Bersih 4.0 - My Experience and Thoughts

Bersih 4.0 29th and 30th August 2015. Today will be history, and I am glad to be a part of it.

I am not going to be a hypocrite by starting a debate topic about which political parties I support because really, I am not so much into politics. Hence this post shall have no detailed analysis or statistics, no hidden political propaganda but merely straightforward views from an ordinary citizen. Of course, I was of legal age during the last election so I did my part by voting! If you tell me that you did not vote, I am going to give you a condescending stare for your ignorance and lack of patriotism lol. 

The first time ever that I joined a rally was during Anwar's Suara Rakyat Suara Keramat at Kelana Jaya (blogged about it, read here). Did not attend any of the previous Bersih hence have not been through the agony of being tear-gassed. 

This time, on 29th August Saturday, while everyone was clad in their illegal yellow Bersih tshirt, I was guilty at home lying down scrolling through the live updates. The night before, my landlord has got all his survival kits lay out on the table - gas mask, goggles, salt, towel, pepper spray (to spray on any uncooperative cops I guess wtf) and a Malaysian flag to exhibit his patriotic spirit. He was all prepared for the battle, ready to be taken down (and spend the night in the lokap lol) and sacrifice for the country at all cost.

I never really intended to be a part of it until a friend randomly texted and asked if I were interested to join the rally the next day. I said yes - because I did not have any plan, and the first day of the rally seemed rather peaceful with no story of tear gas, fighting or any sort, and I was curious and at the same time wanting to do my part and contribute to the event.

So off we go the next day with a single bag pack with water bottles and zero survival kit. 

We departed from Kelana Jaya LRT station which was quite a sight because everyone was in yellow the moment we arrived. We had no fear but rather, overwhelmed by excitement as we were not alone even from the beginning of the journey. 

It was raining when we reached Masjid Jamek station. But the weather did not stop us from marching on. It was crowded with a sea of yellow! At certain spots speeches were held during which the main focus was mainly on Najib and his RM2.6bil.

My brave sister was a Bersih supporter and also a volunteer that day. So proud and amazed by our young generations today. I knew nothing about the country's welfare when I was 18! :x

The rally was an occasion for the creative bunch to showcase their witty talent.

It has also attracted opportunists, many of whom had set up food and souvenir stalls.

Really now, is this a carnival or something?? LOL.

At one part of the streets it smelled like ramly burger and keropok lekor. And there were helium balloons on sale -.- That joyous atmosphere is the least that I had expected!

The rally was a rather peaceful one. No one was pushed or shoved. Although I must comment that the noise of the vuvuzela was hell damn annoying! 

The streets of Kuala Lumpur was exceptionally cleaner than usual with so many volunteers cleaning up with the trash. Many were even handing out free food and drinks. I did not take any in fear of being poisoned (kiasi T_T)

As much as I hate to admit, majority of the rally goers were Chinese although there were also presence of Malay and other races. The urbanites are well-informed of the latest news and cause of protests, but what about the rural dwellers who have no access to social media? What will be their view on the racial imbalance turnout during Bersih 4.0? 

It is unknown whether or not the rally has made any impact, and if any, a positive one in favor of the organizer. However, it is certain that the voices of the people have been heard, the unity and strength of the urbanites have been seen and proven.

God bless Malaysia, for true democracy, fair and clean election in times to come. 

Suara Rakyat Suara Keramat by Anwar Ibrahim @ Stadium Kelana Jaya

Tonight, on 8th of May 2013, I feel proud to have attended Suara Rakyat Suara Keramat, the speech gathering by Anwar Ibrahim held at Stadium Kelana Jaya!

Me: I'm wearing Giyongchy!
Le friend: What's that?
Me: K-pop
Le friend: You think you attending concert ah?
Me: Yea, Anwar's concert XD

So exhausted right now and my feet still feel sore from all the walking, but I’m full of joy and patriotic spirit right now!

I’m glad I insisted to attend the spectacular event tonight, otherwise I would have missed the opportunity to witness our rakyat of all races being so united. The massive crowd consisted of Malay, Chinese and Indians. In fact I can assure you that it would be a joke to label it as a Chinese tsunami!

Tell me again how is this a Chinese tsunami???

Contrary to the previous belief, there was no commotion, no police, no block, no arrest and no harassment by the BN party. Any BN supporter in their right mind would have stayed away from that place or even pretend to be supporting the opposition after seeing the number of people clad in black! You should have realized by now that those fear and hoax predictions were merely inflicted by the evil ones who wanted to stop you from attending the talk. How could we let them beat down our spirit?

