Yatto......ganbarimashita!!

Thesis 9, originally uploaded by miezaris.

Akhirnya setelah 2 tahun bertungkus lumus, dateline yang dinanti tiba juga. Pada 29hb Oktober, thesis telah selamat dihantar untuk dibuat penilaian oleh pihak Fakulti. Sebanyak 3 naskah telah dihantar dan insyaAllah jika semuanya memuaskan (mungkin ada few corrections) dapatlah balik bulan Mac tahun depan dengan segulung lagi ijazah, kenang-kenangan menjadi mahasitua!!

Hari ini juga, 31hb kami akan balik untuk berpuasa dan menyambut Raya di Malaysia. Ichiro tak sabar-sabar lagi nak naik hikoki. InsyaAllah juga kami akan ke Barcelona dari 7hb Nov. hingga 12hb Nov, kerana saya ada International Conference (present paper sebagai syarat pengijazahan), on the way balik akan transit di London for 10 hours(untuk buka puasa) dan balik semula ke KLIA pada malam itu dan sampai di KL pada esok harinya, 13hb pada jam 6.30petang. Esoknya, 1 Syawal insyaAllah.

Kesempatan ini kami sekeluarga memohon ampun dan maaf kepada semua sanak-saudara, sahabat-handai dan rakan-taulan bloggers dan web-surfers. Terkasar bahasa, terguris hati semuanya adalah kelemahan diri kami dan bukannya disengajakan. Kepada mereka yang sentiasa memeberi sokongan kepada F A R I S in F U K U O K A, kami ucapkan berbanyak-banyak terima kasih. Jika ada kesempatan dapat kita jumpa lagi selepas Syawal 1425 tahun ini.

Doakankan kami selamat pergi dan pulang, InsyaAllah!!

Hang Tuah Terbang ke Oscar Academy

Hang Tuah Terbang, originally uploaded by miezaris.

All photos are courtesy of www.pglthemovie.com

Akhirnya....rasmi sudah pada 22hb Oktober yang lepas filem Puteri Gunung Ledang telah diterima bersaing bersama 49 lagi filem dari negara-negara selain AS untuk dikategorikan sebagai Filem Asing terbaik di Academy Awards Februari tahun depan.

Setelah lebih 50 tahun filem-filem Melayu berjuang di pentas sendiri, kini filem PGL ini yang padat dan sarat dengan ketulenan adat resam orang Melayu sudah pastilah akan dapat disaksikan pula di pentas dunia. Syabas untuk Enfiniti Productions yang ditunjangi oleh heroin PGL sendiri, Tiara Jacqueline.

PGL yang diterjemahkan sebagai "A Legendary Love" pastinya akan membuka lebih banyak pintu kepada anak-anak seni tanahair untuk mengintai peluang dan nasib di luar negara. Berita ini juga pastinya akan disambut dengan rasa ceria kerana pencalonan pertama dari Malaysia memaparkan suatu kisah lagenda lebih 500 tahun yang diriwayatkan dalam buku "Sejarah Melayu". Meskipun ada tokok-tambah (sudah pasti perlu untuk mendramatikan penggarapan sebuah filem), setidak-tidaknya orang sudah akan kenal Hang Tuah itu hero tulen Melayu. Tepat benarlah M.Nasir dipilih melakonkan watak tersebut kerana M.Nasir juga ialah seorang Jaguh dalam persada seni Melayu di tanahair.

Pemilihan PGL juga mendapat komentar yang positif dari media di AS dan nampak gayanya FINAS kenalah memberi lebih banyak tumpuan untuk memimpin pengusaha-pengusaha filem kita agar dapat menghasilkan filem-filem yang benar-benar berkualiti. Memang benarlah Filem Kita Wajah Kita!

Malaysia joins battle for best foreign film Oscar

Malaysian movie A Legendary Love is among entries from 49 nations picked to compete for next year's best foreign language film Oscar, marking the country's first Academy Award bid.

Organisers of cinema's top awards have announced that director Saw Teong Hin's tragic romance, the most expensive film ever made in the South-East Asian nation, had been accepted to compete for a nomination.

The five nominees in the coveted category will be announced in Beverly Hills on January 25, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said.

Among the 49 countries battling it out are Afghanistan, Brazil, last year's winner Canada, China, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Palestine, the Philippines, South Korea Taiwan, Thailand and Venezuela.

The official entries for the 77th Academy Awards were picked from among submissions from 89 nations that were asked to put in films for consideration as best foreign language film.

Malaysia is the only country on this year's list of entrants never to have vied for the famed golden Oscar statuette, which will be handed out in Hollywood on February 27.

The film A Legendary Love is the tragic love story of a princess and a Malay warrior and was well received at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year.

Six movies in the past have won both the best foreign language film Oscar and another Academy Award, including the 2000 Chinese-language film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which won four Oscars.

Italy's Life Is Beautiful, also won the best actor Oscar for its star Roberto Benigni and the Oscar for best original score, in 1998.

Hang Tuah - M.Nasir

Hang Tuah - M.Nasir
Originally uploaded by miezaris.

