(Hri Kumar Nair, PAP MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh): Assistant Professor Eugene Tan’s commentary “The value of a by-election” (Feb 20) argued that the Prime Minister does not have an unfettered discretion in deciding when to call a by-election and that the “default” position should be that a by-election should be automatic.

Those two claims ignore the law and the reason behind the law. There is a reason the Singapore Constitution does not prescribe any time limit to call a by-election.

Our parliamentary democracy is based on the principle that elections are fundamentally about voters choosing between different political parties to lead the country, rather than between individual candidates standing in a constituency. In general elections, the issue is which party should form the government.

Hence, under our system, if any Member of Parliament (MP) resigns or is expelled from his party, he loses his seat because voters had elected him as a representative of his party. Therefore, when a seat falls vacant, there is no requirement to call an immediate by-election, unless the vacancy affects the Government’s mandate.

Nor should an MP’s resignation or expulsion force the Government to put aside more important national issues to focus on a by-election. This model enables the Government to focus on governing Singapore well and improving the lives of Singaporeans. It has resulted in stability and progress for Singapore for half a century.

Some things on the ‘national agenda’ obviously require more urgent tending to than the residents of Hougang, like issuing lawyer’s letters to clear your name after accusations of nepotism, for example. God knows how long the government will dawdle on the empty Hougang seat since WP’s Yaw Shin Leong got sacked for alleged affairs, whether it’s stalling for time to plan its conquest strategy or deliberately playing mind games before calling for Nomination Day and catching the Opposition when they’re least prepared. A ‘party-centred’ system doesn’t adequately explain why there’s no deadline to call for a by-election, since this constitutional dilly-dallying seems to work solely towards the ruling party’s advantage. It’s like a teacher waiting to spring a pop-quiz but not telling you when, only to do it on the eve of school holidays. It’s not clear what our government’s ‘mandate’ is that its importance overrides replacing an MP. We would expect a more satisfactory response than ‘there are many other issues on the national agenda right now’.

History may explain why the ruling party is taking its own sweet time when it comes to throwing dice in a by-election. In particular, a landmark Anson one in 1981 which was won by a certain JB Jeyaretnam (from WP), called rather unexpectedly when the seat was left vacant by Devan Nair ascending to presidency. The PAP’s reasoning for calling it was that ‘the people of Anson should not be without an MP, not when the impending elevation of Mr Nair to the presidency is an event that the party can, and indeed plan for – unlike say the sudden demise of an incumbent.’ i.e the PAP took responsibility for plucking an MP out of the ward and a by-election, though risky, appeared to be a fair course of action to take. The outcome of that decision (JBJ being the first Opposition MP) will go down the annals of history, wedge its way up the anus of PAP’s conscience till this day, but will never be documented in our social studies textbooks.

4 years later JBJ lost his seat after being imprisoned for allegedly falsifying WP accounts and was barred from standing for elections. Then DPM Goh Chok Tong declared that there was no need for an immediate by-election, citing his primary concern as ‘getting the economic recession out of the way’. In 1992, however, Goh Chok Tong, then PM, called for a by-election on his own accord, to ‘inject new blood into the PAP’s ranks’ for Marine Parade GRC. It was also a token gesture to allow JBJ to contest after his ban, but only after the Aug 31 1991 general elections were pushed forward to seemingly avoid having JBJ fight in it. 1992, the last time we had a by-election, was a window-dressing campaign that PAP won by a landslide margin, for rather obvious reasons since the PM had to RESIGN to contest in it.  It was also a vulnerable position for the PAP since announcing that both DPMs Ong Teng Cheong and Lee Hsien Loong were down with lympathic cancer (Both Deputy Prime Ministers have cancer, 17 Nov 1992), which suggested that if GCT were kicked out Singaporeans would have no one to lead them.  As PM, then, one has the liberty of calling for by-elections for the functional purpose of replacing an MP (which hasn’t been done since Anson), pulling in promising foot soldiers like Teo Chee Hean, or to prove your mettle to the Opposition like a seasoned boxer putting his championship title up for grabs by sparring with midgets.

In 1999, a call for a Jalan Besar GRC by-election was rejected again by PM Goh as it would distract the country from its ‘efforts to recover from the economic crisis’.  The reason for the vacant Jalan Besar seat was the shameful departure of a certain MP named Choo Wei Khiang, who was jailed for cheating. The GRC mechanism and ‘economic crises’ made sure that PAP continued to reign, despite the team at JB seemingly ‘letting down’ voters by harbouring a crook in their midst all this time, just like WP putting a serial philanderer on the pedestal.  It’s tempting to draw parallels between Choo and Yaw here; The former went on to become Table Tennis Chief despite his jail record. Nobody knows if we’ll ever hear of Yaw again, and all he presumably did was cheat on his wife, and not, you know, BREAK the law or something.

In 2008, the by-election issue was raised again by JBJ, who demanded that the constitution be more specific on when this could be held (within 3 months). This followed the sudden death of MP Ong Chit Chung of Jurong GRC. Sadly, JBJ himself died shortly after filing a request to the judiciary to explain why the constitution was so irritatingly silent on the timeline to call for by-election. The writer of the letter above Hri Kumar Nair was himself vocal in a parliamentary debate over the fate of Jurong GRC back then, saying that it was ‘sensible to keep things flexible’ and not ‘tie the PM’s hands’. That would mean, of course, that he could drag it all the way till the next GE if he wanted to if it was not in national interest to hold a by-election. An online poll, however, indicated that a slight majority of residents were in favour of a by-election then, but with the GRC’s back-up MP system and a dusty old book to justify the lack of urgency and allow buying time to stock up campaign inventory , what does it matter what the people think? What happened to ‘The people of so-and-so should not be without an MP?’ If the PM believes that 4 MPs can do the work of 5 following the death of Dr Balaji in 2010, why have 5 MPs in Cheng San-Seletar GRC at all? If an MP in a SINGLE ward mysteriously disappears or dies,  what happens then? If residents can do without a representative, as what this lack of urgency is telling us, why should we even bother voting one in the first place?

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/25/pap-taking-their-time-to-call-for-by-election/feed/ 0 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/23/tre-doesnt-want-to-apologise-to-lee-hsien-yang/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/23/tre-doesnt-want-to-apologise-to-lee-hsien-yang/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:04:21 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6272 ]]> From ‘Lee Hsien Yang send lawyer’s letter to TR Emeritus’, 23 Feb 2012, article in asiaone.com

Another laywer’s letter has been sent to editor of TR Emeritus (TRE), Mr Richard Wan, on Tuesday. This time, it is from the chairman of Fraser and Neave (F&N), Mr Lee Hsien Yang. Mr Lee is also the brother of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Lawyers from Stamford Law, acting on behalf of Mr Lee, had sent a letter on Tuesday to Mr Wan, requesting for an alleged defamatory comment on its site to be removed.

