M A C V A Y S I A

I’m still tweaking a half-decent draft of my book (the one I wanted to finish a looooong time ago but instead seem to have been picking at bit by bit for well over three years now) but fret not dear readers, there’s already a book out with some of my writing in it. It’s called Down the Block and is available over at Lulu.

The editor of the book, Margaret Larkin, has been a reader of my blog for some time. The story of our acquaintance will be very interesting to anyone who remembers a post I wrote in reaction George W. Bush’s re-election back in 2004. Margaret took offense (it was a somewhat scathing post after all) and rallied some rather rabid Republicans via a forum or two. They came to my blog with their torches and pitchforks and left a slew of comments. I got a few emails as well, including a particularly venomous one from the editor of a NASCAR magazine. But somehow, Margaret and I became friends. Hey, if I can have friendly chats (and I do) with a very conservative blogger who passionately despises Obama (and says silly things like “We are at war with fanatical Muslims. So what do you do, do you elect a guy with a Muslim name? That’s ridiculous.”), I can be friends with someone less (I don’t want to be mean so you can insert your own adjective) who voted for Bush for her own reasons, right? She ain’t so bad. In fact, she’s a sweetie who shares my passion for writing and my interest in languages. It’s all good.

Anyway, Margaret wanted to publish a book about life in the city, and she thought it would be cool to get stories — fiction and/or non-fiction — from people she knows whose writing she likes. So she asked several bloggers, including me, to come up with pieces that revolve around the experience of living/being in a city. I retooled a couple of blog posts about my experiences in Guangzhou, China and put them together to make a piece I called Sods in the City. If you go to the Lulu site and click ‘Preview this book’ you can see a bit of my contribution to the anthology. You might also notice that the book’s foreword was written by Mary Beard, Cambridge professor and Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement (oh, and she’s also a blogger).

If it sounds interesting, go ahead and take a look. Can’t wait to read it myself. My copy’s in the mail, woo hoo!

If you’re in Malaysia and you like reading English magazines, there are some good options available. There’s Off the Edge, of course, which has established itself as the standard for magazines of its type in Malaysia. Then there’s a sparky up-and-comer called Tell. They’ve just published their eighth issue, featuring several stories about the recent disappearance and murder of Nurin Jazlin Jazimin. And there’s lots of other good stuff too.

In fact, if you look on page 123, you’ll see my picture, my name, and an article I wrote called ‘Calling All Expats’. It’s about the ‘the fine line between expats and foreign workers’ in Malaysia. I’m not posting the article here, so you’ll just have to go and buy the Nov-Dec issue of Tell if you want to read it!

Tell is produced by a great team, with interesting articles by Michelle Gunaselan (AKA Meesh), Adam Lee, and many other regular and occasional contributors (like fellow blogger Ahirudin Attan, AKA Rocky). The only big problem the magazine has is that it is in dire need of a good sub-editor. Mistakes in grammar and punctuation shouldn’t appear at all in a magazine of this quality, but I found a few groaners. It’s all good though; I’m sure they’ll be able to do something about that soon enough. Surely there are people out there who would just love to fill the post of sub-editor/writer and would consider an offer from Tell if they were asked. You know, out there. Somewhere.

Anyway, run out and buy a copy. It’s in all the good stores. Go on, get going.

Sharon Bakar wrote an interesting post about six-word stories a few months back and I meant to blog about it but never got around to it. That’s how lazy/busy/distracted I am: I never got around to writing six-word stories.

Actually, I did write a few. They’re on one of the computers at work and I’m too lazy/busy/distracted/[insert other excuse here] to get them. Just like I’m too lazy to link to any other sites and blog posts that feature interesting six-word stories (there are some, really).

So anyway, I can only remember one of the six-word stories I wrote, and here it is:

Marriage murdered. Cause of death: floccinaucinihilipilification.

If the pages were really, really small, that story would be a page-turner, eh?

I’ll try to think of more six-word stories. In the meantime, leave your own in the comments. Go on, don’t be shy.

Not sure if any of my Malaysian friends noticed, but a letter I wrote to the Star appeared in the paper the other day.

People often write letters to newspapers when something gets them all riled up. And there are so many things that I could get all riled up about these days, like my immigration woes, or Malaysian politics (don’t get me started on the Ijok by-election), or world politics, or Islam, or world politics AND Islam (they kind of go together these days), or things I see that annoy me, like how some Malay parents make their very young daughters wear headscarves (last night I saw a little covered head sticking out of a baby carriage; I mean come on people). Yup, so many things.

