it never ceases to amaze me, the lengths people go to just to recreate nature. it's no replacement for the real thing of course, but it's marvellous nonetheless. the effort, the technique, the breathtaking verasimilitude, and most of all the love that goes into it.
what is art anyway? is anything created as an expression of some sort of idea or emotion art? what does this express then? maybe art doesn't always need to have a point, it could just be an object of gratifying beauty, that evokes emotions. these babies sure do evoke some strong feelings i guess. the artist revealed that her customers were mainly doll collectors, parents missing their grandchildren and even mothers who had lost their babies. seems pretty creepy to me, to cradle a doll and channel such strength of sentiments into it. perhaps this is what huxley meant in brave new world, of a mother's cloying affection for her offspring.
which brings me to another thought: what is love anyway? i mean, there's love and there's love. the holding kind and the freeing kind. the sculpting kind and the growing kind. pygmalion hewing from ivory a veritable vision, object of his desire. a gardener lovingly watering, waiting, tending his trees - he prunes, yes, but no bonsai does he intend to create. these are extremes of course, not mutually exclusive but definitions are definitely elusive.
i for my part, shall return to writing my travel supplement.
i do like starting work. or rather, stepping into office with the liberating knowledge that there's no work to do. and in the hour before the weekly meeting - and work assigning, bliss! and that hour, is my hour.
picking up the day's new paper (yes i've become a loyal reader - it's free after all haha) going online, checking out what's cooking at the canteen today (the stalls sell different stuff every day, but they only sell that one thing, eg. wanton mee, it's like it or go to coffeeshop).
and having time to muse randomly that wanton mee sounds so wrong! as though the noodles were loose and seductive, curly blonde hair and all. shining slickly with oil and chilli, slithering snakily down your throat. mmmmm. and the two crispy wantons that you gotta ration else you're left with just mee. two crunchy juicy tender lumps! there's something sensual about lumps, no?
oh and another perk of coming in before the seniors do - one can raid their pantry shamelessly! jars and jars of choc chip cookies, lemon puffs, eggrolls, ruffles, twisties pringles and frootloops! whoopie! oh oh and whenever new mail comes i get a surge of excitement.
more often than not it's "tcchomp in; pics in nica. thanks" which is like :((( butBUT there's always a chance it'd be "chocs from france in cage. enjoy" or "pastries from hot new cafe novva in cage!" which is HOHOHO! (a la chak de) the interns would wait five minutes - oh agony - and then stroll casually, individually, to the cage (this cordoned area in the office) and if we meet a senior rep,
:oh, what's this? (feigned surprise) :looks good. do you wanna try it? :hmmm, i dunno... you first? (mock reserve) *picks one up daintily and nibbles. then when sure no one's looking, scarfs down another and brings yet another back to desk - nibbling on the way of course* (ok maybe only i do that)
when the work suddenly dries up like a desert stream, one feels afloat, a little at a loss. when the papers are read and the facebook friends are stalked, time is like a flickering, burning candle. flames licking the air languorously, wax pooling, lapping gently at the diminishing sides.
snowskin mooncakes sweet and cool, donuts crisp and pillowy soft, puffs oozing cream - they call out to me. lovely lovely sugary fats, to coat and comfort my idle mind (and when i'm stressed, fuel for thought) twenty minutes of jogging = 100 calories burnt = 1/2 a donut. math sucks la, it quantifies, it solidifies, it petrifies. giddy matrix of numerals that everyone obsesses over. which is what must be meant in le petit prince (The Little Prince):
"adults are always preoccupied with numbers. when you meet a new friend they won't believe when you tell them he must be real because he asked you to draw a lamb. they want to know, how old he is, how many siblings he has, how much his father earns. then they will be satisfied, and think, now they know all about him."
the number game gets to everyone; statistics, surveys and censuses, cornerstones of academia. there was a gp question, i believe, that went "statistics measure everything but prove nothing. discuss."
and in the world of media - be it entertainment or news - it becomes even more pertinent. it is the sea we swim in; with it we surge and against it we drown. how effective is free press anyway? can press really be free? if even history cannot be objective, how can news be? it is always filtered through a lens, be it partisan or commercial. since mathemat ics and numbers are unfailingly fair and impartial, the guiding principles of every paper must be its bottom line.
independent newspapers can print whatever they want, because they don't have to pander to the wishes of advertisers and biggies with agendas. but the bigger they get and the more influential they become, they will have to be held accountable for what they write. the chees are definitely not the only ones to have been sued for defamation. so to make sure they have money to protect themselves (and cos ink v. expensive) papers woo advertisers. and then become bound to them. (like cannot run bad stories on them) so wad to do? get even more advertisers to counter lor.
quite like the way sg plays the big powers against each other and goes after the runty ones nobody wants too. always leave yourself a back door so you don't have to "sell backside" so much, as expressed aptly by my supervisor.
