Repeat it slowly for me

There's an earlier post with this painting, but it seems more apt here now

The principal I work quite closely with was telling a couple of us this story about a boy hauled into her office for shouting a string of hokkien vulgarities at a teacher (as part of her larger tale of gangs resurfacing at her school).

Principal: Ok, Ah Huat (let's just call him that, the name of my favourite Potong Pasir Cheng Tng seller) What did you say to Mrs So-So?
Ah Huat: [Still somewhat agitated]...
Principal: What did you just say to Mrs So-So that made her so angry?
Ah Huat: Er...I...
Principal: Just repeat it for me...slowly, nevermind, say it slowly.
Ah Huat: #^@...$!...%....* ...

How we had laughed during lunch. Ah Huat stopped after a few phrases, I think, realising how his words sounded. But as story went on, rest assured the laughter stopped. His was another story of abuse, poverty, broken relationships and a kid bottling up his own sense of guilt about the violent mess of life in his 20ft by 30ft apartment.

I reckon she'll make a good principal to the precious young artist types who are bound to appear in the school my department is helping to set up. And hopefully, if meritocracy works, the school will be a place for talented kids from many different socio-economic backgrounds.

Don't call me (Very) Special

Godzilla ripping across The Big Land - click for larger pic

This is the second year we've been to the VSA annual show. This year, we bought a Chinese ink painting by Lim Mun Chong and a pen drawing by Lee Fook Hong - both, coincidentally, were of trees and had strong graphic elements we liked. We took to the The Big Land immediately - the variations of diagonal lines creating a real depth yet still retaining the graphic, comic-like, Tim-Burton-ish flatness (pic above is not too clear though).

Last year, we had bumped into Chng Seok Tng at the show and bought one half of a pair (no money lah!) of her lino prints. I remember I was a student in school when I first read about Chng Seok Tng in the Chinese papers. The article was about the fall she had just taken from a bus during an overseas excursion with her students. It was only some weeks or months later that she found her sight begin to diminish. Even when I did not care as much about Singapore artists, I kept a look out for her work because how she lived and what she spoke about was consistent with the art she made, and what her art communicated.

A colleague whom I was speaking to about the VSA show had objected to the term "Very Special Arts", which was too positive an affirmation that it backfired for him. His point was that the implication was not that the art itself was "very special" or had any intrinsic artistic quality, but that we were made to see and not forget that it was the artist who was "very special" only because of his/her disability. It's just charity, is the protest.

His sentiment is valid, I guess. Yet I couldn't help but wonder if this divide between the art and the person of the artist we insist upon is artificial and unnecessary. Especially today, can there even be a "natural", untainted response to a piece of art? Does having to come to grips with a practical, physical or learning disability in dealing with everyday life make an artist more attuned to his/her immediate surrounding, environment, actions etc, and therefore lends his/her art a greater consistency and immediacy?

The short bio on Lee Fook Hong says that he aspires to be a graphic designer one day, though he struggles with learning how to use the computer software that is the pen/pencil for the designer today. J and I empathise entirely with that! Both his aspiration and his difficulty...granted that we might probably eventually pick up the technical know-how (please someone tell me, what on earth are vectors and are they invented just to mock and stumble us???) faster than he would? Yet his love for and understanding of graphic elements and styles is clear at first glance.

For those interested, the VSA show will be on at Raffles City Shopping Centre ground floor until 30 August. Vaguely related is Raw Vision, a magazine on outsider art, with a generous online version.

new supplies

We sent the greeting cards to be printed today! There are now 5 card designs. We also did mock-ups of 2 T-shirt designs.

The mushrooms in the pic are God's creation. We've noticed them sprouting up in all sorts of grass patches...must be the strange combination of lingering rain and that hot, melty sun.

Walk Over Me

Don't Walk Over Me

Obedience is underrated in a world that generally privileges and romanticises dissent and rebellion. But it takes either a very ill-advised or a very secure politician to boast that his people/country is unique because nowhere else in the world can a government introduce, without protest, a chewing gum ban and the pegging of civil servants' (hmmm, civil servants and politicians, he means?) salaries to "market rate". In most countries, the electorate will read such a boast more as a taunt than a moment of national pride.

