Rants & Raves of Jasmine's Fiction

Butterflies & Pigs

This Saturday past was one of the more tasteful nights I’ve had in a long while.  Note, when I say ‘tasteful’ I mean it exactly as I say it…  YUMMY!

So butterflies first. Act One:  A couple of weeks ago I came across a little flyer for the Chinese musical Butterfly Lovers.  You should note that aside from this being one of my absolute favourite stories, I’m also a HUGE theatre buff.  As I skimmed through the flyer, I noted a very familiar name in the title credits…  Immediately, I whipped open my cell phone and dialled.

“Hello Uncle Aaaaaaaaadrian?”

“Yes sweetheart?”

“I have in my hand a flyer for the musical Butterfly Lovers.  I know for a fact that Aunty Genevieve is performing in it…  Can I get a free ticket?  PWEESE?”

“Eesh, I have to pay for my own tickets la.  Fine, fine I’ll get you one too.  Is your mom going to be in town for the show too?”

“No, mom’s going to be in

China

.  Just me!  Please and thank you!”

“Okay, okay.  I’ll let you know the details when I get the tickets”

“Oh and I’ll need a ride there too…”

“Aiyah!  Okay, okay!”

Woot, free ticket and free ride to boot.  I love my Uncle Adrian; he’s so easy to wrangle, hehe.  Fast forward to Saturday evening, Uncle Adrian, his two boys, his three sisters, a niece and her husband, a family friend and I all troop to a warehouse theatre deep in

Kuala Lumpur

’s former Indian mafia district of Sentul.  The place is stinking hot and stuffed to the brim with very well dressed rich people.  The lights dim and the show starts.

Now for all of you who are unfamiliar with the story, it’s almost like Romeo & Juliet.  Spoilt little rich girl wants to go to the famous literature school to study with the masters.  Problem is school is for males only.  So she persuades her parents to let her go in disguise as a man.  There in the school she makes friends with a poor boy who’s studying to become a court official.  After 3 years of hanging out with each other, the girl is obviously in love with him but she has to go home.  Here’s the dilemma:  she can’t tell him that she’s a girl yet she can’t express her feelings lest he thinks she’s gay (she is pretending to be a man after all).

To overcome this problem, she tells him of her ‘twin sister’.  He’s very interested, and promises to go visit his buddy and the twin sister.  The girl goes home to her parents who unfortunately have arranged for her to marry the son of the richest family in town.  She screams and cries for days but her folks won’t relent.  So when her friend finally comes to visit, he is told the truth of her identity but is also broken the bad news that she is already promised to someone else.

He goes home very confused and heartbroken and from the shock of everything he falls sick and tragically, dies.  The poor girl is told the news on her wedding day and she demands that her wedding palanquin travel past his gravesite so she can bid him farewell before starting her new married life.  Her parents relent.  When they reach the gravesite, the girl leaps out of the palanquin and runs to the grave where a thunderstorm promptly begins and then, she screams that because they were separated in life, they will be together in death.  The tomb splits open dramatically and she throws herself in, committing suicide.  As the storms blows away, her minders search frantically for her to no avail and someone sees two butterflies flitting around the tomb.

Tragic ain’t it?  That is exactly why I love theatre/opera.  Someone always gets to die.  And the production was AWESOME.  After the show Aunty Genevieve very happily introduced all of us to the cast members, the director and the concert master.  As we all got ready to leave, Uncle Adrian suggested supper.  Bak Kut Teh.  Woot.

And thus begins Act Two of my tasteful Saturday:  Pigs, YUM.  All eleven of us adjourned to a street side coffee shop (this was like, almost midnight Saturday) and supper officially began. 

To the uninitiated, Bak Kut Teh is a Chinese soup concoction cooked in a clay pot.  The soup is a mix of medicinal herbs & spices like pepper, garlic, cloves, cinnamon, star anise etc all boiled together with pig bones for hours.  Inside the pot, we add various parts of the pig including the meat, ribs, feet, ears, and the highlight; copious amount of innards!  Intestines, liver and stomach are all fair game.  Yum yum!  Several varieties of mushrooms, dried tofu and lettuce are added to the mix as well.  Traditionally this fat laden dish is eaten with rice and tea.  Positively artery clogging!

Tasteful don’t you think?  I dreamt of Butterflies and Pigs that night!

