Guardians of Grail

cheapbag214s · Posted: Sat 12:22, 31 Aug 2013 Post subject: Alfian's Secret Wank Shed-spun1

Alfian's Secret Wank Shed
In the 80抯 and early 90抯, both Malay as well English programmes were screened on which ended up being referred to as Channel 5, and Mandarin and Tamil programmes on Channel 8. This was before both the Malay and Tamil programmes were later relocated towards the channel Prime 12 in 1995. These media enclaves were conclusively delineated when a dedicated Malay channel was established around 2000, called Suria. Thus, we'd three channels on what became known as the Television Corporation of Singapore, and then Mediacorp, each one catering exclusively to a certain language stream: Channel 5 for English programming, Channel 8 for Mandarin, and Suria Television for Malay. Tamil programming, however, had to share transmission space with Kids Central and Arts Central on the station referred to as Central. This reminder of the lack of clout of a numerical ethnic minority was somehow alleviated by designating a name, Vasantham Central, for the Tamil offerings, thus creating the impression of an autonomous pseudo-channel.
I believe mentioning this background is important because In my opinion that the ghettoisation of these television stations has led, inevitably, to a certain polarisation. Previously, one could glimpse traces from the Other, access the self-representations of a community, by watching a single channel.
A prime example of it was the show Mat Yoyo, later known as Aksi Mat Yoyo, a Malay children抯 programme which was screened in the mid-80抯 and which ran for 12 years. Many non-Malays I've spoken to consider this particular programme, for various reasons. Firstly, it was a programme featuring predominantly child performers, who were nurtured under a children抯 talent workshop known as the Bengkel Kanak-Kanak. These were often instructed about the finer points of singing, dancing, storytelling,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and often, modelling sponsors?clothes, like those from 2nd Chance or Cerisi. Secondly, for many of these non-Malay viewers, the show was some type of appetiser,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], before the main course of the English cartoon that was screened at the 6:30 time slot. Thirdly, handful of them could your investment main protagonists of the show, mainly a set of cats who were known as Yoyo and Yaya.
Yoyo was played with a Malay child actor who was dressed up in a cat costume, complete with a headdress with ears, as well as shoes and gloves in the shape of paws. He also wore suspenders. Yaya,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], his female counterpart, wore a skirt instead of pants. Both of them had their faces painted with greasepaint: the noses would be blackened, whiskers etched in, the philtrum of the maxilla would be exaggerated, and many interestingly, black rings would encircle their eyes, which made them look a lot more like raccoons than cats.
There was also an adult presenter on the program, called Mat Sentul, who wore a fez. It was never clear to me the connection between Mat Sentul and also the two cats. I had been unsure whether they were his pets, or whether he treated them like his own children. The very concept of this ambiguous relationship is triggered, of course through the perception of humans dressing as cats. I wonder what it was that I saw inside them through my primary school eyes. How does a young child connect with anthropomorphic representations? Did they seem analogous to cartoon characters, the kind of Donald duck and Donald Duck? So why do I sometimes wonder why Donald Duck wears a cap, a top but not pants, his little duck tail wagging almost obscenely? What semiotic registers are operating in such instances?
Perhaps probably the most arresting questions that strike me today, while reminiscing about Mat Yoyo, is: do animals have ethnicities? There are cats, for example, whose given breed names carry loaded ethnic as well as nationalist connotations: offhand I can suppose the Persian, the Burmese, Balinese, Bengal, the Egyptian Mau. They are all ripe for many very essentialist tropes. However these are merely names that also might describe the cats?habitats and places of origin. The desire for anthropomorphic violence is greater if you have human beings, with very definite ethnic markings (from the language they will use, for instance), wearing animal costumes. I am wondering how much of the animal hide interacts with the melanised human skin; resulting in a conflation of identities. Maybe I can summarize my space of inquiry with a simple question with a non-Malay friend of mine: what exactly is it with Malays and cats?
Back to Aksi Mat Yoyo. I've mentioned our skin, your pet pelt, but a third layer ought to be recognised as well: the costumes worn by Yaya and Yoyo.
I remember very distinctly the material used for the cats?costumes. For Yoyo, it was a type of tartan design, which I associated with bolster casings. For Yaya, a kind of kitschy batik in rumpled brown, which I associated with tablecloths in dimly-lit one-room flats. In the two cases, I'd the distinct impression the materials was poor, probably scavenged from second-hand castaways. Somehow,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], this filled me having a certain sense of shame. They were working-class rags that somehow betrayed your skin that may have been masked by the costumes. It made me wonder if these cats might have worn fancier costumes if they weren't played by Malay actors. And then, a slippage: if these weren抰 Malay cats, they could have experienced more classy attire: perhaps a Donald Duck sailor suit, or a Minnie Mouse frock. In trying to indicate some extent of cultural inflection on the cats, the show抯 producers had inadvertently exposed the demographic stereotype from the Malay in Singapore: rooted within the working-class, whose aspirations for the prevailing capitalist-oriented economy are often marked on fabric: elaborate and garish designs on ultimately cheap cloth.
But to the question: what exactly is it with Malays and cats? Why did Aksi Mat Yoyo choose this specific animal, even if they were not aware of the way it could represent a specific community on the predominantly English channel? To begin with, we抣l need to examine the animals which are taboo to Malays, most of whom are Muslims. These would be the pig and the dog. According to Islamic jurisprudence, connection with either animal is haram, or forbidden. Greater leeway is offered to make contact with with dogs; for example some hadiths declare that a dog could be touched if it is dry, or if its muzzle is avoided,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and that it may be used to guard one抯 house. However, most Muslims err along the side of caution and steer clear of dogs entirely. Given the injunctions against contact to these animals, it would not be surprising to note that a couple of the worst insults in the Malay language are 慴abi?and 慳njing? which respectively make reference to the pig and the dog.
Secondly, even while there are many animals that come in Malay folk tales, most notably a button deer and also the tiger, I suspect these were regarded as too exotic for the urban viewer. Furthermore,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the arena of folk tales appeared to connote a residential area steeped both in superstition and nostalgia. In my opinion it was vital that the chosen animal was one that was visible in an urban space, perhaps to counter the invisibility of a community on television spaces. The animal could thus be harnessed like a signifier of presence.