Maybe the Prime Minister said it because he believed it as a statement of fact? And because he is secure in the knowledge that this boast, too, is not likely to meet with any scrutiny, much less protest. More so, because it is a boast the people could share in - a boast about this country's peaceful compliance, unity and faith in the government, our singlemindedness and, of course, our "uniqueness"?

Then I thought about the picture above (a painting based on a photo of J lying on the zebra-crossing on a quiet stretch of road). Although the words on the picture read like a protest, the person's posture/position says otherwise.

Massacre in Geylang...and Toa Payoh

With all the renovation and major hacking up of concrete done to J's apartment block, the natural world was feeling the strain. Since their homes were being threatened or even invaded and destroyed, lizards, cockroaches and ants residing in all the secret nooks of the block have had it tough. They have been forced to migrate...and where else, but some to J's apartment. (Just in case you think we are slobs - we've always been conscientious in the hygiene and not-leaving-food-around department, so we've never really had many of such guests in the apartment before.)

However cruel it all is, we decided in the end to resort to a variety of ant, cockroach and even, lizard traps. The lizard traps are the most primitive. They are these little cardboard tunnels where the base is made of a super sticky material, so that when these little houselizards tramp through the tunnel towards that tasty snack - schlick - they are stuck.

The Untimely Death, 19 Aug,morning: Yesterday, we went home to discover one of them lizards caught...but more than that. When we discovered the lizard that night (it must have been caught early in the morning), it was already partially devoured by a whole army of ants, little red ones mixed with a few larger black, super-speedy ants with their slender legs.

The Massacre, 19 Aug, midnight: For some strange reason, the ants must have overcome the sticky tape in order to get to the lizard. Otherwise, the first troop of ants might have sacrificed themselves, and their bodies became a safe path for their comrades to get to the lizard. Shocked at the sight, out came the insecticide spray, and the ant massacre began.

The Cleanup, 20 Aug, morning: Too tired with the killing last night, J left their carcasses on the floor. This morning was the clean-up, and woah, there must have been thousands and thousands of those ants floating in the pail.

The Second Attack, 20 Aug, evening: This evening, home with our groceries, we found another unsuspecting lizard roaming in the kitchen. Well-trained with the insecticide spray already, J knocked him out. But it was a resilient thing - dropping its tail and playing dead, but it was still hanging on.

The POW, 20 Aug, night: Not quite knowing what to do next with the actor-survivor, J trapped it under a jar. Hoping it would perhaps decide to die for real. At the last check at midnight, it was still alive.

Speaking of migration and massacre, Wheyface, her husband and I went to watch Perth: The Geylang Massacre tonight and there was also plenty of both in that movie...literally and figuratively. Harry Lee (a first mate, security guard, taxi-driver then designated driver for Mai, a Vietnamese prostitute) longs to migrate to Perth, that elusive paradise where all his friends have already retired to. Trapped in a life and country where he is unloved, unwanted and emasculated, the movie aches with Harry's longing. He has seen and can see (dream) Perth, but something invisible to him, yet oh so clear and inevitable to the audience, keeps him away.

The movie continues what is by now its own genre of Singaproe films on the island's underdogs and the society's underbelly: Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys and Meepok Man; Kelvin Tong's Eating Air and Royston Tan's 15. Wheyface had wondered why almost half of all films made in the last 10 years in Singapore have this slant...an instance yet again of teenage angst and rebellion against the official insistence on order and cleanliness? Probably. But I am glad that this time, Perth also successfully invited the audience's sympathy and empathy for the character's struggles.

Hmm, perhaps we ought to release the lizard after all from its glass trap.

"My dear Wormwood..."

Channelsurfing on the Soultrain

It must be because of all those Narnia trailers on TV that J and I picked up a stack of C.S.Lewis' books. J has been reading the Narnia Chronicles (ah, his delight at the large font and pictures!) and Surprised by Joy, Lewis' autobiography of sorts about his journey from atheism to the Christian faith; while I finally read The Screwtape Letters.

