TUKU IHO - Living Legacy Exhibition of the Honored Maori Artwork

Mr. James Rickard, Master wood Carver

Me with mr. Brian and Lee Khai 

The Tuku Iho is an exhibition of time honored Maori Artworks brought to the Museum at USM by the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. A national organization responsible for the protection, promotion and perpetuation of Maori Arts, Crafts and Culture. Alongside it many interest, the Institute runs the national school of wood carving, jade and stone and bone carving, weaving and canoe building.
Adapted from the Exhibition Catalogue.

If I can do a cultural study of a people I would definitely choose the Maori culture and its people; theirs is a culture that has been a fascination for me eversince my eldest brother sent back from new Zealand  a ruler that had all the different wood found in the country. Late upon his return from NewZealand where he had studied he also taught us at the school the maori Haka and a song that i can never forget called Pokare Kare.

Every now and then i wuld stumble upon something to do with Maori Art and culture like the last time when I found a book on Maori Tattoos which i have since misplaced it somewhere, my bad. The book had a thorough study of some of the Maori customs having to do with how and where and what tattoos are for the people.

The Maoris to me are also the native epole who has suffered the sane fate as most indigenous people all over the world at the hands of the Europeans in the early days of Imperialism and colonialism. They are also victims of their own weaknesses when it comes to adopting the bad habits such as alcohol consumption brought over by the Europeans. 

Like the Australian and the Native Americans, and many others, the Maoris lost their cultural heritage  and today only a handfull of true blooded Maoris survive to bear witness to the downfall of their way of life and sought to preserve whatever is left of it.  Maori wood carving is one of those cultural inheritance that is very well known all over the world for its unique design and  meticulous execution.

Although most of the art pieces are done by the few who have taken the task upon themselves to become preservers of the Maori wood carving art, they still carry for me the elegance and the refine taste of aesthetic beauty in expressing what is one's cultural heritage. The works exudes a sense of melancholy in a sense that these were once the pride possesions of a very proud nation living on the Island of New Zealand. 

The works also tells of an evolution of a culture from primitive to what it is today, a symbol of the past belonging to the people whose lives was and perhaps still is connected to nature and the spirit world. 

 To behold these pieces up close is a gift and I hope many will come to honor them while they are on display here at the University in Georgetown for this is indeed a Living Legacy of a people whose lives is not that much different from ours.

"The Culture of the Self" - Foucault.

