Sumiko Tan feeling sorry for cyber meanies

Posted on November 25, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Cyber meanies’, 25 Nov 2012, article by Sumiko Tan, Sunday Lifestyle

…Being the unwitting target of online attacks can leave one bruised, devastated and bewildered. Even if these comments are not directed at you, reading them makes one feel sullied, somehow. Cyber meanies love people in the news (and those who report the news), but their vitriol is also aimed at strangers. The flaming usually starts when someone posts a comment that rubs a meanie the wrong way.

In the Singapore context, politics – in particular anything remotely supportive of the People’s Action Party government – is guaranteed to get you whacked. So are sympathetic views on, say, foreign talent or dolphins in captivity or eating shark’s fin. Pre-Internet, I never realised there was so much spite and venom around.

…So why do people become so horrible when they go online? Some, I suppose, are plain horrible anyway. It’s just that when you meet such folk in real life, you run a mile away from them, but on a forum, their post stares right at you like a personal mail. The anonymity of cyberspace is often cited as the primary cause of bad online behaviour.

…The most effective approach, in my book, is to ignore abusive posts. More than anger, the cyber meanie who penned them deserves your pity. Imagine this spite-filled person sitting in front of his computer thinking of ways to put down people he doesn’t even know, and in the most mischievous way possible. Sad, no?

So, feel sorry for how he’s filling his mind with evil thoughts and wasting his life, then switch off your computer, go for a run, read a good book, or have a meal with a loved one. Cyberspace may be one of mankind’s best inventions, but sometimes, the real world is safer, saner and nicer.

Many mean things and rumours have been said about Sumiko Tan online, and I wonder if this article was written in response to how bloggers have cyber-bullied her. Even the word ‘meanie’ is too kind, too cute, to describe flamers online. It’s the kind of term you use on Gargamel, Grumpy from Snow White or an evil Care-bear, not the pimply slouch behind the screen rubbing his hands in crackling laughter everytime he uncovers some dirt on a celebrity journalist.

She was the target of animal lovers when she defended eating sharks’ fin soup, and many have chided the quality and banality of her work, included myself on her repetitive whining about growing old. More recently, a certain Lynn from Lianain Films took offence at her rose-tinted take on Singapore’s Golden Age, to which Sumiko responded ‘Thanks for your e-mail and link to your interesting and well-written blog‘. Nevermind that Lynn used language such as ‘What kind of shitty logic is this?’ I suspect the woman didn’t even read the damn thing.

Any public figure, be they strangers to anonymous netizens or not, should be prepared to get ravaged online. Some choose to gather constructive feedback about what is being said behind their backs however nasty these may be, while others, like Sumiko, decide it’s better to just disappear from social media altogether. In 2009, she wrote that she would never get a Facebook account because she has better things to do with her life, like attempting a sucker punch article on cyberbullying for example. She can’t run away from the backhanded sympathy for the ‘evil-doers’ though. Trolls do read books, run or ‘have meals with loved ones’ too. And then some. In 2o05, she wrote a piece called ‘See no evil, blog no evil’, in which described cyberspace as ‘a malicious, nasty toxic place’. Well in many ways she’s right, especially when it comes to racist Facebook posts, tasteless insults and people losing their jobs, even lives, over tactless posts. 7 years on and she remains blissfully content with her Luddite ‘Pre-Internet’ ways, while the bloggers, those who trawl forums, the keyboard warriors ‘waste their lives’ away (Some actually earn advertising pittance from writing about her, so not all is wasted). In the meantime she dispenses yet another article about whether it’s ethical to check out her husband’s SMSes, or something trivial about birthdays, eye bags or wrinkles. And the people who find her boring and lame continue to add to her readership by banging on about how boring and lame she is.

But instead of trashing Sumiko again for being defensive against online critics, let’s acknowledge that running away from cyberspace and what strangers think of her is her prerogative, just like it’s your prerogative whether or not to read her column. There are worse things that could befall horrible, vile ‘evil-doers’ if they cast aspersions at public figures online. They could have their Facebook pics exposed like what Xiaxue did, or have Ministers issuing them lawyers’ letters for defamation. I doubt Sumiko would take legal action against anyone besmirching her reputation, though she would have no qualms making fun of her husband H for the whole world to see. She also doesn’t shy away from expressing her dislike for powerful women like Hilary Clinton. I suppose it’s only fair that not everyone is going to be too impressed by you either.