Judged on literary merit alone, Lewis somehow doesn't come across as a great writer. He is never seen to be quite as talented as Tolkein, to whom The Screwtape Letters was dedicated. But I have to say that The Screwtape Letters has been a surprisingly good read. Though written as a series of letters from the demon Screwtape to his nephew, a junior tempter called Wormwood, Lewis resisted the more fantastical path such a satire could easily have taken. Don't get me wrong, the book is really quite funny and the irony is most biting when Screwtape gets impatient with Wormwood's "conventional" understanding of evil (not unlike a young man who delights in the grand movements of history, Wormwood delights too much in wars and human suffering, all of which which Screwtape judges as a good drama but not the essence of the battle with "The Enemy").

But unlike Tolkein, Lewis' heart was not in constructing that semi-fictional world (no matter how enjoyable the literary games, I imagine, must have been). His sight is fixed on showing the relationship between man and God to his readers. For the former, Lewis shows amazing insight into the corners our human reason works itself into, our meandering excuses, and the deception we weave so skillfully that we even fool ourselves... yet because the Christian faith tells him that man is made in God's image and that God's investment of faith and love in the human race is beyond understanding, Lewis also never resorts to cynicism.

I'm into my last pages of the book now, but took a break tonight to finish the illustration above - which displays its influence.

You (don't) have mail

Before HDB changed the letter boxes at J's block to the sort where you can lock the slot (so that no one except the bona fide postman can place mail in it), we would receive all kinds of junk mail.

A year ago, the packrat in me started a collection of these junk mail. They are brochures and pamphlets mostly, with the occasional discount coupons from Ronald and Colonel Sanders. Some are photocopies of handwritten notes, others are glossy full-colour projects. They range from the full A4 size sheet to the tiniest slip measuring 5cm by 3cm.

The more socially disturbing brochures have included this mail-order-bride agency's advertisement (for single men 25-70!);



the politically-incorrect messages from maid employment agencies; and the temptations of the neighbourhood porn peddlar (unbelievable titles and promises!). Right after the government announced the go-ahead for 2 casinos integrated resorts to be built in Singapore, I also found this brochure from an enterprising author of a gamblers' guide.



Having little desire to learn baccarat or participate in any form of legalised human trade, I suppose I am not their target audience.

But on a typical day, the pamphlets are designed for a typical Singaporean like me, progammed to desire our little 100sqm HDB flat - our pride and joy, our birthright on this island.

These are either colourful messages from estate agents advertising their services and properties, or plain, handwritten notes on 3by5cm slips of paper from prospective buyers. Of the two, I prefer the latter:

Urgent! Please Help Us! Dear Owner, we have just sold our condo. Homeless now. Desperately looking for a 5-room HDB flat. We are willing to pay $20k-$40k cash upfront. Please help us!

Dear Owner,
Your surrounding and flat is best to me. I am very serious to buy a flat in your area. If you are selling, please call for serious discussion. No agent pls.

Hi,
this is my third time writing to you. I am very interested in a flat in your area as my children are being taken care by my parents staying nearby. Willing to pay good price over value. Please call me.

Dear owner,
my buyers are getting married soon. They are urgently looking for flat in your area. Willing to pay $20k-$40k above value, cash payment. Please call...

I am Mr Wong, from Hong Kong. I am urgently looking for a flat in your area as my son is studying in a school in the area. Willing to offer high price. Please call me. No agent pls.

Aiyah, I do miss these little stories in the mailbox: the migrant's tale; the "downgraders" demise from Condo-heaven; the single-parent's struggles...Now, a trip to the mailbox yields only the story of our life of consumption on credit.

If you still get these pamphlets in your mailbox and feel guilty throwing them away, pass them on to me.

ampulets∙supplies

It's here!

We went and printed some A1 posters this afternoon (the last day of our too-brief break from work, *sigh*) on some luxurious 230gm paper with matt laminate...they feel so sturdy you can use them as giant placemats at a dinner for 4. But there'll be more stuff coming up over the next few months as we've taken a small step in the silk-screen department, plus there's some old stock of books.

