Just wondering..

So there i was, happily reading history (don’t ask why, i just felt like it). So i decided to read up on history of Brunei. Tucked away in google’s search results, i found this article. But ever wondered how this history of the first sultan seems to be obscure?

Article on Bruneian History by Christopher Buyers

I’m not too sure about how accurate this article is. But i am scared to think that this article if it even had a pinch of truth in it.

So i did decide to read it (the article is painfully long) and decide to do a little bit of reading from other sources.

Our history books that we’ve learnt in school say that Awang Alak Betatar went to Johor, married the sultan’s daughter and became muslim and went by the name of Sultan Muhammad Shah. Ok, fine with that.

The SECOND sultan of Brunei, Sultan Abdul Majid Hassan (which our history books have claimed to be muslim) was recorded to have died in China in 1408.

But there was no Johor sultanate that time. Johor sultanate reported to have their first Sultan in 1528 (Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah), who was a direct descendant of the Melaka Sultan.

Even if we mixed up Melaka and Johor, the first recorded sultan of Melaka embraced islam in 1409. That’s a year after Sultan Abdul Majid Hassan died.

So which Johor-Temasek princess, daughter of Johor Sultan, did Sultan Muhammad Shah marry in the first place? We’re talking about a 120 year gap here.

Shed light on this, people. Shed light on this. Anyone?

* I do not endorse the views of the article linked. Article written by Christopher Buyers.

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Business As Usual

The Imminent Danger

Did you know that the leading cause of accidental death worldwide is Paintball and Archery?

Faced with this alarming information, the authorities have decided to close 2 businesses in Brunei fearing that the activities associated with these sports would cause serious harm to the Brunei society. Skeet shooting, ironically a ’sport’ that Brunei enters for the SEA games, isn’t banned. Because skeet shooting isn’t dangerous. Bruneian law requires that all the shotguns used for skeet shooting purposes shoot out sugar, spice and everything nice. Upon contact with the targeted clay pigeons, chemical reaction causes the discs to explode into a wonderful mixture of candy drops and gum drops. Oh what a world it would be, standing with my mouth open wide, Aa’ Aa’ Aa’ Aa’ Aa’

Live entertainment banned, Paintball banned, Archery banned? Fuck it, I’m smoking, babe.

A Deterrent Action

And who wouldn’t get worried with bows, arrows and paintball guns? I would. On 16th April 2007, America suffered the worst university tragedy when Cho Seung-Hui killed 30 people in Virgina Tech University. With the availability of archery and paintball to the Bruneian public, how will i rest assure that no one will spray my children with paint balls and arrows?

As i recall back in my SMJA days when inter school fighting was still going around, the weapon of choice would have to be chains or wooden sticks. Heavens forbid if these kids carried bows and arrows and paintball guns, the carnage it would bring! SMJA Students with their light blue trousers would gather in formation from one side of the bridge, while SOASC students hurry up with their formation on the other side. As both leaders from SMJA and SOASC shouted to their soldiers to ready their weapons, and the back formation of the army stretches their bows and pointed it towards the sky.

Ajis was a famous and feared gangster from SMJA….

At the signal of attack, they release their bows and hundreds, nay, thousands! of arrows shot up to the sky. The thousand arrows in the sky block the sun and make day turn to night. The arrows land and strike students from both sides of the bridge. With another call of order, the men take out their paintball guns and started running over the bridge with the intent to kill. The soldiers trade paintball bullets and engaged in an epic battle over the pedestrian bridge of Jalan Sekolah, Bandar Seri Begawan. Some were blinded, more were killed by the bullets. The Brunei River ran red with blood…. and paint.

…But Haji Boy and his gang from SOASC and his whore girlfriend from STPRI showed no fear.

The question the authorities have thoroughly asked themselves was, “Would i want that to happen to my children?”

A Flashback?

Sometimes i do ponder that maybe it’s not about safety. Maybe it’s the grudge that we, historically, weren’t good in archery anyway. That goes the same for pretty much a lot of stuff, like Football, FIFA number 192 for our national team (now called BAFA XI, which i’m guessing is called that name because we’re too crap to proudly call it our national team) or maybe the music scene, live performances are banned because of local artists like Kyodai has crushed our faith.

“Why encourage the people to take up something that we were never good at to start off with anyway? Why can’t we focus on stuff we were historically good at?”

like rowing! how the 7000 warriors who paddled their perahus half way to the Philippines prior to Castille war is reflected by our gold winning athletes in the SEA games. Or Silat, our pride in the unmatched power and grace of centuries old developed stance of the legendary martial art. Or even lawn bowling, which i would guess derives from long forgotten practices of coconut handling.

Or perhaps, a more relevant example, despite the blatantly illegal nature of it, we still allow it due to the lingering legacy of our ancestors:

An Evolution: Bringing Back Piracy into the 21st Century

Archery Range in Brunei is Closed Down

Can someone please shed some info on this? Or at least give some logical explanation behind the police’s (or whoever) actions?

Before i can smack the bitch up on this blog.

IQ Test

I freaking hate these kind of questions in IQ test..

Look at any IQ tests and you’re bound to see that question but with different stupid names like yonks, yanks, clinks, bitches, hos. Those stupid names annoy me.

Dos ti Dos ti Niya Raha, Piara Piara Na Raha

The two language that i really want to learn (like, really) would have to be Arabic and Tamil. So i thought, heck, i have a lot of time at the moment, so might as well have a kick start lesson in tamil. Learn a few phrases and maybe strike up a conversation with the indians around my school.

So i came across this site which gives common phrases (stupid me, it’s hindi actually) but one caught my attention..

http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hindi.php

LOL