Shock Reversal of Fortune

The Flyer, Singapore's answer to big wheels everywhere has been put in reverse by a bevy of Feng Shui masters who approached the operators of the Flyer to ask that it turn the other way.

The Flyer originally revolved so that it rose to face the business district and went down overlooking the sea. The geomancers argued this was taking good fortune away from the city and have convinced the wheel's management to reverse the rotation as it sits on the perfect site to pick up the good qi (energy) flowing into Singapore, but it was going in the wrong direction. The Flyer was going against the sun and taking fortune away from Singapore.

Flyers now experience a view starting with the beaches and housing estates in the east and culminates with a vista of the business centre.

The AP article dryly notes that "despite being a modern city, Singapore is a largely ethnic Chinese nation, where traditions still hold sway". No kidding. I suppose we should feel lucky they didn't ask to be moved to the left by 6 feet.

iPhone Marketing

My pre-order of an iPhone from SingTel is moving along. They sent me an update e-mail the other day. Well, I say e-mail, there was no text, just a single, stupid graphic file as an attachment which just throws petrol on the fire of my disdain for SingTel's marketing prowess.

Their website is such a cacophony of offers, special offers, circular links and footnotes it's about as useful as taking LSD and discussing astrophysics with Paris Hilton. Anyway, the non-email:

iPhone 3G coming soon

Hello,
First, SingTel brought you the best in coverage. [sic] And now we bring you the Apple iPhone 3G.

We know you're keen to hear more, this is just a quick note to say that we have not forgotten about you.

As you are registered, we will let you know very soon how you can be the first in line to collect your new iPhone!

We will give priority to customers who have registered, at this stage registration is still open but we may not be able to keep this open much longer.

If you have friends who may be interested, they can register now at www.singtel.com/iphone

I will email you next week with more details about how you can get ready for your new iPhone.

Like you, I can't wait to get mine. Watch this space!

With best regards
Wong Soon Nam
Vice President - Consumer Marketing

From this I understand that this veep is fond of exclamation marks and is getting his iPhone first while the rest of us are all somehow going to be "first in line". Still no pricing (I'm expecting over S$1,000 (£372) for the 16GB model) or launch date. I guess I just keep watching out for more such e-mail misuse.

Beijing 08

For reasons that make me sound particularly curmudgeonly, I don't pay any attention to the Olympics. It's nothing to do with China, I haven't watched any games since at least Barcelona (1992) or perhaps Seoul (1988). It's a shame because I applaud the individual sporting excellence but cannot abide the rampant nationalism and commercialism. Thus, my knowledge so far of the Beijing games is limited to the terrorism, crime and ridiculous re-education of the populace stories.

Singapore have a small team (26 Olympians) at the games and have declared they expect to win 1 medal, which is either over or under ambitious, depending upon your perspective. Singapore has yet to win a gold in any games with Howe-Liang Tan's silver in the 77kg weightlifting at the 1960 Rome Games the country's only Olympic medal to date. Table tennis star Li Jia-Wei, placed fourth in Athens, is the top local medal prospect.

If underdogs are your thing, you could try rooting for the countries with only one athlete such as the Republic of Nauru, the world’s smallest island nation at only 8.1 square miles. It is located northeast of Australia in the Micronesian South Pacific. Their sole Olympic participant is Itte Detenamo in the weightlifting competition. Go Nauru!

NDP 08

I wasn't mad keen to go the the National Day Parade 2008. I had an offer of 2 tickets for myself and the Merlioness but she had other commitments and the real fun from such events is the snipping cynical chit-chat with a soul-mate. Going alone sounded like a barrel of laughs without the laughs. What tipped the decision was when I mentioned I might go and the locals reacted with amazement that I had manage to chope tickets (where was I getting them from?); it's a lottery, literally. You apply in advance and only a few get tickets, which are then valuable and can be (illegally) traded or sold on eBay. That was it; in the interests of investigative journalism, I had to go.

The NDP is a stage show at Marina Bay (where the Merlion is). A fixed seating stand looking out into the bay with a huge floating pontoon as the stage. Since the show includes a major firework show and the event is pitched as a national birthday party, the whole downtown area becomes one big party and is the most crowded it ever gets. I was warned that getting away at the end would be difficult and that security would be tight.

Undeterred, I turned up reasonably on-time (you were asked to be seated at 4:45pm) but the huge queues, poor signage for ticket holders and then a full baggage X-ray and magnetic pat-down made entry to the stands a +20min trudge with some less-than good natured sharp elbowing from the 5' 2" Chinese grannies (I was shoved off the path at one point as she caught my natural shift of weight in a move that would have drawn praise from a Judo sensei). No canned drinks allowed in and the tickets said not to bring big bags as they would slow down inspection.