Capitalism: yield to it or die! sighs. i do support green movements, who promote non-development. imagine a city in limbo, for hundreds and hundreds of years. tree-people, flower-children and galloping goats. stagnation ahoy!
it's soo ah lian - in a genteel kind of way. like, pretend you're in lecture and then you realise the prof's added in 8 extra lastminute slides you now have to copy by hand AND include the elaboration he peppers randomly. so, all together now: SIMI SAI?! great, isn't it? and it's even better when you do it in a high, shrill voice; all that sssibilant alliteration just releassses the toxxxic irritation in a great hissssss!
and the best thing about it (that gives it a more dignified, civilised character) is that you can just stop. right there. this is as compared to the stronger kena SAI ah --- ! with a hard guttural consonant beginning and a markedly beng ring that impels one to follow through with @$^$#%! in escalating intensity. whereas the most you could do after the former, is to carry on the same highpitched, nasal whine.
the psychophonetics of vulgarities fascinates me, but the vulgarities-attracting lecture notes beckon more urgently - but now, with all the ssSSssssSs taken out of me, i can only emit a resigned, depressed, CO2-expelling sighhhh. hurhur, melodrama makes my day.
it's pretty strange when you get pooped out of jc right after your A's, and within a few months you find your friends exiting the country for studies like flocks of migrating geese- except now they're all going somewhere colder. and then halfway thru uni a new wave hits and sends people traipsing off to all corners of the earth for a semester or two. and then you wonder what you're doing still sitting here sweltering in the humidity of this island nation. a stomachfull of terrible french and no one to hurl it at. all the pastries and crepes and flans and wild boar ragouts and tiramisu and ratatouille out there and none for you to eat. all the autumn mushrooms sprouting& nbsp;buoyantly and not one will you pick.
tv travel programmes are indeed such agonising modern-day willow-apricot dreams. they transport you to worlds so alien and yet so warmly appealing. xenophobia has no place where drool-worthy heart-stopping cuisine dwells, and yelling children and snorting boars have never been as attractive (especially when they've been trussed, marinated and made into winey tomtoey pasta sauce by jamie oliver! - the boar not the children, haha).
and this wanderlust is in no way quenched by the recent discovery that my grandma, veritable globetrotter that she is, has been to far more places than i have, and most within the last ten years. which led me to think: what's with this obsession with all things foreign? exotica, in minute amounts or contained in its homeground, holds in thrall westerners and easterners alike. yet, when they come pouring into one's country they suddenly morph into illegal immigrants, dirty slum-dwellers, drunk construction workers and husband-stealers. whence this metamorphosis? (i know: whence?? i'm starting to sound like a translated ancient chinese play)
on the bus today a chinese national was commenting that singaporeans are really gripped by japanfever: all things jap seem cool and modern and kawaii *cue sailormoon airbounce*. sometimes racism just blindsides and ambushes me; despite my best intentions i can't help an instinctual distinction between different 'classes' of foreigners. by what do i judge? by what right do i judge? gdp? the success of the country's exported soft power? stereotypes are the coward's and the lazy bum's way of managing the world - and i am both, surely. it is easier not to think of them as thinking-feeling humans with families to feed and social needs, so we can chuck them beside a cemetery, 'self-contained' and out of sight like the oarsmen crammed and beaten beneath the decks of a luxurious battlecruiseship. easier to shrug, to not think about it until the time comes. but can we really?
time of the sem again, when wordcounts are high on the consciousness radar. then there is the denial phase - when suddenly making a cup of lipton teh-ping becomes a critical precedent to the reading of the next page of notes and everything on tv seems interesting, from the training of military police dogs to awesomely vulgar, buxomous women wrestlers ululating and thwacking bulging breasts (their own and others') in a rink. it was seriously terrible yet engrossing, much like an accident.
which reminds me of the crane accident at the alumni complex last week. (i think i'm starting to sound like the sunday lifestyle columnist with his annoyingly desultory rambling.)
happened to be at the deck when it happened. the thunderous crash, followed by screams, brought dozens of students running to the railings in true singaporean fashion. ro kenn and i, in mid-discussion, resolutely refused to join the crowd (even though we were itching to, haha). image and dignity, you see.
