Don't forget to use a \ to escape out special characters when using regex.

#!/pw/prod/svr4/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my $ipn= qr/\( going \) there/;
my $jpn="( going ) there";

if($jpn =~ m/$ipn/) {
print "yes";
}
else
{print "nomatch";}
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Lots of good regex info if you search around Perl Monks try Perlmonks Tutorial: Regular Expressions Tutorial, the Basics (for BEGINNERS)
I have also found http://www.regular-expressions.info/quickstart.html very helpful working with regex's. Lots of good examples.
I found tools like http://www.txt2re.com/ or Eclipses regex tool to be helpful in debugging my regex commands.
Good Luck.