You were also encouraged to wear red so you get whatever red T-shirt people have in their closet. Ex McDonalds uniforms, corporate events, and some made for the event. One chap had "Jesus is here, all of the time" which was neatly balanced by the lady 2 rows in front of me who just had "Satan" written on the back. We all ended up wearing red anyway because 15mins in, it started to drizzle, persistently and sooner or later, everyone was wearing the thin, red, plastic disposable rain cape from the free goodie bag.

It was free seating and as I was at the tail end, I was high up at the back (a better location in my opinion). Stage has huge video screens and music and odd videos were already playing to keep the crowd amused. I pulled out the iPod and a book.

The show started, literally, with a few fire bangs and the 5 MC's dressed in bright, individual coloured jump suits arrived at the front by quad-bike. All the MCs throughout spoke only English and tried to get the lacklustre crowd going with sectored cheering contests. I swear we were only a hair-breadth away from "Give us an S!".

Entry included a sponsored Goodie bag and this was a good time for a rummage; I was thirsty. Full inventory was:

An outer paper carrier bag with shoulder strap and inner pocket with postcard. Inner nylon bag containing:
Carton of Isotonic drink.
Carton of Soya milk.
Plastic bottle of Newater.
Bag of Hot & Spicy Prawn Crackers.
Bag of Cracker Crunch mixed nuts.
Halls Mini Mints (2of).
Baseball cap, white/red with NDP08 logo and battery plus flashing stars lights.
Inflatable hand glove (with battery and lights).
Singapore flag (8x6") on short stick with detachable desk stand.
100-page discount coupon book.
Temporary tattoos (Singapore flag, "Shine Singapore", and 2 lines of stars).
Plastic rain cape.
Packet of tissues.
Packet of Wet wipes.
Bottle of AXE brand universal oil (for colds and headaches).
Magnetic bookmark / fridge magnet (with instructions for flattening Tetrapak cartons on the back)
1 White paper clip.
1 Red paper clip.
Plastic rubbish bag
Lucky Draw Ticket for "Bag It to Win It"

At this point, the MCs asked us to pull out the plastic "spinner" from under our seats (image 10" petals around a shaft which unfurls into a flat flower head). Because most were red with some white ones, if everyone held them up and spun then, they spelled out the event's slogan "Shine Singapore" for the camera on the helicopter.

Then the show proper got going. About 30mins in, it would become a live TV broadcast to 18 nations but first some warm-up acts.

1. Music/dance routine with massed school choir accompanying wheelchair+able-bodied dance partners. Mainly jive steps given the limited hand-hand contact points.
2. Music/dance by massed crowd of people dressed in waistcoats that made them look like the guys with paddles that park aeroplanes.
3. Pair of paragliders (red chutes) vaguely hover stage left.

Then the show cut live so insert a load of MCs shouting about cheering and spinning the flower things.

4. Song
5. Bayshow on the water: Jet skis dragging wake boarders, then Jet skis dragging stunt kites, then 2 F1 power boats, them final parade of all of them
6. MPs arrive all dressed in white, take seats.
7. Ten skydivers from helicopter (about 2000ft) so pretty quick, for soft landing on front of stage. Pretty good with only one wipe-out landing ("he's Okay" says the MC but he'll get a right thumping from his mates back at base).
8. Military band with rifle twirling, then formed into characters "NDP08" and stayed there.
9. Inflated plastic balloons released at top of stands with sector race to get them to the MCs at the stage.
10. Song and dance: "Home" translated and sung in Tamil.
11. Ministers arrive, take seats
12. Song and dance: "My Island Home" sung this year in Mandarin
13. Prime Minister arrives in white Merc at front.
14. Song and dance: "We Are Singapore" sung in English
15. President arrives in (same) white Merc, takes acknowledgment from Parade Master, inspects front ranks on foot (cue artillery shell salute), then into the "Ceremonial Land Rover" for a drive around the rest of the massed ranks. [Note, it's no LR that I know of, probably an Indian Tata vehicle quickly re-branded as LR since they bought it from Ford a few months ago]
16. Black Knights acrobatics. Really disappointing since they've been practising over my house for weeks and they only did 4 or 5 things with lousy commentary. The easy stuff (head to head fly past) got wows from the crowed, but the cool one (a tight inside turn then vertical climb, all on full afterburner) was unappreciated. Plus, the intended re-broadcast of the inter-pilot radio chatter was just static, and was the only AV failure of the event). Shame.
17. Dance show with balloons (lit from the inside) dragged around the bay by boats.
18. Parade of floats with a wave/boat/sail theme
19. Then a series of song/dance acts that I couldn't be bothered to write down. Some better than others, some by schools, one by the Soka Association (Buddhists).
20. Fireworks from barge in the bay. Not bad. I'm highly critical of fireworks as I've seen some suberb shows and most are pretty feeble given the expertise and costs involved ($100k doesn't buy much). One green starbust blew up on the barge which I thought was spectacular but was probably alone in even noticing.
21. MCs, videos, fireworks, yadda, yadda.