In the letter, Mr Lee’s acting lawyer, Mr Tan Chuan Thye, told TRE that a netizen had left a defamatory remark about Mr Lee in the comments section for one of its articles late last month.

The Straits Times reported that the letter said: “Mr Lee is determined to protect his reputation and would take all necessary and appropriate steps to do so.”

Mr Wan confirmed that he had received the lawyer’s letter and added that TRE had appointed lawyer M. Ravi as its legal counsel.

Mr Ravi, who will be drafting a response to Mr Lee’s lawyer, told The Straits Times: “TRE will resist the action vigorously in defence of freedom of expression in cyberspace.”

Richard Wan and Co are at the mercy of yet another Lee, barely reeling from an overdose of humble pie after issuing an apology issued to PM for posting remarks hinting at nepotism.There are online murmurs that Wan ‘coming out’ in the open was the perfect scapegoat for the government to launch a battery of scare tactics in the form of ‘lawyer’s letters’, doomsday summons which rank in dread above  electricity bills, IRAS notifications and even wedding invitations.

Fact is anonymity or not, you will be put on 24 hour surveillance if you so much as attempt to draw the Lee family tree and connect the dots. It appears that the authorities have stomached for too long random wild allegations when they could have easily round up every blogger with a grudge against the Lees, but decided to curb the repercussions of blanket lawsuits by targetting just one guy, who isn’t even responsible for posting offensive material in the first place.  The government is particularly talented in extracting apologies out of people, even big players like international papers, and TRE despite putting up a brave front, appears to have embroiled itself in a losing battle with the younger Lee who’s supported by a family of tenacious lawyers, his wife and father included.  Even if the website goes down guns blazing, this incident is a warning sign that bloggers are ultimately responsible for not just what they write, but what they allow posted online by visitors. Deleting posts, making private potentially harmful content or even smashing your computer to bits and then burying it  under the sea to get rid of evidence may not even salvage the situation. Whether a sanitised version of a blog like TRE necessarily makes for less lively debate remains to be tested in the arena of ‘socio-political’ media.  I’m not sure how important TRE considers itself to be that its downfall would spell the end of ‘freedom of expression’, but it’s clear what the government’s intentions are whether or not TRE succumbs to pressure and closes shop for good. Might as well, TR Emeritus is a silly name for a serious blog anyway, even if it’s meant as an inside joke in reference to a certain ex PM who currently holds the title and means it.

But I couldn’t resist. Lee Hsien Yang is represented here by his wife Lee Suet Fern’s company Stamford Law. According to her CV, a curious fact stands out in the last line amongst the other prestigious credentials,  an impressive CAMBRIDGE ‘double first’ in Law, which was what LKY himself achieved in the same university. Our current PM was also a ‘double-firster’ for Maths, while Hsien Yang himself had ‘two first class honours’ in Engineering at 21, both also Cambridge alumni. Lee Hsien Loong’s first wife Dr Wong Ming Yang studied in Girton college, again  CAMBRIDGE where she met her future husband. It would not surprise anyone if I add further that the late  Mrs Lee Geok Choo was also from Cambridge. Li Shengwu, Hsien Yang’s son, is a top student at Oxford, a top debater and best speaker at a CAMBRIDGE IV international debating competition, and potential face to watch for avid fans of the Lee family. The only conclusion that I am allowed to make here about the ‘Cambridge connection’, without having any lawyer’s summons at my doorstep, is that both ex-Cambridge Lee boys have married Cambridge-trained wives, just like their parents. It’s probably also safe to say that a passion for excellence runs in the family, and under no circumstances am I insinuating that a choice of intelligent mates has anything to do with it.

Be kind people, I have mouths to feed. Leave your nasty comments somewhere else. I can’t afford to hire a lawyer to write expensive apologies.

Postscript: M Ravi was ‘abruptly discharged’ and TRE eventually relented, deleting the troublemaking post by ‘abs’ and issued a statement regretting the incident and thanking Lee for his understanding. Meanwhile the hunt is on for this elusive ‘netizen’ and the content of his/her post, with Lee’s lawyers requesting for the identity of the editor behind clone website Temasek Realm and the ‘full particulars’ of ‘abs’. If ‘abs’ knows what’s coming he/she would do well to delete all online footprints, user ids and Facebook. Meanwhile TRE continues to exist while working on its comment filter, though how that would prevail against acronyms, symbols or deliberate typos remains to be seen.

…In a Straits Times story on Monday, Mr Ong, 33, said he was unaware that his car’s (Porsche Boxter) licence plate had fallen off until he returned to the scene some 20 minutes after the incident for which, he added, he accepted responsibility.

‘The dog came out of nowhere. I felt a brush so I thought it went underneath the car. But I came back later because I felt something was wrong,’ he added.

Mr Ong, who is in Dubai for two bowling tournaments, told The Straits Times on Monday that he had lodged a police report on Sunday night after fielding queries from reporters.

Asked about the number 300 on his car’s licence plate, the bowler – who expects to be back in Singapore on March 4 – said it referred to a perfect score in a bowling game.

Under the Road Traffic Act, any motorist involved in an accident where a person or an animal is injured must stop to help the victim. The Act defines an animal as any horse, cattle, ass, mule, sheep, pig, goat or dog.

…Drivers who fail to stop and render assistance after an accident can be fined up to $3,000 or jailed up to a year. Repeat offenders can be fined up to $5,000 or jailed up to two years.

The dog run down by Remy appeared to be a mid-sized breed, not a chihuahua, so given that our national bowler had a fleeting glimpse of the animal and had a hunch that it ‘went underneath’, shouldn’t he at least check back right away to see what exactly he went over? Remy already has his fair share of online flaming for failing to attend to an injured animal on the spot, though the attention seems to be more on the fact that he owns a Porsche rather than his apparent gross negligence. It also doesn’t help that the dog was pregnant.  But he has accepted responsibility and we await a just punishment, though whether Remy is SPARED (hurr hurr) from penalty, or as bizarrely and unnecessarily reported in the article above, what his damn LICENCE PLATE number symbolises, doesn’t concern me here. It’s how this incident has exposed the relic that is the Road Traffic Act, more specifically section 84: Duty to stop in case of accident.

The list of creatures defined as animals (horse, mule, cattle, ASS, sheep, pig, goat, dog) sounds like this piece of legislation was written during biblical times, or by Old MacDonald (last updated 2002). You have 3 species of ungulates, but ‘pony’ is excluded. You have three farm animals that are as likely to cross a busy road in Singapore as a chicken, and dog is the only common ‘pet’ in the entire list (no mention of cat, rabbit, hamster or chinchilla). Another glaring omission is ‘birds’ and ‘reptiles’, though running over a pigeon, crow or mynah is fine since they’re considered pests by the AVA/NEA. Chances are you’re more likely to run over a python than a goat, and yes, they forgot about MONKEYS too. The list appears to refer to animals traditionally domesticated by man for food or agricultural labour since the dawn of time, which suggests an ancient symbiosis with humans that explains such  entitlement (though it doesn’t explain the missing chicken, duck or goose). According to law, it is your DUTY to turn back and save an ASS, but not a pregnant or baby monkey.