What we are really suffering from today is the ills resulting from our lack of having a lineage, a clear line that leads us back to our ancestral origins and cultural heritage. This was what i was trying to share with a Chinese lady and a Maori Wood sculptor at the MGTF -USM while chatting after our lunch at the VIP table.  A loss of our connectivity to our tribal as well as family  bonds based on mutual respect and the need for an unwritten faith and belief of the better good for all, a sanctuary where we can look upon as an anchor from which we can launch ourselves into the future without loosing our sense of who we truly are and how we fit into the scheme of life as it is. We have become lackadaisical over time from generation to generation over where we originated from making assumptions as to who or where we come from, like I am a Chinese and my ancestors are Chinese and that is all i need to know, as you are a Malay and he is and Indian, and Arab or a Jew. We have lost the sense of looking deeper into what kind of a Chinese or Malay we are or what kind of Arab or Jew we are and how our ancestors has gotten to where we are today, in the form that we are. Our assumptions are based on the assumption that no one cares any more or that it really is not a great deal to think about any more as the world gets smaller by the day due to modern technology. We assume when we say I am a Chines it is fully understood who we are and how we behave towards others. The fact that i am Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong or Kawloon, Singapore or Malaysia makes no difference or that i am a Cantonese or a Hakka, or a Teochew or from the Funan or Hainan provinces is irrelevant. The sad thing is , it does and it does greatly when one is interacting on a global level.
 Human minds are formed by the cultural environment that it has been exposed to most of its formative years and the society in which the individual mind coexist helps to formulate its mode of thinking. No matter how far removed a person is from his original environment as he grows up he will resort to his ancestral ways of thinking if and when the time arises as this is how he is able to justify as why or how he thinks. There is no such thing as a 'Global Mind', at least not in the present or the near future as as we can see most people attach themselves to a race of creed, a background of cultural heritage or origin of ancestry especially when cornered in some argument or having the need to justify for a behavior. I am a Chinese and this is how I think or i think in this way because of my Judaic background.
As for me to relate to any other races or people with a different ethnic background from mine i have my preconceived ideas of how i should go about it, it cannot be helped especially if i have a notion of what the other's background is. Like I would deal with a Chinese in this manner or an Indian in this manner or a Swiss or an Englishman based on my past experiences as a Malay or who I am according to my cultural racial history and the kind of community I was raised into.This will be my yardstick, the criteria i gauge by when I am engaged in a communication with another person of a different ethnicity. Most of my approach into this conversation or communication will be based on assumptions and predilections of who I am talking to.I have found myself painfully taking proper etiquette and respect when I talk to strangers regards or what nationality he or she may be, young or old, however after a few rounds of sentences exchanged i find myself telling myself this is the Chinese speaking or and Indian emerging from what or how it is being said. My mind will switch to how i would normally deal with Chinese or an Indian, like certain guardrails and road signs will rise in the the landscape of our communication and i  will negotiate accordingly making lee way for how my communication will progress. My initial approach was to be as neutral and non-judgemental as I can be that is approaching with 'Bare Attention', however in the course of the conversation upon discovering the familiar nature through tonal and ideas values expressed I would drop my neutrality and assume the judgemental attitude of who it is that i am addressing. In essence I lost my sense of 'Bare Attention.'
Today I also discovered Michel Foucault!
"In his 1983 Berkeley lectures in English on “The Culture of the Self,” Foucault stated and restated the question in a variety of ways—“What are we in our actuality?,” “What are we today?”—and his investigations amount to “an alternative to the traditional philosophical questions: What is the world? What is man? What is truth? What is knowledge? How can we know something? And so on.” So write the editors of the posthumously published 1988 essay collectionTechnologies of the Self, titled after a lecture Foucault delivered at the University of Vermont in 1982. "
“The self is not so much something hidden and therefore something to be excavated but as a correlate of the technologies of self that it co-evolves with over millennium.”
"It is never too early or too late to occupy one self with one's soul. it is in constantly 
Being occupied with oneself is not therefore a simple momentary preparation for life but, it is a life form.
,..The importance of writing in the culture of the self, It is often assumed that personal writing is a modern discovery, maybe an innovation of the 16th. century or the Reformation. The relation to oneself through writing  has been a very long tradition of the West and I think it is possible to observe a shift from the culture of memoir which is still dominant from the Socratic  attitude from the  towards the practice of writing and taking notes in the Greco -Roman period. The culture of the Self implies the use of the note books, and in those note books you have to note your readings, your conversations, the theme for future meditations, you are also to write your dreams, your daily schedule, writing letters was also something important among those who practices of the self, because in a letter you have to entertain at the same time a relation to your self and a relation to somebody else who can be a director or a friend or somebody to whom you give advises which are valuable both for him and for you... The self becomes a field of observation.
 The theme  concerning of oneself to oneself...is not to be found within a particular doctrine, it is a universal precept and it is also real practice. Many individuals responds to its call. it is a practice that has its institutions, its rules and methods, its techniques, its exercises, and it is also a mode of individual but also a collective experience  experience with its means and its form of practice...."
Excerpts from Michel Foucault, lectures at University of California on You Tube.
It is said that if you look hard enough and really sincerely yearn for the truth, you will find the help and teachers along the way and they will appear at the right time and in the most unlikely manner. I found this lecture by Foucault on the subject of" The Culture of the Self", immediately after my chat with James Lancelot, the Maori sculptor and a Chinese lady at lunch given by the Museum in honor of the New Zealand High Commissioner to Malaysia. We were talking on the subject of the preservation of cultural heritage and how it is diminishing all over the world. The point i was making was the fact that one has to know oneself inside out in order to be able to share fully what is one's cultural heritage. For a Malaysian like myself it is not easy as I am of mixed lineage and ancestry and none has to do with what indigenous Malay culture is all about However i grew up in a predominantly Malay community and most of my childhood life was also exposed to Chinese as well as Hindu cultures. hence what I am is really the culmination of all three cultures basically and the later addons of western cultures from having lived in the West for 21 years of my life.
To recognize this in myself is paramount to what i have been trying to achieve all these years with my blogging, although i never thought of it before but my blogging  has evolved pretty much into a memoir, a literary account of my life from day to day followed as closely as i possibly could.
I am more then ever before am convinced that in knowing your own true nature you truly get to know the universe or at least those around you even if they come from different cultural heritage and backgrounds. Simply put, what have you got to offer of your self if you have no idea of who you truly are in the first place? if so then you are merely a spectator or a bystander in any circumstances or events and not the participant or the actors promoting your own views and concepts towards enriching those of others. You can only offer the original ideas if you have come to know the original you that which is the Unborn Buddha Nature, that which precedes your coming into being in this realm of consciousness. To attain to this level of understanding, of becoming, or being, you have to wade through your cultural history, your spiritual anchorage and your innate intelligence from the beginning to the very end of your life and fully have a grasp of who you truly are in reality and in essence.
If and when you have attained to this status, this platform from which you are delivering your views and opinions only then what you say will be heard for it will carry authenticity and genuine understanding: this is called your Dharma Position. From the summit of this mountian you speak not as a Malay or a Hindu, a Chinese or a Musluim, Christian or Jew but as Man himself.

