July 2005

Go On Then, Lift Your Leg Shamelessly

Singaporeans who don’t read the local newspaper must be less frustrated than the ones who do. A Cantonese pal of mine who follows the morning daily has two blunt ways of describing Big Brother: chew kup how meen pei which means ultra-grade thick-skinned, and the other Cantonese saying of his goes - when you lift up your leg, people already know whether you’re peeing or shitting. It’s true, just because Singaporeans are ‘mouthless fish’ doesn’t mean that they don’t have thoughts altogether. Can speak their mind, meh? As my siow friend says – careful of that midnight knock on the door! (-a well-known paranoia in Singapore among the older generation.)

Both the above Cantonese descriptions, of course, refer to Big Brother’s blatant agenda-maneuvering efforts in the national press. Efforts that His pen-pushing foot-servants go to kiasu lengths to trumpet, sometimes I suspect even He is unaware of how transparent He looks in effect and how jerked around Singaporeans feel. That’s how His intentions are being undermined eventually. I mean, which thinking person can tolerate the national press’ insults to his/her intelligence? (See last month’s X’Ho-Files’ report that Singapore is dull one moment and swinging the next, as a simple example.) There’s certainly a difference between being nationalistic and kiasu-ly balls-carrying like a well-paid kiasi weasel.

On The Straits Times’ correspondent in China – Ching Cheong being detained there in da loo on suspicion of spying… The report on Jun 4 (05) stated that “foreign correspondents in China call on Beijing to free journalist”. I sure hope China will know how to silence such outcry by saying – foreigners should not interfere with domestic politics. Why? Otherwise, we, who so often use that retort, might look more authoritarian and closed than a so-called Communist country like China, and ‘so-called’ is everything, hon, don’t we know! Especially to the world outside.

ST’s film-critic Ong Sor Fern reviewing the film Downfall (Der Untergang), about the last days of Adolf Hitler, wrote: “This movie has been accused of humanizing Hitler. But by doing so, it is a terrifying and timely reminder that the evil he committed, in which so many were complicit, is not some monstrous aberration” (Jun1, 05). Now, why does that seem to ring so true? Ong, you cheeky angel you!

“Keeping my Mandarin alive” is a brand new DVD of resource materials of our Minister Mentor’s Language Learning Experience!  I knew all at once it can’t be a political video. Now if only aspiring film-maker Martyn See were smart enough to make, not the film Singapore Rebel (that he did), but Singapore Rebel Speaks and let it be about a rebel’s Malay language experience, maybe… No? I guess not either. Ha ha ha ha.

One of ST’s so-called hip new-generation columnists Ignatius Low wrote in an article headlined “Pop culture – don’t look for a formula”: “When it comes to issues of popular appeal, we need to leave things be.” So he’s telling our Master for us? Better be. If he were telling us, I’d say he’s propounding in a vacuum (hallo, like, we have a choice in such matters!). Our Master can leave things be? He that ‘controls’ Mediacorp and Singapore Press Holdings which manufacture the pawn starz in our firmament?

Does Low mean that if, let’s say, Fann Wong is arrested for drink-driving and Fiona Xie is exposed to be kept by a dyke, they’d still have a career as TV stars? Meaning – that Big Brother will come right out and say that their lifestyle as celebrities is ‘not a religious issue’, nor one of Asian values either? And that ‘letting it be’ will be taken to mean that local celebrities will not have to be requisite role models for the public? Let the public decide? As with the casino issue then? Oh, I see – manufacture ‘let it be’.  Ah, but of course!

Any wonder that our Foreign Minister declared on Jun 10, 05 in the ST that Singapore can be “a new London for a new Asia”!!! (Hold your laughs, intelligent ones!) Of course, Singaporeans don’t know that London has TV series like Little Britain and Shameless where full-frontal male nudity, humping, blow-job and guys French-kissing guys are being depicted on the home screen as the ‘keeping-it-real’ norm. Nor do they know that London has decriminalized the use of cannabis, and that it celebrates gay lifestyle and may soon be legalizing gay marriages. So what if they know anyhow, I’m sure the Lows and the Latifs will tell you that those kind of information have got nothing to do with the side of London we aspire to. We would then understand that they’d be talking about a preferred London reality other than the real one, wouldn’t we! Shhh, let’s leave the hoi polloi and agenda-proppers to their blissful Fanns and Fionas… and think of Singapore as the London of the East. Now, you can really stop laughing.

O how the Internet rules! There are now two weekly columns named Hot Blogs and Webthreads in The Sunday Times (maybe they’ll be stopped soon, now that I’ve mentioned it). The Hot Blogs I caught on the first Sunday in June reported nothing sensational except that the girl blogger is looking for a boyfriend/husband who’s tall….

Of course, Big Brother is ‘nervous’ and He’s been following the local blogs very closely to seek out dissent and the ones that are litigious. We’re sure He’s got all the markers to nail defammatory blogs, as much as someone said that the Internet is a different kettle of fish. After all, even General Election is not open season for contest of speech. Ai-yah, it is open but after the Election, then you’ll know lor! That’s why we’re Uniquely Singapore, honey.

Indeed, Big Brother is rather ‘nervous’ about blogs cos they didn’t have such things in the days of George Orwell! That means Orwell’s1984 (the book) didn’t have blog paradigms for Big Brother to follow; not that He has anything to be really scared about. The real scared ones are Singaporeans, and don’t we know why. Midnight knock-knock, public censures, social ostracism….

BTW, notice how Webthreads smugly subsumes Webthreats. Where d’ya think I learned my brand of word-play? So, go sew your own silver threads on the golden Web, dearies. But remember invisible OB-markers and midnight knock-knock, hor.

The Sunday Times on Jun 12, 05 asked “Why are Singaporean children getting short-sighted?” Let me see, because it’s more exciting to play cross-the-bridge-when-we-get-to-it? Or worse, because they can’t even see that our Master’s call for Singaporeans to speak better English and Mandarin says much about our ‘highly-touted’ education system. Knock-knock. “Who’s there?” Weedon. “Weedon, who?” We don’t give a shit ‘bout what you people say cos shamelessly we’ve got all the leg-room in the world.

So lift your leg? Ah, you already have and shot yourself in the foot as well. But no worries, we’re all pretty good at pretending we didn’t, or will ever, notice.  – X’Ho