House, a short film by Linus Chung was released on Pete Teo’s new project, 15Malaysia. 15 Malaysian made short films, each tells a story about the colors of muhibbah in Malaysia. 15 different directors, each with a personal vision of how to represent Malaysia, in her essence, in a short few minutes. That’s a tough one. Seriously. It’s easier to make a longer duration film. But making it short, throwing out scenes & selecting the very few scenes that matters the most is really really hard. Although my experience in videography is pretty amateur, but I tried and it’s really hard.

This project is about celebrating Malaysia’s birthday. A token of appreciation if you say so. Malaya was independent on 31st August 1957, but Malaysia was born on 16th September 1963 after the inclusion of Sarawak & Sabah. 7 films has been released so far and I personally enjoyed watching every one of them. The truth is, the first 3 was cliche to me. But the 4th one, I think really hits the nail – front & center.

Here’s an interpretation about this film called “House”.

The 3 kingdoms

It’s quite interesting to see Linus directly talks about the social perception of our Malaysian society in this film. As you can see, there are 3 different students – a Chinese kid – who played the part of a big bully in school, a Malay kid – who played the part of the other big bully and an Indian kid – who played the part of the kid being bullied in school. Bullying in school is serious business and it’s a real problem. Time and time again, it has affected many minds. But let’s bring the understanding of what we already have learned about bullying in school into this film.  The cause & effect. Tun Mahathir might be crazy saying a lot of things, but in this case, his concerns are true. It is what the people are afraid of. It’s being reflected perfectly in this film.

One represents the top players who controls certain key, highly influenced people. When he presented his dream house, he states perfectly that he will give the best, the very level best for everything under his care. With 5 star facilities.

The Malay kid, who obviously representing the master of the land, rich with resources, can be more than just jaguh kampung. Then again, the way the kid talks about his dream house is more like how our forefathers reminds us about Pak Pandir and his daydreaming activities. The Malays like to daydream a lot.

And the Indian kid, who was simple enough to appreciate what he already has. But somehow, to the teachers comment, the boy’s dream lack of enthusiasm. That is of course understandable. Why? Particularly because that’s how the Indian community has been suppressed to believe in all these years. Even in school. Even the way the parents keep telling their children.

What can we learn from here?

For starters, it’s about the common misrepresentation of the so-called social agreement that we have between the 3 main races. We can agree, in each race community, there are people who have climbed up the ladder & gained success. What about the rest? Most of the time, the rest is somehow led to believe that they couldn’t achieve a better life because they are constantly being reminded of who they are, where they come from, what level of status quo they should be into and so many more nonsense dogmas that has been created & molded by our progressively moving society. That’s what we think of ourselves. We seem to believe that we have moved on so far. In reality, we still failed to break the myth that has been a bane to us from the very beginning. I will not want to argue about the social contract. I’d like to argue about how we can actually break the myth the social contract brings along. Some things cannot be changed. But we can definitely change the outcome.

Born & still living in a multi racial society has allowed me to take the time & learn to understand why things are made to believe to be so different with each other. My closest friends are not all Malays, but strangely consist of Indians, Chinese, Sikhs & others. These are the very people that my people with the same skin had tried to led me believe is a threat to me. Over & over again, I have heard & listened to criticism & comments about my people from them. Most of it, although can be taken the wrong way, but in essence, told me that they are actually afraid of us Malays. Not because of us being the masters of the land, but because the stinking dogma of uncompromising attitude the Malays has against others who are not Malays.

Yes. We Malays were brought up to believe that we are cowboys. Do what we like. Whenever we like. Trash talk to people who are not like us.

Let me give you a simple example: the word “keling”. My mother has taught me to never say that word. Because it’s a form of insult to the Indians. I was curious & that curiousity has led me to have good, Indian friends. From them, I learned about their culture. The story that I can derived so far is this: when the Hindu Indians pray at their altar, part of their ritual is to ring the bell. And it sounded like “kling kling kling”. And guess who was annoyed listening to all that? The Malays. You can’t be far enough to start figuring out how that word starts to come about.

It’s a made up fear out of the pleasure of  something the Malays didn’t understand.

Same goes to other races.

There are some who can publicly state why the sound of azan is so loud. And fair enough, made a big deal out of it in the media. But we Malays failed to realise one thing: we started it in the first place. Whenever I take the public bus or trains, I take the chance to observe and listen to conversations. Until this year 2009, there are still parents who proudly teach their kids that insulting word whenever they can to refer to Indians. Especially when they’re angry. And this is no joke & is really a sad thing.

Why? Because we Malays seem to forget that insulting other people until they feel hurt is a form of sin in Islam.

Since when it is ok for us to break that belief?

Here’s another example. I was comfortably sitting on the barbers chair, having my monthly haircut & shave. I accidently listened to a conversation between a dad & his kid. The dad was talking about the latest youth trend, the shuffle dance thing. He told his kid about the negative lifestyle the sport supposedly carries along with. He warned his kid not to indulge himself into the negative lifestyle. Which is a good thing to hear. Then dad said, “Kenape ada unsur seks, dadah, minum arak dengan shuffle ni. Tak elok buat sukan ni.” I was like – what the fuck? Dear person who is the dad to his kid, it’s not the sport. It’s the people. People do like to have sex, take drugs & drink alcohol. It doesn’t have anything to do with the sport. You can still be a billion dollar CEO with a drinking problem.

I put the fault to the piece of printed media that the dad was reading. It was a local Malay daily. Some intelligent journalism eh?

Satu Malaysia

I don’t really believe in this campaign. I understand the  reason & rationale behind it. But I don’t understand why it should be done at this point of time. It’s necessary to remind Malaysians that unity is important. Especially after the recent general election. The PM is doing well in his job calming down the people. But if you look it politically, this one branding campaign is one good diversion. Strategically, it has allowed the country administration to focus on key problems. The intention of this campaign is pure, I have no doubt about that. For good or bad reasons, only God knows.

If I’ve been listening correctly, the big diversion is also for making time for the administration to weed out the bad worms. Or in some point of view, to find new dogs to put a leash on.

But we can’t still be believing that it is a REAL problem. Why? Take a look outside man!

Look at us. We are actually living perfectly with each other. Yes, we sometimes stepped on each other’s foot. But I was still able to observe the Thaipusam celebration with kavadis and managed to live to tell a tale about it. My faith is still strong to the roots. In fact, I feel less threatened. Because I finally understood why & how the Hindus pray to their deities & god. It’s just a different religion. But in context, they still pray to one god. People do come over my house for Hari Raya eating laksa johor & still survived the ordeal. And I kinda like yee sang, the vegetarian version.

For most people, they will tell me I am talking blasphemy.

Instead for me, I believe that theirs & ours is not much of a difference. Just like the color of our blood. The skin is different. Not in essence. Because in the end, these are people too. They have their own faith & beliefs. They have their own feelings. They have their own dreams. I hate the way the teacher put down the Indian kid in Linus’s film. For no reason, the teacher, who is an Indian too, can actually be the one to pin down on this poor kid’s dream. Although it was simple, but it is still his dream. You, out of all people, a teacher, should nurture that dream. Make it big. Bigger than life. But sadly no. The teacher straight away made fun of his dream. And his mom’s too.

Don’t be surprise – the dogma, the attitude – is still in all races. If you say it’s not true, then films like these & this one branding campaign would have never existed. I can only talk on what I’ve experienced being a Malay.

For throughout my life, I have always try to be a Malaysian. Wherever I go – yes, I am a Malaysian. A rude, loud, proud & an emotional one. With crazy friends.

Today is the first day after our independence day. Ask yourself, how much freedom have you attained for yourself so far?