This happened 3 months after I was taught how to take the bus on my own, which is pretty late since I had been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have folks with cars to ferry me around when I was young. Back then we didn't have no kiddy seats. You sat there, or you lay down, and you were small enough that your whole body could be on the back seat, and there'd still be room. Then I could still stand up on the seat and breakdance when my mother (or my father) was weaving through traffic.
Actually never liked the cars very much, because my mother had a habit of turning the ferrying into extended nagging sessions. The first thing I noticed about the bus is that the bus driver never asked you continuously for 20 minutes why you were letting your homework slip, why you were not practicing piano enough, why you weren't doing extra work outside of class. So I think that's one more reason why I like buses so much.
OK, back to the main point: this incident happened 3 months after my first bus ride when I was in Primary 4, when I was 10. I memorised the list of buses that went to my home, and the list that went to my school. Then one day, I saw a bus come that was on both lists, and I thought, I'll take it, even though my parents told me before it wasn't the right bus to take.
I went up on the bus, and the scenery got less and less familiar, until the bus came to a stop next to a bridge at Crawford Street. The bus driver looked at me, this kid carrying a school bag half his size, and said, "this is the end. This is the terminal." I was thinking, what the - does that mean?
So I stepped out. I was well and truly lost. We didn't have any handphones in those days, and I had no bloody clue where Crawford Street was. The MRT hadn't been built yet so I couldn't just ask to go to the nearest one. So I thought, well, I got a bit of time, haven't I? Let's go for an adventure. I decided to walk back to school.
It was bloody foolhardy thing to do, but I remembered something I learnt about map reading a few weeks back: when you are lost, look for a big landmark. I knew a big landmark near my school, and it was as big a landmark as anything you could find in Singapore: the Westin Stamford. And I could always find the way back to the school from Westin Stamford.
So I walked and I walked and I walked. I saw strange places I had never seen. Probably walked through the Arab street area. Probably walked through some old shophouses I had never seen before, and would never see again because it would later be refurbished and turned into Bugis Junction. Walked down Beach Road which wasn't a beach anymore. Near a construction site that would one day be the Gateway. Walked past a Golden Mile shopping centre before it became Singapore's little Thailand, and when it was still hip enough to have a Metro department store in it. Walked and walked and walked. Probably walked for 2 hours.
This was before scouts, before NS, before topo. The first, and to date one of the few genuine adventures I had been on. Walked right back to the bus stop near my school, and this time took the right bus back home.
My mother screamed at me when I got home. I was supposed to have been home by 4, and it was nearly 7. Can't even get 2 hours off without having your head bitten off. What an idiot, she said, don't you know you could just cross the road and take the same bus back?
Well it didn't occur to me, or maybe I didn't want to think about it like that, maybe I just ended up doing what I always wanted to do. It was great, 2 hours to myself, no accountability at all, saw a lot of things I don't normally get to see. Of course it was a bitch carrying those schoolbooks and all, and I was sweating like nobody's business, but what an achievement! I, a 10 year old schoolkid, topo-ing my way across the Singapore landscape! It felt great.
Sunday, 14 October 2007
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Come as you are
I am, naturally, infamous for making "come" jokes. Like when people use the word "come" in a way that gives rise to a double ententre, I will pounce on it, milk it for what it's worth (until it comes - hur hur).
But there is the dreaded monotony, of course. Nobody wants to be making the same jokes all the time, not even me. So I have here a pun on "come" which doesn't have to do with sexual orgasm.
Host: (at somebody's Chinese New Year gathering) Hey check these out. They're sorda like grapefruit, but they could also be tangerines. They're a mixed breed.
WP: What do they call these things? Kumquats? Oranges? Who knows about these genetic engineering things these days.
R9: Well kum as you are*. Hur hur hur.
* a phrase meaning: whoever you are, we will accept you. Also the title of a Nirvana song
But there is the dreaded monotony, of course. Nobody wants to be making the same jokes all the time, not even me. So I have here a pun on "come" which doesn't have to do with sexual orgasm.
Host: (at somebody's Chinese New Year gathering) Hey check these out. They're sorda like grapefruit, but they could also be tangerines. They're a mixed breed.
WP: What do they call these things? Kumquats? Oranges? Who knows about these genetic engineering things these days.
R9: Well kum as you are*. Hur hur hur.
* a phrase meaning: whoever you are, we will accept you. Also the title of a Nirvana song
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
1997
Watched "The Queen".
There are many years in my life which I would put down as turning points, discontinuities, when many things change at the same time. In 1983, when I really started being conscious of the world, started suspecting myself of being smart. In 1990, when I changed school, changed my home, and when life stopped being a bed of roses. In 1992, a year that was supposed to be ordinary but turned out extraordinary, a year of 2 summers. In 1999, when I fell in love for real for the first time, the start of a great (but unfortunately short) learning experience. In 2002, I started work.
I can't talk about them all, maybe I will one day. But in terms of concrete changes, 1997 was a momentuous year for me.
