National Disgrace

I was watching some programme on Vasantham Central a few days back and during the show, the SMS display thing was on, you know when people can send two-dollars-a-message type of messages on air. Yah, so I was trying my best to divide my attention on the show and the SMSes, you know, just to see what kind of pathetic messages people were wasting their money on ($2 a freaking msg!!!). My brain went searching for expletives when I read the following conversation:

(The names of the senders were changed, not really to protect their identities but mainly because I forgot and couldn't care much...)

A: Eh B, can call me now?

and after a couple of other plain meaningless messages...

B: I busy now lah.

And I went...what the hell??! Why would ANYone in the right mind want to share such a conversation, if you call that one, on national TV?? And for that matter, spend two bloody freaking dollars a message!!! Couldn't they have just SMSed each other normally?? They both would have saved over a dollar each! I still cannot get over how silly these two morons were (are)..God help them.

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yah, just don't go where those two ninkampoops received their education.

We, The Citizens of China.

You Go Makcik! Speak your mind! I think I shall rant some more, sharing the same view as Makcik So'od. Just what is up with the whole Mandarin-speaking preferred thing?? Everytime I turn to the Recruit section of the Straits Times to look up new job openings, I would only fold the papers annoyed and frustrated. Initially, I would eye a few jobs only to carry on reading to my disappointment when I reach the last statement: Mandarin speaking only/preferred/would be an advantage. So much for meritocracy. Apparently, you need to have the ability to speak Mandarin for serving in a cafe downtown. Oh, and have you heard? You need to be Mandarin-speaking to ensure that you can keep a safe watch over a compound. Gasp!! They didn't even let Security Guards off the Mandarin Hook! It just makes me sick in the stomach, or should I just laugh this utter stupidity and poignancy off with a shrug. Nah, definitely the former. What is the point for having to learn the English language when all we do is to feel miserable while looking for job vacancies. And these jobs aren't even executive appointments for MNCs which have branches in Mandarin-speaking countries! They are simply entry level, service related jobs for cash-strapped youths like myself. Maybe not ONLY for youths like myself. If that's the case, then maybe the only jobs that non-mandarin speakers could land are with, say, Zam Zam and Komala Vilas! Although Annalakshmi would be better..heehee. Okay, enough of digression. Maybe Singapore IS in China afterall.

Maybe I shall talk about another issue anyways. Remember the NTU student who participated in a forum with Dr Vivian Balakrishnan some time ago? Is he dumb or is he dumb? Here's an article from The Straits Times:

"ON TUESDAY night, a young man blurted out to 900 of his fellow students that something about marriage was bothering him.He was taking part in a student forum with a Cabinet minister. The setting was Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Tripping over a string of hems and haws, the nervous youth finally coughed up one of the most disturbingly racist remarks I have heard in recent months. The sight of a man holding hands with a woman of a different skin colour makes his skin crawl, he stuttered.

His nightmare scenario: Should such interracial couples marry, they would dilute racial purity.'As the world becomes more globalised, we will see more of such interracial couples. And when people become more mixed, fewer people will belong to a certain race.'Won't we lose our traditions and cultures?' was his poser to the minister, who was the guest of honour.

Though fashionably pony-tailed, he professed to be a 'conservative'.'Bigot' would have been more befitting.Given that the minister happened to be a product of mixed parentage, it couldn't have been a more awkward moment, though it was probably lost on the youth.

The politician, though, steered clear of controversy and interpreted this as a matter of personal choice.He said: 'These are intensely private matters. Who you want to marry should be entirely your choice... So my position is: It's up to you. You choose your own partners.'Is that really all there is?I flipped open the papers the next day. There screaming in the pages was a story of a Native American teenager who went on a killing rampage in Minnesota.Before shooting nine others and himself, he was an open worshipper of Hitler, and apparently wanted his tribe's bloodline kept pure.

That story and the NTU student's words were, to me, a chilling reminder of a hate mail I once received.Three years ago, following a report I wrote about parents becoming more accepting of their children dating someone from another race, a letter landed on my desk.Flaming-red capital letters spat out 'F*** YOU LAUREL' several times, before the writer proceeded to swear that if any Chinese girl, myself included, were caught with any non-Chinese male, we would be '*@#*...' - several Hokkien expletives too vulgar to be reproduced here.Horrified, I chucked the letter aside and scrubbed it clean from my mind.Only to have the memory resurrected on Tuesday.

Much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I know that racist sentiments lurk in all societies, Singapore included.The question is, how should the rest of us react?Some might argue that most people are more at ease with a partner from the same cultural background, and they have every right to choose so. I can't quarrel with that.But what troubles me to the core is that this NTU youth should deplore others who choose otherwise.Such a stance goes beyond a simple matter of personal choice into how society should be ordered and is, in effect, against the very grain of Singapore's multi- racial make-up.

The NTU youth cannot plead ignorance. He is among the top 20 per cent of every cohort who graduate from universities each year - an elite of sorts.Considering that he has been weaned on the entire education system - from kindergarten to university - surely he must have learnt something about multiracial tolerance and acceptance, which are among Singapore's founding fundamentals?Yet, little of it seemed to have rubbed off on him.I cannot help but worry, how many others out there think like he does, despite the best efforts of education?

And with due respect to the minister, I cannot help but feel that an opportunity was lost there.Given that race is such a red-flagged issue here, I suppose his response was suitably safe and diplomatic.But stripped down to its nasty bones, what the youth was suggesting implied that Eurasians, Peranakans and all others of mixed heritage have no place on this planet.To his eyes - and others who share his view, such mixed-heritage people, which include the minister, should never have been allowed to be born because their parents shouldn't have got together in the first place.There is no need for me to elaborate on how insulting, not to mention dangerous, such views are.

