The Day The Interpol Comes A-calling

by Jackson Sawatan on August 10, 2009

My heart skipped a beat when the caller — a Gobala something — introduced himself as someone representing Interpol Singapore. He went on reading out my residential address and asked where exactly the place was.

“Excuse me, who are you, again?” I asked him.

“I am…” he mentioned the Gobala something and said that he was “representing Interpol Singapore. I got your number from them. They gave me several, I tried this one and you pick it up. May I know where this place is?” he said.

“You mean Interpol? As in International Police?”

“The line is not good sir. It’s about movement of goods,” the man said and asked that he be excused and that he would call again in 30 minutes.

I could feel the blood leaving my face and my mouth drying up. I could see it coming — in 30 minutes the guy would come by the front gate, ask that it be opened, whip out his ID and read out my rights to remain silence and whisk me away in an unmarked Pajero, back to Singapore to face prosecution for an offence I had no idea about. At least, not yet.

If it had come to the Interpol, it must be something really serious. I’d be screwed.

I could almost see the title on the inside pages of tomorrow’s newspapers, “Man arrested for something something” and then the Singapore media would have a field day reporting about how the Interpol tracked a Malaysian man who once worked in Singapore, and brought him back to the island state to face charges of bla bla bla.

I could see my life crumbling, my years of hard work vanishing in an unfashionable manner. And most of all, I could feel the world crashing around me.

This would be it — I told myself — this would be it, the hardest of all falls, one that would be impossible to get up from.

What had I done wrong? What illegal goods had I transported into Singapore and why it must be the Interpol? Did he meant physical goods? If that was the case, then there must be a mistake. Someone must have had used my name illegally to implement whatever evil plans they had.

And then, a little over 30 minutes later, the phone vibrated in my side pocket. I took it out and looked at the number.

It was him. The Gobala guy. It was really him. I took a deep breath, punch the answer button and brought the phone to my ear.

“Hello…”

****

I could keep on telling the story in many ways but I guess you could only stretch your creativity so much in your sleepy state. So let me end the story not with a bang, but with a small pop.

It was Interport, not Interpol. The call was from Interport, the mover agency handling the transportation of my goods from Singapore to KL. My confusion stemmed from the fact that the items were packed from our rented apartment in Singapore by a mover company with a different name.

I guess the two companies had some form of collaboration.

Their representative in Malaysia came a couple of days later to deliver the goods from Singapore — in 36 boxes altogether. They were intact and delivered in an efficient manner. I would recommend them anytime.

So that was it. As you can see, the power of assumption can be quite overwhelming.

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Me and the Ghost of Cheras

by Jackson Sawatan on March 11, 2009

I HAD THE the feeling there was something wrong with the intermediate double-storey terrace house which the agent showed me a week after we — me and the family — arrived in KL from Singapore in November 2007.

For one thing, even in the guise of the fresh paint, the house had all the tell-tale signs of a prolonged disuse, like an old barn abandoned in the woods.

I reckoned that it might have been more than a year — could have been more than a decade for all I know — since the last occupants walked out of the rusty gate, with its tar-like paint flecking in the sun like dead skin.

Yet, for another, I could feel that something had remained there, taking refuge in the darkened corners of the house, perhaps it had even invited some other beings to share the empty rooms with.

Come in, we won’t hurt you

The fresh paint didn’t look inviting; but I could feel the house — the things in the house, whatever they were — waving at us, urging us to go in and why not just have a look, because we might like it…

Come in, come in, we won’t hurt you, I could almost hear them whispering under the window inside. We haven’t had blood for more than a year — it might have been more than a decade for all we know — and to tell you the truth, quite honestly our dear Jackson man, we have almost forgotten the taste. Come in!

You see, I had a very strong feeling that the house was haunted.

The agent, he’s a real-estate negotiator, his business card said — big deal, his business card did not say — the agent did not say anything about the house, except that the owner wanted it rent out for RM600 a month.

“Two plus one, half-month utilities, 15 per cent stamp duty,” he said, spewing out the terms of the rent in quick succession in a manner only real-estate negotiators could have spewed.

He repeated the terms moments later when he noticed the puzzled expression on my face, this time very slowly, complete with addendum and further explanation as per necessary as though I was a slow learner.

***

IT WAS THE school that sealed the deal. If not for the school, which is located within walking distance from the house, we wouldn’t have ended up renting it, not when among the first few items we found in the house was a worn-out long-sleeved Polo shirt lying on the floor with spots that looked like blood stains.

