Sunday's edition of the Straits Times carried a feature on depressed teens. The writing is slightly alarmist but well-intentioned. I wish I could link it, but chances are by the time you come across this (if you ever do) the link will be broken.

Here it is anyway: Gen D: Depressed , deviant , disconnected

Probably the most important part of the article:

"... Most disconcertingly, the behavioural problems which used to beset a minority of 'youths on the fringe' or 'youths at risk' have today invaded the 'so-called moral majority' too.

Psychiatrists say a growing number of youths today suffer from one of the three Ds - depression, deviant behaviour or disconnectedness.

According to Dr Yeo, no longer are three-D sufferers predominantly from poorer or broken families without a father figure. In fact, many come from intact families with concerned, well-to-do parents.

Psychologist Felix Lim, who specialises in teen issues, says that a good number are 'rich but deprived children', the upgraded version of yesterday's latch-key kids. They return home daily to an empty bungalow, dog, chauffeur, maid and other paid employees of their parents, who are too busy earning big bucks outside.

He notes that many dual-income parents practise the 'token economy' at home: They try to buy their way into their children's good books, or incentivise good behaviour by giving them a 'cash bonus', the latest gadget or track shoes if they meet pre-set Key Performance Indicators.

'Just because it works for them at work, they think it will work at home. But the problem is a lack of consistent parenting. You need plenty of contact time to cultivate attitudes, values, beliefs in children. There is just no shortcut,' he says.

What is clear is that money, love and good intentions no longer buy immunity against a troubled adolescence. Even those who ace their studies or are school leaders are not exempt.

Mr Lim notes that achievement-focused top students become a target group for anorexia or bulimia, because they tend to displace their need for significance onto leadership roles, sports trophies or good grades.

The better they do, the poorer they tend to be at handling the 'loss of face' of failure when it happens. 'After all, this is a place where a person's worth is measured by his grades, the house he lives in or the cellphone he uses. Upkeeping standards is a very real pressure,' says Ms Chew.

And teen society today is an unforgivingly class-conscious one, as the recent hoo-ha over a Raffles Girls' School girl dating a neighbourhood school boy shows.

It does not help that many Singaporean parents are so protective that their children acquire a 'learnt helplessness' and fail to develop their own coping resources or a healthy adversity quotient, says Mr Lim.

That is one of the reasons why teen suicide rates are spiralling today, especially among young females aged 15 to 24 here.

According to psychiatrist and suicidologist Chia Boon Hock, youths take their own lives because of a combination of relationship problems and family, financial, social and school stresses.

Depression is also becoming as commonplace a malady as the common cold, notes Ms Chew. Having done profiling exercises on hundreds of secondary school students, she says a disturbing picture of Singapore's youth has emerged.

'Many are highly emotional, extroverted, open to trying anything new, hence very vulnerable. Despite being very high in anger, they have low focus, low motivation and a low sense of achievement. This combination is very scary, because if anything snaps, they cut or kill themselves,' she notes with a shudder.

According to Mr Lim, this outward expression of aggression, angst and apathy is symptomatic of an adolescent's emotionally fraught and highly distracted world. He has patients who come to his clinic declaring 'I hate my parents' or 'My mother is a bitch'.

But such defiant bravado, says Dr Yeo, is just a 'brittle front'. 'Deep down, they still desire parental approval but feel that they cannot be seen to need it. And family size being so small these days, they have no siblings to turn to,' he says.

So many 'cope' by hurting themselves through self-mutilation, starving, multiple suicide attempts and numbing themselves with drugs and alcohol.

Others, who crave emotional fulfilment in this mechanical age, desperately seek connections in sexual escapades or gangs.

Even among the 'good kids', school counsellors note a growing disconnectedness and disenchantment.

'For many of them, all that innate fire and spirit has been snuffed out in power struggles with overbearing adults. They end up disillusioned,' says Mr Lim.

These days, he and other psychologists are seeing more cases of dysthymia, a chronic low-mood disorder that persists for two years or more. Despite not having suffered any major depressive episodes, these youths appear listless, down and out, have low self-esteem and difficulty making decisions, and function below the base line.

Right into their 30s, they find it hard to hold on to jobs or relationships.

Mr Lim is candid that such stunted self-image and distorted self-identity problems take years of medication and therapy to fix. It is not easy to go back in time to get them re-attuned to society and in tune with themselves.

So he does not buy the cavalier theories that the three Ds are 'just a phase' which most teenagers will 'eventually grow out' of.

With more permanent scars and the high stakes of today's adolescent minefield, his question is: 'Will they grow out of all these well-adjusted, or mal-adaptive?'"

Better Living Through Online Personality Quizzes #493




Take the What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be? Quiz

Better Living Through Online Personality Quizzes #149

It's a little pathetic, how I need a cup o' black liquid before I can be productive in the real world. Before that, my mind is in a near-catatonic state.

Was out late with Amanda and her friends last night. Dinner first at Billy Bomber's and then we all adjourned to Max Brenner's for chocolate chocolate chocolate.

I wonder if the staff there will let us in again. /chuckle

Amanda! Hope you had a good birthday!

Hey! HMV loves Kill Bill. And admit it -- you do too.

Why do the Japanese get all the cool merchandise? Check out that t-shirt!

And why are the Japanese plugging Kill Bill Vol. 2 as a "love story"?

Happened across a Sembawang Music clearing stock sale on Friday evening while looking for wrapping paper. I hadn't seen a laserdisc for while before then. Wow -- does anyone still have LD players?

Picked up an old 2 CD compilation of music from films for cheap. It's by the BBC, so it has some class versus your generic, vanilla compilation. Specifically, it's music from films featured in Film 2000 with Jonathan Ross.

The annoying bit is: I can't play the damn CDs on my PC. Both CDs are supposed to come with their own CD player -- some form of rudimentary copy control measure I think -- but for some reason the software's not on either disc. All you get is an error message when you click on the button labelled: "Launch CD Player".

Ah well. It cost 5 dollars anyway.

I was typing a long rant about how the National Library branch at Stamford Road should not be closed down, when my computer crashed. And of course the rant has vanished into the fucking digital aether. I'm on medical leave for two days and the combination of fever, cough, medicine and intense irritation is getting to me.

My country hates nostalgia. We do not value social or collective memory. We are tearing down a well-used library to make room for a road. The road is to ease the traffic congestion expected when the university campus opposite the library opens. It's the kind of logic that only appeals to city planners and construction companies.

Thanks to Pui Kwan (Hi! *wave*), I was able to watch Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte) last night. So far every review I've managed to dig up on the net has been negative, with most harping upon the film's lack of drama or human emotion. To some extent these criticisms are justified and I agree that the film is more about ideas and symbols than straight up human drama or historical documentary.

There's still plenty going for the film. For instance good acting, excellent use of light and contrast, the watching motif, layers in shots e.g. multiple rooms visible through doorways, Chiara's surreal imagination (interspersed with, of all things, film footage!) contrasted with the (il)logic of her male comrades, the abstraction of state power and most of all the omnipresence of television. Ah! Mass entertainment is the true opiate of the masses.

Ok, so my weekend wasn't that great.

My father's oldest sister passed away. The cremation was on Friday. Gu Ma, rest in peace.

Watched The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by the Australian cast. Thoroughly entertaining.

Instead of going to Elevation and catching Jazzanova and The Funky Lowlives, I went to watch screenings of Eric Khoo's early short films -- Pain and Symphony 92.4 FM -- and his Mee Pok Man. The discussion in between was cancelled at the last minute -- apparently his birthday was on Saturday so he probably had some family dinner to attend. This was probably lucky for him because I think the audience (especially Amanda, Justin and Weimei) was ready to rip his work to shreds. Pain wasn't bad, but Symphony was atrocious. In all fairness, those films were Khoo's early works so you can't expect greatness right off the bat. As a pioneer he deserves recognition, but he is certainly overrated in other aspects.

btw, Mee Pok Man is watchable up to the point when the woman dies. After that it all goes downhill......

We went for midnight curry rice in Hougang. It was great comfort food, but I'm not willing to shell out $20+ for a cab ride home in the near future...

Sunday was spent in a funk. I woke up feeling crappy for no reason whatsoever, and promptly forgot the rest of my schedule for the day. Forgot about helping my SVDP group in the afternoon. Forgot about Twilight Samurai. >_< At least I got a decent haircut for a change.

Went to the Arts House in the evening to meet Amanda and watch the slam poetry competition. Got roped in to be a judge, which turned out to be rather fun. Each participating team comprised tertiary level students and a (relatively) well-known literary figure here. Was amused to see Stella Kon and Richard Yeo on stage. Amanda hates Richard Lord and I can't say I liked his performance very much either.

I still don't like slam poetry very much.

I still feel like crap this morning btw. But I haven't had my coffee yet either.