The article ended with a note that Sumiko’s column ‘would resume in January’, probably taking a break from naysayers, bosses and anyone looking forward to her articles just to take a crack at her for the attention (Guilty as charged). Here’s wishing her a peaceful troll-free Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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Filed under: 2012, Bloggers | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Lee Wei Ling doing burpees on planes

Posted on April 22, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘B747 days of flying, keeping fit’, 22 April 2012, article by Lee Wei Ling, Think, Sunday Times

…When I returned to Boston, I would fly from Singapore to Hong Kong, where I would have a layover of about an hour. I would always head for the staircases upon disembarkation, and walk up and down the stairs for as long as I could before I had to re-embark. I would get back into the plane all hot and sweaty, and quickly head for the toilet on board to wash up.

The next sector, Hong Kong to San Francisco, was long. I would usually wake up well before we arrived, and if I felt energetic enough, would do step aerobics on the narrow staircase connecting the lower and upper decks. If I went up and down just one step of the staircase, I would not get an adequate workout. But if I took two steps with each stride, the height was more than 25cm, it would be physically challenging, especially if I used only my legs to power me.

…The San Francisco to Chicago sector is one of those medium-distance flights, long enough to make one tired and bored, but too short for sleeping. Chicago Airport is a huge sprawling affair where one has to often walk a long distance from the arrival to the departure gates. At that point, I would often be too tired to look for a staircase.

Instead, I would get to the boarding area as quickly as I could and simply lie on the carpeted floor. The carpet was invariably thin and the floor hard, but I had no choice. The chairs in boarding areas are often designed with arm-rests, specifically to prevent people from stretching out on them.

…SIA now has all-business class Airbus A-345 flights that go direct from Singapore to Los Angeles or Newark. But alas, these airplanes have only one level and no stairs. And since these non-stop flights seem to go on forever, I would often find myself pacing the aisles or doing burpees at the spaces separating one section of the plane from the other. But burpees involve very unnatural movements and are very exhausting, so I cannot continue the exercise for more than five minutes, leaving me a lot of time to kill but mentally too tired to read.

The retirement of the Boeing 747 in SIA’s fleet reminds me of an earlier period in my life when I was fighting fit. I had an obsession with exercise that enabled my mind to overcome the fatigue my body felt and to push myself to the limit and beyond. Ten years on, SIA has upgraded its airplanes, but my physical fitness has deteriorated. I look back with nostalgia to the days of the 747s, more because of what my body could do rather than for the 747s themselves. I know that ageing is inevitable, but I resent it nevertheless.

I didn’t think it was possible to do burpees on a plane, but with the aid of a little alcohol, it seems you can, according to this ‘burpee’ blog. No doubt the humble burpee is a great cardio workout, but perhaps not so ‘on-the-go’ or discreet like climbing stairs.  With a little luck, the burpee could be the next planking, if only it wasn’t so damn exhausting. It sounds like a great idea for a flash mob, but wouldn’t last a minute to be of any impact. One burpee probably burns as many calories as the entire sequence of the Great Singapore Workout.

Other than on the aisles of planes, some burpee fans have tried to make the routine viral, like doing a few in front of a really old building.

Or EVERYWHERE.

Experts would tell you it’s not a proper burpee unless you end the sequence with a jump and hands raised, and I’m not sure what airline safety rules say on jumping on a plane. Overcoming stares to get the blood flowing on a long-haul flight is admirable, as most passengers, myself included, are inclined to just stand around, get stuff from overhead compartments unnecessarily, or wiggle their toes while watching 3 inflight movies in a row. If I ever saw the urgent need to do at least one burpee, I would pretend to drop a plastic spoon under my seat, get onto the aisle and burpee while retrieving it, with a valid excuse to raise my arms (in victory) too.

