September
The MV Screamer 2019
What is happening with the MVs?
Talk by Prof Dr Sivachandralingam: The Economy of Colonial Malaya, 27/8/19
ASSOCIATE PROF. DR. SIVACHANDRALINGAM SUNDARA RAJA Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya
Prof Siva was discovered in the “Revisiting Malaysia’s Colonial Economy” conference held at the University of Malaya in July 2019 and was invited to speak to MV. 60 people attended. The Professor’s talk was surprisingly brief and was followed by a longer Q&A session.
Prof Siva explained the method of British rule and the basic structure of the colonial economy. He then presented a few cases of how the colonial administrators were not always helpful and sometimes even hostile to the businessmen of the time…. in contradiction to the purpose of the colony.
If you need more details, Prof Siva has written a book “The Economy of Colonial Malaya” which costs more than RM800!
Graduation of Batches 31, 32 and 33, 21/9/19
On 21 September 2019, we added 47 new members to our MV family.
Apologies from the President Karen Loh who had to miss this event. Treasurer Kon Cze Yan was “acting” for the day. Puan Roslelawati bt Abdullah, the Director of BKK JMM presided over the graduation and did the honours.
Afidah Zuliana, our emcee, efficiently steered the event to an early completion. Despite 9 speeches – MVJ President Mrs Mizoguchi, B31 trainee Naoko Hasegawa, B32 trainer Lim Ee Lin, B32 trainee Jean Leong, B33 trainer Anne Deguerry, B33 trainee Anne Berthelot, Kon Cze Yan twice! – we managed to finish ahead of time.
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The event began at 11.30am with the graduation of MVJ Batch 31. MVJ President Mrs Mizoguchi delivered a speech in 2 languages! Luckily I had googled some key Japanese phrases to inject into my speech. Lastly, trainee Naoko Hasegawa, dressed in a gorgeous kimono and a dazzling smile, spoke. Puan Roslelawati, the Director of BKK JMM (Department of Museums Corporate Communications), then awarded the graduation certificates and tags.
A delightful Graduation Cake was then unveiled – pulut kuning decorated with fruits and flowers! All hands (JMM, MV, MVJ, MVF) were on deck to cut the cake which was to be eaten with chicken rendang.
After the scrumptious Malay lunch, we continued with the graduation of Batches 32 and 33.
More engaging speeches by the trainers and trainees of the 2 batches. For Batch 32, the eloquent Lim Ee Lin spoke off the cuff and Jean Leong recounted the story of her iguana (more about that on pages 8-9!). For Batch 33, to keep things matchy matchy both trainer and trainee speakers were French and both were named Anne – Deguerry and Berthelot. Among the graduates are 7 French. There are also 6 Koreans. The French Invasion and the Hallyu Wave all at the same time.
Thank you to all the trainers & trainees for your great work and dedication. Thank you to the trainers for looking after the trainees and bringing them up. Thank you to the graduates for persevering with your studies and graduating!
Welcome to the Museum Volunteers family.
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The MV Screamer 2019
Batch 31 MVJ (Japanese) Batch 32 (Saturday) Batch 33 (Tuesday) Trainees: 20 Trainees: 16 Trainees: 25 Graduated: 15 Graduated: 11 Graduated: 21 Aya Yamamoto Ana Alvarez Alfia Jouene Kaori Nagaya Eva Puah Suat Moi Alfred Fernandez Kazumi Mori Faridah Robiah Ismail Anne Berthelot Miki Kosaka Fong Mun Hong Benedicte Vassicht Naoko Hasegawa Helen Tee Guat Hiong Caryn Lai Sook Hean Nobutoshi Nakamura Ilani bt Mohd Jamin Celine Ritchie Noriko Asada Jean Leong Hung Sheong Cindy Loo Heng Fong Noriko Omori May Song Chan Hui Daniela Barrier Seiko Oda Michelle Min Yun Ki David Kang Shin Kwang Takashi Oguchi Pamella Lim Yin Yin Diana Daymond Takashi Yosimura Tan Chuan Leng Itrisyia Dayini bt Kamarul Baharin Tomoko Imanishi Jerry Loh Kian Sing Toshiomi Miyazaki Kate Lee Kyung Hee Misako Wada Katia Luccin Noriko Takizawa Lam Lai Meng Marianne Monsacre Mia Seo Hye Jeong Richard Gascoigne Sibilla de Courtils Stephanie Hwang Suna Tilakam Veerasamy
Trainers: Trainers: Trainers: Chiami Mizoguchi Chen Poh Leng, B24 Jegatheesan Velupillay, B21 Keiko Ishigami Lim Ee Lin, B21 Rama Ramanathan, B28 Sachiko Kubo Ching Yook Ling, B24 Afidah Zuliana, B28 Makiko Nakao KC Yong, B24 Laurence Maille, B10 Ayako Yada Anne Deguerry, B28 Yuko Yamaura
Apologies if your name has been misspelt.
