Locksmiths and real estate agents sticking ads all over the place

Posted on May 12, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘ Illegal ads a sticking point for HDB residents’, 12 May 2013, article by Lim Yan Yang and Lim Yi Han, Sunday Times

Now that Singapore’s “Sticker Lady” has been sentenced in court for mischief, some Housing Board residents are wondering if they will see the end of a sticky problem they have been living with for years. They say locksmiths, real estate agents and providers of all sorts of services paste small advertisements and labels all over the place, and seem to get away with it.

Tampines resident Francis Cheng contacted The Sunday Times and said he has put up with ads and calling cards that have been stuck to his meter box, doorbell, gate and on the railings along the common corridor. “It’s a nuisance. I peel it off and a few days later they paste it back,” said the 40-year-old business manager. Competing businessmen sometimes leave layers of overlapping stickers that are just unsightly, he added.

…The police website refers the public with such “non-police matters” to relevant agencies such as town councils and the LTA….Technically, the law has penalties for unauthorised advertisements, under the Vandalism Act and the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act.

But lawyers said the courts are unlikely to act against businesses that do not adhere to the rules unless home owners pursue the matters themselves by lodging a magistrate’s complaint. “Some might argue that it’s a slippery slope: if you don’t arrest them, they will paste more stickers,” said criminal lawyer Amolat Singh. “But the courts operate under the de minimis principle, which means the law does not concern itself with trivialities.”

He said the law must strike a balance between the fact that advertisements promote a commercial service – unlike in the Sticker Lady case – and that most people do not view them as mischief or vandalism.

Most of the locksmiths, plumbers and air-conditioning repairmen The Sunday Times called declined to talk about their ads but one argued that his sticker has helped many people. The 40-year-old locksmith, who declined to be named, said: “Those who complain are those who haven’t had their door spoilt or forgotten their keys.”

Your grandfather meter box is it

I have to admit I once benefited from a vandal’s calling card stuck on a letter box. My door was jammed and I had no one to call. It was, for my intents and purposes, an emergency and I remain grateful enough to close one eye to rival locksmiths tearing each others’ stickers or sticking their ads on top of each other outside my house as long as it’s not on my gate. Property flyers on the other hand, are a downright nuisance, the only consolation being sometimes they come with eye candy amidst the eyesore, on which I’d waste a couple of seconds of my life ogling before tossing it away for recycling.

Need a house NOW

So we have one group of people running foul of Vandalism laws, another being annoying Litterbugs, with neither getting arrested for their deeds, while a graffiti artist with better aesthetic taste when it comes to stickers gets charged for mischief and has to serve 240 hours of community service. If Samantha Lo had inserted an additional line in her Press Until Shiok stickers advertising swimming lessons and a fake number, maybe the law would consider her actions ‘trivial’ as well.

I can’t say, however, that MOST people don’t mind such rampant defacement. Maybe some folks like myself do benefit from sticky ads, whether it’s breaking into their own house urgently or selling their homes at cushy prices. But I’m certain there are many who find it more disruptive and polluting than Sam Lo’s street work, so I question the lawyer’s assumption unless he had run a nationwide survey to ask Singaporeans what they think of sticker ads. There’s also a suggestion of exemption from penalty if your sticker is about a ‘commercial service’ rather than ‘art’. Which means there’s a chance you may be an illegal landlord, uncertified driving instructor or maybe even a prostitute sticking ads willy-nilly and not get caught. What if you’re spreading the gospel through stickers, like what happened in 1977 with a ‘I found it’ campaign? (‘It’ meaning ‘a life in Jesus Christ’). Would the authorities have hauled in a church leader for ‘mischief’ or use some fancy legal Latin term to convince us that he did no wrong?

It also begs the question of what exactly the law considers a ‘triviality’ which it doesn’t concern itself with. One man’s triviality is another’s outrage. If Sticker Lady had simply pasted ONE offending sticker in town, maybe less than 2 cm in radius, would it be ‘trivial’ enough to adhere to the ‘de minimis’ principle? One HDB owner’s complaint may be trivial, but if EVERY level on EVERY block of HDB flats reports a case of sticker vandalism, surely it becomes a PROBLEM, one that I forsee our authorities and courts will no doubt be STUCK on.

About these ads

Filed under: 1970s, 2013, Advertisements, Environment, HDB, Justice system/Lawsuits, Public works, Religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Singapore Shiok ad makes Caucasian look like a schmuck

Posted on April 28, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Singapore Shiok, or just silly?’, 28 April 2013, article by Nicholas Yong, Sunday Times

First, Singapore was marketed as uniquely itself as a tourist destination. Then, it became yours. Now, it is “shiok” too. The Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) latest marketing video on YouTube revolves around the Singlish expression – derived from the Malay word “syok”, which means nice – for extreme pleasure. Cold ice kacang on a hot day? Shiok. The adrenaline rush of sky-diving? Shiok! Being massaged at a posh spa? Shhh…iok.

…In the Singapore video, a Caucasian man struggling to pronounce “shiok” – defined helpfully on screen as “a Singaporean expression denoting extreme pleasure or the highest quality” – opens the clip. When he finally succeeds, his Singaporean friends applaud him…Branding expert Tim Clark, a Briton in his 60s, thinks “using the local language to help visitors to connect with a country is a good thing”.