Lakonan hebat M.Nasir pastinya menjadi pemangkin kepada filem PGL untuk memperkenalkan "Melayu" di persada dunia.

Hang Tuah Berpencak Silat

Hang Tuah Berpencak Silat
Originally uploaded by miezaris.

Pencak Silat turut menjadi intipati utama filem PGL.

Bendahara - Datok Rahim Razali

Bendahara - Datok Rahim Razali
Originally uploaded by miezaris.

Datok Rahim Razali turut beraksi cemerlang dalam PGL, tidak syak lagi watak Datok Bendaharanya memang kena pada orangnya.

Adengan Kasih

Adengan Kasih
Originally uploaded by miezaris.

Orang Nusantara berkasih penuh adat dan tradisi. Pantun disulam, kasih dilapik...namun dijiwa tetap tahu bahasa badan.

Glutony at Ramadhan

* This article appears in the Harakah's latest edition. Found it very useful as "peringatan untuk kita semua yang mungkin terlupa". Happy reading.

by M.G.G. Pillai

Gluttony is not what one associates with Ramadhan. In Malaysia it is. One need not look far to see why. The 14 hours of fasting is seen as an imposition that must end with a banquet, to eat as much as one would not at other times, whatever it costs. Hotels find creative ways to encourage patrons to eat as much as they can as expensively as possible. And people do not break their fast alone. They bring along friends and bills of RM600 a day are common. One hotel offers a Ramadhan Special for RM400, for which you get a better-than-average room, the breaking of fast and the early morning repast before beginning it the next morning; another offers a Ramadhan buffet at RM75, though most charge RM50 each.

It is an occasion, as Islam requires, a time for reflexion, thanksgiving to Allah, strengthen one's faith by knowing what it is to suffer hunger pangs, that faith does not come easily. Instead it has become an excuse to flaunt one's wealth, or rather expense account, by turning it into a gastronomic festival. It is now an excuse to throw parties in the name of Islam, with a perfect reason to do so.

Those who cannot afford these astronomical prices are encouraged to gluttony by the smaller and less well-known establishments with a smaller selection and far cheaper. But make no mistake. They also offer gluttony as the main course. This is officially encouraged. When the Prime Minister and his cabinet break fast, it is to partake in a feast. The Pesta Ramadhan, which are a feature of the fasting month, sells mostly food. The stalls that open up during the month, usually illegally, come to sell food. Ramadhan is now an officially sanctioned licence to ignore the tenets of the faith, and pig at the dining table. An friend of 40 years, a retired civil servant, apologises for the "poor" fare at his table. "I was working then and could afford a better table", he said as if it explained everything.

In a sense, it does. Ramadhan in Malaysia is to show off one's usually ill-gotten wealth. When cabinet ministers, mentris besar. cabinet ministers and state executive councillors get an official allowance (for cabinet ministers, it was once RM10,000 for Hari Raya and for breaking fast, but it must be higher now) it encourages this nationwide chasing the tail to show one's importance. It is an arrogance of the newly rich, usually without working for it, that encourages this deliberate gluttony. Every need and desire is reduced to a value, and it is this that determines where one stands in society.

Malaysia is not alone in this. I first noticed this in Pakistan more than a decade ago. The very rich are very rich indeed, and gluttony at Ramadhan is one way they tell the world they are who they are. But they are strengthened by the civil servants and other denizens of the middle to upper classes in almost every society where this is all too prevalent. Walk into any diplomatic function in the sub-continent, and you find every one rushing for the food that it is soon picked so clean that the vultures would be jealous.

But is this how Malaysians break their fast? I saw a Malay labourer, his wife and child break fast with KFC fried chicken. It was cheaper than cooking at home. Stall food is cheap but one tends to eat too much and "I cannot afford that". In Malaysia, even amongst the poor, Ramadhan is linked to food, lots of it. But non-Malay Muslims break their fast differently: they eat a sweek fruit, if dates are unavailable or unaffordable, tea and a savoury. It is much later that they sit down to a modest meal. The Indonesian stops eating about midnight and fasts for about eighteen hours, breaks it with a light meal and eats nothing until midnight. The Indian Muslim generally is abstemious about his food during the fast.

Fasts like Ramadhan exist in every religions. The Christians have Lent. Hindus do fast before and during some festivals and always before and during a pilgrimage, the most common the 41-day milk-and-banana fast that devotees undertake pilgrimages. In the other religions, there is no licence to gluttony as we see amongst Muslims in Malaysia. The food served on feast days at temples, both Buddhist and Hindu, are for devotees and the poor.

One should therefore take fasts in one's stride. A religious observation should not be a licence for indolence. But it has become. One need look far to confirm this. Proffesional Malays behave as if obligations should not be met during Ramadhan, and often absent themselves, or turn up for work late. It is a national disease. This general tiredness, officially encouraged if not discouraged, makes it certain that work does not get done and mishaps aplenty. This is now so prevalent that little gets done during the month. It should not. But the government encourages this, by not making examples of those who blatantly flout it.

