After watching the ruckus outside the Parliament House involving UMNO Youths and Member of Parliament for Bukit Gelugor Karpal Singh on TV3 and NTV7 just now, I could only think of one question: Is mob culture Malaysian culture? Notwithstanding Karpal’s provocative utterances in Parliament the day before, such scenes of disorderly behaviour should not have happened or allowed to happen within the compound of the august Parliament building.

Victor Chin, his son See Num and Peter Tan at Empathy – Portraits of Disability photo exhibition at KLPac.
Photo by Wuan.

Multimedia artist Victor Chin is currently holding an exhibition on his third series photographs of disabled people in black and white prints at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac). On the 7th of February, he held a party for subjects of the exhibition and his friends at the same venue where Wuan and I attended with Christine, Elizabeth and our new friend Yoshie from the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV).

Victor Chin and Peter Tan at KL Sentral.Photo by Wuan.

Victor took some photographs of a group of us when we were at KL Sentral with students from University Malaya for an access audit exercise in May last year. I had complained about the ramp with the extremely steep gradient at Sooka Sentral which led to the building management agreeing to an access audit of the premises.

Portraits of me at Victor Chin’s Empathy – Portraits of Disability photo exhibition at KLPac.
Photo by Wuan.

Someone asked me why I looked so sombre in the photographs. There is really nothing to be cheerful about when many of the facilities at KL Sentral were not accessible for a wheelchair user like me. Hopefully, the management of KL Sentral will take corrective measures on the recommendations and feedback provided by the students.

Below is the flyer of the exhibition. It ends on February 28.

We got back from Negeri Sembilan at 7.50pm after losing our way in Seremban town trying to get to the expressway and ended up at Mantin and took the new Kajang-Seremban Highway (LEKAS). It rained cats and dogs somewhere in Kajang Perdana. It was a tiring trip not only because I did not sleep well but because I could not bathe as well. It is ironic that the Klana Resort has one accessible room but no plastic chair for me to sit on while bathing. Maybe the staff I approached for one was too lazy to look for a suitable chair for me.

Mocktail called “Once Upon A Time” (orange juice and ginger beer) and wallpaper of Cheeky on my laptop.

Basically, I spent my time there writing training materials for Disability Equality Training (DET) sipping on a mocktail at the Selera Coffee House while Wuan was busy with her company’s teambuilding activities. I also read up more about DET and the various topics recommended for the training from the manual titled Training Them and Us: A Guide to Social Equality for Society which is jointly produces by Liz Carr, Paul Drake and Kenji Kuno. In between that, I missed Cheeky terribly and put up a photo of him as the laptop’s wallpaper to alleviate those pangs.

Kee Mei Seremban siew pow courtesy of Sue Ann and her family.

The highlight of the trip was meeting Sue Ann and her family. Sue Ann and I have been chatting on and off since 2005. And look what they brought for me – Seremban siew pow! There were also two kai tan kou but I ate one driving back to Kuala Lumpur. I have eaten Seremban siew pau sold in Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Some were delicious while others were just too unpalatable to warrant a second bite. I have yet to sink my teeth into this authentic Seremban siew pow. I am already salivating at the thought. Excuse me while I go salivate over it some more.