Religion And Alcohol Do Not Mix?

You might have recently read about the Buddha Bar in Jakarta being the scene of almost weekly protests from enraged Buddhists who alleged that the business was insulting their religion. Now you will never find that happening in Singapore. I don't mean that you can never find alcohol in a religious place in Singapore but rather, if it happens here, there won't be any protests at all. After all, Singaporeans have a high level of religious tolerance although they may not have the same degree of alcohol tolerance, at least in the eyes of the authorities. Besides, protests are illegal in Singapore.

YG recently blogged about a Chinese temple which served free Chinese tea here. Nothing surprising about that. In July 2007, I passed by another Chinese temple and saw nothing unusual about it either:


However when I revisited the temple again in November last year, I noticed that there was a bar of sorts set up within the temple's premises:


The sign outside said "Cafe". I did not verify whether the cafe actually served alcoholic drinks or not but at least Wikipedia tells me that "Happy Hour" is a marketing term for a period of time in which a restaurant or bar offers discounts on alcoholic drinks, such as beer, wine and cocktails.

Question:

Is it permissible to serve alcoholic drinks in a place of worship in Singapore?

Religion and alcohol do not mix, or do they?

Can you identify this temple?

Minding Your P's and Q's

Traditionally, a lot of businesses and organisations are named just by their initials. Examples are:

SPH (Singapore Press Holdings);
NTUC (National Trade Union Congress); and
NHB (National Heritage Board).

Nowadays, it is increasingly common to find shopping centres, food and beverage outlets, and even cars named by letters of the alphabet, in particular, P's and Q's:

PP (Parkway Parade)

QQ car

QQ rice

Q bar

It is a mystery why the letters P's and Q's are preferred over other letters of the alphabet. Also, why must they be repeated most of the time? Could it be because good things always come in pairs? I know that the letter Q stands for (and sounds like) "queue". Perhaps the businesses are hoping for long queues of customers to form outside their doors? QQ also means "springy" in Hokkien and could be interpreted as a description of the texture of mee (e.g. Sarawak's Kolo mee) or rice (e.g. QQ rice).

Despite having an auspicious name, if the business is not making money, it will be closed down eventually. Q Bar which opened only in June 2006 amidst much fanfare, might be closed soon because of "cash flow" problems. (Read the New Paper article here.) How long the "QQ-rice fad" will last is anyone's guess. Surely we all remember what happened to the bubble-tea and coffee-bun crazes not too long ago, don't we?