Miss Michy

i woke up on the third day feeling terribly tired, and got ready for breakfast in a daze. met breakfast boy at the lobby, and we went to the cafe - but not before looking at ourselves in the star! :D quite a few BRATs were happily reading the article about us in the lobby, and we joined them. after all, who doesn’t like appearing in their local daily? hehe.

since we were told we’d be going out in the morning itself, most of us were already clad in our official BRATs t-shirt. those who didn’t, had put away the t-shirt in their backpacks so they could change quickly in the (private, obviously) toilet cubicles on the ground floor.

here’s me and one of the seniors. diyana, at breakfast. since i heard this girl got a scholarship - congrats hun! if i end up in taylor’s, i’ll see you there kay :D

after breakfast, we headed to the conference room. as usual, every morning we begin our day with fun and games. i’m not sure when the following game was played, but since i was the ‘murderer’, i have to blog about it! basically, everyone sits around in a circle. two are called to the middle to be the ‘police’. everyone closed their eyes, and miux walked around, and tapped two heads - those would be the ‘murderers’.

i got to be one heehee. then, after the tapping was done, we opened our eyes. the ‘murderers’ are supposed to wink at their victims, who would loudly proclaim ‘i’m dead!’, and the ‘police’ would have to try and guess who the ‘murderer’ is before more become victims. i winked away happily la, causing about 10 people to ‘die’ - but it was a difficult game!

some BRATs would stare at you wide eyed as you winked and winked and WINKED, positively refusing to ‘die’. some would look at you, mouth agape, silently pointing at themselves, and you had to quickly nod, as if to say ‘yes please die’. oh, and remember when i said there would be two ‘murderers’? well, trust me to accidentally kill/eliminate the other one from the game when i winked at her T_T

see, we weren’t told that ‘murderers’ had immunity from each other, haha! so i was laboriously winking away, thinking ‘haih why the other one not winking!’. turns out i finished her off already what kind of luck is that T_T terribly hard to ‘murder’ blur BRATs i tell you!

after another round of this game, we were briefed on our next assignment. my group were given the chew jetty and the lim jetty to cover, and apparently it was a really good place to go to. interesting stories and all that. some went to the kapitan keling mosque, another group to penang hill (which a lot of us coveted!) and the last group got to take a ferry to butterworth.

niki also taught us some things on newspapers and how they’re printed, the work that goes into them, the name of various sections etc. twas a really interesting segment, and we even got to know a little more about how great writers like a. asohan are procured by the star!

after we got our assignments, we brainstormed for a bit, trying to decide how to angle our stories, and in the end we decided on something along the lines of ‘a day in the life’ and ‘then and now : the history of chew jetty’. initially, we were supposed to visit two different jetties, but ended up not going to the lim jetty as apparently, someone from that clan passed away that very morning.

shared a bus with another group, and they were dropped off at the beautiful kapitan keling mosque, before we were brought to the jetties. as we didn’t know much about the history and background of the chew clan, i called up several people to help me google them. initial attempts were futile - ram was working, lisa wasn’t near a computer, and ruby was away as well. luckily, ruby’s brother helped me out, and i managed to get some pretty decent background info by the time we reached the jetties. thanks hussein! :D

almost immediately, most of us went snap happy. there were plenty of rustic temples to photograph - how i love penang! it’s so vibrant <3 by the way, that’s joye and ming yuen in the picture.

one of the unique things i noticed upon arrival, was this little shrine built around a tree at the entrance! there were altars at the base of the tree, and big heavy branches sneaked out of the openings. i wonder if the tree has any significance to the chew clan?

this is right after the tree shrine.

me and may khei! :) i love my BRATs t-shirt so much…too bad we only get one :( i’m taking real good care of my cap too…it’s really nice as well, a lovely light creamy brown with the BRATs logo on it.

that’s mr. chew kok wah, cousin to the chairman of the chew clan, being interviewed by kei. at first, we were worried about the language barrier (only a few of us could speak mandarin/hokkien), so when he greeted us in english, we felt so happy!

