I know movie lovers must be frantic about "Memoirs of a Geisha" now. I should have caught the movie last week when a friend of mine asked for a movie.

Instead of Geisha, he insisted to watch Oliver Twist as he is going back to Ipoh, where only Penang and KL's cinemas showing this movie. I am sure you can guess what type of movie it is. Haha...  I was amazed, not by the simple story, but the ability of the movie-makers to drag it for 2 hours and 10 minutes. It's (The Pianist) Roman Polanski's movie but don't judge a movie by its director. This is what I learned.

OK. Don't keep away of this movie yet. Albeit the story is a bit simple and boring, u'll still be able to intoxicate yourself back into the ambience of the old London.

It was much much much much much better than The Promise《無極》. Nah, imagine i went into the toilet for N times, lingered outside the corridor just to wait for the movie to end? Uh... Crap...

Even 曹景行 on Phoenix TV also don't dare to say the movie is nice. <sorry for kidding with 曹景行>

Hehe... I am a staunch Hollywood-movie fan. A movie preview that drew my attention recently is this one - The New World. My instinct tells me that it is a MUST-watch movie.

The tagline of this movie is: Once discovered, it was changed forever.

Yes. In case you didn't notice. The European has changed the entire continent, north from Canada south to Argentina in terms of the landscapes, their culture, their religions, their language, their genes and even their appearance!

500 years ago, the native people look like the current Red Indian, dark skin with dark hair, animistic...

Some sort like this:

They did establish great civilizations like the Maya, Aztec...

After the arrival of European, the natives in the north were reluctant to be assimilated and hence now being dislogded into reservations in the remote area.

But in the south, the Latin American natives, hopped into an entirely different path.

After the arrival of European in 1492, the european govts tried to impose new religions and social practices on the native cultures. There were, of course, resistance from the natives. But by 1600, disease, warfare, and forced labour reduced native population by as much as 90%!!!

A quater million Spanish and Portuguese immigrants resettled in Central and South America and the West Indies by 1600. They brought diseases unknown in the Americas. The smallpox, alone, had killed over one quater of the native population between 1520 and 1584.

To meet the demand of labour, the European brought the Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the new world since 1505. The crossbreeding started here. The European, the Native American, the African started to cross-breed. I marry you, you marry me, and the hybrid of "Eufrimericans" were borned.

Instead of being called "Eufrimerican", they are called Mestizo. There are still pure-blooded aborigines there in the isolated places. But, these pure-blooded people are regarded as "minorities" by the Mestizo. In fact, they were "under one roof" (although of different tribes) 500 years ago.

We always have a notion that mix-blooded people usually consist of small population.

Chinese-Portuguese Mestizo in Macau, comprises less than 5% of Macau Population.

In Melaka, Orang Serani stay only in a small area.

In the Philippines, they constitute no more than 2% of the entire Filipino population.

BUT in LATIN AMERICA, inter-marriage was so common until the Mestizo make up the majority of the populations!!!

Chile (90%)

Colombia (58%)

Ecuador (65%)

El Salvador (90%)

Honduras (90%)

Mexico (60%)

Nicaragua (69%)

Panama (70%)

Paraguay (95%)

Venezuela (67%)

Even the Mat Salleh came to Malaysia for a few hundred years, but they also never mix-blood with the local until this extend.

The Thai and Chinese have already been integrated, but Thai culture never die and still prosper.

Many Malays marry with the Middle-eastern people, but they still retain Malay language.

The case in America is very interesting right? Everythings changed, almost fully westernized.

Get interested? So, go watch the movie lah~