WHAT REALLY HAPPENS WHEN YOU RECYCLE

In the past few months, the act of recycling has gradually been taking on the spotlight. Just finished a bottle of water? RECYCLE. Just finished a packet of Milo? RECYCLE. Just received a nightmarish score on your Maths test? RECYCLE (okay maybe not until after your exam). And with the introduction of a mini recycling bin in every classroom, recycling is now easier than ever in TCSH. Despite this new ease, however, many people still seem to be demonstrating a lack of understanding and an overall lack of care for recycling. Did you know that by disposing of your recyclables into the appropriate bin, you could be building roofs, providing prosthetic limbs, jackets and all while saving crazy amounts of energy?

Everybody knows that recycling is good for you. It is good for the Earth, which will be good for us so why don’t we do it? It really is not that hard to walk a few more steps and throw your plastic bottle into the recycling bin instead of the normal bin and it really is not that hard to choose the right bin. The amount of waste we produce can shock you. Collectively, Americans use approximately 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour. The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from trees. This amounts to about 2,000,000,000 trees per year. And these are just statistics for America, a single country. Can you imagine this for the whole world?

So what really happens to those plastic containers, aluminium cans, paper and tetrapaks you throw into the recycling bin?

Let us start with the plastics. The majority of the right plastic that gets recycled in TCSH consists of plastic bottles. The majority of the wrong plastic consists of plastic bags and plastic wrappers (yes, those Tim Tam wrappers and Mamee Monster packets are sadly not recyclable at TCSH). Also, please note that plastic lids on coffee cups are actually recyclable plastics - if you look closely at the lids, they actually have a recycling label on them.

Once delivered to the recycling centre, plastics are sorted and then crushed together to form huge cubes. At a plastic processing plant, these cubes are broken down and shredded, cleaned and distributed to manufactures. These manufactures then melt this plastic to be made into different products such as toys, stationery, t-shirts or simply different forms of plastic again and making plastic out of recycled resources uses about two-thirds less energy than making new plastic.

Next up, in the same bin as the plastics, we have the aluminium cans. The pop tabs from aluminium cans can be used to make prosthetic limbs and if you haven’t noticed, there’s a little carton thing that’s attached to a poster around TCSH for people to drop off their pop tabs to go into making prosthetic limbs. The pop tabs are combined with steel to make these limbs for the needy. Surprising as it may be, such a small effort can have a dramatic effect on such a huge industry. Using recycled pop tabs helps reduce the cost of producing prosthetic limbs by as much as 90%.

Aluminium cans are 100% recyclable and are often transformed back into new cans. Making new cans takes 95% less energy to produce than if one were to make a whole new can from scratch. What happens to the aluminium cans exactly after being collected from the recycling bin is similar to plastics – they are formed into cubes, shredded, cleaned, and rolled into thin sheets to be sold to manufacturing companies to be made into cans again.

Onto the next bin, we have paper! Once again, just like plastics, the paper is sorted at the recycling plant. Then, water is added to the paper to create a pulp which is screened to remove glue, staples and such. Like aluminium, paper is often transformed into a similar version of itself again. It takes only a week to recycle newspaper and magazines into fresh newsprint to be printed on again. Cardboard is recycled into other cardboard-packaging products.

Moving on, we have what might be the easiest recyclable item ever - tetrapaks. There is so little room to go wrong with tetrapaks. All recyclable tetrapaks have a label on them and all you have to do is remove the straw from your carton once you’re done and ready to recycle it. (Flattening is also appreciated so they take up less room.) Tetrapaks, like aluminium cans are 100% recyclable - 75% paper fibre and 25% plastic or aluminium. So after being collected by the recycling center, the tetrapaks will be mixed with water in a gigantic blender, kind of like the pulping process with paper. Here, we will obtain a separated mixture - one with paper fibre and one with a polymer-aluminium mix. The paper fibre can be made into tissue, office paper and egg cartons while the poly-al mix can be made into roofing tiles. All these products are made with drying and heating processes.

Side note! You should really try your best to clean all your items before disposing of it in the recycling bin. Grease and food stains on plastics and papers can contaminate the recycling process and cause it to be un-recyclable in the end.

