Bukan Budaya Kita

Who we are? BUKAN BUDAYA KITA???!!!

(Retrieved from http://lionciticapital.com/about-us/)

I've read through the 'Bukan Budaya Kita' written by Kathy Rowland. This article is mainly discussed on the national cultural policy. It is a policy enacted since independence in 1971 as there is no way in creating a national culture. In 1971, the prime minister is Abdul Razak Hussein. It emphasizes the importance of cultural politics and race a greater emphasis on economic government.

 Tun Abdul Razak Hussein was the second Prime Minister of Malaysia, ruling from 1970 to 1976

(Retrieved from http://informationsofmalaysia.blogspot.my/2015/06/malaysias-prime-ministers.html)

There are 3 main principles of National Cultural Policy.

1. Based on the culture of the people in this region

-The empire of Malacca was well known mainly as a centre for development and dissemination of culture.

-The culture of the people in this region has been integrated into the national culture.

In simple way to say, it means assimilation of non-Malays into the Malay ethnic group

2. Other cultures elements.

-Other foreign cultural elements, China, India, and other foreign countries.

-The suitability and acceptance of the cultures is depends on non-existence of contradictions in the constitution.

3. Islam became an important element in the development of national culture.

-Malaysia should be an Islamic country

-Adoption other cultures practices that not contradict to Islamic cultural practices.

Some politician said it is based on the existing indigenous culture within the region of Malaysia.

I personally disagreed with this national cultural policy. Both Chinese and Indians have questioned the policy and its exclusions. Our country, Malaysia is made up of multi races. So, the cultural problems sometimes are can't avoided but people must learn how to tolerant and respect others culture. As it is multi-races country, Malaysia is a multi-cultural society as well. I don’t really see a clear outcome of what national cultural policy mentioned. This may not be the main elements to unite the Malaysia culture. Yes, Malays are the biggest population in our country but we still have Chinese and Indian. Everyone has freedom to choose their own religions. However, this policy is practising the integration of Islam influence. Government has the power to set the official state religion and official language in Malaysia but the Constitution of Malaysia guarantees freedom of religion. We must make a clear statement or difference between Malay culture and Malaysian culture. We are unite as one Malaysia but not Malay. 

(Retrieved from http://ww.daliulian.net/cat98/node754038)

I’ve read through some comments via online sources. One of the girls said that:” This policy must exist because other races start to influence Malays women‘s wearing styles. Nowadays, many Malay women are not wearing their own culture wear. They are becoming more modern. If you don’t have a strong believing in yourself, you don’t blame on others. In fact, they are influenced by other races culture but it is not because of other races purposely influence Malays. According to Abu Talib Ahmad, the need to handle culture with great sensitivity without any enforced assimilation while the content of culture must be decided by an ongoing dialogue.

If a Malay woman doesn't wear tudung, you also can't categorize her as a non-respect Muslim. Last year, our Johor Princess was judged by some citizens. They said that, ' Tunku Aminah doesn't cover her head by wearing tudung. However, Prince of Johor, Tunku Idris had taken to social media to defend his sister's wearing. He went on to vouch for his sister, saying that she prayed more than some of those who were tudung and that she wore a selendang at all religious events. So, sometimes please don't judge a book by its cover. 

Tunku Tun Aminah, Princess of Johor

(Retrieved from http://www.popiyah.com/kool/10-perkara-anda-tidak-tahu-tentang-puteri-johor-tunku-aminah/)

Well, I know I am slowly out of topic. Back to the issue again. 

During that time, Chinese and Indian communities were quick to register their dissatisfaction over the national cultural policy. The lion king was banned at that period of time. This brought up a lot of anger. I am totally doubt with this statement. Every races protect their own culture and religions. They are just protecting their performing art.

During 1990, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad rejected this approach with his Bangsa Malaysia policy emphasising a Malaysian instead of Malay identity for the state. Therefore, he came out with the Wawasan 2020. The first challenge is establishing a united Malaysian nation made up of one Bangsa Malaysian. I agree with this. If you forced someone to receive what they don’t really wish to, it ends up will brought up many problems. 

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad

(Retrieved from http://www.bonology.com/2010_10_14_archive.html)

4 years to year 2020. Will this vision be possible? I see low possibility. Even Dr Mahathir also is pessimistic in achieving unity through the introduction of Bangsa Malaysia. We are facing so many issues such as restrictions on human rights and media freedom. While the issue is raised by someone, he or she might face difficulties in life. 

