Fitness freaks leaping up and down the Cenotaph

Posted on September 1, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Lack of respect at war memorial’, 1 Sept 2012, article by David Ee, ST

KEEP-FIT enthusiasts have attracted controversy by leaping up and down the steps of a memorial for soldiers killed in the two world wars. The 20-strong group congregates on Thursday evenings at The Cenotaph in Esplanade Park.

War historians and other commentators have criticised their choice of workout venue, saying the memorial is “sacred ground”. “It is a solemn site and should be used responsibly,” said history professor Brian Farrell from the National University of Singapore.

…The keep-fit enthusiasts have been working out at The Cenotaph as part of a training regime organised by Journey Fitness. Group member Ngo Tien Leok felt that the memorial’s central, public location gave them every reason to use it, especially as land is scarce in Singapore. The 38-year-old IT manager said that he does not consider the site sacred, adding: “I’ve not been through a war. I don’t feel a connection to it.”

…Associate Professor Kevin Blackburn, who teaches history at the National Institute of Education, felt Singapore could do more to make people aware that war memorials are sacred. For example, wreaths could be laid all year round. “Singapore tends to downplay some of its monuments,” he said.

Mr Ben Pulham, who co-founded Journey Fitness, said he had no idea that the structure the group was using was actually a war memorial. Asked if he would change the training venue now that he knew, the 31-year-old said he probably would not.

“We saw another group doing the same thing,” he said. “We’re celebrating life by encouraging people to be active, that’s my take on it.”

Hands up those who ‘planked’ here before

Well that’s the whole purpose of a memorial isn’t it, to remind future generations who’ve ‘never been through war’ (or never will) that our country had its share of martyrs, or that we even HAD wars. Nobody’s asking tourists or joggers to bow their heads in gratitude or forcing anyone to lay flowers at the Cenotaph’s base and weep like war widows, but using the Cenotaph steps as a free gym under the excuse of ‘land scarcity’ is like a hurdler leaping over headstones in a cemetery because he has nothing else to practice on. In a previous post, some Rock of Ages churchgoers decided to use the Kranji War memorial for an ‘Amazing Race’. Well at least the recently completed (and smugly successful) Diner En Blanc didn’t make the memorial grounds their ‘secret location’.

The article above also mentioned a ‘rock music’ fashion shoot at the Civilian War Memorial in 2009, which would make sense if you were doing a ‘Thriller’ theme. And then there’s this, people taking the same place for a Kenko Fish Spa.

My feedback to bring in piranhas went unanswered

Do we hold anything sacred outside our handheld devices anymore? Have our hallowed grounds become playgrounds for tourists and ‘keep-fit’ enthusiasts? Will the Cenotaph become part of a celebrity magician’s disappearing monument act? Will couples continue to make out beneath the names of those killed in war? Before we had joggers, our colonists adopted a sternly reverential, but condescending, attitude towards the treatment of the newly erected Cenotaph. In 1922, the structure was ‘desecrated’ by ‘scores of NATIVES sprawling on the steps in almost every conceivable posture of inelegance‘ (A CLASSIC line that I’m tempted to use on people who slouch on chairs). It also wasn’t a place meant for ‘half clad coolies’ and ‘TRAMPS’ and any suspicious activity, be it even STEPPING FOOT on it, would be dispersed by policemen (Today we have half-clad desecrators of a different sort altogether). In the 1940s, some locals were particularly picky over the sarcophagi design, expressing ‘abhorrence’ over mobs of hawkers and loiterers squatting on the steps. Today, only historians lament the abuse of those sacred steps, and they don’t even sound local. I wonder how many of us today even know what this Cenotaph is about, other than something important that’s not the statue of Stamford Raffles, the Merlion, or Marina Bay Sands.

The suggestion of laying wreaths habitually in memorandum of the fallen wouldn’t work. Other than the rain and humidity dashing the tributes making it look like like a florists’ wagon crashed into the structure, the gifts would probably get stomped upon by people doing squat-jumps or stolen by cheapskate lovers. I would suggest a ‘Memorial Day’ holiday to make remembrance of unsung war heroes who, unlike many today, have something to give up their lives for. This would be perfectly aligned to PM Lee’s ideal of ‘Hope, Heart and Home’, attributes which our glorious dead embodied in more ways than us lucky bastards can ever imagine.  Instead of hothousing kids in tuition classes, parents could take their kids ‘memorial hopping’, and impress upon our children that life wasn’t all rosy in the past, even if it means making up stories about some granduncle who was badass enough to skewer an entire platoon of Japs with a bayonet before blowing himself up and bringing an entire tank squadron with him ala Medal of Honour, a time when the word ‘brave’ meant the will to charge at the enemy, not ask the prettiest girl in class out for a date in Gardens by the Bay.