I could only imagine what might have happened here. This house had stories but no one was telling, not even the landlord, the real estate negotiator or the neighbours. Yet I could sense a presence even in the broad daylight.

Desperate for a house

By that time, we had already been putting up at a hotel for over a week and we desperately needed to find a house. My meagre fund was dwindling fast and besides, I would have to report for work soon.

So on Nov 30, we sealed the deal — me, the real-estate negotiator and the landlord — and the day after, we came to clean the house.

On Dec 1, we moved in and on the same day bought our first few possessions — two mattresses, a wardrobe, a fridge, a washing machine, two cooking gas tanks and a cheap stove.

We hadn’t done cleaning the upper floor; so, during the first few days we were in, we slept in the living room while the ghosts, seeing that we had claimed a place there, decided to move upstairs.

We lived in peaceful co-existence during the period. We kind of more or less agreed to stay within our defined territories — us in the living room, them upstairs. You don’t encroach into ours, I don’t encroach into yours, just remember that, Jackson man!

***

BUT I DON’T make deal with ghosts; so on the second week, we claimed the upstairs as well.

By that time we had bought almost all the basic items we needed to function and make the house our home. The ghosts would have to go. The house was ours now.

Fast forward to present-day, even now, over a year later, I could still feel their presence though not as strong as before.

Sometime when I am alone in the living room late at night reading blogs and browsing the Internet, I could feel the homeless ghosts coming near and often times, they would come real close and look over my shoulder, perhaps to see what was it that I was doing or what on earth was that  foldable book of spell that I was playing with.

“This is called a laptop computer, you silly ghost, not some book of spell… and I am browsing the Internet if you know what I mean. I bet you don’t have these things in your world, huh?”

I said that once, under my breath. But if my little joke had been funny, I had no way of telling if the ghosts were laughing.

[NOTE: this entry is from my old blog over at Blogspot, written on December 18, 2007 with some updates and editing]

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“Fatherland” by Robert Harris

by Jackson Sawatan on February 24, 2009

In 2002, a friend returning from a trip abroad asked me if I wanted anything from the country he was visiting — a magazine or something, he said.

I told him that that wasn’t necessary but if he insisted, a book would do. At that time, I had just started to pick up reading as a hobby and books are not cheap. He told me he knew nothing about books but he would grab one anyway.

Returning a favour

I guess he was just returning a favour for having bugged me with long distance calls asking about political development back home whenever he was abroad.

My friend is not a politician but he love to talk about politics. Even now whenever he is overseas, he will call or text message me about the latest happenings back home.

Sometimes he would call just to say he had read something about Malaysia in newspapers in the country he was visiting.

As usual he would ask for my opinion. “Reporters know a lot of inside stories,” he would say.

There’s something about Fatherland

Coming back to that particular trip in 2002, he returned home a couple of days later, invited me for a coffee and handed me five books, one of them was “Fatherland” by Robert Harris. “These are cheap books, that’s why I bought five altogether. I got it from a bargain store,” he said.

Of course, the conversation soon shifted to politics. Vintage him.

It took me nearly a year to finish reading all five. Fatherland was unusually compelling that it left an impression on me till this day despite the fact that I could no longer recall what the book was all about except that it had something to do with Nazi and Germany.

But there are other things about Fatherland — things that made my stomach churn when I read them at that time.

So, yesterday, I rummaged into the heap of paper boxes containing my personal library and found the book buried deep below. I plan to re-read it; I really want to know what were the stomach-churning tales that Harris had weaved into the pages of Fatherland.

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Random Photo: Morning Jog

by Jackson Sawatan on January 24, 2009

I find it ironic that most people who jog at sunrise are those already in their sunset — old people panting and sweating in the dying dawn.

Old people jogging

This old man (picture, below) is not jogging; he is just walking, in slow, excruciating strides. He could very well be me a couple of decades in the future… if I live as long as he, that is.

Old people jogging

I’ll be joining them soon; doing the morning jog, I mean. Wonder how it feels to be jogging among old people.

morning joggers

It will definitely make me feel a lot less old, that is for sure. Even then, I know. No matter how hard we try, we cannot win this one war against a formidable and unstoppable foe — age.

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On A Two-Week Leave

by Jackson Sawatan on December 21, 2008

I am taking a two-week leave starting tomorrow to go back to my kampung in Sabah. Will be offline most of the time during the period.

In the meantime, enjoy the good old blues by John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchel. These guys are awesome, don’t you think so?