as miu kee our senior said, the moment he spoke english, we were grinning from ear to ear in barely suppressed glee. terribly transparent people la the whole bunch :)

they were standing in front of the oldest temple at the chew jetty - it’s over a century old, but is very well preserved! no crumbling eaves or faded paint. everything was maintained really well.

doesn’t it look fairly new? i took some pictures of the dragons on the roof as well (yay for a steady hand - and 5x optical zoom!).

when we arrived, there was a steady stream of people filing in and out of the temple, praying to their gods and cleaning up the place. the chew clan are deeply rooted in their religious beliefs, and everyone helps out in maintaining the cleanliness of the shrines and temples. indeed, the place was spick and span!

leaving the temple, we moved on to the spanking new community hall.

mr. chew showed us many plaques that provided a lot of information on various facets of life of the chew clan. there were plaques with stories of their origins, customs and festivals - a must see for visitors/tourists eager to know more!

noted on this pink manila card is the list of donors that contributed towards the community hall. you can’t see it here, but the amount raised was RM 12,000. that’s quite a lot!

we then walked along the rickety boardwalk, snapping happily as we moved along. while kei and wei khang were busy filming the interview, the rest of us interviewed other residents and snapped many, many pictures. we met the oldest inhabitant, an elder of 91 years old, a few shopkeepers, and on the way out, some very shy children.

kei busy interviewing.

i like quaint, slightly worse for the wear doorways. they have so much character!

walking along with everyone else, i took many pictures, but here’s my favourite :)

the contrast of light and shadow, to me, is beautiful, along with that striking red door.

come, i’ll show you the jetty! it was beautiful:) i wonder if my being a water sign (scorpio) has anything to do with my love for being near the open sea?

the boats which the clan use to earn their livelihood. we envisioned james bond-esque scenes of residents just running from their homes (which are barely a few metres away) and leaping into their boats at the break of dawn. there were no guard rails, and it was slightly dangerous…if you were walking near the edge and lost your footing, you’d fall right into the sea.

on the left, you can see some of their homes :)

here’s two shots of the same boat - the sky and sea were such a perfect shade of blue that they were such pretty backdrops!

my favourite of the two, but the one below was used in our chew jetty video :

a fairly modern boat. this is used to bring clean water to the ships at sea. sometimes, the fishing boats stay out at sea for days on an end, hence this particular boat is used to bring them fresh supplies of water.

an old man was fixing his bubu, an apparatus used for fishing.

also, here at the end of the jetty, was where my photo was taken (later to be used in ole brats, our very own 4 page pullout full of our articles and pictures) by mr. ahad. while i asked mr. chew more questions, may khei jotted down notes. he took several shots, some of the entire group, some of me interviewing mr. chew. here’s the one that made it to the news stands :)

i usually hate being photographed from the side, but this one was alright! quite a few of my friends messaged me to say they saw me in ole brats, haha!

mr. ahad (the official photographer) is such a nice man - for instance, during the self defence class on the last day, i was sitting right in front la to catch all the action. it so happened that the person in the demonstration was standing right in front of me, hence blocking me from the camera. know what he did? he asked the person to please move to the right a little, and asked said person to keep inching away till i was no longer blocked. so sweet! :) of course, it may just have been for a better shot, but it was still nice nevertheless :P also gotta thank niki/other people involved in editing the pullout, if any, for choosing said picture to publish!

anyway, after we wrapped up our interview session, we made our way back to the entrance. this was where we stumbled upon the following youngsters.

there’s mr. chew asking the shy young boy some questions for us :) we managed to get some details out of them - life hasn’t changed all that much on the jetty - they still fly kites in the monsoon season (strong winds), go fishing, and cycle along the boardwalk. indeed, the only differences are the modern comforts (we saw lots of astro satellite dishes and air conditioning units) and the fact that they also count DOTA as among their hobbies.