Are the words ‘Our Glorious Dead’ not obvious enough to alert people like Ben Pulham that this is no ordinary piece of granite in the park? Should we change the inscription to ‘In Dearest Memory of Soldiers who Died in War’? One could argue that you can respect the dead by making a ‘celebration ‘out of their sacrifice. After all, another inscription does say ‘They died so we might LIVE’, like how some families honour the departed by slow-dancing at their wake. I mean, nobody’s going to stop you from attaching balloons on your dead relative’s coffin, provided he was a professional clown. If one may consider brutal training regimes and marathon running as ‘a celebration of life’ and a reason to run riot over the Cenotaph, then anything goes really. By defining ‘living’ so loosely rather than out of reflective indebtedness, why stop at jogging all over the monument? How about shaking your bon-bon and singing ‘Living Da Vida Loca’ on the steps? Halloween is also coming up, by the way.

Labelling cenotaph-hoppers ‘Keep-fit’ enthusiasts is an understatement when referring to members of groups like Journey Fitness. According to the company website, you can enroll for a package that includes a ‘lactate test’ and ‘fuel efficiency’ test, which makes me wonder if this is a club for humans or cyborg hamsters.  This being the Seventh Month and all, perhaps it’s better to be safe than sorry and not mess around with the Cenotaph, whether you’re a lactate-producing adrenaline junkie or a random loiterer. You wouldn’t want to hear the wails of dying soldiers and muffled gunfire while doing your burpees on its steps.

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Filed under: 1920s, 1940s, 2011, 2012, Public works | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

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

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

Drunk Gurkhas attacking ex-cop at Clarke Quay

Posted on April 8, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Ex-policeman beaten up by off-duty Gurkhas’, 7 April 2012, article in insing.com

A former policeman was allegedly beaten up by nine off-duty Gurkha police officers at Clarke Quay last Sunday. According to Shin Min Daily News, Mr Rama, 38, a logistics manager and ex-police officer, had gone with four friends for a drink at a nightspot in the area last Saturday evening.

When the group left the establishment at about 3am, they encountered a large group of nine men outside who appeared to be drunk, Mr Rama’s wife told reporters. The men instantly took an interest in Mr Rama’s female friends, and tried to flirt with them.

But Mr Rama and his friends did not take the harassment well and warned the men to back off. Things quickly turned sour between the two groups, whom were both intoxicated. The two parties were about to go their separate ways when one of the nine men made a rude gesture with his middle finger to the other group.

According to Mr Rama’s wife, nobody knew who threw the first punch in the ensuing brawl, but it left Mr Rama bleeding from his brain and comatose in the intensive care unit for three days. She added that he is now able to speak a few words but will be hospitalised for a period of time.

The police have verified this incident and confirmed that the nine men involved were junior Gurkha police officers. All nine have since been suspended while under investigations and one of them has been charged with causing grievous hurt.

The Gurkhas were among the first ‘foreign talents’ here, established in 1949 to safeguard key installations and renown for their fierce loyalty, courage, willingness to die and prowess with a curved blade known as the kukri. Branded as merciless jungle warriors, Gurkhas were last unleashed into battle against Malayan communists in the fifties. Today, they’ve taken on more passive, underwhelming roles like embassy and prison guards. Their competence in such nanny roles was questioned when a lapse in supervision by a couple of Gurkhas at Whitley Detention led to Mas Selamat’s toilet escape. Elsewhere in the world, Gurkhas are beating off gangs of Taliban with machine gun TRIPODS. These are men born to FIGHT, and what they’re made to do here is like tossing a lion a ball of yarn to play with, or putting a Viking on board to Star Cruises liner.

Much bloodcurdling fable and hearsay surround the rugged, fearless Gurkha, that their kukri must ‘taste blood’ once it’s removed from its sheath,  that it’s sharp enough to ‘lop off an oxen’s head’ in one fell swoop, that the community organises blood rituals such as the buffalo-slaying Jai Durga, that they are ‘smiling killers’ who will slit your throat before you can even blink. Their motto was said to be ‘It’s better to die than be a coward’, the kind of kamikaze valor and romantic machismo you would only find these days in B-grade action flicks, where one can imagine the Gurkha as the berserking warrior who, even with a sword protruding out of his bloody chest, would slay the nearest enemy with the tip of its blade before dying.  Gurkha babies probably knew how to strangle a boar before learning how to suckle. While Singaporean kids are swiping iPads with their fingers, Gurkha kids are using theirs to poke venomous cobras in the eyes.