Thank you to BKK JMM for organising the nice graduation party. • Puan Roslelawati bt Abdullah - Director • Mohd Jamil bin Haron - Curator • Norfiza (Fiza), Norizan, Zainaszira (Jane) - Assistant Curator • Yusri – Pembantu Muzium • Rizal – Pembantu Operasi
More photos on Facebook.
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The MV Screamer 2019
Batch 31
Batch 32
Batch 33
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The MV Screamer 2019
The State of MV
We now have about 166 active members of 15 nationalities. Malaysians make up nearly half with 74, followed by the Japanese 51, French 16, Korean 8. MV started in 2006. In the 13 years since MV started, we have trained about 620 people with more than 430 graduates. That’s a 70% pass rate! Sadly many leave after a few years, but happily quite a lot stay.
NATIONALITY Year Batch Malaysian 74 2006/2007 1 0 Japanese 51 2007/2008 2, 3 4 French 16 2008/2009 4, 5, 6 4 Korean 8 2009/2010 7, 8, 9 4 American 4 2010/2011 10, 11, 12 5 British 3 2011/2012 13, 14, 15 4 Canadian 2 2012/2013 16, 17, 18 4 Australian 1 2013/2014 19, 20, 21 15 Chinese 1 2014/2015 22, 23, 24 24 German 1 2015/2016 25, 26, 27 16 Hong Kong 1 2017 28, 29 31 Italian 1 2017/2018 30 8 Kyrgyzstan 1 2018/2019 31,32,33 47 Spanish 1 Total 166 Swiss 1 166
Female 131 Male 35 166
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The MV Screamer 2019
The Tale of the MVJ By Junko Mori
Our story started about 10 years ago. Museum Volunteers already conducted guided tours in several languages at that time. However, the executive committee of Museum Volunteers realized that number of Japanese visitors increased, and, Japanese School of Kuala Lumpur wants the students to expose Malaysian history and culture. They decided to organize the Japanese group and appointed a Japanese lady, Yuko Inagaki, in English group at that time as the leader. She called for volunteers among Japanese community through community papers. About 15 people were responded, and, we started the Japanese group in May 2008. Yuko Inagaki in action
We soon realized that conducting a guided tour in Japanese is not easy. We’ve got to know more about Malaysian culture and history to understand the exhibits in the museum. We decided to split the parts of self- study and made a presentation of what we learnt to each other once a week at least. Not only that, we organized self-tour to experience Malaysian culture and history such as to Lenggong Valley, Perak. We invited a researcher of Japanese Embassy to give us lectures. Beside all this activities, English Group members supported us providing the study materials and captions for the exhibits. However, translated into Japanese itself is a hard work because we are not only familiar with technical terms and words, but their usage is very Malaysian specific.
Our learning process was slow but steady. The first trial tour was conducted after 5 months. We invited our families and friends. The tour was successful. We have a good response from our audience. Finally, on 16 October 2008 we have introduced Japanese guided tours for public.
We have a limited manpower and our coverage is also limited. We could manage the tour only once a week at the beginning. Our journey to exposing museum exhibits and Malaysian cultures and history continued. Also, we are getting more responses for volunteers. Right now, we have 45 volunteers (increased three times from starting). The number of the guided tour increased to 5 times a week. We are able to provide a tour to not only the Japanese School but other tourist groups. We thank all other MV groups and staffs of Muzium Negara for supporting our group and enhancing our activities from the beginning. We appreciate all visitors who joined the tours and gave us the warmest feedbacks. Thank you very much!
MVJ Batch 1 & MVJ Batch 2
Junko Mori and Mrs. Koko Adachi from the first MVJ Batch 1 (MV batch 5) are still active members.
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MVJ News By Tomoko Imanishi
Batch 35 MVJ trainees started on 04/09/2019 Wednesday and has 15 trainees. Training will take 5 months and end next January.
