langkau fiction

“On July 2, 1996, the aliens came. On July 3, 1996, the aliens saw and struck. On Independence Day 1996, the human race will CONQUER!” – President Thomas J. Whitmore (acted by Bill Pullman in Independence Day or ID4)

Read that part when the fictional American president said “On Independence Day 1996, the human race will conquer!” Thanks to the brave American warriors and their superior intellectual brains, all nations of the Earth — that means you and I — are liberated from the…er…evil…aliens. What the fictional American president actually implies here is that 4th of July will not only become the American independence day but it will also become the world’s independence day!

Sounds familiar? Imagine if all countries around the world share the same date for independence day? What will it be like? Not only the chronological histories per se change but also the values that go along with those histories. It’s like how the whole world today associates with that 9/11 thing (instead of ‘11 September’) as if terrorism had never occurred any where else in the world before then.

Well, unlike in (the fictional year) 1996, we Malaysians don’t have the aliens to deal with. As an alternative, we have to deal with the everyday people and the state with seemingly selective memory history. Last Sunday on August 26th, the Sunday Post published a front-page article entitled “Malaysia: 44 or 50?”, which questioned the age of our country. If you have a copy of the paper, read it yourself. The Borneo Post is was online but now it says “Problem loading page” (check again later…). I am not a history teacher and I do not wish to school you in our beloved nation’s history. But I think our society — especially the younger generation — has a problem with memory. Tomorrow, 31 August is Malaysia’s National Day or Hari Kebangsaan, which commemorates 50 years of independence from the United Kingdom. Now, the question is ‘Was Malaysia on 31 August 1957 formed as a state?’ The answer is no. Our history books say that Malaya gained its political independence from the Brits in 1957. On 31 August 1957, Malaya became a state, not Malaysia. Before 1963, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah were still British colonies. The Federation of Malaysia was formed on 16 September 1963 and Malaysia as a state only existed on that September day of 1963. By taking this into account, Malaysia since 16 September 1963 is 44 years old. Not 50 years old.

Some people I know said that it’s not good to talk about such ’sensitive issues’. What sensitive issues? I thought it would be more insensitive not to talk about it. Isn’t it? They cite the American example (again, see? American example…no wonder our flag almost resembles theirs). The American example is this — and sometimes, they cite it without properly thinking about it: Hawai’i became the United States of America’s 50th state in August 1959. They ask me “And do you hear any Hawai’ians wanting the American Independence Day shifted from 4th of July to 21st of August? No, right?” Well, frankly speaking I’ve never heard any Hawai’ians complaining about these dates though I know that many talk about American cultural imperialism and what-have-you. And I think they’d celebrate the 4th of July like their other fellow American states without qualm about being part of the USA a bit later. Well, to be exact — 183 years, 1 month and 17 days later! And therefore, if you don’t hear the Hawai’ians whining about those stupid dates then why would a Sarawakian like me should make a big hoo-haa badaboom about it?

Well, I am not making a hoo-haa badaboom about the stupid dates. I am making a hoo-haa badaboom about Malaysians who have forgotten about our own history (or histories), taking everything else as “historical facts” and thus, “the truth”, which then leads to the abandonment of our values. History is not merely a chronological order of dates, years or events. It is about our values as citizens of this country.

And those who cite the Hawai’i example, do your homework. When the 13 states gained independence from the British on 4th July 1776, the United States of America was formed as a nation-state. That means, the American state had already existed on that day, that month and that year. When Hawai’i joined the USA in 1959, the American state was already established more than 180 years earlier.

Now, let’s look at Malaysia. 31 August 1957 signifies the formation of the Malayan state as an independent country. There was no Malaysia. Malaysia as a state did not exist then and therefore, there is no such crap as Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah joining Malaysia in 1963.

16 September 1963 signifies the formation of the Federation of Malaysia, comprising of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo (Sabah). Malaysia as a state was established on that day of September 1963 and this establishment was a result of equal partnership between Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. Contrary to the ignorant statement among some Malaysians, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah did not join Malaysia. Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah formed Malaysia as a nation-state together with Malaya.

I don’t have issues with this Hari Kebangsaan thing because it’s not an issue in itself. I have issues with people who easily forgets.

If this is one of those “important issues” that our Members of Parliament debate during their “high level VIP discussions” in the Parliament, then something is seriously amiss with our society. Sounds more like a children’s playground to me. *sigh*

…that is not the question.