The true Universal Soldier

According to the SPF website, Gurkhas appear to be a breed of super-soldier selected for their ‘physical and mental robustness, resourcefulness and an uncomplaining dependability’. ‘Robustness’ comes across as an understatement in the light of the Gurkha’s tribal mystique as dedicated killing machines. So how much of this Spartan-like fortitude still rings true today? Has the once throat-slitting kukri been relegated to a tool for prying open durians and coconuts? Can a Gurkha in Singapore still fend off a gang of teenage rioters armed with parangs? Has the lack of field clobbering made the force soft? How relevant is a mountain warrior in the flat concrete jungle that is Singapore? Earlier this year it took FOUR off-duty Gurkhas to subdue a bear-hugging molester, which, if the legendary might of the Gurkha is to be believed, would be the equivalent of a human pile of 10 wimpy Singaporean men, though the culprit wasn’t exactly the Incredible Hulk to begin with.

So where else to channel one’s genetic lust for blood than through senseless brawls? In 1986, More than a 100 Gurkhas were sacked by the British Army after a tent fight in Hawaii.  A bar brawl involving 15 Gurkhas in 2001, Belize, led to the death of a teenager. Here in 2008, a scuffle among Gurkha ranks over pay matters was reported in Mount Vernon, which called into question this so-called ‘uncomplaining dependability’. Incidentally, the last reported case of a drunk Gurkha attacking people was in 1949, the very year that the contingent was set up. These are isolated incidents of course, and the Gurkhas still inspire awe, if not for their proud ancestry  and contributions to home security then their terrifying mastery with kukri. A Gurkha can gut  Jabba the Hutt with a few simple twists of the wrist.  Singaporean men can’t knock mangoes off a tree with a catapult  if their lives depended on it.

Filed under: 1940s, 1950s, 2000s, 2012, Nightspots, Police officers, Violence | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Petain Road named after fallen French Marshal

Posted on March 24, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Should Petain Road be renamed?’ 20 March 2012, article by Tommy Koh, ST, and ‘Petain Road’, 24 March 2012, My Point, ST Forum

…There is a road in the Jalan Besar area called Petain Road. The French community has been campaigning for many years to change the name of the road. I support the campaign and would like to explain why the Street and Building Names Board, under the Ministry of National Development, should consider the request favourably.

Britain was an ally of France during the First World War. In the Jalan Besar area, there are several roads which bear the names of famous generals, such as Petain and Beatty, or famous sites of battles, such as Verdun, Marne, Jutland and Flanders. In 1928, the Municipal Government of Singapore decided to name one of the roads after the great French war hero, Field Marshal Henri Philippe Petain.

…At the end of the First World War, Petain was regarded as one of France’s greatest military heroes. In 1918, he was made a Marshal of France. In 1922, he was appointed as the Inspector-General of the Army. The decision by the Municipal Government of Singapore to name a road after him, in 1928, was perfectly understandable.

No one in 1928 could have foreseen what Petain would do during the Second World War. The French Army had been progressively degraded after the First World War, no thanks to budgetary cuts. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the French Army was no match for the German Army.

In May 1940, Petain, who had become the Prime Minister of France, regarded the military situation as hopeless. On the 20th of June, France signed an armistice with Germany, giving the latter control of the north and west of France, including Paris. The seat of the French government was moved to Vichy, a town located about 400km south of Paris.

On July 10, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate ratified the armistice, abolished the Third Republic, and adopted a new Constitution under which Petain, as the head of state, had near-absolute powers. The Petain government oppressed the French people and collaborated with Germany in suppressing the French resistance and arresting the Jews. In November 1942, Germany occupied the whole of France and Petain became a puppet of the Germans.

In 1945, de Gaulle’s provisional government placed Petain on trial for treason. The three judges were in favour of acquitting him. The jury, however, disagreed and convicted him of treason and sentenced him to death. De Gaulle, who had served under Petain in 1911, commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, on account of his age and taking into account his contributions in the First World War. Petain was stripped of all his military ranks and honours, except for the title of Marshal. He died in ignominy, in 1951, at the age of 95.

In the light of these historical facts, we must agree with the French community that it is inappropriate to continue to honour Petain by naming a road after him. The question is whether there is a precedent for changing the road’s name.

I think I have found a good precedent. Chulia Street was originally named Kling Street. The word, ‘kling’ is derived from the word, ‘kalinga’, the name of a powerful South Indian kingdom. In the beginning, the Malays referred to all South Indians as ‘orang kling’. However, over time, the word acquired a pejorative connotation and was used to refer to the Indian coolies.

In 1918, Rev J A B Coach petitioned the municipal commissioners to change the name of the street, but his appeal was rejected. Three years later, in 1921, the commissioners acceded to the request of Dr H S Moonshi, who spoke on behalf of the Indian community.

I hope that the Street and Building Names Board will kindly consider the request of the French community to rename Petain Road. I propose calling it ‘de Gaulle Road‘, to recognise the historic contributions made by the indomitable French leader in the country’s history.

