Surprise Letter From Son

Today I received a surprise letter from my younger son by post. It was addressed to Mum and Dad. In it, he described some of his experiences at the recent 3-day Sec 1 Orientation Camp:


Q: Some of the memorable and exciting things that happened during the camp were:

A: Kayaking, abseiling, flying fox and sleeping.

(What? Sleeping is memorable and exciting? Son, are you sure you got your priorities right?)


Q: During the Camp, I learnt that ...

A: We should work as a team and never give up on what we do. We should also share everything we have with compassion.

(Okay that's fair comment.)


Q: Mum and Dad, for the many years that you have spent bringing me up, I would like to thank you for:

Providing me with food and shelter, supporting me with all the things I do and buying mini-cakes for me on my birthday.

(That's funny, I don't remember buying mini-cakes for your birthday - I always bought big ones enough for a family of four. Hmm ... must have been Mum.)


Q: Finally, I would like to tell you that ...

I really love you.

(Aww that's really sweet, Son! Mum and Dad love you very much too. Muack.)

Can You Live To 100?

Chun See's mention of this phrase 回头已是百年, literally meaning "when you look back, you are already 100", in this blog entry is indeed timely.

You see, I just came back from the 100th birthday celebration of my paternal aunt. The celebration was held at a posh Chinese restaurant on the 33rd floor of OCBC Centre. Below is the beautiful night scenery of the city as viewed from the restaurant. It is certainly no mean feat that Singapore managed to achieve this level of development in just over 40 years.



This bit of information is especially dedicated to my friend Walter - yes, there was sharksfin on the menu and there was no MC Hammer(head) to give my bowl of sharksfin to. So I not only touched the sharksfin but I ate it. Shucks, now I am wrecked with guilt.


I remember more than 40 years ago, my aunt was a peddlar selling cloth in a Chinatown backlane. My mum brought me to her stall one morning. Her colourful wares, wrapped tidily around paper rolls (for 5-foot-wide cloth) and flat wooden frames (for 3-foot-wide cloth), were placed neatly on a groundsheet on the floor. She had no dearth of customers. Aunties would drop by her stall to buy a few yards of cloth to make their own clothes like many families do in those days. When the day is over, she would load all her cloth on a rickety cart and then push it to a nearby place where she would store them for the night.

She was married to my 7th uncle who passed away a few years ago at the age of more than 90. In comparison, my father who ranked 8th in the family died in 1993 at 82 while my mum joined him 10 years later at 83. Even then, I consider my parents to have lived fairly long lives. Yet, if the government's proposed annuity payout from age 85 onwards should go through, even my parents would not have lived long enough to benefit from it.

Let's face it. How many of us can expect to live till the grand old age of 100?


Centenarians like the "110-year young" Teresa Hsu and my aunt are more the exception rather than the norm. Singaporeans born between 1995-2000 can expect to live till only 77 years' old. Okay, it might have gone up to 80 by now but that is still a long way off 100.

MM Lee, who is turning 85 this year, recently revealed his secret for a long life - stay mentally and physically active as one ages. I would like to add some rather obvious points which MM Lee himself has made at one time or another, i.e. have a healthy lifestyle - eat carefully, exercise regularly and sleep properly.

I don't mind living to 100. But besides having a long life, the importance of having a good quality of life cannot be overstated. It is no use being alive but spending your days bedridden or immobile.

Do you think you could live to 100? And how would you like to live it?

The Best Christmas Gift Ever

This story happened long long ago
A tale exactly 16 years old
A boy was born into this world
At Mount Elizabeth Hospital

He was a healthy full-term baby
But the birth wasn't easy
Especially for the first-time mother
From morn till dusk lasted the labour

The doctor was summoned
His Christmas dinner he must have abandoned
Braved the Orchard traffic jams to Mount Elizabeth
Just so he could attend to the childbirth

She pushed and dad tried to urge
Yet the baby refused to emerge
The pain was so unbearable
She was given an epidural

The doctor used forceps, biceps and suction pump
Still the baby remained firmly within the "hump"
The doctor finally made the decision
To deliver by Caesarian section

It was a move that couldn't be delayed
Although this was never said
It turned out to be a right decision
The reason was clear only after the incision

Round the baby's ankle twirled the umblical cord
The baby's life was saved, thank God
He weighed more than 7-pound
More importantly, his health was sound

