The silencing of the Boars

Posted on June 11, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Crossbows to cull wild boar’, 11 June 2012, article by Feng Zeng Kun, ST

KILLING wild boar with bows and arrows may sound primitive, but the National Parks Board (NParks) is considering the method to curb the animal population. The Straits Times has learnt that the agency met animal welfare groups last month to discuss using powerful crossbows against the animals.

It told the groups that the silence of the bows would avoid alerting the animals, which travel in groups. In trained hands, a single bolt could also kill a boar instantly.

…The Straits Times understands that most of the groups did not favour the method and considered it inhumane. The agency said it would enlist the help of trained archers to do the job, should it decide to go with this culling method.

…Mr Louis Ng, executive director of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres), says NParks could sterilise the animals instead. ‘Culling doesn’t work because the animals breed every year. You would have to cull them every year’ …’Put up fences. Wild boar are big and powerful, but they can’t jump,’ he said.

Pork-eye

Boar hunts have been documented in Singapore as early as the late 1870s, where white men with a pack of dogs chased these beasts around the Bukit Timah area with a shotgun, occasionally finding a boa constrictor getting to the prize first. Locals stalked boars with guns even up till the late fifties, and anyone who happened to be plucking leaves in the forest may find himself at the wrong end of a buck shot after being mistaken for a pig. In 1957, a wild boar hunter was charged for murder for firing at and killing a certain Abdul Kareem. Today, you’re unlikely to get hit by bullets, but you may fall into a pit intended to snare these animals, or have your foot maimed in an illegal trap. Seems like the $1000 penalty for killing them isn’t severe enough to stop some Singaporeans from living out their Man vs Wild fantasies.

Only Theseus can slaughter this monster

But how much of a nuisance are these pigs? In the 60′s, boars were known to charge at and almost gore amorous couples at Macritchie Reservoir.  On Malaysia’s highways, a charging boar may cause fatal accidents, a freak scenario which is unlikely to happen here, though you can have other breeds of swine ramming themselves into innocent people on our roads. We don’t have crops for them to ravage, nor do they steal our grocery bags or scratch and bite like the monkeys do. They don’t shit all over our cars or air-con compressors, nor spread airborne diseases. For all intents and purposes, man and boar have been left pretty much to themselves.  More animals and humans have been injured by wannabe boar hunters than the tusked beasts. If there’s any wildlife that bugs the hell out of us it’s the damned birds, and before we hire Green Arrows, Legolases, Hawkeyes and Katnisses to do the dirty work for us, perhaps we should control our pesky mynahs, crows and pigeons first. Hell, maybe we don’t even need to pay hunters to trap boars at all; our road barriers can do a pretty decent job as it is.

It’s not funny if it’s your kid in it

One of the arguments cited for culling is that wild boars ‘trample and destroy the forest undergrowth’ (They destroy forests, 16 June 2012, ST Forum), especially since they have no known ‘natural predators’. Well, there’s another animal higher up in the food chain which no other being eats and destroys forests and old cemeteries for development at a faster rate than a bunch of seed-gobbling, soil-digging pigs. Us.

Even if the authorities eventually attempt to equilibrate whatever’s left of our ecosystem through controlled murder, I’m not sure about crossbows as a weapon of choice. Our ‘archers’ (most likely members of some sporting club because the army no longer plays Cowboys and Indians) may need just one shot to kill a pig in the quickest, most painless, squeal-less way possible, but you probably need an experienced poacher to tell the difference between a pig and a foraging human from a distance. A poorly judged snapped twig may make all the difference between an impaled hog, or a pierced stray dog. You need someone with the seasoned, pricked ears to tell the difference between a frightened porcine grunt and something more human.  If these sharpshooters don’t bring home the game, at least their very presence, or even the very thought of arrows flying all over the place,  would deter people from having sex in jungles.

Why not blowpipes loaded with tranquiliser darts, where at least there’s room for mistaken identity, after which you can proceed to make a proper meal out of the animal and feed the needy, or Wong Ah Yoke?

