Eid Mubarak!

To all my fellow Muslim readers out there, I hope you have a blessed and festive Eid filled with food, family and friends! Eid Mubarak!

 Here's a sneak peek on how I spent my Eid morning:

Indonesian chicken satay!

A typical Indonesian family gathering

Strawberry pie anyone?

The i-Pad nation

My Favorite TV Show of All Time...

So this post was basically inspired from browsing Ross McCall's Twitter account at 5 a.m this morning (don't even ask why I was up at bloody 5 a.m.) If you guys don't know him, he's probably most recently known for playing Matthew Keller in White Collar but if you know him from any other movies/shows, well, that's awesome then. Anyway, he posted up some pictures of the older productions he was involved in. Most of the pictures, however, were of scenes from this miniseries called Band of Brothers which aired in 2001 and lasted for 10 episodes only.

And let me tell you something, Band of Brothers...

...is my favorite TV-show. Of all time.

And I think I can justify that by saying I've watched the whole thing over and over again five times already since I first discovered the mini-series (which was a year and a half ago) and I also watched  some episodes more than others.

The mini-series Band of Brothers is the film adaptation of the book "Band of Brothers" written by Stephen E. Ambrose (and yes, I've read the book as well). It's mainly re-telling the experience of U.S Army's 101st Airbone Division, Easy Company during the WWII from D-Day to VE-day. Paratroopers, gunshots, explosions - basically war. Also the producers of the mini-series includes Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, just a little something to note on. Oh, and the show was aired on HBO.

Why do I like this mini-series so much? So I thought I'll list out reasons. Like top ten reasons kind of thing except the reasons I'm giving doesn't add up to ten and they are definitely not in order of preference. They're all equally important reasons to me. However, during my period of fanatism towards this show, I managed to convince a couple of my friends to watch this show and most of them loved it! So if any of you are reading this and if I somehow manage to convince you to check out the show (score!), I sincerely hope you do because this show is really worth watching, even if war-related films are not really your thing.

Anyway, here goes...

Reasons why Band of Brothers is my favorite show of all time:

1. Everyone who is someone has been in this show at one point. And I mean many, many notable stars has been involved in this mini-series. Although back in 2001, a lot of them are probably not as big of a major star as they are today (and many of them has pretty minor roles in the series actually), it really surprised me to see that many recognized actors were casted in this show. I'm talking about Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Donnie Wahlberg, Richard Speight Jr. and Matthew Settle among some of them. Heck, even David Schwimmer from FRIENDS was in it, and you don't expect him to play the whole soldier gung-ho role do you?

2. You can't deny excellent cinematography. I mean, you really can't. The color schemes, camera angles and special effects throughout the series just worked well with each other to give a, what I can describe as a "past-but-present" atmosphere. You know what you're watching is something that happened in the past but it's happening right in front of your eyes. The constant slightly yellow hue of the images during the fight and action scenes and the blue tint during winter hardships or moments of relief and loss does give a direction towards the mood the scene was meant to depict.

3. Captivating storyline. Great story pace. When one thinks of war, one immediately thinks of bloodbath. I will say that there are quite a bit of blood shed on this show. But it's a show about war, what do you expect? However, I will say that the portrayal of the wounds and the maimed are just that, the wounded and the maimed. Or rather the storyline makes these blood-loss an important part of the plot instead of excessive and unnecessary blood-loss (I hate excessively gory scenes in films.) Also, what the book and the show predominantly tells us about war is that, when it comes to life and death, the true nature of every individual shows up.
     Yes there are people getting stabbed, shot and blown to pieces but I think the real story is also about the mental struggles of the soldiers. How one is forced to objectify people of the opposition as "the enemy" and not a human being anymore on the battlefield. Compassion and brotherly bond is highly appreciated during the period of the battle. Competence is highly important, one can easily see who is a natural leader and who got the position through connections. The beauty of war is that all the men are stripped off their social facade among their comrades and they are able to be themselves, because deep in the recesses  of their mind is the constant question of "will I survive today?" and when you never know whether today is your last day, denying oneself of one's true nature is a waste of time.
    I can go on about the whole "beyond the bloodbath" thing that I get from the mini-series but this will take a whole essay so I'll pipe down about it now. Story pace is quick, immediate and catches your attention pretty well...once you get through the first episode. I'll admit, the first episode of the series takes quite a bit to get through because I had to get used to the army lingo and knowing who is who (though it's quite an important episode!) but once you hit episode two, you'll keep on wanting to watch the next episodes.