Words could not describe the parents' joy
When holding for the first time their boy
It was a feeling of ecstasy
Almost one of fantasy

The boy grew up to be quite smart
His good academic results warmed the heart
So did his good behaviour
And his moral character

It is the best Christmas gift ever
For which the parents are grateful forever
Wishing you many more Happy Birthdays
We will love you, always


From: Dad, Mum and ZQ

A Child Was Born

Eleven years ago today morn
A little child was born
So little was he
Weighed barely 1 kg

So early was he
Was to arrive only in January
But came in October
Making him a year older

A Malay woman passed him by
Possibly visiting a baby nearby
Commented "Bayi ini keci*"
Innocent remark though that may be

Though happy at his arrival
We worried for his survival
Told his chance was "not too good"
That kinda affected our mood

Friends and relatives dared not congratulate
What if there was a twist of fate?
There were no flowers or cards
But they must be praying in their hearts

Many hospital visits were made
Most days we were by his bed
At first he couldn't even be carried
Needed more time, couldn't be hurried

So many tubes attached to his body
Seeing him like this made us sorry
We felt his pain
Nearly drove us insane

Mum lovingly prepared EBM** for his food
We were told nothing else was as good
Brought it daily in a box that could chill
Which he consumed via his nostril!

Little by little, he grew steadily
We brought him home when he was 2 kg
After almost 3 months' stay
But the happiness was more than words could say

Today he's happy
And he's healthy
We're grateful as that's all we want
Happy Birthday, My Son

Mum, Dad and gor gor*** love you dearly, always.

Note:

* kecil (sometimes mispronounced as "keci") = Malay for "small"

** EBM = expressed breast milk

***gor gor = Cantonese for "elder brother"

First Time On A Cruise Ship (2)

At check-in, each passenger was issued with a personal access card. It was used as a "passport", room key and credit card, all rolled into one.


Our room was on the port (left) side. The carpet and doors in the long corridor leading to our room were red.


In contrast, the carpet and doors in the corridor on the starboard side were blue. Hence you were unlikely to make a wrong turn even when your were returning to your room drunk like a sailor.


Our room was not very spacious. Yet there were 4 single beds in it - 2 were along the walls opposite each other, 1 was mounted on the wall (can be folded against the wall), another was a sofa bed. I slept on the sofa bed which was not very comfortable. Had we taken a room with balcony, it would have been much more luxurious. However, there was no such option for us.


The toilet-cum-bathroom was only slightly bigger than those you see in an aircraft.


In fact, the feeling on board was quite like flying on an aircraft. Why, they even had a route map on one of the TV channels!


And just like on an aircraft, safety procedure was demonstrated separately by pretty crew members in different parts of the ships.


Dinner was served not long after boarding. We had a choice of 3 "inclusive" (meaning we didn't have to pay anything extra) restaurants - Pavilion Room (Chinese), Mediterranean Buffet (International) and Bella Vista (Chinese/Western). We had our first dinner at Bella Vista. It was a sumptuous 6-course meal - braised sea cucumber, steamed prawns, half-a-fish, kai lan vegetable, roasted pork with jellyfish and soup. (Since it was not a whole fish, we flipped it over and indeed the ship didn't capsize.)



The restaurants had very good ambience. You could get a seat by the window from where you could get a good view of the sea.


And if that is not romantic enough for you and you don't mind paying a little extra, you can even have serenading musicians to set the dining mood just right.


The ship set sail at about 9 pm. We were having supper at the Mediterranean Buffet on Deck 12 when we felt some tremor-like vibrations when the ship started sailing. We could see ripples in our glasses of water. However, we couldn't hear any engine noise. Other than the slight vibrations, the ship was very steady - we didn't feel any rolling of the ship in the waves at all. Even the vibrations went away after a while. We knew we were in the good hands of the captain and his crew.


A few hours after sailing, our handphones were no longer connected to our usual service providers. Sometimes, we were connected to Indonesian service providers while at other times, we got connected to Malaysian service providers.


At one point, we even thought that we had reached Great Britain!


Most of the time, we were connected to Navitas 1 network. (Navitas is a subsidiary brand of UK's Jersey Telecom Group Limited. That probably explains the "Welcome to G Britain" sms. Read this document about the installation of Navitas GSM-based services on board the SuperStar Virgo.) However, communication on the Navitas 1 network was not cheap. I made a 1-minute call to Singapore and was charged $2.39 while each outgoing SMS cost me $0.96.


