COMING back the consumerism ethos hit me like a brick wall: the duty-free shops, the drug of cosmetics, everything shouting Buy! Buy! Buy!, the cats in false eyelashes giving me the eye as they hang on to their armcandy high status boyfriends. The lists of restaurants where we can consume, consume, consume.
I dislike how so many Singaporeans have this materialistic self-satisfaction, this smugness, with self-worth tied to spending power. There are those who are familiar with and unimpressed by it, thank God, but so many buy into the whole rigmarole. Face it, we’re a nouveau riche country. Yangon, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, these were the jewels and gems of the East when the colonialists came happily trotting in and out. We’re a miracle of engineering. Many neighbours see us as a young upstart.
Beyond the statistics and appearances you need beauty, the promise that life beyond is so much more worthy of reflection and so much more absorbing than whatever baser elements have come home to roost. Friends, and books, and travel teach me that the magic’s still there, and there are those who seek it, plodding bravely on.
DIDCHA miss me? Didcha miss all these fabulous missives brightening your day? :)
Laos was wonderful…sitting on a rock in the middle of the Mekong looking at Irrawaddy dolphins, playing spot-the-sex-tourist, lying in bed till noon looking at the river, falling asleep watching *yawn* World Cup matches, laughing at randomness, long drives through the countryside in a tuk-tuk on the Bolaven Plateau, visiting a tea plantation, befriending cats and dogs, cycling in Si Phan Don, hitting my head on various vehicles, falling off a bike on a wooden bridge, electrical storms and lots of sunshine and good vibes.
I really love this part of the world, with its mountains and sea and trade and forests and beautiful beautiful people.
Seems like this South Chinese mix is a common look in the region. I’ve now been mistaken for all ASEAN nationalities. Myanmarese (by an SG taxi driver, of all things), Thai, Cambodian, Lao, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Pinoy (on this trip) — hmm not Malaysian though.
I’ll be back to visit Luang Prabang and the North :) So much to look forward to.
A (after a night in a cheapish hotel with fan air vents that flapped intermittently): I thought the geckos used it as a flap door.
B: Yes I was wondering why you kept shining your torch there.
A: Hey I was sleepy. I saw three geckos and thought they were going in and out. I was quite mad that they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be inside or outside.
B: Well if all three of them push at the same time…
B (on seeing the dolphin-viewing boat, which was more rickety than the other boat we used on the Mekong): Well, seems like we’ve downgraded.
A (on arriving at some rocks in the middle of the Mekong during the dolphin cruise): Are we getting off here?
B: “Your daughter is on some rocks in the middle of the Mekong. Give us a hundred million kip.”
A: Oh my God, we’re getting off here.
(But we did see the dolphins, so yay!)
A (on a short 10-minute walk down Don Khong, an island in Si Phan Don): This is like a safari, isn’t it? Buffalo, cat…
B: Chicken, cow, spider.
C: They built a Swensens in the Cultural Centre. It’s a very high class place. It’s where you’d go to pick up sugar daddies. They drive up in their Maseratis.
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Didn’t get the Iseas scholarship, which has the bright side of not being bonded. Paying full fees as I might want another course subsidised later (SG govt only subsidises *one* course of graduate study)…I’ve enough funds from my six years of scrimping and saving, and in any case there are things called “student loans” and “working while you study”. Just a matter of getting my arse out there.
Might have to cut down on volunteer stuff commitments, have got A LOT on my plate.
*
All this traipsing off in SE Asia in the company of lovely Americans. I like these guys a lot. D for instance is hilarious with the driest wit, and very observant too.
Thinking of what it is about American innovation. Less fear of failure? Greater population base?
To do:
- return library books
- Read The White Tiger
- learn Indonesian
- look at savings/investment spreadsheets and budget
- write for anthology (I weep. N wants a collection and I’ve been so. lazy. about. writing.)
- NUS paperwork (get back to them about fees, about health check-up, see doctor, etc)
READING Heart Work (ISBN 9810469063) by Chan Chin Bock on the work by our EDB officers. Kudos to the whole team, who went about knocking on doors, looking for jobs for all these young people we educated.
Investment promotion is like “climbing a rock face. Faith, grit and supreme confidence are required”. I’m getting a better idea of how we actually bring unemployment down. All those factories in our housing estates, in Jurong, in Toa Payoh…how we actually got them here in the first place. Everything from petrochemicals to watches and ball bearings — moving from a labour-driven growth model to growth in productivity through higher value-added content, automation and mechanisation.
