If my house was on fire and I only had time to rescue 1 thing from it, what would it be?
At some point I really wanted to be a playwright. On some level, at least. At least I knew I had it in me, and it was something to be brought out, and after I brought it out I'd see if I wanted to continue. (Unfortunately not.) It's so different these days, I don't watch TV, I don't watch movies, I don't even read fiction.
I got my chance to stage a play when they had a call for plays. Not really a competition but 3 entries would be chosen, and it wasn't that stringent considering that only 8 entries showed up. But that was a chance I had to grab. The judge, who is a fairly prominent playwright in Singapore and who I will not name for good reasons, not only selected my entry but he wrote me a letter. I suppose he was as old as I am now, so maybe he was still at the end of his idealistic phase, or he feels this responsibility to encourage people who can write to write.
Somebody reminded me recently about a teacher who called me a "maths guy", and it was not a compliment because she was complaining about how nobody liked her subject, literature*1. I felt vindicated - you can write great essays for your lit paper but I wouldn't say you understand what it's all about unless you come up with an original work of your own. But it wasn't only about that. I will still remember the joy of creating something of my own, and when it is done, thinking to myself, "limpeh has earned the right to carve 'playwright' on my tombstone".
So to answer my first question, it's the letter that this judge / playwright wrote me that I will save from the fire. Now at the top of the letter he wrote "this is only for you and no one else". And indeed this is the first time I showing it around - it's been 15 years and I'm sure he won't mind and anyway I'm not naming him. The less relevant parts are cut out. The ego trips are cut out. And anyway he's got good advice so who am I to keep it all to myself?
"What do you expect for yourself, as a person and as a playwright? Why do you write? Is it like Peter*2 , for quick publicity? Or is it long term, a need to write and rewrite, a need to improve and be hurt along the way? *3
"The staging of this play is not the end of the play; neither is it the end of your "life" as a playwright. Yes, a production is important but it is a test in the school of life - these productions are tests, but there are no exams, no promotions - the promotion or development depends on you - how much do you want to learn? How much do you want to risk? How much do you want to struggle and fight? I seem to be asking more questions than giving answers, but some fundamental things you really ought to sort out.
(Here he writes some general comments about my play. I start to remember why I like this letter so much because I still get that great great ego trip every time I read it. Unfortunately I'm cutting out the ego trip.)
"Go with your instincts. Yes, the play worked on 1st reading. Yes, also there are many ways of rewriting - everybody's got to put their 2 cents' worth and really who knows which way(s) will work best? ...
"Yes entertainment is important - I totally agree with you. Your style at the moment seems to be a technique (which I like to use too) ie let's all laugh together, let's all have fun - then suddenly I (playwright) make you (audience) feel sick. Great, it works, so go with that.
"It is scary when you say you don't know much about kampong life - I think you really have to know - this play works best if it's believable. It has to be believable - the chracters have to be real and like - their dilemmas must be shown clearly, conflicts heightened. ...
(some discussion of characters which will not make sense to those who do not have the scripts in front of them)
"Death is very sad. Death of a child / teenager is painful - it's a sin. Don't waste too much time after the death - it has already left a very bitter taste in the audience. Finish the play and let the audience leave... that's what I believe.
"The advantage of having a playwright physically present at rehearsals and working with actors is that you can change to suit the actors' language abilities. If they can't handle Singlish - forget it. Thel ast thing you would want is pukey Miss La La exaggerated sickening Singlish just for laughs. You have more integrity than that. Anyway situational humour works better than all the "I donch know"s in the world. *4 ...
"The structure is pretty straightforward. I don't think you should be ashamed or apologetic for that - nor should you put down other types of plays. All plays are good if they are written with honesty and integrity. ...
"When rewriting for the final time - look at all the scenes very very carefully - is there any scene you think does not develop the play? Are there scenes which are too mono- functional? Perhaps some scenes can be combined to say the same things in less time?
"Working with actors / directors etc is not easy as I'm sure you know by now. This is especially so if everyone is more or less "new". There really is no solution or formula to this. As a playwright, you must be as open to suggestions as possible and very often this is painful because you dan't separate the honest "let's improve this production together" suggestion from the "I want a bigger role" or "I'm insecure playing this role" suggestions.
"Stand your ground if you really feel strongly about something. The way I see it - if you can explain why you wrote something and what you expect to achieve, the other party should give in. But if you can't explain and the other party offers sound suggestions and explanations, then maybe you should change.
"I strongly don't believe in actors amending my script - which is why I make it a point to attend rehearsals. If they or anyone has a problem, tell you and you change. One person must have a vision, a thread of what this play is about, and that person is you. The director will interpret that vision / spine in his way.
"Spend time talking to the director without the actors. Actors, in my experience, don't know what they want. They are also strange / paradoxical creatures. They can give the most magical or detrimental suggestions and fight tooth and nail over it.
"By talking to the director alone, both of you build trust and relationship that will unite the production rather than divide it.
"Actors, like kids, must see that the "parents" both agree. If not you'll have the kids going to Daddy Director when Mummy Playwright does not want to give in and vice versa.
"Finally, I don't know you and I hope that you are not offended by some of the things that I say. I am being very frank and I'm not talking down or being condescending (at least I don't think so). I'm not treating you like a 15 or 16 year old. I'm talking to you playwright to playwright.
"I offer my help readily because I feel strongly that people who are seriously interested in theatre should be given good opportunities to learn. I never had a glimmer of support when I was in school - no one bother, no one cared. I don't want to see that happening to other students.
"Also, I have very strong views about theatre and playwriting which I want to share. Not every playwright wants to share and worse still, some playwrights share wrongly.
