My Childhood Imagination

Jack and the Giant Slayer tale
Photo: Project Fandomm

When I was young, I always thinking about the world around me. About everything that is familiar and natural. It can be the lines of an army of ants getting to their nest or the cloud in the sky. Somehow my thinking also comes to the part of the god. Where does the god stay? You know already a kid has such a creative imagination. Once I thought that there is a powerful man or creature who sit above the heaven and He is monitoring all of us and the nature beneath Him.

Maybe I was influenced by the tales of the West. I am sure that all of us have heard the tale of Jack and the Giant Slayer. Of course it is totally wrong and God is incomparable with anything else of His creatures. Subhaanallah ‘ammaa yasifuun. That was an old story a long time ago, by the way, I still knew nothing. When I recall it back, it is kind of funny thinking. But in other way, it is quite good as since young I had ever thinking about big thing and the environment. Somehow this could stimulate the mind and my thinking.

To nurture the mind of a child, we must give exposure to him regarding the fundamental of the nature. Tell him about how natures work. Who creates the nature? Tell him about the God. Unless you are an atheist or an agnostic (may Allah guides you). Attracts him to be more conscious on environment. Be an observer of the nature. All of these could stimulate and create an active mind of the child.

By the way, it could connect the neutron cells in the brain. You know about this right? At least at some point we might heard about this neutron through a milk brand advertisement video clip in Malaysian TV. They claim that by drinking the milk with a special ingredient or essence could stimulate the brain’s neutron cells. I do not know how true is this fact? Or it just an advertisement myth or simply a wrong fact. What a paradoxical statement, how can a fact could be wrong as it is fact. Merely a wrong fact is not a fact at all. Whatever!!!

Bedtime story session
Photo: Wikimedia

Simply nurture your child’s mind with creative thinking and imagination because it helps your child to grow. Some people nowadays used to read a bedtime story to their kids. Well that could be one of the ways. Perhaps you simply choose the right story. By the way, it is the norm of the Western to read bedtime story. However, in our Malay culture too there is some kind of the same norm. Back then and in some places today, the grandma or grandpa or simply momma tells some folk tales. In Malay folks we do have Pak Pandir tales. A character of an old man who is a little bit dumb with his funny actions due his dumbness. We do have a tale of Sang Kancil and Buaya. Sang kancil (mousedeer) who is highly intelligent could manage to escape from the Buaya (crocodile) who want to eat Kancil.

Malay's Folk Tales
Photo: Manaf Yasir
Click here for reading the tales.

Photo: Nazierah

Last word, we are rich with many Nusantara tales. So why not let the kids grow their imagination with those tales. But not to forget the reality. Tell them the actual thing too. Too many tales could corrupt the kids’ mind. They perhaps would be trapped in the world of imagination. That is what happen to some kids in the Western. A kid talks to his imaginative friend.

---T.T.---

Anecdotes on the Past General Election – PRU 13

Photo: my.news.yahoo

Salam. This time I would to like to post my old writing on the past general election (GE) in Malaysia. Of course it is just the old story. But who bothers? Here, there are two parts of writing. The first one is an anecdote of mine regarding the coming PRU 13 (GE). While the second is my comment post-PRU 13. It was written at the time I was undergraduate back then. Need not to mention there is little editing as the anecdote was not complete. Here you go;

__________________________

The first:

“Tonight, I’m just doing nothing. Facebooking and surfing the internet. What is the most fascinating/hot issue in the internet/web right now? If you asking me, my answer would be one and the only one; that is the political fever. Everyone in everywhere in this country is in the mood of political phenomena. In Malaysia the political voting season is called as PRU in short name or Pilihanraya Umum. If it is literally translated into English it is called as General Election. This year is the thirteenth General Election or PRU 13.”

“Every political observer and also the layman including me too is so convinced that this PRU 13 would be the most controversial/hot election ever in Malaysia after PRU 12 in 2008. Back then in 2008, a radical change or at least major change had had occurred in the election whereas the opponent parties in the Malaysian parliament had won quite a big number of parliament and state legislative assembly seats in several states. The opponents had successfully able to form new states government. The states were Selangor, Penang, Kedah, and Perak (for a while-before turned back to BN). Need not to mention here the Kelantan state as it was already being the opponent party’s state for about 20 years then. Hence, for this PRU 13 it is going to be more interesting for us to foresee and to await for the results as the then government and the opponent have had learnt lesson from the mistakes that they made in the last general election in 2008. For the then government, they would be more ready with the next coming PRU 13. Perhaps, they are. Just wait for the result.”