- I made a decision that would change the next 11 years of my life.
- My sister left for college; couldn't complain, it was a good college. But she hasn't been back since.
- My mother had breast cancer, and survived.
- There was the Asian financial crisis. It was the end of an era in which Singapore could guarantee a 10% growth every year, and the start of a more tentative, uncertain period for all of us.
- It was also a very important year for a company that I would one day work for.
- Hong Kong, but the handover is symbolic of a waning western influence in Asia, and a waxing Chinese influence.
- Watched my first R(A) movie, but I was underage. I felt that I had to break the law before it was too late. It was "English Patient", in the now defunct Riverside cinema at Clarke Quay. Nice film, which achieves the right blend between arty and farty. Unfortunately Minghella's later films would tend more towards the latter.
- Watched my first porn film, but I was bored.
- My uncle missed a flight back from Indonesia. That flight crashed into Palembang, killing, among others, the famous Singaporean model Bonny Hicks, and tainted the national consciousness because it took so damn long for the authorities to tell everybody what the hell happened.
- Radiohead released "OK Computer". It was one of the last great albums by a rock band.
- General elections. Tang Liang Hong, JBJ + company almost - but not quite - win their first GRC seat. Not long after ppl from high up sue their asses out of town.
- Princess Diana died in a car crash, which is the event in 1997 that "The Queen" reminded me of. There would be a great outpouring of grief when Princess Diana dies, and later when George Harrison dies. There are 2 reasons for this: they died young (for George Harrison, relatively young.) and because we already are in the era of the 15 minutes, and they are a dying breed: truly famous people. In our world, to paraphrase "The Incredibles", everybody is famous, and therefore nobody is famous.
- Tony Blair becomes PM and we would have the first 10 years of New Labour.
- The internet revolution gathers steam. This is 1 of 2 great events that shape the 21st century (the other one being the collapse of communism.) The great dot com bubble gathers shape.
- I earned my stripes in the air force.
- I realised that I wasn't going to hang around with my JC mates for a long time. Later on I would reflect that my values were very different from theirs.
I spent much of that year not having much of a direction, biding my time in NS, which for most of us is the hinge between childhood and adulthood. And I think NS is in some way a great pivot.
I also remember that although the 1990s are not as celebrated in the west as the 1960s, they are similar in the sense that they are a time of great hope and change. In the 1960s, there was the Civil Rights movement, which purportedly made the US more equal for Whites and Blacks. (But not really, it's never that equal.) Parallel to that there was the great decolonialisation, where a great number of nations, ours included, that became independent. It was also a time of great liberalisation, where western society became more tolerant and permissive, culminating in 1968, when a great wave of student riots around the world led a lot of people to wonder if people had gone too far. That would be the start of the conservative backlash that would culminate in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.
Following that would be the 1970s, a period of time when the dust settles, and people would finally see where the changes that started in the 1960s have led us. Recessions. The oil embargo. The end of the Gold Standard. The rise of the American South. The end of organised labour. The rise of conservatism.
In the 1990s, we had the big bang that was the fall of the Berlin wall. (in 1945 the big news was the fall of Berlin.) We had the end of the great Cold War dictators: Pinochet, Suharto, Mobutu. We had the internet and the stock bubble. We had the rise and fall of the Asian tigers. We had trouble in Indonesia and East Timor. We had Bosnia, Rwanda, the Balkan wars and the Congo wars. We also had the first attack on the WTC in 1993, the FBI building in Oklahoma, the bombing of the Tanzania and Kenyan US embassies as well as the bombing of the USS Cole, in the prelude to 911.
In the 2000's, we could see the beginning of the end for the dominance of the West over the rest of the world. We saw Afghanistan and Iraq. We had 911. But more importantly, since it's hardly ever reported, we had AIDS infecting 30 million people. We had SARS, we had all sorts of strange communicable diseases. We have Chinese capitalists fucking around with the system, like the slaves at the brick kiln, the stuffing of cardboard into dumplings, paint for toothpaste, so reminiscent of Robber Baron era in the USA not long after the civil war when there were American capitalists fucking around with the system.
We had climate change that people have been studiously warning us about in the 1970s. Back then it was called "environmentalism", which really says very much about people. If you call it environmentalism, then people think of tree huggers, altruistic and noble deeds that are too high and lofty for the common man. Whereas "climate change" is more Adam Smith, more "it's your problem because it's everybody's problem", and admittedly more ugly.
We also have oil shortage. Maybe it means energy shortage because most of our energy comes from oil. Maybe it also means food shortage because most of our food comes from fertilised land and fertiliser comes from oil. In any case, I'll say it again, if we don't solve this problem we're all fucked.
Probably the 1960s are more romanticised in the people's imaginations, because it was an era of good living right after the terrible wars, but I think that when people look back 100 years from now they will see that the 1990s were no less significant than the 1960s.
