Other Side of the World: SIFE World Cup 2009 DAY 1: Cultural Fair

4th October 2009

The first day of the event is the funnest one, where all 41 countries show off their national pride and traditional threads and bites. The hall became a cultural celebration.

Meet Kinon, our orangutan mascot

Getting Kinon was a story in itself. I'm going to risk sounding philosophical for a bit here, but you know how sometimes things in general just keep going wrong and there are a lot of frustrating factors overwhelming you...then suddenly you find out that there really are genuinely nice people out there. People who will just help although they have absolutely nothing to gain, and don't even know you to begin with.

We got Kinon from Kadaiku, Sabah Tourism's Souvenir Shop, located opposite the central market in Kota Kinabalu. As with all orangutan plush sold there, RM10 of the price is given to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, so they do get pretty pricey. Kinon, the second smallest plush, originally costs RM150. The really nice lady working there actually gave us a special discount on all our purchases after we told her why we needed them. We bought Kinon for RM85.

Amazing, is it not? I was saying that it's not the time to give up on mankind just yet...

Back to the cultural fair. In a way, I would say that Malaysia's booth was represented a little differently this year as we portrayed a lot of East Malaysia, especially Sabah (duh). We handed out traditional Rungus bead necklaces, fed the crowd amplang and kuih cincin, and of course, Kinon the Orangutan was there to greet the world.

We were all dressed up in a myriad of traditional costumes. In this picture taken with Zul Saadon, SIFE Malaysia Country Director, we are (from l-r) Indian saree, Punjabi kurta, Sabah's Dusun Tindal (yours truly) and Iranun costumes (male and female).

Françoise was in a Murut costume, and Valentino put on the Kadazandusun one, as seen here setting up the Malaysia Booth.

I've realised two things this year:
1) being on the competing team and responsible for 'sticking close to homebase' when the fair starts deprived me a lot of photo ops and souvenir collecting from all the other 40 booths.
2) Wearing a not only eye-catching, but also attention-grabbing costume (every step I take in the Dusun Tindal costume produces a jangle of bells) attracts a lot of photo requests. People don't even bother what country I'm representing. They'll first say "Can I take a picture with you?" and after a whole load of flash-snap-flash (it lasts a while as the crowd tend to grow as more people jump into the shot) somebody might remember to ask "So which country are you from?".

When countries meet, it's a feast of colours

I met the Krygyzstan guys from last year again :)

After a couple of hours in the hall with much dancing and fiesta-ing, we were hyped for the opening ceremony, where each country gets their 30 seconds of fame on stage when they announce all competing countries.

It's a sensational feeling.

The Leagues for the Opening Round competition the next day were determined that night. This is done by a random program so we were placing our fate solely in Lady Luck's hands. Malaysia was in League 7 with Ukraine, El Salvador, South Africa, and New Zealand.