"I like your self interview, I like your notes. You are honest and I respect that. You are willing to make mistakes and learning. You have strong and important concerns. Please continue writing and writing. Call me if you need more clarification or consultation.
"All the best."
*1 in return I left her out of the loop. She didn't know I had written a play until my entry was selected. I'm a bitch like that.
*2 Peter was a character in my play who was a publicity whore
*3 My motives? I knew I had it in me, so I had to do it. I had a great idea, and it encompassed a lot of what I was thinking about at that time. There could have been vanity involved, but so what?
*4 Yes, I wrote dialog in Singlish but that was how it sounded in my head. It wasn't meant to be gimmicky but it doesn't look so good on the printed page.
After I read this letter again, I remembered that this playwright had been brought in as a consultant for our production. And I was having conflicts with the production cast and crew. They didn't like my play, and kept on wanting to change it, and emphasise the more American aspects of it. In fact I must have asked him for advice on how to mediate. I was 1 year older than the cast and crew and from a different school, so the odds may have been stacked against me, but I fought.
Yes I was more driven in those days. I really wanted the play to go through, and in the way I wanted it to work. I was thinking it could be my first and last stint in drama and I wanted to do this the right way. But it wasn't as though my vision was perfect. There were a lot of things I didn't know how to do: how to research, the difference between stuff on a page and words spoken out. And I had very little or no experience with theatre.
(And also when I went to the U I was quite driven to learn as much, read as widely as I could. I don't know why I can't seem to summon up the same enthusiasm for my day job.)
I'm still marvelling that he took the time to write that letter to me. It was a little sad that I had to stop writing. I know what it's like to write your first play, where, if it works, and if it's good you will start thinking that you could make a career out of it. That play was probably the best I had written, and it must have seemed that at 16 I had it in me to go on to better things. He must have been thinking back to that time he was starting out, what would he have wished he had known then? Because I saw a lot of ruminating about "writing as a career". When he wrote that the letter is only for me, I think he didn't want me to use it as a weapon against the cast and crew I disagreed with. The general comments about being a playwright for the first time should be applicable to anybody about to start out.
Ultimately there was a lack of desire to keep on fighting the battles you have to go through for to set up drama productions. As for being an artist, it does seem a little more frivolous than making a lot of money, or learning a lot of history, or serving industry, or serving the government, or being a relief worker in a god forsaken place. I believe that every artist has his natural idiom, the medium which he feels most comfortable with. While I could write a decent play, my natural medium happens to be music. It is for these reasons I quit writing plays.
That letter is now officially designated as a family heirloom, together with all those medals my sister won in academic competitions.
The play had very rich sources. The idea of bourgeoisie life versus noble savage. Being principled versus expediency. How something good and noble like preserving your own habitat becomes warped and perverted into something darker. Citizen action versus big business interests. The power of the media to shape opinion.
I had various forms of inspiration: God wanting to cast you out of Eden but your putting up a protest. Having to grow up but clinging on to your childhood. The guy in front of the tank in Tiananmen was an inspiration. Fantastic Mr Fox, the Roald Dahl book was an inspiration. Even Chee Soon Juan, who was staging a Gandhi style hunger strike at that point was an inspiration - if it only served to show that if you were to appropriate a greater moral legacy for your own lesser, selfish cause, there is something vaguely ignoble about it.
And the story that I told was a little more universal than I realised at the point. The farmers who were asked to move into HDB flats were not that willing. The Palestinians who were uprooted from the homes in 1948. I would look at the media storm which accompanied the Elian Gonzalez affair and think, "this is somewhat similar to what I wrote". I think, irregardless of the quality of execution, I picked a good plot.
I thought at that time, "when I reach adulthood I will be in a so much better position to rewrite it, and write this better". But maybe I might not do that.
Thursday, 31 January 2008
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Kevin Keegan and a Brief History of the Premiership
There was a time when the premiership was a more egalitarian place. That was back at the beginning when you had title contenders like Leeds and Aston Villa. You didn’t have certain clubs which were obscenely rich, and nobody else able to mount a challenge. I think in the 80s, and even up till the middle of the 90s it was still fairly open, you could have clubs challenging for the premiership.
Coincidently the first Premiership was won by Manchester United, and it was also their first top league title in 26 years. Since then, the centre of gravity for English football has shifted from Liverpool to Man U. In retrospect it was a seismic shift. It used to be Liverpool vs the rest. Now it’s Man U vs the rest.
I would say there were only a handful of real challengers to Man U’s dominance. First was Blackburn Rovers who managed, by a hair’s breath to wrest 1 Premier League title from Man U. Yes they spent what was at that time an obscene amount of money to get that title but it’s not that obscene now. Later on there was Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle who managed to destroy a 12 point lead at Christmas.
Later on these clubs didn’t have the fan support or the Champion’s League money so they faded away.
Later on there were more credible challengers – Arsenal, who were blessed with a manager who was capable of producing miracles on a regular basis, and was able to find world class players without paying top dollar for them. Chelsea, who found a sugar daddy willing to bankroll their way to success every year.
The decision to award 4 places to English clubs was a momentuous one. In a way it created an ogilopoly of 4 big clubs who qualified for the Champion’s League every year. There was Leeds United who wanted to join the club and completely failed to do that. There was Tottenham and Everton who threatened to join the club. But neither of these sides has shown they can play the EPL and the UCL in the same season.
Now Liverpool’s hold on the big 4 is getting tenuous, with Aston Villa, Man City Portsmouth and Everton all threatening to usurp 4th place, although West Ham, Newcastle and Tottenham have shown that having foreign owners is no guarantee that you’ll be challenging for Europe any time soon.