There were at least hundred thousands of people who filled up the entire stadium, and not forgetting most of them who were stuck outside. We went through the jam along the LDP for an hour or so, after which we had to deal with the most tedious task that night – looking for a parking spot. Hundreds and thousands of cars were already filling up all the spaces available, even along every roadside. It was like a concert, only far worse. Spotted a few buses that I assume are from other states. My place was of a short distance from Kelana Jaya, what more excuses do I have?

The scene at Paradigm Mall was crazy! A huge bunch of men and women boys and girls dressed in black parading out of the mall towards the direction of the stadium! Some were holding PKR’s flags and shouting slogans to boost the atmosphere.

Told myself no matter how far we were to walk, we had to reach the stadium anyhow. As expected, it was almost like a joyous carnival. Vendors selling food and merchandise here and there! LOL. Pesta ria! Headed towards the entrance straight anyway, cause we couldn’t wait.

At the entrance

Wah liddat how to enter? :(

Then we encountered our second biggest challenge of the night – entering the stadium. The stadium was already filled up with people by the time, and people outside were having difficulties making their way in. It was almost like an adventure I tell you! For some reason there were obstacles like heavy sponge twice the size of my bed and some other weird stuff piling up on the entrance. We had to climb and cross and jump and dodge and hold on to anything within our reach to avoid falling and getting trampled on and die wtf. Lucky for us there was this group of people who were making way for a so-called YB, and they let us the ladies pass first. Our group of 4 somehow got separated at the entrance so it was just me and Weiyi who managed to get in. Was quite surprised the other 2 didn’t even enter the stadium for the whole night!

Anyway, Anwar wasn’t the only speaker that night. There were other politicians whose faces I could never see cause it was too damn far away. Even the projector was tiny when viewed from my position. But one thing for sure, everyone was very semangat, cheered and shouted and blew their vuvuzela every now and then. It was as if we were watching the World Cup match.

Most of the speeches were made up of slogans like Bangkit rakyat! BN undur! Reformasi! SPR part of UMNO etc and obviously, the Chinese tsunami topic was brought in. This was a Malaysian tsunami, not Chinese tsunami!

We were actually quite comfortably seated on the stadium ground. No standing, no pushing, no shoving, no suffocating. But had to deal with the cold wet ground which itched my butt later on lah lol. 

Today, I am truly proud to be a Malaysian. We respect different races, we stand together united and fight for our nation as one!

Apa lagi Cina mahu?

We want a clean election without cheating.

We want to be treated fairly as Malaysians without crude remarks on our race.

We want a non-corrupted government who prioritize our welfare.

Bukan Cina sahaja tapi Melayu, India dan semua rakyat pun mahu!

We want reformation!

要安不要鸡！ LOL

The loud and happening congestion by the time we left XD

The event ended with our national anthem which almost made me tear. Let our voices be heard my fellow Malaysians, I am so happy and proud of you all! :’)

How I Got My JPA Scholarship Terminated for A Blog Entry. FML

Yea, story of my life. The despressing title kinda concludes what I’m going to write about following this paragraph. I actually drafted this quite some time ago for Project Listen but the approved version on their website was way shorter due to the word limit. Decided to share my story here once again since I didn’t post it here before this. Too lazy to include the pictures and scanned documents but I guess the dramatic story line is sufficient to capture your attention? Teehee.

The following story was featured on YB Tony Pua's blog way back in 2008 after I consulted him. Gotta salute him for putting so much effort in scanning all my relevant documents! Those are the things that I couldn't be bothered to include in this post. So if you have doubtss on the authenticity of my story, go check out his blog post! CK in the story refers to me, CopyKate. It's really funny reading back the incidence and all the comments! LOL.

It's absurd how some commenters judged me by saying that I since I could get connection to those politicians for appeal, I must have gotten my scholarship from the same connection -.- Hello, politicians are supposed to be there to help the people right? It's not that difficult to get their contact especially when it was close to the General Election at that period of time! Besides, anything is possible in times of desperation. What's the big deal about seeking help from a few high ranked politicians? 

Anyway, hope you can take some time to read this post. Even if you can’t stand my lengthy paragraphs, scroll all the way till the end to read my lesson of the day! :)

xxx

How my life has been transformed ever since I was expelled from college.

