Still on leaving WVU in 1986…
The flight to KL after an overnight transit at Narita Airport, Tokyo, was a MAS flight, so the mood improved somewhat. Gloomy and miserable were replaced by just being uncertain and slightly confused, but more receptive to the surroundings. I guess that was why I got to be buddy-buddy with a bubbly and a highly energetic guy, on that flight home.
The new friend was a movie/film editor. Fendi (his real call name) was returning after the final processing of the then new Malay movie “Kembara… Seniman Jalanan” in a Tokyo film lab. He said the movie was going to be a hit, with some controversial issues and plots. I was actually very skeptical - of who he was, and the movie quality. I guess after spending the whole flight home together, it was (being skeptical) was uncalled for. And from a later perspective, the movie was as he said it would be.
I never really revealed to him that I was not actually one of those Penganggur Kehormat’s (Honorary Jobless, returning graduates still looking for jobs) that he thought I was. I was partially that, in a sense. So, just after reaching Malaysian airspace, I loosely remarked that I wasn’t planning to go home just yet; that I want to stick around in KL for a while to look for job opportunities. As I expected a friend would do, he invited me to lepak (hang around) at his place while I look for jobs and a place of my own. Said that all his buddies are “alright”. I gladly accepted.
His friends picked him up at the Subang Airport, and I tagged along in the car to their place. They all were film crew guys in some capacity or another. They stayed in the top floor of a double-storey terrace house at Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI). The landlady occupied the ground floor main bedroom but they have access to the living room and kitchen.
Along the way from the airport, in the car, they were talking about what to do that night; whether to go to a birthday party of Kak Yong’s daughter, or to the Hard Rock Café for a performance by Ramli Sarip.
We ended up going to the Hard Rock Café for the Ramli Sarip mini concert later that night – my first night back in Malaysia after returning from USA. We rode in two cars, one of which was going to be crashed in a stunt for a film shooting the next day.
I stayed with Fendi and his TTDI film crew buddies for only three days, but felt like I’d gone through a lot with them. Got to know a little bit about the insides of film industries in Malaysia, about the makings of TV and radio commercials, and a wee bit of understanding on the motivations and drives of the film crew buddies.
There was a commercial a few years later, when I saw Fendi and his elder brother pitching the benefits of a certain bank on TV. It was a short-lived commercial, so most people might not remember it. That brother of his was the closest with me during my TTDI stay. Highly likely that several of them had been in other TV commercials or some bit parts in movies, that I failed to recognize.
A former WVU mate came to pick me up from the TTDI film crew house on the third day of my arrival back from USA, to stay with him instead at a place in Section 14, PJ. Met him at Daya Bumi, when making some arrangement with Petronas HR. He said it was just felt wrong for me to be with “strangers”, in my condition then, when there were a lot of old friends around.
The TTDI film crew buddies were new friends, but definitely were not strangers. In fact, they took in a stranger like me into their circle as if they had known me for years.
The flight to KL after an overnight transit at Narita Airport, Tokyo, was a MAS flight, so the mood improved somewhat. Gloomy and miserable were replaced by just being uncertain and slightly confused, but more receptive to the surroundings. I guess that was why I got to be buddy-buddy with a bubbly and a highly energetic guy, on that flight home.
The new friend was a movie/film editor. Fendi (his real call name) was returning after the final processing of the then new Malay movie “Kembara… Seniman Jalanan” in a Tokyo film lab. He said the movie was going to be a hit, with some controversial issues and plots. I was actually very skeptical - of who he was, and the movie quality. I guess after spending the whole flight home together, it was (being skeptical) was uncalled for. And from a later perspective, the movie was as he said it would be.
I never really revealed to him that I was not actually one of those Penganggur Kehormat’s (Honorary Jobless, returning graduates still looking for jobs) that he thought I was. I was partially that, in a sense. So, just after reaching Malaysian airspace, I loosely remarked that I wasn’t planning to go home just yet; that I want to stick around in KL for a while to look for job opportunities. As I expected a friend would do, he invited me to lepak (hang around) at his place while I look for jobs and a place of my own. Said that all his buddies are “alright”. I gladly accepted.
His friends picked him up at the Subang Airport, and I tagged along in the car to their place. They all were film crew guys in some capacity or another. They stayed in the top floor of a double-storey terrace house at Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI). The landlady occupied the ground floor main bedroom but they have access to the living room and kitchen.
Along the way from the airport, in the car, they were talking about what to do that night; whether to go to a birthday party of Kak Yong’s daughter, or to the Hard Rock Café for a performance by Ramli Sarip.
We ended up going to the Hard Rock Café for the Ramli Sarip mini concert later that night – my first night back in Malaysia after returning from USA. We rode in two cars, one of which was going to be crashed in a stunt for a film shooting the next day.
I stayed with Fendi and his TTDI film crew buddies for only three days, but felt like I’d gone through a lot with them. Got to know a little bit about the insides of film industries in Malaysia, about the makings of TV and radio commercials, and a wee bit of understanding on the motivations and drives of the film crew buddies.
There was a commercial a few years later, when I saw Fendi and his elder brother pitching the benefits of a certain bank on TV. It was a short-lived commercial, so most people might not remember it. That brother of his was the closest with me during my TTDI stay. Highly likely that several of them had been in other TV commercials or some bit parts in movies, that I failed to recognize.
A former WVU mate came to pick me up from the TTDI film crew house on the third day of my arrival back from USA, to stay with him instead at a place in Section 14, PJ. Met him at Daya Bumi, when making some arrangement with Petronas HR. He said it was just felt wrong for me to be with “strangers”, in my condition then, when there were a lot of old friends around.
The TTDI film crew buddies were new friends, but definitely were not strangers. In fact, they took in a stranger like me into their circle as if they had known me for years.
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