4. Damian Lewis/Major Richard Winters. I think one of the main protagonist of the mini-series deserves a mention as to why the show is such an excellent show. Of course, there are so many characters in the show that made me fall in love with the mini-series big time and if I could, I would comment on every one of them and ramble on why they're amazing as hell but for the sake of things, I'll choose Richard Winters. Now, the mini-series was based on a biographical book so the book was predominantly factual. Richard Winters was told, from many accounts of the veterans who had been in the war with him, to be some sort of impossibly saintly soldier. He's highly competent, he doesn't drink, he refrains from swearing and he's very considerate of his subordinate. I thought someone like him would never exist, especially in the zone of war, but then there are those rare exceptions I suppose. All I can say is that from the book and the mini-series, Richard Winters was quite an enigma and I think Damian Lewis, the actor who presents Richard Winters, pulled him off perfectly. Just a fun-fact, Damian Lewis is British but he pulls off pretty good American roles.

Damian Lewis as Richard Winters

5. There's only ten episodes. So a major factor why this show is such a huge success with me is probably because it has only ten episodes. Granted, each episode is an hour long but I'm actually pretty bad at keeping up with TV-series with plenty of seasons and episodes so the fact that this mini-series has only one season and ten episodes made it a whole lot easier for me to keep up and remember each episode in details. And ten episodes but towards the end, it felt finalized. It didn't feel as if it was cut short of anything. The last episode of this mini-series broke my heart beautifully.

6. Beautiful opening segment and the show wins over The Pacific in terms of realism (in my opinion). So this is the opening segment for Band of Brothers. Very beautiful, very majestic theme song. Although I sort of find the song for the opening of its fellow war mini-series The Pacific more appealing (and I may just be Hans Zimmer biased when I say this, but I really find the song a lot more captivating.)

So, a little about The Pacific. The Pacific is basically a WWII mini-series, produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and also featured on HBO but it shows the war at the pacific end of the globe whereas Band of Brothers tells us of the battle in Europe. It first aired in 2010 so it's more recent. I personally think The Pacific wins in terms of theatrics and drama within the story but in terms or realism and rawness of war, Band of Brothers definitely wins and I think this is why Band of Brothers is better, because the series felt a lot more realistic.

7. Brief interviews of actual veterans inserted at the beginning and end of each episodes makes the mini-series a mix of a TV-show and a documentary/biographical style kind of series. Also some powerful quotes said by the real life veterans:

Richard Winters: (quoting Mike Ranney) I treasure my remark to my grandson who asked, "Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" Grandpa said, "No... but I served in a company of heroes". 

Carwoon Lipton: Henry the fifth was talking to his men and he said from this day to the ending of the world we and it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers, for he who sheds his blood with me today shall be my brother. 

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There you have it folks! All opinions are mine and I don't claim I represent everyone who has watched the show, they could think of this show differently but this is how I see the show. I could write a whole lot more but for the sake of space, I'm getting these few important points out.

So thank you for those who bothered to read this post and if I somehow manage to perk your interest towards this show, do check it out! 

[For fun] Playlist: About A Girl

So sometimes I like to do these kind of things. Bear with me.
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Artwork by Tzviatko Kinchev

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When they say a picture is worth a thousand words, they have a point. Paintings and images can tell a story through the emotion they wordlessly express and the colors they bathe in. Art resonates differently with every individual.  

The artwork above, to me, brings out the colors of emotions. Although the expression pictured is one of melancholy, the rainbow of colors gives off so many more than just sadness. I see beauty, love, tragedy, remembrance, patience, heartbreak, hope and plain romance all tied with with the evident melancholy. And when I feel, I think of songs. Hence, I decided to come up with a tiny playlist of songs that I think resonates most with the artwork above.

Beauty, love, passion, tragedy and heartbreak will always intertwine somehow. Also as women, we are never completely free of emotions in every aspect of life we come across. Something wonderful can turn into a tragedy but there will be a day when everything will feel wonderful once more. One should not lose hope.

