Mean old people

They were already old when we first met them. To our dismay, we realised very quickly that they were mean-spirited people.

They are from two of the most prominent old moneyed families of Singapore. They never had to work a day in their lives; the wealth they inherited could not be used up in 5 lifetimes.

They could have chosen to live nicely and treat people around them with decency. Instead, they delight in vicious gossip about other people's misfortune; they love nothing more than predicting people's downfall be it financial, marital or social. They actually begrudge people who managed to get ahead.

We have stopped seeing them altogether for several years now but we hear occasion news of their slow decline in physical and mental health. The latest is that the old woman is showing signs of senile dementia; she gets confused, forgetful, depressed and angry.

The old man is not supportive. He is of the opinion that her condition is just the latest of fads in clinical diagnosis alongside dyslexia, autism, attention deficit, bi-polarism and all other syndromes and phenomena.

The man and I considered forgetting their vileness towards us. They are just two old people getting older. We were actually very useful to them in many ways, especially when it came to medical issues.

But we know that whatever faculties they might lose in the years ahead - physical and mental - their vile nature will remain to the end. We decided to continue staying away from them.

We should feel bad about leaving them to fuddle through their dotage, but we don't. We can't care about them.

They are just too mean.

Me - Woman of the house

The man does enjoy cooking. And he does turn out excellent dinners. He enjoys having friends and family over to share the food, drinks and company. He also loves to explain in great detail to the guests how the food is cooked.

Me. I am a very good cook too.

Unlike him, I don't bother to promote my skills; the food speaks for itself. Unlike him, I can and prefer to work alone from planning, shopping, cooking to putting the food on the table.

He on the other hand, needs all manner of assistance when he is in the kitchen. I am just as involved and busy when he is doing the cooking.

The word is out that he is a good cook. I generally grin, grit my teeth and bite my tongue when the clueless men in the neighbourhood walk up to him and say, "Hey, I heard you are a good cook". I am willing to let that silly and impossible statement pass because, well, what do the men know about men and cooking anyway.

Then, one silly wife parroted the Hey-I-heard-you-are-a-good-cook chorus. I lost it then. I turned on her and snapped, "If you please, we are all good cooks in our household!"

The show of annoyance was rude and ungracious of me. But I contend that it is totally unforgiveable that this or any other woman can be dumb enough to believe and repeat so preposterous a rumour. I don't regret being sharp with her. There are, after all, two of us in this household and regardless of the distribution of workload around here, she has no right to ignore the importance, usefulness and contribution of one or the other.

Especially me - the woman of the house. So there.

I hate this dress!

I don't remember ever hating a dress so much in my life.

I already hated the material at first sighting. It's a pale tropical print. I don't do pale tropical prints.

I hated the design. It's a fitted muu muu. I don't do muu muu's.

Then there is the tailor with attitude. On the first fitting, 9 out of the 11 dresses were too big everywhere. After alteration, the dresses came back fitting crazy - too tight here, too loose there. Those that were too long (mine included) the tailor took up from the shoulder straps.

I will be wearing this hideous thing on stage.

The friends had a good giggle over my exasperation and dismay. You frighten the dress too big can kah lao (drop off) is it? I frighten dress kah lao and I puak toh (fall down) because dress also too long. The friends exploded into unstoppable and uncontrollable laughter till tears streamed down their faces.

Such sympathy I get from friends.*hmpff*

May hafla by Belinda @ Blu Jaz

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After a short hiatus in April, Belinda is back with the May hafla at BluJaz this weekend.

The theme is Sultry. Come prepared.

She's a ballroom dancer

The dance performance is mere days away now. There have been many stumbling blocks in all directions, one of which is that we have not had a single practice session with everyone present yet.

At the last practice session, we had the most number of show-ups todate. Things were looking up.

Until.

To our dismay, one of the dancers just had difficulty lining up right after each formation change. A helpful soul tried to explain to the left-fielder how to spot and get back in line.

The spoken-to did not take kindly to the constructive suggestion. She has been a dancer, a ballroom dancer if you please, for 40 years. She knows all about dance - connection, frame, posture, timing, body alignment, proper weight transfer, etc.

And the light came on in my head: the woman, in her 40 years of being led across the ballroom, never ever had to figure out space and place when dancing.

Can die. And the performance is mere days away.

I guess the rest of us will just have to dance around this stubborn obstacle.

Ice Kachang after the snowstorm

The crowd watched in hushed silence as designer Vivienne Westwood appeared on the big screen during the Audi Fashion Festival's closing show last Sunday. In the pre-recorded video, London's grand dame of fashion apologised for her absence at the showing of her Anglomania collection but explained that the reason was that she was watching her carbon footprint.

(BT Weekend, Saturday/Sunday, May 16-17, 2009)

In the same feature story, Sunday Times fashion commentator Colin McDowell went on to describe the designer as "someone who thinks today what we all care about tomorrow."

