Good Friday, No Holiday?

Why isn't Good Friday a public holiday? 

Many people know Christmas is an important day for Christians. But did you know that Christmas is important BECAUSE there was Good Friday and subsequently Easter? If you take Good Friday and Easter away, no Christian would bother celebrating Christmas. Christmas is meaningful because of Easter. Easter is meaningful because of Good Friday. Did you know that? Ask any Christian, he/she will tell you why. 

You don’t get catchy carols, presents or holiday treats on this weekend of Good Friday and Easter. It’s a lot less glamorous, and a lot less noticed here in Malaysia, but I assure you, it is a lot more important.

So if Christmas is a holiday, why isn’t Good Friday one too?

When Malaysia won the (not so) prestigious Suzuki cup a few years ago, a public holiday was declared.

When the Sultan of Kedah entered the Malaysian Book of Records for being elected the Agong for the second time, a public holiday was declared. 

So, when Jesus Christ died on the cross this very day two thousand years ago, paying for everyone’s sins, why isn’t a public holiday declared?

You may say “Well, that’s a religious thing… and I’m not a Christian. We are not a Christian nation. Ini negara Islam…Why SHOULD it be a holiday?”

The same reason Aidifitri, Aidiladha, Awal Muharram, Prophet Muhammad’s Birthday, Christmas, Deepavali, Wesak, Thaipusam, Agong’s Birthday, Sultans Birthday, Federal Territory day, Labour Day, Chinese New Year, Malaysia Day and all the other days gazette as a public holiday;

That people should be allowed to celebrate the things that are important to them.

And that others that may or may not find those things as important, are still allowed to be happy for their neighbour and celebrate with them.

Isn’t that supposed to be the whole ‘muhibbah’ 1Malaysia thing that’s supposed to make us Malaysian?

Good Friday and Happy Easter guys. 

Google +/- ?!

Someone sent me an invitation to join Google+. I had left that mail in my inbox and ignored it for 2 months. Finally I decided "Oh what the hell.. no harm trying.." and clicked join.

5 minutes later, I deleted my Google+ account.

Not that I didn't like it.

I just didn't have the energy to start out over on another social networking site. My Facebook is already rather neglected.... who am I to start another social networking account.

I started out with Friendster.. which was quite novel at the time. I skipped Hi5, Myspace and a slew of other randowm networking sites. Couldn't dodge Facebook. Hated Buzz and now, Google+ has been automatically disqualifed for no fault of its own.

I think we live in an age of over connectivity. Those who live in the city already have internet all the time. People who carry iPhones and Blackberrys have their emails in their pockets. Things like WhatsApp or BBM make texting each other a breeze. It's making it ever more convenient for us to connect to one another, but it's not actually making us want to.Or maybe that's just me. I don't want to be connected and contactable all the time. Even with my own boss, colleague, wife or family, I sometimes deliberately ignore their calls. It's fatigue from over connectivity.

When two people have a desire to connect, they will find a way. Once upon a time, it was letters, then telegrams, then phone, then emails, then instant messaging. Today, it's all of the above. Yet, I still find myself no where closer to catching up with people I've promised to catch up with so many weeks and months ago.

An old friend asked me a while ago why I was never on MSN chat. I said I never bother to... and asked why she did. She said it was a great way to keep in touch with everyone at one time. I said if you wanted to keep in touch with me, all you had to do was call. We could talk over the phone or meet up. That's catching up to me.

We are born with 5 senses ;sight, smell, sound and touch and taste. These are the gateways we experience life and each other. If we chat computer to computer, I don't see you in the flesh, I don't smell your scent, I don't hear your voice, I can't touch your skin... and I obviously can't taste you. But if we meet face to face, I see you before my eyes, I can detect you scent, I can hear you loud and clear, I can hold you and make eye physical contact. I obviously still won't taste you (since licking your friends seems rather inappropriate for cannibalistic or sexual reasons). BUT, we do share a meal together, hence a shared experience of taste right?

Anyway, what it really boils down to is this. I' not a hermit. I enjoy keeping in touch with my social circle.... in the flesh and blood that is. The over connectivity I'm talking about is the over connectivity to the virtual world. In the virtual word, 'smileys; 'lol' and other assorted abbreviations and internet lingo become substitute for real human interaction. Which too me, is kinda like being short changed. You want life like a really hearty and wholesome home cooked dinner. Not a genetically modified, artifically flavoured, mass produced burger from crappy fast food chain.

That's why whenever I feel a strong connection with someone, I inevitable have the urge to meet them. Our own minds tell us that there is more to connectivity than just the instant part of it.

Is what I'm saying making any sense to anyone else? 

The Vanishing Roti Man

It’s amazing how fast and how dramatically things have changed within the last 10 or so years...

I was just driving one day.. and there was a man on a motorbike in front of me and his bike was filled EVERYWHERE with bread, junk food and pastries. I was kind of surprised, because I hadn’t seen such men in such a long long time. I’m sure you’ve seen him before too. Here it is:

Familiar to you? Yes, it’s the Roti Man. (Roti = Bread) Many of us grew up to the familiar sight and sound of the Roti Man going house to house, tooting his horn announcing his arrival. All you had to do was open your door and shout “Roti!” and he would park right at your doorstep. Kids and parents from all around would start to gather around his bike to make their purchases.

The Roti Man used to be such a common feature in neighborhoods back then. These days, you only find him in the suburban areas or in small towns… even then, I doubt if there are many of them left. Something tells me that in another ten years… the roti man will most likely be extinct.

