed with the inexperienced motley crew that he was left with, with the studio, perched in the middle of nowhere beside a zoo with tigers and other animals as neighbours. He was left at a cul-de-sac with the dearth of ideas for his next movie. Then an idea sparked. In the same vein as 'Werewolf of London' of 1935, he created a Malay horror movie with were-tiger as its theme. He named it Si-Tora, 'Tora' being tiger in Japanese as P. Ramlee knew the language. The outcome, 'Sitora Harimau Jadian' (1964) is not one of his better offerings and is said to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Conspiracy theorists insist that it intentionally went missing to satisfy certain quarters. During the preview of the movie, the censors walked out half an hour into the screening due to its dealing with supernatural and mystic elements.

The movie poster

The nearest now we can have to view this story is reading the 200 paged storybook which has re-released from its original text written in 1965 in Bahasa Kebangsaan. The 2012 version is written in old ala-P.Ramlee's styled Malay but with new spelling layout. The royalty from the sales apparently goes to P Ramlee's grandson.

The serenity of Kpg Kiambang is shattered with the manifestation of Sitora yet again to scare Pendekar Amin's pretty daughter, Naemah. The traditional healer, Tok Dukun is called to treat the unconscious lass. The healer, who is well aware of folklores and dealings with the supernatural reminds the warrior to pay the demon protection money to stop the harassments. Being the warrior that he was, he refused to heed to such blackmails. His entourage's attempt to confront the beast proved futile. In spite of stabbing Sitora, it managed to go invisible with its magical power.
The village folks report the incident to the police. OCPD Mutalib announces the arrival of a young doctor to the village to introduce modernity to the people. Dr Effendi (P. Ramlee) manages to revive the young maiden (Naemah) who later becomes his nurse in his newly set-up clinic. The arrival of modern medical services is resisted by Tok Dukun who feels that his rice bowl may be affected.

A page from the book

In the meantime, love blossoms between the young doctor and his nurse. Wedding arrangements are being made.

Sitora continues his terror. Pendekar Amin, his wife and three other warriors are killed. Eventually, Dr Effendi is attacked by Sitora, and he becomes Sitora's designated accomplice to continue the deathly trail of dead bodies whenever he sees himself in the mirror!

OCPD brings a more senior doctor from another town, a Dr Abu Bakar. In spite of being a man of science, his stay in Sarawak had opened his eyes to the possibility of the existence of forces beyond our comprehension. During a trip to Tok Dukun's shack, Dr Abu Bakar was told that the only way to defeat the demon was with a mystical stick (kayu tas).

During the climax, Sitora tricks his newfound aide, Dr Effendi, into kidnapping Naemah and killing her. Just in the nick of time, Dr Abu Bakar arrives at the scene and saves the day with his own possession of the mystical stick (kayu tas) which was presented to him by an Iban headman. Dr Effendi regains his usual self and sanity is restored in Kpg Kiambang.

I found this light book which is more like a pulp fiction where the story just keeps on flowing and very little cerebral involvement. The writer is not very imaginative in his description of the surroundings and setting of the set. The book was anyway meant to be for light reading, not to be a reference book for Malay literature!

Stairway to avoid heaven (or hell)*

Now, just to beautify the walls with poster titled 'A step to health' to encourage people to use the stairs to burn off their belts of adipose tissue acquired through years of sedentary lifestyle and gobbling of rich foods because they can.
Why is it that people need to be told what to do, when and how? Is it not common sense to use the stairs rather than the lift when your destination is one or two storeys above? Like that people have to be told to smile to one another, to queue, to be quiet in a library, not to talk on the phone in a cinema etcetera .... Not to eat the styrofoam casing in the new TV box and to stuff your head in the plastic bag that wraps your new electrical appliances as it carried risk of suffocation! And the prescription drug carries a warning to keep away from children!

Interactive Street Art in Penang

Ernest Zacharevic is a Lithuanian street artist currently living in George Town, located in the province of Penang, Malaysia . As part of the George Town Festival that runs from June 15 to July 15, Ernest has been putting up some incredible street art all around the city.

The piece getting the most buzz online has been his artwork featuring two kids painted on a wall. He then strategically placed a real bike in front of the wall which not only gave the piece a three dimensional feel (that you can physically touch), but encouraged people to interact with the artwork and use their own creativity to put their personal spin on it.