What can I do? What can i say?

All over the world sparks of human discontentment and conflicts are manifesting like sores appearing on the surface of the body as though some infestation has taken over from within and is breaking out like hives.or urticaria. it seems like our immune system towards the inability to coexist in harmony is slowly braking down and we are running out of the means to treat this deficiency as no new forms of intercommunication can bring together or mend these conflict most of which have become terminal in nature. Has our capacity to solve problems through negotiations and conferences become so obsolete and lacking that we are no more capable of resolving our petty differences without resorting to violence? Are the plights of humanity for peaceful coexistence is just a delusion that we are bound to carry with us to our own extinction? Are mankind becoming so blindly stupid and ignorant that he is no more able to differentiate between what is leading him to his demise and what is living in peaceful coexistence?
These are worrisome questions I ask myself time and again and am getting tired of it myself as the answers are out there but there no too many who are looking for it. I feel like there is so few of the likes of me who pay too close attention towards what is going on on the global scale where human consciousness is leading us and if there are those who take the trouble to expand their self discoveries and share it in one form of another it seems like there not too many who gives a hoot and more who would look upon such personal expression as a waste of time and effort. We are becoming automatons marching towards our own peril a the drumbeat of some unknown power that has for ever been trying to dislodge humanity from its harmonious track of existence. By hook or by crook these dark elements, call them what you will, by your own terms according to your own religious perceptions and understanding, but rest assured they are there and theirs is to destroy the essence that is of being 'Human.' Of abiding by the code of religious and spiritual conduct that attest to the fact that we are humans, intelligent and compassionate towards others by all means and at all times. Remove this intelligence and compassion, wisdom and understanding, remove our capacity to love and be loved we are nothing more than just animals and the worse kind at that; only man has proven that they can kill the young and innocent for his own cause or his ideology.
There is no mountain high enough for me to cry from its peak for man to wake up from his sleep of doom, from his apathy and lack of concern for what is going on to himself a a collective spirit. That he is being torn apart from all directions and in all forms possible such that he betrays his loved ones and murder those who loves him all in the name of Greed, Hate and Ignorance.How much more does one need to yell and scream out to awaken those who are sleep walking towards their self prophesied Armageddon while becoming a victim to those whose intention are in the fulfillment of these prophecies.We are sitting at the edge of a third world war waiting to happen and we are living in denial like never before. Most of us are lulled to sleep by the myriads of opiates of modern technology and synthetic drugs that dulls our senses into conforming to whatever it is the dark side has in its hidden agenda towards the demolishing of the House of the Lord on earth.
Religious conflicts has taken the worse of turns as more and more countries are tearing up at the seams pitching one religion against another, one sectarian belief against another, brothers against brothers all on the difference of ideologies and beliefs alone. But these are all age old perceptions and arguments that has been around since the beginning of man's understanding of himself. Nothing i can add that would really make any difference anymore, but it is the nature of my mind that it will not cease to harbor thoughts about these disturbing matters that is happening around me, whether on the local or global scale. To have a glimpse of how disturbing it is becoming all one has to do is read all the posts on Face Book or view what is on You Tube in relation to anything and everything and one can come to a good understanding of how far or how near we are from self destruction through Greed, Hate and Ignorance.
All I can say for myself is that i hate to be a victim or some mad bugger's idea of world domination through exploiting my own individual ignorance of what is going on and why; to to simply become food and fodder for some unseen hands manipulating the world affairs to suit their own interest.I at least owe it to my children to keep myself from being led astray through propaganda and misinformation, I owe it to my loved ones families and friends if not to my readers to know the truth or keep looking for it even if it is hidden deep in the heap of human crap that is being downloaded all over the planet. If nothing else I will be one more angry man left screaming on top of the mountain to '"Let my People GO!!.    

