Gubra

Watched Gubra and what went through my head was just so much much more than what Yasmin had set out to do. As mentioned in her blog - "Gubra" is intended to examine one common phenomenon: The simple everyday fact that when we experience betrayal, it is more often than not committed unto us by people who love us; not people who hate us."

What I experienced was a barrage of mixed of emotions related to race, religion, cultural differences, and to a small extend, even sensed a political jab at the Malaysian politics as well as Singaporeans. Also, can't help but think about my childhood days and the kampong lifestyle that was so warm and that I can still remember till today. Let me explain...

For a start, when I walked into the cinema, I noticed that for once, I was surrounded by Malays - men in songkok, women in tudungs, and a few Chinese... no, no, not that I am racist, but rather, it was not often that one experience such a Malay-majority setting in Singapore other than at void deck weddings. And to me, this Malay-majority setting accentuated the feelings of race relations and cultural differences as the scenes unfolded. And this for me, was rather interesting cos all my life, while I have been aware of such race/ religion-divide and have been totally comfortable with my Malay Muslims community, I have never been put in such an artificial environment that would make me, admittedly, a little awkward; and that also evoked a little desire in me to want to show my Malay-side more.

You see, being of half-baba descent (my mum being a Peranakan), I had the advantage of watching and understanding the show without referring to the subtitles (that could not capture certain nuances or for that matter, able to translate everything correctly or quickly enough and that would result in some delayed laughters from the non-Malay audiences). And from this angle, I do consider myself more Malay than a `typical' Chinese Singaporean. Anyway... the feelings of race/ religion-divide soon disappeared as the show progressed.

During the show, I was also able to relate to the frustrations of mak-Jason - her disagreements with her china-pek husband. Cannot help but think of all the challenges my mum went through when she married my dad! I could still remember my mum relating all the problems, discrimination, arguments, etc to me some long time back. Also, mak-Jason's use of the baba-language was a really very nice change from all the all-too-perfect Malay, English, Chinese languages that is being promoted and drilled into us almost daily here :-)

And of cos, the whole setting - kampong, school, hospital etc, just simply reminds me so much of my childhood days in Paya Lebar and Marine Parade... Can't help but reminisce the good old days where visits and exchanges between neighbours of different races occur every other day! Those days do not exist in Singapore anymore.

What I also liked about the show was the fact the Yasmin (through the character Alan - oh, did I mentioned he was soooo cute! well, that is another story!) was able to highlight the frustrations of Malaysian Chinese about their pro-Malays political system and at the same time take a jab at (lack of a better word to use) Singaporeans for their attitude towards Malaysians (when Alan mentioned his ex-Singaporean wife said he [being a Malaysian] was not good enough for her). And all these was very objectively and nicely done, so so unlike Jack Neo's ultra pro-government and politically correct shows :-)

Yes, I felt the `betrayal' that Yasmin had set off to achieve and much more.

Thanks for the experience and congratulations for the beautiful work.

(see also review of the show)