Week 9 Reflection Journal (13/3/12)

First half of the lesson, we did a discussion and feedback session on this module. I feel that it is important and relevant because we live in SouthEast Asia and it would be embarrassing if we ignore the SouthEast Asian playwrights. I have really enjoyed throughout the module because it gave me new insights about the issues we face in Asian countries and the playwright itself. However, I feel that there could have been improvements.

I like the way we are exposed to and work with different plays. All the plays were very interesting and made us think a lot. And I really like the fact that these plays were 'forbidden' to be given to us, which made us feel like we have the secret weapon. Another thing I liked about is to meet a local playwright! It was a very meaningful session with Chong Tze Chien (though there was someone else who didn't come) because we get to know his thoughts and ideas about the playwrights he has written.

As what we have discussed in the lesson, I agree with my mates that CK should have given some important guidelines or objectives (or setting?) so that we could follow and work towards a direction because we are clueless about what he wants and which way to go. He then explains that he wants us to explore and that we did well in our seminars. I think its a good way to let us explore but should have given more critique about our seminars because he said all seminars were done well. We didn't know what was wrong and what could have been done and so on. Maybe it was better to do a little critical reflection at the end of each seminar. Another thing is it would be better if we could do some dramatic activity on the plays. It would be interesting.

After that, we rehearse our short performance on the play 'Mama Looking for Cat' by KPK. OUr performance is directed to Secondary school kids in the assembly hall on Mother's Day because we wanted them to know the importance of respect and love for their mother. Right now our performance is the police scene at the front, mama scene with her children at the beginning, overseas scene of mama and her children, and the police scene at the back. We ended off with asking the students with is this how they should treat their mother? We wanted them to think if its okay to treat their mother this way. CK then told us to try to work from the back scene(Police scene) to the beginning scene (mama and her children singing) or the other way round.