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.

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

My First Skool’s spelling is cruel and nonsensical

Posted on March 11, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Teach kids proper spelling from young’, 11 March 2013, ST Forum

(Estella Young):…A renewed interest in proper English might push pre-schools and childcare centres with misspelled names to reconsider their policy. Names like “Twinkle Kidz Kindergarten”, “Kidz Playhouz”, “Jenius Kindergarten” and NTUC’s “My First Skool” are not modern or cute. They are an eyesore.

Reifying common spelling errors only imposes an adult’s definition of creativity upon a young child already struggling to learn the basic rules of his world – ranging from social behaviour to grammar to mathematics.

Teaching him that his school’s name must be spelled “skool” is as cruel and nonsensical as telling him that red is blue, or that one plus one is four. Such a child would have a nasty shock when he enters primary school and discovers quickly that correct spelling does matter.

In 2009, NTUC childcare rebranded itself as ‘My First Skool’, explaining the deliberate typo as reflective of its philosophy of ‘encouraging children to be creative’ and ‘not penalising them when they make spelling mistakes’. That’s over-explaining it. I think it’s just simple marketing in an attempt to make pre-school sound, well, ‘kewl’. Critics bash the Skool for confusing small children and setting a bad example, but this ‘skool’ trend was started way back in 1994, by another brand known as ‘The Little Skool-house’. Well that explains our generation’s horrible shorthand spelling on Whatsapp and Facebook then; It’s because our educators told us it’s OK to spell something the way it sounds, u know, like dis. Wadever.

Purists argue that distinguishing variations in spelling to deliver tone or ‘style’ wouldn’t work for kids, who need to develop the fundamentals in the language before they start listening to rap music and get traumatised when they find out that ‘dog’ can be spelt ‘dawg’. Some work, while others, like the writer complained, are indeed an eyesore. ‘Kidz’, for example, has a zany exuberance to it, and is the ‘fun’ plural you’ll find on children’s TV, camps or breakfast cereal. ‘Playhouz’, on the other hand, sounds like Nazi kindergarten where they serve booze instead of milk and cookies, while ‘Jenius’ is the kind of slangy abomination that bimbos type on their status updates, as in: ‘Einstine is such a Jenius!’ I guess the people at Jenius have good reason could deny that they mis-spelled ‘Genius’ on purpose. I mean, who would have the ballz to give themselves that sort of pressure? J is also not a ‘hipper’ G. Joat, Jorilla, Jirlz all look jod-awful.

People who frown on ‘skool’ are also likely to take offence at neologisms like ‘skratch’, ‘rox’, ‘luv/lurve’, ‘teenie-weenie’, ‘midnite’ and argue over ‘hurray’ and ‘hooray’, yet are unable to account for the numerous ‘errors’ that abound in the same literature text that they hug to sleep with. Even if one did drill into kids that Skool should be ‘sCHool’, they will have to find out the hard way that the ‘CH’ sound is different in ‘chair’ vs ‘choir’ vs ‘chaise lounge longue’. English itself is exasperating in its usage, as explained in a 2009 piece by ST’s Janadas Devan, who revealed that the old ‘school’ used to be spelt as ‘scole, skule, skoole, skoll, scolle, scoile, scwle, schoule and scool’. Skoole, in particular, sounds like a nursery for pirates. If there’s anything that’s ‘cruel and nonsensical’, it’s not just the people at First Skool screwing up the language and hence the way we spell for the rest of our lives, but the creators and contributors to a confusing universal language themselves. Blast you, ye ole swill-sippin’ dandy scallywags!

Besides, which kid would want to go to the grave sounding ‘My First SCHOOL’ anyway. It’s like celebrating puberty with ‘My First Period’.

Filed under: 2000s, 2013, It Should Have Been.., Kids, Singlish/Broken english | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

Nursing a low skilled job hard to offshore

Posted on February 8, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘ DPM Teo issues correction to Footnote in Population White Paper’, 8 Feb 2013, article in Today online

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean today issued a corrigendum to the Population White Paper in Parliament to delete a segment of a footnote that classified nursing as a low-skilled job. Mr Teo said, in the Notice of Corrigendum, that he intends to delete the part of Footnote 12 on Page 40 of the White Paper, which said: “Certain low-skilled jobs like personal services, retail, and nursing are hard to offshore. They will still be needed even as the economy upgrades.”