The other thing is that the game has become more difficult to manage. Howard Wilkinson won the old Football division 1, but after he came back to manage Sunderland he guided it to the worst ever finish by any Premier League side. George Graham may have won titles with the “boring boring Arsenal” but in later spells with Leeds or Tottenham he was less successful. Graham Taylor may have gotten the England job on the back of his 2nd place finish with Aston Villa but he wasn’t much use when he returned to the club. Kenny Daglish may have won titles with Liverpool and Blackburn but he wasn’t much use at Newcastle. Howard Kendall may have been one of Everton’s most successful manager in recent times but he wasn’t much good in his subsequent spells.
Which is why I’m worried for Kevin Keegan. Yes, he may have gotten his Newcastle to second in that incredible season, but his later record was not all that impressive: totally out of his depth as England manager, and getting sacked from Man City. I think there is this idea they want to exorcise his ghost by giving him a second spell. In this way, if he succeeds, well and good. But if he fails, then at least no subsequent Newcastle manager will have to deal with the fact that he’s not Kevin Keegan. And after they get it into the fan’s minds that Keegan’s not really the right choice, then I expect they’ll do the same to Shearer. Remember when Bryan Robson was the great manager everybody wanted to play for? Or what they were saying about Roy Keane 6 months ago when he won the Championship?
Coincidently the first Premiership was won by Manchester United, and it was also their first top league title in 26 years. Since then, the centre of gravity for English football has shifted from Liverpool to Man U. In retrospect it was a seismic shift. It used to be Liverpool vs the rest. Now it’s Man U vs the rest.
I would say there were only a handful of real challengers to Man U’s dominance. First was Blackburn Rovers who managed, by a hair’s breath to wrest 1 Premier League title from Man U. Yes they spent what was at that time an obscene amount of money to get that title but it’s not that obscene now. Later on there was Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle who managed to destroy a 12 point lead at Christmas.
Later on these clubs didn’t have the fan support or the Champion’s League money so they faded away.
Later on there were more credible challengers – Arsenal, who were blessed with a manager who was capable of producing miracles on a regular basis, and was able to find world class players without paying top dollar for them. Chelsea, who found a sugar daddy willing to bankroll their way to success every year.
The decision to award 4 places to English clubs was a momentuous one. In a way it created an ogilopoly of 4 big clubs who qualified for the Champion’s League every year. There was Leeds United who wanted to join the club and completely failed to do that. There was Tottenham and Everton who threatened to join the club. But neither of these sides has shown they can play the EPL and the UCL in the same season.
Now Liverpool’s hold on the big 4 is getting tenuous, with Aston Villa, Man City Portsmouth and Everton all threatening to usurp 4th place, although West Ham, Newcastle and Tottenham have shown that having foreign owners is no guarantee that you’ll be challenging for Europe any time soon.
The other thing is that the game has become more difficult to manage. Howard Wilkinson won the old Football division 1, but after he came back to manage Sunderland he guided it to the worst ever finish by any Premier League side. George Graham may have won titles with the “boring boring Arsenal” but in later spells with Leeds or Tottenham he was less successful. Graham Taylor may have gotten the England job on the back of his 2nd place finish with Aston Villa but he wasn’t much use when he returned to the club. Kenny Daglish may have won titles with Liverpool and Blackburn but he wasn’t much use at Newcastle. Howard Kendall may have been one of Everton’s most successful manager in recent times but he wasn’t much good in his subsequent spells.
Which is why I’m worried for Kevin Keegan. Yes, he may have gotten his Newcastle to second in that incredible season, but his later record was not all that impressive: totally out of his depth as England manager, and getting sacked from Man City. I think there is this idea they want to exorcise his ghost by giving him a second spell. In this way, if he succeeds, well and good. But if he fails, then at least no subsequent Newcastle manager will have to deal with the fact that he’s not Kevin Keegan. And after they get it into the fan’s minds that Keegan’s not really the right choice, then I expect they’ll do the same to Shearer. Remember when Bryan Robson was the great manager everybody wanted to play for? Or what they were saying about Roy Keane 6 months ago when he won the Championship?
Friday, 25 January 2008
ICA
Went to the ICA building again. It was to renew my passport and change my IC.
Anyway, here's a list of countries that that passport has been to:
US of A
Canada
UK
France
Holland
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Slovak Republic
Germany
Spain
Portugal
Italy / Vatican
Malaysia
Thailand
Indonesia (actually the Riau Islands, so in a way it's like the part of Singapore which belongs to Indonesia but don't tell anybody I said that.)
Not that impressive - ppl I know have been to Vietnam, China (tibet), Nepal, Taiwan, Argentina, South Africa, Mozambique, Eritrea, Yemen, Syria, Romania, Laos, Hungary, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Argentina, Peru, Egypt, Austria.
I last applied for a passport 10 years ago. I was still serving NS at that time so they put the expiry date of my passport as 6 months (it would be changed to 10 years, but every time I had to use the passport I had to point the addendum to the customs officer.)
I still remember the last time I paid a visit to this building. I had just finished NS, and that was a big eye opener - it showed me a side of Singapore that I didn't really care for, or want to see. So when I went there I was getting a ticket out of the country for a few years. I thought it was interesting. Just how interesting I couldn't imagine. It was like the last scene in "400 Blows", where you have the kid, after all his trials and tribulations, running down to the beach and seeing the sea for the first time - that was me 10 years ago.
Next 4 years probably the most interesting times (although everything's relative. Absolutely speaking it was not that interesting.) Then after that, the next 6 years were also sorda interesting in the sense that I did learn new stuff I never knew before. (I could have learnt more though...)
Used my passport more often during the first 4 years than the next 6. Wonder if it's underused.