(Retrieved from http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/highlight/2015/05/07/538982/)

Different prime ministers have different way of controlling the country. Tun Haji Abdul Razak introduced National Cultural Policy. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad introduced Bangsa Malaysia. And now we are creating a culture of fear. Everyone please think wisely. Why this situation becomes worse? Everyone in this land has responsibility. Yes, we can’t change the rules or laws in this country but at least we must learn to tolerate among all races. Learn to respect, Learn to tolerate. We can’t predict our country’s future but at least we are changing in a better way. 

Immigration

Immigration

What do you think is the important problem in this country today?

Here is another issue that Malaysian concerned.

There are too many Bangladeshi, Nepalese and Burmese immigrant to Malaysia. According to Deputy Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, he announced in June 2015 that a total of 1.5 million Bangladeshi nationals will be brought to Malaysia to meet the growing demands of local employers.

(Retrieved from http://immigration.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000844)

It is really a big number. This number of population is as big as the population in Kelantan. Do you think that their immigration will truly help in development of our country or economic growth? 

In my opinion, majority of them come here to work as blur collar workers in various industries such as construction, marine industry and so on. Slowly, Malaysian will over-dependent on foreign workers.  Due to increase in population, many Malaysians couldn’t able to find a job. They loses many job opportunities. Instead of hiring local citizens, employers are more prefer to hire those they can pay cheaply. In the 2016 Budget, the government stipulated that the minimum wage for workers in the private sector be increased from RM 900 to RM 1,000 per month. However, this is not applied to those illegal workers. So, many employers still will hire those illegal workers because they get low pay. 

(Retrieved from http://financemalaysia.blogspot.my/2015/10/budget-2016-diabetes-free-budget.html)

I had talked to some young adults. In fact, the reason that they refuses to take those construction jobs is low salary pay and construction work is a dangerous land-based job. In my point of view, our government is doing some amendments on these problems. 

First of all, governments do some changes on minimum wage. According to MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, he said, ‘We have strived to reduce the number of foreign workers and hope that the increase in minimum wage will see local workers taking on these jobs and not depend on the foreign workers. ’ Besides that, government also emphasizes on the highest standard of quality, occupational safety and health and environmental practices.

So, the population of immigrants should be controlled and balanced. 

(Retrieved from http://says.com/my/news/government-to-bring-in-1-5-million-bangladeshi-workers-to-malaysia)

Besides, many social problems are created. Migration across our national border by illegal immigrants strongly affects our social security and safety. Why? As some of them are doing criminal cases, cases of robbery and rape, our country safety are affected. Everything happened for a reason. I was thinking for few hours. They start to rise so many crimes because they are facing poverty. They get very low pay and they can’t afford their daily expenses. In my opinion, they are influenced by their culture and lifestyle as well such as fighting, gangster and so on. However, I am not saying that every illegal workers behave like that but some of them yes. 

(Retrieved from http://www.assignmentpoint.com/arts/sociology/report-on-social-problems-in-bangladesh.html)

In addition, Malaysia culture will become ‘mixed’. Their immigration will create even more cultural problems than now. Our own traditional culture are started to change. For example, some Malay women are stop wearing Tudung especially when they are at outside. Besides that, some Chinese seldom wears cheongsam which is their national costume. Next, in Malaysia we are slightly facing language barrier. Even though our common language is Bahasa Melayu, some of the Chinese still couldn’t able to speak proper Bahasa Melayu. When they are talking with Malay, they are still facing language problem. For example, my grandma actually can’t speak proper Bahasa Melayu. Normally, when she talks with Malay people, their conversation are quite funny.

Malay neighbour: Aunty, you nak pergi mana?

Grandma: Wa duduk sini bagus bagus, tak pergi mana. Lu nak datang minum tak? (Wa is me in hokkien, lu is you in Hokkien)

So, if more foreign workers are moving here, we might face more cultural problem.

Another example for you.

My family hires one maid to take care of my grandma as she needs personal care services. The maid is coming from Indonesia. Indonesia language is quite different with Bahasa Melayu. For example, instead of saying kerana, they say ‘Karena’. The maid sometimes can’t even understand our words.

One day, we ask her. ‘Penat tak?’

Then she was like ‘huh, tak faham.’ My mum asks again, ‘Capik tak?’ She then can understand. It means tired.

So I am trying to say is we may face a lot of language problem here. 

        

( Retrieved from https://designshack.net/articles/design-dilemma-articles/design-dilemma-dealing-with-language-barriers/) 

Yes, they did contribute a lot. In construction area…and so on. My friends did give some objection. They have different points of view. In their point of view, Minimum requirements must be set for their immigration. For example, those who are desired to work at here, they must meet requirements. First of all, they mentioned that they should have to own at least secondary school education level and their salary must be at least RM 2k per month or above. However, I didn’t agree with this. Why? Because if they meet these requirements, that’s mean they are working white collar workers and they are having highly skilled. Some Malaysia graduates can’t even get pay RM2k per month. If they are foreign workers with low education level, do you think the employers will pay them so ‘high’? I don’t think so. Most of the employers hire them because they can pay them low salary. If they hires local graduates, local graduates might make requests such as minimum salary and so on. 

