Good Morning! The lecture is over.

It’s the beginning of a holy fasting month. Every Muslim have to fast for 30 days in this month and one can only eat during the night time and not day time. It’s one of the most waited month for all the Muslim including me. But maybe I did not miss this month like the others did. I miss it because this month instead of doing what we are told to do by God, but also I can save a lot of money because I do not have to spend my money for lunch.

So how do we fast? Okay, here in Sabah, Malaysia, we wake up early at 3.30 am to take breakfast. So we eat and drink at that time. It’s energy consuming period. Starting from 4.40 am, we are restricted from eating and drinking water. The fasting begin. So the whole day we cannot consume any food or drinks until around 6.10 PM. When the sun has set, the fasting period is over. The whole night we can eat but of course no one will because after a whole day fasting, when you suddenly eat a meal, suddenly you will become very full. This maybe caused by your stomach has shrunk a little.

It was called a holy month where all people must do only the good thing. God will bless human in this month. For me, I hope that this month, the God will bless me and help me to improve my study. Could be this month I will study harder and less tense because of the God blessing.

People always said that during this month, you must sleep early because the next morning at 3.30 am you must wake up to take breakfast. After that you can go study until Subuh Prayer time and then start your morning with happiness and God Bless. In reality, I can’t sleep early! This is because I have lots of things to study and some assignment to complete. Mandarin homework really bothered me. To wake up early in the morning is my speciality. I waked up at 3.30 am every morning to take the early breakfast. To stay up and study is a hard thing to accomplish. I usually just manage to stay for around 30 minutes before I collapsed on the bed.

Sleep until around 7.30 am in the morning. Usually I woke up at 6.30 am but in this fasting month, I woke up every morning at 7.30. Have to rush to get to the class on time. It’s really damn (toot). I don’t like to be late. And after that rush, when I reached the class usually my favourite seat were already taken. I hate it. Have to sit on a seat that is not comfortable for me for the whole day lectures.

God should bless me in this month. God will give me a full concentration on the lectures. Maybe this is the positive thing for this holy month. You can get a full concentration to the lectures not like the other month. Maybe when you stomach is full then you will feel asleep. But in this month, your stomach already emptying when you reach the classroom. So better concentration perhaps. Maybe this holy month also you will get an extra memorizing bonus from the God. Maybe this month you will not have to hardly to remember every fact in the lecture. This is a holy month.

It is really a holy month. Even though my seat are taken, I have to rush every morning, and I did not manage to study early in the morning, but maybe the God will help me in the other part. The God will improve my brain, my memory and my concentration.

“Good Morning! The lecture is over!”

What?! Over? Where am I during the lecture?

A few minutes to recall my memory, and oh no comes out. I slept in the lecture. There is nothing such as improve memory and concentration. I slept in the lecture.

So thinking that this month I will be better is negative. I’m a lot worse than before. I slept almost on every lecture. I did not manage to get that full concentration like before.

To hope that God will help you in this fasting month is a little nonsense. God will not change people when those people don’t want to change themselves. God will not help us if we did not help ourselves. God will not improve us if we did not improve ourselves. So by just thinking that this month is a holy month and God will help us on everything is wrong.

So now I’m not thinking that God will always help me on my study on this month, but I till pray. It’s a praying month. So I pray that God will soon help me. But it’s not that only, I try to manage my study and sleeping time back. Sometimes I take afternoon nap to help me stay up at night and pay every sleeping time I have missed.

Afternoon nap Makruh or not right during fasting is what people say. But I have to, because I need to study hard to become a doctor, and just following what people say is not right for me. I have to get enough sleep also.At least, this month I try change to become a better man. Peace!

Eat or not.

I remember when i was in Secondary school, we usually have a class party. And to do it, we do it childhood way. Not like nowadays. Now if we want to make a class party, we book a restaurant or a club and go have fun.

At that time, if we want to do a class party, we usually bring our own food and shared it together with our classmate. It was fun.