“This classification of low-skilled jobs is not correct. I would like to apologise to those whose professions have been unintentionally misrepresented,” said Mr Teo. He said he was alerted to the matter by “our friends in the nursing profession and unions”.

Adding that he has the “greatest respect” for the nursing profession, the DPM said it is a “noble and caring profession, which all of us and our loved ones depend on and appreciate”.

A ‘corrigendum’ is a fancy term for a ‘correction’, as in ‘Notice of Correction’ according to the White Paper website. It’s the kind of word you use to lessen the impact of a terrible mistake in Scripture, like saying that God made the world in 5 days instead of 6, although it sounds like an unused part of the large intestine. Having a longer word to substitute ‘error’ doesn’t make it any less heinous. It’s like the Emeritus of ‘sorry’.

The footnote now reads: ‘….slower growth in low skilled (e.g caring and cleaning) jobs’. I’m not sure if that was adequately ‘corrigendummed’. Anyone in the business of ‘caring and cleaning’, like a social worker in a hospice for example, would resent being labelled as ‘low skilled’. ‘Skill’ traditionally refers to how one performs a task with his hands. If we still lived in villages, the resident blacksmith would have been among the most ‘skilled’ of the lot. Today, a manager could be described as ‘highly skilled’ without having the slightest clue of how to forward or bcc emails. The difference is that one bangs a hammer to create fine artisan craft. The other bangs tables and chairs to frighten people into doing his bidding.

Changing diapers as social workers/babysitters/caregivers do for a living seems like an example of a proper skill to me, but perhaps all this boils down to a fundamental problem of semantics. We have low-skilled, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, a form of categorisation which replaced the blue-white collar distinction. How have the various scales of skill been defined, if at all? Am I unskilled if my ONLY task is to load and unload wheelbarrows with bricks and move them from one place to another? What if I’m a doorman at a really posh hotel whose only job is to open and close doors for guests? And why protest over nursing only, what about ‘retail’ and this ambiguous ‘PERSONAL SERVICES’? Is this a euphemism for PROSTITUTION? Patrons of sex workers would argue that some of their ‘service providers’ are more ‘skilled’ than their own wives.

And since when did OFFSHORE become a verb? Is this appropriate language for a Population policy paper, or was it edited by a business guru? Are we sending our low skilled workers to the Maldives? As expected, there were no names listed as to who authored or edited the White Paper, just a list of anonymous scribes from various ministries and government bodies who contributed to its publication under the ‘Acknowledgements’ page (like the Bible, perhaps). Among them was the Ministry of Manpower, who could be behind the footnote fiasco being the authority on labour. I wonder what level of skilled workers they got to write this rubbish.

But I don’t want to speculate. Corrigendums seem like hard work. I may have to OFFSHORE my corrective actions to another party.

Filed under: 2013, Bureaucrats, Foreign workers, It Should Have Been.., Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Kallang literally means ‘colder’ in Chinese

Posted on December 7, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Keep it in English or all four languages’, 7 Dec 2012, ST Forum, and ‘Chinese tourists need Mandarin station names’, 3 Dec 2012, Voices, Today.

(Kimberly Lim): I BECAME aware of the Mandarin in-train MRT service announcements on Monday. I have reservations against this for two reasons. First, it gives the impression that Mandarin takes precedent over the other official languages.

Second, the translation appears to have been a hasty job. For example, “Kallang” is translated literally to mean “colder”. Translating the name to one that sounds similar to a station’s English name would make it easier for commuters to identify the stations, but it would risk ridicule among Mandarin-speaking foreigners.

SMRT should make such announcements in English only or use all four official languages.

(Elaine Luo): …Recently, two Chinese tourists asked me for directions to “Duo mei ge” station, referring to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. When I said that they must take a train to City Hall MRT station and transfer to the North-South line, they gave me a blank look.

I did not know at the time how to translate “City Hall” into Mandarin. Granted, they could have used the brochures and asked for directions using the station numbers instead, but they were tourists trying to navigate their way around a new place. They probably thought that Chinese-Singaporeans would be able to assist them with the translation. However, we in Singapore are so accustomed to using English that many of us do not see the need to know the station names in another language.

