Wallet fetish thief jailed for 13 months

Posted on March 23, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Leather fetish lands serial wallet thief in jail…again’, 23 March 2013, article by Elena Chong, ST

A SERIAL thief with a fetish for sniffing women’s leather wallets was jailed for 13 months yesterday after a judge decided he had already been given enough chances to mend his ways. Low Ji Qing also took “upskirt” pictures of a woman bending over in Kiddy Palace toy store, the court heard.

The 48-year-old, who becomes sexually aroused by the smell of the accessories, has been in and out of court since 1986 – spending a total of 16 years behind bars. He was spared prison in May 2011, when he was placed on probation due to his psychiatric disorder. However, he breached the order repeatedly, stealing again and insulting a woman’s modesty.

Yesterday, District Judge Soh Tze Bian decided not to give him another chance and handed him the jail sentence.

Sending a wallet sniffer to jail for repeat offending isn’t going to cure his compulsion, unless the punishment was intended as a form of cold turkey when psychiatric treatment doesn’t work. In 2011, it was  revealed that Low got hooked on women’s wallets after nosing around his sister’s personal belongings when he was just 7. He later embarked on a snatch spree, pleasuring himself while looking at photographs of strangers. An Economics graduate and previous holder of executive to director level jobs, Low’s life fell apart when he succumbed to his olfactory obsession and was diagnosed with ‘fetishism’. Other experts in the field prefer to label it ‘paraphilia’. In the Tintin comics, there’s a character who pickpockets wallets for his own personal collection. Such behaviour would be viewed as, at best, ‘an unusual hobby’ in stories for teenagers, but condemned as ‘sick’ and ‘perverse’ in real life.

There seems to be a gender bias when it comes to fetishism or paraphila. It’s OK for women to be compulsive hoarders of shoes like Imelda Marcos but if a man does the same for stiletto heels,  lingerie or used panties, it’s called a sick fetish and it’s usually assumed that the same shoe-hogging ‘sicko’ goes around sucking people’s toes too, though he could very well be a normal working adult contributing to society like any one of us. A woman who steals branded goods because she can’t help it is a kleptomaniac but a guy who runs around hostels robbing hanging students’ underwear from clotheslines is a nutcase. This probably explains why men make up the majority of fetishists; Compulsive women hug their objects of desire to sleep or snap a hundred versions of the same thing on Instagram. Men stuff their noses or rub themselves with it.

The word ‘fetish’ is used rather fast and loose these days to describe any abnormal attachment to activities or objects. What was once maligned as ‘fetishistic’ like making adult women dress in schoolgirl uniforms have become merely ‘kinky’ to even banal since ‘Back to School’ became a DnD staple theme. Fetishes are also used to sell men’s magazines, like the ‘FHM Fetish Finals’ held in 2008, to promote designer shoes in your neighbourhood shopping mall, or couple events to celebrate Valentine’s Day (2004′s LOVE FETISH).

Who’s the most fetishist of them all?

It has also been trivialised to describe a strict preference for specific mate qualities. Supermodel Bar Rafaeli insists that she has a ‘fetish’ for men with nice teeth. Caucasian men who come to this part of the world for its ‘exotic’ women have an ‘Asian’ fetish. I have a fetish for women who can recite the value of Pi up to 17 digits.  If I keep my workplace table tidy I have a fetish for cleanliness, likewise I have a fetish for blue if it so happens to be the colour of my bedroom and iPhone cover. But seriously, this overuse and undermining of a mental disorder isn’t new. An article in 1934 labels people who over-indulge in exercise as having a ‘fetish’ for it, an addiction which is still rampant today, judging by the rate people are posting their run timings and distances on Facebook and making the rest of us look like we have a fetish for sleep, junk food and TV.

Today, it might be deviant sexual behaviour to go around sniffing people’s armpits, but who knows, when it becomes mainstream this may become part and parcel of perfectly healthy foreplay (if it isn’t already). It may be gross now to view videos of women stepping on pieces of bread, but nobody says anything about people drawn to continuous video loops of Nigella Lawson kneading dough. Before you know it, anything from hugging and your hairstyle of choice to mundane activities like eating, Facebooking or putting a favourite song on repeat may be inflated to ‘fetish’ status just because you appear to be a slave to it. I can have potatoes for lunch everyday but that doesn’t mean I have a tuber fetish. That would imply that I tickle my erogenous zones with french fries.

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Filed under: 1930s, 2000s, 2013, Justice system/Lawsuits, Sex | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Double-barrelled surname sounding like CNY

Posted on December 30, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Bound together in name’, 30 Dec 2012, article by Lisabel Ting, Sunday Lifestyle

When freelance writer Yu-Mei Balasingamchow was in school, examinations were more of a nightmare for her than for most other students. “It was really troublesome to fill in my name on optical answer sheets. Sometimes, by the time I was done, it felt like half the exam had gone by,” says the 38-year-old.

Ms Balasingamchow’s unique last name is an amalgam of the names of her parents – Chow is her Chinese mother’ family name, and Balasingam is the name of her half-Chinese, half-Ceylonese father.

Her parents created it to “give people an idea of my heritage, although they did acknowledge that it would be troublesome”, she says.

…Double-barrelled surnames such as Ms Balasingamchow’s seem to be more acceptable now, and raise fewer eyebrows than in previous generations.

Mrs Wendy Chiang-Cheong, 40, who wed in 1998, recounts that her mother did not take similar steps to retain her family name as it was uncommon then.

