Dekat Tapi Jauh

“Siapakah akan jadi anak gemilang [Malaysia]?” asked Kam, via text message, on Sunday. “Who will be Anak Gemilang Malaysia?”

“Jauh dari Boston pun boleh hantar SMS?” asked mom, amazed that I received a text message all the way from the other side of the world. She forgot that we also communicated through text messages when I was in Boston.

But, “Anak Gemilang Malaysia?” I asked in return. Yes, we like to talk in endless series of questions.

I don’t watch television. Correction: I don’t watch local terrestrial television; and there are many reasons why. The top three:

1. My dad usually holds the remote, and he rarely stays on a channel for more than two minutes. Even when/if he settles on a program, he likes to press the mute button – “Sakit telinga aku” – often during the best, very crucial parts. They hurt his ears, right.
   
   
2. My mom is next in line in the remote-holder hierarchy, because she has ‘regular programs’ she ‘has to watch’, although most of the time it’s actually the other way round: the television watching her dozing off.
   
   
3. They, local TV, not my parents, suck.
   

So, in short, again, I don’t watch local television. Kam does.

I did before, way back, when there was no other kind of television. I did too when I was in Boston, catching TV3’s Bulletin Utama, Majalah 3 etc. online on TM’s bluehyppo.com. RTM supposed to have a live stream as well, but it didn’t work. I suppose it works now.

So close, yet so far.

__________
PS: The Tokoh Anak Gemilang Malaysia award, which was shown concurrently by Astro and RTM, went to Datuk Onn Jaafar. Any Malaysian who doesn’t know who the guy was really need to look for their (children's) school history textbooks.