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2010 in recap: My top posts for the year

Blatant plug time!
The year end gives me a chance to remind you of some of the posts I have spat out over the last year which you may have missed.

These are what I think are some of the best things I've written these year. Some of them are insightful, some are dumb but possibly mildly amusing, others are both. If you haven't read them, your life may well be significantly poorer as a result.
Asian drivers are safer. Seriously?
Are white people more racist than everyone else?
"Tim Tam from Vietnam" - or, how NOT to make jokes about Asians
Race and dating: "What is it with you and Indian chicks?"
A bit about Asian men and white women
HBD (Human Biodiversity) and "Race Realism"
The problem of when Western cooking shows go "Eastern"
Tofu containers - an essential storage item for every Asian?
So "Asian-Australian" means what, exactly?
"You are NOT Eurasian" - the weirdest email I've ever received


STUFF I WROTE FOR OTHER BLOGSI did a few guest posts this year. Check it:
Stuff Asian People Like: Spitting
Stuff Asian People Like: Cheesy Ballads
Stuff White People Do: Blame their accusers instead of themselves


SOUTH EAST ASIAN STUFF
Given that I spend a considerable amount of time in Indonesia and Malaysia, I do write a few things about those places. Occasionally I even know what I'm talking about.
The ugly politics of race in Malaysia
3 things Indonesia can teach Malaysia
The most awesome Thai names
Being vegetarian in Malaysia
Being vegetarian in Indonesia


HISTORICAL CONTEXTUAL STUFF
This is the sort of thing that you can quote to people at parties, which will either make you seem really interesting, or a dreadful bore. I think it's interesting though, and that's what matters.
How Muslim names evolve across the world
How language tells the history of Malaysia and Indonesia
English words of Indian origin
The complicated history of the song "Sukiyaki"
Hip-hop's Ethiopian flirtations


RACE IN AUSTRALIA
Many of the people who read this blog have been drawn to it by my writings about Asian-Australian issues, and the ins and outs of race and racism in this country. Here are some of the better ones.
Addressing the myths and misconceptions about anti-Indian violence in Australia
How to use the media to incite racial hatred
Of geeks and gangsters: the "model minority"
You're damned if you do...
The white-out of Billy SingHow the media manufactures a racist "controversy"
"The suspect was described as having dark skin"
Victorian police accused of racism towards African youth
It couldn't have been a white person...? More on ethnic descriptors of criminals


LISTS
Given that last year was the end of a decade, I put together a couple of lists of the films and songs I dug the most in that 10 years.
Listmania: Greatest tracks of the 00s
Listmania: My favourite movies of the 00s


THE O MAN
Barack Obama has been something of a fascination for me, largely because the reaction to having a coloured fella as POTUS tells you a lot about how far we still have to come on race issues in general.
If Obama is a Muslim, maybe I am too...
Now 1 in 5 Americans believe Obama is a Muslim
More "Obama's not an American" nonsense
Obama bows again. Conservatives are outraged. Sensible people couldn't care less
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency


FUNNY SH*T
These are some videos by other people that made me LOL, ROFL or say "WTF?" this year, and I posted them because I want you to do the same.
Ninja say what?
Interview with Miss Universe China. Oh man, this is good.
Japanese precision walking
Let's Muscle!
Koreans, you too can curse like an American
"The Red House" ad - furniture that both black and white people can enjoy


SHALLOW STUFF
If your primary interests are who's hot and who's not, these polls will interest you. The World Cup one got more hits than any other post this year.
Who are the hottest players at the World Cup?
Who is the hottest world leader - part 1 (males) and part 2 (females)

Colbert: Our Native American Overlords

Barack Obama wants to turn the entire US over to Indian tribes. At last Americans have another group of people to be afraid of. I wonder if they are Muslim socialist Native Americans too.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Native American Overlords
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

2010 in recap - the songs that rocked my world this year

It's a long time since I've had the time or the inclination to keep up with the trends in music. Simply put, most of the music released today sounds like garbage to my ears. I only bought about 3 albums this year, and most of the MP3s I copped were funk/soul rarities from the 60s and 70s, and early 90s hip-hop. I know, I know. I'm too old for this sh*t. I should just curl up and die and let "the kids" have their time to shine.
Nonetheless, a few moments of genius from artists releasing stuff this year did manage to penetrate my world. Here are some of those.