There are many years in my life which I would put down as turning points, discontinuities, when many things change at the same time. In 1983, when I really started being conscious of the world, started suspecting myself of being smart. In 1990, when I changed school, changed my home, and when life stopped being a bed of roses. In 1992, a year that was supposed to be ordinary but turned out extraordinary, a year of 2 summers. In 1999, when I fell in love for real for the first time, the start of a great (but unfortunately short) learning experience. In 2002, I started work.
I can't talk about them all, maybe I will one day. But in terms of concrete changes, 1997 was a momentuous year for me.
- I made a decision that would change the next 11 years of my life.
- My sister left for college; couldn't complain, it was a good college. But she hasn't been back since.
- My mother had breast cancer, and survived.
- There was the Asian financial crisis. It was the end of an era in which Singapore could guarantee a 10% growth every year, and the start of a more tentative, uncertain period for all of us.
- It was also a very important year for a company that I would one day work for.
- Hong Kong, but the handover is symbolic of a waning western influence in Asia, and a waxing Chinese influence.
- Watched my first R(A) movie, but I was underage. I felt that I had to break the law before it was too late. It was "English Patient", in the now defunct Riverside cinema at Clarke Quay. Nice film, which achieves the right blend between arty and farty. Unfortunately Minghella's later films would tend more towards the latter.
- Watched my first porn film, but I was bored.
- My uncle missed a flight back from Indonesia. That flight crashed into Palembang, killing, among others, the famous Singaporean model Bonny Hicks, and tainted the national consciousness because it took so damn long for the authorities to tell everybody what the hell happened.
- Radiohead released "OK Computer". It was one of the last great albums by a rock band.
- General elections. Tang Liang Hong, JBJ + company almost - but not quite - win their first GRC seat. Not long after ppl from high up sue their asses out of town.
- Princess Diana died in a car crash, which is the event in 1997 that "The Queen" reminded me of. There would be a great outpouring of grief when Princess Diana dies, and later when George Harrison dies. There are 2 reasons for this: they died young (for George Harrison, relatively young.) and because we already are in the era of the 15 minutes, and they are a dying breed: truly famous people. In our world, to paraphrase "The Incredibles", everybody is famous, and therefore nobody is famous.
- Tony Blair becomes PM and we would have the first 10 years of New Labour.
- The internet revolution gathers steam. This is 1 of 2 great events that shape the 21st century (the other one being the collapse of communism.) The great dot com bubble gathers shape.
- I earned my stripes in the air force.
- I realised that I wasn't going to hang around with my JC mates for a long time. Later on I would reflect that my values were very different from theirs.
I spent much of that year not having much of a direction, biding my time in NS, which for most of us is the hinge between childhood and adulthood. And I think NS is in some way a great pivot.
I also remember that although the 1990s are not as celebrated in the west as the 1960s, they are similar in the sense that they are a time of great hope and change. In the 1960s, there was the Civil Rights movement, which purportedly made the US more equal for Whites and Blacks. (But not really, it's never that equal.) Parallel to that there was the great decolonialisation, where a great number of nations, ours included, that became independent. It was also a time of great liberalisation, where western society became more tolerant and permissive, culminating in 1968, when a great wave of student riots around the world led a lot of people to wonder if people had gone too far. That would be the start of the conservative backlash that would culminate in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.
Following that would be the 1970s, a period of time when the dust settles, and people would finally see where the changes that started in the 1960s have led us. Recessions. The oil embargo. The end of the Gold Standard. The rise of the American South. The end of organised labour. The rise of conservatism.
In the 1990s, we had the big bang that was the fall of the Berlin wall. (in 1945 the big news was the fall of Berlin.) We had the end of the great Cold War dictators: Pinochet, Suharto, Mobutu. We had the internet and the stock bubble. We had the rise and fall of the Asian tigers. We had trouble in Indonesia and East Timor. We had Bosnia, Rwanda, the Balkan wars and the Congo wars. We also had the first attack on the WTC in 1993, the FBI building in Oklahoma, the bombing of the Tanzania and Kenyan US embassies as well as the bombing of the USS Cole, in the prelude to 911.
In the 2000's, we could see the beginning of the end for the dominance of the West over the rest of the world. We saw Afghanistan and Iraq. We had 911. But more importantly, since it's hardly ever reported, we had AIDS infecting 30 million people. We had SARS, we had all sorts of strange communicable diseases. We have Chinese capitalists fucking around with the system, like the slaves at the brick kiln, the stuffing of cardboard into dumplings, paint for toothpaste, so reminiscent of Robber Baron era in the USA not long after the civil war when there were American capitalists fucking around with the system.
We had climate change that people have been studiously warning us about in the 1970s. Back then it was called "environmentalism", which really says very much about people. If you call it environmentalism, then people think of tree huggers, altruistic and noble deeds that are too high and lofty for the common man. Whereas "climate change" is more Adam Smith, more "it's your problem because it's everybody's problem", and admittedly more ugly.
We also have oil shortage. Maybe it means energy shortage because most of our energy comes from oil. Maybe it also means food shortage because most of our food comes from fertilised land and fertiliser comes from oil. In any case, I'll say it again, if we don't solve this problem we're all fucked.