I believe that most Indonesian tourists here, even if they have difficulty understanding English, are probably better able to read and pronounce the station names, as Bahasa and English use the same alphabet. This is not the case for the Chinese language. English and Mandarin words are dissimilar and translating the words may be more of a necessity.

Chinese station names have been confusing and tickling Chinese-speaking Singaporeans for years, although they were intended to aid the elderly according to a recent SMRT explanation. Commuters in the past have complained that the translations never made sense, whether it’s Somerset’s ‘Rope Beauty Stuffing’, Buona Vista’s meaningless and hyper-syllabic phonetic translation, or the confusion between Woodlands and Woodleigh. But even without additional languages, the selection of English names alone can be bewildering to many.

Take Farrer Road and Farrer Park. I was once asked by a stranger if the Circle Line went to Farrer Road, and had to double-check because at the back of my mind I knew there was a Farrer PARK served by NEL. So even if I had bothered to memorise every station name in Chinese, chances are I could have still sent a tourist on a wild goose chase. Imagine if I had to recall what Farrer Park was in Chinese, differentiate it from the other Farrer station, before giving the right answer. If a Chinese tourist asked me if I knew how to get to ‘Hai Jun Bu’ (Admiralty), I’d give a blank stare too, and wonder what someone from China would want with our Navy headquarters.

Thank God I’d only need to describe the Circle Line as ‘Orange Line’, rather than ‘Yuan Quan (圆圈) Line’ (some would argue it’s not even in a loop). Then again, even SMRT can mess up the colour coding sometimes. First conceived in the eighties, colour coding was meant for the ‘less-educated’. Today, if SMRT went ahead to approve the use of all 4 official languages, they may apply to EVERYONE. Also, you’d have people complaining about announcements being too noisy, or zealous Good Samaritans accusing SMRT of not doing enough for the deaf, blind, colour-blind, dyslexics or people inflicted with a neurological disease where they can only read words backwards and not forwards.

It took SMRT more than 20 years to decide on Mandarin station announcements. In 1985, the MRT Corporation was blasted by the public for using only English station signs. Four years later, there were calls to include Mandarin announcements to ‘familiarise commuters with station names in Mandarin’, as well as cater to China and Taiwan tourists. 20 years would have been more than enough time to figure out if Mandarin announcements were really necessary, whether the elderly prefer to say ‘Buona Vista’ instead of the mouthful ‘Bo Na Wei Si Da’. And yet, critics today continue to hound SMRT despite them responding to customer feedback from the eighties, some arguing that it’s unfair to single out Chinese among the other languages, others ranting about the pandering to PRCs, or those suddenly realising that some of the Chinese translations are nonsensical when they have been there all along.

Sure you can’t please everyone, but at least attempt to convince us that spending money on voiceovers actually  makes a difference rather than tarring the elderly and uneducated with the same brush. Just don’t let this be another excuse for ‘fare adjustments’.  Wait, they have the China worker strikes for that already.

Filed under: 1980s, 2012, Foreign workers, It Should Have Been.., Money, MRT, Names, Noise, PRCs, Public works, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

‘Pledge’ documentary dubbing lost in translation

Posted on August 4, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Channel 8 documentary on Singapore’s history to be redubbed’, 3 Aug 2012, article by Walter Sim, ST

An hour-long documentary on the history of Singapore containing at least 10 translation gaffes will be re-edited and retelevised on Monday, Aug 6, Mediacorp has said….The Day I Said The Pledge, which aired in Mandarin on Channel 8 last Sunday, July 29, contained errors in the names of Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean and the late Mr S. Rajaratnam, who was deputy prime minister from 1980 to 1985.

…Mr Paul Chan, the vice-president of channel branding and promotions for Mediacorp Channel 8 and Channel U, said the translation was outsourced to an external company which has done dubbing and subtitling for regional and international channels. He said: “It is unfortunate that the delivery of the Mandarin dubbing was not up to standard, and we regret that certain inaccuracies were overlooked.”

In the original broadcast, since removed from video site Catch-Up TV by xinmsn, Singapore Mandarin turns of phrase for “public housing” (zheng fu zu wu) and “secondary school” (zhong xue) were replaced by terms used in Taiwan or mainland China, namely guo zhai and guo zhong respectively.