This had always been a shameful chapter of my life which I had chosen to keep a secret from others. But now that my life has made a big turn, I decided it’s time I share my story, hoping it will inspire all of you out there who feel like you are struggling in the darkest period of your lives.

I remember the proud expressions of my parents when I was awarded JPA scholarship to study Engineering in the United States. It was a dream I daren’t dream, to that faraway country where I had least expected. Before flying to the states, I was supposed to undergo one year of foundation at a local college. It was the same period of time when I first discovered blogging. Being a young enthusiastic blogger, I wrote about everyone and everything. Soon, I began to gain some fame in college by blogging on scholars’ campus life. Those were the days when random readers from the campus would come up to me and gave me their words of encouragement.

Unfortunately things did not stay that way for long. One day I was called to the head of department’s office. Apparently a senior was unhappy at the fact that I had criticized her sense of fashion on my blog, so she printed out copies and copies of my blog archive and handed to the head of department. It was not funny seeing my blog entries in black and white!  I knew things were about to get serious.

Apparently it was stated in the disciplinary booklet that students should not reveal anything within the campus to the public. They claimed that by posting up photos of the conservative attire guidelines and writing things that are happening in the college, I had breached the disciplinary code. Moreover, I was indirectly accused by the head for being a whore and a shame to the college because one of my photo captions says that I was camwhoring in front of the mirror -.-

I'm a whore, not.

It felt horrible to be standing alone in the office being bombarded by accusations from those lecturers! Never had I thought that my blog would have gained such unnecessary attentions. They threatened that I delete all blog entries related to the campus, failing which I would be reported to JPA for conducting bad disciplinary behavior. My scholarship was being jeopardized!!! I was so scared, so confused that day I immediately went back and deleted those blog entries (if you go through my July 2007 archive you’ll see only a few posts because I had deleted most of them). They also made me write a public apology on my blog so they would let the matter ease, to which I obeyed despite feeling the least sorry. I would do whatever as long as I don’t lose my scholarship, I told myself.

Everything was back to normal for a few months, until I received a letter addressed to my hometown during the semester break. It was a letter from JPA, a letter informing my parents that my scholarship was terminated due to my discipline problem! I felt the world collapsed on me. I was filled with regret, shame and disappointment. At the same time I felt anger rising from every part of my nerves. They promised not to report to JPA, didn’t they?! How could they have not honored their promise after making me delete my entries and write a public apology?! But I was only a young naïve girl back then. Who am I to argue with that corrupted government-founded college?

I went through months and months of appeal. It was one of the darkest, if not the darkest period of my life. The pain of losing that million dollars’ opportunity when I was already so close to it! Apart from that, I had to deal with questions from curious friends and relatives and worst still, the disappointment on my parents’ faces. I knew I had let them down. They had always been very proud of my results but now because of one innocent mistake, I had shattered their hopes and broken their hearts. They could never afford sending me to America for 4 years with their own savings. All this while they had believed that with my result, I could easily secure myself a scholarship and did not have to rely on them for education.

With my scholarship terminated, I couldn’t go back to college to continue the following semester. I couldn’t go to America. I was stuck at my hometown reflecting on the past and wishing I could turn back the clock. I wanted to get my scholarship back so badly! I didn’t know how else I could continue my life from then on. I scanned pages of documents, wrote numerous letters, met countless of politicians etc. Yet despite those attempts, my appeals resulted in no avail. Eventually I started to accept the fact that I was expelled for real, and that I was never going to study at the States. I left Johor and came to KL alone, ready to move on from the past to a new beginning of my life. With my SPM result, I was able to obtain a full scholarship from TARC for Cambridge A-Level’s and with my A-Level’s results, I managed to get 50% of my tuition fees waived in Sunway University for my bachelor degree, while the other half is covered by loan. My family didn’t have to spend on my education after all.

There were times when I wondered how my life would have been if I had gone to America. I couldn’t help being envious of my friends who managed to fly there without me and be jealous of that 4-years experience which I could have had if the horrible incident didn’t happen. At the same time I hated the girl who reported me and the head of department who did not honor our promise. But as I continued my life, I began to think that things happened for a reason because I am extremely happy and contented with my life at the moment. Many of my course mates back then heard of my story and deleted their blogs, fearing that they might be the next victims. But my passion for blogging did not die because of the tragedy. My blog had cost me that expensive scholarship, but it had taught me how to overcome ordeals and predicaments through the darkest days in life.

