on Aug 18th, 2008Li Jia Wei IS a Singaporean [Response to Iantimothy]

This blog post is in response to Ian Timothy’s post . It was too long a response to comment, so Ian you can read it here instead :)

I agree with you completely about donating money. You never know which ones are lying to you. But what we do is between us and our God(s) and what they do with the money is between them and their God(s).

HOWEVER….

I disagree with you saying that Li Jia Wei and the likes are taking Singapore for a ride, or that they are mercenaries.

You see, when I see Li Jiawei, I see a foreign talent and not a Singaporean. Sure, she is a Singapore citizen, but I doubt whether her heart has any place for Singapore. I see someone who is a mercenary. Feng Tian Wei’s case is much less redeeming.

Part of my indignation stems from the fear that they are just taking Singaporeans for a ride. They are just trying to clean us out. Sure, some may argue that we are using them too. Wrong. The powers that be are the ones who are using them. The ordinary citizens foot the bills.

They are on the same level as our construction workers, our domestic maids, our rich ang moh expats… they give us what we don’t have, and in return, they earn a living in this safe and peaceful sunny island.

Is it really wrong of these people to come here to seek a way of life, to seek for opportunity, to seek for riches and happiness? Aren’t these the very reasons why our forefathers, our ancestors arrived to this land?

What more do you want Li Jia Wei to do to prove that she’s a worthy Singaporean? I can’t think of much. She earned us a medal, gained glory for Singapore in numerous table tennis championships, paid her taxes, contribute to the economy of Singapore just by living here. That’s more than what we can say of many “true Singaporeans” like the fake beggars that has been reported, or that you have met.

Sadly, we consider these scums of society, these Singaporeans that have hands and legs and con and cheat us of our monies, true Singaporeans. What? They’re shit but at least they’re our shit?

At least our “foreign talents” earn an honest living, working as athletes, lead a decent life and continue to fight for Singapore, despite getting spit on the face by other Singaporeans.

We keep whining and bitching about how these foreigners are disrupting our way of life. They talk too loud, they don’t speak English, they smell funny etc. etc. When push comes to shove, we’re Asians, us Chinese and Indians are practical and money driven people. If it was a choice between a failing economy and bearing with slightly noisier and smeller neighbours, I bet majority of the Singaporeans would still chose the later.

If you want to criticize these “foreign talents” for coming to our country to “steal” our money, fine, go ahead and stop living in houses, stop patronizing kopitiams that hire China aunties, tell the maids to go back to Indonesia and Philippines, and as a result pay, more taxes because of the decline in women wanting to have babies due to the lack in domestic help. Don’t be a hypocrite just because foreign talents in the sports field are earning much more than these construction workers or maids.

Yes, we are all here for one reason, money. Perhaps you should go find more Singaporeans that are willing to devote their lives to building houses, doing household chores, playing table tennis day and night… not for the money… then we start talking.

Sure, maybe we should question the policy that got them here, even review it, maybe change it, but since none of us really have the monopoly on the truth about the hearts of these individuals, now that they are here, we should treat them as one of us, as a Singaporean.

Let the sin be on them, not us.

The sin is not on them, but on us. We elected our government and gave them the authority to make these choices. I am not saying that the choices they have made are wrong or right, but don’t push the blame on these people that are here for the exact same reason why you and I are here. If anyone were to be blamed, it would still have to be us.

on Aug 16th, 2008China Olympics Gymnasts are under age or just small?

Because China and the United States competed on the same events each rotation, it was easy to notice differences in their body types. The Chinese gymnasts lack curves, have an average height of 4 feet 9 inches and weigh an average of 77 pounds. Deng is the smallest, at 4-6 and 68 pounds. The women on the United States team, generally more muscular and shapely than the Chinese, are an average of 3 ½ inches taller and 30 pounds heavier.

Taken from The Times

Seriously?

I’m not sure if these girls are above 16 years old…. but we’re Asians! We’re small, thin, petite, even though I’m not. We’re generally of a smaller built! The Chinese girls are about 1.5m and 35kgs, which is actually not very rare for Asian women. The Americans are about 1.58m and 43kgs, which is roughly the average weight of my female friends. Heck, I know guys as thin as that. To be a gymnast, you’ve got to be small and agile, and is it surprising that a small Asian is smaller than a small American?

Look, I wear Large or X-Large sized clothes in Asian countries, but I’m a Medium or sometimes even a Small when I shop in countries with a dominant population of Caucasians. When I was a teenager, I had a secret desire to go for boob job to make them smaller just so I can fit into those pretty small little clothes from Far East Plaza. Whatever. Asians in general are less curvy than westerners, and they biologically smaller in size la.