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Playlist:
01. Black Lab - Circus Lights (here)
02. Jason Mraz - A Beautiful Mess (here)
03. Cinema Paradiso - Love Theme (here)
04. John Williams & Itzhak Perlman - Schindler’s List Theme (here)
05. Damien Rice - 9 Crimes (here)
06. Beth Orton - Ooh Child (here)
07. Barcelona - Come Back When You Can (here)
08. Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly (here)
09. Blue October - 18th Floor Balcony (here)
10. Kiss - Because I’m A Girl (here)/ Korean version (here)

Musings: Summer Epiphany

So I guess it's been a while since I've updated my blog (although I doubt anyone took notice and I'm probably talking to myself right now but to that one or two possible reader/s, hey there!)

I haven't been writing as much because I've been pre-occupied with a few things and right now I'm trying to come in terms with staying at a pretty empty Doha for a whole month. It's not so bad since it's Ramadan and during Ramadan, all I really want to do during the day is stay at home and vegetate 'til Iftar anyway.

(Also to those of you celebrating the Holy Month of Ramadan, Ramadan Kareem!)

Anyway, today's post was inspired by an article I happen to read on a friend's Facebook profile. It's titled "Frenzy for foreign title misses local talent" and was posted on Shanghai Daily. Basically, the article explains how there are several cases in China in which people with notable positions in their career field forged their higher education diplomas into a 'western' institution diploma in order to make themselves more 'qualified.' 

While I was reading that, I felt a slight pity to those people who are naturally brilliant who feels the need to camouflage themselves behind a 'western' name in order to be recognized. It's even more sad that in regions like China and similar Asian regions (speaking from personal experience), there is evidently a 'favoritism' towards those who has more of a foreign or western touch. I remember watching an Indonesian news segment a long time ago on the country's pilots and they revealed that foreign pilots working for a local airline are generally paid so much more than the local pilots, with the same position working for the same airline.

With that said, I'll admit, I used to have a foreign bias. This bias was sadly from my lack of knowledge for my own region. Patriotism was never a big thing for me on account that I spent more than half of my life growing up outside Indonesia. And when a lot of things I read on the news was about all the corruption that occurs in the region, it's pretty hard for me to grow some pride for the country and I came to a conclusion that if I earn a foreign education and work outside Indonesia, I'll have more opportunities coming my way. In some ways it's true because by getting an international qualification, my options are not limited to just Indonesia.

But here's something a conclusion I came to eventually: don't view an evidently 'better' opportunity as a chance to dismiss other options that you can take because the end results can be the same. Those 'other' options are just paths less traveled.

This summer, I get to visit Indonesia completely on my own. Going on my own meant having my own plans and no family events that I have to indulge myself in. So for the first time ever I really traveled around Jakarta and Bandung with people and really get the feel of living as an 'Indonesian' instead of a 'visitor.' For the first time, I took the commuter train and the busway. I get to feel how it is to be a citizen there all the time and how tiring it is to get from one place to one another because of the heavy traffic. I went to regions I haven't been to. I traveled. And despite the difficulty of getting to places, I loved every moment of it. Because it was more than sight-seeing for me. It was a chance to be able to get in touch with Indonesia and see for myself that there are so many things to love about the country behind the corruptions and whatnot. Patriotism: Revived.

This year I also visited a couple of the national universities and I came to a conclusion that the people who studies there are no less qualified and capable than those with international qualifications. By visiting these institutions, I saw for myself how loaded with talents the youth of Indonesia are. I never doubted that they are, but this year, their extent of talent amazes me. And just because they don't have an international qualification doesn't mean they are less competent than those with one. It comes to how the person handles his or herself. I, now,  also find myself thinking how pretty proud I would be of myself if I got accepted into one of the top national universities because it's a tough fight amongst the youth of Indonesia and if I got in then I know I got what it takes. I admire my friends who studied outside Indonesia and got accepted in one of the best universities of the region. (Congratulations guys, make the country proud!)

So from my summer experience, I have a new level of appreciation towards the locals of Indonesia and the culture of Indonesia. And some of the people are really capable of a lot without a 'foreign' education. I'm not saying one doesn't need to study anything from a foreign region, it really doesn't hurt to broaden one's horizon. But segregating and automatically labelling a person as 'better' because they've scratched the tip of another iceberg different from theirs is highly superficial. A person should be judged professionally from what they can do, what experiences they've collected in their lifetimes and their personal progress achievements rather than a name and a place. It's tough, but it's fair. Just because it's not 'western' doesn't mean it's not golden.