(Retrieved from http://www.arabianindustry.com/construction/news/2013/sep/3/over-5m-foreign-workers-use-grace-period-to-change-saudi-visa-status-4432233/) 

Besides that, they mentioned that immigration may increase competition for better future, better country. For your information, most of them are hired to work at construction sites. The development of country won’t be improved by this. In fact, a successful country has low poverty rate and focus on sustainability for future generations. 

(Retrieved from http://www.therichtraveller.com/category/etc) 

Why they are coming to Malaysia? In my point of view, they are facing poverty in their country and they might didn’t earn better income. Their living conditions, natural disaster… and so on. So they are here. 

]

(Retrieved from http://onedio.co/content/17-heart-breaking-photos-showing-how-f-cked-up-our-world-is-10263 )

If this situation is keep on going, we might could not able to reach the challenges of Wawasan 2020. The first challenge is establishing a united Malaysian nation made up of one Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian Race). Now we have 3 main races and lain lain and we can see the difficulties to reach this challenge. Can you imagine if there are so many immigrants, what will happen in year 2020? Can you imagine the population of illegal workers in 20 years later? Are their existence threaten local citizens?                                                                                                                                                                   

(Retrieved from https://twitter.com/nadiarobean )

In conclusion, we cannot deny that foreign workers have been contributed great assistance in overcoming the labour shortage in the Malaysian construction market. However, government are encouraged to reduce the population of illegal workers and to attract more negatively local workers to the construction industry.  Illegal immigrants may affect our country. Yes, it may has pros and con but I see more con on this issue. From aspect of economic, social structure and health, it brings a lot of negative effects. Before this problem is getting more serious, government should really take some actions and overcome this problem.

We are working together for better Malaysia.

(Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/viewpoints/parentpost-from-anywhere/2014/09/12/much-to-appreciate-about-raising-a-family-in-malaysia/) 

Thank you! 

First Field Trip -Art for Grabs Festival (4 June 2016)

Art for Grabs Festival

(Retrieved from http://poskod.my/top-features/poskod-journalism-campus-2016/)

On 4 June 2016, we are having our first field trip to the Art for Grabs festival in Publika. In conjunction with The Cooler Lumpur Festival, it returns with Poskod Journalism Campus. This year, they are highlighting on Malaysian Journalism. There are few talks that carried on that day such as W(h)ither Malaysian Journalism? by Jahabar Saadiq and Financing Quality Journalism.

(Retrieved from https://twitter.com/coolerlumpur.)

During our field trip in Publika, we paid quite a few visits to booths. This Art for Grabs offers a variety of art crafts, cultural souvenirs and as well as homemade arts. There are some favourite booth at the Art Fair or Book Fest. 

Stone Art Therapy

I have visited a booth which introducing a new therapy, Stone Art Therapy. At first, I was attracted by few kids who drawing on the stone by using water colours and crayons. It sounds quite interesting because instead of drawing on blank paper, they are drawing on stones. I interviewed with the inventor of this Stone Art Therapy, Miss Shawn Cheang. She introduced this awesome therapy to me. According to Miss Shawn Cheang, drawing on stones can be a natural and artistic art, which may deliver a clear message of life, such as your emotion and mentality. The concept of stone art can be derived from the inspiration of nature. This is art therapy. Miss Shawn said, “I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.” 

(This poster is drawn by the inventor of this Stone Art Therapy, Miss Shawn)

There are many benefits of Stone Art. First of all, it is one of the ways to relieve stress. Nowadays, stress is actually a normal part of life. The source of stress comes from work, family, social problems and peer pressure. So, this activity may help us to balance our emotions and improve concentration while doing work. Besides that, it helps to enhances eyes-hands coordination, improves self-confidence and self-appreciation. In addition, the person who learns this stone art therapy will be passionate about the beauty of life because the material used is one of the natural creations. Lastly, those who take part in this activity will increase in creativity after practice and unleash your talent.

(Some art work which are done by her students)

Stone Art says: “I am cold and concrete, but if you colour me with your heart, I am a beauty.” And “Everyone can be a life artist.”

(Kids are drawing on the stone.)

(Sample of Stone Art Therapy)

In my opinion, I strongly recommend this stone art therapy. As this is a very great indoor activity, people will gain a lot of fun and release tension. According to Miss Shawn, we get to understand ourselves after the art is done drawing. For example, if the student uses green colour as the background, we can get to know that the student is an energetic person but he or she might be a jealous one. From psychology perspective, we tend to know the inner characteristic of that particular person. 