So friends, check out some of ampulets' supplies for daydreaming :)

real life of an artist

Most people take a holiday out of the country when they are on leave from work. However, J and I are staying home instead because of this...but also to catch up on the things we really want to do:
1. Learn how to silkscreen T-shirts (we owe several people their angel and starry wings t-shirts!)
2. Finish a 3minute video
3. Start on a short story that's been sitting in my head for a year
4. Make posters from some of the drawings

Other than #2, we have accomplished next to nothing (ok, so this is meant to be a holiday). Instead of working our way from #1-4, we spent today helping real artists and curators at p-10 prepare for an exhibition...

The exhibition is called Errata. It is the result of years of work by art researcher Koh Nguang How. Koh used to be an assistant curator-cum-photographer at the old National Museum, before it became the Singapore History Museum (in 2006, when it moves back into its original premises, it will also go back to being called the National Museum). I met him through a friend when Koh had organised in the late 90s an amazing show of Singapore woodcut artists from the 30s-60s.

Koh's work in Errata continues from his research into the woodblock art (much of it was political) in that period. Errata takes as a start an erratum in a book on SEAsian art history by Singapore Art Museum director Kwok. The error was that of a painting by Chua Mia Tee "National Language Class" (see right pic), which was dated 1950 instead of 1959. From this error, Koh tells of the complex web of political, aesthetic and social narratives 2 decades or so before Singapore's independence in 1965. These stories of Singapore's early artists, their intellectual circles and political engagements are told through Koh's intriguing collection of old journals, magazines, exhibition catalogues, books, newspaper articles etc, all bookmarked with notes.

Viewing the exhibition is therefore no passive act.You mimic the researcher in trawling through his collection. As you do so (there is a guide and video, in case you don't know where to start!), you form your own stories of their lives and thoughts by making the relation between text and image, error and conjecture. It is a lesson in Singapore's pre-independence history, but also one in historiography. There are so many hidden stories of Singapore's road to independence, in addition to the official one so oft-shown (epitomised by the image of Lee Kuan Yew, tearing as his announces the news of our separation from Malaysia). And by spotting the error in Kwok's book, Koh also asks these questions - how well do we know our history? does knowing our history matter? what does "art history" mean? what role does art history play in national history? what roles do art play - in national, institutional, private lives?

And while I'm on the subject of art + taking a break + artists' lives, check out the work and adventures of Chin Yew as he tries out being a 30 day artist. Today is Day 11.

I don't think I'll ever do something like this (i.e. quit my job to be an artist, be it for 30 or 300 days). In many ways, I enjoy the interactions at work with my colleagues and with folks I meet because of my job - designers, artists, educators, arts managers, yes, even other civil servants. They challenge me and I always walk away humbled. I secretly like the routine that comes with a job and, even more so, openly enjoy the certainty of the monthly paycheck. I am also getting used to stealing time on train rides, in the night, or during weekends and these short breaks to write and draw. And so, guess I am not cut out for the real life of an artist.

(The exhibition Errata is on at the Singapore History Museum, 15 August to 25 September.

Cafe Society

Life goes on (#1) - click for larger pic

The scene: Evening, a branch of Coffeebean & Tea Leaf at our neighbourhood mall Bishan Junction 8. Ampulets being nosey and no-life.