Better Living Through Online Personality Quizzes #263



Which Guilty Gear X character are you?

Amanda and I have begun a serial writing blog. The same idea behind Yeats is Dead. Someone writes a chapter, and someone else continues, then a third person picks up from there and so on until some kind of resolution (if any) is reached. We're doing this purely for the fun of it. She started off the project, and I uploaded part 2 a few days ago.

We're still looking for someone to do Chapter 3, so if you know us and are interested don't hesitate to let us know. You'll be able to take the plot in any direction you choose, so long as you leave lots of loose ends dangling for others to pick up.

See what we have so far here. http://writersimpromptu.blogspot.com. A permanent link will go up on the side menu too.

Watched Noi Albinoi (Noi the Albino) yesterday. Coming out of the little screening room of The Arts House, I couldn't unequivocally say that I liked the film. I still can't now and feel no need to, but the film has definitely left little patches of rosy afterglow in my memory. The quirky characters. The bleak, stark Icelandic landscape. The near perfect combination of restlessness and helplessness of Tomas Lemarquis's Noi, awkward and trapped in a little village where no one cares very much about him. And the ending where Noi eventually does escape in a sense, but with his intense physical and mental isolation magnified some more.

Oh how true, how true...

----------

ST Life! MARCH 23, 2004

Arts glut

SO MANY CENTRES, BUT ARE THERE ENOUGH STAFF, TALENT AND ART WORKS?

By Clarissa Oon

OF LATE, there has been an explosion of arts centres in Singapore to serve a population of four million.

This Friday, Old Parliament House reopens as an elegant Arts House for music, dance, theatre and other forms after a $15 million restoration paid for by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

If you prefer edgier forms from kabuki to new media, the International Centre of Asian Arts (ICAA) is slated to open in April next year in a converted Mohamed Sultan Road warehouse. It is the brainchild of drama company TheatreWorks.

They join two older arts centres: the 1 1/2-year-old Esplanade for large- and small-scale performances, and the 13-year-old The Substation whose art gallery and black-box theatre show offbeat, experimental works.

The diversity of spaces is a good thing for audiences as well as local and foreign artists who now have more platforms for their works.

But the rash of arts centres is also symptomatic of hardware-happy Singapore.

After years of high-profile lobbying turned the durian-domed Esplanade into a reality, it now seems easier to invest in shiny new buildings than in the talent and artwork to fill them.

At least $619 million has been or will be spent on the four arts centres, with money going to renovation or building from scratch, as in the case of the $600 million Esplanade.

As more arts centres and performance venues are built or proposed here, one cannot help but feel the country is spreading its resources too thin even as the cash-strapped woes of older venues persist.

At least $50 million a year is required to keep the four arts centres running, with money coming from the Government, corporate sponsorship, rental and ticket sales.

With cost-cutting in a climate of economic uncertainty, both the Esplanade and The Substation have said they are under-staffed and facing a budget deficit.

Among the factors leading to this were fewer hirers of its venues last year, as well as a 12.3 per cent cut in the National Arts Council's (NAC) operating budget last year.

The Esplanade, which houses a 2,000-seat Theatre and 1,600-seat Concert Hall, has about 150 full-time employees.

This is a stretch considering other similar-sized international arts centres such as the Sydney Opera House and London's Barbican Centre have about 250 full-time staff each.

The Substation has only 12 full-time staff, including eight administrators and two technicians. To be a really dynamic venue, it should ideally have at least three more full-timers.

WHITHER SPONSORS

AND then there is the problem of corporate sponsorship which every arts organisation must tap to supplement funding from the Government.

This is especially critical now that the NAC has stressed that the arts should leverage on business as well as technology in order to grow.

But for The Substation, with its experimental focus and a black box theatre which seats only 120, corporate sponsorship is hard to come by.

As Ms Audrey Wong, its co-artistic director, notes: 'We cannot promise companies that we'll help them reach out to tens of thousands of people.'

The Arts House is targeting a more yuppie audience base for survival, with help from three in-house restaurants and its genteel yet intimate setting.

As part of what general manager Colin Goh calls a 'business model that engages the tripartite relationship between the artistic community, audience at large and the business community', it plans to have corporate nights where companies host clients by buying up tickets for an entire show.

In addition to competing for funding and sponsorship, these arts centres also face the task of developing audiences for their programmes.

The most recent arts survey conducted by the NAC has shown that in 2002, 27 per cent of Singaporeans had attended at least one arts event throughout the year.

This figure is low in comparison with neighbouring cities like Hong Kong, which registered 30 per cent in 2000, and Melbourne, which ranged from 30 to 35 per cent in 1999.

Still, the arts centres can take heart from the proposed setting up of a new high school for the arts, as well as the slew of measures announced in Parliament last week to encourage students strong in non-academic subjects like sports and arts.

These measures will help expand the pie of arts-going audiences here. It is still too early to pass a verdict on The Arts House or the ICAA, especially as it is not known how much funding these and other institutions will be allocated by the NAC for the new financial year, beginning next month.

Hopefully, the arts centres will benefit from the 21.6 per cent increase to the NAC's operating budget this year, to $34.62 million.

But with another multi-purpose arts venue coming up in the form of Capitol, there may be little point in dedicating yet another new building to the 'arts', in a generic, catch-all sense.

The Capitol, which will reopen as a performing arts centre, is being handled by the Singapore Tourism Board, which is expected to announce more details soon.

What is needed is not only a bold, clear-sighted vision for each arts centre as to the kind of art it serves, but also the resources to back that up.

Watched Samira Makhmalbaf's Blackboards (Takte Siah) last night with Justin and Shing Yi.

Makhmalbaf claims in this interview with IndieWire that she did not have a specific agenda beyond being anti-war, and that she wanted to just show things. Just don't watch it sleep-starved like I did.

Finished Moonrise, Sunset, by the late Gopal Baratham. I had wanted to borrow his first and most well-known novel A Candle or the Sun, but no copies were to be found when I was at the local library.

Baratham was a better social activist than writer. The dialogue is clunky -- horribly so when he tries to write Singlish. He has a penchant for off-the-wall characters here, but treats most of them like caricatures. The writing is brash, almost vindictive at times. All these are better suited to political commentary and satire (i.e. A Candle or the Sun) than the metaphysics and drama he tried to tackle in Moonrise, Sunset.

Scenes from a Weekend #7363

Exploring a cluttered, messy little used bookstore and walking out with a guide to Volkswagen Beetles and a decades-old Malay learning guide. (Thanks Teck Loon!)

Singing Yatta! and Fish Fight! at Japanese karaoke.

Browsing at Tower Records with Amanda. Bought Mondo Grosso's Next Wave

Finishing my Rokugan D20 RPG campaign (for now), with a character that was alive for the ending.

The thing I miss the most? Sleep.

A good weekend to usher in a great week. Don't touch that dial!

I never expected to find a Pizzicato Five CD for sale in Singapore. Was at Gramophone yesterday with Amanda when I saw Happy End of the World. It's the US release, but beggars can't be choosers.

Gramophone also has P5's first US release Made in USA. Since I already have that album, I can safely say that it is one of the two coolest CDs on the shelf. The other is Happy End of the World, naturally.

Also picked up Gotan Project's La Revancha Del Tango:

"La Revancha del Tango" by Franco-Argentine outfit Gotan Project takes tango away from the ballroom, the floorshow and the heavy nostalgia that lingers in every step of the dance. Acoustic guitar, piano, double bass and bandone�n (the plaintive button accordion vital to tango) are overlaid with dub treatments, screeching violins, fast trancey beats and speech samples. They are clearly on a mission to get tango into clubland......."

I first heard them on Verve Remixed 2, and fell in love with their tart, saucy remix of Sarah Vaughan's Whatever Lola Wants.

I finished Chua Beng Huat's Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore on Monday. Chua attempts to unmask the ideology of the PAP, some means by which the ideology is perpetuated, and more interestingly (to me anyway, seeing as I actually paid attention during my Social Studies and National Education classes) argues that the PAP is attempting to pursue a new communitarian ideology to replace the old one that had "survival" as its theoretical linchpin.

The book is about a decade old by now, but is still an invaluable aid to non-Singaporeans (or locals even) who really want to learn about our political system. Too many observers don't bother looking beyond the "Cowboy-vs-Indians" version.

An updated version that examines developments since 1995 in light of Chua's muted suggestions and Marxist analytical framework would very tantalising indeed :)

As much lighter fare, Yeats is Dead is perfect (shout out to Amanda for the recommendation!).

The writing suffers from lack of characterisation but that's understandable given that each chapter is written by a different person. A sense of fun permeates the work(s) though -- especially in the way that the writers appear to undermine the premises of those before, and throw in little jokes about one anothers' work. Expect to be blindsided by all sorts of funny and incongruous revelations.

