Bin Gregory Productions

All articles by bingregory

An anti-colonial short-course for Malaysians in one volume. The Myth of the Lazy Native was an influential book in post-colonial studies, published a year before Edward Said’s Orientalism[1]. Syed Hussein
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Lebah Kelulut

A hive for kelulut, Malaysia’s wild honey bee.  They are in the genus Trigona, where the bees are small and stingless. Not quite as efficient an operation as the box hives of Apis honeybees,
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The Souls of Black Folk – Review

By W.E.B. Dubois An old book, over a hundred years old already. Some of the essays have passed from contemporary relevance into historical record, but it is history rarely discussed,
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Commander of the Faithful: Review

By John W Kiser An enjoyable and easy introduction to an amazing life. The book is strongest in the first third, showing his upbringing and describing Algerian society in that
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Nothing Left to Say – Blues Gang

1. Another pop song in the dialect of Negeri Sembilan 2. Originally published as “What’s left to say”, I couldn’t live with it after FB fren AA suggested a far
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Tapai ubi, tapai nasi

A banana leaf wrapped and held with lidis could hold just about anything. In this case, it holds tapioca root, ubi kayu, that has … crossed over. Normally a dense, bland, starchy tuber considered poverty food or at best home cooking, it is transformed into a pillowy soft sweetness soaking in a fiery liqueur
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KL Bird Park Part 2

The Kuala Lumpur Bird Park was so big and so fun we had to go back again.  This year we were less two aunties, but we picked up seven cousins, making
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Gurindam 12 Fasal 6

by Raja Ali Haji (1808-1873)
English translation © Bin Gregory Productions

This is the gurindam of the sixth issue:

Seek you a companion
Who can be for you a medicine …
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Parang: the Malay machete

“Take the parang beneath the stairs
Use the whetstone on an edge grown dull.
That faith be kept safe in prayer
Prostrate daily five times in full.”

Gardening in the tropics is a constant battle against the jungle. Being properly armed means carrying a machete. From Brazil to the Congo to the island of Borneo, farmers wield some form of long, sturdy knife for slashing and hacking back the relentless encroaching green. The Malaysian machete is the parang.
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Review: The Moor’s Account

By Laila Lalami. A conquistador leads a party of 600 into present-day Florida.  A decade later, four men from the expedition emerge in Mexico: three Spainards and a black Muslim.
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Review: Getting Filthy Rich

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia promises not to waste your time like the pompous gasbags of “foreign” literature such as Salman Rushdie. OK, Hamid doesn’t mention Rushdie by name, but I know that’s who he meant.
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Landscape and Environment in Islam

The Islamic Information Center of Kuching hosts the radio show IIC Speaks every Friday mornings on RedFM 91.9 at 11.30am. I was honored to appear on the show last month
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Man Papaya

“As large as papaya, as small as keranji,
Break a branch and the fruit falls down
A face so lovely with manners so ugly
Is like rain falling murky and brown”
Growing papaya, or betik, from seed is easy enough – sow them on loose soil straight from the fruit and they’ll come up without trouble. The tough part is figuring out if your tree is a boy or a girl…
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Gurindam 12 Fasal 5

by Raja Ali Haji (1808-1873) Gurindam Dua Belas is a 19th century Malay poem written in rhyming couplets with free meter. It has 12 parts, each dealing with a different pasal, or
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Lemang Kukuih

Hari Raya Eidil Fitri without lemang is like thanksgiving without a turkey. Tag along as Hajjah Maznah makes a batch of superb steamed lemang from scratch.
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Hari Raya 2014

Selamat Hari Raya Eidilfitri, Maaf Zahir dan Batin from all of us to all of you.
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Me and Megan Fox

Megan Fox and I share a tragic intertwined destiny.
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Duit Pisang

house needs people to live.  Empty, a house slowly decays.  In the humid tropics, it decays with a startling quickness.  Mak moved out of my wife’s childhood home, temporarily, to
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Jean-Luc Nassy-LeMac

Geddit? Geddit?   Photo from Flickr by Avlxyz of Greedy Gourmets.
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Memory

  Translated by Shaykh Tosun Bayrak Not about martial codes, but more of a guidebook on proper etiquette (adab) in Islam. The biggest focus was on the virtue of generosity.
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Review: Midnight’s Children

 by Salman Rushdie Could the Booker Prize have gone to a novel that treats three generations of an extended family but remains emotionally dead-flat aside from twin swellings of self-pity
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Review: Ottoman Age of Exploration

By Giancarlo Casale. The Ottomans were very active throughout the Indian Ocean world during the 1500s despite having no access to or knowledge of the area at the beginning of
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Daun Inai

Daun inai banyak getahnya, Ambil segenggam pewarna kuku, Wahai adik abang bertanya, Apa obat penawar rindu. Thick with sap run the henna’s leaves Take some in hand your nails for
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Gurindam not dead: Gadis Jolobu

