Went for early Qing Ming Festival…Hot and tired!

Currently it’s the Qing Ming month in Chinese lunar calendar, and it’s the tradition of many Chinese to pay a visit to graves of deceased ancestors and burn incense and joss sticks to them during the month. It is the tradition of my family too, to two destinations, first is my grandpa’s grave at Hokkien Cemetery, Cheras, and another one is my mom’s one at Nirvana Memorial Park, Semenyih.

We didn’t decide to go early because we are worried by traffic jam caused by more people going in early morning. So, the consequence is that there is no traffic jam at all which is good, but we are going to stand under the scorching heat from the sun in the afternoon for few hours. Umbrella is our best friend at the time. Going down to my grandpa’s grave is quite difficult with the need to climb down a steep slope. Ooppss…I accidentally stepped on an improper grave which I thought that it’s only an empty land there. Sorry for that…

Then, it’s quite a far journey from there to Nirvana Memorial Park, so called the world largest memorial park. It is huge, scenic and beautiful there, and so every plot of land on sale is very costly. It’s serious traffic congestion leading up to the park there, beginning with a temple for Dai Bak Gong and a long dragon sculpture, the icon of the park. As the park is very huge, we have to find the section where my mom’s grave is located. At last, found it! Mom, it’s me…Time to settle all those traditional works; preparing oranges, food, tea, white wine and burning joss sticks, red candles, and incense which includes many paper-made gold and a box of stuff like car, handphone, shirts, etc to my mom. It’s a bit not environmental-friendly but tradition has to be followed somehow.

Yes, finally finished all those stuff, and we have the time to look at the others, especially those with firecrackers explosion that caught our attention. It’s very hot under the bright sun and it’s time to leave. Ohh..it’s already over 2pm, and I just reached home and took bath at 4pm. My body and shirt is full of smell of ashes and even my hand is hurt by the falling hot ashes from joss sticks. More than half of the day is gone for this traditional thing. Luckily, it’s only once in a year.

Earth Hour 2011 update in Malaysia

Over 7 hours ago, the first city to organize this event, Earth Hour marked the beginning of another cycle of the event for the fifth year in 2011. It’s the major city of Australia, Sydney with famous structures such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge had their lights turned off for an hour between 8.30pm to 9.30pm on their local time.

Around 4 hours ago, it’s time for majority of Asian nations like China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and my country, Malaysia to take part for the global event. In Malaysia, specifically on the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, the famous world tallest twin buildings, the Petronas Twin Towers and KL Tower had their magnificent lighting turned off to support the event. Some other notable buildings in the city do joined the effort too. This is a picture from The Star Online that showed Kuala Lumpur before and during Earth Hour 2011.

As usual, many people around KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre) surrounding the Petronas Twin Towers will scream when the lights turned off of the twin buildings. Maybe it’s a form of excitement to them but I don’t think it is worth a scream. The facade lightings are only turned off…it is no big deal, right? Anyway, it is good to live up the atmosphere too. Maybe the foreigners would like this kind of situation; people screaming in darkness…haha…Petronas Twin Towers and KL Tower have their own different time version, and so they won’t coincide by switching off lights together at the same time. This is a video by gyeoblogspot.com showing the twin towers and the KL Tower turning off lights for Earth Hour 2011.

As soon as I stepped out from finished watching a movie in the cinema in Cheras Leisure Mall, I can’t see anything different in terms of lighting because it’s all over. The time is almost 10pm by that time I stepped out of the cinema. So, I can’t see any of those non-essential lights being turned off. I only realized that no plastic bags are given in purchase at GSC stall for the day and the lighting at the GSC counters is still closed even the time is already 10pm. Anyway, during the time of the Earth Hour, I’m in darkness too (in a cinema’s hall…haha) but the light is very bright from the movie screen ahead…haha

So, everyone has their own way of passing through the Earth Hour. Some would be going out with friends or family. Some would be having usual or unique dinner that time. Some would be dating or wondering around in KL streets or wherever possible. Some would rather stay at home alone, and some would be ignorant too by having all lights turned on as usual. It’s up to you, but please think again; why not support this global event! I believed many Malaysians are supporting this as I see very few people going for movies on Saturday night when is usually flooded with people. These people most probably celebrating Earth Hour somewhere else. That’s good…no need to queue at the GSC stall there…haha…

Earth Hour 2011 is still not over yet, for the west part of the world (America and Europe region). Few hours later, Earth Hour 2011 would be then over for the whole world. Then, we will continue supporting the event by participating for next year in 2012. Anyway, go beyond the hour in loving Earth!