…Professor Gemma Calvert, a British professor at NTU’s Institute for Asian Consumer Studies, agrees with Mr Clark that the video makes the featured foreigner struggling to pronounce “shiok” look “a bit of a shmuck“. She says: “The phrase isn’t particularly difficult to pronounce and therefore may come across as slightly patronising to outsiders. As a Caucasian myself, I admit I cringed to some extent at the representation portrayed by this particular individual.”

…Creative director Hanson Ho, in his 30s, of H55 studio also notes: “‘Shiok’ is sometimes expressed somewhat artificially in certain scenes, making it seem quite unnatural.” For instance, having a little boy whisper “shiok” at the sight of zoo animals at the Night Safari seemed to be stretching it a little.

…Lawyer Samantha Ong, 31, wonders if the video could have varied its local vocabulary a little. “There’s a serious overuse of the word ‘shiok’ that’s kind of cheesy and annoying,” she says of the yelled, purred and breathed incarnations in the video.

“Aren’t there other ‘uniquely Singapore’ words or ways to express pleasure, such as ‘sedap’ or ‘ho chiak’ (delicious in Malay and Hokkien)?”

Shiok

By attempting to globalise the word and sell it to visitors, ‘Shiok’ has become as problematic as ‘Lah’: Both also ‘ANYHOW use one’. If a kid exclaimed to me that watching animals in a zoo is ‘shiok!’ I would instantly correct him that he should have used the more generic ‘Wahh’ instead. I may even tolerate the Americanised ‘Awesome’ or ‘Whoa!’. Other scenes where the use of shiok is exaggerated and unnatural include Singaporeans showing off their shopping haul, ‘shioking’ at a club, or marvelling at the LV island in MBS. A simple ‘Wow’ or ‘Niiice’ wouldn’t stick as well, but these poor examples of shiok are as misplaced as getting locals to yell ‘Yahoo’ or ‘Yippee’ while exhibiting ‘extreme pleasure’, though ‘yahoo’ is something I often say in my head with an imaginary fist-pump whenever I manage to board an MRT train during peak hour.

Singaporeans also tend to be bad teachers of their own beloved lingo. When UK boyband The Wanted popped by to perform, fans cheered when they said ‘Singaporean girls are SHIOK’. Totally wrong and even demeaning in today’s context, but the fans don’t care, and this mistake will be perpetuated to every celebrity the world over, who’ll pepper their concerts with forced Singlish like ‘You’re such a SHIOK audience, LAH’. Ugh.

Screen Shot 2013-04-28 at 8.12.39 AM

When singer Demi Lovato was in town, DJ Divian Nair decided to teach her how to use shiok (like ‘awesome’) as a warm-up during an interview, with the superstar obliging with ‘I’m feeling shiok right now’. Lucky Divian. Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine says Singapore is ‘like, TOTALLY SHIOK’. Neither of these Caucasians has difficulty pronouncing the word, which is like replacing the C in Coke with Sh- (unless you want to be picky and insist that there should be a ‘-yee-ok’ sound). We seem to have an obsession with trying to get foreigners to speak Singlish with the same sadistic enthusiasm as teasing a kitten with a laser pointer. It may well be pride on our part to promote Singlish, but it does make a sporting goon out of non-Singaporeans when they mutilate it, be it shiok, lah or ‘Ho-Say’.

The worst abuse of shiok, however, comes from our Board of Censors. In 1999, when they found the use of ‘Shagged’ in the movie title Austin Powers:The Spy who Shagged Me objectionable, they proposed to replace the offensive word to the verb-form ‘SHIOKED’, as in The Spy who SHIOKED me, which would suggest to those unfamiliar with Singlish that shiok is a euphemism for the F-word. Thanks to our authorities, IMDB now thinks that shioked means ‘to be treated nicely’. If they had really pulled the title edit off, this ad, with the zoo kid whispering a potentially foul word into Daddy’s ear, wouldn’t exist. Max George from the Wanted would have said: ‘I’m here to Shiok some Singapore Girls’. To some cheers still.

Screen Shot 2013-04-28 at 10.20.59 AM

Yet, it’s not so simple defining when exactly shiok should be used. It’s like trying to teach someone when to use ‘lah’, ‘leh’ and ‘lor’. We have been known to use it in various contexts outside of food from which I believe it originally evolved (Humorist Paik Choo described ‘shiok’ mee rebus in a 1979 ST article). Enjoying rainy weather, lying on a hard cold floor on a blistering hot day or even sprawling out on a king-size bed in a hotel room may qualify as ‘shiok’ activities today. It’s often an interjection ejaculated reflexively, like the opposite of ‘Ouch’, and preceded by a period of anticipation or suffering, specific to a relatively quick, pleasurable stimulus. Nobody goes to a club and yells ‘SHIOK’ while dancing, nor experiences shiok-ness after staring at a fancy floating building for minutes. A massage after a long day? Shiok. A hot bath after a marathon? Lagi shiok! But saying ‘Singapore is SHIOK’? GET LOST LAH.

