The Baling Talk

3rd April 2016
We attended a documentary performance named BALING

Thanks to Dr. Carmen has posted some information about this performance in the FB group for us to understand the content before we attend for it.

Dr. Carmen: The play is about the Baling talks and the negotiation between the British (represented by David Marshall), the Malaysian leader at the time (Tunku) and the Malayan Communist Party (led by Chin Peng).

OMG~

I'm very excited when I realized the talk is about Chin Ping.

Because:

1. In 2013, I saw a newspaper with a BIG headline: Chin Ping died in Bangkok, Thailand. His last wish was back to Malaysia but cannot be fulfilled until he was dead. I asked my father who is he, my father did answer me but I can't understand because I'm not really concerned about it. <<stupid girl

2. When I was Form Six's student, my Pengajian Am teacher always bad mouthing about Chin Peng. Said he is cruel and inhumanity...blah...blah

The venue for this talk not as big as my imagination

But I loved the decoration

The venue named: KOTAK (box in Malay)

When we entered into it, I felt like I'm squeezing into a little black box

Haha

Because it was all black, it able to create mysterious and serious phenomena to me 

Besides, I loved the format in this talk because there has a movement for audience during the talk

We have to move upstair, move around according to different sections in the performance.

Apart from it was able to avoid me fall asleep, these movements more likely to make the audience get into the performance. I believed that most of us felt like changing the live scene represented changing the venue or timeframe during the debate section between Tunku, Marshall, and Chin Peng.

The performers are awesome! Their facial expressions and body languages able to bring the nervous atmosphere for us although they were not hyperbole. Their script and dialog are based on the talk which is the original documentary: Transcript of the Baling Talks. But it wasn't bored at all for me although I hate Sejarah subject in my secondary school.

When they were performing, they were holding their script. At first, I was wondering why they are holding their script? Because they can't remember it?

Luckily, my question was able to be answered by the director in this talk, Mark Teh. He said that the performers, of course, able to remember all the script due they are professional. But he wants to present history is an object as the script is an object too. The script can be a tool to persuade us they were holding the documentary as Tunku, Marshall, and Chin Peng were holding the agreement when they were debating.

Cannot be denied, I'm quite disappointed because the content in this talk just like touch-and-go. I want to know more about it!

From this performance, I able to know that Baling talk was about the talk and conflict between the Government of the Federation of Malaya and the Communist Party of Malaya which held on 28th and 29th December 1955 in Baling, Kedah.

British Colonial government declared it was Malayan Emergency instead of WAR.

Besides, I able to know more the details in their meeting's conversation. In the end of the meeting, the Federation Government rejected the terms which applied from the Communist Party.

Before the end of this performance, they played a short interview video for us. It was the last word from Chin Peng who stayed at Thailand after the surrounded of Communist Party. However, Chin Peng can't be answered the question from interviewer but only stated that he wants to back to his homeland, Malaysia. Maybe he was suffering from his illness since he looks like he does not remember anything.

In my opinion, Chin Peng aka Ong Boon Hua was just an old man who wanted to go back to his homeland. But why the government does not allow it happen even until he was dead? Maybe the government thinks that an old man or his ash able to destroy a country?

He was a young man who has a courage and different ideology from the Federation Government, but he used the wrong way to express his ideology.