And I remember why I despise chi-chi events - the shallowness, the hypocrisy, the arrogance of it all, packaged as cutting edge, world changing visions of the future.

And the worshipers - bowing and scraping - lapping up every drivel of rubbish from the lips of self-serving, big-money purveyors of obscene consumerism.

How's this for a little bit of truth in representation: the big-name madame was not at the show because it was not important enough for her to put in an appearance. And that plane she did not get onto took off on schedule, so no need to bluff people about reducing her carbon footprint.

So, it is refreshing to have the notorious Fash Hag of Urban reporting with sarcasm, wit, disdain and humour to bring down self-important characters a peg or two whenever the opportunity presents itself.

For spectacular special effects during a private party, the Tent was blasted with a snowstorm of white down feathers. Everyone was covered with fur-like flecks.

According to Fash Hag: ...one ruffled lion-haired tai-tai entered the Ngee Ann City restroom to clean up, only o have a passer-by exclaim, "Wah, her hair looks like ice kacang."

That last line made my day. *Meow*

What for kaypoh for nothing

The woman called me out of the blue. Her friend was interested to get into the wine distribution business and was organising a wine-pairing dinner. Would I be interested to go?

I wouldn't, actually, because I am totally allergic to alcohol and because wine-pairing events tend to have mediocre food, lousy wines and boorish people.

But I would gladly get a table if it would help. I could always make an evening of it with friends I have not seen in a while.

The woman said she wouldn't be going because she would be out of town that day. I couldn't help but think how convenient for her.

Sigh. Would I move my kaypoh ass to move a product that is meaningless to me for some any-old-body who happened to be a friend of somebody I know?

I am rather selective about where I put my kaypoh-ness to use, thank you. What for I go and kaypoh for meaningless people to support their meaningless causes?

Almost-famous

When the artist held her first solo exhibition, the friends and I made it a point to attend the showing and blab about the show every chance we had.

She was rather successful for a first time almost-famous artist. Most of her paintings sold in the first few days. It had to do with that fact that I blabbed to an office-manager friend who I knew had a nice budget and was looking to fill his office walls at that time.

At some later date, I told the artist I know the buyer and where her paintings are now. I expected some mild interest or curiosity from her. Or, at a bare minimum, a thank-you-for letting-me-know kind of response.

Instead, I got the curt explanation that the exhibition was handled by a gallery and she has no knowledge how her work is disposed of. Ooooh, excuse me. I am sorry to have interfered with how things work in the world of artists.

Now she has another exhibition coming up.

Do I think I will move my kaypoh ass to move her masterpieces this time?

I think I will let her stay almost-famous for a long time to come.

Like that sure quarrel wan

I think the world of the the guy friend. I don't think anything of his wifey.

It's not just because she is a one of those freaky religious zealots. It's not just because she is a shrill control freak. It's because I consider her morally bankrupt over a particular incident involving their teenage daughter and my navel piercing. The girl took one look at my body jewelry and just had to have it too. The mother was aghast, and instead of asserting her parental authority to say no, she insisted that I tell the girl it is body mutilation which is against the Almighty's teachings.

Of course I told her to you-know-what. Which of course started an open cold war between her and me. Like I care. She already has it in her head and in her heart that I live a life of sin in a den of decadence. (I have naked pictures of me on the walls, for Gawd's sake).

So now the guy friend tells me the wifey and he are taking up ballroom dancing. I think of lovely couples in intimate graceful embrace on the dance floor. I see couples who have danced together beautifully for a lifetime, and now move effortless as one to music that shows the world their love.

I turned to the guy and said, "Wah, like that sure quarrel wan." He, with mock indignation, said, "I wasn't going to say that." To which I gleefully said, "Oh, quarrel already right?"

True what. She like that sure quarrel what. Heheh.

National Day of Prayer

I didn't even know there was such a thing the entire time I lived in the US.

But then, I left the country right before George W. Bush made President.

I am happy to know things are back to normal under the current President.

Well, at least at the White House.

I don't know about the rest of the country.

The peidu mama

We have been buying our papayas from the same vendor for some time now. In the beginning, he manned the stall himself. Then, for a while there, he was helped by a woman we presumed was his wife.

We got asked by the other stall vendors: "You buy your fruits from that peidu mama?" Well, yes. Was there a point to their line of questioning? If there was, we ignored them.

The woman always wore make-up. Her hair was always done up in some fashion and she has a flair to her dress sense. She was also always helpful and she was obliging of fussy customers poking and prodding the produce. She even helped us with the ingredient-mix and wrapping technique when we were on our jiao zi making craze. We liked the woman; she added a cheeriness to the market place.