A small contribution is made to Amnesty International for every copy bought. I didn't know that until I took mine out of the library and glanced at the back cover, and it tickled me a bit to think that the National Library Board here might have contributed a few pounds to one of the PAP's staunchest (but not very sophisticated nor discerning) critics.

The Guardian Unlimited asks: How well do you know Japanese Cinema?

Too... many... movies... to watch. Gah! x_x

I see that The Trials of Henry Kissinger is in the lineup. I've seen it before, and recommend it to anyone who's interested in Political Science / International Relations / U.S. history / Current Affairs / Government / Public Policy / Statecraft -- aw heck, just go.

It'll be screened on 25th April, at 7pm. Here's the relevant film fest webpage.

Tickets for this year's Singapore International Film Festival go on sale today.

From Samurai Cinema 101:

"First we saw that Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi was a surprise hit both in Japan and around the world, cleaning up at international film festivals. Then the Fall of 2003 brought the releases of Quentin Tarantino's love letter to Japanese chanbara film, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and Tom Cruise starring in the US produced The Last Samurai. Further bolstering samurai cinema's profile, the awards season saw Yoji Yamada's Twilight Samurai receiving an Oscar nomination for best foreign film and, concurrent with this, there were a slew of samurai cinema DVDs released. Put these facts together and we find that now, more than ever, is the time to be getting into this genre......."

One of the features of this year's Australian Film Festival was the Geoffrey Rush showcase on Saturday. It was rather tiny showcase, lasting, as it did, only one day. It did, however, provide the opportunity to watch Shine, Rush's very first film. Thankfully he's made all the right career moves since then. His Oscar may have made the American-centric audience go into a bit of a tizzy, but there is no doubt regarding his versatility and talent.

Director Hicks (Snow Falling on Cedars, Hearts in Atlantis) has done well for himself too, both in his Hollywood and documentary careers. He was at the screening, accompanied by SFS President Kenneth Tan, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he would be giving a talk after the film. Hick regaled us all with stories and snippets about the making of the film. From funding troubles to encounters with Harvey Weinstein (co-founder of Miramax) to actor idiosyncracies (Noah Taylor who plays the young Helfgott had a piano phobia) and more. I stayed for as long as I could and was almost sorry to leave. But I had to meet Amanda and David.

We eventually ended up at a faux-Norwegian eatery called Skal, 'cos it was the only place nearby that didn't required standing in line for an hour. Prices were ok and the decor tried its best to look upmarket but the food portions could be larger. We weren't expecting too much however, since the management was the same people behind cheap conveyor-belt sushi chain Sakae Sushi. Amanda and David's friend May-ann joined us (Hi May-ann! *wave*) too.

Hey! Those MPs who call for a return to Asian family values may have a point after all!

Let's bring back child marriages! Old men who take wives a third their age! In fact, let's all learn from:

The recent debates in Parliament over our falling birth rate have thrown up several lucid and sensible suggestions from many MPs. More flexible maternity leave, forcing employers to rehire mothers, paternity leave for fathers, making men realise that they must share equally in household burdens, and so on.

And then, you get comments like these:

The Straits Times, 10 Mar 2004

It's your 'duty' to procreate

Carrots alone won't work; it's time for the stick, say several MPs, who want pressure put on married couples who don't want babies

By Tee Hun Ching

HAVING babies is a duty. Make that a duty to self, society and country.

Alarmed? You should be, if you are married and have no desire to procreate.

MPs like Dr Ong Seh Hong (Aljunied GRC) want to pump up the social pressure on such people whom he described as 'irresponsible'.

Yesterday, even as their counterparts continued pushing for carrots such as a five-day work week and cash incentives, Dr Ong and several MPs suggested it was also time to use the stick.

Indeed, the MPs argued passionately that procreation was a responsibility that people should fulfil regardless of sweeteners.

Adopting the most hardline stance among them all, Dr Ong emphasised traditional Asian values as he dismissed the common refrain that family planning is a personal decision.

Declared the father of three: 'Procreation is not only the duty of everyone, but also the responsibility of every citizen towards his family, parents, society and country.'

Those 'irresponsible' people who shun the stork, he said, should realise they would become a liability to the society in future.

To prevent this, he suggested making this group bear the costs of their old age by having them contribute to an account he called the 'Preventive Eldercare Account'.

The money in this account would then provide for their needs when they are old.

He said he believed that Chinese philosopher Mencius' words on filial piety - 'bu xiao you san, wu hou wei da' - still has relevance today. Translated, it means that 'of the three instances of unfilial behaviour, not having descendants is the worst'.

Mr Gan Kim Yong (Holland-Bukit Panjang GRC) also held out a Chinese phrase for those naysayers against children to ponder over - ai qing the jie jing. It means a baby is the product of love.

Marriage and having children came naturally to people of his generation without too much cost-benefit analysis, noted the 45-year-old father of two.

'Sure, there were problems and difficulties, but they add colour and richness to life. If you ask parents today, few of them would regret having babies despite all the difficulties,' he said.

He suggested an annual Love Campaign to add spark to the lives of young couples and help them appreciate the joy and fulfilment of having a family.

'It is like driving a car. We have the best engine, the lubricant is new and the tank is full. But when we turn the key, the engine does not come on because there is no spark in the chamber,' he said.

Dr Ong went a step further and proposed an all-out media blitz to promote family values.

Such messages, he said, could be transmitted through TV dramas 'highlighting the sorry plight of a childless old couple and the great problems faced by an ageing society'.

Joining in the chorus of MPs who lamented the erosion of values that led to having children being viewed less as a duty than a personal choice was Ms Penny Low (Pasir Ris-Punggol), who is single.

She said while children were a status symbol of sorts in the past, the reverse is true today.

The MP, who admitted she faced pressures to get married especially during Chinese New Year from well-meaning relatives, said: 'In the not-so-distant past, we had less to eat and wear, but we had more children to show. Today, we analyse and analyse the cost until we become paralysed by it.'

Given the heavy anti-left leanings of the PAP, I am baffled at how Acting Minister for Education Tharman Shanmugaratnam came to be where he is now. The introduction to an interview with him published in The Sunday Times reads:

At Anglo-Chinese School, he used to be 'totally uninterested' in his studies, enjoyed needling his teachers and always occupied the last row in class. His best friends were troublemakers and dropouts, he freely admits.

Most of his learning was 'extra-curricular'. He poured his energies into hockey, football, cricket and athletics, playing a match or practising almost every day - until he developed severe iron-deficiency anaemia and a heart abnormality when he was 17.

Afterwards, he immersed himself in leftist literature, student activism, exploring 'alternative' political and economic models, and at one point, even formed a study group with Tan Wah Piow, the University of Singapore student radical who exiled himself to Britain to avoid arrest.

At the London School of Economics, he eschewed the university's standard economic course and crafted and pursued his own degree programme: combining the economics of socialist economies with the sociology of developing countries.

Upon his return to Singapore in 1982, his passport was impounded at the airport and he was hauled up for questioning by the Internal Security Department. But that was no bar to his subsequent career in the civil service: He was managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore before he entered politics in 2001. Since that election, he has swiftly risen through the ranks - as Senior Minister of State for Education and Trade and Industry, then Acting Education Minister. By the end of this year, he is expected to become a full minister.

The link should expire in a couple of days, but there's no harm in posting it here.

I sympathise with the unenviable position he's in -- education has always been a grave concern of parents here and hence a hot political potato. Moreover, with the recent scandals involving schools -- police called in to investigate porn VCDs being passed among students in school, teachers allowing students to perform oral sex on them, and most recently a boy who committed suicide after his teacher said she was going to call his parents down to school to discuss the romance he was having with a girl -- Mr Shanmugaratnam's got his hands full. On the one hand he's can't be fire-fighting all the time. On the other he can't look like he's divorced from the masses in pursuing his large-scale education reforms.

Well, he makes all the right noises in that interview. That's a good start.

This month's University of Chicago Magazine has an article on the UofC Japanese Animation Society. The article isn't very flattering at all, and fails to give enough credit to Japanese animation genre.

Anime glows in Harper's halls

But reading that article brings back so many wonderful memories!

There are so many things that I wish I could change or could have done differently while at the UofC. But if I, were a freshman again, fidgeting in one of those awkward seats unique to Harper 130, gazing at the opening credits while my eyes adjust to the abrupt cut of the room lights, knew full well the trajectory my life would take once caught in the pull of people I would meet and the sheer effort that would be demanded of me......

...... I would do it all over again. In a technicolour heartbeat, in the imperceptible flicker between cels.

Trix are for kids...

Kill Bill Vol. 1 Collector's Set, Japanese Edition.

It's... it's... undescribably cool... And that Be@rbrick is awesome.

/heartbreak... with blood everywhere, mochiron.