"the trees! did you see?"
"wa today must go and buy 4D!"
who says we have no sense of humour? a terrorist could blow trains up or an earthquake could bisect orchard rd and the queues for 4D would only elongate - it ought to be named the sixth front of total defence, as a source of psychological assurance for the people and an avenue for funds during emergencies.
the next day, it made front page news: 3 workers had been killed, but no students were hurt - unfortunately. this thus relegated the incident to "Unfortunate Incident for High-Risk Workers", and work would probably resume in a few weeks, in much the same manner as before. no big hoo-ha or high profile inquiries or public outcry or raging debates over the number of straps on their safety helmets.
who gets to decide which lives are more important than others, which deaths are more honourable? the worker on the crane who made the crucial decision to change the direction of its fall, away from biz school, will he get a special mention? will the MPs attend his funeral? their families, after probably a one-time pay-out from the company, what next? young children, old mothers and overworked wives will just join the struggling mass of the working class beneath the radar of most singaporeans. is this the inescapable reality of a capitalist, market-driven society?
i wonder why people say that. cos being depressed is like falling into a pit? one moment you're walking happily enough, perhaps daydreaming with the wind in your hair and sun on your face and the next, WHUMP! you find yourself on your back, staring up at the sky. it seems so ludicrous you almost laugh, but not quite cos reality's starting to seep in by then.
anyway. it's exactly like finding out the lib books you borrowed for a paper and lost (before they could even be used for the paper) are gonna cost you more than 200 bucks. ouch. glumminess just blankets you like ice in China. it's strange to think of passing la nina moisture just freezing over as it drifts across say Shanghai, then just switching direction and plummeting to the ground.
why winter? that we can appreciate spring. why summer? that we'll welcome autumn. plus all that skiing and skating and surfing and babe-watching on beaches you can't do otherwise. why perpetual humid summer in singapore? so we're grateful for any respite we have. and well complaining is rather fun; it's actually a kinda bonding activity, cos you find common ground. haha! perhaps that's what our state unity is built on. so much for all the campaigning. we should celebrate our singlishness and kiasu-ness, for flaws bring ppl together in mutual sheepish mockery.
one whole round, and i'm back to being sore about my books. guess God's telling me stop buying clothes and shoes and bags already!!!
me: i think i'll go run today, on the track. i haven't done track running in ages. sm: ok. don't take timing, you'll feel discouraged! me: oh it's ok, i'm not easily discouraged; i know i'm slow. sm: ah, but knowing you're slow and knowing how slow you are is a different thing.
and indeed! i was more than discouraged; i was stupefied by my sloth! i plodded around the track at a miserable pace of - very slow cannot tell you - and felt like i was about to get an asthma attack! and it wasn't like i had been lying on the ground for the past months. i'd actually been conscientiously whir ling my arms in a boat - for hours on end! this was too horrendous and shameful. AND it meant that we usually did our PGP/SP at a pace of maybe 2:35 per round or more. oh, horror!
some things, it's better not to know. it's like always saying yar, i know i'm very stupid lah and then doing an IQ test and finding your IQ placed in the category of Mildly Retarded or something. it would surely be a blow! like people who always make self-deprecating remarks just so they would be reassured otherwise. mans. life's complicated, be a hermit!
my dad just fed us banana omelettes. he must have been inspired by my creative overtures. heard of no-bake cheesecakes? right here, we have no-bake muffins! which i made all by myself! as horrible a baker i am, i found a recipe that was xtproof and ensured success! so, despite myself...
voilà, steamed banana muffins!
other than cooking the butter i was supposed to melt (heard a dreadful churning from the microwave, and thought it was about to explode. thankfully it was just the butter gurgling and spluttering - and smelling like popcorn and hot plastic) and tiny flourlumps (couldn't find the sieve. told u i did it by myself) - it was great!
