Archive for January, 2004
Chinese New Year Rituals
January 22nd, 2004 Treats
I always leave flower arranging to the very last thing to be done for Chinese New Year. Unlike all other rituals, it didn’t begin out of habit or tradition. I am always stuck in the cold room of the florist twirling indecisively amid the thong of women in sweaters, and always holding too many bundles in my basket. Experience is an accumulation of bad judgement. I learnt not to buy tulips despite it going cheap. That year I did, they curved and went soft on Chinese New Year. I learnt not to buy roses because they start getting soft in their heads two days later and in five days, lose their heads altogether. I learnt to avoid oriental lilies due to its price – which was a shame because this year they were going cheap. I learnt to appreciate carnations: the last forever and they were always cheap.
I am pleased with my arrangement this year. I made a good looking piece with the pussy willows, red and pink carnations, and cherry blossom stalks. In another vase, I put green South African chrysanthemums with the pom pom ones behind a backdrop of fanned out onion leaves. For the kitchen and dining room, I stuck into a rectangular vase, rosemary, laced pink caranations and bits of broken off pussy willows and cherry blossoms. To make a potpourri, I scattered the dropped petals into a plate – the green and halved two green lemons. I was careful not to overbuy.
Although I was careful in the florist’s cold room, I went mad outside. I bought potted tulips and a deep purple Dendrobium with twirled petals for two colleagues because they were too attractive to be passed up. I caved in to the orchids that went cheap: $12 for a pot of Den – I bought two – and a gorgeous Oncidium – at least, that’s what I though it was – was $25. The Phalaenopsis I saw were still expensive and the colours unexciting. A pot of gorgeous Cymbidium cost $380 and if I get it after 12 midnight, another pot was free! Free! I could not afford that! I was in grief. I did not see any Paphiopedilums but I wouldn’t know one even if it bit me in the ass.
Why do rich kids work?
January 15th, 2004 Uncategorized
Recently I had chance to meet the children of some well to do families. I have never known anyone well to do. My friends’ families are those whose earnings lie above the abjectly impoverished and the comfortably middle class. HDB folks is my short form for these people. Earning a living is what these HDB folks do.
Inevitably, we talked about our jobs. (It is a compulsion for Singaporeans to talk about their work when first meeting people for the first time.) I’m astonished to find these new acquaintances of mine working in entry level jobs. Working! They have no need for work, I’m thinking. Their families have no need for what they earn. Why do they need to work? So I asked.
I felt a bad vibe. The conversation was defensive. The more I clarified, the more they began their conversations with “But” until voices rose to an almost feverish chorus, trying to drown out my voice.
In general, this is what was said. If a person isn’t working, the person is probably shallow, materialistic, lazy bum. The prodigal son/daughter.
Work was a measure of merit and an indication of character. I was unpersuaded and much willing to talk more but I desist and agreed meekly. What I don’t get is this: why isn’t a more efficient solution pursued? That is, why aren’t they finding solutions to achieve maximum returns for the same level of effort?
The point of being the moneyed class is that you have capital to accumulated more capital. Why exchange precious leisure hours with such little income when you could do something that gives you more income? (For instance, asset speculation.)
Popular blogs
January 13th, 2004 Uncategorized
Read the entire blog site of Nick Liu when I was suppose to be working on my assignment due pretty soon. He’s a funny, lively chap and reading him makes me feel I’m very dull.
I don’t know why he made such a big deal of the dubious competition. After trying to read several nominated websites, I began to believe the entire voting was rigged. Most winning entries are badly written, uninteresting stuff.
It seems to me it’s a popularity contest. What makes any writing popular? Certainly it isn’t long treatise on human life and society, acute observations of mankind, or a lush language. More likely qualities such as crass humour, voyeurism, pandering to the intelligence of others, pepper the writing. I’m not saying that something is popular is always low brow but that a popular piece reaches the man in the street faster because he understands it and it makes him feel good about himself. (The above has a surprising shade of bitterness. But I’m not. I love the common man.)
On the Singaporean psyche
January 12th, 2004 books
Dostoevsky is my Valium. I was mildly anxious these past days despite taking St John’s Wort Capsules and only today, it struck me to picked up The Writer’s Diary Vol 2 to take with me out to lunch. It worked. I do not understand why he yields such power over my mental state, and why no other writers except him could assuage the disquiet but this is not about my anxiety and its cures. This is about his ideas. I was entranced by his second chapter. He put forth this following “controversial and ticklish point”:
“Every great people believes and must believe, if it wants to survive long, that in it and in it alone is contained the means to save the world; that it lives in order to stand at the head of nations, to bring them all to communion with it and to lead them, in a harmonious choir, toward the ultimate goal for which they are destined.”
