On 17 October 2026, I went to Gema Bumantara, Dato’ Sri Siti Nurhaliza’s concert at Stadium Nasional Bukit Jalil, with Saiful and Hawa. This was actually my fourth time attending Siti’s concert and the second time watching her perform at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil. But this one felt a little different to me, especially after spending almost two years in Perth, Australia.

At around 3 pm that afternoon, Saiful messaged me to say that it was raining. I was still quite positive, thinking that perhaps the rain would stop by the evening. Around 4.30 pm, I picked up Hawa and we headed to Saiful’s house. We parked there before making our way to Bukit Jalil. Along the way, we even stopped to buy ponchos, just in case the rain decided to join us for the concert.

We parked, grabbed something to eat and made our way into the stadium area. Everything went quite smoothly. There were so many people around and plenty of booths selling food and other items. The atmosphere was already lively before we even entered the stadium.

As we walked towards the venue, I could not help feeling excited. The lighting, decorations and overall setting made the place look grand. You could feel that this was a major event and it was nice to see so many people coming together for a concert that celebrated Malaysian traditional music and culture.

Then, just as the concert was about to begin, the rain started.

Well, we had our ponchos, so there was not much point complaining. The concert had to go on and I was there to enjoy the music anyway. The rain actually made the weather a little cooler, which was quite nice, especially with so many people gathered in one place.

As someone who enjoys traditional Malay music, I really looked forward to the performances. There is something about these songs and traditional art forms that I have always appreciated. They are not just about melodies or entertainment. They carry stories, memories and elements of our identity that have been passed down through generations.

The concert brought together different musical styles, songs and traditional elements, including wayang kulit and traditional games. I liked the fact that these elements were presented on such a large stage, reaching an audience that might not necessarily attend a traditional arts performance on its own.

And this is something I have been thinking about more since returning from Australia.

During my time in Perth, I had opportunities to see how important cultural events can be in bringing people together and introducing others to Malaysian heritage. I became more conscious of the need to support programmes that celebrate our traditions, not only because they are part of our history, but also because they deserve a place in the present.

Perhaps living away from home made me appreciate these things a little differently. When you are in Malaysia, our culture is all around us. Sometimes, we may take it for granted because it is familiar. But when you live overseas, you begin to see how important it is to keep these connections alive.

You start to appreciate the music, the food, the language and the traditions that remind you where you come from.

That is why I feel more drawn to supporting events like Gema Bumantara now. It is not just about being a fan of Siti Nurhaliza or enjoying a good concert. It is also about supporting the people who continue to keep our traditional arts alive, and giving these art forms opportunities to reach a wider audience.

After all, if we do not support our own heritage, who will?

I was also happy to see the Prime Minister attending the concert in support of an event of this scale. I think having that kind of support sends an important message about the value of our cultural heritage. Large-scale events require considerable effort, resources and collaboration. When traditional arts are given a platform like this, it creates an opportunity for more people to appreciate them.

Of course, one concert alone cannot preserve everything. There needs to be continuous effort, opportunities for younger generations to learn, and support for the artists and practitioners who dedicate their lives to these traditions. But events like this can certainly help keep the conversation going.

One of the things that made the evening more personal for me was remembering Encik Kamrul, the wayang kulit performer who appeared with Dato’ Sri Siti Nurhaliza at the concert. He had previously been to Perth and performed during Journey to Malaysia in Perth. Seeing a connection between an event I had experienced during my time in Australia and a major concert back home was a nice reminder of how cultural work can connect people and places.

It also reminded me that traditional arts are not confined to a particular place or audience. They can travel, be shared with different communities and continue to find new audiences, as long as we create opportunities for them to do so.

Sometimes, we talk about promoting Malaysia internationally, but we should also think about how we appreciate and support our own culture at home. International promotion becomes much more meaningful when the heritage we want to share is something we genuinely value ourselves.

I suppose that is one of the things I took away from Gema Bumantara. Supporting our culture does not always have to mean organising a major festival or being directly involved in cultural preservation. Sometimes, it starts with something simple. Buying a ticket, attending a performance, sharing the experience with friends or encouraging others to discover something they might not have experienced before.

It may seem like a small contribution, but every audience matters. Artists need platforms and platforms need people who are willing to show up.

Despite the rain and my wet trousers, I went home feeling completely satisfied, although part of me was already thinking, “I want more!” hahaha.