Probably the 1960s are more romanticised in the people's imaginations, because it was an era of good living right after the terrible wars, but I think that when people look back 100 years from now they will see that the 1990s were no less significant than the 1960s.
Sunday, 7 October 2007
Big Brother is watching you
I'm the man.
I have such a great knack at bumping into colleagues outside, not really with their pants down, but with their better half, so you could say their pants halfway down. Shingo. Nat. There was a colleague who dated another from another department, and I spotted them shortly before their relationship became public. They are married and have a kid now. Then there was Sniper and his wife. Ghost and his wife. Totoro and husband (and a few other friends). Even the big boss of my company wasn't spared when I bumped into his whole family.
I have done the trick again, but I must clarify here that they explained that - heh heh - this was a meeting between 2 former secondary school friends who later became colleagues. That there was apparently nothing untoward about this meeting. That's great! Anyway just goes to show that you cannot keep a good man down, you cannot hide your better half away from me, because I'm going to be there hiding away in a nearby bush, waiting to hunt you down.
Note: post edited, entirely of my own accord, should be a little more discreet about things.
I have such a great knack at bumping into colleagues outside, not really with their pants down, but with their better half, so you could say their pants halfway down. Shingo. Nat. There was a colleague who dated another from another department, and I spotted them shortly before their relationship became public. They are married and have a kid now. Then there was Sniper and his wife. Ghost and his wife. Totoro and husband (and a few other friends). Even the big boss of my company wasn't spared when I bumped into his whole family.
I have done the trick again, but I must clarify here that they explained that - heh heh - this was a meeting between 2 former secondary school friends who later became colleagues. That there was apparently nothing untoward about this meeting. That's great! Anyway just goes to show that you cannot keep a good man down, you cannot hide your better half away from me, because I'm going to be there hiding away in a nearby bush, waiting to hunt you down.
Note: post edited, entirely of my own accord, should be a little more discreet about things.
Friday, 5 October 2007
Emotional Quotient
Yes, another course again. Only 3 this year but due to the vagaries of the course schedule they all fall within a span of 2 months.
We first heard about EQ in 1995. I was in JC at that time and I took it very seriously. I talked to a few of my friends who, like me attended top JCs. 1 or 2 were surprised that coming from those top JCs didn't give them the advantages in life they thought it was going to confer upon them. I had an inkling by then that things were not so straightforward, and by the time the EQ book came out, it dawned upon me: if your EQ's no good, the real world is going to chew you up and spit you out.
There are many people who will dismiss his notions as being soft or subjective or totally without basis. Anybody who works in social science related stuff will get his theories attacked left right and centre, so no big deal there. Not everything is physics or chemistry where you can run a few experiments and settle the issue for good.
Can't really remember much about the book since I read it 5 years ago, but a few things struck me that I didn't know about that I will share below. Reading the book was good for my EQ, I think it went up by 5 points after that. Like when I did Psychology 101 in college it gave me 10 points in EQ. Being aware of the general principles is not going to make you stop being an ogre overnight but it is helpful nonetheless.
1. High EQ people will strive to be happy
Now this is very important. Happiness is good EQ. You can choose to be happy. Now some of you guys out there are going to slap your foreheads because this is so bloody obvious to you all along, sorry, us low EQ guys are slow with these concepts. (So yes - I am saying the converse is true as well: low EQ people do not really understand how important it is to be happy, do not realy understand that it is something they have to strive for all the time, and even if they know this, do not make it a habit to strive for happiness)
Low EQ people allow things to get them down, and if you do that, they will piss people off, and people will piss them off back. Hence begins a destructive downward spiral that gets everyone down.
The other thing to elaborate about this is that the implication that happiness is a choice. Yes. But people often forget, people do not realise that they are upset about something until it overtakes them and they break down. They forget that they can choose to prevent this, although to be fair to a lot of people who get a lot of shit, it can take a great deal of effort to achieve happiness. So to say that happiness is a choice should not be interpreted as an insult to those people who are living shitty lives, I don't agree with the political right who says that because happiness is a choice, therefore the poor and needy are to be blamed for their plight.
And yes, I find myself sometimes getting a little too lazy to try to be happy. Or sometimes when I become happy, I denigrate it by saying "it's no big deal". Or I set the bar for happiness so high that I rarely, if ever, achieve it. In fact I would say that the perfect metaphor is the characters in Harry Potter casting patronuses to ward off dementors.
2. Relationships can be poisoned
Yes, when relationships become bad, the brain has acquired the habit of thinking the worst about that person and every slightest comment can provoke the reaction that he's insulting you. Could it be that enmity is something as mundane as lousy EQ? It could be possible. The trick of getting around your antipathy towards certain people would be to try to get out of these mental traps, but of course you only hold 1 side of the cards.
