Author: InpressGlobal

Written by Sharifah Nurul Aina Sayed Burhanudin

Earlier this month, Malaysians riled up over the elimination of Malaysian-born contestant, Zaleha Kadir Olpin, 48, because of her controversial non-crispy chicken ‘rendang’ in MasterChef UK. Zaleha, who served Malaysia’s traditional dish, coconut milk rice with chicken ‘rendang’, was eliminated during the quarterfinal round by the judges due to her chicken was cooked with soft skin.

This article highlights how cultural differences have an impact on food appreciation. Food is said to be an indication of one’s cultural identity and it is one of the ways to know the people, cultures and traditions of other countries. Malaysian cuisine has a strong and aromatic taste as well as rich in herbs and spices that are commonly found in Southeast Asia. The distinct difference in taste, spices and meat add on to the colorful of one’s culture. In the case of Zaleha, the chicken ‘rendang’ was cooked in a traditional way of how we usually eat it. However, the dish was criticized by the judges for not being crispy enough, when in fact, the authentic ‘rendang’ has never been served crispy. It shows that the judges are not open to differences between their culture and other’s.

“The skin isn’t crispy. It can’t be eaten. The sauce is on the skin, I can’t eat this,” MasterChef UK judge Gregg Wallace commented and agreed upon by his co-judge, John Torode. The news of her elimination due to her non-crispy chicken ‘rendang’ caused anger between two countries, Malaysia and Indonesia. Later, Torode, who is also famous for his reality TV show on adventurous of local food in foreign countries chose to further fan the flames by tweeting on his twitter account: “Maybe Rendang is Indonesian!! Love this!! Brilliant how excited you are all getting… Namaste.”, giving his view about the chicken ‘rendang’ which to him is originated from Indonesia. Surprisingly, in 2015, John Torode was in Malaysia and hosted ‘John Torode’s Malaysian Adventure’ for the Good Food channel. However, it is understood that his exposure to rendang was with a duck unlike Zaleha’s chicken.

The fiasco has not only caught the attention of the locals but also the Prime Minister of Malaysia, his rival in politics, Tun Mahathir Mohamad, local chefs and the foodies. Even the fast food chain KFC posted on their Instagram account saying, “The only thing that should be crispy is our fried chicken”.

The issue has not only brought up the flames among four neighboring nations; Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Brunei, but what made people angry is that seeing the judges being egoistic while commenting on other countries’ traditional food which is totally beyond their expertise. The judges’ judgment and attitude on cultural differences was poorly executed.

To add salt to the wound, he claimed that the comment on how serving chicken ‘rendang’ with coconut milk rice was a mistake. There was no a single apology from the judges to admit that other countries’ traditional cuisine is not within their expertise. They should respect other people’s traditions and cultures. The Britons were then criticized by Malaysians for being ignorant and arrogant. They should have the desire to learn about different types of meal and its preparation and not behaving as if they own the culture.

Chef Khairul Muhamad, a culinary stream coordinator for the Faculty of Hospitality, Food, and Leisure Management at Taylor’s University said he was surprised by the judges’ lack of knowledge considering their experience in cuisine. “He should have been more neutral about dishes he wasn’t familiar with and shouldn’t have downgraded the dish because you have to think about another person’s culture. Telling us to change the way we serve coconut milk rice and ‘rendang’ is like telling them steak shouldn’t go with fries,” Khairul said. Showing some respect to other people’s culture is not a hard thing to do. You can just simply admit that it is not just your expertise and humbly learn it from the local.

As a conclusion, making blunt judgment about food has indeed affected the cultural sensitivity. It is because food is the way how culture is implicitly expressed. One has to study the culture before making an attempt to judge the culture of others. In the case of Zaleha, it was observed that the judges have directly criticized the traditional dish she presented to them with the intention to promote Malaysia. Whatever the food looks and tastes like, it has their own story that one should respect.

Written by Nur Farieza Diana binti Rooslan

Source: Wikipedia

There are not many Malaysian singers who are able to penetrate the international music scene, what more to be successful in the competitive market. Back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, Malaysians can surely mention several big names such as Aishah (Aishah and The Fan Club), Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza, Raihan, Dato’ Sudirman, and Dato’ Shake. But, what about today? Well, Malaysians should not be disappointed as they still and can be proud of Yuna, Shila Amzah and Zee Avi’s achievements in representing Malaysia in this current era. They reflect the modern era by utilizing new media rather than the traditional form of media to showcase their music to the world. Thanks to social media specialising in music such as MySpace Music, SoundCloud, and YouTube, independent musicians and singers started to gain popularity in recent years. However, as the title speaks, the article will be focusing on one of Malaysia’s biggest sweetheart, Yuna, specifically.