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The second one:

The last sentence of this piece of writing (above) is made in the last minute in the election season in Malaysia. It was on 19/04/13 at 01.29 hours. The GE 13 was held on 05/05/13. Now, at the time I am writing this note again, Malaysia have had the election vote casting day and we have had new government appointed for federal level. To be Malaysia ruling party. The government would be the previous government, which is the BN allies. There were so many rumours regarding the vote casting. There was a speculation and also allegation that the won parties had made some cheating in the election. Some of the allegations are the issue of Bangladeshi and other foreigners who had cast the vote and blackout at the election centres during the process of calculating the votes especially in Kuala Lumpur. Instead, there had been many rumours that blackout had had also occurred in other states.

Photo: The League of Moveable Type

After the election day, the opposition allies had made a rally and petition regarding the cheating issues. The rally had been called as blackout. It had been organised in almost every state in the peninsular of Malaysia. I am not sure that there had been a rally or demonstration in Sabah and Sarawak. I have to check it back. Now on, I am writing this note directly out of my mind and from my limited memory. Truly, after the election results, I seldom check and go through newspaper or mind about the Malaysian news especially on the politic. Maybe I was quite frustrated with the election process, the issues and also the result. Noted that I did not fully support the opposition to win or even the government to rule this country. However, I was pretty sure that I wanted to let the PAS – the opposition party – to win the State’s seat in Kelantan. PAS had been the government for more than twenty years ago.

What do I really want (as a layman) from Malaysian politic? I have my own aspiration for the politic in this country. Yeah it could be quite the same as some academician or scholar in Malaysia because I agreed with their opinion and aspiration for Malaysia future. To talk about politic in Malaysia is just like a kid tends to talk about philosophy of the level of al-Ghazali, al-Farabi, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In spite of that fact, I still need to talk about it by hook or by crook as it affects my life. You may ignore politic but bear in mind whether you follow or not the politic, it does affects your life.

I want Malaysia to be more mature in politic. What I have seen in Malaysia, the politic is a race based politic. It is a party-based politic. Party is okay, however, the fact that the party is a racial based party is something that quite disappointing me. I know about the history of today’s party. How it had been founded and why it is founded, and by whom and for whom. Be it a racial based party or what, it still can be tolerated as Malaysia is a unique country with multi-racial. Anyone cannot deny this fact. The saddest thing is all the parties in general use the race sentiment or raise racial based issue in obtaining their votes or support from the grass-roots. Sometimes to the extent that it could causes a racial riot among the Malaysian.

I am one of the youngsters or someone called us as Y-generation who actually felt fade up or frustrated with this kind of political environment. What is it really the most important thing for a country to be success in any era? Is it prosperity, wealth, money, or what? No, it is the cooperation, collaboration, and respect amongst the multi-racial people in the country. If we still fight one another, how come this state could excel in developing a civilised nation and developed country. 

The root for the integration is the language and communication and interaction amongst the multi-racial people. A Malay must befriend with a Chinese, Indian and the others and vice versa. They must have a chance to interact one another in order to understand their feeling, needs, and perception of a race to another. The key for this interaction is school. It is the best place for a young generation to have communication with one another and get to know about the other races. There had been a plan and strategies by the government for this kind of school but the cooperation of these various races are really poor and disappointed. Need not to mention which race is really reluctant to this agenda. I do not want to be racist but somehow that is what happening here in Malaysia.

– 18/07/13 @ 2.50 a.m. Thursday night – 9 Ramadhan 1434 –

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P/s: Last edited and posted on Friday night – 14/02/14, 04.53 hours.

‘Beras’ Siam, Kelantan & Me

Photo: Kosmo

It is such a pleasure to be writing again here in my first ever blog that I have created for the past five years ago. Actually, I did write some posts in my second blog: Tokdin Tuman but it was not so consistent. As I mentioned before that my second blog is created purposely for my Bahasa Melayu writing. My objective is clear; to organize my blog's post. I don't want my blog becomes messy with bilingual posts.

Now, in the beginning of new year of 2014, I wish that I'll be more consistent and productive in writing up my post here. Forget not to wish a Happy New Year even though it is late but like the saying: better late than never right? Let's go straight to my topic for this post.

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I haven’t be in Thailand officially. Yaa, even though I live in a place which is located pretty close to the border of Malaysia-Thailand but I haven’t. To be honest I had once crossed the Golok River unofficially. I mean that I went there without legal documentation, namely passport or even border pass. Of course, I couldn’t justify what I had done is good – travel there illegally – but at that time I was just in secondary school (maybe in 14-15 years old – not remember). However, it was just for a while and I just went to the riverbank of the Siam territory only. I was following my cousins who went there for shopping some goods such as Siam rice. Actually, I quite forgot maybe the main item would be the ‘Beras’ Siam (Siam Rice). Then, we travelled back to ‘Malaysia’ I mean riverbank of Mundok, Kelantan. I thought it was a very short trip, not even an hour trip in the Thai territory.

