Orang Asli Trip

Raya Holidays

Raya holidays have been nice cuz jie came back, and the house was really lively with ck around and all. We had fun trying to beat each other's high scores in his precious minigames. I discovered one thing though. He really is the king of minigames. Let's just leave it at that.

Orang Asli Trip

The youth of MGC are going on a trip to the OA Settlement. It's the one a bunch of us went to the last time. I didn't go because of um... personal reasons.This time we're going to do a wayang kulit thing on the story of Jonah (in Malay). Self-explanatory, but I'll explain it anyway.

Script
Sherene wrote it, with the help of a Malay Bible, which she got from Geng Yi. Thumbs up for you, Sherene! It's well written, in my opinion. None of those unnecessary details and silly attempts at mini jokes or anything. Clear and straight to the point. Hmm!

Props Design

• Juliana
• Yen Mei

Props consist of Jonah, The Fish, The City of Nineveh, The King, The Citizens, The Ship, The Captain, and The Waves (a lot). They're all cut out from cardboard boxes.

Jonah has a pair of arms that are actually strings, and the ends of each string are attached to (1) the cardboard figure of Jonah, and (2) a chopstick (the thin one) which enable flexible movement of the hands.

Our prop designers did a great job with The Fish! It has a circular trapdoor at the stomach. The trapdoor is kept closed by a flimsy piece of tape. When The Fish swallows Jonah, it first dives into the "waves" and then comes back up, and by then the trapdoor must already be sprung open. Jonah is held up in the middle of the stomach, which now has a hole in it, so Jonah appears to be inside the fish. The mouth is a semi-hemisphere which is pinned onto the jaw of the fish by a short pencil and a few rounds of rubberbands. A chopstick is then stuck onto the mouth to enable it to be moved up and down to make the fish look like it's opening and closing its mouth. Pretty cool huh? I think Ju got this idea from Eugin, while we were doing it for the Sunday School in GLO. So we did learn something there after all ^^ Way to go, proppies!

The City of Nineveh is, well, the city la. It looks like one too. Hmm.

The King is a fat, pear-shaped figure (haha) with a crown that is attached to his head with a chopstick and a piece of tape. When he descends from the throne to mourn, his crown is taken off and it's really nice to watch heheh.

The Citizens are actually 5 figures cut on a single cardboard, all with different gaya la. One is kneeling and mourning. We use The Citizens for 2 scenes - The sailors on the boat, and the scene at Nineveh. So when we're holding up the boat, we have to hold 3 chopsticks in each hand: The Ship, The Captain, and the Citizens. The Citizens figure has to be held a little lower to hide the kneeling figure la.

The Ship is a ship la, with a sail and a mast. It was very conveniently designed for one particular dilemma concerning the kneeling figure. Dunno they purposely designed it that way or not wan la. The Ship has a body that gets fatter (hmm?) as it goes from the *bow to the **stern. So we hold up the figures in such a way that the kneeling figure is hidden behind the fatter part of The Ship.

The Captain has a figure that was traced directly from Jonah's figure (tried that for the king but tak jadi cuz he's supposed to be fat right), with the only variation being a fleet officer's hat on his head. Oh, and he has only one flexible arm.

Behind the Scenes. Literally.

• Back: Sin Lan - Leader of the group. It was automatic. Haha. Turns the light on and off during scene transitions. Mostly in charge of Jonah's and The King's hand movements.
  
• Right: Jessica - Mostly in charge of The Fish, and holding up Jonah and The King.
  
• Centre: Sharonne - Takes over The Ship after the scene transition. Holds up The Captain, The Citizens and The Ship in the scene. Kesian ^^; Holds up The Citizens when Jonah preaches in The City of Nineveh.
  
• Left: Me - The Ship, The Waves, The City of Nineveh (I'm having great practice holding stuff up like a statue)
  

This one no joke man. Tiring. We also have to turn off the fan during practice, since the wind from the fan causes the cloth to blow and move and whatever you call it, and the figures get all blurry. So it's hot! Holding up The Waves and moving them around to look like there's a storm going on is seriously not a very pleasant job. The props are all on chopsticks, so we have to hold them and just move the stuff around. Sin Lan does a good job at making Jonah look like he's actually talking and making gestures with his "hands". At two points in the wayang kulit, we have to turn off the light and switch props.

1. Away from God & Off to Tarshish - Jonah runs away on the ship bound for Tarshish (Spain). He first boards The Ship, and there're no waves. When the light comes back on, The Waves are already there, and The Ship has changed direction to make it look like it's sailing somewhere.
2. The Disgusting Vomit & The Sighting of Nineveh - The Fish spits Jonah out. When the light comes back on, Jonah is lying on the ground, with The City of Nineveh at the other end of the cloth.

Cloth & Cardboard People

Ju and Chen li hold up the cloth and cardboard. The cloth is for the props, but since we won't have a table to hide the prop holders and to avoid our shadows from appearing on the cloth, GY had a box cut open to be a blockage for us. Yay. No need to sit properly anymore.
Anyway, this job also very tiring. Imagine holding up a cloth and a cardboard thingy about more than 1m long for more than 10 minutes. 1 minute also cannot tahan already...

Voices

• Jonah - Shaun (hoho...)
• Tuhan - Marcus (hihi...)
• Kapten kapal - Jeremy (haha...)
• Anak kapal - Mau (hehe...)
• Raja Nineveh - Daniel (forever bad guy wan haha)
• Pencerita - Sherene (no comment la)

I don't really pay attention to the voices except to know which prop to put up and when to put it up cuz I'm too busy being tired holding up the props. We all have our job battles, and the voice people are no exception. They have to depend solely on their voices, and not on their gestures or often exaggerated gestures, so it's difficult la. Especially since it's in Malay. But I think Daniel and Jeremy have no prob with the language la.

Miscellaneous but actually not as unimportant as miscellaneous usually is!

GY and Mark have been overseeing the thing and have been giving suggestions and advice, GY more la of course. And Mark always had the director gaya. GY and Sherene have been the backbone of this project, since Sherene is the organizer la, and GY... well, GY's always the backbone of everything. He and Sin Lan got all the stuff for OA, such as the hotdogs, luncheon meat, and all those other yummy food! Plus the light that is so crucial in this thing belongs to him heheh.

Well, that's about it! Dunno how the OA would take to our wayang kulit, since this is the first time we're actually doing it. But it's all in God's hands. And no matter what the outcome, it's been wonderful doing something together like this after such a long time!