…Mrs Chiang-Cheong, who is married to a 41-year-old IT project manager, admits that her last name can be quite a mouthful. “Some people have told me that my last name sounds very noisy and reminds them of Chinese New Year,” says the counsellor.

If you’re a member of British royalty in the 1930′s you could collect women surnames like Pokemon. There was an Earl of Buckinghamshire called John Hampden Hobart-Hampden-Mercer-Henderson, which made it much easier to just refer to him as the Earl of Buckinghamshire. Today if you want to sound like a conqueror you don’t need multiple surnames. You just need to give yourself a name like Romeo Tan. 

Having a double-barrelled surname that is onomatopoeia for cymbals clamging or almost a soundalike for a dim sum staple is awkward, but not as awful as the wacky permutations that Tweeters contributing to the hashtag #SurnameMashups have come up with. Here’s a sample of dual combinations of Chinese surnames that you may wish to avoid adopting or bequeathing to your children:

Hong-Gan, Chee-Tan, Long-Kang, Yam-Seng, Ngiam-Kheng, Seow-Leow. And the list goes on.

Some would use hyphenated/combined surnames to their advantage as a killer ice-breaker and personal marketing tool. Yu-Mei Balasingamchow herself mentioned in an interview that her surname made her more ‘Google-able’. Try it yourself (type Balasingamchow) and you’ll find her filling the entire first search page. And just about every page thereafter.

Even if, thankfully, your double-barrelled name doesn’t sound like food, drains, toasting or Hokkien expletives, there’s the question of order: Husband or wife’s surname first? This was a question posed since the early 1980s, when women were already using such combinations professionally. Without any formal convention on how hyphenated names should be arranged, you’d have people second guessing your actual maiden name.  Or perhaps the order is chosen solely to avoid the catastrophic reverse; Tan-Chee, for instance.

In fact, double-barrelled names were actively DISCOURAGED by the Registry of Births in 1981, when there was the possibility of quadruple surnames if two individuals with dual surnames married and had children. Things would get more complicated if you were of mixed race. If you took up your Caucasian husband’s name entirely, you may be accused of ‘selling out’ your Asian heritage. Yet, too much cross-fertilisation to the extent of triple and quadruple-barrells would make you sound like a theory discovered by a team of physicists or mathematicians rather than an actual person. And if pulled off creatively, that may not be a bad thing after all.

Filed under: 1930s, 2012, Kids, Marriage, Names, Parenting | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Singaporeans not pronouncing Singapore correctly

Posted on December 18, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Pronounce Singapura correctly’, 18 Dec 2012, ST Forum

(Mohammad Yazid): IT IS strange that many Singaporeans, be they media hosts, broadcasters, celebrities and even some politicians, do not seem to know how to pronounce the country’s name correctly.

Singapore or Singapura is a combination of Malay and Sanskrit words. Singa, meaning lion in Malay, should be pronounced “si-nga” as in “singer”, instead of “sing-guh”.

It is important that they say it right by virtue of their positions in society. How they say it may be taken as the right and official way of pronouncing Singapore.

I think the writer means Sing-GAH-Pore as the mispronunciation instead of the ambiguous Sing-GUH-pore. In fact, according to goodenglish.org.sg and contrary to what he claims, Singapore SHOULD be pronounced ‘sing-GUH-pawr’. Amazingly, this petty confusion over whether it’s ‘ga’ as in ‘manga’ or ‘galore’ goes all the way back to the 1930′s, when some called the country ‘Singgah-pura’, which means ‘Port of Call’ instead of ‘Singa-pore’ (Lion City). The ‘correct’ way of pronouncing Singapore/Singapura wasn’t initially the ‘British’ way either. In the early 20th century, British seamen reportedly referred to the island as, incredibly, SINKAPORE, which many of us still use affectionately, cynically or in sing-song jest. Just ask any uncle or auntie on the street. I would love to hear a demonstration by Mr Yazid himself.

Let’s see how SinGAHpore is bandied about in Parliament by our very own MPs, courtesy of Lim Swee Say and Low Thia Khiang:

How do our National Songs fare when it comes to accurately articulating the country’s name? Here’s ‘We Are Singapore’ from 1987, which pronounces Singapore the ‘proper’ way. Try singing it with ‘GAH’ instead and note the difference; using ‘-er’ sounds subdued, while the cathartic ‘AH’ can be ejaculated with much more gusto and pride.

How about ‘Singapura, Sunny Island’? Not so clear here. I still hear some ‘Gah’ moments, though it still sounds perfectly natural to me.

Listen to the National Anthem closely, written and sung entirely in Malay. In my opinion, there’s not a single word of Singapura in the track sounding like ‘Singerpura’.

So, if the writer is right in claiming that the proper way to saying ‘Singa’ is ‘Singer’, is ‘singing’ it as ‘Sin-GAH’ for melodic effect, especially in the National Anthem, OK? How would foreigners sing it? Listen to Manhattan Transfer below. Pretty vague here.

You would expect an American, European or African to pronounce Singapore differently, but will anyone correct them on the spot, or our fellow countrymen for that matter, for making this ‘mistake’? The French, for example, pronounce it the ‘heartland’ way.