Here, I am glad to report that the other students at the dialogue made no bones about how they felt.As the young man was struggling to make his case, several voices could be heard shouting from the distance, disagreeing with him.And when he tried to continue, his peers in the entire lecture hall clapped thunderously to drown him out.I could even discern a yell of 'Shut up!' as well.As these 900 other young people have shown, it is not enough to squirm silently in the face of blatant racism.

Stubbing out such views may be too tall an order, but there is no excuse for the rest of us not to make clear our condemnation"

Now, when I first read about this, I was not really surprised that such a frowned-upon mentality still exist in this so called multi-racial and multi cultural society. Racism has always been lurking around in this country. It has always been carried out discreetly, sometimes indirect, and also directly. As what Makcik had mentioned, the people of the minority races often end up with the shorter end of the stick, the victims so to speak. Personally, I have endured many racist comments. Most were meant as "jokes" apparently. However, the thought process leading to the joke is what the matter is. To understand and laugh at a racist joke, one has to already have a cultivated pool of racist thoughts. This itself should suffice to label one as a racist. The sad truth in this case is that, this will never cease to desist, in this generation at least.

"The fly cannot be driven away by getting angry at it." -African proverb

Disclaimer: This entry is entirely personal, except for the quoted article from The Straits Times. Comments were not targeted at anyone in particular and offence should not be taken either. Readers should be able to take it with an open-mind rather, I hope.

Happy Vishu!

വിഷു ആശംസങള്‍ (Vishu Aashamsugal) to all the Malayalees reading this! And Happy Tamil New Year too. Both belated, of course. Heheh..This year, both festivals fall on the same day,yesterday. I am pretty sure that many non-hindu's might be confused now. You might be thinking that Deepavali is not until at least 7 or 8 months later. Well, yah. But Deepavali isn't our New Year as many of my friends had previously thought. I shall not go into that now.
However, Vishu, or the Malayalee New Year is. And one aspect of the New Year I had always been fascinated about is the ritual called Vishu kani. It actually means The Lucky Sight. My aunty, for the past few years, had made us wake up in the morning of Vishu and told us to go straight to the prayer room with our eyes closed. Only until were we in the room could we open our eyes and view this arrangement of flowers, jackfruit, gourds, coconuts, mangoes, gold jewellery, coins, and a mirror. If we have viewed this arrangement of Vishu Kani, it is believed to bring good fortune and properity to the viewer.

So this year was no different. All preparations were made for Vishu the night before. However, I was stolen of my lucky sight. All because of Sister #1, The Grinch Who Stole My Vishu. There I was sleeping when I heard a voice, apparently reading from a letter of some sort. I heard my name, I heard NIE and some sort of acceptance offer for a degree course there. So I woke up and took the letter from her and looked at it. OOPS! Huge mistake! There went my good fortune and prosperity for the rest of the year! I thought maybe a few minutes wouldn't matter, so I made my way to the prayer room still, hoping for a few months worth of good luck, at least.

Coming back to the letter. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I applied for the NIE course for fun, if you can recall. So I went for the interview. I did not think that I would be granted a place there. Anyways, I am still not going for it. Yah, the same reasons I cited the last time. Why haven't NTU sent any of the letters yet, either acceptance or rejection?? I have a life you know?? Other decisions to make?? If the latter comes in, I have two choices. One would be to try again after NS, and the other is to start looking for suitable courses in Australia. After the somewhat re-assurance from my father yesterday, maybe I can gradually, but not with high hopes, lay some ground for this option.

Hot Dogs

It's been a week since the semester ended, and I've been out doing interviews already. I went to Toa Payoh to meet Sasi to attend an interview together, but that didn't turn out so good. So, after meeting Rekha, we headed for Novena for another interview. It turned out okay, just that we have to wait for them to call. It's this telemarketing thing. Oh, have I mentioned that the Rotiboy bread at Toa Payoh kicks ass! It's so much better than the Papparoti one in M'sia. Anyways, that's besides the point.

I cleared stage 2 of driving yesterday. The instructor told me to drive all the way to my house and back to the school! Craziness! It was okay la. Next up would be circuit stuff..My instructor said I should be able to finish everything by eight or nine lessons. I really hope so because I only have 12 lessons left in my block booking! Still have to go for a driving simulator session..sounds cool. Mmmmm..someone's frying sausages...I can smell it in the air.......

"I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward."-Charlotte Bronte

All In A Day's Fun

The com was under repair for a week. Hence, my disappearance from the information superhighway. But, I'm BaaaaaAAACCKKK! (attempting the evil Simple Life tone of Paris and Nicole)

Remember I mentioned that the bunch was going to watch Ms Congeniality 2 last Thursday? Well, we couldn't get the tickets so we caught Hitch instead. It was soooo funny. I especially liked the last part where they did that old school dance moves and stuff. It was hilarious. The cuetip, the pizza, the wave! All of em'..Oh and we met Hasinah and the rest before the movie.

Only yesterday did we manage to catch Ms Congeniality, together with the two sisters at Great World. Although this second instalment wasn't as funny as the first one, certain parts really caused havoc in our row of seats. We were the only ones laughing like mad people. Pity those who didn't catch the jokes. Hahah! After that, we were off to Marche at Heeren. Being a Saturday night and all, a crowd was in da house. Anyways, I managed to have my Ham & Cheese Crepe. YUMMM!! I influenced Rekha to get that too, while Sasi got the Rosti with this super huge garlic sausage. Mich got a pizza and my sisters got Softshell Crab and Fish N Chips. We concluded the dinner with Banana Caramel Waffle with Strawberry ice cream..MMmmmmm.....




"When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature." -Sydney Smith