But what does the Traffic Police know about animals, you say. This is how AVA defines it in the ‘Animals and Birds Act’, more specifically Part IV Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In this Part, unless the context otherwise requires, “animal” includes any beast, bird, fish, reptile or insect, whether wild or tame.

It would be fair to say that a genuine ‘hit and run’ felony is a cruel act, ‘cruel’ defined as failure to assist a fellow sentient being even though you are the one responsible for harm. The Act goes on to state that any person who:

a) cruelly beats, kicks, ill-treats, over-rides, over-drives, over-loads, tortures, infuriates or terrifies any animal

…d)by wantonly or unreasonably doing or omitting to do any act, causes any unnecessary pain or suffering or, being the owner, permits any unnecessary pain or suffering to any animal;

…shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to both

So, has Remy failed in his ‘duty to stop in an accident’, which would cost him a $3000 fine at least, or has he ’caused unnecessary pain or suffering’ by omission and hence guilty of animal cruelty, which amounts to $10,000? If we accept the argument that not bringing a ‘beast’ as defined by AVA to the vet after driving over its legs, and being FULLY AWARE of one’s actions,  is considered ‘an act of cruelty’, then you are punishable by law if you so much as knock over a fishbowl or sever a lizard in half, provided someone could prove beyond reasonable doubt that you have indeed caused unnecessary pain or suffering. What’s the point of listing ‘insect’ under the list of animals protected by law anyway? People ‘wantonly’ destroy these critters everyday and you don’t see anyone hauled to court for putting superglue on spiderwebs, do you.

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/21/remy-ong-running-over-pregnant-dog/feed/ 1 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/19/sumiko-tan-thinks-ageing-sucks/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/19/sumiko-tan-thinks-ageing-sucks/#comments Sun, 19 Feb 2012 02:28:25 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6241 ]]> From ‘Old age is such a pain’, 19 Feb 2012, article by Sumiko Tan, Sunday Lifestyle

…Ageing sucks.

It’s not as if I were a young chick experiencing the amazing, eye-opening stages of ageing at the workshop. I’m already 48 and every year, every decade, has already brought a decline in bodily functions, not to mention physical appearance, and it’s only going to get worse.

The skin dulls, the hair loses its shine, the metabolism slows, the heart becomes less efficient, the bones shrink, the muscles weaken, digestion slows, kidneys take a longer time to remove waste, bladder becomes loose, brain cells die, memory fades, retina thins, hearing goes, teeth rot, sex drive diminishes and, baby, it’s really the beginning of the end.

One can try to cling on to youth by exercising like crazy, eating healthily, breathing slowly, driving fast cars, chasing after young women, or men, wearing sexy clothes, designer shoes, whatever.

But there’s no escaping the clutches of time and sooner than you think, you find yourself with cataracts, blindly manoeuvring hospital corridors in a wheelchair, the bottoms of your trousers rolled.

Nobody looks forward to growing old, especially Sumiko Tan. The point of her piece, despite complaining about how much ‘it sucks’ having been through some ‘Age-Friendly Workshop’ where they simulate vision and hearing impairment in particpants,  is that getting old happens to everyone, and some understanding and patience is in order, no matter how unreasonable and cantankerous seniors can be. Fresh from being pummelled online for eating shark’s fin (Some consolation for Sumiko though, President Obama drew fire for WALKING into a restaurant because they had shark’s fin on the menu), this meditation on death and dying is less likely to receive verbal incontinence from her critics. But at 48, Sumiko continues to be morbidly obsessed with age, ageing and coming to terms with grim mortality, a recurrent theme that crops up throughout the history of her writings for ST.

Here’s a timeline of Sumiko’s thoughts and confessions on ageing, by Sumiko’s age:

2009 (45 years old): From ‘Charm of a Modern Dad’, on her then friend, now husband’s love of children.

…Do you not realise how old I am, I say. I’m past my biological baby-by date.

…Why would I want to sacrifice my time, freedom, money and beautifully laundered white bedsheets to have a child, and at my age too? I’d have to suffer him or her through years of diaper changes, school exams, holiday camps, pimple outbreaks, relationship woes and demands for bigger allowances. And to top it off, he’ll be riding out his rebellious teenage years when I’m hitting 60.

Sumiko circa 2009

Sumiko circa 2008

2007 (43 years old): From ‘The Secret to a Happy Old Age‘, in response to raised retirement age.

…Basically, I’m just afraid of old age. Maybe it’s because of the way Singapore society regards the old. There is concern for them, even pity, but when a person no longer contributes economically, his value in society dives. Unless you are (or were) an important or rich person, old people tend to get short shrift.

There’s also no running away from how age brings inexorable mental and physical decline. It’s enough to sometimes make me think that it’s better to live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse, like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.

2005 (41 years old): From ‘Marry him, Fann’, in response to Fann Wong marrying in her mid-thirties

Women do have sell-by dates. Women are physically less attractive as they age. Women do want to appeal to men. And having a man in one’s life is better than none.

…My theory is that 35 is the make-or-break age of a woman in the marriage market. Miss it – either through lack of choice or because you are too busy or fussy to commit – and it will take extraordinary luck or hard work for you to claw back into the market and get hitched.

And there’s more stretching throughout her entire journalistic career, too many to summarise here. But looking at her article headings alone, which is already as awkward and uncomfortable as stumbling on someone’s secret diary, a younger Sumiko did seem rather insecure and needy about ageing even in her early thirties. Perhaps it’s not just the going downhill mentally and physically that she was worried about, but the loneliness, something she doesn’t need to be concerned about much now.

2005(41 years old): ‘Will you still need me when I’m 64?’, 3 July, ST

2001 (37 years old): ‘Will I run on empty when I grow old?’, 29 April, ST

1997(33 years old): ‘When death stares you in the eye’, 19 Oct, ST, ‘The older I get, the fewer friends I have’, 18 May

1996 (32 years old): ‘Sadly, having children is no safety net for old age‘, 9 June, ST

1992 (28 years old): ‘Old folks next door’, 4 Dec, ST

1989 (25 years old): ‘Beware the consequences of looking down on the old‘, 15 Jan, ST. Here, young Sumiko defends against ‘ageism’ and misconceptions of the elderly being useless to society. She would revisit this plight of the old every now and then for the next 23 years.

So here’s a fairly recent picture of Sumiko in a wedding gown, and I’ll leave it to viewers to judge for themselves if she’s past a ‘sell-by’, ‘baby-by’, whatever-by date you want to call it.  Personally I think she doesn’t look her age at all.  Maybe the collagen from all that shark’s fin soup has something to do with it.

