BORNEO 2008!!!

Are you looking for a bit of excitement over the March holiday, something more interesting than a new season of Deal or No Deal on Mediacorps, or yet another Giordano shop at the same mall every weekend?

 If so, click on the Overseas Trip page link above and learn about the upcoming FMS trip to Borneo in March 2008.

If Ever a Post has Called Out for Disagreements….

Salihin has decided on the best movies ever made. They’re all in English, and they’re all in color. Surely somebody will have a different opinion.

Inflation Mania!

Inflation, simply put, is when prices on things go up. It’s happening in Singapore right now. Some of it is because of the increasing price of petrol. Some of it is because the GST increased (but only by 2%.) Some of it is also because everyone suddenly seems interested in buying property.

And some of it is caused by Starbucks.

While I’m no scientist, and I have no proof to back up this assertion, I firmly believe Starbucks has convinced us coffee costs more than it really should.

If I buy tea at Canteen One from my favourite canteen auntie, I pay 35 cents. When I buy it from my hawker center, I pay 70 cents. When I buy it from Starbucks, I pay $4.10, even though I drink it from a re-usable mug so there’s little wasted packaging materials. How could this be? How could the price increase over 1000% between Canteen Auntie and Starbucks Barista? They both have jobs and need to be paid, so we can’t claim it’s salary costs.

The bigger concern I raise this week is the Starbucks effect the store has had on our everyday life. We’ve somehow become convinced coffee is expensive. The moment of realization occurred to me Sunday night as I was taking the Vivocity shortcut on level 2 that sneaks through Best Denki. After working my way through the crowd of people who watch entire films in the HD TV section (cheap asses!), I stumbled upon an elaborate display of cappucino makers (for those of you who only drink at the hawker centres, cappucino is coffee with some frothy milk on top.) It looks like Best Denki is pitching the home cappucino maker as its signature perfect Christmas present, now that it’s glutted the market with flat screen TVs, digital cameras, and iGallops.

What struck me about this was the price. I told my friends it was expensive and asked them to guess. They tried $500. Higher. They went up to $700. Higher. They were shocked. We kept going until we reached the actual price of the product: $3700. My friend remarked you can buy a used car for that. I was so stunned I asked the salesperson hovering (you notice how they always hover at Best Denki?), “Who buys something like this?” I suppose, if it could make lots of cappucinos at one time, this may be a useful purchase for a restaurant, but it doesn’t. According to the sales pitch, it does all the work for you, even frothing the milk.

The part I haven’t mentioned was the salesman didn’t share my shock about the price, because there were an assortment of coffeemakers costing over $3000.

Even at Starbucks prices, you would have to make over 500 cups of cappucino before you broke even on this machine. And if you’re satisfied with the simple coffee at the canteen, you’d have to make more than 30,000 cups of coffee. Oh Starbucks, you have wronged us all!

Censorship Now!

The law professor Alan Dershowitz once said that everyone wants to censor something. Jews want to censor Holocaust deniers. Evangelicals want to censor The Da Vinci Code. Feminists want to censor sexist pornography. I want to censor reflections which are really only a summary of class.

Case in point: I’m in the office, technically working, and I peruse the latest updates on the writer’s strike on IMDB.com. Lo and behold, there’s a post about Singapore. Media in Singapore? In the international press! How could this be?

I immediately assumed we had censored something else, but it seems doubtful to me that Singapore censorship would make the international news. Oh no, apparently the MDA has made a rap. And I have to tell you, it’s awful.

It doesn’t tell you about the MDA and how it can help you. It doesn’t describe  its function in society. I don’t believe it ever intented to. It was supposed to show the creativity of the MDA (although any fans of the Black Eyed Peas or Gorillaz will recognize the symphonic stylings, and iPod ad aficionados can immediately notice the derivative nature of the chorus’s visual design.)

To me, it epitomizes how Singapore can really get things wrong. Somebody in a high position approved this video. They thought they were being so daring, showing civil servants dancing and rapping and wearing superhero costumes and impersonating a Godfather. And it could have been, if they had gone all the way with it. Serious people having fun can be quite funny. But they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Because they’re not fun jobs!! There’s no fun in manpower management or the processing of grant applications. And we’re stuck with rhymes like: (All grammar errors are theirs.)

“Media-Action is one of my directions/
Community and international relations.”

Or this creative gem:

“The time has come to build our talents/
These are the strength for the new challenge.” 

I sure hope it sounds better in the Mandarin version. Or at least rhymes….

