The Malay culture appreciation programme

Stupid blogger decided to be buggy, so I've not been posting for some time until I fixed it thanks to the blogger support group that asked me to set the url to http://www2.blogger.com...

It feels as though I just been through a malay appreciation programme, and its all thanks to MLDDS and me getting into the crew for their performance. MLDDS performance main topic was talking about what makes a malay a malay? Similar to the age-old question that some chinese had been asking in Singapore on what makes them chinese...

In order for the few non-malays in the PA crew to know what the play is about so that we won't be bored stiff or find that the play is too indigestable, Huzaifah, also in the PA crew for MLDDS, brought us through some important but rather unknown facts about the Malays in Singapore.

Some of the things are like:
-Not all Malays are muslims
-Malays is a mixture of races
-Why there are seemingly more Malays in ITE
-Why Malays in JC's are considered cream of the crop of the Malay community...
-What causes us to perceive that Malays are slacking off (which Huzaifah admits is due to some mindset in the Malay community)
-etc.

The long list was cut short cause honestly its a lot of new facts that I am still having some trouble digesting. I mean, it feels a bit weird that although we are living on a island surrounded by Malays left, right, centre for don't know how long, it is only until now that we know more about the Malay culture...

At the same time while trying to understand what Huzaifah is saying to grasp the basic background knowledge, we were bombarded with the things during the play. After sorting out most of the technical stuff, we were somewhat more able to enjoy the play and try to understand more of it.

I should say that after this play, I learnt a lot more about the Malay community then I would have done if I had went for those professional courses that try to show you how life is like in different countries. To me, those courses are boring and indigestable. They just tell you facts after facts and reinforces things that you probably already know, compared to things that are only revealsed only with close discussions on the topic with friends, like in this situation...

And lets face it, why bother knowing about all those other countries in the world when you don't even know your neighbour well enough? And also, not all professionals teach well. I mean, how do you know it is up-to-date and true? Half the time, they would most likely be reading out from somewhere...

Don't you think its more realistic when its told to you by someone who is in the community itself and is facing it everyday?
That's what I got to experience during the MLDDS rehearsals that we had ^^

I feel that for this event, I had taken away more then just precious memories and PA techinical know-how...

I had also taken away a greater amount of knowledge of the Malays in Singapore..

Discmon