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New York Times’ 100 Notable Books Of 2008

by Jackson Sawatan on November 28, 2008

If you like books or just fancy reading one once in a while, then maybe you can take a look at one of these books which made it to the list of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2008.

One of the books in the list, titled “Atmospheric Disturbances” by Rivka Galchen, tells the story of a man who believes that his young Argentine wife has been replaced by a double.

The book has all the promise of being witty and smart. Take for instance the man at the centre of the story, Leo Libenstein, who is a psychiatrist.

He claims that one day in December, a woman, looking exactly like his wife — wearing “the same baby blue coat with jumbo charcoal buttons, same tucking behind ears of dyed corn silk blond hair” — walks into his door.

Then there is another book in the list, titled “The Good Thief” by Hannah Tinti, which also promises an intriguing story.

“The Good Thief”, set in mid-19th century New England, tells the story of a con man trying to teach an orphan how to lie. He is not a good liar, the orphan I mean, but he is forced to tell one to save his life… and then the unexpected truth presents itself.

The premise behind these two books looks fresh and compelling that I might just grab both the next time I drop by Kinokuniya.

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The Tide Is Turning Back

by Jackson Sawatan on November 19, 2008

I was listening to Roger Waters’ “Tide Is Turning”, one of my all-time favourite songs, on the morning of March 9, the day I woke up to a changed Malaysia.

I used to think the world was flat, the song says. “Rarely threw my hat into the crowd.” It goes on, “I felt I had used up my quota of yearning.

It culminates into a powerful finale, with a haunting choir in the background, singing repeatedly “the tide is turning.” [Click on the YouTube clip to listen to the song]

An enormous tide, some say a political tsunami, had indeed swept across the country on that fateful night. The opposition was victorious in five states — six if the Federal Territory had a state legislative assembly of its own — and the ruling coalition had lost its two-third majority.

Anyone who had not felt the sensation of the tide sweeping must have had a heart made of stone.

Now, eight months after the election, I can feel the tide is gathering strength, again. It looks like the tide is turning back and this time it is the opposition that had better watch out or risk being swept away.

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Football: Malaysia is Still Burrowing Out of the Crypt

by Jackson Sawatan on November 15, 2008

I’ve forgotten that we have a national football team. When I think of Malaysian football, all that I can recall were names like James Wong, Hassan Sani, R. Arumugam, Soh Chin Aun, Mokhtar Dahari, Santokh Singh, Zainal Abidin Hassan, Dollah Salleh…

Last year, I wrote a story about Malaysian football from the point of view of a foreigner in the person of Seamus O’Brien, whose company, World Sports Group (WSG), is behind Asia’s high profile events with millions of viewers such as the AFC Champions League, Asian Cup Championship, FIFA World Cup 2006 Asian Qualifiers and Asean Football Championship.

He said Malaysian football was salvageable and if those involved in the sport could do things correctly, in 10 years, Malaysia would be able to climb to a respectable position in world ranking.

The interview was done in August last year, a time when Malaysia was languishing at 153rd position in world ranking. Malaysia slipped further in the rank to 166th since then.

It moved up again to 161st spot last month (October 2008). Recently, however, the country regained 10 rungs and moved to 151st spot, a progress nonetheless but still, there is little to cheer about.

The Malaysian football hit the bottom in mid-90’s due to match fixing. As though hitting the lowest ebb was not enough, it went on digging deeper and deeper down the crypt.

Moving 10 rungs up the ladder is really no consolation. Malaysia is still burrowing out of the crypt and has not reach the point where it can make a real climb.

Below is the team that put Malaysian football at its height, on that memorable night in 1980 when the country beat South Korea 2-1 in the Moscow Olympics qualifier. The winning goal came from King James after a cross from the left by the speedy Hassan Sani. Malaysia had earlier scored the opener through Bakri Ibni.

Scorers — Malaysia: Bakar Ibni (12th min), James Wong (85th). South Korea: Gang-Nam Kim (58th).

MALAYSIA: A. Arumugam (GK), Jamal Nassir, Soh Chin Aun, Santokh Singh, Khalid Abdullah, Khalid Ali, Sukor Salleh (Yunus Alif), Bakri Ibni, Abdullah Ali, James Wong, Hassan Sani.

I was there — a small boy then — cheering the national team in front of a black-and-white TV. I could still remember how the goal was scored, as vividly as though the match was telecast live in high definition!

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Joe The Plumber

by Jackson Sawatan on October 20, 2008

… and Ali the Taxi Driver, Ah Chong the Chicken Rice Seller, Gopal the Barber, Yomogun the Farmer.