The BBC Drama Unit Does Holland

My first movie as a member of the Singapore Film Society was Girl With a Pearl Earring. It's a visually flawless period drama, and thanks to Eduardo Serra's skillful cinematography every frame literally looks like a Dutch 16-17th century painting. It gets uncanny very quickly.

The lacklustre characterisation helps reinforce the impression that the film is really a succession of paintings with some commentary on the side -- kind of like a play in a museum. Colin Firth's Vermeer spends all his time looking dark, brooding and angsty like a frustrated pirate. Tom Wilkinson tries really hard not to let Van Ruijven slide into Taiwanese-drama-serial villainy. Johansson in the lead role acquits herself well, and I liked Essie Davis treading a fine neurotic line as the high-strung Catharina.

For more information on the real painting, here's an in-depth study with lots of links.

Though the mountains divide...

Discovered the day before that Amanda is good friends with an old classmate of mine, David Lok.

... and the oceans are wide...

We had gotten along quite well back in SJI, but I lost touch with him after that. We went to the same JC, but were in different faculties and our paths just diverged from there.

... it's a small world after aaaaaaaaaaaaall!!!

Hey! When are we all meeting for kopi? :D

Ah, there we go.

Added Haloscan. Trying to figure out how to add a Tagboard as well without screwing up my layout...

Had the afternoon off yesterday, and went to see Monster. I can see why they gave the Best Actress Oscar to Charlize Theron. Christina Ricci's performance here shouldn't be overlooked either.

I don't know how much of the film is true. I wasn't expecting a documentary of course, but Hollywood has never been known for factual accuracy when it comes to history and Monster is no exception. Even so, director Patty Jenkins doesn't allow the film to become bogged down in any moralising or social criticism. Her depiction of Wuornos focuses intensely on personal tragedy, letting it unfold in working-class suburban America, without sentimentality nor judgement.

This has been turning mainly into a book and movie column.

I tried keeping a diary once but could never get into the habit of making daily entries. In my defence, I would like to say that in primary school each day is pretty much like the one before.

Big Fish is a wonderful movie. A tribute to the power of imagination and the endurance of fables, constructed under Tim Burton's uncanny, surreal direction. Loved every minute, and the end made me cry.

(I will imagine an end like that. Everyone I've ever known, smiling and waving at me, glad not that I'm leaving, but glad for me in my leaving.)

Give me surreal. Soak me in the uncanny. Overload my imagination.

Rewind: Last week

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen.

Last Saturday.

I attended the Wee Li Lin retrospective, one of the events in the six-month-long Short Cuts. Good stuff. I hope to see more of her films, especially since she seems to be getting better at fleshing out her characters and making her narratives more complex without losing the imaginative sense of humour in her work.

Came out of the screening late. Got interviewed by an Arts Central crew for a new programme, then agonised over my replies on my way to Orchard to meet Justin. How is it I can only think of the right things to say after the opportunities have passed? I f**king hate myself.

I took the train in the wrong direction when I changed trains. Both times.

While waiting for the correct train, I met a former JC mate. As is the case with people who have nothing much in common, we started talking about people we used to know in JC. So I asked about Vera, a mutual acquaintance.

She had committed suicide two weeks ago -- the Saturday before last (this last bit I found out after rummaging through old newspapers back at home).

Vera, you were good-looking, a practising Christian and you were actively involved in social work. Dammit woman. I pray you rest in peace -- it's all I can do now.
------------------------------

I really liked Last Life In The Universe. Subtle, quirky, sensitive.

We are all fundamentally lonely. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that loneliness is fundamental to the human condition. But I already believe all that.

It took me only a few days to finish Eric Schlosser's latest -- Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. Compared to his earlier Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal however, Reefer Madness is lighter, fluffier. After all, he only dedicates 100+ pages to each problem. The book relatively well-written and makes a great introduction for the layperson. If you're expecting something more scholarly and in-depth, you may want to just photocopy the extensive notes and bibliography and dig deeper.

This blog is a year old.

100 Bullets is thoroughly engrossing. The premise sounds like a warped episode of Touched by an Angel. Imagine that an old man in a black suit and tie, sporting a military GI cut ("My name is Agent Graves") came up to you and offered you an attache case filled with a gun, 100 rounds of ammo and unrefutable proof that someone has wronged you, made your life the living hell it is now. The gun and the ammo are all untraceable. You can use them anyway you want; no cop can arrest you for doing so.

As you might expect, the series does a good job of handling moral dilemmas, but the real meat of the series is found in the conspiracy element. You will soon realise that what look like totally unrelated events and people, aren't.

Azzarello's writing is hard-boiled, and the dialogue is subtle but hard-hitting (even though he tries a little too hard sometimes to mimic ethnic voices). Risso's art is dramatic, gritty and completely unlike standard American comic art. Both Azzarello and Risso continue to compliment each other excellently in bringing the neglected underbelly of American society to life -- now in graphic novel form. Easily worth every dollar.

Reading old strips of the sublime Ozy and Millie.

Hey, Singapore's mentioned.

It's really a nice place to visit.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Added a link to the excellent Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive in the side menu. Enjoy.

T'ain't no big thing
To wait for the bell to ring
T'ain't no big thing
The toll of the bell

Aggravated - spare for days
I troll downtown the red light place
Jump up bubble up - what's in store
Love is the drug and I need to score
Showing out, showing out, hit and run
Boy meets girl where beat goes on
Stitched up tight, can't shake free
Love is the drug, got a hook on me

Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug I'm thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug for me

Late that night I park my car
Stake my place in the singles bar
Face to face, toe to toe
Heart to heart as we hit the floor
Lumber up, limbo down
The locked embrace, the stumble round
I say go, she say yes
Dim the lights, you can guess the rest

Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug I'm thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug, got a hook in me
Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug I'm thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug for me

"...... Is this a second-best life? Maybe. I don't know. It seems to me that the really tragic lives, the really cautionary ones, are not the ones marked by obvious dramas such as being paralysed, or losing a child in an accident, but the ones marked by the slow, corrosive drip of failure, the diminishing of horizons. You can see them on the train every morning -- men, less often women, who've given up hoping for very much out of life. They're not poor, not starving, they're decent, ordinary people. It's simply that the paucity of their expectations has hobbled them in some way. You see it in their clothes, the wrinkles in their shirt sleeves, the scuff marks on the shoes, the uncombed hair, the briefcase they've had for years and can't see the point of changing. They fill me with an unreasoning revulsion. I think -- that could be my fate yet......"

Life ain't fair. Hwee Hwee Tan gets published by Penguin (Ok, so Michael Joseph is a small subsidiary of Penguin but nonetheless) while Claire Tham has to make do with Times Books International (Singapore . Kuala Lumpur).

I am enjoying Skimming now.

What was Mammon Inc. like? Bridget Jones meets Lonely Planet.

What irked me the most about the book was the thinly-veiled haranguing of Singaporeans. The way Hwee Hwee Tan describes the English makes them look good-naturedly eccentric, and she also takes great pains to differentiate the snotty Oxford upper crust from the rest of (kinder?) English society.

No such subtlety for Singaporeans. Readers would think that we were all without exception stupid, wilfully ignorant, racist and Chinese. Her descriptions are spiked with malice and barbed with cruelty.

Reading Mammon Inc is like reading Bridget Jones's Diary, except that the latter is more sincere. Fielding doesn't throw conclusions in your face either.

I admit that my knowledge of Singaporean literature is forlorn. Like a worn rope bridge over a river than no-one ever uses. So I'm glad some of Justin's passion for reading and critiquing local literature has rubbed off on me.

Claire Tham's latest is The Gunpowder Trail and Other Stories. I browsed through it at MPH on Sunday, and I'm sorry I failed to read her work earlier. In atonement, I went to the neighbourhood library and checked out every Claire Tham book that branch had. Saving the Rainforest and Other Stories went by pretty quickly -- short in quantity, not quality. I am looking forward to Skimming, and if I ask nicely maybe Justin will let me have Gunpowder Trail for a bit.

The reason why Skimming is still sitting on my desk (keeping my Secrets of the Scorpion company), is that I've just started Hwee Hwee Tan's (Or Tan Hwee Hwee's? :p) Mammon Inc. I checked that book out of the library too; was thinking of comparing the two authors.

I think Claire Tham is a much better writer than Miss Tan. I wasn't impressed much by the latter's debut Foreign Bodies, and the first 2 chapters of Mammon Inc. are a little... underwhelming.

I wonder how not-so-good writers can get their work published and reviewed in international publications like The Economist while better writers go unnoticed outside Singapore. I have my suspicions, and they're actually quite obvious ones.

