langkau fiction

When I first came across that word ‘gullible’ many years ago, I thought it was a kind of food. Seriously. A kind of dumpling. It took me a good while later to realize its actual meaning:

gul.li.ble [guhl-uh-buh] – adj. easily deceived or cheated.

Yeah, I know. So tiu one.

What brought me to write this post? Well, I’m not the kind of person who takes pride in exhibiting his stupidity to the public. Not consciously, of course. But I’ll briefly spill the smelly beans here. Let’s just say someone, a stranger, called me up a couple of days ago to tell me to arrange the media to meet his group at a local district office for a ‘press conference’. He even mentioned he knows some of my friends and that these friends of mine have met him before. So, I did the deed. I called my friends and told them to contact their media buddies about this proposed ‘press conference’. The subject was related the community’s stand against the gomen’s proposal to displace people from their ancestral land, misplace them in a new area, and then replace their ancestral land with mega projects.

Cut this short story shorter: after what was supposed to be the ‘press conference’ that day, my friend called and told me that whatever information I had given them earlier was, well, plain cowdung. The person’s motive was contradictory to what he had told me on the phone a couple of days ago. Speecheless, I was. At the time, I could hear that distant sound, something resembling a laughter, in my head going “MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA (repeat till fade..)“. Then, I realized I had just produced a situation of perfect inconvenience for my friends. And the press. Indeed, I was guhl-uh-buh-lized.

I called this someone’s phone no less than 10 times that day. But every single time I dialled that fellow’s number, my wax-filled ear was entertained with that familiar but irritating voice: ”Nombor yang anda dail…” In the Foochow expression of describing such circumstances, my experience can aptly be described as nipunpuijingchow.

It took me a couple of days to reflect on what I just did. If the Creator of dinosaurs and platypus had installed a morality indicator somewhere in my conscience, I’d say I had just committed a felony equivalent to scrawling poor pornographic messages on the walls that you tend see in the few kopitiam toilets here. Yes, it just had to be me. Tiu lah…

So, in the days following my nipunpuijingchow experience, I reflected on how I managed to step on a camouflaged dog shit and dragged it into the room to share with my friends. I re-examined the epistemological grid in my head, trying to find the answer for my guhl-uh-buh-lity. After sleepless hours of searching through my brain’s decaying memory cells, I finally discovered the answer to my guhl-uh-buh-lity!

Apparently, this dumpling guhl-uh-buh-lity of mine started after watching the movie E.T. in the early 1980s. I was about nine years old then. From that day onwards the picture in my head made all aliens look like Spielberg’s ugly character whose only memorable line was “E.T. phone home…”. Yes, E.T. made me believe in the existence of extra terrestrials. I could even imagine alien pilots cruising coolly in their UFOs, zig- zagging through the Earth’s troposphere. Heck, I didn’t even know “UFO” was an acronym until I passed my mid-teen years! When I outgrew my teenage years, I started questioning my beliefs in aliens and UFOs. In other words, I became smarter and endowed with cosmological intelligence, even without reading the encyclopedia.

So, how did I become smart and know that the acronym for UFO was ‘unidentified flying object’ UFOs may not be alien spaceships after all? Well, I do not have the scientific evidence to prove the non-existence of such unidentified flying objects. But then again an intelligent human species do not necessarily need “scientific” evidence to prove he’s right, does he? Whoa, wait, wait. I’m not saying that I’m one of those intelligent human species that do not necessarily need “scientific” evidence to prove I’m right. No, not at all. What I’m saying is that the non-existence of UFOs (as per our common understanding of the object) can be proven by applying a theory I call Kanineyism Theory. For those of you who have not heard nor immersed in Kanineyism school of thought, please pay attention. This is an all-encompassing theory that explains anything that you need to know about everything, which in the end explains the n.o.t.h.i.n.g phenomena. Then, once you’re convinced you’ve mastered the knowledge on the mystery of life, you’d shout kaninneeeey!

For example, the UFO. Or the alleged sightings of UFOs. Or the idea of UFOs. It is very unlikely that a person have seen a UFO more than five times – just to be numerically safe lah – in his or her lifetime. Even if this person claims to have seen a UFO screeching through the skies more than five times in his or her lifetime, it is most likely that we will never hear of him or her again.