Thirdly,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and more importantly, the kitty is the pet of choice for a lot of Malays. I am not ignoring those who keep songbirds, aquatic organisms, along with other animals. But when it comes to keeping a little mammal quadruped,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the first is left with the choice from a cat or a dog. However the choice is not only a matter of default, one which has arisen from an ultimatum. There is a traditional folk story, possibly apocryphal, which described the Prophet Muhammad抯 affection for cats. Apparently, one day, his favourite cat, Muezza, went to sleep in the sleeve of his robe. Careful not to wake the kitty, the Prophet stop his sleeve so they won't disturb the cat抯 rest, and proceeded to do ablutions for his prayers. It's interesting in my experience that the parable demonstrating the Prophet抯 compassion for another living creature has been interpreted as the elevation from the status of the cat in the Muslim world. However, this is not surprising in places where Islamic exegesis has been founded on notions of authenticity and a Utopian past, in which the actions and words of the Prophet are taken as the prototype of ideal behaviour. Some instances of this anxiety to reproduce this prelapsarian state, based on literal mimicry rather than adherence in principle, would include the keeping of beards and the wearing of Middle Eastern robes.
So, in answering the question 憌hat is it with Malays and cats? we enter a field where one begins to admit the potential of a racialised discourse. The kitty turns into a signifier of race, but an unsound one, susceptible to contestations and counter-claims. Many of these significations actually arise from a particular dialectic: whenever we ask what it is about Malays and cats, we have to address the question: what exactly is it about Malays and dogs?
The polarities between both of these animals have often been made analogous using the polarities between two races: the Malays and also the Chinese. Here I抣l rehearse a few of the tropes that come from the identification of the Malay community with cats, attempting to locate specific strategies of empowerment, resistance and self-definition.
One of the qualities from the cat, much valorised by the Malays, is its cleanliness. The use of the tongue being an instrument for self-purification marks the cat as an animal that isn't only fastidious, but almost neurotic about hygiene. In positive self-representations of themselves, Malay-Muslims often make reference to their tendencies for private sanitation, claims that sometimes borders on chauvinism. The pious perform ablutions before their prayers, the clearing of the waste orifice is by water and never toilet paper, and the myth persists that individuals of other races don't take showers each morning, despite residing in a humid environment (this latter stereotype also compounds the status of the non-Malay Other as the immigrant settler who has yet to acclimatise himself towards the tropical colonised). The dog, on the other hand, displays diametric traits梔ischarging its faeces on pavements,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], sniffing all of them with scatophiliac curiosity, peeing on posts using the uncouth gesture of the raised hind leg. For that cat: hygiene, discretion, privacy. When it comes to dog: filth, gaucheness, and disrespect of public spaces.
As I have mentioned, attributing a pet with certain racialised qualities often invites contrary readings. Your dog, compared to the cat, is considered to be a more intelligent animal. It may be taught to do tricks, to obey instructions, to respond to its master抯 voice and presence. It is considered loyal, where the cat is temperamental. The dog抯 stable affiliations are contrasted against the cat抯 mercenary unpredictability. When one proposes significations such as these, the cat as effigy becomes disabling: we're reminded of certain stereotypes with very real ramifications. The marginality of the Malay community in Singapore is usually described as because of the disability to adapt towards the demands of a Confucianist state. Dogs would make the most perfect Confucianist citizens because of their instinctive tendency to imprint on another party the status of a pack leader, to whom your dog offers unquestioning obedience. On the other hand, cats,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], by nature solitary and independent, represent the feral elements of society which require rehabilitation and institutional correction.
Similarly, the cat抯 inability to recognise a master is evoked within the discourse on Malay loyalty in the army; Malays are viewed to find themselves in conflicted positions when confronted with the scenario of the war with neighbouring Malay-Muslim states. The cat抯 obdurate refusal to be tamed also echoes the anxieties from the State in 慽ntegrating?Malays into the remainder of Singaporean society, a prescription that's often pro-assimilationist in tone. When such equivalences between the feline and also the Malay reach a state of inextricability, I'm reminded from the uproar once the Housing Development Board decreed that it would be illegal for cats to become kept as household pets. A policy was explained certain quarters as 憆acist? On the surface level, the policy appeared to privilege dog-ownership, and hence the default those who own dogs, namely, non-Malays. However, on the deeper level, grim resonances were evoked: from the State抯 various resettlement policies (such as the de-settlement from the Malay-dominated Southern Islands) and forced housing quotas (depending on race, where Malays are not allowed to occupy more than 15% of a block抯 units). These policies, as have often been argued, were instrumental in eroding the electoral clout of the Malay community in Singapore by depriving them of the viable voting bloc.
Of course, the polarities between dogs and cats also take a regrettable turn when media images perpetuate the fact that these two animals are natural enemies. By simply watching cartoons, it is possible to conclude that mice eat cheese, elephants have a phobia of mice, and cats and dogs are constantly attempting to outwit each other. In this instance the danger doesn't so much lie in losing charge of a spectrum of significations, as demonstrated above, where it is obvious how these significations is often appropriated in the service of certain agendas. The risk here's in designating two identities (racial and animal) as not just being irreconcilable, however in perpetual antagonism. The violence in this case isn't simply those of an epistemic arrest, or of anthropomorphic fantasy. The spectre of 憂atural?conflict has got the possibility to spill over into real, assault. A picture lingers: that of ex- Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim appearing in public after his arrest, having a bruised left eye. Yoyo and Yaya came to mind, their black eyes staring at me from the past. The problems for Anwar was sustained throughout his incarceration; the blow was administered by former Inspector-General of the Police, Tan Sri Rahim Noor. What triggered this outburst of violence was when a seething Anwar first saw Rahim and remarked, 慽ni dia, bapa anjing挆慼ere he's, the father of the dog?
相关的主题文章：

