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Home   /   Headline
Lemang Raya

Lemang Raya

August 19, 2012
by bingregory
Headline, Nusantara

Lemang is quintessential Malay holiday food, impossible to find throughout the year, impossible to avoid come Hari Raya.  Lemang is glutinous, or sticky, rice cooked…

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Sago Grubs - Ulat Mulong

Grub’s Ready

June 6, 2005
by bingregory
Featured, Headline, Nusantara

In Sarawak, if someone invites you to come get some grub, be careful. They may be intending to serve you these lovely morsels. What you…

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Wooden drums struck before the azan, in times gone by.

Madrasah al-Kamaliyya

April 28, 2005
by bingregory
Featured, Headline, Islam

My in-laws are from a small isolated village mostly preoccupied with growing coconuts. It has only between 50-60 homes, two small stores selling basic necessities…

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Bounded by I-96 on the north, Outer Drive on the east and south, and the Rouge River on the west.

Dolphin Street

April 10, 2005
by bingregory
About Me, Featured, Headline

Dolphin Street: A photographic tour of the 13500 block of Dolphin Street, Detroit MI, 48223.

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A billboard in Klang for the new Port.

Hau tu spik Malaysian

May 31, 2004
by bingregory
Headline, Language, Nusantara

Malaysia is constantly grappling with the role of English in the country and in the Malaysian language, Bahasa Malaysia. On the one hand, fluency in…

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The cemetery grounds: the dead grass was likely sprayed in preparation for the Holiday.

Kubur

February 23, 2004
by bingregory
Featured, Headline, Islam, Nusantara

We visited my late father-in-law’s grave on Eid al-Fitr to read Ya Sin and pray on his behalf. This is a common practice on the…

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Fleeting

@Musa279 cheesecake! Not as good as back home, but decent. It falls short on the angel food crust. The real deal is graham cracker

About 2 days ago from bingregory's Twitter · reply · retweet · favorite

RT @musafurber Prayers of Occasions: A Handbook of Muslim Salah - by Talal Al-Azem j.mp/13yhkhF

About 4 days ago from bingregory's Twitter · reply · retweet · favorite

@nasigorengusa I should have known that one too from the proverb "orang jahat jadi kawan adalah macam tongkat dibuat dari tulang rawan"

About 5 days ago from bingregory's Twitter · reply · retweet · favorite

@tvsmithmy definitely trying that

About 5 days ago from bingregory's Twitter · reply · retweet · favorite

@tvsmithmy short form definitely needed. "Kopi kancing manis adalah pembunuh terbukti" just doesn't flow off the tongue.

About 5 days ago from bingregory's Twitter · reply · retweet · favorite

@tvsmithmy Kopi kurang manis. Manis itu, kurangkan ye dik. Gula Mau sedikit saja. Kurang manis ye. *Kopi arrives mouthpuckeringly sweet*

About 5 days ago from bingregory's Twitter · reply · retweet · favorite

@nasigorengusa Cartilage = Tulang rawan, according to my handy-dandy kamus dwibahasa.

About 5 days ago from bingregory's Twitter · reply · retweet · favorite

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Ephemera

  • A Short History of Malaysia # -
    ShortHistoryMalaysia by Virginia Matheson Hooker.
    Straightforward introduction to Malaysian history; key individuals, important dates, broadest themes. It feels comparable in depth to what I remember of high school US History class. A good preparation for further reading, I hope.

     Goodreads Link

  • The Jungle is Neutral: Review # -

    TJIN_ChapmanThe Jungle is Neutral, by F. Spencer Chapman

    The memoir of a British lieutenant in WWII Malaya who conducts guerilla warfare against the Japanese. It’s not a very gripping story. All the successful guerrilla work takes place in the first quarter of the book, and from there on it is one long anticlimax of malaria, dysentery and thrashing through the jungle. Managing not to die in the jungle for a few years is a pretty good feat for a foreigner but he’s surrounded by locals who do it with less effort, and he doesn’t have much interesting to say about it beyond the bare facts. His major accomplishment between all the not succumbing to illness is training up the Malayan Communist Party cadres in tactics. The book ends with the war so I’m left wondering to what degree the post-war MCP insurgency against the British was more effective because of the good lieutenant’s training.

    I’ve been trying to read more books about Malaysia. It hasn’t been easy. There are surprisingly few of them, at least what shows up on Amazon. Of those that I’ve found, very few have anything to say about Malays. Anthony Burgess’s Malayan Trilogy novels didn’t have one sympathetic Malay character. Likewise TJIN: there isn’t a single named Malay in the whole book. What ‘s a good book about Malaysia I should read next? Any genre welcome.

  • The Road to Mecca: Review # -

    The Road to MeccaThe Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad

    Asad lived an amazing life which he describes beautifully. Meetings with future kings of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran before their ascension, espionage into Fascist-controlled Libya and British Iraq: Asad covered a lot of ground. He nests his recollections like the 1001 Nights, one scene inside the other, going further back in time with each one. Yet the book seemed so dated. Asad (1900-1992) was a man of the 20th century, and his Modern rationalist outlook, his Islamist politics and his extreme attachment to the House of Saud feel like relics of a previous age here in the Post-modern, Post-binLaden 21st.  The Road to Mecca was a fascinating historical document but not particularly inspirational to this reader.



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