SOON

Postscript: A few weeks after this post, a boar reported charged at a CISCO officer (who hurt his hand in the ensuing escape) and a child (who wasn’t harmed) in Bishan Park, and Khaw Boon Wan, a self-declared staunch Buddhist, publicly supported the decision to ‘manage’ the wild boar population because ‘protecting our babies’ is more important. Maybe we should leave it to the real boar-killing professionals below.

Snakes in a Drain

About these ads

Filed under: 1800s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 2012, Animal abuse, Environment, Pesky animals, Violence | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Punggol Waterway is like Venice

Posted on October 24, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Venice of Punggol the pride of former backwater’, 24 Oct 2011, article by Cai Haoxiang in ST

…Punggol used to be a fishing village and farming area, and a relative backwater. PM Lee recalled going to Punggol Point to eat at its famous seafood restaurants, and to the area for an orienteering exercise when he attended the Outward Bound School.

‘We had to navigate from point to point with a map but without a compass. It was quite possible in those days to be lost in Punggol because there were no roads, no signs; some attap houses and tracks, and you had to find your way around. But we got lost,’ he said.

In 1996, the Government announced plans to develop the area, with private and public housing, MRT and light rail lines and water sports facilities, marinas and a waterfront park. But the project, Punggol 21, was halted in its tracks by the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

After the economy recovered, the Government revisited its plans for Punggol, and in 2007, PM Lee unveiled Punggol 21-Plus, which includes the waterway as the rejuvenated estate’s centrepiece.

He said yesterday that some have called the waterway the ‘Venice of Punggol’, and promised more developments to come. By the end of the year, 23,000 families will be living in Punggol, and by 2015, there will be a new commercial hub and town plaza by the Punggol MRT station.

 Bringing a little bit of Marina Bay into the ‘heartland’ is no doubt a sweetener to many Singaporeans and a refreshing change from the usual high-rise steel and concrete projects  which have been dominating most of our landscape. ‘Venice of Punggol’ is probably a harmless exaggeration, but I was amused to discover that ‘Venice’ analogies weren’t always as charming or picturesque as what our PM makes Punggol out to be. In fact, it’s not just Punggol that has the ‘honour’ of being called the ‘Venice’ of Singapore. It’s unfortunate that this classic mercantile city, renown for its architecture and art history, has become reduced to a romantic cliche describing any town where you have to ride a sampan to borrow stuff from your neighbours, or go ‘prawning’ literally at your doorstep.

In a 1896 article titled ‘Venice At Singapore’, Waterloo Street was ‘always like a river when it rains’, proof that sarcasm was alive and well in the late 19th century.  In 1906, ‘a modern Venice’ was used to describe ‘a veritable river that had transformed’ and ‘emptied itself into the (Bukit Timah) canal at the Junction of Syed Alley Road’ following heavy flooding. It was reported that houses were flooded and the ‘natives’ must have ‘suffered terribly’. 3 years later, a series of floods following the overspill of Stamford and Rochore Canals, creating ‘miniature lakes’ in Geylang and cataracts down Mount Sophia, prompted the ST headline ‘Venice in Singapore’. More than a century on and areas like Orchard Road continue to be flooded, according to this 1982 complaint titled- what else -  ‘Venice of the East’. Just last year, we had a taste of ‘Venice’ again, captured perfectly by the image below of some guy putting a positive, wacky spin on a really bad situation.

Venice of Rowell Road, 2010

Not all analogies were derogatory, of course. In 1969, a Sydney architecture professor praised Singapore as the ‘Venice of the East’, suggesting that our public buildings adopt a form of architecture representing a ‘fusion of both East and West’, without any mention of waterways becoming a mode of leisure transport. A more ambitious analogy was drawn in a letter ALSO titled ‘Venice of the East’ in 2008, where waterways were envisioned as additional traffic arteries to relieve the burden on roads and the MRT, so instead of singing gondoliers entertaining lazy lovers you’d have ‘boat uncles’ with a schedule to meet and impatient commuters to ferry. People would need a life-jacket IN ADDITION to an EZ-link card to hitch a ride.