We saw some celebrities on board the ship. Moses Lim was probably on board to review some of the restaurants' food.


You Ya (尤雅), the Taiwanese songstress who was as famous as the late Teresa Teng (邓丽君 or Deng Li Jun) in the late 70s and the 80s, performed two 45-minute concerts in the Lido auditorium. My wife and I watched the show. At $40 per head for the cheapest seats, the tickets were quite reasonably priced. Anyway, my wife I saved us some money by not watching the topless show which was priced at $20-$25 per ticket. Hmm... it's good that You Ya's concert was still worth more than the topless show. And she didn't have to show anything more than her voice which was still as good as ever.


The facilities on board the SuperStar Virgo were indeed very comprehensive. If the ship was a star in the Asian movie industry instead of the Asian cruise business, it would definitely have won multiple Golden Horse awards.


My third and final entry on the cruise will cover the facilities on board the ship.

(To be continued.)

First Time On A Cruise Ship (1)

Our forefathers probably came to Singapore from China as human cargo in the hold of a ship. You could see the pathetic condition of a cargo hold from the following video-grab of a 1984 local TV series, Wu4 Shuo3 Nan2 Yang2 (雾锁南洋):


Unlike our forefathers, my family has never taken a trip on board a ship. So for the experience, I paid $1630 for four of us to go on a cruise-to-nowhere from 10-12 Aug 2007 on board the luxurious SuperStar Virgo. At 76,800 gross tonnage and 268m length, the Virgo is the largest ship in the Star Cruises' fleet. It has 13 decks and 980 cabins which can carry 2,000 passengers. From what I was told, it takes more than 1,200 staff of a dozen nationalities to keep the ship's operations running smoothly.

We boarded the ship at 5.30 pm on 10 Aug 2007. Embarkation at the Singapore Cruise Centre at the Harbourfront was a breeze as my wife had the foresight of pre-registering a day earlier.


Our cabin number was 5520 on Deck 5.


I was sort of relieved that it was above the waterline.


It was an "oceanview stateroom with window" on the portside of the ship.


(It is obvious that both my sons are avid fans of Walt Disney cartoons.)

Being someone who is quite observant, I noticed that on the entire ship, there were no cabin numbers with a figure "4" as any of its digits.


Notice the missing cabin numbers (marked by red arrows) 5502, 5514, 5524, 5004, 5014 and 5024 in the deck plan above. Also, cabin numbers on the portside run from 5500 to 5610 (with no numbers beginning with 554) while those on the starboard side run from 5000 to 5100 (with no numbers beginning with 504). It looks like a deliberate attempt to avoid the number 4 at all costs. I can only think of superstition as the reason for such a weird numbering system. (The figure 4 when pronounced in Cantonese sounds like 死 or "die".) Yet surprisingly, there is a Deck 4 which houses the tendering area and the medical centre. Hmm... how then would you rate your chances of recovery should you ever have the misfortune of being cared for in the medical centre?

I also heard of this superstition - when you are sailing and eating a whole fish at a meal, never flip the fish over to get at the meat on the other side. Instead, always try to get to the meat from between the bones because if you flip the fish over, the ship may capsize!

(To be continued)

Fireworks Festival At Marina Bay

The Singapore Fireworks Celebrations took place at the Marina Bay floating platform on the nights of 17 and 18 Aug 2007. My friend Walter saw it on 17 Aug 2007. (Read his very interesting review here. However, as I was unwilling to pay for couldn't get the $8 tickets, I did not get to see some of the sights which Walter did.) My family watched it on 18 Aug 2007. (My elder son did not join us as he was at a friend's place to do a school project.)

It started with a 10-minute queue into the Raffles City Carpark at about 8 pm.

I thought I was very smart by not parking too near to the Esplanade.


I drove straight down to Basement 3, thinking that I might be able to find a parking lot there. However, after circling the carpark for more than 20 minutes, I failed to find a place to park. Even the illegal parking lots were all taken up. In the end, I had no choice but to exit the carpark. To rub salt into the wound, $2.14 was deducted from my cashcard. Dammit.

I dropped my family off at Empress Place and drove to Bras Basah Complex where I finally found a place to park. Then, it was another 10-minute walk to the Civilian War Memorial near the display area.

