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Wesak

A stone stature of the seated Buddha, with its head and two lower arms severed off, was photographed in Wat Maha That, one of the many ruin temples in Ayutthaya, Thailand. About 240 years ago, the invading Burmese army, destroyed everything Thai in the city and many of the wreckages still remain today.

This picture of the Buddha, at the moment of enlightenment, with his right hand touching the earth and the left hand calling the earth to witness it, captures the mood and essence of the Wesak celebration, in May every year. This visualization, brings together, the time when Siddhartha Gautama became a Buddha, when he was born (563BC) and when he died (483 BC) and also his teachings about spiritual liberation and human insights.

Ayutthaya, in the 14th and 15th century, was the second Capital of Thailand after Sukhothai. It was the greatest inland port at that time but it was in constant war with invading neighbours, wanting to take over its power and wealth.

Some of the best Thai Buddhist art flourished during that time but in 1765 the invading army from Burma, over ran the city within two years, and in its wake, desecrated everything sacred to the Thais, including manuscripts, temples and sculptures.

The Mon people (Thais and Burmese), who were mostly Theravada Buddhist, were at war with each other constantly, in their history, and they are now still at war, not only with their neighbours, but also with their own people. This is true too of many parts of the world today; we are endlessly at war with each other, many of these conflicts are in the name of religion, race, power and greed (for oil and other limited natural resources).

When will we ever learn to live and share with our neighbours?

Sheila Rahman, a consultant editor for the Malay Mail, a local newspaper, highlighted this blog in the paper, Wednesday 21 May, 2008. She is probably one of the few writers here who has a wider and broader experience and understanding of the political, social and cultural life of Malaysians. There will be a daily page in the Malaya Mail about other BlogSpot. Thank you Sheila.

Read more here.

A thin line

In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of news from all over the world, of countless deaths, due to natural or man made courses (famines, earthquakes, cyclones, droughts, starvations, floods, prisons, wars, massacres, revolutions, global warming etc.).

There is but a thin line, between life and death, and each of us crosses it and back, many times in our daily life. If we didn’t die today, we live for another day, and so on. But one of those day it will be our turn. This page is dedicated to all those of our distant blood brothers and sisters (related millions of years ago from the middle of Africa), young and old, near and far, all colours, cultures or creeds.

May you all find rest, some how, somewhere, sometime. Who knows, perhaps we’ll all meet in another form someday?

Citi Hadijah, 25, from Johore, is one of the many tenpin bowlers competing for a medal in the 14^th Paralympics in Kuala Lumpur (3 to 9 May). She is slow but she can sure swing the bowling ball over the pins. She has a personal style of holding the ball right up to her face, pause in concentration, before launching it.

The oldest bowler, Amaran B Bohri, 61, is from Kampong Paya Mebi, near Kuching, Sarawak. He is a veteran to this sport; he has won 3 gold medals and several other trophies, in individual and team events.

Amaran’s leg and back injuries were caused by an accident in his work place in 1995. That has not stop him from a happy family life and sports. He has six children and 20 grand children. Bowling is his favorite game.

Maizirah, 46, from Perak, is a first time bowler and she only started practicing two weeks before the games. She had just five bowling sessions at the Ipoh Parade Bowling Club before coming to this meet. She is a natural at the game and plays with a great deal of fun and enthusiasm.

She had a motor bike accident two weeks after her wedding and lost her right leg. At home she uses a pair of shoulder crutches to move about but she had to borrow a wheelchair to come to this venue. What she wishes for is a wheelchair so she can improve her mobility at home and at her sporting meets.

Maizirah’s contact no: 017 584 2639, (Please call her if you wish to donate a wheelchair).

Goh Cheng Yoong, 37, has cerebral palsy (CP), he is here from Penang, with his mother, Ho Lee Mei, to take part in the 14^th Paralympics in Kuala Lumpur (3to9 May). His game is boccia, an indoor bowling game especially designed for the severely disabled person.

The player, depending on his or her ability, may take 5 to 15 minutes to play, throwing or kicking or picking with a pointer from a headgear, the ball. Some players can play by themselves others need help.

Cheng Yoong needs his mother to help him play this game, as you can see from the photo. His mother sits on his right with her back against the playing field and she has to take instruction from him as to the detail position to place the shoot that launches the ball. His mother is his ‘hands’ and ‘legs’.

This couple, mother and son, for the last 37 years, has been closely link in everything in their daily life. His mother said, with a smile, that she is so use to doing things with her son, all the pain and the pleasure, good and bad days, are all mixed into one, that’s life to her. She is happy that her son can join in with the other CPs, in Penang and while at the games, and have a community life of some sort.

Fraidden Dewan, 22, is an Iban, a Sea Dayak from Sarawak’s 20 indigenous groups.

He is the star swimmer of the Sarawak team that is in Kuala Lumpur for the

14^th paralimpiad games, 3 to 9 May.