Architecture and waterworks aside, in 1979 the ‘Renaissance Venice of South East Asia’ , a dynamic techonological hub, was what Singapore was forecast to become in 2000, according to the director of the Science Centre. Minister of State Tay Eng Soon proclaimed that ‘Singapore can survive 1000 years like Venice’ (1988) whose assets are her people, ‘outward-looking, patriotic and practical’ (just like Shylock). So much for predictions then; we have become nothing like the ‘good’ Venice of the East, Asia, or even South East Asia, though now we finally have one to call our own thanks to our PM. And it’s in once ulu-like-hell Punggol.

So there we have it, a Venice that we aspire to be, and a ‘Venice’ that Minister of Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan silently prays that we’d never turn into for good. Let’s hope, for the sake of Punggol residents, that PM Lee’s dreamy description of their rejuvenated ‘marine’ town doesn’t turn out to be a self-prophesising  double-edged one.

Filed under: 1800s, 1900s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2011, Environment, Politicians, Public works, Weather | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ms Singapore Universe: Mice live on moon cheese

Posted on September 10, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Cheeky or cheesy?’, 10 Sept 2011, article by Kwok Kar Peng in TNP and ‘Is this S’pore’s national costume or rojak’?, 10 Sept 2011, Stomp.

Miss Singapore Universe 2011 Valerie Lim has left netizens agog with her unusual replies to the three questions that were posed to all 89 contestants this year for the Miss Universe pageant’s official online Q&A video interview.

When asked if Lim believes in life on other planets, the 26-year-old said rather jokingly: “I know the moon is not a planet, but I think it’s made of cheese, and so mice live on cheese.” She paused momentarily before adding with a giggle: “The moon cheese!”

Miss Singapore Universe Valerie Lim wasn’t the only Asian contestant who gave quirky replies. Miss Thailand, for example, said the animal she would like to be is ‘plankton’.

Still, English is not the first language of these beauty queens, so something may have got lost in translation.

It’s a bewildering response upon first viewing, but compare Valerie Lim’s answer to the rest of the Miss Universe hopefuls and you’ll realise that this tongue-in-cheek faux pas is a deliberate and bold juxtaposition of an endearing pun and whimsical cliche, delivered with unusually cool confidence and self-effacing child-like humour. Though naysayers would slam this as bimbo playacting and astronomy fans would beg to differ on the actual composition of our satellite, Valerie’s playful answer, if taken the right way by the pageant judges, clearly distinguishes her from the other finalists, who were taking the obvious, but dull, scientific approach and speculating on the probability of aliens using whatever rudimentary knowledge they have about astrobiology and alien invasion movies. Some, like Miss Great Britain, grossly and disappointingly underestimated the expanse of space by using the baseline of  ‘solar system’ instead of the more likely ‘galaxy’ or ‘universe’ when explaining the probability of extraterrestrial life (By the way, she also would like to be a caterpillar. Eew). To be exact, the actual lunar cliche specifies that the moon be made of GREEN cheese, and has been in use, astonishingly,  since the late 1800′s (Thoroughfares, Straits Times Overland Journal, 13 Dec 1879).

If Valerie doesn’t score points on accuracy, surely she deserves credit for saying something unexpected and choosing to steer away from blind speculation and countering one cliche with a cuter one. But maybe this question wasn’t really a test about how many times one has read Carl Sagan’s Cosmos or seen the movie ‘Contact’, but how stylishly one can pull off a somewhat existential poser without sounding like a wannabe astrophysicist. Other than the fact that Valerie could pass off as a nursery school teacher who could trick little kids into believing Jupiter is a really a giant orange, her diction is assuredly cosmopolitan and polished, with only the surprising Malaysian and Indonesian contestants to beat. Couple her unsettling spontaneity with a sense of parody with regard to perceptions of pageant sexualisation and it’s possible that we have a high-scoring MSU in the making.  It would be tragic, however, if she were let down by the perennial bugbear of all MSU contests to date: The national costume segment.

(On Miss Singapore Universe’s costume, Stomp): …”This outfit deliberately combines different styles into a mish-mash of styles and cultures, but I can’t help but feel that it’s all been forced together somehow. “The colours and styles all end up looking ‘rojak’ to me, like someone just tried his or her best to blend it all together.