Didn’t anyone in Mediacorp check before releasing the programme to the masses, especially one as austere as the history of the Pledge, and during the National Day festivities too? Comic relief aside, inaccurate translation can also be an embarrassment when it confers a completely different meaning to the subject matter, sometimes with painfully ironic, even tragic, consequences. But any attempt to dub one language with another will always face resistance from purists. Fans of Hong Kong classic serials like Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre objected to the dubbing over of Cantonese with Mandarin in the late seventies. Now a thing of interest only to media historians, the Dubbing Unit was first formed in 1978, when Mediacorp was then known as RTS. We had local professionals then performing what always has been an unenviable task of taking the ‘flavour’ out of dialects. Today if you tell anyone that you work as a ‘dubber’, you would get no less than a blank, awkward stare and the general impression that you are in the business of rubbing lubricants.

But it’s not just the television industry that gets ‘lost in translation’. In 2002, the Singapore Tourism Board, in promoting Chinese versions of tourist guidebooks, turned the Hungry Ghost Festival into HUNGARY Ghost festival, and London ‘cabs’ were ‘horse-drawn carriages’. In fact, Hungary Ghost is a double mistake, the first is the genuine human error of misreading ‘hungry’ for the country, and second is not realising that there’s no such thing as a Hungary Ghost Festival (well at least not in Singapore). The Chinese Garden became the ‘Garden of China’, and River Hong Bao became ‘red packet’ of the Singapore river.Things were taken a bit too literally and churned out hastily without any use of common sense syntax at all. A free online ‘Sino-centric’ translator would do no worse than a hired goof.

Earlier this year, STB succumbed to lazy translation yet again, referring to the Chinese New Year as ‘CHINA New Year’ and Chinatown as ‘Tang Ren Jie’, or ‘Chinese street’, in their website.  Therein lies the problem of outsourcing translation services to people who don’t bother to do their local research, or are sneakily dependent on Google Translate, passing it off as the work of a thinking human professional when they’re really cheating. But it’s not just statutory boards who rely on translation software without proofreading. The Malaysian Mindef blamed Google Translate for publishing blooper text such as ‘clothes that poke eye’ on its staff dress code webpage, which in Malay means ‘revealing clothes’. If no one had tweeted about the cock-up the site would have continued to read like the crazy English bits on a restaurant menu in Guangzhou. It even included the bizarre phrase ‘collared shirts and TIGHT MALAY CIVET BERBUTANG THREE‘, and this is the ARMY you’re talking about here, not bushmen. Husband and wife’s lung slice, anyone?

So just how well does Google Translate fare in converting English to Chinese then? I ran a test and this is what I got:

Teo Chee Hean – 张志贤 (sounds right)

Rajaratnam – 拉贾拉特南 (sounds right)

Chinatown – 唐人街 (wrong)

Secondary School – 中学 (correct)

Hungry Ghost Festival – 中元节 (correct). Shame on you, human!

Conclusion: Save the money. Might as well Google translate.

Filed under: 1970s, 2000s, 2012, Advertisements, It Should Have Been.., Local TV shows, Names, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , | 1 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 »

Heat Stroke as a SAF mobilisation codename

Posted on January 7, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From Random tweets in response to a SAF mobilisation exercise on 7 Jan 2012.

@Mr Brown: If SAF has units codenamed HEATSTROKE, what about units NASTY DIARRHEA, GIANT PILES and SKIN ALLERGY?

@Fake PM_Lee: SAF mobilisation code HEATSTROKE activated. All unit personnel must report to Medical Centre.

@Fake STcom:SAF Open Mobilisation: Following codewords are being activated: COMMUNAL SHOWER, SHARED BUNK, SLOW STROKES, PRETTY MOUTH

BAD CODE

‘Heat stroke’ is just one of the many silly codenames crafted for open mobilisation units. I’m surprised not a single codename this year has been named after a predatory animal. You have a race event, a marine feature, a meaningless location and a life-threatening condition. I figured  that ever since the very first recall exercise in 1985, they would have run out of macho names by now, but apparently even for the inaugural mob there was little about the codenames selected which suggest swiftness and ferocity: SEA KING, FIRE FLY, RARE GEM and amazingly, BABY TOOTH. I mean, whatever happened to STEEL VIPER, THUNDER FOX, UNTAMED BEAST, IRON EAGLE, LIGHTNING FIST? The word ‘BABY’ should never appear anywhere in the armed forces, and as far as possible codenames should always resemble the names of legendary kungfu fighting stances rather than sounding like part of a dollhouse accessory catalogue, or animals in a petting zoo.