Usually i'll asked my mother to cook some fried mee and some cripsy chicken wings and bring them to the class. The others usually bring cakes, some bring friend rice, curry, sandwich, beverages, and many more. WE have a lot of fun eating together with our teacher and singing and also playing games.

To inform all the readers, i was in St.Anthony school at that time. This school is supposed to be a Christian School but i think at that time it was half Christian school ( goverment take over it since it was rebuilt after the old one was shut down), and majority of the student were chinese. 80% of them are chinese.

Malay only sit in the lower level class, but fortunately, i got some brain to stay in the first level class. Haha. I'm clever at that time. Thus my classmate mostly are chinese, some malay... few malay.

Still, i enjoy the class party. I enjoy multiracial friendship rather than just having friends with only the same race. So it was no big problem to me to make friends. I also still naive that time because i did not know that racist in Malaysia still exist. I start to realized it when i enter University life last year.

Ok, so about the food. Who bring the food? Of course we all did. Who cooked the food? Our mother did. Some girls did cook the food themselves to show off to the guys that they know how to cook. Where did we cook it? In out home of course.

So to bring my interest in writing this article, did i concerned about Halal or Haram? Did the food all are halal. No pork was served. No beer were served. But did i really sure that everything was Halal.

So, even we are a little naive, but we did know that we could not eat pork and drink alcohol because we are Muslim. So we usually give terms to all the classmate to not to bring this kind of food to the party. We respect each other thus we follow the rules.

I remember one cheese cake served in the class. A cheese cake. Homemade cheesecake made by one of my amoi classmate. It was delicious. Actually it was not sweet as i expected. Not to delicious also, but it was the first time i tasted a cheesecake. She said that she made it herself.

So memory pass by. And i feel i was very naive at that time to eat all the things without concerning the source of it.

So nowadays when i enter University, i will choose a food to eat or product that have halal logo. But what annoying me is, ALL the people from peninsular, they are really having a feeling of a high level of insecurities. I know after the cases of Halal logo in Sarawak, people are maybe become more aware of the issues. But it was very annoying when everything is wrong and everything is almost non-halal. They make Malaysia become like France.

I bought a mooncake ( a chinese traditional food) from a bakery i usually bought my bun bread and all of that, and they start to complain about what i bought. I did check the mooncake before i buy it and there was a cleat logo of halal from JAKIM at the bottom of the mooncake's can.

What subject do they rise? They said that even though there were a Halal logo there, maybe it was a fake one. And it will cause us to eat Haram thing and affect our body.

So, we cannot eat everything!!!! Cannot even buy those rice, those canned drink, those snack, those peanuts, those milk, those fruit... There could be having a fake halal logo.

I don't understand why this matter were rise. I was very confident that JAKIM is doing their best work to maintain the safety of all muslim community in Malaysia. The cases in Sarawak about the fake Halal Logo was a minor cases happen and this could not be used to claim all the Halal logo was fake.

My memory comes again when i was in the secondary school. All the food that my classmate bring could be Non Halal. No halal logo on their food. But i eat it all. I know, they were honest and respect our religion and our belief.

I respect them too. Until now, i never get offensive to the other religions. I respect tham as a human. like us. They were also like us.

The issues about the mooncake? In my point of view, the one who said it could be a fake Halal logo on it, this one is actually not saying it in the religous point of view, but a racist that classify the Mooncake to be a chinese food. And all the chinese foods are haram to them. clearly not respecting the other race in malaysia.

Racist is what i hate the most!!!

ASCAP23
20/09/2006

Eradicating the taboo

Before I start discussing, I want to highlight here, I wrote something here with my little medical knowledge but still with the knowledge. This was not to read by someone who are still living under the coconut shell. This is educational thing for us to think. And nothing here is final, one will have different opinion.