Lee Wei Ling’s behaviour around planes and airports may come across as eccentric, to put it nicely, even if for whatever medical reason step aerobics and lying on the floor are as essential for her as eating, though the underlying reason seems to be a ‘resentment’ (a euphemism for ‘fear’ perhaps) towards ageing; something that fellow columnist Sumiko Tan could relate to very well. I don’t know what the latter has been doing to stay in the pink of health, but it can’t be as remotely interesting as a member of a very prominent family in Singapore advocating squat-thrusting exercises in the weirdest places to stave off physical deterioration.

Hell, I feel like doing one now myself.

'Enough is enough! I've had it with these #&!* burpees on this @#%! plane!

Filed under: 2012, Fun and games | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Sumiko Tan thinks ageing sucks

Posted on February 19, 2012 by gdy2shoez

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'

Filed under: 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Funerals/Death | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Sumiko Tan had shark’s fin soup coming out of her ears

Posted on February 5, 2012 by gdy2shoez

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.

Filed under: 2012, Animal abuse, Local food, Weddings | Tagged: , , , | 44 Comments »

Expats sure know how to have fun

Posted on July 10, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘In a sea of foreigners’, 10 July 2011, article by Sumiko Tan, Sunday Times

…I was at the Kylie Minogue concert and one thought struck me: ‘These expats sure know how to hang loose and have fun’. It’s a common sight at concerts. Save for pockets of more demonstrative Singaporeans, it’ll be foreigners who look as if they’re really having a good time.

…At the Kylie gig, I was seated in a row of about eight people. They must have been Singaporeans because we all remained seated throughout. The most energetic thing they did was to wave the light stick, and even then feebly and self-consciously. Surrounding us, though, were hundred of foreigners – I am guessing Australians, Britons and Americans – who were partying away.  For a moment, I felt like a stranger in my own country.

…This feeling of dislocation surfaced again when I was shopping in Orchard Road… It’s the same at all my weekend haunts, whether it’s Ngee Ann City, Great World City or Little India or a suburban mall. I just feel outnumbered by foreigners. Singapore has changed.

Maybe the foreign fans attending the Kylie concert REALLY LOVE Kylie so much that they had to make a party out of it. Perhaps they were drunk, or they could just be tourists who paid good money to follow their idol on tour. And why ‘Americans, Australians or Britons’? What about Canadians, Spaniards or even the French? Do Americans even listen to Kylie? In her more than 20 years of showbiz, she has had only TWO top ten US Billboard hits (Locomotion, Can’t Get You Out of my Head). Sumiko’s selective observation doesn’t say much about EXPATS being fun loving in general, especially since there are supposedly more than a million foreigners lurking among us. I’m sure they’re those who’d prefer to stay at home and watch TV or walk the dog, instead of hanging around Clarke Quay watching EPL,  fooling around with local women or joining conga lines outside Ion Orchard. So in her midst of appearing victimised by this deluge of foreigners into our beloved homeland, Sumiko has inadvertently committed the sin of double-stereotyping here. One, foreigners are party animals who know how to enjoy life and get lots of sex. And two, Singaporeans are boring as hell.

But the general impression that I get from her piece is how ‘Tell me something I don’t already know’ it all is. There’s nothing surprising about bumping into foreigners in major shopping malls, which are ‘tourist attractions’ after all, or at enclaves like Holland Village where expats reside, doing something most locals wouldn’t dream of doing: Sitting out in the hot sun people-watching. Suburban malls still maintain a distinctive local, though not entirely palatable, flavour. Personally, the only time when I would feel out of place in this country, when the infiltration is omnipresent, would be something as mundane as taking the MRT, which Sumiko fails to mention here. If nothing is done to curb the influx, it’ll reach a point where MRT commuters would evolve their own separate pidgin language just to survive in train carriages, in addition to developing adaptive skills of slinking past giant backpacks, filtering out harsh body odours or dodging pickaxes and other construction tools which workers bring on board. Feeling out of place is fine as long as our alien population behaves. The problem which Sumiko hints at but doesn’t expand further, is foreigners who screw things up; beating up taxi drivers, cheating at casinos, spray painting MRT trains, leaving their mess about or letting their kids piss into dustbins mistaking them for pissing wells back in their godforsaken village.