mr. chew was a very nice interviewee - he answered all of our questions, and gave us quite a few usable details. for instance, did you know young boys can go out to sea from the tender age of 4? some can man their own fishing boats at 10 years old! he told us of yearly celebrations paying homage to the deities of the sea, the fervent practice of feng shui by the clan, the strong community bonds (everyone comes together to help each other out - to put out fires, for instance. as the houses are all wooden structures, they have to look out for each other - one little spark can turn into a massive bonfire!) and much more.

if you’d like to read our complete article, you can find it here. i’m very proud of it - the first few paragraphs are mine, next few may khei’s, last few ming yuen’s. as we did it in three separate pieces, i was pleasantly suprised to find it all combined in one long article. kudos to niki for the editing, the bits flowed smoothly and no one would have guessed it was initially three separate parts!

we took more pictures while waiting for our transport back to the hotel, and even interviewed some salvation army people who were visiting the place.

kel vin presented a token of appreciation to mr. chew for giving us a tour of the place and for patiently enduring being interviewed almost continuously for an hour, hehe. :P

here’s us camming to pass the time.

me, joye and julian in front of the over-a-century-old temple!

me and tammy :)

julian, me and ming yuen - all happy that we got what we needed for our video and articles! :)

when we got back to the hotel, we quickly scarfed down some lunch before retiring to our rooms to freshen up. we got back to the conference room as quickly as we can for our debriefing, where niki and the other journalists asked us about our assignments and our stories. after debriefing, we set about finishing up our soundslide. while kel vin recorded the final parts of his narration, i sat down with tammy and julian to put together the perfect sequence of pictures to properly tell our story (thanks for enduring my super precise instructions, tammy, and for your opinions and insight, jules!) while mikha chose the perfect song for our background music. we had to coordinate it with the voiceover, and while it proved challenging, the end result was a joy to behold. to see it, please refer to my ‘BRATs Day 2′ post :)

by evening, we were a far cry from this…

…and were rushing to meet our deadlines, turning into this :

stressednyer -_-” hehe, almost all of us are frowning, except happy kei and diyana! :P

anyway, the seniors must have watched our progression from mildly worried to full blown stresspots, because we were hauled away from our work to play…AIYOH PING PONG PIAH! :D

basically, there are several groups, each comprising of five. one is ‘aiyoh’, one is ‘ping’, one is ‘pong’, and another is ‘piah’, with yet one more the number-calling person. each group is assigned a number, and the person in charge of calling out the number CANNOT call out their own groups number. they must yell out the number of another group, and the ‘aiyoh’ person of that group has to shout ‘aiyoh’, with the ‘ping’ person shouting out ‘ping’, etc, and there cannot be any breaks or hesitation. every once in a while,the first person will move down to the last, which means ‘aiyoh’ will become the ‘number’, ‘ping’ become the ‘aiyoh’, and so on.

any group that doesn’t respond immediately when their number is called, well, they get masking tape stuck on them by the group that called out their number. my group did extremely well - we didn’t have any masking tape on our face for quite a while, and when everyone else noticed that we were the only unscathed ones, they all bombarded us rofl. we did pretty well until we were hoodwinked by rekha, who pointed to another group while shouting our number, tsk! :P

but no one, i repeat, no one, can beat these poor unfortunate souls :

the most ‘defaced’ group, probably in ‘aiyoh ping pong piah’ history. we must have stuck tape on them at least five times!

niki decided to step things up a notch and brought in some gloopy flour into the mix, to keep with the tradition of using flour on us BRATs. needless to say, everyone got even more enthusiastic to get us, and there was loads of laughter all around. the seniors were entrusted with providing ‘facials’ for the losing team, and they carried out their tasks with utmost of glee!

me and ming yuen post-flouring. group 5 (of the game) rocks big time!

me and lina! :)

finally though, group 2 (the most ‘abused’ one with plenty of tape and flour), got to have their revenge - hands full of sticky flour, they ran after the seniors and assorted BRATs while phui yee barred the door when some tried to make their escape!