Filed under: 1970s, 2013, Advertisements, Censors, Foul language, It Should Have Been.., Local food, Singlish/Broken english, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Russian tourists clearing out hotel minibars

Posted on April 25, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Pay $50k to holiday in S’pore’, 25 April 2013, article by Jessica Lim, ST

TRANSFER by private jet, suite bookings at a five-star hotel, reservations at celebrity chef restaurants and a chauffeur at their beck and call. This is the kind of itinerary – costing up to $50,000 per person for a five-day trip – that inbound travel agency Hong Thai woos its well-heeled customers with.

Such niche offerings have proved a hit with tourists from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia – two countries singled out for targeting in a new discussion paper from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). Hong Thai’s director, Mr Alex Chan, 55, started offering such packages in 2011 and saw the number of tourists from these places increase by 10 per cent in just a year.

It could be because Mr Chan has them figured out to a tee. Russians, looking to escape from harsh winters back home, prefer hotels by the beach. Tourists from the UAE tend to opt for accommodation located in shopping districts, he said.

“You know what they say – that Russians like vodka? It’s true. They’re known to clear out hotel minibars, so we make sure they are well-stocked,” said Mr Chan, whose agency seems to be ahead of the curve.

The Russians’ fascination with Singapore began since the days of the Soviet Union. In 1967, they were the first group of visitors from a Communist country to fly in for sight-seeing. Travel agents were keen on establishing tourism partnerships as early as 1969 for the benefit of eager Russian academics who wanted to know more about the historical and cultural aspects of a ‘new independent country’. Soviet philologist Ann Kartvelishvile said Singapore was ‘so much like home’, home referring to ‘a warm and friendly place somewhere between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea’. Sochi, a Black Sea resort, was also the site of the Friendship Tree, a symbol of Singapore-Soviet UNITY, where Lee Kuan Yew in 1970 grafted a sprig of citrus alongside personalities like Yuri Gagarin and HO CHIH MINH.

Today, they’re among the biggest European spenders, staying in luxurious five-star hotels in Sentosa, Swissotel and splurging like czars on helicopter tours or private yachts to take them to Bintan and even the EQUATOR. Tour operator Uniglobal specialises in bringing Singapore and Russia together, pampering guests with a fuss-free holiday and great privileges for the ‘ultimate shopping experience’. JetQuay services will even ferry you from the terminal the very moment you touch down in Singapore. This image from their brochure says it all:

Screen Shot 2013-04-25 at 10.00.55 PM

If they’re not here to be chauffeured in Ferraris, eat Jumbo seafood, tour Sentosa in 7-star bejewelled VIP Cable Cars (yes, these exist) and ‘wipe out’ our hotel minibars in presidential suites, they’re here for medical services. In 2008, it was reported that ‘15 to 20 Russians come to Singapore to seek treatment EVERY day’. Well, that and escaping the harsh winter, too, via direct flight from Moscow with SIA (circa 2006).

In fact, the Russians may love Singapore so much they may even want to build a little version of us in Siberia, more specifically a special economic zone (SEZ) in Katun. Professor Andry Alpatov had his sights set on our expertise in ‘masterplanning and design’, in particular our experience with Sentosa’s IRs. The affection is mutual; our office temperatures are set so low that conditions have been described as ‘winter in Siberia’. Russians are also settling in rather nicely here, calling Singapore ‘paradise’ for its climate and ‘orderliness’, though their culture is slow to catch on among us locals. It is a country known more for its charismatic leaders than, say, Vaganova ballet. In my youth, everything I knew about Russia came from Arnie action movies like Red Heat.

Hong Thai’s Alex Chan risks stereotyping his clients as drunks with his choice of words, though ‘vodka’ seems to be the only Russian word that the average Singaporean knows. With more of them coming our way, perhaps it would be, well, nice to first master the Russian word for ‘hello’ – zdravstvuite, which to the non-Russian sounds more like what aliens from the planet Zdorg would call an ‘apartment’. In 2009, Russian officials reported that there were 2000 of their countrymen living in Singapore, while tourist numbers surged from 19,000 in 2004 to almost 60,000 in 2011. One such visitor, however, decided to make bomb threat just last week on an SIA flight. Not sure if he was drinking vodka on board though.

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 2000s, 2013, Money, Tourists | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Pulau Ubin villagers paying rent to SLA

Posted on April 13, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘No plans to evict Pulau Ubin residents’, 13 April 2013, article by Eugene Neubronner, Today online

Contrary to online speculation and some media reports, the authorities yesterday clarified that “there are no plans to evict the households currently residing on Pulau Ubin or develop an Adventure Park on the island”. Issuing a joint statement, the Ministry of National Development (MND) and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) reiterated: “The planning intention is to keep Pulau Ubin in its rustic state for as long as possible as an outdoor playground for Singaporeans. Given this, there is no need for the residents to move out.”

The speculation started after some residents on the island received a notice signed off by an official with the Housing and Development Board’s (HDB) Land Clearance Section, which carried the header “Clearance scheme: Clearance of structures previously acquired for development of Adventure Park on Pulau Ubin”. The authorities clarified that on March 12, the HDB, acting on behalf of the SLA, informed the residents of a census survey in Pulau Ubin. They added that these households had been informed as far back as 1993 that they would be affected by a public development project, which included the development of a recreation park.

“To align with the rustic nature of Pulau Ubin and its planning intention, outdoor adventure elements were included in the recreation park, for example, trails for cycling and hiking, campsites and amenities like shelters and toilets,” the MND and the SLA said.