Singapore’s worsening competitiveness compared to other Newly Industrialised Countries: our wage rises, hikes in CPF contribution, a high corporate tax rate and unabated rises in operating costs. How we’re moving to consolidate and anchor whatever gains we have, looking into new growth areas. Manufacturing, services. In the 60s and 70s, Singapore’s economic development focus was on job creation. To this end, EDB attracted investments and activities energetically to generate jobs for Singaporeans. But from 1980, we had reached full employment and had to rethink our policy. We could no longer rely simply on producing more of the same products to achieve continued growth. We had to produce better products and services. This is similar to the S-curve of a product life cycle. As a product matures, the firm has to come up with strategies to revitalise the product or to introduce another new product to enter into a new S-curve, a new period of growth and profits. If not, it will inevitably decline.
Strategic thinking…marketing knowhow. EDB officers who work their way up making cold calls on companies. Tell a story. We’ve a good one. Promising what looks and sounds good on paper will actually be realised on the ground.
How we market Singapore to the rest of the world while recognising the reality of a global economy — attracting investments from the First World while driving our companies’ investment in the region…(btw, I’m so chuffed to find out that our biologists have been helping Bintan organise their beach clean-up activities.)
I wish someone had passed me books like these when I was studying A-level econs. Ah well, it’s never too late to self-educate.
And looking at our “elites” who encourage their offspring to become braying i-bankers, I think of Marx — the more things change, the more things stay the same. No matter what you say about Lee Kuan Yew, his wife and he brought up their children well, I think.
It was years ago, God knows
When you strained to tell me your whole truth
That you were not mine to save
That you could not change
— Vienna Teng, from the song above
WONDERFUL experience. Great musicality, and a lovely rendition of Beethoven’s 7th symphony: joyous stuff. Feel-good Mendelssohn concerto with beautiful melodies.
Good time out with friends today.
I’ve learnt to close an eye to things that would use to irritate the hell out of me, I’m nobody’s parent or principal. If people be late, they be late. I read my book. If people are weird about money, they are weird about money. My take is, I can always earn more money.
When I have kids, I’d be very careful about who their friends are. Given time and contact, youngsters begin to adopt the values and behaviours of their peers. Sizing up someone’s friends and associates will give you a pretty reliable indication of his or her character. It’s the thin slice: We get a good idea of who a person is by the friends she makes and the books he reads.
I’m very wary of those who profess religious beliefs, high morals and ethics overly much. Reeks of PR and political games.
Some general observations from all about — A thinks she can get away with little impatient comments that betray her trying to get X down, always peppering her “interested” intelligent questions with just that slight put-down. Always on impeccable behaviour with others whom she thinks are “above” her in social status though. B is not sophisticated about that streak of calculativeness, has need to appear financially successful. C is pretty comfortable with himself, I like him. D is just bored with her life and seeking distraction, seems pretty trustworthy, though. E is very sensitive, very touchy, has external locus of control. I try not to ask too many questions as he seems a bit evasive with some questions: avoiding embarrassment, conflict, the truth, or an emotionally difficult subject? Not my dai-ji.
And me: I’ve to learn to take criticism gracefully and not like a personal attack. Have got to learn patience, and stick-to-it-iveness: tend to get overexcited about new projects when I’ve already got a lot on my plate. Have to learn not to overextend myself, and say “no” gracefully. Have to remember not to be so judgmental: we never see the whole story about a person’s life — in any case I’ll leave the judging to God.
Don’t be attention-grabbing conversation-steerer. It reeks of self-centredness and being insecure. Hone listening skills. Don’t interrupt others. Excuse myself when I feel drained.
Always back talk with action.
Also losing one’s temper is a bad habit; rein in, rein in, rein in that temper.
I also don’t like that streak of free-floating defensiveness that’s creeped up in my talk. “Just an arts student” “Just going to get a useless degree from NUS”: Granted I’m pretty self-deprecating, but beneath it all is anger — I don’t feel that people here respect me for reading liberal arts. Why this desire for social recognition? Is it because I truly feel that teachers, educators, public servants deserve more recognition; or am I just angry that I had lower wages than an i-banker? I think this is a hot button issue with me, and I want to be clearer about why so. Is there guilt? Embarrassment? Anger? Why? Am I feeling some sort of regret or deep unhappiness with my life?
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Exaggeration: Person is insecure and trying to get noticed. If you had a bad experience at the dentist’s a few years back, she had an even worse one. If you know a great Italian restaurant, she knows the world’s best. Besides being insecure, people who engage in this type of exaggeration are often trying to control the conversation and the behaviour of those participating in it.