Eight years ago, when he was helping his father cut down a tree, in his village,

Mukah, near Sibu, he slipped on wet grounds while the tree was crushing down.

The tree fell on his lower left leg and crushed it. It had to be amputated.

He only took up swimming as a sport for the disabled in 2002 and since then

he has been selected to be part of the national team. He is in individual as well

as team events and he is here to show his swimming skills. Catch him and his

team mates in action at the Bukit Jalil sport complex today.

One of his problem outside the swimming pool is the difficulty of getting a

job in his town or near by Kuching. He is now a father of a two year old son

and has a young family to support.

At the moment he lives his family and his father is an odd job worker and the

family income is not predictable. What he wished for, at the moment, is to get

some professional training and to get a good job and to continue swimming and

may take part in the Olympics, in the future.

Last photo: from the left, Fraidden, Stanley, Zam, Zul Amirul

]]> http://vicchin.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/a-star-swimmer/feed/ 1 vicchin Fraidden Dewan doing the butterfly Fraidden Dewan showing his sign after the event Sarawak swimming team http://vicchin.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/malaysian-paralimpics/ http://vicchin.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/malaysian-paralimpics/#comments Tue, 06 May 2008 02:20:46 +0000 vicchin http://vicchin.wordpress.com/?p=167 ]]>

The 14^th. Malaysian paralympic games is on -3 to 9 of May – in various sporting avenues in and around Kuala Lumpur. There are more then a thousand athletes, from all over the country, gathering for this biannual sporting event.

Some of the athletes are competing for the first time and this experience of doing their sport, at the national stadiums, whether they win or lose, will add to their personal pride and also that of their family and community. Many are veterans in the games and they are here to show their self-worth.

Beside the competitive spirit in the games there is also the friendship and sharing of personal and sporting experiences among the disabled athletes. They are all housed in the sporting village in Bangi area, near to the Bukit Jalil sports complex, where most of the track and field and swimming events will take place.

This sporting event means a great deal to the disabled groups who have all trained hard over the years to show off their skills and competence. However this sporting event sadly does not get the media coverage it deserved as compared to the more main stream local and international sporting news. This neglect and discrimination by the newspaper and TV stations, to highlight the disabled in sport, lamentably, leads to the public’s lack of information and interest in the other fellow citizens’ sporting culture.

For more information of the games contact (main secretariat) Noraini Mohamad, 013-2027 930, Norimah: 03 2273 9293, Julia: 012 4045 738.

Top photo: Yee Gan Chee from Penang, powerlifting; Bottom photo: Ahmad Amil from Kuala Lumpur getting ready to show his strength.

The first week of April, during the annual remembrance festival, my cousins and I went to visit the graves of our relatives (our grand father and mother and uncle). We all recalled in our own ways, our gratitude to our parents and our parent’s parents. We are glad to be here.

Our ancestors, either buried or cremated, not physically with us, silent, but are not forgotten. They are still alive in our mind. I guess, in their spirit world, they too are seeking out their missing ones, dead or life, in their own form, to tell stories about themselves and to listen to news of other persons or events.

Two years ago, my mother died, in the hospital; she was in a coma for forty days. It was my good fortune, to have my mother, to know her only when she decided to let you into her thoughts, was by her side and to share a house together, almost all her eighty years of life. Of course, there were many times over the years, we each thought the other was unthinking and that we had injured each other, by words and/or deeds, assured that we were not continuing to be together anymore, but then we stayed on anyway.

What I find most amazing is the fact that we have ancestors, relatives, brothers and sisters, not of our choosing, nether did they particularly had any interest in us, but yet we are part of this humanity. We are all related by blood and could reach each other, if we so desire, but often don’t, for mutual comfort, to help each other, to dispel our pains, fears, longings etc.

April is usually the time of the year when many Malaysian Chinese remember their dead by visiting the grave yard. This is a spring festival with a long tradition from China. This practice of keeping the dead alive takes many forms and expressions through out the world and every society and tribe has their own way of recalling their dead.

This is not ancestor worship like turning our fore fathers and mothers into some kind of gods but just an act to keep them in our mind. Our parents and grand parents are only dead if we stop thinking of them, giving thanks to them, being grateful to them for bring us into this world (sometime not of our own choosing).

Many people believe that the dead can speak on demand and they can have a direct line to their past, but if you don’t, the job of discovering, both the absence and presence simultaneously, of our lost ones, can be a difficult mental space to learn to grasp. For the rest, the usual way to remember our forebears, it may just be an act of conjuring up the thought of them (pleasant or otherwise).

The task is even more complicated if you happen to want to go seeking as far back as whom really our first ancestors were. Our ancient origins may be many many millions of years old, coming out from what is Africa today, to settle in different parts the earth. We may all have mix-blood down the line and are all even distant blood brothers and sisters (at war or at peace).