…The MND and the SLA said that the affected houses sit on what is now state land, and the households were now residing on state land without the required Temporary Occupation Licence (TOL). If they wish to stay on, they would need to obtain a TOL and pay rent — generally pegged at market rate — to the SLA.

If you want a taste of true ‘kampung’ spirit, look no further than Ubin, often cited as the ‘last bastion’ of rustic, indigenous wilderness. 10 years ago you could spot leopard cats, hornbills and wild boars and bask in the nostalgic Old-World smell of chicken droppings. Thrill-seeking lovers could elope there to set up campfires, cook meals in mess-tins and get lost in mangroves without being marauded by eco-tourists and moutain bikers. But perhaps not for much longer, based on the revelations of the White Paper, as we are already seeing the gradual transformation of what was once an idyllic stone quarry sanctuary into Sentosa in one of her pre-casino incarnations, a ‘fun-in-the-sun’ getaway for fans of outdoor adventure.

The selling point of Ubin has always been a ‘rustic CHARM’, a ‘throwback’ to old Singapore, but history tells us that our relentless march towards progress will somehow squeeze every last drop of its kampung soul dry. Today it may be a bike park or OBS school, tomorrow a luxury beachside villa, and you could still call Ubin ‘rustic’, ‘raw and untouched’, even when this ‘charm’ has been reduced to a puny saltwater pond in some rich man’s backyard and the only fishermen you see on the island are the ones charging you for prawning rod and bait at a spa resort, or giving urban folk a demo of how to toss a fishing net in the visitors’ centre. A far cry from Ubin’s strange, astounding natural and social history, one that boasts of temple devotees of Barbie dolls, straying elephants from Johor, sightings of dugongs, monitor lizards as well as the site of a 1920′s Chinese secret society ritual.

According to Infopedia, an ‘expressway road and a Mass Rapid Transit rail system linking the mainland’ was planned for after the year 2030. As it is, Ubin already boasts a couple of resorts, including the Celestial Resort owned by Marine Country Club which aims to ‘give glitzy Sentosa’ a run for the money, where Singaporeans and can go unwind, enjoy lush greenery, and frolic around in wild lallang for a staycation . A 100 year old kampong house has also been refurbished as a Lonely Planet endorsed Cookery Magic culinary school, where you can make Nasi Kerabu with ‘jungle herbs’. Plans for an adventure park comes as no surprise really; it’s just a sweatier theme park with no rides, air-conditioning or Wi-fi, and has been talked about for decades. In 1996, then Minister of National Development Lim Hng Kiang announced that HALF of Pulau Tekong would be turned into a ‘recreational’ centre. I remember drinking fresh coconut from a dishevelled hut along one of the bike trails some years back. On my next trip to the island there could very well be a Gong Cha outlet in place of it.

Although the government hasn’t forced their hand YET, the slow creep of modernisation and tourism overspilling onto Ubin because of our mainland exploding at its seams may drive residents away from the maddening crowd sooner or later, with or without the additional rental fee. In 1989, S Jayakumar said that Ubin residents were ‘not immune to the law’, and if they were, ‘drug addicts and other criminals’ would be headed for the island. Ironically, the island once housed political detainee Lee Tee Tong in 1980, as well as a boatload of Vietnamese refugees in 1978.

So urban dwellers, time to grab your tumblers, hiking boots and mess tins, relish the last remains of a kampung island, and let’s all sing Dayung Sampan, shall we?

Filed under: 1920s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2013, Bureaucrats, Environment, Fun and games, Tourists | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

SAF offering citizenship to Malaysian enlistees

Posted on October 20, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘ Knuckledusters era over, says former ST editor’, 20 Oct 2012, article by Amir Hussein, CNA

In 1973, a reporter at the now-defunct New Nation broke a story about how the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) was inviting Malaysians to enlist, with Singapore citizenship as an incentive. The reporter got the story after spotting a small classified advertisement put up by the SAF in The Straits Times.

On the same day that the story was published, plainclothes police officers turned up at the newsroom and whisked him away for interrogation.  A week later, on a Sunday, the reporter was personally served with an enlistment notice – even though he had completed four years of National Service in the Vigilante Corps.

Detailing the episode in his book OB Markers: The Straits Times Story, former Singapore Press Holdings English and Malay Newspapers Division Editor-in-Chief Cheong Yip Seng said that, until now, the episode was not publicised and was known only to the newsroom, the reporter’s family and friends.

…Among the chapters is one on the “Knuckledusters Era” of the 1970s where Mr Cheong, 69, recounts the Government’s “tough treatment of the Singapore media”, including crackdowns on newspapers.

“I have seen newspapers closed when they fell foul of the government, and friends lose their jobs. Journalists have been detained. I did not suffer their fate, but many were the times when I was at the receiving end of Lee Kuan Yew’s fury,” he writes.

Bringing non-locals into the armed forces with the carrot of citizenship isn’t so shocking when you consider how we dangle incentives in front of foreign talent these days, especially when it comes to our Olympic Table Tennis players. However it’s one thing to have a foreigner win medals, and another to have one bear arms for the country. I just had to find out for myself if such enlistment ads by SAF actually existed. It didn’t take long to dig the online ST vaults to uncover one in 1974, which was out to recruit non-combat staff like mechanics, armourers and storemen.

