On "Catching Them All"... from the roof

Okay, so before I write anything major, I feel I need to get this out of the way. I'm back on the roof of the apartment, looking down over Bukit Bintang, playing Pokémon on my computer, and creeping Facebook. Pretty much living the life -- roofs AND Pokémon?? Awesome, I know.

So, this weekend is looking to be pretty relaxed. Originally, Jose and I were to go in to CIJ today to finish up the Constitutional Amendment posters, but we ended up staying quite late yesterday to get the majority of them done in Illustrator. They're looking pretty good, and now I guess I know a lot more about the Malaysian Federal Constitution. My thoughts are that it is a really interesting istuation. For instance, Malaysia is still officially in an emergency period because of conflict thirty years ago -- this is because the original law that put a time limit on "emergency perdiods" was ammended to have them last indefinitely, until annuled by both house of Parliament. Or, even more interesting, under the Sedition laws, nearly everything Can be considered seditious, even if it isn't so explicitely -- something can fal under this law even if it exhibits a "tendency" towards sedition. Anyways, I think in the next couple days, if it is okay with CIJ, I'll post a few of the posters here in jpeg form.

Anyways, post-roof session, I think we might check out the KL tower, and maybe look into getting to Batu Caves tomorrow? Only time will tell.
Now... I have some Pokemon to catch.

UPDATE: We ended up going to KL Tower and I bought a souvenir Power Rangers watch circa 1995. It has a Green Ranger cover on it that you have to lift before looking at the time. It also says Tommy on the band. Soooo awesome

On My Brief Stint With Fast Food

So I was wondering through Pavilion Mall yesterday. Its one of the newest malls in the Bukit Bintang area, and is fancier than any mall I've seen in Toronto. It's also the closest place to the apartment to find legitimate wireless. Well, yesterday afternoon, work at CIJ was done and I felt it would be a good idea to really start working on a report for my directed readings course. The easiest place to sit down -- lounge if you will (I want to say perch... but it really has no place. darn) -- and start typing is the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on the outside of the mall (or really any of the 5 or 6 Coffee Beans within 5 minutes of it). Unfortunately, on my way over, I realized I had already spent a significant amout of time that day marvelling out loud about the price of a coffee at Coffee Bean or Starbucks relative to other things, and it would be silly to go directly there. On a side note: it really is interesting though... the price of an ice latté is about the equivalent of what it would be in north america: 12 Ringett. However, a lavish dinner can be 15 Ringett, a movie at an upscale western-style movie theater is 11, lunch is is 6. Anyways, so I wasn't entirely feeling Coffee Bean that afternoon (though it is an excellent place to get coffee and wireless occasionally). So I wondered around Pavilion looking for somewhere to sit.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I found myself in front of Pizza Hut, looking at the sign advertising free wifi inside. I thought about it... but then figured I'd probably have to keep it a secret if I went to Pizza Hut alone in the land of amazing food. So instead I went next door to KFC. Weird decision, I know. What can I say, I was under pressure!

So there I was. Standing in line at KFC, squinting at the menu a meter or two from the middle cashier. Though I chose the shortest line, is turned out to be the slowest. My mind raced as I tried to convince myself to run away and stay at the same time. Over the sound system, the evening prayer played, singalling breaking fast for Muslims. My mind was made up -- "this is an experience" I told myself, "they're broadcasting prayer over a loudspeaker in a fast food restaurant. I'm in."

About 10 minutes later, I got to the counter and ordered a Zinger Meal. i.e. a Chicken Burger, Potato Wedges with cheese and spicy gravey and a Pepsi Max. All for 9 Ringetts. I beamed as I realized that a coffee would have costed more. So, I took my tray to the table closest to the wall seperating KFC from Pizza Hut, in hopes to connect to their online service. Sacré Bleu! foiled again -- the service required a special Pizza Hut club-only password. I put my computer back into my backpack and set to eating. I bit down into the burger, and found it unusually... juicy? I looked down and saw it to be a suspicious colour of pink/red, and realized it was a sign. "this just wasn't meant to be" I consoled myself. I played with the burger a bit to make it look like I'd eaten some of it... you know, broke it up into smaller pieces, moved them to separate corners of the box etc. Picked up my bag, and turned my back on KFC forever.

About 20 minutes later, I found myself at Old Town White Coffee at LowYat plaza, drinking some white coffee, and reading Coming of Age in Second Life for my directed readings course. They didn't have wireless, but I was glad to be drinking a cheap mysteriously tasty coffee.

Later that night, Jose bought a soccer ball and learnt a valuable lesson: If you buy a cheap knockoff soccer ball, it'll probably be thrown into traffic by a monkey wearing a sleeveless hoody and get run over by a bus.

Black and White and Not So Black And White

So, it's Wednesday morning, and I'm just researchin away for interesting /not so interesting amendments to the Malaysian constitution. It has turned out to be quite the daunting task! I've found it easy to find a list of the amendment numbers and dates, but very tough to find an actual copy of the constitution as it stands now (it seems the version commonly found online is 1984/1986) as well as its different verious. However, Jose e-mailed a pretty well known constitution scholar about it, so I think things should pick up later on today. Anyways, I thought it might be a good idea to throw an example up here -- really the most well known, controversial amendment. It is Article 10, pertaining to freedom of expression. So Freedom of Expression has always been limited by the constitution here. It has never been the case where absolute freedom of expression has been guaranteed. It is my understanding that the original Article 10 looked similar to this:

1)Subject to Clauses (2), (3) and (4) -
(a) every citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression;
(b) all citizens have the right to assemble peaceably and without arms;
(c) all citizens have the right to form associations.

