Cinema Joy ~the prologue

21st February 2009, Saturday; marks the most touching ever moment in my life. No, it is not just because of the movie I watched in cinema, but the whole activity we did on that day.

It is more than just family outing. I think Family & Friends' Outing will best describe this remarkable day. My family and I, plus my dad's friends which included the Gan family and a couple, Mr. David & Chin, went to IOI Mall's cinema to watch a Hong Kong movie titled Look For A Star, or in Chinese: 游龍戲鳳 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_for_a_Star).

Nevertheless, in order to understand why this event evoked so much love to me, I shall detail to you the 'prologue' part.

It all began with a plan of us 3 siblings to watch a movie called "Ip Man"/ 葉問 (pronounced as eep-mun) in this same cinema. However, the plan failed as my younger bro was underage. Instead of returning the tickets, the security officer (who checked our tickets) refuse to return the tickets, and demanded us to get a suitable friend to replace my younger bro if we want to watch. my big bro, silently furious at his actions, (together with us) walked away out and went home. As we relate this incident to dad, dad then telephoned the cinema's HQ office to file a complaint against this fraud. At first, the officer there felt suspicious, but after my dad gave a straight-to-point explanation, (not exact words) "As a customer, do you think I have all the time to create such trouble and do all this hassled fuss?"

After a throughout investigation by the cinema's company for about two weeks, the officer apologized and promised to give 3 voucher tickets (redeemable for any movies). But my dad felt this is unfair, because of all the troubles he had gone through to complaint this. So, the officer then compensated with 10 free voucher tickets.

(We discovered that the conditions on these vouchers there stated: Valid for a month and redeemable at the same cinema where that fraud happened. We speculated that this is to prevent this bad case from spreading out which would tarnish the cinema company's reputation)

Earlier, we thought to spend these vouchers with cousins on the first day of Chinese New Year, but the situations at that time did not permit as we were busy visiting relatives.

Weeks later, after a headbreaking thought of when to use them, my parents and us thought to spend them rightaway with dad's friends whom we frequently meet during breakfast, the Gan family and Mr. David & Madan Chin.

Dogs- Still Humans' Best Friends...

(From http://yasminthefilmmaker.blogspot.com/2009/02/please-spread-this-little-film.html )

Watch this short film-----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85sKrI8TVhk

Aside breaking Muslim's myth about dogs, this short film also brought forth a question in me: If dogs are really unclean, yet why is it they are the most faithful animals amongst all? Why, huh?


If not mistaken, I had heard of a mention in Hadith (recorded sayings of the Prophet) that angels do not visit houses that have dogs. If that is true, Quran would have warn us to keep away from dogs like the mention of pigs there.


Nevertheless, specifically speaking, dogs do have their own uncleaniness. Dirty ones like stray dogs, of course you should avoid them, but I believe there's no harm touching pet dogs as they have been bathed and medicated by their responsible owners.


Here is the article about that short flim, as written in that blog:


"On the 29th of December, 2008, my crew and I shot this commercial in Ipoh. It was a one-day shoot, alhamdulillah.

I had written a script, based on the true story of Encik Shahrul's family, or more specifically, of his youngest child, Adlan.

Adlan was an extreme autistic who, for 7 years, behaved like he was trapped in a bubble, unable to communicate with the outside world, and vice versa.

What finally brought him out of that state is shown in the commercial you see here.

The dog is the most misunderstood animal in this country. Its haters, I'm sad to say, are largely Malays who often don't even know the difference between "haram" and "najis", let alone the finer points and different degrees of najis.

With this little film, I urge my people to read more about the true Islamic rules concerning this beautiful creature of God, and to please refrain from being cruel to it.

Let's do this for Allah." -Yasmin Ahmad