Some people express themselves in extremes not because they want to control others’ behaviour but because that’s how they see life. The positive thinkers include those who are sincerely thrilled to be alive and who express their enthusiasm at the drop of a hat. But there are also people who adopt a jovial attitude in an attempt to disguise a deep disappointment with life or in an effort to change, or at least ignore, their fate through sheer force of will. It’s hard to tell between someone who’s truly joyful and one who has adopted a sunny facade. Sometimes someone who’s overcompensating will let down her guard, revealing her anxiety or sadness with a passing comment or facial expression.
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And now to pack.
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To get serious
1. Language learning: Indonesian
2. Revisit Wagner
3. Paperwork for NUS
- e-mail about fees
- set up health appointment
- look at modules etc
A: Let me take out my sombrero.
B: Didn’t you study in the States? Don’t you know what a sombrero is like? Yours is *not* a sombrero.
C (over e-mail): I lost my voice. Shall I still come and rasp out a few comments?
A: Come lah. You can serve a purely decorative function.
D: Good, don’t talk might be improvement. Maybe I make you chrysanthemum tea.
A: Wow, manlove is so touching.
C: Yee.
A: Look! They have ATMs here! (rushes over to take a picture).
B: Oh my God. Can we pretend we don’t know her?
B to A: This is like a safari for you right? Taking pictures of the natives, wearing a sombrero…
B (on A getting her chicken wings): Wow, that was fast.
A: Well, that’s because I’m a chio bu.
B: ….
B (later): Eh my fried deconstructed potato is taking forever to fry.
A: Let me try. (flutters her eyelashes at the vendor)
B: Oh my God (turns to the guys and starts blabbing in a loud voice). Did you see what she did? Did you see? She actually batted her eyelashes!
A: There’s a reason why you’re in the media. Everything also must report.
B (to struggling cat): It’s okay if you just relax. Just relax.
A: You sound like a rapist.
WHAT’S this? Only the most cathartic thing ever, that I can put on repeat. I heart Damrau + Dessay. Mmm…
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,
Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!
Fühlt nicht durch dich Sarastro
Todesschmerzen,
So bist du meine Tochter nimmermehr.
Verstossen sei auf ewig,
Verlassen sei auf ewig,
Zertrümmert sei’n auf ewig
Alle Bande der Natur
Wenn nicht durch dich!
Sarastro wird erblassen!
Hört, Rachegötter,
Hört der Mutter Schwur!
TALKING to one of the best friends I’ve made recently who’s leaving for HK soon…I like C a great deal, she’s funny and wise and accomplished, and I’ll miss her a lot, but yay to weekend trips in HK. She got her confirmed offer when we were talking over a dinner of salads and fish at yuppie paradise Cedele. L is moving to Taipei. People come, people go…if only there’d be more people I love coming in.
In any case, we are an incredibly blessed bunch of people. In material terms:
This list seems very basic. Yet not everyone in this country or in the world has, or will be able to be grateful for, all of these things. In their life some of these things do not exist now, nor have they ever existed. Thanksgiving Holiday is more than turkey, Grandma’s pumpkin pie, half-price sales and sports events. This list is one which, hopefully, everyone reading it can say applies to them. However simple it may seem, it is humbling and sad to realize that many in our country and even
more in other countries, only have 1-2 things on this list each day, while most if not all of us have all ten! Perhaps if we are thankful for these basic things daily, it will help ourselves and others gain more abundance, or at least we will appreciate our own more.
1. Waking Up Alive.
George Burns once said a great day for him was waking up and not seeing candles, a church, and his friends all dressed in black. He was blessed financially and health wise. Many, in this country and in other countries, are lucky to make it to age 10, let alone 100.
2. Decent Air to Breathe.
While everyone has this, in some places in the world, the air is so polluted and foul smelling, the people die of respiratory ailments just from breathing.
3. A New Day to Learn and to Earn a Livelihood.
Most of us live in areas with very low un-employment rates. If we choose and need to work and have a job, we can earn money daily or weekly *somehow*. Others are in school or educational environments. They can learn or increase what they already know. Many people have no jobs and will never have a chance to learn a basic education.
4. A Home In Which to Eat, Sleep, Live, and Relax.
We are blessed if we are not one of the millions of people whose home consists of a car, an abandoned house or building, cardboard or tin constructed “shelters,” or the bare earth or grass. Think about pictures you may have seen of the homeless when you complain about your home or apartment being too cold or warm, or the utility bill being too high.