Here’s how Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean says it:

And Prince William during his State Visit. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

I think the phonetic difference is trivial, insignificant even. Most of us express it somewhere in the spectrum between ‘er’ and ‘ah’, which has since been formalised as the non-commital ‘uh’. We have more important things to worry and complain about than saying our own country’s name one way or the other, like what the anthem even means or how the Merlion came about. I would use the softer ‘Singerpore’ when introducing myself to an immigration officer or someone in a foreign land, while the brash, uncouth ‘Sinkapore’ is what I’ll use with family and friends. It’s almost like Singlish really, which makes it oh so uniquely SinGAHporean.

Filed under: 1930s, 2012, Names, Singlish/Broken english | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

Sungei Road should no longer be called a Thieves’ Market

Posted on October 2, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Thieves’ Market: Time to stop the name-calling’, 2 Oct 2012, ST Forum

(Tay Boon Suat):IT IS regrettable that people still refer to the market in Sungei Road as Thieves’ Market (“Time catches up with Thieves’ Market”; last Saturday). Yes, years ago, when life was difficult in Singapore, perhaps some dishonest people relied on this place to make a living. But those times are long gone.

In fact, Sungei Road is now known as a place where many poor and old people rely on selling used household articles to make a living. Many of them have been selling goods there for 20 or 30 years. Some of them are creative enough to add value by repairing old household items and in doing this, are able to turn trash into cash.

They are the majority of sellers, and make an honest living, so why call the place Thieves’ Market?

In Singapore, there are very few local traditional markets that have been able to survive since the 1930s, so why destroy them for the sake of modernisation? I hope our urban planners can be more inclusive, and let this little market have some breathing space, and let it survive. Who knows, this karung guni market might some day become as big a local attraction for foreign tourists as the Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok.

The Dirty Dozen starting work

In 2008, MP Denise Phua called the Sungei Road market ‘a slum’, and urged authorities to ‘clean it up’, but it’s not just the notorious flea market that’s in a mess, so was Ms Phua’s English:

I’m not seeking to ‘prettify’ the Sungei Road market, but I think it can be cleaner and better managed’

The same MP would be invited to a gala dinner next year to celebrate the launch the Association for the Recycling of Second Hand Goods, intended to protect the vendors’ interests. With the MRT development around the area, it would be impossible for Sungei Road to achieve the gonzo hustle and bustle of Chatuchak, but that doesn’t mean it can’t retain it’s ‘old world charm’, or its ‘sustainable model’ of karang guni trading. If there’s any ‘thieving’ going on, it’s how vendors get to set up shop at ‘a steal’, without having to apply for licenses or pay rental. If pitched right, ‘Thieves’ Market could be a weird and wonderful retro curio paradise, a likely place to find a vinyl player, a ship in a bottle or a Walkman. You may even get a ‘wacky’ pepper spray there too.

Although no longer the chaotic haven for crooks to make a quick buck off stolen junk, you just need to go back a couple of years to uncover incidents which justify why this legendary bazaar still has an air of ‘Ali Baba’ about it. In 2010, you could buy suspected contraband like mountain bikes for $300 (usual price $700). It was 60 years earlier that one of the first references of Sungei Road as a ‘thieves’ market’ was made by a certain Court Magistrate D. A Fyfe, who fined a vendor $100 for selling stolen SWIMMING TRUNKS. In a comical twist of events, the thief was caught by the original owners of the trunks HALF an HOUR after they were swiped at Rochor Road. The victims headed straight for Sungei Road to sniff him out, hence the name stuck.

Swimwear and bikes aside, if you’re lucky you may chance upon someone’s car keys, reels of copper wire worth tens of thousands of dollars, or used army uniforms.  But before it earned the reputation as a one-stop garage sale of pilfered bounty, Sungei Road was affectionately known in the 1930′s as ‘Robinson Petang‘, in reference to the ‘Robinsons’ department store where, other than the iffy stuff, most of it was traded from the rag-and-bone, or karang guni, man, stuff ranging from cigarettes to tin cans and gramaphones. It was raw entrepreneurship at work, a spirit that lives on in the many indie flea markets and pasar malams that line our streets today. I still have my suspicions of those paperbacks which I see at some of these roadside stalls. These are books which obviously NOBODY ever reads and I suspect they were ‘borrowed’ from libraries and never returned.

‘Thieves’ Market’ comes across as a romantic, catchy title that brings to mind flying carpets, genie lamps and even lost treasure maps if you let your imagination wander a little, though anyone strolling through the area in the hot sun would consider it anything but. You may still find the occasional yanked bicycle part, car tyre or bootleg Nokia if you search hard enough, but if a flea market run by pot-bellied uncles is called a ‘Thieves’ Market’, then what is Sim Lim Square? Pirates’ Cove?

Filed under: 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2012, Hawkers, Names, Politicians | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Giant Pandas in Singapore for a decade

Posted on September 6, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Giant pandas Kai Kai and Jia Jia arrive in Singapore’, 6 Sept 2012, Today online

Singapore welcomed two new residents, giant pandas Kai Kai and Jia Jia from Chengdu, China this morning. The pandas are in Singapore on a 10-year loan from the Chinese government to mark two decades of strong ties between China and Singapore.

Kai Kai and Jia Jia boarded a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 cargo freighter at 3.45am this morning, arriving at Singapore Changi Airport about four and a half hours later along with a team of five keepers and vets from both China and Singapore who were also on board to ensure the pandas’ well-being.

…It was the pandas’ first time away from home, and extra care was taken to minimise stress for the animals.  The departure and arrival times were scheduled to reduce climate-related discomfort for the pandas. The cabin temperature was kept between 18 to 22 degrees celsius, consistent to their native habitat in Sichuan, China.