Transformation

An old black and whits photo taken from the fishing village at Teluk Bahang sometime in the seventies as today you rarely see ice being transported in this manner. 

My temporary studio at night using water based colors of the cheapest kind from house pain to water color tubes.

The all I had to do was to paint the back ground in this case beginning with the hill and then followed by the skie and the then the sea.

I paint the poles last and will leave the figures as they are to commemorate the black and whit origin of the picture. a sort of historical statement  of time and place and event.

I, Am No More!

So, how does one say detached from all these day to day episodes played upon your screen of consciousness? The Plane shot out of the sky by some mad men who wishes to be heard, a siege of horrendous proportion at the cost Innocent lives just to gain a few more miles of territory, the ever increasing amount of traffic passing by my window, the mosques that are three quarter empty most of the time or the usage of a word ,yes can or no cannot; Allah is exclusive for Muslim Malays only. The ever increasing cases of haze and the incessant burning of virgin forests, the exploitation of foreign workers and the abuses of children, the infanticide that is increasing in numbers among unwed mothers... the list can go on  of the woes that this mind is subjected to; how does one remain detached from it all?
I went to the movie last night with my son his cousin and two of their friends, i can safely bet that i was the oldest in the whole theater but i had fun watching Guardians of the Galaxy  If nothing else i enjoyed being lifted momentarily from my bed of so called reality into realm of science fiction on a grand sale of imagination. I might have mentioned before that my oldest brother who was then a teacher at the secondary school or high school I attended was into subscribing to MARVELS comicsin the early 70s and he had the originals of the first issues of most of the characters like The Flash, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man,The Incredible Hulk, The green Lantern ,among others and my twin including my elder sister were the beneficiary and I had the privileged of reading these after he did. So any movie out of MARVELS will always be a thrill for me, to simply watch the unfolding of an Art piece from its first inception till today on the big screen with the latest in cinematographic genius.  This is the culmination of Collective Art at its best. Movies like Captain America, and Spiderman, X-Men and so on may not be for the old men like me but they make me feel young and fortunate to be there to enjoy it at my age and seeing Stan Lee in person every now and then puts the cream on it.
Yes it is an escape from the so called reality as some would say, that i am escaping from being in the here and now and working out how to pay for my loans and making sure that my daughter's needs are met with now that she has gone back to school, all i can say is the alternative could have been worse, i could be masturbating my frustrations out in the loneliness of my room, or i could be wasting my time away watching silly videos of J.Krishnamurti or Mooji or the likes of Alan Watts or George Galloway and the Pastor McConnell and his Islamophobic diatribes from the pulpit of an Irish Church. Yes my mind is addicted to these and will instantly grab on to the slightest distraction big or small and cling on to it till a series has been made for further viewing. Anyway the kids needed someone to drive them there and back so why not.
All along I have been watching my mind on how it gets sucked into making comments and giving excuses and making up stories about the most insignificant event or the most ordinary guy or the firs thing that the eyes sees, it is like a sponge ans it multiplies and exaggerates more than what is into time consuming thoughts and images until it fizzles out into nothingness to be replaced by a new episode. Sometimes the mindfulness watching practice of Vipassana meditation will help to lessen this but not all of the time as the mind has 'a mind or its own' and will make sure that practice is forgotten. Sometimes a good deep and long breathing exercises helps but it helps to change the channels most of the time. Rarely does it helps to displace the thought movements once and for all. I feel only a rude awakening will do this like the stick on the back when one is falling asleep while sitting in meditation inside the Zendo of a Zen Buddhist monastery. Every now and then one gets kicked in the teeth or a slap on the face or the loss of ones Ipad. These events can sometimes help to make the drastic change happen from one state of mind into another not necessarily for the good, but it helps to make the change permanent.
