Rightist: This is the picture of Chin Peng, the most evil man on earth. Damn communist. Good-looking fella back in the 40's, but who would have thought he's such a bloodthirsty motherfucka who slaughtered thousands of people in Malaya and made spaghetti out of their entrails. He's a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. He's so screwed up he wanted to rule the country from 1945-1960. I'm screaming with joy that the old bugger's dead. Long live democracy!

Leftist: Dude, that's blasphemy. You know he's a patriot who fought against the Japanese and British colonialists. He was willing to die for his country. He got more balls than your grandpa, your dad, your bro, and basically your whole goddamn family. Chin Peng's a true freedom fighter, the real deal. Unlike those pussies who hide behind the apron of the British Queen and kissed the ass of the Jap bastards, he chose to do the manly and honourable thing for his country: fight. When the Japs were busy killing & raping Chinese villages, where were you? If not for his men hiding in the jungle and ambushing those Japanese assholes, your mom won't be around today. It's a pity he died without coming home.

Rightist: Wtf, you're so perverted. He's a Communist. He's evil. Read my lips: Communism is Evil. The Communists are racists. They get orders from China, and only China. They hate the Malays and massacred Malay villages in Johor. They urinated in mosques, insulted Islam and bullied the Malays into paying heavy taxes. They started a racial riot in 1945. Communists hate everything, even God. Chin Peng a hero? Where the hell did you read that? Your history's messed up. Read your fuckin' textbook. That's the correct history. After 1957, he tried to conquer Malaya spilling blood n guts n shit... First, he offed those British estate owners, then the High Commisioner.... 

                                                                                                                                                                                            

Leftist: Stfu, you're wrong. He only retaliated against those Japanese lackeys. Those who died were the informers & running dogs for their Jap masters. It just so happened that the majority were Malay civil servants. But when the Communists revenged themselves, the villagers started whining and bitching about injustice. Karma, baby. What goes around comes around. Read something other than your goddamn textbook, ok? And why so emo when he killed British officers? You pro-British or something? Good boy, here's a cookie for you. Your colonial master is proud of you. Btw, the British awarded him medals of honour...

Rightist: Which were taken back by the Queen! He's a nasty lil' backstabber.
  
Leftist: Nope, he was trying to get rid of the British regime...

Rightist: And set up his own Communist empire, right? He's a national traitor!

Leftist: Why are you so biased? He wasn't alone in this. Ahmad Boestamam was a famous Malay leader who worked with the Communists to overthrow the British & Japanese invaders. He was awarded the title "Datuk." Shamsiah Fakeh was a lady Communist and Malay feminist. She was allowed to come home in 1994 and given land. Why weren't they persecuted? You go figure.

Rightist: That's because they agreed to be peaceful. But Chin Peng killed innocent civilians! There's blood on his filthy hands. We should never forgive him! He's a terrorist!

Leftist: No, it's everything to do with race. Don't deny it. History is racialized. Nordin Mat Top, the most wanted Muslim terrorist who blew up hotels as a hobby was welcomed home by Malaysian authorities. Can you imagine that? What Chin Peng did was to kill ppl during war, and he suddenly become a criminal?? Why can't we forgive? That's 50 blasted years ago.

Rightist: That's different! He missed his boat in 1990. He didn't apply to come home. Plus he's a Communist leader. Communist ideology is dangerous. It threatens national unity and security...

Leftist: He applied to come home in 1990, but was rejected. If Communism is so bad, why be friends with China? China is the bad guy, remember?

Rightist: That's different! China contributed to the economy of Malaysia, and helped us to resist the hegemonic US forces. We are a neutral country with good relationship with all superpowers.

The Venusian: Both of you can go screw yourself. Why can't you accept that Chin Peng can be a terrorist and a freedom fighter at the same time? He can be both, remember? A person can be A as well as B, a rose can be a flower at the same time, and a dog can be a mammal too. Why insist everything must be either black or white? The world doesn't work that way. The truth always lies in between. Both of you are just as shitty as each other. I am ashamed of you two.

There is a manga called "Lord" (超三国志-覇) written by the famous Buronson. In case you have no idea who the hell is Buronson, he's the same guy who created "The Fist of North Star" series.

Anyway, "Lord" is a subversive piece of art.

Fiction can be subversive when it challenges history by reinterpreting events and characters. In this manga, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (a classic Chinese text) was given a creative twist. The hero is some Japanese slasher dude who is the "missing page" of history. He was never mentioned in history, because he did some pretty badass shit to Liu Pei & Cao Cao.

 The silly RPG cover.













The art is absolutely beautiful. Those darn horses look real.

Perhaps what is shocking & controversial is the distorted character of Liu Pei. In the historical texts, he was a cowardly hero who loved to cry.

But in this manga...Wow. He's a total asshole who goes chopping off ppl's heads & raping women dammit. I also don't get why he needs to be naked and horny all the time. Seriously??? And what's with that big sword?

Similarly, the tiger general Zhao Yun was given a plastic surgery to make him look like a total pussy. He has feminine eyelashes and silky hair that belongs to a shampoo commercial.... 

Do not mess with the Cao Cao.

                                         


3 brothers swearing under the peach orchard.
                                              

Verdict: I guess what is awesome about this manga is the creative treatment of history. The author rewrites Chinese history by inserting fictional characters and events that totally makes sense and is logical to the progress of the story. It offers a fresh new perspective on history that tries to explain the "missing pages" or "silent blanks." Good stuff.

Rating: 4.5/5

Follow this link to read this twisted manga:

http://mangafox.me/manga/lord/

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting" - Milan Kundera.

For those who are always suspicious of our shitty history textbooks - you are right.

History is written by the winners. There's too much garbage propaganda by the right-wing idiots to instil nationalism from an ethnocentric perspective. Nationalism is merely a distortion of historical events to serve a certain agenda. Textbooks are written to glorify a certain group of people holding the reins of power from a certain ethnicity. This is called racial hegemony. In a hegemonic version of history, women and minority races are forcefully erased & forgotten. You'll be surprised by the amount of missing pages in our textbooks that is only revealed by referring to alternative sources OTHER than the bloody textbook.

We should always question history and challenge the forceful imposition of amnesia on us. But most of all... the struggle against power is our responsibility to tell the truth.

That is the thesis of the novel called "The Garden of Evening Mists," written by Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng. This book won the Walter Scott's Prize as well as the Man Asia Literary Award in 2013. It was further longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In a book-signing ceremony in Kinokuniya, author Tan shared his writing experience with aspiring writers.

                                                                                

He was signing my goddamn book with a nosy aunty fangirl beside him. She was totally salivating on him, thinking "Damn. If only there are less gay scenes in his novels. If only."

I assured the aunty that a dude can swing both ways in the spirit of universal love.

Sypnosis: Teoh Yun Ling is a traumatized ex-victim of the Japanese Occupation. During the war, her sister was forced into military prostitution while she herself was condemned to hard labour in prison camp. Her sister was executed and buried in an unknown grave. Yun Ling who suffers from a disease struggles to write down her memories before she succumbs to amnesia. She needs to discharge her duty of telling the truth before it's too late. She enlists the help of Aritomo, the emperor's gardener, to build a Japanese garden for her dead sister. She wants this garden to be a memorial to ensure that nobody forgets what the Japanese did. Meanwhile, the Japanese govt is free to erase history in their textbooks, denying their war atrocities against the Chinese, bla bla bla bla....

Rating: 7.5/10