Here’s a wacky history of actual codenames used in the history of the open mob, with some attaining shocking levels of wussiness:

2009: BEET ROOT(SCDF): Could you think of any tougher vegetable than BEET ROOT? How about BRUSSEL SPROUT, or KANG KONG? They don’t even serve beet root in the canteens.

2008: ICED MILK: I never heard of anyone putting ice in milk. You also might as well call the unit BABY BIB, or DIAPER RASH. If you want to name a unit after a beverage, it should be an alcoholic one. Like FLAMING VODKA or DARK WHISKEY.

2008: CUTE PONY (SCDF): Only Brownies would use this. Even HANDSOME HORSE or SEA BISCUIT would have been acceptable. The use of ‘cute’ is as shocking as ‘baby’. Can you imagine the radio announcer going: ‘The following codewords have been activated. FLASH POINT. KILLER WHALE. DEPTH CHARGE….CUTE..PONY.”

2008: SHEER DELIGHT: This sounds like the name of a candy bar, or a sweet cocktail. And it also describes the emotion NSmen experience when they see the green man flashing on TV.

2007: PRIZE AWARD: This is just two related nouns joined together and doesn’t make any sense as a codeword. A prize IS an award and vice versa. It’s like RIFLE GUN, or GRENADE BOMB.

2007: LITTLE PANDA(Police and SCDF): Aww, baby animal names. Perhaps to tug at the enemy’s heart strings. Also see Tiny Koala below.

2006: FLYING HIPPO (SCDF): I suspect the reason for this codename is solely to immobilise the enemy by leaving them in stitches.

2006: FATAL SCORPION: This is an attempt to come up with a fierce name gone horribly wrong. It should be DEADLY SCORPION. You can only describe the scorpion’s STING as fatal, not the creature itself.

2004: SEA WEED: How umami. Probably from the same brain which gave you BARRIER REEF.

2003: GALLANT GOOSE (SCDF). Sounds more like a codename the RSAF would use, or the name of a restaurant that specialises in poultry. I can think of at least three birds of prey to replace goose. How about DARING FALCON, BRAVE OWL, or VALIANT HAWK?

2003: TINY KOALA. More suited for Australian boy scouts. KING KOALA would have sounded fine. Or better still, GRIZZLY BEAR.

2003: LONG MILLIPEDE. Seriously, of all creepy crawlies they had to choose this. How about MIGHTY CENTIPEDE? Or JUMPING SPIDER?

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2012, Army, It Should Have Been.., Names | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Aushwitz bar named after a site of genocide

Posted on November 19, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Bar’s name leaves bad taste for some’, article by Huang LiJie, 19 Nov 2011, ST

A BAR named Aushwitz at Circular Road yesterday removed its signboard after some members of the public said they were offended by its similarity to Auschwitz, the name of a World War II German concentration camp. Bar manager Maurice John, 39, said the bar, which opened late last month, removed the signboard last night and will also take steps to change its name because of the negative feedback.

The bar registered its name as Auschwitz, according to records from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra). But the name on its signboard – Aushwitz – was spelt without a ‘c’. Mr John, a Singaporean, said he had intended to name the bar Aushwitz, and not as registered.

…He said he picked ‘Aushwitz’ from a list of pub names he found off the Internet. He said he did not immediately associate the name with Auschwitz, which he knew was the name of a concentration camp. He said: ‘I chose it because it was unique. To me, the name reflected a commercial disco and not a girly pub where men go to meet women… We never meant to choose a name to offend anyone.’

…Mr Alexander Gow, 37, a Briton working here as a food and beverage manager, however, found the name so offensive that he e-mailed the German and Israeli embassies and the exporters of Beck’s beer on Thursday to raise the matter. He also posted his view on the issue on his Facebook page, and his friends have been circulating it. He said: ‘It is baffling why they would name an entertainment venue after a site of genocide.’

