Wayang Kulit (Puppetry) and the Philharmonic Orchestra

0 comments Published by Mel on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 2:42 PM

Wayang Kulit or Shadow Puppetry

Malaysia decided to put together a very weird combination. They integrated the traditional Wayang Kulit (Shadow Puppetry) with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. They were very proud of their achievement. But to be honest, it was one of the worst performances that I have ever attended.

When Hinduism came to the Islands of Java (Indonesia) and eventually to Peninsular Malaysia, its myths and beliefs were spread through folktale and stories. The spread of the religion through stories from Hindu books and epics eventually evolved into a song and story-telling theatre together with the beating of drums and Wayang Kulit was born. Here, audiences are entertained with stories mostly from Mahabhrata Ramayana. The Wayang Kulit is an absolutely beautiful synergy of Hinduism and Indonesian/Malaysian culture.
A few days ago, Malaysians ruined it by combining it with the philharmonic orchestra.

MPO

I'm sure they thought it was a great idea.
The trouble was that the rough voice of the puppet master and his tunes were very out of synch with the humming of the cello and twanging of the violin. The theatre hymns were obviously influenced from Indian and Indonesian culture, and the stories were told in a rough and excited Kelantanese dialect. The traditional musical instruments used by the puppet master were drums and wind instruments that sounded very off-key when played together with flutes, violins and harps.
The resulting effort was nothing more than noise. Awful noise, I might add. Drums that don't match, violin that robbed the beauty of the singing and turning it into the awful yowling of a cat, story-telling that made the cello the most stupid-sounding instrument in the world..and the list goes on. The Wayang Kulit itself morphed into nothing more than an annoyance, and all the orchestra music sounded worse than my 8-year-old cousin on the piano (he has never taken classes...so you can only imagine what I have to put up with every time he comes for a visit).

The worst thing is that MPO was arrogant enough to put their entire orchestra IN FRONT of the small white screen where the Wayang Kulit was shown, so our show was partially occluded by the heads of the violinists and the rearend of the conductor. I was sorely tempted to remove my stilettos and hurl it with all my might at the conductor's head. Why in the world would they think we rather watch the conductor's behind than the screen where the Wayang Kulit was showing? Insanity perhaps? Or plain arrogance? Or did they think the conductor beared some sort of a resemblance to Brad Pitt?

Thankfully the ordeal ended in 20 minutes followed by an intermission. After the short break, the orchestra played some good music (without the Wayang Kulit, Thank the Lord!). Unfortunately, the botched Wayang Kulit show was still fresh in everyone's mind, causing the applause at the end to be rather half-hearted. I think everyone else, like me, was still too traumatised by the earlier performance to remember to clap their hands.
Never again. Unesco would have pulled back their Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity award (given to Wayang Kulit on 7 November 2003) if this was their first and only experience of the art. Absolutely Dreadful.

Posted by Mel  

Thursday Birthday and Sunday Shopping

0 comments Published by Mel on Sunday, September 09, 2007 at 11:55 PM

It was Daddy's birthday last Thursday, 6 September 2007. We bought a teeny weeny little round chocolate mint cake that is just enough for one. Since Chow and Mom doesn't eat cake, we needed something that can be finished by 2 people. The cake was really cute and Daddy loved it. We gave him a year's supply of chocolate for his birthday :) Mom got Daddy a really special birthday present: a 2 week pilgramage to Jerusalem and Egypt. Dad was absolutely delighted with the present, which is really meaningful for him because of all the religious study he has been doing in tha pats 2 years!!!!

Sunday was a pretty special day. Clinique had some sort of makeup event whereby you get a free makeover. The makeup consultants will also give some makeup know-hows and participants will get to take home 2 free gifts: an eye cream and a lip gloss. Since the makeup, consultance and gifts were absolutely free I made an appointment for myself and Mom.

We had Daddy dropped us off at 3pm in Mid Valley Mall, and made our way to the Clinique show stand. It was set up in the North Court. There, we were ushered to our seats and had our makeup consultants work on us. My consultant wanted to know what was the eye shadow colour that I normally used. Hearing that I normally apply browns, nudes or pinks, she suggested that I try something new: Purple. I was a little apprehensive, but I tried it anyway just to humour her.

We spent 15 minutes. She applied makeup on half my face, and I was to apply on the other half under her instructions. Step-by-step, I learnt how to contour my eyes, use eye-liner and blusher and basically learnt all the things I that I had been doing so far, were wrong. Fantastic.