I’m completely sold on this. Americans, British, French, Japan, are some examples of great nations that spring to my mind. And what is arrogance but an overblown confidence?
It leads me to think about my own country. Singaporeans are not at all egotistical. Some Singaporeans would describe themselves indifferent/apathetic. Indifference or apathy is an attitude you take: you show you don’t care very much, either way. We need to discover the reason for apathy – not the superficial reasons but the the national psyche.
What makes any person not participate? One reason is that you don’t see your words having any weight, so you save the trouble of saying it. If this is a student, a teacher would have to draw the person out by building his confidence. It seems to me, as a people, this is our problem. We are like the pimply boy at school. He feels himself deeply unattractive. He works hard at something just so that he can feel some pride but like the pimply boy becoming a computer geek, he realises how it makes him even less attractive and his self-esteem diminishes even more. He dislikes himself not because there is some vileness in him to dislike but he feels that there is nothing to love. He wants to be someone else yet when he tries to dress, speak or do something the same way as the confident, popular boy at school, he calls himself a sell out. He wants to be popular, to be liked but he is not. What does a teenager do in this instance? He plays it cool. He wears a “whatever, dude” attitude.
I’m not sure how it can be fixed other than to let time work on us. Unlike pimply teens, a nation is its own teacher.
H2S04
January 9th, 2004 Uncategorized
You can walk a mile in a person’s shoes and still think he’s a moron.
Being Human
January 6th, 2004 popscience, radio
“Sometimes reporters come and ask, what is it that is actually unique about humans. The usual answer is language; humour – you know, we’re the laughing primate; we have free will; we can contemplate the consequences of our actions, so on and so forth. But there is one quality that I think is very special and that is the need to be more than human. In other words, you’re constantly confronted with this dilemma. You know that everything that you hear from science and from neurology, that you are a beast, just a hairless ape which happens to be a little bit more clever than other apes. At the same time, you don’t feel like that. You feel like you’re an angel trapped inside this body, constantly craving immortality, craving transcendence trying to escape from this body. And this is the essential human predicament.”
–Vilayanur S Ramachandran, on what makes us human.
If asked, a human being would most likely confess to being above average in intelligence than being below average. I am chuckling over this ancedot offered by Vilayanur S Ramachandran in the 2003 Reith Lecture. (It’s a fantastic series of lecture. It is unfortunate I cannot persuade anyone to listen to it.)
How astonishingly sharp an observation that was! This leads me to think that to say a person is deeply intelligent and philosphical – philosophy seems a highly revered discipline in the common man – is the greatest flattery anyone can give. And although the giver may be thoroughly insincere, the reciever thinks the giver is extremely sincere.
Unfortunately, this line can’t be handed to a person you hardly know. And to a stranger, you would always be asked to give examples of the person’s intelligence, not because the reciever does not believe himself or herself intelligent, rather to confirm that the giver agrees with what he/she thinks of himself.
Naughtiest Girl In School
January 3rd, 2004 books
More Enid Blyton. This time it was the Naughtiest Girl In School, starring Elizabeth Allen. The structure of the Whyteleafe School is democratic. Children of 12 or 13 sit as head of school. In addition to homework, they are to advise the younger ones. There is a jury of 12 other people. They are called monitors voted by the school but the Head Boy or Girl have veto powers (not the monitors themselves). All are assumed to be wise and capable of meting out rewards, money from the shared box and punishment. Unless neccessary and invited, a teacher has no role in disciplining the children. Furthermore, each decision is always supported by The School (caps not mine).
The head persons and the monitors are powerful and only they can decide whether to met rewards, money or punishment. If I want something done, wouldn’t I try to be friendly with these people? Even if I don’t black or green mail these heads, I can manipulate them to see my point of view. Further, if I have some agenda to pursue, as the person with power, wouldn’t I only select those who is most likely to share my point of view? And, if each decision is always supported by The School wouldn’t the panel need to sometimes pander to the public, that is, the voting students? These means money may be spent frivolously which a person who has contributed a large sum of pound compared with another who put into The Box a few shillings would rather not see it being spent this way. (And I forsee that the contributers would begin to contribute lesser and lesser in the future and keep money for themselves.) Further, that any vote for monitorship can easily be overturned by a veto leaves a gaping loophole for those aiming for a nice CV. The result of this is most likely chaos, an inner circle sort of school without any accountability for decision making.
I’m terribly silly trying to make sense of a children’s book but the re-reading made me wonder how Enid Blyton, who was probably rather old by the time she wrote these books, could suspend her own belief to create incredibly untenable governing systems?
