Thank you, Lion Cubs I must have been one of the biggest skeptics of the inaugural Games, but over the last 12 days, I’ve been treated to some of the best things it has brought to our shores. I’m just hoping we’ll forget trying to show the world how we can do this and do that — it may take several more decades before we break the stupid inferiority complex that makes us call ourselves ‘the little red dot’ — but instead savor and remember the enthusiasm and joy some of these kids have shown the older cynics like me. If you’ve been hiding underneath a rock, let me tell you now, that Boys’ Own stuff was demonstrated in the bronze medal football match by our own Lion Cubs even with their captain Jeffrey Lightfoot having been taken off early in the game for a nasty gash that required stitches. Our boys went and, according to their coach, overplayed their hand, disobeyed coaching instructions, and smacked four goals past the boys from Montenegro. It’s been a long, long time since a local football team’s photo graced the front pages of our news broadsheets, and just as long since one packed a stadium. I’d have bet that if the National Stadium had hosted the Cubs for the Games, the Kallang Roar would’ve made a comeback and scared the crap out of people riding in the Singapore Flyer. Thank you, our home-grown boys. Ah… Capella My wife is nuts. She knows I’m under the gun with deadlines looming, and what does she do? She goes and books a villa at Capella Singapore, so that I’ll have nice, tranquil surrounds to do work in while we celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. How to be all angsty and writer-like, like that? Work beckons. It’s almost 1am, she’s asleep and so’s the baby. Tell you all more after a dip in our personal pool in the morning. Capella Singapore villa Banker! We’ve been very lucky to have a baby boy who’s so easy to look after. He eats well, is able to play by himself, and sleeps mostly to a schedule, and when we’re eating out, he’s able to sit at the table for up to an hour — enough for us to finish our meal without fuss. Because Naomi is the one that does the details, we have a log of Kai’s daily doings like waking and sleeping times, eating and excreting times — although I’m sure there are other parents like us, with computerised logs that offer an instant audit if so required. We also have a live-feed list of Kai’s vocablurry, which currently includes such food related words as “eat”, “pasta”, “chicken”, “bread”, “apple” and “hot” and “cold”. That’s about the same as an SQ stewardess’ operating vocabulary at cruising altitude — because at take-offs and landings they have to learn to read other complicated things from a card. A friend tells us to be very careful what we say in front of Kai from now on, as they’re at the “storage of information” stage. Her 18 month old daughter shocked her last month by parroting a rude word she heard her father say. So we are now at the next stage of parenting where we have to start spelling things out. Or pretend we said something else. “Banker! Papa said Banker!“ More than half of toys tested unsafe The Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) tested a basket of 50 toys sold in Singapore, and more than half were found to be unsafe. Naomi and I are not surprised. But what I’d like to know is, what kind of crap toy is this? The pictorial list of toys is here, and I kinda agree with the toy gun / cuff set being unsafe. A friend of mine handcuffed himself to the fence when he was five years old, and was only released by his laughing parents when they got home several hours later. A few days later, he shot himself in both nostrils with the dart gun. Actually, he was the sort of kid who’d manage to injure himself even if you put him in a straitjacket in a padded room. Gold for Singapore football? OK chope. I’ve only just discovered that there are only 6 teams competing in the Youth Olympic Games football competition. So it’s not exactly a world stage for our boys due to a ruling that each country can be represented in only two team sports at the Games. That means the chances of a gold medal for our Lion Cubs are pretty high indeed. OK, maybe with just a little bit of luck, like when Steven Bradbury won Australia’s first Winter Games gold medal: Very full now, just ate my words I watched snippets of the YOG opening ceremony, and spent another hour on the Youth Olympic News Channel on Starhub TV watching interviews and re-runs and wondered why they didn’t have that on earlier. I learned many things about the Games and the athletes participating which should have been in the local media but wasn’t. But back to the Opening Ceremony. It was very impressive, right down to the giant monster that a boy, who was later interviewed on YON Channel, described as “very fluffy”. You guys pulled off a great show — which was the only thing needed to get this bloody country to rally behind you. No