5. Ample Clean Food to Eat and the Option to Buy as Much as We Need.
Most of us never have experienced waiting in line 2-6 hours to buy a loaf of bread, some flour, eggs, etc. We don’t know what it is like to wait for a truck to pull up and hand out boxes or containers of rice or Red Cross rations. We’ve never dug in dumpsters behind a grocery store or restaurant to get the food that was thrown out to have for our daily meal. Food is expensive for many. At least in the U.S. we have no lack of it and it is not rationed out to us or sold at black market prices.
6. Friends, Family and Pets.
Most all of us have one or more of these three things in our life. In some parts of the country and the world, people are alone–young children are alone. And the “pet” may have to end up feeding a family or a group of people due to lack of any other food supply. We spend more money on the food and vet bills for our pets than many people in poor countries MAKE in income in 1-3 years!
7. Living in a Democratic Society.
Not talking or pushing politics. But we are free to pretty much do and say what we wish as covered by the Bill of Rights. And we don’t have tanks and armed soldiers walking the streets 24 hours a day looking for looters, guerillas and terrorists. Life and the government isn’t at all perfect here?. But it sure beats anything else I have seen or read about in my lifetime.
8. Abundant Natural Resources.
Yes we need to clean up our water and air, and plant more trees, etc. But we *do* have in our towns, water and sewage control that are sanitary to use and maintained. Our air quality varies from town to town, and on average is much better than in many other countries in the world. We also have ample supplies of electricity, gas, and other resources we need to live and thrive personally and industrially.
9. Clothing to Protect Us from the Elements and to Even Enhance Our Appearance.
True, there are places in the U.S. where people in poverty lack adequate clothing. Compared to our population, however, the majority of us have adequate clothes, and many of us have clothing that is both functional and attractive as well.
10. The Gift of Choice.
This is something everyone has no matter where they live. Even if they live in a poor non-democratic society, we all have the choice to make decisions, to act, and to be however we wish, as adults at least. This was given to us at birth and is never taken away, but is often taken for granted, ignored, or not fully developed or used.
About the Author:
Dennis R. Tesdell is an experienced personal development and self-care coach as well as an author on personal growth, self-care and self improvement issues.
And in emotional terms, I come from a family that’s always given me care and attention and affection. C and I were saying how meal-times have always been important to us growing up…I know kids who are materially well-off but are needier emotionally than third-world children, because their parents were busy working and thought throwing money at them would work. I’m pretty well-adjusted and though the Aged Parents can get on my nerves now and then I love them very much and like to think the sentiment’s returned.
I’ve had the whole international experience thing, and I’m a beneficiary of the system here in Singapore. If things had gone one way, I would be working in a third-world factory somewhere. No Providence, no Boston, no Oxford, no Paris, no Vienna, no backpacking trips across SE and E Asia. There are all these debates about factors that matter in development: economic discipline, socio-cultural causes, the ‘”hero” view that individuals matter (see Tom Plate quotation in previous article). We were *lucky* that a team of people with clean hands and pure hearts came to power at that particular crossroads in history.
I know those of us who’ve spent time abroad tend to yearn a little for the golden cities. And oh, I miss the art galleries and I miss spring and autumn and wonderful libraries. But jia jia you ben nan nian de jing…I feel safer here at home than in many other places. I like how multilingual we are. I fell in love with SE Asia.
Of course, adjusting back was hard at first.
1. Academic life to working life
- wanting to be an academic but working on ST stories. Led to overextending myself with a crazy programme “not to fall behind”, memorizing French conjugations on the MRT, reading books off reading lists I got from my friends in PhD programmes, sleeping an insane 4 hours a day.
- verbally abusive work culture. Exponential increase in number of assholes compared to school, when I happily surrounded myself with fuzzies.
- pay a fraction of what my peers were getting.
- weird-ass happenings when people drugged me.
2. LDR
- Oh God, never again. Nevermore. Oh, Lord, Nevermore. A. Colossal. Mistake. Cut loss, cut loss, I should have told my younger self. Don’t throw in more money after the bad!
3. Sans-mere-sans-pere to sharing a living space again.
- Pay was so low that I prefer to save and not rent.
- Mere et pere excellent at playing the guilt card whenever I mention “moving out”.
4. Stress of urban commuting.
- rudeness and bad vibes.
- incessant chatter. It took me five years to decide to shell out for an iPod — as Janice could see I was using a decade-old Panasonic CD player.
BUT
Whining aside, this was the place that gave me the opportunities I had. Mawkish old me. I hear the sirens of the Roll-Your-Eyes-Cheese police…but it *is* a happy story. So many of us kids, like Cinderella waiting to go to the ball :) I’ll always remember how I was so excited over the Brown catalogue when I was a high-school teen, then heading over to the bookstores and libraries and checking out every single guide book I could once I realised they gave me the scholarship. Fast forward to junior year, when I headed to the Brown bookstore and checked out every single England book…then planning for the Paris/Nice/Italy trip with G and S when we were in England.