40-ish and 'sold'

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/19/sumiko-tan-thinks-ageing-sucks/feed/ 1 gdy2shoez sumiko2 sumiko3 http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/18/brother-canes-tofu-whipping-and-pubes-snipping/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/18/brother-canes-tofu-whipping-and-pubes-snipping/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2012 03:47:41 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6217 ]]> From ‘Cane re-enactment draws debate’ 16 Dec 2012, article by Corrie Tan, Life! and ‘Why show Brother Cane again?’, 18 Feb 2012, Life! Mailbag,

…Artist and film-maker Loo Zihan, 28, is re-enacting Brother Cane, a 1993 performance by Josef Ng which protested the arrests of 12 men during an anti-gay operation in 1992. The performance involved Ng whipping pieces of tofu and packets of red liquid on tiles, burning himself with a cigarette and snipping his pubic hair with his back to the audience.

The original performance ignited a public debate over obscenity in performance art here, as well as a 10-year restriction of the licensing and funding of performance art in Singapore.

…Some questioned the purpose of the re-enactment and whether it was merely riding on the controversy sparked by the original work. There were also concerns about how a new audience might experience the work.

Singapore-based British artist James Holdsworth, 57, told Life!: ‘I think it’s a publicity stunt and I’m quite disturbed by it.’

…(Pek Li Sng): The Brother Cane re-enactment should not be allowed (Cane Re-enactment Draws Debate, Life!, Feb 16). Cutting pubic hair again? What is it trying to show?

There is absolutely no meaning in performing such an act. It is so silly, weird and crude. Performance should be something that one can enjoy and not cringe with embarrassment when watched.

Smashing Tofus

The original ‘Brother Cane’ in 1993 was showcased publicly at Parkway Parade and landed Josef Ng, an ex Navy sergeant, on an obscenity charge for exposing his buttocks. ‘Buttocks’ also happen to be a motif for Amanda Heng’s ‘SinGirl’ project which featured a montage of women’s bums back in 2010. You don’t even have to be a controversial artist to wiggle some flesh in public these days, what with a spate of unnecesary nudity hitting the country in the same year.  In the age of Youtube where anyone can film themselves making a booger salad for lunch or self-immolating and call it ‘protest-art’, snipping your pubic hair with or without clothes doesn’t seem very shocking anymore. And what a waste of perfectly edible tofu.

Erotica and art have been intertwined ever since early man constructed grossly exaggerated female figurines out of rocks and clay. Today, you can pay $250 just to take  photo with ‘nude artist’ T Venkenna. Cashing in on one’s buttocks is small change in comparison.

Sitting nude as art

Loo isn’t the first artist to replicate ‘Brother Cane’. In 2007, a play about homegrown pornstar Annabel Chong titled ’251′ featured actress Cynthia Lee Macquarrie paying ‘homage’ to Josef’s tofu-bashing. ’251′ is also the number of men that Annabel claimed to have non-stop sex with, which some, including the porn starlet herself, may label as a gritty no-holds-barred ‘performance’. Mimicry and ‘cannibalising’ the works of others, whether in the form of DJ sampling, hoax paintings, remixes, mash-ups,  ‘shot-for-shot’ movie remakes like Gus Van Sant’s version of ‘Psycho’,  have existed for as long as humans started copying and inspiring each other. Once upon a time someone decided to destroy a guitar at the finale of a rock concert, and this defiant ‘performance’ was subsequently replicated by band frontmen the world over. When it comes to brash punk/rock musicians, no one ever needs to ask WHY they do crazy stuff. Ozzy Osbourne once bit the head off a live bat. Rammstein lights their keyboards on fire. Artists, on the other hand, have some explaining to do, and I get the impression that some take their work so seriously that they deem re-enactments OK but parodies unacceptable. Speaking of parodies, this tofu-caning business reminds me remotely of the clip below.

Tofu or not tofu

Along with Josef in 1993, an artist named Shannon Tham self-induced vomitting and then poured his puke all over himself, which appears to be the stuff of freak porn, not to mention dangerous and unsanitary. It was actually a protest against ‘The New Paper’ for unfair reporting, a copy of which Shannon burnt and drank the ashes before a nauseous finale. You could at least see the point of what Shannon did, even if it seemed a bit drastic. Most people who don’t like what they read in the papers merely throw it away, spit on it, or use it for the cat litter box. The line between ‘performance’ in the traditional sense of ‘entertaining’ and creative ‘protest’ has been blurred; I could set up an act in town biting off my own armpit hair in protest of discrimination against hairy people, but without the label of ‘performance art’, it would just be seen as a silly gimmick.  Or viral advertising for hair removal cream. Some viewers may be concerned enough to report that a patient from IMH had escaped.

In 1992, Vincent Leow drank his own urine as part of a performance piece. According to his website, ‘the art gesture was later elaborated upon through the packing and sale of bottles of urine – epitomizing Leow’s artful handling of ‘underground, subversive’ practices with a savvy understanding of the mechanics of market consumption and its desire for and absorption of infamy, scandal and controversy‘.  Blah-blah. If you take away the fancy conceptualisation behind consuming your own excrement, or the ‘artist’ away from the ‘act’, it becomes not so much a ‘gesture’ or ‘statement’; but a wacky Jackass stunt or a ragging forfeit played  out by drunk campus kids. Those who flock to watch gory movies just to squirm in their seats are probably the same lot who’d be fascinated by artists squeezing unmentionables out of their orifices.  If an audience has been moved in some way by the artist’s antics, be it tears,  nostalgia, goosebumps or a grimace with reflex crossing of legs, then the artist has succeeded. Still, it’s all been done before, and the torture-art circle needs something fresh and unflinching to wow fans already attuned to mind-numbing degradation. Today it could be pube-snipping, tomorrow someone may neuter himself with a razor blade.

Some forms of performance art, if not known for vulgar display of bodies and bodily functions, are also steeped in violence and masochism. In last year’s ‘Future of Imagination 7′, Loo Zihan reenacted another Josef Ng work called ‘Don’t Go Swimming, It’s Not Safe’, in which he asked a random audience member to hit him with a violin. Loo then proceeded to hurl himself at walls, which is exactly what the folks at JackAss do. It appears that in order to succeed as a ‘performance artist’, you need to score some brutality points to bring the meaning of ‘tortured artist’ to a whole new level. Like how Jackie Chan collects broken bones, battle scars and concussions throughout his career as an international action star.

Walling is the new planking

In 2007, vegetarian artist Simon Birch showcased a multimedia art show which featured a scene of himself, dressed as a SAMURAI, killing a pig with a sword. A gruesome act which was ‘conceptually necessary’ to depict the theme of death. I just hope someone made a good meal of the poor creature.  You can also poke needles on butterfly wings and revolve an entire exhibition around it. I’m not sure how ‘conceptually necessary’ snipping your pubic hair is. I ‘get’ the tofu analogy (white and soft i.e innocent), but giving your naughty bits a trim defies explanation. Or as the swanky art elite would tell me: ‘Why don’t you just go home to your Michael Bay DVD collection, you unsophisticated pilgrim?’