3. Good EQ means that you know how you are feeling at any one point in time.
Is it possible to be happy or sad without knowing it? It seems ridiculous but it happens all the time. Nothing wrong with being happy without knowing, but if you're sad and you don't acknowledge it, it can take you over. It can get bottled up and then explode without warning. You could snap under the strain and have a breakdown. You could be doing something you don't like but because you're trying your best to believe you like it, you don't notice you're unhappy. This could result in shit happening like marrying the wrong person.
Anyway these 3 points hardly do justice to this wonderful concept, which is reflecting a subtle but important change in direction in the intellectual climate. EQ came out in 1995, but I think during the cold war you'd be hard pressed to allow much discussion about emotional issues, and even if you were, you'd be hard pressed to treat it with any form of respect. It would be "New Agey", "soft". Intellect has to be martial, masculine, measurable. But I think the resistance is falling away. Like the instructor said, it used to be something that gives you an edge in life, now it's become a necessity that it's very hard to do without.
We first heard about EQ in 1995. I was in JC at that time and I took it very seriously. I talked to a few of my friends who, like me attended top JCs. 1 or 2 were surprised that coming from those top JCs didn't give them the advantages in life they thought it was going to confer upon them. I had an inkling by then that things were not so straightforward, and by the time the EQ book came out, it dawned upon me: if your EQ's no good, the real world is going to chew you up and spit you out.
There are many people who will dismiss his notions as being soft or subjective or totally without basis. Anybody who works in social science related stuff will get his theories attacked left right and centre, so no big deal there. Not everything is physics or chemistry where you can run a few experiments and settle the issue for good.
Can't really remember much about the book since I read it 5 years ago, but a few things struck me that I didn't know about that I will share below. Reading the book was good for my EQ, I think it went up by 5 points after that. Like when I did Psychology 101 in college it gave me 10 points in EQ. Being aware of the general principles is not going to make you stop being an ogre overnight but it is helpful nonetheless.
1. High EQ people will strive to be happy
Now this is very important. Happiness is good EQ. You can choose to be happy. Now some of you guys out there are going to slap your foreheads because this is so bloody obvious to you all along, sorry, us low EQ guys are slow with these concepts. (So yes - I am saying the converse is true as well: low EQ people do not really understand how important it is to be happy, do not realy understand that it is something they have to strive for all the time, and even if they know this, do not make it a habit to strive for happiness)
Low EQ people allow things to get them down, and if you do that, they will piss people off, and people will piss them off back. Hence begins a destructive downward spiral that gets everyone down.
The other thing to elaborate about this is that the implication that happiness is a choice. Yes. But people often forget, people do not realise that they are upset about something until it overtakes them and they break down. They forget that they can choose to prevent this, although to be fair to a lot of people who get a lot of shit, it can take a great deal of effort to achieve happiness. So to say that happiness is a choice should not be interpreted as an insult to those people who are living shitty lives, I don't agree with the political right who says that because happiness is a choice, therefore the poor and needy are to be blamed for their plight.
And yes, I find myself sometimes getting a little too lazy to try to be happy. Or sometimes when I become happy, I denigrate it by saying "it's no big deal". Or I set the bar for happiness so high that I rarely, if ever, achieve it. In fact I would say that the perfect metaphor is the characters in Harry Potter casting patronuses to ward off dementors.
2. Relationships can be poisoned
Yes, when relationships become bad, the brain has acquired the habit of thinking the worst about that person and every slightest comment can provoke the reaction that he's insulting you. Could it be that enmity is something as mundane as lousy EQ? It could be possible. The trick of getting around your antipathy towards certain people would be to try to get out of these mental traps, but of course you only hold 1 side of the cards.
3. Good EQ means that you know how you are feeling at any one point in time.
Is it possible to be happy or sad without knowing it? It seems ridiculous but it happens all the time. Nothing wrong with being happy without knowing, but if you're sad and you don't acknowledge it, it can take you over. It can get bottled up and then explode without warning. You could snap under the strain and have a breakdown. You could be doing something you don't like but because you're trying your best to believe you like it, you don't notice you're unhappy. This could result in shit happening like marrying the wrong person.
Anyway these 3 points hardly do justice to this wonderful concept, which is reflecting a subtle but important change in direction in the intellectual climate. EQ came out in 1995, but I think during the cold war you'd be hard pressed to allow much discussion about emotional issues, and even if you were, you'd be hard pressed to treat it with any form of respect. It would be "New Agey", "soft". Intellect has to be martial, masculine, measurable. But I think the resistance is falling away. Like the instructor said, it used to be something that gives you an edge in life, now it's become a necessity that it's very hard to do without.
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Blind man
This was one of the happiest days in my life.
I was in Sec 4. A happy time. I deserved it, partly: first half of sec school was a miserable time, second half was a happy time. Almost as though the time in sec school was a England match under Sven Goran Eriksson. A week or 2 earlier I had hiked halfway across the island from my school to Lim Chu Kang. (Actually we cheated: we hiked to Chua Chu Kang, got lost in Chua Chu Kang because we were using a map that was published before Chua Chu Kang new town got built, and then took a bus to Lim Chu Kang. But such was the flexibility of the moral imagination of teenagers that I still considered myself a real man to have done it.)