I left to try and get a jump on the crush to leave. I did leave ahead of 97% of the crowd but that just meant I joined the throngs around the event earlier than most. The entrance to City Hall MRT was closed due to over-crowded right in front of me, so I took a path of lesser resistance and walked away from the MRTs and met up with the Merlioness later on. By 10:30, the trains were empty. Result!

All in all, I'm glad I went. It's easy to snipe at such nationalistic displays and they were really pushing for multi-racial, politically correct, inclusive harmony and continued success; reasonable given the swamp-to-city transformation they have achieved in 43 years.

The NDP site is broken this morning, probably by people trying to see if their trash bag won the "Bag It to Win It" prize. And there's a true lesson for working with Singaporeans; if you want them to do something, make it a competition with a prize.

8 8 8

The Olympic games, awarded to the city of Beijing (not to the country of China) are days away, and the lead up has been traumatic for the Chinese. Floods, earthquakes and political unrest have made the headlines and have left insiders wondering if the organisers have been too bold in scheduling the games to start on the 8th August, 2008. It sounds nice, 8-8-8, since eight is a lucky number (in Chinese it rhymes with prosperity) the attraction was obvious. Now the fear is that the gods are angered by such impudence.

Theory one is the four mascots of the games represent four tragedies to befall the games, somewhat like the four horseman of the apocalypse. The analogy breaks down considering there are 5 mascots, and numerology around single digits is always suspect due to simple coincidence. Plus, who gets to decide what is a calamity and what is a domestic political issue?

Theory two is spiritually deeper. August is a Hungry Ghost month and the thinking (?) goes that while 8-8-8 is auspicious, the hungry ghost festival trumps the auspicious date, so a high-profile activity is inappropriate and unlucky.

The usual Singaporean, ghost-appeasing pyrotechnics have certainly begun. What is notable this year is that more people are using the shared oil-drum burners rather then finding their own patch of grass to burn. Rows of shops have huge candles melting down to a waxy Quatermass on the block paving and the food offerings are a boon to the birds and rats. I still hold out some hope the bonfire excesses will decline with the modern secular generational transition.

As for the games, the official attitude in Singapore has always been pro-Chinese, talking down the vociferous criticism of Tibetan policies, human rights and freedoms, instead pointing out the intense national pride the games have generated and the danger of getting on the wrong side of it. It's the right approach since the games are supposed to be a non-political event but one can't help but notice the self-serving, long-term relationship building rhetoric.

Singapore has its own reasons for eschewing political gamesmanship since they were awarded the inaugural Youth Olympic games in 2010. The mission statement is "Excellence, Friendship, and Respect" and the official logo competition has just been launched. You will have to forgive the excessive use of exclamation marks in the text but you too can try to avoid the inevitable criticism such logos attract. Try to avoid any reference to Gods, legends, numerology, politics, science, nationalism, celebrities, race, religion or any single colour or colour combination with any meaning whatsoever. Good luck.

Eats Shoots and Exits by the Left Door

This tale combines Singapore's famously high investments in public transport with the subtleties of language and the idiocy of crowds. The current MRT network has 3 lines feeding the central business district (CBD) from outlying areas. A new line under construction, the Circle Line, will go around the CDB at a decent distance and hence permit non-CDB routes. The Circle Line crosses the existing lines, in this case, the North-South line at Bishan.

The designers of the MRT system do a pretty good job of arranging the interchanges so a change from the North-South to the East-West line (at City Hall and Raffles) is just a matter of crossing the platform. Similarly, the new Circle Line interchange is arranged alongside so a North-South train will have platforms on both sides.

Bishan has been a construction site for months and the steady completion of the new platform has been visible from the train, providing a voyeuristic viewpoint akin to fish in a tank.

At the weekend, they flipped over; the train doors open on the new, Circle Line side while they refurbish the old platforms. It's temporary, so the train driver (probably called a Service Captain) does the announcement live:

Please exit the train through the left doors.

The Merlioness reports that on Sunday, while making this journey, the announcement caused everyone to get off the train, wait an awkward few seconds to realise the mistake, then got back on. To be fair, an Indian family stayed sat down and I think the fact they weren't kicked off (as is done when trains reach the terminus) confirmed their mistake to the crowded platform. It depends where you put the stress. If you said

Please EXIT the train through the left doors.

everybody gets off, whereas the meaning is

Please exit the train through the LEFT doors.