in fact, no one believed I made them - a sure sign of success. i brought them to church and they were like wow, this kueh is very nice! er well, other than their blatant denial of their muffinness, i award myself Certified Muffinier! (à la Chocolatier, haha).
anyways, i might have been driven to baking by the shock i had at original sin's with sm. the food was terrific and delish!, no doubt, but we'd accidentally ordered a bottle of mineral water which was then discovered to cost TWELVE DOLLARS. with all the extras levied it amounted to FOURTEEN WHOLE HARDEARNED DOLLARS we could have gotten another dessert with! highly agitated after the bill came, we started chugging the water we were about to abandon with fervour. -finish it! that's 50cents a gulp! it was all the waitress' fault, really. the minute we sat down she came, shook out and tossed a napkin on my lap then went still-sparkling-or-ice-fo r-you? reallyfast. my little brain couldn't process this many words strung together, so i repeated the first syllable, good parrot that i am. -stiilll...? -and-you (sm)? *nods mutely, prob didnt catch a word haha* after she left something popped and the words unlinked themselves. -oh dear, ice, we should've said ice. -really? ohwells.
this is her, pre-discovery of the price, thus still smiling and nonchalant. apparently, you see, it was no ordinary water we had drunk. it was Natural Artesian Water from Mt. Fiji, collected in an ancient impermeable aquifer deep within the earth where it is protected from external elements. like hello if the rock was impermeable how could water go in at all? even sm the hopelessly scientifically-disincline d could discern this. Rainfall filters through volcanic rock over hundreds of years, adding vital minerals that give FIJIwater its UNIQUE and REFRESHING taste. at this point we focused our energies as we sipped, concentrating on the revitalising smoothness as it glided down our oesophagus... nope. nul. plainwater taste.
but no matter! WE had partaken of the spring of health and life, rife with silica, magnesium and other delectable metals. WE had experienced THE WAY NATURE INTENDED WATER TO BE. UNTOUCHED. WE had brought back with us, at least, a pretty bottle i can bring for training.
apparently catherine lim wrote in to the straits times regarding the appalling lack of political freedom in singapore currently, and more importantly signs that it will not materialise in the near millenium or so (ok i exaggerate). and that the govt has - with all good intentions - used fear to manipulate citizens into wary silence. no idea why but i felt an involuntary voice rise up in denial of the claim that there is a climate of fear and paranoia in singapore and that that's why nobody votes for opposition/asks MM questions/speak up against the govt. my instinctual response surprised myself, for am i not the one who feels we're living under oppression by an aristocratic govt? true, people generally opine that speaking up against the govt never leads one to good ends but honestly, how much of it is fear and how much of it apathy?
or perhaps, we have been drilled into such mindless obedience that we no longer question why we do not question. and evidently a significant number are fully content with material prosperity; liberalism has no attraction for them unless it concerns job opportunities.
but what really is liberty and democracy to us? what is it that we really want? do we truly desire to answer the call of the upright salient philosophising homos apien and voice our views and influence our lives? or is what we want merely an emulation of what the west has - "angmoh stuff must be better quality"? is liberty just another social construct, and democracy simply a 'weapon of the weak against the strong'? strong viable opposition parties in govt; rights to assembly, protests, free press and free speech; right to vote on policies: is this democracy? i vacillate between wanting pluralism and checks on govt, and fear of consequences. can we afford to experiment with structure? will we rise stronger after a fall, or will we languish for eternity in the obscurity we were supposed to be condemned to size-wise? we are indeed an anomaly in history; who's to say this isn't precisely because we have not succumbed to taking the path of western democracy.
and yet, from time to time there swells up in me - and i bet in many others - a desire for MORE. a hankering for self-determination, to test the limits; to know that WE MATTER. for is that not what the common man seeks? a sort of meaning for his suffering. reciprocity. for all the slogging and sacrifices made for society and state, he wants to know he means more than just a statistic to the body - even if it is illusory; then he can die content.
but what do i know of the common man? perhaps he simply wants a home, 3 meals a day and weekends at ikea/mustafa/the 4D shop and repeat thus till hopefully he dies before global warming or GST superhikes takes over the world.
for him then, freedom is enough opposition threat during GEs to keep the progress packages coming.