Then we noticed she was not at the stall for several days in a row. We asked the papaya seller if his wife no longer came to help at the stall. He let on that he he had no idea what she was up to. She had taken a job doing facials but would not tell him where. The work conditions are 12 hour days, no days off, no base pay.

We were stunned. We felt badly for the man - he sounded pissed off and sad at the same time. Worst of all, while intellectually we are fully aware we don't know anything more about the situation, we felt all our prejudices and suspicions towards all women from the mainland come flooding back.

The Vote

The fight for control of AWARE is over. With a no-confidence vote of 1414:761, the scary exco was removed from office last night.

The victory surprised me; I did not think the issues or the organisation were important enough to move enough people (women) to action.

On a personal level, I have read the entire episode wrongly.

This saga will go down as a historical event for many different reasons.

April

was the month

- that brought back bittersweet almost forgotten memories of the 70s.

- when a 25 year old women's rights organisation was ambushed by scary Christian women.

- in spite of wide media coverage and active blog posts I remained unmoved because the defeated side failed to put forth a convincing case that they deserve to be re-instated.

- the saga reminded me of the short-lived student protest I was in during my school days. At the first warning from the school administrators to disperse, only the student leaders were left standing. At the second warning that the police will be called in if the remaining protesters did not immediately stand down, the protest was effectively over. I never again got involved in protests unless it is (a) for a cause I believe strongly enough in that I will make personal sacrifices for, (b) the protest is well thought out and organised, (c) the members are deeply committed and (d) the leaders are fearless.

- I recalled one of my favourite songs from the era of my own coming of age era:

April gave us springtime and the promise of the flowers
And the feeling that we both shared and the love that we called ours
We had no time for sadness, that's a road we each had crossed
We were living a time meant for us, and even when it would rain
we would laugh it off.

I've got pieces of April, I keep them in a memory bouquet
I've got pieces of April, but it's a morning in May

We stood on the crest of summer, beneath an oak that bloss0med green
Feelings as I did in April, not really knowing what it means
But it must be that you stand beside me now to make me feel this way
Just as I did in April, but it's a morning in May.

I've got pieces of April, I keep them in a memory bouquet
I've got pieces of April, but it's a morning in May

One scary Christian baby

Those scary fundamentalist preachers start them young. This baby's already got the hateful tone and frenetic jerky body movements of a crazed fanatic. Pay attention to the encouragement from the congregation in the background. If this doesn't send chills up and down your spine, I don't know what will.

Of course it makes me think of the other scary bunch in our midst who will be out in full force this weekend.

The battle @ AWARE

I followed the twists and turns of the recent AWARE exco changeover with a wide range of emotions. Surprise turned to revulsion to optimism to alarm and dismay.

Many ugly accusations have been thrown up - religious zeal, sneaky takeover, hidden agenda, pro-homosexual or anti-gay leanings. All carry some element of truth. All are distorted and exaggerated claims.

The battle lines are drawn. The present exco is facing an EOGM this weekend that has been called to vote them out of office. Both sides are shoring up resources through mass recruitment. Emotions run high as each camp try to explain what is at stake according to their personal belief value systems.

I do not expect the current exco to be unseated. And, believe it or not, AWARE will continue to do its work no matter who runs the organisation.

It is a false argument that AWARE will cease to be a secular organisation if it is overrun by members headed by an exco that are of a particular religious bent.

AWARE is and will always be secular because it is governed by the consititution and laws that created it. What will change is the flavour of the organisation.

I am not moved to join the campaign to wrest authority away from the current exco because I see the mass recruitment exercise as a hysterical irrational call to restore bruised egos.

Regardless of the outcome of the EOGM, no woman will be deprived of whatever support or service she may be getting from AWARE now because there are alternative support and help groups that do similar work.

Now, let the battle begin.

That wedding invitation again

The idea of a wedding that consists of just the solemnisation continued to bug me today.

I read and re-read our last sms exchange.

Me: What happens after soleminsation?
She: Dinner, n whatever these younsters r doing?

It just simply cannot be! It is plain not possible to plan what they call a school-themed wedding party at the premier wedding venue, have just the solemnisation and then turn everybody loose to fend for themselves!

So I sms'ed the mother of the groom again. I am blunt and direct this time.

Me: Where is dinner?
She: 10 course sit down Chinese dinner is at Chimes (sic) itself. Renting catheral (sic) hall for the dinner.

*sigh* I despair at my mis-reading of the invitation.

I looked again at the information provided:
Date: day-month-2009
Time: at sunset, 6:30pm
What: A School-themed Wedding
Where: Chijmes Chapel
Join the party!

Elsewhere, the same information read "... invite you, ...to a school-themed party at Chijmes chapel on the (day) of (month) at six-thirty in the evening, two-thousand and nine.

I give up. What is wrong with me that I cannot understand this invitation written in their English?

RSVP: decline, with regret

I smiled when I received the invitation to the school-themed wedding party.