Even now, I complain that I’m poor as a churchmouse, but the reality is I can afford to go flying off on breaks now and then, buying artwork in Hanoi, shopping at Uluwatu Lace in Bali, eating at yuppie restaurants. I decry the “Lifestyle” — but the truth is I’m about as bourg and middle-class as they come.
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A: The truth is, many boring buy-side people have interesting and cool sell-side friends.
B (on someone she terms the Yale Toady): I can’t deal with them! We went to a treehugging school! We befriend animals! I just want to cry!
I LIKE my fried chicken and Tim Tams and comfort food as much as the next person…and I’ve been guilty of recreational eating (tend to put on the pounds when I’m unhappy or stressed), but light, delicious food that goes easy on the fat and sugar is not only healthier but also makes me feel better and more alive. It’s really easy, especially with Chinese food: steamed tofu with prawns on top, light soups (mmm watercress), yong tau foo, fish slice soup. & then there’s also sushi and soupy ramen, a hard boiled egg, steamed egg custard. Balance the sinful food with a generally healthy diet, and you don’t need to fuss too much. I try to be generally relaxed about these things. Food is supposed to be about fun! Sharing! Warmth! Good vibes, not obsessive calorie counting!
While I don’t stress if I get over 50kg, being unfit and overweight isn’t fun. (Snarky internal voice goes: There she goes again…but I do have this bimbo “lifestyle” side to me that I’ve learnt to embrace.) Women who take a modicum of trouble can stay fit and look good at any age. When I’m slimmer, I feel better and look better. With exercise, the key is to find something you like otherwise you won’t stick with it. I love cycling and swimming, but jogging bores the tears out of me, for instance. Moving about releases endorphins, which reduce feelings of anxiety and depression. It also makes you feel more alert and better able to cope with stress.
But then trying too hard’s not attractive: it speaks of narcissism and vanity, of a lack of proportion in one’s life and other, proper interests. It’s all about balance.
And I believe good skin’s a beauty basic : The simple things like proper sleep, enough water, good nutritious food are the building blocks, and much better than spending a gazillion dollars on fancy products. It shows: Good nails, hair, skin, bones and all… Sunscreen, too! I like wearing hats when I cycle.
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Of all the things I’ve learned, it is that grace and generosity of spirit are essential ingredients to the well-lived life. They add a certain elegance to the most mundane encounter, let alone to life’s more major dramas. I don’t mean elegance of the merely superficial kind — though that, too, is not without its charms. I mean the sort of elegance that, if we looked into it, we would discover is rooted in some kind of moral code. Kindness is elegant — malice and cruelty are not. Warmth and generosity are elegant — coldness and jealousy are not. Touchiness and being quick to take offense isn’t elegant, either. (My father always had a motto: “Darling,” he used to say, “never, ever be offended. Only small people take offense.”) Social snobbery — which is rooted in a belief that material values, such as money and worldly status, are more important than human and moral worth –is not elegant. Nor is the sort of behaviour that finds it acceptable to be rude to those who are ill-placed to answer back while simultaneously being charming to those from whom favours may be expected.
— Lucia van Der Post, Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me. ISBN 9780738212784
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This powerful and relentless transformation of a loser area of the globe into perhaps the biggest winner of the current century didn’t just happen. Credit, if you want, the hidden hand of history, but I prefer to look for tangible factors. One of course was the people of Asia. Many of them worked until their backs broke. Almost everyone seemed to be either working or studying. Another reason had to be that some Asians were getting superior leadership, however one defined it. While Africa remained more or less notorious for leaders who sucked the life — and much money — out of their countries, Asia became known for leaders who were leading their countries to new prominence, staying with the job and their countries and watching them grow to new heights. Post-colonial Asia had drive and ambition. There was less defeatism and more realism; less demagoguery and more economic production.
– Tom Plate, The giants who shaped Asia, Review A22
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To do:
Plan tree-planting day for birthday.
Meet friends I’ve not seen for some time (CL, KT)
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Reading Buffett’s biography now. Interesting things on money and human nature and how the more things change, they more they stay the same.
