Friday, June 22, 2007

Nude in Kelantan

Today, NST would like to inform you all that Kelantan is not that boring.

According to NST, Bernama had reported that there is a Lady Bomoh in Kelantan who uses young naked men from a neighboring country to dance in front of her patient as the form of cure for mysterious illness.

Amir Muhammad in his weekly column posed a question: "I wonder if these foreigners (the dancers) look alike vagueness or in the interest of Asean discretion.

Amir was also very interested on why the place of the performance happen to be Pantai Cahaya Bulan which was formerly called Pantai Cinta Berani.

To Amir, the fact that it's a female bomoh reinforced the popular image of Kelantanese women as being more business-minded.

Amir Muhammad is bothered by the fact that the news report failed to mention if the treatment was a success.

Dear Amir, if you are fascinated or curious, you could pay a visit to her and test it out to find out the effectiveness. Maybe, you are not a Kelantanese.

10 comments:

Howsy said...

Amir has a personal blog besides his movie ones. http://amirmu.blogspot.com/

He posts all his columns (plus those censored by NaSTy) there.

Unknown said...

typical propaganda "memburukan" kelantan. Is there any propaganda about Johor?

Anonymous said...

This is definitely a unique feature for visit Malaysia year 2007.

Monsterball said...

Cases of Bomohs, mediums, faith healers, various charlattans convincing female sufferers that they had to undress as part of the healing ritual have been around a long time.
This story has an interesting twist the other way round !

Helen said...

Ooh tourism stats will hit all time high for that state. Many are into spiritual awareness and faith healings. It's supposed to be a New Age thing... lol

Arena Green said...

And some ppl think a state govt under PAS will be dull and unexciting.

Amir Muhammad said...

Kelantan is my favourite state. Why would I want to smear it?

By the way, the sentence you quoted, ""I wonder if these foreigners (the dancers) look alike vagueness or in the interest of Asean discretion" was incoherent and thus not written by me.

:-)

Maverick SM said...

Dear Amir,

Firstly, thanks for the clarification.

I did not unilaterally accused you of that passage as I extracted it from your article at NST. However, I accept that your clarification per se. It must be NST editors who exercise their own discretion and make it yours.

Maverick SM said...

Hi Amir,

I check it at your blog and that sentence was also posted in your blog. How is it that you disclaimed it when you too append it in your blog?

Amir Muhammad said...

Hello :-)

The one you quoted had a few words missing, resulting in the incoherence. This is what you quoted:

"I wonder if these foreigners (the dancers) look alike vagueness or in the interest of Asean discretion."

This is what I wrote (and what the NST printed, although the paper does not always print everything I write):

"The men were described as being “from a neighbouring country.” I wonder if this phrase was chosen out of an ‘all these foreigners look alike’ vagueness or in the interest of Asean discretion."

The omission of a few words may seem OK were it not for the crucial fact that the first quote now literally makes no sense. True, a shorter version can still make sense. But that particular shortened version did not :-)