Singaporeans' reaction leave me seething

Foreign workers at void decks leave residents seething
Happy hour sessions disturb residents, but police say workers are breaking no laws


EVERY NIGHT, ESPECIALLY AT WEEKENDS, foreign workers get together at Block 651A, Jurong West Street 61. After one recent, particularly noisy, happy-hour session, a resident of the block wrote to The Straits Times to complain about the problem. The residents have formed a vigilante group to 'catch' workers who sleep or urinate at the void deck. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM

I was aghast with this article in Sunday Times (25 Nov) which reported about foreign workers who were a nuisance at void decks. This is once again evidence of the cocky Singaporean flexing its citizenship 'rights' and muscles.

1. I believe that people form a community, not clean empty silent pillars and buildings (yes, cats have every right to reside in our neighbourhood as well).

2. I believe that tolerance and education is the way to go, and NOT teaching our children social and racial bias (and that includes throwing bags of water and urine at the foreign workers, you stinking Singaporean!)

3. I believe that we should raise our children in natural environments and teach them to navigate from there, NOT raise them in a sterile unnatural one (so that they won't die and run to mama when they go into the wide world of their own!)

What disturbs me is once again our instinctive reaction to demonize that which is racially and culturally different from us. What disturbs me again is the PM's soothing words of 'you see...they contribute significantly to our economy..' to placate the people.

Must we often be reminded of monetary and economic value to have tolerance in place? How about we allow the foreign workers to continue with their revelry because they are humans, they need enjoyment, and they basically love community, especially in a faraway land? Do we get rid of our elderly if they 'do not contribute significantly to our economy?' (but yes, we do don't we, except for the rich ones).

I understand the residents' concern for basic safety, that some of the workers get drunk, urinate and they litter. I believe that rather than turn aggressive, one can speak to the town council and suggest that they speak to the companies to educate the workers. Complaining and displaying revulsion to and fear of them does not speak of us well as an apparently civilized and educated society and to those with precious babes with them, as parents. After all, if the PM has said that they have contributed to our society, we should also display understanding of their needs. I believe that the workers go to the void deck because they have no other place to go for their merrymaking (yes, suggest a pub would you), and you know something, I don't think they are the worst culprits of littering (psss..who have been keeping our neighbourhoods clean, despite Ah Boy's frequent littering and Ah Pek's obsessive spitting?)

Noise and laughter need not be restricted to parties and 'designated areas' you know. A true neighbourhood shows that they can and should be found anywhere. Now that is what I truely call the Life of the party.

Fun with Clay =)

As a form of therapy to keep teachers from going over into the brink of insanity, the Chinese department has on its own accord organized a couple of handicraft workshops. Though usually exclusive, this particular 2-day Pottery lesson is open to us mortals.

Really interesting, though I got bored at intervals because the teacher was outside half the time, and hence when we finished early, we sat around and scrutinized. Otherwise, half of the time we were crafting designs for our plain pots, a process which I am almost an imbecile at. I mourn for my lack of creativity. But improvision? That is another thing. Take a look at my creations:



Ha. These are the 3 pieces of work we did on the first day. The first was using the 'pinching' method, in which you basically pinch the clay into shape. The outcome is the little sauce dish that you see. Unimpressive. The second creation is where we create a hollow out of a solid sphere of clay and eventually mould it into a vase. Somewhere something went wrong and as my 'vase' fell apart, I improvised, decorated its state of decay and made a rope to adorn as laurel around the scruffy neck of what is now transformed to be an 'old' money bag. hehehehe. Looks pretty deliberate right? Finally we used a tedious 'coil' method to make a mug. Can you spot it? Yes you are right. It is at the left hand side of the picture. The higher I coiled my mug, the softer and flatter it became, and lo and behold! it is now a plate. One with several precaurious cracks at that. Shall test with soup when it's all fired and colored and ready for domestic use.

There was seemingly less to do for the second session, and probably that's because I refused to make clay flowers like the rest to adorn my plain cylindrical container. In the end, out of a dearth of ideas, I settled for heart shapes around the bottle. Tried to make it jagged for an artistic, 'broken' feel. Oh well. My creativity has to come from imitation. But before that, we made an easy and satisfying dish out of a method called 'slab' and with 2 leaves as material. This is what the teacher's look like:



It's pretty easy; you can't go wrong with this. The only thing you need to ensure is that your nice fresh leaf has to be relatively large with protruding veins for the raised pattern effects. This is what mine looks like:



A little unrefined-looking at the sides, but it will do as a nice paper clip holder.

Oh yes, and this is what the others' creations look like (notice the stone-aged looking but nevertheless existing mugs, though some of become plates as well):




Wendy scratching out the patterns of her leaf's veins.


Cool gal Lis hard at work with her leaf and clay.


Sheryl looking as if she's doing a dissection of a frog at a lab.


Me, Lis and Teri


Everyone is hard at work expressing their creativity.


The whole lot of us. We look a lot happier than when taking class or staff photos. Ha.

Lust, Caution

I caught Lust, Caution today with fidgety Art (it was nice of him lah, to come watch with me despite his limited interest), and I thought the show was really good, with the understated yet dramatic unfolding and conclusion of the relationship between the main characters. With my 'morbid' nature, in the words of my good friend Bread Pit, I am a sucker for tragic romances in the likes of Wuthering Heights: It intensifies, fires and explodes into nothingness, or worse, fizzles into a big nothing. Sometimes I guiltily catch myself orchestrating my own tragic romance, if it hasn't already caught me unaware, and strangely enough or not, God is always in the middle of it.

