The Pain of Underachievement

For those readers out there who were wondering where I was for the last 2 months, I have been to the jungle and back in May, watched the World Cup in June and gone back to school at the end of June. Now it’s back to the grind and as football diehards anticipate the beginning of the new season for the various leagues in Europe, I will be keenly following the trials and tribulations of my beloved Newcastle Utd as they seek to undo the damage wrought by that jerk whose name should not be uttered. Keep you all posted soon.

Now I will continue my ranting about my little trip to Hong Kong. After my last visit which practically sucked big time, I was pleasantly surprised by what has changed since I last went there. The airport (HKIA) is as good as Changi and is certainly able to give our airport a run for its money. And the standard of service is even better than the crap kind you often get in Singapore retail outlets. I must say that Hong Kong sales execs are so glib and attentive to detail that they really impressed me with their service. No wonder the government is anxious to raise service standards in Singapore. The hellish days of snobbish sales staff in Hong Kong look dead and buried. In any case, wifey bought tons of clothes and of course I was honorary porter for about well the entire duration of the trip. The MTR system too is impressive and it is really easy to get around Hong Kong. Taking this little trip to Hong Kong has really opened my eyes as to the kind of competition we are now facing for the tourist dollar. Even we still do not wake up from our complacency, we will definitely be left behind.

Dear friends, if you were wondering what happened to me for the last week or so, I have not gone into hiding after the Toon got turned over at OT. I was away in Hong Kong for a few days and boy am I astonished at the strides that this SAR has made the last time I was there.
I can still vividly remember my first trip to Hong Kong, perhaps I did not consult the almanac then because I went in December and boy was it freezing cold. My butt almost got solidified. To compound a most wretched situation, the PSI then must be near dangerous levels because I came down with a cold that afflicted me for the whole trip. It really sucked.
So it was with a sense of dread that I looked at the weather forecast this time round… cold, freezing… about 10-15 degrees celsius. But this time, that evil flu bug ain’t getting me down. This trip to Hong Kong was fulfilling not just in the gastronomical sense but it also opened my eyes as to why we need to be on our toes all the time.
First, the gastronomical bit. For weeks before the trip, I have been pestering my wife about the need to satisfy my desire to eat roasted goose, which is hardly found in these parts. The only ones I have eaten are in some Peach Garden restaurants during lunches and I never forgot those succulent pieces dripping with the juices sealed in by those charcoal fires… yum. This time, I got to satisfy my craving on the very first day in Hong Kong and I was totally taken aback by their portions. Unlike stingy hawkers in Singapore who slice the meat so thinly, here you get huge thick slices of meat on a mountain of rice which of course I could not finish. I could almost feel the weird stares of those fellas in the restaurant.. they must be thinking what’s wrong with this man who cannot even finish his plate of rice? i was thinking to myself: either Hong Kong men have big appetites or the rice and goose must be dirt cheap. What the heck it does not really matter, I got to eat my roasted goose. Frankly speaking, the guide book by 8 days gave us lots of tips and we quite slavishly visited some of those places. We went to the dim sum place recommended by 8 days and to our horror, it was still packed at 11 am. What??? And it was one of the saddest parts of my eating journey in Hong Kong. After washing my cutlery in the bowl with the hot tea, we settled down and my better half ordered a fish head for ME! For the life of me, I have never even eaten parts of a fish remotely close to its head and now I must finish this fish head. Apparently she misheard the waitress about fried fish or something. So I braced myself as I began to dissect that head in front of me, trying to dig out whatever meat there was. Some people say the head is the best part, but after this I beg to differ, why do I want to spend so much time picking through bones, jaws, skins, eye sockets and the like to get to the meat. Blah. After that, we ordered the lotus paste buns, which really were as good as they were recommended in the guide. The secret I think was the salted egg yolk inside which added a most unique flavour to an otherwise boring filling. I am no fan of lotus paste, but this changed my perception. Lastly, we ordered chee cheong fun with prawn filling and it was really good, quite unlike the Singaporean version. After waiting like eternity for the har gau and siew mai, we decided it was time to leave and quite simply this sojourn into a traditional tea house ended in a most unsatisfying dim sum experience, something we decided to make right before the end of the trip and we ended up eating dim sum in the airport before our flight home and that set us back 40 bucks!
We also bought some egg tarts from this place frequented by former governor Chris Patten who claimed that the tarts were to die for. We bought four and the crust I must say was very different from the ones in dim sum. It was hard, not fluffy or flaky but the filling was rich, definitely not those cheap skate types. That’s about all I can say at this point on the eating journey which you can tell isn’t much. Will keep you all posted on the next lap, the shopping experience and the lessons it holds for us.