Whatever.  Performances which involve artists maiming themselves with household appliances or intentionally falling down should come with a ‘Don’t try this at home’ warning and a standby medical squad.  If your motivation as an art-goer is to watch people do crazy stunts professionally for an audience, you can get your torture-fix from the comfort of home in front of the computer without spending a single cent. You’d just have to settle with the lack of ‘participation’, ‘immersion’,  ‘interpretation’ or ‘meaning’ that comes with ‘performance art’.

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/18/brother-canes-tofu-whipping-and-pubes-snipping/feed/ 1 gdy2shoez sextofu http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/17/thailand-is-a-place-of-little-true-joy/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/17/thailand-is-a-place-of-little-true-joy/#comments Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:09:32 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6210 ]]> From ‘Christian group says sorry for remarks’, 17 Feb 2012, article by Jessica Lim and Stanley Chia, ST

A CHRISTIAN student group at the National University of Singapore (NUS) apologised yesterday for making insensitive remarks about Buddhists and Muslims. The NUS Campus Crusade for Christ, made up of 80 to 100 students, posted an apology on its Facebook page for remarks made on its website and on posters it put up on campus benches on Wednesday.

…The Christian group’s posters promoting a mission trip to Thailand said that the country, known as The Land of Smiles, was actually ‘a place of little true joy’. This, it said, was because Buddhism was so much a part of the Thai national identity and few believed in Jesus Christ. It urged students to help take Christianity to the Thais.

Its website promoted a mission trip to Turkey and said the country needed ‘much prayer and work’ because ‘much of the population is M‘, referring to Muslims. The online posts and posters have since been removed, but not before copies spread quickly online, prompting a wave of angry comments from netizens.

With so much online fury over anti-Muslim sentiments of late, whether it’s commenting on harmless schoolkids on a bus or a photoshopped Pig on a Kaaba, it’s no wonder the NCCC, despite it’s zeal in spreading universal joy to faraway lands untouched by the blessed hand of the Almighty, treats Islam with the same nervous hushed-up tones as someone whispering a naughty word. Thailand is called the Land of Smiles for a reason with or without Christian influence, and as godless as the Sex Capital of Asia may be in the eyes of the CCC, implying that a wave of monotheism would bring a wider smile to Thai faces is like saying fog makes green grass greener.

Have these people even heard of Bhutan, or how just a few years ago a Christian couple were charged under the Sedition Act for distributing a comic book titled ‘The Little Bride’, a rather disturbing tract written by some guy who goes by the  deceptively benign name of ‘Jack Chick’ that explains Islam in terms of the young wives the Prophet was believed to have kept (as the uneasy title suggests)? ‘The Little Bride’ makes the CCC’s candy- coated proselytisations seem like a travelogue for teens in comparison. ‘Prophecy movements’, from which modern missions were descended from, have a dark history associated with white superiority and colonialism, when missionaries boasted magical powers to cure the ill , alluding their gifts to a higher power and convincing ‘natives’ to surrender to their God-endorsed rule. Whether it’s shamanism disguised as divine healing prowess or a shot of Jesus joy juice, what these missions have in common is a systematic delivery of a promise beyond the wildest dreams of your average non-believer. In today’s context, that would be happiness.

Here’s a short history of what Christ crusaders like the CCC have been doing to spread the happy gospel,  when Singaporeans had a lot less Jesus in our lives compared to now and evangelists were, and still are, as subtle in their approach to propagating their version of a miracle as a mother ramming cough syrup down a sick child’s throat.

The director of the Korean Campus Crusade for Christ Dr Joon Gon Kim came to town in the mid-seventies to promote a sweeping movement known as ‘Explo 74′, which was basically an international Evangelism training camp to equip you with a sweet holy tongue and get you into the good books of the Lord.   In 1978, the Billy Graham Evangelistic crusade invited the famous preacher to conduct a ‘major city-wide CRUSADE ‘. At that time, there was no timid skirting around its true objective; to ‘persuade individuals to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord’. The word ‘Crusade’ itself has come with its own religious baggage in recent times, ever since ex US President George W Bush unleashed one against Iraq.  Today, you can only use the word if you’re going to a fancy dress party dressed as a Knights Templar. You just have to pray you don’t bump into someone dressed like Osama Bin Laden.

In 1981, the CCC promoted a film simply titled ‘Jesus’, dubbed in Mandarin, Chinese and INDIAN dialects, and screened this to quarter of a million viewers at local theatres. Advancing technology along with their faith, the CCC organised the ‘world’s biggest teleconference’ at the World Trade Centre in 1985, with 3000 tuning in to the likes of Graham and Luis Palau.There is a theory that the Internet and all the technology associated with it was driven by porn. It’s possible that religion with its track record of ‘going viral’ comes a close second in contributing to the luxury of bandwidth that we all experience today.

There’s no harm in promoting mission trips to unChristian lands, in fact most of these have philanthropic intentions and if religion could drive ordinary people to make extraordinary sacrifices, then all the better for mankind. But if you’re the overzealous preacher type with no other agenda than to rescue everyone from their own religions, then the only way to spread ‘true joy’ around the world is for people like you to leave everyone  else the Hell alone.

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/17/thailand-is-a-place-of-little-true-joy/feed/ 1 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/16/khaw-boon-wan-hammers-wps-sudden-u-turn/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/16/khaw-boon-wan-hammers-wps-sudden-u-turn/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:06:33 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6196 ]]> From ‘Come clean with the people, WP: Khaw’, 16 Feb 2012, article by Wong Jiahui Alicia, Today

Shortly after the Workers’ Party (WP) announced its decision to expel Mr Yaw Shin Leong, People’s Action Party (PAP) chairman Khaw Boon Wan turned up the heat on the opposition party yesterday, questioning its “sudden U-turn” on the allegations of infidelity against Mr Yaw.

Speaking to reporters, Mr Khaw noted that, only last Saturday – when the WP held its Chinese New Year dinner – the party’s leadership stood “shoulder to shoulder in solidarity” with Mr Yaw. On Mr Yaw’s expulsion, Mr Khaw said: “Is this an attempt at trying to conceal something they knew, first through silence, and then when they found it is not possible, then they get rid of the liability and blame everything on him?”

Calling on the WP to “come clean with the people”, Mr Khaw asked why the WP took “so long to investigate” the rumours of its Hougang Member of Parliament’s (MP) indiscretions and “what new information have they discovered”. If the WP had certain information about Mr Yaw prior to the May General Election, why did they field him, pressed Mr Khaw, who is also Minister for National Development.

