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GTKY people on Postcrossing forum came up with a brilliant idea of this GTKYVision, Eurovision-like mini song contest among us to nominate a song from your own country (in form of music-video link from YouTube) and all of us will go through every song and vote & give points to songs you like (except for the song you have nominated). Maybe I’ll put their songs later after I go through one by one (and maybe give comments for each ;P) but in the meantime I’d like to re-play in my mind again this last tune of Butterfingers, which I nominated as the entry for Malaysia. Yeh, as I’m practically the representative of Malaysia in GTKY thread :P

Why do I choose this song for GTKYvision?

1) It’s a Malay song.

2) It’s a song by Butterfingers.

3) It’s a Malay song by Butterfingers.

Enough said.

Oh wow suddenly the campus internet being so kind tonight and allows YouTube access :D So. The first videos I have been meaning to watch since a while are these from Baba Ali, which I got from Google reader feed a couple of weeks back telling he went to Hajj in last season! Who’s Baba Ali, you ask? He’s one of my favorite guys in this world! He makes many ‘reminder’ video series discussing various Islamic topics in his own way, and he’s damn funny :D With his tagline “this is Baba Ali reminding you just in case you forgot..” :) I have been following his videos on Ummah Film channel since a while and love them alot! Also the blog is here.

It had been long when he disappeared from making new videos and I was so giddy when recently there were new posts from Ummah Film blog and to know Baba Ali went to Hajj end of last year and I expect alot of things to hear and watch from his videos.

I can’t help but to share his videos here. Even though you can’t expect me to be interested in every religious talk but I know Hajj has been my favorite topic ever since I went there, which reason I myself can’t describe in words.

The photos and stories somehow remind me that I have left my own blog posts about Hajj pending since ages. Agh.

This is one of a few blog chapters about our recent short trip in Penang. Though living in USM Engineering campus far away from Penang city doesn’t help much in getting to know this Island of Pearl, as its nickname goes, so unlike my initial plan before I moved to the campus – which was to be able to go around Penang over the weekends – turned out to be so unpractical in reality, so finally I had to wait until the semester was over to go on a trip around Penang. Sigh. But anyway, let’s go to P.Ramlee’s house first :)

My dear friends outside Malaysia, I wouldn’t mind even if you don’t know who the hell Malaysia’s current Prime Minister is, but I would like you to at least know P.Ramlee by your heart, that he’s the legendary star of Malaysia, much like Elvis and The Beatles in the West, if not more. P.Ramlee is the biggest Malay film director in history, actor, song composer and singer in the 1940s to 1970s (though his films were mostly released in the 50s and 60s). He’s just amazing and probably nobody so far is able to achieve as far as he did (yup, if you must know, Malaysian films are getting sappier by decades lately, duh). He left this world to rest in peace since 1973, but his films are still being repeatedly played on TV at least once every week, and they will continue to be, for many of us can still manage to sit and enjoy P.Ramlee’s films despite it’s actually the 100th time we’ve watched the same film throughout our lives, and we still manage to have a good laugh at the same joke we’ve watched for the 100th time. It sounds like bluffing, but it’s true. That’s the magical values P.Ramlee had in his films to Malaysian people after generations, with among the loveliest melody of songs in each and every his film I can endlessly be amazed with. And to sum everything up, in fact to me he’s the most influential Malay figure ever existed in history (not Dr. Mahathir, sorry to disappoint you, Az). So now you know how important is this person I have the honor to blog about this time.

So to speak, I have loved P.Ramlee ever since I was a little child, and so have my family, we are all his big fans! :D Hence the visit to P.Ramlee’s birth house in Penang.

Yup, P.Ramlee was born in this house in 1929, and grew up in Penang until he moved to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to start his career in music and film industry. This birth house of him, now is a museum, together with another building that displays photos and belongings of P.Ramlee and an auditorium, is a complex administrated by the National Archives of Malaysia as a tribute to the legendary star. Though it’s not as big and glamorous, we were all excited to visit P.Ramlee here!

Some of his famous movie posters inside the exhibition building, and we’re not supposed to take pictures actually :P sorry, but I couldn’t help to get some to put in my blog.

My all time favorite “Ali Baba Bujang Lapok”, Malay version of the Ali Baba & 40 Thieves epic. I have seen this movie for 100000 times!

Framed portraits of P.Ramlee.

Cover of P.Ramlee’s song book published in 1959.

A postcard (!) sent by P.Ramlee to his wife Saloma in KL while in Singapore.

So the displays are mostly photos of significant events in P.Ramlee’s life in his music & film-making career. But there are also from his childhood life, and there’s even his primary school class attendance book being displayed!

Therefore if you come to Penang and feel like meeting this gorgeous actor, do visit his birth house-cum-museum located in P.Ramlee Road (of course, a road named after him, but it should be easily spotted in the city). Oh, and I did grab a few photo postcards of P.Ramlee.. let me know if you’d like one! :D

And to finish this chapter, enjoy this song clip taken from film Musang Berjanggut (1959, read synopsis, and watch on YouTube), which was on TV again last week, and I just LOVE this song.. and the conversation afterwards where the prince proposed to his lady, with the lovely ancient Malay style in expressing words by pantun (tehnically, it’s how to say a certain sentence by firstly saying another irrelevant-yet-poetic sentence so they would give rhymes). It’s just beautiful. I have no idea why people no longer speak with pantun :(

Hmm.. that’s how I call a perfect proposal :-) *dreaming away*