 

Confessions of a Malaysian Civil Servant

This is an excellent 250 odd page collection of short stories of a supposedly fictitious retired civil servant, Dato Abdul Hamid bin Dato Sidek, who was in thick of things during the decision making moments of our young nation. Being educated in MCKK, he seem to see his contemporaries wherever he goes. He has a good time enjoying life in civil service, working 'very hard' to get things in order for the country. He mixes very well with all strata of population - locals and foreigners, with the confidence given by the language and education laid by his colonial masters. He embraces other cultures with respect and confidence. This trait is somehow lost in his son whom he affectionately refers to as 'Ayatollah' and is an UMNO member. His grandson, a resident of LA, has the same wavelength as him - outgoing and modern.
As you can vaguely make out, this book is a satire of sorts, with a tinge of comedy on the Malay psyche and an occasional tongue in cheek joke (like the Brits would) explaining the gradual change in the society over the years - pre-Merdeka, just afterwards and the present generation.

In the first chapter, he writes a letter to a newspaper editor reminiscing his old glory days, the cultural diversity of his MCKK (Eton of East) schoolmates of his era (all with their European wives!) and ridiculing the youngsters of today.

The next one pokes fun at the members of royal family. A group of mean looking dudes with leather jackets were riding on their Harley Davidsons menacing on the highway scaring our hero (Dato Hamid) and his European wife. They turned out to over-aged members of the royal family donning jackets with the word S.H.A.G. emblazoned on its back. S.H.A.G.turned out to be Selangor Harley Appreciation Group!

The next 4 chapters are the main attraction of the book - 

• 'Dato in love' - 1948, Hamid has to accompany His Highness (HH) The Sultan on his trip to Switzerland to recuperate from an undisclosed illness. Here he narrates his mischief with a Swiss lass and a Russian temptress who eventually ran off with HH's Celestine Diamond. Hamid had a hand in it too as he must have inadvertently blurted out of its existence to the broad during their passionate love making. He, however, got scot free, as HH too was not too ill to have a fling with her himself. They replaced the jewel with a fake one.  
• The Beat Generation -  On his 50th wedding anniversary, he starts reminiscing a time 50 years previously (1954) when he met his wife as a student in the UK (on government scholarship). He kept failing his exams, marries his wife without knowledge of his parents back home. It also narrates of a character Nik, a suave Casanova and musician. The spineless Hamid, going through a rough patch in his marriage, decides to add some sparkle in his life by following Nik to Algiers to play in a band (with Hamid's wife too). Nik gets involved with the club boss' mistress and they end up in the streets, bruised, penniless and without their passports. After a brief moment of living in a hostile country as illegal immigrants, with 'The Wife's resourcefulness and charisma, they returned to England.
• Ariff and Capitalism - Hamid is enjoying his stint as a 'hardworking' servant of the Kementerian, working for the weekend and the weekend actually starts on Thursday! This is a story of how officers in high places are bleeding the country dry to line their own pockets. In 1972, he is sent by a Malaysian Chinese businessman to investigate (spying) on a fellow MCKK mate (Ariff) who seem to be accumulating too much wealth too fast. Instead of investigating, he ends up embroiled in a maze of zillionaires, Sheikhs and lots of money waiting to be amassed. He makes some investment instead for himself. The unhappy businessman gets him into trouble at work and pretty soon Ariff goes AWOL. The visiting Sheikh reinstates his job and again 'The Wife' with her shrewdness saves his invested money.
• Murder in Parit Chindai - This is an Agatha Christie type of murder mystery of a business tycoon set upon the east coast monsoon rain, clogged up roads and an exotic mansion perched upon a hill overlooking into the South China Sea. Hamid, 'The Wife' and Hamzah (another English educated probably gay bloke who is too smart for his pants) are assigned by his boss to be at the tycoon's house for an unknown reason. The tycoon is brutally stabbed just after the tycoon had handed over his latest will to Hamid. The trio had to resort to playing CSI as they were cut off from the police and telecommunications. The complicated arrangement/relationship of the  deceased's family makes everyone in the house a suspect - the first wife, the second, we soon find out a third wife with a son, the first wife's son whose father is not the tycoon, the second wife's son, the business associates etcetera. The mystery is finally solved by the know-it-all Hamzah with everybody standing to gain from the turn of events, including Hamzah and Hamid!

The concluding chapter involves a tete-a-tete between Hamid and his multiracial friends in the soothing ambience of a gentleman's club. They reminisce the time that the country had paved from Malaya to Malaysia. 