need for calls to be gracious and fines to be imposed should those calls be unheeded. The icing on the cake this weekend for me, a non-soccer fan, was the home-grown Singapore youth football team beating, nay, thrashing the daylights out of the hitherto cocky Zimbabweans, who had earlier predicted a 5–0 routing of our Lion Cubs. I was thrilled to see such an exuberant performance from a team from our shores. If they grow up playing like this, we might just hear the Kallang Roar again (ok, and after they demolish and rebuild the National Stadium, and ask to be part of the Malaysia Cup again too). Keep at it, boys. Show the older sporting folk how it’s done — by throwing everything at the opposition. Top points also to the 12 year old boy who ran after the torch and single-handedly restored meaning to the Olympic torch relay after it had been inexplicably given legs by Mediacorp (yah, I know, WTF?) artistes on the first day. My words go down well with a tall glass of wheat beer, by the way. Har? #sgflood again? My National Day Parade I remember National Day Parade 1990 the most because it’s the NDP I was involved in. It was held at the Padang, and it featured the most impressive mobile column display since independence, involving all the military hardware and soldiers (like us) of the day. At the beginning of that year, my battalion mates and I were in our second year of National Service — and for some reason, there was a what was called a “lull period” in our training program. By May, it became clear why that was so, as plans for the Padang parade were passed down through the combat and support companies. Our battalion was to supply one company sized mobile column/marching contingent and three companies of construction labour to build the spectator stands for the parade. I’m not sure how it works these days, but in our time, the method of divvying up the work was this: the worst performing combat company got the marching duties. It might seem strange that the worst get rewarded by being in the limelight. But look further and you’ll realise that the mobile column/marching contingent has copped the rawest deal — hours and days of rehearsals, starching of uniforms, polishing of boots and armoured vehicles. We moved in to the Padang in June, helping to unload the metal tubes that made up the grandstands, and then building the grandstands. It was like a giant Ikea assembly project as our sergeants and officers argued over the engineers’ manuals and instructed us to build the several storey tall structure by trial and error. When night fell, guards were mounted from our ranks and we patrolled the Padang to ensure no one stole or sabotaged the grandstand. It was great fun. Across the road from the Padang, where the Esplanade now stands was a hawker centre known as the Satay Club. We’d stray from our route and buy food and drink (with the blessing of the guard commander ensconced in a command tent on the grounds of the St Andrew’s Cathedral) and eat till our hearts’ content. With the wee hours came some unusual encounters for the patrols. A group of transvestites used to frequent the Satay Club nightly, and it wasn’t because they liked to eat satay a lot. When day broke on one of the first few days we were at the Padang, our Regimental Sergeant Major had inspected the construction site and discovered condom wrappers, used condoms and other associated debris strewn around the grandstand area — people had been using the nooks and crannies made by our stacks of building material to explore their own nooks and crannies. The order was put out unequivocally — we were not to allow any such monkey business to happen, and we were to apprehend (nicely) any civilian who were caught doing so, and ask them to leave the area and get a room. If they were to resist, we were to call our guard commander via our walky talkies, who would then call the cops via telephone at the cathedral. So we patrolled a lot more diligently, shining torchlights into dark places and asking couples in various degrees of undress to leave the area for their safety. Thankfully, on my patrols, most did without resisting. But there was the incident of a patrol who encountered a group of belligerent transvestites who threatened them with bodily harm. By the time the police arrived, the guard commander was cowering under his table while the ladyboys sat on top and ransacked the things that were there. I also celebrated my 21st birthday while serving a weekend guard duty at the Padang. That night, my buddies left the compound to buy a cake, some satay and lots of beer. We passed out drunk somewhere on the field and only got woken up when some transvestites wanted to trespass again. More good times were had after the grandstand was built and when the other participants in the parade arrived for dress rehearsals. After being asked to test the grandstand by jumping up and down on them (and not causing