2nd MY ASTRO Music Awards 2011…lack of attending singers and intense competition…

This is the award show beginning last year that replaced the annual drama awards by Astro Wah Lai Toi. Astro is now more oriented into music for recent years. The 2nd MY ASTRO Music Awards 2011 was just held and ended an hour ago in Arena of Stars, Genting Highlands, the place where I am in there last week for Sammi’s concert.

Too bad, I didn’t know how to get the free tickets to attend the awards show. It is aired live on Astro AEC channel as well as radio station MY FM. I did watched the last half of the show after finished watching a movie in cinema. There are way too much awards presented. There is actually to be exact a total list of twenty songs to be awarded the best 20, but at last, they picked 25 songs. They even mentioned out they are wishing for 30. Huh…how can there can be so many songs for the past year so deserving?!

The artists coming are in very few number and the organizers kept mentioning that there is a strong artists’ participation this year. I still think it is way not enough. There must be at least 20 international artists to join for this awards show. Since there are only very few and limited number of famous Taiwanese singers coming (notably Wang Lee Hom, Jolin Tsai, Fahrenheit, Ding Dang, etc), these singers grabbed a lot of awards respectively until they even feel bored of going to the stage again for another not-so-recognizable award.

The competition of who will win this award could not be felt as the winner is always expected, whom must be one of them sitting there, present on the awards show. It is not intense or exciting at all. For example, the last two major awards of best international Chinese male and female singers whom go to Lee Hom and Jolin are very much expected and predicted as they attended the show and they sat at the very first seats. The last major award, the gold artist award goes to Lee Hom, whom basically won it due to his fame especially on his latest song on his film of Love in Disguise which I liked the song too.

This awards show should be continued annually and won’t be having the same fate like the Astro Wah Lai Toi Drama Awards which had been terminated last year. Astro should be bringing up music industry of Malaysia to a higher level through awards show like this, which is recommended to be made on par with those music awards in Taiwan or Hong Kong with presence of more singers. Local Chinese singers should do their best too. As for film industry in Malaysia, there is still no hope at this time and for drama industry which depends solely on TVB cooperating with Astro on Demand currently, the new Astro on Demand awards should be made into a more grand show, something similar to TVB Awards Presentation.

As for this 2nd MY ASTRO Music Awards 2011, I didn’t see any of Hong Kong singers attending the show this time. I remembered for last year, many Hong Kong singers came. I think that they felt bored already by winning too many awards respectively without any sense of competition, and so they are all absence this time. More Taiwan singers attended this time, and it seems that they are facing the same issue; they would be scared of having their names called over and over again to receive numerous awards. Probably we will not be able to see them again next year…haha…So, whose left? Ahhh…those not-so-talented and infamous local singers who can’t make it to international level! Sorry for saying that but it’s true!

I won’t list down the results here. Check it yourself by just searching for it from google. It is very easy to do that. I wrote this post just to write down my opinion and comment on this awards show which can be said as being done successfully too. Congratz Eason Chan for winning the top award last year and Lee Hom for winning the top award for this year. It is still a stunning awards show by entertainment industry of Malaysian Chinese. This awards show is still young (only two years old). Next year have to be way lot better!

Movie review: Men Suddenly in Love (2011)

We spent the time during Earth Hour watching this movie, a comedy film by director Wong Jing, whom is famous in directing out-of-sense and crappy films (to be honest). However, I like many of his films as his main objective is just to create funny movies, and he did it quite successfully in almost all his films. I like funny movies and so I’m going for this one too.

Men Suddenly In Love is about five married men (one young and four middle-aged men) being tricked by their suspecting wives whom paid five women to seduce them. This movie is definitely for people aged 18 and above as there are too many, or I should say excessive amount of dirty or yellow-minded things going around in the film. Many of the humorous things from this film came from this source which is only for adults. Don’t think negatively…there is no exposure of explicit things in this film. All the things brought up to attention in this movie is only for entertainment purpose.

So, the story deals with 15 + 1 people. The 15 people are the five husbands, five wives and the five young women used to trick the husbands. The special one added is the old teacher of the 5 husbands who taught them on sex relationship between men and women. So, the story won’t go one-sided; it revolves from one character to another. Hence, it is interesting, as the style of the plot switched on from this to that.

This movie is not really that crappy or nonsense. The story is still logical, and the acting is satisfying by the main casts like Eric Tsang, Chapman To, Maggie Cheung, and even the director himself, Wong Jing. This movie is of course not for kids. Don’t think that middle-aged men can’t give us laughter! It is proven from this movie by their brilliant performance. Some scenes are quite lame…as predicted from a creation by Wong Jing. Out of 10 points, I gave this movie 6.9.