Happy Independence Day Malaysia - Rooze Esteghlal dar Malezi

It's the 56th year of Malaysia's independence day. Me and some of my khanavadeh (family) went out for countdown at our beloved city, Pontian Johor. We arrived around 10.30p.m. The whether was so lovely tonight as the rain has stopped pouring. There was a big crowd of people at the mini stadium which is facing the Malacca Straits, hence the nice sea breeze. There were performance from some artists, traditional zapin dance and patriotic songs. As the normal ritual, we countdown for 12 a.m., sang national anthem, Negaraku, sang few patriotic songs and the star of the night fireworks. This year, they showed about 10 minutes real fireworks. When I said real it does mean the big one not the one we usually played for Hari Raya. 

All in all, I felt happy tonight to see that Malaysians really appreciate Merdeka Day even I don't know they understand the meaning of independence or not. The only things I don't really like is to see many children or I can say teenagers around age 13-15 with their bicycles going nowhere in the middle of night on the roads. I wonder where were their parents, don't they worrying their children?hmm..

Ok lah. I managed to record videos even the quality is not good as I used iphone. Enjoy...

Taa daafe baad..be omide 1000000 sal esteghlal va azadi (eh,shabihe sooroode melli iran) dar Malezi...khodanegahdar

World War III is Happening?

The East and West had experienced it. Is time for the Middle has arrived? War in nowadays time will not called war it will be doomsday. I am talking about the latest news of Syria's conflict which Obama is ready to call upon WWIII. I read an article from here.

What really is happening? Why the conflict become worst? Where the heck they put their brains on? Rebellion? What's that for? To be syahid? Then what will happened to the family, wife, children, mother, father? Will they live a better life after your death? For me their dreams will never happen. There's no justice or independence if you get it from blood. Because blood will put grudge and things will repeat.

I am very glad that I was born and bred in Malaysia. Peaceful albeit the multi-culture, multi-religion, multi-everything. I know there are foreigners said that Malaysians are slow, no-heart, no-feelings, that we are afraid to change or rebel. But hey, what's that for? If in the end we lost things we used to have. Our silence is not because we're afraid but because we are glad to live in a harmony. What we are having now is more than enough. Maybe there are lacks here and there in the country's management, but nothing is perfect.

Happy Independence Day Malaysia. 31 August 2013. Let us pray for the best for all world's residence.

Taa daafe baad....khoda ro shokr baraye harchi ke darim...khoda hafez

Me and Puts (niece) today. New irani hijab ( made in china). :)

Simple Chicken Rendang

Rendang is a popular dish during hari raya. But I didn't cook any this year. Today I'm craving for it, so I cooked some for lunch. This is my favourite rendang recipe. I don't like much rendang with kerisik as I think it's too heavy. So this is my way of cooking rendang and I think I'll stick to this recipe for now.

Ingredients:

~ Chicken pieces

~ 1 medium onion*

~ 4 garlic cloves*

~ half inch ginger*

~ 1 cm galangal*

~ 4 dried chillies*

~ 1 lemon grass - bruised

~ half cup coconut milk

~ kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped

~ turmeric leaves, finely chopped

~ cooking oil

~ salt, sugar, msg

*finely grind

Methods:

1. Heat some oil, fry the blended until fragrant with lemongrass.

2. Add in chicken pieces, cook until all sides brown.

3. Add in coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, turmeric leaves, salt, msg and sugar.

4. Add some water if sticky, let everything simmer for 40 minutes.

See, it's very simple. Just in an hour rendang is ready. if using kerisik you need to add another hour to prepare just kerisik.

Taa daafe baad....khodanegahdar

Ungkep Hati dan Pedal Ayam..Khoraki ya Kababi?

This is another Javanese recipe I learned from mak. The fish monger that normally come to our house didn't show up until 11 a.m. I opened freezer and saw a plastic of chicken liver and "pedal" (i don't know it's name in english). Then decided to cook ungkep. Chicken especially the kampung one is best to use in this recipe. Someone (she's an Iranian) asked me what did I cooked for nahar (lunch). I told her jigar-e-morgh (chicken liver). She said khoraki (like stew) ya kababi (kebab)?. I didnt know how to answer, but because it is not kababi, i said it khoraki :)

Ingredients:

~ Chicken liver and pedal

~ 1 medium onion*

~ 4 garlic cloves*

~ 1 inch ginger*

~ 1 inch turmeric*

~ 1 lemongrass

~ 1 tbsp coriander seeds*

~ 1 tspn cumin seeds*

~ 1 small asam keping

~ 1 tbsp curry powder

Methods:

1. Blend all the * ingredients. In a pan heat some oil and fry the blended ingredients.

2. Add in bruised lemongrass and curry powder, cook until fragrant.

3. Add the liver and pedal and asam keping. Cover the pan and simmer for 30 minutes. Taste with salt and sugar. 

Taa daafe baad....oh cheghard delam vase jigar gusfand kababi too mazandaran khast...khoda hafez...