Lust, Caution features Tong Leung as an anti-hero character, and there's nothing he plays better than that. Goodness, he was good. As a female audience, I felt like how the female lead felt: a mixture of sympathy and revulsion, obsession and hate for this man who hides his emotions beneath soulful eyes, and yet, everyday, order the execution and torture of many people.The sensual tension kept me at the edge of my seat (*note: gentle snoring emanating from someone beside me*).

My favourite scene was that which displayed the first time Mr Yee and Wang Jiazhi had an extended session with each other at the restaurant. It was charged with silence and probing, seductive looks from both sides. It was the first time the audience had a close up of the both of them. He was attractive but not handsome. She was conventionally pretty.

In their conduct with each other throughout the whole show, you can never tell (or at least I couldn't) if he suspected her, or how he truly felt towards her. Mr Yee himself was surreal, being so used to masking himself and displaying little or no emotion due to his 'delicate' and perverse job, and, yes, the only real thing about him was the sex, and the raw energy he displayed while at it, despite his eyes still being elusive. That was why I thought the sexual scenes were central-they define most of the charged relationship between the two; both of them, in that elevated and safe enclave, were only real then, in the midst of being caught up in the deadly espionage.

Their relationship reminds me of Elton John's 'original sin': the intensive and doomed first love that the unfortunate and melancholic amongst us have gone through.

From Original Sin

.........

I can't eat, can't sleep

Still I hunger for you when you look at me

That face, those eyes

All the sinful pleasures deep inside

Tell me how, you know now, the ways and means of getting in Underneath my skin,

Oh you were always my original sin

And tell me why, I shudder inside, every time we begin

This dangerous game

Oh you were always my original sin

........

Sunday

The real school holidays are finally here. People usually express envy at the seemingly unjustified school holidays that school teachers have. But they do not understand: we die during the school terms.

Anyhow, at least the year end holidays provide breathing space for personal growth (or opportunity for sloth, which I'm trying hard to prevent). Plenty of stuff I wish to do, amongst which I'm supposed to fulfill Art's dreams of me becoming a Stepford wife of having long luscious hair and baking cakes all day long. He's slightly disappointed that I signed up for a pottery lesson instead, chiding that I do not learn to make the 'right things'. hehehe.

Caught up with my JC mates (or what's left of them) at Caleb's house today. As you can see, I was besotted with his golden retriever named 'Sardie' (I think). Pretty. Her tail looks like a hanging tapestry. She pulled a face full of love while we were eating KFC for dinner in his room. Sucker that I was, I wanted to feed her a piece of my chicken and the excited girl promptly chewed my fingers along with the chicken. Ouch. But it's hard to be mad at her. We watched Dawn of the Dead, which is reasonably nice, tried watching Waxworks, and then proceeded to Serenity, which is the 2nd time for me. Eyes hurt.

Watch up for more dining indulgences within the next few days. I heard crabs' coming up next.

Dinner and Drinks at Arab Street

Heh, I realised that my blog consists of little else but 'eat-n-drink'. If I had stumbled upon me blog, I would have thought me is a socialite who does nothing but these all d-time. Truth is, I guess these are the only interesting parts of my life (for now, I hope).

Anyway, last night was an interesting night. After spending some time researching on the net, Alice and I came to decide on feasting at Nadezhda, which is supposedly an authentic Russian restaurant at Arab Street. Authentic it was. It was cosy-as if you were dining at someone's home, or eating at a high-end hostel run by the family.

So cosy that we were served by the young 'waiter' like unwelcomed relatives who were tolerated cos we were going to pay anyway. This young cocky waiter-not-wannabe hesitates not to chide you for pointing instead of pronouncing the dishes on the menu, and to proceed to embarrass you (if you allow it) into pronouncing it yourself. I wonder if he treats us like this as we (or specifically I) are tiny Asians.

Anyhow, the ambience and food is really good, and it does taste like homecooking. Ignoring the gruff service (by the female chef) and the cocky one (by the male waiter), one can stoically purse one's lip and proceed to the delightful green tables by the window on the second floor and defensively order a Borsch, mushroom sald, bun with beef and Beef Stragonoff. Oh yeah, remember to grab the menu for yourself on the way up to save a trip down the stairs. This is how the interior looks like:

As you can see, it was so cosy that we have helped ourselves to a Jenga set together with National Geographic magazines. Let me show you pictures of the appetizer that our group fed on.

You can see how our Jenga set got desecrated as slowly and surely like the Mayan empire. Anyhow, it was great fun, and it whet our appetite adequately for the meal later on, which, of course, I forgot to take photos of. So let's skip the chronology of the meal and go on to the group photo.

Overall, I like the food and the place. There are good and bad reviews of the place, though mostly the latter. If you're the type who expects to be treated with extreme politeness as a prelude to the meal, then don't go to this restaurant. But if you do not mind stepping into a place where you will be somehow left alone as if you were at home or at an aunt's, and if you can laugh at yourself and at the waiter for his 'jokes' on you, then go for it. You will not be treated like a Singaporean at a restaurant there. They will treat you like how they wish to. But the food is great, the price is good, and the humor, well, amusing. I will definitely go back.

Following this, and an extremely delightful birthday pancake with well wishes uttered by everyone as dictated by Mike (though the one made by Zhaoli is dubious-may I have kids! Ha!*shudders*), a few of us went to a lounge/restaurant called Eleven which was located deep in the Arab enclave.

Album of the Dead

My Guy =)

This is a nice conclusion to an evening out rambling along Haji Lane and the caveats of Kampong Glam. Oh yes, and I recommend shopping along Haji Lane, not so much for the expensive avant-garde boutiques that they have there but to view the interesting home-made aquariums they set up in their shop i.e. in wash basins and bath tubs. Some of the shops' layout and concept are very catchy as well. And remember to check out the 2nd hand dusty shops they have there, including one that specializes in kimonos. Delightful.

Thanks guys, for the night!