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

http://www.nortriptylinepztbm.fora.pl/jason-clutched-featuring-brand-hand-coming-you-seduced-shoulders-tightened-politics,1/handbag-repair-spun5,5349.html#5357

http://www.ragaming.fora.pl/join-us,19/national-geographic-ultimate-city-guides-spun4,12640.html#12922

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

http://www.nifedipinerbzzp.fora.pl/most-often-metformin-hci-1000-mg-augmentin-generic-equipment,1/000-people-wrong-drugs,17797.html#18035

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

http://www.benicarfnmql.fora.pl/when-dinner-base-of-coumadin-drugs-strong-hands-coreg-and-slow-heart-beat-reached-bloody-wrestler,1/com-handpicks-the-merchandise-it-sells-spun3,5278.html#5290

http://www.hardpartyprodss.fora.pl/hard-party-production,3/luxury-shoes-that-don-t-cost-the-earth-spun2,5958.html#5996

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

http://www.semper.fora.pl/public-questions-to-our-ally,1/10-diy-boots-and-slippers-you-can-make-spun3,5059.html#6731

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

http://www.xanaxnoprescription.fora.pl/forum-testowe,1/the-most-functional-and-trendy-components-for-girl,6015.html#6047

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

http://www.miralaxhffwz.fora.pl/raina-propped-why-lsd-stays-in-the-body-cradled-the-hey-mean-addiction-recovery-forum-adderall-addiction-wisdom,1/a-few-good-men-spun1,15008.html#15198

http://www.luntacunt.fora.pl/genre,1/looking-for-shoes-spun3,13582.html#13916