Today is a day I don’t even want to think about, going back to school and getting derided in the face by the swarms of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manure and Chelski fans in the staffroom and classrooms. Crap. Early in the moment, my colleague who is a die hard Manure fan was grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire Cat and in the canteen, two colleagues, one supporting Manure, the other supporting Pool were trading insults. Of course, they did not spare having a jibe at my pathetic little team. Absolute crap and rubbish they served up. I just shrugged my shoulders and said never mind, it’s ok. Your turn will come… but deep inside I know based on the performance Souness’ team, there was no way of overhauling any team for that matter. All the relegation threatened sides are coming into form and we are sinking faster than a lead magnet in a cesspit. Blah.
300 fans apparently demonstrated outside the stadium at the end of the match, I just wondered why not 30 000? Maybe the rest are just sick and tired of all the excuses and unmistakeable arrogance of Souness in his post-match interview. And of course, Clark and Shearer have to come to say they are behind the manager. That will not save you your pathetic little job Souey.
And Lyndon, my fellow pundit has an interesting reason as to why NUFC players are dropping like flies. Check out the comment. And condolences to Pool for not getting anything. My heart goes out to you, because nothing pleases most than to see Manure beaten, by any team… Ha.
And I am keeping my fingers crossed for the axe to fall soon on the thick Scottish neck. It’s really about time.

Hullo folks, after enduring a most ‘relaxing’ in-camp ever, I am finally back in the embrace of civilisation, away from the green camouflage uniform and quite appetising army rations. Truly the Singapore Armed Forces has come a long way at least in the area of providing edible rations to its soldiers. I can still recall my National Service days in the 1990s when the provision of rations was left to a contractor which served up trash and half-baked army cooks who gave us chicken wings once a week. That was really the highlight of lunch on Wednesdays. Now it’s a different story man. First day saw us having chicken chop with fries and mushroom cream soup… a spread totally unheard of in the 1990s and the staff even greeted us. Not like those grumpy cooks who have been rumoured to boil coffee in army socks for people they hate.
Anyway life in this reservist passed quite uneventfully and I was so geared up for football action on 18 Dec and I was eagerly waiting to watch the West Ham v Toon game but my better half said no no… the football must take a back seat to her Korean comedy series.
So I have to resort to watching the match unfold on the computer on Soccernet via Gamecast. And our saviour Owen scored a brilliant hat-trick against a quite formidable Hammers side who made it difficult for us. I actually caught the game later and boy the Toon really played horribly. We will get slaughtered at Anfield on Boxing Day if we do this again. Lyndon, I hope you won’t blame Owen if he scores at the Kop end. I think he will made Rafa regret the day he sold him to Madrid. Also I would like to extend my sympathies to Pool for not winning the World Club trophy. But sometimes it’s really luck. Something the Toon have in short supply.
So let’s endure a few days more before the Boxing Day fixtures kick start the post X mas programme.
That’s all from me, catch you later ok?

Dear Friends,
I will be trading my civilian wear for jungle green for 12 days beginning on 5 December. I will be left in the god-forsaken jungles of Singapore and sweating it out for my country. As Melvin Tan the pianist has opened up a Pandora’s box of questions about National Service, it is time again for us to commit ourselves, no matter how unwilling, to our annual rite of passage of reservist duty. I know I cannot bear to leave civilian life behind for 2 weeks, but I will try my best acclimatise to army life and I also promise not to take any incriminating photos and put them on the blog so as to undermine national security. I definitely would not want MINDEF calling me up to take down stuff.

So that’s it folks, it is with a heavy heart and body that I will be going into the deep dark bowels of rural Singapore, but I will emerge again on 17 Dec. Till then…

Today is 10 October. 94 years ago, a mutiny broke out in a garrison in Wuchang, a town on the Yangtze River. Pro-republican troops seized control and this Wuchang mutiny led to a wave of similar incidents throughout the country against the Qing autocratic regime which had ruled China for the last 267 years. By February 1912, the last emperor, Pu-yi abdicated and brought an end not only to the Qing dynasty but also 2100 years of monarchical rule in China since the time of Qin Shihuang, the First Emperor.
And of course, 10 October is also the national day of the Republic of China, or Taiwan the renegade province, as the Communist government calls it. The Taiwanese still date their calendar from the year the Republic was formed. So, today is effectively the 94th year of the Chinese republic.
Sorry for this gibberish, just can’t help but comment on a very poignant date in history.

Today is 1 October, for many of us who no longer belong to the 6-12 age group, Children’s Day no longer means much to us. Those over 12 and under 19 can look forward to Youth Day. Adults only have Fathers’ and Mothers’ Day to look forward to. Strange that there isn’t any day to commemorate one’s journey into adulthood. For many people, the 21st birthday holds immense significance.
But today is also a day of grave significance for 1.4 billion Chinese in China and Taiwan. 56 years ago overlooking Tiananmen Square with hundreds of thousands chanting his name, Mao Tse Tung (Mao Zedong) proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China. He said, ‘The Chinese People have risen!’ By that time, the Nationalists or Kuomintang (Guomindang) government, rent by factionalism, exhausted by 8 long years of fighting the Japanese and terminally weakened by spiralling hyperinflation was already in its death throes. Those who could flee have already left mainland China for Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek was to re-establish his regime on Taiwan and for years would talk about reconquering the mainland.
Truly History is full of the ‘what ifs?’ If the Japanese did not invade China in 1931, would Chiang have crushed the communists? Would the Kuomintang regime have survived? Would China be a democratic republic today?
Sometimes we all should think about this.