It Ain't Over

Celeste Aida, forma divina

Mistico serto di luce fior

Del mio pensiero tu sei regina

L'amour, l'amour, l'amour, l'amour                  
L'amour est enfant de boheme

Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo
A te fortuna (a te fortuna, a te fortuna) non manchera
Sono il factotum della citta

Ma il mio mistero e chiuso in me il nome mio nessun sapra
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo diro quando la luce splendera

J'ai l'amour à fleur de coeur
Qui me fait souffrir sans trêve
Lorsque tu rêves

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For those of you single-linguals who really have no idea what the heck I’m going on about – it’s the OPERA!!!  For those of you who actually have some culture in your lives (and when I say culture I do not mean the yoghurt variety!) I’m sure you might recognise the above mentioned lyrics of some of the world’s most famous operas:

-         Celeste Aida from Aida

-         Habanera from Carmen

-         Largo Al Factotum from The Marriage of Figaro

-         Nessun Dorma from Turandot

-         L'amour À Fleur De Coeur from La Boheme

The reason of why I’m going on about this is that last Sunday my sis, a girlfriend and myself went to watch a Malaysian Opera – the first in the nation.  The production, so aptly titled “M! The Opera” is new music composition that is produced and performed by the region’s finest creative talents. I have to say what a wonderful cultural experience it was – Malaysia is finally moving forward in the arts and it’s only a matter of time before they get to a world standard.

Anyway, the opera itself was rather bizarre as most tragic stories go, set in the sumptuous world of couture.  It’s about this boy M from a tiny village where he watches and learns as his seamstress mother makes women beautiful. This is where the story gets a little queer – M’s mom dies in giving birth to his illegitimate brother who was born – with a needle in his fist!  The villagers declare the child a bad omen and prophesises that he would destroy his family and the child is exiled but the needle is given to M, which he promptly gives to Sepi, his beautiful friend and muse for safekeeping. Fast forward to him all grown up in industrial Japan where M becomes a legendary fashion designer. As his fame grows, his friendships diminish.  Then Kerabat, an outrageous designer, emerges and threatens to steal his thunder AND his muse. 

So tragedy is as tragedy does, there’s betrayal and death at every corner.  Little does everyone know that Kerabat is M’s half brother, the one prophesised to be the downfall and demise of M.  So then as M spurns Sepi’s love and support, Kerabat covets and seduces her.  In the heat of the moment, Sepi gives the needle to Kerabat and thus fulfilling the prophesy.  In a bid to save himself and his love, M offers Kerabat the hand of partnership and Sepi a marriage proposal.  Filled with hate and inner demons, Kerabat sews M’s wedding garments with poison and on the wedding day M dies at the alter in Sepi’s arms…  And the ghost M’s mother then appears to M and Kerabat and the latter realises that it was his own half brother that he just killed and is filled with remorse…

Yeah.  I love operas.  The music, the sets, the costumes; everything about operas are just so decadent!  It’s also so overtly dramatic and everything is blown all out of proportion and the best bit, someone always gets to die!  Of course there’s no actual fat lady in the Viking costume with the cone boobs and the horned helmet at the end of every opera (actually I have yet to find a single opera that has that proverbial fat lady in the Viking costume) but its still a wonderful event to attend at least once in your life! 

But in the meantime – when that proverbial fat lady sings; it’s over!

Shut-Up Comedy

Last night my sister, The Big Bear and I went to watch a Japanese duo with Mohawks and really bad stovepipe suits perform a ‘shut-up’ comedy for an hour and a half without speaking a single word.  Welcome to the world of street theatre - miming.  The show is named GAMARJOBAT and the two un-white faced mimes are Hiropon (with the gold Mohawk) and Ketch (with the red Mohawk).  The show was really, really AWESOME (I was told to mime it to my folks and mates but since that’s kinda hard to do in text… *mimes typing at the PC*) 

Anyway, the show started with the usual switch off all mobile phones and no recording devices of any sort and the duo came out to applause from the audience…  They did simple magic tricks (mostly sleight of hand you learn as a child like how to ‘remove’ your thumb) but all with the corniest expressions on their faces!  One of the highlights of the little skit was when they were chasing each other around the stage and going ‘up’ and ‘down’ an escalator and getting ‘pulled’ from a elevator shaft and ‘smashing’ into ‘windows’…  They also did a Rocky like skit called The Boxer – all in mime, complete with the washed out boxer, his still enthusiastic trainer, the love interest, queer boxing opponents and the hero’s rise back into glory…  Impressively well done considering the entire cast was mimed by the duo.  Also, Hiropon looks really PRETTY in a dress!  Very convincing!

All fun and games, we laughed till our throats hurt!  If you’re in the area and are able to go watch them, I highly recommend that you do.

*mimes lining up for tickets and exploding into a tantrum when told that there are no seats left*