To talk about sex openly is no big deal for us in School Of Medicine. We have to learn and know everything. And we have to practice not to shy when we talking about sex. It’s a taboo thing for most people in Malaysia. I taught people are more open minded nowadays but still many people labeling sex as a taboo thing. During the convocation weeks, a security guard come to our Medical School booth and asks about HIV. So as a person who know a little bit more, so we did told him on HIV. What distracting me was when I said sex, the guard become shy and even tries to stop me from talking by using finger sign.

“Don’t say that word la, just say ‘play’ as a substitution,” he said.

I did follow him because I’m just a medical student and maybe he was shy because there was a lot of girl around. But this situation is considered to be ok since the guars still openly ask me on HIV and how it is transmitted. But out there, there is more people that still holding this taboo. If you look around you, most people would avoid talking about sex openly.

Maybe some of teenagers are willing to talk about sex but in erotic way (not the educating way). This is wrong. Since sex education are going to be established in Malaysia, many teenagers (especially) misconception on this. They start to talk about sex without knowing how to talk about is and just talk like they want to. Even some of them out there did not know how to talk about sex educationally and many of them are actually doing sexual harassment rather then talking about an educational sex.

The things I want to discuss here is about the usage of condoms. We were taught on the infectious disease module this few weeks and one of the topics is Sexually transmitted diseases. So during the lecture and our self study session, we did learn a lot about this and the lecturer are talking and talking about the statistical fact and about the prevention of Sexually Transmitted disease. I remember one of the favorite quote of our lecturer “All of you lelaki nakal, please make sure you bring rubber in your pocket!”

Sex maybe not a taboo as before in Malaysia but condoms is still so taboo until no one should talk about it. Even some of my colleagues do not like what our lecturer said on condoms. Many of them just think that by using religion as a defense, condoms are not necessary. How far this theory can go?

This is what we the lecturer is discussing. Maybe many of us do not want to believe or take his advice on condoms, because he is not a Malaysian (saying that Malaysian culture does not need condoms), but in other way, he is right. The lecturer is right. Statistically, half of young people ages between 18-25 years old in Malaysia are having pre-marital sex and 80% of them did not use protective barrier when doing it. (New Straits Times August 2003). And more troublesome is in the year of 2005, 77000 Malaysians are infected by HIV (not counting other sexually transmitted Disease such as Gonorrhea, hepatitis B, other UTI infection etc.) So, can we still said that with the power of our religion does not matter if it is Christian, Muslim, Buddha, for 20 years, this disease was increasing. In 1986, only 3 people infected with HIV in Malaysia. Blaming it on foreigner, prostitute, blood transfusion, shaving knife, everything was just a made up thing. The most transmission method of HIV is still Sex. And WHO had claim that using condoms are one way of preventing this disease from spreading to others. One man one condoms should be the policy or not?

We are living in a country where religion is the most important thing. We cannot neglect this. By strictly following the rules in our religion (for me Muslim), AIDS could be prevented. But by saying this, why did AIDS increased in Malaysia?

So, to bring my opinion here, I think that condoms are still one best way to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted disease. As a medical student, every time I suggest on prevention of sexually transmitted disease, my first priority is using condoms plus by following our religion.
It is difficult to subject to discuss. But I agree with our lecturer, to do sex or not, religion our tradition, is your own problem and your own personal life. We did not care. What we care is preventing the disease, so using condoms is preventive.

Even though we have to said that do not do pre-marital sex because it was prohibited by our religion, but to include in the advice of using condoms if do should be done. In my opinion, even you are an obedient followers, but still we can’t deny or avoid saying “if you do, protect yourself”.

ASCAP23-
I wrote this in my own interest after reading the lecturer note on HIV and Sexually transmitted disease. I analyze every word that I wrote in my notebook, and I fight with myself whether only religious value can prevent HIV. To think a lot, I did my own conclusion that we cannot just neglect the usage of condoms to prevent HIV. We have to admit, even we live in a Muslim community, and still there is a person who can’t avoid themselves in sex. If I want to be a medical doctor later, I cannot simply deny this. I have to admit, and I have to said to someone that he or she have to use condoms even though in my heart I would say, no sex is better.