Update: Mr Laokokok asked me about the location from which I took the fireworks photos (see comments to this post). As I am not very good at describing a place, I have drawn a map to show the spot (the red-paw mark). As they say, a picture paints a thousand words.


My wife and 10-year-old son were at another place. My son took this photo:


(That wasn't too bad eh, considering the fact that it was a nightshot taken without a camera stand. Like father like son, kekeke.)

When the fireworks started, some cars stopped in the rightmost (fastest) lane of Nicoll Highway to watch it. Some passengers even got out of their cars to gawk at the display! They were later waved on by a very efficient Traffic Policeman on a motorcycle.


On the way back, I saw someone carrying a camera with stand. He was Mr Kwek Leng Joo, MD of City Developments Limited, who was known to be an avid photographer. I asked if he managed to get some good shots of the fireworks and he replied, "Yes".

Below are some of the better photos that I have taken, although I am quite sure they are no where as good as those of Mr Kwek's.

Two Durians On Top Of Another Two

Two Rambutans On Top Of Two Durians

And the above pair is a hybrid of the durian and rambutan. Then come the sea urchins below.

This Old Man Still Got To Do Son's Homework

My elder son, who is in Sec 4, recently wrote an essay about "respecting difference and promoting understanding in relation to your own country". As for me, I had to write an "adult critic's assessment" of his essay. So instead of letting my homework go to waste, I am putting it on my blog, heh:

I have read my son's article and my comments are as follows:

I feel that he relied too much on only one source of information for his article, i.e. the Internet. There is a wealth of information in the print media, in particular books on Singapore's history. The two autobiographies by Mr Lee Kuan Yew could have been good resources for the article. He should also have cited the references he had used for the article, even if they are from the Internet - websites from which information have been culled for the article should have been listed.

Even as a mere statement of facts, the article had missed out the mention of significant local historical events that had caused disharmony and political upheaval, e.g. the Maria Hertogh racial riots, the Hock Lee Bus riots and the threat of communism.

Not having gone through the tumultuous years of our nation's history, it is perhaps understandable why his article lacks an angle from his personal experience. However, he could have written more about his personal observations and feelings in today's context. For example, do people in our very own HDB block live harmoniously together? Do we know our neighbours well? Do we even know their names at all? Are we friendly only with neighbours of our own race? Do we greet or smile at each other whenever we meet or do we avoid eye contact even when we are face-to-face in the common corridors and the lifts? Do we often participate in community events? What are the potential flash points, if any? What can be done to further improve understanding and tolerance so that we can continue to live in harmony together?

Do you have answers to the above questions? Or do you think that these are issues that are better left to "people paid well enough to do the job"? And I don't mean my son's teacher.

The History Of Singapore

I have passed by The Esplanade many times but last Sunday was the first time that I attended a matinee in its theatre. The play was called "The History Of Singapore".

If you are hoping to learn serious history about Singapore from the play, then you would be sorely disappointed. You see, it is a satirical cabaret comedy. What do you expect from The Dim Sum Dollies? The trio is made up of Emma Yong, Selena Tan and Pam Oei, all of whom are very accomplished actresses in their own right.

The tickets were almost completely sold out when I got mine about one hour before showtime at 3 pm. I paid $38 (cheapest "Cat 9" ticket) plus $2 booking fee per ticket. Multipled by 4 persons, the total damage came up to $160, certainly no small beer by all standards. We had to sit separately in Circle 2. I sat alone while my wife and the boys had slightly better seats. I had a hard time looking for my seat because the seat number was printed on the front side of the seat back - if someone is sitting in the seat, you can't see the seat number. So silly, shouldn't the number be printed at the back of the seat instead?

I realised why the tickets were so cheap and yet they remained available in the last hour. If you paid only about one-third of the price of a best seat, expect to see only two-third of the stage. I would call this "the law of inverse proportionality" but the theatre simply called this "restricted view".

Luckily, the show did not disappoint and there were many rib-tickling scenes and punchlines. The guest star was the very funny Hossan Leong. I believe that he was the reason why the show was a sellout.