Fruits, water and about 90kg of bamboo were also carried on board for the pandas’ meals. Wildlife Reserves Singapore also brought along bamboo from Guangzhou, in case the pandas need time to adjust to the taste of locally-grown bamboo.

This is only the third time in history that Singaporeans have seen pandas in the flesh. Cute and cuddly national treasures aside, KKJJ are beasts turned political gifts as part of China’s bid for world domination. In 1988, JIAO JIAO arrived here as part of a Circus troupe, performing tricks like riding a horse and eating with fork and spoon at the Kallang Theatre. These acts, of course, are totally unnatural to the poor creature, which spends most of its time gnawing on shoots, sleeping, or tumbling down playground slides. Perhaps the pandas’ new loft has the latter to deliver hours of solid entertainment to the zoo folk, though it may distract the pair from the REAL purpose of planting them here: To grow our very own SingaPanda, failure of which Kai Kai may have to be prodded by a gland-stimulating stick in order of us to save face. We may have to do that to our childless couples too some day.

In 1990, we took custody of AN AN and XINXING for 100 days without them dying. KKJJ will be here for a decade, by which time they would probably feel right at home, not so much because we would have devised a way of genetically modifying our local bamboo into panda chow, but because it wouldn’t be just their caretakers and feeders who’re China-born, but maybe half the population here as well.

Pandas are notorious for their dismal libido and diet preferences, though pop culture has made them synonymous with kungfu fighting. All this fanfare and media blitz over KKJJ aside, it’s worth noting that rent-a-panda schemes still risk ending in disaster despite the good intentions, technology, attention and money involved. Only recently, a panda cub perished in Japan’s Ueno Zoo barely after birth. In 2010, also in Japan, the unfortunately named LONG LONG died after an unsuccessful bid to extract his SPERM in a breeding programme. Casting out pandas as ambassadors to China without doing one’s homework of hostile environments led to the demise and suffering of many a panda in the last century. The first envoy to cross the Iron Curtain Ping Ping died 3 years upon arrival in Russia in 1961. In a time when white men and former US Presidents in trilby hats shot down rare exotic animals as trophies, a panda died on a voyage to London from China via Singapore in 1937. It was painted BROWN to avert unwanted attention. Today, people paint brown dogs into PANDAS.

Cue commercial spin-off into commemorative plush toys, coins, sweets and all sorts of panda memorabilia to celebrate the arrival of two endangered, temperate animals in a hot, strange land, with their names changed (JJ used to be HU BAO, while KK was WU JIE) , eking out a lavish honeymoon in a place called a RIVER SAFARI while incubated in their below-20 C enclosure. Perhaps Breadtalk could relaunch their ‘Peace Panda Buns‘ in honour of KKJJ. Although this is all politics, Sino-relations and tourism marketing in the name of ‘conservation’ of the species, you’d have to wonder just how costly and carbon-unfriendly rearing pandas could be in a tropical climate like ours, and how beneficial this panda exchange programme will be for the EARTH in general. Air-conditioning 24-7, flights to and fro China transporting bamboo and ‘pandalogists’, setting aside land to grow something that can’t sustain any other animal, humans included.  For 10 whole years. The amount of money spent playing panda match-maker could have went into other local green projects and animal welfare, unless we discover a renewable energy resource in panda poop.

If only there were as many panda souveniers as there are panda puns; If I had 5 cents for every time someone mentions the annoying word ‘pandamonium’, I would have enough money to foster KKJJ myself, or send them back into the reserve where they belong.

Filed under: 1930s, 1980s, 2012, Animal abuse, Public works | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Mentally ill man punching Flag Day fundraiser

Posted on August 8, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Hold family of mentally ill patient responsible for public misdeeds’, 1 Aug 2012, ST Forum

(Edward Zaccheus): MAY I plead with families of mentally ill people not to let their loved ones roam freely in public (“Dealing with mentally ill offenders”; July 6)? Last year, I was punched twice by a mentally ill adult while I was seeking donations for Flag Day along Waterloo Street. I called the police, who arrested him and sent him to the Institute of Mental Health where he was once a patient.

I could not seek compensation because my assailant was a mental person. When I contacted his family, I was chided for calling the police; instead of admitting responsibility for improperly caring for his mentally disabled father, the son blamed me. The incident has convinced me that while the mentally ill should rightfully be protected by the law, those in charge of their care must be held responsible for a mentally ill person’s misdeeds in public, especially if they are violent.

The relatives should be responsible enough to ensure that the public is safe from potentially violent behaviour.

If the writer wasn’t punched in the face, he would have gotten the same treatment as DJ Glenn Ong for his remark on ‘mad dogs’ needing to be put to sleep.  But you don’t need ex-patients, or escaped patients, to cause a ruckus in public. Anyone diagnosed with even a behavioral disorder like depression may snap in public, especially those who push old ladies off a bus.  The writer later clarified in a follow up letter on 7 Aug  that he was referring only to mentally ill people with ‘violent tendencies’. Perhaps Zaccheus was unlucky here; we’re more likely to be bruised in a scuffle with gangsters, road ragers, drunkards or priority seat hogging seniors than mentally ill people looking to thump you on the nose. Most of the bizarre behaviour we see don’t come from mental patients at all. You have pathological liars like Aristocare’s Kelvin Ong, random people roaming about in the nude, and serial pedophiles like Jonathan Wong. Then there’s politicians, whose decisions could affect the livelihoods of not just one poor guy with a donation tin, but everyone in the country.