I know nothing about the production company who made this video (If you do, please reply to the post.) I suspect the fun part of the idea came from them. And shockingly enough, the fun part was well-received when they pitched the idea. Then somewhere down the line in the development process, some woman (or man, but in my fantasy it’s  a woman) says, “But it can’t be all fun. We have to show them we do serious work.” And then everyone else around the table, because they all wanted a raise, nodded and agreed. Why did no one stop this woman? Throw their Razr phone at her? Why did no one say, “That’s a terrible idea!! If it’s not completely fun, then it looks like we’re not in on the joke. Then we become the joke.”

And then we’re stuck with the piece we have now, neither serious nor fun. And worst of all, not funny. Where are our censors when we really need them?

Guilty Pleasures

Fat has inspired me. She originally promised to write about the Spice Girls before she ended up writing about The Little Mermaid. I will steal her spark and write about the Spice Girls myself.

 I don’t particularly like the Spice Girls myself. But back when I was in secondary school, I sure did, particularly track number 7 on Spice: “Who do you Think you Are”. I’m sure Nat is smacking himself right now (Oh that Mister Ryan. I used to like him.) But if I’m not going to have genuine favorites, I have to at least admit to things I like.

I really like Austin Powers. I like to quote him. I like that the second movie really has all the same jokes as the first movie, but they last longer.

 I like Desperate Housewives. I like when the Edie character competes with the Susan character for the same man.

I am absolutely addicted to this simple block breaking game on my MotoRok’r hand phone.

But these are the silly things. What about the bizarre? I am addicted to typing information into airline websites. I know that Emirates airlines flies not only to Dubai from Singapore, but to Brisbane, Melbourne, and Auckland. I know if you fly Philippine Airlines from SG to Manila to Los Angeles, the plane has to stop on the island of Guam as well so it doesn’t run out of fuel.

In that same bizarre pattern, I’m obsessed with water drainage systems. One of my favorite vacation cities is Luang Prabang in Laos, and one of my favorite things about it are the beautiful brick water drainage units. I can watch water drains for long stretches of time, and one of my short scripts is about a Singaporean man who builds a boat so he can sail to work down a storm drain rather than sit in traffic.

Surely I’m not the only one. Tell me the things that make you bizarre. We can console each other knowing we’re not alone.

You’re my Favourite!!

(Author’s note: I can’t decide whether or not to put the ‘u’ in favorite. I can’t decide whether to stay true to my American roots or write for my Singaporean audience.)

I’ve been thinking it’s time for me to get a new favorite movie. One of the quirks which make me unusual as a film student (and now teacher) is that I have little interest in seeing movies more than once. If I need to analyze it for a project, or show it in a class, naturally I will, but typically I don’t want to revisit movies I’ve already seen. I tend to have a photographic memory when it comes not only to movies, but to the experiences surrounding them.

The movie we’re going to watch on Friday, Election, I saw with Becca Doten at the Century City 14 screen theater. I remember I saw The Pelican Brief with Aunt Rose at the Buenaventura Mann 6 theater before it became a discount theater. I can even remember I ate Sour Patch Kids and Diet Coke, and this was in 1993. I remember there was a fight during Gladiator, which was far more exciting than anything on the screen, and after the movie they gave us all a free pass to come back to the movies again.

The first time I saw Living Out Loud , my currect fovourite movie, was in my apartment on cable. I believe it was the Love Stories channel. Interesting, because the movie is certainly not a love story. I fell in love with the movie then. I’ve always put story at the top of my importance list for good movies, and something about this story clicked with me. It was about rugs being pulled out from under our feet, and the way getting up and dusting ourselves off allows us to reinvent ourselves. Maybe because I was graduating university in a few weeks, or maybe it was because my mom was going through a divorce, but I was in a dusting-off and starting-again mode.

A couple weeks before coming to Singapore, my mom and I watched Living Out Loud again. It was still good, but now I felt like my life had direction, and my mom was single and happy about it. The movie didn’t have anywhere the same impact and I wondered if I had over-rated it four years earlier.

Does that mean I need to go back to my previous favorite movie Fearless, about a man who survives an airplane crash? I’m scared to watch it again, because it’s been over 10 years, and I’m obviously not the same person now I was in Secondary 2 when I watched it on HBO at 11 o’clock at night. What if I don’t like it anymore?

It’s the same thing with my favorite two books. I read them both in high school. While nothing I’ve read since then makes me want to stand up and say, “Wow! This is my new favorite book!” I also wonder if I would still love them if I read them again. Is Alanis Morrissette’s “You Learn” still my favorite song? Is Ethiopian still my favorite kind of food? Is Chicago still my favorite play? Is Fat still my favorite student? (I put that one in just to see if she’s paying attention. She’s actually my second favorite student.)