Zooming in, you can see that ‘non-citizens who are successful in their applications will be offered citizenship’.

You can also refer to a 1973 ad which may be the one mentioned in Cheong’s book, where in addition to those listed above, foreigners may serve as a combat medical orderly. There was, however, no specific mention of Malaysians. Even the NAVY was offering foreigners the same reward. Where one’s loyalties lie was secondary to the urgency of building up military numbers. Shoot first, integrate later. You could apply the same analogy to the current state of ping-pong. Paddler first, Singaporean second.

So how different are things these days? Check out this Navy recruitment brochure, where one prerequisite other than being Singaporean is that you’re a Singaporean PR ‘intending to take up citizenship’.  According to the QnA, you will need to be a Singapore citizen, however, before putting your ink on the contract. You also have to serve NS if you’re a second generation PR. Although there are no explicit terms and conditions guaranteeing citizenship after 2 years of wasting your life, there are subtler ways of nudging you into becoming Singaporean. In 2010, a $9000 payout to NSmen was withheld from PRs, only to be handed out once they become citizens,  serving as both reward (for citizens) and BAIT (for PRs). However, there are still many who would rather give up the PR status than submit themselves to conscription. Minister of Defence Ng En Hen revealed in 2011 that a third of male foreigners who became PRs under the sponsorship of their parents renounced their PR status just before enlistment.

The government has since been juggling between having enough men in the SAF to defend the country vs retaining enough countrymen (and PRs) itself. But it’s not just prospective Singaporeans who are repelled by NS,  many born and bred here are equally reluctant to bear arms for the nation. Ng Eng Hen recently revealed an increased number of Singaporean and PR defaulters (those who failed to register or went AWOL after going abroad) this year compared to last. A sagging birth rate isn’t helping either; we can be discharging all the state of the art missiles our inflated military budget can buy, yet fire nothing but blanks in our bedrooms. You can roll in the mud, hurl a grenade or assemble a rifle in less than 30 seconds, but fail in the most basic task of replacing yourself.

But back to knuckle-dusting. It wasn’t just the 70′s that was a thugs’ life for journalists who question the status quo. The last reference about ‘knuckle-dusters’ came as late as 1994, when LKY wrote in his memoirs his affection towards political writer Catherine Lim.

Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister . .. She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac . . . Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle dusters.

Strong words, but you’d have little to fear really; Knuckle-dusters are banned here and we’re getting too crowded to be caught alone and defenceless in ‘cul de sacs’. But here’s what they look like, for the benefit of those who think LKY’s referring to sparring mittens. You can see it’s far too deadly a weapon even for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Your knuckles are dusted

Filed under: 1970s, 2012, Army, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 3 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 »

Traffic warden beaten up to kopitiam applause

Posted on September 23, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Traffic wardens become punching bags’, 23 Sept 2012, article by Bryna Sim, Sunday Times

…In an especially nasty incident earlier this month, Mr Pannirselvam, 47 (traffic warden), said a lorry driver who had just been issued a summons for illegal parking in Upper Serangoon Road walked up to him calmly and shoved a packet of piping hot fried noodles at his face. “I did not see that coming because the driver was not acting aggressively,” he said.

But that was not all. The driver then began punching him on his face and body. He stopped only when the electronic hand-held terminal, used for recording and printing out summonses, fell from Mr Pannirselvam’s hands.

“People at the nearby coffee shop who saw what was happening did not help,” he said. “Instead, they clapped.”

…It does not help that the hours are long and the pay is low. Traffic wardens work around 12 hours a day, six days a week. Depending on the amount of overtime done, their gross salary is about $1,800.

For the same long hours, traffic wardens could get almost twice their current salary if they switched to the far less hazardous job of dishwashing at Sakae Sushi instead. From the days of being called ‘parking attendants’ to today’s derogatory  ‘summon aunties’ who ‘no pang chance’, going around booking errant, angry ‘ah beng’ drivers has to be one of the most thankless jobs ever conceived. Not only do you get bashed until your handheld device falls out of your clutches, your bloody, humiliating plight becomes a glorious spectacle for others. You also get racially stereotyped, and given names like Auntie Fatimah or Hamidah when your name is actually neither. Or you could be named after a dead celebrity (Feng Fei Fei). I wonder why.

Hats off to Summon Aunties

Being a coupon enforcer does no one favours other than the stat boards that recruit them for the dirty work that they can’t bear to do themselves. They also can’t ‘pang chance’ due to auditors checking to see if they’re on the ball. For their tireless summoning in the hot sun and taking the risk of being lynch-mobbed by kopitiam uncles, even if they can be overzealous and too by-the-book at times, the least that one can do is NOT give a standing ovation when they’re being bludgeoned by psychos. It may be safe to roam the streets at night in Singapore, but not if you’re an enforcement officer in a parking lot looking for vehicles to summon.

