September 13, 2009

Hello everyone,

Thank you for visiting my site.

Many people in the past have asked about me and I therefore added this page to my website so that you can get to know me better.

I am originally a Palestinian Muslim and was born in Saudi Arabia in the city of Al-Khobar (Dammam) on September 27, 1976.  My family moved to Canada at the end of 1987 in order for us to get a university education and the Canadian citizenship.  My father ran a business in Canada for 18 years in the form of a Middle Eastern grocery store in London, Ontario which was the first of its kind in the city.  This came after his 22 years of experience with his last title as Sales Manager in a company called Olayan GTC in Saudi Arabia.

I studied at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario and received my Bachelor of Arts and Diploma in Honours Standing in Economics at which time I wrote my thesis on Islamic Banking.  My university studies lasted from 1995 until 2000.  Since then, I have been pursuing my education in accounting and have worked from 2000 to 2005 in the accounting field in various industries.  Since 2005, I have filled the position of Business Accounting Instructor at Westervelt College in London, Ontario.  I also run a small accounting practice on the side.

In my second year of university, I took on the volunteer position of Radio Commissioner and took care of a weekly Islamic radio show at the University of Western Ontario's radio station 94.9FM CHRW.  I was involved in this show for ten years in total where I broadcasted and organized many shows.  I also produced commercials for it on my home computer.

I am married and have been since 2005.  I have two brothers and two sisters and I happen to be the oldest in the family.  Currently I reside in London, Ontario, Canada.

My passion for Grendizer came from growing up with this series in Saudi Arabia in the Arabic language.  I always found myself drawing and colouring Grendizer and then cutting it out and playing with it.  I even designed the Spazer out of paper many times where I cut out two circle pieces of paper and taped them on the sides so that my paper Grendizer figure can slide into it.  When I came to Canada I didn't have any VHS tapes of this series but managed to get some from various sources.

When the internet was born in 1995 I began exploring Grendizer websites and started collecting animation and trading in it on-line.  One day, I bought a tape of Grendizer in Japanese that featured episodes 1 and 7 and was amazed at the quality.  Being someone who loves productions and presentations I thought: "Wouldn't it be nice if I can somehow take the Japanese video and put it with the Arabic audio?"

That idea really excited me and I became very eager to do this.  What helped me in this is my love for media productions.  I used to draw fun books and magazines by hand in Saudi Arabia and even in Canada and used to sell them to fellow classmates.  I drew comics, mazes, crossword puzzles and so on in those magazines.  I even used to design the flyers and signs for my father's grocery store business.  Of course, this hobby developed itself in my Radio Commissioner position, mentioned above, where my media skills were really put to the test.  I managed to buy a powerful computer in 2001 that was capable of handling audio/video productions and this is where it all began.

At first, I dealt in VHS.  I then managed to finish my first DVD project of Grendizer in the Arabic language in September 2002.  This was a very exciting project for me because I finally realized my dream of capturing high quality video (from Grendizer laser disc at the time) and synchronizing it with the Arabic audio after cleaning it up.  My Grendizer DVDs were the first on-line and now you will find this work everywhere whether in downloads, on You Tube, by other collectors who buy and sell such series, and even played on some TV stations.  I was heavily criticized because I edited out content that contradicted my faith where possible but this is something that really never bothered me at all as I strongly believe that one should live strictly according their principles.  And because I was making some income from this I wanted to keep my sustenance as pure as possible.

This love for media also realized itself in building www.grendizer.net around the same time I was working on my first Grendizer DVD production.  The initial site took me a solid year to complete.  Although not fancy, my focus was mainly content because I didn't like how other sites were lacking in that area.  I have received many wonderful emails from people all over the world showing gratitude to this site and I am always happy to make other fans happy.

Grendizer to me is a great series because it teaches some good morals.  The other important thing I find is that it is in the pure classic Arabic language.  This was important to me because it was one of those things that helped keep my Arabic strong.  As a Muslim of course, knowing the Arabic language is very important although Islam itself is certainly not just for Arabs as Arabs only make up about 30% of Muslims worldwide.

I am very passionate about my religion and this was reflected in my 10 years of religious broadcasting.  It is quite unfortunate how the media portrays the Muslims nowadays.  The media outlets mainly cover extreme situations and make them seem as if they are the mainstream.  Sometimes I wonder why they don't cover a story of a typical ordinary Muslim family so that people can really get to know us better.  At the same time, I can't be blind and point fingers and blame the media, after all, the media wants to sell a good story and making Muslims look scary and mysterious drives curiosity and attracts the masses who will watch the commercials in between and buy from these large corporations who feed these news outlets.

The blame goes on Muslims first and I will be one to admit this.  Muslims living in the West have to take on the responsibility to let their community, neighbours and coworkers know them better.  Often time, this closed door policy leads to suspicion and I don't blame Western people for this.  At the same time, I must say that like anyone else, Muslims must practice what they preach.  I feel fortunate to have worked in the media and allowed fellow citizens to listen to an ordinary Muslim.  Many people really have a lot of questions and such a venue was a great opportunity to answer them.  At the same time, I feel very fortunate to have such great neighbours and coworkers.  I really enjoy living in Canada and other countries have a lot to learn from the Canadian multicultural mosaic.

Again, thank you very much for visiting and I hope you come back soon.

Kind Regards,

Wasim Ismail