Hossan did a mean impersonation of an Indian walking a cardboard cut-out of a cow. His Indian accent sounded genuine and native. In another scene, he was dressed in a red cheongsam as a very sexy Miss Singapore who got kicked out from a Malaysian pageant (an obvious reference to Singapore's ouster from Malaysia in 1965). It may be an illusion but Hossan's very slim profile made him looked even more curvaceous than Emma Yong when he was dressed in a pinafore as a rebellious convent girl. Hossan even made satires out of our PM and his wife. Even the very respectable MM was not spared. A catchy tongue-in-cheek jingle was "respectful-Lee" made just for him.

There were some vulgar Cantonese language when a colonial mistress uttered the word "tuna" to her Cantonese amah who didn't understand a word of English. The Amah misunderstood the word as a vulgar Cantonese phrase, of course, just as she might similarly misconstrue the phrase "Deal Or No Deal". Well, I guess little harm was done because my two sons didn't seem to catch the joke.

Go watch the comedy. Although the ticket prices are not exactly cheap, considering the amount of laughter that you are getting, the play is well worth your money. The show runs till 15 July 2007 (Sunday).

Don't Grieve Forever

I read with great sadness an article in today's New Paper titled "Did slain boy's mum die of broken heart?"

More than 4 years ago, Mdm Lee's son, Wong Dao Jing died after being attack by a group of men in Lucky Chinatown Shopping Centre. Mdm Lee offered a $10,000 reward for information on the assailants but they remained at large so far.

Last February, in an interview with the New Paper, she said that it was painful to see mothers spending time with their sons. She added: "Knowing that I can no longer do the same thing with my son really breaks my heart."

She also recalled the time he died: "I was in such shock I couldn't even cry. Even when I saw his body, I couldn't believe he had died."

Mdm Lee, 45, who was divorced, was known to have taken to drinking to drown her sorrows. Last Wednesday, her decomposed body was found in her flat. At her bedside was a bottle of red wine and some pills.

I feel so sorry for Mdm Lee and I cannot imagine the extreme pain that she went through. It must have been very difficult for her. Perhaps the following article from Dr James Dobson which coincidentally was published in the same day's edition of Today newspaper can offer some advice:

Don't Grieve Forever

William Shakespeare wrote: "Grief fills the room of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words."

Let me tell you about my mother. My parents walked a rocky road during the early days of their marriage. But their relationship was soon cemented tight. And from that time until the day my mother died, she loved that man. It is impossible to describe how much she loved him. It was the kind of love for a husband that most men could only dream about.

A couple of years after my father died, my mother went into the hospital. She was experiencing some symptoms. So, they ran a barriage of tests, and finally two physicians sat down with her.

They said: "Mrs Dobson, your problem is not a physical ailment. It is grief that is killing you, and you must find a way to release it." But she never did. She couldn't do it. She simply loved my father too deeply.

Grief for a lost family member is good and necessary. But it's a process that must be worked through, in order to get to the greener pastures beyond. It would be well to remember the words: "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

East Coast Park On Vesak Day

My family spent Vesak Day at East Coast Park. I hurt my left ankle badly last October. Although my ankle never felt as good as it was before, it had recovered well enough for me to skate again.



So while my wife and the boys cycled, I skated along.



We passed by Big Splash which looked more like Big Smash now.



We stopped by at Ski 360. The skiers seemed to be getting younger nowadays. We thought that this kid of no more than 10 years' old skied very well:



Until we saw another kid of about the same age skiing without a rope!

Actually, she was about to end her skiing session and had just let go of the rope. Haha, did I manage to trick you there for a moment?

To my colleagues MGC and THY - if 10-year-olds can ski like that, what are the 2 of you waiting for, huh? Come on, take up the challenge man! Relax okay? I am not asking the 2 of you to ski like this:

We moved on to the food centre where we saw some beautiful bicycles:

This one was obviously owned by someone with a great sense of humour:

Then we were entertained by a busker, Ms Low Geok Lan 49, who played a harmonica. She was a former taxi driver.

She also showed us what must be the world's smallest working harmonica:

She not only played the harmonica very well, she had also written a Chinese book titled "Why I Never Regret That I Am Not Beautiful".

Someone even produced a DVD of her teaching her students how to play the harmonica:

I proceeded towards Bedok Jetty while my family stayed around castle area. It was quite crowded at the jetty:

There I saw a lighted kerosene lamp which I had not seen for a while:

The owner would probably be hanging it just above the sea surface at jetty later. Can you guess why?