With my willpower and determination, I had no problem juggling a balance between work and study. The amount I earned as a freelance event model and blogger had paid for my trips to Melbourne, Bangkok, Taiwan and Seoul within these few years (and a few designer bags too XD). Today, even at this precise moment of writing my story, I am earning a decent amount of side incomes from my blog. I know very well that one day I will set my foot in America, except that it wouldn’t be a quest for success, but rather an indulgence through my success. Remember, it is not about the lost opportunity in your life, but rather what you can make out of it.

A few months back, I was acquainted with someone whose godfather happened to be the minister in charged of JPA. Ironically I found myself drinking with the minister who took away that million-dollar opportunity from me.

“Your result is excellent! Why didn’t you get a scholarship? Do you want to study in London?”

I merely laughed and think about what else my life has to offer.

xxx

And that’s the end of my story.

Meanwhile I googled myself and found this post and this post written on May 11 2007. The naive and innocent teen copykate being all excited over her JPA acceptance. Eager to pursue her destiny together with her smart ass high school mates. Heck I even listed who and who is going to which country! So happy for them ^^ Those were the old days~

Lesson of the day: vote wisely this coming Sunday! 5th of May 2013, the important date that will determine our destiny! Think before you contribute your support to the ruling party who is bound to terminate your child’s scholarship on the accusation of ‘disciplinary’ problem and proceed to direct the million-dollar funds to god-knows-whose pockets!!!

HAHA can’t believe I’m relating this issue to politics.

But yea, go back home this weekend and do your part! I’m really excited since it’s my first time voting! Kinda annoying they made me remove my nail polish though (couldn't stop myself from exclaiming my bimbo thoughts lol) T_T

If that corrupted party wins again imma show them my stained middle finger!

Or maybe not, since the stain could easily come off as I heard?! WTF

Listen Listen Listen!

When I speak, you listen!

Oh wow, Kate talking about the current issue! HAHA. If you haven’t realized, #listen Sharifah Zohra Jabeen, Bawani and UUM are trending on Twitter. Watch this video and you’ll get it!

Following the forum that took place at UUM, the video has gone viral on the Internet causing endless angry comments. A total 11 times of listen! Or was it more? Listen listen listen, what better time to start making new jokes and meme?

Check out this funny remix!

And my favourite episode of Tokok from Namewee! XD

Even Nando’s wouldn’t miss this opportunity to come out with their new marketing! LOL.

It was so rude of her to have taken away the microphone from poor Bawani before she could finish her debate. Talking about respect, the irony. We’re not allowed to compare Malaysia to other countries, but instead compare ourselves to animals! What logic is this? -_________-“

Sharifah further humiliated Bawani saying she has the least of education after asking if there’s the need to answer Bawani’s questions considering her “attitude”. I don’t see any problem with Bawani’s attitude lo, she was merely stating the facts and raising some rational questions. It was a forum after all, and there’s supposed to be freedom of speech! Sharifah on the other hand failed to answer her questions but made a fool outta herself by barking on ridiculous and irrelevant replies like a mad dog.

I was bewildered when the students in the hall clapped and cheered at Sharifah’s stupid replies. Seriously, don’t they have brains?! Or they all simply agreed with her just because she was barking loud enough? Or were they clapping for the sake of getting Samsung Note??? -.-

Looks like the government’s scheme to spread their propaganda in local universities have backfired now that the video has gone viral and everyone is pointing their fingers at BN, as Sharifah was wearing a 1Malaysia badge and represents Suara Wanita 1 Malaysia (SW1M): https://www.facebook.com/SuaraWanita1Malaysia?fref=ts

Scrolled through the page and realized that the admin is a freaking childish dumb ass. Makes me wonder if a 10-year-old kid is managing the page. Take this post for example:

“full vid Sharifah hentam little ambiga...............tgk mcmana bavani lari....... kikikiki"

Wtf man! And there are many more. Too many comments in Malay I lazy nak baca. My Malay sangat raput wtf.

In response to this issue, Khairy denies that SW1M is anyhow related to BN. Of course, someone needs to stand up for damage control after something sia suey like this happened.

Should have done something earlier to prevent any organization from misusing 1Malaysia like they claimed, no? Approved the forming of the NGO to spread their political propaganda, but abandons the organization and denies any responsibility now that their position at the next election is being threatened XD

Anyway, enough of LISTENing! Here’s a vain photo of me to end this post with!

Pink kitty because I can ^^ Kitty has no mouth, she won’t miao you her problems. Teehee.