Cee-Lo Green - F*** You
Cee-Lo's recording output has always been wildly inconsistent, as anyone who has tried to listen to Gnarls Barkley's first album all the way through will tell you. But amidst the so-so tracks, he has released some absolute killers. (See also the Heart Attack's Right Now, Santana's Do You Like the Way, Goodie Mobb's Soul Food, Common's Song for Assata, for brilliant Cee-Lo collabs.) F*** You (or in its radio incarnation as Forget You) is the epitome of the modern day internet smash; the buzz about it was tremendous before it ever reached mainstream radio. Obviously the copious swearing adds some low-brow appeal, but even without it, this is energetic modern-retro soul that you can dance to, probably the best get-wild soul groover since Outkast's Hey Ya. And that's without even mentioning Cee-Lo's peerless vocals. The man with the midas touch at the moment, Bruno Mars, is listed as a co-writer.


Peter Hadar - Full Time Lover
New Jersey underground R&B singer and fashion designer Peter Hadar comes over a little bit Pharrell on this track from his 3rd album. Balancing the smooth, the soulful and the electronic nicely, it is supreme dancefloor fodder, if only people took notice.

Nottz featuring Mayer Hawthorne - I Still Love You
Rapper and producer Nottz comes through with the goods in collaboration with white soul boy Mayer Hawthorne. Nothing fancy about this one, it's just old-skool, old-soul-sampling hip-hop at its best.


Flynt Flossy with Pretty Raheem and Whatchyamacallit - Cavities
Yes, these guys are a joke band, but just clever enough that those without a sense of irony will think they are a real, albeit kinda lame, hip-hop act. Except that their music is actually quite slammin'; listen to this once and the hook is in your head for ever. The music has some interesting synth stuff going on too. The lyrics and video are ridiculously sexist, but that's all part of the joke, as they get the most out of hip-hop/R&B's love of the something-as-an-analogy-for-sex meme. (For examples, see R Kelly's many songs comparing driving cars to sex, or the numerous songs comparing sex to smoking weed.) The video is hilarious too - check their poses and dance moves. Pretty Raheem on the track!


B.O.B. featuring Bruno Mars - Nothin' On You
Proof that how good pop-rap can be if you get it right. B.O.B.'s rap is nice enough, but really it's Bruno Mars on the hook that makes this a winner. Plenty of sugar without too much cheese, plus it's got enough different elements to it to reward repeat listens. I'm not really impressed with Mars' solo work, but the guy has been involved with two of the greatest songs of this year (F*** You being the other one) as well as K'Naan's ubiquitous World Cup anthem Waving Flag, so he gets mad props.




Honourable mentions:
Jay Electronica - Exhibit C
Alicia Keys - Unthinkable
Kanye West - The Joy


UPDATE:
Somehow forgot this one!

Kanye West featuring Rick Ross - Devil in a New Dress
Everyone, from hip-hop critics to indie magazines, is saying that Kanye's epic My Dark Beautiful Twisted Fantasy is album of the year. Pitchfork even gave it a 10/10. Hard to argue with that. I could have picked a number of tracks from it for this post - Power and Runaway are also pretty amazing - but the music of Devil in a New Dress is as beautiful as it gets in hip-hop, more beautiful and celestial than any track featuring Rick Ross has any right to be. It's courtesy of the clever interpolation of a Smokey Robinson sample, but like Kanye's best sample-based production, it's not the most obvious part of the original track to use. Glad to see Kanye is back, I thought he'd kinda fallen off in the last few years. All is forgiven buddy.


Also check my post on the worst song of the year.

Usman Khawaja, Australia's first Muslim cricketer

Given how mad for cricket Australia's South Asian community are, it is only a matter of time before we see more of their presence in the national team. This week saw the debut of one promising youngster, Usman Khawaja. The 24-year-old lives in Sydney but was born in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the first cricketer to represent Australia who is of Pakistani descent, and the first Muslim.

Khawaja is not the first person of South Asian descent to represent Australia, however. Dav Whatmore, born in Sri Lanka, had a short test career of 7 matches. Michael Bevan, also with some Sri Lankan heritage, played 18 tests and carved out a specialist career as one of the greatest one-day cricketers of all time.

Khawaja made a gritty 37 runs in his debut innings. He bats at number 3, often regarded as the most difficult place in the batting order, so the road ahead of him is not easy, but he is a highly rated talent. Time will tell if his talent has a full chance to express itself.

See also:
West Indians now more Indian than ever

Thoughts from my latest Malaysia trip

I'm back from Malaysia now, late. The plane was delayed at LCCT - they had to remove baggage of people who didnt turn up to the flight. I was wondering, "who the f*ck does that?" but then I remembered that I did it once - i forgot to change my watch during a 3-hour stopover in HK once and missed my flight. So I'm not one to judge.
I return feeling and apparently looking substantially chubbier. My mum even commented on it, and that was in poor lighting, so clearly it's obvious. Then again, Mum is one of those Asian people who think telling people they are fat is a compliment (it means you are prosperous). So I don't know what to make of it.

