Namewee strongly feels home is where the heart is.
ALL he wanted was to come home to Malaysia. But that was easier said than done for Wee Meng Chee, better known as Namewee (Meng Chee is pronounced the same way as the Mandarin words for “name”, hence the nickname).
In 2007, Namewee, who was studying in Taiwan Ming Chuan University at the time, landed himself in a bit of a pickle when he released a music video on YouTube with a rap song that sampled Negaraku, the Malaysian national anthem.
‘This is our home. We should stay here, try to change it and make it a better place instead of running away to another country,’ says Wee Meng Chee aka Namewee. It caused a national outcry, with many criticising him for dishonouring the anthem, much to the dismay of the 26-year-old, whose only intention for the song was to promote the anthem and Malaysia to his friends.
Since then, the multi-talented mass communications student has become a bit of a hot potato. Despite graduating in 2008, he was certain no one would hire him in Malaysia because of the controversy. But he was adamant about coming home anyway.
“Some people have actually told me NOT to come home, but that never crossed my mind. I’ve always wanted to come home. I’ve never thought for a moment that I wouldn’t,” he said during an interview with StarTwo last week.
“But when I called some of my old contacts, they didn’t want to work with me anymore. So I knew my opportunities would be limited and decided to take matters into my own hands – to prove to everyone that I can actually release something commercially viable, good, and that they need not be afraid of me.”
To make amends for the fuss he kicked up and repair his reputation, Namewee decided to make a video documentary called I Wanna Go Home with the help of three of his childhood friends.
Armed with a small budget provided by a sponsor he found after an appeal online, he left Taipei on July 31 last year to meet his friends in Hong Kong. They then embarked on a road trip across 13 cities in six countries (including Guangzhou and Kunming in China, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia), interviewing Malaysians who have settled in those countries about their feelings about Malaysia, before arriving home in Kuala Lumpur just in time for the Merdeka Day celebrations.
Along the way, he encountered some hair-raising experiences (“we came across 30 landslides on the road in Laos!”), heard some really touching and heart-warming stories, and found out one very important thing – you can take a Malaysian out of Malaysia, but you’ll never take Malaysia out of the Malaysian.
“Most of the Malaysians I spoke to wished they could come back. They all missed home,” he recalled, adding that the interviewee who left the biggest impression on him was the one who did NOT want to return.
“He was in Thailand. His goal was to immigrate to Holland. When I asked him why he didn’t want to come home, he replied that he was very disappointed with the situation in Malaysia,” said Namewee. “But personally, I feel that going away to another country is like running away. This is our home. I think we should stay here, try to change it and make it a better place instead of running away to another country.”
His efforts to redeem himself seem to be working, as things are starting to pick up for him. He was even roped in to do two short films for the 15Malaysia online short film project that was launched recently.
The first of this was Ho Yuhang’s Potong Saga, a hilarious fictitious account of Namewee trying to open an Islamic bank account. He also appears in Benji Lim and Bahir Yeusuff’s Meter, which features another prickly adversary – politician Khairy Jamaluddin.
“It was really weird. In the thick of the controversy, Khairy was criticising me quite badly. So when I got the offer to do this film with him, I thought it would be a really interesting experience,” he explained. “I remember driving to the set and thinking, ‘Should I be nice and just say hello properly, or should I just glare at him angrily?’ In the end, it was Khairy who came over and introduced himself to me. He’s actually pretty polite in person. I guess most politicians are also like actors – they have a certain image and character to portray.”
For all the exposure he’s been getting, Namewee is happy to remain behind the scenes rather than becoming an artiste himself. Although he has released an EP record before, it consisted mostly of old demos he had previously published on the Internet.
“I had never released an original album before that, but because of the controversy, people were downloading my songs, burning them to CDs and selling pirated copies in the pasar malam!” he said with a grin. “A friend of mine eventually called me up and asked whether I wanted to release a proper, original EP.”
Though he doesn’t rule out the possibility of releasing a proper record in the future, he is content to remain behind the scenes for now, filming music videos, commercials and writing songs, and doing pretty much anything he wants.
“I can’t just do one thing alone, I like variety in my life. I don’t care which channel I use – music, films, blogs – as long as I can express myself and my feelings,” said Namewee.
His dream, however, is to make a truly Malaysian movie that does not cater to just artsy folk or foreigners, but to all Malaysians.
“I would like to make a movie that is very local, with kampung-style language. In some Chinese movies, they insist on speaking proper Chinese, while some singers put on an accent when they sing English songs,” he said. “But if I were to make a movie, I’ll make sure everything is localised – the language especially, must all sound local and Malaysian.”
His passion in promoting Malaysia also extends to his music.
“In Taiwan, we tend to write songs about winter ... but we have no winter in Malaysia! Unfortunately, many Malaysian artistes who go off to Taiwan tend to do things their way. They make Taiwanese music, do things the Taiwanese way, and then sell it back to Malaysians. Why can’t we make a Malaysian product and sell it to Taiwan instead?” he proclaimed.
It was perhaps fitting that Namewee actually ends I Wanna Go Home with a shot of him standing upright during the 2008 Merdeka Day celebrations, singing a heartfelt rendition of Negaraku (with no rapping this time), the song that first made him (in)famous.
Regardless of what people say about Namewee, it appears deep down in his heart, he really does love his country.
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