muzani, diyana, hui wan and miu kee. miux was the most targeted, haha! after aiyoh ping pong piah, we were all in much better spirits. went to clean up, and were reminded about our performances on the final night. we were told by everyone to ‘make it funny, please’. and make it funny we did :D

we brainstormed over our little sketch over dinner (a sumptuous treat of barbecued goodies - everything from lamb cutlets to grilled chicken wings!), and basically got it down to ‘the don’ts of journalism’. as we had been taught of all the do’s, we thought it’d be nice to do all the don’ts :P some wanted to do impersonations and spoofs, but i was of the opinion that impersonations etc are very popular, hence another group was sure to do it. sure enough, some other groups did, so i’m happy we did something different!

after some very rushed rehearsals (20 minutes in all?), we were the first to present our sketch. i acted as a refugee, and the other refugee was ming yuen - here’s part of my dialogue, more or less.. i was being accosted by blur journalists (played brilliantly by joye and kei!).

eh are you a refugee?
no home…no family…refugee la!
oh oh i see, hmm, was it terrible?
*wails and points to the right* you see my house over there?
no, we don’t, where got?
MY HOUSE NOT THERE ANYMORE LA BLEW UP ALREADY.

our scenarios included terrorists (julian and wei khang) being terrorised by aforementioned blur journalists, a borat-ish businessman (done to perfection by kel vin) being accosted by another journalist (done by tammy - this was really funny!), and another short skit on inappropriate interview behaviour (blur journalists and mikha). may khei was our narrator, and everyone did a great job. i wish i had asked someone to help me record it!

it was funny from start to finish, and other groups were really funny as well! some did impersonations, some did a soulja boy dance with improvised ‘crank dat’ lyrics, and one more did a short skit on an urban legend, i think. everyone was laughing and laughing till they were red in the face and had tears in their eyes - indeed, the night was a resounding success!

as the seniors and journalists said later, our performances were the funniest that they could remember in quite a while of the past few batches! :D we gave ourselves a huge round of applause, and suddenly, there was another surprise. a few BRATs were called to the front - as their birthdays were up soon, we all sang them the birthday song, and a lighted cake was brought in just for them! :D isn’t that so nice? apparently, it’s another BRATs tradition. the cake was cut and shared all around…everyone was in even higher spirits by then.

we also played a game that left us breathless - once again, it involved standing in a circle, and here’s the song we had to sing…

we (insert action, i.e. walk, dance, moonwalk, jump) to the left,
we walk to the right,
and we walk and we walk and we walk all night
with the heels and the toes
and a half turn around
with the heels and the toes
and a new friend found!

this was great fun - the actions sped up as we went along, and everyone was whirling about and changing partners as the song went on (at the ‘new friends found’ line). SO FUN!

after the performances and games, we sat down to watch a few videos, some of russell peters (i would have preferred eddie izzard, but peters is alright as well), and one of…

the infamous american idol audition - ‘YOU ARE MY BROTHERRR, MY BEST FRIEND FOREVERRR, SINGING THIS SONG, THE MUSIC THAT YOU LIKEEE…IKEEEEE!’

after all that fun and games, we got back to work. some touched up their soundslides, other edited their videos, while even more puzzled over their articles. my group had problems with the videocam - the video upload kept aborting, and some of our boys had to stay up till 4 a.m. to painfully watch every single percent of the darn thing upload in their rooms. poor things! :(

a few chose to puzzle over, well, the puzzles :P

a live demo of johnny whoops! other puzzles include BRATemathics (agh i still don’t know this one), angels falling, and quite a few more that i can’t remember.

stayed up till 1.15 a.m. with everyone else at the conference room, and this is when a lot of the contact details swapping took place. wrote in quite a number of notebooks, thanks people! ^^ i know i didn’t ask for many, focusing too much on the assignment at hand, but i’m so glad most of you are on friendster/facebook/have blogs! the wonders of technology eh! :D

as we rode the elevator up to our rooms, we found ourselves wishing that it would last for longer. sigh. all good things come to an end i guess.

got some much needed sleep around 2 am, and felt sad that this would be the last night with the BRATs. i decided to relax a little more/not be too fixated on assignments on the last day and CAMWHORE TO THE MAX with the rest so that i’d have a treasure trove of memories, picture wise.

up next would be day 4, with loads of photos! :)