J: [Right after the girls beside us leave] So, so, did you hear what they were talking about?
Y: Yup, bits of it. I think the girl who's sitting on your side, she's heart broken.
J: Oh, is it? I heard the other one girl say "I really want that job."
Y: Yah, I heard that too. But most of the time, she was giving her friend advice about what to do with that no use boyfriend. Funny, the things she said...I mean, not humourous-funny. Anyway, I don't think her friend really heard any of what she said.
J: Those 2 guys over there look like they were saying something pretty interesting too.
Y: [turning around to look] Hmm...
J: Hey, all these conversations going on everywhere, I always find it strange how many of them are talking about similar things or topics - and sometimes I think what it'll be like if we can connect them!
Y: What do you mean? (is this another of your silly ideas again, J?)
J: Connect them, like an operator...
Y: Oh, I get it. Like with the girls just now, we can introduce them to the guys over there, and say - "you know, what you were saying just now, he has the same problem but he's got a new perspective on that! Maybe you two should talk."
J: Yah, like a chatroom with these strings of conversation that can be linked.
Y: That's not too bad an idea...
J: I was also thinking of making these recordings of the noise at all the different cafes, of all these bits of conversations and music mixed up together, then label them individually and play them back at home... cheaper than coming out here for a coffee! Actually if you listen, all the places sound quite different, and depending on the time of the day and week.
Y: Seow ah! (crazy!) You mean when friends come over to our place for coffee, we can ask them - "So, what do you feel like today? do you want Starbucks on a weekday night? Or the coffeeshop downstairs in the morning?" Then you will play the recording as background noise?!?
J: Don't you think it'll be quite interesting, all these different sounds...

Well friends, next time when we ask you over for dinner or a post-dinner coffee, whatever you ask DJ TOHOA to play... it won't be another elevator compilation of Cafe del Mar.

Another day older

Like all good Singaporeans, J & I spent the national holiday watching movies.

One was Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, all dark chocolate with marshmallow & fudge. The other film we watched with Monster Ru was Tsai Ming Liang's misplaced and disappointing The Wayward Cloud...like chunky Watermelon juice with seeds (aiyoh, not suitable for children). This is one rare occasion when I would vote for the candy-coated Hollywood product instead.

Teenagers in general spend a fair bit of time at the cinema, mostly consuming Hollywood visions. 2 weeks ago, responding to the Chinese conference "Culture and Youth: can they grow up together?", a writer from the Chinese language daily Zaobao observed if Singapore's cultural development would be stuck forever at the "teenager" phase - consumerist in nature, fickle, fueled by the desire for random self-expression and for freedom from tradition and authority. These are, of course, only the negative traits.

i.
ii.
iii.
I don't want to grow up - drawings from Kidnap News

Since post-independence-Singapore is only 40 years old (starting yesterday!), the writer laments that we seemed to have intellectually and culturally cut ourselves off from anything before the 40 years. In defining our cultural milieu, the decision-makers, story-tellers and even the man in the street cannot reconcile the experiences of today's youth with their parents' and their grandparents'. These remain discordant, disconnected pieces.

In this way, our cultural malaise is the denial of having once been old and denying the wisdom that can be found in tradition and heritage. Like a teenager, Singapore strives to constantly re-invent and assert our youthful vigor. Though this gives rise to significant anxiety about our cultural identity, the writer concludes optimistically that Singaporean culture will mature - given time, space and the solid food from poetry.

The article got me thinking - not about Singapore per se - but in self-centred teenager fashion, about myself. And in resolving to grow up, I would, for a start:
1. admit that even children are not innocent (don't romanticise childhood, very regressive - unless it results in a film like Tim Burton's);
2. care more for our parents/families;
3. lament less, commit more to others;
4. get decent medical insurance;
5. stop wearing sneakers; and
6. allow that all these will need more than just time, space and poetry.

Happy News

Blank Walls is the title of The Observatory's second album. It will be launched on 2 September with a performance at the Esplanade. The band has also started a blog. Not a great title, but I'm keeping an open mind about them this time. What happy news about a good Singapore band on National Day.

We must not have heroes

There are few statues of state leaders, war heroes, or of any sort of hero in this country.

The closest we have to this is of Sir Stamford Raffles, our supposed founder who had first set foot on this sleepy fishing village from his East India Company ship in 1819. Arguably, of course, the most prominent statue we have is not even of a person, much less a hero (but enough angst about the merlion already).

I think this is because the country's founding leader(s) held strong views against general hero-fication. Perhaps they saw it as reminiscent of more corrupt, less enlightened nations - all this hero business is too romantic and therefore, misguiding. Or perhaps the suspicion was reflective of a deep-rooted anxiety about communism, and communism's attraction to iconic leaders - Lenin, Stalin, Mao...