Watched Lost in Translation on Saturday. I think enough has been said about this movie to make you want to watch it, and I'm definitely adding my drop to the sea of approval this movie had accumulated thus far. Even more than Sofia Coppola's debut The Virgin Suicides. Justin over at his blog has (or will have) far more to say -- nay, gush -- about Miss Coppola's work. No harm taking a look :)

I liked it. It's a meaningful, sensitive film about the intimate nature of loneliness. I think the ending went a little too far into the realm of crowd-pleasing, and some bits are just rude towards the Japanese. Otherwise, it's a nuanced film with strong performances from the leads. Bill Murray is perfectly cast here -- makes me want to watch Groundhog Day now.

Morgan Spurlock eats nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days, and makes a documentary about it. Unfortunately, I doubt Super Size Me will be seeing Singapore shores anytime soon. More like never.

I miss Doc :/

Kudos to the director for that insane, revolting stunt. His film's not really scientific, and its popularity probably has more to do with controversy than good film-making (maybe even a cheap shot at an easy target?). Still, I don't think enough people care about how unhealthy fast food is no matter how much scientific data is thrown in their faces. Maybe this film might help.

Wow... it's been more than a week since I last blogged... Time flies when every day seems like the one before and the hours slip like sand through fingers but a lot less fun.

I've just bought Neverwinter Nights: Gold Edition. Not that I will have the time to finish playing the original Neverwinter Nights and the expansion Shadows of Undrentide, but I've always wanted to play the former.

Closing Time was finished last week. It's filled with bittersweet ruminations on aging and death in the late 20th century -- y'know, the one defined by two World Wars (particularly number two, and you could say they were both one big horrid conflict), the development of global capitalism, and the ability to blow ourselves up a few thousand times over and reduce our lush planet to a barren dustball.

Not very uplifting, you might guess. But at least it's witty.

"... Yet thanks to a complacent media, the President has managed to hide behind a carefully constructed "compassionate" image. As the 2004 election nears, it's crucial that voters understand what President Bush's policies really mean for our country. And to do that, we need creative new ads that clearly show what's at stake.

That�s why we decided to launch Bush in 30 Seconds, an ad contest that�s intended to bring new talent and new messages into the world of mainstream political advertising. We're looking for the ad that best explains what this President and his policies are really about -- in only 30 seconds."

Watched The Last Samurai on Fri night. Standard Hollywood fare; albeit very pretty Hollywood fare. Gorgeous panoramas of lush mountain slopes and cloud-filled skies. Rousing mass battles. 2-D villains and an emperor that�s only � more. Cool, heroic heroes in a rose-tinted conception of pre-industrial Japan � the one that too many Americans think Japanese culture should have been like.

I liked the camerawork and the high level of detail on the armour and costumes. The ninja attack on the village was excellently done imho. Of course, the heroes could not die halfway through the movie, but the ninja were silent, swift, deadly and coordinated.

Irreversible, on Sat evening, was completely different from the Oscar-grist above. Certainly more thought provoking and disturbing. The reverse narrative brings to mind the well-crafted Memento, but Irreversible has no mystery, no suspense. Instead it throws violence in your face for the first half, with the infamous rape in real-time scene becoming the frame of reference for the rest of the movie. The second half milks irony a little too much (for instance, Alex dreams the night before the rape that she�s walking in a red tunnel and it breaks in half. Her rape occurred in a red underpass), but provides valuable background and a glimpse into the sexual undercurrents just under the ties between Alex, her ex-lover Pierre and her present squeeze Marcus. These ties are placed under much scrutiny after we have seen what happens shortly after, especially with regards to the connections between violence, sex, and the objectification of women.

It�s not that Irreversible has a moral message. On the contrary, there is no room for morals � not in that urban hell that ticks along a linear progression. As the ex-con at the beginning of the movie (which is really the linear, eventual end) claims, "Time destroys everything."

The 3rd season of American Idol has made it to our shores. I have never seen an episode before last night's premiere, and I have to admit that I was immensely tickled by what I did see.

Imho, the judges (Paula Abdul looks even better now than when she was singing "Hush Hush"!) all carried themselves professionally, and I fail to see what the big fuss about Simon Cowell is all about. He was harsh, true, but not unjustifiably so. At no time did he utter a personal insult, in that clipped British accent, against any hopeful. Those who received his barbs deserved them. Perhaps he gets worse later on, but I suspect that his infamy is mostly media hype. Silly Americans.

What truly amused me was the seriousness with which many of the contestants entered the auditions. This resulted in lots of bad-tempered antics when they were told that they hadn't made it. Aside from poor self-knowledge and ego issues (one lamented that she had lost 80 pounds just for that audition), many also tried to do funny things with their voices and bodies when all the judges wanted were straight-up, no-nonsense, good singing. Indeed, one of the successful contestants was a 16-year old who did a good Dean Martin impression and when he didn't, had a Michael Buble-ish voice. There you go -- no fancy runs, no scat singing, no wiggling or contrived dance routines. Just good-ol' fashioned singing with good pitch and the ability to hold a tune.

Now if only the rest of the music industry were as discerning.

Peter Hall writes about Directing Harold Pinter's Plays.

...These three signs in the text all indicate moments of turbulence and crisis--the Three Dots, the Pause and the Silence. By their use, the unsaid becomes sometimes more terrifying and more eloquent than the said. Pinter actually writes silence, and he appropriates it as a part of his dialogue. The actor who has not decided what is going on in this gap will find that his emotional life is disrupted. The pause is as eloquent as speech and must be truthfully filled with intention if the audience is to understand. Otherwise the actor produces a non sequitur, which is absurd and makes the character ridiculous...

Am reading Joseph Heller's Closing Time:

Another prick in the White House? It would not be the first time. Another oil tanker had broken up. There was radiation. Garbage. Pesticides, toxic waste, and free enterprise. There were enemies of abortion who wished to inflict the death penalty on everyone who was not pro-life. There was mediocrity in government, and self-interest too. There was trouble in Israel. These were not mere delusions. He was not making them up. Soon they would be cloning human embryos for sale, fun, and replacement parts. Men earned millions producing nothing more substantial than changes in ownership. The cold war was over and there was still no peace on earth. Nothing made sense and neither did everything else. People did things without knowing why and then tried to find out.

I love Catch-22. Heller managed to capture the real absurdity of how people become enslaved to invisible systems, distant bureaucracies and obscure instructions. Organisations that were set up to serve people suddenly become winding traps for the unwary or more accurately, the unthinking.

Closing Time is just as wicked, if not better. It's amazing how much of it is still relevant, considering that it's almost 10 years old.

On Sunday I attended a writing workshop conducted by local poet Felix Cheong, as part of this year�s inaugural Wordfeast. Our first ever international poetry festival, if the promo materials are to be believed.

The workshop wasn�t very substantial, but at only 2 hours I wasn�t expecting anything beyond some photocopied handouts and sketches of what it truly takes to be a writer. To be honest, what really lured me all the way to Bedok Community Library where I paid $5, was the bit in the description of the event that talked about �the practicalities of being a writer.� At heart I suppose I am still a pragmatist.

Most of Cheong�s examples were from poetry, since he is a poet, but his attempts to distill some guidelines and principles were general enough to be useful to anyone who is seriously considering writing as more than a hobby � if not as a career. With regards to technique, it was Literary Devices 101. More substantial, for me and I suspect for most of those who attended as well, was his advice on discipline and purpose. Those are what separate those who write from the writers. The guidelines are simple things, short lines of text on a page. Everyone knows that the simplest things are the hardest to accomplish.

----------------------------------------------------

I�ve been thinking about why I write. Most recently I wrote a favorable review for School of Rock and Paycheck. I realised, after some pointed questions from Amanda, that I was writing to impress and to be published. When it comes to things like that, I admit that I like to show off sarcasm and attempt wit for their own sake.

Of course, there�s nothing wrong with that. In fact wit and sarcasm are quite well recognised and rewarded. There is nothing to be ashamed when you can poke fun at someone and get him/her to laugh along with everyone else too.

The problem with such writing though, in my humble opinion anyway, is that it tends to to become too clever by half. The result is that the writing loses emotion and depth. Pare away the witty repartee and suddenly you have a skeleton. Hello Yorick! Such a silly, stupid grin.

It�s not that I don�t appreciate beauty � I just can�t find the words to hold all I want to say. Even that last sentence sounded hollow. It�s like fitting square pegs in round holes, but while blindfolded so you don�t even know where the pegs and holes are to begin with.

Singapore Short Cuts is a series of screenings of digital short films taking place at the Singapore History Museum. I really wanted to get tickets to this month's screening on Saturday, but the free tickets were snapped up faster than the raw oysters at a buffet in Singapore. If I want tickets to the other events -- one every month till June at least -- I'll have to engage in some mad rush a week before each screening. I blame the tiny size of the SHM theatre (193 only?!?). It's just not big enough for all the people here who are clearly interested in local short films!!!