Aww.Shitz

The name ‘Aushwitz’ is probably ‘unique’ for a COMMERCIAL DISCO, provided the staff are dressed in Nazi garb and herd you on the dancefloor where they gas you to the grim sounds of industrial goth punk. It doesn’t matter if the premises were a disco, girly pub, cafe, bookstore or a child care centre. As long as one gives it an touchy name such as Swastika, Holocaust or Da CHOW (Dachau), you’re bound to rile some Jewish sympathisers. Aushwitz, of course, isn’t the first themed bar/eatery around to get into a fix over an offensive title.

In Mumbai, there used to be a Hitler’s Cross, which sold Nazi memorabilia in addition to food. Seoul had its ‘Fifth Reich’, replete with SS insignia.  Taipei, home of the Modern Toilet,  had its ‘Jail’, where the washrooms were called the ‘Gas Chamber’ (hur-hur). More recently, to supplement the country’s morbid fascination with Nazi chic, vampire cartoon Hitler keychains were yanked from Taiwanese 7-11s. These Asian cities had little to do with Nazi conquest, but unlike the Singaporean debut of Aushwitz, these Nazi gimmick names were at least grammatically correct. Aushwitz is meaningless in any language (Google search reveals no such suggestion for this as a bar name), and sounds like the bar management was trying their luck to kickstart a Nazi fascination here, hoping that a misspelling would let them off by a technicality.

Naan and nazis

All this uproar over people exploiting the Holocaust nightmare for their own gain does serve to educate younger, clueless Singaporeans on the evils that Man is capable of, that Nazi ‘culture’ isn’t simply plain amusement, cosplay, or a ploy to sell anything German-made be it cars or electric heaters. Yet everyone seems perfectly fine with the countless Hitler parodies on Youtube. If naysayers are so concerned of clubs reminding the community of a bygone era of horrific, genocidal violence, what about places celebrating the bloodthirsty  Genghis Khan then? Like Genghis Khan Mongolian Teppanyaki and International Buffet?

Mein Camp

But the real irony is this; despite Singaporeans having an ancestral lineage of victims suffering under the Japanese Occupation during the same World War which brought the world Auschwitz, we’re making a fuss over a concentration camp in Poland tens of thousands of miles away, when few would recall our very own ‘death camp’ right in the heart of Changi.  In fact, someone lamented the naming of Changi Airport as such because of Changi’s  history of prison atrocities during the Japanese Occupation, which would be considered Singapore’s version of the Holocaust. Except that instead of systematic extermination, prisoners were subject to a slow excruciating death from diseases due to overcrowding. In a ST forum letter in 1981, What’s in an airport’s name. Plenty!;

..It seems rather odd to tourists, many of whom visit the Japanese Surrender Chamber on Sentosa island, that any country should give an international airport a name which has connotations with wartime suffering and cruelty.

The writer would be disappointed to know, 30 years on, that our world-famous airport is still named after the historic location of a notorious POW camp, while a little-known bar selling Becks’ beer can’t make reference to a Nazi concentration camp even with a deliberate typo in its name.

Filed under: 1980s, 2011, Advertisements, Fun and games, It Should Have Been.., Nightspots, Violence | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

Raffles Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum

Posted on August 16, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Solve quandary by having both names for museum’, 16 Aug 2011, ST Forum and ‘Don’t sever museum’s historic link’, 12 Aug 2011, ST Forum

(Ong Sheue Ling): IN THE near future, Singapore will have a new natural history museum. However, I am saddened to learn that the new museum will be named Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum instead of retaining its current name – Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, or simply Raffles Museum.

…Raffles Museum, founded in 1849, was brought about by Sir Stamford Raffles’ interest in natural history. An eminent naturalist, Raffles was not only the founder of Singapore but also the visionary behind Raffles Museum. Thus, the name Raffles Museum not only pays tribute to the man who contributed significantly to the natural history of Singapore, but also reminds future generations about the museum’s heritage. We should not forget our past as we move forward.

Over the years, Raffles Museum has established its role in research, teaching and training in both the regional and international context. The name Raffles Museum can be likened to a brand. Isn’t branding just as important? It could prove useful in making an impression and promoting future exhibitions.