Filed under: 2011, Concerts, Foreign workers, Fun and games, Music/music videos, Orchard Road, Shopping malls, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sumiko Tan is a naggy Tiger wife

Posted on May 29, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Call me a Tiger Wife’, 29 May 2011, article by Sumiko Tan, Sunday Times

…Just 10 months into my marriage and I’m afraid I’m turning into a Tiger Wife.

…I want him (the husband) to eliminate the fatty, salty and sweet bits in his diet because I want him to be healthy. I don’t want him to ride a motorbike because it’s unsafe. I don’t want him to eat durians because it makes his breath stink. Besides, the fruit is very high in calories and I’ve always had a phobia that there is a link between eating too many durians and a stroke.

…Was I being unreasonable? Am I turning into that most reviled of household creatures, The Naggy Wife?

…I nag because I care for him and want what’s good for him. I asked him the other day if he thought I was too bossy and fierce. No, he said, you’re you. Besides, you’re cute when you’re cross.

No durian-loving husband should make the mistake of arguing with his wife using science and logic; that there are many other ways of getting a stroke, not just from eating durians but from stress-induced hypertension for example, which is more likely the case if you’re living with a naggy ‘Tiger wife’. Of course there’s a name for husbands who find something charming about their wives’ naggy dominance and ridiculous expectations: Masochists. That someone like Sumiko should display such tigress traits is no surprise, and kudos to H for being what appears to us as all monkish and calm about a situation which would make most men dial a spousal abuse hotline in a jiffy. Of course, just because one’s husband gets sexually aroused by his wife’s temper-throwing is no reason for her to get away with it all the time. Sharpen your claws too often and they’ll turn brittle and break.

A younger Sumiko may have aspired to be a Tigress herself, as suggested in a 1986 piece celebrating the Tiger women of the world (Fascinating females of the species, 2 Feb 1986, ST), among whose ranks include Emily Bronte and, strangely enough, Marilyn Monroe. Being fiercely independent and having successful careers aside, the term ‘Tigress’ is itself rather open to interpretation by both halves. In today’s context, it seems that most men are more than happy to ascribe this quality to their spouses than the spouses themselves, if only to create the impression of subservience, generosity and loyalty, the very qualities which make married men attractive to other women. As a male myself, my advice to Sumiko is that you can play tigress all you want, but keep a lookout for pussycats nuzzling against your husband’s legs.

Filed under: 1980s, 2011, Marriage, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sumiko Quek sounds funny

Posted on February 20, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘What’s in a surname’, article by Sumiko Tan, 20 Feb 2011, Sunday Times

…When I got married last year, the thought of becoming Sumiko Quek never figured. For one thing, I was getting married, not being adopted. Why was there a need to replace my family name? For another, the new combination doesn’t have a pleasant ring. ‘Tan’ has a nice, weighty, finality to it. ‘Quek’ sounds too lightweight, unfinished and (let’s be honest now), even funny.

…Or you could go the hyphenated way, which quite a few Singaporean professional women have done – use a hyphen to link your surname with his (her husband’s). But I’ve always found this combination a bit clumsy. I can’t tell which is the woman’s surname and which is the man’s, and most hyphenated names are hard on the tongue and the ear, not to mention a mouthful.

There are even couples who create a new name out of blending their surnames which they then both share, but the results are often weird – in my case, it might be something along the lines of Qtan, Tuek, Tanek, Qutan? Ridiculous.

…There are more important things in a marriage than getting fussed up over a surname.

To say that people are emotionally attached to their surnames is an understatement, and it’s only natural for Sumiko to find the Quek combination funny, just as her hypothetical namesake Sumiko Quek would find switching her surname to ‘Tan’ funny. The fact is neither of us, husband or wife, would have it any other way, having developed our identities around our names all our lives. Unless of course, you’re the type who marries just so that you can discard your Asian heritage and proudly adopt a Western moniker to be addressed like an ang mor e.g. MRS  Stephanie Tan Williams, only to resurrect the Chinese element by naming your child Alex Williams-Tan not that it’s an obligation but because, well, anything Pan-Asian is cool. Which raises the question of what would happen if two people with hyphenated names get married. You’d probably end up with a generation of children whose names on their ICs possess more hyphens than their full addresses have digits and symbols.