The ICA building was brand new when I last went there, so it's 10 years old now. I remember that the passport place used to be at the South Bridge Road centre which has since been demolished, and rebuilt as some funky glass building. I wondered a little why they needed a whole new building for ICA but I think Singapore has let in a lot more immigrants since 10 years ago so maybe that was a turning point. Now they have a lot of security personnel there, I wonder if it's because they're scared somebody can steal some documents which magically make you into a citizen even it you're not?
So ICA is not just ICA. It's the building that's magically changed Singapore into something else.
Anyway I thought about NS because for us guys it's what we had to do in order to earn our citizenship. So you're always wondering if it was worth it.
They had a couple of cars over there, and I didn't think they were having car sales in that region. Turns out that they probably confiscated the cars from Malaysians who were trying to use them to smuggle illegal immigrants in. So they used them as props to illustrate how people hid people in secret compartments, or how they smuggled contraband cigarettes in under the engine hood.
I'm just wondering if this nice little security exhibition would not probably give people some ideas. But well who cares.
This would be the last time I would need a mandatory change in IC. Definitely not a kid anymore. My last photo looked more sweet and innocent than this one. While it was "tra la la I'm such a harmless kid" in the old photo this photo is "gor gor is watching you." Last time the IC used to have 1 hologram showing your ic number. Now it has another hologram showing a smaller version of your portrait. It was a bit like having a "mini me".
Popped over to Arab Street after that and ended up having a drink there. It's interesting what book I read in all these funny places. When I was at Brussels Sprouts, I was reading about King Leopold II and his tyranny of the Congo. Now I'm in Arab Street, I'm reading about the French Algerian war, and the other book in the bag is about the Yom Kippur war. I went to a ribs restaurant reading a book about Hurricane Katrina, and I went to a small French bistro reading about Proust.
It's a cool and interesting place, that little square in front of the Sultan mosque. And there was this chill out place where a few shirtless angmoh tourists were lounging around, and a scantily clad fat woman with big tits. I did try not to look.
Anyway, here's a list of countries that that passport has been to:
US of A
Canada
UK
France
Holland
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Slovak Republic
Germany
Spain
Portugal
Italy / Vatican
Malaysia
Thailand
Indonesia (actually the Riau Islands, so in a way it's like the part of Singapore which belongs to Indonesia but don't tell anybody I said that.)
Not that impressive - ppl I know have been to Vietnam, China (tibet), Nepal, Taiwan, Argentina, South Africa, Mozambique, Eritrea, Yemen, Syria, Romania, Laos, Hungary, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Argentina, Peru, Egypt, Austria.
I last applied for a passport 10 years ago. I was still serving NS at that time so they put the expiry date of my passport as 6 months (it would be changed to 10 years, but every time I had to use the passport I had to point the addendum to the customs officer.)
I still remember the last time I paid a visit to this building. I had just finished NS, and that was a big eye opener - it showed me a side of Singapore that I didn't really care for, or want to see. So when I went there I was getting a ticket out of the country for a few years. I thought it was interesting. Just how interesting I couldn't imagine. It was like the last scene in "400 Blows", where you have the kid, after all his trials and tribulations, running down to the beach and seeing the sea for the first time - that was me 10 years ago.
Next 4 years probably the most interesting times (although everything's relative. Absolutely speaking it was not that interesting.) Then after that, the next 6 years were also sorda interesting in the sense that I did learn new stuff I never knew before. (I could have learnt more though...)
Used my passport more often during the first 4 years than the next 6. Wonder if it's underused.
The ICA building was brand new when I last went there, so it's 10 years old now. I remember that the passport place used to be at the South Bridge Road centre which has since been demolished, and rebuilt as some funky glass building. I wondered a little why they needed a whole new building for ICA but I think Singapore has let in a lot more immigrants since 10 years ago so maybe that was a turning point. Now they have a lot of security personnel there, I wonder if it's because they're scared somebody can steal some documents which magically make you into a citizen even it you're not?
So ICA is not just ICA. It's the building that's magically changed Singapore into something else.
Anyway I thought about NS because for us guys it's what we had to do in order to earn our citizenship. So you're always wondering if it was worth it.
They had a couple of cars over there, and I didn't think they were having car sales in that region. Turns out that they probably confiscated the cars from Malaysians who were trying to use them to smuggle illegal immigrants in. So they used them as props to illustrate how people hid people in secret compartments, or how they smuggled contraband cigarettes in under the engine hood.
I'm just wondering if this nice little security exhibition would not probably give people some ideas. But well who cares.
This would be the last time I would need a mandatory change in IC. Definitely not a kid anymore. My last photo looked more sweet and innocent than this one. While it was "tra la la I'm such a harmless kid" in the old photo this photo is "gor gor is watching you." Last time the IC used to have 1 hologram showing your ic number. Now it has another hologram showing a smaller version of your portrait. It was a bit like having a "mini me".
Popped over to Arab Street after that and ended up having a drink there. It's interesting what book I read in all these funny places. When I was at Brussels Sprouts, I was reading about King Leopold II and his tyranny of the Congo. Now I'm in Arab Street, I'm reading about the French Algerian war, and the other book in the bag is about the Yom Kippur war. I went to a ribs restaurant reading a book about Hurricane Katrina, and I went to a small French bistro reading about Proust.
It's a cool and interesting place, that little square in front of the Sultan mosque. And there was this chill out place where a few shirtless angmoh tourists were lounging around, and a scantily clad fat woman with big tits. I did try not to look.