“It’s sad that voters have been misled by the WP. I think as a responsible party, integrity is a key point,” said Mr Khaw. “This is a matter that no doubt concerns Mr Yaw, but it also concerns the party where he came from,” he added. Responding, WP chief Low Thia Khiang said: “I don’t know when (Mr Khaw) started to know we had a change in attitude. Is he our party member? Is he sure of our internal party matters?”

Many may feel some disappointment in Yaw for his reaction to the allegations and the WP for this sudden booting, but has anyone been inconvenienced or emotionally scarred by this other than Yaw’s immediate family and friends?  In what sense were voters ‘misled’ or ‘deceived’ since the WP, despite behaving erratically,  did not technically LIE about the whole incident?

The PAP were themselves silent about the rumours when they first emerged, yet pounced on the Opposition the moment they saw a crack in the WP ranks, like a vulture swooping in to burrow its face into a weeping gash on a wounded gazelle. The ruling party, of course, is no stranger to ‘about-turns’, some of which had more drastic effects on the fate of the citizenry as a whole, not just Hougang, than a fracas over some WP guy suspected of having a series of affairs within his own party.

In 2006, WP chief himself Low Thia Khiang accused the Government of ‘U-turning’ budget deficits into vote-getting give-outs, citing the 2004 increase in GST to 5% after New Singapore Shares were happily given out just before the 2001 GE. No U-turn stings more than allowing your donkey to nibble on a juicy carrot and then cutting its daily hay by half after the treat. In the same year, the Government took a ‘U-turn’ under pressure to lift the ban on 22 activists from entering the country  for the IMF meeting after initially barring 27, which was not so much a loosening of its nanny grip on protest laws but rather a one-off tendency to cave in to outsiders, while clamping down on locals for performing the exact same activity.

In 2003, Minister of State Chan Soo Sen said it was ‘Better to make a U-turn, than try to save face’, after the Government reversed a decision to raise fees at sports facilities. Catherine Lim, in her 1994 commentary ‘One Government, Two Styles’, lamented that the ‘consultative, consensual approach which the (Goh Chok Tong) Government had promised…is being abandoned in favour of the authoritarian style of its predecessors’,  with the ‘Catherine Lim Affair’ prompting Sumiko Tan to follow up with an article titled ‘Hard to Believe PM Has Made U-Turn in Open Govt Promise‘(20 Nov 1994, Sunday Review). In 1981, a ST Forum writer complained about the Ministry of National Development’s U-turn in reversing their decision to allow singles to use CPF to pay for HUDC flats right after the elections, ruining the hopes of many who already submitted applications.

Empty PAP promises, of course, is staple Opposition rhetoric. When it comes to ‘sudden U-turns’ then, Singaporeans have continued to support and endure the ruling party in spite of them being equally, if not more guilty, of flip-flopping on their policies, what more the WP for being a little temperamental on their treatment of Yaw Shin Leong.

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/16/khaw-boon-wan-hammers-wps-sudden-u-turn/feed/ 1 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/12/uob-staff-going-blackface/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/12/uob-staff-going-blackface/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:52:20 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6163 ]]> From ‘Seeing red over blackface photos’, 12 Feb 2012, article by Jennani Durai, Sunday Times

Several Chinese employees of United Overseas Bank have raised eyebrows online after posting pictures of themselves in ‘blackface’ at a Bollywood-themed staff dinner. Pictures of last Friday’s event at the Fairmont Hotel were posted on social networking site Facebook yesterday. At least three men are pictured with their faces painted black, presumably because the event was Indian-themed and Indians have darker skin.

‘Blackface’ is widely seen as racially charged, especially in the United States. It originated as a form of theatrical make-up for performers to act out caricatures of dark-skinned people.

…A Chinese reader, who e-mailed the pictures to The Sunday Times, said she found them extremely offensive. ‘It’s one thing to wear a traditional costume to a Bollywood- themed dinner, but another thing altogether to paint your face black,’ said the reader, who wished to remain anonymous. She said the pictures were offensive because they were ‘appropriating someone else’s ethnicity and treating it like entertainment‘.

And she was shocked at the captions and comments on the pictures, in which friends of the men said their get-up was ‘hilarious’. ‘All these people wouldn’t like it if a bunch of American employees went to a Chinese-themed dinner and put double-sided tape on their eyelids to make them single-eyelids,’ the reader said.

…Counsellor P. Dinesh said painting their faces black was ‘no different from referring to someone of Indian descent as ‘black’ which is thoroughly unacceptable in any Singaporean context‘.

Still others acknowledged that there was nothing malicious in the intent of the men, but that it was a poor decision.

Ms R. Yasotha, who works in publishing, said her first reaction was that the men had ‘clearly never had any Indian friends’. ‘They just wanted to have fun, so I’m not going to be up in arms about it, but it’s idiotic and juvenile,’ said the 28-year-old.

Dark Side of the Goons

One has to be careful about using colour references, or even shades of ‘blackness’, here.  The offensive minstrel show of the past was aimed at actual Blacks or African-Americans.  It also explains why there’s a ‘White Chicks’ movie but not ‘Black Chicks’.  Similarly, UOB’s cosmetic caricature at a BOLLYWOOD theme party is taken as a racial insult to, as what the reporter euphemistically states,  ‘DARKER’ skinned Indians. In fact, it’s not just ‘black’ that is deemed offensive to Indians like P.Dinesh in the above article, even describing some as ‘DARK‘ would get you in trouble.  On the other hand, the term ‘FAIR-skinned’ on a White person is not just an acceptable statement of fact anymore, but has become a universal compliment, even for non-Whites. The most successful Bollywood icons also happen to be ‘fairer’-skinned than what these guys were trying to depict anyway. It’s probably unfair to judge these guys as ‘never having had any Indian friends’. In fact, if your best friend happens to be Indian and even he finds Chinese ‘blackface’ funny, all the more reason for you to pull it off.

If you were mugged and asked to describe your assailant to the police and know for a fact that he has genuinely ‘black’ skin, but are uncomfortable with using ‘black’, is it then socially acceptable to refer to him as ‘dark-skinned’, when this could very well imply a very tan Chinese, or Filipino/Myanmese/Malay? How far can a non-Indian go, then, to make a spectacle without overdoing ethnic stereotypes? You can dress like an Indian, but not make your face up to look physically like one or even sound like one.   Companies shouldn’t hold a ‘Bollywood’ theme party, but rather a ‘Sari, Bindi and Dhoti’ costume party, which sounds as much fun as a Parents and Teachers Get-Together on Racial Harmony Day.