That day I attended a half day seminar, and was given time off from school to do it. And it ended early. We were such good boys then, and I even thought that I should go back to school for the last 1 hour, when I decided that, what the hell, I'm going to enjoy life for a little while. Exams had ended and there's no harm in skipping lessons.
At the interchange I met a blind man. He asked to be helped to Toa Payoh interchange. I had time to spare, so I helped him. You couldn't believe how moral education textbook cliched that situation was. But it was alright. Along the way we talked, and one of the things that stuck with me was him saying that women can't be trusted, because he kept on ranting about it over and over. So I helped him up to the feeder bus. (It passes near the school for the blind even though it's a 300 m walk) So it felt alright.
I bought a tape that day. It was Terence Trent D'arby's "Symphony or Damn". I used to spend pocket money (which wasn't that much) on cassettes. Getting them was like buying 4D or betting on football: sometimes they will pay off, and sometimes they won't. Well this one was a great album. Not a masterpiece, just a great album, but you feel happy when things work out.
It was a great period. A lot of music I bought around that period turned out to be successful: "Pet Sounds". "Born to Run". "Ingenue". My struggles at school were over, grades were looking up. Finally getting the discipline to study. In a few weeks I would write a school play and forever cross it off the "things I want to do with my life" list.
But I think it was helping that blind man that made me happy. I think you don't want to help these guys sometimes, it's fear and laziness, not really cruelty. I wasn't cruel back then. It's fear that I might be a goody two shoes. (I'm still afraid of that. I'm really ambivalent about being a goody two shoes.) All those nerdy hao3 gong1 ming2 textbooks. As though it were a Chinese traditional value to be a good citizen - no, people always cared about their family and their clan first. Being a good citizen only came when the commies introduced Lei Feng. Then laziness - too easy to sit back and do nothing.
I wouldn't normally do this sort of thing. I don't always win when I wrestle with my demons. I was carrying a school bag, but my time was free. 1 hour with nothing to do, that should have been spent at school, I gave it to the blind man, and had half an hour left. Maybe I didn't really feel so good about helping him as I felt like I was victorious over my demons. But hey a moral victory is a moral victory.
I shouldn't have told my parents about this. My father wouldn't mind, but my mother told me that I shouldn't listen to what the blind man says about women, "because he's just trying to drag you down to his level". Maybe, but it was around that period of time when I started to realise that my mother talks a lot of nonsense.
I don't know if it's just that blind men who have a deep- seated insecurity of women. Now Stevie Wonder is not only a great musician, but I have reason to believe he's a great guy as well. He's not only blind, but he's a great musician. By "great musician", I mean he's a great singer (3.5 octave range, and sings with great feeling). He's a great harmonica player, piano player, drummer, bassist. You can see the credits in his albums, he usually lists all the players other than himself, and that list is usually very short. He is one of the best songwriters I know, at least in his prime (sadly he was past his peak by 30.) His skill as an arranger is unmatched - I can usually listen to a song and hear all the parts but for his stuff it's all a blur and you can learn a great deal by working out how all the parts fit together.
Now Prince usually gets acknowledged as a genius because he's more flashy, puts on the mantle of a tortured artist, and writes about weird stuff which is inscrutable. He's also a great guy but I think Stevie Wonder has a slight edge because I like his character. He's music reflects a generous spirit. He's not self indulgent and narcissistic like Prince. He writes positive, happy, upbeat music, and you know what? He suffers for it because people's idea of Great Art is that it should be angsty, tortured, screwed up, which is quite unfair. Life's like that - it's terribly unhip to be emotionally unbalanced, at least, in angmoh culture, which is why I am quite ambivalent about being fairly westernised. He's not a gangsta, but that didn't stop Coolio from changing his "Pastime Paradise" to "Gangsta's Paradise". He writes more eloquently about social issues than Prince, even though he doesn't have the gift of sight. How does he do it?
The dark side of Stevie Wonder is, like the other blind man I helped, he doesn't trust women. Ray Charles, that other famous blind pianist, also doesn't trust women either. I wonder if that's something common to all blind men. Like they see a succession of women leave them because they aren't willing to take care of a blind man for long. Like relationships are fraught with peril because you got to see your partner and know how she's taking to the stuff that you're saying.
As evidence I will put up a partial list of Stevie Wonder songs about mistrust of women.
"Summer Soft"
"Ordinary Pain"
"Another Star"
"All in Love is Fair"
"Blame it on the Sun"
"It Ain't No Use"
"you've Got it Bad, Girl"
"Lookin' For Another Pure Love"
"Maybe Your Baby"
"Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)"
"Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer"
"Never Had a Dream Come True"
"'Til You Come Back To Me"
I was in Sec 4. A happy time. I deserved it, partly: first half of sec school was a miserable time, second half was a happy time. Almost as though the time in sec school was a England match under Sven Goran Eriksson. A week or 2 earlier I had hiked halfway across the island from my school to Lim Chu Kang. (Actually we cheated: we hiked to Chua Chu Kang, got lost in Chua Chu Kang because we were using a map that was published before Chua Chu Kang new town got built, and then took a bus to Lim Chu Kang. But such was the flexibility of the moral imagination of teenagers that I still considered myself a real man to have done it.)
