Bukan Budaya Saya

After reading the article, I think that national culture is a set of norms, behaviours, beliefs and costumes that exits within the population of a sovereign nation. 

In my opinion, there are six factors that can affect the National culture. 

 A lot of people have their own opinion in defining the national culture. We cannot say it wrong and cannot say it is true too. Many people especially artists, academicians and intellectuals like to explore the concept of national. They defined the national culture from music to architecture, film to dress, thereat to language. 

From the article, I know that there are three principles of national culture. The first states that National Culture would be based on that of the indigenous people of some extended spatial location. The second asserts that elements from other cultures which are suitable might be formed into the national culture. Finally, the third principle affirmed that Islam would be an extreme important component of the National Culture.

 I think that the third principle is too prejudiced. All the culture is same important. They have their own special characteristics. We should respect different people culture. Culture should not become a tool to legitimise and reproduce the dominant or subordinate structure of politics and economics. Malaysian people should have freedom in choosing their culture.

Should we accept immigrants to be our citizen?

Today, during the tutorial class, our lecture wanted us to discuss the issue about immigrants to be our citizen one day. The lecturer let us vote which group we should belong to. My group has six people who reject these immigrants and support to send them back to their home country.  

We are discussing our opinion about the issue of immigrants

In our opinion, we think that nowadays, there are too many immigrants coming to our country. We found that the population of them had increase. The birth rate of them is higher compared to ours. So, maybe one day, the population of the immigrants may be higher than us, the locals. Furthermore, Immigrants may cause some social problems such as child abuse, robbery and others. I also think that Malaysia culture will become ‘mixed’. For example, it can create even more cultural problem than now such as our language. Besides that, our Malaysia Ringgit (RM) will drop because the immigrants will send the money that they have earned home. Besides that, Malaysians will become over-dependent on foreign workers because the salary of hiring them is low. This will cause Malaysians to lose job opportunities. 

Lecturer was explaining her opinion to us

I think that during this tutorial, I had thought a lot of things about this issue that I never thought about before. We cannot think an issue in one side. We have to see farther and more than other person. We should have different side of thinking. There have some points that we do not support the immigrants to become the citizens in our country. However, when we change the way we think, we find that there are also some reasons to let the immigrants stay.

More immigrants can help to improve economy because we are selecting the desired ones. We will increase the competition and make our country better. They can also share their culture with us in a positive way. Foreign workers are doing jobs that Malaysians do not want to do such as construction works that takes a lot of energy and working under the scorching hot sun and heat of the tropical Malaysian weather. We should also know that not all the social problems are caused by the immigrants.

So, I think that I will become the neutral person who does not support or reject immigrants to become the citizens in our country. However, there must be some requirement. The requirement should include that the immigrants should not have criminal record. They should also stay more than eight years in Malaysia and must have an education.

Discussion of the case about Fahmi Reza

10/6/2016

Today, during our tutorial class, the lecturer requested us to be divided into four groups. My group consist of four people. We were to have a debate with another group on the case of a Malaysian graphic artist, Fahmi Reza. This case is about Fahmi Reza being arrested for drawing the prime minister, Najib Razak, as a clown. My group and I were the representative of our prime minister while the another team is the representative of Fahmi Reza.

The photo of another groups debating

            There was a disscussion on some of points with the lecturer after the debate. As the representative of our prime minister, we proposed points that supports the reason for the arrest of Fahmi Reza.  First, the art can be used to incite the people to revolt. Fahmi Reza had posted the sentence: “defend my rights to criticise the corrupt rulers by using art as a weapon” on his facebook. Art can also promote hostility between classes of people. We asked about the question of “ Why are you drawing it”, and the another group said that it makes a joke. However,  the point is you only make a joke to themselves , and this kind of issue doesn’t look like a joke, meaning that we cannot make a joke on it because this is not respectful to others.  Furthermore, the points that support this issue is the art of Fahmi Reza will actually spoil the reputation of Malaysia. It may cause some economic problems and even cause disunity. 

We are discussing the points together

            There are some points to argue in this issue. As the representative of Fahmi Reza, art is not wrong. It depends on how people interpret the issue. The way the person interpret is up to them but not an artist. Art also expresses the inner voice of its artist. This is just art, how can it affect economy? Bad economy is caused by the government, not art.

What is Art ?

6/6/2016

            Today, during the lecture class, the lecturer discussed the topic on arts. She said that art can be drama, music, dance culture, film, hair style design, drawing, photograph and also be portrayed in many other forms. Art can be defined and distinguish into three groups which are the performing arts, visual arts and crafts art. Examples of the performing arts are theatre, drama, dance and music, examples of visual arts are film, photo, drawing and sculpture. Performing art are older and more traditional which can do without tools.  Visual arts usually had to be completed through the use of technology. She also said that people are actually more respectful towards artists that creates art for the society. It is because people think that this kind of artist can stand up to express and portray their voice through the form of art to the world. On the other hand, artists that draws and creates for their personal interest is considered selfish.