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Year of living dangerously
In college I took a course in Southeast Asian History. I thought they were going to teach some really interesting stuff they wouldn't talk about in NUS. Nothing on Singapore, unfortunately. Maybe we didn't really matter? Or maybe they had too many Singaporeans on government scholarships going to that school that they decided not to poke the hornet's nest? There was a little on Malaysia but not much. Anyway the whole region is so big that you probably didn't have that much to say about Singapore.
Yes, you had Southeast Asia as a region being much more prosperous than Africa or South America. But there were problems too. The Vietnam war(s). Politics of Thailand. World war II. Indonesia (I'll come to that later). Philippines and people power. The Cambodian killing fields. Yes, you have zone of peace, freedom and neutrality, but I guess I wasn't fully aware of how much trouble there was in our region, and how much our region could really be called a region, given that a lot of these things hardly affected us.
Anyway I read news reports about people having fairly reverential attitudes towards a dying Suharto on his deathbed. When I hear that I think back upon how controversial a figure like Augustus Pinochet was. He was just like Suharto and Mobutu, Cold War era dictators who received support from the CIA because they were reliably anti-communist, and other than that, they could more or less do whatever they wanted.
In 1965, which is the year of our independence (the most accurate term is succession.) there was a coup. I can't remember all the details, but you can read about it in the history books. What followed was an orgy of violence, killings and counter killings. A lot of people who were supposedly "communist" were targeted. The CIA played a minor role in all this, or at least since a lot of Communists were being wiped out. Sukarno had been fairly friendly towards the Communists (at least he was a main part of the non aligned movement) and the US weren't sad to see him go, since Indonesia was one of the "dominos" they were afraid of. (One of the main arguments for fighting in Vietnam was the fear that they would spread Communism to Southeast Asia.)
So a lot (half a million) people die gruesome deaths. Burnt, hanged, balls chopped off. And this is the thing: nobody ever has a full account of what happened, and historians are in disagreement, although some of them contend that Suharto had a lot of responsibility.
Indonesia for the next few decades was run like a police state. Repression was very brutal, especially in places that had aspirations towards secession. In some villages in Aceh, you would sometimes have the soldiers going into the main square and firing a gun into the air, and this would be the symbol for everybody to assemble there. Anybody found missing at that time would be liable for jail, execution or dunno what rubbish.
Then there was East Timor. Now all of Indonesia is basically the old Dutch colonial empire, but the Portugese had a small colony and it was basically East Timor. Portugal was the first of the European colonial powers and also the last, and only decolonised in the 1970s when the Portugese decided that their dictator was ruining the economy by fighting useless wars in Angola. So around 1974, the Portugese empire (including Macau, Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, and others) fell. Then Indonesia moved in to claim East Timor for themselves. What followed was around 25 years of bloodshed in one of the most brutal military occupations ever. (To give an idea how bad it was, some of the old people there were saying, "the Japanese were never this horrible to us".) Beatings, imprisonment, guerilla warfare, that sort of stuff. I think a fifth of the population was murdered over those 25 years.
Now a lot of the responsibility for this should go to the soldiers themselves, who thought that East Timor was going to be a piece of cake and didn't expect that occupation was going to be so difficult for that. But Suharto also was president over all that. Yes, there are things you have to be careful about when you are running an empire, because if you allow East Timor to go free, those people in Aceh and Irian Jaya are going to get some funny ideas. But East Timor was never a part of the old Indonesia, so they were very different.
At least one of the more useful things that BJ Habibie did was to allow East Timor to have a referendum in which case Independence won easily over the "Autonomy" option. And the Indonesian army didn't leave without stirring some trouble on their way out of course: the reason they were in there for so long was because it is very important for an army to be seen as having balls. But East Timor is independent now.
Then there was the corruption, where Suharto had a lot of business interests, and exchanged the granting of political favours to monopolies for business profits. Had a very wealthy family.
We wouldn't hear a lot of this, of course. Singapore's tack is that since Suharto is our good friend, an even better friend than Malaysia, we don't criticise him or learn anything about him. Never mind that Indonesia is a land where there is a small elite which is very rich, while most of them are very poor. (In this respect a lot of Southeast Asia is like Latin America.)
Well Suharto was pretty good for the Indonesia economy wasn't he? Maybe. I don't expect Indonesia to be considered a "tiger" the way they were in the early 90s. At least not anytime soon. And yes he did get brought to trial, although I don't really know what came of it. And yes at least Suharto wasn't an outright thief like Mobutu - the Indonesian Chinese would never have let him get away with it. But according to some reports, he is still the most corrupt politician in the world today, with $15 billion in stolen assets to his name (or his children's names). Fat lot of good $15 billion is going to do you when you're lying there with multiple organ failure.
There was this great big hoo hah about Augustus Pinochet. He is just like Suharto: came to power in a coup, ran a brutal military dictatorship but also put economic stability back into Chile. And still the British were very adamant about trying him for crimes against humanity. OK, he was directly responsible for "disappearing" people. Suharto? Who's going to make Suharto pay for his crimes?
When dictators die, people will sometimes shake their heads and lament that they made "mistakes". Chiang Kai Shek made a lot of "mistakes". Mao also made a lot of "mistakes" although he was good for China. (But who deserved more credit for unifying China, Chiang or Mao?) Franco also made "mistakes".
You wouldn't really need to put Suharto in jail now of course, but it's very important that people decide what his place in history is going to be. Well Lee Kuan Yew was fairly friendly towards Suharto when they met. Maybe he's worried about what people would say about himself when he goes. This is not to say that he won't be seen in a more positive light than Suharto. (But let's not forget that his job was much much easier than Suharto's.) Is he setting a precedent to be lenient with peoples' "mistakes"?