For those who are interested, you may view details below.

Motivation from Andi Miranti

Here is my another favourite booth. A boy is sitting at there and drawing comics. I still could vividly remember his hardworking look. His name is Andi Miranti. He likes to draw, read and play on the computer. On that day, he was drawing several comics and his parents printed it on t shirt and notebook. They were selling these homemade art to public. According to them, at the age of 2, he was diagnosed with autism. Before he was 8 years old, it was difficult for him to write or draw due to low muscle tone. Those who suffer from this disease would have effect on their social and emotional well-being. They often experience failure in school, social and work situations. However, Andi is never giving up himself. He uses his ability and intelligence to do drawing. This is the good attitude that everybody should learn. No matter who you are or what did you experience in life, do not ever look down on yourself and kill your self-confidence. Life is good. God definitely doesn’t think that you are inferior or unimportant. When God takes something away from you, he definitely will replace something wonderful. 

(Andi Miranti's poster)

From his story or his behaviour, we can see inspiration. We get to know that being optimistic is very important. According to Demi Lovato, no matter what you’re going through, there’s a light at the end of tunnel and it may seem hard to get to it but you can do it and just keep working towards it and you’ll find the positive side of things. For example, Nicholas, a young Australian was born without hands and legs. He still has strong faith and positive mind. He thinks that there is no difference between the disabled and others but what a disability only in the heart and thinking and way of life. At last, I hope that everyone can be like Andi Miranti. Seeking your own strength and survive with full of love and passion. 

I attended some talks as well. 

First talk that I attended is "It Isn’t a Crime: Re-imagining Investigative Journalism." The venue is located at Black Box and the talks started at 2.30pm. The panellists were Bernd Pickert (Die Tageszeitung), Rick Paddock (The New York Times), and R. Nadeswaran. The moderator is Sharaad Kuttan. 

Basically, the summary was talking about how investigating report is getting more difficult and dangerous in our country. Due to many restriction, laws and regulations, sometimes journalists couldn’t write the truth and they are under controlled by someone who has great power. There are many real cases happened. Some of the journalists are even threatened when they wrote down the truth. In fact, their responsibility is to write about true subject and educate the public about the current events and issue. Before that, they have to do some research and investigation. In Malaysia, there are many publications are under control. Journalists are restricted by them and asked not to fight back against the negative and untrue reviews. With respect to law, government has the right to distinguish the materials that are going to be released out. 

(Before the talk starts)

In my opinion, we have to follow laws and regulations but we also have right to voice out the truth. The truth should be known by everyone. Life is to be lived but not controlled. Perhaps this is journalist’s sorrow. 

Add caption

(Retrieved from http://www.mfwa.org/category/issues/investigative-journalism/)

Second talk that I have attended is Funning the News.The panellists are Lau Chak Onn and Harith Iskander. The moderator is Ezra Zaid. 

Panelist-Lau Chak Onn

(Retrived from http://www.voiceguild.org/talents/1579/)

Panelist-Harith Iskander

(Retrived from http://www.aforadio.com/sevent/198)

Funny News actually did attract, hold and focus attention of audience. According to many researches, people are more easily get attracted by funny news. They usually use the current breaking issues as the subject. From the talks, I get to know that there is no certain strategies or formula to be used while making jokes. If you want to impress somebody, just make them laugh. Harith Iskander is a famous comedian. I can even start laughing when I look at his expression. He is a very funny guy. I really enjoy the environment of this talk. The panelists are so energetic and active. They brought us happiness and laughter.

(During the talk)

In my opinion, sometimes joke is not the thing that make you laugh but it is intended to make you think. As I’ve mentioned, funny news is produced by modifying the current breaking issues. For example, there is something which people really care about. Funny news is one of the channel which helps to deliver the advises and comments to public. 

I never thought that I would enjoy the art exhibition so much. I am really appreciated their great contemporary artworks and every single masterpieces. 

Biography of Author

Biography of Author

Sze Yin, also known as Caprie, is a broadcasting student in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Caprie likes challenges and enjoy learning. She understands that work hard will definitely paid off in one day. She is learning to amplify her own strengths and correct her shortcomings. She loves teamwork because she always believe in “If we want to go fast, we go alone. If we want to go far, we go together with team.” A premise is someone who is hardworking, be committed and having good communication. The feeling of working out together is awesome. 

Caprie loves art. She spent a lot of times on practising music. Her music will tell people more about her that she ever will. Her life can’t live without music. Caprie has her own clear direction of life. Her dream is to become an artist. No one is perfect in this world. So, she is learning hard in different acting skills, polishing her vocal training. She has been taking part in several casting and competition and joining some local drama shooting such as “The injustice stranger” and “Oppa? Oppa!”