I have been worried that my teeth are falling out. It has been six months since my last visit to a dentist. Being immigrants to the city, my family never really acquired a new orthodontist, so dental examinations require a one-and\u00ad-a-half hour drive back to Port Dickson: a Dr. Lim handles all major work on both my parents’ dentures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emerging from the clinic’s toilet, I\neyed a valved contraption, some sort of injector, which periodically clicked\nand hummed. When this happened, the folding table on which it was set quivered.\nSomewhere in this machine was a plaster mould with the imprint of my father’s\nupper jaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Lim, after a cursory look at my crowns, asked, “How long ago was your last check-up?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Five years,” I answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Make an appointment for next\nweek, and come back for scaling,” he said. I thought I saw a look of\nexasperation in his eyes, the look of a stylist faced with an exceptionally bad\nhaircut. Then, as befitted a family friend, Dr. Lim looked me up and down and\nsaid: “Wow, your hair is very long, yah?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My bad teeth and bad hair didn’t\nreturn. A one-and-a-half hour journey, I decided, was a bit much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do not fear the dentist’s chair,\nmind you. I rather enjoy its relaxing rise and recline into a comfortable\nposition, the taste of disinfectant around the saliva vacuum nozzle, and the\npricking pain of the scaling needle. It is a soporific experience: the dazzle\nof white light, and the voice of someone whose mouth you cannot see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, I find the prospect of any\nmedical examination — where a professional may touch my body, tell me what is\nwrong with me and recommend an easy remedy, thereby soothing all my physical\nanxieties — very appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So five months later I agreed to\nmake another appointment, and I was eager. I was taking swigs from a\nhalf-filled bottle of gin then, so from time to time I couldn’t taste my mouth.\nI imagined it killing germs and soothing wounds in my cavities; and the pain\nthis caused assuaged me with its regenerative properties — I was misinformed,\nof course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That morning I had managed to\nscratch off another flake from the back of my lower left quadrant’s central\nincisor. I was anxious at the possibility of putting on dentures before my\nquarter-life crisis, yet this incident filled me with the glee that is\ncharacteristic of any child with a scabby wound: I held the splinter in my palm,\ncrushed it with a fingernail, and felt the grit with my fingertips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was no pain in this dental\ntravail: just a fascinatingly slow rot, which I felt privileged to witness, and\ndisinclined to stop. Instead, I wiped my hands and took another mouthful of\nalcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Freedom to Write Under the Influence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n By now you may guess the direction\nin which I am travelling: tooth decay as a diversion from other troubles. Or\nperhaps a metaphor for the same. You know: Dirty elections, “18?”\ngraffiti, the rhetoric of Najib Tun Razak. The Sun and the New Straits Time\nbeing singled out for criticism by Zainuddin Maidin. The censure of Article 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No Molotov cocktails, just calls from the certain quarters for secession from the federal constitution, and leaflets urging death for Lina Joy’s lawyer, Malik Imtiaz, little dissolutions of the fabric of society. The arrest of a dozen teenagers because they were wearing clothes that made them appear to be Black Metal fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Half my wardrobe is black, and I\nfeel like a drink a lot, nowadays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first warning of tooth decay I received was during my 19th<\/sup> birthday. I rarely celebrate, but that particular year the 25th<\/sup> of February fell on a Friday, and a number of friends had decided to meet at Zouk, for general hell-raising. When we arrived there was a large crowd loitering about the entrance, and my incisor chipped. I spat it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, in the weeks previous to this\nnight, a campaign of nightspot raids had been carried out by religious officers.\nThe victims of this offensive were invariably those who fell within the\ndefinition of Malay-Muslim — the consumption of alcohol, or the lack of it,\nnotwithstanding. Guilt had been presupposed. My entourage included three\nindividuals with ‘Muslim’ on their identity cards. The crowd had aroused our\nsuspicions, and we spent half-an-hour deliberating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was not happy. It was my birthday,\nand Twilight Action Girl played good alternative rock music that night. My hair\nwas long and it was warm out. Finally, I snapped: “Can we please make a\ndecision?” We headed in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Loft at Zouk on Friday nights\nwas one of my more unholy pleasures: the music was pounding and I couldn’t see\nanyone but shapes wiggling in the dark. I joined these bodies, engaged as there\nwere in a sort of corporate ecstasy, and voluntarily wiggled in their midst,\nfeeding on collective joy borne out of their lack of self-reflection — or\nrather, borne of a communion, a conscious decision to reflect about oneself, in\nothers and in Franz Ferdinand (“I say don’t you know, you say you don’t\nknow, I say take me out!”