a collapse and killing ourselves) we hung out near the Singapore Airlines contingent and asked the Singapore Girls how they had been selected to march — whether they had been rated the worst among their peers or something. They mostly ignored us. On National Day itself, I was tasked to take my recce motorcycle and station myself at a car park somewhere in Raffles Place and guide VIP vehicles in and out of the area. So, apart from seeing the aircraft of the RSAF perform their flypast, I missed the entire parade. Troopers from 46SAR celebrating the completion of the spectator stands, July 1990 (I’m 3rd from left) Support YOG, wear this t-shirt Tired of people saying you should be interested in the inaugural Youth Olympic Games? Then wear this t-shirt and support our organisers! Buy this and other apparel and accessories at my cafepress shop made specially for the occasion. Proceeds will be donated to a charity which I haven’t decided on. What are you waiting for? Blaze the Trail! Hold the Torch! Burn the Flame! Pass This On! At La Petite Cuisine with le petite canard Four years have passed since Naomi and I first dined at La Cuisine — when she was still my fiance — and I had a chuckle reading that blog post about it. Neither of us smoke any more, the maitre’d has since mellowed, and the restaurant itself has since transformed itself into a much more casual affair called La Petite Cuisine. It’s more what a bistro should be like in Singapore: no pretense (t-shirt, shorts, slippers), just good food served quickly and eaten slowly. Well, it does slow you down when you have to hang on to a glass of iced-water that your 15 month old insists on drinking from. Is the YOG really a shambles? For a world’s first ever event, the PR efforts are really really poor. I had to ask around several times where the opening ceremony was (because I have a nephew visiting from Canada, and he’s really into his sport), and no-one knew. Some said the Padang, some said the National Stadium Oh Wait They Took The Grass and Seats Off Already. The website took me several clicks before I found for sure where it was going to be held. By now, I should have known at least some of the star athletes competing, some of their stories of triumphing over poverty and other odds, but I don’t. By now, I should have known what the medals look like, where it was minted, how heavy it was, but I don’t. It’s as if MCYS took on the project thinking, “if we host it, everything else will fall into place”, forgetting that you’ve got a press who’ll only print what you give them to print, and won’t be motivated to look any further. The only interest I have in the YOG right now is how much of a shambles it’s going to turn out to be, and how embarrassed we’re going to be for hosting it. I do hope to eat my own words though. My friend becomes a knight Hossan is awesome, and he makes things look so easy if you don’t see him panicking, trying to memorise scripts because they’ve been given to him at the last minute. He speaks French so well that if you were stranded on a desert island that was a French colony, you’d want him to be in your tribe. More importantly, he’s got heart. Félicitations, Ch. Leong, Hossan. SINGAPORE: Singapore Boy Hossan Leong has received the prestigious Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Order of Arts and Literature). The distinction honours Hossan’s achievements in the Arts and significant contributions to French culture worldwide – in particular his involvement in cultural ties between Singapore and France. The forty-one year old actor/director and radio presenter learnt of his Knighthood when he received a letter and certification from France’s Minister For Culture and Communication, Frederic Mitterrand. An official ceremony to confer the title will be held at the Ambassador of France to Singapore’s residence in coming weeks. “It’s a dream come true to be recognized for something that I’m passionate about, French Culture and the Arts,” Leong said. Hossan has starred in several French themed productions with Sing’theatre — including the company’s tribute to Edith Piaf and the recent production of A Singaporean In Paris. He represented the Singapore Actors in Paris at the inaugural Asian Film Festival. In 2006 Hossan was awarded the Prix des Ambassadeurs Francophones (Francophone Ambassador Award). Hossan lived in the South of France during his twenties where he studied French. He has also been actively involved with the French community in Singapore hosting events and teaching acting classes to the students at the French School. Leong is the co founder of the Paul Carr Consultancy Pte Ltd — a Singapore based Entertainment & Media Training Company and is a popular host/stand-up comedian for corporate events. Singapore Pledge — Hossan Leong Show version Raffles City Shoppers’ Exclusive Discount Hossan is offering a 20% discount to all Raffles City Shoppers! Simply spend $50 in Raffles City from 9–31 July 2010 and present your receipt at the SISTIC counter located on level 1 of Raffles City to receive the discount. Terms & Conditions: – Discount is only applicable to Category 1 tickets ($68). – Discount is only applicable to tickets purchased for shows on Sundays to Thursdays and weekday matinees. – Ticket price is not inclusive of SISTIC fees. – A single receipt with a minimum spend of $50 must be presented at point of ticket purchase Win tickets to The Hossan Leong Show! Simply watch the promotional video, answer a question and stand to be one of the 3 winners to win a pair of tickets to the show. Eat fish will die ah? Eat this one and you might Blood still boiling from the discovery of yesterday’s Razor TV coverage of the same restaurant buying and serving giant grouper that CNA talked about last month, Naomi did a little research and found that not only is this big fish a vulnerable species, it is also likely to be poisonous as its flesh contains a neurotoxin that cannot be destroyed by heat of cooking. The largest bony fish found in coral reefs (Ref. 9710). Common in shallow waters. Found in caves or wrecks; also in estuaries. Individuals more than a meter long have been caught from shore and in harbors. Juveniles secretive in reefs and rarely seen (Ref. 48635). Benthopelagic and benthic (Ref. 58302). Feed on spiny lobsters, fishes, including small sharks and batoids, and juvenile sea turtles and crustaceans. In South African estuaries, the main prey item is the mud crab, Scylla serrata. Unconfirmed reports of fatal attacks on humans. Nearly wiped out in heavily fished areas (Ref. 9710). In the Hong Kong live fish markets (Ref. 27253). Large individuals may be ciguatoxic (Ref. 37816). Judging by how unintelligible this commenter on the greendrinks blog sounds, some people might have already been poisoned. ST equals CNA’s cluelessness First posted on greenkampong.com Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb… If you sing that to the tune of the score from “Jaws”, you’ll be able to warn others about our fine country’s “trusted” news sources. Last month we featured how CNA celebrated the capture and cooking of a Queensland Grouper despite it being on the IUCN red list. Now we if you click on the link below you’ll see ST’s version, posted yesterday on their web video news Razor TV. Please do pass this on to everyone you know. Maybe we can even ask IUCN to amend the “conservation actions” section on the species to include Singapore’s unique “catch ‘em, fry ‘em and eat ‘em” action on vulnerable species. View the video at RAZORTV — Singapore lands 220kg fish. Separated at Birth: London 2012 Mascot & One-Eyed Minion Meet Wenlock Meet One Eyed Minion Oh, so that’s what a tantrum sounds like Kai is growing really quickly. Every day he comes up with something new. Like yesterday morning, he tried taking off his pyjamas on his own — and I know I can’t be bothered to word the event in a more exciting fashion, because if you’re not a parent, you won’t get why I’m so amazed and proud anyway. Just like the time he said “chicken”. If I were to dig through this blog’s archives, I’d probably find some post where I wrote “bring on the terrible twos”, but because we have to run after Kai almost every waking minute of the day, I simply don’t have time to dig through this blog’s archives. But bring it on he has. Naomi and I are currently experiencing the brunt of Kai’s spectacular meltdowns. They happen without warning, out of the blue, as sudden and unexpected as an Orchard Road flash flood. Self-radicalisation and the terrorism expert To accompany last month’s word of the month, “culvert”, comes a term from the Home Team, and it is “self-radicalisation”. I’ve been swamped with work lately, and have only caught snippets of what this ‘self-radicalisation’ means in today’s internet and new media age. Apparently, something to do with surfing bad stuff on the net that makes you want to radicalise yourself. (Back in my day, we self-radicalised to less high tech things like Playboy and Hustler). But the funnier thing to me in all this is that in nearly 9 years since 9/11, our nation’s trusted news sources have continued to call on a self-professed terrorism expert whose opinions have been pilloried elsewhere, for various reasons. I dunno. Maybe in our country, we don’t hear alarm bells very well. What becomes of the broken hearted (world cup fans)? They mope for a coupla days and still watch the 3rd and 4th placing match even though they’ve spent the morning lamenting about how meaningless these matches are and how they should scrap them and go straight for the grand final. Or they pass their passion on to the next generation of football tragics: All’s well in the world because our son can say “chicken” He said it loudly and clearly – possibly the clearest he’s every pronounced any (English) word. The rest are approximations