Hyphenated names, if carefully selected, confer an aura of dignity to the user, implying a stern devotion to family and tradition and acts as a signal to philandering men to back off.  A hypenated name like Lee-Lau, Wee-Wong or Tay-Tan,  automatically triggers a Madam-like image (and those I’ve known are indeed referred to as Madams) in my head; someone middle-aged, experienced, strict, devoted to family, cooks well and wears thick dowdy glasses. The problem with such names, other than their innate confusion,  is that nobody will ever address you as a Miss because such hybridisation means you’re obviously married, unless you’re truly single and your parents had a really sick sense of humour. The hyphen, thus, is one ambiguous punctuation mark that parents, or wives, should never take lightly. You’re also unlikely to find such wishy -washiness among enterprising, powerful women, who either keep their maiden names (Ho Ching, not Lee Ching) or embrace their spouses’ completely (Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher). But then again, unlike Chinese surnames, there are hidden incentives to switching a Western surname from something like Mary Poppins  to Mary Ford or Mary Washington because of the latter’s unique, historical associations with powerful dignitaries. Here, unless you’ve been cursed all your life with a misspelt name or a suggestive one that affects your career because your prospective employers spend more time laughing at it than recognising your skills, there’s really no motivation to change from a Tan to a Quek, or a Wong to a Lee other than blind adherence to an ancient tradition.  Most men wouldn’t care anyway, and accept that even if their wives do switch, it’s only out of temporary convenience, and where appropriate, e.g. booking a restaurant or hotel room under Mr and Mrs Quek (Not Mr Quek and Ms Tan), Christmas with the Queks, attending parents-teacher meetings as Mrs Quek etc. As for Sumiko, she should be glad that keeping it as ‘Tan’ wouldn’t earn her the unfortunate honorific of ‘Madam’, as how it was in the old days (see letter below dated 10 May 1932)

 

Filed under: 1930s, 2011, Marriage, Names, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Someone text Sumiko, please

Posted on November 28, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Why don’t they text?’, 28 Nov 2010, article by Sumiko Tan, Sunday Times

The thing that I’ve noticed since getting married is that I’m getting a lot fewer SMSes these days. Naturally one reason is that I’m now living with the person who used to send me tonnes of text messages.

…I’ve not had a single SMS from anyone of them (single, male friends) since, and it’s a cause of some hurt, chagrin and sadness for me.

…It’s not just my single, male friends who have given me a wide berth. It’s become a bit awkward with some single, female friends, too.

…So, K, Y and M…Text me. Or I’ll be texting you.

There are a few reasons why single men, or rather anyone, wouldn’t want to SMS someone like Sumiko Tan. One, because the most sordid details of your text might be bitched about till kingdom come on the Sunday Times. Secondly, as Sumiko rightly pointed out, is that single men tend to take a step back out of respect for a woman’s husband, an evolutionary gesture rooted in our alpha-male dominated primate ancestry that essentially says ‘You can have her, she’s yours’. In fact, allowing Sumiko to revel in marital bliss is what true friends would do. I mean, who would want to risk intruding upon someone’s throes of passionate lovemaking and suffer the blame of unsuccessful insemination?  Thirdly, there are probably single men who harbour secret crushes nursing silent devastation upon realising they had feelings for her only after she got married. Lastly, and the more plausible reason considering that we’re in the holiday season, is that people are probably just busy and you, my dear, are just taking it too personally. Complaining about friends for not texting you is like accusing your blanket of not providing enough warmth on a cold day when you’re just not covering yourself properly with it.

Still, it boggles the mind to have a married woman with an established career peppering the Sunday paper with a tantrum of stifled adolescence, suffering from SMS anxiety like a baby missing the sound of her rattle. Seriously, there are other ways of reaching out to civilisation, like email, calling, popping over for Christmas, wedding dinners? The unspoken rule is that the ball is in the court of the busier newlywed, but now that you’ve exposed your SMS-shy friends with an impulsive article that just makes things more strained and awkward, it looks like nobody will want to be on the other side to receive what you toss at them.

Filed under: 2010, Marriage, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

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