Throughout the years, Yuna is seen to make her own way to the top with her dedicated music scene and genre, locally and  has grown internationally ever since. Yuna began her career as an independent singer-songwriter since 14 years old and after getting her rhythm by teaching herself to play the guitar, she started to perform in acoustic shows, live gigs and other events locally, in Malaysia. Yuna’s history with MySpace is also well-known as that is where she attached herself with the underground indie music. However, as written by Ho (2016), Yuna struggled badly in starting her career back then. In a Google Hangout fan session hosted by Yuna, she recalled her memory on the One in a Million audition, a Malaysian reality singing competition show, that was held in 2006 to answer a young fan’s question. She went on a couple of rounds but did not make it to the top 20.

“I remember crying after getting eliminated. I wanted to say, ‘You didn’t pick me, but you are wrong about me not having talent,” she said.

She also mentioned about working hard to put her pieces on MySpace. While live gigs were sometimes earnable, but she even did some of it for free. Even if she gets a pay, she needs to split them with her band and it should not be a surprise that sometimes she only had to made do with only RM100 ($25) as the token. The stairs that she took climbing up was very difficult and she used to get affected badly by criticism but she believes that if someone wants to live a dream, a person needs to be very brave to put aside all negativity.

Living that behind, Yuna today is riding the success she never expected. She was first discovered by a US based Indie-Pop record label and they willingly flew to Malaysia to convince Yuna to sign with them. It turns out that they got her a deal with Fader Label which also was joined by guitarist Pa’an, bassist Efry Arwis, and drummer Adib Azfar (later on to become Adil Ali). She has been on a flowery path since then. They were nominated as one of MTV Iggy’s Best New Bands in the World in 2011, and she managed to perform at the historical MTV Studios. In 2012, she debuted through a single on iTunes with “Live Your Life” produced by Grammy Award-winning producer, Pharrell Williams. The official video for “Live Your Life” and her US self-titled album was also released in the same year. The album managed to get #23 on the Pop chart and #86 on the Top 100 Albums on iTunes (Lipsitz, 2016). To the record, she then collaborated with Owl City through “Shine Your Way” for The Croods movie and also contributed an OST to Savages. Until now, her talent and music are getting wide recognition internationally.

As for television appearance, she made a debut when she performed her “Live Your Life” on the Conan talk show hosted by Conan O’Brien, followed by Last Call with Carson Daly and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Not so long after that, she took the same stage again at Conan to introduce her new song, “Rescue”. In 2016, she once again became a hit through her collaborative duet with Usher in “Crush”. It is surely a remarkable achievement for Yuna and she keeps making waves with high profile names in the music industry. She is now with Verve Music Group under David Foster. Foster is a 16-time Grammy Award winner, and a well-respected record producer, composer, songwriter, and arranger. He was named as the Chairman of Verve in 2011.

Observing Yuna’s personality, she is a very determined and positive person. Considering that she is a die-hard fan of Star Wars, she even imagined herself as a Jedi that battles over bad evils. These character traits of hers make Yuna as Yuna, everyone’s favourite and a girl’s dream. One thing for sure, Yuna worked hard to achieve whatever that she owns today. To win over local hearts is already tough enough, and to go global is surely an amazing and impressive journey. All this hard work is not solely for herself, but also for everyone in Malaysia. As Foster said, “Yuna thinks differently than a lot of people. She has something to say and she won’t compromise,” (Horowitz, 2016).

In 2012, Yuna received the National Youth Icon Award, awarded by the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. While in 2014, US-based Huffington Post listed Yuna as one of the “Top 20 Artists To Listen To In 2014”. She is the only Malaysian artist on the list. A thing that everyone must take into point is that Yuna proudly embraces her struggles and identity to succeed. That left us with one thought; to go global, be firm and act globally.