which we accept because he’s a baby and we’re his parents. “Chicken”, he said. And then Mama took out her iPhone and tried to make him repeat the word. As you’d expect, it wasn’t going to happen. Nope, Nada, Nando’s. All he did was point at the bowl of chicken strips that we made for him for dinner, and signed for more. But cute lah, our son. Channelnewsbetter always looks on the bright side WSJ article here; CNA article here OK, the Yoof Ollumpics is getting to me There’s been murmurs that the authorities are a little worried that the YOG isn’t going to amount to a hill of beans – with the MOE buying 80,000 tickets to put at least small bums on seats at events, and the budget ballooning to three times the original estimate. Some of the money was well spent, though, IMHO. I’m talking about the infernal YOG cheer song written and “sung” by J.J. Lin, who, IMHO again, is an embarrassment to ACS boys everywhere because of his Mandarin singing abilities. Mr Lin has somehow crafted a cheer, accompanied by a blatant rip-off of the hadouken gesture, that is STUCK IN MY HEAD, and all I can think of is how the lyrics, if you could call them that, sounds like what Jack Neo would say in the throes of passion. (Think about it – oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah HEY oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah HO). But having said that, Oh Yeah Oh Yeah Oh Yeah Hey (Foyce Me! Foyce Me Now!) may not be the worst cheer song ever written. The other infernal patriotic national cheer that I know of, and that is equally annoying has to be Come on Aussie Come on. Are there any other country’s cheer songs which bug you the same way these two do? Good coffee, funny commercials Yesterday at a Nespresso media event, I watched a 30-sec TVC spot that will be aired on local tv next week. It’s funny. Not least because it stars George Clooney and John Malkovich: Here’s the longer, 2 minute version: George Clooney Meet John Malkovich – Nespresso Commerical – The most amazing videos are a click away And the one with the alternate ending: Channel Newsasia makes a meal of a vulnerable species of fish First published on greenkampong.com Our very own Channel Newsasia ignores the fact that the Giant Garoupa or Queensland Grouper was put on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2006, and instead celebrates the story of a restaurateur who bought one this week and is selling it to customers at $20 per 200g. via Channel NewsAsia: The owner of a restaurant in Singapore has reeled in a man-sized Queensland garoupa off the coast of Sabah. And he expects to feed 600 customers with it. The garoupa weighs 150 kilogrammes and is two metres long. It is so big that it had to be brought in on Monday morning using a forklift. via IUCN: Being such a large predator, it is rare even in areas unexploited by fishing (Randall and Heemstra 1991) and it has nearly been extirpated in areas where it has been heavily fished (Lieske and Myers 1994) for the live reef food-fish trade; this is a trade in live fish for food which is centred in SE Asia and expecially China and Chinese communities. Not good to be in the news the same day as Sumiko Tan’s Hurricane Oh well. Not that it’s that big a deal being completely overshadowed by “Singapore’s Carrie Bradshaw“, and the floods. MRT train slower than football fan If an artist can get away with tagging an MRT carriage for two days without staff noticing anything amiss, it shouldn’t be that far fetched that some football nut can somehow outrun the train and make it to the next station before it does. For the newcomers to this country “I hope that all of us are convinced that this country is for all races, and will have four official languages. But Malay will be the National and the common language. If you don’t learn the National Language, you will have yourself to blame. Without knowledge of it, it will be difficult for you to get a job.” Lee Kuan Yew, 23 October 1965 Our son is iPhone native I’ve always been led to think that babies start saying their first word out of the blue, and start walking unaided all of a sudden. Kai can walk now, albeit with his arms in the air holding on to invisible parachute straps. But that has taken about a fortnight of taking one, then two unaided steps, and there hasn’t really been a defining moment announcing his bipedness. The other amazing thing is how quickly he’s taken to using the other things always attached to us besides him – my Blackberry and Naomi’s iPhone. Naomi and I started out thinking: “We’re not going to let our son be distracted by flashy light thingies, PSPs and other such like”, but it was always going to be a lost cause when you have to feed, change and generally have to attend to a squirmy one year old toddler. Other parents who don’t already know this – these are the two life-saving apps for your Blackberry and iPhone: Baby GO! for the ‘Berry, and Talking Carl