The Mystical Steppes

First you taste the food, then you see the dances and hear their songs. What timing, I got an overdose of sight and sound of XinJiang culture last night at the plenary hall of the KL Convention Center. Save for the wriggily hips of the Arabian dance at the start, the rest was a saturation of colours, movements, festivities, melon harvests, tasting melons, and songs of the vast steppes. And I gather the steppes must be really vast for them to shout or sing so loud.It is also a melting pot of diverse cultures as XinJIang in the North West of China shares the border with Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,Afghanistan, and Pakistan. 47 ethnic groups in total. Not only the food taste so middle eastern, the dances and dancers have middle eastern roots although they all are unified by the single language of Mandarin. I must have dreamt in full colour that night. Mystical indeed.

Ming Ren

Was at Genting as usual last weekend in my leathers but this time for a food sampling session at a place that exhorts flavours of China's new frontier - Xin Jiang. The relocated and refurbished lamb specialty restaurant has a modern contemporary new look but even better, the location is unassailable for high traffic. It's when you turn the corner of good friends restaurant from either side. The soup called 'Catch a lamb' is highly recommended as it can virtually 'put hair on your chest'. simply because the lamb is imported from the steppes of western China (lots of happy grazing grounds makes very healthy, happy lamb) as are the spices used in the next dish, barbequed ribs. It has very strong middle eastern flavours in most its offerings. Exotic new tastes indeed from new frontiers bordering Mongolia. Ming Ren is the name of the restaurant which literally means "famous people". Well, I think there were a few famous ones spotted there last Sunday.

Hideo Kojima

Stumbled upon one of my heroes on digg.com
The king of stealth based games. The creator of Metal Gear Solid, the only PlayStation game I immerse myself into. It is a RPG that can form a deep emotional link with the gamer. Mr Kojima understands brand building very well or he just simply has the honest to goodness streak to design one of the best damn video games around that is enjoyed by many and has since created a cult following among hard core gamers.
Most geniuses are also natural brand builders.

Wikipedia puts justification to my point;

"His trademark style is to address and approach a multitude of important, large issues and aspects of human life in a philosophical, verbose fashion. He also is sometimes interpreted as one of the few postmodern game designers; the Metal Gear series contains magical realism and often breaks the fourth wall. His love of movies is also noticeable in his games, where he pays homage through his stories and characters, often to the point of pastiche. He is also well known for a quirky and somewhat irreverent sense of humor, and his frequently disarming and powerful plot twists".

The large issues he addresses are mainly; nuclear proliferation and genetic engineering.
He talks about his latest MGS4 in this interview here

Stuck

Summer queried me today: "Papa, why don't you post something new in your blog?"
She drew a blank look from me and I slowly reply; " I don't know what to write darling"

And it's not that I'm not trying, my blog dashboard is full of drafts and they might as well be in the trash.

I might as well admit it. I'm stuck.

Change before you're forced to.

My dear old friend Dato' Junid sends me just about everything under the sun and I love it. He has got to be the most switched on , if not the most well connected person I know. Some days ago, a piece he sent very timely coincided with my thoughts and I think it's time I give it some air. Not only is it timely but very appropriate depiction of things to come as we progress on the journey of life. What do you think?

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Wow. Never knew I could post from flickr. Now I do. Well as they say; it's a fancy photo sharing thing. Try it. It works.

Hujan DiTengah Hari

I first heard 'Hujan ditengah hari' when PRamlee sang it god knows how long ago. When I heard it again, it was last September at KLPAC right after the second staging of Dramalab's first play,"Gold Rain and Hailstones" held after thirteen years. We were also there at the first staging of the play with the same original players- Jit Murad and Lin Jaafar. This song came on just after curtains at the last performance of the season .
The richness of voice and appropriateness of the lyrics to the play was a fitting finale to round off a most enjoyable evening and it overwhelmed me. I had wondered if they had remastered the P Ramlee song. I never got to find out who the singer was, that night. But I had an inkling that Sean Ghazi could be involved. So Christmas came and on my wish list was Sean Ghazi's new album, Semalam. Ann & Hanim's Xmas present to me was the album, who quite appropriately was also our host at the play.
From the first track onwards, the album is pure 24K gold. Throughout hi-tea on Christmas day with our closest and dearest, everyone had no choice but to listen to my favourite Christmas present. And they agreed it was sheer delight. I especially liked it because it rekindled my love for the beauty of the Malay language, especially when it comes to love songs. And Sean, is a Malaysian a long time coming, to take up the slack left for too long by the late great PRamlee who doesn't even sing in English. Sean comes with very accomplished credentials having played Broadway and West End theatres. He appeared in Miss Saigon, stage and screen appearances for The King and I.
Zane's especially obsessed with the album being the romantic that he is, Summer's ok but Mum's getting overdosed on his songs. And I? I just like the big band, jazz treatment he has given to some of the best Malay classics available. Semalam is sheer pleasure.
Go take a listen here Semalam