On Monday evening after work, Dibid and I did our usual beer-ing at Ruai Kitai. Met up with some drunkards friends but unlike alcoholics such as Dibid and I, most of the regulars left the bar by midnight. At the end of the night, when the shutters were pulled down, the bar became quiet leaving the usual suspects poring invisible holes into the bottom of their beer mugs with their empty stare. While the sape music played in the background, Dibid suddenly announced to the bartenders and the remaining usual suspects that “we” (which involuntarily included me!) will temporarily halt our patronage at Ruai Kitai as of Tuesday, 28 August 2007, for 14 solid days! I didn’t know what got into my friend’s head to declare such statement of insanity but I agreed, and echoed his opinion albeit with slight modification: 10 solid days! No Ruai Kitai for 10 solid days. Dibid agreed: “Ok, 10 days you guys won’t see our sad butts sitting on your stools!” The bartenders looked at each other and laughed! They laughed so hard that I didn’t find it amusing. Looking at the bartenders’ expression, Dibid asked me “How like this lah, bradder?” As they wiped their tears of laughter, the bartenders said “Ok, ok…how long did you two say you will stay away from Ruai Kitai?” My representative Dibid adamantly answered “10 days, bradder…10 days” They laughed and said “Alright, ok…in that case we would have to do a miring ceremony for the two of you in this bar!” And they laughed. Again. Dibid said “Ok, you’ll see. You will miss us for those 10 days…” Again, they laughed in disbelief.

On Tuesday evening (i.e. the next day), I got this text message on my phone from Dibid “Let’s go to Ruai. Now.” When I told him that I couldn’t join him because “Remember? 10 days?” His excuse involved using his visiting relative as a proxy to go to his watering hole. I did not join him though.

But last night (i.e. on Wednesday, 48 hours after Dibid’s historical declaration) we were both at Ruai Kitai, drinking jugs of tiger soup and sadonging the tuak till way after midnight. The bartenders were obviously kept amused, still keeping in mind of our Dibid’s declaration. Dibid attributed our failure to comply with our own pledge to the owner of the bar, for he must have summoned some ancestral spirits to make us go to Ruai Kitai and consume lots of Tigers. And tuak. And the occasional langkau.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course….

The kinds of conversation one gets at a bar can be ‘tangly’ at times. Don’t ask me what ‘tangly’ means. At the moment, that word sounds just about right to describe what I am going to write about here: a fruit called tampoi.

I was at Ruai Kitai last night to kick off the happy hour. Well, someone else kicked off the hour earlier but who cares. My cousin, Balan, came over to small-talk me at the bar yesterday seeing that I was sitting alone with a bottle of tuak comfortably placed in front of my face. He asked me what did I do during the weekend (and I am very sure he’s not even interested in my weekend activities…like I said, small talk), and I mechanically narrated to him my weekend story. The mentioning of tuak tampoi apparently caught his attention. “Is it like a tuak? It’s a name of a town, right?”, he innocently asked. “Eh? What town?”, I quizzically asked. Then, he attempted to give me a two-second geography lesson on “Y’know, that town…sounds like Tampoi or something…y’know…don’t you know about that town? Aiya…that town bah?” I got his drift. Balan’s attempt to geographize me failed miserably. “Oh, do you mean the town called Tampoi in Johor?”, as I returned my query to him. “Yes! That town!” he beamed. I asked him “So, what about it?” and you could see the lines of frustration contorting on his face as I meticulously led him to the art of small-talk. “No, no…you said tuak tampoi bah…”, he blurted. Realizing that I had inflicted a minor dent on his cerebrum, I told him “Tampoi is a kind of fruit and the village that I visited last weekend made tuak out of the fruit. And I bought two bottles of that tuak and finished it by the time I got to Kuching.” He asked me if the fruit had other names. I said yes but I didn’t know of its other names. The bartender decided to politely interject our conversation and said that the fruit is also called buah uchung by the Iban in Simunjan. I absentmindedly concurred with the wise bartender because I only know it by its common name, tampoi. Of course, the name just added to my cousin’s confusion. I described the fruit to him and compared the taste to other similar fruits. I even had almost gone to the point of drawing it on paper. Then, at last he said “Oooh, you mean we have a lot that in our village, right?” Yes, I said, although he could have meant a different fruit altogether.

Tampoi – fruit of bar conversations

Later that evening, a fellow bar-reg joined me at the bar and asked me two minutes into our regular conversation “What is that tuak tampoi you wrote in your blog?” And so, I had to re-describe the fruit, which until then did not even make it to the Top 100 of Essential Topics In Bar Conversations. The third person, another bar-reg, also asked me about the methods of brewing that tuak tampoi and its ingredients. Why am I suddenly an expert on tuak tampoi that evening was beyond me. But it kept me thinking.

You can learn more about this very important fruit of conversation on Wikipedia (please note that the photo of the fruit in this website is NOT tampoi but a common lemon. The description relatively accurate though).

Milan beat the newly promoted Genoa 3-0 yesterday in their opening Serie A game. All the goals were scored in the first half by Ambrosini and Kaka (two goals). Ambrosini is a midfielder, almost a defensive midfielder at that. And he scored. Did you see Gilardino’s name in the scoresheet? Nope! I’m still waiting for that guy to prove his worth. And his job as a striker is to score goals.

p/s: This is the first time Milan had beaten Genoa at Marassi since April 1982.