To simply change the name because of the need to acknowledge the biggest donor is not justifiable.

…I hope the relevant parties will consider retaining the museum’s original name. In recognition of the Lee Foundation’s substantial donation, a wing of the museum could be named after Dr Lee.

(Bernie Cheok): …The Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research was named after the founding father of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles, in recognition of his immeasurable contributions to the natural history of Singapore.

The public is thankful for the generous donation of $25 million by the Lee Foundation which will go a long way in funding research and study. The Raffles link to the museum can still be maintained by naming it “Raffles – Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum” instead.

It seems like our forefathers are having a hard time getting named posthumously after things. Not everyone was happy with Tan Kah Kee MRT station because of its location and its overt link to Hwa Chong, nor Ng Teng Fong Hospital because he just seemed to be a really rich guy and did not come across as the philanthropist like Tan Tock Seng was. Some forefathers like S C Goho have been forgotten entirely, with someone suggesting that he be named after a bus interchange. Which leaves us with rubber magnate and legendary philanthropist Dato Lee Kong Chian, who, last I checked,  has libraries and schools but not a flower named after him like Raffles has. Incidentally, the Lee foundation also donated a whopping $60 million to the National Library at Victoria Street in 2003, and although we have a Lee Kong Chian Reference Library in the same building, the National Library hasn’t been renamed the Lee Kong Chian Library, yet. Adding the troublesome hyphen to form a Raffles-Lee Kong Chian hybrid as Mr Cheok suggests would mislead visitors into thinking Raffles and Dato Lee are one and the same person, by mistaking our founder’s surname as Lee’s first name (We know him more as Stamford Raffles rather than Thomas)

It’s one thing to name a new public hospital after a rich man because hospitals provide an essential service and people will still go there for medical treatment whether they  like the name or not.  It’s another to replace a renown ‘brand’  of a museum with a rich man’s name altogether. You can name libraries, theatres, airports, bridges, hospitals and universities after famous men but somehow putting Lee Kong Chian’s name to a museum of natural history is like renaming Universal Studios to the Goh Chok Tong Amusement Mega-Complex.  A museum’s description should be neat, simple and state exactly what it’s a repository for, whether it’s a museum of toys, Asian civilisations, peranakan culture, war or sex. More importantly, it shouldn’t be mistaken for another museum with a similar name. Names can also be awkward, like our very own Fuk Tak Chi Museum (which showcases Chinese heritage, contrary to what most would believe), yet one can also turn dull, pedestrian names like Singapore Art Museum into catchy acronyms (SAM) too. No matter how much funding is granted to museums, their objective is always to draw a crowd, for that is what museums all over the world do, getting people in to gape at old stuff. And ‘selling’ it with a marketable name that one can identify with is just part of the business plan.

Besides, the Dato already has had two shots of museum fame, the Lee Kong Chian Museum of Asian Culture, (the old Nanyang University), and the current Lee Kong Chian Art Museum, NUS. To further confuse matters, he also has two Schools (Business in SMU and Medicine NTU) to his name. There has, as far as I’m aware, only ever been one Raffles Museum.

Raffles Museum 1936

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Art, Fund-raising, It Should Have Been.., Names, Public works | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Singapore is nothing without naturalised players

Posted on July 26, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Malaysian football captain takes a swipe at Lions’, 26 July 2011, article in asiaone.com, and ‘Good grief how did he get the goal scorer wrong’, 26 July 2011, ST Forum

NATIONAL captain Safiq Rahim struck a boot on Singapore by insisting that they are nothing without their five naturalised players.

“I think they are very reliant on their naturalised players. Singapore are not much of a team without them,” said Safiq before boarding the flight to Kuala Lumpur at the Changi Airport yesterday.

Singapore’s naturalised players – Aleksandar Duric (formerly from Bosnia), Daniel Bennett (England), Mustafic Fahrudin (Serbia), Shi Jiayi and Qiu Li (from China) played an instrumental role in their 5-3 victory over Malaysia in the World Cup second round, first leg qualifier at the Jalan Besar Stadium on Saturday.