Some famous White actors have dolled themselves up to look like Indians in the movies, such as Sir Alec Guiness of Obiwan Kenobi fame as mystic Godbole in A Passage to India. (He also played an ARAB in Lawrence of Arabia) The quintessential Indian, Gandhi, was played by Indian/English/Russian Jewish thespian Ben Kingsley. Legendary comedian Peter Sellers poked fun at the Indian stereotype in 1968′s The Party. Mike Myers, obviously inspired by Sellers, ravaged Hinduism in The Love Guru despite keeping the colour of his face intact, but the movie was still allowed for screening here. From these examples and Robert Downey Jr’s critically acclaimed portrayal as a ‘Black’ soldier in 2008′s Tropic Thunder, it seems that even the West has ‘lightened’ up (hurr hurr) to anything resembling  ‘blackface’. Or it just means that you can get away with darkening your face for dramatic or satirical purposes if you’re a Hollywood actor, but not if you’re an ordinary person fooling around at a Dinner and Dance, whereby you’ll be accused of being culturally ignorant, ‘idiotic’ and ‘juvenile’. Would critics be less harsh if these jokers merely made their faces ‘dark brown’ ? Ironically, these guys may be wishing that they had painted their faces ‘blacker’, so that they would be less recognisable from the photo. They also wouldn’t be BLACKlisted if not for FACEbook.

A commenter on this blog highlighted a genuine celebrity ‘blackface’ which was not picked up by the media, when Glenn Ong charcoaled his face to look like the late King of Pop at a Mediacorp ‘Retro Bash’ event last year (Would he draw less flak for ‘whitening’ his face instead, white being the colour of the older Michael Jackson’s face?). A  familiar brand of toothpaste was also slammed for its depiction of blackface minstrels in the late eighties. Although the original ‘Darkie’ changed its name TWICE to DAKKIE and then the My Little Pony-sounding DARLIE as we know it today, the Chinese name remains, literally, Black Man’s Toothpaste, which has more racial intonations than its current English version suggests. Note how the ‘blackface’ logo was made ‘whiter’, when it’s not so much the original face (which to me looks more like a Black man than a White face painted black), but the name of the product that’s the problem.

The toothpaste itself is White

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/12/uob-staff-going-blackface/feed/ 18 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/11/no-samfoos-allowed-in-church/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/11/no-samfoos-allowed-in-church/#comments Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:31:48 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6148 ]]> From ‘One Catholic church says: Dressing like this is NOT OK’, 11 Feb 2012, article by Amanda Tan, ST

…The issue of church-appropriate attire was raised earlier this week in the media, after a parishioner, Ms Lisa Chew, from the Church of St Anthony in Woodlands, was approached on Jan 29 by a church warden who took issue with her outfit.

Ms Chew, a housewife in her 50s, said: ‘She tapped me on my shoulder, looked at my pants and said politely if I wore the same thing again, I won’t be allowed into the church.’

She was wearing a pink Chinese-style suit, or samfoo, which ended about 5cm above her ankles.

Mr Eric Alagan, her husband, 56, told The Straits Times: ‘If she wore a mini skirt, that’s a completely different matter. But this is traditional dress and it’s definitely appropriate for any function.’

After the incident, Mr Alagan, a Singaporean business consultant, wrote to Father Terence Pereira, the parish priest. He replied: ‘There is no mention of modesty or immodesty. We say appropriate for pants to be full-length.’

Still, Mr Alagan said: ‘I think that there must be guidelines in churches but they should be reasonable.’

Thou shall not play the samFOO in church

According to the Church of St Anthony’s weekly bulletin, you may wear skirts or dresses that end ’1 to 2 inches’ above the knees, but pants must end 1 to 2 inches above the ankles. Perhaps it’s not so much exposure of naked flesh but a matter of taste. I would probably get kicked out of the same church if I rolled up my jeans, even if I wore a pair of long socks to conceal my provocative ankles. Whether a samfoo is classy wear or not is open to interpretation, though traditionally you would expect to see more samfoo-wearers at a temple than a Catholic church. Or a Chinese restaurant. Ethnic dresses that are too hot to handle aside, some churches also ban spandex, and I’ve written enough on how attending service covered from head to toe doesn’t necessarily make you a good believer.

Here’s a quick history of the samfoo as a dress other than something worn by amahs and chambermaids: In the 1930′s samfoos were worn as SCHOOL UNIFORMS, deemed to be ‘neat and smart’ attire. Anyone looking at the picture below today would assume these were underpaid child-workers in a sweatshop.

School of Samfoo:Any wonder nobody's smiling?

In 1954, hem-line obsessed fashionistas referred to it as the ‘pyjama suit’, with these ‘above-the-ankle slacks’ becoming a popular day wear  for Chinese girls. In 1958, a ‘rock-n-roll’ samfoo-wearing Patricia Yong Thai Thai won the ‘Charity Princess’ pageant. Even Western models were taken by it; wearing the samfoo would make you the Lady Gaga of the era in an instant.

1950's blonde bombshell Martine in samfoo chic

There was even a whole pageant dedicated to the samfoo, the Malaysian ‘Miss Samfoo contest’ in the early sixties.  In 1967, it was introduced as the official uniform of China Airlines stewardesses , and in the 1970′s, some samfoos were so highly sought after that they were stripped right off the wearer by robbers. More recently, Sharon Au celebrated her comeback in the 2011 NDP clad in samfoo. Unlike the sexier cheongsam, a samfoo-wearer is thrust with the aura of long-suffering humility, motherliness and domestication, and trying to make the classic blouse and slacks combination hip again is like turning up at a cosplay event as a nun.

Although no purveyor of ladies’ fashion myself, I don’t see the samfoo making a comeback in the glamour circuit anytime soon. Even the aunties and ah-mas aren’t buying it anymore. And I can’t even look at one without thinking of the SBC classic ‘Samsui Women’.   Still, I don’t see anything wrong with wearing one to church. Just don’t be surprised if someone hands you a pile of laundry, or asks if you are a Chingay parade participant who came directly after a full dress rehearsal.

]]> http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/11/no-samfoos-allowed-in-church/feed/ 1 gdy2shoez samfoo2 samfoo http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/05/sumiko-tan-had-sharks-fin-soup-coming-out-of-her-ears/ http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2012/02/05/sumiko-tan-had-sharks-fin-soup-coming-out-of-her-ears/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:18:17 +0000 gdy2shoez http://everythingalsocomplain.com/?p=6127 ]]> From ‘ You’re what you eat’, 5 Feb 2012, article by Sumiko Tan, Lifestyle, Sunday Times.

…Growing up, I had shark’s fin soup coming out of my ears. At any one time, we’d have pots of it in the fridge where it would have turned into jelly and had to be heated up…While I didn’t dislike the dish – the fins are tasteless but the soup is flavourful – I developed something of a phobia for it.

Those days, no one batted an eyelid about eating shark’s fin soup. The Chinese have for centuries revered shark’s fin as a delicacy and it was served as a treat – a symbol of respect, honour and prosperity. Today, no one can escape the bad press surrounding it.

…I would never order a bowl of shark’s fin soup for myself…But if I am served a bowl of shark’s fin – like at my recent Chinese New Year’s Eve reunion dinner – I will take it.