And of course, all these recyclable items can even be used in DIY projects to make all sorts of quirky items from plant pots to decorative household objects to dresses to furniture. Some whole houses are even made from these recyclable items.

Some people may feel that they do not play an important role in the recycling process, that there is simply too much waste (or rather too many ignorant people) such that no amount of recycling on their part could ever really make a difference, and the end of the world is imminent and inevitable and therefore pointless to fight. However, I believe that every single one of us should take on responsibility as a fellow resident of the Earth and make it our job to do our part in making earth a little more comfortable to live in and a little less closer to destruction. The power of one small person, one small act of recycling can cause a huge difference to a huge earth.

Written by Chin Wye Mun

The Beauty Of Literature

There are few things in life that fill me with pure delight and rapture. One of them is literature. A common misconception that many have towards literature is that it is merely a bunch of ancient texts cobbled together by some inconsequential people who have long passed on. Made worse by seemingly garbled words like hither, dither and ho, this presupposition cannot be further from the truth.

Look around, and you will be surprised to find that literature surrounds you. It is in the commonplace activities you do half-consciously, like eating and drinking and washing your clothes. Take for instance the use of alliteration in the low-fat smoothies available at BOOST: Banana Buzz, Blueberry Blast and Berry Bang. It is in the songs that you blast on the radio as you try to conceal your rising annoyance at being stuck in yet another KL traffic jam. It is hidden somewhere between the lines as you skim through the newspaper, sipping your cup of morning coffee. It is everywhere - and it will most probably stay that way.

The indescribably wonderful thing about literature is that you do not have to find a way to force yourself to love it. If you have a favourite song or have felt even a vague liking for the way something is phrased, chances are you already have all it takes to be enraptured over and over again by the beauty of this subject. This is why I fill much of my spare time with the literary analysis of song lyrics. Believe it or not, it is strangely therapeutic.

Carrie Underwood's 'Wine After Whiskey' is one of such songs which never fails to send an involuntary thrill up my spine just from the sheer beauty of what it represents.

'Once upon a time our world was on fire/ and I loved to watch it burn. Wild and reckless never any limits/ guess I had a lot to learn./ Cause fire turns to embers and embers to ashes that blow away too soon.'

These few concise but poignant lines speak volumes. Already we can see the main theme emerging - the disparity between the past and the present, the gap between what is and what should have been. The use of fire as a metaphor of a love which was so impassioned , only to disintegrate into crumbly ashes is so startlingly apt. I am filled with this sense of wonder and excitement. I can hardly contain it. Sometimes, if my joy is too great, I skip off to find someone to unload my amazement on, but am sadly met by raised eyebrows and quizzical looks.

I strongly believe that the defining quality of literature lies in the fact that there is always something more to be discovered. Analyzing a text is like embarking on a scavenger hunt, except that sometimes along the way, you chance upon things that the creators of the hunt did not even know existed. And this, friends, is where the fun lies. In literature, one of the most important lessons you learn is that there is always more to what meets the eye. This is why words like denotation/connotation and similarly, phrases like literal meaning/figurative meaning are so ubiquitous in literary commentaries. While you might be thinking that all these sound very complicating and you are beginning to want to estrange yourself from literature forever, let me remind you that the way our world works, the way people behave all mirror this (almost) life truth. There is always something more to a situation or a scene than can be derived from it at first glance. Looking at the world through literary lenses does not muddle up things; it simply adds a whole new dimension to how you see the world.

And this brings me to the heartbeat of literature - its liberating quality of being open to interpretation. In a world of intense blacks and blinding whites, it is immensely refreshing to find that there is this blessed space where we can let our imagination run free and not worry about having to come to the right answer. While certainty is a good thing to have, sometimes there is a need to simply dabble with the amorphous spaces between the distinct lines. With this in mind, the analysis of a literary text becomes a very personal affair. The way you understand a text is deeply influenced by who you are as a person and the experiences which have moulded you. A specific line could jump out at you because it puts in words perfectly something of which you have been dying to express. Something within you reverberates and the text is no longer a foreign work. It is a part of you, an extension of your being.

This is why I can safely say that I have never analyzed a literary text in all its entirety and still walk away the same person. Inevitably, a part of me now belongs to the text, and a part of the text to me.

By Eleasha Chew Sue Yuen

Where To Eat?

