SeaDemon Says

October 5, 2007

Happy! No Problem!

I found this classic by brothers Asanee and Wasan Chotikul (?????-?????? ???????) while looking for another music video of them called “Rak Tur Semer” (Love You Always).

This video reminds me of how it used to be played at every single stall at the local Nat in Kedah, especially in towns bordering Thailand from Padang Sanai to Khuan Mai Dam (Bukit Kayu Hitam in Malay) during the early 1990s.

Damn, I miss Thailand. Khid theung meuang Thai…yak ja rong hai!

This is called “Yin Dee Mai Mee Pan Ha” (??????????????? Happy No Problem). Enjoy:

October 2, 2007

Hari Raya And Me

Balik Kampung

I remember those days…at least until about 15-16 years ago.

I miss those kampung moments when it comes to Haris Raya.

Dodol

Those were the days we would converge upon our late grandparents’ house in Kampung Jerangsang on the Benta-Jerantut road. We would all be there about two to three days before Hari Raya and would get our hands dirty with all the preparations. The women-folk would be in the kitchen, while the men would be outside doing the lemang and rendang and dodol. For two to three days we would toil the makeshift kitchen: cousins, uncles, aunts.

Bakar lemang

This year, I shall be spending Hari Raya alone. Hana and Fazira will be going back to Kedah to be with their mother; Farhan and Nisaa will be in Klang with their mother. I won’t be with my mother because of reasons I have written a few months back unless my “step-mother” Jazzy can spare me some bariyani gam from her last buka puasa the day before Hari Raya.

This Hari Raya is going to be boring. Everyone’s blog is going to be silent for about a week. So for a week I shall post in my own blog and make my own comments.

Damn…the prospect of spending one boring Hari Raya alone is scary…

Rendang

September 30, 2007

What The GARFU Is A Spaceflight Participant?

When happy Angkasawan Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor go to space in 12 days time, he would be part of Expedition 16 to the International Space Station.

Below is a photo of members of Expedition 16 to the ISS and below it will be the copy of the caption as per the website via the link above:

ISS's Expedition 16 members
The Expedition 16 crew members pose for a portrait at the Johnson Space Center. From the left (front row) are Russia’s Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, flight engineer and Soyuz commander; astronaut Peggy Whitson, commander; and Malaysian spaceflight participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. From the left (back row) are European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Léopold Eyharts, astronaut Garrett Reisman and astronaut Dan Tani, all flight engineers.

Now, the rest are Flight Commander, Flight Enginneers: so WHAT THE FORK IS A SPACEFLIGHT PARTICIPANT? If you remember the late Christa McAuliffe, the teacher on board the doomed space shuttle USS Challenger, she was a Mission Specialist! So is a spaceflight participant another space tourist like Dennis Tito, the first guy to pay his way to go to space?

Okay, you may argue that the difference between Muszaphar and Dennis would be the fact that Dennis paid for his trip while Muszaphar’s is being paid by the government via the Sukhoi-purchase program. Do you know that 11 years before Dennis Tito became the first space tourist, one Japanese reporter by the name of Toyohiro Akiyama (no relations to the Selangor Menteri Besar) went to the space station Mir and all expenses was borne by his employer, Tokyo Broadcasting System?

Akiyama was not recognised as a space tourist because he did not pay for the trip himself but by his employers. So, Muszaphar is a government servant, and technically is still, and his trip is being borne by his employers, the Government of Malaysia, doesn’t that make him another Akiyama?

So now you know what the fork is a SPACEFLIGHT PARTICIPANT.

September 29, 2007

Putu Mayam

6 pieces of Putumayam

Putu Mayam (or Stringhoppers, in English) is a close relative of the Iddiyappam, a native of the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as well as Sri Lanka. It is a dish of rice flour served with coconut and jaggery or date palm sugar.

My first encounter with the Putu Mayam was back in 1976 when I was living at the quarters which is now part of the Tun Razak Memorial on Jalan Perdana (formerly Venning Road). An Indian man would cycle and cry out, “Mayaaaaaaaammmmm!” followed by by four honks of his rubber air horn sounding “Pek! Pek! Pek! Pek!” Those were the days when there were lots of government quarters in the area where the Taman Orkid and Taman Rama-Rama are now. On top of that were the workers quarters at the residence of the late Tun Abdul Razak, our house, more quarters where the present Royal Malaysian Police Museum is when it was the Officers’ Mess.

Over the years would see the number of people living there get lesser and lesser. After Tun Hussein Onn stepped down in 1981, they started constructing the Taman Orkid and Taman Rama-Rama. The Venning Road Officers’ Mess was abandoned awaiting reconstruction as the police’s museum. Only my family remained there until July 1994, six months after my father’s retirement, before we all moved to USJ (well, I was still in Kedah/Thailand then). But that old Indian man, never failed to do his rounds, with that familiar cry and horn…all 18 years that we were there.