The concept was clever and novel. It was in the form of an old fashioned exercise book complete with brown cover, school emblem and three lines to fill in name (guest), subject (wedding invitation) and teachers (the parents of bride or groom).

The single lined pages inside contained the usual pertinent information: groom and bride, son and daughter of so-and-so, followed by date, time, place.

I read the lines over and over. Then the smile froze on my face. There were two things in the invitation that I had to seek clarification from the mother of the groom.

First, the school theme: I absolutely refuse to play school whether as teacher or student. The mother said not to worry about that. Just come in whatever.

Second, there was no mention of what happens after the solemnisation.When I pointedly asked, she said and I quote: "Dinner and whatever the youngsters want to do." I cannot believe my ears. There was no plan of anything following the solemnisation.

I accept, even embrace, breaking from tradition and just having fun with the wedding and party that follows. That is great for the newly weds and their friends. It may even be fine for family and close friends of the parents. Frankly, I don't see the "youngsters" being thrilled to have the "old people" in their dinner and whatever.

I find it totally meaningless for guests (like me) who are neither family nor close friends to attend the solemnisation and then freely follow the wedding crowd to wherever and do whatever.

Sorry hor, I am not the free and easy type for anybody to just-any-old-how invite to a wedding leh.

That is one wedding invitation I will reply, without regret, "decline, with regret".

Feria de Abril in Singapore

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FlamencoAsia brought to Singapore the world of the Sevillianos - a world of music, food, drinks, and of course, flamenco, the dance that embodies the very soul of the Spanish character.

For two nights, we were treated to a breathtaking display of tanguillos, rumbas, sevillanas, alogrias, fandangos, guajiras, tangos, bulerias itentos asturias, siguiriyas.

For two nights, under a colourful casetas, we lived the gaeity and cultural richness that is the Feria de Abril.

I will be back next year, better prepared with some training in the dance of the Sevillianos.

Meantime, there is Camino Flamenco to look forward to on Saturday.

A day at the hawker centre

We frequent a particular hawker centre for lunch. The place is never crowded and it has enough variety of food stalls to keep us coming back.

Today, as has always been our habit, we sat at one end of a bench table that is in the outer aisle of the food centre. Today, as is usually the case, we watch strange people doing strange and oftentimes disgusting things.

Today I watched with revulsion the man at the next bench table spit prawn tails and what-not on the table as he plowed through his plate piled high with food. He then got up and left the table littered with food leftovers. A small flock of sparrows immediately descended upon the exposed detritus of his lunch.

A woman soon came along and plonked herself and her huge plate of food at the far end of the bench. She briefly looked in the direction of the sparrows having their merry feast. Then turned her full attention back to her own feast.

The cleaners appeared within two minutes to clear the mess. The birds took a brief flight and perched themselves on the rails patiently awaiting for their turn again as soon as the woman leaves her pile of debris.

It has been 10 days since the disastrous food poisoning episode at Geylang Serai which resulted in 2 deaths and over a 100 people taken ill. The breach in hygiene was traced to cross contamination of foods stored in a refrigerator shared by several stall holders.

There was plenty of finger pointing as to who did not do an adequate job of protecting the public health. There were so many reasons leading up to this unfortunate incident of food poisoning - improper food handling, careless food storage, rats and bird droppings, sloppy health inspection. The list is long.

And nobody thought to blame the customers. The ones with such filthy personal habits that all efforts to keep the public eating place clean and safe are futile.

Facebook vs blogging

It is everything it claims to be: a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends ...

Everybody but everybody is on Facebook. I will see pictures of parties, holidays, new baby, grandma's birthday etc etc. I will be so up-to-the-minute updated if I got on Facebook.

I finally caved in and signed up 2 weeks ago. I have taken the time to look around its features, built up a small list of friends, left one-line comments on some of their updates, took the mindless quizzes and published the meaningless results. I have not written anything of substance.

My original suspicion that Facebook does not work for me is now assuredly confirmed.

For a start, I do not want to be found by long lost friends who are long lost for good reason. So I registered for an account under my screen name. The small list of friends are real life friends. I am happy to read their brief and frequent updates.

I do not like the way Facebook tries to grab any name it can for me to add. Friend of a friend is my friend too. I particularly detest strangers from Kenya and other scam-riddled countries asking to be my friend.

Updates in Facebook tend to be activity driven. Look at me: doing this, going there, with these people, omg can you believe this! It's the Harley-Davidson of networking - full of noise and no substance.

I love my friends and respect their choice of Facebook as their platform to express themselves. I will drop in often to see what they've been up to, what their latest happening is. My contribution will be short comments and silly quiz results.

I do not have the desire to broadcast my activities, thoughts or feelings on a high frequency basis. Blogging will remain my preferred platform of expression.

I enjoy the more measured pace and considered content that blogging allows me.