The First Trip

4 June 2016

I had my field trip to the Art for Grabs festival with my course mates in Publika on Saturday, 4 June 2016. 

Art for Grabs Festival

I attended a talk about “ I Am, Here and Now”, by Mislina Mustaffa. 

Mislina Mustaffa is giving her talk to us

She introduced her first book, Homeless by Choice. She shared with us her experience about traveling around the world thanks to an opportunity.  She brought 4 sets of clothes and a camera for her journey to places that are less travelled, such as the Amazon, Brazil, Columbia and many other places. She also told us that she did not use any soap and makeup product for about five years. This is to help herself to listen to her body, what her body really needed and realizing the intelligence of her body. She wanted to explore where do our thoughts and fears originate from. After travelling and giving some thought to it, she realized most of our thoughts and fears are not from herself, but from others and her surroundings. For example, the weather, teachers, family, friends, and belongings. She started to think again about who she is and this pushed her into deeper thinking.  

Homeless by Choice that written by Mislina Mustaffa

I like the sentence that she told us, where everything that are permanent in our life changes every second. Everything you had is not yours but is yours too. For example, bags, houses, and cars. They are our possessions, but when we die, they also will not belong to us anymore.  At the end of the day, the only thing we have is ourselves. So, always take good care of our own body. She said that taking care of ourselves is not a selfish thing to do. We also have to learn to be silent and spend more time with ourselves. This is not trying to isolate a person from the world, but to make us more harmonious with the world.

Besides that, she also mentioned people nowadays are scared to move. She used her real life example for this provident. She shared her life example by telling us a story where there are 3 toilets. The first toilet was locked. For the second toilet, the door is open but there is no one standing outside the door or using it at all. The third toilet had seven people stand outside, waiting for the person in this toilet to come out. She felt strange and went to the middle toilet. She checked the toilet and found that everything is normal in the toilet. When she came out from the second toilet, everyone that queued up in front of the third toilet looked at her strangely. They looked at her as if looking at an alien.  

Furthermore, I was also inspired by her words, where your own experience is real for you, while my experiences are real for me. We should be brave to try everything in life. She also said that because we not love ourselves enough that there is no way to tell us our rights and wrongs unless we are already in the mess.

I have attended the talk about “Funning the News”, the panellist is Lau Chak Onn and Harith Iskandar, and the moderator is Erza Zaid.  They started the talk by sharing the types of genre they had use in the comedy and showed the audience. From this talk, I learned that the media organisation is not joking about the politics stated such as Roshman. They could have put some elements in it to make the news be catchy and interesting, but it must be obvious. However, they usually avoid sensitive topics because sensitive topics are more serious and less funny, in return would take away the interest of the audience. Furthermore, media organisations should never joke about things that are not true because they do not want to confuse the people, and provide false information, which is also against the law.  

"Funning the News" Talk

Those who use Bahasa Malaysia as subtitle or language, likes to share and “like” the news but they rarely read it. They started to think of ways to solve this problem. They started to put incomplete title to grab peoples’ attention to motivate them to click to read. Besides that, most Bahasa Malaysia comedy like to use the repetition of the punch line.  They said that Malaysians have grown muture because our understanding of comedy has improved. Someone had ask a question to the paneralist about the guideline and the ways to be funny. The panaralist answered him by saying that this question actually has no answer to it. They said that the only thing that we can do is live in a funny environment and always paying attention to our surrounding.   

            There are a lot of booths at the Art Fair. There are some booths that popped and grabbed my attention.  For example, the booth of Andi Miranti, on handmade polymer clay, lino printing, stone art, emotipots, fine art print by Ajim Juxta and Caryn Koh, and the booth of kikiyaya.

Stone Art

The booth of Lino Printing

The booth of Andi Miranti

The booth of Kikiyaya

The favorite booth of the day for me at the Art fair is the booth of the artist, Caryn Koh. 

Caryn Koh

She had a drawing style that drew my attention towards her immediately. From taking to her, I know that she is a Malaysian who is currently based in Kuala Lumpur. She has always dreamed of becoming an artist. And now, she has become a drawer, painter and a visual creator. I am very inspired by her drawing of “sekolahseries”.   

Her Drawing of " Sekolahseries"

Her Drawing of "Sekolah Series"

The school girl is made up of simple lines and contrasting scratches of colour pencils. The national school uniform symbolizing limitation others set on oneself. She loves to share her artistry with everyone around her. She is truly an inspiration, and empowers the people around her.  Her drawings makes me feel like I am back in school again, not my school, but the school in the drawing. I love her drawings and wish her luck in her future.

I learned a lot of things in this trip. This trip is fun.