Have you ever seen the UFO movies or documentaries on TV? I have, many times over the years. On TV, of course. And what I noticed is that the UFOs tend to change shapes and structure. I know, I know change is ‘normal’: things change, people change, time changes, buildings change, aeroplanes change, faces change, landscape changes, etc. But are UFOs and its alien mariners ‘normal’? If they do indeed change, how do we know? Change from what to what? Is their concept of ‘change’ similar to ours? So, I asked myself: “Did I just see a pangolin crossing the road in a purple bikini?” “Do UFOs constantly change their spaceship designs like us changing our airplane models OR is it our perception of what UFOs should be like have changed?” I’m asking: is the UFO phenomena actually a product of our imagination; the product of our imagination, which over the years have not only inspired but also gave us the will to invent one (or several different ones)? In short, a hoax lah. You might ask “Why would anyone go through all that time and money just to hoax us?” Well, otherwise, how else could they make the crop circles we often see on TV? See? Theory of Kanineyism works!

Talk about change, look at this: this UFO photo was captured in the U.S. in 1952. The shape of this UFO looks simple, like a teacup saucer with a large bump on it. I can only guess that there was no such flying object gracing the American skies in the 1950s. At least, not that anyone know of. Also, try to imagine the cars, airplanes or other great inventions of that time; they all look old or vintage in our eyes today. It’s more like those cars you’d see in Cuba today. Somehow, this ‘vintageness’ also applies to this UFO. Just because the photo above was taken in 1952, can the UFO not look much more modern than that? Apparently not. No wonder they keep coming back to Earth to see if we have changed our airplane models.

Now, look at this UFO below. The 1952 UFO Vintage above would look primitive compared to this one:

Wow, wow, wow! Looks sleak, eh? Now, THIS is what I call a UFO. The 1952 UFO Vintage did not have windows in their spaceship and only had one bump. This one above, let’s call it YouEfO v.2000, not only have windows around it but it also has lights and shit from the windows! It even looks like a double-story flying machine complete attic and basement. Who knows? Maybe even a football field? Now, if that’s not a UFO, I don’t know what is. The YouEfO v.2000 makes 1952 UFO Vintage look like…er…a flying saucer?

And you thought that was it? Below are some images of UFOs in different shapes and sizes, depending on the origin of the product, of course.

Now, why would all these great UFOs fond of hovering above the Earth’s troposphere? Or in some reports, they’ve actually crashed on our planet. Why? Did they get lost somewhere in the galaxy and decided to transit Earth before proceeding home? As if it’s not crazy enough, people also believe that aliens fly these UFOs to Earth primarily because they want to abduct us, human beings. Who in their right mind in this vast universe would want to abduct human beings? Did they expect to get some kind of education from us? Only human beings abduct human beings. Even the ugliest species in the animal kingdom won’t abduct human beings. And there is even an insurance policy against alien abduction! Mulder should think of getting one.

At one stage in my obsession with UFOs and aliens, I was convinced that aliens were actually human beings that have evolved many light-years ahead. Somehow, they have invented a high-tech time machine that could transport them back into time on a UFO to study us, humans on earth, y’know the unevolved bit. Oh, it’s like reading history or doing archaeology in school, where the typical student of history or archaeology is interested in the past. Hence, the necessity to ’study the past’ of how humans had lived and how they manage to fuck up the world in the process. The only difference with this education system many light-years ahead of us is that they do not have to read history books or do the diggings in caves or deserts like we do today. They only have to enter their time-machine UFOs and transport them into the past, onto our Earth of today. Of course, they have special alien suits to protect them from our polluting air, which explains why they look like those green aliens (see above) that we often picture in our heads.

However, if you take off their masks — as opposed to decapitating their heads, as some would do — they’d actually look like us, human beings. Well, okay, they may look a bit different but it’s part of the evolution process. So, yeah, all this UFO and alien hulabaloo is nothing but a human conspiracy to sway our minds away from the real problems inflicted upon us by the gomen. From this UFO-ET experience during my childhood, I’ve learned that UFOs and aliens are not real. It’s like that fatwa phenomenon on yoga and pengkid: it serves as a distraction, a politico-ideological means to get our minds off the real problems.

No, I’ve become smarter. Nowadays, I just believe in ghosts and pontianaks.

My colleague sent us this photo yesterday. I was half laughing and then, half wondering what would people think about Sarawak when they see this photo. The photo was captured by my colleague’s friend who had recently visited Beppu, Japan, and it was a tourism poster promoting “Malaysia Sarawak”. This adpost was located outside one of the hot spring resorts.