Sungai Golok, Kelantan, Malaysia-Thailand
Photo: ChrisJ, TrekEarth

In Kelantan, it is so well-known that Siam rice is very tasty and have the fine and good texture. I could firmly assure that almost all Kelantanese do not eat Malaysian rice or local rice even the paddy planter themselves. They would prefer Siamese rice rather than local as they said it was so scrummy, yummy, luscious, scrumptious, delicious and all sort of words ended with –ious (LOL). When they eat local rice, they find that the texture of the rice grains are just like the texture of glutinous rice which is not taken in a daily meal as staple food except for certain dish only.  Malay always use glutinous rice or ‘beras pulut’ in their special feast menu that is ‘pulut’. There are a plenty of ‘pulut’ dishes. For instance, ‘pulut kuning’ or literally yellowish glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk or called as ‘santan’. Perhaps, the other Malaysians from the other states would love the taste of Siam rice as well as Kelantanese if they have chance. At least they will find a distinguished feature and texture of the rice. To me, I love Siam rice very much. Of course because I have been eating these rice since I was a kid.

How the Kelantaneses do get the supply of this Siam rice? There are two ways. One is by the legal process of importing these Siam rice stocks. This way is of course causes the increase in the price of this commodity. Why is the price rise up? The answer is because of the tax is imposed on the commodity that are brought/imported into the country. Often, the layman doesn’t prefer this one due to its price. We can get these stocks by buying from any groceries store. While the other way is by smuggling the stock of Siam rice. This one is the main and popular way of getting the supply of this rice. The reason for this would be the location of Kelantan which is a neighbour to Thailand. Adding to that, the territory of Malaysia and Thailand is only divided by a very narrow river of Golok. The smuggler of this rice or other goods can pass easily the border without being detected by the custom, police, or immigration. The fact that there are houses at the river bank of the Golok River which has made the smuggler’s job easier as they can operate in these settlement. 

'Beras' Siam Brands
Photo: Cuti Kelantan

Sometimes, I wonder how could Siam rice is better than our local rice. Is that Siam rice is so special that we, Malaysian could not even plant the same type of this rice seeds here in Malaysia land? I believe that Malaysia has its own institution or body for doing research on agricultural area for instance in Malaysia government we do have Agricultural Department. Worst still, as to my personal view local rice could not achieve the same quality, taste and texture as Siam rice. I think that Malaysia should send more local people including the selected farmers to Thailand paddy field and study how Siamese plant the paddy. Actually, we had already sent a group of researchers as to my knowledge. I heard someone talked about this before. Maybe it was not just for this purpose only. Perhaps Malaysia land is not so suitable to produce the same quality of Siam rice even though we plant the same seeds as theirs here. Whatever. Simply let the experts talk about this issue. I just highlight my personal view as a rice lover.

 Glutinous/Sticky Rice (Beras Pulut)
Photo: Appon's Thai Food

Cooked Glutinous Rice
Photo: Recipes Wikia

Siamese Rice (Jasmine)
Photo: Pickles & Spices World

We, the Kelantanese always claim that Siam rice is very good. Now, there are some questions. How bad is that local rice? Why most of Kelantanese prefer Siam rice more than local one? In fact, I think that it is not only Kelantanese love to eat Siam rice but also people at the surrounding of Malaysia-Thailand border namely Kedah (Bukit Kayu Hitam, Sik), Perlis (Padang Besar), and Perak (Gerik). The problems with Malaysia rice as I told before is the texture which is too glutinous or sticky and its taste is just like the ‘beras pulut’ – glutinous rice. Besides, it is too soft / tender and could be just like the texture of porridge especially when cooking with more water. Moreover, the size of rice grain is a little bit small. In fact, we need extra water when cooking Siam rice. The grain is relatively longer and bigger in size than ours.

To me, if someone asks which rice I prefer the most, my answer of course would be Siam rice. It doesn’t mean that I could not take local rice when having a meal. It is just a matter of choice and chance to get the rice. If I can get the rice easily at the reasonable price, I would certainly choose Siam rice. Unfortunately, Siam rice in other places such as in Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Selangor, etc. is hardly to get with a cheaper price. When in Kelantan of course I would eat Siam rice as it is easy to get the supply. 

Okay for right now I shall stop here. If I have time and will, I shall continue sharing my story on 'Beras' Siam favourite. 

Happy Eating Beras Siam!!!

---T.T.---