I can say i cannot be carrying the weight of the world's suffering on my back or join any and every merry making that comes my way just so i can waste my time away from what it is that is worth my living for, I should spend more time sketching or painting or i could be writing away in my Blog just so there is something to read the next day for my readers. But it is by virtue of the Bodhisatva vows, and here i go again justifying my actions through Buddhist practice, that i make this commitments to be in the moment form time to time from episode to episode from breath to breath no matter how banal or insignificant it may be, I am one hundred percent present in the moment even as i am here and now. The first of the Bodhisatva vow is, Beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them! So here I am in the middle of it all where two planes have gone down from the skies and all hell will break loose if the different races and religious groups does not learn to be tolerant towards one another. Here i am where the city streets are littered with open burning with the City council's blessings to honor the Hungry Ghosts or whatever while at the same time complaining about the haze and its health effects; it makes little sense but it is as it is. The more your mind is awakened it is said the more it is receptive to the external realm or phenomena. The awakened is a highly sensitive mind that is capable of making connections and rationalizations, creating images and making up stories, the awakened mind is like the sponge that soaks up whatever liquid that comes in it way.
It is because of this that the second vow comes into play, that being; Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. It is the primary motive of any practice in pacifying the dual thinking mind is to bring it into silence; cease all thoughts or failing which to bring to a minimal of activity. When you meditate long and often enough you will start to realize that yuo are not what your mind has thought you out to be, thoughts are mental illusions which has no hold on you the thinker. With skillful means you will learn how to detach from your thoughts and in time learn to become simply a witness to what arises in your mind as just one illusion after another. being able to identify this rising and falling of thoughts, recognizing what makes them appear and disappear, or how long or how short a duration they took, you will come to have a clear understanding of how you can think all you want and yet remain detached from them. Until comes a time you see them as strangers trying to gain excess into your consciousness and be a part of who you think you are. Thus you are just a by product of a thought process governed by the limiting principles of time and space, of past and present of here or there, in or out, you are trapped in a dual thinking process of black and white, right and wrong; you are never free to be who you truly are, that which is you before your parents conceive of you, your '"Unborn Buddha Nature".To be able to come to a realization of this state of complete enlightenment for even as long as the flash of a lightening is worth a lifetime of experience. To be able to penetrate into the mystery of Being in complete awareness of this totality of what is called life is the goal of every Being in the six realm and the ten directions, this is Liberation, this is Nirvana. The Bodhisatva who has awakened to this state of existence becomes a Buddha and he is no more. His perceived 'self' has merged into the Emptiness of Being, he is gone beyond the concept of the word gone.
However as the vow of the Bodhisatva also includes the complete awakening of all beings along with you,  this will only happen when there is no more voice in the Universe that cries in sorrow or pain, for so long as there is one you are still bound by your vows to liberate this being from its suffering. Hence it is imperative that you make it your practice to fully understand what 'Suffering is.' Not all that seemingly are suffering is truly suffering, for as the Buddha declared, "Suffering Is, None who suffers, Nirvana Is , none who attains it." In this the Bodhisatva is committed to untangle all the mysteries of the laws of Karma and the how to enter the myriads of 'Phenomena' or Dharma Gates; the grist of life, every form of experiences and every confrontation, every challenge and every tests, every thought manifested and un-manifested. 'The Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them." There is no escape from day to day activities, vexations or otherwise no matter how tedious or insignificant they may be, for as long as they have manifested within the range of your consciousness and the mind has attached itself to it, you have to work it out with skillful means of an enlightened mind. You have to come to right understanding of the nature of impermanence of every phenomena as they arise and remain detached through practicing Bare Attention, not adding nor rejecting what is but merely acknowledging of their appearance, how long they stay and how they disappear from your consciousness.
As one progress towards complete understanding of the nature of being the 'Unborn Buddha nature', that which is the essence of who you are you will inadvertently help along those beings who are ready to see through you the path that leads them into liberation and enlightenment ; Free from the shackles of ignorance.Free from the Cyclic existence of Birth, Death and Rebirth. You can say I am through with this game of so called life, I, am no more! When the I is no more what is left is that which Is, I am that, I Am. God is One and only one. When I am no  more, God Is. I believe that in Islam the Sufi calls it arriving at the state called 'Fana'' or non-existent, in order that one becomes one or returns to Allah.
"Inna Lillahi Wa'innalillahi Ra'jiun,"
From Thee i have come to Thee i return.