That’s the main question that pops up every single day in the minds of TCSH students. Due to the fact that TCSH is a campus without a cafeteria, students have to find places to eat outside campus for lunch unless they’re fine with eating Maggi cup noodles from the vending machines every day. Fortunately, the Hartamas Shopping Centre and Plaza Damas are located right next to campus allowing students to choose from a variety of different establishments to have lunch. However, it’s not as easy as picking a restaurant at random with your friends and eating there. There are many different factors that have to be taken in consideration such as affordability, taste, quality of food, and of course, its distance from campus. I’ve surveyed and narrowed down the options into this list of my top 5 eateries for lunch.

1. Kanteen
Kanteen offers a considerably wide array of fusion cuisine at an affordable price. Considering its price, both the taste and quality of dishes served are excellent. One of my favourite dishes from this restaurant is the fried pan mee. This particular dish has a rather unique and wholesome taste and it only costs RM7.90. Popular dishes include rice sets and western food such as chicken chop and lamb chop. Kanteen takes a spot in this list because of its great food and good customer service. Therefore, I strongly recommend this place whether you are just looking for affordable food or sharing dishes with your friends.

2. Subway
Plaza Damas may not have fast food restaurants that we have all come to love suchlike McDonalds and KFC. What it has though, is good ol’ Subway. Although not as 'healthy' as their marketing division would like the general public to believe, Subway serves tasty and wholesome sandwiches, for a reasonable price. Their 'Sub of The Day' promotion cuts the price of a particular sandwich by 40% which is quite a good deal. In terms of taste and value for money, I personally think Monday's sandwich - the Italian B.M.T., is the best. Moreover, you get to choose which vegetables go into your sandwich, be it onions, cucumbers, lettuce, olives, pickles, capsicums or tomatoes. One could even ask for all as it does not add on to the overall cost. Let’s not forget Subway’s delicious cookies for students to snack on in between classes. All in all, Subway with its efficient service, convenience and tasty sandwiches makes it one of the best places for us to indulge in without worrying about burning a hole in our pockets.

3. Mahkota Curry House
Everyone likes to eat at a *mamak stall. The cheap prices of drinks and food coupled with the mouth-watering variety of food available are very appealing to us college students on a tight budget. When thinking of mamak joints, most students think of Bestari as it is big and strategically placed. Nevertheless, the food there is not only more expensive than most mamak stalls, the quality of food is also inconsistent. If you are craving for mamak food, I highly recommend Mahkota Curry House. This small, hidden mamak is actually right in the middle of Plaza Damas opposite the entrance to Hartamas Shopping Centre. The food here is cheap, delicious and consistently good unlike their larger and more well-known counterparts. Their *nasi campur can be quite pricy if you order a lot of meat but the taste beats Bestari’s nasi campur hands down. The only downside to this particular stall is that it is much too small for a huge crowd. During breakfast, there is no way you can get a table there if you have more than 5-6 friends. In comparison, Mahkota Curry House, in my opinion, is any time a better mamak than Bestari.

4. Ping Chuan Kopitiam
Next up on the list is Ping Chuan Kopitiam. This small coffee shop is located in Plaza Damas (somewhere in between Ah Pek coffee shop and the Tray). I would say that this is one of the best places to eat for students as their mixed rice or cap fan is not only reasonably priced, the variety of dishes is also very appealing to students who are looking for a wholesome lunch. Another main attraction of this particular eatery is that it serves pork. It always has a few big chunks of *siew yok and *char siew ready to be chopped up and served for your eating pleasure. Besides that, they also serve chicken rice and wanton mee. Unfortunately, this establishment is non-halal and therefore does not cater to Muslim students.

5. Blue Cow Cafe
Last but not the least there’s The Blue Cow Cafe. Most students would never find this peculiarly named cafe as it is located on the upper level of Plaza Damas where most students would not go to. The main attraction of this place is their reasonably priced student set meals. These set meals range from around RM9.00 to RM12.00 depending on your choice of meal. Students can choose from a variety of burgers, pastas, sausages and sandwiches in their set meal. What's better, it even comes with a free drink! So far, their pork and beef burgers lunch sets really impressed me. Their patties are juicy and mouth watering and their wholegrain burger buns have a nicer texture than most burgers. If you come with a big group of friends (more than 10 people), I suggest you only come to this place when you have at least a 2 hour break as the food here can take a while to arrive. The overall ambience of this cafe is rather pleasant and the good service here only makes it better. I highly recommend The Blue Cow Cafe if you’re in the mood for a satisfyingly juicy burger.