China’s coach gave a very good rebuttal…

China’s coach, Lu Shanzhen, bristled when the age issue arose again on the day his gymnasts had upset the Americans, the reigning world champions. He would not explain Deng’s missing tooth.

“It’s unfair that people keep saying the Chinese are too young to compete,” Lu said in Mandarin, on his way out of the National Indoor Stadium. “If they think they can tell someone’s age just by looking at them, well, if you look at the foreign athletes, they have so much more muscles than the Chinese. They are so strong. Do you then say that they are doping?”

These people should stop speculating and just go find evidence of the underage China gymnasts. Although I won’t be surprised if they find that they are really underage, just like how we aren’t surprise many of the top athletes takes drug or cheat in whatever way possible.

on Aug 9th, 2008Quotable Priss!

I make damn good quotes. I really like the first quote below. :)

Quotes of the week 1:

Friend sneezes near Priss.

Sneezing is a socially acceptable way to eruct bacteria at someone’s face.

Quotes of the week 2:

Friend comments on Commander Adama of Battle Star Galactic: He’s a serious old man

An old man is serious. An old man that is not serious is just senile.

Quotes of the week 3:

Priss sings National Day songs the whole morning. Friend says the immigrants are the ones supporting PAP.

Be ashamed that an immigrant is more patriotic than you.

Quotes of the week 4:

Priss continues singing Singapore National Day songs during lunch. “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you that build community! Roll over the ocean, roll over the sea, you can do your part to build com-mu-ni-ty” (With hand actions while singing). Friend asks why the National Day songs Priss is singing are all children songs.

We sing National Day songs in school. What? You learn National Day songs at home, ah?

So there you go, feel free to quote me. I’m so damn quotable.

WIll try to update Priss Quotable Quotes weekly, it’s not easy to come out with good quotes. And if you didn’t enjoy my quotes :( Go away.

on Aug 9th, 2008Top 10 Singapore National Day Song [Priss Picks]

The thing I love most about Singapore’s Birthday is singing these uplifting, spirited, passionate songs! Here’s my pick for top 10 of my favorite National Day songs!

1. One People, One Nation, One Singapore
2. Majulah Singapura (Onward Singapore)
3. We Are Singapore
4. 相信我吧!新加坡 (Believe in me! Singapore)
5. Singapore Town
6. Count On Me Singapore
7. 家 (Home - Mandarin version)
8. Home
9. Singapura, Sunny Island
10. Stand Up For Singapore

相信我吧!新加坡

我是年轻的卫国军,有的是漫长的热血。
有的是精力充沛,相信我吧新加坡!

We Are Singapore

There was a time when people said
That Singapore won’t make it, but we did Continue Reading »

on Aug 4th, 2008How to write a good Flame blog post

I’ve not been blogging much lately, mostly due to the shit piles I’m afraid to step on as I blog. Shit piles a.k.a. blogging scandals. You don’t want to get your feet dirty with shit when the shit is not in your way right?

I’ve been reading and following quite a few blogs to get more scandals. Yes, I read scandals as my daily dose of entertainment every morning before I go to work. I’m an e-Auntie.

One thing I’ve realized is, if you are fluent in English, you have the upper hand in a flame war. You don’t even have to use big words to write good flaming posts, in fact, if your written English isn’t that wonderful, please please don’t use big words. It only makes you look dumb.

I don’t want to quote any particular instances, but when I read KennySia girlfriend versus KennySia alleged affair scandal, I was tempted to take the side of the affair girl. Simply because I couldn’t really understand what the girlfriend was blogging about. If people can’t understand what you’re flaming or what you’re trying to put across, you have already lost the battle! How do people side you when they’re not sure what you’re trying to say, especially people that doesn’t know the background story? How to win in a blog flame war when you already lost supportive votes due to poor English?

So follow these simple rules when writing a flame post:

  1. Don’t use big words. Unless you can pull it off as well as nocturne.
  2. Use a spell checker. I’m not sure if Internet Explorer has a spell checker, but I find Firefox’s spell checker to be quite reliable.
  3. Check your grammar. Firefox doesn’t come with a grammar checker, but you can try using Microsoft Words spell checker.
  4. Base your flame with facts. If there aren’t much facts to work with, then at least flame with lies that sounds credible - but risk getting sued like Xiaxue did.
  5. Call all your friends, fans, online communities, your ex-classmates, your boyfriend/girlfriend’s buddies to post supportive comments in your flame post and go to your targeted flamee’s blog to create havoc. Though we should never drag the family in you shit affairs.
  6. Calling the flamee mean names and posting her pictures up is just low and cheap. We’re out to ruin blogs, not lives. We don’t want people ruining their lives over flame wars, and you don’t want this to be on your conscious either. To my future detractors - Sorry, but even if you post my picture up I wouldn’t jump off the building. I’m simply too egoistic and narcissistic to think my pictures look anything but cute. But that doesn’t mean other people out there would take it as nicely as I do.
  7. Use simple, straightforward, direct English. You could add in your own dialect at times. In fact, if you’re more fluent in another language, don’t be afraid to flaunt it like Darth Grievous does with his super ZHAI Chinese flame posts. Only downside to it is your flamee might not understand what you’re flaming him/her. If you don’t really care about that, then by all means - flame with your most powerful language.
  8. Don’t start a flame war if you don’t think you can stomach it. My blog(s) have been through numerous flame wars, mostly because I like to defend my principles and I take offense with people that blog about things that go against my moral beliefs. I see myself as a superhero defending what I believe for, fighting in the mud with imbeciles. At the end of the day, I continue living my life, I continue to blog. If you can’t take the heat, don’t join in the game.
  9. Don’t get into a flame war with 15 year old kids. I’ve done that once, and boy do I regret doing that. Imagine someone coming to your blog day and night screaming “KNNBCCB! eu old CB! KNN! CCB! CCBKNN! eu tink eur english good izzit? eu CB!” My God. Hands down to these crazy teenagers with nothing better to do than to litter your blog with incomprehensible sentences. They can’t seem to type in proper sentences so there’s no way you can reason with them.

Ok, I have no idea why I’m teaching people to flame. But the next time you want to engage in a flame war, remember the case study of Kenny Sia scandal, and you should really check out nocturne and Darth Grievous’s Art of Flaming. :) Hopefully these tips will not come in handy for you, flaming isn’t very healthy. But like ice-creams, flaming once in a while is fun :)

One last thing, my posts are full of grammatical errors. Hur hur hur. But so as long as your flamee has worse command of English than you, it doesn’t really matter :)

on Jul 29th, 2008Dawn Yang Lies… So what?

I didn’t bother reading the entire blog of The Many Lies of Dawn Yang, the entire blog comprising of only ONE post. The one, and I suspect will be, the only post, exposes Dawn Yang’s fake identities created in CozyCot forums. Quoting juicy insults hurled by the suspected Dawn, telling people what a sore and bitchy person Dawn really is.

Do I really care? No, I’m just bored.

Should you care? No, not really, unless there’s really nothing else to read.

So what if Dawn Yang secretly wants to bitch about other celebrities? So what if Dawn Yang idolizes herself? She can only have the luxury to spill all these repressed thoughts with her fake online identity - not implying that her identity on her legitimate website is real. The only problem with that is she got caught.

I guess much could be said about the person that created this one post wonder as well, we can only imagine what kind of hatred he or she has towards Dawn.

How many more secrets do you have Dawn?

I am going to be digging for them, one-by-one, until the the day you apologize, and DISAPPEAR FOREVER from the limelight you never deserved.

Perhaps, like some of you have speculated, the person writing this blog is really Xiaxue! It won’t be surprising, now, would it? But we have witnessed how Xiaxue is fearless when it comes to insulting Dawn and other people, she would have blogger about it in her blog instead of creating an Anonymous blog to slam Dawn Yang. Or am I giving her too much credit?

I guess I’m not for or against either girls. They should be glad that people are talking about them, whether in a good or negative light. When people stop talking about them altogether, it would mean people have forgotten about them. Like piranhas feeding on human, they feed on human - attention.

on Jul 29th, 2008I’ve betrayed Jay Chou for Hins Cheung.

I LOVE Jay Chou. I love him deep deep. But I’ve betrayed him…. :(

Recently, this song kept playing in the radio, finally I buey tahan asked my colleague what song is that!!! Luckily the song title and artist showed up in my internet radio media bar! <3

I’m sorry Jay, but for the next week or two, I’m going to be drooling over this song, listening to it day and night over and over again. I’ll miss you Jay, hope you miss me too.

Apparently there’s a Cantonese version, called 酷愛, which I think is the original version. I’ve got to brush up my Canto first before attempting that song… But here’s the song in Mandarin

張敬軒- 吻得太逼真 (Watch it on YouTube)

無論怎麽叫我都覺得虛僞
陪伴那麽久你說是受罪
從前到現在當我是誰
你這花心蝴蝶

昨夜陪你醉
唱到我心碎
你竟說我和你不配
完全忘記往日爲何
能與我徹夜纏綿

和你吻吻吻吻吻
吻你吻得太逼真
讓我把虛情假意
當作最真心的親吻
怪自己來不及區分
你對我是酷愛是敷衍

我想吻吻吻吻吻
我該怎麽脫身
你卻說花花世界
不必當真
多麽傷人
讓我愛上多情的紅唇
Continue Reading »

on Jul 27th, 2008Priss Upgrading Robot…

It’s a dog eat dog world out there. Perhaps especially so in Singapore? One very important lesson I’ve learnt from working is either you command someone or someone command you, or, both ways.