Somehow Malays in Malaysia believe that the forms of the Ramadhan fast is more important than observing it for what it is, as an article of faith. So, it was not surprising that a Malaysian brigadier and several senior officers of a Malaysian division in East Malaysia during Indonesia's confrontation were shot dead during their evening fast. The Koranic rules have exceptions when doing one's duty exceeds the rituals and forms of the religion. Nothing as dramatic has happened since in Malaysia. Nothing would. But does it need to? When millions of Muslims believe they should be compensated and allowed special rules when observing the requirements of their faith. But this is still no excuse for the annual gluttony at Ramadhan.

Ends

Selamat Menyambut Ramadhan Al-Mubarak

Pejam celik pejam celik, kita sudah pun memasuki bulan Ramadhan dalam kalendar hijrah yang ke 1425. Kesempatan ini kami sekeluarga mengucapkan Selamat Berpuasa kepada semua sahabat-sahabat dan rakan-rakan. InsyaAllah, lebih dari menahan lapar dan dahaga, kita dapat mengimarahkan lagi bulan Ramadhan dengan amal ibadat yang istimewanya dikhususkan dalam bulan yang mulia ini.

Kami sekeluarga juga sibuk untuk bersiap-sedia "balik kampong". Jadi tahun ini dapatlah merasa berpuasa di dua negara (sebenarnya tiga) dan InsyaAllah dipanjangkan umur dapat menyambut ketibaan fajar Syawal bersama-sama sanak-saudara di kampung halaman. Selain daripada itu saya juga sibuk menghabiskan penulisan thesis yang perlu dihantar sebelum balik kampong. Sudah dihantar barulah lega rasa di dada. Bolehlah berhari raya dengan penuh keceriaan. Baru 1 Ramadhan tapi lagu "Balik Kampung" dendangan Allahyarham Sudirman Hj. Arshad sudah terngiang-ngiang di cuping telinga.

Perjalanan jauh tak ku rasa

Kerna hati ku melonjak sama

Ingin berjumpa sanak saudara

Yang selalu bermain di mata

Nun menghijau gunung ladang dan rimba

Langit nan tinggi bertambah birunya

Deru angin turut sama berlagu

Semuanya bagaikan turut gembira

Balik kampung oh oh...( 3X )

Hati girang

Ho ho... Balik kampung (3X)

Hati girang

Terbayang wajah-wajah yang ku sayang

Satu-satu tersemat di kalbu

Pasti terubat rindu di hati

Menyambut kepulangan ku nanti

(lirik Habsah Hassan)

Rasanya dah hampir 30 tahun lagu ni berkumandang di corong-corong speaker. Masa kecil-kecil memang kitalah yang melalak-lalak (menyanyi lah konon?), kini giliran anak-anak kita pulak. Ichiro pun tak ketinggalan menyanyikan lagu Balik Kampung (ada CD 40 lagu-lagu Hari Raya buah tangan dari Kak Chah) kalau naik kereta. Begitulah.....kitaran dunia........

Kepada yang tak dapat balik (Yong sekeluarga di Cristchurch; Nia & Agus di Sheffield; Mazlan sekeluarga di Tokyo dan rakan-rakan seperjuangan yang lain di Jepun) janganlah bersedih hati pulak. Ada rezeki nanti dapat kita berhari-raya di Malaysia pada tahun-tahun yang akan datang. InsyaAllah.

"HITS - STORY"

Ichiro Pose, originally uploaded by Adris Ichiro.

Photo credits to AP Photos.

Ichiro 51

Calling it the best moment of his career, right fielder Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners broke the record for single-season hits of 257 in an Oct. 1st home game against the Texas Rangers when he went 3 for 5 to reach 259 with two games remaining. Ichiro finally concluded this year's season with official new record at 262 hits.

The previous record, set by George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns back in 1920, had stood for 84 years, one of the longest-standing records in the game. The Mariners won 8 to 3 that historic night.

My Ichiro at home was also very happy because his namesake was mentioned so many times for the last 2-3 days. My wife has "fallen in love" with the former since his playing days as a pro at Pacific League (the same league with our local club - Fukuoka Daiei Hawks) with Kobe Orix Bluewave. Lucky me, he's taken and happily married. When he moved to the Major League in 2000, Orix slumped and steadily finish at the bottom of the league. His move to the MLB has created wave of pride an anxiety among the Japs or in short "Ichiro-Mania".

His feat this year already make him a very strong candidate for this season MVP honor. Now, this is what I called "Ichirometer"!! @miezaris

Trademark Pose

This is "a very Ichiro pose" the moment he stands on the plate to bat. Or "Ichiro rashii", the Japs might say. Well, I learned from the local TV programme that Ichiro started this routine way back in his schooldays time. The secret? He is actually adjusting his bat parallel to the number 12 on the clock placed right infront of him at any venue he plays.

A Modern Samurai

Ichiro always treat his bat with a scientific approach. Like a Samurai and his sword, Ichiro is always synonym with his baseball bat!!