That day I attended a half day seminar, and was given time off from school to do it. And it ended early. We were such good boys then, and I even thought that I should go back to school for the last 1 hour, when I decided that, what the hell, I'm going to enjoy life for a little while. Exams had ended and there's no harm in skipping lessons.
At the interchange I met a blind man. He asked to be helped to Toa Payoh interchange. I had time to spare, so I helped him. You couldn't believe how moral education textbook cliched that situation was. But it was alright. Along the way we talked, and one of the things that stuck with me was him saying that women can't be trusted, because he kept on ranting about it over and over. So I helped him up to the feeder bus. (It passes near the school for the blind even though it's a 300 m walk) So it felt alright.
I bought a tape that day. It was Terence Trent D'arby's "Symphony or Damn". I used to spend pocket money (which wasn't that much) on cassettes. Getting them was like buying 4D or betting on football: sometimes they will pay off, and sometimes they won't. Well this one was a great album. Not a masterpiece, just a great album, but you feel happy when things work out.
It was a great period. A lot of music I bought around that period turned out to be successful: "Pet Sounds". "Born to Run". "Ingenue". My struggles at school were over, grades were looking up. Finally getting the discipline to study. In a few weeks I would write a school play and forever cross it off the "things I want to do with my life" list.
But I think it was helping that blind man that made me happy. I think you don't want to help these guys sometimes, it's fear and laziness, not really cruelty. I wasn't cruel back then. It's fear that I might be a goody two shoes. (I'm still afraid of that. I'm really ambivalent about being a goody two shoes.) All those nerdy hao3 gong1 ming2 textbooks. As though it were a Chinese traditional value to be a good citizen - no, people always cared about their family and their clan first. Being a good citizen only came when the commies introduced Lei Feng. Then laziness - too easy to sit back and do nothing.
I wouldn't normally do this sort of thing. I don't always win when I wrestle with my demons. I was carrying a school bag, but my time was free. 1 hour with nothing to do, that should have been spent at school, I gave it to the blind man, and had half an hour left. Maybe I didn't really feel so good about helping him as I felt like I was victorious over my demons. But hey a moral victory is a moral victory.
I shouldn't have told my parents about this. My father wouldn't mind, but my mother told me that I shouldn't listen to what the blind man says about women, "because he's just trying to drag you down to his level". Maybe, but it was around that period of time when I started to realise that my mother talks a lot of nonsense.
I don't know if it's just that blind men who have a deep- seated insecurity of women. Now Stevie Wonder is not only a great musician, but I have reason to believe he's a great guy as well. He's not only blind, but he's a great musician. By "great musician", I mean he's a great singer (3.5 octave range, and sings with great feeling). He's a great harmonica player, piano player, drummer, bassist. You can see the credits in his albums, he usually lists all the players other than himself, and that list is usually very short. He is one of the best songwriters I know, at least in his prime (sadly he was past his peak by 30.) His skill as an arranger is unmatched - I can usually listen to a song and hear all the parts but for his stuff it's all a blur and you can learn a great deal by working out how all the parts fit together.
Now Prince usually gets acknowledged as a genius because he's more flashy, puts on the mantle of a tortured artist, and writes about weird stuff which is inscrutable. He's also a great guy but I think Stevie Wonder has a slight edge because I like his character. He's music reflects a generous spirit. He's not self indulgent and narcissistic like Prince. He writes positive, happy, upbeat music, and you know what? He suffers for it because people's idea of Great Art is that it should be angsty, tortured, screwed up, which is quite unfair. Life's like that - it's terribly unhip to be emotionally unbalanced, at least, in angmoh culture, which is why I am quite ambivalent about being fairly westernised. He's not a gangsta, but that didn't stop Coolio from changing his "Pastime Paradise" to "Gangsta's Paradise". He writes more eloquently about social issues than Prince, even though he doesn't have the gift of sight. How does he do it?
The dark side of Stevie Wonder is, like the other blind man I helped, he doesn't trust women. Ray Charles, that other famous blind pianist, also doesn't trust women either. I wonder if that's something common to all blind men. Like they see a succession of women leave them because they aren't willing to take care of a blind man for long. Like relationships are fraught with peril because you got to see your partner and know how she's taking to the stuff that you're saying.
As evidence I will put up a partial list of Stevie Wonder songs about mistrust of women.