And trust me, being at the end of the food chain is the worst feeling there is. Some people are born with bigger balls, more guts, so they can start their own business and earn big bucks, others have to be like robots - monotonously slaving their lives away for others, to earn money. I guess, for now, Priss without much working experience or insights into any particular field, I’m stuck being a robot!

But robots can be upgraded too! I’ve plans to further my studies so that I’m a Robot Plus. If you’re fated to be a robot all your lives, it’s better to be a Robot plus right? :) You get more respect, better pay, less shit from your superiors.

Oh well, if everything goes right, this time next year I should be mugging for my 4th year honors :)

Priss = Robot upgrading in process

on Jul 23rd, 20081000 Singaporeans Give Up Citizenship Every Year

Sure, we’re attracting alot of foreign talents, but are we losing our local talents to other countries that give them more than just a sense of security?

After all, this sense of security is very important to the older generation. A secure job, no natural disasters, a safe neighborhood, good education, peaceful lives. I believe the surge in migrating Singaporeans show that this is not what the current generation needs. We want to explore this “freedom” that western countries have been propagating for years, we want to venture into the unknown, routes that might not always be the safer bet or give any form of guarantee.

In the past, people that did well academically would usually chose to study courses like Law, Accountancy, Medicine etc. Yes, many smart youngsters are still choosing to go into these fields that would more or less give them a financially secure future. However, I’ve also noticed many people are choosing to study liberal Arts subjects like theater, dancing, music. With local Universities and Polytechnics opening more courses in Arts, Social Sciences and the Liberal Arts, I guess the market has spoken. Perhaps, Singapore is heading towards the direction where money isn’t everything anymore, aka, we won’t sell our souls for money?

1,000 S’poreans give up their citizenship each year, in the last three years
Posted: 21 July 2008 2352 hrs

 

SINGAPORE: In the last three years, an average of 1,000 Singaporeans gave up their citizens each year.

Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said their reasons for doing so vary, and these range from marriage to foreigners, to yearning for a different environment.

Most of them took up new citizenship in countries in Southeast Asia, the United States and Australia.

Mr Wong gave this update in reply to a written question from Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim.

She had asked how many Singapore citizens emigrated from Singapore in the last three years, the countries they emigrated to and their reasons for doing so.

Mr Wong said those who emigrate generally do not declare this to the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority when they leave.

So the only available data which gives an indication of the number of emigrants from Singapore is the number of Singaporeans who have given up their citizenship and left Singapore. -CNA/vm

on Jul 21st, 2008Applying to US Universities vs. Australia Universities

I’ve been contemplating whether to further my studies in the States or back in Australia so I’ve been doing some research. Applying to U.S. Universities is such a hassle and unless you’re brought up in that environment or really determined to study in the States, one would seriously consider applying for other Universities in U.K. or Australia.

Problems

1. They want so many things from me!

Different Universities have different requirements of transcripts and test scores and references. Some require you to take extra tests, beyond the usual SAT and GRE, whereas some require you to have 3 references PLUS extra papers for your references to sign and sealed in envelope then mail it back to the States. I’ve graduated from my first degree for almost a year and I haven’t been too close with my lecturers, I’m not sure any of them will remember me or have any inclinations to refer me to the University I’m trying to apply for. But of course, most nice people will just write you a generic reference so as not to ruin your life.

2. Not easy to transfer from another country’s education system

The U.S. Universities offer 4 year Bachelor Degree courses and are unlikely to recognize my 3 year Degree (the good Universities at least). I’ve called up the Centre for American Education in Singapore and they advised me to call up school by school to see which ones will unconditionally recognize my 3 year degree. Some might even offer me to take up extra credits before admitting me to graduate school. But all these are hypothetical and assumptions, since, I don’t intend to call up all the schools in California.

3. AMERICA IS SO BIG.

There are simply too many Universities! I’m not a straight As student so I can strike off the top 10 schools in U.S. definitely. Next, I’ve got some relatives living in San Francisco, California, so I guess it would be good for me to narrow down my choices to colleges in California. University of California alone have almost 10 campuses! Goodness.

4. Writing ‘About Me’s

Seriously, I don’t know what to write! One of my brilliant interns gave me some advice that his RJC seniors passed down to him, if you’re applying to USA you should write personal statements more geared towards academic focus whereas if you want to apply to U.K. you should write more personal information. I want to write “PLEASE ACCEPT ME!!!!” all over the papers. :(

Sigh. I guess I’ll be applying to Singapore and Australian Universities after all. Hunting for the right school is almost as tedious as hunting for the right job.