Scalded in the face by a pack of char bee hoon aside, other malicious, bizarre attacks in the history of parking warden abuse include:

I think some basic self-defence is on order. Or at least have the hand-held terminal do double duty as an emergency taser. By exposing themselves to killer litter in addition to hooligans, maybe Certis Cisco should equip wardens with standard issue HELMETS instead of straw hats. If employers can’t do anything about the mockery and bad reputation, at least offer some protection, like REAL police officers on watch to prevent them from being flattened by irate drivers. Coupon cheats aside, perhaps wardens should also include in their job scope the authority to fine parking IDIOTS too. Maybe then, just maybe, someone may finally come to their aid whenever drivers start hurling things, be it vulgarities or food. As I said earlier, Douglas Foo is waiting.

Filed under: 1970s, 1980s, 2012, Bureaucrats, Fines, Justice system/Lawsuits, Motorists, Violence | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

Orchard streetwalkers soliciting expats

Posted on September 16, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Streetwalkers: Stores vigilant’, 16 Sept 2012, article by Nathaniel Fetalvero and Nicholas Yeam, and ‘Streetwalkers getting more blatant at Orchard Road’, 10 Sept 2012, TNP

Foreign women touting sex services are no longer just operating around Orchard Towers. They are now covering areas as far as Far East Shopping Mall. The minute they spot a potential customer, usually a male tourist, they would approach them with offers of ‘massage’. Said one expat: “It’s like running a gauntlet. If you make the mistake of looking at them, they’ll be all over you in seconds.”

…ON WEDNESDAY, two days after The New Paper reported on foreign women soliciting expatriates on Orchard Road, it appears that not much has changed. At the stretch between Orchard Parade Hotel and Orchard Towers, we spotted one or two women standing around, but after an hour, more emerged, loitering on the sidewalks.

Businesses, like Modesto’s Singapore, said the women do not pose a problem. A spokesman for Modesto’s Singapore told TNP that “if some ladies enter and ask for a table, they will be seated and served because we cannot judge who they are. “However, if they are seen to be then going to single men and hassling them, they will be immediately asked to leave our restaurant.”

Orchard Towers, also known to foreigners as the ‘Four Floors of Whores’, wasn’t always the dark seedy underbelly of our country’s premier shopping district. In 1974, it was hyped as a ‘new-idea in office home development’, boasting a state-of-the-art theatrette on the 3rd floor, as well as ‘medical, scientific or technical’ offices on the 4th and 5th floors of the front block facing Orchard Road. It was also home to ‘fine art’ exhibitions, and its Premier Theatre screened selections of the ASEAN film festival in 1980. From Gallery of Fine Arts to Bongo Bar and Top Ten Disco; what the hell happened that turned a centre for art appreciation into the girly-bar hotbed of sleaze and sex that we know today?

In April 1980, Johnny Teo (a name as pimp as it can get) was fined $3000 for managing a brothel from his Orchard Towers apartment, housing mostly Thai prostitutes. Things started to heat up once Premier cinema shut down operations in 1983, with Top Ten Disco taking over after a brief conversion of the auditorium to a ‘live show theatre’.  By 1988, Orchard Towers was an entertainment hub and yuppie den with bars, pubs and ‘social escort agencies’ making their foray into the premises. Some recognisable names in the entertainment business also cut their teeth in Orchard Towers, including singers Wendi Koh (Celebrities bar), Cantopop sensation William Scorpion (Utopia) and DJ Brian Richmond (Peyton Place). Before there were ‘streetwalkers’, pubs like Utopia had ‘public relations officers’ to provide ‘companionship’ and ‘conversation’. By then it would also have its fair share of transvestites and transsexuals, who found acceptance and metaphorical ‘beginnings’ within the building’s four walls, only to be rounded up by the police, who were also on a rampage against homosexuals.

By 1991, Orchard Towers began to be ‘plagued’ by fly-by-night foreign hookers, with the police cracking down on the trade in Dec the same year (Orchard Towers cleared of fly-by-night prostitutes, 28 Dec 1991, ST). In 1992, Singapore’s ‘largest KTV’ opened at the basement of the building (Orchard KTV). In 2002, Orchard Towers was the scene of a high-profile murder, after bodies were found in an abandoned vehicle in the car park. 4 years later, Top 10 rebranded itself as Top 5, its evolution over the years in sync with the gradual moral decline of the entire complex. Today the disco houses private rooms named ‘Desire, Passion, Seduction, Temptation, Obsession’, named after ‘ladies’ emotions, which also describes perfectly the naughty shebang happening on the streets outside. Cross-dresser comedian Kumar also performs there at 3 Monkeys bar these days, and being risque in Orchard Towers is like baring it all in a nude colony.

Sex, rock n roll, transgender performers, has-been celebrities, even murder. This building has seen it all, and should be curated for being a seething well of all imaginable contradictions, an antithesis to the safe, sterile Singapore brand. If the National Stadium is the Grand Dame, this place is the Wretched Slut. Orchard Towers remains the ‘original’ sex destination for rich foreigners on exotic dirty pilgrimages, despite the vice and sleaze leapfrogging over to the other end of Orchard Road at Orchard Plaza and Concorde Hotel shopping centre. Unlike the sleek, squeaky clean, ultramodern behemoths like Ion and 313, the one and only ‘Four Floors’ remains unabashed about its sordid associations and services, one of the last buildings in town with a hint of CHARACTER and history. A stubborn stain on the gleaming tourist showcase that is Orchard Road, it still has many stories to tell, even if they’re not ones you really want your children to hear.