Written by Chiang Kah Chun

Ang Ku Kueh

I have a mother. My mother has a mother. My mother’s mother had a mother. Generation after generation, we are all just like a flight of stairs though I am quite the exception. In the twenty-first century, we have elevators. Elevators are like magic. It transports you instantly to where you want to go by just a push of a button. That is the problem. It takes you away so fast that you don’t even know you’re drifting away.

Amah, my grandmother, is illiterate. One day, she decided to sit next to me on the bed while I was busy tapping away on my iPhone. She looked at me and asked, “What is that?” I put my game on pause and moved closer towards her. Then, I showed her how it was played rhythmically to the beat of the song. Even though she couldn’t understand the game, she just nodded excitedly and laughed. I swear my grandmother is so cute when it comes to technology. Although she is old fashioned, what could be worse than not knowing your own roots? That was the day I got down and dirty trying to dig into our history.

“I had lips as red as the angku kueh(1) , the ones you ate during Chinese New Year every year, and sunken deep eyes as big as the pearl earrings your great grandmother gave me for my 10th birthday. I was different, I didn’t have fair skin like the others, instead I had what they would call hitam manis- sweet black beauty. Just like the len chi kang(2) kakak(3) makes for you every Saturday, boanehokuaa(4) but tasty.” She said, giggling.

They say things change as time passes. Beneath her ‘len chi kang’ skin, there are aging lines, sprouting out like the hibiscus plant we have in our garden. Her once pearled eyes are now unpolished and her bones are as weak as the canned mackerel fish bones my brother and I would fight for when there was porridge. It is so brittle that when you chew it, it would end up in your stomach within seconds. No matter how fragile she looks now, she still has her ‘angku kueh’ lips that you can’t even tell the difference when she eats them on Chinese New Year. Mummy says it’s her Estee Lauder lipstick. I think she’s just jealous.

“It was just the beginning of a new decade when it happened. They were uninvited guests forcing their way in. Who were they to think that this land were theirs to take? Fools!” Amah said as she ran her fingers through the embroidered peonies of her kebaya(5) with a pained expression. Through her intense brown eyes, I could see a young girl with eyes like mine, falling on her knees as she slowly turned into dust. I tried reaching out to her but before she could grasp it, Amah blinked and the girl was gone forever.

“I am going to sleep now.”

My grandmother turned around and faced the window, her back against mine. I guessed she must be really tired today. Then, a sudden curiosity overtook me. Who was that young girl I saw in her eyes? Ah, it was silly of me to be so inquisitive. I shook the thought away and went to bed. Although it remains a mystery, I knew it was not my story to tell. It was hers.

                                                                              ***

I could still hear it like it was yesterday. Tired engines in the sky, piercing screams in the air and lost hopes everywhere. Strange, but I only heard laughter in my head. I was in an entirely different world. A world where candies fell from the sky like raindrops, green grasses so soft that you could practically lie on them all day and a golden sun that shone so bright, it kept you under its warmth. It was so peaceful that you couldn’t even tell the difference between sleeping and dying.

The Japanese first landed in Malaya when I was just a little girl. Although it was a period of terror, my family thought I was too dumb to understand anything. They called me ‘aekao’- deaf and dumb. Not because I was born disabled, but because I was a child with little words. They were wrong. I didn’t need to read or hear to understand, my eyes told me everything. The Japanese stole our food, snatched our land, destroyed our homes and tortured our people. Books were burned and education was banned. Even the economy was falling apart. Prices rose, food was scarce and many were unemployed. It was a time of fear, hardship and misery, especially for the Chinese.

My family came from a food heaven - the island of Penang. It was a place where you would never get tired of eating, even until today. Char kway teow , asam laksa , lor bak , otak-otak , Hokkien mee and ice kacang , those were the few that you could just buy with five cents. We were lucky, there was always food flooding from our dinner table every night though our happiness didn’t last very long. The Japanese bombed our paradise on December 19, 1941, after George Town was declared a city.