Letting a dangerously ill person out is like putting a loaded gun in a child’s hand, and here the family plays the role of ‘weaponising’ the child. Yet many perfectly healthy ‘normal’ people out there are capable of the same, if not worse, kind of irrational, unprovoked violence. Who is to decide if a schizophrenic is fit to take a cab without strangling the driver, or a pedophile to soak in as children’s pool without getting frisky? Who can predict how much more dangerous someone like that could be if they’re confined at home? What if they end up hurling crockery from the window in the nude? There are safeguards in place to certify mental patients before they’re fit to be released into society, not so for the teenager who spends 8 hours a day playing bloody shoot-em-up video games and fantasising about running through pedestrians with a chainsaw instead of boobies like normal kids do. We can’t assume all the time that the only thing that separates a violent mental patient and a violent ‘normal’ person is the latter being ‘responsible for their own actions’.

There was a time when you didn’t need to think twice before labelling people with mental disorders. Before Woodbridge was a euphemism for the Mental Hospital, we had an Insane Hospital and Lunatic Asylum.  People who went cuckoo were called MADMEN in the press, and were hosed down by the police for disrupting the peace rather than escorted to the nearest clinic. In the 20′s, someone who went on a killing spree with no fathomable reason was a MANIAC run AMOK, and seemingly had the CUNNING of the INSANE. In the seventies, these patients were labelled ‘ILL’ in quotation marks. We were merciless in our categorisation of the psychotic, yet today, these politically incorrect terms have been defanged of their original usage. Insane and mad have become ‘ridiculous’ as in ‘He’s insane/mad to quit his job now’. Dick Lee calls himself the MAD Chinaman (Chinaman also a derogatory term). Artists are ‘mad geniuses’. Asylum is now something that people SEEK (refugees) instead of RUN AWAY from.  ‘Maniac’ is used to describe obsessive hobbyists, as in ‘He’s a maniac at the gym’, while ‘lunatic’ and ‘amok’ are rarely used these days. In the 80′s, it was OK to use ‘patients with an UNSOUND MIND, though nobody until now can define what a ‘sound’ mind is.

WOODBRIDGE, however, once believed to be named after an ACTUAL wooden bridge, has become synonymous with mental illness, and you can’t go wrong if you use the former instead of IMH when telling a taxi driver to take you there. In 1998, a road named Jalan Woodbridge was wiped off Singapore’s map and replaced with Gerald Drive because of its associations (Jln Woodbridge taken off map, 5 July 1998, ST). In 2002, however, IMH’s CEO tried to run a Club M.A.D campaign, comparing the hospital to the resort Club Med, a poor choice of acronyms (it actually means MAKE A DIFFERENCE) which does absolutely nothing to erase the stigma of mental illness at all, and only to bring us backwards to the jolly ol’ straitjacket days of the Sanitarium.

Filed under: 1920s, 1930s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Fund-raising, Violence | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Super Import Nights too sexy

Posted on May 5, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘ Car show heats up with sexy bikini girls’, 4 May 2012, article in insing.com

Some are wondering if upcoming car show Super Import Nights (SIN), which features not just cars but also sexy girls, will prove too raunchy – especially for children. SIN is returning for the fourth time this year and will be held at the Singapore Expo from 25 to 27 May.

For the first time, the show is also organising a beauty pageant – Miss SIN Search 2012 – and inviting women to submit their photographs to the website. According to Shin Min Daily News, the pageant rules, first published in late April, required aspiring contestants to submit two kinds of photos; one of them clad only in a bikini, and another of them partying in a club.

As the result, many submissions depicting women in little or no clothing can be seen on the website. The flesh parade has raised the temperature in Internet forums. Cabelle Liew Sheryln commented: “Why so X-rated? Promoting cars or boobs? For a moment, I thought I’m looking at Playboy’s website.”

A Shin Min Daily News reader, housewife Wu Ning Jing, also pointed out that the show was offering tickets priced at $5 for children. The 41-year-old is concerned that children may attend the exhibition and “see things they shouldn’t”.

Bikinis and cars go together like ham and cheese. Today, the word ‘model’ has become standard double entrendre when it comes to car show displays.  Flashy cars have been linked to beautiful women since at least 1970, with the ‘Concours International d’Elegance’ motor show being staged at the appropriately titled Gay World, bringing together ‘the glittering status symbols of modern man’. You won’t see such sexist promotions anymore, but ‘race queens’ as they are known today, are wearing much less than their 70′s counterparts. Automobiles have been feminised by men for as long as anyone could remember. We call our toy ‘a beauty’, talk about her ‘sleek curves’, and how she ‘purrs’ when the engine is ignited.  Placing an actual female next to a car is merely extending its gender, maybe personality, into flesh and bone. In 1936, there was even a model called the ‘Hillman Minx’. In Kill Bill, the Bride calls her ride the ‘Pussy Wagon’.

Biker chic

In 1978, one lucky Lagonda was ridden by seven models during a fashion show at Mandarin Hotel. Even vintage cars that seem to have come right out of the Monopoly game get their share of the ladies.