(MR LIM ENG LIAN): ‘As a Singaporean, what is important to me is the context of the name ‘Petain Road’ in Singapore (‘Should Petain Road be renamed?’; Tuesday). It seems the argument for changing the name relates to French history and politics, not Singapore’s, which links Petain Road to the person so honoured at that time. If the rationale provided in the article for changing the name is to be accepted, then shouldn’t all references to Petain in France be expunged by the French?’

I’m no expert in French history and it’s interesting how streets in Singapore are named after European  World War veterans like Foch, Kitchener, Haig and Beatty, simply because we have few folk heroes ourselves yet so many roads to cover. This, however, isn’t the first time that war history buffs have taken offence to Petain Road. Back in July 1940, someone also suggested replacing it with the name of a ‘real patriot’, General de Gaulle. In 1941, Petain as Vichy chief was harangued for his ‘negotiations with our mortal enemy’ and having Hitler as his ‘great teacher’. A traitor to his country and an anti-Semite Nazi sympathiser, this call to rename Petain Road reminds me of the outrage over a bar named Aushwitz, or a food court named S21. In France, the last little street in Tremblois bearing the name of Petain was changed in 2011, with mixed reactions from locals.  If some French may choose to look beyond the scandals and foibles of a once great man, why not us?  Just because some general went rogue doesn’t mean he should be any less remembered. Evil politicians sell more biographies than heroic ones, simply because evil people are more interesting to read about.

Taxi drivers’ nightmare aside, ‘de Gaulle (small ‘d’!)’ Road sounds rather pretentious in my opinion, more suitable for a chic retail boulevard than a street near Little India that has more shophouses than alfresco bistros or macaron boutiques. Does the average Singaporean even know, or care, if we have so many roads named after foreign generals and battles of which our children are never taught in school?  Or that we still have road names which sound too ‘Malaysian’? Interestingly, the infamous Desker Road, a few blocks down Pertain Road, was named after Andre Filipe Desker, a Dutch donor to CATHOLIC schools and CHURCHES, according to this blog with an awesome collection of road names. Desker’s descendents wouldn’t be too pleased with what his road has become associated with these days (prostitution and illegal sex drug peddling), but no one has asked for a replacement so far. Some road names were also picked in sarcastic jest; according to this 1950 article, Lavender Street (also nearby) was so named because it used to be where barrel carts containing ‘nightsoil’, or shit, were gathered.

But why is it, for all the dead white Generals, Lords and Marshals from Waterloo to Flanders, there are so few streets in the  Little India area that sound remotely Indian? The closest I could find from the area map that relates to the Indian identity include Madras St, Veerasamy Rd and a Hindoo Rd. If the likes of Tommy Koh and the French community are so insistent on taking Petain off the map for good, how about celebrating a local Indian hero for a change, like S C Goho? In 2008, we already ‘toned down the Indian identity’ of the old Tekka Mall by rebranding it as the Verge (a word with Middle FRENCH origins), and here we are fighting over which French general to take the place of a disgraced Petain, and one (de Gaulle) most Singaporeans could relate to only by virtue of the CDG airport in Paris. This is Little India/Jalan Besar, not a exhibition wing of a European Museum of World War History.

Filed under: 1940s, 1950s, 2000s, 2011, 2012, It Should Have Been.., Names, Public works | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

$2000 reward for smuggling Chinese national

Posted on January 1, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Women tries to sneak into S’pore in car boot’, 1 Jan 2012, article in Asiaone.com.

Singapore’s Immigration & Checkpoint Authority (ICA) officers arrested a man and a woman at Woodlands Checkpoint this morning at 7.30am in a case of attempted illegal entry into Singapore. A black Malaysian-registered car, driven by a male driver, was pulled over for routine check.  The driver showed signs of nervousness, prompting the ICA officers to conduct a thorough check on the vehicle.

A woman was subsequently found hiding in the boot, and was arrested along with the driver. The vehicle has been detained by ICA. The 40-year-old man was promised payment of $2,000 if he was successful in bringing the 50-year-old Chinese national into Singapore illegally.

…Those guilty of illegal entry into Singapore may face up to six months in jail and be punished with at least three strokes of the cane.

A similar payout of $2000 per job was offered to Malaysian Law Song, caught in September last year and found guilty of ferrying 200 migrant workers into Singapore over 2 years. This case followed the Feb 2011 capture of ‘kingpin’ Wu Feng Xia from Putian, China, who was allegedly linked to 200 illegal workers in Singapore over 5 years. Also in Jan last year,  Malaysian syndicate leader Zuklifly Bin Muhammad was caught, having masterminded the ferrying of human cargo across the Johor Straits, bringing the total smuggler arrests to 13 in 26 MONTHS at the start of 2011.