If you have been following the US presidential election, you would know who Joe the Plumber is. He is, well… a plumber, who confronted Barack Obama over the Democrat candidate’s tax proposals.

Obama’s Republican rival John McCain, seized the moment in the last presidential debate on Wednesday (Thursday morning Malaysian time) and used the plumber’s exchange with Obama as a central piece of his argument against Obama’s tax policies, saying they would hurt average American businessmen like Joe the Plumber.

Joe the Plumber is rich by average Malaysian standards. Anyone who is planning to buy a plumbing company worth more than US$250,000 (RM850,000), like what Joe the Plumber was reportedly planning to do, is rich by Alis’, Gopals’, Ah Chongs’ and Yomoguns’ standards, assuming Joe the Plumber is living in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, an annual income of RM60,000 is already considered high by the standard of the average Joe, including this Joe.

Even then, with the increase in the cost of living, that amount is hardly enough for a family of four — with two school-going children, a mortgage to pay, a car loan to service and a house rent to pay — to have a decent living in cities like Kuala Lumpur.

Joe the Plumber would have been already an elite here, sitting securely up there in the economic and social strata.

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To Quote Or Not To Quote… That Is No Longer The Question

by Jackson Sawatan on October 14, 2008

The question now is, how to quote nicely. Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of a news writing style that starts a story with a quote, especially if the quote holds no special meaning other than to put a sentence in between two quotation marks. Take for instance the story, below:

KUALA LUMPUR: “I’m grateful that my son is back in time for the Hari Raya. I thank the government for the effort to release my son,” said housewife Soandso, 45, when met at her home in Kampung Pinang Sebatang, near here today.

The story above is of course fictional but the news writing style is not.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me but I hate the intro. It drives me up the wall, firstly because I’m not a big fan of a quotation intro, and secondly, the quote itself is not a first sentence material.

But I can accept the style in the name of variety, so long as the quotes are special and unique that paraphrasing them into indirect quotations would diminish the meaning or their dramatic impact.

Below are examples of well-quoted phrases, taken from a New York Times article titled “Obama Expands Economic Plans”:

“At a time when the ups and downs of the stock market have rarely been so unpredictable and dramatic,” Mr. Obama said, “we also need to give families and retirees more flexibility and security when it comes to their retirement savings.” [...]

“These are hard times, my friends,” Mr. McCain said. “Our economy is in crisis. Financial markets are collapsing. Credit is drying up. Your savings are in danger and your retirement is at risk. Jobs are disappearing.” [...]

Mr. Obama reprimanded his audience when people started jeering at the mention of Mr. McCain’s name, declaring: “We don’t need that. We just need to vote.” [...]

During his remarks here, Mr. Obama gently scolded all Americans for “living beyond their means — from Wall Street to Washington to even some on Main Street.”

As you might already noticed, the quotes above are special that they must be presented in their raw unadulterated form that you cannot paraphrase them without diminishing their impact.

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The problem with Senator John McCain, the US Republican presidential candidate, is he knows. And he tells the American people that he is a person who knows everything, and therefore, needs no on-the-job training.

Would you rather have for a president a candidate who says he knows, or one who shows that he knows?

In the second US presidential debate on Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning, Malaysian time), McCain said:

“Senator Obama was wrong about Iraq and the surge. He was wrong about Russia when they committed aggression against Georgia. And in his short career, he does not understand our national security challenges.

“We don’t have time for on-the-job training, my friends.”

And he mentioned “I know” at every opportunity, in phrases like:

“…sending America’s most precious asset, American blood, into harm’s way. And, again, I know those situations.”

“But the point is that I know how to handle these crises. And Sen. Obama, by saying that he would attack Pakistan, look at the context of his words. I’ll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I’ll get him. I know how to get him. I’ll get him no matter what and I know how to do it.”

I know what it’s like in dark times. I know what it’s like to have to fight to keep one’s hope going through difficult times. I know what it’s like to rely on others for support and courage and love in tough times.

I know what it’s like to have your comrades reach out to you and your neighbors and your fellow citizens and pick you up and put you back in the fight.”

“And I’ve been supporting those and I know how to fix this economy.”

I know how to do that. I have a clear record of reaching across the aisle, whether it be Joe Lieberman or Russ Feingold or Ted Kennedy or others. That’s my clear record.”

“And — and I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel.”

“By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth. It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.”

And then, he has heroes too. A 72-year-old grandpa who has heroes!

“In Lebanon, I stood up to President Reagan, my hero, and said, if we send Marines in there, how can we possibly beneficially affect this situation?”

