Saturday, April 16, 2005

Music, History, and the Lemon


Had an interesting session at Jing’s house recording something with her and Mike – where apparently we somehow lost the saved audio product, but still, the process was enjoyable (and the food was not bad either). I’m hoping that the three of us can somehow record remotely and put it together online.

Interesting is “Rep: Get rid of colonial past” (The Star, Friday, 15 April, pg 14) where a state assemblyman wants to change the name of Georgetown to “Bandar Datuk Abdullah”, Gurney Drive to “Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee” and Macalister Road to “Jalan Armugampillai”. First of all – and I’m guessing this is just the paper’s lousy charactization rather than the assemblyman’s – you can’t rid one’s past, it’s there for good and for worse, and probably both; it’s history, there for us to appreciate and to learn from, applied in ways like the Commonwealth. Secondly, being in Georgetown doesn’t exactly make me break out in “God Save the Queen” in a violist’s multiplicity of key modulation. What’s with the insecurity? You don’t see New Yorkers or any of the New England states complaining. I hope they don’t rewrite the history books to change the name of Penang’s founder Francis Light to Fan See Lye.

This last section will be in Malay, sorry folks for those who don't read it coz the translation doesn't carry it
. The other day, for some reason, in the same day, we had low water pressure in the morning and then the computers went bezerk at the passport office; and the coincidence led to this conversation between my sister, the immigration officer and me:

Pegawai: Gangguan komputer ini jarang sangat.
Adik: Rumah kami pun takda air.
AF: Tapi rumah kami komputer dapat fungsi. Marilah buat ni punya passpot di rumah, and jika boleh mandi sini baik juga?
Pegawai: Boleh mandi sini...

The next day, we went to do our passports, and I ventured the comment, Rumah kami sudah ada air. The officer didn’t remember me = I looked like a lemon.

2 comments:

eg9 said...

Ah.... Maybe he meant your sister could use the bathing facilities... not you ;)

Anonymous said...

Cant imagine myself saying "Apa khabar? Saya datang dari bandar datuk abdullah." Dumb. :p