Many people struggle to name their favorite movies because they think there are several that fit the bill. I struggle because I wonder if none fit the bill, that a favorite movie has to capture my mood and my emotion at the time I watch it perfectly. It’s steadily changing.

A mid-week pick-me-up

If you’re feeling bored, feel free to offer your opinions on the nature of evil by adding a comment on the Salihin-Ryan reflection 3 smack-down here.

And they all Lived Happily Ever After….

We’ll call this entry part 2 of the investigative journalism I conducted last week looking for Singaporeans. Last weekend, I had some success, because I went to a place where very few foreigners tread: the Singapore Army Museum.

The Army Museum is located in Jurong, just across the lagoon from the Singapore Discovery Centre. It’s a stunning building, with sharp angles on its exterior and a unique walkway that leads up to the top floor entrance. In terms of a museum, it’s well designed and interactive, with movies and video games playing as prominent a role as captioned photographs. The interior of the museum left me with mixed feelings, though.

It is not a particularly honest museum, in that it makes everything the army does seem valuable and beneficial. It feels like it’s trying to prop up the general societal belief that the Army is good. But if everyone already believes their army is good, do we need a museum to talk about it? Shouldn’t the intention of a museum to be to bring to life information about its topic previously unknown by its audience? In this regard, the museum succeeds. I suspect most Singaporeans do not know about the humanitarian work the Army engaged in while serving in Jordan, or the assistance they provided to earthquake victims in the Philippines. How fantastic these commitments are. I suppose they’re not the most exciting (since they lack conflict), but a lack of excitement doesn’t diminish the importance of humanitarian work.

The most popular exhibit at the museum is a motion picture simulator which creates the excitement of going into battle complete with lasers, jets of smelly water, and bullets blowing holes in the wall. It was certainly stimulating, as exciting as anything in a Hollywood movie, and it was obviously expensive to create. My problem with it: no one dies. You don’t blow things up to scare soldiers. You blow them up to hurt soldiers, and children who watch this show will think only about how exhilerating life in the Army must be. It’s like a video game. Only they forget to mention there’s no reset button after you die.

 The only part that mentions death in the museum is from a PAP minister, who honors those who gave up their lives for Singapore. Who were those people? What about their families? Is that sad information to share with the public? Absolutely, but it’s as much a part of the Army as jumping out of airplanes or blowing things up.

Before moving to Singapore, I lived in Washington, DC, and each week I would visit the Vietnam War Memorial, and it never failed to move me. On it are inscribed the names of every soldier who died or went missing during the war. Soldier’s families leave notes of prayers at the foot of the memorial, and platoon mates come daily to spend time with their deceased friends. It’s a tragic part of my country’s past.

An army, whether in Singapore or the US, is an unfortunate necessity. Perhaps we need to look at why both of those words are true before we build a museum.

Sirius White

Every now and then, I like to use my blog to expound on some ridiculous issue that fills my time for the moment. I also like to use my blog to draw more attention to myself than I really deserve. This week, I promise to satisfy my readers by fulfilling both expectations.

 For your consideration this week, I would like to talk about race, particularly as it applies to the future of Singapore. Now, I know race is the touchiest of the touchy subjects in this city, but I promise to address it with enough wit and whimsy that it can’t be taken seriously enough to scandalize its audience.

Can anyone tell me what percentage of Singapore is white? I suspect it’s in the low single digits. If the population is 4 million (it’s actually a bit more than that, yah?), then 1 percent is 40,000. Even if we’re generous and say white people make up about 2% of the population at 80,000, that’s still not very many people. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, my people, be they PR or citizen, are a pretty insignificant population. We’re certainly not a target audience during election times, and I can’t imagine the guv’ment trying to go out there and get the Whites on board with the new GST hike. (for explanation on why I use the word white, please read https://misterryan.wordpress.com/2007/05/09/almost-famous/ )

So, if we make up such a small, tiny, insignificant percentage of the population of Singapore, why do we seem so ridiculously over-represented when it comes to arts events?

Let’s give some cases-in-points:

Sunday, 21 October, 4pm: There was a drum circle on the front lawn of the Arts House, because this Latin Band was in town for a festival, so they laid out their instuments and we all took turns jamming on them. I would estimate the audience of about 60 people was 50% white.

Saturday, 28 October, 7pm: I was having  a sunset picnic in the Botanic Gardens. We were going to be watching a evening screening that they set up on the symphony stage. Those of you who’ve read my ‘about’ page know I love Sundays at the botanic gardens, but good thing the friends I was eating with were Filipino and Japanese, because otherwise once again white people were far over-represented beyond our 2% allowance. I would estimate us as about 20% of the audience, but it was dark, and sometimes the Eurasians come out after dark when you can’t see them.