Piles of unread books to slowly work my way through. Nouveaux romans (I live in fear of being monolingual), economics stuff, law stuff, regional histories, Hitler-Stalin book…
I also ran into somebody the other day I’d rather not talk to…I’m very wary of gossips, of people who use whatever information they get off others to feel self-important. (Pot calling kettle: I tend to blab sometimes, but I try to temper that with good sense and kindness.) Now I know how to trust my gut feeling I feel no guilt in excusing myself. Don’t have to be the nice person all the time, or please every single person in my life. In fact, it’s impossible to do so and I’d rather not waste energy trying. I know who I am, what I stand for, and that’s enough.
A is drinking Yuengling at the ballpark. Feeling Phillyish even though I’m clear across the state. Miss my Philly friends!
B: A, I know I’m Chinese…and Yuengling sounds Chinese…but what is it?
A: Hehe… It is not Chinese in the slightest. It is an American lager brewed in Pennsylvania.
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C: Foto bukan tehnik. Itu hanya tehnik foto. Foto adalah sesuatu yg mengandung makna. Tehnik hanya ‘kendaraan’ makna. Soal tehnik itu bisa mengantar makna pada tujuan tergantung: a. punya tujuan b. punya komitment terhadap tujuan itu. Selain itu tidak penting.
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D: An insect flew into my eye and died. Great, now I’m the human Venus eye-trap.
Oh no not now
Please not now
I just settled into the glass half empty
Made myself at home
And so why now
Please not now
I just stopped believing in happy endings
Harbors of my own
But you had to come along didn’t you
Tear down the doors, throw open windows
Oh if you knew just what a fool you have made me
So what do I do with this?
This stray Italian greyhound
These inconvenient fireworks
This ice-cream-covered screaming hyperactive thought
God I just want to lay down
These colors make my eyes hurt
This feeling calls for everything that I am
Not
I’m not that kind
I’m so good at shooting down any notion
This tired world could change
It’s all been bought
Or at least that was my line
No use in spending all that emotion
When there’s someone else to blame
But you had to come along didn’t you
Rev up the crowd, rewrite the rule book
Where do I go when every ‘no’ turns into ‘maybe’
So what do I do with this?
This sudden burst of sunlight
And me with my umbrella
Cross-indexing every weatherman’s report
I was ready for the downslide
But not for spring to well up
This feeling calls for everything I can’t afford
To know
Is possible now
What do I do
With a love that won’t sit still
Won’t do what it’s told
What do I do
With a love that won’t sit still
IT CHEERS me up! I can be pretty cynical; it’s part of the territory when you used to be a journalist — but yes, am still a sentimental sap beneath it all.
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A (on shooting a ranting monologue): Argh! Somehow when the camera’s on I couldn’t do it!
B: Filming porn again, A?
A: She said my pasta tastes good.
B: She said what? Her pastor? What?
A: Pasta! Linguine!
C (on walking a dog): It’s so nice to take it out.
B: C! What are you doing? Taking it out in public? Don’t shock the children!
C: Now you’re just sick.
C: You know, you look like the cutesy Asian girl. You wear cheongsams. You flick your long hair. You look so frail men rush to open doors for you. Then you open your mouth.
B: I think of it as balancing yin and yang. We’re all part angel and part animal…subnormal animal.
D (on cutting her hair): I used to look normal. Now I look like a member of a Beatles tribute band.
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Was talking to a guy friend who’s breaking up with his partner. “The soulcrushing grind of needless arguing,” he says. I know how it is…you become withdrawn, stoical and would rather do nothing than provoke confrontation.
Many of the guys I know are very sweet creatures who don’t go into battle over every challenge. They’re not very good fighters. Conflict causes them to…shut down. They kind of become inarticulate when things heat up; when they feel attacked they detach. And emotional withdrawal is always a sign that the relationship is in trouble.
Being hot-tempered myself (I’ve been known to leave smoking footprints as I stride off into the sunset), it’s good to learn to rein in that hair-trigger rage and learn how Not To Destroy the other party when we fight. Too much conflict is fatal…it’s a better idea to walk away for the moment and cool down. Relentless criticism is like poison.
It’s day-to-day exchange of goodwill that gets people through tough moments. Building on a bank of happy memories.
PEOPLE! Join me for a beach cleanup with the Brownies in September. All you need to do is read a safety briefing online, show up with your own water + poncho + gloves. More updates after I go down to recce the site…
I’m expecting a really friendly bunch of people and we won’t bite (unless you want us to). Leave me a message if you want to come along come September. It’s not just picking up trash; data used on the rubbish found is helpful to marine biologists and government authorities.
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The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
— Elizabeth Kubler Ross
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“If I’d learnt one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don’t talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.”
Purvis St chicken rice + Bohumil Hrabal in Mandarin: not so ugh. Blood pressure down….
