BUANASENI

SABRINA

Saturday, September 5, 2026 at 5:34 AM | Posted by Johan

SABRINA, a short Malay novel by Jo Haq, published in 2026, is now available for RM29.90 at Kedai Fixi, Sunway Putra Mall, Kuala Lumpur; and at Riwayat Bookstore, Jalan Tun H.S. Lee, Kuala Lumpur.

Synopsis

Sabrina, a teenage Sino-Malay girl with a bright future, lands herself in an unfortunate degrading life of a prostitute to redeem her father's unpaid loans with a gangster-loan-shark syndicate in Kuala Lumpur that is backed by a politician. She escapes the dreadful life with the help of an ex-boy-friend who has now become a police inspector. With the savings by her late mother, Sabrina finds herself studying in Melbourne and ends up as a Chartered Accountant. Her vengeance fuels her corporate success only to give her the opportunity to destroy the politician that had darkened her life. She embarks on a cunning white colar criminal attack that radiates into a revenge murder to retaliate the death of her father.

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MY VISUAL ARTS SAGA ACKNOWLEDGED

at 4:02 AM | Posted by Johan

My Visual Arts Saga Acknowledged

ART has always been my passion. I can still remember entering various art competitions in my childhood. An A&W colouring contest in 1983 persuaded my father to drive all the way to Kampar. Not to mention the many monthly colouring contest for the youth magazine, Kuntum. I even represented my primary school in Shah Alam for a Shah Alam art contest that had awarded me a fourth position. I can still remember the winner for that Shah Alam art contest. Her name was Nik Shereen Sherina. I was pissed-off for not getting at least a third position. I blame it on an accidental water colour spill on my artwork that had made the rabbit in my art to be green instead of white. It was a composition of the race between a rabbit and a tortoise.

Later in secondary school, I represented my school for art competitions in Ipoh. That didn’t earn me any award. However, I am proud to be the Chief Graphic Editor for my school magazine, Perintis. I even painted the front cover of the magazine for the Class of ‘92. My ambition was to become and artist, but the idea was rejected by my late dad. It seems that art cannot earn you a living. To compromise, I suggested to him architecture. He rejected that too. It seems that architecture is susceptible to the ups and downs of the construction industry. In the end, to cut a long story short, I ended up as a Chartered Accountant.

In 2012, I was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer for MyCreative Ventures, a venture capitalist under the Ministry of Finance that invests in creative businesses. In the course of running that entity, I had to study the Malaysian art industry particularly the individual artist that had made it big such as Dato' Yusof Ghani, Bayu Utomo, Hamir Shoib, Ahmad Shukri, Ahmad Zakii, and many more. Ahmad Zakii, in particular, attracted my attention. He was an architect that had turned visual artist. Hence, it dawned upon me the question, “Why can’t an accountant also be an artist?” That question was the catalyst for my semi-professional art endeavour.

In 2016, I held my first art show, that was also my first solo art show. It was entitled Ikhlas:20. It consisted of twenty pieces of one foot by one foot acrylic work on canvas, each representing an element from the twenty characters of God Almighty, the Sifaat 20, complemented by the Quranic Verse, Al-Ikhlas, to confirm that even with those twenty characters, there is only one God and no other. The show was a success, thanks to the Chief Executive Officer of The New Straits Times (Press) Malaysian Berhad (“NSTP”), Dato’ Azlan Abdullah, for allowing me to use the lobby of his office building for my art show. Nothing is more gratifying to an artist than a Sold-Out status for an art show. I sold all twenty pieces. A small profit, but an extra pocket money, nonetheless.

With that first art show success, it got me excited to do more. Lo and behold, seven more art shows followed, of which, six were solo shows. In that same year, 2016, I held a dual art show with Dato’ Professor Jalil Hamid of University Malaya as the opening show for NSTP’s art gallery, Galeri Prima. It was called Buana, an expression of the relationship between humanity, Planet Earth, and God. I sold all twenty of my work for that art show. Later in 2018, I held another solo art show, Caricreatures, that recorded a Sold-Out for all eighty pieces.

In 2022, three more solo art shows crystalised at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (“KLPAC”). They were entitled Musafir X, Caricreatures Return

, and Pop Erotika. All three art shows adopted the Non-Fungible Token (“NFT”) technology that had complemented the hard copy original pieces. In 2023, two more art shows came along. They were entitled Pandamonium and Pandamonium II. In 2025, I participated in a group show at Malaysiana Big HeArts 2.0 by Yayasan Arshad Ayub.

After a decade long art endeavour, I must say that I am quite satisfied. Not only that I have established myself as a semi-professional artist, I have also proven that an accountant can indeed concurrently be an artist. Although my father had denied me the arts path earlier, I still managed to experience that passion in life. No doubt that economically, it is a tough job earning a stable income as an artist. However, in my case, the income from those nine art shows, coupled with the many commissioned artwork, had resulted in me paying RM30,000 income taxes and a cheque of RM65,000 to finally settle the remaining balance of my education loan with Petronas. In addition, allowing me to boast that my work appears in the private collection of some prominent collectors such as the Sultan of Selangor, Dato’ Sri Najib Razak, NSTP, Farouk Khan, Dato’ Faridah Merican, Dato’ Amrin Awaluddin, Dato’ Zainal Shaari, Dr Jemilah Mahmood, and many more. Most importantly, the income from my art shows also financed my quest as an art collector, thus supporting the Malaysian art industry.

Posted In Memoir | 0 comments |

MOVIES THAT CANNOT BE MISSED

Friday, September 4, 2026 at 2:17 AM | Posted by Johan

MOVIES THAT CANNOT BE MISSED

by Johan Ishak

MOVIES are work of art that deserves to be appreciated by humanity n my life time, I have watched so many movies. The very rare few of those movies I regard as Movies That Cannot Be Missed, simply because it was ahead of its time when it was released. They become benchmarks to many movies of the same genre that came afterwards. Whilst each of those movies may not score well in all aspects, namely acting, story telling, cinematography, scripting, screenplay and directing; it would suffice for it to just hit the nail on one or two of those elements to be an unforgotten work and forever immortalised.

After much thought, my pick for such movies are:

1. The Godfather: Trilogy

2. The Matrix: Trilogy

3. Star Wars: Episodes 4, 5 and 6

4. The Lord of the Rings: Trilogy

5. Alien and Aliens

6. Back to the Future: Trilogy

7. Terminator 1 and 2

8. Shawshank Redemption

9. E.T.

10. Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame

So, debate all you want, I'll stand by my pick anytime. At some point, one will realise that these movies did set a zenith of a benchmark and they shall always be a reference point to many movie makers.

~~~~~

Posted In Movie/TVseries/Theatre Review | 0 comments |