Take not thy Lord's name in vain...

The usage of the word 'Allah' by the Christians in their publications as well as in prayers in certain parts of the country is still under debate although the law of the country may have declared the issue closed. According to the law of the land the word Allah cannot be used by the christian churches whether in preaching or sermons or in any form of publication as in the translations of the Bible into Bahasa Malaysia or the Malay language. How this ruling has come about will take a whole lot of explanation the details of which is fit for those who really and truly care for how the laws of the land is being carried out. In arriving at the decisions i am positive it must have taken allot of research and deliberation by all parties concerned and not mention the interference of the religious authorities such as the Sultans or rulers of states. who are also heads of the Islamic Ummah in their respective states. Ic an only touch the surface of what had transpires thus far and needless to say nothing is really solved as there will always be residues of discontentment among those who feel otherwise especially the Christians who have been using the word for as long as their parents could remember.
"The unanimous decision by three Muslim judges in Malaysia's appeals court overturned a 2009 ruling by a lower court that allowed the Malay-language version of the newspaper, The Herald, to use the word Allah - as many Christians in Malaysia say has been the case for centuries."
Reuters.
So why am i making ripples over something that is tentatively considered has having been resolved by the law of the land in the Supreme courts no less? Well while browsing through the You Tube videos listening to George Galloway the former British Member of Parliament I came upon a video of one a Pastor James McConnell  Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle, Belfast who gave a sermon to his congregation on the subject of "The truth about Islam." her are a few words of his about the word Allah; "Islam is heathen, Islam is Satanic, Islam is a doctrine spawn in hell!...the God we serve and worship this evening is not 'Allah! The Muslim God Allah is a heathen deity, Allah is a cruel deity, Allah is a demon deity,..I have no trust for any Muslim." This statement was later supported by a First Minister of the British Parliament, Peter Robinson. Hence from this incident one can see that there so much hypocrisy in religions that has affected us in so many negative ways creating so much divisiveness over issues that are as mundane as the word we use to call God, such as Allah, or Yaweh or Adonai or Brahman, or The Great Spirit, Wakatanka. How can one section of Christianity fight tooth and nail to be allowed to use the word Allah while there on the other hand is another group calling the Word 'Allah' having been spawned from Hell:?
Pastor McConnell's  Full length Islam Sermon on You Tube.

The following comment was made with regard to an event in the Irish history whereby a Muslim leader had offered aids to the Irish people in times of dire need opposing the British Government orders to not to.

"To commemorate this act of kindness and generosity towards their country, the Mayor of Drogheda, Alderman Frank Goddfrey, paid tribute to Caliph Abdel Mejid in May 1995 and erected a plaque in his honour [7]. The appreciation the Irish people felt for the Muslims and their ruler is further exemplified in the crest of the Drogheda United football club. As a token of respect, the club emblem features a star and crescent moon in honour of the help Muslims provided their country, during one of the darkest moments in its history. This is in stark contrast to the image McConnell attempted to depict of Islām, proving that his verbal diatribe against Sharī’ah Law, Islām, and Muslims was not supported by any factual evidence, but was borne from his bigoted, ignorant and racist views against Islām and Muslims."
to read more...
Source: www.islam21c.com  Islam and Ireland Historical Ties.