It wasn’t always easy money to stash a migrant worker in your vehicle. Back in 1999, 20 illegal immigrants were caught entering the country in a ‘secret compartment’ beneath a Bas Kilang from Malaysia. For smuggling 19 Thai nationals and 1 PRC, the trafficker would have been paid RM20 for each immigrant conveyed, which in total was still less than transporting 1 PRC today. In 1998, Malaysian Liew Nam Chong was jailed and caned for an offer of $35 to transport a Chinese national into Singapore via his car boot. In the seventies, the  rate was $40-50 for each immigrant ferried by sampan from Tanjong Pinang (Indonesia) to Singapore.

Despite the clampdown on these smuggling shenanigans, illegal immigrants and their mostly foreign middlemen continue to be a problem, and if migrants can’t afford to pay agents to enter or forge permits, they would risk life and limb to make the journey themselves, by swimming across the Johor Straits using their clothes as floatation devices, or paddling here in a rubber float with makeshift tubes as snorkels to submerge when required. Some may even hang on for dear life at the bottom of SBS buses (Illegal immigrant found hiding under SBS bus, 11 Oct 2005, Today).  Interestingly, a Malaysia-registered saloon may pack up to FIVE men in its car boot (5 men found in car boot, 5 Oct 2000, ST). And they still get CANED for their efforts if they’re caught, before they could even recover from the aches of remaining in a cramped foetal position for hours.

Even if you were to pay good money for ‘premium packages’ to be delivered to your destination, you may get shoved off the boat and left to drown by a panicking middleman afraid of getting caught by the Coast Guard, which could explain why hiding in someone’s boot still remains a preferred though highly uncomfortable option. The media is quick to paint illegal immigrants as security-breaching criminals. In 1948, the xenophobia was evident when illegal immigrants were labelled undesirable ‘terrorists’, ‘cut throats’, ‘gangsters and thugs’, with even less sympathy than syndicate leaders have for their ‘commodities’. Many are really just ordinary humans desperate to eke a living or escaping from brutal regimes, and wouldn’t even think of coming if Singapore hadn’t intentionally made itself attractive to foreigners in the first place.  Illegal immigrants may actually be more productive than some foreign ‘talents’ roped into society via the ‘proper channels’, because without that sense of entitlement and being in constant fear of getting caught, it would be to their benefit if they maintained a low profile and abide by the law rather than making a public nuisance of themselves as ‘legal’ migrant workers have, especially those complaining about curry smells or yanking out meters from taxis like compere Quan Yifeng did.  Our forefathers were, in fact, ‘illegal immigrants’ themselves, with the same needs and dreams as any other migrant worker today.  We have also honoured them with a classic SBC serial called the ‘Awakening’.

The penalty for trying to sneak OUT on the other hand, or ‘illegal departure’, is a fine of up to $2000, a jail term of 6 months, or both, with the rotan spared. The reverse of yesterday’s bust occurred in 2010, when a Malaysian was caught with a PRC in his boot at Woodlands checkpoint. He was promised RM500 or $208, almost 10 times less than what you get paid for bringing a PRC INTO the country. In 2011, 3 Indian nationals were caught hiding in a storage compartment in a Malaysian registered prime mover in an attempt to flee. The Malaysian smuggler would have been paid $500 PER illegal worker transported out. In July that year, the ICA had the cheek to add some rather corny  humour into a statement concerning a routine PRC-in-a Malaysian-car-boot raid  (also a $500 ‘export’ job), referring to the hidey hole as a ‘sauna’. They forgot to add that enforcement measures were going full STEAM ahead.

Overstayers aside, if illegal immigrants decided to flee,  is it really necessary to detain and punish them further as payback for slipping past the ICA’s radar in the beginning? Aren’t these ‘export’ smugglers doing us all a favour and sparing the ICA of deporting efforts? It’s like an unwanted guest at your party slipped through your door because you weren’t paying attention, served a few drinks, entertained some people, but you put him in the slammer once you catch him creeping out of the window. Instead of stowing in dead giveaway Malaysian cars, it would probably be less risky for anyone wanting to escape the country by taking the cue from Mas Selemat, who left our shores undetected in an ‘improvised floatation device’. If a wanted terrorist could swim out of the country fairly easily, what more an ‘immigration offender’?

Filed under: 1940s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010, 2011, Foreign workers, Justice system/Lawsuits, Politicians, PRCs, Violence | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Big strollers blocking MRT entrances

Posted on October 9, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Monster wheels’, 9 Oct 2011, article by Jane Ng, Lifestyle Sunday Times

Supersized strollers are getting on the nerves of commuters and shoppers. Fed-up folk have to dodge bulky baby buggies rolled out by pushy parents who at times behave like they and their little princes and princesses own the road.