Written by Sara Yazmin Binti Zulqahar

Award winning The Avengers is an American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team. It is produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Grossing over $1.5 billion worldwide, The Avengers which received a lot of positive critique review has won numerous awards and nominations including Academy Award and BAFTA nominations for achievements in visual effects.

Excited over the upcoming Marvels Avengers: Infinity War, a group of A-Level students who are looking to further their studies in Engineering from Kolej MARA Seremban got together to make a low-budget parody as their assignment for English class. According to NST, “The short clip was to be submitted for their English assignment, which would not even be graded.”

What was interesting about their spoof of the trailer was how they use their creativity with a very limited budget. According to Aiman who edited the video, the only cash they had to fork out to shoot was only for the Koko Krunch that was used to imitate the 1000 running soldiers in the field.

The team had only 3 weeks to come up with the video and it was filmed in a single week and was shot on a mobile phone. They puts their DIY skills to the test, using household items like dinner plates as Doctor Strange’s magic circles, ‘kain pelekat’ to show each other’s hair colour, a broom and umbrella as weapons, a water jug as the “Tesseract”, and clothes pegs as the titular “Infinity Stones”.

With their limited budget, the actors involved needs to also act in more than one character; Amir Haziq (@meziktweets), who became Black Panther, Loki, and Rocket; Umar Muhammad (@umarmuhds), who became Vision and Groot; Ammarul Mubsyir (@ammarulzachery), who played Spider-Man and Star Lord; Khairil Abu Bakar (@KhairiAshBurn_), who played Captain America and Mantis; Khafiz Khairul Anwar (@khafizkhairil), who played Scarlet Witch and Gamora; Salman Noor Azri (@7_po_7), who played Iron Man and Falcon; Adam Muqhriz, who played Bucky and Drax; and @far_hansolo as Dr Strange.

Aiman, whose Twitter handle is @awesomerawks, played Thor and Black Widow had tagged Marvel Studios with the question, “Who did it better?”.

The video has since blown up the internet, even capturing the attention of Infinity War directors the Russo Brothers. In just FIVE days, the video has gotten over 1 million views. Currently, the video stands at 3.6 million views, 102K Retweets, 156K Likes on Twitter. Infinity War directors Anthony and Joe Russo, who had also directed Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, better known as the Russo Brothers, responded via Twitter: “Aiman. You guys are geniuses. Are you available to direct Avengers 5?”

So how did they went viral?

The team knew their creativity could take them far hence the first step he took was tagging @marvelstudios. The more influential you are on Twitter the more likely your tweets are to go viral, and making a connection with an influential person on Twitter would take you far. Reciprocity can be a powerful way to grow your Twitter influence.

Secondly, breaking news you can get your tweet shared like crazy. Knowing that Marvel’s next movie will come up in a month and the hype is all over the place, they took this opportunity to the optimum potential. This has netted him hundreds if not thousands of followers and the clout that comes with having a truly viral picture.

Visuals including photos and videos “retweet” really well, so they worked on their videography skills. People are living their digital lives in real-time, so we’re constantly consuming bite-sized content. As a result, we’re seeing shorter and shorter pieces of online content. Just this year, we’ve seen the introduction of two new social video tools – Vine  and Instagram video. People are now capturing and sharing the world’s real-time moments simply and beautifully and we must follow suit.

Value goes viral. The more valuable the content is that you are giving away, the greater the chance is that people will share and retweet it.

This was proven as content was also picked up by numerous major brands like UMobile, Dominos, and Golden Screen Cinemas. Dominos also went as far as treating the team to the new Samyeang pizza and Golden Screen Cinemas treated them movie tickets. Their content was also broadcasted through Buletin Utama on TV3, and Astro Awani. Hot FM also did another parody collaboration video with them.

Mark Tutssel who oversees the work of Leo Burnett Worldwide said it’s no secret that we live in an all-digital, real-time creative world where ideas circulate freely. Memes transcend language, break barriers and become equally powerful and relevant in rural Canada as they are in urban Mumbai. Every piece of content we write is shared on a global stage. Some are hits, while other are misses.

In conclusion, the democratization of creativity has given everyone the right to be a creative. Today, technology invites all producers of information to create ideas that truly invite participation. The means of production and the channels of distribution have been turned over to the masses. Every single one of us has access to a potential audience of millions on social media channels. What’s more, we need to realize that our work never stops; creativity never pauses.