Oh, my…

First, I think herpetologists would have difficulties identifying this crocodilian species. Second, our clowns politicians would silently think “What the fuck?! How did I get in there?” Third, who the hell would want to visit Sarawak with that…that…thing swimming our waters? I guess the traditional tag line “Sarawak Bumi Kenyalang” (lit. Sarawak, Land of the Hornbills) would have to be changed to “Sarawak Sungai Berbuaya” (lit. Sarawak, Rivers of Crocodiles).

p/s: Then again, there could be other worse representation of Sarawak…

Ulung Palang, Bario

Yesterday, I received an email from my sister, telling me that she and her husband, Chris, will be in Kuching in mid-December. She wrote to ask me if I had any plans for Christmas. I replied “In fact, er…I do…” She asked me “What plans? One of those plans that might or might not happen, is it?” My two brothers will also be coming back at the end of November, so I thought of taking one of them to Pontianak in Kalimantan. I haven’t talked to him about it though. She wasn’t convinced with my so-called ‘plans’, and told me that we – my brother and I – should join her and Chris celebrating Christmas in our mom’s village in Bario. I asked her “What about…er…our brotherly trip to Pontianak?” She told me that I can postpone it to January or something because the brothers will still be in Kuching until February. My sister and her husband will only be in Sarawak for a couple of weeks before returning to the southern hemisphere. Since we only get to meet once a year or sometimes, once in two years, we should spend this time together. “er…ok lah…” was the only answer I could come up with. She likes to drill simple logic into my head, especially when she knows that I’m in a constant blur, groping for something that don’t really exist. Bario it is then. Case closed.

Last night. Three persons. A crate of Stella. Two bottles of tuak. Half a bottle of langkau. Finished. These concoction of venomous beverages prove to be a great recipe for a hangover this morning. Now, the pain is pounding majestically against the walls of my skull, sending a violent Morse code message that it doesn’t belong inside my head. I’m not too sure if it’s the brain saying that or just my rectum somehow got tangled up in my head. It is painful. Fortunately, I have a thick skull. It doesn’t break easily. But I tell you ah, this is probably the mother of all tulan hangovers lah. And to experience this kind of shitness during working hours is just, er..what can I say, mesmerisingly stupid?

Whoever is controlling ‘the time’ is not playing fair. Get your fingers off the fast-forward button lah! My mind is still on a last-Sunday mode and I’m not prepared to finish off today’s Friday just yet. How am I going to compensate what I have not done on this week’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, huh? Work is still depressingly in abundance. On Monday and Tuesday, I managed to stare at the blank white page on my computer screen for several hours while squeezing the remnant of intellectual thought out of my brain. From Wednesday onwards, with much pain inflicted on my cerebrum, I achieved the impossible i.e. I wrote several sentences that I myself find hard to comprehend. In fact, I didn’t understand it at all. Actually, come to think of it I’m now asking myself if I had actually wrote anything or am I suffering from severe delusion? I blame all these on time. Or rather, on whoever is controlling time.

With all the surreal events happening in the world today, I can’t help feeling that I’m being left behind by the current of time. Or flow of time. Or tide of time. Whatever laa, you know what I mean. I’m strangely affected by certain recent events that may not directly (and immediately) have anything to do with my mundane life. For instance, yesterday, the whole of Bhutan celebrated their newly-crowned king, the eldest son of the ex-king’s third wife. Speaking of time, the new king is 28 years old, now the youngest monarch. His name is Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and with a name like that, I am sure he’d make a good king.

Then, of course, the big hit: Ohmama Obama won the US presidential election. What amuses me most is that his victory seems to significantly reverberate to all corners of the world. And what frustrates me the most is why oh why? I read that Kenya declared yesterday a public holiday to celebrate Obama’s victory. Is it because his dad – who left Obama as a kid – is Kenyan? Apparently, Indonesia is also elated with Obama winning the election because he spent four years of his childhood where he played with the local kids in the streets of Jakarta. Little did he know then that this childhood experience becomes an asset to him winning the presidential election. hhm…somehow, it makes little sense for me. What about McCain? I mean, with all his experiences living abroad albeit as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years, one can only imagine what kind of president would this fellow be.

With time, everything seem to change. State leaders change over time. With power bestowed in the hands of new leaders, time determines how these leaders will use them. But in some countries, changes come very slowly but not always for the better. Parallel to the progress of our cartoon-like political situation in my country, which isn’t worth writing because everyone else seem to be writing about it, time seems to produce more political clowns these days than it used to. The remarkably stupid things they say about the country and its people in the local media seem to be endless. In fact, it’s not only endless but it seems to be getting worse.

While Obama’s use of “Yes, we can!” seems to have the desired optimistic effect on the American people, our politicians’ misuse of ‘Malaysia boleh‘ (lit. Malaysia can) seems to evoke the opposite effect. Boleh masuk ISA, is it? Boleh bom orang, is it? Boleh bikin dam banyak-banyak, is it? Boleh curi tanah, is it? How to have change like that, ah? Aaah, this is time laa…so tiu one!