The whole experience was just amazing. The atmosphere, the music, the performances and the positive vibes throughout the night made it such a memorable experience. There was so much energy, and you could really feel how much people enjoyed being there.

Mantap! Dato’ Sri Siti Nurhaliza and everyone behind Gema Bumantara! It takes a lot of effort to put together a production of this scale and I think the team deserves a huge credit for making it happen.

I came for the music, but I went home appreciating so much more. And honestly, if there is another concert celebrating our traditional music and heritage like this, count me in!

P.S. My trousers were wet, but my heart was full...aha

I have been wanting to write something about this paper for a while. It is finally published and I think it is worth sharing here as well.

Together with Dr. Fahmi Abdul Rahim, who led this paper, and Hawa Othman, we wrote about our experiences managing Malaysian students in Australia. The paper is titled Serving Students, or Using Them? Developmental Leadership in a Sending State's Education Mission Abroad, and it was published in the Asian Journal of Research in Education and Social Sciences.

You can read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.55057/ajress.2026.8.8.39

Working with Malaysian students in Australia was a big part of my experience in Perth. We organised programmes, worked with student associations and created opportunities for students to get involved. But when I look back, I think there is something more important than simply making sure that our programmes run well.

Are we really helping students growor are we just getting them involved because we need people to help us run our programmes?

I think this is something worth thinking about. Sometimes, we can get so caught up in organising an event that we forget to let the students take the lead. We want things to run smoothly, so we make the decisions and settle everything ourselves. It may be easier that way, but are we really giving them the opportunity to learn?

During my time in Perth, I learned that working with student associations was not just about getting things done. It was also about giving students the space to make decisions, try things out and learn from the experience. Sometimes, we need to step back and let them do things their way, even if we think we could do it faster ourselves.

Of course, it is not always easy. There are budgets, responsibilities and things that we need to be careful about. But I think there is still room to give people the opportunity to grow. We do not always have to be in front, and we do not always have to be the ones making every decision.

Looking back, I think one of the best things we can do is to help students become more confident and independent. It is not just about the programmes they have organised or the events they have successfully delivered. It is also about what they can do after that, and whether they are ready to take on bigger responsibilities and help others along the way.

Writing this paper has given me another opportunity to reflect on those experiences. There are many things I learned in Perth, and I am glad that we could put some of them into writing. I hope this paper will also encourage others who work with students to think about how we can give them more opportunities to learn and grow.

Still learning, still reflecting and hopefully becoming a little better at what I do.

P.S. Sometimes, the best thing we can do is to step back and let others take the lead.

 Do you understand the meaning of love?

Is love something you feel, something you hear in songs, or something you see in films and read about in stories? Or is it something we express so often without truly understanding what it means?

I do not know.

Perhaps love means something different to every individual. What I understand about love may not be the same as what you understand. Our experiences, circumstances, and journeys through life shape the way we see it. Even our own understanding of love may change as we grow older.

For one person, love may mean presence and attention. For another, it may mean freedom, trust, or simply knowing that someone cares. Some express love through words, while others show it through small acts of kindness that may go unnoticed.

Yet, there are also people whose understanding of love has been shaped by painful experiences. Those experiences may influence how they understand and receive affection. But does something become love simply because someone calls it love? Can affection be used as a reason to hurt, control, or frighten another person?

I do not think so. We can try to understand someone’s experiences without justifying behaviour that causes harm. Perhaps there is a difference between what someone believes love to be and how they choose to express it.

So, when someone says, I love you, what do they really mean?

Are they expressing affection, a desire to share their life with someone, or a fear of losing them? The words may be the same as those spoken by someone else, but the feelings, intentions, and understanding behind them may be different.

And that is where I begin to wonder. If we use the same word to describe something we understand differently, are we actually talking about the same thing?

Perhaps we often expect others to understand love as we do. We want to be loved in a way that makes us feel loved, even though the way someone expresses affection may not necessarily be the way we receive it.

What we consider important in love today may also change in the future. Our experiences reshape our perspectives, and things we once believed may eventually carry a different meaning.

If our own understanding of love can change, how can we be so certain that what we understand today is the only correct interpretation?

I do not know. Perhaps I am overthinking something that is meant to be felt. Or perhaps I am simply trying to understand something that has no single answer for everyone.

We all know the word love. We hear it in songs, read it in stories, say it to someone, and perhaps have heard it from someone else.

But do we truly understand the same thing when we say it?