2) Parliament may by law impose -
(a) on the rights conferred by paragraph (a) of Clause (1),such restrictions as it deems necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of the Federation or any part thereof, friendly relations with other countries, public order or morality and restrictions designed to protect the privileges of Parliament or of any Legislative Assembly or to provide against contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to any offence;
(b) on the right conferred by paragraph (b) of Clause (1), such restrictions as it deems necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of the Federation or any part thereof, or public order;
(c) on the right conferred by paragraph (c) of Clause (1), such restrictions as it deems necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of the Federation or any part thereof, public order or morality.

3) Restrictions on the right to form associations conferred by paragraph (c) of Clause (1) may also be imposed by any law relating to labour or education.

However! After an emergency period in the late 1960s/early 1970s, Article 10 was restricted even further with the addition of Clause 4, which prohibits the questioning of a number of sensitive issues.

(4) In imposing restrictions in the interest of the security of the Federation or any part thereof or public order under Clause (2) (a), Parliament may pass law prohibiting the questioning of any matter, right, status, position, privilege, sovereignty or prerogative established or protected by the provisions of Part III, article 152, 153 or 181 otherwise than in relation to the implementation thereof as may be specified in such law.

SO this is one of the major amendments to the constitution that hinders freedom of expression in Malaysia -- however, the exhibit on the 18th also looks at other amendments that have been positive, and puts it to the visitor to think about the (over 600) changes that have been made to the social contract in the past 51 years.

I Almost Forgot... Part Two

So I was cruising around Sungei Wang mall yesterday, in search of some local trendy things, when I came across a sweeet rack of T-shirts -- many of which seemed lost in translation. Anyways, I bought the two that I understood the least. A Mickey/Donald Duck Fusion? Mickey and a Ghost with Melting Ice Cream? I'm quite sure the writing is Japanese. Any ideas? Here they are:

Am I using the sentence "I'm going to go try and find some wireless" too often?

It's 11PM Malaysian time, and I'm just doing a little bit of msn-ing on the ground outside of my building (haha "my building"). I'm using the WirelessKL network, though I'm not too sure where its coming from... my original intention was to snipe wireless from the restaurant at the base of the apartment that I'm camped out in front of, but this works quite well! WirelessKL is a free wifi service provided by some faction of the government and seems to be available in a lot of cafés and restaurants. (Don't worry, I'm sitting on marble... not a street corner)

Anyways, quick update on my life. Day one of CIJ: Week Two, went very well. CIJ is holding an exhibit at the Central Market Annexe on September 18th, so me and Jose spent most of the day researching for that. The exhibit is called "Black and White, and Not So Black and White" and is a showing of some of the major amendments to the Malaysian Constitution since 1963, and well... some of the not so major amendments. The idea is to post up the changes on the wall on A4 paper and have visitors vote on whether the original Action or the amendment is better. A really interesting idea! Gaya was saying that the idea is not to make a statement but rather to just put it out there. So pretty much, I spent the day trying to find out out as many amendments as I could. Haha I couldn't find too many using Google alone, but nevertheless learned quite a lot. For instance, I actually never really appreciate the extent to which being Malay is fundamentally tied to religion. I mean, I understood that Malaysia is officially an Islamic state, I just never really understood how much Malay and Islam go hand in hand. In reading some online writings about the Malaysian Constitution (mainly by Shad Saleem Faruqi) I've come to realize how big of a role this has played in the country in the past 50 years.

So that was my day. However! It's also important to note that I took a bit of time off to run to the corner and pick up a Lotus Paste Bun (Figure 1, below)

Stealing Wireless at 18 Stories

I write this from the rooftop of 38 Bidara Condiminiums. As the title suggests, I'm at the top -- well, maybe 1 quarter of the way to the top -- of KL, and I'm surfing the net. To my left, KL Tower is looming, as it is want to do, and in front of me the Patronas towers are hidden behind the top few stories of Hotel Istana. To my right: seven or eight malls, some amazing food, and some scary food. It has been yet another busy few days. This weekend is the Freedom Film Festival at the Central Market Annexe. I went with Jose last night to check out a short documentary on Islam and freedom of Expression. It was a really interesting film, and it was done quite fairly. There was a long segment of Malay rap, but alas I couldn't understand it. Anyways, it was really cool to see Gaya form CIJ interviewed in it. She got quite the laugh when she said that the first thing that Malaysia should do is scrap the "Truly Asian" advertisement. The venue in which we watched the movie was a small room with a projector, pull down screen and plastic chairs. At first I was very surprised by the small size of the room, but found it very cool to be part of such a small community group -- but alas i was quite wrong. Turns out that the main theater was full, haha so we were in the spillover theater. After that, we headed to the club district and went to a bar called The Beach. My initial reaction was a strong comparison to Crocodile Rock in Toronto -- a much older crowd and early 90s music. However! What set this apart was the live band. I think its safe to say it was a motley crew of performers. It had three singers -- one woman who looked exactly like Tia Carrera in Wayne's World, another woman who looked and dressed exactly like Rufio from Hook, and a Malay hip hop singer. So I very much enjoyed that -- it seemed almost surreal. Especially with the tank of baby sharks above the bar. What I found a little weird was the staggering number of old white men with young skinny Chinese girls. hm.
Anyways, it is looking like tonight will be an intense post-ramadan food extravaganza (I don't know how I feel about that word) and another trip to the Annexe to see tonights movie. Below: The view from up top; some interesting roof wildlife; and a snippet frmo last night's movie

I almost forgot... Part One

You know in the movie eXistenZ when Jude Law makes a gun out of the bones in the Birthday Special dish at the Chinese restaurant? I had a soup the other day that I'm pretty sure could have been turned into an adequate eXistenZ bone gun. It was at a Fugian restaurant, was grey, and had strange, scaly bits of very mysterious meat in it. Just saying...

But that having been said, I've had some amazing food since.