So You Want To Learn Japanese

Friday evening found me in the audience at luna_id's staging of a Harold Pinter doublebill. Namely, The Lover and The Dumb Waiter. I was expecting a more engaging performance. But even without the annoying Caucasians behind us who kept whispering the obvious (What are they doing? -- They're roleplaying -- Ohhhhh, roleplaying (titter) ) the whole thing was a bit of a letdown. Technically it was excellent. I liked the innovative set design, heavy on wooden grilles for some nifty lighting effects. Heavyweights Tan Kheng Hua, Lim Yu Beng (they're a real-life married couple btw) and Gerald Chew provided competent acting, as expected.

Unfortunately, the performances were kind of flat with The Dumb Waiter lacking more. Any effect on the audience came not from the delivery but from Pinter's writing. If you had known what a Pinteresque silence was and were looking for those that evening, you would have only found the ubiquitous poor cousins -- your run-of-the-mill pauses and silences that mostly indicate time passing. The British accents felt forced as well.

I believe Justin has more to say about this and with far more eloquence. For him, the performance was indicative of the state of Singapore society and theatre. After listening to him, and talking to Amanda on Sunday, I've come to a much better understanding of the relationship between a society and its drama, with the various consequences that particular relationship implies. Sounds vague, I suppose, but if I had it all worked out already I would be a far better person than I am right now.
----------------------------------------------

Spent my Sunday afternoon rummaging through CDs at Zouk's Flea n Easy. This is a monthly flea market held inside the well-known club, and thus attracts a certain sort of seller and buyer. Lots of clubwear and street fashion stuff (mostly for women I might add), CDs, movie videotapes, magazines. I was pleased to find Fantastic Plastic Machine stuff, and I'm still a little sore at missing out on a promo t-shirt for a Blur album. Michelle and her friend joined me, but the place was swelled to almost full capacity (TIP: Go early!!!) and we were looking for completely different things so not much chance to interact.

Best of all, watched the excellent Good Bye Lenin! in the evening. More on that later.

Finished Quicksilver. Whew!

Book 3 is where everything moves along after the build up in Books 1 and 2. So if you're plodding through the latter books don't give up! :)

Have to wait for a while for The Confusion, but April's really not that far away.

Finished Book 2 of Quicksilver last night. This section moved along at a much faster pace than Book 1, and was peppered with far more of Stephenson's idiosyncratic wit.

I still can't believe I actually paid to watch Paycheck in a cinema on Sunday. In mitigation, it was a purely last-minute decision. Probably influenced by my disappointment at not being able to get seats for Goodbye Lenin! for the second weekend in a row. Ugh. Unless you're a Ben Affleck fan, don't watch it. And even then you can wait till it's available for rental.

I've been on leave since the 1st, and catching the feeder service this morning made me appreciate the fact that the bus comes around every 2 or 3 minutes. During the holidays such frequency seemed excessive, but since schools have reopened even this seems insufficient to deal with the teeming uniformed masses.

Self-packed sardines
White or yellow cans on wheels
School's started again

I finished reading Dance Dance Dance early this morning. It's the most intense and depressing of Murakami's stuff I've read so far. I'd like to go back to Quicksilver, but the gulf between Murakami and Stephenson is simply too wide... actually I can't imagine reading any other book for now.

Spent New Year's Eve at Jazz@South Bridge, where Okazaki Yoshiro was performing.

Jazz@South Bridge is quite cosy and tastefully decorated. It's more conducive to chillin' rather than performances. That's what it is -- a cosy hang-out place with class. So there we were in our spot against the wall with the plush comfy cushions -- Justin, Kong Jie, Debra, Yin Loon and I. Chatting and snacking and sipping our champagne (included in the cover just for that night) and listening to some excellent live jazz.

Justin and I traded snide remarks about the couple who'd planted themselves right smack in front of us, blocking our view. From the way they behaved, jazz was pretty far from their minds.

I received my order of L5R cards, finally. They took more than 3 weeks to get here from New Zealand :p But the stamp used has Gandalf on it, and makes it all worth the wait.

I wish I had the whole set of Return of the King stamps.

Anita Mui, HK pop superstar, has passed away of cervical cancer at the age of 40.

I was never a fan of hers, mainly because I never listened to Chinese pop beyond what I had to for my Mandarin classes. By all accounts she was a likable person and a fervent community service volunteer despite her hectic schedule -- she apparently worked up till the day she fell into a coma. In fact she was supposed to launch her new book here in Singapore in mid-December, with all proceeds going to the Children's Cancer Foundation. She never turned up, and with hindsight she was probably already being ravaged on the inside by the cancer.

Now this article provides plenty of thought for Public Policy majors. Andy Ho always does a good job of making science accessible to the layman, but without cheapening or dumbing down his content. Since The Straits Times only keeps articles for 3 days, the column in question has been reproduced for your reading pleasure :)

Inoculating the world against the wrong flu
By Andy Ho
SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

IF YOU are not one of the 300,000 Singaporeans who have taken the flu shot, count yourself lucky.

The current vaccine against influenza A was made to be used against a strain first isolated in Panama in 1999. However, there is a new strain plaguing the world, called Fujian, which bears 23 significant mutations, some of which are very dramatic, Harvard bioengineer Henry Niman told The Sunday Times.

This means that the vaccine now in use will offer less than the usual 70 to 90 per cent protection rate, and probably way below 50 per cent, since 75 per cent of the cases are now Fujian.

First identified in China (Beijing), the United States (Massachusetts) and Japan (Osaka) late last year, Fujian was already causing severe illness in Australia and New Zealand by February this year.

Coincidentally, that is also the time of the year when the major pharmaceutical firms decide, in collaboration with governments, what flu strains to manufacture the annual vaccine against.

Most knew about the emerging Fujian strain, but decided to stick with Panama anyway.

How was that decision made in the US, the nation so far worst hit by the Fujian flu?

Badly.

Its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made the fateful call on March 18. A transcript of its proceedings can be read on the FDA website.

Except for a lone voice of dissent - and two abstentions - 17 physicians and public health specialists voted to bring back the Panama shot.

A close reading of the questions posed shows that, though experts in their own fields, few seemed familiar with genetics or vaccine production. Instead, they appeared dependent on the presentations by two speakers who briefed them before a vote was taken.

People about to cast an important vote are duty-bound to do some homework beforehand but the proverbial dog could have eaten all their homework, save for one person.

Came decision day, three sins committed went unexpiated because only one member could recognise them.

First, the threat that the new strain would likely pose was underplayed.

Fujian was already spreading geographically and had caused disease in the southern winter, thus heralding a new epidemic.

Moreover, the fact that two of the 23 mutations in Fujian had first appeared in the 1968 pandemic, then disappeared, only to reappear now, was nowhere noted in their deliberations.

If they had only studied the genomes of the flu strains available on the Internet, they would have seen the telltale mutations.

Second, they were told that there was no way to produce the Fujian vaccine, the strain having failed repeatedly to grow in chicken eggs. The Europeans and Japanese were experiencing similar difficulties.

(The difficulty in growing the virus should have been a broad hint that Fujian was significantly different from Panama.)

In fact, there were other ways to grow the virus - through cell cultures alone, or through cell cultures followed by transfer of the rapidly growing virus into eggs.

The Japanese did successfully grow the Fujian virus in a cell culture and transfer it into eggs. These could have been used to begin making the vaccine.

But the Americans refused the same procedure, fearing that cell cultures might introduce other extraneous agents, some potentially cancerous, into the vaccine.

In fact, chicken eggs might also introduce similar agents but, never mind, eggs have always been used.

The FDA was unlikely to approve the use of viruses that had been through a cell culture even once, the participants at the vaccine advisory committee were told.

And even if it did, approval would take months - too late to use them this season because manufacturing the vaccine using eggs takes eight months and so must commence by early April if they are to get to market by the cold season at year's end.

Yet, had they done their homework, they would have come across a firm called Solvay Pharmaceuticals with one cell culture licensed for use in vaccine production.

Using cell cultures alone without subsequent transfer into eggs produces vaccines much faster, possibly in time even for use this season.

This had been successfully tried out on an industrial scale in Austria last year, where the vaccine worked safely and effectively in 2,500 volunteers.

In addition, having voted to use the old Panama strain, it behooved the American health authorities to inform the public that this year's flu shot wasn't going to offer much protection against the expected bug.

They didn't - and yet they are still telling at-risk groups to take the shot.

I'm befuddled: Annual shots are recommended because the flu virus keeps changing, the experts say. Yet the strain used in making the influenza A vaccine has remained completely unchanged since 2000, even though the virus has mutated.

The 17 members of the committee seemed to have voted less on the science and more on regulatory considerations and industrial concerns - decidedly not their areas of expertise too.

Had the vote been 20 against Panama, it might have forced the FDA's hand to make a quick decision about using the licensed cell culture to produce the Fujian.

But it's too late now for the families whose children have died from Fujian. Looks like a long winter ahead for the Americans.