Perhaps the question is not simply what love is, but what we really mean when we say that we love someone.

Because perhaps we all use the same word without necessarily giving it the same meaning.

I still do not know what love is.

And perhaps I do not need to have the answer just yet.

I started this blog back in 2009, which means I have more than 15 years of stories, experiences, photos, thoughts and random things that I have written down over the years. I never really thought of it as a collection of content that I could reuse one day. It was simply my blog. I wrote something, published it, and then moved on to the next thing. But now, when I go back and read some of those old posts, I realise just how much I have actually written and how many stories are still worth sharing.

Before Threads, I did try to explore other ways of telling these stories online. I thought about doing more on TikTok and YouTube, and I did try to get myself into that space. But I realised that I am quite self-conscious about being in front of a camera. Writing has always felt much more natural to me. I can sit down, think about what I want to say, and tell the story in my own way without having to worry too much about how I look or sound on camera. Somehow, Threads works better for me. It still allows me to tell stories, but in a way that feels much closer to what I have been doing all these years.

That is probably the part I have been enjoying most about Threads. I can go back to an old blog post, pick a particular story from it and retell it in a much shorter and simpler way. Sometimes I add an old photo or video, sometimes I change the way I tell the story, and sometimes I write it in BM instead of English. The original blog post remains as the longer version, while Threads becomes another way for people to discover the story.

It is also quite nice to see people discovering things that I wrote many years ago. Some people who come across my Threads posts probably have no idea that the longer version has been sitting on my blog for years. The same goes for my books and some of the things I have done in the past. Things that felt like old stories to me can actually be completely new to someone else.

I suppose this is also a form of reflection for me. Going through old blog posts means going back through different periods of my life. There are stories about places I have travelled to, things I have done, people I have met, work experiences, thoughts I had at a particular point in my life and plenty of other things that I had almost forgotten about. Sometimes I read an old post and think, “Oh, I remember this.” Other times, I wonder how it has already been so many years.

In a way, the blog has become my own repository of memories, information and experiences. And after all these years, I am starting to realise that I do not always need to create something completely new. There is already so much here. I can simply look back, find something interesting and give it a new life in a different format.

Of course, I do not know how long I will remain this enthusiastic about doing it. Maybe at some point I will get lazy or lose interest in posting on Threads. That is always possible. But for now, I am actually enjoying the process. I like looking back at things I have written, finding stories that I still think are worth sharing and seeing people discover them for the first time.

Maybe that is one of the unexpected benefits of having kept a blog for so long. You keep writing because you enjoy writing, but years later, you realise that you have also created a huge archive of your own life. And sometimes, an old story just needs a slightly different way of being told before it becomes a new story again.

For now, I will just keep writing here and whenever I find something interesting from the past, I will probably share it on Threads too. After all, I have 15 years of material to work with. Might as well make use of it.

If you are interested, you can also find me on Threads⁠, where I have been sharing some of these stories in a shorter format.

From 23 to 26 September 2026, I was in Port Dickson attending a programme on communication, language and leadership. It was a pretty packed four days, with sessions covering leadership identity, communication, emotions, trust, influence, conflict, reframing and even official writing.

Some of the sessions were quite interesting, especially the ones on how we communicate with people and how easily we make assumptions. One of the things we learned was to ask questions first instead of immediately making our own interpretation of what someone says or does. It sounds simple, but I realised how often we do the o

There were also quite a few activities and role plays throughout the programme, which made it less of a typical sit-and-listen kind of course. I actually enjoyed the opportunity to discuss things with the other participants and hear how they approached different situations.

One of the highlights was actually on the final night. We were quite lucky because the KSU of KPT, Dato’ Ts. Dr. Haji Aminuddin Hassim, joined us for the evening. He spent some time with us and shared some of his experiences and tips on how to be successful in our careers. One thing he said that stuck with me was to stay positive and always look at the bright side. Nothing particularly complicated, but sometimes it is good to be reminded of something that simple.

And of course, being in Port Dickson meant I had to make some time for the beach too. 😄 I managed to do a brisk walk along Pantai Bagan Pinang, almost an hour going and coming back. So at least there was some exercise in between all the sitting, listening and talking.

Overall, it was a good four days. I came in expecting another work-related programme, but ended up learning quite a few things that I can probably use both at work and in dealing with people generally.

Now back to work. 😅

P.S. Four days went by much faster than I expected.