I think he wants to defend the stand that he has taken in being more cosy to Indonesia than Malaysia during his time in office. It's not nice if the person he's been coddling up to is seen as the mass murderer that he is. I'm not saying it's wrong to be friendly to Suharto - why would you want to piss off a giant country which surrounds you?
And when you are judging Indonesia's "economic progress", you got to ask yourself, is it economic progress when the rich get richer and the poor stay poor? It makes the government's job so much easier when all you have to do is to make sure that rich people grow rich fast enough so that they can disguise the fact that not everybody's getting the money. Indonesia has 200m people although if you were to only see the visitors here you'd think that everybody there is rich, and there was even this chump who wrote to the press, claiming he had seen "real" Indonesians telling him what a great guy Suharto is. I mean those people who got rich during the Suharto years would naturally say that. What about those guys in the big city slums, the starving villagers, the massacred separationists? They wouldn't be staying at his fancy hotel where a room for 1 night would cost 6 months' salary right? What a moron.
Yes, you had Southeast Asia as a region being much more prosperous than Africa or South America. But there were problems too. The Vietnam war(s). Politics of Thailand. World war II. Indonesia (I'll come to that later). Philippines and people power. The Cambodian killing fields. Yes, you have zone of peace, freedom and neutrality, but I guess I wasn't fully aware of how much trouble there was in our region, and how much our region could really be called a region, given that a lot of these things hardly affected us.
Anyway I read news reports about people having fairly reverential attitudes towards a dying Suharto on his deathbed. When I hear that I think back upon how controversial a figure like Augustus Pinochet was. He was just like Suharto and Mobutu, Cold War era dictators who received support from the CIA because they were reliably anti-communist, and other than that, they could more or less do whatever they wanted.
In 1965, which is the year of our independence (the most accurate term is succession.) there was a coup. I can't remember all the details, but you can read about it in the history books. What followed was an orgy of violence, killings and counter killings. A lot of people who were supposedly "communist" were targeted. The CIA played a minor role in all this, or at least since a lot of Communists were being wiped out. Sukarno had been fairly friendly towards the Communists (at least he was a main part of the non aligned movement) and the US weren't sad to see him go, since Indonesia was one of the "dominos" they were afraid of. (One of the main arguments for fighting in Vietnam was the fear that they would spread Communism to Southeast Asia.)
So a lot (half a million) people die gruesome deaths. Burnt, hanged, balls chopped off. And this is the thing: nobody ever has a full account of what happened, and historians are in disagreement, although some of them contend that Suharto had a lot of responsibility.
Indonesia for the next few decades was run like a police state. Repression was very brutal, especially in places that had aspirations towards secession. In some villages in Aceh, you would sometimes have the soldiers going into the main square and firing a gun into the air, and this would be the symbol for everybody to assemble there. Anybody found missing at that time would be liable for jail, execution or dunno what rubbish.
Then there was East Timor. Now all of Indonesia is basically the old Dutch colonial empire, but the Portugese had a small colony and it was basically East Timor. Portugal was the first of the European colonial powers and also the last, and only decolonised in the 1970s when the Portugese decided that their dictator was ruining the economy by fighting useless wars in Angola. So around 1974, the Portugese empire (including Macau, Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, and others) fell. Then Indonesia moved in to claim East Timor for themselves. What followed was around 25 years of bloodshed in one of the most brutal military occupations ever. (To give an idea how bad it was, some of the old people there were saying, "the Japanese were never this horrible to us".) Beatings, imprisonment, guerilla warfare, that sort of stuff. I think a fifth of the population was murdered over those 25 years.
Now a lot of the responsibility for this should go to the soldiers themselves, who thought that East Timor was going to be a piece of cake and didn't expect that occupation was going to be so difficult for that. But Suharto also was president over all that. Yes, there are things you have to be careful about when you are running an empire, because if you allow East Timor to go free, those people in Aceh and Irian Jaya are going to get some funny ideas. But East Timor was never a part of the old Indonesia, so they were very different.
At least one of the more useful things that BJ Habibie did was to allow East Timor to have a referendum in which case Independence won easily over the "Autonomy" option. And the Indonesian army didn't leave without stirring some trouble on their way out of course: the reason they were in there for so long was because it is very important for an army to be seen as having balls. But East Timor is independent now.
Then there was the corruption, where Suharto had a lot of business interests, and exchanged the granting of political favours to monopolies for business profits. Had a very wealthy family.
We wouldn't hear a lot of this, of course. Singapore's tack is that since Suharto is our good friend, an even better friend than Malaysia, we don't criticise him or learn anything about him. Never mind that Indonesia is a land where there is a small elite which is very rich, while most of them are very poor. (In this respect a lot of Southeast Asia is like Latin America.)
Well Suharto was pretty good for the Indonesia economy wasn't he? Maybe. I don't expect Indonesia to be considered a "tiger" the way they were in the early 90s. At least not anytime soon. And yes he did get brought to trial, although I don't really know what came of it. And yes at least Suharto wasn't an outright thief like Mobutu - the Indonesian Chinese would never have let him get away with it. But according to some reports, he is still the most corrupt politician in the world today, with $15 billion in stolen assets to his name (or his children's names). Fat lot of good $15 billion is going to do you when you're lying there with multiple organ failure.
There was this great big hoo hah about Augustus Pinochet. He is just like Suharto: came to power in a coup, ran a brutal military dictatorship but also put economic stability back into Chile. And still the British were very adamant about trying him for crimes against humanity. OK, he was directly responsible for "disappearing" people. Suharto? Who's going to make Suharto pay for his crimes?
When dictators die, people will sometimes shake their heads and lament that they made "mistakes". Chiang Kai Shek made a lot of "mistakes". Mao also made a lot of "mistakes" although he was good for China. (But who deserved more credit for unifying China, Chiang or Mao?) Franco also made "mistakes".