A day before the massive bombing, my father bought train tickets for us to elude the tragedy. He was a smart man, he knew the Japanese would eventually intrude the North after the East coast was attacked. We had no time to lose. My mother and my older siblings swiftly packed our belongings into leather suitcases and together, we fled to Rawang as soon as we could. Almost every possession was taken with us. Kebayas, gold bracelets, porcelain plates and many more. Everything except our dignity, the ancestral home.

They say you can never run away from a real problem. One always leads to another. When we reached Bukit Manchong(6) , the Japanese weren’t just a threat to us. There were thieves everywhere, and you could never be sure when you would accidentally bump into one. I could still remember a young guy with a family of three exploding before our eyes. He was conscientious, full of courage but luck wasn’t on his side. Before he could throw a grenade at one of the thieves in time, it blew up in his pocket and the next thing we knew, he was a dead man. ‘Pai mia,’ like my mother said, tough life.

The war lasted for three years and eight months. My family did everything we could to escape the Japanese. From hiding to running and starving to begging, it was the only way to survive. My younger brother still has a scar that burns of yesterday. He was merely a baby when I took him out for a walk. Who knew the Japanese soldiers would suddenly attack innocent women out of nowhere? I cradled my brother in my arms and slipped under the nearest wagon for protection. Beneath the huge machine, I witnessed a scene so dreadful that it still lives in my memory. They ruthlessly raped young innocent girls and if you were under a wagon hiding like me, I swear, all you could hear would be just agony in the air.

The scar, my brother’s scar, never left his face. The whole thing happened very quickly. After the Japanese soldiers cleared up the streets, we came out of hiding. I was careless. Feeling overwhelmed by the thought that we were finally going home, I crawled out too impetuously. The next thing I knew, his cheeks were bleeding. My mother did everything she could to get rid of the scar, but it just grew deeper and deeper every day. Now, he is known as ‘Tua Jiak Kong’ among my grandchildren. It has few meanings to it. A glutton with a colossal appetite, a burly man, and an uncle with a big scar. I guess that was how they came about naming him at the first place, he was all.

August 1945, it was a blessing like no other. After years and years of angst, the British were finally back! However, nothing was ever the same again. We were stronger, wiser and determined to fight for liberty. The war made us realize that all this while, our strength actually lied within ourselves. Beneath the very core of unity, between different races and among unique backgrounds. We were right. August 31, 1957, Malaya finally achieved its Independence from the British colonial rule. It was the year of the fire rooster in the Chinese calendar, and indeed it burned of victory throughout our souls.

                                                                              ***

“Amah, amah, wake up! There are fireworks outside!”

Together, my grandmother and I walked towards the balcony, into the shadows of the night. Hand in hand, they entwined with excitement, heart to heart, they beat as one. Tonight, we celebrated the joy of friendship, the joy of a family and the joy of having a place to call our home.

“Merdeka, Merdeka!”, we shouted ecstatically, just as the clock struck midnight. Our many sounds of laughter filled the air with glee, making Malaysia proud to call a country of its own of colorful unity, never-ending harmony and a brighter future towards eminent glory.

Malaysia, just by the sound of your name tickles my tummy with pride.

Written by Rachel Quek

Footnotes

^[1] Ang ku kueh, a small round or oval shaped Chinese pastry with soft sticky skin and fillings in the centre. It rests on a square piece of banana leaf and is usually red in colour.

^[2] Len Chi Kang, a dessert made from dried lotus seeds, barley, white fungus, longan, sago pearls, rock sugar, pandan leaves and luohan guo (a fruit known as Siraitia grosvenori). The pandan leaves and louhan guo work as a natural booster of sweetness to the soup dessert.

^[3] Kakak is a Malay word for ‘older sister.’ It is also used by most Malaysian families as a polite way of addressing their housemaids.

^[4] ‘Boanehokua’ is a Hokkien expression with an indirect meaning of ‘not very attractive.’

^[5] The Nyonya Kebaya,  is a beautiful, translucent, figure-hugging embroidered blouse worn with a batik sarong by the Peranakan ladies. (Peranakan, a term used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Nusantara region during the Colonial era. 

^[6] Bukit Manchung, a small village inhabited by many aborigines of Malaya even before the World War II started. It is located in Rawang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.