Herbie is jealous

What would a motor show be without women then? Perhaps a ‘ringside magic show’, or a ‘dance band’ for entertainment (1965)? Steak without the sizzle, fireworks without the noise. Today, the car is not the only hardware that sells better with sex. Tech fairs selling smartphones, TVs, cameras, Playstations, tablets are all employing models to caress products with their fingers, though the likelihood of snaring a babe with every purchase is dismal compared to buying a car. Why didn’t we have such things during the days of VCR tape recorders and mini-compos? If only Borders had thought of this gimmick before they closed shop. The only way to promote the reading habit and sell encyclopedia these days is to have bikini models manning booths at book fairs. You can even make the Oxford Dictionary look sexy if you try hard enough.

Go go gadget gals

But what’s this about a ‘pageant’ then? If you have women vying for a title and using their sex appeal to outdo each other, who cares about the cars? Perhaps Super Import Nights is overselling its sideshow perks, and since it’s harder to be tempted into buying a car than a new set of speakers, having a bikini contest instead of the usual anonymous flesh parade is unlikely to boost sales at a motor show. In fact, with hordes of guys busy gawking and not browsing merchandise, it may even backfire on the organisers if the crowd of horny onlookers turns off genuine car buyers.

Here’s a list of strange things you can get a pretty lady to sell at trade fairs. Nope, no books still.

1) Mouse

2) Keyboard

3) Battery Grip

4) Stuff that look like they belong to another type of lifestyle fair

Filed under: 1930s, 1970s, 2012, Fun and games, Motorists, Nudity, Sex, Singaporean women, Toys | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Temasek Revealed’s Hoax NSF death

Posted on January 29, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Blog post on NSF’s death a hoax’, 29 Jan 2012, article by Jessica Lim, Sunday Times

The Defence Ministry (Mindef) has refuted as a hoax a blog post claiming that a full-time national serviceman (NSF) was shot dead last Friday during a live-firing exercise. The post appeared that evening on a blog which calls itself Temasek Revealed. It said the incident took place that morning.

The post then appeared on a Facebook page called Temasek Review early yesterday. It said a 19-year-old Singapore Armed Forces serviceman had been shot in the right eye by a stray bullet in the Sembawang area and that he died on the spot. Neither the blog, nor the Temasek Review Facebook page, is associated with the sociopolitical website Temasek Review Emeritus (TRE), which was originally known as Temasek Review.

By noon yesterday, the post had gone viral on forums such as Hardwarezone, and on other blogs and social networking sites. Temasek Revealed first appeared shortly after the original Temasek Review website went offline in September last year. The latter has since returned as TRE. An opposition candidate in last year’s general election, Mr Alex Tan, had said on his Facebook page that the Temasek Revealed blog was published by him.

The ‘Temasek’ brand, though initially created to stimulate political awareness and insider ‘journalism’, has generated enough clones to diminish its credibility as a source of reliable information. The irony of this all is that the original Temasek Review had copyright issues with Temasek Holdings’ Annual Report by the same name, and now has to face the dilution of identity by its namesake ‘sociopolitical’ bastard-child blogs. This is exactly the reason why PM Lee was concerned about the net becoming a free-for-all cowboy town, with a clueless sheriff and dozens of imposter Billy the Kids running amok. Secrecy, something which even the national paper is prone to keeping, in the form of withholding actual names to allow for verification is one reason why people succumb to sensational stories.  The fact that an anonymous death  report was sent by an anonymous relative via anonymous post/email, to a blog with an anonymous author, fails to prevent a piece of delicious tabloid tripe from spreading like wildfire.

Content matters, of course. A hoax has to be believable but not mundane enough to be ignored. If I were to plant a random forum with ‘Famous actress spotted with two guys at a bar!’, nobody would bat an eyelid. If, however, I change a single word to ‘Famous actress spotted lap-dancing two guys in a bar!’, now that’s news, but it can only work if people have a rough idea of which slutty celebrity this might be i.e you need a background history, or reputation. As for the NSF death case, there are three background facts: One, accidents like these CAN happen. Two: Specific accidents in the army HAVE happened in the past. Three: The SAF has a reputation of safety to maintain. Taken together, our natural human tendency is to develop sufficient interest in this to talk about it, whether we ultimately believe it to be true or not. Offline, it’s called gossip. Social media merely multiplies that effect, and by replicating itself through a wider network of busybodies than face-to-face chatter, things are bound to get skewed, and screwed, out of proportion.

Nothing captures attention like a hoax death, whether it involves evil dictators or singer/actors like Jon Bon Jovi and the classic ‘Paul McCartney is dead’ meme. Often these are the result of pranksters with no malicious intent to slurry the reputation of their targets other than send some gullible fans into premature mourning, since such rumours are easily dispelled. A phantom report of death from NS, however, seems designed not just to sensationalise, but specifically to get the ants in MINDEF’s pants. But you don’t even need the Internet to start the ball of ballyhoo rolling. In the past you could simply typewrite a letter, lodge it with the police and then proceed to rub your hands in glee.

In 1958, a spate of hoaxing got the media and affected targets in a frenzy, one involving the murder of a ‘poor girl’ by a gang. In the same year, Government Pensioner Mr A Khandiah of Cumberland Lane was ‘killed’ 5 times by hoaxers, before perishing FOR REAL after a botched operation, a cruel twist to the ‘Boy who cried Wolf’ perhaps.  On some occasions you may even bypass the media and telephone the undertaker straightaway impersonating as an Inspector, if you want to pull a really sick joke on a fellow naval officer.