You wouldn't really need to put Suharto in jail now of course, but it's very important that people decide what his place in history is going to be. Well Lee Kuan Yew was fairly friendly towards Suharto when they met. Maybe he's worried about what people would say about himself when he goes. This is not to say that he won't be seen in a more positive light than Suharto. (But let's not forget that his job was much much easier than Suharto's.) Is he setting a precedent to be lenient with peoples' "mistakes"?
I think he wants to defend the stand that he has taken in being more cosy to Indonesia than Malaysia during his time in office. It's not nice if the person he's been coddling up to is seen as the mass murderer that he is. I'm not saying it's wrong to be friendly to Suharto - why would you want to piss off a giant country which surrounds you?
And when you are judging Indonesia's "economic progress", you got to ask yourself, is it economic progress when the rich get richer and the poor stay poor? It makes the government's job so much easier when all you have to do is to make sure that rich people grow rich fast enough so that they can disguise the fact that not everybody's getting the money. Indonesia has 200m people although if you were to only see the visitors here you'd think that everybody there is rich, and there was even this chump who wrote to the press, claiming he had seen "real" Indonesians telling him what a great guy Suharto is. I mean those people who got rich during the Suharto years would naturally say that. What about those guys in the big city slums, the starving villagers, the massacred separationists? They wouldn't be staying at his fancy hotel where a room for 1 night would cost 6 months' salary right? What a moron.
So that's the other thing that Suharto stands for: the idea that when you take care of your rich, the rest of the world will take care of itself. LKY's endorsement of Suharto by no means refutes this idea, and it is a big indication of where Singapore too is heading.
And we won't know what Singapore will be like when he goes, which might not be that long time away.
And we won't know what Singapore will be like when he goes, which might not be that long time away.
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Naval Gazing
What does an extended bout of naval gazing tell you?
You know that your belly button was created for only 1 very important but also very outdated purpose. And now it's good for nothing except gathering dead skin cells and being not easy to clean. As usual there was a layer of grime, but if you try to rub it off the skin only gets red and raw.
So I reached out for my bottle of aftershave, because it contains alcohol which you know dissolved everything. I poured a little into my belly button and then it worked like a wonder and is cleaner than it was to begin with, except now... the thing was dripping downwards, and some of it got onto my scrotum, which was now stinging with pain.
Hopping around frantically, I had to reach for something to clean it off. Stumbled upon the shower, and I thought of spraying it down, but the heater hadn't been on for long enough and before long I was screaming bloody murder at the cold water on my privates. Things were getting from bad to worse. But at least the alcohol was off, I could dry it off with toilet paper and resume the crap I was taking before this rubbish started and reading about the France - Algerian war.
You know that your belly button was created for only 1 very important but also very outdated purpose. And now it's good for nothing except gathering dead skin cells and being not easy to clean. As usual there was a layer of grime, but if you try to rub it off the skin only gets red and raw.
So I reached out for my bottle of aftershave, because it contains alcohol which you know dissolved everything. I poured a little into my belly button and then it worked like a wonder and is cleaner than it was to begin with, except now... the thing was dripping downwards, and some of it got onto my scrotum, which was now stinging with pain.
Hopping around frantically, I had to reach for something to clean it off. Stumbled upon the shower, and I thought of spraying it down, but the heater hadn't been on for long enough and before long I was screaming bloody murder at the cold water on my privates. Things were getting from bad to worse. But at least the alcohol was off, I could dry it off with toilet paper and resume the crap I was taking before this rubbish started and reading about the France - Algerian war.
Monday, 14 January 2008
Doctors
Was meeting up with some doctor friends I hadn’t met in a long time. Some of the stories they told were great.
Doctors. Addicts going up to them to plead for more cough mixture, and giving all sorts of stupid excuses. And they said that sometimes they punish stupidity, where they are less unwilling to give it to somebody who tells them a good story.
Then there was this weirdo who thought that a special (but expensive) kind of multivitamin pills was going to boost his libido. In fact, as he was describing this to the doctor, he flexed his arm in a show of masculine exuberance. He was on full medical subsidy (he was that poor) and the doctor refused to give the pills to him because there was no medical basis for it. He got hysterical and banged the table and screamed, “this is my only chance - my last chance!!!”.
There was this 40 something year old guy who looked like a cheeko pek. He turned up at the A+E department with this terribly embarrassing problem. He had tried to get a good erection, and pushed a metal ring around the base of his penis. This is not unusual, there is such a thing as the arab strap. Unfortunately he had popped a few viagra pills. So his dick swelled to the extent that not only that intercourse became painful, but the ring was stuck. Panicking, he tried to remove the ring, but not only was it stuck fast, but the harder he tried, the more it was stuck, the more the skin was raw and inflamed. The only way was to go to the A+E.
What made the situation worse was that the 2 urologists on duty at that time were both female. It was terrible. The lubricants didn’t work, so they had to inject a needle into his penis and try to draw out some blood. When his dick was small enough, I supposed he had learnt his painful lesson.
Then there was this guy who ejaculated blood after having some form of rupture. Not merely being content with talking about his problems, he took his digital camera and showed the pictoral representation to the doctor. The doctor was like, goddamn. These are occupational hazards, and of course was thorougly disgusted.
One interesting thing is that American companies don’t require you to have an MC for sick leave. The reason is that in America, doctors and consultation is expensive, so you only go to doctors for serious enough things. And adults shouldn’t have to have a doctor decide if or not they are well enough to work. I thought that was interesting. I’ve gone to the doctor before when I’ve been sick, but it was mainly to get an MC, because otherwise I could just go get medicine and cure myself.