Laddies in red

Contrary to what I initially thought, ‘naturalised’ isn’t a modern euphemism for ‘immigrant’. It was used way back in the early 20th century to describe anyone foreign-born but making a living in his foster country (‘Naturalisation, 8 May 1916, ST).  ‘Immigrant’ has an air of decrepitude and desperation about it, often associated with images of refugees in bumboats escaping a war-torn homeland or strange, shaggy looking people waiting and looking lost in the customs line. ‘Foreign talent’ is a touchy term as well, and usually stereotyped as expats who are out to steal our jobs or women, while ‘foreign import’ sounds like the players were shipped here in a UPS delivery box and come with an instruction manual with warranty included.

So, naturalised seems just about right, though a foreigner who has been ‘naturalised’ doesn’t necessary mean that being Singaporean is ‘second nature’ to him. It’s curious how our football players are called ‘naturalised’ players, but our all -female table tennis champion team are called ‘foreign imports’. There could be a few reasons for this, not least because  there are 11 players in a football team, most of whom are still native Singaporeans, but at most 2 in a table tennis doubles team, both former China nationals.  Or it could be our collective love of the tradition that is Singapore football which immunises our foreign players to any kind of xenophobia, using a term that implies that the likes of Qiu Li and Shi Jiayi can easily trade insults  and Hokkien swear words in an impromptu Singlish rap battle.

Then again, what’s new about the Malaysian captain’s observation? We’ve had ex PRCs win silver and gold medals for us in regional Games, so having five of them in bid to help us lift a trophy yet again (though unlikely) is old news. We’ve come to accept that we have to rely on them on whatever we do because our government doesn’t have faith in its own citizens to accomplish big dreams or help the country get to where it is today, be it at work, sport or entertainment. Criticising an opponent for fielding expensive star players is fair enough, but this isn’t half as mean as locals thrashing commentators for making simple errors like the writer below.

(Michael Ang): Watching video highlights of last Saturday’s Singapore-Malaysia World Cup qualifying match, I was flabbergasted by the lack of professionalism in one crucial part of the match commentary.

One of the two MediaCorp Channel 5 commentators inexplicably referred to the scorer of Singapore’s fourth goal, Shi Jiayi, who wears the No. 7 jersey, as Qiu Li (wearing No. 11 and scorer of Singapore’s second goal).

How difficult can it be to distinguish between the only two Chinese Singaporeans in the national team? Did the commentator not see the jersey number of the goal-scorer? Even after Qiu had run to Shi to congratulate him, and the two were walking side by side with their faces and jersey numbers in full view, the same commentator continued waxing lyrical about the wrong Chinese Singaporean (Qiu) as the scorer.

What was more surprising was the commentator’s self-description later, telling viewers that he had been involved with Singapore football for more than 20 years.

Qiu Li and Jiayi: FFwd to 3.20

Qiu Li and Shi Jiayi. Just looking at that sentence makes my tongue weary. I’ve no beef with football fans behaving badly, but to complain about a commentator’s (My guess is this would be Jaime Reeves) mistake instead of celebrating a goal is as hooligan as using the face of a drunkard on the stadium steps to wipe your muddy shoes.  No names were printed on the back of any of the Singapore players’ jerseys, or perhaps these two Chinese men really look alike from afar. Interestingly, Reeves’ colleague was ‘speechless’ after the former proclaimed ‘Qiu Li’s second of the night’, probably hesitating if he should make the correction of not (which he didn’t). Maybe it’s his fault too for not nudging to the error.

But anyway, playing soccer for decades doesn’t guarantee that you can tell players apart every single time you’re up in the commentary booth. The complainant should lighten up, just enjoy the game instead of fixating on stats like how often the ball hit someone’s head or all the names of players, the referee, the linesmen, the head coaches, assistant coaches, the physiotherapists or the kid by the billboard whose job is to throw balls back into play. And put some names on those damn jerseys already. At least the commentator didn’t just call them ‘Chinamen’ (See below, 21 May 1986)

Postscript: A Singapore milestone has been achieved with the Lions beating Malaysia on aggregate (6-4) and going into the third round of the World Cup qualifiers. Mediacorp has also issued an apology over the gaffe. Surely all is forgiven by now.

Filed under: 1980s, 2011, Foreign workers, It Should Have Been.., PRCs, Racism, Sports | Tagged: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

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