That old man is no more. There is no more Putu Mayam in that woven basket. No more police personnel from the Guards & Escort branch that were guarding my father’s house stopping that old man to buy Putu Mayam.

Then today, as my daughter Fazira and I walked to the Ramadhan Bazaar to buy food for the breaking of the fast, I heard a familiar cry with a somewhat cheery musical tone added to it crying, “Puttu Mayyam!” The Puttu with a rising and falling tone in the respective syllable, and a mid-tone and rising tone in the Mayyam part. That caught my ears as well as the ears of several more people that kids were mimicking him. I took a detour and went to this Indian chap standing next to his motorcycle.

“Berapa?” I asked him.

“Lima Dua Ringgit, boss, tapi boss punya saya kasi Anam!” with the typical head-shake-roll.

“Wokeh,” I replied, also with the head-shake-roll I learnt through my years working at the nation’s most favoured multinational company. “Kasi dua Ringgit juga kalu.”

I looked at the Putumayam on the clear plastic sheet and smiled to myself: “One up for tradition.”

September 26, 2007

Video Judge Demo

Demonstrators

The news said some 800 lawyers demonstrated in front of the PM’s office in Putrajaya today over the case of the senior judge and lawyer in a video scandal that has rocked the judiciary.

Lawyer friends put the estimate at 1500.

Could have been 1501 if it weren’t for the fact that I had to go buy food for breaking of the fast.

Maybe I should be made Chief Justice.

September 26, 2007

First Muslim In Space???

NO!

That was my answer. People were ranting and raving digitally when I told them online that our happy Angkasawan will NOT be the first Muslim to fly into space.

The confusion seems to have stemmed from the fact that the National Space Agency does not know how the first Malaysian Angkasawan will find his direction to the Kaabah when he performs his prayer. IF HE PRAYS AT ALL, THAT IS. Until some smart alec who thinks he is smart came out with a calculation on how to face Mecca to pray.

So is he going to be the first Muslim to fly into space?

Before I answer that question, let me just go on a bit more on this confusing confusion.

When I was part of the North Pole Freefall Expedition back in 1998, I asked the Religious Advisor to the King that since I would be at the North Pole at a time when the sun never sets, and whichever direction I would look to would be South, how do I face the Kiblat (Mecca). His answer was simple. There is a verse in the Holy Quran that mentions whichever you look, whether to the East or to the West, you will see the “face” of Allah. So you can pray to him anytime, anywhere and in any direction. However, the Kiblat is set so it would be universally uniformed for Muslims to pray towards one symbolic direction. After all, God is Almighty, and everywhere you look He is there. So in our case, agree on a concensus for one direction, and pray towards that direction.

So is he going to be the first Muslim to fly into space?

Wait! So is the happy guy going to pray at all?

Would he not be a musafir (traveller) and is therefore not made compulsory to pray? Some would say since he will be “living” in the International Space Station for a week, he would have his musafir status revoked as he would be a mastautin (dweller) of the International Space Station.

My argument is: since the International Space Station itself is a moving vehicle, wouldn’t he still be a musafir? It does not permanently face any single direction. It is definitely not geostationary. So it conforms to a moving vehicle. Do you pray inside your car while it moves? You can sleep in it too while it moves. I know. I’ve done it even while driving. Therefore, to me, our Angkasawan would be a musafir until he is back on terra firma.

So is he going to be the first Muslim to fly into space?

My answer is NO!

The first Muslim in space was Prince Sultan ibn Salman ibn Abdul Aziz al Saud, now a minister in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery from the 17th through the 24th June 1985. Yes, he read the Quran and prayed in space. So the idiots at the National Space Agency should have studied some history on space missions before embarking in some quest that made Islam look like a very restrictive religion that is so anti-science and progress in the eyes of the Western media last year, when Islam is all about science and technology before the Muslims became stupid and let the Caliphs rule and let them into poverty and stupidity.

Oh, and as for the term ANGKASAWAN, it came from two words: ANGKA and SAWAN. Literally: Epileptic Figures. Look at the cost of sending one happy man into space and you would know my meaning.

September 22, 2007

Bonne Chance, Mes Amis!

I have two announcements to make.

Firstly, Major Yuen Yoon Ming a.k.a Mocha is now at the KLIA waiting for his flight to Melbourne. He will be away on a course until 8th December 2007. We hope that he will be able to find Internet connection as soon as he gets there. He has written about this course on his blog posting entitled All Set.

Mocha and I at the Gua Musang food court on our way to Perhentian

Secondly, Azlan a.k.a Ironore, is now in Jakarta awaiting deployment offshore in the Riau archipelago. He will be away for a month again and shall not be celebrating Hari Raya Aidil Fitri…much like me.

Ironore at KLIA