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n TAG’s lifeblood was a bunch of young\nMalay punks, who would carry on dancing through Franz Ferdinand and New Kids on\nthe Block and P Ramlee. This was perhaps their last refuge, punk gigs having\nbecome prone to police presence. But tonight they were conspicuously missing.\nThat evening wasn’t a ruin just for me. After two songs I sat down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then one of my would-be celebrants\nleaned over his Coca-cola, apologised that he didn’t have the liberty to dance\nwith me, and further shouted: “I’m sorry. That the state has the ability\nto cause this fear, that I’m afraid about where I go, even when it’s your\nbirthday, and how this separates me and you more than anything: my fear of\nbeing here, and your lack of it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we left, half-an-hour later, a\nfleet of motorcycles roared by, their riders jeering “Cina! Cina!” at\nthe predominantly Chinese crowd, flaunting sleek cars and expensive shirts. I\nrealised then that the statement my friend had made — that state policy\nenforces divisions that fragment our society — may be extrapolated to include\nall divisions: race, class, education, mode of transportation; and further to\nthe conclusion, that both the racist rempits outside and the equally racist\npartygoers inside, were products of stunted, inane discourse, shaped by the\ndistance placed between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My head began to hurt. It was late,\nand I was already depressed. At the mamak, I asked for tea with extra condensed\nmilk, it was the sweetest thing I ever drank, and then I thought about my\nteeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Freedom to Dream About the ISA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last Sunday morning, I woke up with\na painful headache.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had gin-and-pineapple the night\nbefore. I collapsed into bed and promptly woke up again. I checked my\ncell-phone — someone had sent a message. It came from an unidentifiable\nnumber, and it said, simply: YOU ARE DETAINED UNDER THE ISA. YOU ARE NOT\nALLOWED TO LEAVE YOUR HOME. I AM REALLY SORRY. BY ORDER FROM ABOVE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I replied: Who are you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was morning, and there was no\nreply. I dialled this prankster’s number, but was promptly informed that unless\nI registered my prepaid account, I could not make or receive calls, though it\ndidn’t explain how I could send SMS-es.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another message arrived. It said:\nYOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO INVITE MUSLIMS TO EVENTS WHERE IT MIGHT BE POSSIBLE FOR\nTHEM TO CONSUME ALCOHOL. THIS ACTION TOUCHES ON SENSITIVE ISSUES AND IS\nINFLAMATORY, AND IS GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goaded to action, I looked for my\nkeys to the front door, but could not find them. In fact, the padlock had been changed.\nTo calm my anxiety, I went to the bathroom to urinate. Then I found my father’s\ncell-phone, because he often forgets it. It was not charged, and I could not\nturn it on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another message arrived, saying: YOU\nARE NOT ALLOWED TO THINK ABOUT YOUR BAD TEETH SO CLOSE TO MERDEKA DAY. BY ORDER\nFROM ABOVE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please let me out, I texted. Then I searched the house for either of the battery chargers we had, but they were gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SORRY, the reply read, THE LAW IS THE LAW. YOU ARE A MALAYSIAN CITIZEN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a loss, I slid open the balcony\ndoor, gingerly crossed the railing, lost balance, and fell off. It was five\nfloors to the ground. I broke a leg and knocked out some teeth when I hit it. I\nremember wondering whether a doctor would be able to give me antibiotics for\nthose injuries, and — given how interesting my situation was — whether some\nhuman rights organisation would award me a Prisoner of Conscience certificate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I woke up on Sunday morning,\nwith a headache, and wrote it all down. I brushed my teeth thoroughly, taking\ncare to draw blood that I could taste and spit out. I told my mother about the\ndream, later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s because you write about\nall those, you know, controversial things in the paper,” My mother said,\n“That’s why you are dreaming about them. You know, Ta Chieh said that she\ndid a search for you on the Internet, and found that your name was in an\nIslamic organisation’s blacklist. But then she told me: ‘Ma, don’t worry, even\nSisters In Islam is on that list, so he isn’t alone.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Freedom to Spend Saturdays at a Hobby Games Shop, Immersed in\nUniverses Other Than Our Own<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The day before, Shanon Shah, who\nactively works with Sisters In Islam, was browsing through the hobby shops of\nAmcorp Mall when he spotted me, looking over a table of green felt where someone’s\npewter-alloy miniature army was fighting someone else’s pewter-alloy miniature\narmy. It was a close fight, there were open wounds and flames and cardboard\ncounters marking the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Hello,” he said,\n“What are you doing here?