These are not the slim-built push prams you see at the neighbourhood centre, but are rugged three or four-wheelers which can scale rough terrain with ease, if need be. But they seem to be the rage among modern mothers, never mind that their prices can go to more than $2,000 for a Stokke, a lifestyle stroller by a Norwegian company.

One commuter tired of push coming to shove is Ms Helen Lim, 63, a headhunter who takes the MRT to work every day. She sometimes finds her way blocked by big strollers at the entrance of a carriage. Ms Lim politely asks the parent to move the stroller aside, or shoos other passengers away from the carriage area designated for wheelchairs, so the pram can move there.

Although she takes the initiative to solve the problem, she is losing patience, and feels the situation is worsening. Speaking to LifeStyle, Ms Lim, who is not married, said she is ‘annoyed’, both at pram users and inconsiderate commuters.

‘Strollers are a hindrance when you don’t fold them up. They take up standing room and block entrances. Then there are passengers who are inconsiderate and don’t take the initiative to move in, so it makes the situation worse,’ she said.

Strollers or Stompers?

The futuristic Stokke pram looks like an all-terrain military-grade armed mobile unit that could transform into a battle exoskeleton out of Avatar, while the Bugaboo Bee stroller (see below) is a space-age utility vehicle that should have been featured in a Transformers movie. Both state-of-the-art baby accessories make parents heaving their kids around in a sling or backpack look Neanderthal in comparison. Ironically, prams models are given twee names like the Bugaboo ‘donkey’, ‘cameleon’,  ‘bee’ when in reality, ‘Goliath’ or ‘Devastator’ would be more fitting, judging by the number of toes being crushed by these marauding, mechanical beasts.

Bugaboo Autobot

Strollers are no longer ‘baby carriages’ like what they used to be in the past, now  sleek, portable cribs equipped with sexy, NASA-endorsed features that could also describe the specifications of a luxury sedan. I’ve no problem with parents  bringing infants around in these little makeshift trailer homes, but what’s really annoying is if they transport kids old enough to walk about on their own, more so if they are playing with Daddy’s iPhone in the comfort of the pram instead of sleeping. Prams are also formidable obstacles if they hoard aisles at a restaurant or food court, not just because they make  it completely inaccessible for you to get a table, but trying to move it would provoke an  angry, overprotective parent into calling the police on you for infant assault. You also don’t want some creepy design out of a horror movie like Rosemary’s Baby.

Evil burps

Even in the late forties, baby carriages were a relative luxury, with pram-beds available from $50. For the ‘Loveliest baby in the world’, you could get a Marmet folding pram for a bargain of $179 in the early sixties, though design-wise it looked rather similar to a wheelchair (see below). In the late eighties you could get a ‘Geometric Convertible Stroller Bed’ for $239.95 at Toys R Us.

Hospital grade

Today, for a cool $2k you can get a Stokke pram/stroller which not only fulfills the basic function of baby ambulation, but also aids the ‘healthy development of bones, joints and muscles’. It comes with a ‘cocoon visor’ too. So, it’s not just any ordinary stroller/pram, it’s an ergonomic growth-accelerator and incubator that looks like a cyber-nanny as well. Being accused of helming Mad Max- style battering rams by irate commuters is a hefty price to pay when you’re a busy parent and bulldozing your way through the crowd is the only way to get things done. If the government won’t do anything about overcrowding or baby-friendly spaces we only have technology to look to if there’s any hope of miniaturisation, or at least putting our kids on robotic walkers with intuitive (and safe!) parent-obeying AI. Unfortunately, when it comes to baby comfort and safety, bigger does seem to be ‘better’, to kiasu parents at least. Or you could blame Battleship Potemkin, a 1925 classic which features a scene of a renegade baby carriage tumbling down the stairs, scaring parents the world over into buying more expensive, and presumably safer, prams. Also, nobody wants to be seen with the pram equivalent of a newspaper pick-up van next to a monster truck.

Baby makes Contact

Filed under: 1940s, 1960s, 1980s, 2011, Babies, Kids, MRT, Parenting, Strollers/Prams | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

No MRT stations named after Indians

Posted on August 6, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ”Is there an MRT station named after a prominent Indian Singaporean?’, 5 Aug 2011, ST Forum

(MR DANNY CHUE):…Is there an MRT station here named after a prominent Indian Singaporean? At the start of the Japanese Occupation, Lim Boon Keng represented the Chinese community at the Syonan Memorial and Srish Chandra Goho, better known as S.C. Goho, represented the Indian community in Singapore in a ceremony in which all four main communities were represented. A road and an MRT station have been named after Lim, but none after Goho, which is a glaring omission. As well as a community leader as the president of the Singapore Indian Association, and a lawyer, Goho was an independent candidate who became one of the first of six elected legislative councillors in Singapore. He was also the legal adviser to the Singapore Traction Company’s Employees Union and had fought for the interests of bus employees. Perhaps a bus interchange should also be named after him.