Filed under: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Clubs, Gay stuff, Nightspots, Orchard Road, Sex, Shopping malls, Transsexuals | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Preschool graduation concerts in expensive hotel ballrooms

Posted on September 3, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Pre-school concert too costly, say parents’, 3 Sept 2012, article by Melody Zaccheus, ST

PARENTS have sent an open letter to a kindergarten asking why they have to pay $65 for their children to attend a graduation concert. At least 30 of them have signed the document imploring the principal to reduce the price.s

Ms Irene Lum, whose daughter attends the kindergarten, wrote to The Straits Times last month complaining about the cost of the event at Kallang Theatre. “Graduation is an important part of our children’s education journey,” said the 38-year-old. “It doesn’t make sense for the school to charge so much and make it difficult for families to afford.”

The kindergarten is run by the Punggol North PAP Community Foundation (PCF). Its vice-chairman Lily Hugh sent an e-mail to Ms Lum to say the price included snacks, lunch and transport to and from rehearsals, and on the actual day of the concert.

…Five other PCF branches told The Straits Times that parents are charged between $40 and $50 per child. Most of this goes towards paying for costumes….Montessori for Children, which has campuses at Broadrick Road and Newton Road, has booked ballrooms at the Conrad, Sheraton and Swissotel hotels for its graduating pupils.

At Pat’s Schoolhouse, founder Patricia Koh is usually busy at this time of year, putting the finishing touches on the script. This time, the children will be staging a concert based on Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory at Raffles Hotel Jubilee Theatre. Tickets are $50 each.

Pat’s Schoolhouse’s $50 ticket only grants you ENTRANCE to the show. In 2010, the same preschool could charge you up to $270 which includes a bundle pack of two tickets (Mommy and Daddy), calendar, video, photo and costumes; an astonishing amount that’s worth more than a front row seat to watch Jay Chou live($228 in 2010). The fact that Pat’s can actually score a ‘Distinction award’ for Group Performance by the London College of Music just goes to show how much pride and effort is spent on posh extravaganzas, though how such an accolade benefits the preschool as a centre for LEARNING and its ‘graduands’ baffles me. It’s a KINDERGARTEN, not a theatre company. If I had wanted my kid to be the next Phantom of the Opera I would have enrolled him in drama nursery or cast him in Drypers ads right away. For a kindergarten performance, my expectations would be along the lines of draping my kid a caterpillar costume that’s made out of a green sleeping bag and have him wriggle around a bit, not recite Shakespeare in a junior toga or giving Mediacorp Channel 8 a run for the money.

Red Cliff: The Next Generation

But perhaps kids like such outlandish, over-the-top theatrics these days, and wouldn’t settle for anything less than sweeping period drama and intricately designed plastic spears. In my time we pranced around in recycled props lip-syncing to nursery rhymes like Old King Cole or Hickory Dickory Dock, where crowns were made of rings of cardboard strips and giftwrap, not an actual headpiece with velvet cushioning inside. There wasn’t any ‘choreography’ to speak of, but now parents part with their money to see their little thespians perform historical epics that they won’t be reading about until at least a decade later, just to humour preschool teachers with closet ambitions to write grand musicals and win Tony awards. Yet not all preschools charge ridiculous admission cum costume fees for their concerts. NTUC’s My First Skool made it free for parents in 2010, where the kids didn’t have to put on silly make up or trudge around in furry robes playing the Last Emperor of China.

Still, I wonder why parents are complaining about a one-off concert ticket when they’ve no qualms paying for enrichment classes IN ADDITION to preschool. Some parents prefer to just have their kid wear an oversized frock, go on stage, grab a scroll and walk off without the entertainment, a rite of passage that even schools like PCF Pioneer dispensed with to make way for the MAIN event of the night; a multi-ethnic, magical spectacular where the actors will grow up to become embarrassed teenagers who wish they had taken the role of the coconut tree in the background rather than the gyrating hula boy or girl.  Other than charging for concerts, Montesorri organises preschool camps which cost at least 1K, in which failure to participate would mean your kid not graduating with the rest of his class. Either way, parents will be sucked dry before the REAL test of primary school even begins. With enough luck, your kid may be inspired from his award-winning performance to want to pursue his TRUE calling, that of a fearless, concubine-collecting, Mongol warrior rather than, you know,  studying for PSLE.

Perhaps our ministers had something to do with this whole graduation concert ‘tradition’. VIPs started making special appearances in the early seventies to attend ‘costume parades’ at PAP kindergartens.   In the eighties, kindergartens went all out to impress guests of honour such as Goh Chok Tong and Yeo Cheow Tong, a time when PCF was already holding such concerts at the Kallang Theatre instead of community centres of the past. To entertain Tony Tan, PAP Sembawang had kids crooning the rousing number ‘Count on Me Singapore’ in 1986, and it wasn’t even NATIONAL DAY.  Since then, you may no longer settle for Jack and Jill went up the Hill anymore. Someone on stage must play superstar, there must be exploding glitter at the finale, even an INTERMISSION if need be, parents will erupt in thunderous applause with their camera-phones in one hand, overpriced memorabilia in the other, and pockets as empty as the memories that their kids will have of the entire event.

