Kampungku means "My Village" in the Malay Language. It refers to the uniquely Malaysian spirit of home and community. In the words of my father,

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"But it means so much more to me: 

Its where I come from; my origin

My hood, my backyard, my home ground

The place where I grew up

My roots, heritage, culture 

Its essence is what makes me, me

It takes all my 6 senses to describe the meaning of Kampungku."

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The idea behind representing my photography with this concept is really an homage to him, Tunku Shaharuddin to many or Abah to me. It began in 1995 & 1996 when Abah visited COMDEX, a computer expo show in Las Vegas, USA. This was a time before Google and Facebook but he "...knew that internet technology was the way forward. It would affect how we conduct business and our daily personal lives". 

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Back then Abah was the Managing Director of Melewar Engineering & Melewar Entertainment, subsidiaries of the  Melewar Group, a manufacturing company in Malaysia. Melewar Engineering involved itself with serving Tenaga National Berhad (The sole electric utility company in Peninsular Malaysia) as well as lobbying various tenders with the government. Whereas Melewar Entertainment was mainly an audio post-production house providing digital broadcast standard services to Astro, Malaysia's largest satellite television and IPTV provider.

Kampungku was an idea where 3 main categories could be integrated through a social network/portal: Business, Education and Sports. Ideally, this 'village' would serve  its community. 

 

For its business sector, Melewar Group was strong and had various industries in its stable and would be able to provide business services and serve Kampungku. Other community members (the general public) would then add themselves as part of the Business portal offering their own brand of businesses and services. 

 

In education, Melewar Entertainment was appointed as a country partner by ThinkQuest.org in 1996. ThinkQuest was a United States based non-profit organisation which worked internationally to identify scholarship recipients and assisted students and teachers in creating web-based learning projects as well as collaborating with peers globally.  Melewar wanted to bring ThinkQuest to University Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI), Malaysia's leading University that trains future teachers. The goal was to use the service as part of the curriculum in preparation to teach it to future students.

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Lastly was sports. Kelab Sukan Bola KL (KSBKL) was registered as a society/club to promote sports, mainly football and sepak takraw. "By participating in local leagues, and creating and organising grassroots competitions, (the club) would be able to unearth talents and then compete on a state and national level."

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The following year, Abah & the Melewar team members pitched the idea to the Malaysian Government. 

"(The related ministries) obviously did not see or understand what we were proposing. At that time, floppy disc was a means of backing up data. Dial-up was our internet, Telekom Malaysia was the only internet provider, one single image took a minute to load if you're lucky. UPSI did not even have computers back then. We were not able to give them as we were not funded ourselves. Promoting audio-visual presentation and entering students in a global competition via the internet was beyond their grasp, unthinkable and not achievable. They couldn’t even understand the difference between a website and a portal."

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To this day I'm shocked at how ahead of the curve Abah was back then; his morality and work ethic still inspire me to this day.  Even though our government didn't see the vision, this is my attempt at making Kampungku big.

Thanks for everything Abah, love you.

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Despite all of its flaws, Malaysia is so important to my sense of identity and is still near and dear to my heart. My village is not just a place, its a feeling. Nowadays for me, Kampungku serves as a reminder. A reminder of home; whether in a far away place, Malaysia and all the good it represents, or in the hearts of friends and family.