Singlish WOTD: Chiobu

Your Singlish Word of the Day is: Chiobu

Defn: Good-looking female, babe, hot chick

From Hokkien.

Expat Heaven

I been saying it since before I arrived; Singapore is no hardship assignment and now some folks at Expat Explorer have done a survey which confirms it. Singapore is the best place in the world to live as an over-paid expatriate.

Singapore won first place for quality of accommodation and second place for luxury living. The latter category included access to private health care, access to more than one property, and ability to own a pool and to employ staff (such as cleaners). The UAE (United Arab Emirates) won on luxury but Singapore beat India into third place.

In comparison, the UK was ranked as least luxurious and most expensive for accommodation which makes the often-posed question as to why I am here inexplicable.

Today's weather has seen a daytime high of 30°C, slightly hazy with a gentle southernly (on-shore) breeze (13 km/h) and a relative humidity of 69%. We are not expected any late afternoon thunderstorms so alfresco dining or a long stroll are indicated.

Government takes on Grannies

My Singapore National Recycling Programme green bin bag was just delivered. I am invited to collect paper, cardboard, plastics, metals, glass, electrical appliances, soft toys, old clothing and shoes for doorstep collection after 8:30am on one of 3 dates written in marker pen on the bag. All in the same bag, but No Food Waste Please.

As you know, there is a big blue recycling wheelie bin at the void deck for these items, and you also know it is systematically raided by the local grannies and grandads. 60+ aluminium cans for a dollar. 1 meter high stack of newspapers might be 4 dollars. So what gives? Either the Government is trying to encourage more use of the big bin, or they are trying to cut out the local, fixed-income pensioners.

The copious, bilingual (not tri-lingual?) instructions on the bag include a stern warning:

"Unauthorised collection of recyclables is an offence and will be reported to the police".

Utter cobblers. This would be the same police that ignore cycling on the pavement, persistent littering out of flat windows, lighting fires on landings, unsafe storage of goods on landings and stairwells and parking motorbikes under the void deck. Everyone knows who the local recyclers are and where they sit of an evening collating the paper and bashing apart appliances for their metals (mainly electric motors for the copper).

So I'm confused again. Maybe it's just a top-down, national bright idea with no joining up to local communities and policing. Sounds the most likely scenario but the situation places householder's loyalties on the line; Government versus Grannies.

I'm with the grannies on this one as they are motivated to separate the materials properly for maximum financial worth and hence ecological benefit. SembCorp Environmental Management claims to retain ownership of the plastic bag they have just arranged to have thrown through my front door, implying an enforced duty of care without compensation. This faceless, lawyer-lined corporation does not need my charity. Oh sweet disobedience, tempt me not!

Bonfire of the Niceties

The National Library Board (NLB) held their (annual?) book sale at the Singapore expo, last Friday thru Sunday. I wandered along with little purpose, although a couple of technical titles was in the back of my mind, and so I sauntered in around midday Friday past early birds already leaving with distinctive white carrier bags closed with cable ties and even stuffed shopping trolleys.

Inside the hall were 50 tables labeled above with simple descriptions such as Adult Fiction and Junior Fiction. Within these categories, the books were a complete jumble so you were left to just wander up and down looking for topics of interest. I grabbed a few, huge technical books, out of date for sure as most titles seemed to be published around 2000, but good enough for S$2 (70p) each.

Far more interesting was the behavior of the patrons. Keeners filled the provided shopping baskets, leaving them at the edge of the hall to return for more books. After amassing anything up to 200 books, they then sat down against the wall and slowly went through their hoard, tossing discards onto a rough pile at their feet, putting keepers in a fresh basket. At the tables, the neat rows of books quickly deteriorated into unkempt mass as selected books were tossed aside.

People behave this way when faced with free or cheap sales; first land-grabbing as much as possible, later to discard what, on reflection, they decide is not for them. I've organised a few jumble sales and there are definite types. The professionals (local gypsies in our case) looking for silver plates or valuable China going for 20p and leave within 10 minutes. Then there's the bag ladies, roughly sorting through clothes and just stuffing anything decent into the bag under their arm, sometimes leaving without payment. Then there's the charitable types, there to support the cause carefully thumbing a Foders guide to Portugal.

The organisation of the book fair was thought through; bags and baskets, helpers wandering around, a DJ at the back playing musak, the exit channels which divided buyers from visitors and guided the former down to packing tables staffed by schoolchildren who packed and counted the items. Then on to the ridiculously over-sized and dreaded Tensa-barrier maze ahead of the cashiers. I hate being in such processes and given the modest turnout, the formality was excessive.

The result was 7 books weighing 8kgs for S$14 (£5) and a disgust for the people who turned a generous opportunity into a greedy, selfish, ugly, rude stampede.