Visit by Osaka University of Economics and Law & UKM on Saturday 14/9/19 38 students from Osaka University of Economics and Law and 6 students from UKM Guides- Adachi, Inou, Shimizu, K.Nomura, M.Nomura
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National Museum@
Check out the reviews! Overall 4 stars, but if you search “tours” you will see 4-5 stars and many glowing reviews of our MV guides. For example:
“A great guide makes for a great experience” “Free tour in English was just amazingly informative” “The fascinating history of Malaysia bought alive by our wonderful tour host”
MV guides complimented on TripAdvisor were Ong Li Ling, Rose Chin, Eric Lim, Eunice, Ee Lin, Leslie, Marianne Khor, Douglas Hale, Leow Lee Lin, Rama, Mathilde, Adib, Sylvia, Wai Mun, Anna, Chan Lai Lee, etc etc.
I do apologize if I missed out any MV guides who were mentioned in TripAdvisor, but it is hard to scrutinise the 1000+ reviews on the National Museum.
Thank you MVs for your great work!
How an Iguana led Jean to MV
Jean Leong, a recent graduate of Batch 32, had a beloved pet iguana named Ivan. She bought him for RM80 and raised him from a baby of 6 inches till he died of liver failure at the age of 4 years in 2008. He was 3.5 feet and 4 kg when he died. Jean and family rushed Ivan’s body to the Department of Museums Malaysia (JMM) on the day he died and requested them to taxidermy Ivan. Then Ivan “disappeared”. JMM could not tell her where Ivan had gone to or was being kept. Ivan with Jean’s son, U-Hon
Finally in June 2019 after more than 11 years, the Natural History Museum sent Jean an email to inform her that Ivan was possibly located in the store rooms of the Royal Museum. Jean and family rushed there. It was Ivan! Ivan was not Terrible or in a Terrible State as feared, but looking quite splendid. He was identified by the missing 3rd finger of his left hand – a little accident from his youth. Ivan the Indestructible!
While Jean and husband were hanging around Muzium Negara looking for Ivan, they happened upon the MV Information Morning and one thing led to another and now Jean is a MV!
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September
The MV Screamer 2019
New Pieces on the Blog @ museumvolunteersjmm.com
“Penang Botanic Gardens” by Eric Lim, 11/8/19 “Malaya at War (part 1)” by V. Jegatheesan, 2/9/19 “Malaya at War (part 2)” by V. Jegatheesan, 2/9/19 “Exhibition: History of Malaysia-Sino Interactions” by Eric Lim, 15/9/19
Reasons to Leave Home
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The MV Screamer 2019
The Bee is proud to present ‘Malam Nusantara’ – a night of melodic tunes that will feature sounds of traditional Malay musical instruments such as the gamelan and angklung fused together with Asian and Western influences. www.galactix.asia
The KLIAF is an annual celebration of arts and culture that is produced by DiverseCity, a non-profit organization that advocates, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people’s lives. Dance, drama, literature, music, art, etc. until 26 October. www.diverseccity.my
Shown below is just a small selection of their events:
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The MV Screamer 2019
Do check out https://museumvolunteersjmm.com/happening-around-town/
Mark this in your calendar
Date Day Event/Speaker 1-31 Oct Special Exhibition: The Great Steppe: History & Culture (by the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan) 30-Sep-19 Mon The Great Steppe: History & Culture - Scientific Discussion 1-Oct-19 Tue The Great Steppe: History & Culture - Opening Ceremony 14-Oct-19 Mon MV Committee meeting - all welcome 17-Oct-19 Thu Visit to "Pameran Raja Kita" guided by Puan Miti 31-Oct-19 Thu Prof Emeritus Dr Ahmat Adam: Talk on Hang Tuah (MV only) 14-Nov-19 Thu Visit to Army Museum & Custom Museum, Negeri Sembilan 5-Dec-19 Thu Prof Emeritus Zuraina Majid: Talk on Perak Man 7-Dec-19 Sat Year End Party
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Please note that events listed above are subject to confirmation. When an event is confirmed, registration will be requested.
MVJ = MV Japanese (event will be conducted in Japanese) MVF = MV French (event will be conducted in French)
Miscellaneous
SCHOOL VISITS: Please contact Yee Chun Wah at 016-282 2167 or [email protected] if you would like to help with the school visits. BLOG: Please do contribute to our MV blog. Send your articles to Maganjeet Kaur at [email protected] PHOTOS: Taken any must-share photos of artefacts or people lately? Send them to Karen Loh at [email protected] with a short description and we will post them up. http://museumvolunteersjmm.com/ https://www.facebook.com/Museum-Volunteers-Department-of-Museums-Malaysia http://www.jmm.gov.my/en/museum/muzium-negara http://www.muziumnegara.gov.my/
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