Farsi and Azreen

After I uploaded some videos of me speak farsi in youtube, i received several messages relating issues such as how I learn Farsi. Some of them are beginners and asked my advice. Frankly, my farsi is not very good. Sometimes Iranian couldn't understand what I had said. I just can speak basic words. When it comes to formal farsi dialogue I hardly understand it. I am not a polygat like Tim the teenager that can speak 20 languages. I learned farsi just because my bf is Iranian. And for now I have no intention to learn other language.

However, I still share my methods of learning farsi. All are through informal learning. My most source is through entertainment such as songs, movie, videos and anything that is fun. I started with basic words; numbers, animals, words that we're using on daily basis. I wrote it down, memorized and most important is practice. Internet really helped me. There are lots of online farsi learning websites, dictionaries and translator. In future I really want to go to formal farsi class. I think it will speed up my skills especially in reading and writing.

So for those beginner farsi learner, good luck and never give up because farsi is a really beautiful language.

Taa daafe baad....farsi bekhund chond zabane dige ziyad ghashang nist ;-P khoda hafez!

Javanese Pecal Wak Tipah's Special Recipe

Today I want to share my mom's no 1 recipe: Pecal. Pecal is originally a Javanese food. It's like gado-gado with a slightly different taste. This is the food people searching for at my house during hari raya. I asked mak why she serves pecal on hari raya because it is not a common food during the occasion. She said this culture has been passed from my grandmother which is originally Indonesian. From all her 6 siblings, only my mom inherited the recipe. Hence, my uncles, aunties and relatives came to my house to have it.

Mak always asked us, her daughters to learn how to make pecal. But then we always said mak make it better especially in blended the ingredients for the sauce. We always shouted from kitchen whenever the sauce has finished and mak will gets angry because she was busy in the living room entertaining guests. So, this year mak has decided that she wants me to make the  everything from A to Z. Luckily, nobody complained. :) Here, I write it down for my future reference.

The peanut sauce

  Tapioca leaves 

                                                                Mung beans sprouts

Cucumber

                                                              

Noodles

Ingredients (for sauce):

~ Dried chillies*

~ Onion*

~ Garlic*

~ Shrimp paste*

~ Peanut - deep fried, blend not too fine

~ Tamarind paste juice

~ Kencur/cekur - finely pound

~ Salt, sugar, msg

Methods:

1. Finely blend all the * ingredients. In a pan, heat some oil and cook the blended ingredients in a medium heat until it well cooked (dark red colour). This is the base of the sauce. Mak made this in a bunch to make the process of making sauce easier. Everyday heat it 2 times in morning and night and it can be keep for 3-4 days. 

2. To make the sauce, first mix well the chilli mixture with sugar, salt and msg. Add in peanut, kencur, some tamarind juice and water. Blend everything well not too thick. Adjust the ingredients to your liking. According to mak, put kencur more to get nice aroma. Sauce has to be make in a small quantity to get a fresh taste. If make in a large amount, make sure heat it frequently. 

Other ingredients:

~ Tapioca leaves, boil until soft with some salt and kapur makan to have a nice green color.

~ Mung beans sprouts, this is another speciality in my moms pecal because she made this by herself.

~ Noodles

~ Cucumber

~ Unripe papaya

~ Fried tofu

Actually you can put anything you like as the ingredient to eat pecal. Whatever convenient for you to find or whatever you like. 

This is  photo of last year hari raya

To date we have finished, 15kg of peanut, 20 bags of noodles, 5kg of mung beans. Tapioca trees around my house and neighbourhood also has been "kachal" (bald). Mak has stopped making pecal on 8th day of hari raya and she will make it again this weekend. Neighbours and families also being generous by giving the ingredients for pecal. Some of them gave mak some money because they knowhow complicated the process of making pecal. Alhamdulillah. Khoda ro shokr that with pecal our family's ties getting stronger. I just hope that this recipe won't extinct. Me myself will keep the culture forever. And I am proud of it. 

Taa daafe baad...salamati ba hameghi va khodanegahdar...

Rap, Drugs, And Hijabs: 13 Things You Should Know About Young Iran

Source: Buzzfeed

From the green protests in 2009–2010 to the election of reformer Hassan Rouhani as president, young Iranians are increasingly powerful.

Expert Robin Wright has called them “the determinators” — politically savvy, socially sassy, and media astute. They count, quite literally, as never before.