I could continue with this list, talking about a show I saw at the National Library, or a series of short plays performed at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. But I wanted to bring up the first two because it’s important to mention they were FREE. So it’s obviously not that the whites are loaded with money.

On a shallow level, where are all the Singaporeans for these events? I know the mindless criticism they were all at the mall isn’t true because beaches, pools and libraries are also jammed on weekends. It seems to be they’re consciously choosing not to go things which may be labelled as “high art.”

On the deeper level, all these events I go to (and there are always lots of things to go to in Singapore if you make a little effort), are subsidized by Singaporean tax dollars. The Singaporeans–ie your parents and sometimes even you–are paying for lots of arts events you actually have no interest in going to. Singapore’s tourism and economic development boards are marketing this country as an ‘arts hub.’ But does anyone here actually care?

Have I given up the movies?

Maybe it’s just a phase. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I’ve checked my ears, and they’re not getting hairy. My back doesn’t hurt, nor do I feel the urge to complain about young people these days and how they don’t appreciate how good they’ve got it. Nonetheless, I must be getting old, because I’m finding myself absolutely riveted by documentaries.

Growing up, I always associated documentaries with old people. They’re what my grandpa would watch on TV. They were usually about WWII, and they were always dull. I felt like it was a requirement all documentaries must be dull. Now that I’ve been through film school and I’m a working writer, I’m willing to appreciate lots of different types of the film form, but the documentary still held out on me. 

 Yet over the past six months, I find my appetite for documentary movies has been satiable, maybe because one after another has been really, really good. I’m not talking about all the Discovery Channel/Animal Planet/History Channel stuff, where there are so many docs every week that most of them are mediocre. I’m talking about feature documentaries, the kind more exciting than Hollywood blockbusters, but also get swept under the rug.

I watched this documentary called Bus 174 about this Brazilian guy who held a bus hostage during rush hour. The movie showed almost the entire stand-off but offered incredible insights about what would lead someone to be so desperate as to hold hostages on a city bus. Even better it was never boring.

 I watched a movie called Capturing the Friedmans, which was supposed to be about New York City’s most successful clown, but ends up as a movie showing the emotional destruction of a family after the father goes to prison for being a child molestor. I checked out Hearts of Darkness, about how directing Apocalypse Now drove Francis Ford Copolla to the edge of madness, which is all the more amazing for any of you who know what Apocolypse Now is about.

I was feeling gutsy, so I decided to check out a documentary that surely must be boring, so I can be reminded some are definitely dull. That was how I came upon Spellbound, which is about primary and middle schoolers preparing for a national spelling bee. And it was incredible!! How can a movie about spelling be interesting? I can’t explain it. All I can tell is that not only did I care about many of these characters, I was on the edge of my seat by the time the spelling bee arrived. I wanted to know who was going to win. Maybe that was part of the difference. Because it was a real event, I knew the filmmakers couldn’t change the ending to please the audience. I always know Spiderman is going to win, and Shrek will be happy, and the Simpsons will remain a family, and good will defeat evil in Fantastic Four and Die Hard and Harry Potter. With these movies, there is genuine suspense and excitement. What a myth that I carried believing documentaries have to be dull.

I’ve also now watched Murderball, Super Size Me, Brother’s Keeper, Born Into Brothels, Keep the River on Your Right, Thoth, and Jesus Camp. The string of good movies doesn’t stop.  

Right now I’m watching a movie called Paradise Lost, about a horrific killing of three young boys in middle America. The murder is so awful and upsetting that the community comes to believe it must be the work of devil worshippers, and arrests three teenage boys because they wear black and listen to heavy metal. The whole community thinks they must be guilty (one woman I watched says “They must have done it; just look at ’em”) even though there’s no evidence linking them to the crime. I was engrossed in this drama, and I bet my students would be too, many of whom also wear black and listen to heavy metal music and get teased and called “emo” because of it. I’m not at the end of this movie yet, but I’m already nervous because I know it’s not like Hollywood, that the true killer won’t appear out of nowhere and all the problems will be solved perfectly by the end so we can all go grab some dinner at Pastamania before we dance DDR.

I won’t spend too much time on a commercial here, but I will tell you it’s a tragedy we have so many documentaries at the library, and they’re hidden away up in the academic section when they’re better than so many of the lame movies in the lifestyle section. Please, if you have other documentaries you think I should see, respond to my post, because I’m insatiable right now.

I can’t believe I wasted all these years thinking they were boring.