So, how much distress has this fakery caused that the poster, or publisher, warrants a punishment? If the hoaxer had said ‘A military personnel has died’, people with loved ones in the army may worry a little. Saying ‘A 19-year old NS man has died during live-firing’ narrows the chances of the deceased being someone you know, but intensifies the tension. The most punishing hoax of all is one that falls  midway between being uselessly vague (Someone in the army has died) and the full reveal (Corporal So-and-so, 19 years old, in So-and-so Unit, was killed). In this instance, grisly details about how the bullet busted an eye socket and penetrated a skull was relayed, which sounds convincing until you realise how anyone can cite forensic evidence with such confidence just by watching CSI on cable.  Whatever the consequences, it’s not just the hoaxer/publisher who suffers ill-repute in this case. Such incidents give the authorities further justification for clamping down on bloggers because we’re not showing that we can be mature, discerning adults. By posting frivolous nonsense to generate publicity, this NS hoaxer is either shooting himself in the foot,  has a childish grudge against the army, or is an anti-tech ultra-conservative who wants to put an end to social media freedom forever.

Postscript: A 19-year-old youth has since been arrested for the offence of transmitting a false or fabricated message under Sec 45(b) of the Telecommunications Act, Cap 323. The Temasek Revealed site has also since disappeared without a trace, but like the proverbial hydra with its head cut off, another ‘Temasek Times’ has spawned, run by anonymous ‘freelance’ bloggers agan. Wonder if this site would be confused with TJC’s student newsletter Temasek Times instead. Be creative, people.

Filed under: 1930s, 1950s, 2011, 2012, Army, Bloggers, Fun and games, Funerals/Death, Police officers | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

RI boy victim of ‘rioting with a dangerous weapon’

Posted on December 3, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Suspects involved in RI student stabbing arrested’, 2 Dec 2011, article in Asiaone.com

Five youths believed to be involved in the stabbing of a Raffles Institution student have been arrested by the police…Aged between 15 and 17, they allegedly attacked two 17-year-old secondary school students, Anand from Raffles Institution and Don Tan from St Andrew’s Secondary School, after a staring incident at a McDonald’s outlet in the Potong Pasir area on Dec 1.

…Don escaped with a bruised eye but Anand was stabbed in the back. The assailants fled the scene later….The five suspects will be charged in Court on Dec 3 for the offence of Rioting Armed with a Deadly Weapon.It is punishable under Section 148 read with Section 149 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224. They can be jailed up to 10 years and can also be caned.

It strikes me as quite an understatement to refer to a brutal gang attack as ‘rioting with a dangerous weapon’. Riots are mostly the fiery climax after protesting for a cause, or a violent, explosive reaction to a perceived injustice. A group of disgruntled employees unfairly sacked from their jobs have reason to ‘riot’ and tear down their ex-company’s offices. If I paid $500 to see a band perform but they fail to show up I have a reason to ‘riot’ and mob the stage with angry fans. Most riots have rioters venting their rage on inanimate objects or the police trying to subdue them. They don’t go around asking people ‘What’s their problem’ with penknives tucked behind their socks ready to stab people in the back.

Beating a stranger up over a petty ‘staring incident’ isn’t ‘rioting’, it’s an impulsive, malicious infliction of harm,  assault, attempted murder or murder, depending on whether the victim emerges from the scuffle with a slap in the face or ends up in the morgue after marking his last location alive with pools of blood. Likewise, hunting someone from a rival clan down out of vengeance isn’t ‘rioting’, it’s premeditated murderous stalking with intent to harm. Rioting implies a higher brain function, while attacking people just because one is ‘buay song’ for being stared at is common to the primal traits of a murderous cannibalistic troupe of alpha-male chimpanzees. Except that unlike animals fighting over mates or territory, these hooligans are getting into trouble essentially over nothing, though such pointless aggression could be a relic of how our ancestors genuinely behaved against outsiders in the past to keep their tribe in one piece, or just to show-off who’s ‘boss’ short of telling the whole clan how big their testicles are.

But here’s a bloody history of what we now call ‘rioting with a dangerous weapon’, where one can surmise that you’re at the highest risk of getting involved in a staring incident if you’re an NSman walking around on a public holiday.  You don’t have to be in a ‘gang’ to be targeted, nor would you necessarily be attacked by one . Get out of places with alcohol, bottles, chairs and kitchen knives IMMEDIATELY if you ever suspect aggravating anyone. Hiding in the toilet in a bid to let the incident ‘blow over’ is a bad idea. Don’t stare at groups of teenage GIRLS, and attacks can happen anywhere as long as there are people and you’re not blind.

2010: 18 year old punched and kicked on Christmas Eve, Downtown East Pasir Ris after attacker confronted him with an ‘Eh, what’. On Christmas night, an NS man was bashed outside Takashimaya, Orchard Road. In Feb, A WOMAN was fined $800 for ‘disturbing the peace’, fighting with another at Boat Quay over a staring incident. Later in the year,  Darren Ng, 19, was hacked to death at Downtown East Pasir Ris. Though initially cited as a ‘staring incident’, police later confirmed that it was gang-related.

1997: NS Goh Tee Chuan men died after injuries in karaoke lounge toilet after staring incident involving ‘bar stools, bottles and glasses’. Ironically the lounge was called ‘Happy Palace’ and it was the fourth day of Chinese New Year.

1989: 15 year old murdered by in a gang attack on New Years’ Day outside 7 Eleven. In the same year, 3 schoolgirls were beaten up and robbed in Amara Hotel toilet by teenage girl gang.

1988: NS man stabbed thrice by gang at a Telok Blangah playground during Deepavali after a staring incident.