1. Two-thirds of Iran is under 35 years old.

commons.wikimedia.org / Via Wikimedia Commons

They are two-thirds of Iran’s population and over half the electorate.

They put new President Hassan Rouhani into office. Now they’re his biggest headache, as he has to deliver on his promises and their hopes.

2. They love rap music.

Via YouTube

Ayatollah Khomeini banned all music as “Westoxication.” But for the young today, rap is the rhythm of dissent.

Hip-hop artists hold back little in warnings to the regime, as Yas, Iran’s leading hip-hop artist, defiantly rapped:

“Listen to my words and see the agonies I suffered
What my generation has seen, made our tears fall
Those without such pains — how they saw ours,
They became even more cruel, what a pity for our land!”

3. They’re the first generation born after the 1979 revolution.

en.wikipedia.org / Via Wikimedia Commons

Now in their twenties and early thirties, they knew neither the monarchy nor the revolution.

They were tots when revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989.

4. They’re pushing cultural boundaries further than any time since the 1979 revolution.

For males, the stereotype of their parents’ generation was a young man sporting a headband that vowed martyrdom to Islam. Today, the image may be performingparkour.

5. …Including when it comes to fashion.

Facebook: POOSHdesign / Via Poosh Fashion Design

Among females, the old stereotype was a woman shrouded in black chador. Today, young designers have added flash, flare, and bold color to fashion.

6. They’re well educated.

commons.wikimedia.org / Via Wikimedia Commons

Literacy has almost doubled since the revolution — to over 95%, even among females.

Iran won a United Nations award for reducing the gender gap (thought things are still far from equal). So the young are among the best educated and most skilled in the Middle East.

7. Like their Western counterparts, young adults in Iran struggle with joblessness.

One of the theocracy’s biggest successes — the boom of post-revolution babies — is now a vulnerability, as the economy can’t absorb the influx of young, well-educated workers.

Officially, up to 30% of the young are jobless; unofficially, it may be closer to 50%.Iran’s new president acknowledged in June that 4 million university graduates were jobless.

8. They’re in no hurry to get married.

The median age in Iran is 27, but vast numbers can’t afford to marry or move out of their parents’ homes.

One-third of females and half of males between 20 and 34 are now unmarried, according to the Statistical Center of Iran.

9. Young Iran’s frustration is reflected in soaring drug use.

commons.wikimedia.org / Via Wikimedia Commons

The State Welfare Organization reported this year that almost 72% of Iran’s drug addicts are between 18 and 25.

10. The post-1979 generation are Iran’s baby boomers.

Iran’s post-revolution generation is the largest baby boom in Iran’s 5,000-year history. Its twentysomethings were born during a decade-long blip between two ambitious family-planning programs. During his final decade in office, the shah promoted birth control use. By the end of the 1970s, 37% of women practiced family planning.

After the 1979 revolution, the ruling clerics reversed course and called on Iranian women to breed an Islamic generation. In a decade, the country’s population almost doubled (from 34 to 62 million). But the theocracy couldn’t feed, cloth, house, educate, or eventually employ swelling numbers — and voters. So it launched a free birth control program, including required family planning classes for newlyweds. By the 1990s, the average family fell from six children to less than two — lower than during the monarchy.

From New Security Beat: “Following the 1979 revolution… half of the population lived in rural areas, which typically constrains access to health services. In addition, abortion was illegal in most circumstances. According to the UN, Iranian women had an average of 6.5 children each in the early 1980s and the population was growing nearly four percent annually, a rate high enough for it to double in 19 years. But, by the early 2000s, Iran’s fertility rate had dropped below two children per woman.”

By actuarial standards, Iran’s baby boomers will have disproportionate clout for at least the next half century on most aspects of Iranian life. Politically, their impact could even be more enduring than the current ruling theocrats.

11. They are politically active.

commons.wikimedia.org / Via Wikimedia Commons

The determinators may not protest on the streets, as they did after the disputed 2009 election. But can make or break politicians.

Their energy turned the 2013 presidential campaign around in the final days, boosting Rouhani to a come-from-behind victory over five other candidates.

12. They have an active, often snarky, online community.

makeagif.com

As the region’s largest network of bloggers, they boldly diss the 1979 Revolution, daring to post criticism, jibes, jokes, and political cartoons on banned social media through circuitous routes.

GIF created by using the Interactive Persian blogosphere map at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

13. They want Iran to adopt a new way of thinking.

Sixty percent of the young surveyed said Iran needs to adopt new ways of thinking. One-third of those between the ages of 16 and 25 said they would abandon the Islamic Republic if given the option, reports an Intermedia Youth Publics poll.

My Comment: So true..and i like no.8 most :)