Nobody studies the old Gurindams anymore //
Better ask somebody, don’t act like you know …
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Review: Going Postal

By Mark Ames Why do they hate America? Because there is a lot there to hate, says Mark Ames. Going Postal connects a lot of far-flung points to show the
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Illegal Business

… Controls America. Proof emerging that the DEA cooperated with the Sinaloa Cartel to allow drugs into the US in exchange for intelligence against other cartels.  Which has got to
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Batang jati kangkung

Kangkung, Ipomea aquatica, is a crawling vegetable with hollow stems, allowing it to float on the water, from whence it gets the name water spinach. There’s no relation – in
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Three Pipers: Lada, Sirih, Kaduk

Black pepper is the quintessential spice of the Spice Route, the ancient trade routes across the Indian Ocean that have brought merchants and travelers to the Nusantara since antiquity. Pepper
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American Nations: Review

Colin Woodward traces the origins of settlement in the United States to demonstrate that American attitudes, values and politics are highly regional and perpetuate over time. This basis for this
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Knowledge of Self

Theodore W. Allen (1919-2005) told me where white people come from. We like to think we know who we are, and indeed many things about ourselves we can easily define:
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Awal Muharram

The first day of the Islamic New Year is a national holiday in Malaysia, but it usually passes unremarked. This year, the State Mosque decided to host a day of
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Gurindam 12 Fasal 4

The 12 Gurindam of Raja Ali Haji ___________________________ This is the Gurindam of the fourth issue: Ini gurindam pasal yang keempat: The heart over the body rules all; if it
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Guidance and Error

Driving through the city last month, I was nearly out of gas. With a 2 and a half hour daily commute, it happens a lot and I tend to ride
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Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

by Mohsin Hamed. Changez’s personal journey of transformation and the conflicts driving it were believable enough I guess, but not particularly dramatic or striking (and lacking almost entirely in fundamentalism).
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Gurindam 12 Fasal 3

The 12 Gurindam of Raja Ali Haji

This is the gurindam of the third issue:
When we guard the eyes,
Idle fantasy is …
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No God But God

… and Reza Aslan is the Author. Tight composition, fast pacing, authoritative tone: it’s no surprise it was a bestseller.  Of politics and history it is a good introduction for the
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Universalising Islam in Malaysia

by Hew Wai Weng in the Malay Mail [Full Text]. “In the past, ethnic Chinese who became Muslims were assumed to lose their Chinese cultural identity and become “Malay”. The recent
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Gurindam 12 Fasal 2

The 12 Gurindam of Raja Ali Haji This is the gurindam of the second issue. Whosoever grasps what follows here Must know the true meaning of fear. Whosoever neglects the
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Gurindam 12 Fasal 1

This is the gurindam of the first issue:

Whosoever to his faith holds not
Is a man whose name will be forgot …
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Three Ways to be Alien: Review

By Sanjay Subrahmanyam Three very interesting lives in interesting moments of history. The author assumes a specialist’s level of background knowledge. I would have preferred a lot less academic argument and
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Sarawak Bonsai Competition

Wandering into the Hills mall to get haircuts for my five girls, I stumbled upon the last day of the 10th Sarawak Bonsai Competition!  I only had my handphone in
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Hari Raya 2013

Selamat Hari Raya!  Eid Mubarak!  Happy Holidays, everybody!  May the fasting and the prayers during the blessed month of Ramadan be accepted from us and from you and may Allah
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Ramadan in Malaysia

“Ramadan through the eyes of foreigners in Malaysia” :: Borneo Post. I’m one of the foreigners interviewed.  The article also ran in Bahasa Malaysia as “Ramadan Menerusi Kaca Mata Warga
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Review: Crusades through Arab Eyes

by Amin Maalouf  Not only did our troops not shrink from eating dead Turks and Saracens; they also ate dogs! Documentation of rampant cannibalism among the Franj comes from the
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Habib Nuh Al-Habshi

By Abu Muhammad of Bahrus Shofa. Photography & English translation by Bin Gregory Productions It is related that Kiyai Agung Muhammad bin ‘Abdullah as-Suhaimi BaShaiban made a regular daily  practice of
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Temasek: saints past and present

Shaykh Hisham Kabbani swept through Southeast Asia this summer, traveling back and forth between Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, in the company of renowned nasheed singer Habib Syech Abdul Qodir Assegaf from
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Cot Melukut

Cot melukut Berambang gantang. Mana tikus ‘nyorok? Celah kangkang! A popular nursery rhyme for youngsters. Begin by poking the bottom of the kid’s foot, then race up their leg to
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Raffles: Invasion of Java

Raffles & the British Invasion of Java by Tim Hannigan The book covers a fascinating, obscure moment in colonial history: the launching of Stamford Raffles’ career with the five-year invasion
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A poem by Antonio Machado

Traveler the path is your footprints and nothing more Traveller, there is no path You make the path by walking When walking you make the path And when you turn
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