I DISLIKE the whole idea of judging a person by his educational credentials or pay cheque, so I find talk of graduate women finding it hard to find a partner in some sort of “marriage crisis” very distasteful. The media love bad news, but we don’t have to buy all the BS on depressing marriage prospects for well-educated, high-achieving women.
Firstly, it puts undue pressure on women — the crisis is that women are overeducated, after our mothers and grandmothers fought for opportunities that we enjoy? (On a side note: Don’t tell me that feminism doesn’t work. My grandmother was a village woman who had to struggle to read and had to escape an arranged marriage. At least I can read effortlessly now, and nobody forced me to get married when I was 16.) For goodness’ sake, stop trying to play a game of feast or famine here.
Secondly, it means that, as I’ve mentioned above, paper qualifications mean more than what’s most important in a relationship: character, emotional stability and maturity, someone’s ability to be there for his or her family. It devalues caretaking work, as Christine B. Whelan writes in Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women (p. 99) — “the work that women have been doing in the home for centuries…It’s hypocritical and elitist for feminists to complain that successful women are having to marry ‘below their station’.”
I’ve seen how it works. People ask what the person you’re seeing does. If you say he’s an investment banker or attorney, some get all excited. But what if he doesn’t call me, stands me up, or doesn’t treat me well? It’s very easy to get caught up all that hype of blingbling. I wasn’t all that taken in by the Lifestyle, but I liked the intellectual chemistry, and put up with bullshit that I should have terminated right from the start. I’ll never accept being treated as a low priority, or lower my expectations, or ignore signs that I’m being taken for granted again.
Some of the sweetest men I know are low-key teachers and social workers; some of my friends may not come from super-brand-name schools and companies but are there when their family is in trouble, they take care of parents who have cancer, they hold their ageing grandmother’s hands, they show up for their friends and are utterly reliable and trustworthy and wise.
And I find it crass to start conversations with the bullish: “What do you do?” Of course, work is a large part of our lives and it can make a good conversational topic, but I sometimes get the gut feel that people are looking at paycheques and prestige instead. This implies that what you do is more important than who you are. Distasteful.
Something’s wrong with the way Singaporeans in general tend to look at a person: There are many paths to success, it’s not just academic. The suit does not make the man.
As long as someone is passionate about life, curious about life, sound in heart and improving the lives of his brothers, that’s good enough for me.
So people, stop perpetuating the myth that accomplished women have to marry “down”. “Young women …who are contemplating high-powered careers or graduate school may well think twice about pursuing their dreams if they’re constantly bombarded with bad news about their prospects for love.” (p. 186)
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I’d written this then taken it off the web, but what the hell, I think the disgust’s validated. If you’ve ever gone out with me, you might not want to read this.
Tales from the cultural and existential abyss
IT WAS a queer, sultry summer day when I inadvertently strayed onto the SG craigslist personals site after some friends were talking about Internet dating. I know, I know, shut up. The whole enterprise reminded me of a song I first heard via Reuben: “Too many dicks on the dance floor.” Honey, the gene pool needs a little chlorine.
I’ve ventured onto one online dating site before, and really, I’ve had it up to here with certain expat males. Pfft. Run along and play now, my cute little Internet friend, there’s a good boy. I know City boys at the top of their game who will eat you up for lunch and spit out the bones, but they’re too well-brought-up to do so. (Sure, it ended badly and we did unforgivable things to each other and in the end it was like boiling water poured all over my arm, but hey. I’m currently in the curious situation of watching my life flash before my eyes without actually having to die first.)
As my favourite capitalist goes, spitting out every word like a silvered thumbtack: “If you really want to know how the whole food chain thing goes, there are the i-bankers (breakdown by firm), then you have a couple of the management consultants, then you have the lawyers and other service staff. And we’re talking about London, New York, not the people who can’t make it here.” There’s this acronym FILTH — Failed In London, Try Hongkong. Or in this case, Singapore.
I also have some Hokkien friends who are masters of killer looks suggesting knives, razorblades and possibly machetes who can tell you exactly what they think of you in fancy Singlish cusswords. I’ve written about inner city kids prodded into survival mode who are sweeter and tougher than you’ll ever be. & yes. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer here in the sultry tropics.
In any case my favourite people tend to be the madly overeducated geeky quants, the physicists who communicate using their antennae, the biologists, the teachers and social workers who don’t play greasy-pole games. Yes, we’re in the service industry. And no, we don’t work at Hooters. Heard of the term “public service”?