How have humanity sunk so low in ignorance that we are willing to kill and be killed over our own misinterpretation and misconception of other's belief and faiths without even giving it the benefit of the doubt as to whether we are in ignorance of the truth ourselves. The reason I have accepted the teachings of the Buddha is simply because of this, the fact that humanity has been sucked into their own ignorance so much so the we are blinded to the truth by our own self serving insatiable need for fame and fortune and the desire to belittle anyone or anything that we have no right understanding of. Mankind have come to worship his own self manifest 'Super Ego' manifesting a kind of protective cloak against what is deemed  as a threat to our own well being regardless if it is true or otherwise.
The Internet is the Miracle or Miracles that the Good Lord has given us to use for our convenience in making sure that anything and everything we say or do is within the limits of verifiable truth. With the availability of information unlimited, we can learn what is right and what is not by making some effort to browse the Internet and acquire what we need for our claims before we make any. The word 'Allah' to my understanding simply means 'The Lord' or to be more precise, the 'One true Lord' and it is simply so because it is an Arabic word as Al- means 'The' It is my personal opinion that there would be nothing wrong with the use of the word by others except that it should never be used in vain or derogatorily .or to insult others by its use. As a matter of fact as a Muslim believer I feel it an honor for others to use the word as it would help for them to better understand its significance and depth and thus creating a close tie to the Muslims in general.

"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain." - New King James / Revised Standard / New American Standard.

The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs - Menachem Begin

What will become of the Gaza strip after all that is said and done by the Israelis Military that has proven once and for all that we humans are capable of inflicting the worse over our own species despite international condemnation?  The Zionist regime has nailed the Jewish people to the cross once and for all and it has nothing really to do with antisemitism as even the Jews themselves for some condemns their government actions to be too brutal and inhuman. Hatred rules the day where the number of death among the population of the Gaza is escalating and the city itself is left in rubbles. One wonders what the Zionist regime under the direction of Benjamin Netanyahu has in mind for the future of the area in the aftermath, if there is any. What would the Israelis hope to salvage after the have succeeded in wiping out the Palestinians if that is even possible as there many who still lives outside of the country like those of the PLO refugees scattered all over the world. Will there ever be a lasting peace in the region and if so what would it take to achieve such a state when there is so much death and destruction already incurred to the point of no return.

"We must expel Arabs and take their places." 
-- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

David Ben Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
1949 - 1954,
1955 - 1963.

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist."
-- Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.

"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.

"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls."
-- Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988       
Yizhak Shamir
Prime Minister of Israel
1983 - 1984, 
1986 - 1992

The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... 
-- Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
"If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000. 
"I would have joined a terrorist organization."
-- Ehud Barak's response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha'aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.
Ehud Barak
Prime Minister of Israel
1999 - 2001

Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but
certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people
and the State of Israel on trial."

-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001
quoted in BBC News Online

As reflected from all of these quotes from former leaders of Israel it is apparently clear what  the Zionist state has in mind all along and the arrogance and blatant disregard for the fate of  the Palestinian is regard as of no account. What we are witnessing today is the manifestation  of the Zionist agenda to carry out the will of the these leaders from the past to the present.  There not a hint of Mercy or compassion that is uttered by these so called leaders who only  saw their self serving agendas as paramount towards the establishing of a state of Israel  at whatever cost. On the other hand the Muslim leaders all over the world are as helpless as eunuchs at the mercy of their masters the United States government and perhaps of the Great Britain as well.  From the Saudi King to the presidents and priministers of rest of the Arab world there is  not a hint of resistance. Every Muslim nation is comfortably numb with their silence while  the Palestinians are being systematically slaughtered. What is going on in this world of ours  Are as human beings becoming so callous and apathetic towards what is happening  that we allow for such atrocities to go on unchallenged? What do we have the  United Nations Security Forces for? When is enough is enough?

