Watch Not Far From Here and savour Nasi Kandar

The Kancil Speaker Series 2008 had a few enlightening moments, with two individuals who are worlds apart. It was during a session where the speakers highlight on an interesting topic - change. 

Firstly, the film maker. Just one look you can sum up that he is a composed individual with great intellect, BUT please don’t judge this ‘book’ by the cover. He is far from composed; he lives in the past and constantly believes that the world might come to an end anytime.

Ho Yuhang, a renowned, award-winning film maker who won awards for documentaries such as Semangat Insan: Masters of Tradition (1999) and Not Far From Here (2001) also won Special Jury Prize at Nantes for feature film Min (2006), and the NETPAC award in Pusan for Sanctuary (2004).

For a guy who made a name in the film industry, with other noted film makers, such as James Lee, he does not believe that he has gone through any changes – be it personally or professionally. However, Yuhang ‘ambiguously’ touched the topic of change. I don’t know if he realised it but somewhere down the road he had an epiphany that made him take a giant leap – from an engineering to film making.

Without any money to produce a film, he started off simple by working as a production assistant and ripped off the company by utilizing the books and made photocopies of it for future reference. “They had lots of paper and not going to use all of it” was his excuse.

Reading and writing script to land on a big break was all he did unlike others in the company who had a fair share of fun.
He is also an atheist but luck was shining down on him as he received a call to make his first film, and finally won an award later on after a few rejections.

From then on, revenue was tangible, and fame followed, luring him to make more films and writing more scripts.
The other guy, who very much believed that he went through positive changes in his business, made it very clear that there is more to come. Sirajuddin Mydin, managing director of Kayu Nasi Kandar flew all the way from Penang to tell the audience that we should not be deceived into eating any other nasi (rice) kandar that claims the originality. Because there is only one original recipe that comes from Penang and it uses about 39 special herbs and spices to make this mouth-watering nasi kandar (and no drugs involved, mind you – it is a common misconception among Malaysians).

Sirajuddin has many ideas that he would like to put forth. Among them are opening a fast food conceptualised restaurants and be consistent in branding.

As a noble man he takes interest in others’ comments and critics, and to ensure good quality, he savours the nasi kandar almost every day.

Unlike the 39 recipes, his recipes for success comes down to three - be consistent, committed and constantly keep an open mind. Adding to that Cs is evidently change. He believes change is vital for an industry to move forward. With that he creatively lures more people to enjoy a fulfilling nasi kandar.