I’ll take it because it is there. I’ll take it because the soup is tasty. I’ll take it because it will be a sheer waste of money to leave it untouched to be then thrown away. Mostly, though, I’ll take it because it will be rude to my host if I don’t.

…In my world view, animals – unless they have been domesticated – were created to be killed by humans for food. And if you’ve watched documentaries, you’ll know animals in the wild are vicious. They rip apart and kill each other all the time, whether for food or to protect themselves or their young. It’s all part of nature and the cycle of life, so why are some people so hung up about what animals might be ‘feeling’?

(See more of her article under Comments below)

Perhaps at some point in history sharks were as abundant as ikan bilis, that Sumiko could afford to ‘get sick’ of shark’s fin soup, but from my own experience encountering unsavoury comments from shark-lovers on a previous post, she’s asking for a brutal slugfest from eco-warriors all over the country.

Here are some nasty remarks from the Twitterverse:

Sumiko Tan – you might want to read a few books on ethical consumption before you excrete what’s passes for an opinion. I am happy to help.

Sumiko Tan the Apex predator

Who cares if you continue to eat sharks’ fins or not Sumiko tan! Waste of newspaper space. Completely skipped her musings n read abt fd.

Sumiko’s argument on the ethics of eating shark’s fin against the backdrop of inevitable cruelty in our domestication of animals for food seems sound, until she brought up the biblical concept of man’s ‘stewardship over the planet’, and how animals were CREATED to be killed for food. If animals were created solely for food, you would have headless, fat unfeathered birds without beaks, claws or wings to fend off attacks from hungry homo sapiens. You would have suckling pigs sprouting out of the ground like flowers in the spring, and crabs would be just be a couple of overgrown, non-functional pincers. Heck, you would just need to set up a hotpot by a river bank and fish would just leap happily into it.

If sharks were created to feed us, why the razor sharp teeth to chomp swimmers’ torsos off with? Why not do away with the body altogether and just have fins latching onto rocks like barnacles? Fins evolved to steer these mean killing machines, not to make guests happy at Chinese wedding banquets. Every appendage of ‘God’s creations’ was built for survival, whether it’s a tiger’s penis or a scallop’s adductor muscle, and only happen to be delicious (don’t know about tiger penis) because that’s nature’s way of motivating carnivores to prey on them for their own survival.

As omnivores with no compelling reason to depend on animal flesh as part of our diet, it’s hard to take an objective stand on eating other sentient beings without appearing heartless or hypocritical. Sumiko has chosen the former, and at the same time suggesting that people who shun sharks’ fin like monkeys’ brains are hypocrites if they so much as eat Chicken McNuggets. Meat lovers who take the ‘humans are entitled to eat other animals’ approach should rear an animal from birth and then personally slaughter it for dinner, and perhaps they would think twice about that ‘face on the plate’ before talking about animals’ ‘feelings’. Anti-shark’s fin lobbyists should state for the record what they wouldn’t consider cruel eating, before boring wedding guests with their depressing statistics on shark kills which they took off Discovery Channel.

I do not deny enjoying meat, but I don’t believe a cow willingly sacrificed itself for my sake. I ate an animal that another human killed, and the animal probably suffered more than it deserved to. Blood and guts were spilled, and perhaps somewhere out there a calf is yearning for its dead mother. I’ll be the first to admit that I won’t slit a chicken’s throat so that I may eat it, though I may turn into a vegan for a couple of weeks if forced to do so.  Better someone who savours every last drop of a depleting resource than one who eats it halfway and tosses it aside. So yes, Sumiko can have her soup and drink it and no one should stop her, though the looming soundtrack of ‘Jaws’ may play insidiously in the background while she’s at it.

Postscript: I’m floored by the amount of heated attention generated out something as trivial as Sumiko Tan eating shark’s fin soup. Many provocative opinions from both sides of the fence on this one, and here’s a summary of what has been said both by those against the practice and those who don’t mind the occasional delicacy.

1. Eating shark’s fin is cruel and eating a farmed animal is less so. Hell, you can’t even compare the two! I’ve seen the infamous Gordon Ramsay video myself of how sharks are sensationally dumped after being finned. Any argument on cruelty is assuming an anthropomorphic stance on how the victim might suffer under the circumstances. Because farming is industrialized and certified to conform to certain ‘minimisation of unnecessary suffering’ protocols, we usually assume that farmed animals have it easier.  Still, a chicken spends its entire life cooped up and ‘enduring’ hock burns and all sorts of disfigurements, whereas a shark spends most of it in the wild prior to its untimely, ‘agonising’ demise. Sure you can be ‘humane’ in treating and ultimately killing an animal for food, but only by our own standards of what suffering means to them. Those who rely on the ‘farmed animals suffer less’ argument should spend some time at a chicken farm/slaughterhouse and see for themselves before one takes their views seriously.

2. Sharks are endangered and if they go extinct, eventually we would too. There are other ways whereby we’re already indirectly destroying the oceans, by widespread overfishing, going on luxury cruises, or supporting oil companies with a history of spills. Shark conservation is just one of many other proactive deeds we should be doing, and we shouldn’t be obsessing over a ban on one product while ignoring the blight of other hazardous human activities like tourism, industrial sewage or global warming on no less relevant marine lifeforms. If we elevated the shark to deity status while allowing its prey to dwindle through our actions, it kinda defeats the whole purpose, does it.

3. Sharking finning is not ‘sustainable’ and wasteful. Farming isn’t exactly ‘green’ either.

4. We shouldn’t impose our beliefs on others. This is personal, of course, and if you think embarrassing someone at a banquet is worth it for ‘the greater good’, then by all means, as long as you can define what that ‘greater good’ is, and are well prepared to be challenged on the subject. A related hot button is about ‘personal choice’. The question, then, is whether we have sufficient grounds to stop someone from making one. Smoking, for example, is a personal choice, and its effects are immediate (second hand smoke), and you have an obligation to your fellow man to intervene. Can you do the same for someone ordering shark’s fin soup, say, your grandmother on her 88th birthday?

5. Not wasting food is not an excuse. What’s the alternative then, if you’re stuck at a wedding table with 9 shark-lovers and you’re the only one who doesn’t think it’s ‘such a big deal’? The only way to make such a rejection effective is a dramatic walk-out (not that the bride and groom would host another banquet any time soon anyway). Otherwise leftovers would just be  shared backdoors among the kitchen staff or nonchalantly dumped. In fact  if you’re a true eco-warrior you shouldn’t be wasting ANY kind of food, and better find a means of it being consumed or put to good use. Yes, even if you’re being served monkeys’ brains.

6. All animals are fair game. No it’s not fair game.  Animals are defenseless against our tools of capture. If not for technology we’d still be chasing rodents down burrows for dinner, not to mention catching trout with our bare hands. We eat large wild beasts today because we can, and part of the reason why shark fin eaters  annoy us is because they don’t really HAVE TO eat the damn thing, especially since it lacks any significant nutritional value, or taste for that matter.

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