Solution to our problems?

So Sara and I were basically cracking our heads at what can we finalize as a video that incorporated all forms of races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, accents, backgrounds, and the attitude we should be cultivating during Ramadhan.

What was it that made Malaysia so special?

We listed down a few things from the top of our heads:

1. The amount of culture we have in a single country

2. The diversity in our accents, and spoken language

3. The different tastes of our food, from Indians, Malay, Chinese, to the Mamak, Nyonya etc..



Why was it necessary for us to create a video about Ramadhan?

It was because we know that some people have been ignorant toward the etiquettes needed to be shown during Ramadhan. We also need it as a gentle reminder to those young or non Muslims on the correct attitude to have during this one month.

We did not need to stress on a singular non Muslim person causing problems within a Ramadhan market to teach people. We did not need to pinpoint a Chinese girl, and showed what she did wrong to teach the audience what was right.

The approach to the video was negative. The humor was immature, and very much slapstick. It also caused a lot of racial discrimination and distress amongst Malaysians, and had to be taken down in less than 3 days. Just solely by 3 videos, it caused a major uproar between the races of Malaysia.


What we decided in that split second was to change the video subtly into a more positive way of teaching. We needed to catch the audience's attention for good reason, to say in a most cliche form, 'warm their hearts'.

A lot of this was inspired by Yasmin and the cautious way she blends the races of Malaysia together without harming the rest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNmOwiygals

Our suggestion would be not to focus on a single Malay-Chinese/ Malay-Indian couple. We wanted to be able to relate to everyone, young and old. We also wanted to involve not only Malaysian bred people, we wanted people from America, the UK, Tanzania, Korea, to relate, and to teach them in the process of making the video what Ramadhan is about.

We also wanted to make people rediscover why they choose to study here, and continue to live here. We wanted a simple form of re-education, and to refresh the memories of these people, Muslim or non Muslim, that we all need not discriminate to send a message across.


Big words aside, Sara and I made a mock video in my room for a taste of what the final video would turn out to be like if we went with this decision :)

-Nicole