This afternoon, though child of this island and its system, I surprised myself when I bought the coffeetable book Ong Teng Cheong: Planner, Politician, Politician, a 2005 project of the Singapore Heritage Society, co-authored by Tisa Ng & Lily Tan (ok, so there was also the 20% discount Kinokuniya was offering...). If I had to pick one Singaporean politician/leader from the ruling party I admired, it would have to be the late President Ong Teng Cheong.

One of the most interesting chapters of the book for me was about his years with the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). Having once worked in the government department that looked into labour relations, I have heard many stories of Singapore's rather unique (for want of a better word) labour movement since independence...including the story of that historic strike - extremely rare, if ever at all, in post-independenec Singapore - that was sanctioned by the labour movement in 1986 against an American MNC. The story is told in Chapter 3, quoting an interview with Asiaweek that Ong gave in 2000 where he said this:

The Minister for Trade and Industry was veryangry, his officers were upset...I said if I were to inform the Cabinet or the government they would probably stop me from going ahead with the strike (p67).

But I take it this was an early indication that the late President would do what is reasonable and responsible, in his professional capacity, even if it was incongruent with the ruling government's position.

He was also someone I respected for his advocacy of the arts and culture in Singapore's national development. No politician in Singapore's history, I think, ever articulated so clearly, intelligently and reasonably the intricacies of the relationship between the arts and the state, culture and nationhood - albeit in the seminal 1989 report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts. No politician cared and probably, none still cares for culture. But maybe for Ong, I think he had a genuine respect for artists and a genuine love for the arts - not only as trophies for the state on the international stage or as the necessary evil in the global competition to be a "creative city". Chapter 4 suggests that his regard for culture was "as a repository of timeless principles, and a means of communcating these ideas, (hence) it is not surprising that literature and heritage received special attention (p85)". Incidentally, today however, these are two areas most lacking of support and attention. But the same grounded-ness also informed his attitudes on censorship...

Well, biographies are not complete without the personal anecdotes and those private triumphs and sorrows - the stuff that make heroes human. One of my favourite is this somewhat prophetic incident (ah, all heroes need to have a prophecy as a claim to greatness - it is always fate, some greater poetry - never mere prosaic merit):

In 1960, Teng Cheong won a prize of ₤50 for best all-round results in his 4th year of architecture studies, and a special commendation for a design of Singapore's Istana, which formed part of his thesis (p20).

There you go! Who else but Mdm Fate would have known then that 2 years after Parliament had passed the Elected Presidency in 1991, the young man who had proposed in his undergraduate thesis the design of the Istana would sit in that office himself?

Photo is taken from p20 of the book.

Of course, the book also has its fair share of romance - the late President and his wife were, after all, just as intelligent but far more attractive and seemingly more loving than the other power couples in Singapore's political history. One of my favourite photographs from the book is of Ong Teng Cheong watching Ling Siew May,his wife (or wife-to-be) in the kitchen.

So if you do need a book to read this National Day holiday that would complement the patriotism and love stirring in your red-and-white/crescent-and-stars heart, this is one book I recommend. The photographs alone are worth it.

T.G.I.N.D soon

Not taken any time out recently to watch them leaves falling? No worries, my friends, soon soon! The nation's birthday is around the corner, and whether or not your heart has warmed up to this island and its deciduous (oh, delicious sounding word!) trees, ampulets give you here a picture to celebrate the long weekend!

Heng again?

The newspapers confirmed that Mr Stephen Ooi Boon Ewe has decided to run for the Singapore presidency yet again:

Channel News Asia online, 2 August 2005
The Elections Department has received a third application form for the certificate of eligibility for the Presidential Election.

It was submitted by 64-year-old Mr Ooi Boon Ewe who had failed to qualify for an eligibility certificate during the 1999 Presidential Election [...] Mr Ooi told Channel NewsAsia earlier that he still does not meet the strict criteria to run for the office.