After our makeup was done, Mom and I took a brief picture and went to collect our free gifts. We were pretty happy with getting something for nothing!!!

Pretty gals?

Free eye cream and lip gloss for us!!

We shopped for a little while more, and then stopped at Dome cafe for some coffee and tidbits while waiting for Daddy to pick us up.


Tea time at Dome

We went home for dinner. I ate sparingly because I had too much for tea time: Chocolate Espreski with Milk Chocolate CHUNKS in it! And some garlic bread. Mom was spoiling me! I am definitely putting on weight again!! Hurray!! Needless to say, I was too full to actually eat much for dinner after that!
I gave Chow a facial while watching CSI: NY. We started with apricot facial cleanser, followed by tea tree scrub to exfoliate his very rough skin. Then I applied a 2 minute herbal mask to improve the moisture level in his very dry skin. After the wash, I gave him a pampering 15 minute facial massage using some massage oil from San Francisco. He almost fell asleep!! The massage is supposed to help with the blood circulation and detoxify his face. Then I applied another mask, this time for pore cleansing, and left it on for 10 minutes. Finally, I applied eye cream, lotion and moisturiser. His was was really glowing after that! It was such a HUGE difference. He had smooth, moist skin and looked 5 years younger!
It was a nice weekend :D

Posted by Mel  

Trip to New Zealand

0 comments Published by Mel on Thursday, September 06, 2007 at 4:18 PM

Palmerston North, New Zealand


Ye Chow and I had our research paper to the sensor technology conference in New Zealand accepted. So in November this year, he will be giving a talk on multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function states observer in Palmerston North. He will be stopping by Melbourne first for work and visiting his sis.





I had hoped to travel with him to Melbourne and then to NZ, AND have a great holiday with him in NZ. It would also have been good to see Subhas, Sunil and Serge again (who will all be there) but this will not be possible.





This is because our other research paper to a separate conference held at exactly the same time in a completely different country was ALSO accepted, which means I have to be the presenter for the other one since Ye Chow can't be in 2 places at the same time!

So it looks like he will be enjoying the beautiful scenery in NZ while I will be facing crowds in a busy city. There goes my "dream" of a holiday.

Posted by Mel  

My dumpling bed and goose feather pillows

0 comments Published by Mel on Monday, September 03, 2007 at 11:18 PM

I am a self confessed klutz. I bump into just about anything. I have fallen down the staircase so many times that you would think I never really learnt to walk when I was a child. I still walk into the door on the occasional mornings when my eyes refuse to open. I have brushed my teeth with facial wash by accident before. More painful is the fact that I have smashed my toes against the side of the bed, through the opening and closing of doors, on chair legs and on closet doors more times that I can count. As a result, my legs and toes are almost always bruised at some spot or other.

Yes, I am a klutz. It's true. If there were a support group for clumsy people, I should probably sign up immediately.

Seeing that I am perpetually clumsy, Ye Chow talked me out of purchasing a four poster bed. I had my heart set on one, I always wanted a four poster bed!!! I want one!!!! But he kept reminding me that even without a post, I have been smashing my toes. If we had FOUR posts on our bed, I might lose a leg.

So we opted for the safest choice: A dumpling bed. The bed is white, and completely puffed up. The divan is a huge flat square surface to protect the mattress (which is very expensive - we got a good one coz we have been sleeping on crappy ones since we got married and our backs are killing us) . The sides of the bed are puffed up and bouncy, so that if I walk into the side, I will get no bruises. And head board is also puffed up and bouncy so that we can sit and read in bed very comfortably. Yes. It's a dumpling bed!

So I exchanged my luxurious 4 poster bed for a childish looking dumpling bed. But you know what? I really like the dumpling. A lot! It's great, it's comfy and it doesn't bruise me! More importantly, we got a couple of nice gifts to go with our bed. We got (for free) a nice 2 seater foot stool for the foot of the bed, and a couple of goose feather pillows! They are really comfortable!!!! Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to try out the bed and pillows and foot stool. That's coz I haven't moved into my new house yet. Apparently it's bad luck to move during the ghost month (which is now) and very good luck to move in after the ghost month (which is the 8 month in the Chinese calendar). So we're still waiting to enjoy our new house and our new bed.

So there you go. A klutz gets a dumpling bed. A princess gets a 4 poster bed. Guess which one I am?

Posted by Mel  

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