Opiate of the masses

To study communism or socialism is to study cynicism. Everything can be teared down to loneliness, exploitation and manipulation. If the tirade against capitalism is the truth, then perhaps cynicism is the study of human nature.

I don't know why I'm linking this upcoming idea to cynicism, and of course even if it's the right thing to do in my context, but I think that the advertisement on the trains on an upcoming spiritual revival is rather stark and out of place. There's a certain strong sense of detachment when I view the ad each time I take the train, which is quite sad, because the ad should be far from detached from the viewer.

It says (in Mandarin),
"Good news, Singapore. In April this year, you will be visited upon by miracles".

I know the ad is trying to reach out to the masses, and an incredible amount of advertising dollars by fervent devouts have gone into bringing this ad into the trains, but I can't help feeling that it's speaking to a disinterested and tired crowd, and that the ad seems to emphasize the emptiness of the proletarian masses on the public train. Maybe this sentiment is only reflective of my own worldview, which is scarier considering that I am a Christian, and I should probably be interested in hence heading down to the Singapore stadium in the hope of having encounter a miracle.

I guess if we have been a closely knitted community with little competition against one another in this rat race to seek satisfaction in wine and dining lifestyles and material goods, this ad would relate to us more. It seems that as much as we need the message driving this ad, it has been placed where it is scrutinized, mocked at and in the end, rejected by the much preoccupied crowd. Our very response to it, invariably signifies how much we need to have it.

I think this ad is a joke, as it preaches a kind of counter culture, yet is immersed in the very midst of conformist messages which vie for our loyalty--bank loans, hair replanting, beer ads and so on.

Of food and moods

The papers reported today of the upsurge in sign ups for cooking classes in Singapore, especially amongst young working professionals. Tellingly, of course, one of the more popular reasons for learning cookery is the ability to cook for loved ones.

The idea that cooking brings about a community is a well worn one. Food is indeed symbolic of relationships-or the lack thereof. One thinks of reunion dinners and wedding feasts. Students have done papers of the symbolism of food in literature, movies and fiction. I remember reading Bryce Courteney's The Family Frying Pan and Ben Okri's The Famished Road, the former about how eating and cooking bring communities and families together and the latter about how the lack of food, too, brings people together. Amy Tan's novels often centre around the Chinese tradition of feasting together, albeit in the midst of tense familial relationships.

Well,eating can be a solitary business too. Students who study overseas often eat alone. If not outside, then most probably when they cook in their pantry. The famous student dormitary dish-pasta with tomato sauce served in a convenient bowl. Ive had my fair share of solitary dining-which takes place most often at home, ironically, instead of a student dormitary or an office cubicle. People say that the family that eats together, stays together. Woe betide mine, hence, as-let me count-we have not eaten together for years. For each of us individually, eating has been a solitary business. My dad at the table with his papers, my brother in his room at this game station, me at the television with my Simpsons (ironically a cartoon sitcom about a family) and my mum, much later alone, too, to a Mandarin soap drama. This occurs daily save for the occasional dates where we dine out and there's that odd cross talking around the table with certain people and a deliberate omission of others. This is not the worse. A couple of years ago when I was in my final year in uni and my brother was in the boy's home, I would dread, a little, going home in the evening because nobody would be home for a long time. I still remember, film style way, me walking along the short empty corridor towards my gate, to be greeted, literally, at the door, with the hanging packets of rice and tengkat of dishes left by the home food delivery company. The loneliness of the image is overwhelming actually. Incidentally, I think this home food delivery affair is an increasingly thriving business. But of course, I wouldn't know how the other families tuck in theirs. Well, I guess this matter of taking in the delivered food is not transposed to my dad who comes home, now, the earliest each day. I wonder if he ever feels the sadness of it all.

Well, I guess I could be the pro active member to initiate eating out together as a family, in fact, this is one of my subtle resolutions for the year-to eat out together at least once a month. It's already March and this have not been fulfilled. I guess it takes tremendous effort for a family with ties so strained. I wonder why no one else is trying. I guess it's just easier not to, but solitude is such that it lends itself to reflection-that niggling feeling that that solitude shouldn't be in existence. Perhaps, I should learn, that tough love means that pain and awkwardness around people should be endured rather than the eventual discomfort of a much sought after solitude.

Incidentally, I cooked dinner today, only to have no one coming home to eat. So i dined alone, with Pebbles, and a Jet Li video.