But Mr Ooi would have the benefit of experience this time, when he receives the confirmation that he has failed to meet the eligibility criteria for th race:

South China Morning Post, 9 August 1999
Career diplomat S. R. Nathan, a man at the centre of numerous spats with neighbouring Malaysia over the years, looks set to become the next president without a single vote being cast.

Two rivals submitted applications to run for the presidency by Saturday's deadline, but both are expected to be ruled ineligible before campaigning even begins.

They are veteran opposition figure and insurance agent Tan Soo Phuan, the little-known leader of the little-known Singapore Democratic Progressive Party, and private tutor Ooi Boon Ewe, a man even more obscure in politics.

Political analyst Ooi Giok Ling said: "The screening criteria are very rigorous and these two men are not likely to qualify."

The Presidential Elections Committee will only issue eligibility certificates to applicants who fulfil strict criteria, such as having held high public office or headed a S$100 million company.

Neither Mr Tan, 63, and Mr Ooi, 58, come anywhere close to qualifying and are expected to forfeit their S$30,000 deposits. -

His presidential ambitions thwarted in 1999, a quick google search revealed that Mr Ooi had also ran in the 2001 General Elections against Mr Chan Soo Sen for Joo Chiat. By then, he had become a property executive, and was no longer a private tutor (I wonder what he had declared as his profession this time round?). The same search also revealed (from an online dictionary of Singlish/Singapore English, under the entry for heng!) that although he did not emerge the winner in 2001, Mr Ooi knew he had the good fortune to garner 16.5% of Joo Chiat's votes and recover his $13,000 deposit:

The Straits Times, 4 November, 2001
An excited Mr Ooi Boon Ewe was at Temasek Primary principal counting centre for Joo Chiat… The independent candidate went there alone even before polls closed… He got his $13,000 deposit back as he polled 16.5 per cent of the vote. ‘Get back money — heng ah!’ he exclaimed…

Did Mr Stephen Ooi not learn from1999? Did he think he would be second, third time heng?

Always the Winner!

Or perhaps, Mr Ooi is trying to say that it is not important to win the race everytime? not even important to qualify for the race? But rather it is important to ask (again) those questions some of us might have at the back of our minds - why should there be "eligibility criteria" for those running for President? Does a CEO of a $100million company understand any better the responsibility of holding the emergency key to the nation's coffers? who should decide what are the desirable qualities for a President? Is it you? What do you think?

This man is a mystery, amongst other things.

The Island of One?

Island of One

Many Singaporeans lament that our island is small (just 3.5times the size of Washington D.C.), hence boring. What is there to see or do in this country that is still struggling to free itself from its many labels - amongst the more stubborn ones are "cultural dessert", "sterile", "nanny state", and the more recent "air-conditioned nation". We are Nemos in a dentist's aquarium!

For close to 2 years, I've kept a sketchbook with me wherever I go. It has become a habit that whenever I am in a train, waiting or alone somewhere, I'll take out the sketch book and something or someone interesting will inevitably wander into my line of sight. I just have to wait - and see.

I have always wondered if those who lived before the days of the internet, air travel, the locomotive, the automobile... in villages whose piece of sky is as large as the dense vegetation allowed... had had similar misgivings about their homes. Are their palettes less rich? Their imaginations reined in? Is the immediate, the personal, the domestic, always less interesting or valuable than the national, the foreign, the international? Is it really a case of "nothing to see" in Singapore, or have we not trained our eyes to see?

Something reminded me and I dug out an old copy of Emerson - he who saw the whole universe reproduced, in miniature, in a drop of dew, would have this to say:

It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans...The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home,and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still...But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is a vagabond, and our whole system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. - "Self Reliance"

It seems a little contradictory on a post urging the value of the domestic to be quoting Emerson, a foreigner (i.e. dead white guy). Emerson was writing at a time when America was writing and fighting itself into existence as a nation - metaphysical, political and geographic, so maybe there's a narrow common ground as this country is nearing only its 40th anniversary in its current definition. What I mean to say is, of course, simpler: that there are things on this island worth documenting, writing or singing about, taking a photograph of - or worth as much as you make of it.