-------------------------------------------------------

I bring this article to your attention, because these are the kind of situations that Public Policy (at least the way I was taught it at the University of Chicago anyway) equips people to study. At first glance, it's easy to conclude that the decision-makers were negligent or even amoral (this seems to be Mr Ho's slant as well).

This is in no way a criticism of Mr Ho's writing, but I observe that lots of people (not including Mr Ho) think that government policy is a matter of the right people waving a magic wand. It's a whole lot more complicated than that. I wish more people would appreciate the sheer difficulty in coordinating different groups all with their own agendas. I wish more would consider the political give-and-take decision-makers play to get the best deals for their interests. I wish more people were able (or willing) to grasp the concept that routine and organisational processes can and often do blind a person to change -- even if she is the most upright person in the world.

This is why the world needs good Public Policy majors.

Rocket Mania is damn addictive.

Am taking a short break from Quicksilver, having finished the 1st book. I thought I'd read Dance Dance Dance, but I was thumbing the first pages of that book when I remembered that it was kind of a sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase. Didn't feel right not to reread that, so into my bag it went and me into bed.

Then this morning on the bus I recalled that A Wild Sheep Chase used characters from Hear the Wind Sing. Somehow it had never struck me that all three could be read in succession. Wouldn't hurt to try, and Murakami's work is worth rereading anyway.

j�nigatsu nij�yokka
anata wa
nani wo shiteru
watashi wa
machi no dokoka de
zutto anata wo matteruuuuuu

T�ky� wa itsudatte
itsudatte nigiyaka da kedo
j�nigatsu nij�yokka
hitori-kiri wa sukoshi samishii
.
.
.

Clarissa Oon, journalist and arts critic for the lifestyle section of The Straits Times (titled, in a fit of style-masquerading-as-creativity, Life!), has discovered Murakami Haruki.

I would link to her column, but since the ST only keeps its online editions, well, online for 3 days linking probably wouldn't be of much point. Nonetheless --

Where can I find a Murakami man?

btw, Miss Oon has written a short comedy too:

Say The Right Thing (1997)

Relationships are strange creatures. I hope you find the one you're looking for, Miss Oon. (Alas! I'm about 4 years younger and I don't cook. But Murakami's men only do pasta anyway and I can handle that.)

-----------------------------------

I'm reading Neal Stephenson's latest: Quicksilver. Irreverent wit and esoteric concepts intelligently meshed together -- once again. I keep thinking of rereading his earlier Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash (the latter was what got me hooked on Stephenson), but somehow other books keep shoving themselves in the way.

This has been a very good weekend. Sean Yeo and Jonathan Lim (rumoured lovers btw) were uproaringly hilarious in Chestnuts Unloaded. Their Christmas comedy revue's in its 6th year, and the duo are still pulling in the crowds with endless witty parodies and spoofs of almost everything in local entertainment that's happened this year. Video cameos by the Architect himself (!), Frodo and Sam sing Eminem, The Matriarchitect, Theatreworks does the News, and endless, endless jibes at the Esplanade. Descriptions are insufficient -- Chestnuts must be experienced in all its wit, energy and ingenuity.

Damn -- I'm definitely going back next year.

------------------------

Seen Return of the King yet? Peter Jackson is truly admirable. He has not only made Tolkien accessible to a general public, but has done so in three movies of consistently jaw-dropping quality. Granted, they were shot as one movie but the sheer duration of it all is nevertheless daunting. There is no doubt that The Lord of the Rings is a fine work even when divorced from its print counterpart. There have been excellent print-to-screen adaptations before, but for an iconic fantasy novel that essentially estalished the genre? Only the Star Wars trilogy (of course not those cursed prequels) can compare. Probably.

------------------------

Discount coupons for Kinokuniya and Borders in Saturday's paper? Why, don't mind if I do. Buying Murakami Haruki's Dance Dance Dance at 20% off is a fine way to end any weekend.

Whoo! One week to Christmas! :D

So the U.S. got Saddam.

That...

... actually doesn't solve anything. The attacks will still go on and may even get worse because now they have Saddam the martyr to rally around. Besides, it doesn't look like Saddam was actively involved with any of the groups that are killing people in Iraq.

Temporary morale boost for the troops. Campaign boost for Dubya. Just don't ask too many questions.

I always look forward to reading Janadas Devan's wide-ranging but lucid articles in The Straits Times. With the handy link on the side menu, now you can too.

What better way to psyche yourself up for The Return of the King than by buying a massive issue of Empire dedicated to the third Lord of the Rings movie?

Other good stuff: a fairly detailed article on Disney's ups and downs, an in-depth interview with Bill Murray (and is Lost in Translation really that good?) and an excellent writeup on Carol Reed's classic The Third Man. Speaking of which, I really should buy the DVD since it's going for a song here.

Yah, the second Ramly burger stall is better.

One of the things I like about Singapore is the neighbourhood pasar malam (lit. night market). These days they're no longer held at night but are whole day affairs, lasting 1-2 weeks on a field or snaking under blocks of flats. Up go the metal housing, then the striped swathes of tarpaulin over that. Then the mounted fans that ventilate more than cool in our hot, humid climate.

The stalls are the usual. Too many selling sinful treats of skewered Taiwanese sausages, deep-fried wantons, chicken nuggets, tea-boiled eggs and more. Of course, you can find local standards too: nasi lemak, mee siam, mee rebus, chicken briyani, chicken tandoori etc etc. Sometimes there's deep-fried ice-cream. Takoyaki was all the rage once, even okonomiyaki but I don't see those anymore.

When you get thirsty from all that food, buy a drink. Choose from bottles of sugar cane and soybean that sit next to cans of Coke and Pepsi, all sweating from the bed of crushed ice they're embedded in.

Eat and drink while browsing the wares on display. Cheap clothes (all knockoffs), bags, CDs, VCDs, sundry goods -- nail clippers, screwdrivers, clothes pegs, small kitchen knives -- handphone accessories and even snake oil peddlers. Before the authorities started paying attention there were pirated software and VCDs too. No-one really goes there to buy but to eat, drink and giah giah (take a walk).

Then after a weekend or a week or two, the stalls close and the metal housing comes down. The scattered litter remains a little longer. Everyone looks forward to the next one.

--------------------------

Lately, the venerable Ramly burger has been seen at the neighbourhood pasar malam. I have fond memories of wolfing down these sandwiches during childhood trips in Malaysia. Egg, sweet tangy chilli sauce and all.

Of course the versions here are more expensive than up north. I ate one yesterday and found it a little... unsatisfying. Perhaps memory is the best condiment, next to hunger. Then again the preparation wasn't quite right. For one thing the burger patties were pre-cooked and just reheated on top of the egg. Then the cheese on top, covered by the sauce before the patty is wrapped up in the egg before being tranferred to naked buns. The chilli sauce wasn't tangy enough either.

I did find a second stall with the large Ramly burger banner displayed. That looked more authentic somehow. The patties are cooked on the spot and the buns are garnished liberally with greens and sauce. I have to try that one.

Justin over at his site kulturbrille:asymmetry has some great links to local online literary magazines. Look below the Love, Actually review.

I'm playing Legend of the Five Rings again. My present favorite waste of time and money. That heady rush that comes with returning to a much-beloved game is beginning to wear off. A natural effect of the days going by no doubt. In this case also helped in large part by the fact that if I want to play a good Scorpion Clan dishonor deck, I'll have to sell my firstborn for the necessary cards.

Naturally, the insanity must stop somewhere. (At one point I was thinking of buying booster boxes. Boxes! Then I realised that at that point L5R was no longer just a game to me...). I'll just cobble a military deck together and try not to think about losing too much.

L5R is a great, story and player-oriented game that I recommend to all and sundry. But it's just that -- a game. Once it stops being fun, there's really no point in carrying on.

Idealism meets real life? That this article got published in The Straits Times in the first place makes it interesting :)

Making their Marx in business

Their leanings are socialist - some might say anti-capitalist - but it is their resolute spirit, sense of integrity and purpose for society that also make them good entrepreneurs

An excerpt:

Leftists and non-leftist entrepreneurs interviewed said leftists have two trump cards in business.

The first is their general integrity, willingness to trust and earnestness to better society, which many entrepreneurs consider vital for building lasting business success [...] the second advantage which predisposes such entrepreneurs to being successful is their non-conformist streak, which he says goes a long way in helping them compete with the best in the current global economy, which emphasises out-of-the-box traits like innovation, intuition and imagination...

If you care, I've added and deleted some links on the side menu. Did you really need a link to Google?

Thought not.

Just finished Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. I'm not really interested in novels about Australia per se, but I did like Carey's earlier Oscar and Lucinda. No harm in giving Michelle's recommendation a go anyhow. :)

The first-person narration from Edward "Ned" Kelly's point of view using run-on sentences with the awkward grammar lends the novel a realistic, even almost lyrical quality. Even so, you wonder if Kelly ever had certain words in his vocabulary.