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Uh, just watching them\nplay,” I said, trying to make it sound more productive than it was.\n“I actually paint the miniatures.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shanon makes me point them out: a\ndozen Oriental-themed goblins, teapots, millimetre-long chopsticks and sardine\ncans attached to their backpacks, cowering in the display case. “They’re\ntiny!” he said. “Don’t you go blind?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n This same reservation is also shared\nby my mother, and every one of my friends to whom I have revealed this hobby.\n“I sometimes feel like staying home and painting these things than going\nout on a Friday night,” I told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend pithily observed that this\npastime was inherently escapist in nature. “You’ve retreated into\nminiscule still\u00adlife,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s like alcohol and\nreligion,” I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miniature painting is strenuous work\n— but, under the lamplight, with my eyes and fingers so concentrated on my 00\npoint brush, it is easy to tune out. My back aches, the room is quiet, and I am\nfree from worry, except for a stray brushstroke or two. Picking out the best\ncolour combination for someone’s checked cloak or the right spot for a white\nhighlight on a steel sword are nearly automatisms, and this is a useful\ndiversion: the product is a fine piece of craft, an angry little soldier whose\nfrozen violence is entirely under my control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I really should be writing my\narticle,” I tell Shanon. “But my topic is The Freedom to Be. How am I\nsupposed to write about something as vague as that?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well,” said Shanon,\n“You can write about the most obvious thing: that you feel so\ndis-empowered, that the spaces are shrinking so much you want to retreat into\nplaces like this, where things are still not so depressing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hobby shop’s Cthulhu plush toy\nhangs from the ceiling, the miniature tanks, infantry, and 2nd<\/sup>\nedition rules for the WW2 period war-game are really cool, and that Saturday\nI’d rather argue comparative morality between two fantasy worlds than that of\nthe here-and-now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t know,” I told\nShanon. “That is a little too obvious. I was thinking even about writing\nabout how I feel afraid about writing about how I feel so dis-empowered, or\nsomething, but even that’s so — I don’t know.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because I had started to think about how, if my worries about dental hygiene were equitable to worrying about the Malaysian Problem — and I realised the need to indenture as many metaphors for this article, as possible — Malaysians aren’t even allowed the freedom to consider that our collective smile is rotting. We’ve had 49 years, and we’ve been lead to believe that we’ve had relatively painless multiracialism. There is a sort of morbid pleasure present in much of the population, the ones who worry about the rot and impending doom, but mesmerised by catastrophe-in-the-making as I am with my teeth, are disinclined to deal with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Maybe I’ll just write about\nhow I’m worried about my teeth,” I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well,” he said, “I’m\nsure you’ll think of something.” I was self-conscious about smiling. That\nmorning, plaque on the front of my lower right quadrant’s central incisor had\nbegun to appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Zedeck Siew is going to visit a dentist, soon. Hopefully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 24.08.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been worried that my teeth are falling out. It has been six months since my last visit to a dentist. Being immigrants to the city, my family never really acquired a new orthodontist, so dental examinations require a one-and\u00ad-a-half hour drive back to Port Dickson: a Dr. Lim handles all major work on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3538,3544,3543,3583],"tags":[4064,4072,3074,3597,4070,4063,1809,622,4065,3778,502,533,4071,4069,4066,4068,4067,2731],"language":[7523],"writer":[7625],"class_list":["post-27592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-censorship","category-culture","category-politics","category-religion","tag-4064","tag-amcorp-mall","tag-article-11","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-isa","tag-lina-joy","tag-malik-imtiaz-sarwar","tag-muslim","tag-najib-tun-razak","tag-new-straits-times-nst","tag-religion","tag-shanon-shah","tag-sisters-in-islam","tag-the-loft","tag-the-sun","tag-twilight-action-girl","tag-zainuddin-maidin","tag-zouk","language-english","writer-zedeck-siew"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27592"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38581,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27592\/revisions\/38581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27592"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27592"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}