for the iPhone. Then Sunday night, we went out to Ion Orchard, and as expected, Kai got antsy after half an hour in the restaurant, so I took him out to toddle around the 4th floor. Near the concierge’s counter was a pillar with two touch-screen directories. One of them was just right for his height (presumably for the wheelchair bound), so he went at it, pressing and pushing until he accidentally pressed the search button at the bottom right, activating an onscreen keyboard. Our 14 month-old knows his keyboard and starts pressing the letters anyhowly. But here’s the clincher: He’s been mimicking how Naomi, her mum and myself make and take calls with our phones over the past three months or so, and it still make us chuckle when he puts his hand to his ear every time he hears someone’s phone ringing. So this time, after pressing a series of letters on the touch-screen keyboard, he puts his hand to his ear and says his version of “hello?” Who will win the World Cup? I’m not a soccer fan, but I know I’ll get sucked into watching at least a few key matches. Such is the game the whole world plays. So I thought it’d be interesting, at least for me, to see who people think will win the Cup. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Singapore Talking a bit I watched the ‘live’ panel show ‘Singapore Talking’ for the first time last night, and only because I was invited to be on the panel of guests. It was also the last episode, and I got to see some things which, now when I think about it, isn’t surprising – the first half of the show is pre-recorded even though it’s a ‘live’ show, and several takes are done because some things which the host and the guests say may, in the producer’s opinion, have stepped on the virtual cowpat known as the OB marker. All I know is, the retakes weren’t my fault. I didn’t mention anything about my mother’s tongue, any minister’s name and pay, or anyone’s race or religion. Watered down or not, here’s Singapore’s some holds barred a little bit ‘live’ chat show: Singapore Talking Season Finale How do you say U-turn in your mother tongue? The mother tongue was already a serious problem back in my day. My father thought that since all I did was sit around at home watching Sesame Street in English and Ultraman in Malay (yes, Ultraman was dubbed in Malay), he’d send me and my brother to the best school in the land that taught in Chinese. That the school also happened to have taught our country’s prime minister and his brother was also a consideration, and it was hoped that both of us would be imbued with the same Confucianist approach to study. But it wasn’t to be. If I remember correctly, the school, wary of having it’s first student (me) ever to fail the PSLE CL1 (Chinese as a First Language) exam, changed its rules and created a special class of students (me) with special circumstances (nobody at home spoke Mandarin) and allowed me to take Chinese as a 2nd Language instead. For the five years I was in that school, I was as deeply embarrassed as a seven to twelve year old could be about not being able to converse in his “mother tongue”, as I was often told. I was left out of recess-time ping pong tournaments and after-school trips to Popular Bookstore and scored spectacularly badly in every CL1 assessment the Mandarin speaking teachers could throw at us. It didn’t matter if I was extremely conversant in Hokkien (the language my mother and my nanny spoke), Hainanese (the language my father spoke), and Cantonese (the language my brother’s nanny, and therefore my brother, spoke). I was always going to fail. So it was with great relief that I got into ACS for my secondary school years, and I promptly dropped Mandarin like a hot potato because it was deemed uncool to be good at it (the boy who scored A1 at ‘O’ Levels Prelim was stripped naked and had his undies flown up the flagpole). There, I met life-long friends of a similar ilk, including my best friend, whom teachers (who are still alive) remember as the boy who, out of nervousness, spoke Cantonese during the CL2 oral exam and could not switch to Mandarin no matter how he tried. It was only when I got to uni in Australia that I picked up a lot more Mandarin. At the legal centre where I worked, I was assigned a caseload of six clients from Mainland China because I was the only ethnic Chinese on board. It was daunting at first, and I was only able to pull off the work with the help of an interpreter. It was also at this workplace that I discovered the biggest asset I have – the ability to understand enough Mandarin, and the ability to pretend that I don’t understand any Mandarin at all, in order to avoid further communication. It’s worked wonders on trips to China and when Mandarin speaking taxi drivers start talking politics. It’s even been a charm at home, and I’ve shirked many a filial duty, although I think Naomi’s mum, who’s Taiwanese, is starting to suspect something.