But if I want to write about those things, I’ll do it in my blog. So what was my letter about?

The subjunctive mood in English. Ooooh. Aaaah.

Okay, so that’s not as interesting as politics or religion or whatever. But I’m a bit of a language geek, so I find it interesting. So there.

Anyway, my letter was in response to one that someone had written wondering about the phrase ’till death do us part’. Fadzilah Amin, one of the language gurus at the Mind Our English column, wasn’t quite sure what to make of the phrase either and asked if any Christian readers would be able to shed some light on the matter. Here’s what I wrote:

I’m not a Christian, but I hope I can still provide an adequate answer to the questions posed by reader Zexabyte and Fadzilah Amin regarding the archaic phrase “till death do us part” (April 25), which is to this day used in many Christian marriage cermonies.

Fadzilah was right to point out that the phrase, which looks and sounds incorrect now, was at one time grammatically correct. It’s an example of the subjunctive, which is not really a tense but a mood. That is, it deals with intent, among other things, whereas tense deals with time.

According to its entry in Wikipedia (http://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood), the subjunctive mood “typically expresses wishes, commands (in subordinate clauses), emotion, possibility, judgement, necessity, and statements that are contrary to fact at present”.

The subjunctive is not as well known as the other two English moods: the indicative mood (which we use most of the time) and the imperative mood (used for giving commands).

Unlike in some other languages, notably Romance languages like French and Portuguese, the use of the subjunctive in English has declined over the years. However, it is still used in a wide variety of phrases, including “so be it”, “if I were you” and “God bless you”. These and several other examples can be found on the abovementioned Wikipedia page.

I hope this helps.

(Just in case you’re still awake, here’s a link to the letter.)

I don’t often write letters to newspapers, but a letter that appeared in the Star’s Mind Our English section last month was just screaming for a response.

Here’s the letter that got me in the mood to rant. And here’s my response.

I kept referring to the writer as ‘the writer’ in my letter simply because I wasn’t sure whether Cheah Teik Ee is a man or a woman. Apologies to him/her for that.

His/her letter was doomed right from the opening sentence:

USING a pronoun before a subject is named, is stupid.

Actually it’s not stupid. Know what is though? That comma. Heh. Well, to be fair to Cheah Teik Ee, I see that particular mistake often in Malaysian newspapers (at least in the Star and the NST), so I suppose he/she is no worse than some Malaysian journalists and editors in that respect. But that’s a rant for another day.

I know, I know. So many major world issues out there worthy of passionate letters to editors, and yet this is what I choose to write in about. Heh.

Thanks to Sashi for telling me my little rant had actually been published.

It might be a while (well, a week, maybe a few days) before I can update my blog. In the meantime, maybe you can click on over to Malaysiakini, where my second article has just appeared in Dina Zaman’s I Am Muslim column. This time I’m complaining about Muslim men in Malaysia who cheat on their wives. Nasty! The men I mean, not my article. I hope.

Anyway, go on over and take a look, and I’ll be back online soon enough.

If you drop by Rentakini, Malaysiakini’s lifestyle magazine, you’ll see that the latest article in Dina Zaman’s weekly column, I Am Muslim, was written by yours truly. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I suggest you start reading Rentakini regularly, as there’s a wealth of insightful articles by Dina Zaman, Idlan Zakaria, and others. Now with a little taste of MACVAYSIA!

This is my first time writing an article for a site other than my own blog, and I must say it’ll take some getting used to the lack of control that goes along with submitting my work to an editor who isn’t me. My last name is spelled with a small v at the top of the column (oh how I’ve always hated that…it’s a big V, people!), and some of my formatting was changed. But other than that I’m happy with the article. In fact, working with an editor isn’t all bad. My article isn’t the one I originally wrote, because the first one I submitted was rushed and the writing wasn’t really tight. Dina told me as much, so I reworked it and sent a shiny new version, which is what you’ll see in Dina’s column. Good editors help good writers turn out better work, and good writers trust good editors.

One thing that won’t take any getting used to: getting paid to write! Alas, I won’t really get a chance to get used to that anyway, since I’m only contributing two articles (the second should appear sometime in June). Still, for now I am thoroughly enjoying even the thought of it. Paid to write. Imagine that! It’s not much, but it’s still pretty cool.

The current article is about something I’ve written about in my blog before: the dirty looks and nasty comments Leen and I (and many couples like us) get from some people in Malaysia. Whether you’ve already read my take on that issue or not, do take a look at my article and let me know what you think. Thanks! And thanks to Dina for providing me with an opportunity to contribute a guest article or two to her column!