“Some people have even said it looked like a carpet or curtain. Unfortunately, though I am behind Valerie a hundred percent, I have to agree.

Princess Jasmine wearing Aladdin's carpet

This has bits of Miss China, India and Saudi Arabia mixed in it, which was probably the intention of the designer to weave our multicultural heritage in one costume. Well, you’ve got to admit it’s at least better than our Merlion disaster and last year’s silver bore. Good luck, Valerie.

Postscript: Miss Angola won the title, while Miss Phillipines and Miss China were the two Asians making up the top 5. I guess hoping for a once in a blue MOON event (Miss Singapore in Top 10) is too much to ask for.

Filed under: 1800s, 2011, Beauty pageants, Dress sense, Ms Singapore Universe | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

There were no tomatoes in Ang Mo Kio

Posted on July 19, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Be inclusive:PM Lee urges’, 18 Jul 2011, article by Victoria Barker in myPaper

Mr Lee, who is an MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC, noted that although Singaporeans travel widely and many live and work overseas, they must remember where they come from.

“Home means you must have memories, shared experiences…some sense of where we came from and why we’re here,” he said. Mr Lee cited the name of his constituency as an example of Singapore’s rich history.

Until the early part of the 20th century the area was called “Ang Mo Kiah”, he explained, although he was not quite sure how this came to be. “Ang mo kio” means “tomatoes” in Hokkien.

“But, in fact, there were no tomatoes in Ang Mo Kio. Maybe it was called Ang Mo Kio not because of the fruit but because…there were nine bridges connecting this very rural area (back then),” he speculated.

“Or…because the British built it.”

In Hokkien, “ang mo” refers to Caucasians while “kio” means bridge. Such “folklore” is worth recording to pass on to future generations, he said.

Our PM, and AMK MP,  was mistaken when he mentioned that the name Ang Mo Kio as we know it today emerged only in the ‘early 20th century’. In fact ‘Ang Mo Kio’ as a plantation (though unlikely to be a tomato one) has been cited as early as 1855, barely 40 years since the founding of Singapore by Raffles (See below, Singapore Muncipal Committee report, 2 Jan 1855, ST). ‘Amokia or ‘Amokiah’, which could have been an anglicised version of AMK, or perhaps a typo at the time, made its print appearance in 1883 (Advertisements, 13 Feb 1883, ST), though there’s no conclusive proof of which came first.  A 1872 map of Singapore also places ‘Amokiah’ in the vicinity of where today’s AMK should be (see map below).

According to  Wikipedia, the literal ‘red hair’ translation in ‘ang mo’ referred to a certain surveyor John Turnbull Thomson (1820 – 1884), a supposed ‘carrot-top’ Scot who was instrumental in bridge-building in the area to ‘facilitate logistical transport to nearby British bases at Seletar’. The original ‘Ang Mo Kiah’ perhaps, who also happened to love durians (Surveyor who loved durians and painting, 13 November 1983), Thomson was also responsible for the construction of numerous public buildings including the Pedra Blanca lighthouse. I couldn’t find any evidence to the claim that Thomson was in fact red-haired, or whether the colloquial term ‘ang mo’ was attributed to him. What’s almost certain though is that he was in Singapore from 1838 (1841 in other accounts) till 1853 building roads and bridges, which is consistent with the emergence of ‘Ang Mo Kio’/Amokia from that point onwards.  According to Singapore Infopedia, only 1 bridge over Kallang River at what is now the junction of AMK Ave 1 and Upper Thomson Road was mentioned as the inspiration behind ‘Ang Mo Kio’, or ‘red haired bridge’, though every other bridge at the time were probably built by ang mors anyway.

Perhaps some mysteries surrounding town names should be left unsolved. To me, Ang Mo Kio seems to be a case of a bad  colonial racist joke lost in translation, and there’s nothing wrong with naming it after a fruit/vegetable. Was there any lavender in Lavender? Was Redhill ever really red? Does Woodlands sound like a good place for hunting rabbits?

Filed under: 1800s, 2011, It Should Have Been.., Local food, Names, Politicians, Public works | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 170 other followers