What has changed? Well, people did. People no longer waited at their doorstep for the Roti Man to buy their weekly loaf of Gardenia like they used to. No time. People also started living in Condominiums and gated communities…. places the Roti Man had no access too. And as for the Roti man… selling roti probably got harder and harder. Hypermarkets sold the same things he did at a much lesser price and with greater variety. The cost of fuel for his motorbike was also escalating every year. His customers taste buds were also getting much too sophisticated. He had kaya, butter and coconut. People wanted croissants and baguettes. The roads seemed to get busier and more dangerous as the years went by… and he was getting older and older. His strength was leaving and his eyes were failing. A day will come when the roti man will have to stop riding.

I suppose it’s inevitable. As times change, new things come into being and old things go extinct. My dad told me there was once a group of people called Stevedores who loaded and unloaded ships at docks. Stevedores are extinct by now of course. Next to the Roti Man, I think the Putu Mayam uncle, Susu Kambing seller and the old newspaper collector might well go down the road of extinction too.

Remember the old newspaper chant?

“Sao Gau Pou cheee! Oww Newsss Payper! Peli sulat kapar lama, peli payper lama, peli pattery lama”… honk honk honk… then repeat….

Can you recall how that looked and sounded? I do.. And for what it was, I considered it charming. It’s a sad thought knowing that many people these days won't get to experience that sort of thing anymore. We’re more occupied with Facebook, Twitter and a slew of other online preoccupations these days. I don’t think anyone would notice even if the Roti Man did drop by.

To us, the Roti man is vanishing from our neighbourhood. But to the Roti Man, it is we who have been vanishing from our doorsteps.

Class Divide

Have you ever notice how some people tend to associate themselves with certain things to try to come across as sophisticated to others, even when it truth they’re about as ‘kampung’ as they get?

Take jazz for example. Do you like jazz? Chances are, a lot of people will say yes. But how many people actually listen to jazz regularly? How many people actually understand it, or know a lot of jazz musicians? Truth is, we listen to Britney-Spears-type pop songs most of the time. But some of us will always say we like jazz, because we think jazz is cool…and not liking it would be… well… uncool.

Now take the case of coffee. What’s a good cup of coffee? Mr. Sophisticated will say he likes strong and dark made of freshly roasted and brewed Arabica beans. But actually, most people don’t bother knowing the difference between Arabica or Robusta or Kopi-O. We all actually want weak, milky, sweet instant Nescafe. But saying we like ‘americano’ is so much cooler than saying ‘kopi-o’.

Lastly take accents as the ultimate case. I’m from a country called Malaysia. Most of us here (and in Singapore) speak about 2 ~ 3 languages and our everyday banter is a weird mixture of English, Mandarin, Malay with a dash of Cantonese and Hokkien. Malaysians call it Manglish. Singaporeans call it Singlish. We like fighting about, even when its childish. But once in a while, you get someone who starts speaking English with a funny foreign accent (usually Australian, British or US)… And we go “WTF? You weren’t there THAT long okay. Quit the act la…” But it’s cool to have a foreign accent (if it sounds genuine enough) ain’t it?

I usually get very put off when I see people trying to put on airs, or try to appear sophisticated. But it’s hard to want to blame them entirely. Everyone, regardless of place and country, always try to move upwards. We all want move up a class. The poor want to be middle class, the middle class want to be rich, the rich want to be ultra rich, the ultra rich want to be famous, and the famous… well, they just want to be anonymous again.

It’s not really a crime to want to move up this social hierarchy. The problem I have, is that they try to do it by 2 superficial means – mannerism and money.

Mannerism is all the 3 examples I just talked about. They try to ‘act’ like someone they are not, thinking that’s how people above them act. But its seldom convincing we usually spot a fake pretty quickly.

Other people do it by ‘buying’ their way up. They have cash, either inherited or earned… and they just buy the expensive load of everything they can grab their dirty hands on. Thousand dollar shirt? Yes. Ten thousand dollar bag? Yes. Million dollar car? Yes…. Class?... Not necessarily.

Money buys you stuff, but it can’t buy you class. You can still wear carry a LV bag, Prada cloths, Jimmy Choo shoes and still be a total tramp. You can still wear Armani and a Philippe Patek watch and still be a complete bastard. People with class behave with class, and no amount of money can teach you how to behave. Those who can’t imitate their money, will try to imitate their mannerism. Hence the attempted association with supposedly sophisticated things.

But it doesn’t work.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to belittle anyone. I myself come from a normal worker class family. We’re not sophisticated, and the last time I checked, we’re still not wealthy.



So what ARE classy people like then? To me, they aren’t necessarily the people who have a lot of money, listen to jazz, wear designer clothing or speak with a fancy foreign accent.. though some of them actually do have those things. Classy people also never try to ‘act’ classy, nor do they try to impress other people that they are.

What they do is keep their pride, so that they never stoop down to the level of others who cheat, lie, scheme and deceive. Bu they’re also wise enough to stay humble, so that they never get so high to the level of others who are arrogant, aloft and detached from reality that they cannot relate to the common man.

And when you look at it that way, class isn’t divided into 3; poor, middle class and rich. It’s divided into two; those who have dignity as well as humility, and those who don’t.

So really, there really isn’t any need to try and act all sophisticated and learned, listening to music you don’t like, wearing cloths you can’t afford and talking like someone you don’t know. Always keep your dignity, always let go of your pride – and as far as I’m concerned, you’re a classy person.