October 2006
Lembu Cucuk Hidung
“Muslim community acts to curb teenage sex” – front-page headline of The Straits Times on July 31, 06. Eh… none of the racy local magazines flashing tits and ass these days is deemed a bad influence ANYMORE? You mean we’ve grown more intelligent or (favorite word these days –) tolerant now, the same way that our Minister Mentor admitted to being dim-witted once? Oh, of course, it has all to do with convenience and naught to do with that hugely trumpeted ‘conservative society’ capper anymore. Licensing casinos when Big Brother wants to do so, is NOT a religious issue. Gambling has zilch to do with religious ethics now! Do you know that some local business enterprise has to get approval from the Buddhist federation in Singapore (and it’s still trying to at time of writing) to open a club called Buddha Bar? Imagine if Big Brother wants to open a Buddha Bar! “Rise in sex infections hastens need to educate the young” – was the big headline in the ST on Aug 17. No need to curb racy magazine flashing tits and ass now, and not least to oppose the lowering of audience-age at the Crazy Horse nude revue (open to 18 and above now instead of 21 and above). Besides, no one’s arguing. Sweet.
“Tokyo’s subway has refused permission for an advertising poster featuring a nude, pregnant Britney Spears on the cover of Harper’s Bazaare, branding it too stimulating for young people” – The ST reported on Aug 25 (that permission has since been granted). Do you think we will have problem with such a poster these days? Of course not. We are now hip & funky to reach out to the global community and TO THE YOUNG OF OUR NATION! Conservative society upholders, hush now. Yours is not the voice we want to hear at the moment. But not long ago, we might have looked to Harpers Bazaare for a scapegoat to solve the teenage sex problem WITH DOGMATIC FURORE. I saw the whole idiocy of it all back then! However now, “Netting the young is Govt’s challenge” (Today, Aug 21), so spare the rod and spoil the child, my dear. Pressing national agendas are more important than yesterday’s moral issues. Right on, Big Brother. I hear you, I hear you.
Which foreigner can tell the extent of the triple-quadruple standards here? One reads that the death-metal band Slayer has been granted permission to play a concert here on the 13th, in spite of the fact that the band’s latest album is titled Christ Illusion. There was a time when such a band and title would be deemed unfavorable and offensive in a CONSERVATIVE society of Asian family values. What happened to such a society and to the grand dogma of the Asian values now? Well, let me tell you (the foreigner), it’s all to do with the Internet and the new turn of events to win over the young DESPERATELY. So much for Asian family values being the moral fiber of our society, as was strongly decreed with sanctimonious authority… yesterday!
Those who think I’m illusory in saying that the system here discriminates against our own kind, let me say this. Can you imagine a local band titling its album Christ Illusion? Well, we know that would be sheer hell for the local band. Why, then, do we grant permission to a foreign one to woo audiences on these shores with such a title? (Correct at time of writing; I have no doubt that my desktop is being monitored by Big Brother since I use a cable modem. So if permission for Slayer is denied later, we know why!)
By the way, has anyone noticed the telling fact that there isn’t a single local music magazine in Singapore? (There used to be one, poor BigO!) Is there any industrialized country out there, whose official business-language is English and with a so-called thriving English music scene, but does not publish its own music magazine? Considering that the Singapore Press Holdings alone publishes over 80 titles every month and not one is an English music magazine, that says a lot. (Caldecott Publishing’s Lime is a teenybopper publication and that’s where the state of our local English music scene has been reduced to!) Not viable anymore? Why is that so? Now that’s a real question to ask on the Net to get to the source of the why our local English music scene has been dead since 1969!
Someone wrote in to the ST Forum page on Jul 22 saying: “The Singaporean lifestyle is renowned internationally by a singular word – rush. That is the crux of the problem (when it comes to motivation). Our yardstick of measurement is efficiency.” Problem? Without the efficiency, or rushed efficiency, we would not be an economic wonder of the world and be touted within someone’s lifetime too! So, why is that a problem? Do I sound like the national press?
“We’re suing Govt.” – was the big front-page headline in The New Paper on Aug 1, with regards to some local boys sustaining injury from tripping over wired cable at a govt. chalet. In Singapore, suing the govt. is so-not a common occurrence. Why no mention of this ‘big shocking news’ in The Straits Times? Cos ST is the ‘serious’ national daily, true farce should be left to the tabloid. And we all know that Singaporeans suing the Singapore govt. is, at best, a real farce. (Don’t worry, there’ll be exceptions… to prove a new point.) My siow friend, in response to the ‘shocking’ New Paper headline, muses – lembu cucuk hidung (cow jerked around by its nose-ring, in Malay). No wonder, in Singapore, we cucuk each other, lor.
In the National Day supplement of The Straits Times, Chua Mui Hoong had an essay with the bold headline Singaporean By Birth & Choice: “We sit in groups trashing Singapore and the ubiquitous, mysterious thing called ‘the system’. We say ‘They’ should do this or that… Have you ever come across anyone who admits to being part of Them? I haven’t.” Of course, you haven’t, dear. Admitting to someone like you? One must be on a career or social suicide! As for admitting to being part of Them… Who dares? Orwell’s 1984 is still smiling with a sideways leer, Big Brother-style with nation-building rotan in hand. But this I’ll say, Ms. Chua certainly deserves to be on Big Brother’s payroll ‘til her dying day.
By the way, do they actually die… these system-sycophants? - X Ho
