I DON’T know about you but it has been an eventful couple of weeks for me leading to the Malaysia Day weekend.

While I’m booked to play two back-to-back concerts this weekend, I also had the chance to meet Malaysian-born Japan-based independent filmmaker Lim Kah Wai just after Merdeka Day.

He was back home to screen his latest film at the Japan Foundation’s Japanese Film Festival and hold filmmaking masterclasses.

A self-described “cinema drifter” with whom I’m sure most Malaysians are unfamiliar, his do-it-yourself and improvisatory creative working methods resonate with me. It was exhilarating to meet a like-minded spirit.

His fearless creativity and restlessness I feel are borne of a Malaysian spirit, something we creatives spend a lot of time thinking about outside of the usual nationalist propaganda and campaigns during this festive season.

With this in mind, I thought it would be great to share three overlooked works that I feel truly represent the Malaysian spirit.

Rehman Rashid’s ‘A Malaysian Journey’ (Book)

If it hadn’t been for a Canadian lecturer in college who made us buy this book back in the mid-1990s as part of required reading, I would have not known about it.

Published in 1993, the book is a fantastic reflection on the self and the nation through various vignettes in the book’s short yet substantial chapters.

Why such a book is not available in school (is it because it’s in English?) perplexes me because all the noise and trolling that goes on now on social media and online are essentially watered down and shallow discussions of what Rehman explores and contemplates as he journeys from state to state, territory to territory.

Highly personal while also never losing sight of the bigger picture, he ponders every nook and cranny of Malaysiana without being self-indulgent.
 
I highly recommend this book to fellow Malaysians and expatriates who wish to understand the vicissitudes of Malaysian life.

2. Lau Kek Huat’s ‘Absent Without Leave’ (Film)

One of the best Malaysian documentaries ever made, this 2016 documentary is a personal journey from Malaysian-born Taiwan-based filmmaker Lau Kek Huat, who inadvertently criss-crosses into Malaysia’s thorny history with the Malayan Communist Party – an element that got the film banned from Malaysian screens back in 2017 (to which the filmmakers responded by screening the film for free online for a week).

I often joke that getting banned is the best form of marketing and while this film was not exactly raking it i at the box office, the fact that this film was banned made one of my colleagues check it out.

I eventually received a copy of the DVD from the director himself when I performed at a film festival in Taipei in 2017. I was ecstatic.

The film brilliantly uses the national anthem “Negara Ku” as a recurring motif to mark the passage of time. If you didn’t know already, the anthem’s melody was, allegedly, originally from a song called “La Rosalie’’ composed by Pierre Jean Beranger. The song was later popularised as “Terang Bulan”, recorded by Krontjong Orchest Eurasia in the 1920s.

It was recorded later in the 1930s in English as “Mamula Moon” by Danny Vaughn.

All versions appear in the film to parallel the journey of Malaya through the early 20th century, upheavals and all, from the battle for independence to the present.

3. ‘Zainal Abidin’ by Zainal Abidin (Album)

I shouldn’t need to write at length about this modern classic of an album by Zainal Abidin. Most of you are probably familiar with the hit song “Hijau” from the album. You’re not Malaysian if you’ve never heard of it.

Written by Mukhlis Nor and featuring the crème de la crème of Malaysian studio musicians , the song is part cautionary environmental anthem, part Nusantara musical and ambient showcase, and part social commentary.

If you only know “Hijau”, I suggest you play the album from beginning to end – and play it loud and proud – on Malaysia Day. – September 14, 2023.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.