1985: Man injured in a brawl involving broken bottles. One group was PLAYING CHESS when the staring incident occurred at Pandan gardens.

1982: Two NSmen brothers stabbed at a road junction. Probably one of the first cases of ‘rioting with dangerous weapons’.

1980: Man killed after being slashed by a meat chopper at Adam Road Hawker Centre. Case classified as ‘murder and attempted murder’

1978: NSman killed after an attack involving ‘sticks and poles’ at Lorong Chuan.

1969: Market shop assistant knifed in the neck after a staring-induced argument with another shop assistant at Changi market

1959: Soldier killed in a fight over a staring incident near New World amusement park, which involved policemen and soldiers. Victim turned out to be a secret society member.

1939: Hokkien sundry goods dealer SHOT IN THE THIGH at Duxton Road after a staring confrontation.

Filed under: 1930s, 1970s, 1980s, 2010, 2011, Justice system/Lawsuits, Kids, Violence | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Filipina prostitute murdered by Indian national

Posted on November 11, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Punched, stabbed and left to die’, 9 Nov 2011, article in insing.com.

A murder trial today revealed that a prostitute died after a brutal knifing. The deceased is Filipino woman Roselyn Reyes Pascua (aged 30), who was found lying in a pool of blood at Peony Mansion in Bencoolen Street, in the wee hours of 15 March last year.

Working as a prostitute, the Filipina was stabbed 16 times altogether, including 10 times in her chest and abdomen, once in her neck, and twice in her vagina. She died only after 30 minutes as a stab wound to her heart drained the blood from her.

The woman was unable to cry out for help in her last moments due to a very serious neck wound. Bruising to her face and cuts on her lips also indicate that she was punched repeatedly in the face. The suspect currently on trial for her murder is Indian national Bijukumar Remadevi Nair Gopinathan.

It would be gross understatement to say that this is yet another case of foreign workers making a nuisance of themselves, following a recent uproar about gangs of them mentally undressing women in bikinis at Sentosa  . Mutilating genitalia is the most heinous of assaults and truly deserving of a hanging, but what bugs me here is not foreign workers contributing to violent crime, but rather why prostitutes, mostly foreigners themselves, suffer such violent, unspeakable deaths at the brutal hands of men and nobody’s doing anything about it.

A psychotic fit of jealous rage could be one of the reasons, or perhaps such gruesome acts are simply an extension of prostitutes being treated as commodities by paying customers, who want to get more ‘bang’ for their buck. Or it could be a case of ‘Jack the Ripper’ syndrome, where prostitutes, viewed as ‘defiled’,  or ‘second-hand goods’ deserve a violent death. Here’s a look at prostitute murders over the years, and looking at the bestial brutality of most of these cases, the average prostitute would be considered lucky to get suffocated with a pillow in her face instead of having a knife plunged into it.

20 Oct 1936: Lam Ah Yok, ‘Cantonese’, 24, 13 stab wounds on face, neck, chest, back. Motive determined as robbery.

6 July 1976: Fang Lai Chan, 30, 31 stab wounds, 2 fatal on the chest, by a 70 year old Chinese taxi-driver who subsequently killed himself by drowning.

6 Sept 1977: Chong Kiu Moy, 26, 13 cut wounds on neck and body

15 July 1988: Chang Hai Lin, Malaysian, 36, multiple stab wounds, found in a brothel. Murderer also thought of killing himself subsequently.

15 March 1988:Wong Ngu Moi, Malaysian, 30, multiple wounds and lacerations on face and head. Flattened face. Killed by a female social escort, over a man.

13 Dec 1988: Soi Mana, Thai, 32,  throat slashed, multiple stab wounds on chest. Murdered in a Geylang boarding house where she served Thai nationals.

2007: Phakhaphon Taeng-On,Thai, 35, injury to head, neck, chest, limbs, abdomen. Body bound by rubber tube. Used to serve foreign workers in Kranji jungle hideouts

2008: Coco, Malaysian, 41, stabbed once in the abdomen. Suspect was a ‘dark-complexioned’ man

14 Jan 2010: Radika Devi Thayagarajah, Sri Lankan, 21, strangled to death and stuffed under a bed in a hotel room. Murderer was an Indian national, also 21, and HAD SEX with another prostitute on the same bed while victim was under it. Victim was SEVEN MONTHS PREGNANT. Started from a quarrel over money.

So, before we slam the world’s oldest profession for turning our quiet neighbourhoods into sleazy havens, perhaps we should consider what dire situations these women are setting themselves up for, desperately plying their trade from men who could very well be psycho killers who stab people in the face and vagina. It also doesn’t help that business transactions are usually conducted in secluded areas at unearthly hours, sometimes even in the jungle if need be. What’s trending is the increasing suspicion of foreign workers over the past few cases, and if you consider other less than savoury weekend hobbies like girl-watching and gambling for their bosses at the casinos, you’d have to wonder if any of our foreign workers still write letters to their families back home, or even sing and dance, in their free time anymore.

The lack of measures or welfare systems to keep prostitutes from harm smacks of double standards from a pro-immigrant society and general discrimination, and if the government is helpless and won’t do so much as install metal detectors at all brothels, then AWARE should step up its game to prevent such brutal attacks from happening through education and advocating enforcement instead of complaining about sexism all the time.

Filed under: 1930s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2010, 2011, Foreign workers, Funerals/Death, Justice system/Lawsuits, Sex, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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