There’s a Boon Keng and a Tan Kah Kee station, and others that sound like the names of prominent Chinese (Yio Chu Kang, Choa Chu Kang, Yew Tee), but no, there aren’t any MRT stations named after famous Indians. There are, however, references to Indians, like Dhoby Ghaut (washing place in Hindi) and, of course, Little India. Our Malay MRT stations include the two Bukits (Batok and Gombak), Tanjong Pagar (cape of stakes) and Telok Blangah (cooking pot bay), all names to remind us of our humble, rural origins or hilly places,  but not dignitaries of the respective races. When it comes to public buildings, although there’s the S Rajaratnam School of International studies at NTU, this is but one Indian- named building among a smattering of many others named after famous Chinese, public hospitals especially (Tan Tock Seng, Khoo Teck Puat, Ng Teng Fong).

S C Goho isn’t exactly a household name, but other than his involvement in politics and buses, he was somewhat of a saviour of fellow Indians during the War, setting up the Indian Passive Defence which put 25,000 Indians under its care (Mr S C Goho dies in Calcutta, 26 July 1948, ST). According to the complainant,  he doesn’t even have a road named after him, not to mention a bus interchange, the latter a consolation prize compared to having his heroic contributions to the nation commemorated in the form of an MRT station. Bus depots are constantly shifting locations, and are fast disappearing as distinct entities, being incorporated gradually into mega malls or engulfed by MRT stations themselves, which makes the writer’s suggestion as useful as naming this man after the largest cloud in the sky.

Even Indian poet and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Dr Rabindranath Tagore has a package of roads named after him: ‘Tagore Lane, Drive, Road and Industrial Avenue’, when he was really more of a global celebrity who popped by for a visit in the 1930s rather than a pioneer who got his hands dirty for Singapore, as was what I initially thought (Glimpses of Tagore’s paintings, 30 March 1984, ST). It’s like the modern equivalent of naming our roads after the Dalai Lama. As a lawyer it would probably make sense to name S C Goho after a Law school, instead of a amenity most commuters associate with long queues, noxious fumes, noisy chugging engines, blaring horns, smelly staff canteens and dustbins overflowing with cigarette butts. But first, to the history textbooks.

Filed under: 1940s, 1980s, 2011, MRT, Names, Public works, SBS Buses | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Bukit Brown waist-high in lallang

Posted on June 11, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘盛港组屋景观设计看上去像坟墓　入夜后居民觉得阴森’, 11 June 2011, article in omy.sg (SM Daily)

《新明日报》日前报道，宏茂桥3道第587座组屋，出现了一个外观似坟墓的瞭望台设施，让居民心里发毛，甚至担心不吉利。

报道刊登后，住在盛港安谷连路第304B座组屋的居民也拨电通知本报，说他们的住家楼下也有像坟墓的设计。那是一个“船锚”形状的景观设计，因为该区的英文名字Anchorvale里的Anchor，就是船锚的意思。

居民庄女士（48岁，小贩）说，她住在该区5年，一开始搬去就觉得“看了不舒服”，但由于没有影响生活，所以也就没有去反应。

The Anchorvale Horror

Observation Deck of the Dead

Translation: Residents in Anchorvale and Ang Mo Kio are getting spooked by structures in their estates resembling tombs and gravestones, hence inauspicious and portending bad luck.

These are probably the same folk who would lie in coffins to erase their bad karma, or see a sinking Titanic in a building where there is none. Anyone terrorised by the right stimulus, be it a scene from a horror movie or a ghost story, would find even a children’s playground scary. In fact, the one below my flat, which comes with a built in xylophone of sorts, sometimes emits tinkling noises in the middle of the night. Whether it’s an old tree, a creaky school gate or a flickering lamp post, anything can be a work of the devil if we try hard enough to impart a story to it, just that most of us ignore that urge simply because we’re better off occupying our minds with more productive tasks.

It’s ironic that some of us are so terrified of the thought of having a cemetery in our midst, forgetting that we keep memories and symbols of our dead loved ones closer than we think, be it a photograph or an article of clothing.  Most HDB dwellers also have to deal with coffins under their very noses during void deck funerals, and yet we make a fuss over such structures, which to normal perception are nothing like tombs by the wildest stretch of the imagination. It’s also curious how some of us want to whitewash and ‘exhume’ these pseudo-tombs if we see them everyday on the way to work or school, and yet feel uncomfortable, or even saddened by the URA’s decision to build houses over the underwhelming landmark that is Bukit Brown cemetery. I suppose bulldozing off a part of our cultural tapestry is expected, for we have lost our character the moment the casinos came to town, and when we hear the news that Singapore is likely to take over Las Vegas as the second hottest gambling spot in the world, all hope of salvation is lost forever. The community pride in Bukit Brown was evident in the 1940′s, when faithful visitors would protest against the unkempt growth of lallang in the area (See below, 10 Oct 1946). No doubt being decimated by the defiant curmudgeonly fist of progress is nothing short of tragic, but in light of the reverence and significance of the place to our forefathers and their fathers, this move by the government, who seemed to have exchanged their reading glasses for 3-D specs, is myopic to the point of sheer disappointment.