Recently the government charged three individuals under the Sedition Act for stoking the fires of racial misunderstanding on their blogs. The very fact that what individuals write on their blogs is no longer free from the prying eyes of our omnipotent government is very sobering. I mean sure those bums were really asking for trouble doing that kind of thing in our multi-racial society. After ten zillion years of National Education, countless campaigns and 40 long years of nation-building, surely some message/propaganda would have diffused into the cranium of those numskulls. So now we have three very scared bloggers in a deep cesspit and one million other bloggers fearing for the worst. Is it now time to do some self-censorship?
Surely blogging is an extremely carthatic activity if one’s energies are channelled properly. But sometimes things can really get out of hand. Just today when I was browsing through the Chinese newspapers, another piece of news involving teenage bloggers caught my eye.
Apparently there were several cases highlighted. In one case, students from a JC were suspended from school for a few days for slamming the Principal and Vice-Principal on their blog. In another case, comments were found on a girl’s blog which criticised a teacher (apparently a spinster, loosely translated as old hag, old virgin in Mandarin) for being overly fastidious when she chided the student for having a skirt which was too short. The student said that the old hag is always jealous of sweet young things. In another case, a teacher from a secondary school in West Coast commented that he had been hurled vulgarities on a student’s blog and that student even cursed and swore at the teacher’s family (you know what I mean). Another student also hacked into the school learning portal and posted obscenities there. Blogging is an ubiquitous activity among teenagers, but there is a lesson here.
Think twice before you do something naughty. The long arm of the law can catch you if it wants to. A lawyer interviewed reiterated the fact that teachers can actually file a lawsuit if there is a case for defamation. So students, before you launch your character assassination of your ‘favourite’ teacher/principal, think long and hard. Don’t throw away your life because of this.

As I am still stuck in my puny existence as the moulder of the nation’s future, my wife decided a few months back that she finally had enough working for some neo-colonialist firm, the kind which pays you peanuts and expects not to get monkeys. Over the course of five years in that British firm, my wife has constantly asked them to make their package more attractive and already they are eons behind many other companies with better staff benefits. So after putting in 60 months of her youthful existence perpetuating neo-colonialist control in the market research sector, my wife decided to take a plunge to start a business. That did not really come as a surprise to me because she has always harboured the ambition of becoming in her own words a ‘millionairess’ with hotels all over the world. Now she has finally taken the first step towards world domination. In the meantime, I will continue to hold the fort when she pursues her dream of striking it out in the corporate jungle. The only difference now of course is that you no longer work for others but yourself.
So, what’s the nature of the business? She has now collaborated with one of her ex-colleagues in the same neo-colonialist firm, together with two partners to open a watch shop (Red Army Watches) which sells watches made in Russia, Germany and Lithuania, depending on the brand and line of the watches. Before you say, ‘Can we trust the ex-commies in watch-making?’ let me reassure you that the watches use Swiss movements and are fully mechanical. Mechanical watches, for the uninitiated, are often favoured over quartz watches because of the intricacy of their movements which can actually be quite enthralling.
What really makes me a fan as well is because the watches actually carry with them a piece of Russian and Soviet history. Drawing inspiration from key events in Russian and Soviet history, the watch designers have come up with a series of watches which capture the spirit of the times and are pleasing on the eye.
Some of my personal favourites are the Tsars of Russia, the CCCP (commemorating the 80th anniversary of the first Soviet Constitution, the Trans-Siberian Railway which stretches over 9700 km) Others commemorate the achievements of the Soviet Union in space exploration - such as the Sturmanskie, a watch worn by Yuri Gagarin in his maiden foray into outer space. Do not assume that the Yankees have all the bragging rights, the Soviets were up there with them until the USSR imploded in 1991. For hot-blooded males who love military themes, there are a whole series dedicated to the airforce (the Aviator series), the naval submarines (K-3) and Red October, which simply looks gorgeous. Other Russian icons like the North Pole, the Polar Bear, the River Volga and the vast expanse of Siberia are also immortalised in a number of stunning timepieces.
I have already told myself that I would get one of those. Since I teach History, why not wear it as well?
So to all you folks out there eager to own a piece of History and learn more about watches, which I am trying to everyday now, come visit the shop at Wisma Atria, #01/02-03 and immerse yourself in the world of Russian horology.
In the meanwhile, I will act as the chauffeur and delivery man whenever I can to support my wife in her mission to take over the corporate world… Hahahaha!!!