(Yours truly as Miss Chic-Kut-Teh 2009)
If you haven’t already been following the hugely popular 15Malaysia, I suggest you go and do that now!
15Malaysia is a project sponsored by P1Â WiMAX and produced by Pete Teo with 15 short films by 15 directors. For the next 4 weeks, a short film will be released on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I attended the screening of the films last week and had an opportunity to watch almost all of them (with the exception of Rojak which is still in the final stages) and they all told different type of stories about Malaysia.
We’ve thrown around the term 1Malaysia because our PM hopes to instill a legacy that eradicates race/religion issues. I think Malaysia is a lot like Canada where we don’t exactly have a melting pot of cultures, instead its more like a tossed salad where each ingredient is visibly acknowledged. What I don’t understand is why its such a huge issue for us to get over? For example, why do we still have forms that ask us what our race is? Malay, Chinese, Indian or Other. (I think its redundant when you can usually tell by their name anyways) Then it is followed by a religion question – where every Malay is Muslim anyways (not that they have a choice). I think its so easy to throw around the idea of 1Malaysia, but the actual possibility to make it happen involves a little more than saying it. Especially, when we’re constantly reminded which category we’re supposed to fit in with.
Now, I think its time to listen to the other voices. I read the comments and see how people are proud to be Malaysian and even more proud that something like this has been achieved. Most of them are touched or affected by these films in many ways that transcend ethnicities. We are touched because we are human and we have emotions that make us frustrated, angry, upset, dissappointed, disturbed or even proud. We have to stop pointing out our differences and just enjoy our country together with the good and the bad! 😉
Back to the happy side of things, I had a fabulous time working with director Liew Seng Tat, Mark Teh -who played chicken and Adibah Noor. Although it was a small cameo in this film, it is a real honour to be part of a project as monumental as this! In my opinion, this is probably one of the funniest films of the lot! Love it or hate it? Tell me what you think!
**edit: I was reading some of the comments and I think some people who watch it don’t exactly understand the film as what it is. They are so focused on the little details and have obviously missed the mark of humour. Its a slap-stick comedy, not a serious interpretation of Halal meats. So unfortunately, it won’t exactly cover and highlight every single angle of cooking halal foods nor will it include every single race aside from Chinese Malay and Indian. Or else it wouldn’t be funny right?
Check out and download the film at www.15Malaysia.com/films/halal or www.ruumz.com/15malaysia.
*Satu Daging, Satu Malaysia = One Meat, One Malaysia
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