Well I marvel that such a system can work, and still in the US they have a reputation for being hard workers. I think what it is is that over there they have a fairly religious attitude towards work. Like in Singapore, you work hard because you think it is moral, to some degree, and you also want to earn a lot of money to support your family. In the US, where they are more individualistic, it is more the former than the latter, and they almost have this religious attitude towards work where if you're lazy, you're sinful, simple as that. Or maybe they have some method of making people terribly afraid of screwing the system, well I dunno.
Seems pretty interesting to be a doctor. Too bad I haven't go the talent for it.
Doctors. Addicts going up to them to plead for more cough mixture, and giving all sorts of stupid excuses. And they said that sometimes they punish stupidity, where they are less unwilling to give it to somebody who tells them a good story.
Then there was this weirdo who thought that a special (but expensive) kind of multivitamin pills was going to boost his libido. In fact, as he was describing this to the doctor, he flexed his arm in a show of masculine exuberance. He was on full medical subsidy (he was that poor) and the doctor refused to give the pills to him because there was no medical basis for it. He got hysterical and banged the table and screamed, “this is my only chance - my last chance!!!”.
There was this 40 something year old guy who looked like a cheeko pek. He turned up at the A+E department with this terribly embarrassing problem. He had tried to get a good erection, and pushed a metal ring around the base of his penis. This is not unusual, there is such a thing as the arab strap. Unfortunately he had popped a few viagra pills. So his dick swelled to the extent that not only that intercourse became painful, but the ring was stuck. Panicking, he tried to remove the ring, but not only was it stuck fast, but the harder he tried, the more it was stuck, the more the skin was raw and inflamed. The only way was to go to the A+E.
What made the situation worse was that the 2 urologists on duty at that time were both female. It was terrible. The lubricants didn’t work, so they had to inject a needle into his penis and try to draw out some blood. When his dick was small enough, I supposed he had learnt his painful lesson.
Then there was this guy who ejaculated blood after having some form of rupture. Not merely being content with talking about his problems, he took his digital camera and showed the pictoral representation to the doctor. The doctor was like, goddamn. These are occupational hazards, and of course was thorougly disgusted.
One interesting thing is that American companies don’t require you to have an MC for sick leave. The reason is that in America, doctors and consultation is expensive, so you only go to doctors for serious enough things. And adults shouldn’t have to have a doctor decide if or not they are well enough to work. I thought that was interesting. I’ve gone to the doctor before when I’ve been sick, but it was mainly to get an MC, because otherwise I could just go get medicine and cure myself.
Well I marvel that such a system can work, and still in the US they have a reputation for being hard workers. I think what it is is that over there they have a fairly religious attitude towards work. Like in Singapore, you work hard because you think it is moral, to some degree, and you also want to earn a lot of money to support your family. In the US, where they are more individualistic, it is more the former than the latter, and they almost have this religious attitude towards work where if you're lazy, you're sinful, simple as that. Or maybe they have some method of making people terribly afraid of screwing the system, well I dunno.
Seems pretty interesting to be a doctor. Too bad I haven't go the talent for it.
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Stakeholders
Took a train around 10 minutes later than when I was supposed to. I guess that maybe peak hour was over by then, and the trains were not running every 1 minute or so anymore. Yes, the traffic had dropped back by then, but the reduction in frequency overcompensated for that, and the train was packed to the brim.
I wondered if I could go buy some SMRT shares, and then attend their shareholder meeting and tell them, "I'm willing to forego some profits. Please put a decent number of trains on the tracks, buses on the roads. Your profits are obscene and somebody needs to kick you in the ass. People like you who travel around in cars shouldn't be allowed to own SMRT stock."
It's true, if you want to ride on a subway it might as well be your subway. It should be of the people, for the people and by the people. This land is your land. This underground is your underground.
I guess in a perfect world you should be able to own stocks in your own company, and if you were upset about how it was treating its own employees, you can attend a shareholder meeting, kick up a stink, and tell them to fire their CEO. It shouldn't be that some guy out there is holding your balls. Checks and balances in a system mean that people hold each other's balls.
It's too bad I can't own shares in the company I work for. It would be a pleasure to attend shareholder meetings and tell your superiors to stuff it.
"Judge said five to ten - I said double that again
I'm not working for the clampdown
Well no one born with a living soul
Could be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall cause governments to fall
How can you refuse it
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
Don't you know that you can use it
The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing so boy get running
It's the best years of your life they want to steal"
"Clampdown", The Clash
I wondered if I could go buy some SMRT shares, and then attend their shareholder meeting and tell them, "I'm willing to forego some profits. Please put a decent number of trains on the tracks, buses on the roads. Your profits are obscene and somebody needs to kick you in the ass. People like you who travel around in cars shouldn't be allowed to own SMRT stock."
It's true, if you want to ride on a subway it might as well be your subway. It should be of the people, for the people and by the people. This land is your land. This underground is your underground.
I guess in a perfect world you should be able to own stocks in your own company, and if you were upset about how it was treating its own employees, you can attend a shareholder meeting, kick up a stink, and tell them to fire their CEO. It shouldn't be that some guy out there is holding your balls. Checks and balances in a system mean that people hold each other's balls.
It's too bad I can't own shares in the company I work for. It would be a pleasure to attend shareholder meetings and tell your superiors to stuff it.
"Judge said five to ten - I said double that again
I'm not working for the clampdown
Well no one born with a living soul
Could be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall cause governments to fall
How can you refuse it
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
Don't you know that you can use it
The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing so boy get running
It's the best years of your life they want to steal"
"Clampdown", The Clash
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