I enjoy being the smiling docile kitten type, making small talk, folding origami, acting like a tour guide/social escort/performing seal/whatever, because it relaxes me and makes me laugh. I like making others laugh. Being aggressive strains me. I don’t like spreading bad vibes. But I’m glad to say I’ve now learnt to say a definitive “No” to bullshit, and spend time with family and *good* people.
I get spared the worst of the worst of the dicks, because I’m not that goodlooking (I look like some kind of brown runt. There was a time we attended a WASP wedding in Boston and I was like: “OMG, those are the elves and we’re the hobbits!”) — try taking S out and it’s like trying to roll a meatball through a cage of hyenas — and I’m not well-connected (lower-middle-class family) but these are real stories, real quotations.
As a cautionary tale, I leave the findings below for your reading pleasure:
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- “Oh, you speak very good English!” (I just smile. Some of them mean to be kind. Speaking as a person with a misspent youth in three areas — languages and literature, brooding introspection and whining — I like anyone who shows an appreciation for knowledge and is encouraging.)
- “I like to take girls shopping.” (Note the plural. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.)
- “You’re a statistical anomaly because you won’t sleep with me.” (I can tell you exactly where to park your Jaguar and it won’t be a pretty place.)
- “You can do better.” (To my friend who married a good old SG boy — she had dated a German lawyer before. She just smiled.)
- Someone trying to tell me what to do with my life, cross-examining my friends, seeing if I could make conversation about wine, judging me by how I played board games, telling me he wanted to have four wives. I stayed silent. He’s basically a big teenager. I guess I’ve come to accept him as he is — a party animal hungry for new experiences who’s basically a good person at heart — but as I’ve accepted him, so I’ve released any desire for anything more than friendship from him.
- A couple of aid workers who are well-meaning, but whom I’d like to bludgeon repeatedly on the head using The Quiet American.
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A: Do you listen to musicals?
B: Oh yes. I like Cats a lot. I think Les Miserables is very touching. But I’ve not read it in the original.
A: I don’t think you can read it in the original. It’s in French.
B: Oh, you don’t say. (Thinking: “I don’t know what your problem is, but I bet it’s hard to pronounce.”)
- “Oh, I didn’t know you knew people in GS/McKinsey/whatever blah…I thought all your friends were teachers!” (Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.)
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You know why places like Haji Lane and some lorongs in Geylang are cool? Because cool people who do cool things, like artists and musicians and writers, moved into them while they’re cheap.
My friend’s rant: “Then rich, crappy, spoil-sport people realize how cool the places are and start moving in in droves because they want to be as cool as artists, and that drives the prices up, and the cool places are spoiled and the artists, who made them cool in the first place, have to move out.
“If you don’t believe me, try visiting Chelsea in London, which is now the most boring place ever, because no artists live there. Only rich berks live there.
“…Why can’t rich people just leave our cool places alone? Seriously. Really. They want to be as cool as artists, but if you don’t make art you don’t get to be cool. If you want to be rich, you don’t become an artist. The two things are mutually exclusive.”
Having said that, I don’t think my friend’s hovel in Potong Pasir will ever be cool. We live in the HDB flats of Bishan and Toa Payoh and new towns like Tampines and Pasir Ris. Cool my arse, my block of flats looks like it’s been dipped in orange highlighter.
I’M SUCH a fluffette I like books like French Women Don’t Get Fat…Reading a book on What French Women Know (ISBN 978-0-399-15562) now (I know. I know. Shut up! I left Crime And Punishment on the shelf today, okay? :) ) and thought this applies to Singaporean people as well:
Anne-Marie, who has been teaching French to students in Los Angeles for more than twenty years, offers this obeservation: “My American students are very detached from the real world and very squeamish. They are so used to the fake or the processed that when they see the real thing, they don’t get it. Or when they see the fake, they think it’s the real thing. When I teach them the origin of the word “ham” in French — jambon — for example, I tell them that it means leg. When you eat ham, you are eating the leg of the pig. “Oh, gross! Don’t gross us out!” is what the kids always scream. And I ask them, “Do you think that pigs grow in slices? Where do you think ham comes from?” The kids are grossed out by almost anything that is not hygienically sealed up. There is a disconnect from nature, and that becomes a disconnect from the senses, from the sensual world overall.
pp. 167-8
I believe this is the difference between someone like Julie Delpy and Jennifer Aniston. I dislike the calculated perfection of many American celebrities, and prefer sensual disarray and accidental allure of someone who is a little off-beat, quirky, a little dishevelled, and knows how to let her hair down. Gimme a reprief from the straight rebonded hair, the neurotic overexercising, the perfect make-up — and give me someone who takes real pleasure in life, in dancing, eating, laughing.