Still, historical accuracy is probably not the point here. Carey's Kelly is meant to be human and mythical. Human, in the sense that he is an ordinary, decent male driven by abject poverty, injustice and circumstance to break the law. Mythical, in that he represented the secret hopes and real frustrations of Australia's settlers in the late 1800s. Ultimately Kelly is cast as a tragic figure. Big, strong but not smart nor especially courageous. A child-man struggling to do the right thing.

A Salon review of the book.

An excerpt from the novel.

T'ang Quartet with Noriko Ogawa concert on Hari Raya Eve (that was on Monday). My first time in the Esplanade's impressive Concert Hall and I was wowed by the acoustics. (Then again after the amount we spent on those dang durians...) Every note crisp, and as the music ebbs you can literally hear the deafening silence creep into your ears.

Another reason to wish I had had the luxury of a musical upbringing, so I can write better sentences than "I thought the concert was excellent," which, well, it was.

The Tang Quartet ooze coolness and sophistication as well. They even organise music appreciation classes for little kids. When they're not flying all over the world and winning accolades most of the year, they're fulfilling their roles here as Quartet-in-Residence at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in NUS.

Watched Mandala by In Source Theatre on Friday (thanks to Amanda - you ROCK! :D). This was... well... dance theatre is probably the best way to put it. there were a total of three performers. One in the centre drawing a mandala with rice using a cup attached to a pole and martial arts/Indonesian dance-like movements. The other two danced and played around her, interacting mostly with each other but sometimes with the middle person.

In terms of skill, they were all a little raw but I don't mind really -- the company's only 2 years old after all. What I minded most was the cliched content. The performance depicts modern urban life as banal and dehumanising, with death being the only salvation and salvation being linked with (surprise surprise) rebirth in/return to a benign Mother Nature.

I suppose this is true to some extent, but I've never liked wholly benign representations of Nature (simply because I think they're plain false). Furthermore to deny the little unplanned spaces in between clockwork events illustrates some kind of humanistic blindness. A rather one-dimensional performance, for all In Source's sturm und drang.

They have really good PR though. Very polished publicity materials. Just look at their website.

Problem: Booster boxes of L5R cost a lot.

Solution: Get 'em off eBay.

Problem: Boxes are in US, and shipping costs a bomb.

Solution: Ask someone to bring it back for me.

Problem: Need to pay the seller in time so he can send the box and the person can bring it back.

Aggravating factor 1: Turkey Day is this week.

Aggravating factor 2: Parents will throw a fit if they knew i.e. credit card not a good idea.

Solution:

...

Darn. Or I could just not buy a box.

Watched Action Theatre's production of Iron yesterday. Karen Tan was excellent in the lead role of Fay. Emma Yong and Remesh Panicker gave good performances and daughter Josie and prison guard George respectively. Sheila, unfortunately suffered from Selena Ho's flat intonation.

While it felt a bit strange to hear everyone put on British accents, it wasn't bad (except in Selena Ho's case). The script doesn't disappoint either, keeping the audience guessing what Fay's motives are throughout the performance. The revelation at the end isn't what the usual scandal-numbed audience (myself included, I'm slightly ashamed to admit) expects, and is all the better for that. A little more tragic, a little more believable, is this woman who suffers for her emotions.

Imho, the George character is the most fascinating aspect of the play. Being the sole male is part of the reason, but he's also the least dysfunctional character. Or do his academic, emotionless musings on human nature hint at a far more serious dysfunction, compared to the women in the play?

Am a good way through Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. The writing's a bit old and I keep coming across obscure words that keep my dictionary dust-free for now. The novel itself has been described as chiefly one of ideas. Quite an apt description in this case. If anyone wants a primer on the dominant intellectual conflicts raging in Europe before World War I, while enjoying light satire and leisurely storytelling, this would be your novel. Your bildungsroman in fact.

Ahh... the sweet taste of vindication. Again.

Media Crossroads: Let market decide outcome, says Minister

The Minister's comments mirror earlier Govt responses to last week's debate about whether the Northeast Line (NEL) should be run by SMRT. Expected, and probably the best thing to do. Adopt a hands-off approach, without favouring either side.

But the comments come a day after it's revealed that SM Lee thinks there should be only one media operator in either industry. Must people wait for SM Lee to say something before they open their eyes and mouths?

A Tsui Hark Retrospective. How cool is that? The man's kind of dropped off the HK movie industry radar but he truly is HK's equivalent of Spielberg when it comes to imagination and vision. True, his most recent efforts have done poorly, especially Legend of Zu (2001). But hey, people forgave Spielberg for AI, right?

Tsui Hark reinvented the swordsman genre, successfully fused eroticism and fantasy without making it look like cheap porn and breathed new life into martial arts movies (while redefining an iconic character at the same time!). Actors like Jet Lee, probably even director John Woo too, owe their present success to him.

Man, he made some great films. Too bad the Retrospective happened half a world away and two years ago. I wish we could have one like that here in Singapore. :(

Watching Return to the 36th Chamber was great fun. People these days associate kungfu comedy with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, but before them Gordon Liu Jiahui was already combining excellent comic timing with martial arts prowess. Man, they just don't make kungfu movies like that anymore. :/

Where in Singapore can I find a copy of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin?

A recent, comprehensive writeup on Murakami Haruki, from The Guardian.

Marathon Man

Haruki Murakami got up at four o'clock every morning to work on his latest novel. Five hours later he would rise from the keyboard, put on his running kit, and set out for a lengthy jog through the leafy streets and parks of Aoyama, a chic Tokyo suburb. After that, an hour or two would be devoted to visiting record stores, where he would browse through the second-hand jazz sections, looking for rare vinyl LPs. Then there would be time for a swim and a game of squash. In the evening, before turning in at nine o'clock, he would return to his desk and spend a few hours translating the work of American authors into Japanese....

I wish I could do that. Could I? Live a live like that?

Y'know, I really liked The Matrix.

Matrix: Reloaded was too long, took itself far too seriously, and went for obvious crowd pleasers (Trinity should've died).

I had hoped Matrix: Revolutions would be better. Sadly, I was wrong. At least Reloaded had impressive action scenes and memorable characters. Revolutions doesn't even have that thin veneer of coolness.

Am re-reading Murakami Haruki's Norwegian Wood. I'm not in the habit of re-reading books, mostly because I used to think that my time would be better spent reading more books or reading the materials I needed for work or school.

Even though time has scoured much of the feelings and memories associated with that first reading, vague shadows and half-familiar shapes remain and the mind picks up quickly on those markers. Yet I am also not quite the same person who read this book years before. Like Cratylus's river the experience is unique, a fusion of individual experience (including previous readings!) and ink-on-paper.

That experience is strong when it comes to Murakami's works. I can't quite explain it but there's a kind of wistful, surreal and deeply personal quality to his work. The best thing to do, as always, is to savour the novels. Like an intellectual kind of wine. Can't rush it.

An interview with Murakami Haruki by Salon.com

Went to see one of the movies in the 19th Singapore French Film Festival. Specifically, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise), based on the novel of the same name by Dai Sijie. The movie doesn't deal with the Cultural Revolution beyond using it as a setting anyway (don't know if the novel does this), so don't fall into the same trap I did :)

Although set during the Cultural Revolution period, the movie is probably best seen as a coming-of-age tale for all three young protagonists. In that respect it's not too bad. The movie is let down by quite a few things.

Certain scenes looked contrived. The dental operation is probably the most obvious, with the Rube Goldberg-esque jury-rigged dental drill and an overall treatment lacking in any sensitivity.

The leads were competent, but there was little chemistry among them. At the best of times the relationship felt too cool for them to be good friends, even towards the end (btw, I would have picked male actors that can be easily differentiated from each other without using clothing -- half the time I couldn't figure out which actor was doing what).

As for the chauvinism, I admit that I may have been a little oversensitive. Allow me to say at least that to me the movie seemed to depict the mountain villagers with few redeeming qualities, while attributing all praise to the Western liberal tradition exemplified here by.... of course, Balzac and the French literary giants. Perhaps I am giving too much attention to these quotes though, because you could make a case for them being ironic rather than serving a pedagogical function.

Still, it was interesting to listen to a Chinese (ok, Chinese-French in this case) film where Beijing pronunciation doesn't dominate, and the ending sequence is imaginative and poignant. Breathtaking mountain scenery is always a plus as well.

The long and the short of it is that there is no instrumental reason to get an education, to study in your courses, or to pick a concentration and lose yourself in it. It won�t get you anything you won�t get anyway or get some other way. So forget everything you ever thought about all these instrumental reasons for getting an education. The reason for getting an education is that it is better to be educated than not to be.