Gonna have to hit the gym like a mofo this week, which will make a change from hitting the roti chanai like I've done over the last couple of weeks. Seriously, I don't think a day went by without me eating at least one. And usually it was more like 4. For breakfast. Which doesn't sound too bad unless you remember how much oil goes into those crispy flaky little bundles of joy.

I found a kindred spirit to share my gluttony in my friend Sangeeta. She's from Singapore and obsessed with teh tarik, Malaysia's national drink (it's basically tea with condensed milk). You can get it everywhere in Singapore, but apparently it sucks in comparison. Sangee was in Malaysia less than three days and consumed around 10 teh tariks in that time. 4 of those were in one night, each from a different venue; it was the Malaysian equivalent of a pub crawl.


On the topic of food, one thing keeps happening to me again which is weird and slightly frustrating, but sort of funny nonetheless. My Malay language skills are far from perfect, but I know enough to say the basics and my accent is not too bad. I was in a mamak for lunch, and asked the Tamil guy waiting tables for another rot chanai. "Roti chanai, satu lagi" or something like that. He looks at me like I just spoke Swahili to him. I repeat, and get the same look. He calls over the Malay woman who works there; she approaches to ask what I want. "Roti chanai, satu lagi" says I. She then turns back to the Tamil guy and says: ""Roti chanai, satu lagi". And then he nods, and goes and gets my roti chanai.

Was my accent that bad, really? It's possible. I do roll my "r"s out of habit, which is an Indonesian thing which Malays don't do. But it doesn't make much difference. I think it's just that some Malaysian people can't quite compute the phenomenon of a foreigner speaking Malay to them.

*

My friend Ang has an interesting party trick. He can mould chewing gum into the shape of a penis, using only his mouth. No hands. After boasting of this trick while we sat at a cafe in KLCC, he proceeded to chew up several tabs of green tea flavoured gum, and after about 10 minutes, spat out this masterpiece:

No doubt Ang's girlfriend is proud to have a man with such an agile tongue. Though I'm not sure what she thinks of a guy who decided that this was a good skill to hone in the first place. Or if she is worried about how the inside his mouth is so attuned to tracing the outline of a penis. In any case, we all thought it was a good thing to try and do, so nearby diners at the cafe would have noticed the odd sight of five people just sitting and looking at each other while chewing.

For the record, it's pretty hard (nudge nudge). Mine looked like a penis that had been flattened with a mallet and then ravaged by a starving canine, and the balls ripped off. In other words, it didn't look anything like a penis at all. Score one to you, Ang.

*

KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre) Park is an extremely well-maintained garden of ponds, palms and banyan trees, beneath the twin towers of the Petronas building that dominate the KL skyline. Walking through this park on New Years Day, when lots of people are out and about strolling and relaxing, I discovered a new game with which to amuse myself.

I happened to be walking several steps behind my partner and her friend, far enough behind that onlookers might not automatically assume we were part of the same group. Now, Aveena and Jen are fairly attractive young women, and from my vantage point I noticed the way passing guys looked at them. Were I walking alongside them, my presence would have made their glances more subtle perhaps. But from a few steps back, I was able to watch the way men check out women in all its blatant glory. The men in the park were mostly Malay and South Asian that day; the Malay men looked a bit, but the groups of South Asian men (Indian, Nepali, Bangladeshi) stare and turn their heads as if they've never seen a woman before. It's damn funny. Of course, it's probably not so funny to a woman being constantly stared at intrusively by such men.

KLCC Park is also subject to some odd policing guidelines - apparently it is illegal to hold hands in the gardens, let alone do anything more than that. As we walked through the gardens, we heard a policeman blow his whistle and wag a finger reproachfully at a couple, who were sitting a little too close on a bench, with the man leaning back into his girlfriend. My Malay friend Lydia tells me that the police are really only zealous about enforcing this with Malays, since as Muslims their government expects them to uphold stricter codes of moral behaviour. Yet there was a well-known case of a Chinese couple arrested and detained for "behaving improperly" in the park back in 2004.

Malaysian police are good at catching young lovers in the act. Since it is a country where people typically live with their conservative parents until they are married, opportunities to canoodle are limited and frequently take place in parked cars and hotel rooms. Thus the police love to catch couples in secluded spots steaming up their car windows and threaten to arrest them, even though the primary objective seems to be the procurement of a bribe to look the other way. Add to this another arm of official enforcement, the Moral Police, who excel at turning up at the door of your hotel room and arresting unwed couples for fornication.

In a country with some serious crime problems in which people rarely feel safe to walk the streets at night alone, I wonder what could be accomplished if the Malaysian police actually devoted their time to fighting real crime.

How I spent NYE 2010-11

@ The Binjai, Kuala Lumpur, overlooking the Petronas Towers.