Buku Jalanan Petala 18: Pang Rok!

Buku Jalanan (‘Street Books’ in English) is a collective of people opening free library at public parks. It first started at Shah Alam, Selangor and they open/gather every two weeks on a Saturday from 5 to 7 pm. I first saw this collective of people at Occupy Shah Alam. There’d be books, magazines, zines, and other publication for people to come and read and even borrow them and take it back home. There are also other activities at Buku Jalanan Shah Alam such as kids’ paintings, free market and other usual stuffs you do at a park.

I saw on Facebook there are other Buku Jalanan chapters were started around Malaysia such as at Tasik Titiwangsa (which is at a lake garden), Kota Kinabalu, Ipoh, Dataran Pahlawan Malacca and Padang Kota Penang. Start one if there’s no Buku Jalanan chapter at your place.

On 23 June, Buku Jalanan Shah Alam had the theme ‘Pang Rok’ for their 18th series. They invited me to talk and discuss about the Punk Rock book. Zaki, another writer for the book also came. I started by sharing how I first got into punk rock, how I got into zine making and then writing for books. Zaki talked about his writing from the book. And the kids asked us a few questions such as about the cost, the contents, the tagline...and also…

“Can you tell me more about punk? Because I don’t like punk”

“What are the differences between publishing a zine and a book? Why publish book if already publish zines?”

“Favorite zine editor? Favorite book author?”

“Is Simple Plan punk?”

Then there was a short introduction of a new book published by Buku Hitam Press and they donated a book to Buku Jalanan. And finally there are two performances by The Pips and Orkes Rakyat tertindas -two folk punk bands from the Klang Valley. I had to leave early, only watched a couple of songs from The Pips.

This is a good platform for punk kids to share their ideas with the people who are interested in knowledge about what punk rock is all about. But the one hour session is of course not enough to do so. Hope there’ll be more interesting books and topics discussion at this event’s upcoming series. Good job Buku Jalanan.




PS: balik awal pasal nak gi tengok Michael Learns To Rock kat Setia Alam, wei tak punk lah!