Filed under: 1940s, 2011, Architecture, Bureaucrats, Funerals/Death, HDB, Public works | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Road names too Malaysian

Posted on December 14, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Malaysian street names’, 14 Dec 2010, My Point, ST Forum. Thanks to quirkyhill for the link.

(JEFFREY LAW): I am often intrigued by road and street names that are characteristically Malaysian, such as Malacca Street, Penang Lane, Johor Road, Trengganu Street, Perak Road, Ipoh Lane and Butterworth Lane. Perhaps these names came about when Singapore was part of Malaysia. Are they still relevant now that we are a 45-year-old independent nation? I see no reason why we should retain them. Preserving them may create the misconception among foreigners that Singapore is one of the Malaysian states. The authorities should review the matter. Perhaps we should rename these streets in honour of Singapore’s founding fathers.

I couldn’t dig up any history on why these streets were named after Malaysian states but practically speaking, it’s easy to name museums, university halls or new roads after our founding fathers, however many of them we have left, but imagine the confusion of RENAMING roads to something totally different. One’s memories and experiences of a place such as the people who live there, the food for which its famous for, are inextricably linked to how it’s named, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, like Baboo Lane for example.  So, changing Butterworth Lane to something like William Farquhar Lane  or Goh Keng Swee Drive will render all associations with place meaningless.  And imagine the hassle of having to change your home or office address just because somebody, who obviously doesn’t reside in any of these places, says so. No tourist is going to think Singapore is a Dutch colony when they walk along Holland Road, though we happily removed Japan Street from our directories in the post war 40′s, as seen in this letter ‘Japan Street’, 1 June 1946 ST. What does it matter if tourists think we’re Malaysian anyway, isn’t that itself an vast improvement, geographically at least, from ‘somewhere in China?’

Speaking of Holland Road, inappropriate choices aside, street name confusion was a problem even in those days, which would probably explain why major cities like New York use the number grid system instead. Most Singaporeans today, myself included, would ask themselves the same question as this writer did in this letter dated 6 Oct 1948, ST: ‘Who or what was Joo Chiat anyway?’

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: 1940s, 2010, It Should Have Been.., Names, Public works | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Trishaw riders blast getai music

Posted on November 14, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Trishaw rides’ strange cultural message’, 14 Nov 2010, Your Letters, Sunday Times

(Christopher Liu):… The narrow stretch of road outside the restaurant in Sago Street is part of the route taken by trishaw riders.

They would ride with their foreign tourists on board, with their trishaw lights blinking, accompanied by blasts of Chinese music associated with getai shows.

I am not sure whether our foreign visitors enjoy the music and lights as much as the trishaw riders, and I do not think they are suitable cultural ambassadors for our young nation.

…I found some background information on the trishaw, which is described as a ‘strong icon of our cultural history’. However, blinking lights and strange music hardly serve as an icon of Singapore’s cultural heritage. Imagine a gondolier in Venice belting out the latest Lady Gaga hit while rowing along the Venetian canals.

If Chinese getai music is not part of our cultural heritage, perhaps the complainant would like to suggest a more appropriate soundtrack for a trishaw ride to give our visitors a truly authentic Singaporean experience because I for one, can’t think of any other music emblematic of our ‘young nation’.  Isn’t that what the tourists are here for in the first place, to experience ‘strange’ music and customs? As any experienced traveller would tell you,  there’s little that is truly authentic about guided tours anymore, whether it’s trishaw riding in the streets of Singapore or canoodling on a gondola listening to the gondolier breaking into a well rehearsed operetta.  Like everything else touched by the schmaltzy hand of commercial tourism, trishaw riding is like getting a miniature Merlion at a souvenir shop, or having a watered down Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel because, honestly, what the hell else is there to do in Singapore?

It’s not up to us to determine what foreigners enjoy or don’t enjoy; durian is part of our gastronomical heritage but we don’t selectively cultivate unscented durian just to pander to our tourists do we? Trishaw riders just want to make a living and if we wanted them to be cultural ambassadors we would have made English and history lessons on colonial Singapore lessons compulsory before they could obtain a trishaw licence. How about this for a more useful ‘background search’ on trishaws, that they used to ferry prostitutes in olden days, according to this letter dated  14 Feb 1948, ‘Armbands to stop trishaw parade’. Strong icon of our cultural history indeed.

Filed under: 1940s, 2010, Noise, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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