An excellent and enjoyable read which definitely deserves a second read. I cannot wait for his next book. Maybe he is too busy with his activities on the air, of late.

Nollywood for you!

We all know about Hollywood and how they try to propagate the Western values into our living room. Some actually think that there is a Jewish agenda that they are trying to fulfill. Then there is Bollywood and its sisters (Kollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood etcetera) all around the Indian subcontinent trying to detach yourself from reality, at least momentarily, to temporarily relieve you from your daily stresses of life.
Now, have you heard of a country which started indulging into the celluloid industry only in 60s, found difficult to finance its film industry, had a skeletal budget, got a shot in the arm with the advent of digital technology and have been churning more movies since the turn into the 21st century to capture the second spot in front of Hollywood (after India, of course) in terms of number of films released?
I thought so too. You would not have guessed it. It is Nigeria and their industry is fondly known as Nollywood.

http://thisisnollywood.com/nollywood.htm
Nollywood, Nigeria's booming film industry, is the world's third largest producer of feature films. Unlike Hollywood and Bollywood, however, Nollywood movies are made on shoe-string budgets of time and money. An average production takes just 10 days and costs approximately $15,000.Yet in just 13 years, Nollywood has grown from nothing into a $250 million dollar-a-year industry that employs thousands of people. The Nollywood phenomenon was made possible by two main ingredients: Nigerian entrepreneurship and digital technology.
In the late 1980's and early 1990's, Lagos and other African cities faced growing epidemics of crime and insecurity. Movie theaters closed as people became reluctant to be out on the streets after dark. Videos for home viewing imported from the West and India were only mildly popular. Nigerians saw an opportunity to fill the void with products of their own.
Experts credit the birth of Nollywood to a businessman who needed to unload thousands of blank tapes and to the 1992 video release of Living in Bondage, a movie with a tale of the occult that was an instant and huge-selling success. It wasn't long before other would-be producers jumped on the bandwagon.
Currently, some 300 producers churn out movies at an astonishing rate—somewhere between 500 and 1,000 a year. Nigerian directors adopt new technologies as soon as they become affordable. Bulky videotape cameras gave way to their digital descendents, which are now being replaced by HD cameras. Editing, music, and other post-production work is done with common computer-based systems. The films go straight to DVD and VCD disks.
Thirty new titles are delivered to Nigerian shops and market stalls every week, where an average film sells 50,000 copies. A hit may sell several hundred thousand. Disks sell for two dollars each, making them affordable for most Nigerians and providing astounding returns for the producers.
Not much else about Nollywood would make Hollywood envious. Shooting is inevitably delayed by obstacles unimaginable in California. Lagos, home to 15 million people (expected to be 24 million by 2010), is a nightmare of snarled traffic, pollution, decaying infrastructure, and frequent power outages.
Star actors, often working on several films at once, frequently don't show up when they're supposed to. Location shooting is often delayed by local thugs, or "touts", who extort money for protection before they will allow filming to take place in their territories.
Yet Nollywood producers are undeterred. They know they have struck a lucrative and long-neglected market - movies that offer audiences characters they can identify with in stories that relate to their everyday lives. Western action-adventures and Bollywood musicals provide little that is relevant to life in African slums and remote villages.
Nollywood stars are native Nigerians. Nollywood settings are familiar. Nollywood plots depict situations that people understand and confront daily; romance, comedy, the occult, crooked cops, prostitution, and HIV/AIDS.
"We are telling our own stories in our own way," director Bond Emeruwa says. "That is the appeal both for the filmmakers and for the audience."
The appeal stretches far beyond Nigeria. Nollywood films are proving popular all over English-speaking Africa and have become a staple on M-NET, the South African based satellite television network. Nigerian stars have become household names from Ghana to Zambia and beyond. The last few years have seen the growing popularity of Nollywood films among African diaspora in both Europe and America.
"Look out, Hollywood," one exuberant Nigerian producer exclaims. "Here we come!"

What is muhibbah?

Bak Kut Teh (meat bone tea) 肉骨茶

It is the act of 4 Malaysian Indians going out on a Saturday night in a car in the streets of Kuala Lumpur listening to Allycats singing a Malay song (Sampaikan Salam Cinta Ku) heading to a 24 hour Bak Kut Teh shop to chow down spicy herbal porcine meat gulped down with golden juice imported from the cold land with fjords. Bliss!
MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA!
http://www.bakkutteh.org/Bak-kut-teh.html

Another angle of Aesop's fable