“You know, my hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt used to say walk softly — talk softly, but carry a big stick. Sen. Obama likes to talk loudly.”

And he has lots of friends, apparently:

“But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs..”

I know how the do that, my friends.”

My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?”

My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that we are going…”

My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations.”

My friends, the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover…”

“So let’s not raise anybody’s taxes, my friends…”

“We know what the problems are, my friends, and we know what the fixes are.”

My friends, what we have to do with Medicare is have a commission…”

“Let’s look at our records, my friends, and then listen to my vision for the future of America.”

“And I introduced the first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That’s the good news, my friends.”

“By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth.”

“I vote against them, my friends. I vote against them.”

“That’s fundamental economics. We’ve got to drill offshore, my friends…”

My friends, we have gone to all four corners of the Earth and shed American blood in defense…”

“We don’t have time for on-the-job training, my friends.”

“Well, let me just follow up, my friends. If we had done what Sen. Obama wanted done in Iraq…”

“There was a lot at stake there, my friends. And I can tell you right now that Sen. Obama would have brought our troops home in defeat.”

“I’ll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I’ll get him.”

And then, came the cruncher when he referred to Barack Obama as “that one”:

You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me.

Way to go, Mr Know It All. You know I don’t mean it. All the quotes are from a CNN transcript of the second presidential debate.

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Macro Photography Blog

by Jackson Sawatan on September 28, 2008

My photography blog has been attracting quite a decent traffic of late. This is close-up photo of a winged carpenter ant is one of the latest entries on that blog.

One of these days I may let you know the URL of the photoblog. Nothing fancy there, just casual photo-taking using a simple point-and-shoot camera.

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“Eats, Shoots and Leaves”

by Jackson Sawatan on September 10, 2008

I just realised that I have not yet bought any book this year. I still have some unread ones but I guess it’s time to buy a new one.

I’m now looking at buying “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” by Lynne Truss, a former host of a BBC programme. The title of the book is from the anecdote below:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

‘Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

‘Well, I’m a panda’, he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’

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I’m no fan of big words but I wish I knew enough of them so that I could choose to disuse them in my writing. The problem is, if there are no big words in my articles or in the copies that I’ve edited, it’s because I don’t really know many of them.

I wish I had the ability to write about how Anwar Ibrahim “moshes his way surrealistically to the House” and then chose not to because that is not the way I write.

I wish I could do that… I wish I could ignore the multi-syllable words by choice and not by default.

You see, this one, taken from the same article above, is beyond the reach of my meager English:

“Even when Anwar is absent, he is lingering on the rafters of everybody’s conscience, a one-man thought-provoking dream machine able to inspire a huge army of supplicants to rant, rave and demonstrate to whatever tune he wants them to gyrate to.”

I need help with my English. Really. Thankfully, in addition to all the help that I can get, including from colleagues and seniors, the all-important Google search, online dictionary and thesaurus, I can always rely on The New York Times to show me a pointer or two on how to write in English.

Take this article for instance, titled “Obama Steps Into O’Reilly’s ‘No Spin Zone’” published on Sept 5.

“Irascible” is a word I have never used and never knew its meaning but thanks to the Times’ interactive feature, I can now double click on the word and out pop a window, explaining the things I want and need to know about irascible.

It means someone who is prone to outbursts of temper. Panas baran or telinga nipis would be the translation in Malay.

The thing is, the word is there to describe the exact nature of a person. It is there — big, huge and menacing — for the purpose of clarity; and nothing else, I suspect.

I should really try to learn the big words if only to increase my knowledge of the small ones and the ones in between. And most importantly, to be able to express myself clearly.

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Gus Dur Oh Gus Dur

by Jackson Sawatan on August 22, 2008

I met the man Abdurrahman Wahid or better known as Gus Dur only once when he visited the Indonesian Consulate in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. At that time he was already about two years out of power.

The former Indonesian president had given a talk, about 40 minutes, touching on a wide-ranging issue, but the only thing that I could remember was this remark, obviously made in jest:

Jawa Timur itu sama saja dengan Timor Timur. Kalau di Jawa Timur ada banyak NU, di Timor Timur pula ada banyak UN.”

Translation: “East Java is not much different from East Timor. In East Java, there are many NUs, in East Timor you’ll see a lot of UNs.”

NU is Nahdlatul Ulama, the party headed by him, and UN is the United Nations peacekeeping force. East Timor is, of course, now known as Timor Leste.

So I guess, I can agree with this article, “Who Is Gus Dur To Tell Us What To Do?”

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