"Summer Soft"
"Ordinary Pain"
"Another Star"
"All in Love is Fair"
"Blame it on the Sun"
"It Ain't No Use"
"you've Got it Bad, Girl"
"Lookin' For Another Pure Love"
"Maybe Your Baby"
"Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)"
"Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer"
"Never Had a Dream Come True"
"'Til You Come Back To Me"
Monday, 1 October 2007
Catalog
Was in the library on Sunday, and to my extreme annoyance I found that the catalogs were not working. Like all of them had this sign on them which said, "Due to urgent system maintenance this facility is not available" or something.
Was very annoyed. I always go to the library more or less knowing what I want. Used to be I would pick up any book that's interesting: not anymore. Eventually you can only read the ones that interest you. Found myself spending 15 minutes scanning the shelves when I could have been out in 5.
Then inexplicitly there was this one couple using a catalog terminal that was, against all logic, functioning. So I thought I would stand behind them and wait. 5 metres behind, since I didn't want to be breathing down their necks.
All this time, I was asking myself these questions:
1. Why are you taking so f-king long?
2. Why are you staring at the screen and copying down every f-king word that appears on it?
3. Do you not know that if you want to see related books all you have to do is to go to that section of the library where all the books you want are close by and you can browse the blurbs one by one?
4. Do you not f-king know that somebody is waiting in line for you? (a bit perverse since I had chosen not to be too conspicuous)
5. Do you not f-king know that you are using the last catalog which is working?
And I was stewing in my juices for 5 minutes when, abruptly, the 6th question came to mind.
6. Do you not know how ridiculous it is for only 1 terminal to be working and none of the rest are?
At this point, I went up to the terminal next to them and tried to make it work. I clicked on "restart", and nothing happened. Then I clicked on "reload" and miraculously the opening menu for the catalog appeared. Damn! What if the catalog was working all along and I didn't know?
Well you know this is Singapore, and that this must be Singapore, that people just think that things aren't working, and take it for granted.
So I quickly found all the books I wanted and was out in a jiffy.
Reminds me of another time when I went to the library 5 minutes before closing time, thinking I was just in time to grab a book and run.
Turns out that the librarians were for some funny reason really adamant that the library was going to close on time, so much so that they turned off all the catalog terminals. I felt like howling at them: are you nuts? I could find my book now, check it out, and the whole process would take only 2 minutes. I would be out of here with 3 minutes to spare. And now you're making me manually scan the bloody shelves for my book?
Eventually I had to make do with a book that I sorda but not really wanted to read. Was damn pissed off. But of course I knew what was to be done. You do the one thing that all Singapore civil servants fear and dread the most: write a letter. So I lay into them and told them it was a completely moronic idea to turn off the catalog at the 1 time when you need it the most. Turn off the internet booths, fine. Turn off the lights at 9 sharp, no problem. But switch off the catalog 1 second before closing time and I will f-king kill you.
Was very annoyed. I always go to the library more or less knowing what I want. Used to be I would pick up any book that's interesting: not anymore. Eventually you can only read the ones that interest you. Found myself spending 15 minutes scanning the shelves when I could have been out in 5.
Then inexplicitly there was this one couple using a catalog terminal that was, against all logic, functioning. So I thought I would stand behind them and wait. 5 metres behind, since I didn't want to be breathing down their necks.
All this time, I was asking myself these questions:
1. Why are you taking so f-king long?
2. Why are you staring at the screen and copying down every f-king word that appears on it?
3. Do you not know that if you want to see related books all you have to do is to go to that section of the library where all the books you want are close by and you can browse the blurbs one by one?
4. Do you not f-king know that somebody is waiting in line for you? (a bit perverse since I had chosen not to be too conspicuous)
5. Do you not f-king know that you are using the last catalog which is working?
And I was stewing in my juices for 5 minutes when, abruptly, the 6th question came to mind.
6. Do you not know how ridiculous it is for only 1 terminal to be working and none of the rest are?
At this point, I went up to the terminal next to them and tried to make it work. I clicked on "restart", and nothing happened. Then I clicked on "reload" and miraculously the opening menu for the catalog appeared. Damn! What if the catalog was working all along and I didn't know?
Well you know this is Singapore, and that this must be Singapore, that people just think that things aren't working, and take it for granted.
So I quickly found all the books I wanted and was out in a jiffy.
Reminds me of another time when I went to the library 5 minutes before closing time, thinking I was just in time to grab a book and run.
Turns out that the librarians were for some funny reason really adamant that the library was going to close on time, so much so that they turned off all the catalog terminals. I felt like howling at them: are you nuts? I could find my book now, check it out, and the whole process would take only 2 minutes. I would be out of here with 3 minutes to spare. And now you're making me manually scan the bloody shelves for my book?
Eventually I had to make do with a book that I sorda but not really wanted to read. Was damn pissed off. But of course I knew what was to be done. You do the one thing that all Singapore civil servants fear and dread the most: write a letter. So I lay into them and told them it was a completely moronic idea to turn off the catalog at the 1 time when you need it the most. Turn off the internet booths, fine. Turn off the lights at 9 sharp, no problem. But switch off the catalog 1 second before closing time and I will f-king kill you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)