Penang State Gallery Exhibition - Tifin Cariers

iffin carriers or dabbas are a kind of lunch box used widely in India for tiffin meals. They are also widely used in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and Singapore. They are known asrantang in Indonesian and mangkut tingkat (leveled bowls) in Malay.^[1] and in Turkey and West Asian and Northeast African Arab countries they are called Safartas Arabic سفرطاس meaning travel bowls. They are also used extensively in Hungary, primarily to transport restaurant cheap workday midday meals for consumption at home. The Hungarian word for a tiffin box is "éthordó" (food carrier)

Normally they come in two or three tiers, although more elaborate versions can have four. The bottom-most tier, being the largest, is the one usually used for rice. Tiffin carriers are opened by unlocking a small catch on either side of the handle. The Hungarian version will typically contain a soup, main course and piece of cake.

In the Indian city of Mumbai, there is a complex and efficient delivery system that regularly delivers hot lunches packed in dabbas to city office workers from their suburban homes or from a caterer. It uses delivery workers known as dabbawalas

Tiffin carriers are generally made out of steel and sometimes of aluminium, but enamel and plastic versions have been made by European companies. They can keep food warm for at least two or three hours.

Tiffin is an English slang term of second breakfast or lunch, sometimes applied to any light meal. It originated in British India, and is today found primarily in Indian English.^[1]The word originated when Indian custom superseded the British practice of an afternoon tea, leading to a new word for the afternoon meal.^[1] It is derived from the obsolete English slang tiffing, for "taking a little drink or sip".^[2] When used for "lunch", it is not necessarily a light meal.^[3]:8

The new and the old .In Jaoan they call it Obento or as in the United States they are called lunch boxes only these are more elaborate in their functions. 

In the east where rice is the primary diet along with it comes many other dishes such the curries and the fried vegetales and sometimes along with the soup and fried fish or meat. Hence you have the many tiers of containers as these items are kept separated.

It is hard to say where this utensil  originated from but my feeling it might have been from China as he Chinese are the people who eat rice along with varieties of side dishes that goes with it.

The aesthetis beauty of these tifin carriers is in the decorative motives painted on them or the shapes and unique designs that they are created with. These carriers are not much seen in use theses days simply because that there are food outlets and cafetarias all over the place making food readily available anywhere and everywhere. Most work places are equipped with canteens  for the employees and so are schools.

These Chinese food carriers are more ornate and decorative and are possibly used for special occasions as in ceremonial or ritual transportation of food. 

The tifin fcarrier may be a simple everyday item for most of us, but in itself it is a unique item that had served its purpose in the old days when food is not readily available when one travels fro one place to another.

Missing my wife Nancy.

Every now and then the memory of my late wife , mother to Karim and Marissa creeps into my consciousness especially during the days of festivities. Hoe she would have enjoyed visiting and being visited by relatives and friends as she did in the past. 

We spent alot of time at the Golden gate park in San Francisco when the children were one and two years of age untill we decided to move to Japan. My children, karim and marissa practically grew up in the Park which was a block away from our home on 2nd. Avenue .

Allot f time to was spent a Rossi park and playground where we made a good number of riends who frequented the place with their children. Irish, Jews, a couple from Argentina and a few from Poland and some from many places in Russia. We became a small community over the years and watched our children grew up as we celebrated their birthdays at the park. 

Nancy was happiest when spending time with the children and was loved by just about everyone she met. She was more dedicated to her teaching and was well loved by her students who hailed from all over the world

 I can say I practically dressed my wife as I did the buying of what she wears and she never complained and if left up to her my wife would have been totally happy dressed in rags and torn jeans. Having been a beautiful lady with a ready smile on he face it was not hard to buy her the dresses I thought that would make her look elegant and brought out here inner beauty.

I never got to know my brother in law Randy as i never visited  Nancy's home in Columbia, Illinois. Her mother Mrs. Alma was a lovely lady but we did not see eye to eye for one reason or another.  Today I have contact with Randy at all and Alma has left us to join her husband Jerome Buss in heaven. 

Nancy and the kids when we were in San Jose visiting one of our closest friend Mr. George Berberis. Whenever i look back and thought of my late wife these the few things that i can think of, the good moments we had spent together with the kids in tow. Nancy may no more be around but her memories still lingers in my mind as some who made my dreams come true and as much as I made hers. We gave each other a meaning to our existence. Yes I miss my wife dearly but I have learned to move along and taken care of the two children that she had given me who now are grown up and if she had been alive today she would have had spoiled them to no end.  .