Dustyhawk :: Broken Mirror

Bon Odori

Date : 15th July 2006
Venue : Matsushita Stadium Shah Alam and Esplanade - Penang
Time : 5 pm

What is Bon Odori ?

Bon Odori is a Japanese Buddhist holiday to honor the departed spirits of one’s ancestors. This Buddhist festival has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people from the big cities return to their home towns and visit and clean their ancestors’ graves. Traditionally including a dance festival, it has existed in Japan for more than 500 years. It is held from 13th of July to the 15th (”Welcoming Obon” and “Farewell Obon” respectively) in the eastern part of Japan (Kanto), and in August in the western part. In recent years, however, most parts of Tokyo, and by extension, the media, hold Obon in August to coincide with the summer holiday period. Obon shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of el Día de los Muertos.

You can find out more here Bon Festival by wikipedia.

The following was posted in the Malaysian Community at Livejournal by serge’s livejournalist mate Nadira at this post

yesterday was trash. i don’t remember the last time i’ve ever felt so fucking fragile. i had an accident yesterday while during this play i was helping with because i had to pee not even halfway through the play and i had to man the soundboard. it wasn’t the most horrible thing that could happen and i’m lucky i’m thick skinned. my main dilemma is i think that my bladder problem is due to child abuse. when i was in primary school (chinese school) i had this teacher who taught us Malay and we had to read from a sheet of a hundred malay words, all the words, five times each. we did this for 50 minutes straight and this class was always before recess. for some reason, i always had to pee during the beginning of this period and the teacher would never let me leave because recess was next and i had to read the stupid, fucking words. my teachers back then couldn’t even pronounce ‘vegetable’ properly and they wanted us to read those stupid words so we could somehow improve our pronounciation.

You know there is a problem. We can be angry or we can do something about it. Right now what i want to do is become an advocate for children’s rights in Malaysia especially when i realised a few days ago that children have no rights. starting as soon as i can, i will be building a website with articles and maybe (if i’m 1337 enough) a forum. i’ll start writing to the newspapers and if i’m diligent enough (hopefully if i’m diligent enough or if i can get some help) i’ll distribute pamphlets and write to the government about my concerns. With some help this will be successful. I can’t do this on my own.

[mood| peaceful]

After reading an articles written by Andreas, serge has sat at the proverbial corner and have placed a dunce cap on his own head. Racial integrity of this country is hanging in a balance that is not good at all.

Malays being lazy, Chinese being greedy bastards and Indians who can lie through their tongue. Personally speaking, serge sees all of this qualities in every one of them. Don’t get him wrong, he is not a racist and will never be.

After or was it before Malaysia’s independence, laws were being written to make sure that the Malay community was not left behind in the social economy. Because of this special priviledge, some Malays has taken this opportunity to be -lazy-, being humans they have abuse this priviledge that was given to them. Serge believes that during that time, it was necessary as the Chinese and Indian immigrants were on a higher economic standings than the Malays. With that said, this how serge believes that “58 percent of Malays, 63 percent of Chinese and 43 percent of Indians polled agreed that ”in general, most Malays are lazy.”

For the part of Chinese being greedy bastards, serge will have to agree to this. Being a chinese, he has that greediness. Besides being immigrants to this country with nothing else, the Chinese community had to be greedy to ensure the livelihood of the family,of the clan and mainly themselves. Law of the jungle, survival of the fittest.

Indians being great untrustworthy people? Well this has been running down in nearly every chinese family serge knows off. The notion of them being untrustworthy is this, their tongue is so bloody long and the way the speak their language..the tongue twist and turn in such fluidic motion that they can change their sentence instantaneously.

Such conceptions of this needs to be removed from the minds of the young and of the old. We need to remove the concept of Chinese Malaysian, Indian Malaysian or Malay Malaysians. The need to find a nationality that is united and not segregated because of race is needed. When will this happen, serge does not know. But he hopes that day will come.

[mood| infuriated]

about 2 days ago, people of the age of 17+ waited for their results, their SPM results. Many of them laughed at the results which they have gotten, many of them cried for the results which they thought they would get but didn’t and there are even those who were contented with the results which they were not even sure about getting. There was a myriad of emotions which is quite amusing.

What is it about us asians ? why is it that we pin so much hope on results such as this ? Serge does not deny the fact that SPM is important, but to think that it is more important then what the future has for you is basically stupid. Take for instance this article, just because she did not get good marks in 2 or 3 subjects..she thought that her life is ready to be terminated.

Frankly speaking what are good marks ? for him, his spm results were atrocious. He scored 4 E7 and 3 E8 (or was it the other way around). Scoring an F was of course not good all. Everyone has a different set of opinions of what are good marks, scoring C and above is good… others want an A1. And there are some people who wants an A1 and at least 98% in every subject. Which is kinda mad.

Now back to the subject at hand. Why do parents whole in regard that results are all that matters ? Do note that serge believes results are important, but it is just one-third of what is really important in being successful in life. What is important in his opinion, is sociability.

sociability, as in the art of speaking to people making friends with them. Building a social-network. In the company which he is in, part of the criteria to enter is knowledge in computers and internet technology which is about just 30% of the requirement. What is important is sociability. Many of us here (except for some) has literally zero knowledge in this kind of nonsense, but we are here because we know who to socialize.

If you’re going to hire someone, will you hire some handsome PHD filled man who has no sociability and is stubborn to learn or would you hire someone who has a grade 6 education but is sociable and willing to learn ? Serge is not sure about you but he’ll take the one willing to learn. Of course if he fins someone who has both good traits of education and social skills ..he’ll take that person.

Paper results isn’t everything, but he does hope that the people will not literally heed his advice and do not study at all. Do study, but do not study just to remember facts and information and bring it out only during exams… but do study and learn to know the facts to understand the information.

do not aim for grades, aim to understand.

so today is the 10th of march, in the year 2006. Which is the 69 day of the normal year or 70 in the leap year. One thing must be said and that is the world is getting repulsive. From the clamp down of weblogs in china, the beating of civilians in iraq and the videos that follows, to here in our country Malaysia. Cracks in the MRR2, recent petrol hike, the delayed article of Marina Mahathir’s column in The Star (unpublished material here)… one really wonders if there is anything good in this world today.

Let us not forget that being a person in a certain faith-system will bring added benefits. Oh what joy we have here.

Serge feels sad about this. really he does, although it does not affect him immediately…somewhere down the lines it does. the human race, such a bastard. the pride of one destroys the humble council that wished a better growth.

[edit]

Will the photos from the links below be shown in the dailies ??

KlCC Protest
KlCC Protest II
KLCC Protest III

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