Filed under: 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2010, 2012, Kids, Money, Parenting, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Lee Wei Ling and LKY are dyslexics

Posted on September 2, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘The long and short of rules’, 2 Sept 2012, article by Lee Wei Ling, Think, Sunday Times

…Ryan’s mother, however, reacted melodramatically. She went to the press with her son’s story and lodged a police report. She claimed that Ryan “could not leave home for two days because of the way he looked”. Then she arranged for him to have a $60 haircut.

She excused her son’s disobedience by saying he was dyslexic, and that dyslexics were forgetful. Both my father and I are dyslexic. We are no more forgetful than other normal people.

…Ryan’s mother’s reaction to the teacher cutting her son’s hair was, I am afraid, close to hysterical. How do we bring up our children with the right values when parents and schools send such conflicting messages?

I wouldn’t doubt a famous neurologist’s analysis on the symptoms of dyslexia, and I fully concur with her diagnosis of HYSTERIA in Ryan’s mother. But what’s interesting about this week’s Lee Wei Ling column is not so much her stand on hair rules or teachers playing barber (which is not surprising since she fancies a shorn crop, probably one that’s even shorter than Ryan’s), but her admission that both herself and LKY are dyslexics. Wei Ling herself once confessed that she didn’t really pay attention during GP lessons, which could be related to her undiagnosed dyslexia then. Despite that, she did well (an ‘A’ too) and look where she is now.

In a 2009 article ‘Morals and Morale’, Wei Ling was candidly honest about her problems with spelling in English, but did not shy away from boasting about how good she was at Chinese ‘mo-xie’, a test in which you had to regurgitate an entire essay or poem entirely by memory.

Those who know about moxie might be surprised to hear that I enjoyed memorising the classics, and I never got less than 90 marks for moxie. It was English spelling that I had problems with.

Since I had no difficulty with written Chinese, I blamed my problems with English spelling on the strange spelling rules of the language. It was only many years later that I discovered I was dyslexic in English. To this day, I sometimes cannot decide whether to use a ‘d’ or a ‘t’, a ‘v’ or a ‘z’. I have even more difficulty with vowels. Fortunately, my e-mail and word-processing programs have spell checkers.

In 1995, the good doctor was kind enough to sign up as Advisor to the DAS (Dyslexic Association of Singapore), an acronym which I’ve come to realise is a smart wordplay on how dyslexics tend to ‘mirror-write’ (DAS backwards is SAD). Wei Ling also spent some time in the 80′s as registrar at TTSH working with ‘under-achieving’ kids, a euphemism for ‘slow learners’ or ‘backward’ children. In the 60′s, experts were quick to discount myths that children who suffer from ‘word-blindness’, as it was formerly known, were ‘necessarily STUPID’. In the 70′s you would see headlines in the ST like ‘The bright kids who just cannot write; first in a two-part series on ABNORMAL children’. In the tradition of making disorders less dreadful than they sound by making them harder to read or spell, dyslexia has been rebranded recently as Developmental Reading Disorder (DRD).

Looking at the language standards of Facebook posts and Twitter feeds, you would think dyslexia, despite affecting up to 10% of Singaporeans, is still relatively under-diagnosed here. Perhaps the rate would have been higher if spellcheck and Autocorrect were never invented. There’s also a chance that with the stigma removed and dyslexia being erroneously tied to genius like how bipolar mania has become a ‘fashionable’ disease, normal people who write undecipherable emails may abuse the ‘dyslexia’ label by claiming they are ‘dyslexic’ when they’re just TERRIBLE, LAZY spellers. I hope DAS never has to change their name to DRDAS.

In a 2007 interview with the New York Times, LKY mentioned that an unnamed grandson was dyslexic as well (without saying that he had it himself), further supporting the observation that it runs in families and is more common in boys than girls. No signs of it in PM Lee so far, though he has the occasional lapse in mistaking one hawker food for another.

I’ve got one grandson gone to MIT. Another grandson had been in the American school here. Because he was dyslexic and we then didn’t have the teachers to teach him how to overcome or cope with his dyslexia, so he was given exemption to go to the American school. He speaks like an American. He’s going to Wharton.

It was Lee Wei Ling herself who revealed to the media that her daddy suffered from ‘mild dyslexia’ in 1996 (SM Lee has mild dyslexia, says daughter who’s dyslexic, 18 Jan 1996, ST), just like how she told the whole world last year he had peripheral neuropathy. Still, dyslexia didn’t seem to stop the elder statesman from publishing bestselling autobiographies showing a strong command of the written word, though I doubt he said anything about the disorder in ‘Hard Truths’. In the HongKong Journal of Paediatrics 2005, LKY was cited as a case study of highly successful dyslexics, where he submitted himself to testing only when he realised that ‘he couldn’t read fast without missing important items’. Proceeds from sales of a CD-ROM of his life were donated to the DAS (You can still buy it from e-bay but not sure where the money goes now). LKY’s affliction is proof that some dyslexic individuals not only function just as well as their ‘normal’ peers in society, but far exceed their abilities in all other aspects. The list include visionaries like Richard Branson and Albert Einstein, famed Scientologist actor Tom Cruise, Mickey Mouse creator Walt Disney, light bulb inventor Thomas Edison and internet sensation ‘Dog Bless You’ Dr Jia Jia.

And how could I forget Derek Zoolander and Homer Simpson.

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Kids, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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